Fair enough!

My temporary SIM was from Wataniya; maybe Orange would have had service. (I didn’t think to ask to use the monastery phone.)

No, it’s just a gentle thwack with the side of a knife — but I was 19 and day-tripping from Bethlehem, and an impromptu invitation to stay meant I owed them a few hours’ labor. (No cell service in the valley meant the Syriac hostel in Bethlehem, where I was the only guest, panicked until my return.)

Thank you! Mar Saba is where I learned to peel garlic.

How typical for this period is the subject-verb-object construction? I was taught that very good, pure فصحى always favors verb-subject-object, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were a later prescriptivist rule.

الأمر بالمعروف

AND

النهي عن المنكر

Medieval mindset (complimentary)

I think about the propeller fan a lot.

Also the helicopters keep threatening to wake up the baby.

they’re shutting down the airport, which has caused one baptism guest to cancel

Instances here of both the winner’s first and last names misspelled.

His Hindu mom, who is from India?

This one was better when it was right by the Potomac (they moved it a few years ago)