Community | Cultural Glimpse

February 4, 2013

The Bible, Snow and Blueberry Coffee

I’ve been really enjoying the church sermons on Sundays. Today I thought this verse particularly interesting.

2 Timothy 3:1-5
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

Before the Super Bowl, I took a half hour walk outside even though it was snowing. The air was crisp, the sky was grey and there were small lanterns placed in some of the neighbors’ front yards. There were distant dog barks, but no animals or people were in sight. I later went to Kinko’s to get files for classes I’m enrolled in printed and afterwards walked to the next door Seven Eleven. A large coffee maker marked blueberry caught my eye. It was empty. The cashier said he could make a new pot for me, it would only take a minute. Then he offered to sell me a bag of Arabica blueberry flavored coffee, which makes at least a pot or more, for 99 cents.

“Can I have two?” I asked.

He easily agreed and I returned home. My husband wanted to bet on the Super Bowl. He’d made a comment earlier that Baltimore would win, so I asked, “Which uniform color is that?”

“The white and navy,” he said.

“Then I pick Baltimore.” He picked the other team. I won $500. But I’m going to ask for an exchange. I want to have three days off from doing housework.

It was a pleasant day. Amen.

2 Comments

February 3, 2013

Fighting the Whopper

I think I gained a few pounds. Actually, I know I have. My jeans felt tight today. I tried to remember if they were newly washed. Nope. I kept trying to find excuses to this recent change of size when the reality was I haven’t gone to the gym in a long time.

I took my kids and my nieces to Burger King, as I promised I would if they played in the basement for a little while and left me alone. I ordered food for everyone but myself. I was determined not to eat fast food, just to drink coffee and work on my laptop. Then one of my nieces came up to me. “I want a Whopper too,” she said.

It was a tricky situation. I had a buy-one-get-one coupon. Do I let the coupon go to waste or do I risk getting the extra whopper and eating it. I figured wasting a coupon was not a wise housewife thing to do, so I ended up with two whoppers by the time I returned to the table. I took my seat and worked on the computer, writing away while wondering who was going to eat that extra whopper. I’ll give it to my husband, that’s what I’ll do, I decided. Or I’ll drop it off to my mom’s house. She’ll think that’s such a nice daughterly gesture. It was settled. Someone else was going to eat the whopper and I’ll get extra brownie points for thinking of them.

Before walking out of Burger King, I took one of the kids’ empty drink cups and refilled it up with lemonade, my favorite drink when eating out. That should have been a warning. In the car, I thought what a bad idea it was to give my mother an unhealthy sandwich. My husband should eat this sandwich, I decided, as I parked the car in the garage. Inside the house, the lights were all off. My husband was taking a nap. I quickly went inside, started the fireplace, added jalapeno peppers and mustard on the whopper and sat beside the fireplace with my lemonade. I gobbled that sandwich like I had not eaten for days. Even though it was cold by now, it was delicious. I was so happy to have lost to the whopper.

By the way, the Whopper was created in 1957 by Burger King founder James McLamore and sold for 37 cents.

2 Comments

January 29, 2013

Christmas is Officially Over

Schools were closed today due to the weather. I found this out at 5:31 am when I got a call with an automated message. Afterwards, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I ended up waking up late and even though I got some writing done, the background noise of Spongebob and Patrick, Dora and Diego, and “mom, I want this and that” got to be too much.

Shortly after my husband came home, I escaped with my laptop. I decided to go to McDonald’s since it’s right around the corner and a lot of people study there now-a-days. A woman around my age initiated a conversation. She is four classes away from getting her master’s degree and she only started going to college in 2005, when she was working full-time, had an eight-year-old son, and was a single mom. Her son is now 16 years old and she said that growing up in an environment where the two of them studied side by side was a very healthy experience for him. He’s very much ready for college already.

I felt better by the time I left McDonald’s. I came home and decided to finally take down the Christmas tree which my kids have begged me to keep in the living room. I tried to tell my son that it’s no longer Christmas, to which he responded, “Then why is there still snow, mamma?”

