Wednesday, August 31, 2005

And talking of yummy .........

Found on the site below
http://www.muttawa.blogspot.com/

THE CORRECT WAY TO EAT AN ICE CREAM ...

A woman and her female friend were sitting on a bench in the Kingdom Mall, eating ice cream cones, when along came a muttawa, accompanied by a police officer. (You can always spot a muttawa by his beard, his thobe—the white gown worn by local men—that is always four or five inches too short, and a mien of profound hatred of all things different.) The muttawa approached the women, pointed a menacing claw, and hissed, "Don't lick it that way!"
Not being an authority on the subject, I can't with any confidence say there isn't a sura buried somewhere in the Qur'an covering the moral etiquette of licking ice cream. I suspect, though, the muttawa had wandered a bit beyond his moral jurisdiction.
"We just looked at each other," the woman told me. "I mean, how else are you supposed to eat an ice cream cone? You have to use your tongue, right? We just sat there and watched our ice cream melt until he wandered off.

And just as I was about to launch into a tirade ..... I spotted these on the supermarket shelf - right next to the toothbrushes!! And I thought to myself ... "Well, maybe there IS a RIGHT way to lick an ice cream after all ........"

Have a Break .......

I have mentioned before that many of the food products we were used to, can be found here, as well as different flavours of the ones we know. Case in point .... my favourite chocolate snack - Kit Kat. We are used to plain chocolate with biscuit, but look what we discovered here ....




These are Kit Kats with a liquid oozing out of it with every bite .... in delicious flavours of berry, mango/granadilla and orange. And, as if that was not enough .... my ALL TIME VERY VERY FAV FLAV .......................
C A R A M E L .... don't you just LOVE it ....




I just wish they came in THIS size ....



.... or maybe not ....
(I am already responsible for the economic profits of Kit Kat - about to become a shareholder!! I should get them to sponsor me .....!!!!!)

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Makes you think ......

Extract from the site below, regarding censorship of advertising in Arabic countries.

http://creativebits.org/Visual_communication_crash_course


Words
Enjoy or exciting are words that can be interpreted as sexual descriptors therefore to be avoided. Words like create and greatest should be used with caution, since they are associated with God.



Arabic calligraphy is a very creative art, where words can be written down by an endless number of forms. One has to be careful how an innocent logo would be interpreted. At one point Coca-Cola was going to be banned in Saudi because if you read the script in the mirror it can be read as No Allah, No God, but eventually that decision was overruled.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Ooops - I forgot ....

Talking about driving - I forgot to mention the "hidden" speed cameras (everyone knows exactly where they are) and the speedbumps (also known as sleeping policemen and vaarthobbels - no, not fart hobbles!!)
These two well-intentioned traffic-calming concepts have taken on a new meaning on Abu Dhabi roads - commonly known as (1) test if you still have any brake pads left (2) test the reactions of the driver behind you and (3) see who can leave the longest skid marks and (4) see how fast your car can re-accelerate from 1 to 150kpm!!
So, if you want to see the underside of several cars at once, just be at the back of the queue when they get to the bumps or snaps!! Watch cars do wheelies on their two front wheels!!
And they said Abu Dhabi was boring ....!!!

Miss Daisy strikes again ....!!

Most of the roads in the UAE are in excellent condition - very few have bumps or potholes (unless they are digging them up for some or other construction project - which they do, often!!) And most of the main roads/highways are at least 3 or 4 or 5 lanes wide. And most of the roads are straighter than a dye (what the hell IS that??) And most of the roads are used by new(ish), well maintained, decent-engine-sized cars............................................


So WHY (!!!????##!!!) are the speedlimits so flipping ridiculous? If you were to polish up your halo and obey the law to the letter, you would be piddling along at the speed roughly equivalent to the speed of smell.

Four reasons : (1) To avoid having to pay the Arab-salary-sized, no-excuses-allowed fine (2) To avoid getting a "black mark" on my licence - as you are only allowed a certain finite number before you become licenceless, (3) To avoid DH smirking ".... guess who went a LITTLE BIT too fast and got a ticket .......?" and (4) To see how (s)low I could go .... caused me to decide that today I be good and obey all speed limit signs. And like the butterfly fluttering in South America, causing an earthquake on the other side of the world, my butt-numbing crawling caused mass disaster and consternation on roads throughout Abu Dhabi!

