The Wayfaring Wordhack

I have not been faithful about keeping this space up to date.  Too much going on and not good enough Internet coverage to make it worth the struggle.  In a nutshell, as you know, the year fell apart from its predicted end with the conflict between our neighbors to the south. 

I did go home to France with the kids, where I proceeded to get some gardening done between the rare bouts of combined wellness and dryness (it literally rained for weeks on end, and the viruses came thick and fast and circulated mercilessly between the four of us).  Going back home was not in vain; I now happily have six new asparagus plants, which will be just about ready to harvest when we leave Lebanon for good.  If we leave when planned. More on that in a minute. 

I also pruned almost all of my red raspberries; transplanted--with the kids' help--my golden raspberries; tip layered multiple shoots of my tayberries; transplanted thornless blackberries; and--again with the kids' help--got one of our strawberry beds thinned out, weeded, and covered in landscape fabric (not a favorite technique of mine, but let's face it, when you have a lot of land and don't live on a place year-round--and even when you do--you spend a LOT of time weeding if you don't use some serious suppression tools).  I planted some garlic cloves in the chicken run and also stuck a few hazelnut cuttings in the ground to see if any take.  Wild ones do when we use them as support posts in the garden, so there is no reason I shouldn't get some nice starts from this named cultivar.

My husband joined us on Dec 16th, and we spent Christmas with his mom and brother at our place (where we possibly got them sick; they are sick now, but was it our fault?).  I got a horrible ear infection and couldn't go down with J and the kids to see J's dad.  I have no more pain, but after three weeks and two courses of antibiotics, I still have mucus in my sinuses and a constant whine in my right ear. Thankfully I had no pain while flying back to Lebanon.

So, yes, we are back in Lebanon, despite there being no improvement in the situation, instead arguably a worsening.  But it is not frightening on a personal level. There is danger in the air, but we are not the target or near the areas/people that are.  And so we will remain here en famille until something changes.

In thinking about what I want out of 2024, I reflect on what did not go exactly as planned in 2023, namely fully participate in my painting course this fall.  I would like to just move on and paint my own stuff, but I feel I missed out on some fundamental concepts despite completing the exercises at a later date.   I can certainly be excused for my lack of focus.  While I have access to the course until next fall, I think I might be better served to retake the course now, on my own.  It won't be the same as doing it with all my fellow students, but I am still part of the community as I shared before.

My main objective is to "sit and seek" through January in terms of what I want of the year, especially on a spiritual level, but in terms of art, I am sure enough that I will re-take the painting class, then commit to one painting a week.  I also want to work on the illustration front and must think of beneficial objectives to move me forward there, too.

I would like to write, but at the moment, I am not at all in that headspace.  

My head is in a sort of limbo thanks to J's boss, who does not like anyone being here with their families.  J just applied for his 4th year, which would begin 29 Dec 2024, and we have heard a rumor that two requests for the 4th year were denied. There just happen to be two colleagues here with their families, J and one other.  We should have already found out if we were staying or not, but Not-Nice Boss decided to circumvent the normal chain of information, go behind everyone's back, and send his verdict straight to Paris.  It is a mess to explain, but suffice it to say, Not-Nice Boss didn't want to risk justifying his decisions (one person asked him to do so, and he was highly offended that he should have any kind of accountability to those beneath him. He Spoke. So Be It.  Great boss material, yeah?)

So, until we are certain of our stay, I don't know how to go about settling in to this (possibly) last year.  We had thought to visit the States (first time in over 9 years) at the beginning of summer, but if we move back to France this winter, that won't happen.

Enough rambling.  I hope your 2024 is off to a great start.  Despite the meh tone of this post, mine is fine; and it is nice to be back in our community of friends.

 I wish I had my little "'shroom sweet 'shroom" icon from LJ.  Alas I don't have a lot of capacity for such over here on DW.

Anyhow, the start of the week/year has been a bit up and down here.  Nothing major, only annoyances coupled with the usual moving stuff.  Also, twice Ti'Loup has said he hates this house and has had a couple of meltdowns.  But I woke up this morning and thought, "This already feels more like home than Moussa's apartment ever did."

We still have not unpacked everything,* and we are still waiting on our corner sofa,** which means our living spaces aren't set up the way we would like them, giving it all a temporary feel.  Not a picture is on the walls,*** but still:  feels homey.

