Du-bai or not Dubai

First of all, I would like to apologize to my loyal readers..(hahahahah, sounds so pompous) for this literary lag I have been suffering. Life has kept me occupied with its hectic schedule and before I knew it 10 days had passed, and I've written nothing.

I'm now in Dubai attending a course. The course is great, lots of new information and no mentally-challenged mandatory exercises like my previous experiences, but the minute you have to leave the hotel, you regret not having bought your own helicopter when you had the chance...

All the taxi drivers in Dubai are drama queens. You ask them to take you somewhere two blocks away, and as you're casually sitting in the back seat, you decide to make friendly chit chat..."How long will it take to get to Sh. Zayed Road?" Rather than the usual.."Oh just a few minutes more"...You get this response.."Oooooh...Too Much Trrraffffic! Very Bad! Very Bad! Maybe ONE HOUR!"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah let me out! I can't sit in a car for one hour, and not cross a stateline, country border or a time zone. You have to realize, he's talking about a destination which I can see from the window. I sat the remainder of the trip in distress, feeling very very claustrophobic.

I learned after a while, that they exaggerate, because we arrived in 15 minutes. But that was after he stressed me out, appointments were postponed and half my hair fell out, . They make it such a big deal, I'm almost wondering if this isn't propaganda to keep people indoors.

With so much more to share, I have to leave it for another time. I fear that if I don't go to bed right now, I will be getting an involuntary banana and oats facial in my mueseli tomorrow morning...

Bon Nuit (Wish I was in Paris)

Pet tragedies in the Mattar Household

After the fifth time our pet bunny Fluffy (how creative) had violently smothered her babies to death, I was holding my dad’s hand asking him to accompany me to the mental hospital to admit Fluffy for psychotic tendencies. “She’s MAD, Baba! It’s out of control. She squashed them!”

“Oooooooh look how cuuute!” we had cooed and aaaaaaaahed over the hairless blind creatures petting them repeatedly with our fingers through the mesh wire.

“We’re going to have so many raaaaabits!” Not so much.

Next day: 8 baby bunnies found suffocated to death by big mothers fluffy butt.
Oh, the tragedy! We dragged friends and family one by one to point at the murderer in shock and horror telling them how horrible she was, secretly breathing sighs of relief that our own mother was sane and never sat on us.

Years later, I found out that we had imprinted our human smell all over the offspring and the mother wanted nothing to do with them anymore.

All the while, we had judged her for being un-maternal, and not knowing what a wonderful gift children were, it turned out that we were the real culprits.

I feel really bad now. Ignorant monkeys that we were, we killed 5 generations of rabbits.

Several years later, I got really passionately into horses. I went horse-riding every week and had posters, t-shirts, books and horsey stuff coming out of my ears. And so the next logical step was to begin a heavy whining-and-begging campaign on my father, to get my own horse.

“Its only 500 dinaaaaaaaaaars….” I wailed, lying on the floor next to his bed, as he read the newspaper after lunch.

“PLEEAAAASE.” I delivered my ‘please’ composed in several different harmonious notes, and punctuated every once in a while with a desperately groaned “BAAAAAAABA”

He was good. He ignored me so well; I started to think I wasn’t there.

“MAAAAMA?”

“What, Farah?” (Oh good, I exist.)

My mother who tried to speak to me with logic, about how we don’t have a stable, or enough space, and the high costs and demands of maintaining a horse, gave up as soon as I told her, it was going to live in my room, at which point I was swiftly but lovingly kicked out of their bedroom.

My father after feeling bad, that he couldn’t get me my own pet horse, wanted to compensate me with something else.

A few days later, he called me into the garden telling me that he had a big surprise outside. I got so excited I started running around like a headless chicken, putting on my riding pants and boots so quickly, before he could even say anything. Rushing out the back door, I almost stumbled onto my face heading to the corner of the back yard that I had envisaged as a stable. I stopped dead in my tracks, shocked as my eyes rested on my “surprise”. I was speechless and disappointed beyond belief.

Staring stupidly back at me from my “stable”, chewing some innocent nearby plant, was a scruffy, stinky brown goat. “WHAT??? THIS IS NOT WHAT I ASKED FOR, DAMNIT!”

