To Save Mankind From A Talking Comet

I LOVE typos

2011-10-13T00:01:00.000+02:00

I enjoy typos immensely. I don't know why I get such a kick out of them. These, however, are truly in a league of their own. Prepare to die laughing.

I guess to have an anus that size Ben must be pretty naughty huh? *dies*

Please rob me and murder me. Not.

2011-05-30T03:49:00.003+02:00

So this morning someone rings the doorbell. I've always been scared even when there was nothing to be scared of, but these days I've become a truly terrified quivering mess. So I look through the peephole and I find a tall man jotting something in a folder in his hand. I ask who it is and he says he's the inquiry guy from Ouda Bank. I'm immediately suspicious: We'd already had guys from several banks a month ago inquiring about my husband, as part of the car purchase process, and my husband took Ouda's offer and bought his current car. So after a yelled conversation that goes nowhere I refuse to open the door and inform him I will call my husband to ask him about this first.

Turns out it's an inquiry for a new credit card my husband wants to get, not for a car purchase. I immediately bombard him with apologies he accepts good-naturedly. He even mentions that his own family acts the same now if someone they don't know knocks because of the current unrest in Egypt. After he finishes his inquiry I'm still feeling bad about having yelled at him and I make one last attempt at apologizing. It goes like this.

"I'm really sorry but you know, not only is the situation in the country scary but we live on the first floor and every night a group of guys hang out below our balcony and throw stuff in it and smoke stuff and talk loudly and they scare the hell out of me."

Oh yes. I did say that. To his credit the inquiry guy looked gobsmacked. And a little terrified himself, like I might whip out an axe from behind my back and start hitting him with it, all the while apologizing profusely. God. How could I say what I said to a total stranger? Total stranger, which is akin to potential attacker. And I go and inform him that not only are we very good candidates for robbery or worse, but that other people are already conducting questionable business below our balcony and getting away with it. So he could come and give it a shot. Sheesh. I swear sometimes I feel I have tiny crumbs for brains.

So what do I do? Other than try to keep my enlightening information to myself. Move? Not feasible. Sleep with a knife under the pillow? Impossible: I sleep next to a five-month-old. Kill myself? Not necessary. Look at the information I share with total strangers. That'll do nicely.

Sheesh.

Not too late?

2011-03-20T07:01:00.000+02:00

My Mona is four and a half, which is to say she has been seriously neglected for four and a half years because of my misguided notions of tough love and doing what's right for her in the long term. All I've been doing lately is beat myself up over it and still neglect her. Until I stumbled upon this gem of a quotation by Diane Loomans.

If I had my child to raise all over again,
I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I'd finger-paint more, and point the finger less.
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.
I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.
I'd do more hugging and less tugging.

Some parents are gifted by nature. Some like me need things spelled out for them. Thank you, Diane Loomans, for doing that for me.

Smart Google

2010-11-18T05:59:00.001+02:00

Those folk at Google really know what they're doing.

You know how you forget to attach your resume sometimes, and end up sending an impressive cover letter with no resume followed by the inevitable Ack! moment where you scramble to attach your resume, unsure which is worse: to apologize for the oversight, thus calling attention to the unbelievably silly mistake, or to resend the exact email only with an actual resume this time, hoping whoever is getting the resumes will somehow not see the first email you sent?

That was back in my pre-Gmail days. Apparently good old Google will even save you from your own stupidity. Lately I've been too harried to pay enough attention to pesky tasks like ensuring my work is actually attached before I hit the send button. The first time I did that using Gmail I got a warning that I mentioned the word "attached" in the body of my email but that nothing was attached, and did I really want to go ahead and send the email with nothing attached? At first it was uncanny -- I was thankful but scared. The kind of fear I feel when I watch one of those artificial intelligence movies. As in, I looked around me warily, wondering if Google planted secret little G-shaped spies around the house. Then after Google saved my ass by saving my work and "professional" image a few more times, I stopped caring and was thankful, period.

Thanks a million, you brilliant Google people! Instead of headdesking in frustration now that Google has stopped recognizing the double quotation thing where you need to search for the exact words in that exact sequence, I'm going to recall why I fell in love with Google in the first place. The clean white page. Those brilliant "did you mean" search suggestions (more often than not followed by me going "That is precisely what I meant! Brilliant Google"). Those fond memories of Googling stuff at my first real fulltime job at Hindawi. And now this neat attachment trick. Go Google!

Salvation for the Crap Mom

2010-11-08T12:21:00.003+02:00

More than a year and a half ago, I stumbled upon a YouTube channel belonging to a trio dedicated to subtitling a certain German soap opera. I was instantly hooked. I love languages, and this show introduced me to German (a surprisingly easy language to pick up) beautifully – it’s almost criminally easy to pick up a language if you hear several words repeated regularly along and compare it to the English subtitles at the bottom.

I love learning about the peculiarities of different cultures; the translator herself is a German who relocated to New Zealand and is completely fluent in English, so there was always an interesting explanation of some German custom or other, as well as comments on everything inevitably lost in translation, because she didn’t want us to miss out on anything funny the characters said.

I love witty snark; every episode was accompanied with a deliciously snarky commentary and hilarious nicknames for some of the more annoying characters, in addition to evil bitching about the show whenever the show was bitchy.

I absolutely love fanfiction. Good old Show was a goldmine, and coupled with a bunch of followers (plus the trio themselves) oozing talent, it meant endless fanfic that was also very good. Not one typo, language flowing smoothly, beautiful angsty angst – everything vital to an exquisite piece of fanfic was there.

And I loved the idea of finding friends with common interests but whose lives were as hectic as mine and who would therefore not consider it rude or, even more ridiculously, disloyal of me not to communicate regularly. Amazingly, almost all of the channel’s followers fell under this category. We started meeting unfailingly every night after the channel trio put up the episode to comment, and comments turned into bonding over sympathy for the nice guys and evil death plans for the bad guys. Show-related bonding turned to real bonding, and soon we were tweeting back and forth about kids, jobs, relationships, sending virtual bowls of hot chicken broth when one of the kids was sick, checking regularly to see what happened with someone’s dreaded meeting with the boss, throwing a virtual Good Riddance party when a miserable follower finally got a divorce, and of course alternately fangirling our darling show. My folks thought it was something nice only on the side and could never replace real friendships. My brother thought it was sad – outright pathetic, to quote him. My sister joked that I had issues. And my sister is a genius.

In fact, we all have issues. But for a bunch of us, that’s why it worked. We were all outsiders, loners, people who didn’t care much for real human contact and didn’t do all that well in it. We were struggling at parenthood; any of us who screamed that it was a fucking can of worms most of the time didn’t get their eye poked out by the metaphorical finger pointed at them in disgust and disbelief, judging them. I could vent about hating to play hostess and preferring to wake up to an empty house and a sleeping toddler so I could recharge and pick up the scraps of my sanity (something that was considered irresponsible by a real-life friend the single time I made the mistake of opening up about that) and a bunch of my Show friends would heartily agree. One of my Show friends (we considered her an alien – she’s a wonderful busy 40-something mom of three, three, kids who juggles real life and a full-time job and is a very gifted fanfic author) never rolls her eyes at me for being a diehard Harry Potter fan (albeit a proud Slytherin) because she herself is one. Compared to real-life people who are 8 years younger than me and think I’m unbelievably childish (or, well, a tad retarded) because of my HP enthusiasm, she was a godsend.

The thing is, life is truly a snarl of tangled setbacks and lows. There are highs, but responsibility can in fact do you in sometimes, and we’re not all born into life with the same mindset. I was always dumbfounded by girls I met who absolutely couldn’t wait for motherhood, and who are probably reading this and deciding I’m an ungrateful bitch who will ultimately get what’s coming to her. It was actually said, nah, yelled at me once by a “well-meaning” character – something along the lines of “other women would kill to have a child and you’re not thankful for your blessing”. Seeing as she was engaged, not even married yet, let alone a mother, I didn’t bother telling her that it was – to put it very politely – absurd of her to think those were my sentiments. I do not regret having my daughter; I regret my inability to make things go as smooth as other moms, seemingly at least. I regret being constantly fazed by all mommyhood-related responsibilities when other moms appear not to even think about them. I regret with all my heart that I have fucked up my precious daughter royally, which is what her pediatrician told me, because of my job and its insane hours which have led over the years to my daughter learning to become her own best friend since she’s always awake while I’m working, and I have to work if she’s to live semi-decently and go to a semi-decent school in this joke of an education system; because of my inability to make even small talk (it just doesn’t come for me; I try to breeze into a conversation with another mom and while I’m congratulating myself for improving my people skills I get an irritated glare and a hurried excuse from her to flee), which means my daughter hasn’t picked up any skills on initiating stuff with other kids; because of my pregnancy, which everyone dutifully informs me every day will be a catastrophe of gargantuan proportions for my daughter. I don’t know how those calm moms do it, but more than that I don’t know how they think. How do they approach the issue? I once had a team leader of the kind – she was always calm in the face of everything, she never freaked out or lost it, she never had long conversations (at least none that I heard – her life did of course extend beyond the walls of the office cubicle) about how on earth she was going to raise a mentally sound child and how she was going to juggle discipline and lenience and how she was planning to act when her kid resents her and everything to do with her (although that particular trait seems foreign to most girls I’ve met who were raised in Egypt –they fight and make up with their moms and keep a bunch of secrets, nothing serious, but there’s no strain of one generation having evolved from the other, no harbored resentment, nothing of the sort, at least with most of the girls I met here, while son-father resentment is alarmingly deep). I always wondered if my team leader was like other less-impressive females I’ve met – she simply waited for motherhood to come, calmly, knowing she would have the resources necessary to deal with whenever it did. I don’t know.

So, again, the thing is silly things can sometimes be the one thing that can help you keep your sanity. In my case it was the YouTube show and the bonding of our group of followers and the healthy cultivated interest in a new language. I may not be able to pick up a German novel anytime soon – hell, ever – but I’m getting some level of intellectual stimulation and fun, for about 20 minutes a day, the sort of interaction other people have so easily with real-life friends. Before meeting my Show friends I was almost positive I needed therapy – I cannot hold one smooth conversation made entirely of small talk with anyone without feeling like I was wracking my brains out and having an express train flatten me to the ground. It was exhausting, and it cemented my 24-7 feelings of worthlessness after spending the whole day trying unsuccessfully to entertain my daughter. It broke my heart, feeling that I was right all along in never wanting to be a mother because I would only raise another weirdo, and who knows when she can become comfortable in her own skin like I am?

Those precious Show friends and fellow moms gave me hope that yes, some kids do end up with incompetent moms, moms who really weren’t cut out for motherhood, but they do turn out okay in the end. It’s amazing how a short 160-character tweet, on some spectacularly bad days, can be the metaphorical hug you need to stop you from giving up on it all and deciding to try again, corny as it may sound. Also Danke Schön, meinen Schätze Freunden!

One is one and two is ten

2010-07-18T15:11:00.007+03:00

I'm only 13 or 14 weeks along and I'm already feeling the wisdom of Gwen Stefani's answer to a reporter about life after her second child. Every day confirms my suspicions about second pregnancies being a whole other can of worms. I'm squinting hard trying to make out any silver linings -- even a gray lining will do on this cloud. During my first pregnancy I didn't want it to end because I felt so great the whole time. This one I don't want to end because I know that despite all the exhaustion I'm going through it will be nothing compared to life after the arrival of the new baby.

On the plus side -- hello silver linings -- I lost 6 kgs in the first 10 weeks thanks to all the nausea and nonstop running to and fro around my preschooler. Since I ballooned after having Mona almost four years ago, any weight loss is more than welcome. Frankly, any mom-to-be needs all the figure-related ego boost she can get the second time around, especially since the first time it's all about showing off the slim waist and baby bump in clothes as colorful as you dare and this time... you want to run and hide under a tent. Sigh.

The biggest difference between the first time and the second time -- at least for me -- is that this time it's not stamped on your forehead like it seemed it was the first time. People absolutely couldn't care less. Except for my mom, of course, God bless her. With pretty much the rest of the world you have to explain to everyone around the table -- several times during the same meal -- why you keep scrunching up your nose in disgust at every food item in sight, and when you're done explaining you have to fight off the incessant albeit well-intentioned pleas to try this and try that several other times, and then you have to soothe every offerer's rumpled feathers (the hostess is a whole other story) until your nausea kicks back with a vengeance.

Thank God for humorous pregnancy authors. I laughed my head off reading Sinead Moriarty's snarky article on second pregnancies and I ordered a book that seems it was written just for me through my favorite online bookstore, Bookspot. The title itself is a killer: Pregnancy Sucks: What to Do When Your Miracle Makes You Miserable, and the book is really funny and snarky and very supportive, especially when people denounce you as ungrateful to the blessing of having another child. It was a real lifesaver several times for me. If it weren't for the author's brilliant snarky commiseration, I would've exploded that I am grateful, thank you very much, but my legs are unbelievably swollen and pooping has become a hazy memory and the term morning sickness is a lie because the nausea is there 24-7, not to mention the crazy mood swings thanks to the horror-mones, and just venting about the discomfort doesn't mean make me an ungrateful monster, damn it! Which of course would have rendered all goodwill between me and several people damaged beyond repair. I'm actually considering emailing the author with my personal thanks for saving some of my important relationships.

Nonetheless, I am grateful -- so far, apart from the usual pregnancy discomforts, it's been blessedly uneventful. Hopefully it remains that way until I can convince DH to agree on the names I want. He is adamantly against them, but I'm due in January so there's plenty of time for me to try to convince him why Elias and Aida are the most beautiful names on earth.

Mother Nature Weeps

2009-09-06T05:59:00.005+02:00

Could there possibly be a more unoriginal title for this? I suck at coming up with good titles.

Everyone's probably already seen this pic of a melting iceberg. The marine photographer who took this said he thinks it represents Mother Nature weeping over global warming.

I shudder imagining how faster global warming would've hit us if not for the many environment-conscious people. I've tried doing all I can for this cause ever since I was maybe 11 or 12. They taught as at school to minimize plastic and paper usage and recycle, and I studiously discourage cashiers from wrapping my stuff in additional paper or giving me unnecessary plastic bags. If there weren't so many of us trying out there... I try not to think about this too much. It positively freaks me out.

Seeking Prolonged Youth: A New Solution

2009-08-25T04:15:00.011+02:00

I'm going to fill my tub with ice-cold water and immerse myself, except for my nose and mouth, in it.