I am waiting on the White Sales to get the kids bedding.  When I asked about the dates at the store where I want to shop, the saleslady acted like I was out of my mind and such a sale did not exist.  Only I know it did because I bought things there last year around this time and saved 30%.  A Lebanese friend told me, "Maybe with all the import prices rising, etc. there won't be sales this year."  I dunno.  The Lebanese love to shop, and we have seen that the current crisis does not affect all levels of the population the same (this is not a store where you go if you are struggling.  *I* want to buy the bedding there because SLEEP is important. I threw money at cheap sheets last year and quickly paid the price.  This time it is about investment).  Will wait and see until the end of the month.
 
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*The craft room needs unpacking and rearranging as does the hallway niche facing it where all the sporting equipment will go (surfboard, surf-skate and skateboard, swimming and spearfishing stuff...)

** Just five more days.  I am hoping for timeliness and efficiency here.

*** I never hung anything up at the other place because it felt temporary from the get-go.

Last night, the landlady's second son* sent me a message saying that he had hired a cleaning company to stay for four hours; they would be under my supervision, and I should make them clean whatever I want!

That, sir, I said, is music to my ears!

SO!  I have clean windows with clean bars and clean screens, and clean baseboards, and clean light switches, and clean floors and a clean terrace; and all the junk that was left in the garden has been carried away. :D

Sadly, they weren't able to do it all in 4 hours--even though there were three of them--so they had to be paid more.  You can only imagine how long it would have taken me to do all of that myself.

I had to stay at the house with them the whole time, so I did not get to move as much stuff from this place as that as I wanted.  I did do some unpacking, some cleaning of my own, and moved some furniture.  Still a ton to do at this place, and I am wiped out.

Last push.

Oh, and as a goodbye send off, our ceiling is leaking water again. I told the upstairs neighbors, but they said nothing was wet on their end. :/  I asked them to call their landlord (not the same as ours), and we'll let ours know whenever we leave.  I don't need him coming around before we are out of here.

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*She has 4 kids, and though I say 2nd son, he is probably the oldest or one of the oldest. We have only met three of the (grown) children now in person.  Like many Lebanese (men) he works in another country (Saudi Arabia) and comes back to see his family once or twice a month.  

 Though it may, to quote rimturse , sound fancy to get a custom-made sofa, let me explain just what it means in Lebanon. :P

Here, they have these stores where, on the top floor, you find insanely expensive Italian brands; and you can find sofas that you only see in magazines, not "real" homes,* things that are 5+ meters long. 

Then on the next floor down, there are "cheaper" but still-super-crazy expensive Italian things,

On the ground floor, you find the fancy expensive things.  BUT!  Just next door, there is a store that partners with the first, only they have almost-Reasonable Italian things on their ground floor, and Lebanese copies in the basement!

However, if you are smart, you will keep looking, going farther afield and you will find a boutique** where they only have Lebanese knock-offs.  And instead of say, $1500 for a Lebanese knock-off corner sofa, you can find one that is even more comfy for $800.***  And, just like in the expensive stores, you can pick your upholstery for the same price.

They had the exact color and cloth we wanted as a floor model in the store, but they didn't want to give us a price for it, despite a tiny bit of damage.  So, we are having one made.  We have other furniture, so it is no big deal to wait for it.


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* not the homes of people I frequent, anyhow. :P
** Named something  that would only be chosen by a non-native English speaker like "Beauty Home."  It is funny how the more extravagant the adjectives, the worse the quality.  You see "Premium" and "Superior" on everything here from crayons and rice to cars and real-estate. 
*** You can get much cheaper in the really "local" stores, but comfort is not going to be au rendezvous, and the quality is also questionable.

Bought a sofa today--it has to be made and should be ready in 15 days--and on our way to the moneychangers,* we saw a mattress shop selling the same brand that we had just seen across town.  Deciding to divide and conquer, J went to change the money and I popped into the mattress shop to compare prices.  The very nice saleswoman proceeded to totally baffle me.

After determining that she speaks French, I asked the price of the mattress.  She told me it is around $400; I asked her to repeat it, making sure she understood the measurements I needed, and she said it was $500-$600.  OK.  Then I asked if she had some sheets, and she showed me the sizes I wanted, saying "They are $20."

