Happy Rain

The anesthesiologist that wouldn't stop…

2010-07-25T01:06:00.000+03:00

About 9 months ago, I was scheduled to do a minor surgery at a local hospital.

As is the usual practice, before embarking on surgery, you're supposed to meet your trusty anesthesiologist. In my understanding, this a chance to bond with the guy who's going to knock you out, to calm down and convince yourself, or allow him to convince you that you will not be the unlucky 0.3 % that dies from a routine surgery, that doesn't involve vital organs. I loved my surgeon, so I completely trusted that he wasn't going to kill me. My worry was that I had to be put under full anesthesia for the 3rd time in the past 5 years at the hands of a stranger. I'm sure innocent brain cells were lost before in this process, if only for the fact that I sometimes say passport when I mean pizza, or forget for a split second if my son is a girl or boy- (in my defense he does have long eye lashes), or when I completely can't recall what I just said, after someone says "what?".

Anyway, so I go to my appointment to meet the doctor. For 45 minutes I'm in the waiting room, having read the fifth Layalina, and memorized all of Bahrain's inane functions, I started to gather negative feelings towards the guy, or assume that he's really so good, that he's over booked. When lo and behold, a big fumbling, balding man walks in, sweating and rushed is referred to as Dr. SameName, by the receptionist, and darts off to his office. No. It can't be him. She would've introduced me. He doesn't even look ambidextrous. How is he going to know when to stop? Wasn't he already up there? Now I'm panicking.

It's probably not him.

The receptionist waited like 3 seconds after he was gone, to tell me that my doctor had arrived and that I should make my way upstairs to his clinic. How discreet.
I go up, not knowing what's coming leaving the next patient to wait her turn.

How can I put this, he was a complete weirdo. He was awkward, and inappropriate, and everything about his behavior, screamed IDIOT.
Of course he may have seen the look of disappointment when I walked in and saw him, but I quickly reprimanded myself for stereo typing that clumsy fumbling people
don't make good doctors. So I refreshed my outlook and sat down. He asked me questions. Many of which the answers to were on the brief in front of him. But I complied, and I answered politely.

He didn't mention once anything about the anesthesia, the length of the surgery, any risks, nothing of any value to me. Then he said, we have to take your blood pressure...

Ok, take it. I'm sitting right here aren't I?

No, I have to go to the next room, lie down on a bed assisted by a nurse and close a curtain while I wait for his debut.
Such a melodrama queen. Fine, I do that. The nurse tries to wrap the thing around me, it's one of those old things that come in a tin box, as if it's going to be dropped out of a plane or something.

In walks Shrek, he practically hip-shoots her aside and then starts to bruise my arm, with his less than ballerina fingers, trying to wrap the arm band and hold the tin box on a 1 cm precipice, before it smashes to the ground, yanking my arm with it.

I am ready to punch someone.

The nurse looks at me helplessly, as he rudely yells at her to: "HOLD ZIS ONE! NO COME HERE! YOU HOLD ZIS!"

I'm telling you, right now, my reading ain't gonna be accurate. I'm sure it's 170 over 2 million.

Then he abruptly pushes me up, at the same time informing me that he needs to hear my heart beat. Ok fine, we do this all the time don't we? Apparently not.

He has a bloody wrestling match with my top. Looking at him from outside the room, you'd think the guy was trying to get a mad octopus of my back, not a limp cotton garment.
I was a little bit amused, and smug that my stereo typing had been correct. He sucks.

So we finish this fiasco, I go back into the room where he allegedly "consults", and I thank him for his time. At the door, it occurs to me that he didn't reassure me about the surgery at all.

So I ask while standing at the door. So you're going to be my anesthesiologist? To which he replies: "I don't know about that."

Excuse me? What, I didn’t pass the test? Then why am I here? My operation is scheduled for a week from now, and he is certainly not helping my cold feet.

He proceeded to rant for 15 minutes that my surgery is on the same day as a holiday, and that there will be no one in the hospital. So I look at him and say, I already scheduled this, what do you mean no one will be here?   Will I be assisting the surgeon in the OR?

Then he says why are you doing it during Eid? So I explained, still quite shocked, that I don't have more than a few days off, so I need to do it during a holiday for the recovery period. Isn't there a recommended recovery period?

Do you know what he said to me?????   "I don' t know about zis, why where do you work? They don't give you time off?"

God loves me. So by divine intervention, it was the first time in a hospital that I didn't see a sharp object such as a syringe, or an oxygen tank with which to reply to him.

I stare back at him, livid at the irrelevant questioning. I asked him if he was in charge of appointments, and he mumbled something about my surgeon not being from here and not realizing it was a holiday.

“The doctor is fully aware it’s a holiday, I told him it was suitable for me.” I spoke slowly, so as not to explode right there. “I’m not responsible for the hospital’s administration procedures, I simply made a request and it was granted.”

Don’t people get sick during holidays? Does the hospital close on Fridays? What does this ass want exactly?

He realizes he’s not winning in this contest of back and forth, and tells me to forget he said anything, but still doesn’t confirm who my anesthesiologist will be, stating he doesn’t know who they’re going to call in.

I walked off bewildered, and on my way out caught the eye of the girl who was after me. I gave her a look that warned her of the insanity that she was about to experience.

In the lift on the way down I turned to the victim nurse who had witnessed this whole fiasco. “Is there another anesthesiologist in the hospital?”

“No, only him.” She answers trying not to smile.

“Then why is he pretending like there’s a lineup of spares waiting???”

By the time I get to reception, and after I had done several tests, I am fuming. How dare he act this way. I was coming here to meet someone to put my mind at ease, and now this   imbecile, just confirmed to me that he doesn’t particularly want to be there. I’ve had this appointment for a month and no one had a problem with it. I’m going to entrust the remaining brain matter I have in his stubby hands?? I DON’T think so.

I file a big ass colorful complaint about his lack of good conduct, his unprofessionalism, and his unnecessary discussion with me about the hospital’s thoughtless decision to book me on the 2nd day of Eid. All this to a hesitant receptionist, who insists that he’s quite good at what he does.

Maybe he sniffs the drugs he administers, because he has no bedside manner, he has no kerb side manner even. I inform them that I won’t do the surgery with him. Find someone else. He didn’t even have the decency to tell me that he was the ONLY anesthesiologist in the entire hospital.

Just as I am about to finish my story and starting to think what if I imagined how horrible it really was, the girl behind me walked in.

“WHAT WAS THAT???” She asked.

Apparently he had had a similar wrestling match with her clothes, and she thought perhaps she should’ve worn a swim suit rather than an abaya, had she known taking blood pressure was this traumatic. He also questioned her on why her surgery was on a Friday, and that he didn’t particularly think it was a good day to be in the OR. She also demanded someone else in his place.

I laughed my head off, relieved that I wasn’t a mean patient, reassured, that others saw what I did. Just before I left, a couple walked in to the receptionist, asking her what was wrong with that doctor? They were referring to Shrek too.

I wasn’t offered another anesthesiologist for legal reasons, but the hospital director called me herself, and reassured me that she would be there and that he was reprimanded for his behavior, but that he was excellent at what he did.

Great, a disgruntled anesthesiologist. He’ll just put me to sleep forever. That’s just what I wanted...

Thankfully I didn’t die, but I did ignore him when he said good morning right before I passed out. Maybe he sensed my disdain, because I threw up constantly after the surgery as a reaction to the anesthesia, which never happened to me before. 7mar.

So, here we are today in 2010, I went back to the same hospital a few days ago, for a small procedure, thankfully only requiring local anesthesia and four stitches.

Although, it wasn’t a big deal, I had 3 small cysts removed from my scalp, and after the operation, was wheeled out into the hall way of the OR suite to supposedly “recover”.

As the drugs wore off, my head started to feel like I had a severe acid burn. I was grumpy, because I hated being out of control, and the hospital was one of the few places that made me feel helpless. I counted the ceiling tiles, waiting for someone to come tell me they were taking me back to my room, waiting for my husband to come see me. But people just walked past me like I was a buffet.

Just then the other OR opened and people walked out having finished a surgery. I felt someone pacing, and then I saw it. A big round face hovering above mine...

Oh ho..shyabi thee? Now what?

It was HIM. 9aba7 il kheeeeeer.. he Good Morninged me and I was NOT amused.

“What’s your name?” He asked.

Is he serious? I wanted to look nonchalant, but that’s really a challenge, when you’re wearing a mesh green surgery cap and lying on a gurney. Fuck my luck. (Swearing necessary here)

“Weren’t you here wiz us before?” He is not just here to comfort an anonymous patient, he is here for a discussion apparently.

“Yes, last year.” I tried to look busy, but failed miserably.

“Ah, November 29th.., it was Eid” He actually brought it up.

“Yes, I remember, you objected to the surgery date.” There really was no point in pretending not to have recognized him. I couldn’t really wheel myself out of there, or get up and leave.

And right there, while I was supposed to be in post-op recovery, fighting the pain that was spreading through my head, grieving for the 20% of my hair that was shaved off, this inconsiderate bastard proceeded to AGAIN tell me that it was a holiday and that the hospital is usually empty on those days. I am not going to let this idiot bully me again.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

In the sharpest tone, that I could muster under the circumstances, I responded to him once and for all...
“Listen, as I told you before, YOU need to understand, that I am NOT concerned with the hospital’s scheduling philosophies. As a patient, I booked with my surgeon, and he agreed and confirmed that it was fine. I don’t CARE to get involved in administration issues you have with the hospital.”

GIVE IT UP ALREADY! What is wrong with this man?? If he wants to discuss this, why doesn’t he call me when I’m not horizontal, and I will REALLY give him my frank opinion on what I think of him.

My husband walked in, not realizing what had just happened. And not knowing who he was, asked him when they were taking me back to the room.

“He’s not my doctor..” I hissed, while my husband thanked him gratefully, thinking he was my surgeon.

“I told you he’s not my doctor!” I growled under my breath, really pissed off at this point, but trying to maintain composure.

I’ve never been angry before, while lying down. Usually I’m standing, pacing or gesturing.

I swore to myself, that I was going to file an even bigger complaint this time, but by the time I got out of there, I really didn’t want to talk about him anymore. My husband listened patiently for an hour in my room to my ranting and raving, and that deflated my big balloon of fury.

He was lucky that I had someone to vent to this time.

Until my next face off... with the anesthesiologist that wouldn’t stop.

What's next?

2010-06-11T14:11:00.000+03:00

I have been terrible, absolutely horrendous; a failure of the blogosphere if you will. But I'm here today to tell you what I have been consumed with for the past two years. Mothering.

No, I didn't have quadruplets, not even twins. Just one boy. And what a boy he is. But keeping up with him, and an all day long job, has left me with no will to think and type at night. But for the sake of my own auditing purposes I'm going to list the time line of the past two years to get a grip on how fast time flies, and how few kilos one can lose in 24 months.

May 2008: After a difficult, 40 weeks of morning sickness, high blood pressure and crazy hormonal outbursts I had my son. This was followed by lots of crying, laughing, freaking the hell out, projectile vomiting, zombie style elegance and self doubt. Ali was fine.

September 2008: Back to work, more freaking out and self doubt. Gallons and gallons of guilt, and lots of hair pulling. Ali was fine, but didn't really know who I was.

December 2008: Took a short holiday at home, to prove to Ali that I was his mother. Ali liked me again. Whisker the best dog in the world goes missing, never comes back. Very sad.

February 2009: After endless efforts at the gym to lose the baby weight, I still look pregnant, so went on health watchers to lose the stupid excess. Starved, ate tiny portions full of black pepper and caught a bread thief at work. Lost 3 kilos. What is that, like a hand bag?

April 2009: High stress at work, leads back to indulging in food, gain 1 kilo. Ditch everything and go to London with my husband, drive to the country side, take pictures with bulls, pet squirrels--remember Ali. Go back home. He ignores me.

May 2009: Ali turns one. I'm too tired to organize a birthday party. Ali walks. I pass out from pride. Get him a cake at Saturday lunch, film him getting excited and clapping and looking absolutely adorable. Play back video...nothing got recorded. Kick own ass. Quite challenging to do.

August 2009: Two week vacation with family and my parents in Lebanon. Chill by pool, go to beach, sleep all morning- stay up all night. Absolutely fantastic. Feel happy again.

September 2009: Back to work. Bahrain is hot. Again, kick own ass for not immigrating to colder country. Becoming an expert. Officially stop exercising, don't see the point. Still look pregnant. WTF. Start playing Farmville, bury emotions and frustrations in harvesting digital fruits and vegetables.

December 2009-March 2010: Weather amazing. Started doing Hot Yoga classes twice a week. Sit outside on porch every evening, farming my imaginary farm, wishing I had a real one. Ali is now talking, becomes more amazing everyday. However, frequent floor hugging tantrums in public, make me feel useless as a mom. Very well behaved indoors. Wish there were witnesses. Remodeled my kitchen. Excellent outlet for emotions.

April 2010: Go to London for work. Husband comes along. THANK GOD. Get stuck in London one extra week because of Ash Cloud. Mom tells me she'll take care of Ali, if the Ash Cloud doesn't go away, and wants to know what time he starts nursery in SEPTEMBER! Somehow don't enjoy the forced extra time, but at least I'm not alone. Miss Ali, wish I had the guts to travel 7 hours with him on a plane. Buy him lots of gifts to compensate.

May 2010: A month of hell at work, too much to do, no time to stop. Wish I was inside my digital farm. Seriously consider faking my own abduction. At 1.99, Ali starts demonstrating what the Terrible Two's are all about.

Ali turns 2. You can forget about the birthday. Take two cakes to Friday and Saturday family lunch. Ali hates the "Happy Birthday" song, makes sounds like "The Exorcist" movie, and tries to bash the cake, this we actually HAVE on film. Thank god I didn't invite kids. Secretly sings "Happy Birthday" to himself in his room, when no one around. I am relieved he's not possessed.

June 2010: A very rude and early summer arrives. And my drive and will to be productive departs. It's too hot to breathe outside, let alone get in a car or think. Finally understand the concept of a siesta in hot countries. Seriously consider demonstrating against long working hours. Become obsessed with the random idea of going to live as a housewife in New York, then start looking at Long Island, Martha's vineyard. Realize it's too far, shift obsession to a small island in France, then Greece. End up looking at the website of Al Bander. Sad.

Get cute pet Hamster for Ali instead. They bond. What kind of an exit plan is that? Just one more mouth to feed at home. Saw a couch I liked, asked price. Was told it was 6000 dinars. Told my husband about it 7 times. Bought a bigger fluffier couch for 600, for a living room that wasn't built yet. Trying to prove a point. Still haven't won the lottery.

Present day:

YUCK! Some guy on TV just blended uncooked prawns and rolled them into a fillet of raw Sole. I think I'm going to throw up. He's helping a woman cook up a romantic valentine dinner for her husband. His badly dressed assistant is redecorating the woman's dining room into a Cupidic nightmare of red and tacky fake flowers. Good luck with that, lady.

Anyway. Now that I have shared my exciting memoirs, I'll come back soon, when something worth talking about has happened. Meanwhile, Ali is bashing down the door, so I'll go see what my boss wants and then try to distract him with a hamster or a biscuit.

I'm still here

2010-02-24T23:53:00.002+03:00

I know I've been very quiet. But I'm still here. Somewhere.
I didn't lose my inner voice. It's been there yapping about everything for the past six months.
I just never got the words to go through my fingers into the keyboard and onto this blog.

I have so much to declare and say and comment on. But the rush of thoughts and ideas in my
head make for a very noisy home for any kind of sane thought.

It's been the unspoken silence, filled with things you're not allowed to say out loud.
I was told that I've been missed, and I certainly missed me to.

Will try to find her now. I just need to rifle through life's mess, and find a clean square of carpet where I can sit and say something that will help another person, rifle through their own clutter, if only for a few minutes.

Much love and hope to everyone out there. I know I need it.

Silly Rabbit, Mini Burgers are for kids

2009-06-17T22:34:00.007+03:00

Dear Fuddruckers Management,

I tried to order the mini burgers today which are quite delicious and just the right size portion so I don’t get a tummy ache. However there is a “rule” that states that I cannot order it, because its only for kids.

Now I’m not sure what to say to this because I always felt that I was a kid at heart. I’m also told by many people that I look younger than my years.

So the waiter (who was very polite—and a little bit apprehensive) had to call the MANAGER. It was as if I had ordered a bottle of Whiskey..and didn’t have ID…in Saudi Arabia.

The manager politely told me that “ as per the procedures..” the mini burger was only for kids and that I can have a value meal instead, which was the same size as two mini burgers combined but in one bun. But that –other than being a ridiculous suggestion- is like offering someone a whole potato and telling them it’s the same as sticking all the French fries together.

Uh, I don’t think so.

It would be very progressive and modern of you to bin this archaic rule which infringes on personal freedoms. Also most of the population is really fat and you should encourage smaller portions and healthy choices.

I thank you for your time and hopefully next time I come here I can order my mini burgers without calling in high officials, managers, and presenting a photo ID.

Kind regards,

Farah Mohd Mattar

(20 minutes after I finished eating my mini burger, which I was told I would get for the LAST time, a group of girls walked in and sat on the other side of the restaurant. When I over heard their conversation with the waiter and he began to explain that the value meal was the same size as two mini burgers and that it was against the system, I almost died laughing. They too signed the petition to FREE THE MINI BURGERS.)

