From here and there

المدونة العزيزة الزين، اصدرت اول عمل مطبوع  لها "فضة و شاهين" ، حضرت حفل التوقيع ، كانت امسية جميلة بحضور اجمل و ابتسامات دافئة، الرواية موجودة في مكتبة افاق في التلال

The sky today was amazing, I think my followers in twitter probably got bored from the number of pictures I posted of it, the best scene was near sunset, breathtaking! The picture doesn't even do it 10% of its beauty.

على الرغم من سخونة الاحداث السياسية في الكويت، بالنسبة لي جو الانتخابات هادي! فضلت الابتعاد كثر ما اقدر، النتيجة جميلة 

The best part about winter in Kuwait is the cultural events ALL over :} I am not covering all of the events I attend but from now on will do, starting from tomorrow!

اليوم شفت نوّير و شوية عشب غض! لونة اخضر شااااااب و منور الارض، استانست بشكل خيالي، بالذات بالنوّير ، النوير اهو علامة الربيع عندي، على الرغم من ان اللون الاصفر مو من الالوان المفضلة عندي و كان بفترة يستفزني! الا اني اتحالاه على النوّير

A tiny wish from me to every eye that got to this line, please take a look up at the sky before you start or end your day outside your house :}

Touching the sky

Touching the sky: A series of abstract posts, as abstract as the wish I have to touch the sky, when looking up, especially when there are "fluffy" clouds.

Character template. 

As one goes by life, meeting people is a normal thing, building templates of characters for those people is a common error. People vary in their characteristics, habits and ways of thinking. Fitting one, into a template of another person just because of “some” similarities we might see among the “original template builder” and the “new person” can be very harsh!

Most just and fair way to evaluate people or deal with them is to directly ASK, when something is vague, asking is a definite tool to skip assuming and eventually judging and the template fitting.

Always allow space for “different” in every case, for I have learned, that as much as we human beings are similar in terms of organs, characters, ideas and many other things, we are VERY different, else, outliers* wouldn’t exist. Judging someone with whatever you have seen before can be very harmful, especially if that judgement went over the boundaries of your ideas into actions or words :)

Never judge people, fit them into templates or say: 
yes, he is a man like all men OR she is a woman like all women. 

Instead, react with who you meet, what you see or hear, depend on your mind, feelings and reason (the order of those is up to you), the final outcome is your experience and true interaction, which is far much better than trying to fit people into templates and maybe hurt them, or worse, fool yourself and see nothing away from your own nose! 

*Used outliers as an extreme example for out of the normal cases.

Touching the sky

Touching the sky: A series of abstract posts, as abstract as the wish I have to touch the sky, when looking up, especially when there are "fluffy" clouds.



The sound of rain is more refreshing than rain it self, it tickles one sense, allures you to look outside and see the lovely gift of rain coming from the sky. Pleasure is about amusing all of the five senses, ecstasy hits you, when passion is involved.

When a rain drop touches your skin, smell the wet floor, see the the clouds sticking together to pour their heart out on us, hear the sound of it's drops landing on the floor, and finally when you feel a few drops slip into your mouth, take a deep breath and feel the joy of RAIN!

I love rain.

وطن الشعراء .. للفنان وليد عبدالرحمن الفرهود

زرت اليوم معرض الفنان وليد الفرهود في قاعة عبدالله العدواني في ضاحية عبد الله السالم، سمي المعرض بـ وطن الشعراء، ليحمل لوحات فنية من الخط العربي كتب بها ابيات شعرية لمجموعة من شعراء الكويت

 

اللوحة تحوي كافة الشعراء اللي شملهم الفنان في اعماله الفنية ، اللي تناصفت بين جمال الفن التشكيلي و الخط العربي 

الشعراء من الاعلى الى اليمين 

السيد عبدالجليل الطبطبائي

سعاد الصباح

فهد العسكر

زيد الحرب

حمود ناصر البدر

عبدالله العتيبي

يعقوب الغنيم

يعقوب السبيعي

علي السبتي

سليمان الهويدي

منصور الخرقاوي

حمد المغلوث

خالد سعود الزيد

خليفة الوقيان

احمد السقاف

محمد الفايز

عبدالعزيز البابطين

عبدالله زكريا الانصاري

احمد العدواني

صقر الشبيب

فهد بورسلي

استغرقت وقت طويل في تصوير اللوحات في المعرض و عندما راجعت الصور وجدت صعوبة في اختيار اللوحات التي سأشملها في هذه التدوينة! فجمالية الاعمال التي تدمج بين الخط، الفن التشكيلي و التصميم الهندسي صعبّت المهمة، ولكن اختياري وقع على التي كان أبياتها الاحب لنفسي...