A speed limit of 120 or (more often) 100kpm on highways and main roads seems reasonable enough. However, travelling this (legal) speed in any of the three inside lanes may lead to you having a tyre imprint over your roof of one or more of the black, tinted-sightless-windowed, Sheikmobiles driven by Michael Schumachers trained on the Star Wars set - all they need for effect is a laserbeam to disintegrate slower cars that are travelling at less than warp-speed. They certainly are protected by a "Force" field - they will force you right off the road if you don't move quickly enough.
So in an 80kpm section, steering (what a pun!!) clear of the fastest lanes, we opt for the middle lane - safe at last to dawdle and amble along, admiring the scenery around us. No such luck - 80 is for sissies, and no one can accuse UAE drivers of being sissies!! Cars rocket up to your bumper, screech down from their 100-and-something speed, flash lights, hoot, swerve left, scrape past you and then swerve right - right in front of you - all in one sweeping choreographed motion, designed to scare you into moving faster next time. A magnificent move - both daring and threatening at the same time!
I reach a 40kpm zone (yes, that is not a misprint .... 40kpm!!!) - and my only option is to cleave to the extreme lane - extreme right, extreme slow, extreme boring, extreme time-consuming. Slight side track here .... the hand sign for insh'allah (meaning as God wishes) is to put all five fingertips together, pointing upwards .... so, my question is ... what does it mean when a truckdriver puts all five fingertips together and points them DOWNwards??? Whilst at the same time mouthing what can only be obscenities?? 'Cause that's what they did - I was driving so slowly, I could multitask, so there I was monitoring the rate the grass grows, watching butterflies skud past the car, picking my nose, reading my book, when one of them thar truckies screeched up to my rearend, flashed at me (his headlights!!), hooted and showed me the finger(s). I was stunned - I was doing the speed limit - in the slow lane - what more could anyone want??
I found out when I pulled over to let the Cowboy trucker pass - he was being tailed by a caravan of trucks, trailers and buses - all travelling at MY speed. Law says trucks may not overtake, so they were forced to dawdle along behind me - every one in first gear, spewing out clouds of smoke as they overheated and struggled to maintain such a ridiculous speed.

I suppose it could be worse ....


But I would prefer any of these ....

Monday, August 22, 2005

You are what you eat - (Re-post)

This is a loooong post, so don't lose heart ...

Another endless source of entertainment falls under the heading "Things we have eaten". Firstly, the eggs : You have never seen such bright ORANGE egg yolks as these. We always learnt that pale eggs were somehow less nuturitious than the brighter yellow ones. Well, by that token, these egg are the healthiest eggs on earth - they are almost day-glow orange! I made scrambled eggs for breakfast and DD wanted to know why we were having lumpy custard on toast! And the pancakes looked like radio-active UFO's!!

At first, we could not find any fresh cream, the only cream we could find was so thick, you could virtually use it for butter. And it comes in all kinds of different flavours - strawberry, banana and honey - no good for making cuppuccino's! We did eventually manage to find thinner, beatable cream in one or two shops.


There are deli counters in all the big shops and you can buy all kinds of cold meats and cheeses, from all over the world. Mostly we just stand and stare at the countries' names : Lebanon, Egypt, China, Greece, Italy, Libya, Sudan, India, etc etc. Prices are quite a bit higher than SA. Especially fruit and veg, obviously because it comes from the other side of the world, lots of foodstuff comes from Australia. There are hundreds of varieties of cheeses - some look like balls of string (and taste like it, too!), there are cheeses that are bland, salty, very very salty, bitter, herb covered, ash covered, chilli covered, you name it - they sell it. We have seen more varieties of olives than we dreamt existed (some the size of golf balls!) and dates and raisins from tiny to humungous. There are nuts of every shape, size, taste and colour (including pea-green and blood red.) Herbs and spices are sold from baskets and consist of leaves, seeds, stems, roots, paste, granules and globs that any South African witchdoctor would be in heaven to see. Pickles are a favourite and it seems that any fruit or vegetable is a candidate for pickling, including lemons, aubergines, turnips, cabbage and even eggs. Many fruits and veg are also dried and then sold - somehow, the wizened up, crinkled, rock hard, blackened lemons and oranges look so sad!!