Stupidity and Indifference

2009-03-05T23:17:00.001+03:00

I am utterly disgusted by the headline on page 3 of the GDN March 4th 2009 “rape harmless fun” says lawyer. First of all, I have to know, is this what she meant, or has this been taken out of context?

Because it is extremely upsetting to show this kind of attitude and lack of respect for women and basic human rights. It is disgusting that she got a headline, saying that the horror that one woman went through was the “harmless fun” of 3 adult men! It is shocking that this is coming from a woman.

I don’t think that the GDN should be writing things like a mindless tattle tale and simply repeating stupidity. I think that as a newspaper you are responsible for the influence and current trends in attitude towards certain issues. The article should be about the HUGE problem we have of not putting the right crime with the right punishment. We should be questioning the level of education this lawyer has. We should be questioning how recent bans on website, infringe on personal freedoms and do nothing for an expat woman with no one to stand with her in a case like this.

Rape is not an issue to be taken lightly, it is a serious violation of another human being’s rights. It is an act of inflicting power on another and not sexual as is commonly misinterpreted by people in general. Rapists are people who get a thrill out of over powering and being in control. These individuals even at the young age of 19,20 and 21 years of age are dangers to society, their neighborhoods and the very families that they will go on to create. When they commit a crime against one person, it should feel to society that the crime is against everyone.

When we read things like these in the paper, there should be some kind of call for the country's population to support tougher laws and not put up with bull shit excuses by uneducated pathetic members of society who give Bahrain a poor reputation. How do you think it looks when an international press agency picks up a headline like this on the internet?

What does that do for Bahrain? Or for it’s people? Nothing. Lately the GDN is more like the Khaleeji TV series they put in Ramadhan. They claim to show us the truths of society, but in fact all they do is perpetuate the practice of disgusting behavior by magnifying a small percentage and blowing it up for everyone to learn from.

That is not responsible journalism..

Berries on the Brain

2009-03-01T04:02:00.004+03:00

With work threatening to take over my life and my entire being, I decided to seize the bull by the horns, and help myself. After several years of looking at the blackberry with disdain and contempt, and swearing I would never want one, I suddenly had a thought, one day while lugging my lap top for the 5^th time that week, that perhaps the “toot” was going to be my savior.

I wasn’t offered one by the office, in fact, they weren’t too happy with the request that we need it. And perhaps that reverse psychology was part of the reason that my stubborn head finally began to look at the curious fruit named gadget as the answer.

Impatient as I am, the day I decided to welcome the Blackberry into my embrace, was the day I wanted it active. I trotted feverishly over to Batelco, only to be told that their very last Bold (which rumour has it is prone to jamming) was reserved for someone very important, and that they were in a hunt all over Bahrain to find a second one, for someone else equally important.

I should know better than to listen to Batelco. In about 2 minutes flat, I spoke to Sharaf DG the new Mecca for electronics, to find that not only did they have ample stock of the Blackberry Curve that I wanted, but it was also at the best price in town. And they were friendly, polite and promised to hide one for me. Which is more than I can say for Geant, who will transfer you to the fish counter, to answer your question about a printer.

I got there in about 30 minutes-I don’t know where Batelco was looking, but it was a blackberry fest up in there - picked up my new technology, paid for it without wincing, and frolicked back home, like I had just won a prize at the fair.

Of course I didn’t get my wish of having it hooked up and ready to go, as there was additional procedures to go through with Batelco and the IT at the office, so for the last time I went home looking like a bag lady carrying my lap top.

The reason I wanted a blackberry is because I wanted to spend more time with Ali. I can’t, in the middle of hugging him, feeding him, or playing monster with him, drop it all, go to my lap top, open it and try to log onto my email clicking pathetically for 20 minutes until it hooks up to WIFI. Because then once that’s open, I’ve forgotten that I have a son, or he has fallen asleep again, and I’m left WORKING. Again. From home. Because now I’m in there, and I might as well just check all the emails and reply to them all before I forget, and the next thing you know, I’m an android.

So for the past 2 weeks, the BB, has become a part of my anatomy. I became an expert in about a day and a half and I have become lighter and more mobile, without all the extra baggage. What I hadn’t realized as of this morning, is that I have been working non-stop for the past few weeks and the baggage was now mental and not physical. The Blackberry has become almost like an evil Nazi trainer, whipping me ruthlessly into 20 reps of emails in every free moment that I might have. My brain has literally only stopped to rest at night, when I sleep. The speed at which I began to connect things, and then action them and coordinate a gazillion things through SMS and phone calls at once was beginning to impress my superiors. It was the delicate balance of exhaustion and momentum that kept me going. I had broken new frontiers, raised the bar, and shot out of my comfort zone.

Basically, I had screwed myself.

I realized that this morning, when I woke to find that BB had run out of battery during the night and died. And I was forced to put it in the charger which is all the way in another room, as I had run out of outlets in my bedroom.

I had forgotten the peace and bliss of ignorance while sipping my morning coffee; the quiet before the daily storm and the chance to think about things OTHER than work.

Yesterday, I tried to balance being a blackberry superstar and a home-alone mom. I was with Ali and no one else was home. Everyone had somewhere fancier to be. I was exhausted…but he WASN’T. At some point he tried to eat my Blackberry, so I distracted him with my phone. Oh yes, my stupid strategy at simplifying life, means now I’m responsible for charging, and maintaining TWO gadgets. Anyway, by 8pm, I was so tired, that I didn’t even argue with him as he practically sat on my head, drooling onto my nose and waving one or both of my technology about. “Oh..do whatever you want…” I thought.

I fell asleep twice while trying to put him to sleep, as he lay peacefully in my arms chewing my hair and staring at my chin. I wasn’t learning the graceful art of motherhood with a career very well yet. I kept getting distracted by the ominous vibrations coming from the black leather case. Each one was a warning of endless tasks to pour my way tomorrow morning.

Ali slept in the end, but only after I had burned 1074 calories. I picked up my stuff and tiptoed out of his room. Mission accomplished. I unlocked my BB to see what else was new, and saw one line of battery left.

HAHAA! You can’t out do me bitch! I have TWO lines left in me! I plugged it into the charger, and left it there in the naughty corner. I decided to enjoy the rest of my evening and night at the other end of the house, far away from the frequent buzzing, or the annoying reminder that work was now ALWAYS at my finger tips.

Buh Bye BERRY BOY. See you during working hours…

Future Headlines that we could do without!

2009-02-12T18:53:00.007+03:00

NOTE: THIS IS FICTION. THIS DID NOT HAPPEN AND NEVER WILL HOPEFULLY TO THE LOVELY BAHRAIN. xxx

Ban on day of love

A session in parliament, meaning to discuss important and pivotal issues like approving the national budget, was disrupted when one of the MP's received a fresh bouquet of roses with big balloons asking the bearded heart throb to be someone's valentine, right in the middle of the session.

Although the bouquet was extravagant and quite difficult to ignore, the MP was also showered with pink glitter by the messenger and thus proceeded to blush profusely, causing heads to turn and suppressed giggles to erupt among the onlookers.

The chairman of parliament settled the room and asked everyone to get back to the matter at hand, however it was too late, as members began to request time to speak, clearly to discuss this new development.

The head of the crap-and-other-useless-rules committee stood up and addressed the session.

"I think that we have to ban this unislamic practice of valentine's day. It is a day when misguided teenagers are sending flowers to each other and expressing their love to one another which is not only against our culture and traditions, but also morally corrupt." He said.

"We have received many complaints from individuals that their neighborhoods were turning into rose infested slums. The sound of love songs and secret amorous messages was causing them to have uncomfortable feelings."

It was proposed that all valentine's day memorabilia be banned and that any florist caught selling red roses, eating red roses, or simply possessing them would face a minimum of 3 months jail time.

Members unanimously voted in favor of this new ban, except for the culprit, who hid under his table in shame at having received such a scandalous display of what is clearly misguided affection.

xoxo

Whisker is missing

2008-12-22T16:54:00.002+03:00

Hi everyone, I just want to put this on here in the hopes that someone will find Whisker. She went missing from our house or Garden in Jasra yesterday Dec 21 and without a trace. We think she might have been picked up by someone who found her wandering in the compound.

If anyone sees her, please keep her with you and contact us immediately.

I"m hoping she'll come back to us. We are so so sad.

Thanks Everyone.

ANGRY POST OF THE DAY!

2008-11-06T11:02:00.006+03:00

Today in the GDN.

Well yesterday actually, but I was so shocked that by the time I was conscious again to write about it the news became yesterday's. I've bolded the words that amused me. Let's see what the experts are proposing now:

Male doctors face clamp (oh please..they face nothing! That implies that this kind of garbage can actually hold ground and become legislation. Bullshit.)
MALE doctors could soon be banned from working in all maternity wards in Bahrain, if parliament has its way. MPs said at their weekly session yesterday many women were complaining that they were forced to reveal their "sensitive parts" to male doctors, which they say was making them feel uncomfortable. MY WHOLE PREGNANCY WAS UNCOMFORTABLE, A MALE DOCTOR WOULDN'T HAVE ADDED MUCH TO THAT DISCOMFORT!!!!

Parliament unanimously (that means all the dumb asses) voted in favour of the proposal, despite assurances by Health Ministry officials that they were already taking the issue into consideration.

Health Ministry assistant under-secretary for hospital affairs Dr Abdulhai Al Awadhi (someone who is probably qualified) said that the ministry was already giving patients the choice between male and female consultants and doctors.
"The patient has the right to choose and we don't force any doctor or consultant on any patient," he said.
"The number of male doctors and consultants is decreasing and out of 11 consultants, only four are males, while more than 90pc of our (maternity) doctors are females. (Are they being bullied out of the profession?)

"We have recently asked six male doctors to carry out maternity services, because many female staff members are taking the two-hour breastfeeding time-off from 9am to 11am, which is our peak time." (okay this guys' just looking for a platform to complain about the women, boo hoo he doesn't get to breast feed. WELL THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS. IT SURE AINT FUN!!!)

Dr Al Awadhi said that most consultants and doctors in Saudi Arabia and Iran were males. "There is no such obligation in those countries," he said. (I can't believe these are now our benchmarks for progress and freedom)

MP Sayed Maki Al Wedaie (someone who is obviously NOT qualified) said that Islam bans males and females touching "sensitive body parts" of members of the same sex or other sex, unless it is an emergency. (or for fun!)

Mr Al Wedaie, who is parliament's foreign affairs, defence and national security committee vice-chairman, said that maternity was not an emergency OH REALLY? BIAAATCH!!! and considered as a normal case. (YOU TELL ME HOW YOU WOULD FEEL IF A HUMAN BEING TRIED TO CRAWL OUT OF YOU WITHOUT an EXPERIENCED man, woman or alien THERE TO PULL IT OUT! A NORMAL CASE IS WHAT I SHOULD USE TO SMACK YOUR HEAD ABOUT WITH)

I guess in his expertise, unless it was a troop of soldiers marching out of the woman, he really couldn't feel the urgency of the situation. By the way, when you're in labour you will let anyone and their mother look at whatever they want to look at, as long as they promise to get that baby out and stop the hellish contractions from trying to kill you. That, my friend, would be considered an emergency in any woman's book! So go play RISK and leave the real thinking to people with brains..and, uteruses...uterii... uterees-(oh forget it) ...ovaries.

"Instead of taking time off from 9am to 11am, those female doctors and consultants should take other timings, when operations are not at their peak." (Oh..There you go. Expert defense and national security man has solved it. And I thought it was going to be more complicated.)

Is it even constitutional to stop the livelihood of qualified licensed doctors in high demand, because of their gender, just because someone's wife didn't want the naughty doctor man to see her hoo-haa????

Go to a woman doctor. It really isn't that difficult. and GDN, please stop putting headlines of garbage, as if they bear any danger on our personal freedoms... THANK YOU.

Yearning to blog

2008-10-12T12:49:00.003+03:00

I miss my blog. I miss my blog so much that even though I don't have a second to scratch my head from all the work that is being thrown at me, I snuck here for a quickie post.

I am currently imprisoned in my cubicle, typing random different things feverishly as I try to

go down my endless (and very fertile) To-Do list. Meanwhile, my mother is sending me MMS's of "the delicious one" doing a variety of CUTE things. My heart...oh my heart...it beateth for him. I post his charm, so you know how I suffer.

It is such a long bloody daaaaay!

The End.

ps. I wrote the first paragraph at 11:12 am. The second one at 3:07pm. And the last one at 4:50pm.

Cruel and Unusual punishment

2008-08-22T23:59:00.005+03:00

…As he slowly strolled on the left side of the clear blue stream which cascaded down the side of the undulating hills of greenery, twisting and turning with the schools of fish on this hot summer day, the insects and birds covered the green shady trees of the orchard and their twittering filled the warm air and breeze. And the road swerved up ahead into the distance flowing with cars, and the madry shino pooed and the monstrous baboon fleed...bleeuh ble-bleeuh ble-bleeeeeeeeeeuh…

Oh. My. God.

If you started to doze off reading the above, I don’t blame you. I almost passed out writing it.

When I start reading a novel, I want to know the story. Its like spoiling a good piece of saucy gossip about the weird neighbors. You could squash the thrill in an instant by dwelling on the time of day, the fabric's textures on their furniture and what their barnyard animals were doing at the time. I don’t want a bloody listing of every boring detail in the background or the scenery. I don’t want a complicated and irrelevant history lesson on the house of the town’s mayor’s ex-boyfriend…(actually that might be fascinating) just because he happened to pass by it. Really, if someone is smart enough to write a book and get it published, they should have the insight to realize that WE (the readers) just want the damn story. If you want to describe the setting to death, put it in the script, when you make it into a low budget TV movie and save us all the misery.

I just want to know where the dude is going and I wish he would hurry the hell up getting there, because the strolling and the stupid insects are getting on my nerves. I am tempted to shout at the book and put it in the naughty corner until it gives me something scandalous to hang on to and motivate me to keep reading further.

I’ve started reading this story, which when summarized sounds very interesting, but having page after page of descriptions is making my hair frizz. I mean his wife had several clandestine affairs, and it surprises me that no one –COUGHauthorCOUGH- thought to follow her around and give us a detailed account of her illicit relationships. And honestly I don’t judge her for her infidelity. I mean the guy keeps strolling next to streams and trees, all silent and uninteresting. I’ve been reading about him for only a day and now I want to have an affair!

Why would I care that the fluffy bird in the tall Oak tree is pecking at the aged and crooked branch. WHY? Unless of course, the bird played a pivotal role in the plot.

For example, let’s say that the bird has OCD and had been compulsively pecking for hours, hard enough that the branch happened to break and fall with great timing onto the unfortunate head of the main character causing him instant amnesia and making him forget who he was. He would later meet a kind and beautiful nurse at the hospital and eventually make her his wife until one day when she tells him that she once survived a brutal attack and kidnapping gone wrong by what the police told her was a very dangerous serial killer who never lost a victim, and that they had been trying to track for years…which rings a bell..and the guy starts to remember…it was HIM. He was the serial killer…

If this was the bird’s role in the story, then by all means keep going with the inane descriptions of tweety’s soft feathers, curved orange beak and his elegant yet birdish posture. After all, he is my hero, for he has made this story a zillion times more exciting than the stupid stream has ever contributed. I mean, it just sits there and looks all watery. Puh.

Even I can do that.

So now I’m reading this novel out of spite. I will finish you damn it, just so I can casually say “Oh, I read that…”. Even if every painful page of overly descriptive prose tries to kill me, I will persevere and wake up from each mini coma, to find out where the guy is going, and if he’s actually got a personality hidden in there somewhere.

I miss Harry Potter.

Damn Schmeft Crappo

2008-06-29T17:49:00.006+03:00

I hate Grand Theft Auto IV with all my heart and all the boobs who gave it a five star rating on Amazon’s Customer Rating. Somewhere below that there should be another Review section for the neglected spouses, girlfriends, and life partners of the cheese brained addicts of this dumb game. In this section we would vent our frustrations and feelings and surely this would save many men from a lot of angry shouting.

I need my husband’s attention. I admit. I need reassurance now more than ever that I’m still the cool “girlfriend” he wants to hang out with, not the “mommy” who cooks and cleans and raises the babies.

Okay. I know I don’t cook. Nor do I clean. But that’s beside the point because in a way I’m the Executive Director of the cooking and cleaning.

The week after we became a family with a baby and all, my husband bought this innocent looking PlayStation game and came home. Had I known that there was going to be a serious decline in social interaction in our house, I would’ve grabbed that evil disc from his hand and repeatedly jumped on it stamping it into a million pieces like they do in the cartoons. But I was a little busy, peeking into a diaper, wondering what else is new.

I walked into “his” room the other day only to find someone in a semi-conscious wakeful coma, with a joystick above his head and eyes glued to a screen upon which there was shooting and chasing of some very innocent looking bystanders.

“What are you doing?”
“Huh?” He mumbled back.
“Shitsawy?”

Sometimes I repeat the same thing in Arabic, as if it was a language barrier that disabled him from answering…not the fact that his brain had melted and all he could see was pixels.

I left him alone to go watch my new favorite thing on TV “Noor”. (Don’t dis it, just watch it and you’ll be a fan.) And when I came back, do you know what was on the screen? Can you guess? Well, I’ll tell you! On that screen, taking his time, which I am more worthy of, were some very morally questionable looking women and a game of snooker in a very grimy looking bar. He was playing with his PlayStation friends, while a perfectly healthy-yet furious human being was living and breathing in the same house, yearning for adult human contact.

“NAYEF! Min thailain???” I think I stamped my foot as I said this.

