Tonic panic, and spotted on the Corniche

Horrors! It seems there is a tonic water shortage in Beirut. Those many expats whose evenings are incomplete without a G&T have hit hard times indeed. Underconver intelligence text messages report which small shop may have a few dusty cans on a forgotten shelf...
...

Seen on the Corniche: young lady wearing stiletto-heeled boots sporting multiple non-working buckles, wide-striped red and black tights, plaid miniskirt with black lacy slip showing 2” below, tight red sweater, false eyelashes, and a black headscarf covering hair and neck. One idea of Moslem modesty.

....
As we sit in a restaurant on the Corniche (um, the Corniche is the walkway and roadway along the Mediterranean) on Saturday night, we watch pass a long convoy of white UN vehicles. Military vehicles. UN military vehicles—almost makes me gasp, seems such an oxymoron to my idealist, former staff member heart. A long convoy, apparently having rolled straight off a ship in the nearby port. Armored baby tanks, assorted trucks, huge electrical apparatuses (generators? command centers?), and 2 enormous guns mounted on massive truck bases—anti-aircraft guns??? The UN! And why down the Corniche for all to see this Saturday evening, instead of the highway leading to the south? Because people are happy to see them, feel reassured (I guess) to see them, as well they might, I suppose, given the constant taunting, threatening by the neighbors to the south, near daily overflights of their jets, in violation of a number of UN resolutions. I am just so sad to see that this is what my UN, the one and only UN has [had to] become. I really am disturbed by this.


p.s. this is not a new presence in the south, merely added reinforcements. UNIFIL has just celebrated (?) its 32 years of peacekeeping