The Wayfaring Wordhack

 Hello, Internet friends.

Long time no interaction.  So long, I don't even know how to start a post.  Just writing about inanities feels like a waste of time, but laying out all the heavier stuff feels very unfair.  I know this is my blog and I can write what I want, but just unloading All The Stuff and then possibly (probably) disappearing for another few months seems a bit pointless and unfair.  All that means I have written and consecutively erased five openings to this entry.

Anyhow, let's just do the abbreviated version:

- The hyaluronic acid injection has finally made a difference in my day-to-day pain level in the arthritic knee.  While it is not perfect, I am much better. However, I still wake in the night from the pain and am feeling the effects of several months of broken sleep.  This, coupled with my allergies (also mostly better this year because of meds), has meant that I am often tired physically, but also mentally and emotionally.

- The fatigue is also likely in part due to walking alongside a friend whose daughter is dying of a brain tumor.  I don't pretend to be some super friend who is really there with her all the time and is carrying any kind of load other than being another mother with a child of the same age.  

- Our contract in Lebanon is about to enter its last year.  That, too, starts to take a toll because we are now entering "what's next?" waters and all the weighty decisions and discussions that always accompany this phase.  I am not complaining about this because it is the life we have chosen. This is just me recognizing patterns and accepting that this is the way it goes.  In some ways, I have already "started checking out," as one friend puts it.

- Ever since discovering pottery upon our return to Lebanon in February, I have thrown myself wholeheartedly into it.  I have loved all of it until getting things back from the glaze firings.  What should be a lovely, crowning, fulfilling moment has so far been one of serious disappointment.  All my hopes of beautiful pieces have not been realized as my ignorance about glazes and what they do has meant all my efforts have churned out tripe.   Our teacher is not big on the artsy side or experimenting, so her glazing instructions were very rudimentary.   I should have started with training wheels (i.e. one glaze at a time, simply applied) instead of trying for special effects.  But I had bigger ambitions (Drat you, Pinterest!)!  *sigh* So disappointing. And expensive.  Pottery is definitely a more expensive and time-consuming hobby than oil painting.

- Oil painting. Haven't done much of it of late.  I might try to paint tomorrow.  J has been gone to France since the 10th and will be back on Saturday, so it might not be the best time to pull out paints.  I should clean instead. 😜




 

I am happy to say I'm thoroughly enjoying doing Advent activities with the kids. I know we are making sweet memories when they excitedly declare, "This has to be a new tradition, Mom!"*

The other day, we painted cookies for our neighbors and postman, something I haven't had the spoons to do since I was pregnant with Ti'Loup.  I had only done it once before, and this time everyone got to participate. My husband said it would be wonderful if, years down the line, the kids all wanted the cookie cutters that have become emblematic to our family holidays, like my friend asakiyume shared about her fondness for her family's angel cookie cutter (her family tradition of painting cookies was where I first heard of it; I won't link to her post since she's in the process of making some entries private, and I might end up with a dead link🙃).

Here are some of our creations. No natural dyes this time. We experimented with juice from preserved cherries, but it wasn't very nice.



We still have no idea when the family will be reunited in Lebanon, but our busyness is making the time pass in an agreeable way, and for that I am thankful. J is keeping busy, too, even taking up pottery lessons, which he has wanted to do for years. Contrary to when we lived in Egypt and were separated for the summer, he's finding the time is passing pretty quickly and he isn't miserable without us. 😂

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*I introduced mint steamers to our hot beverages this year, which are usually hot cocoa and hot apple cider, and the kids want them on the rota. Just an aside, in case I haven't said this before: The French do not believe in peppermint flavored candy canes, much to my dismay come Christmas time for the past 20-plus years I have been living here. So this year I cracked and bought some off Amazon.

The kids say Christmas Bark and Peppermint Bark making (OK, eating!) have to be new traditions, too, in addition to cookies.  In non-food related traditions, they also want to do Time's Up Christmas Version (we make up our own prompts and play, kind of like Fishbowl) every year.

 Have I ever said here how happy I am that we kept our house in France when we moved to Lebanon?  I think I have.  A couple of times.  But that doesn't stop me from continuing to want to express my gratitude.  We are so blessed to have our home as a safe haven in this time of intense conflict in Lebanon.  Yes, J has to be in Beirut for work and can't leave, but the kids and I are removed from the stress and noise and fear.