“Huh? Shfeech 7abeebty?”

“Shfeeeeeeny? Shfeeeeeeeeeeeeny??? It’s been a month and this game still hasn’t finished? And why are you in a strip club??”

“I have to go meet someone and pick up a car..” He said this with his concentration still fully on the damn screen.

Accompanying him on his mission, was some bitch girl who is supposedly his girlfriend and they actually go out on dates and then he ditches her to meet Brucie or Shmucie or whatever his stupid name is. Then Brucie sends him to steal a car from a garage down the street.

Now you have to see this from the point of view of a woman still in the post-partum period. For those who don’t know what that means, it’s the 6 weeks after birth, where we’re still psycho from the hormones but have no legitimate excuse because we can’t say “ But I’m pregnant” anymore. We are now simply reduced to fat women with temper problems, so in a way I can’t really compete with his e-hooker, who is wearing a few sizes smaller than I can fit into right now, and also doesn’t speak unless spoken to.

When I realized that I was wearing a tent-size jalabiya with birds printed on it and was covered with a few ounces of baby vomit, I knew that I couldn’t have this conversation with him and get any proper attention, so I smiled on the outside and told him I’d see him later. At least my hair was brushed. And that’s an accomplishment these days. I deserve a medal for walking away and not actually thumping the PlayStation violently.

I took a break from writing this entry, and walked towards the sound of sirens and speeding cars down the hallway to the “sickroom” which I now call it. I peeked in just as he was switching it off and pretending to watch TV. He realized that his imbalanced wife, wasn’t very fond of his new game. We’ve had a history of dissent, when it comes to one-player video games. The last happy memories I’ve had was with Mario Kart on the GameCube, when everyone could play and group interaction was key to the fun of racing curious little creatures against one another.

Now the only curious little creature in the house is Ali. At least he gives me his full undivided attention, especially when I’m holding a freshly warmed bottle of milk. And then to reward me for his nutrition he'll usually share some of it with me by throwing it back up on my bird print jalabiya.

I will be patient and wait for the game to self-destruct from overuse.

Maybe if I use a hairdryer.…

Oh Shit! I’ve just been caught. He knows I’m writing about him and he’s threatening to start his own blog. Now he’s eating an apple and shouting at me! Now he’s yelling at me as I type what he’s doing..hahahahahah

Oh dear, he’s stormed off. Bye, I have to go make nice.

Arrested for bad behaviour

2008-05-14T01:32:00.003+03:00

Last week, when I innocently walked into the hospital at 11am for my weekly doctor’s appointment, I didn’t know that I would still be there two days later. I was withheld for further questioning when my doctor found that my naughty blood pressure was not favorable. Hmm… apparently 150/97 is ample cause for alarm. So placed under hospital arrest, I was. Banned from work, banned from TV and banned from being awake, I was to be put to sleep immediately and I didn’t need to go home to pack a few things. The idea was unsettling, as I made my calls to my husband and quick sms’s to friends, family and co workers, warning them of my temporary disappearance from mid-morning.

The injection they gave me to help me relax was painful, but the cloud-floating slumber that ensued was amazing. I forgave the injection for it’s savage ways and drifted into a state of bliss and unconsciousness, where life was beautiful and there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

Looking back now, I’m wondering whether my high blood pressure was caused by things in my life, or simply an odd anomaly of pregnancy. I mean I do often go on a fervent cursing rampage while driving through the jungle-y roads of Bahrain. And I have been known to shout at newspapers and then draw evil moustaches and horns on certain pictures of imbeciles who say stupid things like, “this flies in the face of our culture”. The only thing that’s going to fly in your face is my shoe. Go back to your box and don’t come out till next year, when I will beat you with my shoe, again.

I don’t know where I get this quick-to-anger trait. Maybe it’s my Iraqi blood, although my grandmother didn’t get angry at stupid things. Anyhow, if my BP is not whipped into shape through medication and bed rest, Ali is to be evicted from his current home, faster than he can say: “let’s kick that rib again to see what kind of noise it makes..”

Oh shit. Can we keep him in, just a couple weeks more? I need to kind of do some baby clothes laundry and get some furniture delivered and maybe read a couple hundred pages about this project of motherhood….I’M NOT FLIPPING READY YET!

By Day two in the maternity ward, I was the only bored person, as everyone else there was either giving birth or getting to know their new baby. I may have been the only one with their child actually on the inside. The constant lying down, was part of the reason that Ali decided to move into my lungs and was suffocating me, so I was advised to go for a walk so he could descend back down where he belongs at this point. I feel like a lava lamp sometimes. Hmm…what can one do at 10pm in a hospital? I wish there were shops or a salon, or a 24 hours store, so I could buy magazines or get a manicure. The only place I could actually walk to at this point was the nursery.

There were two babies there; a cute and cuddly pink one positioned by the window, sleeping happily and the other one, to my surprise placed like a rotisserie chicken under foil and blue lights.

“What’s wrong with him? He’s so small…” I gasped to my friend, horrified.

“I can’t see his face. Are they cooking him?” She replied just as clueless.

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to put my baby in foil, it looks mean.”

We later found out that he has jaundice, he’s a normal full-term baby, and no one was trying to cook him.

Oh God I think I’m going to vomit. Inside edition just aired a segment about a woman who got scalped, because her long hair got caught in a go-kart engine. Azoo3 or what???? I’m now doing Lamaze breathing, so I don’t go into labour from sheer grossed outness. Beeeeeeu3.

This entry was written in the hospital ward at 4am when I was supposed to be asleep..Naughty Nocturnal Farah…I hope I'm not arrested tomorrow.

Le Inspecteur and ze apples

2008-04-19T10:36:00.004+03:00

While all scientific evidence may point to the contrary, I am quite convinced that at 34 weeks, monsieur bebe, has gotten bored and figured out a way to sneak out the back door of the amniotic sac and is scouting out my internal organs as we speak.

I often feel like my insides are being examined by some kind of antiques dealer who is picking up my organs, turning them over, sometimes flicking them or squeezing them to check for quality and resilience.

“Excuse me, would you put that down?!!!”

“What?!” Nayef says startled, dropping his hairbrush. “It’s mine.”

“Not you,” I say angrily staring at my belly. “It’s him. He’s massaging my liver again.”

“Leave him alone. Let him do what he wants. He’s just a baby.”

Yeah, that’s what you all think. This one’s going to come out with a tool belt around his waist and a miners helmet, with that light thingy, pointed at the doctor and then he’s going to give her a full detailed report about the state of my insides. He hasn’t sat still since week 22. Who does he take after? I know I appreciate quiet time and rarely move unnecessarily.

According to my weekly email updates, he’s a little over 4 pounds or the size and weight of a pineapple…. Mmmm pineapple, what I would do for a big juicy slice… It seems that every time someone mentions the name of a food, I embark on a music filled fantasy of how I am going to consume that food, and then I work myself up into such a frenzy that if I don’t have that particular edible delight immediately I feel the world will end and I will die a sad and painful death. I am not exaggerating.

Two nights ago, my husband mumbled that he felt like eating an apple while we were getting into bed, and that one sentence set me off into a mad search in the fridge looking for an apple. (not for him, but for me.) My mouth was watering, knowing that if I found one, it would probably be shriveled up and really, really old because I don’t remember buying any in the recent past. My quest left me empty handed and teary eyed. I wanted that apple so bad…I fantasized about biting into it, or blending it with ice and mint, or chopping it up with other fruit and pouring orange juice all over it. That apple was my ultimate fantasy that night, and it went unsatisfied. Do not ask me how I made it through the night. Before I left the kitchen defeated, I found applesauce in the freezer, from the early morning sickness days, but by the time that defrosted I had passed out and when I woke up the next morning it did not live up to its fresh predecessor; the crunchy intact apple.

Last night however, at 11:34pm, before the closing of Midway, we ordered 4 shiny red apples, a bunch of bananas, apple juice and orange juice. By 12 midnight, I had made two smoothies using chopped apple, a banana, ice cubes, mint, apple juice and a dash of orange juice. It was scrumptious. I had to wake my husband up to drink it. He fell asleep on the couch waiting for me to come back. With one eye open, he downed the glass, told me it was amazing and then collapsed into bed.

I was so refreshed by my invention, that I was more alert than I’d ever been at any AM timing in my life. So awake was I, that at 3am, I decided the poor excuse for a “nursery” had to be neatened up. There is a box in that room, which has been there ever since we moved into the house, after our wedding. I’m talking summer 2006. In that box are miscellaneous crappy items, that I’ve lived for two years without, and yet still feel the need to dust them and keep them. In the dead of night, you could see the profile of a very big bump moving around in that room, lifting a box and carrying it all the way back to the bedroom for a long night of sifting and reminiscing. I wish there was anything of value in there. I found 12 MAC lipsticks (I don’t know why I buy them, I wore lipstick like 3 times in my life and it never worked out), 7 different eye shadow boxes, 10 lip liners, 6 eyeliners, a beaded ring that I never wore, and dental floss. I lovingly dusted everything and arranged it on my dressing table, as if they were not expired, poisonous, or never to be used anyway. I’ll throw them away some other time.

At 4am, I felt inadequate as a mother, so I started to read voraciously, with an effort to actually finish the book, What to expect the first year. This was one of the many books I had ordered since entering the third trimester and was suddenly struck by the realization that pregnancy usually ends with the arrival of a BABY!!! Being too stricken with panic to actually finish any one given book, I have a series of well-meaning book marks stuck in each one, signaling my efforts to prove that Amazon, wasn’t getting my money for nothing. What I’ve learned so far, is how not to flash people in the mall while breast feeding, and how it may or may not be that colic is caused by eating too much cauliflower.

BUT NONE OF THESE BOOKS ARE REALLY TELLING ME WHAT TO DO! I want my mommy. I’m thinking about the baby’s belly button and how to clean it. How the hell do you change a diaper? What do you dress them in for what activity, there are so many names for their clothes!!! Onesies, wraps, vests, cardigans, t-shirts, pajamas! Aren’t they all the same???

I tried to fill the baby bath tub the other day to practice and after a lot of pulling and tugging the hose thingy just wouldn’t reach the tap. Then someone told me that you only use the hose for draining the tub. If you want to fill it, you get the water to the right temperature and then do it the old fashioned way with a bucket, from the sink.

Oh.

I must calm down. I give myself the dramatic soap opera slap across the face. I stop hyperventilating. I think I’ll go to sleep now. I had barely two hours of sleep. What with the insane nesting of the third trimester and the annoying morning sickness symptoms of the first, I could barely rest last night. And since the inspector seems to be at rest, no longer fiddling around in there, it’s a good opportunity to catch some zzzzz’s.

This is getting ridiculous…

2008-03-04T00:00:00.005+03:00

The bastards who lied to me about the average time span of morning sickness, have yet to be punished. Because after that ended…LAST WEEK… I’ve been battling with acidity that has the strength to compete with heart attacks and acute angina.

In fact, I read somewhere that heartburn often has the same symptoms as a heart attack. Lovely. A constant feeling that you’re going to die, that can often be caused by the very same foods that cure it. Not only is that fun, but it’s coupled with the lovely blossoming of my body into what I can best describe as a watermelon with legs…or rather a cluster of watermelons. Me and my vegetable stand are often seen bumping into corners, closet doors and other human beings. I no longer fit in my usual spaces. After using my car the other day my husband kindly adjusted my car seat back for my Dwarfish height. And flattered though I was at his generosity in his adjustments, being no Kate Moss, I found myself wedged between my car seat and the steering wheel, honking the horn involuntarily for all the neighbors to see. Grace is not one of my strong suits these days.

I am starting to feel hippo-esque, although friends tell me…this is nothing, wait till May. May? What’s May? I can only think of now and a minute from now. Besides the doctor rudely delayed my due date from June 4 to 5! Why? Did he get a memo from my baby that he will be in meetings all day on the fourth, and therefore the fifth is a better day for his schedule???

This blogging was interrupted by an unexpected bout of MORNING SICKNESS!!!! It’s not cute anymore.

Anyway, earlier today, while I was beached on the sofa, I had a conversation with my mother, about how I can lose weight, by tricking my body and contributing it towards the baby’s weight gain, and we had an ambitious plan on how I would eat only healthy things, and minimize carbs, and engage in a bit of brisk walking. 5 minutes after that we were both on the phone ordering a pizza, chicken wings and a Greek salad. And when it arrived, I barely waddled to go get it. Brisk walk my ass.

The baby only ever communicates with me when I sit really still, we have tapping morse code conversations, and he kicks back when I poke at him trying to get his attention. When I’m alone, he’ll kick and thump my internal organs like they were his personal punching bags. But once I invite onlookers and fans to come and feel all the action, he sits there quietly making me look like a liar, not moving a muscle. We tricked him once, and he kicked Nayef’s hand really hard. Nayef looked so surprised, as though he just got undeniable proof that there really is a baby in there, and I’m not making it up as an excuse to get fat and be mean.

So here I am, 6.754 months pregnant. If I count it in weeks, which no one understands, it’s a grand total of 27 weeks, which feels like such an achievement. I remember feeling that I was 8 weeks for like a year. Time just would not budge. Now the weeks fly by, but the individual days, I feel go on forever. By 6pm, I’m ready to end the day and start over tomorrow. Which means that at 1:30pm, I’d really like the work day to be OVER! I want to shrink everything down, except lying down time and the nights. Once I’m in my bed, which is a “mitfalsif” Japanese style bed about 2 inches off the ground, gravity and the world’s forces all conspire to keep me there forever. Even rolling around in the middle of the night, gives me flash backs of workers maneuvering extremely heavy and enormous steel structures in the Boston Big Dig.

I have 13 weeks to go to the big day or week, or however long labour is supposed to last. I’m busy hanging up curtains and choosing baby stuff, but what I really want to do is sleep until then. I don’t want to do anything demanding, mentally-challenging, or physically involving movement.

And sometimes very suddenly I stop whatever it is I’m doing and I go to sleep….

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Love is in the hair!

2008-02-14T13:09:00.004+03:00

On a day when the profoundly intelligent mullas across the causeway are busy mangling red roses and hunting down hormonal, repressed girls in crimson, we have the liberties to enjoy the day known as Valentines Day. Now regardless of all the retarded emails of warning that I’m going to get today on “do you know what you are celebrating?” and the history of St. Valentine and what it really meant and how it is the end of Islamic civilization, if I give my husband a rose; in spite of all this stupidity, the overpriced balloons at Al Osra, and the Styrofoam hearts in restaurants, I think what today makes me think of, whether I like it or not, is love.

And I do love lots of people in my life, who I don’t really tell that I love, for fear of getting too soppy and emotional and sounding like the ending of a movie about some terminal illness.

But I have to say that today morning, on my way to work, I felt so much love that I thought I had to share it or I’d explode. I felt I should go in a chronological-ish order.

I love my mother and father. I realized this morning that they are my first loves. The first sounds I heard, and the first eyes that embraced me, loving me, even though I was a slimy little snot, that cried all the time and gave them lovely packages of poo, in return. Without them, I wouldn’t be loved by anyone else.

I love my brother and sisters. I love them so much, it’s embarrassing. So to hide it I was really mean to them, bossing them around, teasing them, making them think they were adopted, and frequently running sexist campaigns against my brother for being the only boy in the house. I felt that if they knew how much I loved them, they’d think I was weird. But I love them so much, I always have. And as their leader, mentor and pioneer, I would fight fiercely to the death to protect them from harm, pain or evil.

I love my Grandfathers and Grandmothers, for loving me and playing such great roles in my life. And as each one of them left the world, leaving me in tears at the prospect of being without them, I learned that they have taught me what they know, and I have to carry on and make them proud. I love them all. I loved when Mama Mariam made me khanfaroosh, and when Mama Rafeea told me stories about Iraq. I loved Baba Khalid’s expression when he gave us presents that made us happy, and the way Baba Ali used to pretend he was eating my ears, my nose and my tiny hands. I miss them all so much, especially these days.

I love my Aunts and Uncles, who took over when we were left without grandparents. I love them because they tie us together. I love my cousins, who make me feel like I will never be alone. I love their unborn children, whether I’m here to hold them or not. I love our gatherings on Saturdays and Eid and everything in between. They are the joys in my life, in between the difficult times and the frustrating tasks life throws at you. I hope to have lots of stupidly fun times with them, singing, boating, lounging, eating and being a family.

I love my friends. Those both near and far. Those that call a lot, and those that don’t. I love them all. I love our history together and all the memories growing up and living life’s funniest times (the teen years). I love knowing that they’re healthy, happy, and successful. I would never give them up. I have been blessed with my friends, all the boys and girls that have been a second family to me, have also made me who I am today. I am very thankful.

I love my Husband. I love that he just showed up out of nowhere one day, and proved to me that this kind of love really does exist. I love that he is with me everyday in the morning and at night, sharing movies, food and giving me his hands, when I want to hold them. For being kind, even when I’m sick, grumpy, bloated and looking like a banshee, by hugging me and telling me that I’m cute, (when I’m clearly NOT). I love that he loves the people I love. I love him for being tall, for being sweet, for being mine, for every characteristic both shallow and profound that makes him, him. I know that we will grow old together, because no one else will do.

I love my dog. Because, although she’s just a pet, I swear she loves me too. I love her when she’s sleeping like a doughnut and I love her when she’s whizzing around the house hyper from her bath. I love that she understands both Arabic and English, especially when we talk about her. I love whisker like she was my own little fluffy child….