Just then J walked in, so I showed him the sheets.  He asked the lady for a business card and the price of the sheets.  She told him $25! ...

So, I told him to ask her the price of the mattress, and she said $700!  I decided at that rate, it wasn't worth asking for confirmation or a written quote. :P

Tomorrow, someone should be at the flat, and we will get a copy of the key so we can come and go with our things.  Friends have offered to take the boys on Tuesday and Wednesday, and other friends have offered to help with the move.  

Looking forward to progress!

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* We only had euros, but the store wanted dollars.

I did finish the cardigan before Turkey--the body and sleeves, not the collar and pockets--but I decided not to take it on the trip because I was aggravated by how long the sleeves turned out.  My aggravation was particularly self-directed because I KNEW!!!!! that they would be too long and I did not listen to myself.  Oh, I listened enough to leave off the three rows from the pattern, but I should have left off closer to 10.  No joke.

So now I must roll the sleeves to wear it.  Part of me wants to unstitch the sleeves, frog the extraneous rows, then re-attach them.  The lazy, frustrated part of me wants to stitch the cuff so that I don't have to constantly roll it.  The verdict is still out on what I shall do,

However, I have been wearing the cardigan around despite not yet finishing the collar and pockets.  With the move, and the more satisfying blanket* project to work on, I don't feel too inclined to pick up the cardigan right now.

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* I purchased yarn to make a throw blanket at the same time I got the skeins for the cardigan.  The yarn is so nice to work with, and the simplicity of the stitch ( moss stitch, also known as granite or seed stitch) makes it a very mindless, relaxing project.  I started last Saturday and should finish it today.  So afterwards, there will be no crocheting excuse not to finish up my cardigan. :P

 I am too busy to post.

Instead, have a list:

- Back from Turkey* with a sick husband, followed by 
- sick kids;
- an offer on another flat and an opportunity to buy almost-new furnishings, which led to
- questioning Garden Flat and doing all kinds of math and mental  gymnastics and bargaining over possible new flat;
- a phone call from a lackey** saying our bill for a Christmas party would 15% higher than agreed upon over a week before, which led to
- a mad scramble to find a new venue;
- a Christmas party;
- continuing fatigue from dealing with sick kids;
- things advancing on the Garden Flat (HIP HIP HOORAY!);
- running all over Beirut and its environs in search of what furniture/appliance we can't buy from our acquaintances who are leaving the country;
- a bit of art because I really want to do art

There's more in there--because isn't there always more?--but that is the main gist of it.

Hope you have all been less busy and mentally drained.

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* I still haven't uploaded our photos from our trip
**  Instead of the owner, whom I had finalized things with, calling me himself, he made an employee do it and then proceeded to whisper in his employee's ear.  Quel lâche.  ARGH.

With only two days left in the month, I figured it was time I checked in with Artober and my doings so related.

I drew steadily until the 19th when birthday preparations and shingle flare-ups dictated that I reduce all "non-vital" tasks to a minimum.

When I started to feel better and the birthdays were past, the desire to do the challenge just wasn't there. In fact, I was regretting my choice of challenge and wondered why I didn't pick something more in line with my goals.  The inertia was strong enough that I didn't resume the challenge  or revise it to suit me.  C'est la vie.

I did however, finish my book cover assignment, and that involved a lot of arting. :P   I also made good progress on my cardigan, even though I am still about 15 rows away from where I will have to start leaving space to insert the sleeves.  I worked a bit on my Dynamic Sketching, finishing up (at last!) the scorpions and doing a final drawing in the bug section of a spider, which led me into the part about "automobiles."  Less exciting than bugs, but still very useful.

My middle grade story that is a follow-up to the one I wrote in 2016 during NaNo also got some love from me this past month.  Since NaNo is right around the corner, my thoughts naturally turn to toying with signing up.  However, it will not get beyond toying.  I am going to be very busy and will be traveling for a week to a place I have wanted to go ever since I was a kid.  Stay tuned. ;)

In other news, we might be closer to getting a new flat and that has taken up a considerable amount of energy, albeit mental.  Our move date is still at the end of the year, but it would be nice to have something settled well before then, yeah?

...that living in this flat is a pain.  I don't want my blog just to be about negative sorts of things, which is why I haven't moaned regularly about life in this apartment, but since we are moving away at last (well, we will move away as soon as we find an alternative), I figure it is time to talk about why.