We should have gone back to Beirut this coming Sunday, but not only are those plans scratched on our own part, Air France has suspended all flights until at least Oct 26.  We have friends who have now left Lebanon, planning to return (or consider return) only after the holidays.  This alleviates them of the burden of constantly assessing how Israel's war on terrorism is evolving.   J and I haven't really discussed how we will decide when it is safe to return, but I have ordered enough firewood to see us through the winter.  We heat exclusively with wood here in France.

Now I am wondering if I should mulch my fallow garden plot in anticipation of being here next spring and summer.  I won't re-skin the greenhouse--I don't even know if I could do that without J (but I bet I could with enough determination and the kids' help)--but it would be nice to have some of our own food next summer.  Farmer Boy told me he really misses the garden and growing our own veggies.  I need to evaluate what are the things I can do for as little effort with as much payoff as possible that won't gut me if I have to abandon them midway due to a return to Lebanon.  What will set the land up for success without draining me or resources if all comes to naught?

Mulching seems like a pretty good plan.  If I don't have a garden, oh well, I am just out some time and hay and the land got a nitrogen boost.  More nettles in my future, but that is not that big of a deal if we don't go back and I am ready to pop in some seeds or plants.  

There are a lot of other things I can do this fall, like finally prune all the trees and bushes I haven't been able to take care of the past couple of years.  I am still a bit tired from our recent trip to the States, but I need to shake it off and make a plan to get through the Limbo in a healthy way.

 I am having one of them.  Just to give you a couple of the highlights, without entering into all the personal minutia:

On Monday, we had a picnic with many of our friends at a local park, and one of the boys, an 8 year old, went missing.  He was playing down at the creek with one of my boys and some other kids, he decided to climb back up to the play area by himself.  And he failed to tell anyone a) that he was going to the creek with the other kids in the first place, b) that he was leaving the creek.  Without going into the topography, it is hard to explain what happened and how scary it was (a missing kid is ALWAYS scary!), but the boy got turned around somehow and fell into a steep ditch.  It took us over two hours to find him, and it was, in fact, the municipal police and a government search and rescue team that finally located him.  Needless to say, that evening I was completely wiped out.  It didn't help that my own son had not asked for permission to go play there.  We often play there--have even camped by the creek--so I wasn't afraid for him; it was the lack of communication that was upsetting.

Tuesday morning was kind of a blur; and the afternoon cleaning for friends to come over, then having those friends over, theh family football (soccer).  The evening was hassle with insurance (not me dealing with it personally) for the knee-surgery that J wanted to get done in his time off, but the insurance kept giving him the run-around.  He is now going to have to postpone it until this fall.

Wednesday started off like a day at the races with J wanting to have an intense (philosophical) conversation over breakfast before I was even fully awake, and I had to rush away from that to a friend's house so I could teach her to make bread, and then I had to rush from there without even having lunch to a prayer meeting that I was leading.  Once home at a little after three, I finally ate and then had to fix supper early for J to take on his night shift. 

I was looking forward to finally relaxing in the evening but was faced with...um, let's just summarize by calling it a plumbing problem.  It involved a brown eruption, blocked pipes, gloves, lots of disinfectant, two bottles of Drain-O type products, and good ol' manual (gloved!) labor to clear out.  Oh, and a garden hose. And a scoop.  Ahem. All that spilled over (excuse the pun) into Thursday, and we didn't even sit down to lunch until 2p.m. 

Is it any wonder I have a stress/fatigue-induced fever blister?  Since I am mentioning health, I will just say that I FINALLY got around to making an appointment with a dermatologist today about a persistent itch I have had on my back for the last two or so months.  I know I should have taken care of it early, but it is one of those things.... *sigh*

Annnnnnyhow.  All that to say, I WAS going to start posting about the art prompts my family and I are doing but just thought I needed to get the other stuff off my chest first. And now the ramble has gone on so long, I can't possibly put all that info here. I will copy over, piece-meal, the posts I have made about our "Artful Prompting" on the art forum because when my access runs out to the community, I will lose those posts forever.

This post brought to you thanks to mallorys_camera, who has told me more than once that my ordinary might hold interest for those not living in this country.  Herewith a little anecdote of everyday Lebanese life.

What is a person to do when she needs to buy groceries but has neither US dollars or Lebanese lira, only euro?  If you answered "pay with her credit card," you would be wrong.  After the series of crises Lebanon has undergone and most notably the collapse of Lebanese banking, no one in their right mind would pay with a credit card* here for fear of the official exchange rate and banking fees.