I love the monkey in my tummy. I’m growing a new love, who kicks me swiftly from time to time to show me who’s boss. I even love the fact that he caused me horrendous morning sickness enough to make me actually lose weight in the first 3 months. My own little dietician…awww. I love that he is part Nayef and part me and part his own unique new surprise. I love that he made rude gestures with his hands during the last ultrasound and then went into fighting stance. It’s going to be fun taming him. I love him for choosing my belly as his starting point, and I hope he will grow up to love me, realizing that he had tugged on my heart strings even when he was just a dot. I love my baby boy. My own baby Ali.

Xxx love you all.

Happy Valentines Day.

Entering the Second Trimester…

2008-01-21T01:29:00.000+03:00

Oh my God At last!!!! I waited for the day when I was exactly 12 weeks pregnant, as if like a big clock tower, ceremonious bells would ring and the disgusting feeling would officially disappear. Every other book, website, formerly pregnant woman, and self-proclaimed expert told me it shouldn’t be too bad after 12 weeks. So I rejoiced on November 21^st because I thought I would never see the day, when I could once again hold a conversation with someone, that included the words: onions, sausages, or cucumbers without grimacing, screaming out “gross” and then heading straight for the nearest throw up station that I had set up around my home.

I was done with Morning Sickness, which by the way is such an elegant name for what it really is. It should be called “your digestive abilities are on vacation, eat crackers and enjoy a constant state of acidity, heartburn and painful stomach discomfort.” I have never seen so much food in reverse. In my entire life, I have never ever been a vomiter. It probably happened to me around 4 or 5 times in my childhood, and I remember the results were always dramatic. I would immediately break out with blood freckles all over my face and my eyes would bulge out froggy-style leaving me to look stupid for a day or two. Crying was also part of the emotional drama of having your guts evict your meals. In the past 2 months, I’ve done this exercise around 30-40 times. This is why you should all go and kiss your mother’s feet. Being a mother, even before the kid is out, is very, very difficult.

I had also recently started sleeping in the TV room on the long sofa, because my bedroom stank. No one else smelled it. I pulled in a variety of people, family and friends to sniff my room usually sticking their noses into the AC vent and asking them if they wanted to die from the stench. Some felt sorry for me, some touched my head to check if I had a temperature, but most people told me that they had no idea what I was talking about. The problem was that the bad smell angered me. It was like a taunting skunk, that only I could see. Why was the bastard exclusive to my nose??? I started to feel like that cat that was constantly being molested by the uninvited advances of Pepe Le Pew. Don’t I have enough on my plate? I don’t need to be sleeping refugee-style in the living room, rudely awakened at 6:00am by an annoyingly cheerful sun, accompanied by a choir of stupid twittering birds.

But that’s all in the past. Today, I had graduated from this military camp of food intolerance and even my mood had lifted, after I had seen my 12-week scan showing the little monkey, with heart beat going strong and everything as it should be. It made me remember what I was doing, and that “tiny” over here, had no idea about all the uproar that was going on outside on a daily basis.

The next day was my brother’s wedding, and I had planned on staying up till 4am. Having gotten my hands on the menu, I was drooling in anticipation of all the yummy things I was going to taste. It had been in September probably, when I had last enjoyed eating anything and I really regretted ever having been mean to any foods, rejecting them for being too high in calories, unhealthy, or fattening. I now promised myself to never discriminate…and that all food was ultimately good and needed to be treated with respect and reverence.

The next day everything went well, I ate, I laughed, I saw people I hadn’t seen in months, and then I ate breakfast before I went home, all partied out and happily full. It was a nice ending to a very testing first trimester. But little did I know…the fat lady (not me) had not sung yet.

October/November 2007

2008-01-10T16:59:00.001+03:00

I was supposed to keep it quiet. At least until after I went to the doctor and confirmed it was in fact a viable pregnancy. It was Ramadan and I was trying to secretly eat Tums in the office, to squash the untimely heartburn, without drawing much suspicion. At one point I was walking around starving, when I accidentally walked in on two girls illegally sharing some biscuits, and I grabbed one, thanked them and scuttled away. No one knew why I was being weird. I kept it quiet for two or three weeks, and then we finally heard the little heart beat in my tummy. That little heart beat which confirms that I am in fact capable of creating human life…that actually works. I didn't cry, but I was extremely relieved. My mother the terrible secret keeper, having witnessed this, decided that it was now safe to tell half the world, but I couldn't join in the dissemination of the news because I was busy at home enjoying the tell-tale signs of early pregnancy.

In the weeks that followed, I made my own conclusions about pregnancy. I started to believe that God had created morning sickness as a type of hazing for mothers to be. Just like the military, only the toughest will get the honor of Mommy Medal.

"Are you suuuuuure you wanna be a mother??? "

"SIR, YES SIR!!! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEU3!!"

"Okay then, you will be vomiting your guts out to prove it!!! Grab your basket and run, Sergeaaaaaaaaaant!"

By the end of Month 2, the misery was both phenomenal and contagious. At 8 weeks pregnant, I was not yet aglow with the wonders of maternity. I had been reenacting scenes from The Exorcist and in the intermissions, I was usually found hugging my trusty plastic-lined trashcan like it was my life raft out of this river of hell. Thinking that I was the last living victim of morning sickness, I was often found sputtering with tears down my face asking God: "Why Me?" As they handed me another tissue, my husband and my mother looked at each other helplessly and mouthed: "Not just you, every other woman on earth…" but they wouldn't dare say that to me out loud.

My sole purpose in life was now reduced to keeping small amounts of bland, tasteless mush down where it belonged; in the tummy, and sleeping for ungodly amounts of time, to avoid the hellish discomfort of being conscious. Work? I don' t even know what you're talking about. I simply forgot everything beyond my sofa and my TV and of course my good friend the barf bin. Also I was on so many pills, vitamins and hormones, that I'm positive that I had morphed into another being, slowly, day by day, until I had become unrecognizable.

All I would watch was MBC 4, and I had never in my life, been so in tune to the tragedies of daytime soap operas until then. ("Damn it, I knew he wasn't the real father but to sell his daughter out for the secret company files???") Yes the issues were inane, but they kept me distracted from my nausea, until the damn ad for Kraft cheese which appeared every ten minutes, showing a loving mother smearing a blasphemous amount of creamy goo on a preposterously small piece of pita bread, and giving it to her son, whose joy was seriously out of proportion. Both the over use of food and the melodrama made me sick.

It's a miracle I'm still married. My husband was the only witness to this scary phenomenon of losing his wife, who seemed to have been switched with a mean, grumpy Alsatian holding his first child hostage. And yet, through it all, he was kind, helpful, and caring to the green-faced witch lying on the couch muttering curses and swear words at all the suffering she had been subjected to. "Miskeen" Nayef. He deserves a medal.

My other savior was my mother. I never knew how much it meant to have her around, until she held my forehead, wiped my tears, and made me hot tea and toast. Without them, the world was black. I really believed I was going to die, if they left me alone with my very own "rosemary's baby".

"I'm carrying Satan's child and I'm sure that it's trying to kill me."

"Farah! Don't say that! The baby will hear you.." My mother would hush me.

Excited at being a grandmother, my mom was extremely happy that I was throwing up every other meal. She kept telling me that it's a wonderful sign and the pregnancy is strong. Beaming with pride she told me that this is what she went through, four times, and that it only lasts 3 months. Three Months??? I don't have 3 months! Sometimes 4 or 5 she would say. Five??? You are squashing all hope. I can't do this for another day. Can't they give me morphine or something?

I asked; they wouldn't. Apparently it's illegal to do recreational drugs with your baby. However, they did pat me on the back and tell me, that all my suffering is a good sign.

Sign, schmine, this baby better be a genius millionaire, and care for me when I'm old, grumpy and alone. Just like I am now.

September 24, 2007

2008-01-04T20:09:00.001+03:00

One month into my brand new gym membership after retraining myself into maintaining a legally recognized jog for 30 minutes. I found myself wheezing , huffing and puffing like the grandmother of the big bad wolf, while climbing up some stairs.

My friend looked at me, as I looked back at her with a grin plastered on my blue, oxygen-deprived face, "I've never been good at stair climbing."

I go to the bloody gym every day, but I can't do 1 minute of upward ascending, without holding my gut and professing my doubt that I will live another minute.

"You know that's a sign of pregnancy…" she smiled.

"Yeah, but I took a test today and it said Not…" I replied, starting to doubt its quality.

Although the test claimed it was made in Holland, it had the comical name of: "Now you will know" apparently referring to the state of limbo, mothers-to-be go through when wanting to know if their eggs had in fact met the "one" and gotten engaged or rather embryoed.

After discussing the old-fashioned test I took, I was filled with suspicion. Maybe it was wrong. My friend's advice was that we should go to the pharmacy immediately and get the brand new digital tests, and maybe do another one tomorrow or the day after. So when we got the tests, I made her promise not to let me use one, because not knowing is the worst kind of temptation to use all the tests in one night. In the quest for motherhood, my curiosity and I were known to have wasted quite a number of tests unnecessarily and then sat there staring at a bunch of negatives, when one simple test would've sufficed.

My trusty guardian didn't last one minute of futile convincing. I didn't even have to try that hard.

"You know there was a second very, very, very faint blue line with the test I did earlier. Does that mean that it's still very early, or does it have to be really clear?"

The next thing I knew I was handed a test and shoved towards the bathroom and told to put us all out of our misery by just finding out once and for all. What was another negative…at least then we could enjoy the rest of the evening.

I walked out of my room holding the test and looked up at the eager face of my friend waiting for a response.. I shrugged and said: "You know, it's really early to even test, to get an accurate result, I should've waited at least another week…but even though it's early and I thought it was negative before..this digital test says… "pregnant"!

Lots of excited screaming and jumping ensued, and then immediately I got strict instructions not to ever jump like that again and to sit down for the next 9 months.

I was dizzy from disbelief, with a million things going through my mind. Grinning stupidly I looked around my house and thought, everything is going to change…I can't believe it.

I'm four weeks pregnant.

Girls and their Hair

2007-11-10T00:25:00.000+03:00

I went to the salon the other day to get a long overdue color and haircut session. My hair had become sadly mop-like. Not the kind of mop leaning against your kitchen wall, but the kind that was tossed out with yesterday’s dinner, and had been chewed on diligently by cats. While my misshapen head was busy with the work-gym-home routine, I had forgotten about a woman’s need to maintain her hair, and the wonders that it does for the soul. It’s true. It really brings you back to life.

So I booked an appointment, but not with my usual hair dresser, because he was on vacation. I sneakily requested his competitor, who I had heard did a fabulous job. You may ask, why I don’t go to the better one anyway, and I’ll try to explain the strange loyal relationship a girl has with her hairdresser. Cheating on your hairdresser is only a tiny bit less serious than adultery. There’s this guilt of choosing the other guy at the salon, when he has stood by you and your thinning, oily scalp all these years, telling you your hair is absolutely gorgeous.

I could never face him sitting on the other side of the salon, looking in another man’s mirror.

The salon was busier than usual and the estrogen was everywhere, punctuated by a little testosterone here and there just to keep things interesting. The hormonal commotion, was coming from a bunch of scattered skinny girls, barely past the age of 16, who were all getting high on the fact that there was a man doting on them, running fingers through their hair, and telling them that he would do whatever they wanted to make them look fabulous.

I have to admit, even I like the pampering and the fact that for one hour, someone is dedicating their talents and time to make me look better than I was when I came in. However, I have never been reduced to a giggling teenage noodle by a man with scissors.

In the chair right next to me sat specimen A, from which an insane amount of giggling and flirting was spewing. I resist the urge to throw up into my coffee, while I look straight at the mirror trying not to make a face.

“No…no..give me that…” she squeals and reaches for her phone.

“Why, who’s picture is that? Hmm? Hmm?” the hair assistant says.

“Noooooobudddy…” she giggles coyly.

Can I kill them both? This is just the gay-looking hair-brushing boy and she’s all high pitched and out of control.

As I sip my coffee, with the pure intent of hiding the disapproving look on my face, my eyes peer at them from the corners, wondering how long this girl was locked in a cupboard before they sent her to get a haircut.

I was quite tempted several times, to turn around and suggest that the two of them get a room, especially since the hotel was just upstairs. But I didn’t. I kept my old-fashioned, dignified, opinions to myself.

Besides, it’s really challenging to be patronizing or judgmental when your hair is piled on top of your head, and you have an assortment of brash colored hair clips holding your hair into a fountain like arrangement. For some reason, whenever they do this to me at the hair dressers, I feel like suddenly everything on my face grows bigger and distorted like I’m looking into a fish bowl. My eyebrows start to look like two big black rainbows and my nose starts to take on the form of a root vegetable. That’s why I need my hair, to drown out the unbalanced features of my face, but for now, I must be patient and look like a post modern expressionist painting, before the unveiling of my hidden good looks.

At last my hair cut begins, and of course I have difficulty explaining what I want, because the truth is, I don’t really know what I want. Looking in the mirror for the past 20 minutes, I had shifted more towards wanting a nose job than just a meager hair cut, but I focus on the matter at hand and ask him to do something that suits me but keep it longish, as I like to pull it away from my face often.

Of course, he does nothing of what I ask, and as I see my hair being chopped up into all ungodly layers like a pine tree, I try really hard not to cry.

Meanwhile, freakshow on my right, is still making sexy eyes at the hair dresser and asking him if she can smoke. I swear she’s 12, but whatever, he lights her cigarette for her and they giggle and coo some more. What the hell do you have to smoke for in the MIDDLE of your bloody hair cut??? Are you telling me you are so addicted at this late stage in your life that if you don’t smoke now, you’re going to suffer a fit of shivers from nicotine withdrawal? Besides, she’s not even enjoying it, because he’s combed all her hair onto her face and half the time she can’t even find her mouth to inhale properly. Instead she just dangled and ashed the damn thing for 10 minutes, pretending to be Joan Collins or something. All she’s managed to do is infuse the smell into my wet freshly cut hair. Thank you, Cruella.

My hair was blow-dried to disguise all traces of the horrifying haircut I witnessed and looked magnificent. I beamed and thanked and tipped everyone who contributed to my makeover and went home pleased. Of course even if I had hated it, I would’ve done the same thing, and saved the crying for when I got to the car.

But as usual, we all know that at salons, the water is magical and the hair drying techniques are difficult to reenact at home. So the next day in the morning when I washed my hair and tried to restyle it into its former glory, I ended up looking like an over-the-hill Christmas tree, wondering if flirty flirtina’s haircut was better than mine.

Pony tail it is then, until my hairdresser comes back. Moral of the story? The hair on the other side of the bush always looks better than the mess on your head…or something like that.

Grill and Schmill

2007-10-28T00:33:00.001+03:00

I hate Grill and Bloody Chill. I miss Dairy Queeeeeen!!!! Who's bright idea was it to change the damn menu? Okay I understand you needed to put lovely new slate tiles and cosy stone cladding on the walls to give us that nice ski lodge look, but did you have to change the chicken burger? Why? It was one of mine and many other people's favorite treats at DQ. The only chicken sandwich in all of Bahrain's fast food joints, which actually felt like all its parts belonged together. All the others were slippy, slidey and ill-fitting, like there was just something which wasn't quite right. Not the Chickee Chicken, the McChicken, nor the KFC chicken burgers had the lovely harmonious cohesion of the DQ chicken burger. It fit together as one, the crispy tender fillet was just the right size, nestled lovingly in the sesame bun, the lettuce dignified, chopped and not too overwhelming and there was none of this crappy let's include tomatoes for .0001 grams of lycopene. I'll skip the nutrients….that's why I'M AT DQ, FOR BLOODY HELL'S SAKE. Besides, did you know tomatoes are close cousins of tobacco? So thank you, since smoking is soooo late 90's, I'd like no cigarettes in my sandwich!

This tantrum was thrown last night at 12:30 am when I made my husband drive me to Dairy Queen Salmaniya for a long-awaited nostalgic meal after a week or so of having difficulty with food. Having lost the ability to keep food on the inside, I was beginning to rethink my feelings towards food, and decided that I should love it all unconditionally and never judge it. However that was before I realized that a demanding hungry woman hopped up on surging hormones will not compromise on the specifications of her all-time favorite sandwich. When we rolled up to the window I leaned all the way over my Husband's lap towards his window and gave the woman a big smile so that she would feel compelled to do as I asked.

"Hi, can I get the Crispy chicken sandwich with cheese…the way it was done befoooore?" I requested as sweetly as I could.

I was met with a puzzled look and slight annoyance.

"You know, when it was delicious? Befoooore Grill & Chill?" I continued, hopeful.

"Chopped letooooos?" She said, resigned to the fact that she couldn't play dumb anymore.

"Yes." I answered happily, recognizing that there was a stream of underground Grill & Chill haters who have probably been requesting the very same thing since the stupid change.

We added an ice cream treat for Nayef and one for me for being so polite, as she proceeded to yell the order into the microphone referring to the preparation of my burger as "old style". Yes thank you! Old bloody style! Was that so hard now? Just leave it on the menu and train all those new food preparers exactly how it was made, keep the memory alive damn it. Don't forget him…my "oldstyle" chicken burger with cheese. Oh I want to weep and so will you when I tell you what happened next.

As we drove home, and I blissfully embraced my food, sneaking fries here and there, I wasn't aware, that in that bag, in the darkness of the night's highways was none other than…THE BASTARD REPLACEMENT IMPOSTER FAKE WANNABE crispy stupid chicken WITH BIG LETTUCE! Oh but the screaming and cursing when I sat down on the sofa to open my treasure.