Forget the myriad anti-wrinkle creams and the famous leech therapy I've been unsuccessfully searching for in Egypt. Cold is the magic word. It makes sense: If you want to prolong something's ripeness, you put it in the fridge. If you want to prolong its ripeness even more, you put it in the freezer. Years ago I heard that women who grow up in hot environments age faster than their counterparts in cold environments. So instead of slathering my face with Palmer's cocoa butter six times a day (which is how often my skin feels unbelievably dry during the day), I'm going to ask DH or a best friend to hold my hand while I immerse myself in water as cold as I can take. I need my hand held not for encouragement but for monitoring. Very rarely cardiac problems occur if the water is that cold. So my monitor is supposed to help me haul myself out as soon as I tug on their hand. If I can. (Here is where all my characteristic crazy panicking kicks in). What if my heart stops upon immersion? Would that be suicide, given that I know this can sometimes be a health risk? But I hate cold water -- I've only been trying to give up showering with steamy water very recently and not too successfully. What if I stop breathing? Will that hurt? What if I die? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Of course, given that Karim Diab the Russian-Syrian guy who got into the Guinness Book of Records did so by spending one hour in ice-cold water, not even immersed in it with only his nose and mouth above water like I imagine I might be able to, I'm not going to be throwing out my cocoa butter just yet.

Ramadan Musings

2009-08-21T20:36:00.006+02:00

I'm stumped. Don't get me wrong. Spiritually the month is a goldmine. And a wonderful time to push my tolerance to the limits. It's just that people's attitudes and behavior, annoyingly, sink lower than ever during the month. Which makes them even harder to tolerate than usual. Which is why it's a good chance to practice my already shaky tolerance levels.

Take the myriad iftar invitations you must attend. I used to wiggle out of them easily before I got married, but now I'm not making social decisions alone. It's a good thing DH is not all that big on the exhausting Ramadan entertaining norms revered by most in Egypt.

Of course, to get to your host's place you first have to brace yourself and jump into the crazy iftar rush. I cannot for the life of me get the point of the hurry people are in to get wherever they're invited for iftar. So the Maghrib prayer time is upon you and you're still in the car -- so what? It makes more sense to wait: The streets are practically deserted once the prayer time comes (another mystery: where do all those people go?) and you can make it faster than you ever thought possible.

Then there's the insane television schedule. For someone to choose to spend hours after hours in Ramadan (or any other time for that matter) on the couch watching soaps is none of my business -- I have a few but sacred YouTube soaps that I will never miss myself -- but what puzzles me is the satisfaction in their voice when they talk about what they like most about Ramadan and go on and on about how spiritually enriching the month is, how peace permeates the atmosphere and fills their heart... Go figure. Again, it's none of my business, simply an amused outsider's wonderings. After all, Islam stresses never judging someone's spiritual standing based on what you see them do; short religious practice doesn't necessarily mean they're lower on the scale than someone who spends more time. Quality is key, and a truly pure heart.

Anyway, the insane social norms begin tomorrow. I hope none of my Egyptian friends feel offended. I'm not criticizing and I am Egyptian as well. I just fiercely cherish my time alone and these are simply musings while I savor the last quiet moments I'll get by myself for a whole month.

Best Ramadan wishes to all.

Stainless steel is my new best friend

2009-08-17T08:31:00.003+03:00

I just read this on Yahoo and tried it a couple of hours later. It's magic! Rubbing your hands under cold water with anything made of stainless steel in lieu of a soap bar really does remove all traces of onion smell! I used a plain old tablespoon. So unbelievably simple, clean... effortless!

Best Summer Diet - Ant Diet

2009-07-15T19:48:00.006+03:00

I've discovered the most effective diet of all. I'm not even thinking longingly of any type of food, healthy or junk. My toddler is thirsty and I'm trying to make her forget cold water and make do with lukewarm water because I cannot bring myself to enter the kitchen. See there's a huge ant the size of a full-grown cockroach on my kitchen sink. It has a big ugly head and scary huge wings.

Clearly I should do the dishes more often than every weekend.

I hate summer. It brings all these bugs out en masse and they seem to have evolved into a much bolder species than I remember. I don't think the word "insect" can convey insignificance and vulnerability anymore. Repulsiveness, certainly, but boldness as well. Which means these latest generations are rapidly evolving into monsters. Think about it. They're getting impossibly bigger than what I used to see a few years ago, so a few years from now I expect cockroaches to be as big as a one-year-old human being maybe. *shudders*

While typing this entry my daughter insisted I get her cold water so I had to. I am mortified to say this, but I was absolutely terrified. I mean, heart pounding, knees shaking terrified. I don't think I'd be more watchful and ready to flee if a hitman was crouching in a glass instead of that ant. Well that's an exaggeration, but you know...

So I guess my pants will be a little loose soon. I'm home alone most of the day, and in this heat I can only imagine how often I'm going to lock the kitchen door and sit terrified waiting for DH to come home quickly. Best diet ever.

No Sacré Cœur for Mona

2009-07-06T15:12:00.006+03:00

Is it too melodramatic to say I'm devastated?

No Sacré Cœur for my toddler. For the last two years all I've done is research schools until I was completely satisfied that the best possible education system in Egypt -- according to my standards -- is the Sacré Cœur schools. I was overjoyed to discover one very close to my place. My only concern was that they don't accept kids as young as three, but I pushed that to the back of my mind.

So I call them with a trembling heart, and I learn that I missed the registration deadline! Other schools are only just beginning registration and the Sacré Cœur is done! They actually started June 1 and were done before the beginning of July.

Now what? I wanted a French-medium school for Mona because over the years I noticed that every single French-medium graduate I've met is more fluent in English than their English-medium counterpart is in French, and to me bilingualism is the bare minimum to carry you through life; multilingualism is my long-term goal for Mona. I consider myself handicapped for being fluent in English only.

But I didn't want any French-medium school. I wanted a school closest to my first school back in the UAE, a school that was back then in a league of its own, just like the Sacré Cœur is in a league of its own now. I went to Rosary School, and my school, along with the devoted efforts my parents put in me, shaped every good side there ever was to me.

There was discipline, quite strict discipline actually: Nuns ran the school. Yet we weren't a herd where teachers would yell or threaten us with physical punishment. We were individuals, each and every one of us, even at age 6 or 7, and they maintained our sense of self-respect. Most of the time punishment was in fact non-physical; their aim was to shame you if you misbehaved, and because of your sense of self punishment of that sort really hurt and -- unless it was a particularly rebellious or antisocial student -- did the trick.

There was creativity, and we were strongly encouraged to find out who we were and explore our personalities. There was emphasis on the importance of a solid future career hand in hand with sound ethics and firm family values. There were a great many things I can never do justice in an entry I'm typing while upset and extremely sleep-deprived, unfortunately.

This is what I want for my daughter, and after asking and researching for two years I reached the conclusion only the Sacré Cœur can provide my daughter with this. Now what?

Funny Quote

2009-07-03T01:46:00.003+03:00

"Remember the waterfront shack with the sign FRESH FISH SOLD HERE. Of course it's fresh, we're on the ocean. Of course it's for sale, we're not giving it away. Of course it's here, otherwise the sign would be someplace else. The final sign: FISH." Peggy Noonan

One of my all-time favorite editing quotes. Possible my all-time favorite.

Although personally I'd keep the sign as it originally was. I think the redundancy is...justified, if you will, and beneficial to the unsure and the hesitant who will assume what they've understood from the sign is wrong. There are those who need instructions repeated, elaborated on, and language should cater to them as well, as long as it doesn't stoop to sloppy redundancy.

RIP Michael Jackson

2009-07-02T03:09:00.002+03:00

I was among the millions that grew up die-hard Michael Jackson fans. I still am a huge fan of his. I enjoyed and loved his music. His music was more or less a regular soundtrack to a big part of my life. I remember staring at Debbie Rowe's pic enviously after they got married and thinking, I had a chance; I'm prettier.

Why is it that in most cases the more extraordinarily gifted the person, the more turmoil in his life? Maybe talented people, especially artists, can't live without turmoil. Maybe turmoil is the catalyst for their brilliant creations. Maybe talent burns them whereas regular folk like myself are safe.

I'm not surprised he passed away. We're human, so we die. But I am very, very sad. I was waiting patiently for his comeback... I hope the media miraculously has some mercy on his children instead of pouncing on them like I expect it will.

Rest in peace, Michael Jackson.

Milestone for Me!

2009-06-07T22:31:00.002+03:00

I just finished cleaning my kitchen floor, all by myself, for the first time ever in my life, and I am ridiculously proud of myself. I didn't even visit Flylady.com! I improvised. I actually used a regular towel. I have no idea where the rags are: The cleaning woman keeps them out of sight and only comes every other week (she's mysteriously sick every other week but I like to always give people the benefit of the doubt).

Yay for me! Such a ridiculously insignificant milestone for most people -- probably even shameful that it's a milestone for me at 29, but I am so proud of me!

Hilarious Music Video Parody

2009-06-02T07:22:00.004+03:00

This video cracked me up. I don't think I've laughed this hard since a long time ago. I literally almost fell off my chair laughing.If the crazy shots in music videos ever stumped you you are going to love this.

I found the link to this in one of Larry Sullivan's tweets. Whenever I check out Larry Sullivan's tweets I always walk away with something interesting and often educational. And he will actually talk to his fans! Best of luck to the sunniest, most lovable actor ever for taking the time to reply to my fan tweet and for making my day twice!

He's Accomplished, Wise, And He Oozes Sex Appeal

2009-05-29T05:50:00.009+03:00

I happened to be in the living room during a show where Adel Imam appeared, and I invite you to share, and learn, with me.

He was invited back to the Faculty of Agriculture after all those years since he graduated there, and he was "surprised" to find that it was flooded with hijabis interspersed with a few non-hijabis who he at once "realized" were Christians, a situation which he stated was, because of the Mulsim identity the many hijabis obviously displayed, "certainly not right".

Enlightening. Let's break this down, shall we?

First, the non-hijabis, his victims of implied discrimination, were decidedly Christian. I'd like to know why Adel Imam hasn't corrected the countless references in various media to his wife, a non-hijabi herself, as a Muslim. Oh, she is in fact a Muslim? Then Adel Imam obviously possesses supernatural abilities to tell your religion just by the presence or absence of a hijab. So we are blessed with not only an acting genius (nah, naturally I don't mean the movies that obviously target the straight men and those of us who swing both ways; ditch those; I assure you all, his filmography screams "genius"; go check it; where there is a will there is a way guys!) but also a magical phenomenon, all in a package his movies very subtly remind us is very "hot". Lucky us.

Second, since we're on the issue of discrimination: It was news to me that exhibiting a symbol of your faith upon your person is discriminatory and "certainly not right". It certainly never bothers me when my non-Muslim friends proudly wear a gold cross or Buddhist pendant. But hey, who am I to talk? I'm just an ignorant hijabi. What about the rest of the Muslims I know who socialize, nah, are best friends with non-Muslims, and all parties wear symbols of their respective faiths? Sheesh, here I go again. Who are they to talk? They are after all miserable hijabis like myself. Except they're not. Nor are many people in industrialized countries, where the cosmopolitan heartthrob who never ages would find himself messing with the sacred freedom of expression if he so much as hinted at the inappropriateness of displaying your faith.

Newsflash to our never-aging connoisseur of the arts and everything else under the sun: Your faithful publicists remind us nonstop, just in case we dare forget, of your perpetual youth. About time they added your unfailing wisdom. Just in case you started dropping similar jewels more often. Trust me.

Firsts

2009-04-24T10:46:00.002+03:00

Here's a very interesting list from my friend Cynthia. A sweet walk down memory lane!

1. Who was your FIRST prom date?
Never went to a prom

2. Do you still talk to your FIRST love?
Nope

3. What was your 1st alcoholic drink?
Ginger Ale (And by mistake! I was so overjoyed to find a Canada Dry in Egypt that I just grabbed it off the shelf and after checking out and tasting it I felt something was off -- it wasn't the same Canada Dry I drank for years growing up in the UAE. I look at the can more closely and it blares "Ginger Ale"!)

4. What was your FIRST job?
Telemarketer

5. What was your FIRST car?
Fiat Nasr 127

6. Who was the FIRST person to text you today?
Nobody's texted me yet!

7. Who is the FIRST person you thought of this morning?
Landon Carter and Jamie Sullivan from A Walk To Remember

8. Who was your FIRST grade teacher?
Mrs Romana

9. Where did you go on your FIRST ride on an airplane?
UAE

10. Who was your FIRST best friend & do you still talk to them?
Dahlia. Unfortunately we lost touch

11. Where was your FIRST sleep over?
Dareen's

12. Who was the FIRST person you talked to today?
My daughter

13. Whose wedding were you in the FIRST time?
Mine! I'd studiously avoided all weddings and then mine happened. Just an aqd qiran though albeit in a white gown

14. What was the FIRST thing you did this morning?
Started work

15. What was the FIRST concert you ever went to?
Never been to a concert

16. FIRST tattoo?
Only a temporary one when I was 17. On the inside of my left thigh

17. First piercing?
Regular ear piercing when I was maybe 9 months

18. First foreign country you've been to?
UAE

19. FIRST movie you remember seeing?
Bambi

20. When was your FIRST detention?
Grade 7. I was a geek, teacher's pet, a rebel inside, only started rebelling outside in Grade 7. The boys were much too hot for me not to rebel. :) I think I remained a geek though.

21. What was the first state you lived in?
Never been in a US state

22. Who was your FIRST roommate?
Never left home to study

23. If you had one wish. What would it be?
For more wishes. Brilliant wish Cynthia

24. What is something you would learn if you had the chance?
Me too! Different languages. Tons of languages

25. Who do you think will be the next person to post this?
Dunno

Great Google Idea

2009-03-24T17:46:00.004+02:00

Isn't this neat?

Google asked 150 orphans to create designs for the Google Egypt logo. I haven't had a chance to check out all the designs yet, but the few I did look at really impressed me. To think such sunny imagination came from children society considers criminals or losers in the making! I think they are definitely worth the time spent browsing the creations.

Please, everybody, squeeze a few minutes into your crammed schedule and go check out the doodles and vote for the best, even if it means missing Oprah or the Grey's Anatomy recap. These children's efforts definitely are worth your time. It's the least we privileged ones can do for these children.

My Friend Cynthia's Bucket List

2009-02-17T00:26:00.006+02:00

A very interesting bucket list! My friend Cynthia tagged me, among others, in this one and asked us to check the stuff we'd done. Some of the stuff I'm proud I've did, some not. Some stuff I'm glad I haven't done and will probably never do for anything! Here's the list...

