LSWism

This is our where the furniture and a whole lotta stuff will be delivered on Thursday. It's where I and four cats now sleep on a new king-sized bed in a two story villa that also has a new sofa, a five seater white sofa, "a helluva'n American sofa" as the Rose calls it.

Our block hasn't been greened yet. It's sort of like living on the beach without the entrancing slapping of the waves but with all the frustration of trying to keep sand outcha life.

Everyday, I sweep aside the colonialist designs of ants who are trying to establish hearth and home in our kitchen--cat food and water bowls being an excellent source of sustenance. They are as tenacious and unstoppable as the first Europeans who came to the New World.

The green in the photo, like all of the green 'round heah, is real grass, but it's artificially irrigated. Every tree, every patch of grass, every flower bed in the UAE has its own irrigation system pumping in desalinated water. In fact, all the fertile verdant fields here have been made by the hand of man and are tended to by a Bengali or Pakistani or Indian groundskeeper who spends up to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week patrolling his patch of green, trying to hold back the desert as it rightfully tries to reclaim the earth. After Ramadan, we too will have green in our neighborhood and our own groundskeeper. For now, the cats must remain indoors which is too bad, seeing how's the neighborhood. . .no, the city. . .no, the whole freaking country! is one vast litter box.

My wife, The Rose, has officially earned the title "LSW". Like other previous long-suffering title holders, she now knows all too well the heartbreak of the cardboard box, the sting of the parcel tape, the crackle of the bubble wrap, the shriek of the styro-foam.

Before I wafted into her life like a heavier-than-air chlorine leak, she'd lived in her one-bedroom cozy flat in Kuwait for over 10 years. During our four years of marriage, she has had to pick-up, pack up, load up and move along four times, three times changing cities, once changing countries.

The upshot, I keep reminding her--a firm believer in my own propaganda--is that we keep gaining more elbow room as we continue along the path of free housing upgrades. In three years, we've gone from a cramped two bedroom with a grungy elevator and water-stained walls to a spacious two bedroom with an elevator whose posh British accent would remind you to "Please push the button for the desired floor!", to a two story, three bedroom villa with a small yard and no elevator--and sand as far as the eye can see.

She can only see the dead land, the cruel wasteland. She knows that all it will take is one hearty sandstorm and we'll be buried alive, frozen in the moment like the people of Pompeii.

This move is gonna cost me a fortune in dog house roses.