"THOSE BASTARD, MOTHER@#$$%$, SONS OF @#$%$^^% how could they????"

As my husband stood speechless by the door, wondering whether it was safer for him to run back outside into the late night and hitchhike as far away from me as he possibly could, I yelled and cursed and strangled the pathetic excuse for a sandwich feeling the betrayal and mockery of that woman who had promised me "chopped letooooooos, old-style!"

"They put a goddamn tomato!!! Why?? Tell me? Can we go back?"

"No, Farah, just throw the tomato out. Like hell we're going back." He bravely stood his ground, not knowing what the results would be.

"But it made a print…on the cheese, and look at this bed sheet sized lettuce!" I groaned going all noodly and floppy like kids do when they know they have no convincing case.

Of course, since we were all here, and no one was going to drive me back to wreak havoc on the chilling grill, I decided to bite into this idiot sandwich which bore no resemblance to it's beautiful predecessor. I thought, you know, it might be just fine, and perhaps I did over react…a tad.

Nope! It sucks. The chicken fillet tastes like a boot, it's hard and oddly shaped long-wise, sticking out of both sides of the new thicker, unnecessarily bouncier bread buns. The wings of lettuce made the sandwich look like it could fly away, if only they stayed put as you bit into it. But instead of being one with the sandwich they kept shooting out the sides, lubricated by the oddly spread mayonnaise. The cheese looked sad hugging the fillet, as if it had been killed on it, rather than melted with the warmth of 15 candles. And last but not least, I glared with contempt at the stupid slice of tomato which served no purpose, but to soggy up the bread and increase the velocity of the lettuce on its way out. Chopped letoooos my ass.

As I tossed the dissected mess into the box, I decided that the battle was over. The people behind the scenes that night at Grill & Smell had no idea what "old style" was. I will never again revive my old pal the DQ chicken sandwich with cheese. I'm going to have to find a way to recreate it at home, for those once in a while nostalgic feelings of being in high school again.

Oh well, nothing lasts forever.

Aging is good

2007-08-29T00:06:00.000+03:00

I’m not suffering from writer’s block, nor am I lacking in entertaining writing material, but somehow I haven’t written anything non-work related since July 2^nd. I am very disappointed with myself. But I have to say, that it’s been a tumultuous, revelation-filled, mind-turning, epiphany-infested sort of year for me. I have spiraled upwards into a higher level of life experiences and as they all say… you find yourself at 30.

Well, I haven’t quite turned 30 yet, but I will in a few weeks.
I don’t feel 30 nor do I think I look 30, but I do feel a substantial inkling that I finally know exactly who I am. Which is what’s supposed to happen. You suddenly just “know” things.

I know what I’m supposed to say, when I’m supposed to say it, how I’m supposed to say it and when to keep my mouth tightly shut. (Although sometimes against my own better judgement, I keep blabbering on…like now for instance.)

But throughout the intensive thinking and pondering, which was keeping me busy from my blogging, here is what I have found out about myself and probably a million other women on the cusp of their third decade.

Three important things:

I no longer let petty office work enslave me nor fret over menial tasks. It is not the most important thing on earth. If you make mistakes, that’s great; they’re effective crash courses minus the boring lectures. Make informed decisions, stand by what you know, and do the best you can in the allocated time. That’s it. Then go home and have a fulfilling life.

I don’t have to be polite all the time, because ultimately, that will lead me to be an internally rude person with lots of road rage. Rather than just smile and swear on the inside, I am going to simply say “no” to unreasonable requests, imposing demands, and time-wasting activities.

I’m no longer afraid of looking stupid. In fact, I don’t really care anymore what people think. I have recognized that I am wonderful and my faults are just like anyone else’s. Self-esteem sky rockets after this revelation. It’s the best part.

And since at 30 you require more sleep than a 20 year old, (or look like a panda if you don’t get enough) I will now go pass out so that I can go to work tomorrow and continue my silent protest towards corporate slavery…Bon Nuit.

Top ten signs you're a workaholic

2007-07-02T03:02:00.000+03:00

Ten: You don’t understand what people are saying on the phone, because you’re zoned into a screen where you have 10 windows open that you have to either, revise, proof read, or reformat into a 16 column table and email to someone in the next 3 minutes.

Nine: Lunch time gets exciting when you order a pathetic sandwich and get to eat it on the center meeting table.

Eight : You tell your husband/wife, you’ll be home in 10 minutes, for lunch but hours later, you’re still knee-deep in work and you’re no where near packing up…to go have dinner.

Seven: The guy who empties the trash cans at the end of each day, has to wheel you and your chair aside to get to it, because after seven ‘excuse me’s’ you still had no idea how he snuck up on you. He then asks you to lock up on your way out.

Six: You email your colleagues little to-do notes, reminders and annoying task-like assignments, at midnight, instead of going to sleep and telling them tomorrow--in person.

Five: You feel guilty when you’re sick, on vacation, or dying.

Four: You dream that you’re being chased by members of senior management holding papers in their hands, and questioning your loyalty to your job. You hide in a milk box.

Three: Your boss shoo’s you out of the office on his/her way out.

Two: When you go home you talk about work, your colleagues, how you have so much to do tomorrow while your spouse silently slips into a coma. You don’t notice.

And the number One reason is…

One: You don’t have time to blog, but when you do, you’re so tired that all you can come up with is this lame top-ten crap. You find the typing keyboard sounds soothing.

You too can be a Desperate Housewife

2007-05-31T22:30:00.001+03:00

My domestication was like a big slap in the face, I wasn’t prepared and it became the most overwhelming month of my life. Our house had been pretty much functional as an evening hang out, prior to moving in. But now that we actually lived here and had to adhere to marriage protocol, i.e. providing lunch and processing laundry, we found that we were missing thousands of items.

In order to grill our first chicken, I had to go to the supermarket four times. I now know, that only red onions are used for cooking. Well, someone should’ve bloody written that on the list. I’m not psychic. Also, I’ve become an expert technician in the inner workings of Gas-Electric combination ovens.

Needless to say, lunch consisted of sandwiches, eaten on the kitchen floor with 8 different instruction manuals spread around and a lot of peering into the oven. After much consulting with one another, as well as with the naked chicken, obediently sitting in it’s brand new oven dish, Henrietta was finally grilled by dinner time.

Doing laundry was also a big adventure. The last time I did laundry, was in Boston, in the basement of my building. I was 18-21 and excited about putting quarters into the big machine as it spun my clothes towards mountain freshness. I had moral support from Esmat, and we ate Doritos as the clothes dried and then played “Roman Times” with the bed sheets. This was usually done at midnight while normal people slept. After three years of waltzing around with underwear on our heads in the laundry room, we discovered the security camera.

In my new house, after a few weeks back, I received my new washer and dryer, an exciting house warming gift from my uncle. Finally, I can wash my own clothes and not drag a huge hamper sack home every Friday lunch.

Doing the first load of laundry took 5 hours. I spent 2 hours alone in the supermarket staring at all the different things I could put into my washing machine, and all the magical smells and cool effects that they would produce. After sniffing everything, I called Mama’s hotline, and discovered that Comfort was only a softener and not a detergent. After being mocked and laughed at, I bought all the right ingredients and went home.

The test drive involved towels and inexpensive items such as old socks and worn out tank tops. This process also involved a lot of sticking my head behind the machines to make sure everything was connected and that no water was going to gush out onto my kitchen floor and ruin everything.

According to the salesman, this washer has a sixth sense. Wonderful! This machine was actually designed and built to protect itself from the freshman housewife. It will pre-wash when it feels necessary and rinse and spin as it pleases.

“I have nothing to do with it, if your shirt is now 3 sizes smaller. Whirlpool did it.”

Choosing the linens was a very stressful time in my life. It was like doing the SATs. I would touch one fabric, then put it back in the plastic and open another pillowcase and inspect the stitching. Would it be weird if I put my cheek on it and closed my eyes? Can I open it up and snuggle with it for a while? Aren’t I entitled to a mini-simulation? You know, we are going to be sleeping together.

And as for pillows, I came from a bed that was a little smaller than a full size. However, it was populated with 8soft feather pillows. I HATE foam pillows. I want to kill them. They are offensive and insolent bastards and a punishment to your neck. No I don’t think I’m a princess. But my pillows have to be the way I like them, or I just sit up all night stewing in anger. You can imagine my horror when my lovely groom introduced me to his stiff foamy pillows, which he says he loves as opposed to the annoying feathery ones. Well fine then, I thought, we shouldn’t have a problem. If he doesn’t like my pillows, he won’t want to use them. Oh, how I was wrong…

Now that we are sharing a bed, jealousy has started to rear its ugly head. Although I only have four now, and he also has four, including his foamies from home, someone is starting to question the system.

“How come you have all the nice pillows and I only have these ugly ones? And why are you setting up your pillows around the edge of the bed, are you building a fortress?”

“They’re my pillows. And it’s a low bed, I don’t want any ants wandering into my ears.”

Well, it’s true, I can’t sleep with all this open space around my head. The other day I found a squashed ant, near my head. What was it doing??? Who squashed it??!!

Several times, Nayef was caught red handed trying to steal my color-coded pillows. I had a strict system of pillow case identification. You don’t want to know about the big identifying party that happened after laundry day when all the pillow cases were switched around. I sat there for 20 minutes cursing as I unstuffed and restuffed into the correct pillow cases. I did not rest until all my beloved pillows were back in their clothes.

“They’re MINE!”

Nayef loves Bree on Desperate Housewives, but he doesn’t realize that I have some of her crazy and none of her domesticity…

No pillows or husbands were hurt in the writing of this post

How to lose a bed in ten days

2007-05-31T21:11:00.000+03:00

When one has a large dependence on an everyday object, it is very difficult to have to deal with the sudden malfunction of this thing. Many of you might be familiar with the feeling of having your car break down for the first time, after years of safely delivering you to and from your destinations. You feel betrayed. “Hey, I thought we were friends…” you may mumble at your engine, through the smoke as passing vehicles smugly looked over at your misery, glad that it wasn’t them.

Well, there are degrees of importance in the roles of our daily inanimate partners. For example, your AC, your shower, your hairdryer, your car, your telephone, your microwave…and last but not least your bed, they all have different percentages of love, dependence, whatever. I mean, you can pie-chart it and the biggest chunk always goes to Mr. Bed.

Extremely important, in allowing you to enjoy all the other activities in life, sleep is a precious, precious thing. When a virus invades your motherboard and your computer becomes a paper weight, you can cry, shout, scream and have a glorious breakdown, but when you are chock full of valium and eventually escorted by a sympathetic relative away from the rubble of technology, it will be to your bed.

However, when it is the bed who has “et-tu-brute’d” you, where the hell do you go? I mean, let’s face it, you can’t have a breakdown on your microwave. So my friend, you are now, without peace.

As you are gathering, my bed-disaster in 2004 was very traumatic because I have a rather special relationship with sleep. I had 8 categorized pillows. The Royal Four, which were feather goose down, had been with me since 1995 when I was in Boston studying, and I was in love with them. They were supposed to come with me when I got married. The Secondary Two were “pity” pillows, to fill up the space left over and block sinister looking gaps between the headboards. The Final Duo I somehow acquired in Bahrain, in my days of pirating and pillaging my sisters’ rooms. I think I was trying to create a crowded feeling in the bed.

Ah yes, single hood… good times.

Next came the bed which was a funky hand carved redwood and something-else-wood piece of art done by a “self-proclaimed insane” Egyptian artist, which I managed to acquire by whining and whimpering for 3 working days at my father’s feet about my plight as a single struggling artist readjusting to the customs of Bahrain with nowhere fashionable to sleep. Eventually I wore him down, so he grumbled all the way to the exhibition, bought it and left.

I was ecstatic. It was soooo me. Something my bed has today, ceased to be. It was only last year that I started to get bed troubles. One night, at around 2:30am, I decided that nothing exciting was happening on my left side so I turned onto my right side and faced the wall; a routine exercise. Just as I was settling into my new cosy spot, I suddenly..Booov! Houston, we have a problem. My middle has collapsed.

Too tired and sleepy to get up and investigate, I just pretended that nothing happened and continued to fake-sleep until I got over the adrenaline rush and actually dozed off. The next morning I had post-rodeo levels of lower back pain. It was expected since I had camped on hilly terrains. So I hobbled off to work, and dealt with the crash bed later that day.

It soon became routine. Turn over one too many times and the bed will tell you to shove off. It turns out that my traditionally designed bed had boards that decided to shrink and topple over under my mattress. I eventually had to bring a carpenter home to bang it back into shape. It doesn’t collapse anymore, but sometimes I feel it’s just waiting for the right moment to piss me off again.

Several months later, I had another domestic disturbance whilst nesting late at night.

It happened while I was enjoying a particularly funny book in bed. The type with knee-slapping, loud laughter, causing siblings to look around the wall and check if you’re still sane, kind of book.

I was tired, and sleepy and about to drop the book and retire as I noted something moving to my left. Dismissing my initial instinct, I told myself, “Oh its nothing”.

But when the “nothing” moved again, I sprang on all fours, into full alert mode smashing the living daylights out of it with my novel. Needless to say, the not “nothing” was unaffected. The dark brown tick like creature eventually fell between my bed and the side table. But as always, the bastard had family.

And that was the end of my relaxing night of deep slumber. The next five hours consisted of a full scale war in my room and dismantling my bed, followed by sitting on the couch like a zombie, wondering where I had gone wrong with personal hygiene and why I had the same pest problems as the common mongrel.

For the next week, I felt like a refugee. I called work that morning and calmly explained to my boss, while still delirious from being awake 24 hours that I can’t come to work today, because I was busy all night overcoming insect trauma.

That was too creative to be untrue, so I got the day off. I put this free day to use supervising the intensive disinfecting and boiling of my bedding. My bed was taken apart, washed, vacuumed and suspiciously looked at. Pest control companies were summoned to, at once, assess the situation and assure me that there is a chemical compound strong enough to rid the world of the rude invaders, without killing me in the process. During the previous night’s war, a sampling of prisoners were captured, which I handed over in their little glass jar. I needed evidence to justify the freaked out state I was in.

I was soon assured that the “bed bugs” were there through no fault of my own and can in fact be exterminated swiftly, however I will have to find shelter else where for the next two days.

The day after the spraying, I was to sleep for the first time in my pesticide stinking bed since the invasion. I lay in bed with my eyes wide open and my bedside lamp on. The light was supposed to trick them into thinking that it’s day time, and I’m not there. After obsessively frantic research, I knew enough about them to write their biography. The sneaky freaks only come out at night when they sense human body heat and they can survive for years without food.

THEN. WHY. WERE. THEY. HERE??? The streets would’ve had the same options. Some food, or not so much food. Why am I a buffet???

Some blamed the exotic wood from Egypt, some said mattresses stored in old warehouses often come with unwelcome guests, but we never really knew where they came from.

I wasn’t quite ready to put the past behind me and it was a long time before I was able to sleep happily again, in the dark. I moved out quickly after that, before they could return. Little did I know that I was to be introduced to the exciting creatures of Jasra, where it's a bit more wild.

Last week our house maid, Emily claimed that a crocodile broke into her room. The only other witness at the time was Whisker and she didn’t look too alarmed. I pointed out that there were no nearby marshes or swamps, but only after half the workers in the compound, turned her room upside down, was she reluctantly able to go inside again.

Those naughty mannequins...again!

2007-04-22T23:43:00.000+03:00

I’ve pasted below an article from today’s GDN…I have commented (in italics) on each thing that was caught by my short unimpressed attention span.

THE MUHARRAQ Municipal Council has initiated a crackdown on what it claims are sexually explicit posters and provocatively dressed mannequins.

(those slutty mannequins, when are they going to learn that, that is not the best way to catch a decent man. I mean isn’t it enough that they’re cold and unflexible?? Now to tarnish their questionable reputations, they’re featured in the press as part of a moral crackdown. They’re never gonna meet “wild il halal” now…)

Chairman Mohammed Jassim Saleh Hamada said the council had received many complaints from residents, especially women, who believe that these fly in the face of their traditional values.

(Who’s flying what in whose face? Sample complaint: “That bitch, just stood there all headless and hot and stole my husband from me. After 2o years together, last night he told me I was too bendy for his taste and ordered me to stand still by the window! Home wrecker!!!”)

While the council's rules against sexually explicit displays have been in place for a long time, Mr Hamada said implementation has been lax.

(Using the word lax, reminds me of laxative. A laxative is often used to relax the bowel movements of constipated individuals, and then they are able to go to the bathroom regularly. Hmm..how relevant that it can also refer to the lax jaw muscles of the above individual, who is spewing out continuous crap, and stinking up the entire world of logic…)

The council has already ordered municipal authorities to make daily inspections to identify violators.

'The mannequins are wearing see-through clothing that show their breasts," he said.

(I say you put them in jail and end this ridiculous breasty stand off. I mean, their breasts show! How can the men of Muharraq ignore an un-nippled mound of fibre glass and not stray from the path??? It is unIslamic! Help us God, how our morality has been trodden by the western ways of window displays and (marketing) and now we must consummate marriages with plastic girls to make it right...)

"And the posters that are on display at video stores are very offensive.

(To who??? Get out of the damn store! You don’t deserve to rent a movie. And who the hell uses videos anymore, for God’s sake move on to DVD’s you Neanderthal goon.)

"There are pictures depicting men embracing women, kissing them, with their breasts uncovered. Others show singers wearing skimpy clothing. It seems that baring breasts has become a normal thing in our society these days," continued Mr Hamada.