Things you have done during your lifetime:
( ) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
( ) Watched someone die
() Been to Canada
( ) Been to Mexico
( ) Been to Florida
( ) Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane
( ) Been on a helicopter
(X) Been lost
( ) Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons
( ) Sang Karaoke
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't.
( ) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose & elsewhere
( ) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Danced in the rain-naked
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe
( ) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
( ) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
(X) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
( ) Seen the Statue of Liberty
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
(X) Been on a cruise
(X) Traveled by train
(X) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
( ) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
( ) Been to Disneyland/ Disney World
(X) Truly believe in the power of prayer
( ) Been in a rain forest
( ) Seen whales in the ocean
( ) Been to Niagara Falls
( ) Ridden on an elephant
( ) Ridden on a Camel
( ) Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying
( ) Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
( ) Been to the Louvre
(X) Swam in the Mediterranean
(X) Been to the Great Pyramid in Egypt
( ) Been to a Major League Baseball game
( ) Been to a National Football League game

Crawly Creepy Milestone

2009-02-13T04:03:00.007+02:00

I killed a cockroach!

Those who don't know me well will fail to fully appreciate the significance of this. This is huge! This is on a par with, say... er... someone with a serious phobia conquering their phobia... on their own!

I'm not the greatest housewife. For instance, the dishes... My system is very much like Tom from Desperate Housewives: I do the dishes every few days. Lately it's been exceptionally warm and I guess that's why I found the unwelcome visitor checking out my kitchen.

The really important change is my reaction. I was totally disgusted, of course, and about to throw up. All typical. The completely new part was that throughout the big "ewwww" I couldn't help, I was actually reaching out to the closest weapon I could find: a reliable flip flop lying in front of the kitchen door; again, I'm not the greatest housewife on earth. I grabbed it and killed the revolting albeit tiny creature. I feel like throwing up just at remembering the incident, but still! It's a huge step into efficient-mommy land for me.

Pity the cockroach showed up around 1 am. I wanted to call, sms, and email everyone I know to share the big moment but there was no one I could contact. Tomorrow I'm going to celebrate.

Grandma Moses

2008-12-26T03:33:00.005+02:00

How amazing is it to take up painting when you're seventy? Even more inspiring to me is that Grandma Moses did that because she had to give up embroidery due to arthritis. I mean how amazing is it that instead of sitting around wallowing in self-pity and treating the disease as an excuse to just sit and wait for death and reminisce about the glorious past, she simply looked for something else to enjoy and went after it. I'd like to think I'll still be able to be passionate, or at least just interested, about something when I'm forty, let alone seventy... although forty doesn't seem that far anymore. I turn 30 in 2010. As in a year and two months from now! Wow.

Anyway, Grandma Moses is one of my favorite artists of all time. I love how her work is so rich in detail and full of people doing different things and taking different poses. I think the human face and form are way more enjoyable than say, a beautiful waterfall picture or something. I have a tiny calendar with 12 of her beautiful paintings. I probably will scan them sometime and upload them here. No copyright infringement intended by displaying the paintings below.

I paint from the top down. From the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the houses, then the cattle, and then the people. Grandma Moses

Brilliant Felicity Huffman Quote

2008-12-25T03:20:00.006+02:00

She is just breathtaking and so refreshingly smart. Not to mention talented from head to gorgeous toe. Isn't she amazing?

"In the new millennium, we're fighting against the icon of the perfect mother. I don't know about here, but in America you're not allowed to talk about how it's driving you crazy, or how you don't like it, or how, if you have to give a bath one more time, you're going to pull your hair out. Because then you're considered a bad mom. There's a very established conversation or litany, which is, 'Isn't motherhood the best?' To me, that question just isn't applicable. You can complain about your job, you can complain about your husband, you can complain about your friends, but God forbid you complain about your kids."

DiCaprio's Body of Lies: A Muslim Thanks!

2008-11-17T10:20:00.004+02:00

I can't get over it. I just can't get over it. How did a movie like this come into light? When the Arab terrorist quotes a Quranic verse claiming it urges true Muslims to kill "infidels" and the American CIA agent tells him he got the meaning of the verse all wrong, I was absolutely incredulous and...overjoyed!

I mean this is the number one problem with the image of Islam now. People everywhere think Muslims are actually encouraged to slaughter and kill and do all sorts of barbaric acts in the name of spreading the light. It's a fact that nothing is farther from the truth. It's also a fact that very few people know this fact. Many Muslims even mistakenly believe Islam promotes violence and slaughtering of "infidels" and similar falsehoods not related to Islam at all.

Of course the Middle East depicted in the movie is nowhere near the real Middle East. Crowe's character asks DiCaprio's sarcastically, smugly, about how it feels to be in civilization again, and jokes about ordering him something, I forget, a food item he presumes is nonexistent in the Middle East. This with Starbucks opening not just in the rich Dubai but in barely-getting-by Egypt. The best Middle East footage is, again, nowhere near the actual civilization in Jordan and Dubai. Especially Dubai. I personally know Europeans and Americans who were blown away upon arriving in Dubai, but the very short scene where the camera pans some high-rises hardly does the actual Dubai any justice. I know, having been raised in the UAE, and that was back in the eighties to mid-nineties, way before the breathtaking architecural developments.

Still, the movie does us a gigantic lot of justice in my opinion. The key problem we're facing especially in the West and after 9/11 is that we're a bloodthirsty, narrowminded, steadfastly ignorant fundamentalists who would rather blow themselves up to destroy the so-called infidels than practice tolerance and democracy, two true virtues of the real Islam. Having an American non-Muslim character say so is enough for me, at least for now, amidst all the slamming we're getting even in our own countries.

Inlaw Heart Surgery

2008-10-12T04:54:00.004+02:00

It is 4:55 now. I have taken to not sleeping late during the weekend because it makes staying up for work on Tuesday harder than it is. Today though there's another reason for me staying up.

My husband just went to bed to wake up at 6 so he can pick up his mom and sis and arrive at 7:30 for his aunt's open heart surgery, the same surgery at the same hospital where his dad's health started its long downward spiral that would end with his passing away in July 2005, two weeks after our engagement.

I didn't think it would be a good idea for him and his mom and sis to be there throughout his aunt's entire surgery. I mean his mom and sis -- when they visit my folks -- cannot face sitting in the same place they sat on their first visit to my folks' place for a formal proposal, back when his dad was of course still with them. To this day they can't look at the room; they will sit anywhere else, no matter how inconvenient, but not that room. My husband, after 3 years, still has a hard time not welling up when songs about fathers come on the radio. His dad was a good man, good to him and his sister and his mom. I remember when I was telling my grandma how worried I was that they weren't going to get over it, especially his mom, my grandma said a woman only has a hard time after her husband's death if he was exceptionally kind to her. I don't know about how true that statement is, but he certainly was very kind to his family and to many others. On their first visit to my folks' place he blew me away by commenting on the last thing anyone noticed if at all about my then-9-year-old brother, "He is overflowing with compassion." True. My little (not so little now) brother was and is a steady stream of kindness, teenage tantrums and all.

Something went wrong with my FIL's anesthesia and instead of the scheduled 4 hours his surgery went on for a little more than 10 whole hours. He was wheeled out to intensive care with an infection that would later require a correction surgery that would leave him in a coma for a week, and never the same man again for the following 6 or so years until his sudden death. It passed in a stupor for my MIL, SIL, and husband, but to this day they will go out of their way to avoid passing in front of that hospital, and pull all the stops trying to talk those scheduled to be admitted there out of it. The French Qasr Al Ainy has become the symbol of everything corrupt in their eyes, and not undeservingly: Last night my mom (a retired doctor) was schocked to hear about his aunt's choice of hospital, and tried explaining that it is infamous for its lousy aftercare. It's not my DH's aunt's choice, of course. Her surgeon only operates there.

I'm trying not to think of the other big concerns: his aunt's almost 80 if not past it; that coupled with her long list of ailments make it possible that she may not even make it. I'm asking everybody to keep us in their prayers. I hope tomorrow goes easily for everybody.

Out of Hatred for Intolerance

2008-09-02T02:33:00.003+02:00

I came across a poem I've kept since reading it many years ago, and I felt it was never more suitable than it is today.

THE COLD WITHIN

Six humans trapped in happenstance

In dark and bitter cold,

Each one possessed a stick of wood,

Or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs

The first woman held hers back,

For of the faces around the fire,

She noticed one was black.

The next man looking across the way

Saw not one of his church,

And couldn't bring himself to give

The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes

He gave his coat a hitch,

Why should his log be put to use,

To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought

Of the wealth he had in store,

And how to keep what he had earned,

From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge

As the fire passed from sight,

For all he saw in his stick of wood

Was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group

Did naught except for gain,

Giving only to those who gave,

Was how he played the game.

The logs held tight in death's still hands

Was proof of human sin,

They didn't die from the cold without,

They died from the cold within.

How true!

Moved To My Own Place

2008-08-05T05:13:00.010+03:00

It is 5:13 in the morning and some weird creature is honking its car horn outside. I've totally passed the stage where I would sit and glare in the dark and call them "asshole" and other select names, but I'm also not going to consider them a normal human being. How can you possibly honk your horn at 5:13 am? What kind of upbringing produces such callousness? Don't give me any crap about barely getting by thereby being unable to afford the luxury of manners. Manners are manners. There are people who are dirt poor and have impeccable manners. It's not poverty. It's a weird blend that's only too common in this country: ignorance plus pigheaded refusal to change that almost sacred ignorance in any way. Proof? Go to the nearest person you know with a cold, and try to stop them from loading up on antibiotic without consulting their doctor. No matter how hard you explain that antibiotic only works if it's a bacterial infection not a viral infection, they will still gulp that tablet, only now they'll set out to prove you wrong as soon and as often as they can. It's not a matter of finding out new information provided the source is reliable, blah, blah, blah. It's personal, and you have deeply offended them by daring to suggest something different, and now it is their life mission to make you pay for that.

I have tried and tried and tried to explain to well-meaning (maybe, because the amused challenge in their voices makes me suspect otherwise) relatives that Pepsi is the textbook definition of unhealthy for my 21-month-old toddler because (a) it's horrible for bones and (b) it's addictive, meaning exponential accumulation of (a). Do they even ask where I got the information? Nah. They taunt me ridiculously, dangling the glass too close to my daughter, who is of course very eager to try anything new, and telling her slowly while she's listening intently, "I know how much you want a sip, sweetie, but your mama won't allow me to give you this even though I want to very, very much." All of them. Every single moron I've asked not to do this. And I must see the humor immediately of course, otherwise I might...offend them! Offend them!

Anyway, it's my second morning here in my own place. We have officially moved. It was completely unplanned; I was actually suffering from a horrible mysterious bout of excessive nausea and diarrhea (yikes) and a fever for eight whole days, but something went wrong in the building suddenly and there was no water, not even a few drops leaking out of the faucet. So DH and I threw some things in a bag and headed to our place, and we're still here and we decided to make it the move we were planning for so hard. I mean the place is covered in dust and I don't even know how to clean a table top, never mind cleaning the wooden floors and the bathroom (only one bathroom! *shudders* I thought I could give up anything if I had to but I guess I was wrong -- I need two bathrooms! Probably my diarrhea talking -- so much for not letting the world know I had standard bodily functions. It's not just me -- read Jenny Colgan's Talking to Addison, everybody; you'll believe me.) and the kitchen and the balconies and staving off unwanted visitors from bug world and keeping everything clean... Aaaaaaaaargh!

So, just a quick entry to announce my move, except I was really pissed off at the person honking their horn at the beginning.

At My MIL's

2008-07-06T05:54:00.004+03:00

Today is Sunday July 6. It has been exactly two months since Tamer was admitted to the hospital the night before his surgery. I think it just hit him that in two months he managed to undergo a major surgery, fight the emergency splenectomy and lung collapse that came with it, stay holed up at our new place for two or three weeks with nobody but his mom because his wife, daughter, and only sister were too contagious to stay there, haul us all to the North Coast for what was supposed to be a week of relaxed recuperation but turned out to be seven days of unpleasant twists interspersed with a few fun hours, haul us back on the night before his first day at work after surgery managing to catch a cold and run a fever on the same night, load up on painkillers and antibiotics so he can drag himself to and from work, take the day off on the third day of work to rush his mom to the hospital where we learned that she had to have a cholecystectomy ASAP, convince his mom to have it, secure the money, and... here we are, a week after his mom underwent surgery. She had it last Saturday, Tamer and I stayed at her place Sunday, and she came home Monday. Not the smoothest of rides. He has been looking weird lately and I cornered him about it today. He confessed that he'd been feeling very stressed although he didn't know why. I was like, seriously? You don't know why? It's been one hell of a nonstop rollercoaster ride and you don't know why? Now though we can look forward to something nice, maybe a little trip for a couple of days somewhere where we can take it easy, just the two and a half of us. Even though I miss my folks and brothers and sister awfully especially since I haven't seen them since more than a week now. My MIL still has to see her doctor on Tuesday and next Sunday, but I'm hoping we can go back to my folks' tonight and come back Tuesday, or maybe next Sunday which is also Tamer's birthday. Whew! I think I've never typed a longer paragraph.

I would be really content though to just have things go back to normal for a while. Did I already say that somewhere in my blog? Anyway, that seems so much more appealing than a vacation, at least for now. I don't know why but I feel the idea of a vacation will just be a continuation of this rollercoaster ride we've been on for two months. I'd like us to sort of recharge for a while so that vacationing doesn't get too exhausting to be fun.

Anyways, now aside from trying to take care of the two post-op cases we have we're also hoping we don't actually end up in the hospital again. It's my SIL this time. She has been having the most horrible colonic pain lately. She literally bends over when it hits her and gets all nauseated and headache-y. A few days ago the family doctor stopped by. Contrary to what he usually says (just tension; making a big fuss out of nothing; etc) he was actually alarmed by how high her blood pressure was (she's only 27) and diagnosed her with colitis. It's too soon to tell whether the medication's working; so far it hasn't looked promising but we're still waiting.

Guess my blog's name oughta be Nora's Anatomy, huh? Hopefully this will be the end of boring illness-related news and I will have more fun stuff instead. Have a great day!

Funny Video To Kick Off The Night

2008-06-25T23:37:00.004+03:00

Frasier never fails to brighten up my day. I love the refreshing sophistication and classical references and the hilarious pompous words Frasier and Niles insist on using. I love it so much I don't think I have a favorite episode or character. They're all equally excellent.

Here's a quote that cracks me up without fail every single time I watch Niles saying it, no matter how many times I've seen it before. Niles is telling Frasier about a saucy movie he and Maris watched.

