I have no idea what they are saying

But: 1) It is a fairly amusing clip 2) I wanted to see how posting videos from YouTube and similar places work.

Patchy the Pirate

About a month ago now Stefanie was coming home from work. When she went to open the garage door there was a small kitten right in front of the door. He (as we found out a few days later) was so lethargic that he didn't move at all when the door started to open--in fact it was the door itself that pushed him out of the way. Stefanie, being the animal lover that she is, took pity on the poor kitty and went to get him a dish of water. She let him stay in the garage until she left later to go to the embassy. As she was in a hurry to get there she didn't have time to help him out more, instead she told him, "if you are still here when I get back later, we'll see what else you need." She noticed that his one eye (the left one) was crusted shut. Her heart went out to him, but she knows that she can't save every broken animal in the world. So anyway, the cat is now part of the family of course, I mean that goes without saying really. When Stefanie had left the house earlier she had seen him trundle up towards the neighbor's house. I arrived at the house before she and the kids at about 9:30 PM--when I pulled up he was sitting right in the middle of the driveway, making it impossible to pull into the garage without running him over. I moved him up on to the curb and pulled in. Stefanie arrived moments later and pulled in. I dealt with kids while she brought the cat inside to the basement. I brought her a warm washcloth so she could wipe the crust from his face--he was so thirsty that he was lapping up the warm water. She got all the crusty nastiness off his face and found that his left eye had a puncture wound. Not to be too gross, but it wouldn't have been surprising if his eye would have fallen out on its own. As it was though it was hanging on, well, by a thread I suppose. We called the after-hours vet who said, "meh...give him some food and water and bring him to me in the morning and we'll take a look." Stefanie knows the guy--he's come out to the riding club in the past. I brought him to the vet the next morning and Stefanie and the kids picked him up that afternoon after he had his emergency surgery. The vet had removed his left eye and sewed the lid shut. Of course there was no way we could leave the poor cat on the street--we had to bring him back to the vet 10-12 days later to have the stitches removed. The dog gets so excited whenever she is around other animals, so we warned Sofia and Dylan that unless the cat and dog got along we'd have to move the cat out to the barn after he healed. So of course the dog and the cat get along fine now. There was some remedial manners training for Fabienne for about the first week or two, but they are getting along fine now. At first the dog thought that she was the mommy-figure, trying to pick up the cat and move him around, but I think we have her convinced that they are just playmates. The dog is 130 some pounds and the cat can't be more than a pound, so it makes for an interesting dynamic between the two. I'll update this post later with some pictures--but in the meantime you should know that the latest addition to our family is "Patchy the Pirate". Sofia and Dylan name him after this guy, by the way.

"Sofia has a surprise for you..."

Dylan was at a friend's house yesterday, when I went to pick him up I mentioned to him that "Sofia has a surprise for you!" He immediately said, "is it Lego's?" I said, "no, not Lego's buddy. It's not a thing for you, she has a surprise, something that she has to show you." "Oh," he said a bit disappointed. When we got home he raced upstairs, still not convinced that it wasn't going to be Lego's, but oh well. Anyway, the "surprise" speaks for itself: Her mom cut about 10 inches to donate to a charity to make wigs for cancer patients. And yes, that is a cat on her lap--more on him later. Update: should have included originally that the charity is Pantene's Beautiful Lengths.

You know your daughter is crazy about horses when she...

1. Tries to longe the dog 2. Takes the dog's collar off and tries to run it through the dog's mouth like a bit 3. Straddles every swing that she sits on so she can "work on [her] position" 4. Claims often to be too sick to go to school but never too sick to ride 5. Clucks at her brother to come to her or to scoot him over

Islam and science

Found this fascinating article on Islam and science. Fascinating for several reasons: 1) Arrogance knows no national or religious boundaries. 2) Most of us know what the relationship between religion and science in our culture is (there isn't one, usually). But what about a culture that doesn't separate religion from anything? 3) The article gives a good overview of Tunisia in terms of its relationship with the rest of the muslim world--this is a good example of why we call Tunisia "muslim-lite". 4) The quoted exchange that follows blew my mind: [The article author was interviewing an Egyptian scientist who claimed to be both a scientist and a devout believer. The Egyptian scientist is apparently not as fundamentalist as the other guy interviewed for the article--his own self-assesment is that he can separate the two, science and religion. Yet...] [The Egyptian scientist said,] “Nobody can just write what he thinks without proof. But we have real proof that the story of Adam as the first man is true.” [To which the article author replied,] “What proof?” He looks at me with disbelief: “It’s written in the Koran.”

Whatever will we do with all the money?

People experience it all the time, but not having a car payment is very liberating. It's like a $450 per month payraise! Yay for us!

One of the sweetest sentences ever seen on a webpage, "This account has been closed."

On the beach

We spent the past weekend out on the beach. We went to Aldiana down in Hammamet--even though it was all included, room, food, all drinks, etc.--we were kicking ourselves when the bill came. A bit more than we thought. Especially when we had to drive an hour to get there when the beach on the same body of water (the Mediterranean) is a 10 minute walk away. Oh well. It was nice not to have to worry about anything at any rate. Plus if you click on the link you'll see it is in German...good for me, not so good for Stefanie. It was like little Germany all weekend. They thought I was a German guy on holiday with my Tunisian wife--they would start in German with me and in Tunisian Arabic with her. Which worked out actually since she speaks Tunisian Arabic pretty well.