Weather?

The weather has been very unusual in Cairo the last few weeks: regular spurts of rain are falling from the ever-cloudy sky. The wind that accompanies the cloudy skies is cold and damp and leaves me reminiscent of fall in Baltimore . . . albeit far dustier.

Don't be fooled, I'm not speaking of a prolonged all-day rain that leads to muddiness and movie marathons of Jane Austen films; I'm speaking of regular rain, almost daily, that gets the road just wet enough to make the oil and dust slick. Many of the rainshowers are so brief, in fact, that if I hear it falling from my office and walk to the end of the hallway and out on the balcony to enjoy it, it has often already stopped by the time I get there.

Still though, the cool weather is pleasant for lots of things: felucca-ing wrapped up in sweaters and sassy santa hats, shopping in the Khan on a cloudy Friday morning for Christmas gifts, and most of all: making soup.

Right now my third soup of soup season (which only started a few weeks ago) is on the stove. It's my second chicken noodle attempt, which will use up the last of the semolina noodles I picked up in Rome. I also made chipotle-chicken-chickpea soup from memory, but forgot the very important ingredient of Tomato Paste and put too much chipotle in. Next time I'll make it work. For now, I need to figure out how I'm getting all these xmas presents (a certain little girl, and a certain sassy lady are getting a stockings full of Cairo) back to the states without going over my baggage weight allowance!