(It seems..yes yes. God forbid, men should embrace or kiss women, it is more natural that they should whip them and lock them up in rusty cages. Let’s look to Ramadhan as the perfect time to portray such beautiful Man-Woman relationships in the crap that the GCC airs on TV. Ban that, oh Mighty Chair-man.)

He warned that licences of any violators would be revoked.

(Whatever..ihaddid ba3ad..)

He also welcomed a parliamentary proposal to outlaw men working at women's lingerie shops.

(An ‘outlaw’ is usually someone depicted in an old western movie who is galloping away on a black horse with a bag of money in his hands, but in New Bahrain, it will be a sorry fool who accepted a job selling underwear in a dinky shop in Muharraq. Welcome to progress. If I may add, I feel uncomfortable buying my monthly feminine products from supermarkets, can we ban them from there as well?? It hurts my dignity…Also, I think you shouldn’t put skinny people behind the counters at fast food restaurants, they’re so judgemental…Ban them too…Oh yeah and poor people as bank tellers, they would feel jealous of other peoples money! Let’s make sure only high net worth individuals work in banks.)

As Jerry Springer loves to leave his less than sophisticated audience with a final thought of the day..(I’m watching it) I shall leave the above lost monkeys with my final words of wisdom. “Leave the mannequins alone, get a hobby like cooking, knitting or needlepoint and stop talking to the press. You have nothing worth hearing to say.

Take care of yourselves and each other…Good night…you sick bastards.”

Home Alone

2007-04-21T02:05:00.000+03:00

Is there such a thing as newly-wed syndrome? I am so attached to my husband, I find it hard to ignore him, leave him alone or enjoy a night out with the girls. Sometimes, I feel like that over eager puppy from Tom and Jerry. “Can we play, huh? Can we? Can we go outside, huh? Please, please, can we, can we?”

“Farah! Sit. Good girl.” He pats me on the head and runs away to his Cigar smoking room. (I have to add that to the non-smoking zones in the house, since the issuing of my health revolution edict of February 2007)

Usually, once left alone, I am eventually forced to go find something interesting to do, like jog, paint, blog about him or pester my sister. It’s actually quite healthy for us to spend time apart, I’m told… Whatever.

I mean, I can handle a few hours of alone time, but 2 DAYS! That’s got to be challenging, for anyone. A few weeks ago, I got so overwhelmed by my spare time, I didn’t know what to do with myself. This is not to say that I had nothing to do, I had lots of things to entertain me. I was excited about everything, like a confused grasshopper with absolutely no focus. The reason, for all this spare time? Nayef was in Riyadh for the weekend, and I had nothing to stare at…

I realized just how much my pathetic list of activities revolved around my husband. Not to say that it was a bad thing. I loved hanging out together and planning every dinner, every movie, and sharing with him, every single random thought that popped into my head, even the ones he’d rather not hear. But he gets me, and it’s lovely to talk to someone, who’s almost always with you on the same wave length.

The weekend he was away, the deathly still silence woke me up at least three times in the middle of the night. It was so damn quiet, not a touch of wind or rain, no AC or heater working and Whisker (the husband substitute) was as quiet as a mouse. The 2^nd time I woke up at 3:30 am I felt for Whisker for a comforting hug in the dark, and found she wasn’t in bed. Immediately I jumped up and turned on the table lamp, yelling her name…there she was. Sitting like the sphinx, Whisker sat across my row of shoes, nose dedicatedly embedded into my bronze heels. This dog has a shoe fetish, and even at 3:30 am she shamelessly got out of bed in the pitch black night to go dabble in some shoe-tasting.

I stuffed my face back into my pillow, annoyed at being awake at such a scary time of night, missing his gentle snoring that I had cursed/recorded and threatened him with, so often before.

It really sucked, but I suppressed my separation-anxiety and tried to have some dignity, rather than call Nayef every 25 minutes to ask stupid questions like “Having fun?” referring to his excruciating time in Riyadh. Instead, I kept myself busy by reading and watching Oprah’s 20^th Anniversary DVD which miraculously showed up in the mail, the day he was leaving. Watching all the emotional and sad episodes on Oprah without a boy around can actually be fun, you can cry, sob and wipe your tearful eyes dramatically, without someone peering into your puffy face and asking you, “Are you serious??!! You’re crying?” It’s very cathartic and tension releasing, without the mockery, of course.

Another thing that releases tension and passes the time is singing! But I can’t sing Karaoke when Nayef is around because he makes faces and never joins in. That’s why, although I love doing that, I will only sing when I am absolutely alone. I don’t even do it when Emily is around for fear that she might want to participate, she apparently won BD 5 in a magic sing-a-long competition and enjoys karaoke. My secret stash of microphones and 25 Karaoke DVDs that I’ve gathered over the past five years would only come out after she went to her room in the evening. So that weekend, I sang and sang, with Whisker as my only audience, (I made her solemnly swear that she would never speak of it). By the time I had gone through 27 songs, I had a soar throat and felt a little light headed, so I had to stop.

By the end of the two days I had kept up my self-restraint so well, that when Nayef came back, he almost thought I didn’t miss him. I just smiled and said, “Oh, you know, I was busy with my mom, and went out with friends I hadn’t seen in ages.” I’m such a liar, I didn’t even feel like going out. But he didn’t know that I was a loser who stayed at home, lit candles and bonded with Whisker, Oprah and my vocal cords. Next time I’ll have to do something more exciting…but in the mean time, I’m going to enjoy the syndrome.

The Aftermath

2007-04-15T23:09:00.000+03:00

The loveliest thing in the world is to sit on your sofa, after a terrible, long, stressful week, wearing your favorite soft cotton pajamas with the sweetest dog in the world stretched out on your lap resting her cute little fluffy, whiskery chin on your knee. (that is assuming the sight of a dog, doesn’t send you screaming and leaping onto the nearest coffee table.)

Such is my heaven, but as no heaven is perfect, I have to disclose that Whisker just leapt off of my lap, and went to curl up doughnut-style next to Nayef. I’m so jealous but I have to hide it and pretend to actually be mature. So I’m just sitting here calmly typing away, as if it’s not eating at me as I will her with my eyes to “come back to Momma’s lap now...”

To commemorate the end of my nightmarish week of working like a slave monkey on speed, we decided to celebrate with a mock slumber party. I decided that we would sleep in the TV room, like when we were kids, each on his/her respective sofa eating different flavors of Doritos and watching marathons of favorite movies all night long. But while we both jumped with glee at the genius idea, we apparently had very different ideas of “favorite movies”.

“Let’s watch something, funny and romantic and cute.” I suggested naively, thinking of When Harry met Sally.

“Oh, I wanted to watch something with a little bit more killing, beating up and fighting.” He said hopping around, illustrating his fantasy fight scene, “Godfather?”

Oh good God, how many times am I going to subject myself to a movie that I loved the first time, but had to watch 6 or 7 times, as my husband secretly wished he was in the Mafia and then laughed at me when I cried at the sad scenes. Zero sensitivity. Zero.

Too tired to argue, or get up off the sofa to find a better choice, we are now watching something called “Payback” starring the devilishly handsome yet increasingly violent Mel Gibson. I am trying really hard not to throw up, during the gruesome scenes and finding it hard not to eat my hand, while someone pulls someone’s piercing out of his nose…

Damn it, I’m going to wait this movie through with the help of God, and then we’re watching something light and airy like CareBears: The movie, or else this whole slumber party is going to get cancelled and I’m sending everyone (nayef) home!

Meanwhile, I’m going to enjoy the lime flavored Doritos, which are oddly refreshing like a tiny glass of lemonade compressed into each corn chip, especially when sipping club soda in between crunches.

I love Formula One…the day after it ends.

Egg-splosion

2007-03-20T21:53:00.000+03:00

I had an egg explode in my face last weekend. It redefined the whole concept of an exciting breakfast. And after we (Whisker, parts of the furniture and Nayef’s foot) were covered in specks of egg, I was offered another egg in its place.

“No, Thank you, I’ve had enough egg today…” I said as I picked out fragments of shell out of my hair.

I guess this entry is going to include the word “egg” a lot.

Nayef wanted a soft boiled egg and I wanted a hard boiled egg, after several failed attempts at getting this challenging culinary accomplishment, Emily served us with two gooey and soft uncooked eggs.

When notified of this oversight, she went back to the kitchen with the suspect and tried to fix it with her secret cooking methods and we were none the wiser.

It must’ve been that I wasn’t fully awake yet, because I didn’t realize that my egg looked scary. It was a normal egg, but there was a big bubble of its insides coming out of the top. I thought that boiling an already partly peeled egg, had that effect on it.

“Ooh, look! Frankenstein egg.” I said as I giggled to myself.

The next thing that happened after I touched it was a very loud BANG!!!!!! Egg fragments everywhere!

Nayef jumped off the sofa, and I shrieked from the noise and the hot burn on my finger and Emily rushed into the room to find out what had exploded. Whisker not the least bit shell-shocked began to eat the bits that covered her face.

“Ay! What haaa-pen?” she asked the obvious question.

“Emily, the breakfast exploded…” I answered showing her the perimeter of the blast.

Her look of shock and regret, assured me that the lesson had been learned.

Never. Ever. Microwave an EGG…even if it seems like a good idea at the time.

Of course, I spent the rest of my day holding my victim finger at Nayef and making a sad face, when Emily wasn’t looking. I’m such a baby when it comes to pain. You have to hear about it like 10,000 times, and I still don’t really know what reaction in particular I’m looking for. Is it a dramatic embrace coupled with wailing at my great misfortune? Is it a loving pat on the head and a hope for a speedy recovery from my tragic WOUND? I don’t know, but I waved my finger at Nayef, my mom, my dad, my sister (who didn’t give me the time of day) and others I saw along the way, all weekend.

I quickly got over it and went back to eating my usual breakfast, but since then I feel a little bit safer with the egg scrambled, fried, or omletted. Remember the lesson and when in doubt, stick to conventional cooking methods.

Apology

2007-02-19T11:20:00.000+03:00

I would like to apologize for being a terrible blogger, and not updating my site in the past 20 days...I promise I will write soon...promise... :)

My first ever art show...

2007-01-30T23:54:00.000+03:00

I finally took photographs of some of my art. I haven't had a show yet, but people who come into my home always encourage me to do more. I don't think I'm ready, but I'd love to hear your feedback. What's your favorite?

Invasion after midnight

2007-01-30T03:55:00.000+03:00

When you march off to bed, so tired, flipping off light switches and locking doors, the last thing you want to see, when you walk into your room, is a cockroach doing a runway walk on your blanket.

“Naaaaaaaaaaaaayeeeeeeeeeffffffffff!!!!” I screamed, tonsils ringing like alarm bells. “Z’haaaaaaaaayweeeeeeeeeeeee !!! ” (cockroach in arabic)

I could hear him cursing from the hallway as he walked towards our bedroom, not enthusiastic about my find, nor my manner in expressing my horror.

“Okay. Okay, calm down.” He muttered as he walked to the kitchen to get paper towels. I remained plastered to the wall, like a petrified shadow, staring hatefully at the intruder. The bastard cockroach had frozen on the edge of the bed, pretending not to be there.

“Where did he come from, Nayef? Where? We are not cockroach people!” I was hysterical, walking backwards as Nayef captured the evil creature.

I mean, we clean our house, we’ve had pest control, and we’re basically good people. Why is it on my bed??? Why? I suddenly feel dirty and ashamed…and a little bit homeless.

I looked accusingly at the open bathroom door, and shut it firmly, after checking under the sink for a cockroach party. No relatives in sight.

Whisker rudely awakened from my screaming, and Nayef storming out of the house with a big crumpled ball of newspaper, looked at me for an explanation. I tried to enlighten her, but she wasn’t so interested. As long as the screaming wasn’t about her, she didn’t care and comfortably nestled her head into her butt, making like a doughnut in her insect-free bed.

“Where did you put it?” I greeted Nayef at the door.
“In the garbage.”
“With its friends?? To make more babies???” I shrieked.
“No, no, no. I crushed it. It’s dead. No babies.” He patted my head.
“Goood!”

Following the killing festival, our sleepiness evaporated, and we resentfully walked back to the TV room to watch more 24.

Of course, as one does in times of horror, I Googled my latest nightmare. I had to know more about this invasive species, and below is my disturbing find:

“Cockroaches live up to a year. The female may produce up to eight egg cases in a lifetime; in favorable conditions, it can produce 300-400 offspring. Other species of cockroach, however, can produce an extremely high number of eggs in a lifetime. Laying up to 100 eggs in each egg sac, it only needs to be impregnated once to be able to lay eggs for the rest of its life, allowing one single cockroach to lay over a million eggs during its lifespan.”—Source: Wikipedia.

No wonder, the fu*&ers are always wondering around alone. They’re already pregnant! No biological clock ticking, no need to date and no worries about missing out on motherhood. Just a one-night stand on a crazy lonely night of passion, and the bitch is set up for life. Children here, children there, spreading disgusting nuclear war-proof eggs everywhere.

It was 1:30am when we stumbled upon ‘sleeping beauty’ on our bed. I couldn’t help but think that if it wasn’t a holiday, at that time, it would be dark in our room, and we’d be sleeping, stupidly unaware of the monster invasion.

So what do we do now? We are both exhausted, refugeed on the sofa, watching hour 4am on 24, bed-less and pyjama-less.

Oooh…I can’t go back to bed consciously. Damn it, I need a tranquilizer.

"It's Bahrain's finest...It's Bahrain's fair..."

2007-01-21T23:42:00.000+03:00

The Autumn fair, is neither held in Autumn nor can it in any way be described as fair, in terms of beauty.

Nonetheless, my best friend and I go every time it is in town. In the fear that we might miss something, we subject ourselves to cruel and unusual traffic, mentally challenged drivers and the worst parking scenarios you can ever imagine. Off we went last Saturday morning, on the very last day of this large gathering of sellers from all over the world and shoppers from all over Bahrain.

After getting stuck for 45 long minutes behind a large 16 wheeler that had stupidly lost its way into the swarming area, we gave the police men some tips and pointers on traffic control, parked the car in a dangerously questionable spot, and walked in.

It was so crowded and very pushy and shovey. I was tempted to poke the cattle of people in front of me with a knitting needle, to hurry them the hell up. Kids running around with sticky lollipops where bumping into peoples posteriors and then politely pulling the clammy candy of the offended butts. Old ladies inspected every single thing they passed frequently stopping without warning, in danger of being crushed by those behind them. What fun!

“I guess this is what Hajj must be like” I say to my friend, as we clung to each other.
“Yeah, but without the credit…” She whispers back.
“Ok now where the hell is the Egyptian Cotton?” I wonder looking around, “They say its amazing and gets softer and softer with every wash.”

We set off on an expedition within the huge exhibition center to find the legendary bed sheets. It is so surprising how most booths, will not help you find another seller, even when their products have nothing to do with what you’re looking for. They’re not even bloody competition.

I asked the shoe guy, the man who sold miracle honey, and a bored woman who sat at an empty stall, trying to sell funny looking underwear with bad spelling. None of them would 'fess up.

“No, don’t know! Don’t know!” The spice seller shook his head so profusely, I suspected he was lying.

“He knows and he’s not telling.” I say annoyed.

“Let’s buy some cinnamon and see if he confesses.” She suggests.

At this point, we have a bag of spices we will never need, especially since I am no culinary artist, and no information to get us closer to the bed sheets than when we walked in.

We set off to the opposite side of the bustling indoor marketplace and since I’m “the older one”, I continued to look for Egyptian looking people to ask. I figured that perhaps countrymen would help one another.

About two minutes before we were ready to give up, we both found the answer simultaneously as we each asked our last suspect.

“I found it.” I happily announced.
“Me too.” She said excited.

We were satisfied with getting the left over sheets after everyone in Bahrain got what they wanted, and moved back to shop for fun things.

At the counter of Arabic perfumes, Oud and other concoctions of Jasmine and bukhour, we were attended to by a man who knew little about “nice flowery smells”. As we struggled to explain to him that we didn’t want to smell like an ‘old aunty’, I was attacked by a manic salesman who sprayed my arm with ‘Eau de Grandma’, informing me it was his fast-selling special blend, and that was the last bottle.

“Hey!” I yelled, in my head, keeping my aggressive side hidden.

I can’t believe he sprayed me. I hate when people do that. I am so picky with smells, it can ruin my day if I’m wearing the wrong perfume. Once in high school, some guy thought it would be funny to spray me with Minotaur (a stinky men’s perfume), and to this day if I smell it, I feel nauseous.

I quickly paid for the bottled scented water for linens which I settled for, and backed away from the counter, to avoid further attacks.

As we walked out of the Autumn fair, carrying bags of spices, bed sheets and perfumed water, I felt that perhaps ‘Eau de Grandma’ wasn’t that far off from my new found persona. I can picture our retirement years…

Oh and by the way, the bed sheets are to die for. Doing it again next year...

Decorating houses with spouses

2007-01-11T23:29:00.000+03:00

The title sounds all nice and rhymey, but don’t let that fool you. It’s a potential battle field. When you embark on playing house with your significant other, you have to be extremely careful not to scream out phrases similar to those listed below:

“Are you f*&%ing kidding me??? That ugly-ass couch??? Over my dead body!”

or…

“What do you mean you think peach and blue look lovely together????!!! OhmyGod.. ohmyGod, I think I’m going to die”

Especially heed my warning, when you are in a public place and you two were holding hands a mere few seconds ago. Your hysterical yelling and the shocked look on his face may draw unwanted attention from innocent shoppers.

