Author: Abez

I win!

Haha! I beat my dad in a best-of-three checkers match. (That’s draughts to all you Britishers). I also creamed my sister in two matches of backgammon. (That’s Tavla to all you Turks) I haven’t actually purchased or made a backgammon board, I’m just babysitting Crayon’s board while she’s off in Europe for the holidays. (God bless you Crayon Darling!). I’m on a roll here folks, all I need now is to win a game of Scrabble and a game of chess and I can declare myself to be the House Champion of Everything. He he…

Problem is, my mother, sister, father and I are all very closely matched when it comes to Scrabble, and Aniraz doesn’t actually enjoy chess enough to play me. My little brother and I used to play, but he’s out of the country right now. So now I have to set the board up, make a move, run around to the other side of the table, counter my own move, run around to the other side of the table again…

Anybody remember the CGI movie, A Bug’s Life? Before the film started there was a charming CGI short film about a little old man playing chess with himself- and cheating. I’ll be that little old man. At one point in the game I’ll have to fake a heart attack and knock a few pieces off the board or something. The good thing about playing myself though, is that I ALWAYS win. (mwahaha!!!) This is compared to backgammon, where I often lose to Crayon, and to checkers, where I only win against my father about 40% of the time, and in Scrabble I win as often as I lose. Hmmm. I’m beginning to think this House Champion of Everything thing isn’t quite as possible as I would like…

I’ve been reading Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince for one of my classes, and it makes me depressed. It’s all about keeping power once you’ve gotten it, by whatever means necessary. (Among other things, he sez that the only way to hold a captured principate is to KILL any and all members of the previous ruler’s family so there is no chance of them rising up years later to take the territory away from you) Machiavelli maintained that ethics and morals had no place in politics or diplomacy.

I don’t disagree with the fact that Machiavelli’s theories are effective, I just don’t think they’re good, especially since everyone, including politicians, are answerable to God for their decisions. Politics is not a greater god that you can sacrifice ethics, accountability, and human rights for. Yeah, politics is currently survival of the shadiest and dog-eat-dog and devious cut-throat conspiracies and all that stuff, but it doesn’t have to be.

And besides, the end doesn’t justify the means. Just because you’re doing something horrible and cruel for the sake of your country doesn’t mean that makes it ok. Your country is no more or less important than anyone else’s country, and with your logic, your enemies could justify the slaughter of your people for the sake of their country. Would that make what they did ok? No? Then how come it would be ok for you to do it?

If all bad things could be justified so long as they were done in the interest of national security (Oh wait, they already are in SOME places….collateral damage my foot) then there would be no guarantee of human rights. The duplicity that already exists because of the Nationalism-A-OK theory is evident in the fact that the people who died in the Twin Towers attack are victims, maybe even martyrs, but the people who die from US bombing in Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t even victims, just collateral damage.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Not everything Machiavellian involves killing people, but I think that if there’s one place where the world needs MORE ethics (as compared to none) it’s in politics. Though Machiavelli’s book is accurate and pragmatic because the current political world is totally amoral and dishonest, that’s not the way it should be. To quote Robert Orben,

“We have enough people who tell it like it is. Now we could use a few who tell it like it can be.”

Aha! I knew it! My mental thermometer is accurate. Yesterday I thought it was about 41 Celcius/102 Fahrenheit, and I was right! :::does a sweaty victory lap around the computer chair:::

:::dies of heatstroke:::

Ever since moving to Pakistan I’ve been trying to come up with a realistic analogy to explain precisely how hot it is. Hot as hell? That’s about as explanatory as ‘Cold as hell.’

Hot as a convection oven? Nah, no one’s ever been inside a convection oven so they can’t relate.

Hotter than a black dog in the August sun, in Mississippi, in a toaster oven? (don’t ask)

I finally came up with a good analogy, I really did. Pakistan is as hot as a blow-dryer pointed at your face (set on medium heat, not cold shot). It really is, if you drive with the windows down the hot air takes your breath away, dries out your eyeballs and bakes your skin till it feels tight, and maybe even golden-brown. -tssssss- It’s so hot here that I use more chap stick in the two hottest months of summer than I do all winter in the US. (lest the lips dry up and fall right offa my desiccated face)

I can’t wait until monsoon season starts and the sky opens up and drops sheets of vertical rain on us. But you know, once monsoon season begins I won’t be able to wait till it ends and fall begins. And once I get sick of fall I’ll….

As a rule

Man is fool

When it’s hot

He wants it cool

When it’s cool

He wants it hot

Always wanting

What is not.

-Author unremembered (maybe Ogden Nash)

Just in case anyone’s wondering why so many comments on my tag board have gone unresponded to, it’s because my own tag board won’t let me post half the time. So, I’ll respond here instead. I wanted to reply to A’s comment about moving back to Islamabad.

I moved here about 3 years ago from the States, and though it’s been disappointing at times, I really haven’t regretted it. I kinda have a love/hate relationship with Pakistan, and with Islamabad (my current city ) and Karachi (my favorite city, United Bakery Zindabad!).

I love Pakistan because: The people (the common ones, just walking down the street) here are still basically good. If your car breaks down, ten guys will help you fix it, or if it can’t be fixed, they’ll push it to the side of the road and even call you a cab.

Chivalry (in some form or another) ain’t dead. I say this because once my cousin was sitting on a bus in Karachi when a guy sat down behind her and started poking her from behind. She changed seats and he followed her. She changed seats again and he followed again. Then she stood up and yelled at him. You know what happened then? The other guys on the bus got wind of what was happening, and they grabbed the poking pervert, threw him out of the bus and beat the holy snot out of him. Then they piled back into the bus and drove away. Though perverts exist in every country, I like to think that in Pakistan, for every pervert there are still a hundred guys willing to beat the crap out of him if you tell them what’s going on.

A similar thing happened to my sister and I on an international flight from Pakistan to the US. Some young morons kept making rude comments and purposely jostling the back of our seats, we told the nice old Pakistani uncle sitting next to us, and he stood up and screamed at them so loudly that the entire plane heard it (shame shame), and then he had the stewardess change our seats.

I also love living in Pakistan because there is still a strong sense of community here. (by here I mean anywhere but Islamabad) In lower-middle class neighborhoods where not everyone owns a car, (like where some of my family lives) a person who owns a nice car in the neighborhood gets the honor of driving everyone’s brides around. The person with the car enjoys an elevated status, like everyone’s big brother. This same car, when it’s not transporting brides, is also the neighborhood ambulance. If you get sick at 1 am, you just send a man from your house around to pick the keys up from the car owner.

Why I hate living in Pakistan though, the police are corrupt, the government is corrupt, drugs are obscenely cheap and shockingly common, the elite running this country are mainly godless heathens and you can’t buy or sell anything (property-wise) without the clerk demanding a bribe from you. My father bought a piece of land and the CDA office withheld his ownership papers for six months because he wouldn’t pay the clerk 25,000 rupees of ’Mubarak Money’ (Mubarak means congratulations, 25k is over four hundred dollars). My dad hates, hates, hates corruption and won’t bribe anyone for anything. He was calling the office every week and screaming at people to no avail. Finally one day our real estate agent showed up with the ownership papers in his hand and handed them to my father. Turns out that he got so tired of watching my father stress and fight that he paid the bribe himself. Twenty five thousand rupees is a lot of money.

See, normally, you pay a bribe when you want to do something illegal. Here, they expect you to pay a bribe just to do normal things, to get by. You go to the motor vehicle office to transfer ownership of a car and the clerk goes, “Sorry sir, I can’t seem to find your paperwork. Perhaps you can convince me to look for it?” Then you’re expected to pay him.

Hmmm. I don’t want to slander Pakistan, because I really do love it. I love the people here, but I equally hate those people who are exploiting the country and running it into the ground. It would be one thing if Pakistan was fighting a large group of criminals. But the problem is that Pakistan’s run by a large group of criminals. (100 ministers went to hajj with their families on Zakat funds last year. None of them have been punished) How can you fight something like this? You feel really hopeless sometimes. But still, I don’t regret coming here! Though if someone asked me whether I thought it was a good idea to leave the US or UK and come to a Muslim country, I’d say yes, but try the UAE instead, ok? (not Duabi though, too wild and fancy free. The other emirates are a little more sedate…)

-sigh-

Yes, the rape stats in the US are MUCH higher than here in Pakistan. True, not all rape is reported in Pakistan, but nor is all rape reported in the US. If we’re going to compare the two rape rates, we can’t just compare America’s reported rape to Pakistan’s reported and unreported together (that would be biased, no?). Either compare both reported+unreported for both countries or just compare the reported.

To say that rape has nothing to do with lust and desire is like saying theft has nothing to do with acquisition, or murder has nothing to do with killing. True, a man can still feel desire for a woman who is modestly covered, but there’s a big difference between him lusting over a covered woman as compared to an uncovered one.

A man lusting over an uncovered woman is like a guy walking down the street and seeing a diamond lying out in the open, so he picks it up. Yeah, technically he’s stealing it, but the burden of responsibility for the theft rests on both him and whoever left the diamond out. The fact that the diamond was just lying there may not make what he did any more acceptable, but it sure makes the job for his defense lawyers easier! I’m sure the analogy is fairly straightforward. Though there is no excuse for the man to have stolen/raped, one wonders at the wisdom of the diamond owner/woman who left what was precious lying out in the open for others to covet.

A man lusting over a covered woman is the equivalent of a thief in a museum circumventing all the high-tech security devices and stealing the diamond that he purposely sought out (as compared to the diamond he just found lying on the floor). The owner of the diamond has done the best she can to keep it hidden and well-protected, and if someone steals it, the burden of blame does not lie with her in any way. She did all she possibly could, and if something precious was taken from her, it’s because someone maliciously sought it out, not because she was careless about it.

Logically speaking, if there were no diamonds lying about and tempting potential thieves, there would be a lot less opportunistic theft (rape). There is a big difference between premeditated crime and spur-of-the-moment crime. Unfortunately, modesty will not deter a man who is predetermined to rape a woman, who has premeditated the crime for whatever reason. Fortunately, what it will prevent is an incident like the Puerto-Rican National Day Parade in New York, in 2000.

The Puerto-Rican National Day festivities are notable for the fact that the women go there in the smallest, more revealing clothes possible. The young men go there with video cameras specifically to see these women. What happened that year began pretty normally, women in bikinis and cut-offs strutted around and the men whistled and hooted, and pinched, and horsed around, and then sprayed water, and then sprayed beer, and then surrounded the women and tore off their clothes, assaulting them in broad daylight. This mob of men went on a rampage for four hours, surrounding women and doing a lot more than just harassing them. A French tourist in New York on honeymoon had every stitch of clothing torn off her body. A woman roller-blading by in shorts was knocked over and assaulted. Another woman who had gone there in a bikini was stripped of her clothing (if you can call a bikini clothing) and…I’m sure you know where I’m going.

Could this have happened if the men’s testosterone hadn’t been stirred up? Would the men have been this out of control if there had been nothing there to excite them? Would this have happened if the women had been dressing and behaving modestly? Probably not. The men bear full responsibility for what they did, ( I think they should’ve been castrated) regardless of what the women were wearing. But the women also have to bear responsibility of what they were wearing. If we don’t take responsibility, we sure as hell better be prepared to take the consequences.

One may argue that a woman is a scarf attracts attention, making the scarf counter-productive. To that, I would say that the attention that a hijabi among uncovered women gets is the same attention that a yellow sun-flower would get if it were growing in a field of red poppies. It’s the contrast that catches people’s attention. But this contrast does not culture lust, just curiosity. A man glancing over and seeing a hijabi at a bus stop would probably go, Hmmm? As compared to a man seeing a woman in a mini-skirt at a bus stop, he would probably go, Mmmm…

It’s a biological fact that men are attracted to women. (I’m not going to talk about the exceptions, [homosexuality] I’m just going to talk about the norm.) The norm is that men are attracted to women, and the reality is that not all men control themselves. Therefore, to preserve order, the men have to try to behave and the women have to try not to make it hard for them. I’m doing my part, dammit. You better do yours!

