A FATEFUL MEETING

Well, no wonder I got offered the job at Beaute' so quickly this time, when they never even called me back the first time I applied.  There was more to it than just my learning to type!  My new boss was a Zayani, one branch of the wealthy ruling family, and a mere two weeks after she hired me, she headed off to their London pied a terre, for two months, leaving me completely on my own!

In the meantime, John had roomed with this one guy while he was offshore.  Everyone called him Toad.  The offshore gang were big on tough, manly nicknames like Tex and Toad and Tiny.  Tiny was John's other roomie, the head cook.  He weighed 300 lbs. and liked to sleep "nekkid".  Bet you're glad there are no photos of that!

The net around the helipad, in case the pilot misses his mark.  People are NOT supposed to be on it.

Though you may find it hard to fathom from these photos, Toad (a former fire-fighter and EMT) was the safety guy offshore, and probably the most clean-cut and conservative of the whole lot.

Playing cards with this gang can be a very scary proposition.

Anyhoo, just as John had asked his friends to keep an eye on me while he was gone, I suspect someone in the office probably asked Toad to keep an eye on my hubby.

As it turned out, Toad also had a young new wife from Texas.  I guess she was pretty lonely too, since her only friend had gone home to Scotland for the summer,  her new job as a kindergarten teacher at the American School wouldn't start until fall, and her hubby was one of those who only came home for one week a month.

Of course, I didn't know any of this at the time, but I'm guessing that Mr. Toad told his little wife that she needed to meet me, 'cause not long after he got back from the platform, John came home from work with an invitation.  We had been asked over for hamburgers and homemade ice cream, to the house of some girl that neither of us had ever even met!  I thought that was kinda strange.

Little did I know, it was to be one of the most important meetings of our lives -- the one that would lead us to our very best friends of nigh on 35 years now, our wonderfully fun, crazy, quirky soulmates, Paula and Tim!

AT LAST

Dearest Friends,

Early the next morning, our friend JH showed up with the shipments.  I couldn't believe they were finally here! (well, all except the dining room set)  That same afternoon, he stopped back by to hook up our stereo, so I could have music while I unpacked.  From that point on, either he or my friend BD's husband would stop by almost daily, to bring mail or phone messages.  I had a feeling my hubby had asked them to keep an eye on his poor, defenseless little wifey while he was gone!  Did I mention that BD, my best (and pretty much only) friend, had gone back to the states to have surgery, and might be gone a couple of months?  Needless to say, I was one lonely girl, and was thrilled to death to have all this unpacking, arranging, and nesting to do, to help pass the time while both John and BD were away.

The day after the shipment arrived, I spent several hours out at the naval base/American school, talking to prospective employers.  The jobs all sounded dead boring -- nothing I would ever have considered back in the states -- but I was getting pretty desperate by that point.  Plus, there were certain perks that came with a navy job.  For one thing, you could get and send mail via their APO system, which was waaaaay quicker and more reliable than our usual method.  Even better, you could shop at their commissary on base, which occasionally got very cool stuff, like Dr. Pepper!

When I was about halfway through my typing classes, I noticed that the sign was back up in the window of that salon/boutique I had been so interested in.  Guess the first person they hired didn't work out.  I sent them my new, improved resume', and crossed all my fingers and toes.  A few days later I was asked, not only to come in and talk with them, but also to come back and discuss a job in the counselor's office at the school.

John finally made it back after a full two weeks offshore, and man oh man, was it good to have him back!  He seemed pretty darn happy to be there, too.  I'm not sure he was really cut out for the offshore life, so was quite happy that it was a one-time thing for him, and not his regular gig.  I couldn't imagine living in a foreign country by yourself, and only getting to see your husband one week out of every month, the way some women did.

The next morning I went back to the school, and they offered me the job.  Such a quandary I was in!  I desperately wanted the job at the boutique, but wasn't sure they were all that impressed by my interview.  What to do, what to do?  I turned the school down.

A few hours later, when John came home for lunch, I was a nervous wreck about telling him I had passed up a sure thing.  Fortunately, he had a message in his hand, asking me to stop back by the boutique at my earliest convenience.  I was over there in two seconds flat.  Not only did I have a job, I was to start the very next day!

DOWN TO THE WIRE

Dearest Friends,

Remember the typing classes I mentioned a while back?  Well, oddly enough, those classes became the high point of my days after a while -- which only proves how desperate I was to get out of the house!  If you recall, I was alone in an Arabic speaking neighborhood, with no car, no phone, and none of my personal belongings.  The few expat friends I had made all had jobs already, and the Bahraini women in my hood, if I ever managed to catch them out of the house, were not exactly what you would call chatty.  By mid-June, though, things were starting to look up.

The first excitement was hearing that there was a neat little handicrafts shop deep in the heart of the souk, if you could find it.  Expats couldn't own businesses there, but this one was opened by a British woman who just happened to have a Bahraini husband.  Since I was sick to death of macrame by that point, we immediately went out in search of it.  Not only was I able to stock up on needlepoint supplies, I also found some very "groovy" candle-making kits, and some hooked-yarn pillow kits that looked like shag carpet on steroids.  I remember thinking they were pretty "far out" at the time.  What can I say?  It was the 70s.

