Sunday, December 16, 2007

Happy Place.... Go to the Happy Place....

I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had a whole lot of time to blog – which I can’t really determine is a good thing or a bad thing. I’ve had to work on prequalification tenders (with people who are unwilling to provide me with information), our annual report, and at the same time, dealing with the Chinese. It is all very confusing – oh, and that is just in my business life.

Personal life has taken equally as confusing turns of late. I’ve been meeting men left and right (again – good thing or bad thing?). Colonel Boring is most definitely out of the picture. He was a boring PERV and I had to deal with that and get rid of him. Ick. I don’t know what the deal is with the men in uniform again, but I’ve met policemen lately in droves – and they’re all higher-ranking officers. As Bunny says, “Never date below a Major.” Tee hee. I love him. The Romanian says, “Never date below a Range Rover,” which is equally as funny. Anyhoo, I’ve met some really really nice people lately and I’m grateful for that. There is one guy in particular that I like a lot; we’ll have to see what happens before I jinx myself or someone gives me the evil eye. He's just dreamy....

I feel really bad about something that happened on Friday night. I was driving on the Gulf Road (is that the proper name?) in Salwa almost at Messila Hotel in the left lane and there was a cat that had been hit by a car. I was in heavy traffic and very late to meet our company’s CEO and wife for dinner. I couldn’t safely stop. (These are all excuses.) The cat looked up at me with “help me” eyes. Slapperella was with me and not being a big cat lover, I don’t think she wanted me to go back to try to get it. Anyways, I continued on; and ever since, have been haunted by those eyes. I feel so bad even thinking about it, I am getting teary-eyed. I drove back the next morning and there was no sign of it, so I hope that someone else stopped to pick it up somehow. I don’t even like cats, but I always try to help any living creature, so I now feel awful. I have tried to make up for it by cooking chicken to feed to the neighborhood strays. There were about 400 of them (I exaggerate) around the chicken when I looked back. Then, I started to wonder if I had done something equally as bad by feeding whole cooked chickens to cats: would they choke on the bones and die in some horrific manner? I have such a guilty conscience.

I met with a rep from United. He is a really nice guy and says that he is going to try to make me feel better about being punched by a passenger on one of their flights (yes, you read it right): She punched me after I moved her bags from under my feet and then must have accused me of being a racist (to the best of my knowledge because I can’t figure out what happened) ; no one did anything. She said, "How would you feel if a black woman touched your bag?" Um, I probably wouldn't want her feet on it, so I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't care if the person was green or blue either. The worst thing was that the United staff did nothing to help me – even when I told them I was in pain. As it turns out, we made the local news in Washington, DC that night because they called security, TSA’s, United ground staff, and the local police. I was so traumatized by all this that I don’t even want to get further into it. The Kuwait side United staff is trying to make it better; I have heard nothing at all from United state-side. It may just take time.

I don’t know if I want to get into the concept of racial issues in the States vs. what we have in Kuwait. It is all so weird. Ok, we do have other issues in Kuwait (other than black and white), but still . . . Why can’t we all just get along?

Go to your happy place, Desert Girl.

Ok, I’ll go there in a minute, but not before mentioning other weirdness that happened this weekend. Why does this kind of shit happen to ME?: I was peacefully asleep at 8am on Friday morning, when I got a call from an Iraq number. It went to voice mail. 10 minutes later, the same number called again (waking up Desert Dawg also), so I picked it up. It was an American guy who I knew from (that logistics company I used to work for). He got fired from there; I helped him get his next job at KGL; where he also got fired. I helped him get a job with a Kuwaiti friend’s logistics company; where he had a dispute with my friend and moved on. I helped him with several consulting jobs also before he moved up to Iraq. This all happened within a period of 4 years. So, Dude calls me and says, “WHAT did you send to my wife? She’s ready to divorce me! You sent her something that said we were having an affair? How could you be so cruel before Christmas?” Holy shit – what did I do? I shook off the sleep and said, “Dude, we have a business relationship. I sent out 200 Christmas and Eid cards this year saying exactly the same thing, ‘Best wishes to you and your family for a Merry Christmas (or Eid or Hanukah or Kwanza), (Desert Girl).” Pretty straight-forward, no? {sidebar: Why doesn’t MS spell check recognize “Eid” and it does recognize “Hanukah”? Is it a conspiracy?} He said, “My wife thinks we are having an affair. There was some girl’s name on the card!” WTF? Is it just me or is someone’s imagination running away with them? I said, ‘Dude, my name is (Desert Girl). That is the way I sign my correspondence. Your marital problems are none of my business. You definitely won’t be receiving another Christmas card from me. Why don’t you have her scan the card and e-mail it to you so you can see exactly what I wrote? Further, if I were a male business associate, would you be calling me up accusing me of something?’ I went on to tell him that he was a sexist pig and that if he ever contacted me again for anything, I would consider it a form of harassment. Weird, cause I met his wife. Maybe she thinks I’m hot and she’s insecure (?) Dunno.

‘Best wishes to you and your family for a Merry Christmas (or Eid or Hanuka or Kwanza), (Desert Girl) can be translated (apparently) to: Dude, I want to rip your clothes off and make wild passionate love to you. I so enjoy our affair because I love tall, skinny, long-toothed, red-haired white guys with no redeeming personality traits. Yeah, that’s right.

Why are people so phucking stupid? I still don’t get it.

Happy place, happy place, happy place. I ate a mountain of chocolate this weekend (its ok because it is close to Christmas when calories don't count). Yum. Oh, and some sushi. And I flirted with handsome sexy men. And I am going on vacation in a few days…. Ooooooh saaaaaaah…..

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thumbs up on cooking chicken for the stray cats in your neighborhood!

ouch! That incident which happened on the flight is kinda horrific to hear; thank goodness you didn't respond it with a punch, that suspect racist would have had a bad day(unfortunately you fell in the path!)

compliments of the season :)

Intlxpatr said...

Air-rage is terrifying because it is happening in such a confined space, and some of it is SO irrational. I saw a woman SCREAM once because someone's knees were in the way when she put her seat back, and the crew had to move her elsewhere, she was so out of control. How awful, that you got punched. I hope they make it really, really right for you in a very GENEROUS way.

Ammaro said...

if you dont have time to blog but are instead meeting people, socializing in the real world and so on, then its good. if instead, you are just lazing at home and doing nothing, then its bad.

best wishes for the season :D

Paradise Found said...

Holy Crap! PUNCHED?!!! What are the idiots thinking these days?
Glad you are ok and hope United PAYS for doing nothing...it could have escalated and become something much worse.
I had a similar encounter with a dog on the road when I was 8. I'll email what I wrote about it. As for Red-headed guys...stay away from them! LOL

aenateus said...

(giggle) The 400 cats were so not an exaggeration.

The tide of feral cats went out on Amman Street when you put down that chicken.

Jewaira said...

Such an amusing read as always, Desert Girl.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year ahead with many more adventures :-)