Any other questions? As a hijabi I’m well prepared to talk this subject to death if necessary. 🙂

OOOOOoooOOOOOOOoooohhh…. (a sad noise, not a buffalo noise) Everyone is leaving! My friend Chai is in the States on vacation, Crayon’s going back to Europe for the summer, so are my swimming buddies from Sweden, and my Australian hijabi is going back to Australia! Nuts! Now I have to run out and make some new friends to replace the ones that are zipping off and leaving me here to melt like Asli Ghee in the heat!

The summer here is boring because everyone who can, leaves. The really rich (I mean foreigners) go back to their home countries, the medium rich rent summer cottages in Murree, and that leaves the Local Yokels like me to sweat it out and twiddle our thumbs. It was so hot today that I saw two bul-bul (a type of bird) hiding in the shade under a tiny bush and panting. They were just standing there with their mouths open, not chirping or flying or pecking anything, just panting. I shouldn’t complain though. It gets hotter in Multan and Sibbi and in most of the Middle East. I wonder what the birds do then?

It’s been an extremely busy day today, and anything I blog about will most likely be in the form of whining. Therefore I shall do my class work instead. Here, let’s make sentences with the following vocabulary words…

Vacillating: Gee, it’s so hot I need to turn on the vacillating fans!

Impede: The pir sneezed and the buffalos got scared and impeded.

Upheaval: After eating sixteen pieces of pizza the boy felt sick and experienced an upheaval.

Discourse: I asked him how long he had been studying here, and he said it was six months since he started discourse.

Posterity: What that boy needs is a good swift kick in the posterity…

It’s 9:30 and I think I’m going to pray and go to sleep. I can’t help it, I’m chronically sleep depraved.

(He he.)

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve sewed my new jilb, and I’ve learned that sewing involves a lot more than just….umm…sewing. It also involves-

A bit of mechanical engineering:

“Mom, I can’t get the bobbin back in.”

“Take off the stitch plate and poke around with the seam ripper.”

“I already tried that.”

“Then just beat it back in. Show it who’s boss.”

A bit of math:

Nape to waist, 17 inches. Shoulder to shoulder, 15 inches. Waist to hip slope at a roughly 70 degree angle, corresponding parts of congruent triangles are congruent…

A bit of history:

You made the same mistake last year, remember?

A bit of drama:

She closed her tired eyes and slowly lowered her head so that it was resting on the sewing machine. Could she, would she, ever finish? It seemed as though the sewing machine’s mechanical stutter had been going for hours. She could hear it even now though her foot was no longer resting on the pedal. Oh wait, yes it was, and now she had sewed her sleeve shut again. Nuts.

A bit of aesthetics:

Which shape should I use to trace the neckline, this rectangular grammar book or a scoop-necked dinner plate?

A bit of philosophy:

Abez: How much faith should one put in fellow man? Especially when that man is a tailor?

Plato: The actual is preexistent to the actual in potential.

Abez: True, but couldn’t we give him another chance? Even just to finish what we’ve started and don’t feel like finishing?

Plato: To start and to finish are interchangeable, and The Beginning and The End often masquerade as one another. You must find your own way and see where it leads you and –

Abez: Hey, who sews your togas?

Alhamdulillah, the jilb I sewed turned out ok. I did make the sleeves a bit narrow, but I’m pretending like I did that for effect. It’s a totally simple A-line, in a really deep purple that I refuse to call ‘wine-colored’ for religious reasons. Nothing I wear is wine colored, dammit. It’s really dark 100% halal grape juice colored, ok?

I’d blog more but I’m all tuckered out from sewing, and I still have to hem the sleeves, and I still have to do my class work for tomorrow. But I must include the link for the New American Century Project that I got off of a comment on Tora’s blog. This is the official (and unrepentant) site for that horrible colonialist Neo-Conservative project that I mentioned a few days back. www.newamericancentury.org

I saw a guy on a bike carrying a live peacock under his arm today. Gotta love living in this country…

Well, I’m putting my money where my mouth is (200 rupees to be exact) and I’m going to sew my own jilb. -gasp- I just bought a piece of georgette and I’m clicking my scissors at it in anticipation. The good thing is, I think it’ll turn out ok, InshaAllah. The bad thing is, if it comes out awful, I can’t blame the tailor for it. And if it turns out REALLY awful, I’ll be disillusioned and I’ll have to go back to the tailor. The possibilities for disaster are endless. Hmm.

Had an interesting discussion in class today. One of the funny things about being bi or trilingual is that you hear words in one language that mean something totally bizarre in another. This came up when I noticed that every single one of my Turkish students giggled when we came to the word ‘pathos’ in a vocabulary sheet. In Turkish, pathos are potato chips, and apparently this is funny.

My Irani student was telling me about how the name of a popular Pakistani sweet translates to an extremely obscene word in Persian, and one Pakistani man who knew this took very obvious and very perverse pleasure out of insisting she have some. (moron)

Speaking of morons, our new Prime Minister Zafar Something-or-other Jamali, personally initiated the festivities of the Urs at Bari Imam. That’s the malang Woodstock (props to Shad) that all those filthy fools are in town for. Today the paper is full of pictures of them up to their usual Urs traditions, dancing, smoking charas (marijuana resin) and going into trances. I saw several Urs processions on Sunday, hundreds of people led by malangs, waving colorful banners, beating drums, singing off key and carrying around a big, decorated box, not unlike the Ark of the Covenant (Indiana Jones and Raiders of The Lost Ark.) It was covered in shiny bits and draped in flowers like a Hindu shrine or a Catholic saint statue.

What’s in the box? I don’t know. What could be so important that they would decorate it and have four guys carrying it around on their shoulders for all the devotees to touch and adore? My mother thought the box might be a reliquary containing some body part (like a tooth or a fingernail) of the Bari Imam. Aniraz thought it would be a big box of mithai. You know what? They’re both wrong. That box is actually their week’s supply of DRUGS!

Losers.

Well, I’m going to go menace my new piece of cloth with a yellow crayon. I’m going to draw lines for where I think things are supposed to be (sleeves here, waist there) and in the end we’ll compare this to where things actually went (sleeves there!? waist where?).

This could be interesting. But chances are it’ll just be tragic.

New stuff on my fotolog. Actually, all of it’s old, but it’s new to you, ok? Just go look. Sensei sez so!

Eeek! Eeek! Eeek! The Beginning of Another Week!

Sitting at the computer eating barbeque sauce (fridge is empty) and drinking Amrat Cola (boycott Coke and Pepsi!) and having another hermit crab moment. -I don’t wanna go back to work tomorrow morning. I feel like pulling a William Wallace and screaming out at the top of my lungs, FREEEEEEEDOM!

-sigh-

I watched the most disturbing documentary on BBC World last night. I don’t know what it was called, but it was about the Neo-Conservative take-over of the US government. Btw, Neo-Conservativism translates into : Pro-Israel, Pro US-Imposed Democracy, open and un-ashamed use of military might to reshape the world according to US interests.

There was this paper written by a bunch of Neo-Conservative brains called The Project of the New American Century, and it outlined how to safeguard US and Israeli interests. This outline included reshaping (by whatever means or force necessary) the entire Middle East to best ensure US economic security (insert oil war here) and superiority. It specifically mentioned regime replacement for Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The scary thing is that half of the people who took part in writing this paper (including Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle) are in the Whitehouse.

Some big-nosed chick (her first name was Mayrev) was very smugly telling the camera that Neo-Conservatives (she’s one of them) haven’t brainwashed the president, it’s just that he’s so very open to their suggestions and willing to listen to their logic. (she actually used the word susceptible) My theory is, you can’t brainwash someone who doesn’t have a brain, but I digress. She was very happy about how they’re in power now, and quite ok with the democracy-thru-violence program. (I think she called it a war for liberty and democracy the world over.)

The reporter interviewed many of the people who took part in this paper, and one of them, last name Cohen (can’t remember his first name), said this was World War Four, a war against the type of Islam that is hostile to the West. (his WW III was the cold war against communism) You know, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. When things are this open, who needs to be?

I don’t know why they even both pretending about this ‘war for democracy and freedom’ and crap. It’s just good old fashioned colonialism. The US is locking in cheap oil prices and safeguarding their interests. They’re not making the world safe for anything but themselves. (last I checked, dropping bombs was a distinctly un-safe thing to do)

Oh, wait, they’re making it safe for capitalism too. Forgot about that. There was a great cartoon in the paper the other day. A starving Iraqi kid is sitting on a pile of rubble, and in dances Ronald McDonald with a briefcase that says ‘Oil for Double Cheese Burgers Program’.

I keep thinking about one of the T-shirts that a guy was wearing at a pro-war rally, ‘First Iraq, then France’ and then there’s always my favorite bumper sticker, ‘Kick Their A**, Take The gas.’

You know, it’s a good thing the world will be wiped out on Judgment Day, cuz it’s all going to hell in a hand basket anyway.

“Are they who plan ill deeds then secure that Allah will not cause the earth to swallow them, or that the doom will not come on them whence they know not? Or that He will not seize them in their going to and fro so that thereby no escape for them?…” -The Holy Qur’an, 16:45…

They’ll get theirs. (wait then, we too are waiting)

I just got back from a condolences reception for the mother of one of our friends. (She passed away and was buried on Wednesday, but they were receiving visitors this weekend.) I didn’t really want to go to the reception, who would, really. What do you say to someone when their mother has died? Formally, you say, ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ etc, but what you’re really thinking is ‘Thank God my mother is still alive.’ And then you feel guilty because really there’s no way you can begin to even relate to the person who lost their mother because you still have yours.

It was awkward, but I‘m glad I went. It’s true, you know, remembering death polishes the heart. I’m thinking about what it would be like if either of my parents died and suddenly I’m feeling guilty. The Qur’an orders Muslims to be super-good to their parents, “And say not to them a word of disrespect, nor rebuke them…”

The ‘word of disrespect’ mentioned in the Qur’an is ‘uff!’ (fa la taqullahuma uffin wa la tanharhuma). Every culture has their uff!, the little noise that people make when they’re exasperated or irritated. In English I think you say ‘tsk,’ and then you roll your eyes for good measure. In Urdu it’s ‘oof!’ and then you slap your forehead. I’m guilty of rather a lot of both, being bi-lingual and all, English disrespect for my mother and Urdu disrespect for my father. Shame on me, really. Especially since I know better.

My nephew (say MashaAllah!) and his mother (my sister-in-law) lived with us for five months. He came when he was five months old, and at that stage he fussed a lot and had to be changed every few hours and fed all the time. Even with my mother, my sister and I helping my sister-in-law out, she still had quite a job on her hands. A kid, at any age actually, is a lot of work. My parents raised four of them, each one two years apart. It blows my mind when I think of how anyone manages to take care of one kid let alone four of them. The love and devotion that a parent puts into each and every kid pales in comparison to the pathetic amount of love we give back, and yet we have the nerve to say uff.

I’m going to go hang my head in shame now. And I’m going to try to be much more patient with my parents. I shouldn’t have to wait for one of them to die before I remember that I love them.

“Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you show kindness to your parents. Whether one or both of them attains old age, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor rebuke them, but speak to them a gracious word. And lower to them a wing of mercy and compassion and say, ‘My Lord! Have mercy on them both as they did care for me when I was young.’” The Holy Qur’an, 17:23-24

Must give props where props are due. Props to:

Aniraz, for the creative brilliance behind ‘Tartar sauce, the fish that doesn’t swim.’ I forgot to attribute that quote to her.