First off all, this discontent has been going on from the very beginning, starting with the water situation; and at the time, I pointed out some positives about why I did not want to throw in the towel just yet on this address, which you can read about here.

In no particular order, the some of the problems are:

=WATER=

After 7.5 months, we have yet to have a normal, "agreeable" shower in this place.  This is due to 3  4 5 6 reasons: 

1) the water temperature.  Either your water is hot, or it is cold. Warm does not exist. Tepid is out of the question.  Our water temperature gauge does not go above 99 degrees CELSIUS! so I cannot give an exact number for the scalding water that we have had to deal with before our landlord shielded some of the captor tubes; however, the water still regularly gets up to 72 C.  

2) it takes forever for the hot water to arrive, like 15-to-20-liters-of-water-down-the-drain forever. (Which also means we never have hot water for washing our dishes unless we want to boil it.  This could be its own separate point).  We obviously do not let the water just go to waste. We keep it in buckets/bottles for flushing, watering plants, rinsing off... But the landlord says, "Water isn't expensive! It doesn't matter!"  ARGH

3) We can't use the shower in our own bathroom because some genius left a huge gap between the shower lip and the door, so water floods the bathroom while you shower no matter how many towels or sponges you try to cram into the gap to sop it all up.  So after you shower you, you have to clean the floor...

4) AFTER you have squeegied all the water down the drain because the genius masons did not plan proper slope in the Italian-style showers, and so the drain is actually a tad HIGHER than the surrounding tile, meaning it will stagnate in the shower unless you scrape it all down the drain yourself.

5) The bathroom we are forced to use smells permanently of sewage because of the plumbing system.  I do not now how much cleaner I have poured down it, just trying to disguise the reek.

6) The water pressure has a mind of its own. For some reason, in the guest bathroom, we can no longer get more than a trickle out of the sink faucet, and in the shower, when you try to put only cold water, it does the same for several minutes before finally blasting out. 

For the sake of brevity, I will not go into the hoops that we had to jump through to get water to arrive at our flat on numerous occasions because of system failure (which in many instances was landlord failure to have gotten his system straight from the get-go), the many trips to the roof to try to figure it all out, the entire day I spent sweeping goop out of the reservoir...

=ARCHITECTURAL IDIOCY=

Aside from the aforementioned poor drainage in the shower, we have windows and doors that will not open all the way because of poor placement in regards to built-in furniture, radiators, ceiling cornices, and supporting beams.  There is also no apparent switch to turn on the light on the balcony... Even the landlord couldn't figure that one out.  He has never lived here.*  Just bought the place as an investment.  Also, in order to turn on the light in the dining room, you have to go upstairs because there is not a switch downstairs...where the dining room is.

=SERVICES/EXPECTATIONS IN ACCORDANCE WITH RENTAL PRICE=

This is one of the most expensive rentals we've ever lived in.  Because of that we actually expect some value for our payment, like a parking lot that isn't serving as a dump.  There is a literal dumpsite taking up a large part of the lot and a pile of sand/dirt that is now growing weeds and enough cat excrement to make one gag.

When we moved in, the elevator was working. Two days later, it stopped.  The landlord said that was too bad and if we wanted to use it, we would have to shell out the money. Um.  No.  Not OUR building.  

Also, we now have a new natour (concierge/building janitor), after 5 months of having no one, whom we pay who does NOT do his job and while the foyer occasionally looks clean, our stairs are never properly washed. 

The community lighting is never on in the building (we would be willing to pay) instead we have to walk into a completely dark building every night and use our phone flashlights to climb five flights of stairs that have no windows/skylights to aid us.  These lights do work, but NO ONE can tell us how to turn them on or where, but they were mysteriously in use when our never-there-next-door-neighbor wanted to move some stuff into his daughter's apartment on the floor below.  OK, we live with this, but it is a nightmare for our guests, especially little kids who are afraid to come to our house because of the lack of light.

There is double glazing on the big windows in the dining area, and one of the outer panes was busted** when we moved in. It is taped over; it is very ugly, but it is high up and not a window we can open, so we didn't make a fuss about it.  However, the latch on the window behind our bed was broken and condemned with masking tape.  Yes, masking tape.  Not even willing to put 10-20 bucks into fixing a latch for his tenants.  Remember all the heavy winter winds I spoke about?  Tape doesn't hold up, and the window constantly blew open.  Thankfully, J brought some vices from France that we have been able to use to hold it shut in a more permanent fashion. 

