On the beach 2

I make it a habbit to drive by Sunset Beach on occasion to see if anyone's surfing, but have only seen activity there three times now. This past weekend was the best I've encountered, but I didn't have the camera with me and when I came back after an hour and half it had gone completely flat. I'm finding the conditions here much more mercurial than I'm used to, almost as if you'd need to sit at the beach all day waiting for that short window when it's good, but only on those rare days when its ridable. 

So, rather than head home immediately, I thought I'd take a few pictures of the sand excavation project at the end of the beach, on the opposite side from the famed Burj Al Arab. While this self proclaimed seven star hotel is architecturally interesting on the outside, and we were recently excited to see a helicopter landing on the tennis court/helipad/giant hors d'oeuvre tray, the interior is extremely gawdy. It makes Donald trump's affinity for gilt-everything seem understated.

I'm not sure what the impressively large pile of sand is meant for, Vanessa thinks they're excavating in order to build another hotel, I like to think it has something to do with the city's artificially enhanced coastline.

At the moment, Vanessa is waiting outside the house for round two with the police. This time we were smart and had her call. The one privilege afforded to women in Dubai is that they are often given more expedient access to services, especially governmental services, via the ladies queue. Shorter lines, longer hems, better scents (sense.) We've been waiting for about four and a half hours now, but they just called to confirm our address. So, that's pretty good by West Oakland standards, where one is encouraged to "see a gun" in order to illicit a quick response. Still, I miss my scrappy neighborhood. I'd been parking for weeks in what I assumed was a public lot, when a particularly abrasive man in a Misubishi micro-SUV rolled up demanding, "WHY YOU PARK MY HOUSE?!"

OK, so again, I'm the one with the limited language skills, I realize that. If Dubai had it's own verision of Geno's, they wouldn't serve me. And yet, there's no need to yell little man. I don't need one of your eight, usually empty, parking spots. I just didn't know it was private since it's located where the sidewalk would be, and features perpendicular parking, something I associate with municipal parking lots across the globe.

So I don't park there anymore, and I'm resisting the urge to menace my new mustachioed nemesis in a scene for scene recreation of Cape Fear or, alternatively, What about Bob?

Vanessa just walked triumphantly back into the house, holding a green accident report in her hand which will, we think, exonerate us from financial responsibility for the mystery scrape. She charmed it out of the police, telling them that their prowler was nicer than what a cop in the U.S. would have, which it is. The police cars here range from large Toyota SUV's to 3 series Bummers. Sadly, the motorcycle police in Dubai look like they should be directing runway traffic with a light baton, not at all tough, like the officer who impounded my pickup in San Francisco-- that guy was all leather (including his face) and cigar, which he lit up as he sat back to await the tow truck. I didn't do anything heinous by the way, I was too slow in registering my car when I moved back to California, and ironically, too quick in changing my insurance, which gave me away. 

I'm convinced that there's some nefarious scheme, or at least a policy change in effect because three other rental cars in our circle of friends have been rejected for undocumented blemishes, and none of the drivers are aware of hitting anything. At least we're free of the bureaucracy for a while. We'll have to get national ID cards eventually, for which the wait time has been reported at around seven hours, and that's if you make an appointment. But they've reportedly moved the deadline back, although it's unclear what limits might be placed on non-card holders in the interim. Why I need a national ID in addition to a Dubai Driver's License, a US passport, and a residency visa with my photo on it, remains to be seen. I suppose it's to keep us safe, very very safe.

Saltymoon

Each day, late in the afternoon, I depart on what I have termed my lone lunar ramble, a tour of our corner of Jumeirah that deposits me on the shores of the Arabian Gulf with just enough sunlight left for a short run. This walk/run only revealed itself as a solo venture because my hard working wife seldom makes it home from the green salt mine in time to join me. Please don't assign any bitterness to that term, the salt mine is Miller family shorthand for the workplace, an expression that resonates with this anti-carreerist soul. I could not be more proud of her hard work and accomplishments, having waited so long for the building world to catch up with her hard won knowledge. 

The lunar nature of my jaunt derives, in part, from the initially coarse quality of the sand. When I cross the midpoint of this extremely wide beach, the sand takes on the smooth tropical grain of Costa Rica or Hawaii. This is because of Dubai's immense off shore dredging project, an undertaking which pulls the soft floor of the seabed up into the light of day so that it can be reconstituted into man made islands and redistributed by the truckload along the city's shore. Each twilight the long shadows of winter nudge the senses into a state of confusion amidst November's unexpected fever.

Add to that the fact that I am an alien here, and revel in the feeling of detachment that comes with this, as I have the luxury to observe from amidst the relative invisibility afforded me by my hobo resort wear. I'm like Twain's displaced yankee, albeit from the west and lacking a machine gun. In this way, being here is not unlike my personal experience of junior high school, this time without the oversexed aggressivity of classmates. That sort of hormonal/adrenal frenzy is reserved for the UAE's roadways, which aren't so very different from the hallways of PJHS.

A few days ago, the big toe on my right foot was attacked by a camouflaged rock. I was strolling down the beach in my usual state of post-run disarray when this dense congregation of atoms reached up and bit me. My response was to howl in a manner that even my eleven day old niece would find offensive. Sonia has already established a quiet dignity that I can never hope to emulate. As such, I've been absent from the beach for a few days, but I should be making my re-entry soon. I did make one limping circuit recently, carrying the camera with me to document my route. Immediately outside our gate I ran into Makhboub, our villa's resident handyman. Vanessa and I were recently rewarded with a fish of our own from one of Makhboub and Nabil's weekly trips, I've also been invited to come along sometime, which is exciting. We successfully gutted and scaled our prize, a local hamour white fish, opting to bake it nestled in a riot of cilantro and lemon, all wrapped up in tinfoil like an insane birthday present.

Currently, our beach is home to a perimeter of red flags which are intended to keep visitors out of the water, although there is no signage indicating why, and in some places the flags are at least 50 yards back from the shore. At the sailing club, a beach near our tiny apartment, a sign perched atop an improvised fence announces that the sea is "Closed for Renovations". I have never seen the ocean fenced and corralled the way it is here in Dubai, where private beaches are often closed in by 12 foot tall fences that run some 30 yards out into the water. There's not much that can be done about the current biohazard, aside from waiting, as this poorly documented health risk is the result of untold tanker loads of raw sewage that were covertly dumped here. Eventually, a whistle blower phoned in the strange behavior of a driver seen pulling back a manhole cover that had been outfitted with an improvised handle, lowering his truck's hose down the opening, and opening the release valve. These sewage transfer drivers have apparently acted out of frustration as Dubai's grossly impacted sewage treatment plant regularly has lines of trucks waiting for hours on end to empty their bowels.

While the not-so-free local press is typically allergic to controversy, they did wisely chose to cover the sewage scandal, although one wonders what percentage of Dubai's vast army of impoverished day laborers are actually literate. In any event, the typical cast of scatophobia averse bathers, as seen in the water on any given afternoon, seems to represent a broad socioeconomic cross-section of Dubai's inhabitants, so perhaps these brave souls are just avowed antibiotic users. As for me, I'll be staying dry for a while yet.