Have you seen that movie? Maris and I rented the video - I don't mind telling you we pushed our beds together that night! And that was no mean feat - her room, as you know, is across the hall!

Even more hilarious than what he says is the matter-of-fact way he says it. Frasier rules!

I also really enjoy watching the scene I put here (no infringement or copyright violation intended). I think Niles is a brilliant actor. He has to be to pull off such a silent scene so well, although the part where he speaks in the beginning is also very funny. Enjoy.

My MIL's Surgery

2008-06-23T14:07:00.001+03:00

So my MIL's cholecystectomy is scheduled for next Saturday. I can't possibly take any more days off from work after the 2 weeks I took off in such a short space of time, so I can only pray for my work to be uploaded earlier than usual on Saturday. Usually it's uploaded later than any other day of the week because MBC is off Saturdays so the uploader can't bring themselves to leave home one minute earlier than they have to. I called my company and asked the vice manager to try and have them upload it as early as possible; I was hoping she'd ask why and then I'd tell her about my MIL's surgery, thus making her give me that one day off or make the uploader put the episode early. Nah. She didn't even ask why; she only asked "how early?" in a weary voice that screamed, "I'm-sick-of-your-endless-excuses-and-emergencies."

Which, when I think of it, is really weird. How come my life is one series of unlikely situations that do nothing but eat away at my credibility? I mean back at my fulltime job I got really sick (seriously sick -- bed-ridden and everything) three or four weeks before my engagement and remained sick one week afterwards. I heard many of my coworkers remark sarcastically that it must be nice to take a five-week sick leave and come back with a ring on my right finger. Some well-meaning coworkers even shrieked the day I came back, "Hey! Why in the world would anyone need five weeks off to get engaged?"

Just two weeks later my FIL passed on in Uganda and I took several days off to ferry my then-fiance to the endless government agency bureaus he had to visit to finish the death certificate and related stuff, the procedures made 10 times more complicated because of the death happening outside the country.

Then less than two months after that my folks had to go away for a year and needed to marry me off for faith-related and social considerations. Indeed I got married within three days' notice and went on a one-week honeymoon where my husband and I ran a raging fever and became friends with the hotel's reception desk people who called every day to check if we needed more soup or tea.

Then a hectic month followed the honeymoon. All of a sudden I was schlepping clothes and toothbrush back and forth from my mom's to my MIL's in Ramadan, driving all the way from my MIL's, Giza, to my work, Nasr City, two neighborhoods very far from each other and connected by streets with the worst traffic I'd seen back then.

None of this of course is reason for my performance level to go down but go down it did -- it plummeted, so to speak, and I had no choice in the end but to ask for a hiatus. They were really generous. They gave me two months off (no pay of course, but the security of returning whenever you're up for it was more than any pay, I think). You'd think all my problems were solved: I thought so too until I discovered I was pregnant one week after I returned. I didn't dare and didn't want to ask for any days off on account of the morning sickness, blah, blah, but I didn't always succeed in braving it and skipped work several times. My husband's only living uncle passed on during that time and we traveled to Alexandria for the funeral and stayed one day, which was quite exhausting for me and everybody really. The day after we returned I got a firm albeit warm call from HR requesting I stop by ASAP to sign my resignation.

They were really nice and kept assuring me I'd be most welcome once I'd had the baby and figured out my life, you know, but I knew then it was the end of that era.

Anyway, keep my MIL in your prayers guys and wish me luck for next week. It will be especially trying. I'm probably going to miss the surgery which is not the best of starts to get off to with your inlaws. This is it for now.

My MIL's Health Scare

2008-06-18T13:31:00.000+03:00

Guys! When I asked you to keep my family and me in your prayers I meant like pronto, you know? Just kidding. Not kidding as such, but wasn't sure how to start the entry in a remotely interesting way as opposed to the latest-catastrophe-newsflash style I've been forced to adopt lately.

So anyway, right now my DH's is driving to his mom's place after taking the rest of the day off from work (can't imagine the look on his boss's face when he delivered the news -- after five weeks off then two days at work he's taking off -- priceless) because my MIL had a seizure. He's gonna take her to a hospital near her place and in all likelihood she's having her cholecystectomy today. Right out of the blue. Gotta be honest though. It's not like the doctor didn't warn us last week. This race is one big bunch of procrastinators.

Anyway, gotta run now. More later. Keep us in your prayers. Seriously.

Back to Life After Recuperation

2008-06-16T15:45:00.001+03:00

Today is DH's first day at work after undergoing surgery on May 7. So 5 weeks have passed. Thank God it's over -- wasn't the easiest of rides. Sometimes it felt like time had stopped and I was stuck in a weird uncomfortable obsolete time zone.

Yesterday we returned to my mom's place (yay!); my DH, MIL, SIL, Mona, and I spent the last week of recuperation on the North Coast for DH's health, or so his doctor said. Actually DH got so exhausted recuperating that he caught a cold, which he took along with his now-too-loose clothes (he lost a whopping 30 kgs) to work this morning.

Our North Coast stay wasn't uneventful though: My MIL spent a whole night throwing up and in excruciating pain; the GP who saw her said she needs to have a cholecystectomy done ASAP. Naturally she's terrified especially after DH's experience but sadly there are no other options. I hope her surgery goes smoother than my DH's did; we're hoping it can be done laproscopically. She's much too fragile for traditional surgery complications.

This is it for now. More later.

Bat In The Balcony

2008-06-03T13:35:00.000+03:00

I just got off the phone with my mom and I just cannot believe what she told me. I moved to my own place a few days ago (I'd say finally if I wasn't so miserably homesick for my folks and brothers and sister and the walls and the janitor, damn it -- I miss everything, but that warrants more than a mere parenthesized mention) so my mom got her first chance in nearly two years to clean out my room and the attached balcony, and what should she find esconced in the upper corner of the balcony wall but a bat! A real-life Harry-Potter-style black bat!

I mean I've always known I'm not the world's biggest cleanliness freak, but a bat? Sorry mom! My mom is one of the cleanliest people I've ever seen -- a tad too big on the issue for my taste. Obviously I'm the last person to talk if I've been so blissfully filthy for two years that a bat made a home in the balcony of my room.

Anyway, those who are up to speed on my news know that my SIL, daughter, and I were banned from staying with my DH after he left the hospital because we were really sick. So my SIL stayed at her mom's, my toddler and I stayed at my mom's, and my DH and MIL stayed at our new place. It's Tuesday today and I moved in Friday evening so I've been here now for almost 4 days. Maybe it was Saturday though -- it must be regression. I'm too unsettled by moving out of the nest that I keep forgetting details about this new place.

Anyway, my MIL and SIL are still here; they're staying till my husband's fully recuperated, which is June 14. Frankly I was dragging my feet about coming here despite missing DH badly not just because I didn't want to move out but because I was worried about moving in with them here. I mean I don't know the first thing about cleaning or dusting or housekeeping in general and I can only cook three dishes when I have tons of time in the kitchen and punctuality isn't an issue... But with houseguests and your inlaws at that? I freaked out every time I thought about it.

Now though I'm relaxing. Not because I discovered I have a knack for house stuff (actually it's so much the total opposite that I have no option but to relax or I might burn the milk while making tea for my MIL) but because, contrary to what I thought, this turned out to be another temporary (yay!) period: We're still not moving back, but until DH returns to work we're gonna stay at his mom's place for two days and maybe at my mom's for another two and then we need to take him outside the city for a couple of days, preferably a week, the doctor said, but since summer's not officially here with high school exams still unfinished I doubt we can keep ourselves entertained for longer than two days anywhere we go.

I just can't get over the bat thing. After I hung up with my mom I noticed I'd started making what Freddy in Till We Meet Again called rat's nests throughout the house. Piles of unrelated paraphernalia that get higher and higher and make everyone else stumble more often. So I promptly attacked the ones in the kitchen and a couple in my bedroom but it gets too boring.

I wonder how much wisdom lies in those silly catchy phrases on key chains and mugs. Usually I think they're corny cliches but I guess I really like the one that says "Dull women keep immaculate houses". I guess I like a nice explanation for why I'm such a messy person. Although my mom's very interesting and yet very clean.

DH's Surgery Update

2008-05-13T15:03:00.000+03:00

So here's the latest on my DH's health. First though I have to thank every single one of my wonderful friends for their supportive emails and phone calls. It made all the difference. You girls are the best.

Well, it was supposed to be a minor surgery, like most endoscopic surgeries. But because of the many layers of fat in my DH's middle, they couldn't proceed endoscopically and had to revert to old-fashioned surgery, which changed everything. First of all, it became a major abdomen surgery. Then as soon as they'd started, they were faced with the first complication. My DH's spleen was so huge with fat that it made any kind of work on that area impossible. So they had to do a splenectomy, a major procedure in itself. The first problem with splenectomy is patients become highly vulnerable to any infection. Another problem is collapse of the lungs, which took two days to announce its arrival. My DH was given breathing exercises and strictly warned that if he didn't give it his all the lung collapse would soon give way to pneumonia. Problem is he can't give it his all because breathing in itself hurts him badly.

You know I wasn't able to stay with him at the hospital because of my toddler, and you were all right on the money. It was impossible to even visit quietly in her presence. My consolation was that she took to sleeping all afternoon in her stroller and that my mom babysat all morning, so I was free to help DH around when he had to start trying to take baby steps. I was wrong. Turns out because I was crying my eyes out during his surgery and thinking all the bad thoughts there are in the world (it was supposed to take 2 hours but took 6 instead), I got sick. Toward the end of the second day it became evident I was very, very sick and very, very contagious. Not something to shrug off considering DH's splenectomy. So I was ordered to stay away from him and wear a mask. Soon my toddler caught my flu and then my sister-in-law. At this point we were still spending the night at my new place, unable to cook ourselves anything or wake up in time for our medicines or entertain my DD or anything except getting dressed (in my case trying to smooth out any wrinkles in the jeans and top I fell asleep in) and dashing out to the hospital. So before yesterday my SIL decided it would take us forever to get well like this and decided to go back to their place which is very far from mine and the hospital, while I went back to my mom's. That way she reasoned that she would have a chance to rest and that my mom would help me out.

Tomorrow morning my DH is leaving the hospital for our new place with his mom, only neither my SIL nor I can join them. Because splenectomy makes patients dangerously vulnerable to any infection, we can't stay in the same place he's in unless we're 100% OK. So tomorrow I'm going to drive him, wearing the mask, drop him off at our place and head back to my mom's.

Some of you are probably wondering why my mom hasn't helped out more. Those who know her personally can probably answer better than I can, but I'll try... Suffice it to say that she has been working her fingers to the bone making my DH soft foods that go with his new soft diet, and at the same time keeping house for 6 messy people, babysitting a hyperenergetic toddler, tutoring my 13-year-old brother who is taking his end-of-year exams, all while suffering from a very painful condition in both her legs and getting no sleep because my sister leaves for work at 2:30am and my mom insists on staying up in case my sister needed to iron her clothes or find a pair of shoes that's disappeared or anything like that... God bless my mother.

It's going to be tough for my DH and MIL to get oriented with a new place under these conditions but my DH's surgeon chose our place instead of my MIL's because it's much much closer to his private practice and the hospital. Won't be easy though -- I mean a recuperating husband who is cared for by his exhausted mother with nobody else to help out because we're all sick... It's a huge blow to be 32 and be told that you're gonna be treated like...I don't know... HIV patients, shielded from everything because infection is not a simple matter. I still can't imagine how I'm gonna just ferry him from the hospital to the apartment like I'm just one of his good friends... Please don't get me wrong, everybody. I'm immensely grateful for everything. It's just this new turn of events that I'm having a hard time coming to terms with. At least I'll get to see him and drive him. His poor sister won't even see him until she's fine.

Thanks again everybody for all your support, and thanks Ghiwa for your unexpected email that really, really brightened my day. Keep us in your prayers.

DH's Surgery

2008-05-04T15:17:00.000+03:00

I was wondering if anyone can help me with this. My DH is having surgery on Wednesday. Thank God it's nothing major; it's an endoscopic surgery actually and we're hoping nothing comes up during the surgery that would require shifting to old-fashioned surgery. Anyway, he's expected to stay in the hospital for 2-3 days then go home for perhaps 7-10 days recuperation. He has severe acid reflux that has become life-threatening -- often he wakes up in the middle of the night almost choking, coughing and spluttering, because the reflux shot all the way up to his nose and came out of it. Plus long-term reflux paves the way for cancer in the oesophagus.

My question is do you ladies think that, with my active 18-month-old DD, I can stay with him at the hospital. Someone's gonna stay with him, and his mom and my parents insist it's impossible with DD and that he's better off with his mom at his side. My dad says my presence might even be a hindrance because he may need something and find that I'm breastfeeding DD or rocking her or running after her if she runs out the door or trying to get her to stay quiet at the middle of the night while she wants to be up and play... Which is another thing my dad mentioned: That other patients including my DH may be disturbed by her noise.

I just can't believe I won't be there for him! I know his mom wants to be with him... I mean she even insists that we should spend recuperation at her place so she can fix him all the special meals after surgery (he won't be able to have anything except liquids and semiliquids) . I offered having her and his sister (who lives with her) over at our place but she refused. I sort of can't blame her now that I'm a mother, but you know... I mean I'm his wife and everything and it's killing me that I'm gonna be just like anyone else who comes to visit him and leaves...

Leaving my DD somewhere is not an option: She's still breastfeeding, my mom's swamped with urgent undelayable stuff at her place, there's no one else I can leave her with.

I'm rambling. I do that. Sorry. My question is has anyone been there? I mean is it really impossible to stay at the hospital with a toddler? I was even thinking of buying her one of those playground things or toyhouses and putting it in the room, but I don't know... I don't even know if I can afford it, plus she may get bored...

I'd be very grateful for your ideas on this one. And would you keep us in your prayers? Thanks everybody.

Work Update

2008-04-04T03:48:00.000+02:00

Lately something has felt...not right about the company I work with. Definitely not right. All the signs point to the sad fact that somebody is pissed off with me for reasons unrelated to work. Again? And to thing I was so sure freelancing would guarantee this problem would stop.

First they don't give me the complete tools to deal with a scene where the actors are whispering and you hear the inaudible dialog through this thing an obsessed freak is using to eavesdrop on them. Naturally I couldn't make out any words except for a few obscenities yelled toward the end, so I decided to leave the part out. Stupid, I guess, but I thought if I couldn't hear it maybe it was intended to convey an argument to the viewer without making out the exact words. My work was deemed unsatisfactory because I should've asked for help since "they had ways to deal with that". How am I supposed to know that? This is an issue that should be mentioned when you're a trainee, not after a year and a half.

