Spontaneous Appliance Death Explosion

So, I'm getting something out of the fridge the other night (do what you do best), and the door suddenly isn't attached to the hinges anymore, and it lurches toward me fully-unhinged and flinging bottles of every condiment and saucy-sauce known to man like a deranged Frankenfridge, and I manage to sort of crash-land it on my foot (smart), and I'm not even finished yelling WHAT THE F$%*%&# when I see that my beloved Tabasco is flipping end over end in slo-mo, and now I'm yelling NOOOAWWWWWW in a deep robo-sitcom voice, and then the Tobasco shatters in a million spicy shards and there's hotsauce spatter everywhere, and it looks like Dexter was in my kitchen, which is the only cool thing about it. Now I have a fridge that's broken in a way no fridge should ever break, and a broken foot, and broken Tabasco. And that was my Sunday night.

Attention Fruit-Bottomed Ladies: This Man Wants Yer Bidness

Tonight, we did like the rest of Dubai and went to the mall. Every single child under 12 was weaving erratically on the thoroughfares, strapped to those horrible wheeled sneakers that they all seem to have these days. It's like battling pint-sized versions of the Roller-Derby-meets-the-Gimp "wheelers" from Return to Oz. Very creepy. Very hard on the knees.

Rampaging kids aside, we enjoyed walking around and looking at all the designer what-not. C got a new tie to match some recently-purchased work shirts, which, in a stunning departure, are not blue. They are tan. I resolved not to buy anything but to give more business to Hitesh, a talented tailor with a shop in the Satwa district who whips me up cool, unique new tops n' frocks, sized-to-fit.

And speaking of sized-to-fit, let me share with you a little exchange I had while perusing "Apple Bottoms," the shop (and fashion line) created by Nelly of hip-hop fame. I didn't see any band-aids for sale, but took a quick look at the jeans (very glittery on the whole). They're supposedly designed to fit curvier women, so I was wondering if they'd be suitable for my dimensions. As I was looking at the various styles, a saleswoman approached and I said, "So these are the jeans that are supposed to be good for curvy women like me, right?" 

And she replied sweetly, "Yes. For women with big asses."

Taxi-Cab Consternations

I have discovered a much more fun and effective way to converse with Dubai cabbies. First, I abandon my natural speaking voice, which is decidedly flimsy and muppet-esque.

Then I SPEAK BOLDLY AND EMPHATICALLY, punctuating my comments with BIG HAND GESTURES, all the while SCOWLING SLIGHTLY. I also eliminate extraneous verbs and descriptors. No pussy-footing around, no softening up statements with nice Canadian humming and hawing. In Dubai English (Dinglish), it's all about getting to the point.

What follows is a transcript of a recent chat I had with a cabbie using my new technique.

Cabbie: WHERE FROM? (In same tone as, "WHO TOOK MY COOKIES?!")

Me: CANADA! (In same tone as, "IT WAS I WHO TOOK YOUR DAMN COOKIES, AND WHAT IS MORE, I'D DO IT AGAIN!)

Cabbie: CANADA! TOO MUCH COLD! (In Dinglish, "too much" means "very".)

Me: DUBAI! TOO MUCH HOT!

Cabbie: (Chortles with glee. Gives me great eye contact in the rear-view mirror. Gives road zero eye contact). YES! SOON-SOON! TOO MUCH HOT!

Me: WHERE FROM?

Cabbie: PAKISTAN! HOW LONG IN DUBAI?

Me: SINCE SEPTEMBER. (Big, sweeping hand gesture.) I LOOK FOR A JOB SINCE SEPTEMBER! I FIND NOTHING!

Cabbie: NO JOBS NOW! VERY BAD. DUBAI, NO JOBS. BAD FOR TAXI. (Sweeping, furious hand gesture.)

Me: (Angry grunt of approval. "Aye-ya-yai" hand gesture.)

Cabbie: (Echoes angry grunt. Honks his horn and makes his own "Aye-ya-yai" hand gesture as an expensive Land Rover with heavily-tinted windows cuts us off.) 

