The Biz Buzz

My former employer, Smiley Pete, keeps in its stable my former publications, The Chevy Chaser and The Southsider, as well as Lexington's Business Journal, Business Lexington. I absolutely love this whole group and am so thankful that I can continue working and writing for them.

These are the latest:
Tarter, a Dunville, KY-based company is the largest producer of animal management and farm equipment in North America. I had a blast spending an afternoon with great-grandson of the founder, Keith Tarter. These guys are truly 100% country, 100% Kentucky and 100% impressive. Believe me, driving into middle-of-seemingly-nowhere-Kentucky, I was not expecting what I found there. Read it here.

And, yes, between Elisabeth and another gf who works at a law firm, I feel like I sort of own a little bit of legal knowledge. So, here's an article that is a perfect showcase of one reason I (heart) writing so much: I get to learn about new things! Did you know you can hire a lawyer and NOT have to pay $250/hour straight up? It's true! Read it here.

By(line) the way...

thehardyheyday.blogspot.com

Former colleagues (though thankfully not former friends) at Smiley Pete Publishing are the first to give me (and my new byline) the opportunity to re-start writing - at least in a freelance capacity.

One small step for Anne...one giant leap for Anne Sabatino Hardy.

Business Lexington-Breaking News
January 08, 2010
Mayor avoids layoffs in budget cuts
$12.5 million slashed from budget includes employee furloughs
by Anne Sabatino Hardy

Check it out!

Tourist Duty

We have scant few weekends left here (What? So weird!) and so, to make the most of those remaining, we have decided to venture out a bit more into the countries around which we are living. We've spent plenty of time in Oman and the UAE, but there are still a few things we've noticed and of which full advantage have not been taken.

One of those things is "interior Oman," which generally means not Muscat or the UAE border. The country is full of Dunes and Oasis and Wadis (valleys that fill up with water - ripe for swimming and exploring). Another is taking a (totally touristy) safari in the UAE.

We did both of those things during last week's Eid, as well as spending a cultural day in Abu Dhabi at their soon-to-be-finished-twenty-years-in-the-making-Isalmic-cultural-center (it's technically not a mosque because Muslims are instructed to build very practical and plain mosques meant only for worship, and this is not that; however, people do worship here. They also call it an Islamic cultural center so they can admit non-Muslims.).

It was a great couple of days break to act as a buffer between the days of re-settling in our expat lifestyle while simultaneously conducting exercises to get us out (Jacob's job search intensified last week).

Anyway, here are the memories...ah, Kodak (or, actually Sandisk digital image) moments.

Full album here.

Wadi at Sunset. It's so amazing to come across this - palms and mountains

and greenery in the middle of the desert.

Obligatory camel-love shot. C'mon, I know we all rode one at the zoo, aged 8, but in the desert? A must.

Also a must: dune bashing. It's like a roller coaster with no track! Well, maybe a soundtrack, which in our case was alternating Middle Eastern pop and Western R&B/Rap (ie, Apple Bottom Jeans), to which our driver/guide bashed (quite rhythmically) until he made our Danish girl-companions sick.

And the final part of the evening was a "Bedouin-style" dinner at a tented encampment, wherin we enjoyed a pleasant dinner, a belly-dancing show, henna and sheesha (and the locals enjoyed the show of international tourists mooning over desert livestock and the novelty of sitting on the ground for dinner - win win!).

And now, Abu Dhabi. Every time we've driven into the capitol city, we've passed this incredibly-massive-four-minaretted white mosque off the highway. You can't miss it. This time, we actually stopped. Well worth it. The architecture, detail and design of this place is amazing. Even if camels don't do it for you, check out the album to see the rest of the mosque pics. White Grecian heat-absorbing marble (so you can walk around barefoot and not get burned) inlaid with everything from precious stones to colored natural marble to mother of pearl (black and white) in intricate designs. Not to mention the white- and yellow-gold accents all over.

The hallways, which border all four sides, were arched and inlaid and gold-leafed and surrounded by pools.

You might notice some odd posts if you subscribe to thehardyheyday.blogspot.com, or follow us on Facebook.

No worries, these are just the posts of our other blog, Moroccomyworld. Despite it's really awesome name (thanks, Jess!), it's become a bit inactive, so I migrated it to The Hardy Heyday so that all the photos and recipes are still available.

We'll keep posting the adventures here. Stay tuned!

La vie en rose

When we arrived in Paris, it was eight in the morning. So, we grabbed our bags and navigated CDG (which looks nothing like it should according to fave HS flick French Kiss...maybe that was the other one?) to the connecting train station where we navigated by, yes, plane, then train, then automobile to our charming little corner-closet-room on the top floor of our boutique hotel. Tres cute.

Me, and all our luggage (since we nearly always travel, like carpetbaggers, with all our belongings!)

We spent a bit of time on the Champs de Mars and Champs-Elysees and planned the sights of our trip, because, of course the Eiffel Tower and famous streets are iconic images of Paris that had to be mentally (and photographically) documented immediately! Plus, cafes...mmm...food. I already mentioned baguettes, brie...there was wine and pain au chocolat and croissants and cafe au lait and duck and butter and...mmmm...

