Special Request Thursday

A friend and I were having our morning chat by the coffee maker in our lunchroom this morning when she told me about a show she watched on the Food Network last night.  The hostess of the show was in Las Vegas and visited a hookah lounge.  THE Hookah Lounge, to be exact.  When she watched it last night, I'm sure her first reaction was "WTF?"  Then knowing I would find the answer for her, she came to me. I'd heard of how hookah lounges are becoming the trendy place to visit if you're a smoker.  I knew that it involved a bong-type device, but after doing a bit of research I found a plethora of information.

First of all, a hookah is a pipe with long, flexible tubes connected to an urn of water, which cool the tobacco smoke as it is drawn through.  The tobacco comes in a variety of flavors. Traditionally, it is long pieces of tobacco mixed with a sugar-based syrup mixture and fruit bits or extract. The fruit flavors are strongly tasted in the smoke, and the cooling action of the hookah provides added smoothness. Usually hookah lounges add ice to the hookah water. Flavors include apple, peach, raspberry, mixed fruit, orange; just like Skittles candies. The tobacco isn't burned to complete ash, but rather it is cooked by the coals that sit on top of the hookah.

It is said that the water pipe originated in India where it was made from coconut shells and then spread to Iran and into different parts of the Arab world before moving onto Turkey. One of the oldest and deep rooted traditions in Turkey is smoking the Nargile (Hookah).  Turkey revolutionized Hookah smoking and today it's a very important part of the coffee shop culture. For centuries, even around the time of Murat the IV in the 1600's, Hookah smoking was popular. During the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century, hookah smoking was very fashionable with elite ladies and many wished to be photographed smoking one. Around the world, this smoking device is known by many different names. Some call it a hookah, hooka, huka, shisha, sheesha, shishah, nargile, narghile, and Hubbly Bubbly just to mention some.

Traditionally in many parts of the world, smoking a hookah with someone expressed a gesture of trust and bonding. The ceremonial gesture has translated to our society in that the elevated status of smoking a hookah has been preserved, and that people who smoke one are above and beyond the norm of society.  If this is the case, I'm sure that Louisville's first hookah lounge will be in the East end of town.  I'm sure you've probably figured out what a hookah lounge is. It's simply a bar or coffee shop with hookahs.  They cater mostly to Middle Eastern clientele, but as stated earlier, the popularity is spreading to this side of the world.  The lounges have workers to will tend to the coals, and all you have to do is make sure the bowl of the urn is full of shisha, the hookah term for tobacco.  Hookah lounges are exotic - most have huge velvet pillows for you to sit on while you smoke.  I'm envisioning a very Ali Baba-ish experience. 

I did some more checking, and unfortunately for us here in Louisville, the closest hookah lounge is down in Nashville on 21st Avenue, called Mediterranean Cuisine.  I don't smoke, and don't plan on picking up the habit now, but on my next trip to Nashville I will definitely stop in and check this place out. 

One more thing - if you're wondering why the word "hookah" seems familiar, you probably heard it in a couple of places.  If you'll remember, Alice while in Wonderland came across a hookah smoking caterpillar.  And for those of you old enough to remember the Woodstock era, "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane was a an awesome song about Alice In Wonderland and had drug references.  One line in the song said:

 "And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice when she was just small"

Props To The Pachyderms

I know we've all been moved by the pictures of the devastation from the tsunami and earthquake. The pictures and the heinous number of deaths are enough to make us sick.  Governments, non-profit organizations and now celebrities are donating millions of dollars to help in the relief efforts.  But there are some unsung heroes helping out that you might not hear alot of news about - elephants.

The elephants are performing a gruesome task - retreiving and transporting the dead bodies.  Until now, rescue workers had been using shovels and even their hands to dig through the rubble.  But now the pachyderms are able to move the debris and rubble and go places where heavy earthmoving equipment couldn't go. 

Just a year ago In Bang Nieng, Thailand, they were filming battle scenes for the movie "Alexander."  Co-starring alongside Collin Farrell and Angelina Jolie were elephants from the Wang Chang elephant farm.  Now these elephants have forgotten all about being movie stars and are doing their part to help out. 