Then they were searching for something online and came across my resume on a freelancing website. They were very disturbed to find it was updated for the period after I started working for them. Did they mention it? Nah. Only when I dropped by last week did I find out they'd concluded I was "bored" with working for them and job-hunting. Granted, the vice-manager said she would never jump to a conclusion without asking me first. What about the manager himself? Oh, him. Well, why would I update my resume if I wasn't looking for a job elsewhere? I tried explaining the fact that I'm not just a freelance subtitlor but a freelance copyeditor/subtitlor/indexer, and it's only natural for me to maintain an updated resume. Who's to say somebody who wrote a cookbook and is looking for a copyeditor wouldn't consider me seeing I've subtitled cooking shows?

Then, after waiting two whole months, they complain about the declining quality of my work because I don't stick to the maximum-35-characters-per-line rule but often stretch the lines to 37. I tried explaining that my trainer never clarified the details of the rule when he told me almost two years ago, back when I was a trainee, that 37 characters are OK if you're pressed for space. Turns out "if you're pressed for space" entails making sure the sentence has no space-consuming letters. How am I supposed to figure this out on my own?

And finally, the icing on the cake. MBC issued a new rule after Elliott Spitzer's callgirl scandal. The word callgirl was mentioned repeatedly throughout several episodes, and I along with several others translated it into the most accurate Arabic word there is. MBC felt it was too explicit and said to stop using that word and only go for another word that conveyed a lack of morals rather than the escort profession. They called me and told me about that and of course I stuck to the new rule ever since. The two episodes immediately following the call were timecoded and revised in Syria because the Cairo office was off. So imagine what a blow it was to me when I dropped by last week to find everybody asking me in silent disappointment how I could've forgotten to stick to the rule, and that the manager was furious and very disappointed and wondering if I wasn't concentrating... What on earth! Not concentrating? That doesn't even exist in my book! How can you not concentrate? I'm not some 16-year-old who's stuck in class with her mind on the hot new substitute teacher! I'm a reliable, careful professional freelancer who never makes the same mistake twice and who went on working all the way to the day she had her C section!
Again, I have to credit the vice-manager for mentioning this exact point, probably because she noticed I had no response to all the accusations thrown at me.

Anyway, I know what I did and I always keep a copy of the work I send out, so I assured them I'd forward them those two days' work so they can see for themselves. I checked my work before forwarding and sure as anything the censored word was not there. So I forwarded it and called the office to let them know I'm waiting for feedback. That was two weeks ago. I called again last week and couldn't reach the vice-manager so I asked the secretary to please let me know of all the developments. Nobody called.

What topped it all off was yesterday morning. My deadline for submitting the second half is 13:00 in daylight saving time, noon otherwise. I rarely go beyond the deadline, but when things go smoothly (translation: when my daughter isn't crying or sitting in my lap or nursing) I can sometimes finish as early as 10. It doesn't happen often and my average has been 11 to 11:15. Yesterday morning was pretty rough on the toddler front, and I was still working on the second half at 11:40. My cell phone rang and I was stunned to hear the secretary ask why I was late. I told her it's true I was later than usual, but that I was still within my deadline according to my arrangements with the vice manager. She chirped, "She was the one who told me you were late and asked me to call you up."

Wow. I wonder what'll happen now. I need a job, obviously, and full-timing or part-timing is not an option. I will not be separated from my toddler at her age, even if it means barely getting by. Obviously I hope it doesn't come to that, but leaving my house is definitely not an option. Which leaves freelancing for somebody else. Piece of cake...once I find someone to work for. It hurts very bad though... Story of everybody's life, I guess. To be so dedicated and then not be appreciated but actually get blamed for someone's else's (possibly intentional?) mistakes, and maybe even get sacked.

Ah well, I believe in destiny, so come what may I'll be OK with it knowing that is what God intended. And no doubt there are people with more serious problems in life. So I guess I'm over it already. It's always a waste of time to sit and wallow in self-pity.

Toyor Al Janah: It's All That And Then Some

2008-04-02T03:10:00.000+02:00

I have to talk about this new channel I stumbled upon the other day. I cannot believe it actually does exist. I thought it was over for all media that actually attempts to teach children about morals, values, ethics. Boy was I wrong! I have to apologize to my non-Arabic-speaking friends that this is about an Arabic channel. Most of you have children with Arab men though so it will be relevant in some way. Translation: Please read on because I'm desperate for everybody to read every single word I'm going to say about Toyor Al Janah.

I found this new channel accidentally a week ago. What a wonderful surprise it was! The last time I saw material for children this sincere was back when I myself was to all purposes a child, back in the UAE in the late eighties and early nineties. Anybody familiar with Al Manahil? Gone were the days of shows like that one, I believed, sick beyond measure of the poor Arabic used nowadays and zero morals our children are exposed to even in milk or cereal ads. So when I was flipping between channels hoping to escape the horribly ubiquitous reality shows and music videos brimming with debauchery, especially the whore of all channels, Melody Channel, I was very surprised to find a channel that actually spoke correct classical Arabic. I looked closer and was even more surprised to find they were actually singing to a real tune. Impeccable language (music to the ears of a hard-core stickler like me), sound morals, and an attractive package? To kids? What gives?

Toyor Al Janah are trying really hard to avoid the trap every show with a message has fallen into: lying to children and then patronizing them. You lose credibility before your first episode is over. Toyor Al Janah, however, are trying to level with the children and are doing all they can to avoid the silly naivety most children shows exhibit. Children aren't unerring, rosy-cheeked cherubs on Toyor Al Janah, but when they make mistakes they aren't hung for them either. Adults aren't matronly overweight women you'd rather hear not see, or burly father-figure men kids can't relate to. Half the kids nowadays have parents who strive to look younger than their own brood, and Toyor Al Janah shrewdly realized that. The role models on the channel are fit, jean-clad young men who look like something a 7-year-old of today's cynical generation might want to turn into. The only burly, stereotypically dad-looking man featured is actually not a role model: In a refreshing music video where the kids gently chide their father for lying. He doesn't think twice until the very last second of the video, where he decides to stop lying but in a more realistic, understated way – more giving in to his kids, quietly, out of shame, rather than a showy feat of corny glory a la hero-returns-to-straight-and-narrow situations. There's actually a great deal of comic sarcasm throughout the videos. And yet it managed to warm my heart and bring tears to my eyes. Teachers treated respectfully again? Big issues like honesty, prayers, altruism...encouraged again? My eyes still fill every time I watch the videos.

The critical element in Toyor Al Janah, which in my opinion is key to all children shows that actually succeed in reaching kids and making an impact, is carefully measured understatement. Yup. No preaching, no kids who meekly obey the rules, no children who magically never err again once they are punished or scolded. It's not Disney Land and that's why it's believable. The teacher who sings about how important it is to concentrate in class and what it does for your future casually lets out a resigned "dismissed" when his class ask to go out and play at the end of the song. They do add that they’re late, but the point is made, and you don't see them swarming around a grinning teacher who hugs them all and there the song ends. It's understated and the message you get, simple though it is, is that it's OK to make mistakes and that you will consequently be corrected, corrected, and corrected yet again… Things the media nowadays sadly deem uncool, silly, retarded, out of date. At the same time, the car in another music video is a brand new convertible, the scenes are strewn with status symbols, a very different approach than the old method where Muslims were always linked to shabby poor surroundings with messages to the viewer that they need to be happy with them in order to be a good Muslim. Finally somebody realized that amid all the relentless, aggressive marketing schemes targeted at today's children, you need to present religion as elegantly as possible. You need to market it, so to speak, just as aggressively as commercial commodities are thrust at kids. You need a bright, appealing commodity, featuring status symbols. Why not? Toyor Al Janah wisened up to the fact that this is not your average straightforward seven year old; the sad fact is these children are being turned into miniature cynics and snobs far too soon, and to expect them to relate or want to relate to the image of a man content to plough away in a field and only eat one meal a day, albeit a meal of a few crumbs, and pray to God thankfully before falling into a deep untroubled sleep is frankly… unrealistic, and I'm being very polite using that word.

I need to have many more gos talking about this channel and all the amazing work they've done, but this'll do for now. Keep up the super work, guys. God bless you. To my non-Arab friends with kids who speak Arabic: Try to show them the videos I've uploaded here. I guarantee you they'll love them. Suffice it to say this is the only stuff my daughter enjoys aside from Baby Einstein and Peep and Quack.

Bloggin' Bliss

2008-03-26T15:29:00.000+02:00

If you know me then you probably know full well how wild an imagination I have. And yet I've never imagined people would voluntarily not keep blogs. Which means my imagination is nowhere near as wild as I always thought it was.

There are those who don't like the impersonal touch: They'd rather type a personalized email to each of their friends instead of something that works for everybody. This applies to forwarding stuff, Danya and Nadene (in case you're reading this), not blogs! Blogs are totally personal. How can they not be personal? It's like inviting somebody into your room, only way more intimate. At any rate, what ends up happening with the pro-email-only is either of two scenarios:

1) None of your friends gets anything because let's face it -- who has the time and the sanity to send a different email to every single friend? That would be Danya.
2) Only a precious few actually get the treasured personalized email (in my case it's only the lucky me, Nadene, and I feel for your friends because your emails are funny and interesting and nothing short of Pulitzer-deserving if you ask me), while the rest pretty much end up like those in scenario number one.

Then there's another issue that makes it especially important for me that my friends keep blogs. The Impossible Relationship syndrome, whereby you can't physically be in a relationship anymore for whatever reason: a close friend whose interest in you is not strictly platonic, your hubby insists, or things got screwed up with someone you desperately wanted to get to know better and be best friends with -- whatever. Things are not screwed up so bad, however, that you don't want to hear from each other again ever -- they're only bad enough to make all communication impossible unless it's from afar, an almost-nonexistent type of communication. The blog is the perfect solution. You check out their blog and get updated on all their news and pics -- jobs, marriage, babies, moving to other continents even. They in turn haunt your blog. I say it's the perfect arrangement.

I know some people will think I'm pathetic, but if you can't have healthy, normal relationships then it makes sense to salvage the tiny shreds of what you've got left. We all frequent blogs by total strangers because we're interested enough anyway. Or maybe it's just weird me. Whatever.

Baby Weight Woes -- Mine and Jennifer Garner's

2008-03-20T13:47:00.000+02:00

You go, Jennifer Garner! I just read an old interview of hers -- sometime after she had her baby. I'm another of those unfortunate people whose baby weight definitely did not melt off! I don't resent the women who did lose it fast – I'm basically just pissed off with myself for letting myself go. Still, it's never too late to get back on track and I'm fortunate enough that people actually think I look good after the weight gain (albeit forty-pound weight gain).

Whenever I screw up, what makes me feel really bad is sitting around moping rather than doing something to fix what I've done. That's not to say I mess things up and you know… not get upset or anything. I just tend to get over it fast and focus on how to improve the situation. In a perfect world I'd simply hit rewind and never have it happen, but since I can’t do that I like to go for the next best option. So -- in that department -- I'm not doing too shabbily: 1) I already have the treadmill and 2) I have the gym schedule to hand so I can seize any chance I get to go there once it pops up. True, the treadmill is in my place whereas I, along with all extra forty pounds of me, am here at my mom's, and true, I only went to the gym once back in August and haven't been able to go back since because I won't let anyone babysit my baby except my mom and sis and their schedules are crazy and in total conflict with the gym's, but… things are looking up. We're supposed to move to our place soon (not really looking forward to that though – I'm definitely bringing that up in another post soon) and then I can use the treadmill every day, hopefully.

I still believe it's not the end of the world if I take my time to have my old figure back though. Hardly a new mom after almost 17 months, I know, but it's no crime to have some extra baggage after having a baby. After all, if Lisa Kudrow was able to live with that in the land of none other than the French woman, then I can certainly do it too.

"Friend" Requests

2008-03-09T07:40:00.000+02:00

No matter how hard you try to fill your page with signs that SHOUT that you're uninterested in men, that you're married and have a kid -- even writing a status that slammed male friend requests -- you keep getting them. Every single day. A bunch of them on the same day sometimes.

What is with these morons? Some of them don't even bother introducing themselves briefly in a message when they add you, so you have to go check out their page in case they're a family friend or a coworker or a patrol officer, only to find a dork with an idiotic pose and a zillion female friends who is a total stranger.

At the beginning I was polite. I'd send them "Do I know you?" Brief but polite. It's always some weirdo who has this notion that I need to know he is "Ahmed from Tanta but I'm now in Alex. I like friends with you".

I wonder if I could take all those assholes to court on the grounds that I specified networking and networking only in my "Interested in" part, but I doubt it. It would reduce the number of requests considerably if I left my network, but if I do that how will I be networking?

Sheesh.

Cool. She rejects me for the first time.

2008-03-07T23:43:00.000+02:00

Wow. My 16-month-old just rejected me. Or maybe rejected is too strong a word; she just totally ignored my arrival.

BabyCenter.com said your toddler should see you leave. She'll cry for a while but she'll learn to trust that you'll never sneak off behind her back. But so far the very few times I've gone anywhere without her she was already asleep anyway. Only she almost always wakes up while I'm still out.

So this evening she fell asleep and Tamer and I went out. I couldn't wait to get back to her as usual. I raced up, my mom greeted us at the door holding her, I leaned toward her and... she cringed and clung to my mom. I don't think I can explain how fucking painful that felt. And yes, I do realize that she's only 16 months and a toddler and all that. I'm just a first-time mom and no matter how over-the-top my reactions may be, I believe I'm entitled to them as long as I know they're over the top.

Crap.

Stars with no makeup

2008-02-25T19:42:00.000+02:00

People really delight in proving everybody's much less nice/beautiful/gifted/successful than they appear to be. They remind me of...vultures. Like those silly slideshows of celeb pics with and without makeup or before and after plastic surgery. It always strikes me as malicious and moronic. I mean if you weren't malicious why would you set out in search of pics and go to the trouble of making a slideshow and post it and invite people to check it out, all trying to "expose" those women for the monkeys they originally were? And nothing seems as moronic as trying to prove those women were less pretty than they are now when it's no secret the work they had done (surgery/makeup/whatever) does in fact make you look prettier. I mean they're not even acting like it's a secret.

I just saw one of those slideshows and it was in a class by itself, idiocy-wise. I mean the guy didn't even bother to put pics that looked bad -- some of the pics he thought proved the women's ugliness were obvious cases of bad lighting and horrible angles. The rest weren't even bad! They were simply candid pics of real human beings relaxing or hanging out, you know, without the primping and preparing that is usually done for, say, a big photoshoot or the red carpet or whatever. He was also really tacky: He put a flashing pic of a monkey's head right after Tyra Banks "ugly" pic and a lightbulb closeup after Brit's pic in her shaved head phase. Sheesh. They are human beings after all.