The first thing she would do would be to drive to one of the many, many currency exchange bureaus who operate with the black market rate.**  However, when this outing happens at 3:00p.m. on 31 December, our intrepid shopper finds the bureau closed.  What to do, what to do?

She calls a freelance money exchange operator (broker?), someone who deploys his couriers on scooters throughout the city!  This particular individual speaks impeccable English (buy hey, many Lebanese do) and works all the time with the staff at the French embassy.

OK, the "she" business is getting old....

So I send the broker a WhatsApp message*** detailing that I need 300euro in USD and 100 euro in Lebanese pounds.  Pronto. At the supermarket in a neighborhood near me.  

Deal!" he promptly responds. 

"When will he be here?"

"30 minutes tops. Promise."

"OK, I'm going to start my shopping.  Have him text me when he arrives. I'm wearing sweats, glasses, and my hair is in a braid." (Yes, I am glamorous; glad you noticed.)

"Deal."

Thirty minutes later, I finish my shopping and position my cart by the checkout stands.  Just then my phone dings.

"He's outside by Starbucks."

I go out and start looking around.  I feel a bit like someone about to make some kind of illicit deal in public.  I almost wave to one man I think might be the courier, but it's not him. No one is by Starbucks that isn't a customer...

And then, there he is; short smiling man with a bulging bandoleer bag, who makes a beeline for me. 

He hands me a massive wad of 100,000 notes-- millions of lira--which I am not going to stand there and count, so I shove it in my purse.  I give him 100 euro.  I then give him 300, and we count it together.  I feel like the dollar amount he gives me is pretty high for the rate I am used to, but I haven't checked it in a while so say nothing.  After a "thank you" and cheerful goodbye, I head back inside to pay for my groceries.

A couple of hours later, I see I have a missed call from the broker. I call him back, and he asks me how much money I gave the courier.  300 for the dollars and 100 for the pounds, I say. 

"Oh, you asked for the equivalent of 330 euro."

Oy!  Indeed I had. Typo.  Oh, how embarrassing.  But the courier hadn't said anything!

The broker, so kind and understanding, "Don't worry!  These things happen!" ****

We agree his courier will swing by the embassy and pick up the missing 30 euro from J at work.

Lebanon is a very service-oriented country. :P

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* Online banking payment options like Revolut are starting to become a thing, and J has an account he now uses for doing the groceries. I, as a US citizen, without US residency or US bank account couldn't set one up through my French bank without lots of hoops and paperwork.

** Snippet courtesy of Wikipedia entry on Lebanese pound: From December 1997 through January 2023, the exchange rate was fixed at LL 1,507.50 per US dollar.^[4] However, since the 2020 economic crisis in Lebanon, exchange at this rate was generally unavailable, and an informal currency market developed with much higher exchange rates.^[5] On 1 February 2023, the Central Bank reset the currency peg at LL 15,000 per US dollar.^[6] By mid-March 2023, the "parallel market" rate had fallen to LL 100,000 per dollar. (Today's rate is 89,700 LL to 1 USD) The term "parallel market" sounds so nice, doesn't it?

***Hardly anyone (businesses included) uses the regular phone lines because they are way too expensive.  WhatsApp is where it's at.

****Actually, the first time I used his services, HE misread the amount I wanted and brought less dollars. :P

 We will fly out Monday in the afternoon, at a later time-slot than normal, which will give us only a 2hr layover instead of almost 5. Huzzah!  And our lovely neighbors are coming with two cars to take us home, keeping me from having to arrange a taxi-van.  I am so grateful to them, especially since we live an hour away from the airport and arrive at 10:30 p.m.

Another wonderful thing is that we were able to change the departure date for our pre-paid tickets in December, so this flight isn't costing us anything.  A true blessing given the unplanned escapade to Cyprus and all the expenses thus incurred!

How hard it was to decide whether or not to stay in Lebanon as things escalate.  Finally, J and I decided I would come to Cyprus with the kids. I am with a friend and her three kids, too, and we are waiting for news of what to do...Return to our husbands in Lebanon or take our kids back to our home countries (France for me and Switzerland for her).

The kids had the crud just before we decided to leave, I had the crud during the decision-making process but felt a bit better when we flew out, and now it seems the crud wants to hang around some more.  (Fatigue and stress make great bedfellows with illness.)  It makes it even harder to be lucid and definitely harder to parent well.  Thank God, D and her kids are with us because it is a big help to have someone come alongside and share the burden.