Sahar, for helping me replace my defunct tag board. *dies*

Usman, for ALMOST making me forget that he owed me a guest post. ALMOST. I’m still waiting.

Crayon, for a lovely time a lunch today. Hello!

Otty: for letting me know that all I had to do to fix my tag board was get new html. You’re a genius!

And well, obviously I must thank Allah for creating me and giving me health and blessing me with Iman and all that really great stuff that I would be dead without. Alhamdulillah!

What else? You know, I’ve started three different blogs and then deleted them all. The first one was about how the flies have hidden the flyswatter from me. (clever little buggers) The second was about how hot the weather is and how much I’d rather be eating ice-cream than real meals. The third was about how it’s silly for me to try to blog when I have nothing of worth to mention and I’d rather be building teeny-tiny castles instead. You see where this is heading?

I’m going back to the castle. My people need me.

(All Hail! King of the Losers!)

Actually, I don’t spend all that much time playing games. I’m mad at the game, it’s been cheating. I built a stone wall to protect my filthy little peasants from wolves, and you know what happened? The wolves walked through the stone walls and devoured roughly thirty percent of my population. Those wolves are not supposed to be able to walk through stone walls! Hmmph!

I’ve decided that I should try to make use of this summer. Maybe get myself a pool membership (finally) and go back to studying Arabic. Perhaps even go back to college. True, I’m an English teacher now, but that’s not what I want to be ten years from now. You know, I’ve always wanted to be something exciting, like a doctor. Or a pirate. (That’s pirlanta in Turkish, in case you’re wondering)

Medicine is an expensive subject though, I wonder if Punjab University has a faculty Marine Mayhem? Yelling out stuff like, ‘Put yer backs into that swabbing ye lily-livered sea-dogs lest I keel-haul ye!’ sure is more exciting than teaching English. English is a boring language. They tell me that even German is more exciting. A mitten, for example, is called a hand-shoe in German. Cool, hunh? And a scoundrel is called a shlingel. ‘Du bist ein shlingel’ sounds better than ‘You are a scoundrel,’ doncha think?

(No, not often.)

I wish I could blame the heat for my lack of mental prowess, but it’s 1:30 am and relatively cool again. Oh nuts, I have work in the morning. It never ceases to amaze and disappoint me that having a job means you can’t sleep till noon anymore. Who was it that mentioned this on their blog eons ago? It was either Usman or Shad, one of them was telling everyone to enjoy the lazy days now because once you have a job they’re over and done for. It’s true. My normally excessive sleep schedule has been so damaged by having a daily job that even my weekend sleep is ruined. I’ll wake up in the morning on Saturday and stare at the alarm clock in horror, thinking I’ve overslept and haven’t prepared any of my lessons. I do realize what day it is eventually, but just the shock of it all ruins my dreams till I get out of bed again by noonish.

I’m going to sleep now. -sigh-

Work today wasn’t as bad as I dreaded. I did have three classes, and I did get a mysterious paper cut, but on the other hand, I got two cups of Turkish tea, a glass of juice, a video game and a magazine. The video game is just borrowed, thank God. If I actually owned it I might spend the rest of my free time building castles and bossing miniature soldiers around. (I’m playing Stronghold, it’s a strategy thing.)

I get to be Bravely Bold Sir Lord Robin. Quite a title for a knight only a centimeter tall, eh? I strut about the castle ramparts ordering around badly trained, itty-bitty armies to defend my squalid group of dirty, drunken, surly peasants who steal cheese from the granary and flex their muscles at the screen. Filthy inebriated ingrates!

I try not to spend so much time playing video games. First of all, because I’m supposed to have better things to do. (actually, if I wasn’t playing I’d probably just be raiding the empty fridge or making a mess in some other part of the house) Second, because it makes my eyes water and my brain atrophy.

Ah! I just remembered what I wanted to mention. Aniraz and I were driving to work this morn when we were cut off by a white Corolla. As it sped off, we noticed that there were stickers on the back windshield spelling out ‘Smooth Criminal.’ Aniraz and I were like, hmmmm….so we caught up with the guy and stole a peek at Mr. Smooth Criminal. You know what? He looked neither smooth nor criminal. His sticker should have said ‘Hairy Punjabi’ instead. (What’s with Punjabis and really big moustaches? I guess we’ll never know… )

They have the craziest stickers on people’s cars here. Just the other day I was driving behind a taxi, who in turn, was behind a huge bus. The sticker on the bus said, Look Me. The sticker on the taxi said, OK Bye. It was too much a coincidence, both of those stickers together. I don’t know what it meant, but I’m sure it was important…

I can’t think of much else. Probably because I’ve just gotten back from work and all I can think about is….work. I have work again tomorrow morning and nothing is ready and I’m dead tired. Aaaaargh! I still have a sore throat, maybe I can call my students and manage a few pitiful wheezes and they’ll say I sound terrible and I’ll tell them I need a day off. Then they’ll get suspicious because I was better yesterday than I was all last week and there‘s no way I could have relapsed into my cold having just gotten over it. Then if I want a day off I’ll have to go and mortally wound myself or run out and catch a quick disease of some sort, because injury and illness are valid excuses, but tiredness is not. Sigh. Maybe if I try hard enough I can burst my appendix again. Hey, it worked the first time.

I think I’m having a hermit-crab moment. I want to quit my job and stay home in the air conditioning and play video games wearing a soggy bandana on my head. The soggy bandana is quite important to proper rest and relaxation. It keeps your brain from overheating. You guys must not think ill of me for this madness. It was 99 degrees (Fahrenheit, that’s 39 in Celsius/Centigrade) today and I feel baked. When monsoon comes, I’ll be stewed instead. In case you’re wondering, I’m best served with onions, shallots, and mushrooms in a light hollandaise….

I’ve been neglecting my Islamic quote of the day. Quick Aniraz, read me something out of that book!

“Only an honorable man treats women with honor and integrity, and only a mean, deceitful, and dishonest man humiliates and insults women.” -The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, reported by Ibn Asaker.

You know, I think I’ve posted that one before, but Aniraz really did just read me the first thing she came across.

Three cheers for randomness.

(Tartar sauce, the fish that doesn’t swim…)

DeKep is DeFunct.

I got to go to Faisal Masjid for Maghrib jamaat the other day. It’s got miles of cool white marble, soft yellow lights, and it’s nestled right in the Margalla hills so there’s always a breeze going. I get to wander around barefoot and just soak in the spiritual ambiance. Man, I love Masjids. 🙂

You know what’s weird, Faisal Masjid is also a tourist spot, so aside from it being full of barefoot people on their way to prayer, it’s also got a sprinkling of politely reverent-looking foreigners, and openly awed local villagers. The villagers are the easiest to spot since they come dressed up like they’re headed for a wedding, and instead of praying, they sit around and gawk at the Masjid and the musalleen. (musalleen= those who pray). I was walking to the prayer hall when I passed a group of villagers. Just as I walked by, the man pointed to me and said to his family in Punjabi, “And look, there’s an Arab!”



(And to think, this whole time I’ve been struggling to learn Arabic and it’s been my first language all along! Wow!)

What else? Well, it’s been a tough fight, but I think I’m winning the battle versus the bacteria (I have a nasty cold, or rather, a nasty cold has me!). Myself and the rag-tag surviving elements of the Army of Immunity have regrouped and we’re getting ready for a counter-strike. It’s true, the nose has been lost and the lungs have betrayed us, but the body is ours yet! We will never surrender! -koff koff- You know what’s weird? When I cough, it sounds like little gears are grinding inside my lungs. Neat, hunh?

(pin-drop silence)

Ok, so it’s not neat, but I don’t have many things to mention at the moment, ok? Aside from this snotty, messy cold and the daily day-in, day-out of teaching, nothing much has happened. Oh wait, something has happened. I have another installment in the series, Terrifying Tales of Tailoring!!! (queue scary music)

I’m a pushover, a pansy, a softy, so I gave the tailor another chance and three suits. Well, he didn’t disappoint me, he just crushed my faith in humanity and sartorial goodness completely. One of the jilbs was so big it hung off of me like a 40 kilo sugar sack. The shoulders were on my elbows, the hem hung to the floor. The other two were actually wider at the torso than they were at the hips. (what the hibbity-dibbity?) Charming, I assure you. One of these had a grease stain on the back. So aside from wearing them, sweating on them and occasionally vomiting on them, I guess now he’s wrapping pakoras in my jilbs then, eh?

I spent this evening repairing my summer jilbs even before being able to wear them for the first time. I’ve gotten so much sewing practice off of things he’s ruined that I’m starting to wonder if I should just skip him and make the jilbs myself. I know how to sew, I’m just lazy about it and prone to making mistakes when I get tired. Once I sewed my sleeves shut. (…just once? Wait, actually I think it was three times…) Plus, even on his worst days, the tailor is still ten times better than I am. Then why would I do my sewing myself? Because I am free and he is not. Khallas.

Hmm. It’s 2 am and I would be finished with my worksheets for tomorrow’s classes if it weren’t for the fact that I’m blogging instead. You know, for someone who’s pretending to be a teacher I sure am a lazy bum. But sssshhhhh, that’s a secret. Can’t tell any of my students that I’m nothing more than a doofus in disguise. I go home after class and play video games and watch cartoons and when it’s time to go back to work I whine and go, “I don’t wanna go to class!” Then I try to convince my momma that I have a fever or something. You know all those tricks that kids do on TV, warming the thermometer up with a light bulb or pretending to be ill, these tricks only work on TV. No mother in their right mind buys it. Especially not mine. I go, “Mom! -koff koff- I can’t go to work, I’m sick!”

And them my mom goes, “What’s the matter?”

Then I moan and quickly rub my forehead in the hope that the friction will generate some heat. Then I shuffle over to my mother and put my forehead on her shoulder. She feels my head and says, “You don’t have a fever.”

“Yeah,” I says, “But I think my appendix just burst.”

“They took that out last year.” she says simply.

“The other one burst, the one they didn’t take out.”

“And what are your other symptoms?”

“Well,” I says, “My eyes are burning and my head hurts.”

“Your eyes are burning because you just woke up and your head hurts because it’s empty. Now get dressed and go to work!”

Then I have to go to work. Bummer.

Tonight’s English Night and I have brownies to bake and things to type up and stuff to do. (stuff!) If anyone asks, I’m not home, ok? Talk amongst yourselves until I return. Adieu! -Sensei

A man stumbles into his house drunk, and his wife starts screaming at him. “Where have you been?!” she yells, “I’ve been waiting for you all night!”

The man gives her a fuzzy smile and says, “I’ve been to the Golden Saloon! You wouldn’t believe it, the chairs are golden, the bar is golden, the cups are golden. Hell!” he yells out, “Even the toilets are golden!”

“I don’t believe you, you stinking old drunk,” the wife said.

“Fine,” the man says, “Call them and see for yourself.”

So the woman gets the name of the Golden Saloon from the operator and then dials the number. A bartender picks up the phone.

“Hello,” he says.

“Is this the Golden Saloon?” the woman asks.

“Yeah, this is the Golden Saloon.”

“And do you have golden chairs?” she inquires.

“Yeah.”

“And a golden bar?”

“Yeah.”

“And golden glasses?”

“Yeah”

“And a golden toilet too?”

The woman hears the bartender exhale loudly and then call out to someone else in the bar, “Hey Mike! I think we got a lead on the guy who peed in your saxophone…”

People sez: Is the glass half empty, or half full?

I sez: Who cares. Say Bismillah and drink the water. Thank Allah for it and put the glass away. And stop sitting around and contemplating glasses of water, you weirdo!