People actually did a shoot of some stars without makeup (translation: with minimal makeup -- I'm not that naive) and they looked pretty good. Bottom line in my opinion: If you work in the movies you're probably not scary to look at in your natural skin. You're probably actually above average. This fascincation with ugly...sort of "gotcha" celeb pics is morbid to me. Why would a sane person like to look at something ugly? They should publish pics where stars looked especially good instead. Ugh.

Sick

2008-02-22T21:07:00.000+02:00

If you are one of my friends then you probably know I hate to talk about the "latest" hot topics and things of the sort, I hate to discuss politics and religion, and I hate to tackle touchy topics because I am the textbook definition of nonconfrontational. But I can't help it this time.

I cannot for the life of me understand why some people hate us so bad. I know it's only some people but sometimes it feels like everybody hates us Muslims. Egyptian Christians hate us, or so the media tells us. Why? I have nothing against Christians, Buddhists, atheists, anybody. I don't even hate Jews, and they are usually portrayed as the one group many other religions hate and fear simultaneously. And not every Christian I've met does in fact hate us. I wonder if any of my friends from the MAC at AUC is reading this -- do you guys remember Mary? She was one of the sweetest people I've ever known -- a tiny soft-spoken beauty with large green eyes and lots and lots of golden curls and the warmest smile you'll ever see. She was Egyptian, Christian. She didn't hate Islam or anybody for that matter. I'll never forget the time we were on our way home after a class at AUC (precious memories!) and the Ishaa adhan was fading as we were about to step out of the subway when she said, "That adhan sounded so beautiful and sincere it really gets to you." I have always admired the beautiful colored glass windows in churches and the way the light seems to...seep through, calming you, and the hymn music -- I grew up right next to that back in the UAE. I can still hear my Christian classmates singing in their religion class. Back then they separated students at religion class, and it never struck me as strange or weird or something to, you know, fear or anything -- it was just logic, if a chance to be fascinated and healthily curious about other rich religions and read about them.

Anyway... I always turn to memories of my childhood and of a certain wonderful period of the MAC when I'm upset. Not entirely happy times, but they were just amazingly special. Funny, because I don't enjoy remembering my days at Hindawi as much, and those were so...suffusingly happy for the most part, and I was no longer the insecure scared scarred person I was before. Go figure.

I'm rambling. What I'm upset about is this sick business of the Muhammad cartoons. Why? I mean when Madonna appeared on a giant cross she was slapped with "blatant insensitivity" and the Church of England wondered why someone with so much talent would offend "so many people." What about us Muslims? Don't we qualify as people? I don't think the same cartoonist -- or any other for that matter -- would have gotten away with it if it was a caricature of a figure in any other religion, any religion at all. Why us? I mean I'm not even sure I believe in boycotting Danish stuff. I rarely buy it and there are tons more options at the supermarket, but the idea of boycotting an entire nation's products because a number of its citizens were grossly and unforgivably insensitive doesn't appeal to me. I really honestly carry no hatred toward them or anybody, I'm not this monster roaming the house wearing an suicide belt waiting, drooling for the moment to kill the next unsuspecting American, Christian, Jew, whatever. I hate what the cartoonist did and how the newspaper allowed it but is it logical to assume that every single Danish person there is happy with the cartoons? I mean surely there are mothers there who try to raise their children to be kind, forgiving adults, and village folk who work hard for the few pennies (Euros, whatever) they get to have food on the table for their families, and just regular folk, you know, people who can't possibly make the absurd sweeping generalizations everybody seems to love making about Muslims these days...

I mean I can certainly understand that the reason the media portrays us so negatively is because of the so-called Muslims who terrorize and vandalize and kill people and do that kind of thing. But, you know, back when Slobodan Milosevic brutally murdered Muslims in Bosnia, nobody accused his entire faith of barbarism. I don't even know what he believed in. I know he was a Communist, but I don't even know if that's a belief in itself or if he belonged to a certain religion. See? I really am clueless when it comes to politics and details of various religions. I only know for sure that I am Muslim and that I am tolerant and not an inhumane brute thirsty for the blood of others not like me.

I do actually know that everyone's not like me. I'm not so eccentric that I'm unaware of the fact that I am eccentric. But is it only eccentric people who are tolerant and hate stereotyping and discriminating and the rest of it? This man the cartoonist sketched means a lot to a group of people. It shouldn't matter what their name is, where they're from, whether they prefer to cover up -- it shouldn't matter. I don't understand. This is just so sad and disgusting.

Funny Seinfeld Quote

2008-02-16T06:34:00.000+02:00

I adore Seinfeld.

"There's very little advice in men's magazines, because men don't think there's a lot they don't know. Women do. Women want to learn. Men think, 'I know what I'm doing, just show me somebody naked.'"

Cause of Death (originally Feb 6, 2008)

2008-02-10T11:37:00.000+02:00

So it was an accidental overdose after all. Rest in peace, Heath.

Reminds me of the sadness in Annie Proulx's words toward the end of the novel when Ennis is thinking about how Jack was choking on his blood and nobody was there to turn him over.

Below is the first kind article I've come across in a long time -- kind and bright, because the Ledger portrayed is very much the Ledger we all thought he was. RIP. I couldn't help putting the whole article below despite the hyperlink...

From The Sunday Times

January 27, 2008

Heath Ledger was a lonesome cowboy

For Heath Ledger, stardom led to a fatal need for prescription drugs. Our writer, who met him six times, asks Jack Nicholson how a young man can survive Hollywood

Jack Nicholson pointedly lit up a cigarette in the public area of Claridge’s and gave a piece of his mind on the prescription-drug-fuelled world of the late Heath Ledger.

It was only a few hours since the young film star had been found dead in his Manhattan bedroom. Drugs he took for anxiety and insomnia, including Ambien sleeping tablets, had reportedly been found at his bedside.

“I warn them about Ambien,” said Nicholson. “I don’t take sleeping pills, but somebody said, ‘Take this – it’s mild.’ I then got a call in the middle of the night, an emergency, and almost drove off a cliff 50 yards from my house up in the mountains in Aspen.” He breathed out, for effect, and watched the trail of smoke. The message was clear.

Nicholson has confessed to the lot: pills, pot, LSD, drink, shrinks and legions of women. He has partied hard and lived harder. He always seems to get away with it, whether it’s cigarettes in a nonsmoking zone or group sex. At 70, seemingly indestructible, he is here to tell the tale. Yet Ledger, who was 28, is already in the morgue.

Hollywood, Nicholson said, is like a monster. It is to be ridden, understood and conquered. There are rules of engagement, and those who do not grasp them can be swept aside.

He was not being cruel to the talented Ledger. He did not know him. He did not even see Brokeback Mountain, the film that won Ledger an Oscar nomination in 2006 as best actor. There is a message nevertheless.

“Let’s go back to when I was first working in Hollywood, nearly 50 years ago,” Nicholson told me.

“The movie business was star-driven then and it is star-driven now. There were people like Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster setting up their own independent movie companies. There was the gossip, the tabloids and the news stories. They had to handle them – as I’ve had to handle them. If you don’t like it, it’s exceptionally tough.”

Nicholson is a survivor, the biggest beast in the jungle. He’s a rogue who, when not at his Colorado home, delights in living in the road known as Bad Boy Drive (Mulholland Drive, Beverly Hills, the old haunt of Warren Beatty and the late Marlon Brando). For most of his working life he has never explained and never complained.

Ledger, on the other hand, was a victim: a young man who pushed himself too hard to live in the big time. He looked set to achieve a great career but there was something lacking. A ruthlessness, perhaps, or a thick enough skin to deal with the demands of celebrity and the publicity machines of the film studios.

One of his latest roles has special relevance. Nicholson played an iconic deranged Joker in the 1989 film Batman. Ledger has delivered such a striking and frightening Joker in the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, to be released this summer, that it easily matches the original. Michael Caine, who reprised his role as the butler in the film to Christian Bale’s Batman, told me a few months ago that it was so good it made him forget his lines.

Yet away from the studio Ledger was nervous and uneasy in the spotlight. That vital flaw was exacerbated by his personal and professional life. There was a broken engagement in September to his actress fiancée Michelle Williams, mother of his two-year-old daughter Matilda. There was overwork, with The Dark Knight, a complex role in I’m Not There and most recently a punishing schedule as the lead in the director Terry Gilliam’s film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. He was taking the make-believe world of acting too seriously for his own good.

The contrast with Nicholson was only too evident on a day when the old master was launching his 60th movie, The Bucket List. He and Morgan Freeman, who is also 70, play old men with less than a year to live. They make a list of what they want to do before they die. It has surprised everyone, even Nicholson, by making No 1 at the American box office, becoming a hit with a young audience.

Ledger’s own bucket list will never be written. He did not live wild and fast like James Dean. He did not die in dramatic fashion like River Phoenix, who collapsed on the pavement on Sunset Boulevard outside the Viper Room and died from a cocktail of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, speed and Valium.

Ledger slipped away by himself after apparently taking six prescription drugs in a rented apartment in New York, on the other side of the world from his native Perth in Western Australia. Most of the drugs were supposed to make him relax or induce sleep. Quite frankly, he worried himself to death.

He became a star at 21 with his third big Hollywood film, A Knight’s Tale, and seemed to suffer from an allergy to fame. I met him six times in nine years and for the most part he was awkward about being in the spotlight. He worried about his roles and fretted over the consequences.

When I last saw him, at the Ven-ice film festival in September, he looked shattered. He could have been 50, with lines etched deep in his face and the weight of the world on his 6ft frame. He complained to The New York Times in his last official interview in November of getting only two hours’ sleep a night.

Film acting in the premier league is not supposed to be like this. In the hellraising days, rip-roaring Brits such as Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton and Richard Harris worked out their frustration on the bottle – and on their leading ladies. Now, Hollywood’s top ranks seem to be riddled with those who agonise: young men who take tablets with unpronounceable names in private.

Where are those who might put an arm around their shoulders? The Hollywood agent, who was part friend and part uncle or aunt to young actors, has long been replaced by corporate money men. Business managers, lawyers and senior studio executives look at the financial implications of every career move on every film. An army of personal publicists is more interested in cover-ups than revelations.

And what about the film sets them-selves? I have been on hundreds over the years. They are inhabited by overgrown schoolboys still playing with their toys, needy women who fear reality, and those who run a mile from anyone with a problem. The only aim is to get the film made, however ill or despairing some of the cast may be.

“There are too many around today who are lonely,” Nicholson said. “Film acting will drive you nuts – if you let it. You can get everything out there if you are young and famous. Any woman. Any drug. But you have to build up your safety zone. You’ve got to build up friendships and keep to them. When I was wild I would tell my friends, ‘We have to develop some social graces’.”

He set out rules early on: “I planned a certain life in leisure. I decided to take up tennis at 28, skiing at 35 and golf at 50. I hit those targets pretty well on the nose. I also made my own rules for publicity. Don’t do television interviews – I never do it. And when I do [print] interviews, I talk. You cannot take too much of what I say too seriously. But this business is about being on show occasionally.

“I’ve never even written a letter of complaint to an editor. I had one legal thing in London once, but it was over in two weeks. It involved something like £20,000, which I gave to a boys’ boxing club. You’ve got the rewards and you have to take the heat. It’s not an easy business.”

Ledger, unfortunately, was never even on the opening pages of the rule book. He was a star in his twenties and had clearly not thought out what that meant or where it would take him. He loved women. He had a succession of older girlfriends such as Lisa Zane – sister of Billy Zane – who was nearly 20 years his senior. He also dated Heather Graham and Naomi Watts, who were a decade or more older than him.

To get him to relax and enjoy the nights out they had together was impossible when there were paparazzi around. I met him when he was just 19 with one hit, 10 Things I Hate About You. I wrote at the time: “He talks, like many actors of this type, with eyes averted for much of the time. But very mature for his age: seems in his thirties rather than his teens.”

The big roles started to come in: The Patriot, with Mel Gibson, in 2000; A Knight’s Tale; Monster’s Ball, which won Halle Berry an Oscar for best actress, in which he played Billy Bob Thornton’s younger brother, Sonny; and the heroic Harry Faversham in The Four Feathers. In truth, though, he rarely seemed to enjoy it away from the film set.

I have looked over the transcripts of our interviews with sadness. Ledger was a nice guy, not a natural at self-promotion and tense and uneasy when discussing his various girlfriends. There was a naivety, too. It was as if he expected to deliver high-profile films without the photographers, the television cameras, the interviews and the sheer weight of living in the public eye.

When we met at the Dorchester in London in November 2002 he was already suffering the first side effects, but he was confident that he could cope. Sporting a neat beard, which made him seem even older, he was wearing a grey jumper over blue jeans, rather like a mature student on a postgrad course, and seemed taller, fuller and fitter than I recalled from previous meetings. As ever he was polite but unenthusiastic about the interview; he wanted to give little away about his then girlfriend Watts.

He reflected on what had happened to Gibson, whose career had also hit early heights in his twenties. Gibson turned to drink and had to try to wean himself off it. (He has since fallen off the wagon and had to go back to repairing the damage.) Ledger felt he could do better.

“I don’t think such things will happen to me,” he predicted. “I do not feel anything has changed inside me and I am bored with the fame thing now. It has changed my life but I have to deal with it. I can put it behind me.”

He was clearly spelling out what he would like to do rather than what was happening.

When 10 Things I Hate About You was released he was inundated with offers for other teen movies. He rejected them, preferring instead to live off the money in Los Angeles while searching for more serious roles. He went to the beach, invited friends over from Australia and enjoyed the sunshine and beers. It sounded one of the happiest times in his life.

“I don’t feel any richer than I did when I had that year off,” he said in 2002. “Living on the beach I felt extremely wealthy on a different level. And I think I know which way I want my career to go. I don’t want to be a superhero and I am not inspired to make $20m a picture. I don’t feel that I have sold out and that keeps me alive. That keeps me thinking that I am in control over my own destiny.”

But he was far from being in control. As his career accelerated through films such as Ned Kelly (2003) and Lords of Dogtown (2005) he became more nervous and uncertain. There was, however, a breakthrough by the time we met again in late 2005. He had launched three movies: the excellent Brokeback Mountain, an entertaining Casanova and the comic fantasy The Brothers Grimm. He was also in love.