The meat is very pricey, but it is virtually fatfree, so you can eat the entire cut. Meat also comes from all over the world, we found the most edible kind comes from Australia and New Zealand. We did try the Syrian and Lebanese "lamb", but when cooked it had a distinctly UN-lamblike flavour - and smelt like a camel's armpit, so we now boycott those countries' meat products. Alas - no pork or ham in the everyday shops, but you do get many types of "bacon" - turkey bacon, beef bacon and veal bacon - it is edible, but nothing tastes (or smells) like bacon bacon. We saw some macon on a menu the other day - WTF is MACON?? There are some really strange bits of animal for sale. I saw lamb balls, and I figured it must be a kind of meatball made from minced lamb ....no .... it is actually lamb balls! DH just cringed and turned pale when he saw them!! There are feet and tongues of every type of animal, and brains, cheeks, ears, even noses! We stick to chicken breasts, lamb chops and steak - bits we can recognise. Fish is quite cheap sometimes, it depends on what they catch that day. Prawns were very cheap the other day. They also sell crabs, mussels, clams, shark, cuttlefish and eels.

We have discovered an expat store which is more American and British than Arabic, and stocks some South African delicacies as well. We were delighted to find Milo, gherkins (at R34 for a small bottle!!) Deep Heat, Marmite (we had found chicken flavoured Marmite in the Arab mall - horrible and disgusting!!) and even the YOU, HUISGENOOT and SARIE magazines!! In a secluded area at the very back part of the store, with notices banning Moslems and warning customers that this section contained pork products, we found real bacon and, surprise, surprise, biltong (called bultung!!) and boerewors (actually called boerewors!!) I think the "bultung" was actually the dried up skin of a rhinoceros - tough as takkies and covered in chillies!!

There are some pretty strange looking fruits and vegetables : hairy lychies, bright white watermelons, knobbly cucumbers, metre long green beans, red pumpkin and other strange things that we are not sure whether they are actually fruits or vegetables. The only reason we know that they are for eating, is because they are in the vegetable section! We (read I) want to try them, but are afraid that we might end up munching the equivalent of a raw potato or onion, or cooking an exotic lettuce leaf instead of eating it raw. And just in case you think I am joking - there are many, many types of bananas - including the one which the fruit for eating raw and there is one that is a vegetable for cooking and using like a potato - so there! (PS - we even saw teeny tiny bananas, the size of a thumb!) They also sell banana flowers, stems and leaves!!

Then there are the mixed breeds, like the cross between an apple and a pear (DH likes these) - crunchy like an apple, but tastes like a pear, and is pale/white.

Compared to the puny sized fruit and veg in SA, the fruit appears to be genetically modified or fed on steroids - it all seems to have been supersized and/or handpainted. The grapes are the size of plums, the plums are the size of apples and the apples are .... anything from dark crimson red/black to translucent light pink and white. The oranges are the size of grapefruits, the grapefruits are the size of melons and the melons are .... well, just plain : huge! Many of the watermelons are perfectly round!!





They serve a lot of really fresh fruit juices and the other night we went to a fresh fruit juice bar and I had a green coconut with the top cut off. It was fun, but tasted like nothing. Just watery and slimy. DH had fresh mango and pineapple and DD had fresh strawberry and mango - both so thick they couldn't suck it up with a straw! They were lekker (yummy). Another restaurant offers a bowl of pomegranate seeds - which are munched as a fruit or sprinkled over meat like chutney!

Whilst out shopping, we treated ourselves to a cold fruit drink. DD chose a "Rainbow Blend of Pureed Fruits", which really looked spectacular - layers of pink strawberry puree, orange papaya, yellow banana, and green ...., well we weren't sure what the green layer was, but she bravely tried it. She couldn't figure out what it was, saying that it tasted familiar yet strange and the look on her face got more and more peculiar as she drank. I decided to try it and see if I could guess what it was ... it was pureed avocado pear!! In a fruit milkshake!! Well, needless to say, DD would not drink any more and went into a tirade about "people who drink eeew things!" (Actually, I don't think it was THAT bad ...!!)

And talking of strange flavours, at one restaurant we were served an appetiser of yoghurt in shot glasses with dates on the side. Neither DD nor DH would try it, but I did (will I never learn?) I had watched the people at the table next to us - they dunked their dates into the yoghurt and then swallowed the rest of yoghurt in one gulp. So, DM followed their example. Imagine my horror when the huge mouthFUL of yoghurt turned out to be SALTY, STINGY and WARM!! It was not the type of restaurant where you could spit on the ground (like the ones we normally go to ... ha, ha), so I had to close my eyes and try to force it down. The family couldn't understand my frantic hand movements signalling that I wanted ALL the rest of the dates immediately, nor could they understand the tears running down my cheeks and the slow shaking of my head. Or perhaps, they just didn't see - after all they were doubled over laughing!! It turned out to be yoghurt made from camel milk, and they serve it as a savoury, fermented to the "stringy" stage and at camel blood temperature! Yummy!!!

