Dubai Life: Marriage and teamwork, Dubai-style

Of all the things Sven and I are learning in Dubai, one of the best things has been increased teamwork.  When things go awry it's often really confusing and involves communicating with a LOT of people at the same time.  And most of the time, it's in English that is either very limited or very different - spoken extremely fast in syntax we're not familiar with.  And to navigate the volume and complexity, we've learned it works best when we do it together. 

When I consider how connected our life is now, I realize how separate we've been up until this 'adventure.'  Back home most of our time together was spent sharing meals, doing recreational activities (hobbies and fun stuff), and sleeping.  We did almost everything else by ourselves, and it was cool (mostly).  Perhaps because we'd become accustomed to doing it alone in our single lives, or because it could be accomplished with little to no effort, or because we don't have children, or because we like being strong, independent women (haha, yes Sven too).

Now that we're in Dubai, we're becoming much more dependent on each other and it's a really surprising (and sometimes frustrating) experience.  To put it simply, I think it's because 1) two heads are better than one, and 2) we want to have and give support while we trying these new and flabbergasting tasks that we might not get right.  But I've always prided myself on being fairly independent (or fiercely, depending on who you ask) and this is far out of my "I can do it all by myself" comfort zone.  It's hard learning/allowing yourself to rely on someone in this way, and there's definitely a weight/sense of obligation in being relied on in return.  But what I'm learning, very slowly, is that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing.  The weight of obligation/dependency doesn't have to be heavy.  Building and having this kind of trust can be a powerful thing; a beautiful thing.

And it's weeeeeeeird.  But in a good way.

So today, as we tag-team to try and get the water back on in the villa (day #3 without water) get Steve's car towed to the shop, have a rental car delivered, take Phoebe to the vet, etc - I can't help but smile at how far we've come.

Except while driving.  We cannot, for the life of us, figure out how to drive harmoniously. 

Mostly, we settle for good GPS and very few passenger comments

Dubai Life: The constant battle for AC and water

A few months ago, we bought Sven a used Volvo S80 from a neighbor (remember?).  So far we've been pretty satisfied and it's done a great job ferrying Sven on his long commute.  But the AC has been finicky and this week it stopped cooling entirely (which basically means death during a Dubai summer).  We just got an estimate for fixing all the broken parts and the quote was equal to 40% of the car's total purchase price.

Aaaaand to make everything more *awesome* the water in our villa stopped working yesterday.  Again.  For the 3rd time in less than 5 months.  We applied all the tricks we learned (and the gardener checked too) but this time it seems like a motor malfunction instead of "we're new and dumb."

This is exactly what it looks like

Which is whatever.  Mostly, it ruins my plans to do this.  

And flushing. It ruins flushing.

Naturally, I decided to deal with it by avoiding it for a whole day.  Steven and I went to the gym, took showers, ate a healthy lunch, and then came home to this.

And now on day #2 I am waiting for the maintenance team to come look at the water pump.  I expected them 2-3 hours ago, which is pretty normal here.

But in other tidbits of Dubai life - I have these fantastic new Palazzo pants that I loooooove.  They are so comfortable it feels like a trick; I can't believe they're acceptable in public.

Lately: I got a bad haircut

Oh hair.  With great hair I can conquer the world, but bad hair means I want to hide under a rock.  And I don't think it's just me - so many of my friends have used their hair as a means to recover from some of life's disappointments (like a breakup).  Sometimes that means cutting off 6 inches and sometimes it means dying it purple.  What is it about hair that helps make it feel better?  Eh, I won't go too far down this rabbit hole, but here's a fun little story about my recent hair struggles in Dubai...

As most of you know by know, I've had more free time since we've moved to Dubai.  Which really just means I have extra time to admire these glorious bangs (or fringe, or whatever).

And about a month ago I decided to give myself some bangs while Steve was at work...with office scissors.  It was totally fine (really).

When Steven came home he immediately and very sensitively asked "...is everything...OKAY?"

He's savvy.  He knows that sometimes new hair = fragile

But my new do was born out of courage and not instability. AND I LOVED IT.  I went to a Japanese salon downtown a few days later to clean the bangs up properly.  And afterwards my hair was perfect.

A month later, it was time for a trim.  And because I figured 'it's just a bang trim' (i.e. I'm stupid and sometimes forget all the bad haircuts), I went to a regular salon.  I mean, it's just trimming a little bit of hair and I brought lots of photos to show what I wanted - what could possibly go wrong?

Well my friends, the answer is everything.  ALL THE BANGS COULD GO WRONG.

Aaaaaaaand now I have hair like this.

But of course, I'm way less cool.

*sigh*  So naturally (or is it just me?) I felt this way for the rest of the day.

But really, it's my own fault because I know better.

Ugh, so I'm doing this while I wait for them to grow out.

The end.

Lately: Home Again

We are back in Dubai after a week in London and it feels surprisingly good (heavy emphasis on the surprised part).  Our trip was a lot of fun but at 9 days it was also fairly long.  Towards the end I was pretty tired and really looking forward to just coming home and snuggling with Phoebe.  

Yep.  Technically, I longed to be back in Dubai. 

WHAT.  IS.  HAPPENING.

In less surprising news, Phoebe is also pleased to be home.

Yes. I bought a new couch for the color, then covered it with an ugly sheet.