وطني - فهد العسكر

وطني و ما أقسى الحياة     به على الحر الأمين 

ما راع مثل الليث يؤسر     و ابن آوى في العرين

 

كريم الأصل - عبدالعزيز البابطين

فإن كريم الأصل كالغصن كلما تحمل أثمار تواضع و انثنى 

شعوب الأرض - زكريا الأنصاري

تمضى شعوب الأرض للعلاو هذه امتنا لاهية

الحياة - يعقوب السبيعي 

إن الحياة بغير حب صادق تمضي سدى ايامها و شهورها 

اكثر ما لفت نظري في لوحاته الفنية التركيب الهندسي، رأيت في كافة اللوحات تركيبات هندسية معينه، و شدني دمج الزخارف مع الخط العربي و التصميم التشكيلي ، لوحات جميلة من الفنان الكويتي وليد الفرهود، انصح الجميع بالمرور للقاعة و الاستمتاع بها و التحدث مع الفنان الذي كان متواجدا للشرح و السؤال و الحديث عن فنه. المعرض مستمر حتى ١٩ يناير الجاري.

Izakaya ,, when delicious meets creative

I admire the work of Chef Ahmad Al-Bader, starting from The Burger Hub (love the patty! Best fulfilling burger ever) to Prime & Toast with a killer breakfast menu, love their poached eggs (on multi-grain bagel & the NY bagel with Zereshk), Pizzetta and now!!!! Izakaya.

The place is cozy, contemporary, with grey brown'ish look, small but elegant. The food? Is amazing, it blew us away and when they saw us taking pictures and admiring the food complimentary dishes were served from the Chef! I was up for tasting this new restaurant's food, I ended up having a FEAST

For the salad we took Rasberry and baby spinach
and

Green crisp salad

Both were amazing, right balance of greens/ dressing and.. FRUIT! You see the rasbery gave a bit of a tangy taste while the pears in the 2nd one gave this rich crusty flavor.

Shrimp popcorn ,, lovely,  the taste was not too surprising but also good, however the 3 sauces on the side made all the difference.

Then the chef decided to give us two complimentary dishes :}

Cucumber strips with sesame dressing

and

Asparagus with miso hollandaise

Both were light and tasty, the veggies were not veggies anymore! A lot of taste and infusion made them delicious, eating asparagus was a task in my diet, with Izakaya it became a pleasure :> 

The rest of our appetizers arrived....

Honey soy mushroom
and

Nut crusted shrimp

The infusion of honey and soy, in the oven baked mushrooms was to die for! Sweet, tangy sauce with smooth mushroom texture and flavor, you can't go wrong with it. As for the nut crusted shrimp, its another story.....

The nuts with their crusty texture and smooth rich flavor were exceptional with the taste of shrimp, I would have NEVER pictured the two together, I think Chef Ahmad Al-Bader created this piece of art just to take your sense of taste off track and try something out of this world.

Now for the main courses...

We took 3 maki'es from right to left : Izakaya roll "removed salmon, not a fan!" - Dynamite spider - Poached butter ebi & avocado. 

I can't really do them good with saying YUMMY, I recommend all three if you are a maki fan, I do like Japanese food but not into Sashimi nor Sushi thats why we skipped them in the menu.

The highlight in the Izakaya roll is the smooth flavors mixture, the poached butter ebi maki the zesty ginger flavor and oddly!! Dynamite was very safe :p

Continuing with the mains...

Grilled local shrimp

Grilled local Crab

I'm not a dill fan, BUT the amount used in the shrimp was PERFECT, the infusion of flavors was well balanced. The crab as per my friend who had a fight with it was delicious too.

Although we were FULL but with all the good food we tasted, we could not stop the "dessert" temptation....

Nutmeg and hazelnut icecream
and

Pain perdue with raspberry shisho jam 

The icecream was yummy as expected, but the Pain perdue, was a taste test. Just as we though that the food can't get any better, the Pain perdue flipped the coin! Izakaya won. The infusion of the crusty bread, raspberry jam and ice cream was thrilling, you can imagine each alone but the combination was a surprise, rich bread taste with the strong a bit zesty/ berry raspberry flavor topped with vanilla ice cream, made all the sense in this world :}

Another complimentary dish from the chef, 6 home made ice cream flavors: dark chocolate - banana chocolate chip - cranberry - butterscotch .. All were nice the cranberry was the most exceptional one, it did taste like fresh cranberry!!

Now the last 2, the cherry on top, the surprise (can you count how many surprises we got? :p),,,,

Basil and bird-eye chilly and the Balsamic vinegar  ICE CREAM!!

YES Balsamic vinegar and CHILLY!! Green one is the chilly

To taste iced chilly was not on my list :} Again, he broke the senses rule, the regularity of taste, but since I'm not a chilly fan I didn't like it much, but was really surprised with it, it blew me away. Now the Balsamic one on the other hand, tasted really delicious, I didn't expect it to taste this good

We had a great time in Izakaya, from food, to atmosphere to service, a place I would defiantly go back to and try to finish the menu :) I thank everyone there for preparing such a lovely meal.

And yes, I will have to work hard in gym to burn off this meal, I broke every diet rule Wednesday night, and it was defiantly WORTH IT, and yes I will still blame Iakaya for the extra kg or two gained.