YOU SEE, RICH GUY. THEY HAVE ALL MONEY. ALL MONEY IN WORLD, MAYBE 5 PEOPLE HAVE IT. WE NORMAL PEOPLE HAVE NOTHING. THIS IS LIFE.

Me: THIS IS LIFE. I AM LUCKY. MY HUSBAND HAS A JOB.

Cabbie: YES! HUSBAND JOB! YOU KIDS!

Me: NO!

Cabbie: WHY NO KIDS!

Me: NO!

Cabbie: KIDS! (Bangs hand on steering wheel).

Me: LATER, KIDS. NOW, I WANT TO WORK. I AM A WORKER. (Huge, hailing my comrade-workers hand gesture.)

Cabbie: I WORK TOO MUCH HARD!

Me: YES! TAXI DRIVING, DIFFICULT! (I actually completely agree with this. It's a hell of a job).

Cabbie: (Cutting someone else off. Horns honk behind us. He looks pleased.) BAD DRIVERS! 

Me: WOMEN ARE BEST DRIVERS! (Deciding to stir the pot).

Cabbie: (Gives me an "Are you insane?" look in the rearview and chuckles nervously, stepping on the gas).

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Cabbie: (Returning to earlier, more promising theme) MAYBE 5 PEOPLE IN WORLD HAVE ALL MONEY!

Me: (Stepping out of cab): AND NONE OF THEM ARE WOMEN!

God Willing, I Will Be Exfoliated

Recently I was fortunate enough to be bobbing in this lovely hot tub at the Alasalla Spa, surrounded by glazed tiles glimmering in shades of plum and topaz. The picture above is brightly lit, but in reality, soft blue lighting, delicate filigree woodwork and velvety music make one feel as though one is floating in a genie's lamp. 

That day, my friend and I had enjoyed facials and were trying out the "wet area," consisting of the hot tub, icy scented showers and sauna. The showers were hilarious: two little cylinder-shaped areas, tiled from top to bottom, with water-jets studding the walls, and three mysterious buttons labeled "Tropic," "Fun," and "Something I Forget." As far as I could tell, the scenting-feature wasn't working that day, but the jets were. Upon pressing a button, several disco lights would begin flashing and then you'd be blasted with cold water in alternating patterns. "Tropic" turned out to be very similar to "Fun" insofar as several tender bits of myself were assaulted by needle-sharp sprays of chilly water, causing me to howl and gyrate around the cylinder, trying to shield all those bits at once. Given the effect the jets caused, the disco lights were very appropriate. After trying the showers after the hot tub, we realized that we weren't hot enough to appreciate their icy delights, so we baked ourselves in the sauna until we were beets. This did the trick, and suddenly crazy-cold became refreshing.

At one point during our waterlogged adventures, we noticed a very sturdy woman with Middle Eastern features wandering in and out of a treatment room off the main area. She was wearing a strange black spandex outfit - longish bicycle shorts and a lycra tee-shirt-top - and she looked like she meant business. She stopped to talk to us, and revealed what was happening in the little room: the Royal Hammam.

The spa's website notes that the Royal Hammam invites one to "experience a deep cleansing body treatment performed on a warm marble slab under an infusion of eucalyptus scented steam using Moroccan black soap followed by a deep and vigourous exfoliation with a traditional kassa. A purifying and revitalizing clay mixture is then applied to stimulate the circulatory system and assist with the removal of impurities."

Apart from my copywriter's heart crying out at the use of the word "slab" to describe something you'd willingly lie down on, this sounds blissful to me. Basically, as the woman explained to us, you take off all your clothes and are scrubbed like a baby. Then you are rinsed, scrubbed again, rinsed, slathered in moisturizer, bundled, warmed, rinsed a final time and released back into the world, gleaming, less three or four layers of skin. (Later, the receptionist revealed that the dead skin comes off one's body "like snakes," which certainly sounds intriguing).

Then this venerable matron of skin removal uttered the fateful words that one hears over and over again in this part of the world: "Insh'Allah, you will have this treatment."

Insh'Allah means "Allah-willing." People use it in both profound and mundane circumstances: 

"Insh'Allah, you will recover from this terrible illness"

"Insh'Allah, your drycleaning will be ready Tuesday." 