Until now, he often has me play Christmas songs in the car, although recently I’ve been firm about listening to my audio book – Michael Moore’s memoir “Here Comes Trouble.”

Christmas is officially over in my house, and the house is so quiet that I don’t want to go to sleep and miss out on the beauty of its silence.

1 Comment

January 26, 2013

Greektown and the Auto Show

Over twenty years ago, when I was a student at Wayne State University, my friends and I frequented Pegasus in Greektown. We loved their traditional Greek cuisine and music, the staff who mostly had a Greek or Arab accent, the open kitchen and cozy atmosphere and the periodic shouts of “Opa!” and the flame that we worried would catch our long Mediterranean hair.

But Greektown was not always Greek. In the 1830s, German immigrants settled in that area. Little by little they began moving out and in the 1880s Greek immigrants began taking their place. By the 1920s, the area was becoming primarily commercial rather than residential, and the Greek residents began moving out. Yet their restaurants, stores, and coffeehouses stayed put. In 1960 the Greektown neighborhood was reduced to one block, beside it the big Greek Orthodox Church that was founded in 1910.

After I had kids, I just couldn’t get to Pegasus as easily as when I was single. I think I might have gone without a genuine Greek dinner for a period of two years. Luckily, that hasn’t been the case for over a year now. Yesterday was one of those special nights where not only did I enjoy a dinner at Pegasus but I also got to go to the Detroit Auto Show for the first time in my 32 years living in Michigan.

The first auto show was held in Detroit in 1907 at Beller’s Beer Garden at Riverside Park and since then annually except 1943-1952. It was renamed the North American International Auto Show in 1989. Since 1965, it has been held at Cobo Center where it occupies nearly 1 million square feet of floor space.

We took the People Mover, an automated system that encircles downtown Detroit, to Cobo Center. It was packed with people trying to get to the Auto Show. Last time we rode it on a Sunday afternoon it was empty. The Mover costs $12 million annually in city and state subsidies to run. In fiscal year 1999-2000 the city was spending $3 for every $0.50 rider fare, according to The Detroit News. The system was designed to move up to 15 million riders a year. In 2008 it served approximately 2 million riders. I wish it was always as busy as it was yesterday – like the transportation systems in cities like New York.

The car show was a wonderful new experience for me, despite not having a big interest in cars. My brother said that the show has come a long ways since he last attended over ten years ago. Who knows – maybe one day all the corrupt people will be gone and Detroit will be at its peak once again!

1 Comment

January 22, 2013

Premature Births

My great nephew Jude was born last night, six weeks earlier than his due date. Good thing his mother, my niece and goddaughter, had the baby shower the Sunday before that. Initially the baby shower was scheduled for yesterday but the date was changed to accommodate a relative’s trip.

We went to visit Jude at the hospital but were not permitted to see him. Because he’s premature, he is placed in the intensive care unit and no one, not even his parents, are allowed to hold him. He is on IV and has not yet had anything to eat, poor thing.

Historical figures who were born prematurely include Johannes Kepler (born in 1571 at 7 months gestation), Isaac Newton (born in 1643, small enough to fit into a quart mug, according to his mother), Winston Churchill (born in 1874 at 7 months gestation), and Anna Pavlova (born in 1885 at 7 months gestation).

In the UK, the debate regarding resuscitation of babies born at 23 weeks was highlighted by Dr Daphne Austin, an NHS official who advised local health authorities on how to spend their budgets in 2011. She argued that babies born at 23 weeks should not be resuscitated because their chances of surviving are so slim and that there is sufficient evidence that keeping the babies alive can do more harm than good. UK official guidelines for pre-term babies state that medics should not attempt to resuscitate babies born before 22 weeks, as they are too under developed. Babies born between 22 and 25 weeks should be given intensive care as routine.

As a result of this decision, when Sarah Capewell gave live birth to her son at 21 weeks 5 days gestation, the baby boy was denied treatment. According to the mother, he was breathing unaided, had a strong heartbeat, and was even moving his arms and legs. If he had been born two days later, they would have treated him. However, untreated, he died in her arms within two hours of birth. This took place at James Paget Hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk, in October 2009.