I had an -ahem- interesting morning today. Woke up at ten o’clock (instead of 9) because the electricity was gone and none of the alarm clocks were working. Rushed off to work late and sick, finished and then went to pick up my mother. Got home, stepped out of the car, and tore a HUGE hole in one of my favorite jilbs. Then I walked into the house, sat down to lunch, and poured myself a lap full of lentils (yes, on the same jilbab). While I was washing the lentils off, I got my ring caught in the hole, and when I moved my hand, the hole got even bigger. It’s now so big I could put another plate full of lentils through it without even touching the frayed edges.

It’s a good thing that we Muslims don’t believe in omens, because otherwise, I’d say that the ‘Universe’ was trying to tell me that my jilbab had to go. In actuality, it’s just Allah testing my patience. The trick to winning the test is to not tear at my already-torn jilbab and scream. That would just make my throat more sore anyway.

In times of stress, it helps for me to apply what I call the ‘Post-Mortem’ test. (post mortem means after death, but I am NOT autopsying anything, unlike Sana….) I just ask myself, will this matter post-mortem? Will I care after I die? Will my torn jilbab affect my standing in the world and afterlife? No? Then relax, stupid! The only things worth getting really worked up about will be the ones that will count for me or against me in my book of deeds. Yeah, I tore a gaping hole in my jilb and then gave it an equally huge grease stain, but that‘s ok. The jilb couldn’t last forever anyway.

Inna Lillahi wa inna ileihi rajioon.

Verily we are from Allah and verily to Him is the return.

Aaargh. This always happens…I’ve picked up some imported germs (imported germs are from imported students, I teach English to foreigners working for embassies and whatnot). One of my students has had a cold and flu, and what a surprise, now I’m getting sick too. I’ve learned that foreign germs are the most belligerent and most effective because they use tactics that my immune system is unfamiliar with.

See, the foreign germs knock on the main gate, and the security guards of my immune system go, “Hark! Who goes there?” Then the foreign germs offer a sporting chance for my immune system to surrender or be ignominiously defeated. Bewildered, my immune system security guards run off to find a translator, because the foreign germs have issued their ultimatum in a foreign language. This leaves the gate undefended, and then foreign germs look at each other and shrug, and then yell out, “Chaaaaaaarge!”

And that is how the battle begins. So far, the foreign germs have taken control of my olfactory center, and are using the dreaded ‘Runny Nose’ attack. They are also gaining a foothold in my throat, and have caused damage to its infrastructure with their incessant attacks. This is called a ‘Sore Throat.’ The biggest problem of having a sore throat is that it changes my voice, making it a notch lower and kinda scratchy sounding. Then people on the phone don’t believe who I say I am, they think I’m a man. This is bad.

I can’t let myself get too sick. It will be a fierce battle, but I will win!

:::queue rousing, inspirational battle-type musical score:::

Abez: (Standing solemnly in front of an Abezistani flag, addressing the First Army of Immunity) Many of you will die before this day is over. I can offer you no comfort, no promises, except that should we lose, everything we hold dear will be destroyed. All that we love will be lost. The Foreign Germ Legion will commandeer the body and turn all available cells to the production of the two resources that the ruler of Germistan prizes so much: phlegm and mucus.

We have already lost the battle of the nose, and even as we speak, our comrades are falling in defense of the throat. We must see that their deaths are avenged. We must ensure that their blood is paid for with the blood of our enemies, that their lives are appeased with the lives of our enemies.

I know that it is a daunting task, our foe is an evil if not powerful force, and our fear of him is not unjustified. But our courage must be greater than our fear, for our losses shall we greater than our imaginations should we fail.

I call on you, Oh Chicken Soup Cavalry, and on you, Militia of Dr.Mom, to answer the call to battle. Together we will defeat our enemies and restore health to the body. We will fight that others may have peace. We shall die so that the body may live.

(cough cough)

May God have mercy on us all…

Well, now that I’ve gotten my hands on a copy of Microsoft FrontPage I’ve been causing all kinds of chaos. And since I somehow broke my tag board in the process, you can see that not all of it is the good kind of chaos. Well, I’ve repented. I have to get someone to give me a Front Page tutorial before I get all excited and start tearing up the pea-patch again. (Read James Thurber’s Sitting in the Catbird Seat) I’m having a terribly hard time trying to restore my blog to the way it was before I messed with it. I don’t know what the problem is, but when I look at the page (even though I’ve restored the original HTML that Tora sent) I get little A’s all over the page. Is anyone else getting that? I need help undoing the damage…

Well, it’s 3:30 am, and I’m still awake. Aside from the fact that I’m tired, I enjoy being up late night/early morn and hearing no cars, no city sounds, just chirping birds. Though I would enjoy it more if I wasn’t frustrated with my inability to successfully alter my blog. -sigh-

I learned something yesterday that I wanted to mention. That is: the reason why the UN vehicles in Islamabad drive so obnoxiously is because the drivers are instructed to always be the lead car when they stop at a light. That’s why they’re always rushing around and cutting people off, they don’t want to get stuck at light behind any other cars, because they consider that a security risk. They’re afraid of being blocked in traffic if they ever need to make a quick escape.

This may not sound very interesting to my comrades in blogistan abroad, but if you live in Islamabad and are cut off or driven off the road by at least two UN vehicles a day, then this is an epiphany. Suddenly the speeding, the passing on the shoulder of the road, the running of red lights, this all makes sense! Wow! How did I learn this? One of my students (who works for the UN) told me. We were talking about the many security precautions that some foreigners take here.

Basically, there are three types of foreigners in Islamabad. The first type is the First World Embassy/UN foreigner. This type is never seen outside of the embassy without a guard and a look of genuine nervousness and anxiety. Their security officers are always rumor-mongering and frightening these poor people out of their wits. I remember the last US embassy briefing we got was: “Terrorists posing as common street vendors will be targeting US citizens! Our intelligence tells us that they have bombs strapped to their bodies and can detonate themselves at any minute!“ Because these people are brainwashed to have an “us vs. them” mentality, they never mingle with the locals and lead very sheltered, very isolated lives.

The second type is the Second & Third world Embassy/NGO foreigner. Since none of the second world countries are particularly politically rapacious (for example: Mauritius, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, the Maldives, Nepal…) they have no reason to be afraid of the local political retaliation, and do not usually have armed guards, with the exception of the ambassador, and maybe the military attaches. They, as well as the foreigners working for NGO’s, zip around freely and enjoy themselves in the big hotels, tourist resorts, and shopping bazaars that the first-worlders live in mortal fear of.

The third type of foreigner in Islamabad is, ‘The Local Yokel.’ Those are foreigners who have gone native, usually from marrying a Pakistani or studying or working here for a long time. They usually speak tolerable Urdu, drink the tap water, shop local, and fit in pretty well. I think they have the most fun. Well, at least it seems like they’re having the most fun. I know I’m having fun! Part of the experience of living in Pakistan is in the bazaar food (and the ensuing illness) and the interactive shopping, the meeting of new people and seeing new places. You can’t do any of these things if you brush your teeth in bottled water, shop only in import stores, and hide in the embassy. (except when sunbathing at the UN club)

I feel kinda bad for the foreigners in category number 1. We know a guy who worked at the US embassy who used to be stationed in Karachi. Because Karachi is a bigger, rowdier, riskier city, the embassy staff were allowed to travel only between the embassy, their houses, and the McDonalds. No joke. Even for shopping, the embassy had a commissary store, you didn’t need to go out to buy anything. I suppose those poor people have more freedom when the US isn’t busy making itself World Terrorist No.1, but for now, they’re all holed up.

Ah, something exciting happened to me today. I was attacked by a lizard, a big dirty-looking one with beady eyes. Normally I have no problems with lizards. In fact, I think they’re rather cute. (I also think snakes are smooth and pretty, go figure) But today, as I walked into a stationary store, a lizard dropped down from the ceiling not one foot away from me onto a pile of notebooks. I looked at the lizard, and the lizard looked at me. It was a staring contest. Inevitably, the lizard won, because as far as I know, lizards don’t have eyelids. I could be wrong. But I blinked, and the lizard scurried through the notebooks, making quite a papery commotion, and then ran back up the wall.

Aniraz maintains that the lizard came not to attack me, but to revere me, since I am a friend of the lizards, not an enemy. That may be true, but the lizard came pretty close to landing on my head, and with friends like that, who needs enemies?

Woke up for Fajr this morning dead tired. Why? Because I’m a genius. I stayed up until 12:30 making my English Night prizes (with glitter, beads, cardboard, sequins, a glue gun, MWAHAHAA!!! Oh, and I et the egg.) and then I suddenly remembered that I had work in the morn. So then I was up until 3 am doing grammar sheets and class work.

So, when the alarm clock went off for Fajr at 4:45, I shuffled to the prayer rug, prayed, and then fell asleep after dua in sajdah position. Then I woke up at 5:30, disoriented and confused about what the heck I was doing sleeping with my face on the floor. It wasn’t all that bad, except both of my legs had gone completely numb.

I staggered back into bed and then woke up at 9:45, precisely two minutes before I was supposed to leave for work. I skulled a cup of lukewarm coffee and ran out the door trailing a wrinkly scarf and grammar sheets in my wake. The moral of this story? Be nice to your English teachers, they’re morons just like the rest of you. And if they sound like they’re tired and don’t know what they’re talking about, assume it’s because they are esoteric geniuses and you’re just too dense to know what they’re talking about.

What else was I going to blog about? Oh yeah, I’ve been teaching my students proverbs in English, and learning theirs in return. I learned some new ones to add to my repertoire.



The mouse cannot fit into the hole but he is trying to go in with a broom tied to his tail. Means: You can’t even do the basics (fit in the hole) and now you’re trying to do the impossible. (fit a broom into the hole too) For example:

Techno-Twit: “Don’t worry, I’ll fix your blog up and give you some spiffy special effects!”

Joe Shmoe: “Fix my blog? You haven’t even fixed your OWN blog! The mouse cannot fit himself into the hole but he is trying to go in with a broom tied to his tail.”

The chicken has one leg. This is used when a person is lying outright. It’s the equivalent of, “Yeah, and I’m Mary, Queen of Scots.”

Quasimodo: “I am not only the best looking person in this room, I am also the cleanest, richest, and best-smelling.”

Joe Shmoe: “Of course. And the chicken has one leg.”

They have tons of cool proverbs in Ibo, a Nigerian language. You’ll find dozens of them in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, a tragic but excellently written book.

The old woman laughs uneasily when you joke of dry bones.

The sun shines on he who stands before it stand on he who kneels.

Like the lizard who jumped from the high Iroko tree, I will praise myself if no one else does.

Eneke the bird says: since men have learned to shoot without missing, I have learned to fly without perching.

If a child washes his hands he can eat with kings.

Ug. I’m going brain-dead. Trying to remember these proverbs has sapped my brain of what little energy was available. I think I’ll pray Asr and go crash on the sofa. That is, if I don’t fall asleep on the floor first…

“And your Lord has said: Pray to Me and I will hear your prayer.” -The Holy Qur’an, 40:60

oops. I posted double but I can’t just delete. How silly. Oh well. Here’s a different post then.

Some primal termite knocked on wood

Tasted it, and found it good

And that is why your Cousin May

Fell through the parlor floor today.

-Samuel Hoffenstein.

Karachi Rox!

I should just take Aniraz’s advice and not blog when I have nothing to blog about, but quite frankly, I’m just not that smart. If I was a smarter man, I would do things differently. I would do the work for my classes all at the beginning of the week instead of doing it a few hours before class everyday. That way I might have some free time even on days when I was working. As a smarter man, I would also resist my periodic urges to eat peanut butter. I caved today: I threw a dollop of peanut butter into some chocolate pudding and stirred at it with much enthusiasm. Then I et it, and I can’t believe I et the whole thing!!! Now I have heart-burn. Now, you’re supposed to use the ridiculous line my cousins always use, and you go, OoooOOooh, who is your heart burning for? Then I throw things at you.

