Snippets of the week

The light

• Chic young lady winter fashion of choice: jean or tailored shorts, black tights, preferably patterned, and spiked high heeled boots
• A restaurant called "Chunk"

The medium

• In the middle of the night a huge explosion...of sound, followed, but not too closely, by rain drops. Thunder is so dramatic here, and, given recent events, the moments between it and lightning or rain are particulary disquieting

The not light

• This week's bomb killed one of the main investigators of the Hariri assassination, his bodyguard, an army person, and at least three bystanders. It was the third attempt on his life.
• Following last week's car bombing of a US embassy vehicle, teachers at Tom's school were told by the embassy to "avoid popular gathering spots," and the UN van that picks me up in the morning now has the "UN" letters covered over with masking tape.
• The realization that many of the people I (K) work with have lived their whole lives in an urban refugee camp. They leave each day to come and work at UNRWA offices, but go back "home", and can never leave the country or even do the same jobs they do in a Lebanese company.
• Yet most Lebanese live in a wider box. Trapped in a small country where years of Civil War are too recent to be called history. We can leave, but they...