I loved Dad’s idea of filling my home with flowers in anticipation of my 40th birthday, and, due to the complexities of wiring the gift from Maryland to Cairo, I went shopping for them myself this morning. Alas, I should have remembered that the local flower shops, particularly in the dead of August, have […]
Sorry to say that I have only read one book by Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, Children of the Alley, a laborious exercise which nearly left me overwhelmed — all that allegory and metaphor and presumption of literacy in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran, and Goodness knows what else. And all those pages. […]
I am loving our new morning routine — Two girls out the door and on the bus before 7:45 a.m. Last year, because we were not pegged to anyone else’s schedule, I rarely was able to get Evie going before 9:15. Now, I have a lot more time to work on my own […]
Did any thing of significance happen in the year 1427? Or in 1584, for that matter? These are the numbers I am supposed to remember when I sign in at the gym and the Maadi House, respectively. On top of all the other numbers I am expected to remember, how is my brain […]
The second graders often play “war” at recess.
As part of the game, Anna reportedly has organized a few of the girls into a corps of Red Cross nurses.
Ach, we heard the talk . . . we knew things couldn’t last forever . . we even understand the reasons behind the change. But just we didn’t think it would happen so soon. Rather, we were hoping that our favorite error of astronomy — that is, the official inclusion of Pluto among the nine […]
Now that LDW is back in the game, it’s time for the Big E to show some solidarity…
Getting my shoes shined is one of my favourite indulgences. I used to love my Barbershop moments talking ball with the guys at the wonderful stand at Union Station, and having the men at the Skopje bus […]
When shopping for clothes for two small daughters, I lean heavily toward understatement — I like plain T-shirts or tank-tops and simple prints on the bottom, with little ambition in the way of design (aside from the prerequisite of shorts being sewn into skirts) or even color (although, ominously, Anna has taken an interest recently […]
Tonight is our night to bring dinner over to Anna’s first grade teacher, who arrived back in Egypt last Thursday, just a couple of weeks after having her baby girl. The mother of one of Anna’s former classmates arranged this brigade — a meal a day from a different family for a couple of weeks. […]