Actually I miss my cousins. I have a whole horde of them in Karachi where my father’s half of the family is stationed. Visiting there involves sleeping all day (waking up for prayer and going back to sleep again) and playing cards all night. It also involves lots of junk food, lots of games, lots of really hilarious times. After Chicago, Karachi is what I consider to be my home city. I’m thinking of popping in for a week or so. I miss it- the greasy, hot junk food from the bazaars, the noise, the chaos, that funky Karachi smell. Karachi smells like diesel + sweat + spice.

Islamabad, on the other hand, smells only of car exhaust. It has its plusses though, like the fact that it’s clean, traffic is tolerable, there are other foreigners all over the place, and the best part is: It’s so darn small. I can get from one end of town to the other in under half an hour, not just because I’m Sensei Speed Demon, Terror of the Tarmac, but because this town is just so small. I remember living in Chicago, I commuted for an hour and a half, each way, just to get to college. In Karachi, it’s an hour to the beach. Here, if I drive for an hour, I’ll find myself half-way to Lahore! (Actually, Lahore is four hours, but who wants to go there anyway? It’s full of…ugh…Lahoris! 😛 j/k)

I’ve been to Lahore, but just the dirty out-skirts. I’ve also been to every single town and tiny village on the Grand Trunk road between Islamabad and Karachi. Multan, Kala sha kaku, Toba tek Singh, Sadiqabad…you name it, and I’ve stopped in it’s gas station and eaten its samosas. I must say I was very disappointed though. I blame global marketing for the fact that every single town looked exactly the same as the last: Low cement buildings completely plastered with Pepsi, Coke, and Capstan cigarette ads from here to Karachi. The same posters on the same dingy gray walls. I know that Pakistan has a beautiful architectural heritage, I just don’t know where they’re hiding it. Hmmmph.

Randomness to the Extreme -or- When Abez Blogs at 1 am.

How to kill a moth with window cleaner: Squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt, victory dance.

****

One of my students is taking a vacation, and another one of them wants a rescheduling, and another one of them one wants more homework, and I am going to have an aneurism! Aaaargh! I should have been a hermit crab instead. But I shouldn’t complain. I should grin and bear it, and then go eat peanut butter when no one is looking.

****

I like this poem:

The Hamster

by Ogden Nash.

There is not much about the hamster

To stimulate the epigramster

The essence of his simple story,

He populates the laboratory

Then leaves his offspring in the lurch

Martyr to medical research

Was he as bright as people am

New York would be New Hamsterdam.

****



More multi-lingual sound effects, this time in Turkish!

Dogs: Hao Hao

Chicks: jik jik

Chickens: Goon goon

Gun: put put (put, like golf put) or dish-dish

Car: vvvnnnn or vvvzzzzhhhh

****

“And remember your Lord within yourself (in the heart) humbly and with awe, below your breath, at morning and evening. And let you not be among those who neglect.” -The Holy Qur’an, 7:205

****

India has just agreed to reopen its borders to Pakistan for trade and travel. I wonder if this sudden display of friendship has anything to do with the fact that India has SARS and Pakistan doesn’t? Hmm, sounds fishy to me.

****

Two people tried to kill me today. The first guy was yakking away on his cell phone as he pulled out directly in front of me. The other guy was a brave taxi driver who thought he could gun it across two lanes of traffic instead of waiting for an opening. I was very grateful (Alhamdulillah) in both cases that the brakes on our old car are ok even if the tires are bald.

****

Best Day Supermarket in F-10 has marshmallow fluff, and it’s HALAL!!! Chai, Crayon, I just thought it was important that I tell you these things. Thank you. The End.

Before I begin my usual blogging nonsense, I have to make a formal and public apology to Maria (MSD). Though I did attack dating, I did not mean to attack you. I am very, very, very sorry for offending you. God Forbid that all Muslims should combine aggression with religious discourse. That was not my intention, though that may have been my result. I ask you to please forgive me in this life, because otherwise I’ll have to cough up some of my good deeds to you in the next life and as it is, I’m a loser with very few good deeds. Please accept my humblest apologies.

A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, unless it were made of bread dough.

Presenting: the next installment in the Battle Betwixt the Bugs and Us. Today, termites tried sneaking out of both the bathroom drain and the kitchen drain simultaneously. So, Aniraz and I retaliated, and we poured acid down both of the drains, simultaneously. mwahaha!

This evening, I went out to the back porch to throw in a load of laundry, when I noticed a dark almond-shaped thing near my foot. I bent a little closer and saw it was a roach, a dead, king-sized sewer roach. I backed up, horrified, and then noticed that I was surrounded by at least a dozen of them: industrial sized roach corpses in a horrifying display of carnage. :::shudders::: It turns out that the acid we poured down the drains killed more than termites. Ha!

Now if only we can figure out something to get the mosquitoes with. They mauled me last night. I have more bumps on my right leg than a leopard has spots because it was sticking out from underneath my blanket. Opportunistic little vampires…

Well, on a less-than six-legged note, I know I have some links to add to my blog, but I don’t want to pass the task on to my magnanimous pro-bono techie, Tora. I’ve annoyed him enough, and since they just installed Microsoft Front Page at my sister’s office, I think I’ll drop in one day and see if I can figure it out. Another thing I’m trying to figure out: how can I make my own backgammon board? I went shopping around for one and found only tiny expensive ones.

Usually, all board games come in two variations. The first variation is the expensive one: usually wood and brass, and usually for people who play everyday and are therefore willing to cough up fifty dollars for a game. (I am SO jealous of one of my student’s boards, she brought hers from Turkey) The other variation if the mass-produced version: in cardboard and plastic. That’s for losers like me that don’t care too terribly much about what material the board is made off because you can still play the game on it. (as long as it’s not hideous) So I’m trying to find a cheap backgammon board, and all I’m finding is small and expensive ones.

Aniraz and I made a chess set once, when we were living in Karachi in my uncle’s house, waiting for the rest of the family to show up. (long story, I think I told it already) So we were there with nothing to do and no mode of transportation, and we thought, Aha! We should make a chess board! So we looked around to see what raw materials were available for the project. We found cardboard, straight pins, a black marker and bread-dough. I don’t need to tell you that the board was -ahem- substandard looking.

My pawns were shaped as arches, Aniraz’s were shaped like donuts. Our kings and queens had pins pressed into them as the spikes on their crowns. You would think that the game plays the same no matter what the pieces look like, but in actuality, when the pieces are that ugly, the game just cannot go on. You look at the pieces, trying to plan a strategy of some sort, and you just end up getting visually offended by the sheer ugliness of it all and throwing them at your opponent.

Well, as long as I find a backgammon board that isn’t made of bread dough and pins, I’ll be happy. I’ve taken stock of what kind of materials I can use, I have some black velour, some scotch tape, some yellow felt, two kilos of powdered sugar and some bread dough. Hmmm. We ate all of yesterday’s pastry puffs, otherwise we could’ve colored them and varnished them and used them as pieces. They were the right size too…

I’m tattling on Aniraz. She’s menacing me with the paper-hole puncher and coughing little diseased paper circles at me. (they’re coming out of her palm, not her lungs) It sounds gross, but who cares! It’s the truth! The world must know! And with that wholly useless blog, I bid thee all adieu.

Remember people, “Oh Ye who believe! If you fear Allah, He will give you (power of) discrimination between right and wrong and will rid you of your evil thoughts and deeds and will forgive you. Allah is of infinite bounty.” -The Holy Qur’an, 8:29

I’m not a mean man. Just one with a highly developed sense of vigilante-ism. *Dish!* Dor-Dor! Whack!

I’m sitting in front of the computer trying to blog, but I don’t think it’s gonna work too well. First of all, between home and work, very few interesting things have happened. Second of all, I am brain dead and sleep depraved….err…deprived. I haven’t gotten to bed before 2 am once this week, and I have worked every day except Thursday…when I had a party instead. Today is Friday, (Happy Friday Everybody!) and I have the evening off work today. You know what I’m gonna do with it? Other than type a low-calorie, low-substance blog? I’m gonna lay down on the sofa and pleasantly snooze away the hours with a pillow on my face. That, dear friends, is true quality time.

Because my evening class was cancelled I wasn’t able to find out the phone number for the kick-boxing lady from my student. I have to wait till Monday now, in the mean time, I’m dreaming about all the teeth I’m gonna release from peoples’ jaws. Mwahaaaahaaaa! -ahem- Actually the thought of kicking someone’s teeth out makes me feel slightly ill…I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about killing people. (This conversation was directly related to meeting mashers in the bazaars) and she said she wouldn’t dream of killing someone unless they were trying to hurt her kids. Me, I don’t have kids, but as it is, I don’t think I could kill someone unless they were trying to kill me first. I also wouldn’t be able to stab anyone unless I was sure it wouldn’t kill them. It’s just too much: the thought of hearing the serrated edge of a knife go shredding through muscles and tendons…::shudders::

Thank God I’ve never had to try to stab anyone. (Or ever to defend myself, Alhamdulillah) See, that’s what brothers are for. If you have two giant ones (like me 😀 ) then you can sic them on whoever deserves it (but ONLY people who deserve it, otherwise, it’s vicarious tyranny instead of retributive justice). I remember once in high-school, some jerk kid kept trying to pull my scarf off, he would come up behind me in the hall and give it a yank and then take off. So I told my elder bro, and presto, the offending idiot was pulled into the boys bathroom one day and beaten into a soft and remorseful pulp.

Ok, enough khoon-kwari. (violence, gore, bloodiness) I shall share some good news instead. I am pleased to announce that our supply of post-party leftovers is still holding out. There are still two dozen pastry puffs, six chicken fajita roll-ups, half of a jello mold, an apple pound cake, nine rolls from the Afghani Bakery, and a bowl of pasta salad. This means that we won’t have to cook for another two meals. The apple streusel coffee cake never saw first light of the day after the party though, Inna Lilla…

Hey Crayon! You’re welcome to pop in and help us scarf it all down! (whatever’s left of it after tea-time anyway, and hey, my Turks said we were setting the backgammon board up funny, I drew a little diagram of what they showed me so we can compare notes) And Chai too, come over dear, the only thing better than a party is the leftovers. And Aniraz, you already live here, stop eating all the cake! Momma, Aniraz hit me with a roll!

(Queue chaos)

To my fellow scarfies/hijabis/ninjas: we should compose one of those silly top-ten lists, for You Know You’re a Hijabi When… Here’s my contribution.

(drum roll please)

You have tan lines…on your forehead.

Here’s our Islamic quote of the day. I like it lots. “Recite that which has been inspired in thee of the Scripture (Qur’an), and establish prayer. Lo! The prayer preserves from lewdness and iniquity, and verily, the remembrance of Allah is more important. And Allah knows what ye do.” The Holy Qur’an, 29:45

Hmmm, now the skeptic sez: I knew this Moozlim guy who prayed five times a day and beat his wife with a tasbih and had an affair with his camel and then flew his rug down to the pub to have a few pints with us…

And I sez: The verse obviously does not apply to what I shall call, ‘Bogus Prayer’. Bogus Prayer is the equivalent of the Muslim Macarena. There are many people who do ‘Bogus Prayer’ one minute and then run off and do something highly haram five minutes later. Well, what do you expect from a prayer where you put zero religious thought, concentration, or zhikr into it? You might as well be dancing cuz with bogus prayer you’re just going through the motions.

Real Prayer, with a capital P, is a reminder of the obligations you have to man and God, and a reset-button on your stress levels for the day, and a bunch of other nice things that help cultivate Taqwa/God-consciousness in the worshipper. Remember my SARS? The Splendid Acute Religiousness Syndrome? Well, Prayer gives you SARS, ok?

