What is the Purpose

As the recent meme goes:  I know we just met, and this is crazy, but what's the purpose of your life?

Or in this case, of my blog?  I removed my prior post after thinking on this topic a little.  I am at a cross roads with my blog of funny family stories.

Madeline is old enough now to deserve some ownership of the way her life is presented to the public.  Caleb isn't far behind.  So what is the purpose of my blog?

I just returned from a day in Hebron, about 10 miles south of Bethlehem.  I was there for my work.  My job will be to objectively convey through an audit report some of what is happening there with U.S. tax dollars.

It was a fascinating experience.  It was a serious experience.  It was not what I expected.  The rigors of my professional obligations suggest that I say little about it until after the report is published in a month or two.

I think I am safe to say this:  I wish everyone could hear for themselves the conversations I had today.

I talked to people who had purpose.

The Cluttered American

We have a lot of stuff.  We have been unpacking and unpacking and unpacking.  My new philosophy is fewer things, higher quality.  Less stuff, more meaning.  I wish I had that philosophy for the last eight years.

It's almost embarrassing.  I see how little the average Egyptian needs to live.  Then I see how much support apparatus I require to maintain myself, and I'm almost ashamed.  Some of the stuff has spiritual meaning:  A copper tea pot that I saw on my parents' bookshelf in my earliest memories; a religious artifact Katie inherited from her grandmother.

A lot of it is just stuff: a million instruction manuals for electronics I've never used and didn't know we had; six remote control cars that have cumulatively been played with for about two hours.

Fewer things.  More meaning.

And some meandering tidbits--

The kids are done with summer camp.  Caleb summarized thus:  "They had instructions for everything.  Don't they know kids just want to play?"

Now they have swimming lessons every afternoon.  It is fun to see them learning all the real strokes and showing some initiative to practice.

I had the day off today and watched Real Steel with the kids this morning.  Make fun of me if you must, but I love that movie.

We have blackouts once or twice a week lasting one or two hours.  Tonight was a black out.  So we gathered on the couch and read The Call of the Wild with a flashlight.  Great book!  After suffocating under Ms. Rowling's labored, clause-filled sentences, Mr. London's economy of language is a breeze.

A Very, Very, Very Fine House and Welcome to My World, Kids

Giddy for the arrival of our final wave of stuff tomorrow morning--comfortable mattresses, a TV large enough for me to watch without wearing my glasses, iMac, books, and toys.

While my excitement for the mattresses, TV, and iMac is beyond words, I find myself wondering what the rest of it could even be.  We've figured out how to live without it, so part of me is afraid it will just be clutter.

In other news, though it is sadly on a very small screen, I am presently watching The Fellowship of the Ring with Caleb and Maddie.  I wore Katie down with my constant pestering and gained permission--more like a resignation.  This is our fifth viewing in two weeks.  It has been the dawning of a glorious new day.

And I get to answer awesome questions like "How come Frodo always runs toward the battle but then never actually battles?"

Over the course of about a month I gave them an oral retelling of the entire trilogy as a prelude to the movie.  So I also get lots of these:  "Dad, you said Galadriel's hair caught on fire, but really it just turned blue."

4th of July, Cairo Style

Turns out they have the 4th of July in Cairo!  Caleb was a bit confused at this discovery, however, since the date is not accompanied by any corresponding celebration.  "It's America's birthday, right?"  Correct.  "And friends have birthday parties, so why doesn't Egypt have a birthday party for America?"

I had the day off from work but the kids did not have the day off from summer camp (I mean, we could have kept them home but that would be crazy).  Our first wave of stuff had arrived the day prior so we reveled in the luxury of shower curtains and spoons that don't bend when you eat ice cream.  I had no idea the kids could scream in glee over bath mats.

Today we went to the Independence Day party sponsored by the Marines, as shown below:

Photos (Including Homage to Hart Family Classic)

We enjoyed Disney World so much this time around that we bought property there.  Disney World is literally our home in the United States.

I sometimes wonder if it is weird for Ariel, et al, to be featured in the blogs,  photo albums,  memory walls, etc, of perfect strangers.

In which the Idaho Falls cousins create monsters (IWIFCCM)

IWIFCCM continued

Madeline's WOWP birthday cake

All Hart boys age 35 and up should recognize this homage to a circa 1982 achievement in Polaroid wizardry.

Dinner Conversation

Dad, what does sexy mean?

Visually stimulating in such a way as to elicit a positive visceral physical response.

Mom, what does sexy mean?

New Normal

Family dynamics have been, um, quirky since my return from Pakistan.  A work colleague the other day invited me to bear in mind that it takes two months to recover from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  It had not even occurred to me to consider my family's psychology in that light.  But it is probably at least a little bit accurate, not so much for me but for the kids.