I'm surprised that we haven't heard anything from PETA about this - they are always protesting because they say that circus elephants are exploited and aren't treated fairly, so I'm sure they'll protest these gentle giants helping out. 

Props To My Peeps

For fear of excluding people or causing hurt feelings, I normally don't name a lot of names here in TWIT.  But I'd like to give public props this afternoon to two of my favorite people here at work.  They deserve a bit of recognition, if from nobody else, from me. 

To Bob - for buying Annie's Pizza for our private pizza party during lunch today.  The pizza was awesome. 

To Mark - for being concerned about my physical well-being.  He was worried last night when heard about the fatal wreck about a half mile from my house.  The victim was a young (extra thanks, Mark) woman who was driving an SUV.  He said he started to call my house just to make sure it wasn't me. 

I know you two have always had my back over the years here.  It's greatly appreciated. 

Bullies Be Damned

There was an interesting article in our rag yesterday about bullies.  The lengthy article talked about how kids face a different breed of bully today.  It's not the stereotypical bullies who take your lunch money, but the bullies who call other kids names, tease them about their appearance or exclude them from social groups.  The experts say that the emotional abuse is far worse than any type of tangible abuse, such as getting beat up on the school bus or having to fork over your lunch money so you don't get beat up on the school bus.  The article went on to say that the kids getting bullied get so fed up with their situation, and feel so deparate that it often causes them to hurt themselves or others.  Bullying has always gone on, but the issue is receiving more attention because of the many school shootings in recent years.  The shooters in these incidents turned to violence after years of being ostricized and teased.  Other students have instead resorted to suicide. I was bullied only once during my school years.  The day that I stood up to Angela Darnell will live in infamy at Conway Middle School. 

I was in the 6th grade, and the school bully Angela Darnell was unfortunately in most of my classes that year.  She had bright read hair and freckles, and she was mean.  It's odd how today, I think red hair is one the most attractive features a person could have - I love read hair.  Back to the story.  Angela Darnell bullied everybody - girls, boys, it made no difference.  She was always pulling pranks on people - I remember how she gave some ExLax to a group of unsuspecting kids one afternoon in the lunchroom, and my gullable schoolmates thought it was harmless chocolate. I was not on the receiving end of this prank, thank goodness, but I saw my little friends spend all afternoon in the bathrooms and it hacked me off that she got away with it. 

Angela picked on the other kids mercilessly, but the day that she somehow broke into my locker and stole my faux denim and red bandanna Trapper Keeper was the day she stepped over the line.  I knew she had it because I saw it in the bottom of her locker one day when I was passing by. I knew she had to be stopped.  A day or two later, our class was lined up in the hallway, getting ready to go to the gym for a pep rally or meeting or something.  As my luck would have it, I was behind Angela Darnell in the line.  She stood there, and started swinging her arms back, like she was doing some Pilates exercise.  And in doing so, she hit me a couple of times.  I'd taken all I could take, so I calmly told her "if you do that one more time I'm going to hit you."  Well, she did it one more time, and true to my word, I hit her.  Laid her right out in the middle of the floor, I did.  You could have heard a pin drop as all of my classmates looked at her on the floor, mouths gaped open in awe.  Then the silence was broken as they all cheered for me.  The teacher, Miss Russell, had witnessed the whole event, and knew I was acting in self defense.  She walked over and put her hands on her hips, and said "Angela, are you going to go with us to the gym or are you going to stay there in the floor the rest of the day?"  Never again did I, nor any of my classmates, have any more trouble out of Angela Darnell. 

File Under: WTF?

I was bored yesterday evening, and decided to run out to Wal-Mart just to get out of the house for a bit.  It seems the rest of Jefferson county had the same idea, because the parking lot was full.  After almost getting hit 4 times, I finally found a parking spot and started my trek to the store.  As always, I was people watching - observing the mass exodus to and from the store.  I saw something that almost made me stop in my tracks: people were wearing shorts - some even had on sandals with their shorts.  Let me repeat for emphasis:  it was January 2, and people were wearing shorts.