Many of our friends left, but plenty stayed behind.  I had planned to stay, too, but I feel I am needing to yield a bit more to the wisdom of others and not think I can know or handle everything.  Especially not how much trauma is "good" for my kids.  That might be an enigmatic statement, but I don't have the energy to unpack it right now.  Anyhow, I left our home there with the intention of going back and now I regret the way I packed accordingly.   C'est la vie.  And we, unlike so many others, still have that life.

J had to remain in Lebanon for work. After Macron's visit to Tel Aviv, there will likely be more attacks on the French embassy in Beirut, but this time the Lebanese army and police should be better prepared for it. :/

Sprout turned 13 the day we arrived here.  Well, we arrived--after much delay--on the 21st, but we were still at the airport when it ticked over to the 22nd.  I wished her happy birthday, then, and we tried to make Sunday a bit special for her.  I don't think it did much good.  And J's birthday is today.  The kids are bummed about not being with him.

And as I say each little whingy thing, I am eternally grateful that we are all well and have the funds and "right"* nationalities to get out of dodge.  Although my nationality is not always well seen, and D always introduces me as being French, which flies a bit better in these parts than being American.

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*Lebanese nationals are refused in many countries, they tell me.  So many that I know are always trying to get dual citizenship with another country.  The guy I sat next to on the plane was telling me of all the countries where maybe he can buy a passport or him and his family.

 (Kifkon = Levantine Arabic for how are [plural] you doing?)

I am fine but in an odd limbo-mode with the return to Lebanon.  The mode isn't necessarily bad, just business as usual* with a helping of sliding back into a home after three months' absence.  I don't really recall this sensation upon my returns to Egypt after extended stays in France, but I think the difference boils down to the fact that in those other stays, I was not at my own home.  As much as I appreciate many things about my mother-in-law,** living with her for months at a time was seriously draining in a way that made it a relief to get back to Egypt and my own place, however hot, polluted, and noisy it was.

In addition to having my Color course at the end of this month, I have an overwhelming desire for a bit more structure and repartition of my creative forces.  Make that my "forces" tout court.

I haven't written in so long, and I want to be writing.  I find this talk pretty motivational:


I took the art courses to get better at illustration (knowing the courses are NOT geared to that, but any skills are good skills and many things translate between fine art and illustration), but I haven't worked at all on my picture books.

I was pretty single-minded with the course, and I feel like I wasn't present enough with the kids. That needs to change and I need to do better during the next module.

I want to get in better shape. There is nothing good about the shape I am in now.  I am not genetically predisposed to thinness, nor do I have what would be considered a good metabolism, suffering instead from hormonal imbalances that make attaining/maintaining a healthy weight more difficult.   Aside from being in my late forties now, I have been dealing with a two-year-long bout of tendinitis in my left shoulder (and I am a lefty), which was preceded with a knee-injury that also came and went with varying degrees of fierceness for a two year period (and I still get flare-ups when something else is out of whack).  All that to say, I've found it too painful for too long to be active.  And any claim to good muscle mass I once had disappeared in a scarily fast way as a result of my inability to function normally in my body.  I am fed up with it, though---and a bit scared that it is getting too late--and want to do something about it, even if it is just simple stretches every morning.  I may not be a waif, but I am (or was) a lot more flexible than many waifs I know, and even my flexibility is going, making me feel so old and stove up all the time.  So baby steps, but STEPS instead of just "waiting for the pain to pass."

I am at the "I have to get started making changes" stage but don't want to shoot myself in the foot or take on more than I can handle.  I am considering how all of these desires can be addressed with a "one degree of change" mentality.  I heard someone giving an analogy about how trying to affect permanent change à la New Year's Resolutions is synonymous to stretching out a rubber band. It does change, but when you release the unsustainable force of keeping it stretched, it returns to its normal shape.  I don't want to be the rubber band; there are only so many of those stretches and rebounds one can do before cracks start appearing in the rubber and the inevitable happens. By stretching the band just a bit at a time, you can more easily coax it into a new shape.  There are problems with the analogy but the point resonates with me.

We are probably going to take a short trip for my birthday, which means that any schedule I get going will temporarily be set aside again. But that is precisely the kind of thing I need to learn to deal with.  I ALWAYS get thrown off track by something not being the way it usually is, but as I have said before, we have constant disrupts to our everyday normal with J's work and our educational choices.

