The News In English

Strange weather going on tonight here in Tagura . It was hot all day , then around sunset it turned coolish . After sunset the wind began to blow from the south and we were in the middle of a killer dust storm ! The wind would shift again to the north and we would have humid foggy smog with dust particles floating around in the air . Wait 5 minutes and it would be a raging dust storm again . Windows rattled and things were going bang in the night  outside . The Condo is full of bugs that have been blown in through the cracks in the doors and windows . Ugh !! Patches La Chat hide under the bed .It still can't make up it's mind what it wants to do .

Am waiting on a package from my sister in the States . They tracked it and it says the package arrived here in Tripoli on the 29th of April . I wonder how long it will take the Tripoli main post office to notify the Tagura post office it is here ? I can't wait to see what she sent to me . It will be like Christmas !!!I love surprises like this .

Friday our son and his family came over to spend the day with us . The boys have grown so much since the last time we saw them . We had so much fun with them all . My son went up in a helicopter for a ride sometime last week and told us all about the experience . I was giving him a hard time about it , because I have always wanted to go up in a helicopter or a hot air balloon for a ride , all my adult;t life , and he knows this . I told him he should have taken me with him. I never say stuff  like to him normally , but it just came flying out of my mouth this time , lol .

My daughter in law was teasing me about how it would be impossible for me to go up for a ride in a helicopter since I am so big ... her words not mine , lol , and that if I DID get to go in one , it would fall to the ground because of me being in it!Then ,to add insult to injury , she starts to laugh hysterically just thinking about me crashing !I told her I would take her picture and post it on my blog for all the world to see how much she loves me . For some reason , that made her laugh harder ! What to do with this girl , eh ????

I am determined to get my blog reading caught up, hopefully tonight . I said hopefully . It is after 2 a.m. , so am not too sure just how realistic that is , but I will try . I have missed reading about all of you and things that have happened to you in your daily lives . Like a piece of your family not talking to you . It is all my fault entirely .

Well , actually it is all MOE'S FAULT ! I am putting the blame all on him since he has started to demand more and more of my time recently .It is .... " Are you getting on the computer.... AGAIN???" I haven't been on in a week or so . Or a " can you take me here ?" Maybe a ," let's go for a ride !" Always something . I wish he would find a new group of friends to keep him busy now and then . I would love to have my time back again to myself ! I see lots of men hanging out on the street corners all over the place . I have even offered to drop him off to met them . He didn't think that was funny, at all . His brother called tonight and took him out for a while . That was so nice .Don't get me wrong .. I LOVE the man BUT ... we spend way too much time together ! I never thought I would say that !!!!

There has been a funeral in our condo units . A woman died last week end of a heart attack . She didn't complain until it was too late to help her . She died just as her husband drove up to the heart hospital here in Tagura .The week before that , a older woman dies in her sleep . She lived down the street from us. A stroke they said .Hum , do you see a pattern forming  here ? I think we need to move ! The sooner the better .LOL !



  The picture above is of the main mosque in downtown Tagura about 90 years ago .Fogot the name of it .It was built by the Turks when they were here in Libya .


Well , I guess that is all my news in English for now ... take care !

A Special Present

Moe's birthday is the day before Valentines Day . He used to remember Valentines Day every year by giving the kids and I a box of candy each , sometimes flowers or something personal for me. Many times we would go out for dinner and dancing . It was all very romantic and it also served to redeem his lack of memory when it came to anniversary's , birthdays ,holidays , and other special days . I would tease him and say he only remembered it because it came the day AFTER his birthday . He would smile his " I am a devil and you love it " smile never denying the charges .

That was when we lived in the States . We moved back to Libya in 1990 . The dances and dinners no longer where celebrated by outings to restaurants or clubs . We cooked dinners at home and danced around in the living room to the radio/ cassette player we managed to "borrow" from my brother in law . There were no clubs and restaurant's were so exorbitantly over priced we never thought about going out . Candy was a faint memory as it was on the embargo list for some weird reason known only to governments . If you did find candy back in the 1990's it was usually way over priced and well beyond it's pass due date, not something affordable for a family of 6, nor desirable either .

Then as the sanctions were lightened up here and consumer goods were allowed to enter the country things became available to some degree , but still too expensive . About that time my husband became ill and was unable to work because of his heart .I worked and my lovely daughters worked . We got by , things looked up .

Slowly but surely we started to rebuild our lives after we lost our home here in Tripoli to a new road that was being built . They came to knock down our house one day , wanted us to move out of a 3,ooo sq, ft. house with 5 bedrooms , 2 living rooms , 2 large entry rooms , a huge kitchen , with a dinning room , 2 baths , and 3 storage rooms , into a 2 bedroom apartment in 2 days ! Just imagine ! Somehow and not without a lot of hard work on my daughters part , did we manage to do this .

Then my husband had a major stroke . We thought he would die . It took many months of long hard hours of rehabilitating physiotherapy for Moe to return to some normalcy . He had a second stroke 2 years later . He again had to re-enter the world of physiotherapy because this time he had been partly paralyzed on the right side. His memory never returned to what it used to be , although he has continued to make great strides towards improvement even now . So forgotten birthdays , anniversary's , and Valentines Days are the norm , never given any special thought .This year he remembered Valentines Day all on his own . He came to me and said he had a present for me . He gave me a big kiss , he said it was to celebrate Valentines Day . The loveliest kiss I ever had ,the best present of all !