How the hell am I supposed to ride a goat? It’s going to split in half, and besides my feet are going to be dragging on the floor and the saddle will fall off!

The sad thing is that I actually had this mental conversation after considering for a split second to make do with my consolation prize. I think the sensitive goat felt my dismay, because three weeks later, I was sat down by my mother who told me that Deodorant the goat (I was into sarcasm at an early age) unfortunately was no longer with us. Deodorant had committed suicide by banging her intelligent head into the wall. I felt partially responsible for damaging her self-esteem and blaming her that she wasn’t a horse. But it’s probably for the best that she’s now with God and nobody made her a Ghoozi.

These tragedies resulted in us not having any more pets for years, with the exception of one noisy, insomniac and hyperactive canary, which was later freed by me into the afternoon sky after my sense of righteousness, was aroused by a history lesson on slavery and the writings of John Locke.

The incidental peace and quiet was priceless.

Chorus part II

I have to just elaborate on one thing regarding Chorus and why I hated it so much.
Mr. "Wigward" as he was unaffectionately named by students, made us sing a horrible Christmas song entitled "Grandma got runover by a reindeer".

What kind of sick song is that? I loved my Grandmother and I was infuriated at the
callousness with which these people sang about their flattened Grandma...
and so I was extremely offended by the following lyrics:

Grandma got runover by a reindeer
walking home from our house christmas eve

you could say theres no such thing as santa
but as for me and grandpa we believe

she'd been drinking too much egg nog
and we begged her not to go
but she forgot her medication
and she staggered out the door into the snow

when we found her Christmas morning
at the scene of the attack
she had hoofprints on her fore head
and incriminating claus marks on her back

grandma got runover by a reindeer
walking home from our house christmas eve
you could say theres no such thing as santa
but as for me and grandpa we believe

now we're all so proud of grandpa
he's been taking this so well
see him in there watching football
drinking beer and playing cards
with cousin Nel

its not christmas without grandma
all the family's dressed in black
and we just cant help but wonder
should we open up her gifts or send them back?
(send them back!)

grandma got runover by a reindeer
walking home from our house christmas eve
you could say theres no such thing as santa
but as for me and grandpa we believe

now the goose is on the table
and the pudding made of fig (ah!)
and the blue and silver candles
that would just have matched the hair in grandmas wig

i've warned all our friends and neighbours
better watch out for yourselves
they should never give a license
to a man who drives a sleigh and plays
with elves

grandma got runover by a reindeer
walking home from our house christmas eve
you could say theres no such thing as santa
but as for me and grandpa we believe

(sing it grandpa!)

grandma got runover by a reindeer
walking home from our house christmas eve
you could say theres no such thing as santa
but as for me and grandpa we believe

(Merry Christmas!)

Chorus; the song of life

Have you ever attended a course and wondered what the hell you were doing there? Whether it’s a seminar, a training session, or some random healing group, which claims to solve all your life problems by teaching you how to breathe, I’m sure everyone has found themselves in an unplanned environment, during which they frequently wished they could die.

I remember when I was in Eighth Grade we had a required Chorus class, yes it’s as retarded as it sounds. While all the boys were doing fun things in Tech Ed. building shelves and hot air balloons, we were stuck in a class room a kilometer away singing “Mee May Maah Moe Moo”. Yes. Moo. Can you imagine the indignity???! This exercise was supposed to make your vocal chords flexible. Well someone should tell them that…I DON’T PLAN ON ENTERING THROAT GYMNASTICS AT THE OLYMPICS!!! But there we were, with our wig-clad teacher who was sickly excited about the prospect of singing the above mooing in every bloody note on the piano.

AAAAAH!

It was only about 55 minutes of suffering but it would almost drive me to tears, every single time. When Mr. Winward fell unexpectedly off his piano bench knocking his toupee out of place, I felt guiltily responsible, although everyone could see, I was a clear 5 meters away from him, and hadn’t tampered with the screws.

Since then, I’ve been surprised, that life often throws you into Mee-May-Maah-Moe Moo-moments. One minute you’re happy and free, the next you’re stuck somewhere, and although not physically restrained from leaving, you stay the entire torturous time, silently suffering and resenting the fact that you were taught not to scream in public.