What works for you in trying to form new habits or keep habits going in the face of uncertainty and frequent change?  Do you track things, use daily lists, time slots, project files ...?  Ugh, my brain is still a bit jet-lagged; I can't think of proper terms.  Just tell me whatcha got, if you've got anything. :P

Enough about how I am.   How are you, and what are you up to?

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* You know, trying to judge when we actually have city water by listening for a pump to come on and praying we can get enough water into our tank not to have to pay a private company to come and fill it for us; not being able to drink from the faucets, dealing with cockroaches everywhere, neighbors afflicted with hearing loss, drivers who think everyone in the village needs to hear how loud their hotrods can be...  On the power front, things are better; e have constant electricity "switches" or micro-cuts (from generator to gov't elec) but so far only one 30 minute cut.

** An unfortunate incident happened in the extended family at the beginning of summer that doesn't involve me, husband, or kids (thankfully) that really brought home to me the depth of difference between me and my mother-in-law.  I already knew much about our differences, but oh my, her brain and analysis of situations and the way to proceed, does not AT ALL align with my own.  I like to think I am the one living in the margins of normal.

... where you think, "Oh, I should really post," but then something else comes up.  Before you know it, it has been weeks--or months, maybe years :P--before you sit down and make the time.

So here I am making the time, but I have no one thing I want to make an entire post about.  Therefore, have some hodgepodge:

--ETA: I forgot to start with the "fun" news of Ti'Loup losing his first tooth.  It has been loose for weeks, and he kept wanting me to try to yank it out. :P.  Thankfully today it just came out on its own.  He is just three months shy of 7.  In the not so great news, he hasn't been feeling well for the past three days, and tonight his torso erupted in a rash. It doesn't look like chicken pox, but I guess we shouldn't rule that out yet.

--I started an online drawing course at the end of January.  I am really liking it, but I wonder if I am not missing the point of the class, which is overall, to be able to see shapes and values and therefore simplify complex subjects into paintable compositions.  Simplifying is not my forte. I am making lovely sketches, though.

Here is one from this week's homework:


--Inflation in Lebanon is crazy,* and people are getting (understandably) angrier about still not being able to access their money in the banks.  There is supposedly a plan afoot amongst the high-placed bank people to move ALL money held in the banks into the bank presidents' personal accounts so that the international investigative team that might try to step in and put affairs in order won't be able to touch the funds. How is that for rumors and nefarious schemes?

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* The lira was around 27,000=1USD when we moved here at the beginning of last year.  It took about a year for it to get up to 40,000LL=1USD; but in the last 6 weeks it has gone up to 80,000LL=1USD. :(

 Last night, before heading to bed, J was having "twitchy legs," something that affects him from time to time.

In the wee hours this morning, I was startled awake by the bed trembling.  Groggy with sleep, I thought, "That was an earthquake!"  But then I talked myself down, remembering J complaining about his legs. The bed shook a bit more, but I couldn't really feel him moving.  Still, nothing else seemed to be moving in the dark (our room is pretty much empty), so I went back to sleep.

Then my WhatsApp was full this morning of friends talking about how scary the earthquake was, their messages timestamped 4:15 a.m., and I saw the news about Turkey and Syria being hit.  That group of friends lives down in Beirut proper, and many live in buildings that would never pass code, so it was a terrifying experience for them.  

J slept through it all like a babe...as did my kids, I suppose, since not even the massive clap of thunder that woke me again at 5:30, rattling the windows,  phased them.  Well, didn't phase the kids; that did wake J since it is his normal time to get up. 

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ETA:  The weather continued to be foul all day, and many people felt other aftershocks here in Lebanon,.  We did not notice anything.  I have half a mind to put a bag of stuff by the door in case, worst case scenario, the kids and I have to make a dash for it (J is working tonight).  I am not in a fearful place, just trying to think ahead and be as prepared as possible.  

A propos my subject line:  A friend told me that her husband thought SHE was shaking the bed, and another friend said she and her husband were awake because their 3-year-old had just climbed into bed with them.  When the bed starting shaking, both exclaimed, "C, are you shaking the bed!?"  They then felt immediately silly because it was obvious a child couldn't be doing such a thing.

I haven't heard about any damage in our environs (just belongings toppling), but we kept having electricity cuts.  Don't know if it was related...