There are shelves and shelves of variations of honey - made from any flower or tree you can think of. They each have a unique flavour,and if that was not enough, they have honey with flavourings added. There is runny hunny (!), creamy honey, honey comb - you name it - they've got it. Even honey for waxing ladies' legs!!

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Eating like a King

Just gotta tell you what happened tonite at one of the local restaurants ..... We were so hungry that the local camels were in great danger of being munched, so .....

For starters DH ordered a lentil soup, DD wanted haloumi cheese, and DM (as is my way ...) ordered two different starters - fresh asparagus spears (out of a tin) and shamoush cheese (?) - gotta try something new every time!! All of these, excluding the soup, are served on a queen size bed of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, green peppers etc. The soup is accompanied with a whole loaf of croutons and some sliced lemon (in lentil soup??)

Well, before the actual starters made it to the table, the "pre-starters" got there ... one dozen (12!) arabic breads, a shovelful each of green olives, black olives and gherkin-type things (salty - not sour) and one of those huge, marvellous do-it-yourself salads, consisting of a bunch (literally, still tied with string) of mint, a lettuce, three carrots, two tomatoes, two cucumbers, two lemons (! huh??) - all whole - and a partridge in a pear tree!!!! .... Ok, no partridge ....

And don't forget the two litres of water which is poured into goldfish bowl size glasses.

So, with the table groaning under the combined weight of what some entire countries eat in a month - our main courses arrived - two prawns and spaghetti and one grilled prawns. The main courses came on tray sized platters and included a mountain of rice, chips, peas, carrots, more salad and more lemon!! Arab hospitality at its best!

Unfortunately, the spaghetti and prawns were not very edible - a bit like ketties with rubber bullets (sorry, only SAfricans will understand that!) Now, DM would have just stayed quiet - in my usual shy and retiring manner(!), but DH had to complain to the manager, who was mortified that a customer had a problem. He assured us he would "sort the chef out" and off he flounced. Visions of him swatting the chef with a spoon!!

By that time, we had made some serious inroads into the Mount Everest of food and were feeling a bit like Tweedledum, Tweedledee and Tweedle-omg-my-trousers-dont-fit-anymore, when suddenly .........

tummm ta ta tummmm (no pun intended!)

Two waiters arrived and started whipping everything off the table, even the tablecloth. They reset the table, ignoring our feeble protests and hurried off as the manager announced he had "big surprise for us ...."

Imaginations ran wild - in some countries it is an honour to be served sheep's eyeballs .... we had seen sheep's balls in the supermarket, though not their EYEballs!! DD was beginning to look a bit green around the gills .... Were they going to serve us our order all over - how were we going to politely refuse to eat another bite? OMG !!!

The manager arrived with a cloth covering a dome shaped object resting on a huge platter .... sheep's eyeballs still in the head?? With a flourish he lifted the cloth and revealed .....
......

a whole watermelon, beautifully sliced and arranged with a vineyard of grapes.

None of us had space, but we somehow managed to force some of the fruit down and it was superb.

We thanked the manager and his staff profusely, paid the bill and left, feeling slightly embarassed at their generosity. However, once we drove off, we discovered that they had had the last laugh ... we were charged Dh25 (R50) for "fruits".

Hee hee hee, serve DH right for complaining!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Catching a tan in the UAE

You know you've been in the sun too long ......


not to mention a serious case of Cooper's Droop as well ...!!

Shopping in the small shops

Wandering around the maze of streets is an a-mazing experience! Here are some of the things I have noticed :

The local restaurant has invented their own
bellows to keep the coals for the braai (barbeque) burning!
(And to keep the flies flying away from the meat!!)


No, not that kind of saloon(!) Remember where we are ...
It is a hair salon


Dying to know what drugs he sells -
it was close to midnight and person you see here was
working by candlelight


My local haberdashery - the size of my walk-in closet!


But, they stock anything and everything you could want!!

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Pitiful Palm Tree

I read somewhere that the emirate of Abu Dhabi has manually planted over 200 million palm trees! Hardly seems believable that someone nurtured so many little palmlette trees, then dug so many holes, planted the full grown trees, and all in this incredible roasting climate.


Furthermore, each and every tree is irrigated - you see miles of hosepipes draped along road, with spouts at each tree. Unbeee f..ing lievable!! All hail to those who had the vision and energy to "green" the desert so wonderfully.

And at this time of the year, each palm tree is laden with such tempting looking fruits - by the bushel - all shades, from pale yellow, through orange, red, brown and dark black. They are a work of art in themselves.