A while back I was signed up for a day long seminar about trade or export or something equally exciting like that. It was in the middle of a week, where I was close to ripping my hair out from all the impossible tasks on my plate, and yet I went anyway to broaden my horizons. On the way there, the insane traffic helped broaden my creativity in skills such as swearing and wishing evil thoughts towards my fellow commuters.

I thought that overcoming this obstacle was a big achievement, but after I arrived at the venue, and was handed a folder and the agenda for the day, I found that there was an even bigger achievement ahead of me; to make it through the day without crying.

It turned out that the seminar was suddenly something completely different. And the inept organizer had switched it to technology, and how it could make my life smoother and easier, if I was an entrepreneur. Okaaaay. But I’m not. I wish I was, because then I wouldn’t have sent myself here. I’d be in my delightful Ikea-furnished home office drinking coffee and listening to blaring music while I worked happily on my laptop, making millions. Fantasies are great, they defy logic.

Anyway, in eight grueling hours of mundane discourse, we praised the wonders of Excel, MS Project, and learned that putting together a database of contacts in your own handwriting on random pieces of paper is not an efficient business practice..HELLOOO! No Shit! Is it still 1989?

And to add insult to injury, we had to do really annoying exercises where you pretend to introduce yourself to an “American”, by keeping it “short and sweet”. They made it sound like we were acquainting ourselves with outer space beings with ADHD. I was less than enthusiastic. In fact, I used a very clever tactic to avoid being passed the microphone. I stared at my paper with such intense concentration, I almost went cross-eyed. Experience has taught me that if you avoid eye-contact, people tend to skip over you. It almost worked until my neighbor, whose method didn’t work, passed it over to me out of spite, while I was still staring profusely at my desk. My less than subtle hand signals and silent mouthing of “Get that thing away from me!” were unfortunately noticed by the instructor up front. “What’s going on back there?”

I suddenly looked up at her and gave her that sick sweet smile, you use when you’ve been caught being yourself in a public place. I wanted to disappear, but instead I just mumbled, “I’d rather not.” Grin…

My thankfully sharp partner and I finished the last exercise of the day on the computer, in 10 minutes, while others were still typing with one finger and looking for the Enter button on their keyboards. At some point we were asked to mix with others who had difficulty with technology, but we politely declined with a smile.

That might’ve been considered rude and uncooperative, but the mood I was in by then, I couldn’t have managed to kindly guide anyone through the basics of keyboarding, or teach them how to enter data into a table. I would’ve simply smacked them with the mouse and walked out.

Anyway, the moral of the story is…I’m not sure there is one. I think the next time you find yourself in a useless predicament, leave. Go back to doing what you’re supposed to be doing, because life is short and one shouldn’t spend it visualizing themselves knocking their head senseless into their desk, like I did. I leave you with my final words of wisdom: Never Mee May Maah Moe Moo, for anyone, it’s just not worth it.

Five Reasons to stay at home on the Weekends

1. If you want to watch a movie, get it on DVD. First of all, the music doesn’t go all funny on you and awkwardly skip “romantic” scenes that we already got over, when we were 11. Also, you can pause to go to the bathroom or make your own popcorn/nachos/hotdogs, whatever thrills you. And if you get an important phone call, you can discuss in painful detail what you’re going to wear to the wedding tomorrow, without shamefully being escorted out by the usher in the middle of your conversation.

2. There. Is. No. Traffic. None. If perchance you are in a hurry walking to the kitchen, and you find that the person in front of you is walking on the wrong lane at the snailish speed of 20 footsteps per hour, you can just kick them. After all, it’s your house. Also, you won’t get arrested for pelting “visitors” with rotten tomatoes for bad Road-iquette. It’s very tempting, when some moron in a big dusty car is pushing their way into the 2 centimeters in front of your car, to get out and bang their head into their steering wheel until they black out. This will usually lead to someone’s arrest.

3. You can have whatever you want for dinner and will not be restricted to a menu of limited items. Also rather than sit at a crowded table, for hours, waiting for decent service, you can eat on the comfort of your own sofa. If you want to have ketchup with your fillet mignon, no patronizing waiter is going to look at you and say, “we don’t serve ze ketsup ‘ere”. Pour it on.

4. You will not be stared at if your t-shirt is green and your shorts are pink with purple polka dots. In your house you are Anna Wintour, and you are in vogue. You don’t need to wear heels, big bunny slippers are a must.

