Sites of Amman

This week, I did a little sightseeing in Amman - a visit to the Citadel and Temple of Hercules, the King Abdullah Mosque and downtown markets...pretty low key but I did finally find the famed gold markets which were, sadly, way too rich for my blood, at $1589 an ounce (as perspective, they wanted $400 for a bangle bracelet).

I didn't take many pictures - too busy conversing and kinda hating the inadequacy of my camera these days.

is it just me, or is this R2D2's cousin?

Fridge Art

My parents have been giving me magnets since 1990 or so, when I moved into my newly finished room in the basement with a metal support beam in the corner. When I left for college, the magnets came with me and they have continued to move with me from house to house, growing all the while.

In preparation for getting a new fridge, Susan and I had to clear off all the magnets, including the magnetic poetry (curse those hundreds of tiny magnetic words that are nearly impossible to peel off). Knowing how hard it is to find the words you need to put together a coherent sentence with magnetic poetry, I wanted to document the phrases that have been building up for the last few months.

Props to our friend Michael for the Avengers quote - I believe took him 5 weeks of visiting (and his wife Kiya's quick thinking) to complete "drapes"...

I also found the following hidden amongst the masses of words while chipping them off the fridge. This can't be random, right? I would've remembered putting these together when I originally put all the words ON the fridge??? What (clever) pervert has been messing with my fridge poetry?

On a related note, how gross is my fridge that the magnets left dirt outlines?

A Dog in Despair

Aside from the rare internet sensations (Charlie and Maru, I'm talking about you), videos of your pets are like videos of your kids...no-one really wants to watch except you. But I can't help posting videos of Willy when he's petulant because he's so unafraid to let everyone know how upset he is:

Melancholy

Lately I have been feeling a little (dramatically) melancholic, mostly because I haven't decided what to do next.  I keep cycling options over and through and around in my mind and coming back to a place of indecision.

To console me in my (lite) despair, I have been listening to lots of sad and fragile songs.  

This is one of my favorites, even more so now, after finding a clip with the song acting as a backdrop to a video about a beautiful but tragically brief robot courtship made, presumably, by Lawrence Chen Films.  

Thank you Lawrence Chen, whomever and wherever you are. 

Mean Dogs

Willy and Dewey are BFF's, a fact clearly established in many posts over the last months.  We now have a third dog in the house and poor Smokey is finding himself the victim of two dogs engaging in "Mean Dog" antics.  

They steal his rawhides, they don't invite him to come out an play on the patio with them, they ignore him when he wags his tail and tries to join in their wrestling matches.  Worst of all, they refuse to cuddle with him - today, they curled up on the chair together and, when Smokey tried to join them, Willy growled at him.

balefully eyeing Smokey

who finally gave up and curled up on the ground

Moses' Spring

I took a friend to Madaba and Mt. Nebo yesterday.  Alas, I forgot my camera in the car most of the trip so I wasn't able to take a picture of the shrine to the Virgin Mary who mysteriously and miraculously grew a third (bright blue) hand during Mass one day.  Next time.  

On the way back, we decided to off-road and seek out Moses' Spring.  Susan and I had previously attempted this feat and were defeated, finding only a dead-end road and a herd of goats.  Turns out we drove right over the spring.  This time we were successful and, since it's newly out of the rainy season, things were actually quite green.  Just don't look too closely at all the trash...

the Spring

Mt. Nebo...glad we weren't looking up after 40 years of wandering

Happy Monstrous Easter!

Moms sent us three (THREE!) Easter Egg dying kits which we are looking forward to sharing with all the kids we know.

Today we had one of our favorite-ist families in the branch over for spaghetti and Easter Egg dying.  Since this particular family has all boys, we broke open the "Monster" kit.  These kids never cease to amaze me with their ingenuity and creativity.  My favorite was Cyrus' monster with enormously gross armpit hair (which, of course, all the boys found hilarious).

prepping

we took a break after dying them all to eat

We finished off the evening with a screening of Hotel Transylvania, which seemed appropriate after some of the frightening creatures produced.  I cried a little at the ending - such a sentimental fool.