When it comes to major life issues, I certainly respect that people of faith want to invoke the power of God and remind themselves that events are in His hands. But when it comes to, say, whether I will have my skin exfoliated or not, I can't help but raise an eyebrow. If Allah is really concerned about my unsightly epidermis, I wish I could donate that fraction of His attention to something else, you know, like smiting corporate thieves or housing the homeless.

Then again, if Allah does involve Himself in improving the flaky elbow'd and the sand-box knee'd, then I can reasonably expect to enjoy the Royal Hammam very soon. I'll keep you posted.

A Tale of Two Dinners: 900 AED vs. 55 AED

Before I get all Dickens on ya, happy 2009 to my faithful readership! Yes, it's been awhile since AmeezInk last splashed. For many reasons, including Festivus in Campbell River and a rare procrastination bug (ha!), I've not blogged for a spell. But I'm back now, slightly heavier thanks to the shortbread and encroaching on my first thirty-something birthday. And all I want for my birthday is for my follower-list to grow. I have four. Let's make it...six! Or even double-digits. It would thrill me, people. It really would.

Now, onto the story.

I've been thinking a lot about how best to characterize Dubai, and I think calling it a City of Extremes wouldn't be far off the mark. You've got wildly elaborate 5-star hotels and you've got workers' slums. Try the middle lane of SZR on any given day and find a billionaire's bloated SUV next to the rickety lorry of several indentured servants. Modestly-clad folks brush shoulders with half-naked hedonists in the malls. Ostentatious business-people stroll around having loud, important conversations with a BlueTooth headset chomping on their ear 24/7 while others work quietly away on the first and only rung of their career ladders. Let's just say the middle ground isn't the most prominent real estate here. 

I think we experienced a perfect example of Dubai's extremes in the form of two meals, one day apart. The first was at a posh Moroccan restaurant at a swank beach resort/shopping complex complete with man-made lagoons and views of the glittery gulf, and the second was at the Eat & Drink Restaurant in a low-key residential area near Safa Park.

For the equivalent of $300 Canadian doubloons (900 AED), we got:

• a little trio of starter salads and a few links of spicy sausage as appies
• 3 dinners of meat & veg & sauce, nicely-flavoured but hardly mind-blowing
• 3 mocktails
• a bottle of water
• a bottle of wine that I'd guess would cost about $60 in a Canadian resto
• a beautiful, shimmery view of winding lagoons and in the near distance, the Gulf glittering with the lights of the Atlantis resort and the Palm Jumeirah
• lovely live music
• a pretty outdoor patio done up with Moroccan fabrics and flourishes
• a text reminder about our reservation (I don't have a lot of friends yet so any text is pretty exciting)

My favourite part of the $300 evening was a close tie between the general ambiance and the attentive wait-staff's stripey uniforms, which were sort of Alcatraz-prisoner-meets-Moroccan-tent. Oh, and there were little orange facecloths in the washroom for the drying of hands. I find it so decadent when I get to use a wee facecloth only one time and then throw it in a basket which I don't have to carry around on my hip later.

All in all, it was a pleasant night ooot and abooot, and we knew before we arrived that we'd be paying for the setting. I think a considerable number of the fancy restos in Dubai are all about glamourous and exclusive ambiance, and the food/service come a distant second. They cater to the See and Be Seeners and make no bones about it.

The Eat & Drink Restaurant, on the other hand, is a place you could visit in your floppy pants, and if anyone sees you there, well, you saw them first. There are several E&D franchises in the Dubai area, and the concept is all about...you guessed it. We arrived about 9pm one evening for some nosh, and that's just what we got for our $20 Canadian (55 AED). 

The Eat & Drink offers 300 items of Lebanese, Chinese and Indian Mughalai cuisine. Their bilingual menu features toothsome food photography and mentions their ability to cater as well as the rentability of their "party hall," which I think was what they call a rather dark and sticky-looking alcove off the main upstairs dining area.

We sat at an old Formica table with uneven legs and plastic chairs. The waiters were brisk and no-nonsense. They weren't there to chat, suck up or sing the M'amSir song. They were there to take your order, and if you weren't ready, then that table of 10 very hungry Indians over there was ready, and if you wanted to get your food before those guys, better order. 