That said, why oh why did one popular hotel in Abu Dhabi feel it necessary to plant this plastic monstrosity outside their entrance ....

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Hopeless Haggler

A fellow UAE blogger ( http://bssandbrninalain.blogspot.com/ ) recently wrote that he thinks he is the worlds worst "negotiator" - and that reminded me of an episode which I think ensures that I retain the title of "Worlds Worst Haggler/Bargainer/Negotiator" ....

We went to a school fete and one of the stalls was manned by an old man who looked like he could use a good meal. Next to him sat his equally old, shabbily-dressed wife. They were obviously not locals or European; I thought maybe they were from one of the poorer countries whose expats come here to earn enough money to eke out a basic living .... Sorry, getting carried away with the scene-setting ... but now you get the picture.

The old lady was slowly and painfully crocheting something, while her husband tried to sell the exquisitely crocheted tablecloths and bedspreads that she had already finished. I am a crafter and am always a sucker for a handmade tablecloth. I decided on one which was about 7 foot long - very intricately and beautifully done. And this is how the "haggling" went ......

Me : How much is this
He : 30 Dirhams
Me : 30 Dirhams, that is ridiculous, look at all the hard work that has gone into this, I would never pay 30 Dirhams
He : (Misunderstanding) - Madam pay 25 Dirhams
Me : No, at least 50 no less!
He : No, 30
Me : 50, no less
He : 35, no more
(By this time, I think it was more a battle of wills, and we had both totally lost the plot!)
Then I realised, maybe it was his pride - he did not want my "charity".
Me : Ok I pay 35 Dirhams and buy you lunch
He : Ok

So, he got his 35 Dirhams and two hamburgers and cokes, and I trotted off with an amazing new tablecloth.

But, you see, that is how I haggle - in reverse!!

Monday, August 08, 2005

There was an old Lady who Lived in a Shoe ...

... and her housing was infinitely better than that in Abu!
My word, I have been looking at housing in Abu Dhabi - for a number of new employees we are expecting, and to say that I am disgusted and depressed is putting it mildly. I am left wondering just what lived in these places before - not who, but what!
The first one had a lovely blue green pattern on the ceiling, but on closer inspection, this turned out to be mold, which, like the Andromeda strain had taken over the entire lounge area.
Toilets and kitchen cupboards are all, with rare exceptions, broken or ripped up, or have whopping great stickers stuck all over them. Ceramic floor tiles are chipped, cracked or have crater-sized holes - what were the previous tenants doing??? Ceilings hang and sag and are cracked and often just plain missing. Light fittings have been ripped out - just bare wires hanging down the walls with chunks of paint and wall missing. The mirrors are also mold-covered (this time, the black kind) and most are chipped or cracked.
Paint is peeling in banana-leaf sized chunks and in many cases walls are chipped down to the concrete - really, what were the previous tenants doing??
One flat with a wooden staircase had at least two stairs missing - the spaces covered up with carpet, so if you didn't know not to tread there, you would have had a sinking experience!
Geysers and airconditioners have leaked orange gunk down walls and into puddles on the floor. Any type of mesh on outside doors is usually torn and always rusted.
A flat in a very exclusive and expensive building on the corniche had the remains of a meal scattered all over the floor - all moldy and stinking to high heaven.
I have had various wildlife scuttle around and over me, from cockroaches to birds to rats and cats!
Gardens - if they exist - are either concreted over or have been left to revert back to desert type scrub, with papers and garbage strewn around most of them.
And these were the upmarket, more expensive villas and flats that are in respectable areas - one shudders to think what might be lurking behind the doors of the inner-city flats which look rundown from the outside.
The rentals for these atrocities is skyhigh and, outside of this country, would never be paid for such disgusting hovels.
I know there are some good places, I stay in one, but they are very few and very far between. No wonder newcomers would rather live in Dubai - at least they have relatively new, relatively inhabitable houses and flats - at a relatively reasonable rental!