RIP Mr. Thornton

This morning, Susan called me traumatized.  She came home from running errands to find that the construction crews next door had torn down our garden wall and the one-foot-wide strip of dirt between the wall and our patio.  

Unfortunately, that strip of dirt was the home of Mr. Theopholus P. Thornton, our beloved tortoise, may he rest in peace (the horrid Skeksis turtle hopefully died a horrible death in the demolition).

Susan tried to show a picture of Mr. Thornton to the construction crews, to see if they had seen him.  We also tried to look in the pile of dirt, to rescue him.  Both efforts were thwarted by language barriers.  We had grand plans to go over after the crew went home and dig through the pile but they carted it away before they left.  

Our hope is that he survived, buried in the dirt, and will dig his way out into a brave new world.  One that doesn't contain a dog named Willy who hates him with an impassioned rage.  If not, we look forward to seeing him after the resurrection.

In the meantime, we now have a garden with a 30 foot drop-off into a construction pit full of leering Jordanian men.  Gross.

before

after - you can barely see a creeper in that truck...

Jerash in the Spring

We are in that glorious month where it is not too hot, all the grass is green, there are wildflowers everywhere and you can actually walk around outside without dying of heatstroke.

I got to take a few friends up to Jerash which, in my opinion, beats the Forum in Rome all to pieces. We clambered over lots of ruins and took some ridiculously posed pictures and ran into a flock of extremely hairy sheeps. I am starting to count down the number of times I will be able to go to some of these places...makes me sad.

not bad for her first time...

apparently bagpipes are originally from Jordan...they played us a rousing rendition of Praise to the Man, which I'm sure is most definitely of Jordanian origin

the only picture of me this trip

I was too busy taking pictures of columns...

...and columns with yellow flowers

...and columns next to sheeps

Dead Sea Block Party

I took some friends down to the Dead Sea today - we didn't want to pay a fortune so we went to the "public beach" aka the park-on-the-highway-and-pick-your-way-down-the-rocky-hillside-and-swim section of the shoreline. 

I knew we were onto something special when we ran into this van...in case the music didn't clue you in to its function (ice cream man!!), the owner glued ice cream cones all over the van:

We got to the bottom of the hill and discovered the rockingest beach block party I've ever been to.  I'm pretty sure all 3,000 attendants turned to stare when my friend Gretchen (6 foot and blond) took off her shoes and gingerly stepped into the water...

The YW Learn that Pans are Hot

We have two adorable pregnant ladies in the Branch. So, the Young Women decided (with some prompting from their fearless leader) to make them some foods that they could freeze and pull out of the freezer and eat whenever they were too tired to make dinner.

After frying up some sausage for the spaghetti sauce, one of the Young Women turned from the stove, pan in hand, right into my inattentive arm which suddenly became very attentive but not before receiving a rather cool-looking crescent burn.  I think we all learned a lesson tonight.

In which we visit our favorite younger sister in Jerusalem

Susan and I ran over to Jerusalem Friday afternoon, to take Katie some pre-midterm-chocolate-chip-cookies and pamper her a bit.  

We didn't do much - a visit to a Palestinian craftsman co-op, some "awesome air kicks" pictures in the Kidron Valley, and dinner at a mediocre Chinese restaurant in West Jerusalem (which, let's be honest, aren't they ALL mediocre?).  

throwing rocks at Absalom's tomb

if at first you don't succeed...

...try, try again

the "orange chicken" basically had a melted orange dreamsicle on top

selfies are much harder with three people who all have short arms

We were in Israel a mere 22 hours but it was 22 hours spent in the best of company.  Can't wait to see you again in a few weeks, GP!  And this time, we'll bring more cookies!