While in Japan, Sproglette started eating. She took to boiled daikon, teriyaki chicken, and miso soup like a fish to water, like a jackhammer to cement, heck, like a Qatari playboy to a Toyota Landcruiser.
She's all growed up, already. What a change.
I cried all morning the day after we arrived back in Doha and then I fed Sproglette some porridge with cranberries in it. She ate it all up, just like Goldilocks.
Being in Japan reminded me of what I'm missing in life and that is basically the freedom to get up and go. We got up and went every single day. We walked, we took trams and trains and buses and ferries. We rode bicycles. But mainly we walked.
We needed to eat. We walked to a restaurant. We needed to relax. We walked to a park. We needed to take the train. We walked to the train station. We wanted needed some kinokonyama chocolate mushrooms. We walked to a convenience store.
We walked. Everywhere.
I didn't worry about getting hit by a car (although I probably should have as more than once I looked the wrong way before crossing the road.) Even when we were in a car, I didn't worry about getting into a car accident. It just didn't even cross my mind.
I didn't use the word motherfucker once in three weeks. I've already said it several times here. I may have said jackass in the context of 'wow, I can't believe he let you merge. He's no jackass.'
I can't tell you how many times I've said jackass in the space of two driving days here.
I hate that I have to pray to Allah and God, who are One and the Same, and do this little pagan ritual of circling my car with white light before I turn on the ignition so that I can drive to the Corniche just to go for a walk. I hate being scared shitless every time I get into a car, scared that my daughter will be hurt. Or worse.
Just to go for a goddamned walk.
Yesterday, we drove in manic traffic to a soccer match between Qatar and Japan--a soccer match we were denied entry to even though we had valid tickets. On the way, I told Hubs, these drivers are killers. They're not careless, they're not assholes, they're not stupid. They are killers. Murderers. They don't give a shit about anyone's life. Not even their own.
So ok, I do have a car and technically we can get up and go, but it's scares the crap out of me to drive here and put my daughter's life at risk. Unless I make a plan with someone else, I find it very easy to make an excuse that keeps us stuck in this apartment, our own personal guilded cage. And believe me, it's a lovely cage. But a cage.
I fucking hate it here and I'm turning off comments because really, what can anyone say to that.
After a day of walking, what better way to soothe aching muscles than to soak your feet in a free public hotspring foot bath in Kagoshima.
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