Websites and booksellers

Unexpectedly, I've actually had time to breath this week--even time to eat Ethiopian food! I used to love going out to the Ethiopian restaurant in Dallas, and ever since I found out there was one in Boston, I've been dying to go. So on the spur of the moment--with a rare sense that I had actually accomplished something at work--I called up Jon and asked him to take me out.

We went to Addis Red Sea on Tremont Street. I really do recommend you click on the link; they have their menu posted and everything. I really dug the decor; these beautiful low, carved wooden chairs centered around a mesob, a woven "table" where the platter of communal food is set. And, best of all, you eat with your hands! (silver ware not even an option). They also have a selection of Ethiopian wines, beer, tea, and coffee. I was in "ethnic" food heaven.

The latest work-related saga involves an email from our current webhoster, hostcentric, who announced suddenly that they were selling the business and the new company couldn't support our website. We had until Friday to make arrangements or the website would be lost. We received this email on Tuesday, and it's only by chance that anyone found it, because it was sent to a seldom-checked account.

I don't want to even try to imagine what would have happened on Friday if the website didn't appear when I typed in the address. Oh lord. Talk about being hit by a semi.

And speaking of unpleasant surprises, and bad ends, I just finished reading the Bookseller of Kabul last night. Not knowing anything about Afghanistan, I found it to be extraordinarily interesting and insightful, but depressing. The chapters about Leila, the youngest sister of the Bookseller, were so tough to read; by the end of her story I wanted to cry. Such a bright, capable girl reduced to servant-status and then married off to a continued life of servitude. In her own way she tried so hard to escape, but the religious fundamentalism enforced by the Taliban has left such lasting emotional/psychological damage to both women and men. And while I kind of admired the tenacity of the Bookseller--he did go the prison multiple times for his books--and his aspirations for a new Afghanistan, as a the head of his household he was just terrible. And he thought he was doing his proper duty!

As far as family life goes, I know I've been spoiled even in American terms. I never even rebelled against my parents because there was nothing to rebel against. I think that parents' best "stealth weapon" is reason. If parents treat their kids reasonably, what can the kids rebel against? My parents never even gave me a curfew in high school because they didn't need to. Except for once (and they called me on it) I always came home at a reasonable hour (after all, all my friends had curfews anyway).

Or maybe I was just a goody-goody.