Skeptic sez: Egad! Those Moozlims have d’zeezes! Run for yer life!

Af Af, I mean, Woof Woof.

Something interesting happened to me on the way home today. I was minding my own beeswax, turning left when a car came from the opposite direction, and tried to turn right around a car that was ALREADY turning right. In other words, he was being a moron, and driving on the wrong side of the road. If I hadn’t seen him and slammed my breaks (bi FazlAllah, Alhamdulillah!) he would’ve crashed into me head-on. There was a lot of squealing of brakes (on my part) and swerving (on his part) As it is, he just nicked my headlight on the side and cracked it.

(if the physics of my accident sounds backwards: it’s because in Pakistan you drive on the left side of the road, not the right.)

He came out and apologized profusely. I was actually kinda bewildered and confused, so I just checked my car for damage (and saw that it was negligible) and instead of gathering my powers of righteous indignation and yelling at him, I just said to him sternly, Be more careful! And he said yes Madame, thank you Madame, and he bowed and scraped all the way back to his car. Us foreigners, we be scary people. (boo!) I bet he almost had a heart attack when I stepped out, towering head and shoulder above him and shining ghostly-white in the moonlight (that would be my pasty face), my jet-black Jedi-Knight jilbab billowing ominously about me in the night breeze! Bwahahaaa!

-Ahem- ok so I’m not very tall or threatening, but I was taller than he was and he was definitely scared. He he. Speaking of threatening, just today one of my students informed me that she knows of a woman who teaches kick-boxing. As I am typing this I have the biggest grin imaginable on my face. Really. I’m ecstatic. I’ve been wanting to learn some attack-fu for years, but it’s easier to find a cat with horns than a female martial arts instructor in Pakistan. But now I know she exists and her name is Neelam and I’m gonna get her number on Friday. YAY!!!!!!!!! Look out world, I’m gonna start kicking stuff! :::thwak!::: Ow, my poor toes…

Oh yeah, it’s strange, your life doesn’t actually flash before your eyes when you have an accident. I think it flashes before your eyes only if you’re dying slowly and you have the time to remember it. When the guy ran back meekly to his car and I started driving back home again, it occurred to me that I didn’t think or feel anything exceptional, even when his headlights were bearing down on me and my brakes were screeching. I just went, Aaaaah! And as I was saying Aaaaah!, I was also thinking it simultaneously. I would like to think that in times of distress or worry, I would call on God, at least then I could die seeking His help/mercy instead of screaming out Crap! Nuts! Rats! or Aaaaah! As far as I know, Crap, Nuts, and Aaaaah are not worship-able deities. The Hindus do have a temple dedicated to some holy rats though. Hmmm.

Well, the moral of this story is, you never know when you’re going to die. And a few near-death experiences help put a healthy dose of The-Fear-of-The-Lord back into your heathen heart. (not just yours, mine too) In fact, that’s why I’m always mortally wounding myself. It makes me appreciate life and health better. Once I had my appendix out (you can’t have it out twice, can you?) and post-surgically speaking, I was a wreck. I had to shuffle around, couldn’t do anything myself. I felt lame, useless, and like I was a burden. That really made me appreciate my independence and health. But I think I’ve already mentioned that, haven’t I. Rats. I mean, Astaghfirullah!

Hmmm, what else interesting happened today? My favorite three year old came and shot at me with a bubble gun. He pulled the trigger and a little ring rose in front of the nozzle and a puff of wind shot through it. Fortunately, there wasn’t any soap in the bubble gun otherwise I would be a soapier man than I am today. I said to him, “What’s in there?” And he said, “This gun is for bubbling.” And I said, “But there are no bubbles in it!” And he said, “I use it for *dish*” (bang!)

*dish* is the sound that guns make when firing in the subcontinent, and in Turkey too apparently. Different cultures use different sound effects. In Urdu, a dog says ‘bhao bhao.’ In English it’s ‘woof woof‘, in Russian it’s ‘Aaf aaf‘. In English, guns say bang, in Urdu they say *dish.* A car in English goes vroom, but in Turkish it goes vnnnn. Chicks in English say ‘peep peep,‘ in Urdu they say ‘kut kut’ and in Korean they say ‘piyo piyo’. See? Sensei knows everything. :p

Today’s relevant and remarkable hadith is a Baihaqi. The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said, “Iron gets wet with water and develops rust. Similarly, the human heart gets rusted.” His companions asked, “Oh Prophet! What is it that cleans and shines the heart?” He replied, “To think of death more often (and be prepared for it) and to recite Qur’an.”

Appallingly busy these days and moderately distressed. 🙁 Help!

Anybody wanna guest post? I’ll even make a little competition. Ok, here it is, whoever answers this following question (in the affirmative) first will get to guest post. (Sorry for the delay Usman, I can’t even post on my OWN site right now….) And the question is…

(drumroll please)

(opens envelope)

(looks at card inside)

(smiles at camera)

(turns card right side up)

(and the Osacr goes too…)

Do you want to guest-post?!

(que applause)

A little aluminum foil underneath your scarf will keep the aliens from sucking your brains out.

Remember how on one of my previous blogs I was complaining about my tailor? How he made my pants too small and made my shirt smell like armpits before I even got to wear it (and stink it up myself, he he)? Well, I sent the pants back to be fixed, and I retrieved them from his shop last night. He did make them a bit bigger, but you won’t believe what else he made them: FILTHY! like someone threw them on the floor and danced on them, and they were WET and they smelled like VOMIT!

Last night I got home all excited, I rushed to try the new and improved pants on, and as I stood in front of the mirror, frowning at the fit, I was suddenly hit with a horrible smell and a realization of coldness. I sniffed, trying to figure out where the disgusting smell was coming from, and why I suddenly felt cold and wet, and once I realized it was the pants that were cold and wet and smelling of vomit, I wailed aloud, threw them off and ran to take a shower.

I give up. I’m just going to start wearing home-made clothes everywhere. Just call me Ella Mae, Hill Billy, Pk. I’ll be starting a new, rustic, ’Tailor like it’s 622 AD’ line of jilbabs. From what I remember anyway, when the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, first recited the ayah from the Qur’an for the proper wearing of Hijab (it’s in Surah Noor, I’ll find it) the women made do with curtains and bedspreads because no one had too many clothes in that day and they needed something modest right then and there. Scarlet O’Hara made a dress out of curtains too, though the stuff I make pales in comparison to her sartorial skills. -sigh- I’m going to wander around in two flour sacks sewn together and aluminum foil on my arms as sleeves. It may look funny, but at least it won’t be WET AND VOMITTY! (AAAAaaargh!)

I suppose I have to go off and make a pair of pants, since my tailor wasted my other pair and I wasted my money on him. I have to make them myself. Now where’s the aluminum foil…? 😛

I can’t think of anything else to write. I woke up this morning after dreaming about centipedes all night, horrible dreams they were. Fortunately when I came downstairs there was halva and poori and chana (halva is halva, poori is fried flat-bread, chana is chick-peas) for breakfast from Chez Daddy. My daddy does that in honor of it being Sunday morning. When we lived in the states, it used to be donuts every Sunday morning, and sometimes on weekdays too. I remember once us kids came home from school and opened the front door, and there in the entryway, hanging from the ceiling, were four donuts. Each donut was a different flavor, with a name and a picture of each one of us kids attached to it.

We ate the donuts by standing and jumping underneath of them with our mouths open, and when that wasn’t working out too well, we had to drag in a dining chair and cut the donuts down. Listen up people: do cute things for your kids now (or whenever you have them) because these are the things they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. I remember another time when my dad came to pick us up from school (we usually walked) and he stopped the car and then said, ok kids, get out. We opened the door, and we weren’t home, it was the candy store. Now THAT was fun.

Even now, sometimes my dad just shows up with ice-cream cones. You can be sitting in the car waiting for him at the bazaar or somewhere, and suddenly an ice-cream cone will be thrust at you from the open window and my dad will be behind it, grinning. He says it because it’s psychic, and he knows exactly when we want ice-cream and what flavor. He’s usually right too, but probably because when do we NOT want ice-cream, and is any flavor really bad?

The moral of today’s story is: I love my daddy! Or, love your daddy! Or, be a loving daddy! So there.

Oh, and here’s the Ayah from the Qur’an about hijab: “..And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest; and let them not display their adornment except that which is apparent; and let them draw their head-scarves (khimar) over their chests so as not to reveal their adornments except to their husbands and mahram.” The Holy Qur’an, Surah 24, ayah 31

(The Arab women were already wearing khimar (scarves) but they were tying them behind their necks, like some women do these days. This verse told women to wear it properly, by putting it back out front to cover the neck and the chest as well as the head.)

News Flash: My momma has a new blog, and I’ll try to get her to update it weekly by Friday. Visit at www.ourmarvymomma.blogspot.com

I finally put two pics up on my fotolog. They were both taken with a highly horrible borrowed digital cam, and so I apologize for the complete lack of quality. The first photograph is of Chez Daddy, my father’s restaurant and barbeque. The second is of our man-eating dog. She was the only one I could get to pose on such short notice. What can I say. Notice how happy she is in the photo. For a dog, she’s really quite a ham.

And now people reading this will go, eeewww! You have a dog! Nasty! And then I say, I think she’s kinda gross too, and initially I objected to having a dog, but then we cracked open our Bukhari Sharif and found a hadith that said, “Whoever keeps a dog for other than hunting or guarding will have one good deed subtracted from his record for every day he keeps it.” Then we decided fine, it’s ok for us to have a guard dog And that’s what she is, too. She lives at the gate and rages at people, and the fur on her back stands straight up and she turns into a bouncing, snarling ball of fury and teeth. It was either that or hire a guard, the human kind. Here’s why: shortly after we moved into this house, something happened that made my dad decide to get a guard dog. I was home by myself, asleep, when the bell rang. I went down and answered it, speaking from behind the gate. There were two men on a motorcycle, and they said, “Is your father in?”

I said, “No, what do you need?”

They said, “We’re the electricians. Your father sent us, he’s going to be meeting us here shortly.”

I said, “He’s not here right now.”

Then they said, “Can we come in and wait for him?”

I was kinda sleepy and groggy (I wake up after a tankard of black coffee, and not a minute before) and I said one sec. I walked back into the living room and looked around. It was a wreck. So I came back out and asked them if they would come back later. They implied that they wouldn’t be able to come back later, and that they wouldn’t mind waiting inside. I said sorry, my dad will be back in an hour. Come then. Then they drove away and I went back to sleep.

I told my dad later that he missed the electricians, and he said, what electricians? I didn’t send any electricians! And he asked the REAL electricians, and it hadn’t been them. Those men never came back, thank God. It actually makes me nauseous thinking about what could’ve happened if I had let them in. In our neighborhood there are a lot of burglaries in the daytime, people come to your gate, saying they’re doing a survey, or distributing polio drops, or they’re a cousin of your father’s or something, and once you crack the gate open, that’s it. You get tied up and locked in a room while they go through your house, or do worse things.

A man we know is a gems dealer, and word of his wealth got out, despite that fact that he’s been hiding it, living in a small neighborhood, in a simple house and with a very normal car. He had to move from his last house because people kept trying to burglarize him there. He’s already had a few men come to the gate demanding to be let in. They always come in the daytime too, because that’s most likely when the man of the house is out and only the women will be home. It’s scary, but you know, Alhamdulillah, he’s ok so far, and so are we. Anywhere you go is dangerous, so Islamabad isn’t any more or less dangerous than Chicago I think. But yeah, that’s why we have a ferocious guard-dog. She does a good job too, she goes off if she can see people just walking on the driveway. Beggars don’t ring our doorbell anymore, but then neither does the garbage man, so yes, there are some drawbacks. he he

I had an interesting afternoon today. After work, I was leaving one of my student’s houses and I couldn’t get my car to start. (treacherous bucket of bolts!) The battery transistors are loose, and the way to remedy that is to beat on them with a rock, or pour Pepsi on them. No, I’m not lying. The Pepsi eats away some of the erosion and helps conduct electricity. I popped up the hood of my car, and was standing there with a rock in one hand and a bottle of Pepsi in the other when the gardener from my student’s house came out and looked at me like I was crazy, and said in Punjabi, “Does your battery need water?”

