Scruffy in Scottsdale

Photo: We learn all about Arizona style in the Abu Dhabi newspaper.

A supplement of my daily newspaper had a two-page feature on the recent Marlboro Classics summer collection fashion show at the Mall of the Emirates.

The writer commented that this boots and jeans look, which she described as “scruffy,” would look out of place at Dubai cafes. I’d have to agree. For example, I haven’t seen anybody wearing cowboy hats with their long robes here. (Baseball caps with long robes, yes, but cowboy hats, no.)

But I was far more interested on the author’s comments about Arizonans, whom she obviously felt typified the Marlboro Classic look. She wrote, “Any Arizonan will tell you that if something can’t be done on a horse, it’s probably not worth doing, which is how they feel about heading into town.”

Apparently, we Arizonans, are strangers to city culture “claiming the beds are too soft and the rooms too stuffy.” Okay, we like wide open spaces. This is why there are so many huge Mediterranean-style McMansions on golf courses there.

The writer continued, “When an Arizonan is all dressed up for a rare encounter with civilization, he wants his clothes to be comfortable as old boots.”

I can't speak for all of Arizonans, of course, but having lived five years in Scottsdale, I am familiar with the attire there. The comfortable part, at least, rings true to me. Scottsdale women wear comfy Yoga attire to Starbucks for their low fat decaffe café lattes to go. And they're likely to pop into the gourmet grocery après tennis still in their coordinated court attire.

Casual, yes. But I wouldn't exactly call them scruffy. At least not where they might overhear me and run me down, not with their horses, but with their BMWs.

Betty of Arabia, Part 2

Photo above left: Larry on the road in Dubai.

Photo above right: Betty at Mall of the Emirates.

Photo by Larry Perkins below: The ski slope inside the Mall of the Emirates.

Here’s some highlights of mom’s visit:

Dubai: We went to the mosque tour, saw the indoor ski slope at Mall of the Emirates and drove over to the Palm Jumeriah.

The Palm is a series of islands they are building in the shape of a palm tree on reclaimed land just off the coast of Dubai. Only a small portion of it is open, but they left us drive out on the “stalk” a bit. I was amused to see directional signs to “The Fronds.”

Spa Days: We have a manicure and pedicure ($20 each including tip) but decide against plunging our hands and feet into hot wax. We also go to my hair stylist at the Sheraton. It is a female only salon. Taylor once created quite a stir when he stuck his head inside looking for me. All the stylists are men so I guess they don’t count.

My stylist, Eddie, worked on each of us with an assistant standing by behind him, maybe in case he dropped a comb. Eddie’s scissors are clocked at about 80 miles per hour. After he’s done, we both look great.

Crafts: I show mom how to make Easter eggs using my Russian shrink-wrap designs. In the process, I only break about four eggs, proving once again why I don’t normally do crafts.

Transportation: I have to yell at cab drivers who, upon seeing Mom, decide we are tourists and try to overcharge me. This is despite the fact I give them my complicated address in ARABIC!

Souvenirs: I took Mom to Red Sea Carpets where she bought two brass Arabic coffee pots that the sales guy told her never to use to make coffee.

The Gold Souk: One place to get carats for your Easter bunny. We saw store after store of 22 carat jewelry in designs so ostentatious, even Texans couldn’t wear them.

School Spirit Week: Mom painted Taylor’s fingernails black (every grandmother's dream) as part of his punk rocker costume. She and I also act as consultants for his school’s Disco Day.

Delivery: As there are no Emirate cuisine restaurants, we order Lebanese food and introduce
mom to the joys of shawarma. Giving equal time to the U.S., the following week we have Popeye’s Fried Chicken delivered.

Sports: I FINALLY find someone I can beat in foosball. Mom claimed it was because she had fewer men than I did! Too bad she’s heading for home, leaving me in last place again.

Photo above: Taylor is ready for Disco Day.

Photo left: Nancy and Betty battle it out at the foosball table.

We Pose With Top Models

Photo: Nancy and Betty enjoy lunch at the Emirates Palace Hotel.

A couple of weeks ago, my mom forwarded an email she’d received from one of her cousins. It was titled, “This is NOT a hotel!” and went on to talk about the sheik’s family's home. The email had lots of photos to illustrate the point.

The only problem was the photos were all of the Emirates Palace HOTEL. I emailed my Mom back under the Know-It-All headline, “Is TOO a hotel.”

But I am not the only Smartie-Pants in the family. Having set my mother straight, she responded to her cousin, telling her that she and I were going to lunch in that very same palace.