In the beginning, there was IKEA. (Chorus of angels singing) That was our first shopping trip together. We had gone on a fun road trip to Kuwait, driving a huge Ford pick up truck, ready to be filled with goodies. Our real conflicts didn’t surface because almost everything Ikea makes is so bloody amazing, so we were under the false impression that we both loved the same things. In the midst of Swedish genius, we were such a compromising, loving couple with wonderful taste, who chose everything together.

A few hours later, we had bought about a million things, including a mini rocking chair that sat next to me the whole 5 hour ride back. To leave Kuwait on time, before sundown, I had to be dragged out of the store pulled by my long beaded necklace like a runaway goat, as I pleaded and begged that I just needed 5 more minutes. We all knew I was lying.

I out-shopped everyone, and by the time I was securely fastened into my seat, everyone was cranky and tired, except me. I was high on Ikea. My sister and I were in the back seat of the car with the last minute item wedged between us, and the closer we got to Bahrain, the closer the rocking chair got to my kidney. “You bought it! Now live with it.” I was told.

After that pleasant shopping trip, we’ve since experienced some awkward moments in furniture stores, usually, in the presence of a salesman, who wanted the earth to swallow him.

“That is disgusting. It is offensive and it looks like Louis the XVI threw up on it!”

“Why are you so angry with it?”

“Why are you offended, you didn’t design it, did you?”

“It’s not that ugly…”

(Gasp. Hand on heart in feigned shock.)

“Fine Farah, it’s repulsive, let’s move on.”

Several mini tantrums later, through divine intervention, we are unified again upon discovering a low Japanese bed that we both absolutely cannot live without. In order to keep the peace, we buy it immediately. Love conquers all once again, and we frolic back home in merriment, with our new find.

Several months later…

About two hours and several minutes before the New Year, I found my husband in a room turned upside down with furniture moved around and papers, books and all kinds of things in piles and heaps. At first I thought, he was recreating the Tsunami aftermath. Heaving and panting, lifting a huge TV set and then pushing a big sofa, he explained that he just wanted to check something. As a lazy (or as I like to say energy-efficient) person, I don’t understand moving heavy furniture around, just to explore other possibilities. Imagination is effortless and nothing breaks.

“Umm..honey? Before you go all insane, and start moving things around contrary to logic, why don’t you ask my opinion?” I plead, already feeling helpless.

“Why? Why do I have to check with you? This is my room!” He barked.

Here we go again with the “my room” madness. When I hastily agreed to this ridiculous assignment of rooms, I thought he meant “his” as in space to exist in, not to DECORATE! I can’t have an ugly room in a pretty house. My Virgo-ness won’t allow it. Everything has to be perfect or I will die. (I’m very theatrical in my head) On the outside, I smiled and nodded and urged him to get dressed, because we were invited to more than one party and were intending to do the New Year party hopping thing. We ended up leaving the house at 11pm and barely making it to Manama before 2007.

Another wonderful experience you will encounter when you get married or co-decorate is the thrill of explaining to your loved one that closet space is not a measurement of his masculine power in the house. While we enjoyed ruler-measured equality in our bedroom closet, I only survived a few weeks on that meager space and finally gave in and bought my self my own spacious closet to put the rest of my stuff in.

He never lets me forget, that I overcrowded his clothes by hanging my allegedly “huge” wedding dress in his half of the closet, although it was only for 3 weeks and we were on our honeymoon at the time. Since then it has been evicted to my parent’s house, but that’s because I don’t wear it everyday. I’ve refused to let the others go.

“I can’t throw them away…I’ve known them since 1997.” I say hugging my shoes.

“But you have thirty two and this ones ugly.” He says poking my treasured mustard boots.

“What? I love him.” I say cradling the lone boot. “I carried these with me all the way from London.”

Don’t worry; some events have been slightly dramatized for the enjoyment of the audience. What really happens is you eventually get over all those little hiccups of sharing space and compromising your domestic fantasies, and you finally find a happy place.

The happy place involves the man busy drilling holes and hammering nails, with a collection of tools sufficient to build a boat, while the woman chooses which paintings to hang up and organizes his artillery of tools, neatly labeling each box. This is where we both found ourselves in our element, happy as clams.

And after all the matrimonial DIYing, the shelves were put up, books beautifully stacked, candles were lit, and calmness and peace prevailed.

When Nayef invited me onto the sofa to watch our latest addiction 24, my mind went back to the day we bought it. After months of searching, it was love at first sight. It was during a big sale, and somehow no one had seen it yet. Seized with excitement, Nayef sat me down on the sofa, ordered me to shoo people away and not move until he came back with someone from the store. Today, as I settled down beside him amongst the pillows and fluffy blanket I am immersed in the feeling that we are truly home. Our home.

Digital Art

2007-01-09T01:10:00.000+03:00

After going all the way to Saudi Arabia, to buy a year's supply of canvases for my painting sessions, I discovered that I could do things much faster on my computer, and it looked prettier. If it didn't, I would simply click close and then not save. No brushes to clean and no palette to scrape. The following are my creations of the past week. Addictive.

Playing Monopoly with Boys

2007-01-08T23:50:00.000+03:00

The first time I played Monopoly with my husband, we had been engaged a few months and were still getting to know each other. We were three players, me, my sister, and the new fiancé.

By the end of the game, my sister had declared bankruptcy and thrown her money at him, and I had a nasty scowl on my face and was rethinking my decision to marry this mean man. A side of him, I had never seen before had emerged and robbed us of all our money, while building massive hotels before we had even passed Go, he charged us hundreds of dollars every time the miserable fate of the dice led us to his properties.

And as we begrudgingly handed over our hard earned cash, he did an obnoxious dance of glee accompanied by an annoyingly non-rhyming song of utter arrogance.

Already, we felt like crap for being broke and mortgaging our pathetically scattered properties, eyeing the collection of one missing land in his possession that could allow us to build houses and hotels.

“You’re on my land. Pay up!” I snapped.
“How much?” He grinned, flipping through his offensively thick wad of notes.
“Six dollars…” I mutter between clenched teeth.
“What? How much?”
“Six. Dollars.” I enunciate irritated at the mockery I was being made into.
“Keep the change…” He throws me a ten before rolling on the floor laughing hysterically.

Four minutes later, I’m borrowing money from Basma to pay him 2000 dollars, because I landed on the damn Board Walk and he has a big fat red hotel on it.

“Damn you and your developments. A little humility wouldn’t kill you!”
“Oh come on. It’s just a game.” He says teasingly as he does a little victory wiggle.
“Like hell it is. This is war.”

This humiliation and indignity continued until 3am. When I finally handed over all my valuables to him and sat penniless by the purple squares, which got me the grand earnings of 18 dollars, he declared himself the “winner” and called it a night.

The next morning at breakfast, my sister came to the table looking all ruffled and hung-over from the game.

“You know, I don’t really like him that much anymore. He used to be really nice until yesterday.”
“I know! Nothing ever pissed me off so much as losing to a big tap-dancing man.”

Three Years Later…

A few days ago, during the long holidays, a friendly game of Monopoly was played, to pass the time. As the three unsuspecting girls sat to play with four suspicious looking boys, they didn’t imagine that the game was going to end 6 hours from now and that at the 4^th hour, war would temporarily break out, hostages would be taken and all the girls would withdraw.

Apparently when boys “play” games, they really live in the game, even if it’s a stupid board game with tiny boots and hats representing their manly selves. The passionate way money was counted and the alliances, signed contracts and under the table trickery was all foreign to us girls. We like to simply roll the dice, say please and thank you and are constantly apologizing, when someone pays us lots of money for landing on our plots. While the mafia of men are seizing property and pushing others to mortgage, we’re coming up with frilly financing plans to allow the poor victim of fate, some pocket money to buy shoes and still rent the room at New York Avenue.

Testosterone on the other hand, works quite differently. Every man carries the mandate, I win, therefore I am. And so they played, ruthlessly and without mercy. My own husband, only wanted me to “join” his team when my alliance to another became a threat. I didn’t buy it and refused to succumb to their manipulation. (He wanted my train stations, my main source of income) I said no and retreated to my sofa, penniless. Again.

At 5:45 am, as the little houses and hotels, cards and dice were put away safely into the box, I silently swore that I will never play anymore co-ed games.

The funny thing was that while the boys yelled and argued about made up rules and unfair alliances, we cowered in the background hoping that a fight wouldn’t break out and make everything all awkward. But when all was done and the winner emerged, the boys slapped each other on the backs laughing and joking and later described the evening (early dawn) as having been such fun and would love to do it again soon. What? Really? What about all the hostile yelling and screaming? We thought heads were about to get ripped off. Apparently not. What we witnessed was boys being boys. Scary.

Needless to say the girls were traumatized and decided that next time, we would play Trivial Pursuit, which was more difficult for the boys, because they didn’t know half the answers. Playing Monopoly with girls is probably not as exciting but it will be a while before I forget the irritation of male competition and play with boys. I wonder when my next memory lapse will be.

Nesting Alert!

2007-01-01T17:44:00.000+03:00

It all started with the innocent task of cleaning my wallet. This two-minute activity which involved tossing old receipts and reorganizing cash in order of denominations had led me to the kitchen where we keep a growing pile of change, because neither of us have a pocket for coins in our wallets.

The next thing I knew I was categorizing medication alphabetically and checking expiry dates on random food in the closets. When my husband walked in, he found me sitting on the kitchen counter intensely focused on cleaning the screw cap part of the ketchup bottles and arranging the bottles by height, like a school line up. He sort of always “finds” me in these weird moods. Staring at the stacks of coins, categorized by country, he thought to himself: “What happened to her?”

Domestic demands happened! That’s what. You have to clean after yourself and then after the man. The Man, (a very strange species) does not appreciate the alarm and hysterics caused by finding articles of clothing vertically dropped in the middle of the room, accordion-style. Like a lone roundabout, waiting for a network of roads to happen, perhaps some jeans to lead you to the T-shirt and then a scarf highway to the bed. Now that’s fine if we’re monkeys. But we just bought a beige canvas hamper yesterday! Together! And we both admired its ingenious talent at concealing piles of laundry. What has changed? Are you not speaking to the hamper today? Did you have a falling out?

According to Dr. Laura, I should just tell him kindly that I need his help keeping the house clean and that I’d appreciate he puts things in the right place and then give him a kiss and a hug, bake him brownies and make him some hot chocolate.

That’s just ridiculous. Dr. Farah says to pick up the fiendish item and yell as loud as possible. “I’m throwing it in the garbage!” and then burn it in the garden for all the neighbors to see. That should drive the point home after 65 pleasant requests accompanied with smiles and pats on the back.

(I think he knows I’m writing about him, because he just told me he was going to organize the nightmare table that I’ve been begging him to clean! And then he's going to fix that shelf for me that I wanted up for the past month. Praise the lord, it’s a miracle!)

And so after weighing the pros and cons, I decide not to shame him publicly in the compound, but to try and lovingly understand the shortcomings of men in the household and not hold this against him. So I drop it in the hamper myself and leave a yellow post-it note in its place on the floor.

It reads:

Dear tenant,

It has been noted lately that many things are being dropped here, that do not belong. Please be advised that this is NOT the hamper. To reach the hamper, kindly proceed straight and take the first left turn. Opening hours: All bloody day long.

Further articles of clothing dropped here, will be mercilessly burned at the stake as the witches were in Salem.

Yours truly,

The Carpet.

He never acknowledged the note. But I did notice that things were not thrown willy nilly around the room anymore like a bar fight had broken out. I also noticed that since we hired Emily, our domestic chief of operations, I'm not as evil, as when I was doing everything myself.

And so the moral of the story is: Get a third party to clean your house, they won’t take it personally, because they’re getting paid for it, and it’ll keep your marriage pleasant.

Everyone’s happy.

I slept...

2006-12-23T17:03:00.000+03:00

Silence. Silence and lots and lots of beautiful quiet
need to sleep; overwhelming
Bed envelops me and holds me in it's womb
Just the invisible hum of the heat-breathing radiator
Warmth inside, Cold everywhere else

Soft darkness with a yellow glow around the garden
Peace, safety and the loving smell of freshly laundered linens
Falling in backwards, melting into feathers of softness
In a small house, surrounded by strong trees
As the moon was welcomed into a big blue sky of stars, I slept.

I'm only happy when it rains

2006-12-16T19:33:00.000+03:00

My husband just found me on the porch in a frantic race against the rain, swishing water out into the garden with the most useless of tools. It's not raining cats and dogs. It's raining cattle, and there are cows of rain on my porch; my safe spot. This is where I’m planning to sit on my wicker furniture, curled up drinking tea and reading a good book during the rainy holiday. This is not supposed to be the set for Water world. I was battling the puddles threatening my doorstep with such enthusiasm I raised my heart rate to cardio-training levels. Wearing cropped pants and beach slippers in the cold, I think I scared him when I turned around to explain what I was doing.

I stood there breathless with electrified frizzy hair, face pink with determination and soaking wet, holding my weapons of choice. The name eludes me now, but in one hand, I was holding that thing you use to swipe water of your shower glass door. To a passer-by I must've looked like a mad hockey player seized with dementia.

"What are you doing?" he asked.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" I answer waving my other tool, the spade-ish thingy that comes with a matching brush.
"Farah, you're going to get sick! What you're doing is pointless."
"Well, somebody has to save the house from "The Flood". Hand me that bucket will you?" I answer hysterically.
He walked back into the house shaking his head, wondering if when he wasn't looking someone switched me with a look-a-like maniac.

Three Hours Earlier

"I love it when it rains...Isn’t it amazing?" I sigh staring out the window of the car.
It felt so safe driving around, dry inside and wet and splashy outside. It's especially wonderful if you're the front-seat passenger and the executive DJ.

I had bullied my husband into plugging in my iPod, because my music was cooler. He listens to old Arabic songs that go on forever and sound to me like someone is wailing from a prison cell. I can't take it more than 3 seconds. When we were engaged I used to drown out the sound by humming in my head, trying not to be one of those people who have to have things their way. Now that he’s legally bound to me, I decided to tell him the truth.

"Nayef, I can't. It's killing me!" I mutter through clenched teeth.
"What's wrong with your face? Why is it scrunched up like that?"
"It's the music. It hurts my ears. I will die if you don't change it.” I begged, looking like a constipated Pug.

So with good music as our soundtrack, we marveled at the rain’s strength and felt the thrill of driving through big puddles spraying the sides of the streets. However, the peace I found in the rain earlier today was immediately erased when I saw my own porch flooding with pools of water gathering at the threshold, soaking up the make-shift Welcome mat. My domestic safety was vulnerable and I immediately started drawing up architectural solutions to this leakage into my covered porch, while rushing to grab for the nearest squeegee. (I just remembered the name)

Looking out of my window now, I see that the puddle has been revitalized and is collecting smugly in the corner of the porch. I realized that my insane thrashing at it earlier was futile, but either way it was satisfying.

Enjoy the long rainy weekend and “Be one with the puddles…”

GDN Letters that annoy me...

2006-12-08T14:14:00.000+03:00

In reference to the letter linked below:

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/story.asp?Article=163674&Sn=LETT&IssueID=29261

Dear Dark Magician, (whatever the hell that means)

First of all, I got a headache from reading your jumbled letter. Nothing flows smoothly and you don’t have a single healthy sentence in the entire text. You seem to be a bit confused, trying to back your unquestioned beliefs with facts and logic that just don’t mesh with each other. In some instances, I wasn’t sure whether you were for or against something, but I figured out a little bit of your mishmash to understand that you have taken the liberty to “correct” someone by dictating that the hijab is compulsory and in fact not a personal choice.

In all logic and reason, the only people who should have the right to discuss hijab, and its wonderful protective benefits, are women. They are the ones who wear them, and they should be the ones to evaluate their effectiveness against temptation, evil and nuclear war.

I don’t see any passionate campaigns by men, telling women about the wonderful benefits of wearing bras. “Bras…because you don’t want to look like a cow” or “women and bras, unite against gravity!”

So why is it every man’s business to tell us their opinion on how liberating wearing a hijab is. I personally don’t find it liberating nor useful and never will. Others find comfort in it, the same way I am comfortable wearing jeans as opposed to hotpants. It’s my personal choice and right not to reveal my body to whomever I don’t want to reveal it to and I can say the same for every other woman. If you are not comfortable with your hair showing, cover it, and get on with your life.

But to accept that men are telling us, in the name of religion, that it is compulsory to cover your hair, THAT I don’t accept. And just to prove that it isn’t something specifically called for in the Quran, you now see this hijab propaganda gradually evolving and being redefined to include covering the face. I can only anticipate that the next step to “protecting” women will be to ban them from speaking, because their voices will be the only feminine element left to delete. The popular “Islamic” compromise which is unfortunately starting to exist in Bahrain now, is that a woman exists and has alleged “equality”, on the condition that she be covered from head to toe, with no face. This only serves one dangerous and highly poisonous purpose, which is to erase her from existence. She can offer no human feature to appeal to others and essentially becomes a faceless nameless object, easy to ignore or abuse, because she’s not familiar anymore.

You can no longer view her as a mother, a sister or a friend. She becomes your temptation that must be covered, synonymous with sin. She is now that, which will get you into hell if you touch her, think of her or look at her. Something to quickly avert your eyes from and not acknowledge, lest you have sinful thoughts and become tempted to rape, pillage and commit adultery.