She says that during her premature labor she was told that she was not allowed injections to try to stop the labor or a steroid injection to help strengthen her baby’s lungs because she had not reached 22 weeks into pregnancy. After her son’s birth, her increasingly desperate pleas to assist her baby were met with a brusque response from doctors, who said she should consider the labor as a miscarriage, rather than a birth.

Over 60% of preterm births occur in Africa and south Asia, but preterm birth is truly a global problem; countries with the highest numbers include Brazil, India, Nigeria and the United States of America. Over the past decade, some countries have halved deaths due to preterm birth by ensuring that health workers are skilled in the care of premature babies and by improving supplies of life-saving commodities and equipment. These include Ecuador, Oman, Sri Lanka and Turkey. In the wealthy world, the increase in premature births is linked to rising rates of diabetes and obesity, stress and other complications that require early delivery, often by C-section.

Thank God, my niece had a natural birth and the baby, at 6 lbs., 3ounces, will be just fine.

3 Comments

January 13, 2013

Multigenerational Homes

My mother with my daughter

On Wednesday night, I went to visit my brother who had just been released from the hospital for a minor health issue. He lives less than a mile away with his wife and their three children and with my mother. Before I got married eight years ago, I lived with them as well. That’s the eastern tradition. Whether you’re a man or a woman, you live under your parents’ roof until you get married.

Shortly after I arrived to their home, I took off my shoes and curled on the couch as my children went to play with their cousins. I was exhausted and needed some rest and this was the one place where I can feel free enough to sleep well and be attended to. When I returned home, I tried to do research on when it became a norm in America and other western countries for children to start leaving their parents’ homes at age eighteen – a custom that easterners cannot fathom.

I couldn’t find the answer to that, but a report published in London, co-written by associate professor Enrico Moretti of the University of California-Berkeley, found that eight in 10 Italian men ages 18 to 30 live with their parents, compared with one in five in Great Britain and one in four in the USA. There were a lot of articles discussing the fact that these days a lot of adult children (14 million) are still living at home for economic reasons. Dr. Phil has an article out called “Steps to Independence: How to Get your Adult Child Living on their Own” where he talks about the simple steps both parents and their kids need to take to make their lives more productive, fulfilling and healthy.

But what better way is there to have a more productive, fulfilling and healthy lifestyle than when you grow up amongst children and elders, amongst birth and death? This type of lifestyle can teach a person the type of independence, responsibility, love, cooperation, maturity, and respect that no book, class, school or doctor can teach.

3 Comments

January 11, 2013

Rochester Writers’ Group

The day didn’t start off quite well. My daughter and I argued in the morning over her wanting to stuff her snowsuit in her backpack to take to school. There was no room left for her shoes, which she would slip on after she took off her boots in class. I ended up squeezing everything in, yet we still managed to be upset at each other. So before I took my son to nursery, I dropped off a card at her school to tell her how much her dad and I love her.

I spent a few hours at Panera Bread working on my book before I picked up the kids from school, then went home and prepared dinner. I was hoping I would have a chance to stop at Barnes & Noble for the writers’ group meeting that is held on the second Thursday of every month at 7:30pm. Although I joined this group over fifteen years ago, I have not attended in a very long time. I have however made it to the Christmas potluck almost every year. The potluck is always at Marie Gates’ house. She has been leading the group for the last 26 years.

It is in this group that I first dared read my work to an audience. There must have been at least ten people when I read the rough draft of Chapter One of my first novel, The Feminine Art. I was so nervous that I had to stare at the carpet as I awaited my turn so that I would not lose my courage. The experience was powerful. The listeners gave me so much constructive criticism that I became a regular attendee.

The Rochester Writers’ Group started out at the Rochester Hills Library and in the process of rebuilding a new library, the meetings were held in different members’ homes, and then they finally settled at Barnes & Noble. It was led by a couple who later decided they wanted to travel and so handed the job over to Marie Gates. When I met her, Marie was working on her first book, Shadows on My Mind. She has since published a second, Are We Our Past? Marie Gates managed to be a wife and mother while earning an M.A. in psychology. For several years she taught in colleges and universities and she has spent the past thirty years exploring reincarnation.

