We’re back from a fantastic vacation. I left off blogging right before our trip to St. Catherine’s Monastery, which was great. The church itself is awe-inspiring, really old and dramatic and lovely. And on a hot day, the mountains were a nice cool break from the beach. Though of course we dove into the pool about two minutes after getting back to our hotel.
I’ll blog more about our trip once I get the photos loaded (which will probably take forever, as always; it’s not the downloading but the organizing and uploading which kills me). But the rest of the week also included lots of snorkeling with some colorful fish along with some pool side adventures. The kids ended up playing with some new friends from the UK, Germany, and France (including the kids of someone prominent enough to have a Wikipedia entry, which of course I didn’t know but only suspected until I got home and googled him).
Today is Easter here in Egypt, for Coptic Christians. It’s also Easter for Ethiopian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Christians. So Happy Easter to you easterners.
Tomorrow, Monday, is Shem El Nessim, the Egyptian spring celebration. I’ll learn more about it and then pass along my wisdom to you. But it does mean I have tomorrow off, so I’ll go to the kennel and retrieve the pup, who, as the boys have been saying, has been on vacation with other dogs (okay, that’s what I told them). I hope he hasn’t been too traumatized by it all.
On Tuesday, Mr. Four starts his new job!
And since Thursday is the Egyptian Labor Day, I only have two days of work this week. Not bad for the first week back after a vacation.
We did get some sad news tonight: our old cat, the Jekyll/Hyde kitty, who has been living with my mom since last summer, died yesterday. By all accounts, she had become mostly a Hyde kitty and had left her biting, grouchy ways behind, and my mom, previously an avowed cat-disliker, really fell for her. My poor mom–over the past few years, she’s taken in three pets from my sister and me and overseen the death of two (who were old; my mom is not a pet serial killer).
A year ago Mr. Four and I had had five pets, three dogs and two cats. Both cats and one dog died from July to yesterday. They were all old and sick, but still.
The other two dogs are with other folks now (including one with my mom) and seemingly in good health for now.
We’ve also managed to lose a cat (and I don’t mean through death) here in Egypt. Maybe we’re bad news for animals.
Anyway, I’m not sure if I’ll even tell the boys about the Jekyll/Hyde kitty. Of course they both know her and remember her well. But Bug in particular has been extra attentive to death issues lately. When we went to St. Catherine’s, Giggle and Bug expressed an interest in playing with Moses (probably because I described him as an original super hero). We said they couldn’t play with Moses (or “Noses,” according to Bug), because he wasn’t there, he died a long time ago. So all day we heard “Noses died.” This is the same as happened after Iggy the cat died here in Egypt. And the same with after the Hound died last summer. Any advice on this one, folks?
Meantime, I have apparently resumed my night owl ways now that I’m back in Cairo. More soon, I promise. Now I need to go to bed and sleep off this vacation.