So we did:

• Two "Eat & Drink Special" juices (other choices included the "Disco," the "Lexus," the "Computer" and the "Hero No. 1."
• Hummus and pita starter
• Two chicken shawarma plates
• A bottle of water

The water, in contrast to the $10 that was charged at Spiffy Patio, was free. So was the plate of crisp, cut-up veggies and pickled thingies that arrived for us to munch on. We sipped our super-fresh and tasty juices (the "Special" turned out to be every fruit known to humans, pureed with some rose water or grenadine or something) and watched our fellow patrons. Several languages bounced off the cheerful green walls which hadn't seen a coat of paint in a dog's age. But you can't eat paint, my mom always says. (News to you, eh Mom?)

My favourite touch was the blue crash mat stapled to a protruding ceiling beam. Our willowy waiter had to duck every time he went under it, but I guess that crash mat was there in case he forgot.

Our food arrived nice and fast. The hummus was fresh and unapologetically smothered in olive oil. The chicken shawarmas were ginormous, hot and tasty. And the ambiance was highly entertaining. There were folks of every description E-ing and D-ing, from a soccer team of young, sweaty, white expat-ettes to a very raucous group of Asian dudes who were all over the Sliced Duck and Hot & Sour Whatnot. Everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun.

As for whether the bathroom had little orange single-use facecloths, I wasn't brave enough to find out. Hubby was, and returned to report a "single-holer" in the men's. So I'm suspecting there was probably a shortage of wee towelettes in the ladies'.

Anyhow, we've been back to the E&D since, and the Fancy Pants Patio (which was called Shoo Fee Ma Fee, by the way), not so much. We're more floppy pants, peeling paint, wobbly table, free water, BlueToothless, delicious-food-for-$20-type people, I guess.

Midnight in the Garden of Giant Orange Spools

I just got home from Chili's final walkabout for the day, which is a soothing time for both of us. He gets to stake his claim on little bits of the world, one last time before bed, and I get to appreciate Dubai at one of its calmest moments.

We walk behind our building, down "pee-row" - a stretch of gravel frequented by resident pooches, and a choice scratch n' sniff area for the Chili-dog - and then around the grounds of a power generation station directly adjacent. This sounds highly sketch, I realize, but it's well-lit and quiet. The facility serves as staging grounds for the countless construction crews working in this are, so there is new stuff to see every night. Bricks, paving stones, piles of unmixed concrete, gravel, two-by-fours, metal struts - I only wish I were building a retaining wall or a wishing well or something.

It's all left lying around wherever the workers dropped their materials at day's end, together with coolers, discarded gloves, the odd hardhat and of course, the ever-present giant orange spools. These big wooden beasts are used for coils of large, um, constructiony wires, and they give the area a sort of surreal, Alice-in-Wonderland type flavour.

The 3/4 finished Burj Dubai, to be (briefly) the tallest building in the world, towers nearby. (Check out a chart showing other ridiculously tall structures in the works). We're within walking distance of the Burj - through crazyland construction, mind you - but I like the night-time view from our "backyard" the best. They've installed searchlights and vertical rows of green and white vanity lights (I don't know how else to describe decorative skyscraper lights - if anyone knows, please tell me!) so the whole building flashes like a manic lighthouse. During the day, I can see the Burj from another angle - upside down, as I float in the pool. I tilt my head back, and it's just blue-blue-blue til the tower glides into view. A pretty sight (see photo) that I hope everyone will experience when they visit us here.

At night, though, the constant construction hum dies down considerably, as does the traffic on Sheikh Zayed Road. There's a light breeze stirring the palms, and just one sleepy security guard chilling out on a chair next to a round-about that's chaos during the day, but empty at night. I raise a hand, he raises a hand, Chili lifts a leg, and we all take a deep breath of the balmy night air. Then it's time for bed. 

Lorries, Labaneh & Lushing It Up On Holy Friday

Today I'm creating a blogwich of delicious, totally unrelated topics. Blog appetit! 

(Hopefully Noolee reads this post: that pun was a special gift for her!)