Last Christmas when I went to her house, I enjoyed drinking wine, tasting good food and talking to “intellectuals.” I learned from others’ personal experiences things about China, Poland and Russia. Over tea, I expressed my ideas about starting this blog, received the usual support and honesty that I’ve gotten from this community over the past 15 years, and returned home thankful that I have friends who understand my career that live just around the corner.

3 Comments

January 8, 2013

Food, Prayer, Marriage

Ever since snow arrived, my children wanted to build a snowman. So Sunday we gave them a substitute snow activity – sledding. Needless to say they had a great time. Myself, who as a young girl rode roller coasters at Cedar Point, simply videotaped their adventure. Yes, I was too scared to slide down the hill that my three-year-old and six-year-old thought nothing of.

Yesterday was so packed with activities there was no way I could write a new post at night. We bought the children snow gear, took them sledding with their cousins, I discovered black tomatoes at the produce market and we attended a small 500 guest Chaldean American wedding (usually they’re 700 plus). And most importantly, church!

“The Life of Abraham” lecture series started at Freedom Christian. As the pastor spoke of Prophet Abraham, I thought of my ancestors’ land, Ur of the Chaldees in Iraq, where Abraham originated. This city, which is mentioned several times in the Bible was one of the great urban centers of the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq and remained an important city until its conquest by Alexander the Great a few centuries before Christ. Ur was eventually incorporated into Babylonia. The Ziggurat of Ur, believed to be 4,000 years old and originally a temple to the moon god, has become a symbol of honor for Iraqi ingenuity and culture, as well as being the birth place of the prophet Abraham.

During the lecture, the pastor said something very important about marriage.

“Your marriage is not your true identity. It is not the job or your wife or your husband to make you happy, not that they should attempt to do otherwise. Your hope of who you are should be based on your relationship with God.”

I agree. Many marriages fail today because a lot of pressure is placed on what spouses should do and not do for each other. In the movie Eat, Pray, Love, Julia Roberts plays a married woman who is not happy in her marriage. She wants a divorce to go out and find herself but her husband desperately does not want the divorce. He asks her, “Why can’t you find yourself inside our marriage?”

She could have.

“Enjoy your vacations,” said the pastor. “Enjoy your relationships, enjoy your work, but don’t make them the source of our joy or your status. God is the source.”

January 3, 2013

Freedom Christian

Christmas vacation is officially over. Schools were back in session today and I had a hard time putting my mind back into place, having lost it – in a good way – for the last few weeks. With no schedules intact, my children and I did pretty much what we wanted when we wanted, most of the time doing nothing but lounge around. I skipped church, the gym, the coffee shop.

Today I prepared to get back into our usual routine. Wednesday evenings is Bible study at Freedom Christian, a nondenominational church, which I started attending shortly after Halloween 2012. My sister-in-law first learned of this church some six years ago, after she got a tip that every Halloween they put up a huge tent and provide free donuts, coffee, popcorn, caramel apples, and candy for the kids. They also have free kids’ games, recently even a petting farm. Every year, we would take the kids trick or treating in the neighborhood and then meet up at the church. In the beginning, rarely any Chaldeans (Christian Iraqis) came to this tent. Then their numbers increased, to the point where it seemed they were the majority of attendees. I had a good vibe about the church and often wondered what it was like inside. Last Halloween, members of the church were passing flyers about a kids’ program and daycare center they had for all ages. I thought, “I’m in.” I had wanted to find a church where my children felt happy and welcome and hoped this would be it. It was.

I pulled to the back of the building and saw the parking lot empty. The church was closed. On the way home, I stopped at McDonald’s to pick up hot chocolate for the kids, as promised. At home, I parked the car, looked behind me and saw two children completely knocked out. I thought, how heavenly! They napped for two hours and I got to work on the book I’m currently writing.

Thanks, Freedom Christian.

3 Comments

Category: Community