I saw my first pair of shorts earlier in the day at Logan's steakhouse while we were having Sunday dinner.  I didn't think too much of it, as the shorts were being worn by a PAT who didn't have good sense and wanted to wear the long baggy basketball shorts he got for Christmas.  But at Wal-Mart, there were shorts of all types - khakis, bluejean cut-offs, basketball, sweatpants cut-offs - you name it, I saw it.  And the majority of the people I saw wearing the shorts were adults who appeared to be my age and older; people that should know better.  Yes, we've had our warm-up this past week, and the temperature was about 60 last night when I was out. Plus it had been raining all day, and the weather was very damp.  But in my opinion, it was no reason to act like it's July and wear shorts.  If I go hang out by the clinics and immediate care centers later this week, I'm sure I'll see these same people going there to be treated for URIs and bronchitis. 

Link of the Week

We've had a week to sort through our Christmas presents; we've tried on clothes to make sure they fit, and now that the snow is gone we can finally gt out to return items that don't fit, or (heaven forbid) we don't want.  I wish you much waiting in the line for returns.  If you received gift cards for Christmas, you don't have to worry about returning anything, because hopefully you bought what you wanted.  That's the best part about getting a gift card - buying exactly what you want. 

Now that gift crads are one of the most popular Christmas gifts, chances are you got 2 or 3.  This brings us to a new holiday problem: getting a gift card to a store that we don't patronize.  Someone that can't stand to read might have gotten a Barnes and Noble gift card, or someone who's never hammered  a nail in their life might end up with a Home Depot gift card.  If you find yourself with a gift card you'll never use, never fear - there's a place you can go for help. Just go to www.cardavenue.com .  You can sell or trade your unwanted gift card, and at the same time you can buy a gift card for a store you like, at less than the face value. You probably won't get full face value of the card you sell, but hey - anything is better than nothing, right?

A side note for gift card owners:  be sure to check the cards for expiration dates.  A lot of cards also depreciate in value if they go unused. 

A side note for my faithful readers: your beloved author's birthday is just 25 short days away, and I love Home Depot and Barnes and Noble.

Happy New Year

It's hard to believe today is the start of another new year. In keeping with my optimistic theme, I like to think of it as starting the new year with the slate wiped clean - letting go of all of the not-so-good things that happened last year and looking forward to a year filled with opportunities, happiness and adventures. 

We ended the year on a very dark note - with the eyes of the world focussed on the devastating earthquake and tsunami.  But at the same time, we can be thankful - thankful that it didn't happen to us or our family and friends.  I'm a firm believer that there's no such thing as coincidence; I think things happen to get our attention and to make us appreciate how great we have it. We all had troubles, disappointments, sadness and drama this past year; some experienced more than others; it wasn't all a year-long picnic for any of us.  Yet we made it through the illnesses, deaths, finanical strains, job troubles, and good ole family drama.  And we'll face the same obstacles this year - hopefully, we've learned from the past and we'll be able to weather the storms of 2005. 

I normally don't make New Year's resolutions, but this year I broke tradition and made one.  Actually, I made it back in the early fall.  I don't refer to it as a 'resolution' - I just call it a 'promise to myself.'  This year, I've promised myself that I will be completely debt free by June 1.  It's not like I've got a dozen credit cards all maxed out and have debtors calling me at work and home all day long; but I have a few bills that have been the albatross around my neck, and I'm on my way to getting rid of them.  I  might be able to move up my deadline to Derby Day, thanks to some good luck yesterday - my Blazer repairs ended up being about 1/4 of what we'd originally thought. The repairs were "only" $400, a bargain by today's car repair standards. 

I wish you, my faithful readers, love, health, success, and happiness in the new year ahead. Just remember one thing this year when trouble comes knocking at our doors this year- we can handle whatever happens, and be thankful we weren't in the tsunami.