My other lifesaver was the American Club.  Slowly but surely I was getting more and more involved in the activities they had to offer there, such as the American Women's Association and all their various meetings and demonstrations, including Mah Jong lessons!  It was hotter 'n hades out by this time, and our neighborhood had frequent power outages.  When I just couldn't take it anymore, I could walk over to the nice cool club and have a coke, check out some books, and call about a few more job possibilities.

Towards the end of June, we finally heard that our shipments were really coming this time.  Unfortunately, they were to arrive right around the same time that they were planning to send John out to work on an offshore platform for a week or two.  I prayed that the shipment would come first, since I wouldn't have a clue how to get it delivered and unpacked without him, and had no way to communicate with anyone at the office!

It showed up on Thursday morning, July 1st, but since that was the beginning of their weekend, it wouldn't clear customs until Saturday morning, and John was to leave that very afternoon!  Can you imagine my frustration?  Fortunately, we had something to distract ourselves with on Friday.  In honor of America's big Bicentennial celebration, both the American Embassy and the American Club had planned all kinds of festivities, from Bingo to barbecues.  But on Saturday we waited...and waited...and waited.  No shipment.  When we could wait no longer, I took John to catch his boat for the hellish trip out to the platform, and did my best to stay cheerful.  I didn't think he really needed to be worrying about me, while he was busy puking his toenails up -- even if I had no earthly idea how I was going to make it through the next two weeks without him.

BON JOUR, MES AMIS

Dearest Friends,

We are finally back from our two-week riverboat cruise through southern France.  It was wonderful, but I missed you all terribly.  Being in Paris again triggered a trip down memory lane, to the last time we were there.  It was part of a month-long adventure through Europe, on our way home from Bahrain.  I'd love to tell you more about it, but that would be getting ahead of myself, now wouldn't  it?

MISS BECKY IS GOING ABROAD

Dearest Friends,

I'm not kidding, we are!  We're off on a grand adventure -- a riverboat cruise through southern France.  The only bad part will be missing my blog friends terribly.  See you at the end of the month!

SOME DAYS YOU'RE THE WINDSHIELD, SOME DAYS YOU'RE THE BUG

Summer was getting off to a great start!  Too bad it had to go and take a nose dive.

Good news first.  We had visitors from SSFY!  The first to show up was FM, one of the Irish engineers that we liked so much.  He had been transferred here to Bahrain, so when we heard he was arriving, we jumped at the chance to be his welcome wagon.  We gave him the grand tour of Manama, took him to a baseball game, and then to a barbecue dinner and dance at the American Club.

The next to show up was a bit of a surprise.  Remember the Three Musketeers?  The guys John started work with back in Houston, who then all went to SSFY with him?  S and A were the ones who caught malaria, and BW is the one who's now-ex-wife refused to step foot in Indonesia.  BW had not been transferred to to Bahrain, but perhaps he was scoping it out as a possibility, for he decided to stop in for a few days on his way back from a business trip to Tehran.

The biggest shockeroo came when this fellow showed up on our doorstep, but he wasn't a friend from Indonesia.  He was my sister's on-again-off-again Dallas architect boyfriend, for about fifteen years.  As it turned out, his firm had sent him to oversee the construction of some housing they had designed in Saudi Arabia, but there were some issues with his visa, so he had to leave the country for a few days.  This was before the causeway between Saudi and Bahrain had been completed, so to get from one to the other you boarded an airplane, went straight up in the air, then pretty much came straight back down.  Anyhoo, he was definitely a surprise!

On May 31st my friend BD gave me a lift to the beauty salon at the Gulf Hotel, so I could have my hair done.  That evening John and I got all gussied up (not in that outfit though -- I'd have been stoned if I'd gone out with that much skin showing!), then went to the Hilton hotel to dine on Chateaubriand and visit with the same waiters we'd dined with on our honeymoon in Singapore.  It was our first anniversary!  I couldn't believe we'd already been married a whole year.  I guess it's true, time does fly when you're having fun.  John's gift to me was that beautiful brass lamp for our entryway.  If that weren't enough, on June 2nd we got word that our air shipment was due to arrive in about five days, and all the furniture we ordered would be here around July 1st!  Happy dance, happy dance!

Two days after the shipment was estimated to arrive, John came home and dropped a bombshell.  The ship with our goods never showed up.  That meant another month of waiting, at the very least (unless we found out it had sunk somewhere).  According to my diary, I cried all through lunch.  And, oh yeah, our car was in the shop again.

SANDS OF TIME

Dearest Friends,

Some of my very favorite photos of Bahrain are these that John took of an old palace, or what's left of it, that had belonged to the Sheikh's great grandfather.  Sometimes, if I stare at them long enough, they actually come to life for me, and I can imagine just what it might have been like to be a woman living there, in the late 1800s.  I'm usually pretty relieved when I snap back to my senses!

The Courtyard at the Center of the Palace

Looking Into the Courtyard

Part of the Living Quarters