He had fallen for Williams, his on-screen wife in Brokeback Mountain. She was a year younger – a girlfriend close to his own age for once – and they had a baby. He could not have been happier.

“We are like two peas in a pod,” he said, with untypical candour. “It is astonishing, the profound effect it has had on my life and beliefs.”

He was also preparing to take time off after completing five films in the previous 18 months. He was planning a life between America and Australia, where he had his parents, sister, two half-sisters and old friends.

“I feel that I need the sanity of my family around me,” he said. “I can get the best of both worlds.” But again his awkwardness proved his undoing. While filming Candy – about a drug addict – in Sydney, he had so many standoffs with photographers that a deep resentment built up.

The photographers took revenge when Brokeback Mountain was premiered there in 2006. They squirted him with water pistols. Although he should have been used to such wind-ups in his homeland, he promptly sold his Sydney waterfront home.

His father, Kim, went public with the details of the trauma several months later: “Heath had to go into the cinema and introduce the film soaking wet. He cried all night. He rang me and said, ‘Dad, that’s it. Sell the house’.”

Kim Ledger said that he had urged his son to think it over for 48 hours. “Two days later he rang me back and said, ‘Dad, it has been 47 hours and 57 minutes. Sell the house’.”

The plush property was sold for £2.5m two months later and a vital link with Australia was over.

Such sensitivity over a few water pistols brought to mind a remark that Ledger’s father had made a few years earlier.

“Heath doesn’t want to even squash an ant,” he said. “He worries about everything. He’s very soft inside.”

If only he had met Jack Nicholson. Asked about his own advice for life, the old survivor replied: “Do not lie, do not steal and do not be afraid. Mainly, do not be afraid.”

Well-said (originally Jan 27, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:34:00.000+02:00

Great answer from an old interview with Heath Ledger when he's asked about the biggest supporter and detractor in his playing the gay role:

Everyone was very supportive of it. I understand everyone else or people found it risky. I hate to call it "daring" or "brave"; firefighters are daring and brave. I'm acting. I didn't get hurt and I'm not mentally wounded from this experience.

Rest In Peace (originally Jan 26, 2008)

2008-02-10T11:29:00.000+02:00

Sigh. I can't get over the beautiful emotional journey in Brokeback Mountain. I definitely think those who dub it a gay movie are sadly narrowminded. It is by far one of the most beautiful impossible love stories I've ever come across. I must find the book -- it's bound to be even more beautiful, albeit heart-wrenching. And the kiss...amazing, but what else can you expect? I mean it's Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who by the way is Heath's girl's godfather. How beautiful! Just like the Aniston-Cox bond. I mean when I look at pics of Jennifer Aniston with Coco it's obvious the little girl adores her godmother.

Brokeback Mountain... I just cannot get over the feelings in the movie. Thank God for the heaven that is YouTube... I don't want to go on and on about poor Heath... I've loved him since watching 10 Things 9 years ago... It's just so sad... I was really upset when he and Michelle Williams broke up and turns out that wasn't the worst thing... It's very, very sad -- I yelled "What? No way" when I first saw the news on a Yahoo bulletin...

And now all the inhumane (to say the least) brutalities going on in Ghaza... I keep imagining mothers who are forced to watch their babies shiver in the cold or cry in hunger... Mothers who have sick babies that can't do anything but cry helplessly, in pain, while the mother croons meaningless soothing nonsense, her heart breaking, all the while knowing help would definitely be too late, if it ever did come...

I mean I truly thought Heath was a rare type. Just look at his pics with Michelle Williams or their baby, or listen to the words he says and the way he talks in interviews... I believe he was one of the really true artists...and I feel for Michelle Williams and the poor little toddler... And those who are starving to death in freezing temperatures, stripped of everything... I mean I heard clean water was running out and medications were almost all used up... All lives are precious, but it's heartbreaking to see there are no Facebook memorial groups of over 20 000 people for the civilians (civilians, for God's sake -- that's women and children and old folk) who roll over and die silently, not much different than cattle, really, or bugs... I was almost sure the globe-trotting supercouple (no, not TomKat, who I actually happen to like -- the "goodwill" ambassador and New Orleans "rescuer" with their big hearts) would stop the siege, being Brangelina and everything. Apparently their "goodwill" and "rescue" efforts don't stoop to certain places, or Ghaza suddenly became invisible or something.
Ah well... All I can do is pray for them and hope Heath Ledger rests in peace and close my eyes to all signs that someday soon we might be in those Ghaza folk's shoes...what's left of them.
And keep looking for impossible love, heart-wrenching stories to hide in.

I Hate Wooden Floors! (originally Dec 27, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:28:00.001+02:00

So I'm reaching down to unplug the heater and one of my fingers (the finger...if it wasn't so darn painful I would've thought it funny) hits the wooden floor tile and a tiny piece of wood gets lodged under my nail. And yes it is painful, in case somebody feels I'm being a baby. So now the top quarter of my nail hurts bad and is occupied by the stupid thing while the rest of my whole finger is throbbing... Now what? I never imagined I'd say this but this is actually scarier than visiting my dentist!
I show it to my Mom who tries to unlodge it with a pin. I don't give her a chance though because it hurts too much. My Mom feels I'm making too big a deal. It's like having someone a knife into you and be expected to smile it out...
I'm so scared. My hands and eyes and ears are my main assets, career-wise...what if they have to chop off my finger because of gangrene or something? Or I develop an infection because of the germs and bacteria and what not in the wood...
Elegant as it may be, the wooden parquet floors in my place have to go...the problem is what comes in lieu of them. Wall-to-wall carpeting? Every health website advises against it to avoid dust mites and stuff. Porcelain? Too slippery to be toddler-friendly.
Aaaaaaaaaaaargh.

Proud to be an anti-homophobic Muslim (originally Nov 16, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:26:00.000+02:00

Yay! Finally, finally someone other than me who is also Muslim and also anti-homophobic! He's way well versed in religion, which I can't claim to be, and it makes me all the more happy to know I was right all along.

I never understood people who slammed at homosexuals or thought they were "sick" or anything like that. They are different, and I believe that in the eye of Islam they are just like us heteros -- only better, I guess, because their needs can't be satisfied even through marriage whereas we heteros are only ordered to refrain from out-of-wedlock sex. That's it. Marry and you can hump all you want. But gays and lesbians can't. They have to keep it in check, bottled up -- even though it could be not just sexual desire but romantic love, true love, which makes it even harder and sadder... But that's the way God made them and that is the test they've been chosen for.

See, I've always felt it was no more different than any normal person, being hungry in Ramadan, thinking eagerly of a sandwich. You're not a sinner for being hungry, you're a sinner if you act upon it and satisfy your hunger in spite of Ramadan's fasting. The same goes for gays and lesbians. They can be in love and they can want someone of the same sex and there's nothing wrong with it in my book. But act upon it and you've gone where you shouldn't have... But even then. In Islam there's no like maximum allowed repentance number... So even the lesbians I know I have never judged. I mean for all I know they could turn their back on it and repent and even pass on while praying, and I could spend 20 years wearing my hijab and praying and then just lose my faith right before I die... You don't judge people. You just try to set a good example.

So anyway, the guy is Moez Masood. God bless him. He really made my day.

It's The Smart Who Don't Breed...Or Is It? (originally Nov 6, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:18:00.000+02:00

It amuses me very much the way people smugly tell me, "See how right I was when I told you wouldn't want to be single and child-free forever? See how wrong you were? We all felt this way at some point but then you change" or anything along those lines. Not all of me is amused of course -- a big chunk of me wants to slap the self-righteousness right out of the little asshole preaching to me but I don't dare of course. Too many ties are holding me back -- religion, not making my folks or dear hubby or my girl (in the future) look bad... I wonder why I'm the only one I met (and to a great extent you, Dania) who has never made a conclusion, let alone such a smug one, about anybody's thoughts or motive or change in attitude. How can you tell why people do stuff? Is there anything shallower than assuming you know that?

Some of the more smug acquaintance-friends of mine might (might, see? MIGHT, not will, or certainly will, or are) gasp in horror at the above words and think I'm not grateful for having my gorgeous Mona. The same ties I mentioned stop me from searching for a finger emoticon and sticking it in here... Sheesh...

I probably sound bitter, but I'm not. I'm just a little sad at the new more resigned me... There's still fire inside me and my wings are whole and the cynic is still watching wryly and all -- I guess I'm just surprised at how I turned out to be a born compromiser. Even dear hubby was surprised. He told me he was worried I'd be a lot more quarrelsome and stubborn, you know...

But this is not what brought on the child-free thing. I'd never take this back or trade it for anything in the world -- not even my utterly hilarious dream of the -- yep -- Pulitzer Prize. Never. My baby's God's best gift to me -- I'm worried whether I will be that good to her. I mean I'm crazy about my folks... But do I have it in me to be as good a parent to her? Because I just don't feel I'm mom material at all... Apart from having spent 25 years bent on living child-free, I don't think I have it in me... It' so overwhelmingly scary that it amazes me how girls have been doing it since forever: get married and have kids, no second thoughts, no fuss, no worries. I feel like I've aged some 20 years since having Mona simply out of worry... Then again I think of all the poorly mannered kids I met in school and elsewhere and I think that maybe I'm right into putting so much thought into this.

*Sighs*

Degeneres Doggie Drama (originally Oct 18, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:16:00.000+02:00

Is Ellen DeGeneres for real? I mean breaking down like that over a dog? Seriously? Even though I feel sorry for the little girls -- they obviously miss their pooch and I don't have a problem with that -- I'm on the agency owner's side. I used to really like Ellen, especially the fact that she is so in love with her girlfriend she has no problem showing it off everywhere. But sobbing like that over a mistake they made? I mean... I don't know but I didn't like it.

How True! (originally Oct 17, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:15:00.000+02:00

I haven't read something this refreshingly interesting about a topic this painfully boring since God knows when. I especially love the part about "aj7ash sha3b". Oh, and that comment about old notebooks -- oh, the sweet, sweet memories!

Now That Is Sexy (originally Oct 3, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:14:00.001+02:00

I love Gwen Stefani. I love her music, how she has her son with her everywhere, how she can still make Gavin Rossdale look at her so adoringly after...10 years, is it?...of marriage. This only goes to prove she is bright and does have depths. This is definitely not a shallow airhead.

"Everyone's in such a rush to show they're sexy," she says. "Anyone can be sexy. We all have the same body parts. It's pretty boring. Life's not so short that you need to give it all away in five seconds. That was never my thing."

Telling It Like It Is (originally Sep 26, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:12:00.001+02:00

Well said, Jason Bateman! My sentiments exactly.

"Just watching her become a kid, it's kind of cool. Simple things, all the cliché, annoying boring crap you've heard everybody say – it's pretty true."

Ugly Beauties (originally Sep 13, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:08:00.002+02:00

One thing that really gets to me is the number of women out there who the world sees as stunning while I see them as just really awfully ugly. Don't get me wrong -- I actually believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that it really is who you really are that makes you pleasant or unpleasant to look at. What I'm talking about is celebs on covers and party pics we're bombarded with who don't look even remotely pretty.

One of them is someone I've never been able to stand: Tori Spelling. Even back in her 90210 days she was unbearable to me and I never understood what everybody saw in her.

Another is someone I cannot -- just cannot -- stand to look at: Jessica -- ugh -- Simpson. Where is the beauty in her for heaven's sakes? Not only is she almost always ugly but she is also always heavily made up, repulsively so.

I mean what's with everyone? Really beautiful women are the likes of the baby-faced Mrs Cruise (not that I agree with what's on that particular site) or the beautiful beautiful Charlize or the fragile beauty I can never tire of looking at: the stunning Penelope Cruz... There's loads of others: The beautiful Aniston and Cox-Arquette, Kirsten Dunst (though I'm never really quite sure if she is in factbeautiful and not very ugly)...

Freelancing Moms vs Office Moms (originally Aug 30, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:08:00.001+02:00

You know what amazes me? Of course it is true that many things amaze me, but I'm now talking about the specific case of how people view freelancing moms. I can't believe the number of people who actually think this is a piece of cake! I'm talking adults, experienced adults who are also moms and so are persons you'd think had been there once. I'm trying to cut the single girls my age some slack although for the record I knew while I was still single that freelancing was going to take a lot of work to work out. I'm not pretending to be wise – usually I'm the last person to get a joke, the only person to fail to get subtle sarcasm, yada, yada, yada. But I mean I already knew it and it turned out just like I'd imagined it. Like with the pregnancy thing – every time anybody said, "Hang on there, only a few weeks left and it'll all be over and you can rest," I felt like strangling them. Rest? How in the world can anyone possibly imagine being a new mom to actually be easier than being pregnant? How? Some people of course were just trying to say something nice or encouraging and probably they thought I expected the period after pregnancy to be easier than during pregnancy. But some people really meant it!

I'm rambling. I'm pissed off at the freelancing thing and that's what I need to address. Let's take a look at the two situations, shall we?

First, the mom who is a full-time employee. Let's see: She gets up really early even if she hasn't slept all night and has to try to look presentable and pack all baby paraphernalia after of course hunting for it all over the house because Murphy's law says it will be in the least expected places since dear mom is pressed for time and fix something for lunch that she can finish when she's back from work and fix her husband breakfast/iron his clothes/fill-in-the-blanks and get baby to wherever she's leaving it and get to work on time and be alert and productive and nice and not nod off a half an hour after getting there and pick up baby after work and finish lunch and look nice for dear hubby by the time he's back hungry and impatient almost 2 seconds after she gets back. AND repeat that 5 or 6 days a week.

Horrible! Drudgery! Pure slavery! The freelancer mom is in heaven and is a bitch if she won't admit it, right?

Wrong. See, I feel for moms who work outside the house. I really do. My mom was one of them all my life and a very dear friend happens to be one of them too. I know how hard they work. I wouldn't dream of trying to discount their hard work around the clock. I'm just pissed off at the image people have of us freelancing moms!

Now let's look at what the mom working outside the home has that freelancing moms don't. Check this out:

She works in an office, not at her home. While this means she has to stick to office hours even if she hasn't slept all night or is sick, it also means:

1) She can actually work uninterrupted. Her baby isn't sitting at home looking at her typing away and crying - in spite of all the dazzling array of toys around it – because it wants mommy to pick it up and play. The janitor, the boy from the ironing shop, and unannounced visitors won't drop by her office. She has at least 8 whole hours in which no one expects her to do anything but work. Sure, it means she can't decide to nap for half an hour to recharge, but what most people don't realize is neither can the freelancing mom. We can't. Your presence at home all the time automatically means to most people concerned that there's no reason why you haven't completed the housework and lunch and groomed yourself and finished your freelancing assignments for the day.

