So, What's Up With This Damn Economy Anyway?

So, I'm seeing that the whole "job thing" is desolate. My brother is
now heading out to California to work for a while and I've got friends worried about whether
or not they can hurry up and pay up their mortgage in order to only be one or two months
behind! It's not just in the US, either. Europe's job market can be described in a word: sucky.
Egypt has always had a fairly high unemployment rate....but now even Supermarket owners
are complaining that people are cutting back on food!!!! Now THAT is crazy. My question is
this: WHY is it that so many people are complaining about how broke they are and STILL
can afford cell phones, internet services, new clothes, shoes, Botox, new boobs, and fast food
meals each week?! Clearly, SOME of the people complaining about the economy are in fact
still living life as they have with little to no change. I'm one of those weirdos who can adapt to
any society (practically) and any situation. We moved to Egypt seven and a half years ago.
Having moved around all over the world my entire life, I never considered it to be more than
a slight headache or at most, a severe case of the hiccups. Most of my friends and family
thought that living overseas outside of the military or diplomatic community would bear to be
too much on us and the novelty would wear off and we'd be running back to the land of golden
arches, Wal*Mart (damn them all) and pantyhose sold in plastic eggs 24 hours a day. They
were wrong. While yes, I miss the hell out of most of the modern conveniences that I grew
to consider "normal", I have realized that I CAN live without them.
We have always lived "bare bones minimum" since we've been married. I think the only
extra we ever really had was a $24.00 a month satellite tv bill and an affection for flavored
fru-fru coffee beans. Still we always bought generic store brands vice Starbucks. Now that we
are in Egypt, we're even more skeletal in our purchasing. We own our flat outright. Paid for it
with cash in full 6 years ago. Great investment if you can pull it off. When we bought this place,
the price per square meter was a little under 1000 Egyptian Pounds. Today it's 3 times that!
Also, since we live in a city full of public transportation, we do not own a car. This saves a ton of
money on car payments, insurance, maintenance and gas. Of course, in the US, outside of New
York, downtown Baltimore, Boston or Chicago, this is not just an inconvenience. It's stupid.
Suburbia requires a vehicle. But NOT a Suburban or some other gas-guzzling SUV.
In Maryland, I bought ketchup on sale. In Egypt, I make my own. (Really easy, too. I mix equal parts of sugar and tomato paste, add a pinch of salt, pepper, cinnamon, ground cloves, cayenne pepper and 1 T of vinegar a little water to desired consistency and mix.) Now maybe
you're thinking, "How much can she possibly save making her own ketchup?" Well, here ketchup
is pretty pricey. So I can actually save quite a lot. One jar of tomato paste costs me the same as a small bottle of ketchup. That jar of tomato paste can make me the equivalent of 6 bottles of ketchup. I also have learned to make brown sugar (they don't sell it here) and clarified butter (just wanted to learn.) I bought a sewing machine and make my own bedsheets (fitted ones too)
and curtains and throw cushions and big cushions so the kids will stop fighting over "my seat"
when watching tv. And I'm no Martha Stewart, either. I did try to make a dress once. It took me
a year and a half and it came out really funky. Not bad on a first try but not anything I'm patient enough to try again anytime soon.
At the end of the day, I guess I probably average spending about 60 dollars a day here (if you look at the Egyptian Pound as equal to the US Dollar...which it isn't actually. That'd be 10 dollars
a day....but if you think of it this way...the amount of work to earn 1 dollar is the same as the amount of work to earn 1 pound.....it's all same.) That daily average covers food, bills, incidentals like dentist, medicines, stitches for the kid who refused to stop swinging like tarzan on his belt he'd attached to the hinge of his closet door, etc. Not bad, huh?
Granted I could quite easily return to the days of Sonic burger drive-thru trips once a week or pre-packaged shredded cheese from the grocery store and buying an automatic drip coffee pot with an alarm clock in it at 3 in the morning JUST BECAUSE I CAN.............but why? Why
not use the money for something better like spending a fun day at the zoo or the beach with my
kids and my husband. Really, it's all about prioritizing.

How Do YOU Spell Relief?

Well, it has been some time since I put anything on here. I guess
I've been really busy, lately...what with the new weight bench and
free weights to protect the kids from (read: protect from the kids.)
And then with the internet service provider collecting our monthly
fee (pre-paid, I might add) and then promptly switching the cable off,
I've had very little time to be on here. Oh, and what's with this green
font, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. I'm quite gassy....and I am feeling a
little on the green side.
Yeah, ewwww gross! Well, there's no reason to pretend here. I come
from a long line of farters. I'll omit their names to protect the (not-so)
innocent. BUT I inherited the fart-gene, baby....from BOTH sides of
the family. Now I've not yet inherited the gaseous genetic trait where
I race to the bathroom with lower cheeks pinched tightly leaving a "pop-
pop-pop-pop" sound trail behind me. (Our family has actually named
this trait after one of the family elders, however, since I'm attempting to
protect the family fart tree, I guess I'll have to omit that too.)
Anyway, we've got 'em all in our family: the loud, the louder, the machine
gun, the "oh, hell, who stepped on the dog", the not-so smelly, the smelly,
the s.b.d. and the "WHAT crawled up your ass and died". ANY type of
fart ever known to man can be claimed by anyone (or several) in my family.
My brother recently chewed me out on facebook for discussing his "rancid
ass" on the internet. Hmmmmmm. Truth be told, HE brought it up when he
reminded me of a fart he "dropped in my ear" during a trip we took together
to Arizona. My husband has been known to hear my bom-booferous,
window shakers from over two window unit air-conditioners (with about 8
spoons shoved inside each....THAT is another story that I'll call Why My
Kids and Spoons Caused Me to Declare Bankruptcy), a ceiling fan, a
snoring congested 1 year old and the movie DIE HARD cranked up on the
tv. I lied in my room laughing for 15 minutes after my own fart only to finally
think, "He must not have heard me. Maybe it wasn't as loud as I thought."
Only to have him poke his head in the bedroom door about 30 seconds later
and ask, "Are you okay? Did the roof fall on you?" DAMN. How embarrassing.
Well...THAT was nothing.
TODAY I was peeling potatoes for dinner and the washing machine was
making it's usual jet engine noises in the spin cycle and I had a CD playing
in the kitchen. I looked around to make sure my husband wasn't around (kids
are fair game...I'll fart around them just to get even for them walking in on me
in the bathroom or only peeing on MY side of the bed!) and I let 'er rip.
Well, I don't know what a ripped spleen or ruptured small intestine actually
feel like but I imagined it today. OH MY WORD! I doubled over and cried
against the sink it hurt my abdomen so bad. I must have shrieked without
realizing it because Hamo and my husband came running in thinking that I must
have cut myself. Then through the tears I started laughing. My husband asked
what happened and I told him he didn't want to know. He looked puzzled. So
somewhat embarrassed I told him, "I farted so hard I hurt my intestines."
He just rolled his eyes and muttered something in Arabic about "giving him
strength."
At least my son felt for me. He hugged me and said, "I'm sorry your farts are
so strong they fight back." Little snot. He snickered as he walked out. Laugh
if they must. But I may be the first person in history to ever end up in traction
due to bad gas!