We also saw Versailles (actually pronounced correctly! It's a revelation after living in Kentucky so long! I kept having to tell myself: don't do it, don't say Ver-say-lls!) and Notre Dame and one of my favorite spots: Ile St. Louis, where there was a little band and kids and dogs everywhere and an impromptu "free massage" service all along the bridge and, of course, streets lined with flea-market stalls full of old books and maps and kooky pictures and knick knacks.

A charming little side street.

The band on Ile St. Louis.

The absolute highlight of Paris, though, was the evening that started the week before when a book showed up at my mom's house. It was my birthday hint. A copy of "The Sun Also Rises," Ernest Hemingway's first major novel. On our last evening in Paris we visited the famous restaurant "Les Deux Magots," where Hemingway is said to have completed a large part of the book, for a spectacular dinner and fabulous wine and great atmosphere. We sat at a table on the upper level of the tiered patio and talked, ate drank, imagined and watched the people - and the day - fade away. It was one of Jacob's more notable successes in events (and that's hard to say considering his record!). So thoughtful.

Following Paris, we headed to Provence, but more about that later. Here are all the pics of Paris. Enjoy!

To Be or Not To Be

Vocabulary Word of the Day: Al Humdul'allah
Meaning: Thanks be to God
Uses: Response to everything

From: Self-described Grouchy Grammarian
To: Self
Re: Loosen up and embrace it, it's not changing (and if you don't embrace it, you're going to be wrong!)

The time that I began teaching English to native Arabic speakers correlated roughly to the time that Jacob's own Arabic studies were beginning to really flourish and he'd come home from class with interesting little tidbits about grammar and vocabulary. One factoid was particularly disturbing: there is no "be" verb in Arabic.

I know, I know, it sounds trivial and silly (and you're probably thinking, "110 degree heat and kitchen gnomes and you're thinking about "be" verbs?!"), but such is the nature of my disease.

It wasn't such a big deal when I was teaching--surely they could see the benefit of "be" verbs, right? No, they aren't just confusing add-ons to myriad tenses full of irregular conjugations. They are a defining element of who and what you are and about what you are communicating! Spanish has two "be" verbs (lucky) and lots of hybrid tenses just like English so that each minute detail of a situation can be aptly and complicatedly described if that is so the desire of the writer/speaker.

Of course I was foiled in nearly every instance of quiz or test in which they were on their own to remember this phantom verb. I was surrounded by fragmented sentences and incomplete tenses (horror!).

On Sunday (our first day of the week), I was, of course, faced with the ugly reality of the stripping of my [Arabic] literate and communicative self of all "be" verbs. I swear I almost had a panic attack as we studied the first few conversations and sentences.

"Whain cuub?"
I insisted on translating in my head "Where IS the cup?" (WRONG!)
"Kaif Halek?"
"How ARE you?" (WRONG!)
"Shoo hadtha"
"What'S going on here?" (STILL WRONG, EVEN IF YOU DON'T WRITE THE WHOLE THING!)
"Shoo isme?"
"What IS your name?" (WRONG!)

Are you getting tired of me being wrong? Because I sure am. And hey, most things can be said without the be verb anyway, so maybe I'll adopt their method. It's certainly simpler. But, then, simplifying things, well, that just wouldn't be me.

The beginning of the end

It's hard to say exactly where it started. That is, neither Jacob nor I could tell you definitively the first time we met. I have vague recollections of a glancing moment at a social event or Sunday school class, he remembers me from my cafeteria-lady-day at the Tates Creek Presbyterian Church 4th of July picnic (who knew that donning plastic gloves and a ponytail to serve fried chicken could be such a winning endeavor?). One thing we did know back then, just about a year and a half ago, we could never date. We decided this on a hot afternoon while suiting up for our first skydives--a spontaneous Sunday afternoon had taken us, along with another friend, out to a Kentucky drop zone (left) to pursue the first of what would be many adventures together.

Months later, Jacob seemed the perfect solution for my partner problem. A dancing partner, I mean. Having just started a new job as the editor of Lexington's Chevy Chaser and Southsider magazines the first of January, 2008, I found myself browsing through community calendar listings and came across an entry for an Argentine Tango class at Artsplace. Jacob had two distinct qualifications: he had moves and he had no moves. That is to say, he had ballroom experience and he'd never tried to ask me out. It was the perfectly platonic scenario, or so I thought.

After six weeks of class and extended evenings, Jacob finally made that move. Somehow it still surprised me when he told me just what was on his mind and I found myself unprepared (as I would many times throughout our short courtship), but made the decision that started in motion the beginning of the end. Knowing that he was leaving for graduate school in South Carolina and, eventually, an 18-month educational jaunt abroad, I'm not sure I knew what I was getting into. Then again, I'm not sure he knew what he was getting into, either.

May 31 marked both the wedding day of my now-sister-and-brother-in-law, Caris and Rick, and Jacob's and my first date. From there, it was literally a whirlwind of dates and decisions as we began our relationship and Jacob left for graduate school in South Carolina at the end of June. By mid-September we were engaged and by Jacob's Christmas break from school, we were immersed in last-minute details of a wedding, a home sale, an overseas move and a job transition.

If someone had asked me a year ago if I would be married right now, not to mention overseas, I'd have laughed out loud. If someone had told me how it would happen, who it would be and how quickly it would go, I wouldn't have believed it. If someone had told me I'd willingly leave a job I loved, a home I'd made for myself and my dog, well, I'd be slightly indignant.

But you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.