To say my life is unusual reminds me of an old joke. Noah is standing on the deck of his arc after gathering the boy and girl animals, plants and other paraphernalia etc etc etc. He holds out his hand and says:
He: Hmmm Looks like a few rain drops. Just a drizzle and it will pass.
This is my life
Me: Well that was slightly unusual but I am sure there is an explanation – just coincidence I guess.
I was wondering what was going on in this world of ours – had my statistics done according to country at one time in the distant past so asked my Computer Guru to run the numbers again and he did. This is what he came up with. It is a complete mystery to me. It is accurate, I am not Donald Trump or Elon Musk. I am totally, thoroughly amazed. First of all, where is this country known simply as Unknown where I have 88,371 visits? Please do not forget that visitors and visits are two different yardsticks. Other reliable statistic show that visitors do not just visit once but come back again, and again, and again. Those visitors stay on the site for a long time, this is not typical for blog sites. I have no idea what to make of this. I understand my United States numbers, I guess as I lived there and formerly spoke of US politics, used Andy Borowitz satire and heavily relied upon The New Yorker stories. Canada has not caught up but there are far fewer people and not been there for very long. Singapore is a complete surprise as I have never been there, barely know where it is and know no one from there (perhaps one woman and her much younger man friend, met in San Francisco. I am a little upset with the United Kingdom- excuse me I lived there, often vacationed there and the blog is London and Beyond. Get with it you Brits, and Scots by the way, You are letting me down. But I am most surprised by China. Need I remind you that China is not an English speaking country? I did visit China, an amazing trip sponsored by Dominican University in San Rafael. I was a student in their M.F.A. program and received class credit for the trip. I wrote a thesis on women’s rights and divorce in China, so learned a great deal of fascinating material. But that was about fifteen years ago – did not, of course, have the blog at that time.
I suppose I should get the statistics for the poor preforming countries, then aim my attention in their direction. After careful thinking believe that I should just keep doing what I am doing as it pleases my largest group – those that live in the country of Unknown. Unknown has some synonyms that more or less describe it uncharted, unmapped, untraveled, undiscovered, virgin; remote, exotic, outlandish, unexplored. I do laugh thinking that I have so many visitors living in a place called virgin which is also exotic and outlandish.
I absolutely and completely love this Riyadh Hilton Hotel. It is the best hotel I have ever visited in my entire life. It is huge, the breakfast buffet is the best, an enormous selection of every food. The Food and Beverage Manager pays special attention to me, probably because I have taken it upon myself to feature a ‘station’ every day of my stay on the blog. So far two, check them out. It is fun! I walked about the corridors and public spaces in sheer amazement feeling dwarfed by the grandeur of it all. The Manger, who is incidentally a most handsome Saudi man is assisting me with a major problem that I am facing but all will be well. As Shakespeare says; All is Well that Ends Well. What does that mean and where did it come from? A person can forget about how unpleasant or difficult something was because everything ended in a good way. It is the title of a humorous play by William Shakespeare about the relationship between the two main characters, Helena and Bertram.
Speaking of Shakespeare, it is impossible to believe what just happened. Wandering about this cavernous hotel I happened upon the gift store which is crammed with so many delights. Two purchases: a Snickers bar and a book in English (being that I do not read Arabic). There were many Arabic books but a selection of ones in English – which could be classified as classic literature. Portrait of a Lady, Lord of the Flies for example. But there was a play by Will, As You Like It. I had to buy it and did and it shall be pictured. There is something so unbelievable to be in Saudi Arabia in a luxury hotel go to the gift store and purchase a Shakespeare play.
The second unbelievable occurrence was at the breakfast buffet. An absolutely darling, amazing two year old was at an adjoining table with her Saudi parents. Her father is a manager of a hotel in a nearby city, her mother is a student. The darling girl is cared for by her maternal grandmother while the mother is in college. Needless to say, the parents spoke English. This little girl was so precocious: (of a child) having developed certain abilities or proclivities at an earlier age than usual. All of the synonyms apply to this little delight: advanced, old beyond one’s years, forward, ahead of one’s peers, mature, prematurely developed, ahead, gifted, talented, clever, intelligent, quick. She was ‘playing’ with her parents phone, showing me her baby pictures and repeating in English: pretty baby.’ But she has immense talent. She took my phone, played with it for a few minutes and returned it to me. It became an Arabic phone, it took her father a long time to be able to restore it to the English language. She was so well behaved, entertained herself. She absolutely loved ‘high fiving’ me – we did it using alternate hands. She and I exchanged constant blow kisses. We went to leave, I going to the lobby, her parents to collect their baggage for check out. She clung onto me and was not happy that I was leaving. I a photo of her with my phone and her mother sent me her passport picture but I would never invade this child’s privacy by putting it on this blog or Instagram. Grandparents do this constantly – I personally feel it does not honor the child’s right to privacy. How will they feel when they gor
More wonderful vignettes with the staff to report and many more coincidences.
I have such fun and joy in this my new life. It gets better every day despite a major setback which will be discussed upon my return to Canada.
By the way if anyone recognizes the Sultan Magazine thief they could contact the hotel with the name and they will give or forward it to me. As one employee said.
He: That magazine has got to be returned to you
Me: It does, it truly does!!
He: What will you do with it? Sell it for more than ten cents? It is worth a fortune.
Me: No I will return it to Saudi Arabia for placement in a museum. It is a national treasure! Days of their history that must be remembered.
Might blog again today. Now to lunch I think. Bye for now. Photos of Shakespeare and breakfast buffet stations.
