Just Ruthie

Well I’ve been away for a few days. Last Wednesday everything fell into place and gave us the opportunity to get out of the city - and when we have that opportunity, we grab it and run with it. Mahmoud’s uncle was driving up to his beach front apartment in Alexandria for a few days, and offered to take us with him. At the same time, I had an offer to go visit my friend who lives about halfway between Cairo and Alexandria on a desert farm. So I had a choice to make. Hanging out with my good friend in her big 4 bedroom house on her own acre of land, our kids playing happily together with the sheep, rabbits, cats, and dogs OR visiting inlaws up in cold rainy Alexandria, being stuck in a tiny two bedroom apartment with at least 4 of Mahmoud’s adult relatives, and no kids for my kids to play with and most likely too cold to play in the sand and turf. The choice, of course, was quite simple to make.

Mahmoud’s uncle was nice enough to drop me and the kids off and then drive off with my husband, who was promising to pick me up “next year”; that would be his “sense of humour” kicking in. I hadn’t been out to visit Aisha in almost 9 months so a lot had changed on her ever-developing acre of land. First of all, she got some turf laid down (only way to manage grass out there in the desert)- and she got some ANIMALS! Which of course is right up my alley and I gladly followed her around as she gave her charges their pre-sunset meal, while filling me in on her accumulated experiences as a real rancher. She has got quite the menagerie out there. It consists of a flock of about 12 sheep, 2 geese (which I agree are quite annoying, why on Earth would anyone keep any more than two?), a couple ducks, quite a few turkeys of all ages and sizes, the Tom being QUITE large, a little flock of about half a dozen chickens with their rooster, and about 10 chicks that aren’t quite old enough yet to be mixed in with their parents. She also has quite a few happy friendly rabbits that her son is breeding for sale to the butcher. Then there are the two Persian cats- Checkers (she is calico with a checkerboard orange and black face) and Gizmo (he’s white and I wonder if he was named after the Gremlin, although he‘s a handsome cat anyway). And two sweet guard dogs whose bark is much worse than their bite. And they have chameleons somewhere- but we didn’t see them this time, I guess they hibernate in the winter (or else they’ve gotten carried away by some birds). Now all she needs is a camel and then she'll have to put up iron on her windows to prevent me from moving in with her.

Our kids all ran off and played together- though they are all different ages, except for Aisha‘s twins, they don’t mind. Aisha’s kids are the closest thing my kids have to American cousins here. Except that it’s even better- Aisha’s kids speak half- English, half- Arabic, too, and actually understand all the weird things my kids come up with to say.

And Aisha and I … well, we just ate. And talked. Then ate and talked some more. Then started again from the former and moved on to the latter. That’s what friends are for, right? Aisha is the kind of friend that you can just talk to. A comment here on the blog from my sister had been on my mind and I wanted Aisha’s opinion on it. She hasn’t known me very long (only 3 years or something) but she knows me quite well, all that eating and talking leads to that. So I asked Aisha if she feels that I am simple or not. It took her a few seconds to come up with an answer but in the end, I guess I agree with her perspective.

You know, we never see ourselves clearly, and we take for granted the things that make us different from other people because we live with ourselves 24 hours a day all our lives and our personal eccentricities become our normalities. This is why it’s so important to have relationships, because knowing others, and letting others know you, is the only way to really know yourself.

So… what did Aisha say? She said she thinks I’m not really simple. That I think about things a lot more than most people. In fact, I guess she mentioned that I analyze things too much. You know, after thinking about that for a few days now- I suppose she’s right. (That’s supposed to be funny, it’s ok to laugh.) Yes, I do spend a lot of time thinking and analyzing and I guess I do read deeper into words and experiences than most people do. I’ve become really adept at it, and do it pretty much immediately without even realizing it. Sometimes it leads me to trouble. And sometimes I confuse myself by just going around and around in circles on issues that should be plain and clear. I have the tendency to see both sides of arguments and that duality can really drive a person insane on issues where justice or “rightness” is not always clear. I know this analyzing mind must be a positive attribute somehow, I just have to figure out how to apply it.

Oh boy, here’s a good opportunity to say something I have been dying to announce to the general public for the last 15 years. Despite what you might imagine about me, I got a 700 on my math SATs. Yah, that one shocked me, too, when I got the results. I knew I had some kind of math gene but is it really that pronounced? (I am the one who did not do math homework for almost the entire second half of high school, in a lame attempt to deny my nerdiness. I still need to work on embracing that.) A few years ago I remember having the realization… what if I had actually APPLIED myself in high school or college. WOW. Oh well, they say half the world’s genius is lost to being born female. Tragic, tragic. My English score was only 530... that explains my ability to shop exceeding my ability to write.

I recently looked up “simple” in more than one dictionary. It doesn’t just refer to a simple way of thinking. It can also mean the unadorned- kind- of- simple. As in the Puritans. Actually, if you saw me in the street here, you’d most likely think I was the unadorned- kind- of- simple. And I do go through longer and longer phases of trying to be more ascetic. But then I battle with my love of the finer things in life like… Coach and velvet, chaise lounges and silk bedspreads. Window treatments and leather interiors. Baubles and marble floors. Whenever I try to deny that part of me, it backlashes with a vengeance. In fact, shopping always works out so well for me, I kind of feel like it’s God’s plan for me to have nice things. Errr, is that sacrilegious?

So, no matter what connotation you use, maybe “simple” isn’t a good word to describe me, whether tongue in cheek or in earnest. I don’t know myself well enough yet to come up with an accurate word to describe me. I guess I’m just Ruthie. Just Ruthie.