مما قرأت : إيقاظ الموتى - منصور العتيق

قبل فترة قررت ان اشترك في GoodReads ، لكن عدم تقبلي لفكرة بعثرة المحتوى في ارجاء الانترنت المعمورة داهمتني و عليه لم اكتب عن اي كتاب قرأت، على الرغم من معرفتي بان مجتمع ذلك الموقع جدا مفيد لمعرفة اراء الاخرين في الكتب المشتركة و إضافة كتب جديدة لحصيلة تلك التي اريد قراءتها! لربما استطعت ان ادمج بين الاثنين؟! يمكن ،، و لكن الاقربون أولى بالمعروف (بلوقي) ببلش سلسلة مقالات "مما قرأت ،المرادفة لـ Book Review" لإستعراض الكتب التي قرأت، ابتداءً من هذا الكتاب.

إيقاظ الموتى لمنصور العتيق، مجموعة قصصية تمتاز بسوداويتها. صحيح هي تحكي عن عالم الاموات و قصصهم، لكن جرعة المرار في قصص كل منهم آلمتني، و اعجبتني! الكاتب لم يستخدم اسلوب السرد المعتاد لوصف قصة او حدث، كتب بطريقة اقرب ما تكون للسريالية، بها نفحات من الواقع و مقتطفات من القصة الاصلية التي حدثت، ليركز على اهم احداث حياة ذلك الميّت و سبب موته، و تعريفه للموت في بداية الكتاب يوضّح ما يعنيه بالموت في قصص إيقاظ الموتى.

قصة "ماهي درجة الحرارة اللازمة لتبخر الاصدقاء" كانت الاكثر امتاعا بالنسبة لي، استخدم اسلوب جميل في القفز من فقرة لاخرى تاركا بالسابقة اثراً للاحقة، و كأنه يحيك سلسلة مترابطة الافكار من خلال تلك القصة، امتعتني اسلوبا و طرحا.

انطباعي الاول بعد اغلاق الكتاب كتبته في تويته و قلت : خفيفة ، كئيبة ، تحاكي واقع سعودي متخفي بسريالية التعابير .. علاقة حب و كره نمت بيني و بينها بساعة!

 :)

Stripping a week in 2012

It's already the 8th of January, a whole week passed by from this year. It has been a busy week, with a lot of ups and downs, which I stripped.

*Disclaimer: heavy post ahead!*

How to define the up and down in your life, its all about how you see things really. The down moment, for example when you lose something, is actually a way to avoid that loss in the future, a peek into what you will feel when you lose, and if you think well, you will know the new path of what's "after" that loss.

So is a down moment really down? No :} When you get benefit from something, even if at the moment was bad, that benefit flips the coin! And when something good happens, enjoy it to the max, repeat it and enhance the goodness in it.

Sounds a bit vague? Lets try an example.

The death of Steve Jobs, to Apple they lost a leader with a vision, to the world a man that provoked the technology urge within everyone, young or old. It is a loss, a great one. What did we gain? His life's lessons, his amazing products and his success. What he left is timeless :) In this example you can focus on the loss or the gain, the loss itself did not produce "all" that gain but it drew attention to the man he was, how he reached that level of success and I am sure many who did not know him at all now do, a lot who knew little about him (me among them) now know more and only a few consider what they knew a treasure. Take every piece of information for granted and you will gain MORE than you think, with the least "experimental" effort.

So other than the scale of good and bad, what was there for me in that first week. Clouds! Loads of them :}

I can't leave the house with out taking a look up, I have to see the sky, its a joy that I can't really skip. Within one day, you can see how often does it change, now the most enjoyable time of the year for me, because the clouds are the cherry on top. I love them and the FLUFFY ones are my favorite.

One of the main lessons that I get from the sky, day after day, is that "The only constant is change - by Heraclitus". With in 24 hours, a single day of your life, the sky can move from clear and sunny, to cloudy and maybe a bit rainy! Like today :)

What if we stripped every piece of information/ event/ story we stumble upon in our daily life?

With the graph above I illustrate an idea that I have always had, I am a limited entity in this world! Limited with time, space around me, my own physical being (abilities) and what I compile in my visual/verbal or general memory! Therefore, the collection of ideas I have is also limited, even when my imagination works, it breaks a few boundaries I live in, hence my imagination is also limited (to the boundaries I know and break!).

In light of the above I developed a concept of stripping ideas, going to the general line or statement it gives me and apply it to different issues in life. So given that "the only constant is change" that I see on a daily basis in the sky, people's behavior, climate and time change, I would be very unreasonable to want things to remain as they are! A moment of sorrow to remain as it is, a moment of joy too!!

However, somethings are irreversible, like time, once it passes it can't go back "so far! Time travel have not been proven/ practiced yet!"

Consider everything, reevaluate, get the bottom-line of it, keep it as a collectable idea in your memory and use it, you will be surprised of how "less" of experiences you need to go through in your life. Nonetheless, living requires experience and experience is molded with challenges in life.

Never fear a challenge, it is a GREAT sculpture tool for experience and intelligence :} But never go into an experience or a challenge that you KNOW the outcome of.