5. And finally, nothing beats the feeling of freshly laundered pyjamas, dim lights and a fluffy blanket, curled up on the sofa watching something addictive like Prison Break with the one you love. Make sure you have it on DVD, because the fun is in watching four in a row, till sunrise and reducing the painful suspense between episodes to 30 seconds rather than seven whole days.

Note: If you are single, all of the above will seem ridiculously boring and staying at home would mean hanging out with your parents, which is socially pitiful when it’s not by choice. For this portion of my audience I will be writing you a post soon… 5 Reasons to Get Married. So now go out into the big mess of a world outdoors and meet someone nice. Good Luck.

The Whisker

My dog just came galloping down the hallway into the TV room at a frenzied pace. This can only mean one thing. She has been up to no good. In the past, this devil -is-after-me sprint into the room to look at us with an "I'm innocent" look, means that someone has been very, very naughty and has just emerged from the forbidden rooms.

The forbidden rooms are our bedroom, the dressing room, and the I-need-my-private-space room which my husband uses to smoke cigars. Usually she has snuck into the first two, which are mostly my domain. She likes my shoes. I have found her on more than one occasion making out with an innocent slipper caught in a loving embrace, saliva everywhere.

"What are you doing???" I would yell.
And then I would melt almost instantly because of the "what do you mean?" look on her face, like I just accused her of something ridiculous.

I'm telling you before I had Whisker, I would've laughed at people who describe their pet's facial expressions. But damn it, I tell you, this dog has an expressive face. Her speciality faces are the "forgive me" face and the "I'm sad you were away all day" face. I love her to bits. She's testing all my preconceived notions of how I was going to raise kids.

My husband and I are worried that we will not love our children like we love this dog. I'm so worried about this, that I want to get pregnant, just to prove us wrong.

Contrary to all my proclamations of what I would and wouldn't do if that were my child, while witnessing mothers trying to control children in supermarket aisles, I've become the soft mother.

I would bribe her with dorito crumbs so she will love me more than my husband. I would break the forbidden room rule, if she sits at the door when we go to bed, with her toy bone in her mouth wanting to play fetch. I would even wait outside the kitchen after I finally get her to go to bed, listening for her footsteps incase she was going to follow me back for the 5th time. And when she doesn't, I'm almost heartbroken, even though I've ordered her firmly to go to sleep.

Wa3alaaaaaya...7abeeeeebty. My mother, who doesn't like dogs, is constantly asking about her and dropping by to visit her. "How is Skewer??" she asked the other day.

"Mama, her name is Whisker.." It's okay, it's the thought that counts.

Anyway, back to the present moment. After she came running into the room breathless, like she was being chased by a banshee, I asked my hubby if he left the bedroom door open.

Blink blink, "forgive me" face.

He has learned that look from Skewer...I mean Whisker. I walk to the bedroom and find the door ajar, like a few inches ajar. Like a hamster couldn't make it through, ajar. But somehow the pekingese houdini slipped through. Inside the room, everything looks in place...except...

There is a slight ruffling of the shoe army I have told you about before, and lo and behold on the bed is a lone pair of my black gem-studded slippers. It has been chewed upon profusely. A confused series of miniature footprints surround Exhibit A and a tuft of hair from the only redhead in the house. "WHISKER!!!!!!"

I walk slowly back into the living room, expecting to find her in the usual spot, after her crime has been discovered. She's on the sofa, peering at me behind Nayef's leg, like he's her Embassy, and I can't go there to arrest her. She is looking at me, as I walk in and as I go to sit on the sofa. She is waiting for her 'telling-off'. But I use the guilt technique that parents use sometimes to confuse their kids. I say nothing.

I swear to you, she sat there staring at me for about five minutes, until I walked over to her held her face and told her that she was a little devil.

"Naughty Girl!"
(But I'm cute) said her face.

Oh God, I know she's adorable. Earlier today I had bought her a fuchsia and grey stripey sweater which she wore with such pride. She looked like Cindy Lauper in one of those baggy t-shirts from the 80's.

After that, she felt better, smiled at me (Yes, she smiles) and trotted off happily to her small cushion bed and fell asleep, exhausted from all the fetching, food begging, sweater-wearing and shoe-licking.

After all...Girls just wanna have fun...