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Shop 'til you Drop

These are some of the interesting (read : odd!) things we have seen in the shops since we have been here. (Bear in mind that a lot of them are imported and are not from the UAE) - we found the products and names "interesting" to say the least :


* Dried egg whites
* Coffee flavoured sugar
* Roasted branch and twig tea (from China)
* Blocks of dried seaweed - red, yellow, green and orange (also from China - "interesting", those Chinese!! )
* Butter flavoured oil
* Ghee (melted, separated butter) - very popular for cooking - in bottles and tins
* Oil for cooking, called "Parachute Oil"
* Spaghetti length macaroni (remember those from the olden days??)
* Square noodle tubes
* "Siblings" Pineapple Jam
* Yam Jam
* Jerk Sauce
* Snake Oil for hair grooming
* Garlic and onion flavoured dried bananas
* Tinned cheese
* Marshmallow flavoured tea
* Foul Madams - a kind of bean - very popular
* Blood oranges - with bright red juice - yes, looks like blood!
* Liquid licorice to make a hot drink
* Coconut jam and date jam (yummy!!)
* Flavoured Coffeemate - including cinnamon, vanilla, caramel - real yummy!
* Pomegranate molasses
* Brown cream soda (saw white cream soda in the UK!) Tastes like green
* Sit Still hairspray
And ...
* Virginity soap - restores your virginity while you shower!!


Will keep you updated on any new "interesting" products we find ......

Friday, August 05, 2005

Dust to Dust

Those of you who know me will agree that I am, ..... how do I put this delicately?...... not a natural housewife (be kind with your comments!!) I am not one of those fanatics who clean behind pictures on a daily basis, in fact, I don't think I have ever cleaned behind my pictures! When cleaning, I don't move large appliances (or anything larger than a shoebox, actually) - too much like hard work - nobody sees behind there anyway. And, as for dusting, you know the saying "dust to dust..." .... well, my philosophy is : you never know who that dust might have been once .... and I firmly believe you should let deceased Great Uncle Algernon rest in peace .... especially if he is on top of your tv!

I have christened the vacuum cleaner "Sid", named after the punk rocker Sid Vicious, because of its vicious tendency to violently latch onto anything in its path and try to devour it. So far, he (Sid - the vacuum cleaner) has devoured table mats, bathroom mats, sponges, small perfume bottles, socks, pens and pencils, small notebooks and a salt cellar. He has tried, but failed to slurp up the bedspread, bedside lamp, my trousers (with me still in them!), two bars of soap and his own motor. I seem to spend my life swearing at him, swatting at him, trying to break his suctioning grip and digging in his intestines to retrieve valuables. Is it any wonder I hate him?? (Still talking about the vacuum here, not DH)!!

Actually, I am waiting for this to become commercially available, more my scene .......


However, and this is the whole point of this blog, when you see mushrooms growing on the sill of your door, you KNOW you have got to do something ....



Definitely gonna get me a maid tomorrow ....!!!

*** Just to set the record straight ... The bit about the mushrooms and the door was a bit of literary licence - the door is not actually MINE - it is the apartment building's stairway door!! It is so humid, steamy and hot on the stairwell that these fungi have sprouted!!


Wednesday, August 03, 2005

The All-New Arabian Diet ...

Some items on menu's which will help you stick to your diet :

For starters ... some "FOUL" with oil??


Main course ... a helping of "RAW MEAT"


Washed down with a delicious ... AVOCADO MILKSHAKE


AAAHHHH, but all is not lost ....

You could enjoy one of these :
(in case you can't see it very well, it reads :
Three scoops of Shameless, Vanilla nestled with a banana republic and
sheekily coated with chocolate sauce scandelous!)
I think that is just so imaginative and creative - it made me wanna order one!!




And my all time favourite saying :

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

You can leave your shoes on ...

I have a foot fetish, or rather ... a toe fetish. I don't like them. I think they are ugly. They wriggle and squirm and remind me of oversize maggots. Ooooh and some have bright red nail-polished heads!! Eeeww. I love the person who invented shoes - hide those ugly appendages - yuck!

Well, like many things here, I have had to swallow my bile and just bloody get used to it. And the same goes for feet. Firstly, everyone (ok, not EVERYone, but it feels like it sometimes) wears open sandals, so it is impossible to miss seeing those big, fat, hairy, knobbly toes wherever you go. Then, it seems that it is considered polite when entering someone's house, or tent, to remove one's shoes (read : sandals) at the door and stomp around barefoot.

Toe jam!
Athlete's foot!
Smelly, sweaty feet!

Arg, I would consider it more polite if you keep your shoes on, please!

Then, to make matters worse, people (read : men) seem to think that it is acceptable to take their shoes off everywhere ... they take them off in my car, they take them off when they are sitting on a bench, they take them off in offices, they take them off in restaurants. Restaurants! Then, to make matters worserer, they rub and pick and fiddle with their toes while sitting on said benches or in said offices or restaurants. Noooo, it is all too much.


Please, please, leave your shoes on ....