I said, “No, it needs a beating and some Pepsi.”

He looked at me with his eyebrows raised and then came and stood beside me and watched me pound away at the transistor with a rock and then douse it in Pepsi. He offered his help, and he alternately whacked and poured while I tried to start the engine. We did succeed after about twenty minutes. I must remember to buy him some mithai. A very nice man.

That’s one thing I like about Pakistan, if your car breaks down, people will come out of the woodwork and help you. Once my car broke down while I was substitute teaching at the Japanese School here (where I first acquired the honorable title of Sensei) and all the school guards came out to see what was wrong. They popped the hood, and the six of them had a pow-wow while leaning around the engine. They did some tentative banging and debating, and then the car started.

Therefore, I dedicate this blog to all of the nice old uncles and gardeners and security guards that have fixed, pushed, beaten and doused my car at when I needed it most. May Allah bless them and reward them and show them kindness, as they showed kindness to me. 🙂

I am reminded of a Hadith found in both Bukhari and Muslim. The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him) said, “You will find the Muslims among themselves in mutual cooperation, love, and compassion as if they were one body, where when one part of the body is in pain (or trouble) the entire body feels sick and can’t sleep.”

Two fish sitting in a tank. One turns and says to the other, ‘Hey, you know how to drive this thing?”

Amazingly, this week has gone been much faster than previous weeks. Maybe that’s because I’ve been putting off all my work till the last minute, and the clock seems to move much faster when you’re running against it. he he. I haven’t even dreaded work in the morning! This is incredibly amazing! And it can’t last. Maybe my happiness has something to do with a change in atmospheric pressure, or the Aurora Borealis, or maybe the waffles we had for dinner. I think I must have the greatest mother in the world…I come home from work and there’s breakfast for dinner, quite often actually. Seriously, I love it, and her.

I think I’ll devote today’s blog to my momma.

My Momma

by Abez

My momma is the greatest momma in the world. For lunch she makes me dinner, for dinner she makes me breakfast, and for breakfast, she makes a mess.

My momma is full of wisdom and insight. One day, after we had turkey legs for dinner, she moaned and cried out, “Ooooh, I feel so guilty…now some poor turkey is walking around without its legs!!” My momma says things like, “Pour boiling water on his head,” and, “Us is two and she is one.”

My momma is nuts in the most fantastic way. She got a perm a day before a party, and it was unnaturally stiff. But instead of moaning about it, she went to the party and told everyone to call her Fifi the French Poodle.

My momma is ten times better than Aniraz’s momma. I love her lots. The End.

_________________

Hey, I learned how to play backgammon! One of my students taught me, it was very sweet of her. Backgammon is kind of a combination between Ludo/Parchesi and Mancala. (Sorry if you guys have played neither of these games, they’re both fun though, trust me) I enjoyed it, and maybe (with our powers combined!) we can start a backgammon club or something, me plus another one of my friends, plus three of my students who play, and anyone else who is willing to learn and likely to bring good food to the party. Yee-Haw!

Actually Islamabad is a great place for do-it-yourself socialization. Everyone is fully aware of the fact that everyone else is bored stiff, so once you discover some nice people, the first thing you do is form a club and try to convince other people to join it. That’s kinda how English Night came into being. I’m also a founding member of a book-club (Hi Dawn! Hi Jennifer! Hi Maria! Hi Sonia!) where we talk briefly on the book of the month and extensively on everything else under the sun. So far we’ve had one meeting. I think it went well. The next one is coming up soon, and we’re reading that macabre Roald Dahl book I mentioned earlier.

And here’s our Islamic quote of the day: “Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere.” 2:155

This blog is coming off as kinda sub-standard too, but what can I say. My eyeballs hurt and I can’t concentrate. Urgh. I have the heebie-jeebies too, y’ani I’m all grossed out because termites crawled out of the kitchen drain again. Now I can’t help but feel like they’re crawling all over my skin, ::shudders::: Filthy little buggers. I beat them once, fair and square, why don’t they know when to quit!?! Hmmph. When I’m rich and famous (and when pigs fly and Bush talks sense) I’m going to make termites illegal. Thus sayeth Abez.

Tamma.

You know, I’m starting to get some more of those Cosmoplanetary, Jesmopolitain vibes…just call me mellow yellow, cuz I feel like melting in the computer chair and chillin, just staring at the trippy ambience in the windows media player and listening to Raihan. (Syukur, syukur! syukur ya Allah!)

My brain’s on vacation today, instead of doing its normal processing duties, like English grammar, blogging, and actively not giving a hoot about how dirty the house is, it’s remembering poetry of questionable taste, Monty Python skits, and pondering meaningful questions in meaningless ways. For example:

Hello Mrs. Premise!

Hello Mrs. Conclusion! Busy day?

Busy? I just spent four hours burying the cat.

Four hours to bury a cat?

Yes, it wouldn’t stop wriggling about all over the place.

Oh, so it wasn’t dead then yet.

No, but it wasn’t at all a well cat, and seeing as how we’re just going off on a fortnight’s holiday, I thought I’d better bury it now just to be on the safe side.

Quite right, you don’t want to come back from Sarento to a dead cat. It would be so anti-climactic.

Yes, kill it now, that’s what I say.

We’re going to have to put our budgie down…

Really? Is it very old?

No, we just don’t like it… -Monty Python

And now, the poetry of questionable taste:

Oh I have been to Ludlow fair

And left my neck-tie God knows where

And brought half-way home or near

Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer

Then the world seemed none too bad

And I myself a sterling lad

And down in lovely muck I‘ve lain

Happy till I woke again

Then I saw the morning sky

Heigho, the tale was all a lie!

The world, it was the old world yet

I was I, my things were wet,

And nothing now remained to do

But begin the game anew…. -A.E.Houseman, 1896 (From ‘Terrence, This Is Stupid Stuff)

And now, the pondering of meaningful things in meaningless ways. How much benefit of a doubt should you give people? Where do you draw the line between trusting someone and being duped by them? For example, should I be screaming at my tailor? He always says he’ll make my clothes right, but they always come back way too big, or this time, way too small. Sometimes I get three shirts on the same day and no two of them are the same size. I think it must be a private joke of his, to somberly promise he will do everything right this time, Baji, and then give everything to me totally wrong anyway without flinching.

He’s ruined a pair of my pants this time, there’s no way I can wear them unless I lose twenty pounds and four inches, so what am I supposed to do? I may be a big-talker, but when it comes down to it, I have a hard time yelling at people, especially in another language. I could yell at him in English (provided I could work the nerve up to actually raise my voice) but he wouldn’t understand it anyway. Plus I’m a softie and I like to think, awwww, poor guy, he must’ve been really tired when he was making my clothes. He’ll do them right next time, honest he will…

I did yell at my last tailor. But that’s because his problem wasn’t with sizes, it was with belligerence. He was constantly making my clothes to how HE liked them. Aniraz asked for simple sleeves, and he made her a shirt with cuffs so long and so stiff that they looked like the gold wrist-guards that super-heroes wear. I asked him to embroider a little-bitty flower on one of the corners of a shirt, and he covered the entire shirt in hideous geometric designs. I asked him what the hibbity-dibbity he was thinking, and he said it looked better this way, he wasn‘t the least bit sorry or ashamed. I told him to fix it, and he never did. I ended up wearing that horrible shirt, I still have it. It lives in the bottom of a trunk.

I know that only the ultra-rich have tailors in the US and UK, but in Pakistan, where the ready-made clothes industry is under-developed and over-priced, everyone has a tailor. I have to switch mine again. I know who I’m going to switch to this time too. I discovered an excellent tailor a while ago, who speaks the Queen’s English (or at least the closest thing to the Queen’s English I have heard here in Pakistan) and fixes what he messes up. He also does very little messing up. Problem is he knows he’s good, and he charges you for it. Hmmm.

Oh oh! I forgot to mention the best part about today’s problems with my tailor…I got a new shirt back…and it smelled like MAN ARMPITS! Sweaty, stinky, acrid man-armpits, fouling up my new shirt in the relevant places…y’ani…the armpits of my shirt smelled like armpits. I handed it to him and said, smell this. And he smelled it and made a face and I said, do you smell anything? He gave the shirt a funny look. I said, what, has someone been wearing my shirt? And he shook his head and said, Baji, we hang them up right after we sew them… And that was all.

Aniraz thinks the tailors are all drag-queens. My mom says they wear my clothes when they have to wash their own,. and Aniraz says, no, they get dressed up and have parties wearing all these women’s clothes. I don’t care what they’re trying to do, I just wish they’d do it without wearing my shirt!

Aright, no more complaining about my tailor. My buddy at chaiandapplepie.blogspot.com got herself a tag board…so, ready, on your marks…get set…TAG! I am proud to say that I got there first, neener neener neener, and will be forever honored with the position of ‘First Tagger.’

I spose I shall elaborate on what’s been going on on my tagboard. InshaAllah, my sister and I are gonna go for Umrah this year in Ramadan. (InshaAllah, InshaAllah) and I’m really excited about it! My Uncle goes there in Ramadan every year, and my father might send us with him this time! Yay! :::bounces up and down in chair::: Yay! Yay! Everybody please do dua that our plans are fulfilled and our intentions are accepted as pure and our heaps and heaps of sins are forgiven. Ameen.

“And whoever does evil or wrongs himself but afterwards seeks Allah’s Forgiveness, he will find Allah Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” The Holy Qur’an, Surah An-Nisa – Ayah 110.

Sorry my comments aren’t working, squawkbox.tv is having server probs. Speaking of problems, the annual Battle of the Bugs is well underway. Every spring, once the weather gets a bit warmer, insects of all kinds come out in full force and lay siege to my house. I think I’ve already mentioned Major Mooch-a-lot of the Mosquito Marines, and Commander Lal Baig of the Cockroach Corps. Well, there’s a new enemy afoot: the Termite Troops.

Not to be foiled by the screens on the windows and doors, they found an under-ground entrance to our house, and set up base in the kitchen drain. It was a mighty battle, it was. My second in command, Mortein Lure n’Kill Surface Spray, and I fought a fast and furious fight, and in the end I triumphed and poured acid down all the drains. Regrettably, there were some casualties. Aniraz was caught in friendly fire. (“Dude, you just sprayed that all over my foot!”)

Sorry for the short blog. I haven’t done much today that’s worth writing about, I woke up late, I did a minor amount of work towards preparing Easter Dinner, I went to my favorite internet cafe for half an hour, and I came home and wandered aimlessly between the computer and the refrigerator.

Since my mom is a Christian we have Easter dinner, today we‘re serving leg of Qurbaani lamb. Ah, the irony. I don’t know whether this is an official family tradition, but holiday meals are always served late, and boy am I hungry…I’m going to go set the table in hopes that it will speed the cooking process somehow. My apologies again for the lame blog. You may amuse yourselves on my tag board until I come up with a better one. Peace!

“And verily, I am indeed Forgiving to him who repents, believes and does righteous good deeds, and then remains constant in doing them, [till his death].” The Holy Qur’an, Surah Ta-Ha – Ayah 82.

I beg a thousand pardons of y’all, for I overbooked my weekend and hadn’t had the time to write an update yet. Friday was English Night, this Saturday was a party, tomorrow is Easter Dinner for my mother. Aasif jiddan.

