With apologies to Karen Carpenter

Unfortunately, when the working week starts on a Sunday and precipitation comes in 15 second "do you feel something?" batches, she was wrong on both counts.  That being said, it has been a long month and a bit since I posted here.  This blog became as dusty as my apartment once I was able to leave the windows open on a regular basis.  The lifespan of a mopped floor in Cairo is about 9 days - by day 10 the frequently walked paths in my apartment are easily discerned.

If there were a teaching equivalent to baseball's 'dog days of summer', that would be an ideal description for my November.  When I returned to university, there always came a time around week seven when I just wanted the class to be over.  It wasn't close enough to the end for me to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and the novelty of the subject had long worn off.  Well I found myself feeling the same way as a teacher.  The daily routine of the class and the roles of each member were well-defined and lacked originality (including my own), and my sense of humour had evaporated.  Looking back now, I know exactly why the downturn occurred.  And during that stretch, at least I had been warned that you should never contemplate quitting during your first two years or I would have wandered down that path with foolish abandon.

In retrospect, I can give myself a gentle kick in the butt.  For those of you that don't know, I enjoy sleep apnea on a nightly basis, which means the joys of a CPAP machine.  Let's just say that someone forgot to check his machine's humidity level.  Along with that oversight, the dust in the apartment had helped clog the filter beyond belief.  Add a month's sleep deprivation to everything and yeah ... it was a long month.  At least it's over now.  I'm thrilled to say farewell to the depression-like symptoms and that overall feeling of bleech.

In the interim, my sweetie has come and gone and we had a fantastic couple of weeks together.  In many ways, she helped restore my enjoyment of living here I was once again able to remember my initial views of Cairo through her eyes.  Yes, there will be a few vignettes posted from our pre-vacation week along with one or two describing the cruise.  We only took about 500 pictures during the couple weeks (and I dread the thought of tagging and cropping them already).  I've increased my stock of Egyptian attraction ticket stubs fourfold and we enjoyed a ton of highs and lows during the cruise.  I'll throw in a few teasers now to whet your appetites:

"five star ... I wonder who was counting"
"you picked a fine time to leave me Lucille's"
"impressive handcrafted workmanship.  The Nefertiti statues even had the same flaws."
"how many camels did she cost you"
"Canada dry never die"

In closing, x-mas occurred while I was silent.  In the category of strangest associations, my step-mother always insisted on including her Boney M Christmas album in the mix.  So, despite it not being included in the compilation, the song below will always be associated with x-mas in my mind.  I hope that you all had fantastic holidays and (family members only), Shannon is returning with gifts in hand.

1970s baroque at its finest

Problem based learning (or experience is a harsh teacher)

So, I was having a fairly good day today.  I found an optometrist that would fix my glasses for free (I have been wearing my back-up pair).  That same optometrist helped me find a barbeque lighter so that I can actually use my stove.  Found the recommended emergency stomach medication, found alarm clocks at a good price and even located a couple of promising clothing stores.  Wow, things were looking up for me today.  Sadly, I tried to stretch my luck a bit too far.

On the way home, I met our doorman in the hallway and figured that I'd ask him to borrow a screwdriver to repair my shower curtain rod.  Although the mathematician in me appreciated the opportunities to consider triangles in more than one plane, the shower rod functions far better when it's parallel to the ground and not threatening to fall out of the wall at any moment.  I was thrilled to realize that he understood my need for a screwdriver and he even popped upstairs to help me fix it.  Unfortunately, when he needed to return downstairs to find some shims to fix it, I followed him into the hallway and the door closed behind me.

Well, I learned very quickly that I hadn't needed to obsess so much about my door not being locked when it was closed because I couldn't open it from the hallway when it was unlocked.  So there I was, outside my door with very little money in my wallet, no ID, no cell phone and no keys.  Given that all of my contact information was on my cell phone, I had no way to contact anyone.  For the first time, I experienced a huge dose of 'what can I do panic.'  After some time trying to discuss things with my doorman (who doesn`t speak English), we found someone who directed him to someone else who would try to break into my apartment.  I wasn't comfortable with the process, but I was getting desperate.  After waiting a half hour, the fellow arrived and within 10 minutes realized that he couldn`t break into the apartment.  Silver linings were appreciated today.

The second hour of being locked out of my apartment saw the start of my wanderings.  I had some vague ideas of where a couple of people lived in my area ... but I learned quickly that I couldn't figure out which buildings they lived in.  I wasn`t quite at the point of desperation, but it was coming soon.  I had a feeling that I knew where one person lived but they were a 15 minute cab ride away and I wasn`t quite ready to risk a trip there when I wasn`t certain that he would be home.

Hour three gave me a huge reminder of why I truly enjoy living in Cairo.  As I had nowhere else to turn, I wandered down to the local pharmacist as he speaks fairly good English.  I was a little worried when the afternoon pharmacist wasn`t there and the night pharmacist`s English wasn`t as good.  At that moment, a customer asked me why on earth I would be looking for a locksmith in a pharmacy.  Once I explained my situation to him, the customer translated my situation to the pharmacist ... who knew of a locksmith in the area.  So, my journey to the appropriately named Freedom Fish Market started.  Within an hour, I had found the locksmith, they had given me a ride home and my lock cylinder was replaced.

Well, teachers` college taught us to be reflective so ... here goes

• Lesson 1:  Always have a spare key or two.  I now have three keys to my front door - one for my key ring, one for my wallet (as I always have it), and one that I will place with someone for safe keeping just in case.
• Lesson 2:  Carry your cellphone everywhere - even within your apartment.  As someone that isn't used to carrying one, I never realized how valuable it was until I was lost without the ability to contact anyone I knew.
• Lesson 3:  Keep back-up contact information on hand.  I had been intending to place some contact information in my wallet for the past week - it`s now been done.  
• Lesson 4:  Take a deep breath.  Had I sat back and considered my options more fully, I would have likely found the locksmith (that was only 3 blocks away).  Now that my mind is a bit clearer, I can remember all the times that I`ve found someone willing to help me (even when I didn`t require it) and likely could`ve found someone to direct me a lot sooner.  In addition, the initial attempt resulted in additional damage to the door.

So, after a long day, it`s time for bed.