Let's begin with a delightful layer of lorry. A "lorry," I'm sure most of you know, is a weird UK word for "truck." Wikipedia, the preferred primary source of all serious researchers, reports that:

Lorry is a term from the UK and the Republic of Ireland, but is only used for the medium and heavy type [of truck]. A van, a pickup or a jeep would never be regarded as a lorry.

C and I were discussing lorries recently, and I discovered a great new way to tease the poor man, who, given his occupation, likes to be accurate about vehicular thingers. 

I simply suggest that vehicles which clearly aren't lorries, are. For instance, when I need to know where he parked our Pathfinder, I ask him where he put the lorry. Or if we're driving and an SUV cuts us off, I say, "Stupid lorry!" Then he earnestly explains my fundamental lorry-identification error, and I giggle. (I guess the jig is up since he'll read this, but I'll come up with something else soon enough. Such are the endearing little ways that I nurture marital bliss.)

In truth, I knew all about lorries long before I came here, since I'm pretty sure that's what the 101 Dalmatians used to evade the clutches of Cruella de Vil in her psychomobile. (As a sprog I paid a lot of attention to Cruella and modes of transport proven effective in escaping her because she scared the bejeezus out of me. Just ask my dad, who had to help me move my bed into my bedroom doorway so that I could keep watch for Cruella coming down the hallway to "get" me.)

For some reason, hearing people from the UK or NZ/Oz talk about lorries makes me laugh. It's much too goofy/friendly of a term to use when, as frequently occurs here in Dubai, you're describing a vehicle driven by a maniac that nearly T-boned you even though you were both theoretically travelling in the same direction. I can only imagine the line of questioning at a Dubai lorry driver interview...

HR: "Do you have a driver's license?"

Prospective Maniac: "My cousin has a...liquor...license."

HR: "Brilliant. Do you shoulder check?"

PM: "Of course. You never get a second chance to make a first impression."

HR: And how does one make an effective lane change?"

PM: "What's a lane?"

HR: "When can you start?"

Lorries have no mirrors, or if they do have mirrors, their drivers studiously avert their eyes. (In fact, the drivers manage to ignore their surroundings so completely one wonders if some of them are retired NHL referees. Was that you, Kerry Fraser?)

As for brakes, ha! To stop a lorry, simply aim for some squishy bit of desert, my friend, or the cushiony side panel of a passing Nissan Tiida!

The lorries of Dubai careen down Sheikh Zayed Road, trying out all the lanes while alternating speeds of 140km/hour (while tailing you) and 10km/hour (once they've cut you off.) They often have rickety bits of paneling hanging off them, and always carry something like a ladder or big boxes of sharp construction utensils in the back, ready to bounce out and puncture your windshield should traffic suddenly pile up.

But calling these vehicles "lorries" makes me think of Paddington Bear and Devonshire Cream and sheep and other soft, English things, which distracts from the fact that they are rickety Soviety-era buggies driven at Mad Max speeds by utter lunatics. So it's "truck" for me, all the way. Except when I see a Jeep Cherokee or a Hummer and C is with me. Then it's lorry!

The next bit of blog is truly delish. Labaneh is technically yogurt cheese, but that's a poor way to describe the velvety perfection of the cream-dreamiest spread that ever applied itself directly to my birthin' hips. It comes in a variety of flavours but the garlic is so G-D good that's all we ever get. I put it on toast, pitas, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes and meat. And everything else. I also eat it right out of the tub with a spoon. And on nights that C is away, I have been known to follow a few spoonfuls of labaneh with a few spoonfuls of Nutella and a mug of wine and call'er a night. Which leads me, Inksters, to the tempting bookend of the blogwich...

My lushalicious Friday plans! After a week of industrious effort on the job search front, I'm rewarding myself tomorrow with an indulgent afternoon at a new acquaintance's house. She's leaving Dubai soon, and several of us are to come over and help "pack" her leftover bottles. 

Fridays are the day when expats traditionally get tanked at all-day brunch and booze-fests in Dubai while the dutiful head off for double shots o' mosque, so I'm well within my stereotype for this outing...and if I'm not mistaken, there's some garlic labaneh waiting in the fridge for me when I get home!