And so we did. As usual, it was a wonderful experience which left me feeling, if not like a queen, at least like a sheika.

While at the hotel, we stopped off at the impressive exhibition on the Cultural District planned for the new Saadiyat Island off the coast of Abu Dhabi.

There were huge detailed models of everything. The free exhibition began in one room with a model of Saadiyat Island. The next room had a larger scale model of the cultural district with the five landmark museums, including the new Guggenheim and the Louvre. Following were rooms devoted to each museum with even larger scale models. The walls offered details of the design process and had video screens with computerized walk-throughs.

“Where is Alec? He would enjoy this!” I practically wailed. If they can design this great exhibit, why can’t they design a transporter beam to get Alec here to see it?

Photo above by Betty Case: Nancy keeps her finger on the Louvre on the cultural district model.

Photo left: Betty with the Guggenheim model.

Betty of Arabia

Photo by Betty Case: Taylor and Nancy dining al fresco.

To get to us, my mom had to drive two hour from Ponca to Tulsa, take a one hour flight to Memphis, and change planes for the ongoing nine hour flight to Amsterdam.

Arriving in the Netherlands the next day, she had a three hour layover before taking the 6 ½ hour to Abu Dhabi. After going through passport control, getting her luggage and clearing customs, it was a 30 minute drive to my apartment.

Door-to-door travel time was 30 hours, which is why it really doesn’t pay to come for the weekend. We decided to give her a whole day to rest up before dragging her around town. We began with an expat cocktail party at some friends’ on Friday evening where she learned the fine art of how to execute the impersonal double cheek kiss.

The following day, we had a lovely lunch of tandori chicken al fresco at a beachside restaurant. Sunday, which is a work day here, Mom and I took a traditional dhow cruise along the corniche to celebrate Mother’s Day. Conveniently for us, Mother’s Day is observed in March here.

Monday, Mom and I went to an open house at Pat’s villa. A longtime expat, for the past 20 years Pat has scoured local markets throughout the Middle East. She ships her purchases back to her home in Abu Dhabi where she brushes off the dust, jacks up the prices, and offers her finds to fellow Western expats. She holds a week long open house about once every four months.
As we happen to hit the week she’s open, I took Mom to Pat’s even though she is not a big antique collector. But while I was busy looking at a copper yak butter pot, Mom fell in love with a framed silver Omani necklace.

She stood admiring it for a very long time. “Isn’t that a beautiful piece?” she said when I dragged myself away from the copper. And it was. Pat told us it was a one-of-a-kind antique necklace made of silver with some gold plating and coral accents. Because Pat rarely finds old Omani silver jewelry anymore, it was more expensive than the framed Afghani tribal jewelry she also had on offer.

I thought the price was very reasonable. The elaborate framing alone in the U.S. would be as much as she wanted for the whole thing. So being a dutiful daughter, I talked my Mom into buying it.

This weekend, we will head for “Do Buy,” and we’ll see what further treasures we find there.

Photo above: Dhow cruise along the corniche.

Photo left: Celebrating Mother's Day onboard.

Be Our Guest

Photo: Betty in our guest room.

If friends and family can manage to get to Abu Dhabi, they are welcome to stay in our lovely en-suite guest room in our high-rise apartment.

But even in the U.A.E., there’s no such thing as a free lunch (or a free room).

The cost to stay with us starts with receiving and transporting services. Guests must lug one suitcase full of stuff over just for me. I choose the stuff, either by sending a grocery shopping list or, more likely, by online shopping shipped direct to the guest.

As a result, my guests get to be close, personal friends with the UPS Guy. They can also look forward to having their mailbox clogged with thick catalogues from anybody I order from for the next year. (After all those monthly Victoria Secret catalogues kept coming to her house, my mom said the mailman looked at her differently.)

Once my mail order stuff arrives, the guest must unbox everything, creating a hill of trash of which to dispose. Unpacking everything reduces the bulk by about 75%, so my items can now fit into the suitcase.

After the guest has arrived in Abu Dhabi, jet-lagged and having dragged the suitcase halfway around the world, we move to the NEXT guest obligation—watching Nancy and Larry’s home videos. This starts with our slideshow of our Christmas vacation in Egypt, set to loud Arabian music, and covers every high school production Taylor has ever graced.

And the guest obligations may not end there. My mother is visiting and we whined until she agreed to make us a fried chicken dinner. (At home she just gets her fried chicken at KFC.)