2) She isn't bombarded with calls from family, friends, and everybody who "know you're busy but I only wanted to say hi and see how you're doing" and end up keeping her on the phone for at least 30 precious minutes that can make the difference between dear hubby coming home to dinner on the table and dear hubby scowling because there's still 30 whole minutes while "you had all day and you know exactly when I come home". That is of course if the phone doesn't wake the baby first ruining all plans of finishing your work.

I have tons more to add, but I have to run now because of the baby! I hope this gives the folk I had in mind some insight. Take care everybody.

Talking about Disney Characters

2008-02-10T11:06:00.001+02:00

Quote (from the user Seriously's Live Spaces page)

Disney Characters

Why is it that Goofy can walk and talk, but Pluto cannot?

I know! And Donald Duck feasts on a fat scrumptious chicken! And -- to quote Chandler Bing -- his bottom is always bare except when he comes out of the bathroom after taking a shower, in which case his bottom is wrapped in a towel!

By the way, love your absolute-wisdom-tee-shirt comment. How true! I tried to add this to your above quote on your page but the page wouldn't load. I hope you'll find it here. Have a great day!

Ugh...more hair loss (originally April 7, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:05:00.000+02:00

Apparently there's more than one way hair you lose can fall out. Case in point: clumps. Not individual strands, but clumps. No matter how many hairs I lost before, no matter what a tangled snarl they were as they breezily left my head in the shower, they were still individual. Now I'm losing fistfuls of the stuff, just like what you'd get if you hacked off a ponytail.

I've got the cod liver oil capsules and the supposedly amazing Biopoint treatment, but I have yet to start seeing results. I should start browsing wig stores… Anyone out there got some great instant-regrowth treatment thing? Greatly appreciate your thoughts.

Kids & proverbs (originally March 8, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:04:00.002+02:00

Hope this starts your day off just right.

A first-grade teacher collected well-known proverbs. She gave each kid in the class the first half of the proverb, and asked them to fill in the rest. Here's what the kids came up with:

Better be safe than... punch a 5th grader.

Strike while the... bug is close.

It's always darkest before... daylight savings time.

Never underestimate the power of... termites.

You can lead a horse to water but... how?

Don't bite the hand that... looks dirty.

No news is... impossible.

A miss is as good as a... mister.

You can't teach an old dog... math.

If you lie down with dogs, you... will stink in the morning.

Love all, trust... me.

The pen is mightier than... the pigs.

An idle mind is... the best way to relax.

Where there is smoke, there's... pollution.

Happy is the bride who... gets all the presents.

A penny saved is... not much.

Two is company, three's... The Musketeers.

None are so blind as... Helen Keller.

Children should be seen and not... spanked or grounded.

If at first you don't succeed... get new batteries.

You get out of something what you... see pictured on the box.

When the blind lead the blind... get out of the way.

There is no fool like... Aunt Edie.

Laugh and the whole world laughs with you. Cry and... you have to blow your nose.

My favorites were "strike while the bug's close" and the blind leading the blind one. Just in case, the originals are below:

Better safe than… sorry.

Strike while the… iron is hot.

It's always darkest before… the dawn.

Never underestimate the power of… a kind word or deed.

You can lead a horse to water but… you can't make it drink.

Don't bite the hand that... feeds you.

No news is... good news.

A miss is as good as a... mile.

You can't teach an old dog... new tricks.

If you lie down with dogs, you... will rise with fleas.

Love all, trust... none.

The pen is mightier than... the sword.

An idle mind is... the devil's workshop.

Where there is smoke, there's... fire.

Happy is the bride who... can remember when to forget.

A penny saved is... a penny earned.

Two is company, three's... a crowd.

None are so blind as... those who will not see.

Children should be seen and not... heard.

If at first you don't succeed... try, try, try again.

You get out of something what you... put into it.

When the blind lead the blind... both shall fall into the ditch.

There is no fool like... an old fool.

Laugh and the whole world laughs with you. Cry and... you cry alone.

The lesser-known milestones

2008-02-10T11:04:00.001+02:00

Again from the great BabyCenter.com. Thanks for brightening up my days folks!

• Baby can successfully "latch on" to your lips and/or the cat's paw.
• Baby can impersonate a larva for upward of 15 minutes at a time.
• Pooping baby can be mistaken for an active volcano.
• Baby cries so hard that tonsils become visible.
• Baby pulls out a dozen or more hairs with a single grab at your head.
• When doughnut crumbs fall on her head, baby swivels neck 45 degrees to look up.

You didn't know becoming a parent meant... (originally Feb 14, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:03:00.002+02:00

Many thanks to the amazing BabyCenter.com for reminding me to laugh. You rock guys!

• Stacking today's unread newspaper on top of yesterday's unread newspaper.
• Eating dinner like you're trying to break a Guinness world record for the most pasta swallowed in the shortest amount of time. Standing up.
• Letting your partner choose between poop and laundry as a conversation topic.
• Figuring out how to pee without putting the baby down.
• Wearing a bra that looks like something from a 1930s Sears catalogue.
• Spending three hours getting the baby to sleep and then waking her up two minutes later to make sure she's still breathing.
• Forgetting what you were...

A blessing in disguise? (originally Jan 27, 2007)

2008-02-10T11:03:00.001+02:00

Or is it? I avoid dwelling on this but I can't help wondering sometimes. What will it mean? Another heart surgery? But my Dad's cardiologist said his heart couldn't handle another surgery. The foreign doctor, when he arrives? I mean...is he really going to have hiatus hernia for the rest of his life? Just because some surgeon goofed and chopped off a piece of his diaphragm?

And my little sister... Is it really not alarming when the right lung of an asthmatic is way too swollen with inflammation? If it's not alarming why are my folks so worried?

And gosh...my Mom. My poor Mom. Playing Florence Nightingale to everybody's wounded soldier... I pray to God all this sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, worry, sadness..doesn't take its toll on her. God bless her.

Numb belly - C section the culprit? (originally Jan 20, 2006)

2008-02-10T11:02:00.001+02:00

I was wondering about this one. My belly's still numb. I mean in 3 days 3 months will have passed since the surgery. Does your belly stay numb that long? It's not really painful but boy is it irritating!

Moms-to-be baby-clothes-shopping (originally December 19, 2006)

2008-02-10T11:01:00.002+02:00

I thought I'd put up some of the lessons I learnt from baby-clothes-shopping in case someone else out there is in the same situation (mom unavailable to come along when shopping) because I actually learnt a lot. Most of the tips will seem totally obvious. I know I'm ditsy but trust me, they're not really obvious at all unless someone who's already been there points it out. So here we go...

Onesies: Onesies with snaps on the front and sides (and the crotch of course) are a must for newborns. Ditch the ones that you need to pull over the baby's head. Newborns' skulls are very...umm...flexible, yes, and it's dangerous to pull and stretch necklines over them. I only bought 2 pairs of good onesies, and only because Tamer wanted white-colored onesies after I'd stocked up on purple and pink and blue pull-down onesies... Good thing he did.
Size: Do NOT buy lots of clothes in the tiniest size. You'll find several items marked 0-3 but not the same size. Your baby will probably outgrow the smallest items pretty fast and you'll discover you've run out of clothes.
How many? You can never have too many but we all have economic restrictions. For me, let's see...we got around 4 onesies. We got a bunch more as gifts and yet it's barely enough so I guess...10 is a good number.
Stretchies: Grrr... You'd think baby clothes manufacturers are among those who've been there. Apparently not. I bought a cute stretchie with a giraffe tail. We never used it and never will: zipper on the back instead of crotch snaps. Translation: when you attempt to change your baby's diaper, you will first need to flip her on her tummy. Then you need to unzip the stretchie, thereby exposing her entire back to the cold. Then you need to flip her back and lay her down and wrestle with her to pull her legs out of the stretchie (do NOT do it while she's on her tummy: she may be so alarmed she could throw up). Then you'll change her diaper and go through the previous steps in reverse. With crotch-snap sretchies, it's a snap (no pun intended). All you need to do is unsnap the crotch snaps, take out her legs, change her, and you're done. One thing though: don't get the smallest 0-3 size stretchies because she won't begin using stretchies anyway until she's almost a month and a half at least, by which time she'll have outgrown the smallest size.

Gotta run now. Be sure to check this again though cos I've tons more tips to add.

Never really an ex-Hindawi I guess

2008-02-10T11:01:00.001+02:00

So I'm surfing the web while waiting to see if Mona really is asleep so I can jump into bed next to her or if she's gonna wake up fully rested after 10 minutes as usual, and I decide to Google Hindawi because I love the place (the place I worked in though - which basically means I miss the good old days rather than what it's come to now). Anyway I find an article about Hindawi in Information Today magazine. I feel so happy and so ridiculously...proud! Not like I belong there, more like a Yay-this-dear-old-place-I-believed-in-all-these-years-has-finally-gotten-the-recognition-it-deserves. I think of emailing them and congratulating them on the nice things mentioned about them in the article then...what else? Reality check.

Since quitting (after being, thankfully, asked to quit in March 2006) I considered emailing them several times. Once it was after I saw the new website. Several times it was because I just plain missed them.

The only thing I've got against them is what they did to Doaa. But apart from that...those were beautiful days. First fulltime job (telemarketing for a month in 2002 and teaching for 1 week in 2003 don't count). First time I discovered my hobby was actually a job: copyediting. First time I found a place you could spend a whole day discussing a grammar rule without being labeled stickler (proud to be nonetheless).

And the people of course. Happy times with Marwa & Samah regardless of what happened at the end. Who cares? All I can remember is the good times. Very special times with the very special Ayat. Not all were happy, but they were all very special. The gentle Angie (can't wait for you to tef2esy darling!). 3am 3atef.

In praise of...guess what...mo3'at

2008-02-10T11:00:00.002+02:00

Yep. The renowned postpartum must-have. I was determined never to try it at first because I thought it was an unnecessary fatty combo of sesame seeds, molasses, stuff like that. Turns out it's actually simply ground roots, problem is the way it's prepared. They fry the powder in margarine then add water and tons of sugar and serve it hot. Yummy, but the thing is...you won't believe the wonders it does to your hair and nails! I mean half my hair is supposed to have fallen out by now because of the breastfeeding and postpartum hormone changes but thank God everything's really OK. And you know, it's not because I'm eating well or anything. If anything, my diet's poorer than ever. I can't stand meat or poultry or fish now, which leaves…what? Rabbits? Pigeons? I love both but neither is an everyday form of protein. And I don't take any vitamins because I'm too lazy. And even the good fruit intake I kept up during pregnancy (the carefree days!) has gone down the drain. I hardly touch fruit now. I drink mo3'at and eat bread and cheese all day.

So anyway I really want to integrate the ground mo3'at into my diet on the long term because of its hair & nail benefits, but without having to add all the scary fat content. I'm making a slight variation of the Oreo shake: gonna add some mo3'at powder to the shake mix. If it works I can even add it to Koukou's diet when she's older.

Seriously, Sunsilk is the best shampoo (originally December 10, 2006)

2008-02-10T11:00:00.001+02:00

I can't believe there actually is a brand out there that's not lying about how good it is. Since having Koukou I switched from Sunsilk to whatever shampoo happened to be in the bathroom in the very few times I managed to dash for an ultra-fast shower. It was just coincidence. I never remembered that I was out of Sunsilk until I was in the tub so I just grabbed the nearest bottle there. My hair deteriorated steadily. A maddening snarl of tangles, impossible and I mean impossible to comb. Coarse ends that look almost totally burnt. It was awful. I attributed it to the infamous postpartum shabby hair, nail, and skin condition everyone said was inevitable and just resigned myself to the fact that this would be the gal in the mirror for the next 11 months or so. So anyways last time I showered I discovered a new Sunsilk bottle in the room and switched back. The results? Amazing! Seriously, tangles are gone, hair's more like hair once more... Great! I actually emailed Sunsilk about it and they replied. Great people. I'm never switching again. Now if only I could find a reliable skin product as well.

Sleepless now oh... 2 days (originally December 10, 2006)

2008-02-10T10:59:00.000+02:00

I haven't slept for more than 2 days actually. I was scared out of my mind yesterday... Koukou stopped nursing and didn't sleep and was lethargic. Even changing her diaper didn't shake things up. Usually she loves it and doesn't stop stretching her legs and kicking them and smiling and cooing. Yesterday - nothing... My Dad said it wasn't a good sign but we'd have to wait one more day before checking her.

Takin after Daddy (originally December 9, 2006)

2008-02-10T10:58:00.000+02:00

She's almost a carbon copy of Tamer! Actually more like a female version of him, which I guess means a carbon copy of Amany his sis. She's quite pretty so hopefully Koukou will be pretty too. Of course in my eyes she's the world's most spectacular beauty. No doubt about it, the cynic in me is watching, appalled...a metamorphosis into your average silly proud mom. :)

On another note, her health is not getting any better. She's been awake for...more than 24 hours. She keeps trying to fall asleep, she wails almost beseechingly, but some mysterious pain's stopping her. We've tried everything...colic medicine, nasal drops, keeping her warm while not overheating her, lullabies... And she won't nurse even though she's supposed to be going through a growth spurt around now according to BabyCentre.co.uk... I'm actually rocking her even as I'm typing this.

Another crying fit... (Originally December 2, 2006)

2008-02-10T10:57:00.000+02:00

These crying fits are driving me nuts. I tried everything but nothing works...she keeps crying until she's out of breath... I don't know what to do to soothe her and although my Dad says it's normal for babies to just cry for no reason sometimes it still makes me feel like a loser.

God bless my Mom... I would never have managed without her. But I miss my child! I can barely hold her for 5 seconds now... If she's not nursing (since that's the one thing no one other than me can do), she's off limits!

My first entry

2008-02-10T10:41:00.000+02:00

Obviously nobody needs me to spell that out: Of course it's my first entry... I've never been good at coming up with titles.

I'm moving my posts from my old blog. Unfortunately they'll all be listed as made on the day I move them as opposed to their actual dates, but I don't like the idea of leaving them behind. Once I'm done with that I can begin posting new entries.

I like everything about Blogger (layout, color, the many blogs I check regularly) so much more than my old blog, but most of all I admire the fact that you don't have to have an account here to read any of the blogs. At my old blog you can't read if you don't sign in, and you can't sign in unless you have a certain email account, and many of my friends don't have that. I'm not sure if mentioning the name will make somebody sue me so I'm not gonna, big companies being only too ready to sue the life out of regular folk like me these days.

I've never been good at closing either, so...um...see you.