Last week I was doing something on the computer and Henry approached me and quite unprompted said, "Dad, I hated you when you were in Pakistan but now I don't hate you anymore."

And they have all had their moments (weeks) of regressive behavior.  Add in moving to Egypt and not having any of our stuff (our fingers our crossed for delivery this week....please) and it's a stressful time.

But I think things are calming down.  For the first several days here, Henry would exclaim in genuine surprise, "Daddy, you came back!" when I returned from work.  "I always come back, buddy."

Yesterday, he made no such declaration.  Still an enthusiastic hug, for which I was grateful, but no surprise at my return, for which I was also grateful.

I think this helped the adjustment:

Who could resist a bouncy house birthday?

The Situation in Maadi

This was the first week we were able to arrive at church without spending 15 minutes lost with a non-English-speaking taxi driver.  So progress there.  We have now mastered three words in Arabic: shemel (left), yameen (right), and alatool (straight).  Add a few numbers and we're all set.

We went to Luciano's this morning for family haircuts.  Quintessential Egypt.  We stepped off the sand-filled littered street and descended broken stone steps to a beautiful wooden door lined with gold.  Inside, a barber shop straight from The Country Club.  It was visually luxurious, all dark wood and gold with black leather seats.

The barbers, all toothless, wore handsome red jackets and there was, what to call him, an apprentice, I guess, who wore a yellow jacket and moved about brushing hair from noses, fetching scissors, holding mirrors, etc.

They were great with the kids, both in handling their weird fear of haircuts, and with the actual hair cuts.  They look great.  With me, they made the classic blunder.  I do not have normal hair.  Thinning shears must not touch my hair or I will look ridiculous for a month until everything can grow back.  Before I warned and before I noticed, my do was thinned.  It will now require a pint of tar every day to prevent my hair from standing straight up.

Then we headed to the "shopping district" to explore.  It was 100+ degrees.  We didn't really know where we were going and somehow we had not paid attention to the footwear the kids had shod before departure.  They were all in flip flops as we trekked the rolling hills of garbage and broken glass that are the sidewalks of Maadi.  Fail.

Before the day was over, however, we located a movie theatre and thoroughly enjoyed Madagascar 3. Alex and Marty redeemed the day.  You might say it was crack-a-lackin.

Pyramids and Other Pics

Cairo Time

The house is big, at least by the standards of the places we have lived so far: five bedrooms, four bathrooms.  Our stuff hasn't arrived yet so we are living with the so-called "welcome kit" which is much better than nothing but somewhat incomplete.  Five bedrooms, four bathrooms, three pillows and two towels.

Maadi is south of Cairo and has trees.  It also has rabid dogs.  Sometimes city officials deal with the dogs by placing strychnine-laced meat in the streets.

We have a few cockroach friends.  Well, you know, the kind of friends you swat with a shoe.  (Friends?  Friends slow down.  Friends stop. [Just move on if you didn't catch that]).  Unrinsed dishes left in the sink overnight will bring ant friends.  These are not ants I am familiar with from the United States.  These are pyramid ants.  And they're mad.  I can't really defend the statement that they are mad, I just assume that being big, and an ant, and in my kitchen sink means you're mad.

We hired help.  Freed from cooking and cleaning obligations, adjusting to overseas life is a breeze.  Also, while we're waiting for our car to arrive, we've hired essentially a chauffeur service to drive us everywhere, which feels kind of better than having a car to me but I think it is driving Katie a little bonkers.

The kids go off to the Maadi House to swim most days.  This club for diplomats (I get lumped in with this group even though I hardly consider myself diplomatic) has a nice pool, tennis courts, super cheesy pizza, and a giant bouncy house slide thing.  Unfortunately, they just started summer camps there.  Our kids are not in the camp and thus cannot enter until camp is over.  Next week, the kids start their camp at Cairo American College, so take that Maadi House. 

The Journey

The brilliant travel agent gave us 33 minutes to get off the plane in Salt Lake with three kids, four carry on bags, five backpacks and three pillow pets and transfer to the flight to Paris. So we were trying to go double time. We made it and all the kids did their share pretty well.

The first real glitch of the trip was the revelation once on board the international flight that there were no TV screens. I especially enjoyed Katie's exchange with a stewardess:

There are no TVs?

No, ma'am.

Seriously?

Um, yes ma'am. Seriously.

For a twelve hour flight with three kids, you're telling me there are no TV screens?

Um, yes ma'am.

Anyway, I've never been so grateful for the legacy of Steve Jobs. IPods to the rescue. And Benadryl may have been involved somewhere along the way.

Then we arrived in Paris. Turns out it's charming. Who knew?

We just walked around a little and did double decker bus tour from Notre Dame through Champs Élysées and then past the Invalides. Maddie and Caleb mostly enjoyed pretending they were launching missiles from the top of the bus.

Then we slept for a long time and went to the airport.