=LANDLORD'S DISHONESTY=

He has repeatedly made out that he had no idea about the water situation prior to our moving in.  We have spoken to the previous tenants--he had tried to make out that they left because they went back to Korea, which is not true--and they told us that he refused to fix the water for them, forcing them to boil their water for cleaning, etc.  Yet, he keeps bringing up to us his responsiveness and his goodwill in fixing all the problems, making it sound that everything is trying to thwart him.  We continue to hold this card, letting him tout his own goodness, blah, blah, blah.

He is trying to make  has made us pay for "breaking" his "new" washing machine.  Now, when you break something as a renter, it is normal that you should pay for it. However, in our experience and in that of other Lebanese people we have talked to, when it is an appliance that is in the flat that breaks down because of normal wear, it is up to the owner to fix it.  This is why we pay higher rent.  We did not break it; we used it.  And from day one it has made a weird noise, but being unfamiliar with the machine (and seeing that it was not new), I just shrugged and kept using it.

Turns out the bearings and spider (whatever that is) were totally broken and had been on the way out for some time. 

Seeing as our landlord was obviously going to interpret the contract in such a way that we are going to have to replace his appliances one by one as they fail to function, we told him we are leaving.  He was flabbergasted and said he would pay for the machine after all; he had only been upset before because it was "new."  When J called him on that, he said it was only 3 years old, then finally said "from 2016 but there were some moments when the flat was empty so it was practically new."  The repairman said it was definitely older than 10 years.

J told him we are not trying to bargain or get something from him, so thank you very much, we will pay for the machine ourselves but we are leaving because nothing in the contract says we can't.  However, we want to go on good terms.  The landlord went away sad, but he called back the next day and offered to pay for half of the repairs (remember he was going to pay for ALL of it before) but he wants us to stay until the end of the year marked out on our contract.

We paid for the machine ourselves, did not answer his message about staying, and have continued looking for a flat.  But now sickness has once again struck the family, slowing things down. We are paid up through September, so we have time, but like I mentioned, we are traveling to France for the last 3 weeks of September. I would have liked to have everything settled by then.  :-/

I think that is enough for now. *sigh*
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* This will be our advice to him when we give him back his keys:  Live in the place yourself for a couple of weeks so you can see how uncomfortable and annoying these things are to put up with.

** An amusing what-do-you-take-me-for aside:  The break was blamed on the port blast; but there is absolutely no way, I mean NO WAY, given the distance, direction, any possible ricocheting, etc. that a projectile from the blast could have hit that window.  It is kilometers and kilometers from the site, we are hundreds of meters higher above sea-level, and the building faces the wrong way.  Just own up and say it was broken, and you don't EVER plan on fixing it. 

The New Year saw us waking up in our very own flat.*  We moved in a bit later than planned but much faster than we were able to do so in Egypt.  We have landed in Louaize, a "village/suburb" on the outskirts of Beirut.  The great thing is that G (our** Lebanese cousin) lives right down*** the street from us, and her sister, parents, and brother are within a stone's throw, too.  Our American friends from Egypt, it turns out, are a 20 minute walk uphill, or a 5 minute drive.  That still remains ever-so-much better than the friend situation in France.

J has just left for his first night of work, and I need to do a bit more cleaning on the flat, hence the icon on this post.  However, aside from making beds with newly-bought and newly-laundered sheets, I don't think I'll do much tonight.  We did a lot today, and the place almost looks like home.  It would feel more like home if we had hot water, but the hot water pump is broken and we can't get another until Monday at the earliest.  Either I will heat water on the gas stove**** to wash my hair and sponge bathe until then, or I will go to G's place to shower.  It is not freezing here, but a cold shower is NOT in my future. :P

How is your New Year shaping up?

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* I wanted to share pics of the view, but that is beyond me at this moment. :P
** I am claiming G as my own even though she is J's cousin by marriage to HIS cousin...
*** Literally downhill, since Louaize sits on a hill, culminating at about 850m above sea-level.  We can see both the sea and snowy peaks from the north side of our flat.
**** We have daily power cuts so electric kettles are not as good of an investment as a good ol' whistling stove-top kettle.