Party’s over, the house is *relatively* clean and the only things still lingering are two 3-D crepe-paper fish hanging from the ceiling. (I rather like them, perhaps I’ll leave them up.) Nothing spices up a party (even a party for grown women) quite like a bunch of tacky party decorations. These fish were part of a larger set of Hawaiian party decorations, which originally included those flower necklaces, a grass skirt, a huge 3-D paper parrot, and various under-the-sea themed junk. The grass skirt went home with someone already, and the flower necklaces went the way of the dodo, but the big parrot is still around.

Oh yeah, and there were two water guns. One has since been lost, and the other is in my desk drawer, since you never really know when you’re going to be needing one in this day and age. What with crime rates being so phenomenally high and all: Freeze, evildoer! Stand and be inundated!

Enough on today’s party, on to yesterday’s English Night. I will not bore you with the grammatically-oriented details, rather I will regale you with the menu. Turkish samosa, chocolate mousse, authentic German apple streusel, potato salad, hummus and crackers, ice cream, and of course, gallons and gallons of Turkish tea. I -heart- Turkish tea. (he he) And of course, there were Ferre Rocher bon-bons and Turkish Delight. Someone has recently complained that I am very food-oriented. With a menu like that, who can blame me?

Hmm, I’ll try to write about something other than food….hmmm…how about food from a cultural perspective? It was very interesting to note that the Turkish samosa was very much like the Pakistani one, but instead of being fried into little triangles, it was layered in a pan and baked. And the authentic German streusel was NOTHING like what Americans call streusel. It was pastry dough stuffed with apples, raisins and spice, and rolled. American streusel is a brown-sugar, butter, and oat-meal topping that you sprinkle on other things. I wonder how that happened…ok, no more food.

How about politics? No, politics these days are depressing. I don’t want to talk about Bushs’ plans for global domination. Afghanistan…Iraq…then Syria…probably Iran then. Bush has no right to talk about human rights or freedom, he alone is more responsible for more deaths worldwide than any other world leader at the moment. (Afghanistan + Iraq = Genocide, but these days we call it collateral damage, don’t we? hmmm) Ya Allah, it’s horrible and shocking. Now you see why I prefer to talk about food instead.

How about sports? The Cricket World Cup has been over and done for a long time, but what else is there to talk about? 😛 I can’t believe Australia won. I think the cup should have been awarded on the basis of sportsmanship. Australia would never have won if it was….they admitted they were bowling at peoples’ heads on purpose! Hmmph! I’m not going to say anything bad about the Australian cricket team, I don’t know whether or not I’ll get in trouble for it. (Hi Sonia! Happy birthday!) I’m still thinking bad thoughts though, I really am. grrrrrr

How about art and literature? It may not be art, but I just finished reading The Best of Roald Dahl. Aside from writing children’s stories like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dahl wrote wickedly funny short stories. His sense of humor was macabre, and at times, just gross. I wouldn’t recommend the book if you’re squeamish. If you’re in Islamabad (tell ‘em Three-Fingers Jack sent ya!) you can find it at Mr. Old Books, Jinnah Super.

How about medicine? I’ve learnt that other foreigners I know have gotten sick from eating at glitzy-shiny restaurants that are normally a foreigner’s mainstay in Islamabad: like Subway, KFC, and the Arizona Grill. Two people I know got violently ill from eating at KFC, my sister got sick from eating at Subway, and the US embassy here issued a warning to its citizens that the Arizona Grill was off-limits because there had been several cases of food poisoning. I say stick to the dirty little thela-walas (cart-dudes) in the bazaars, at least then you’re expecting to get sick, and a little *intestinal distress* is nothing compared to a case of food poisoning. I would know, I had food poisoning last week, remember?

How about science and technology? Ummm, my digital camera is broken….the atmosphere these days contains high concentrations of moisture…some old bread in the fridge grew some cool blue and green fuzz…now if that isn’t science at it’s best, then I don’t know what is! Oh, and I know three people who have come back from China in the last month, thank God, none of them have developed a dry fever and a high cough…or was it a high fever and a dry cough? Therefore I am still SARS-free. (BiFazlAllah! SubhanAllah! Phew!)

Hmmm, it’s midnight and I’m very much alive awake alert enthusiastic. (…ah the camp days, eh Amira? Burly Girls Rock!) I indulged in a little post-party snooze, which lasted for four hours instead of forty minutes. So I woke up at ten o’clock this evening and here I am. Everyone else is asleep, and the only other person up right now is the left-over birthday cake, which may or may not see the light of tomorrow morning. ::slurp slurp:::

Today’s Islamic quote of the day is another one of my many, many favorites. Some of you may remember seeing this on LionAround’s blog last week, but that’s ok. A good thing is worth repeating.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him) said, “There are four bad qualities, if anyone has all four of them they are a perfect hypocrite, and if anyone has one them they are a hypocrite in part until he leaves it and repents. These qualities are: embezzlement in property and breach of trust, lying, breaking a pact or agreement or promise, and swearing in an argument and using foul language.” -Bukhari and Muslim.

Well, it happens every summer so today was a good enough day as any: I swallowed a bug. No, I don’t know what kind it was. No, it wasn’t salty, or sweet for that matter. No, I didn’t chew or swallow. Eeeee….I’m grossing myself out now, so I’ll stop.

The car is repaired (YAAAYY!!!!) and no one has tried to race me since. I must admit I’m a little disappointed. I was looking forward to making some greasy avaara eat my dust! (avaara= greasy, uncouth, lewd boy/man) For some reason, the engine has really good pick-up when the muffler has a hole in it. Or maybe the pick-up just seems better because the engine is louder. I dunno. But the car is quiet again and I am no longer Sensei Speed Demon, Terror of the Tarmac. Actually…I still terrorize the tarmac…but only a little.

Tomorrow is English Night. That’s where all of my ESL students get together and we play Scrabble and Pictionary and Madlibs and other stuff. It’s great fun, and there are prizes too. Unfortunately, I’m the one who has to cough up the prizes, but I don’t mind. I really enjoy seeing my students make use of what we’ve learned in class. Aniraz thinks I’m crazy because I get all excited and I talk about my students like they’re giga-pets. (Does anyone even remember giga-pets?) I’ll come home from work and go, “Guess what! I finally got her to say the ‘j’ sound properly! Isn’t it exciting!”

There’s always really good food at English Night too…mostly Turkish these days because five of my seven students are Turkish. I must say…Turkish food is really good. Lukumu…yumm…and I had some chocolate covered nuts…and one of my students periodically feeds me home-made chocolate mousse with hazelnuts, God bless her. I don’t know whether that’s specifically a Turkish dish, but hey, you won’t hear me complaining about it! :::munch munch:::

:::munch munch slurp::: I’m eating an overly-large piece of coffee bar. Tha’s one of the perks of running a bakery…the stale things are mine! All mine! Mwahahaaaa!! *gag* Well, actually today was the bakery’s last day. It’s not that it wasn’t doing well (Alhamdulillah) it’s just that the weather has gotten TOO hot to be running a home-made bakery. Plus, my dad needed extra space in the restaurant so the bakery counter had to go. We don’t mind, and besides, we still bake on order…sometimes. When we feel like it anyway. :p And we’re always baking for ourselves. He he.

I’ve signed up for a fotolog, but since my digital cam bit the dust, I only have a few pics suitable for public viewing, without any definite promise of more in the future. I do have pics of the outside of my dad’s restaurant, a pic of our vicious-ridiculous man-eating dog and we have a picture of our Qurbani sheep from this Eid, but Aniraz already posted that pic on her site a while ago. I couldn’t take a more recent pic of it even if I wanted too…all it would look like would be a leg of lamb in the deep freezer. He he.

We’ve borrowed a seriously cheap and crappy digital cam from Aniraz’s office, so I could wander around taking blurry pictures of the village in front of my house and the goats that eat our flowers, but I’m ashamed to be posting such low-quality photos after looking at the super-clear, super-nice stuff on Shad’s fotolog. Oh man…what a time to not have a digital cam, there’s a moon-bow out right now. I don’t suppose you guys know what a moon-bow is. I wouldn’t know either if my mom weren’t such a rainbow-buff. She was always dragging us kids around to see rainbows (real ones) and moon-bows when we were little. Well, a moon-bow is a rainbow at night. All you see is a yellow and orange band curving past the moon because it‘s really too dark for the other colors to show up. It’s creepy-looking, but MashaAllah, it’s cool.

I spose we really should get our digital camera fixed, it’s just that the place where you plug the USB cable in has come loose, so when you plug the cable in, the little pokey metal things don’t touch anymore. (All hail the techno-twit!) Does anyone know if there’s a FujiFilm digital service center here in Islamabad?

And speaking of Islam, here‘s our Islamic quote of the day. “Successful indeed are the believers, who are humble in their prayers, who shun vain conversation, who pay Zakat and guard their modesty.” -The Holy Qur’an, Surah 23, ayaat 1-5

Doctor: There’s nothing wrong with you that an expensive operation can’t prolong. -Monty Python

Well folks, I was kinda sick today and yesterday, but it was nothing that a day off work, a three hour nap and a two hour shower couldn’t fix. Antibiotics were a help too, and my mom made cream of mushroom soup. I sorta got food poisoning, and since the friend I went out for ice-cream with got sick too (Hi Sonia…glad to know you’re feeling better!) we think it was the ice-cream. She wasn’t too badly off, but me, my immune system is made of second-rate materials, so I got pretty ill- I had a fever and nausea and other fun stuff.

I’ve decided that my least favorite feeling is nausea, though there is an upside to being sick. You really start to appreciate your health, in a warm, fuzzy, sappy, Hallmark type of way, in direct proportion to how sick you were.

Ya’ni, the sicker you were, the happier you feel about being healthy. I know this is true for me, because after a day and a half of nausea, being able to eat a piece of cake without retching is almost ecstasy. It was the same for me when I had my appendix out in 2001, when rebel bacterial forces had staged an insurrection, and the appendix took advantage of the situation and tried to secede from the Union. They were winning the battle too, so I called for reinforcements and the first Battalion of Doctors from Aga Khan Hospital, Karachi, rode in and crushed the mutiny with an iron fist…errr…scalpel.

I learned three things from that experience, the first being, never trust your appendix, the treacherous little worm….

The second being: you never really appreciate your body, especially your arms until suddenly you can’t move them because they’re jabbed full of needles. Your legs deserve extra thanks for not going all jelly-like on a daily basis like they do after a surgery. It’s the same with all of you, every single part of you that doesn’t ache, throb, pain, or torment you on a daily basis.

The third, and most important thing of all is: Thank Allah for your health before you lose it! Most of the time people take being healthy for granted, don’t do it! It’s such a major blessing, and you’ll never know what you had until you’ve lost it.

I must clear Aniraz’s name. Before we realized it was the ice-cream, she thought (and I thought so too!) that it was the chicken she made for dinner that made me ill. It would have been pay-back for the time that I made chicken and we both got salmonella from it. Boy, was that exciting. There’s nothing like an ER visit at 4 am to spice up your life. I’m not going to go into the gory details, but it was basically a severely horrible experience. If Aniraz made me sick it would have been a fitting retribution.

Well since I’m in an internet cafe, I’ll cut it short here. One thing you gotta love about Pakistan: I’m sitting in the Mr.Net Cafe and Islamic IT center, and there’s a section of the cafe for women only. And they’re playing na’at and nasheed in the background. Gotta go to work now. I apologize cuz I don’t think I’ll be in Blogistan as much in the future…at least not until I get my paycheck and can buy more internet hours. 😛

Hey…one of my real-life buddies got her blog up! Visit her at www.chaiandapplepie.blogspot.com !