more new work....

these are henna patterns from a book I found at the local craft store...

sartorial notes

Two things related to the warm weather.

1. I bought some (devastating!) shoes yesterday and noticed that when you try on shoes they don't give you a stocking, sock, whatever to try them with. Is it because no one wears socks? Aside from the gym, I'm living in a sock free nation. Go sandals!

2. My new friend Ively told me a funny story about her son. She bought him a pirate costume for Halloween with pants, shirt, etc. He tried on the pants and despite all evidence to the contrary, kept insisting the pants were too long. Turns out they did fit, but he thought they were too big because the pants were long! The tyke has worn shorts for his whole pants-memory.

Shore leave beckons! Back in NYC friday night.... see you for fleet week!

is it me and my head or me and my body?

I haven't gone into much about the music scene here in abu dhabi because there really isn't one that I can find. I'm sure there are many gifted musicians here among the thousands of workers driving cabs and doing all manner of construction, but as for venues to see music, we haven't heard of them.

That said, like other things here, there are imports. Kanye and Prince were here for Formula One weekend as well as Linkin Park and Nelly Furtado. Ok, those sound ok, but were expensive and we passed. This weekend however (sadly we will be away), brings a conundrum.

"Guns and Roses" are playing this weekend. Well at least, Roses. This genre (Kevin is calling it zombie rock) is about resurrecting old bands frozen into the stale performance of their hits of yesterday. Thing is, there is no Slash! Apparently the guitarist wears a top hat just like the real lead guitarist, but its just Axl singing his heart out.

This would be neither here nor there, except the radio stations keep playing that "Sweet Child" riff until I want to blow my brains out.

So is it guns and roses afterall? Can we have guns and roses without Slash? Without Axl even?

I barely care, but dear listeners, thats what I leave you with today....

Christmas in Abu Dhabi

Although it is warm and sunny, signs of Christmas are everywhere, sort of. Many shops and malls are decorated with Christmas traditional fare. However, lots of decorations seem to be blue and silver. I think its supposed to be kind of Christmas and New Years rolled into one, but it ends up looking like Hannukah.

The girls are having fun with their advent calendar and we're busy making holiday foods and decorations. I think they feel its christmas...

Last night, the "mum's" group gathered at the Intercontinental for dinner. So nice to sit outside and the food was yummy. In the lobby they'd made a life size gingerbread house out of flatbreads decorated with seeds. Impressive!