Adventures | Abez sez Assalamualaikum!

Islam, Autism, Mom-ism.

We’re taking this show on the road!

We are excited to announce that the House of Cupcakes (this house, these cupcakes) is embarking on an epic road trip to… the Smokey Mountains! I am not sure who is more excited, me or the kids. The girls bought digital cameras with their Eidhi and so I am appointing them official trip photographers Khalid…

How’s Texas?

Home Thoughts from Heathrow

It was a strange angle for my head to be tilted at, cocked severely to the right and resting uneasily against the cabin window. I woke up because I smelled eggs. The passenger to my left was still asleep. She was a designer for a major retailer. She said you could put Hello Kitty on a pink garbage bag and it would sell. She’s right.

Hey, good news for a change!

Alhamdulillah!!! I’m going to be publishing my first book!

Given the last ten or so years of my blogging history, you’ll be surprised to hear it isn’t actually full of mortal wounds, kids stories, and personal reflections. It’s actually a children’s book, and I’m very excited.

How’s this for an update?

I’m sitting here waiting for the next interview to begin and thought I’d actually post something. Alhamdulillah, the trip is going well. Yesterday we held a 2 1/2 hour orientation for therapists and some seniors from a local center. After that we interviewed four of them, hopped into a taxi, and then went to the…

Live from Manila…

Wow, the Philippines looks a lot like Karachi- but with more shorts and flipflops and no donkeys. 🙂 And no one even stares. Which I am amazed and impressed by. Am here for one and a half more days of interviews and meetings, but I’ll try to update tomorrow if I can. 🙂

Left my heart in San Francisco

And my camera in Oman! Noooooooooooooooo! Alhamdulillah ála kulli haal. Praise be to Allah in all circumstances. 🙂 Ok, so I have interesting stories but no pictures, and on top of that, I have a week of office work pending. So let me take care of some emails before they burn a hole in my…

Hey, Oman has Internets!

So, Khalid and Iman’s first road trip was interesting- we carefully and gently took them from their beds at five in the morning, hoping to deposit them, still asleep, into their car seats. Well, we hoped. In actuality, Khalid and Iman were both so excited to be in the van and on the road that…

An Ode

How shall I update? Let me count the ways. I shall update about the man in the white paper hat, a butcher. Oh how he sternly, how resolutely he worked, jaw firmly set, eyes focused straight ahead upon the task at hand, until the side of lamb he was weighing dropped wetly onto the floor…

Hemmi’s Guest House, Day 1

Dear Momma & AssalamuAlaikum Abbu & Zaymun & Blogistan Abez, coming to you live from Hemmie’s computer room, where I’m taking meticulous notes and spying on the natives. Mwahahahaaaaa! To my left are Owlie, Lil’ Hemmie, Hemmie’s bro (wearing a shirt that says ‘Whatever I do blame it on Al-Qaeda). To my right are a…

Adventures in Amreeka

Four years ago, when Owlie and I lived with our uncle in Karachi while the rest of the family till lived in Chicago, I hoped that the phone was ringing for us from the US, and the home I missed was in Chicago. Four years later, I languish in Chicago and hope that it’s Pakistan…

Would you like fries with that bride?

Three days ago a car pulled up at my father’s restaurant, packed with people, all dressed up. Now, I admit that Chez Daddy is a nice place, but it’s hardly fine dining. Three of the people got out, one of whom was a neighbor from the house we just left two weeks ago. She was…

Adventures in Taxistan

I seem to have the most interesting luck with cab drivers. I always get the ones who don’t speak either language that I do, or sometimes, I get the ones with ‘stiff neck syndrome,’ a terminal condition that prevents you from turning your head either way as you zoom out into an intersection. (I usually…

Mortein vs. Rocket Bug

Phone line? We don’t need no stinkin phone line! Oh wait, yes we do. And we would like to have one, but as my Turkish students would say, “It isn’t in the Kismet.” Adventures in Abezistan: Struth, I have vanquished the mighty foe! Lots of my adventures begin with me standing on a prayer rug….