Is it any wonder we love visitors?

In the News

Item in yesterday’s Gulf News: The average wedding in Abu Dhabi costs 300,000 dirhams (U.S. $81,688). Almost half of local brides have a guest list of more than 500, and 15% are inviting more than 1,000 of their closest friends to the big event.

That marriage license is important. For one thing, you have to show it to get pre-natal care. And like friends of your mothers, medical personnel will count the months backwards to ensure your baby was conceived after marriage. This is not a free love kind of place. Shacking up here is punishable by jail time.

The Gulf News is one of two English language daily newspapers in the U.A.E. We get it delivered to our door. I immediately throw out about half of it. Every day there are numerous thick supplements covering real estate and classified ads.

I keep the two sections of news and the entertainment supplement. The Gulf News has all-around international coverage, although with a definite Middle Eastern slant. And because there are so many foreigners living here, “local” news includes coverage of life in India, Pakistan and the Phillipines.

I love the sports section which generously covers tennis, horse racing, rugby, soccer, falconry, boxing, baseball, basketball and American football. As it’s ICC World Cup time, there’s currently a lot of stories about cricket. I keep looking but haven’t seen any camel racing results yet.

The daily entertainment supplement covers both Hollywood and Bollywood stars with huge doses of Victoria Beckham and Kylie Minogue. There are also at least four pages devoted to the latest designer fashions fresh from this week’s runway.

I like newspapers. When Larry goes to Brussels, he’ll bring me back an International Herald Tribune as a treat.

But my favorite newspaper is The New York Times. They actually sell The New York Times here at expat grocery stores. I don’t buy it because each paper is three days old and cost more than $20.

I know The New York Times is available online, but reading it online is not the same experience to me. So until I am back in the U.S. this summer, you’ll find me reading all about the local traffic situation (a major concern in Dubai) in the Gulf News.

Photo: A scene from Nancy and Larry's 1980 wedding in Oklahoma. Even adjusting for inflation, this event cost considerably less than $81,000.

The Louvre Has Landed

It is true, mon frere. Abu Dhabi is getting a Louvre. http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6461822,00.html

But they’ll be a few differences. The original Louvre is housed in central Paris in a wonderful historic palace flanked by an iconic glass pyramid. Abu Dhabi’s Louvre will be housed on a newly developed outlying island in a building that looks an awful lot like a bomb shelter.

This building is so ugly I suspect it was designed that way on purpose. After all, a lot of French people aren't happy about this deal and the Abu Dhabi site was designed by a French architect.

Abu Dhabi is apparently sending the Louvre lots of money (who says you can’t buy class?) and the Louvre is sharing their famous name and some of their wonderful art. I think it’s a fair trade.

The Louvre has lots of great stuff so this deal won’t result in bare walls or empty niches for them. And they’ve already made it clear they aren’t going to be shipping off the Mona Lisa or Venus de Milo. If you want to see those things, and you really should, you have to go to Paris. Besides, you have to be almost dead not to find pleasure in Paris, despite the fact you are probably going to have to endure flying into Charles De Gaulle Airport to get there.

But even if it wasn’t surrounded by magical Paris, the Louvre on its own is worth a visit. And that’s probably what the rulers of Abu Dhabi are hoping by bringing a piece of it here.

Promises, Promises

When we signed up for cable television last August, we were promised a coupon book as part of our Premium package. I actually forgot about the coupon booklet. After weeks with no television, I was much more concerned about them just hooking up the cable so we could be reconnected with CNN.

But last week, a mere six months later, we received the promised coupon book. I scanned through it. It was a typical BOGO. In retail talk, that’s buy one (entrée, round of golf, etc.), and get one free. This may not be a familiar concept here, as the booklet actually had examples of how this works.

While most of the offers were for businesses in Dubai, the booklet had a few coupons for Abu Dhabi. I moved on to the fine print.

Long ago in college when I thought my future would be as the childless owner of a chic Manhattan ad agency, I learned how to write the fine print. As a result, I got to be very good at reading fine print, a skill that served me well in my actual career as a housewife.

Because I am so good at reading the fine print, no smirking clerk ever gets the chance to tell me, “No, that’s not how it works. We aren’t doing that. The ad says… ” ‘Cause I’ve READ the small print.

But you didn’t have to be a former copywriter to quickly see the problem with these coupons. Every last one of them was expired. I called the cable company and requested a booklet with coupons that might actually be used for something other than paper coasters. But I’m not holding my breath. I have CNN. I don’t really need coupons.