I fear that we have gotten to the point where we have to modify God’s creation in order to avoid committing crimes. We no longer take responsibility for our civility, mutual respect, or self-control. If you are on a diet, every baker must close his windows and curb the smell of freshly baked bread, so that YOU don’t feel tempted to grab and devour a loaf of olive bread and get fat. We don’t care! Get fat, or don’t get fat, but pay for the damn bread or go sit in your room under your blanket.

Hair is hair. It is not inherently sexy. How attractive is it lying on the bathroom floor? Does it make you go wild, when you see hair on your carpet? What is beautiful, is the woman, who the hair belongs to. Whether she covers it or not, you cannot reduce her femininity without erasing her presence. Her features will be in your daughter’s faces, her tenderness will shine through in the way she holds your children when they cry and she will always be attractive, no matter what you cover.

Du-bai or not Dubai

2006-11-28T22:59:00.000+03:00

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

2006-11-19T01:23:00.000+03:00

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

2006-11-19T00:50:00.000+03:00

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

2006-11-17T03:58:00.000+03:00

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

2006-11-09T00:46:00.000+03:00

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

2006-11-05T00:23:00.000+03:00

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...

The exciting adventures of Insomnia Girl

2006-10-28T23:22:00.000+03:00

Now I know why I have insomnia, I think too much. My brain just won’t shut up. Yap yap yap yap yap! It’s like I have a little kid with a sugar overdose stuck in my medulla oblongata.

“But why mommy, why, why, why? Why can’t I go out and play, huh? huh??? Pleeeeeeese?”

“I’m not your MOMMY!, now sit there quietly and be a good brain!

As I lay in bed in the dark, pretending to be in deep slumber, there, in my head, was the equivalent of a political debate. Lots of senseless thinking, worrying and fretting. What will I do tomorrow? Why haven’t I won the lottery yet? How will I wake up so early in the morning? Will I look like a banshee, without enough sleep? When am I gonna get my ass to a gym? Did I turn of the light in the guest bathroom? I think I left the front door unlocked…THIEVES, ROBBERS, MURDERERS! Aaaand I’m up.

As I sit in front of the TV wide awake at 2am after checking the obviously locked door and the turned off stove. My husband, I envy him not, is asleep the minute his head hits the pillow. This drives me crazy further. Why not me?? Where is my sleep fairy? Is she on leave? It’s so distracting having someone so happily asleep next to you when you sit there with a furrowed brow, waiting for salvation.

The irony of it all is that tomorrow morning, around the time I’m supposed to be in the shower or getting dressed for work, my bed is going to be the sexiest thing around. I would trade my mother for an extra hour in bed. Sorry mama. And to top it all off, the monsieur is still sleeping. If you believed in the evil eye, you would see the crimson rays of envy shooting out of my eyes as I groggily stumble to the bathroom.

Scientists say you only need around 8 hours. That’s hogwash. If left unattended, I could easily do 16 in one go. Anyway, it’s getting late and I have to go sit resentfully in bed, until boredom knocks me out. I have about 5 hours. That’s the equivalent of being offered a crummy biscuit, when you’ve been fasting all day and were looking forward to a feast. Good night.

Not so good, I’m back. Yes that didn’t work out very well. I was just about to fall asleep when I heard a click from the AC right above my head, like something just got ejected out of the vent. (I have the hearing of a German Shepherd at night.) All senses alert, I feel a hard, tiny body land on my arm, I have a sneaking suspicion I know what it is so I quickly turn on the lights to confirm.

“Son of a BITCH! MOTHER #%@&%! AAAAAAAAAAAH!”

After lots of loud trucker-style swearing, followed by violent whacking of pillows (dangerously close to my husband’s face) with a tissue box, using unnecessary excessive force, I pick up the deceased BIG ASS ANT and disposed of it in the trash, very far away from my bed.

Pumped full of adrenaline from my fight or flight instincts, I sat upright in bed unable to chill out, staring at my dear spouse, who slept soundly through all the chaos, without so much as a blink. It’s a good thing I fight my own battles, because prince charming didn’t budge.

So here I am. I can’t go back to bed, it’s too dangerous. So I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. That should be fun. I have a TV and the laptop and all those books. It can be like camping but without the damned nature. I settle into my temporary refugee camp, winding down again and ready to sleep and then I make the grave mistake that all insomniacs make. I look at the time. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! It’s 3:30 am…I have 3 hours left, I realize sobbing. And so it starts all over again.

hours later...

Nice sunset...

Top 10 Signs that you're NOT a Domestic Goddess

2006-10-26T12:19:00.000+03:00

TEN: You found your earrings that you've been missing for a year in your underwear drawer, however it was filled with T-shirts at the time.

NINE: It took you 20 minutes this morning to find the cereal, although it's a big blue box with a huge orange tiger on it. Somehow it was next to the washing detergent, and you wonder why your laundry is sometimes crispy with a crunch.

EIGHT: Vaccuming is a rare activity that you are only driven to do once a month, after you've tripped on a huge dust bunny and fell flat on your face to actually taste the dust.

SEVEN: The term 'Make the Bed', always leaves you wondering..."Make it into what??"

SIX: Your excessive shoe collection is half in the closet and the rest are lined across your bedroom wall like an army ready to march into battle and your mother calls you Imelda Marcos.

FIVE: Once a paper is removed from your usual line of sight, (ie coffee table, stuck to fridge) you've lost it forever, and will only find it 15 years from now, when the subject of the paper has either died, sued you, or is no longer valid.

FOUR: Sometimes when you look at your closet you feel like crying, but instead you go out shopping to soothe your misery. Then you stuff the new clothes into the overcrowded closet to add new woes to your next closet check up. Vicious cycle.

THREE: You've lost a child/pet/spouse at least once and later found them under a pile of clothes/shoes/towels. They looked very resentful.

TWO: You've only bought a set of six plates, so that you have an excuse for not hosting dinners/parties/emergency meetings for more than four people at a time.

And the number ONE reason, that proves that you're definately not a domestic Goddess???

You buy lots of home magazines and recipe books, and day dream of the pictures of immaculate, organized homes and neat, beautifully folded clothes in closets, and the quick ten minute dishes, only to find that you have no adequate storage space to put them away and end up tripping on them for months.

Happy Eid!

2006-10-23T02:25:00.001+03:00

Happy Eid! It's finally over. Finally. I'm so excited that I will have steaming hot coffee tomorrow curled up on my sofa, absorbing the morning or rather noon. This is as opposed to the usual grumpy faced zombie-march I transport myself to work with. During the holy month of Ramadan I would usually wake up VERY resentful that my husband is still sleeping. After failing to annoy him out of bed, I’d go to brush my teeth, pull my hair into a semi-respectable pony tail while muttering unholy nothings under my breath.

As I drag my feet out the door, there is an evil vs. good battle raging in my head. "Go to sleep!" "Go to work!" "Go to sleep!" "Go to work!" and so it goes, all the way to the parking lot at the office. And everyday as I walk in fasting my sins away, my colleagues would look at me and giggle, because I look comically angry at the morning for ever existing. Why? Why must one wake up? It's so painful without caffeine. I hate people who look amazing so early in the day. How? Did you start last night? I look so pretty at night, everything snaps back into place at around 11pm. In the morning, my features are rearranged and slightly out of shape. My nose looks koala-ish and my eyes are unamused, my mouth goes all funny parrot beak shaped. I don't get it but I think it's genetic, because my brother has the same "booz" upon rising.

And then the challenge begins. Making important phone calls where you have to explain a lot of technical details and give historical backgrounds is very difficult when you’re running on empty, and not really embracing your fast.

“Hello?”

“blableee boo boo mumu plee plee…”

“Hello?!”

“Sorry, Good Morning, can I please…bleh fur miskru me mo?”

Dial tone…

Okay, forget verbal communication, let’s go to email. It might take an hour to type something coherent, but at least I can click send when I’m good and ready.

Yes my friends, when you fast you feel humbled. You taste the hunger of the poor and the challenges of the deprived and ultimately the stupidity of the unintelligent.

So now that Eid is upon us, I’m going back to step class, spinning and the occasional jog around the compound. The only exercise I did for the past month was leaning forward to get the remote, and then the hourly clicking from one tragedy “musalsal” to the other. That motivated me less to move, and more to cry in mourning for the non-existence of creativity in khaleeji TV productions. (This will be addressed in another post, soon, while it’s still FRESH in my mind)

But before I “happy” myself to death, I have to plan what I’m wearing tomorrow and how I’m going to survive/avoid the 247 family visits that I’m told I have to make in one morning.

Oh, didn’t I tell them? I don’t do Eid in the mornings. Eid is a noon thing. I wake up and go to lunch at my grandfather’s house, the meeting point. And then I get tired. By 5pm I want to toss my shoes off, put my hair up in a bun, and wear my tracksuit. I start falling apart like the pumpkin carriage on Cinderella’s way back home.

Wish me luck. I’ll either be home at 5pm, or sitting miserably somewhere politely smiling on the outside and nodding at people, who keep asking me who my mother is and when I’m gonna get pregnant.

Being the Big Sister.

2006-10-23T02:23:00.000+03:00

The wisdom of my years is a result of two and a half decades of practicing my balance of power. Born into this predicament, I tried to learn from famous people in history how to control those under my rule. While learning the famous philosophy of Machiavelli; “It is better to be feared than loved”, I wasn’t thinking of anything other than how to put that into effect in my domain; the home.

Before my recent discovery, I had grown up as the eldest sibling, cousin, and grandchild on both sides. From the minute I was a mere belly, I felt very important. Never having been good at taking orders, I rescheduled my due date to fit my personal comfort and took my sweet time (2 weeks), coming out. I would imagine that after being wrapped and taken from my mother’s arms to the nursery, I had waved regally, like the Queen Mother at bystanders in the hallway of the maternity ward.

Years later when I had to greet the newcomers to my territory, I didn’t fathom that I would have to put up with so much ignorance. I was now responsible for guiding those “unwashed” masses to the light of knowledge. Teaching them how to adapt themselves into a high society was going to be a challenge.

“Would you please stop dribbling all over your stuffed giraffe,” I would kindly request with a smile. Patiently waiting for a reaction, I would get a wide eyed stare from my dear sibling, and assuming I had communicated well, would only turn around to find the unfortunate giraffe sopping in infantile saliva. But thankfully, with the progress of their language skills they came to understand better what I was saying. I didn’t want to be bossy, but I did know everything. And as absolute power corrupts, so did I.

“It’s good to be the King” was something I had pompously uttered under my breath on numerous occasions after having defeated a sibling-peasant, and proved that I was in fact “cleverer”, “bigger” and “righter”.

Of course just like history has shown us before, the “unjustly wronged” peasant, will revolt. After some time, the little rascals had formed a secret alliance based on mutiny and their infamous slogan “GET IT YOURSELF!!!” Still, my leadership persevered, sensing that they hadn’t gained enough power, because their newly found bravery had not yet enabled them to add derogatory adjectives to their protests; for example: “No, you lazy cow!”

However with the years, they realized that children born after 1980 had some sort of insidious growth hormone that made them taller and larger than those unfortunate ones born in the previous decades. With the growth spurt, came the downfall of my ill-fated Queendom. And although my administration still felt that we knew best and were in fact looking for the welfare of those ungrateful “peasants”, the menacing look was no longer an effective domestic policy.

Soon I had to look into ridiculous new tactics, like the “Ice-cream Campaign”. This failure of a plan, was based on the motivation that obedient ones were rewarded with a double scoop of Rainbow Sorbet on a cone, a dessert choice often avoided by mothers who favored non-sticky offspring. But that back fired, because when funds were low or Baskin Robbins was closed, there was always an outrageous yet creative uprising. And then due to the racket produced by the unsettled masses, I would get a menacing look from the governing forces also known as legal guardians.

I quickly found myself to be impatient and very much out of control. I had hypertension at the age of 9. Would nobody listen to my WISDOM?!!

These are the downsides to being a leader. Communicating to the ‘nitwits’ that I knew best was taxing and pointless. Trying to right their wrongs and avenge their victims always made me look like the bad guy. All I sought was justice and at the mature age of 9 ¾ I felt I was more than qualified to govern.

“Admit it!! You shaved your barbie’s HEAD????” I screamed one afternoon.

“No..” she said defiantly as if to dare me to prove it.

“Well, does she have alopecia?! Or maybe the master mind over there did it” I yelled pointing at my 2 year old brother, who turned to look at me, with a piece of cheese hanging from his mouth.

“For your information, just yesterday, I saw him giving free hair cuts to three lace pillows, a lamp shade, and the leopard rug.” Counsel was trying to present new and confusing evidence to get away with her crime.

“I know it was you. And one day I will prove it.” I walked away to put my barbies in a safe place. Until today, there has been no confession, she still claims that the culprit was indeed the cheese eating fool who was watching cartoons. He was Keyser Soze.

I love these guys.

Top 10 signs that you're lazy

2006-10-14T02:32:00.000+03:00

TEN: You look at senior citizens riding motorized chairs with envy as they cruise the supermarket aisles.

NINE: You convince yourself that you don’t really need to go to the bathroom, and that it’s all in your head.

EIGHT: You email your colleague rather than walk up to their desk to ask for that file you wanted.

SEVEN: The minute you arrive somewhere you look for a chair/bench/sofa to sit on.

SIX: You don’t understand people who enjoy moving furniture around, just to see what the dining table would look like over there.

FIVE: You were thrilled when you read that your supermarket was prepared to deliver your groceries right to your door.

FOUR: You get tired when you watch the Olympics or the World cup.

THREE: You think gardening is drawing a plan for your gardener of where to put the petunias.

TWO: Walking your dog consists of you throwing his favorite toy and yelling fetch.

And the number ONE sign which proves you’re truly lazy…

You come up with ingenious Inspector Gadget type inventions of how to get things while sitting, like extendable arms or mini robots but never have the energy to actually create/patent/ produce the above mentioned.

Lazy Baby

2006-10-14T02:31:00.000+03:00

On September 2nd of 1977, nine months and 10 days after my conception, my mother went to the hospital with my father, both grandfathers and my grandmother, who had all traveled to London to witness my birth, the first grandchild. When they arrived at the hospital, my mother politely asked the doctor why the hell I wasn’t out yet and that this was getting a little tedious.

This was the third time my mom and dad were turned away from the hospital and told to go back home until they had a real labor going on. I guess I was comfortable. On September 12^th, 2 weeks after my due date, the doctor seeing no sign of any initiative on my part to come out, told my mother that I was a “lazy baby” and he was going to have to get me out by way of Cesarean. And so I was rudely forced out into the cold room full of strangers staring at me. I wasn’t pleased.

From that memorable occasion, I have been branded as lazy. And I really am. I’m so lazy that I have actually tried telekinesis to will the remote control to my hand. I’ve gone hours without food, because I was too lazy to make something. That’s when Domino’s became an important part of my life in college. And like Newton’s law of Inertia states, an object at rest remains at rest until acted upon by an unbalanced force. In my case an unbalanced force would have to be fire, hurricane or earthquakes otherwise I don’t think I would ever move. I hate moving unnecessarily. Once we were in the underground and a public announcement came on to evacuate the station immediately, my mother started to panic and run, but I was still evacuating at a leisurely pace. She had to grab me from my elbow and pull me all the way out. At the time I was a teenager, so above everything I didn’t want to be all panicky and look uncool, but the bottom line is that I was lazy.

For the past five hours I’ve been sitting on the same sofa, with the laptop and as people around me move, I ask them to pass me whatever it is I want as they reach its general vicinity. I’ve even asked Whisker, my dog to turn the lights on, the other day. She didn’t respond. I have to train her better, but I can’t be bothered to repeat the same thing everyday.

In my previous life, I suspect that I was either an empress or a paraplegic. I must’ve had slaves that fed me grapes as I lay on my chaise longue watching the jesters entertain me. Ironically, though if I have to exercise, I can actually go 75 minutes in a step class, jog for 30 minutes or spinning for an hour, but once that is over, I refuse to exert additional effort. I paid my dues, and now I must rest, I’m actually quite tired.

And although I’m the queen of procrastination, once in a while I get a spurt of mysterious energy, where in the span of one hour, I would finish a painting or clean my whole room, rearrange my closet and alphabetize my DVD collection. But those are rare moments, and usually there are no witnesses. Sometimes even in those occasions, the energy spurt runs out in the middle of the project. My mother once walked into my room and found me sat in the middle of the room on the floor with all my belongings in piles around me as if I was giving them a speech. I had started to sort things out, and then got exhausted by the immense proportions of the task. I never told her this, but what I was doing, sitting there like a yogi was trying to meditate, and hoping to move my stuff back into the closets with my mind.

So at the end of the day, if left to my own devices I could sleep forever. Nothing is really worth getting out of bed for, especially in the morning. I find my bed to be sacred in that lovely peaceful time of day. It’s personal time. I don’t want to share it with others, let alone get dressed and kicked out of the house into a functioning world. On weekends, I sleep 12 hours and I enjoy every damn minute of it. I went shopping for Eid clothes the other day and came home with 2 pyjamas and water lily bath gel. So I guess my plans for the 5 day vacation are set. I will be having a mini-hibernation followed by a bath.

But I don’t know how long this is going to last. I mean, eventually I’m supposed to have children. And if you ask any mother she will give you one piece of advice.

“Sleep now. Sleep as much as you can. Because the minute you become a mother, you will never sleep again.”

Oh crap. (Long awkward silence.)

Well, anyway, we can cross that bridge when we get to it. Next summer, when I’m all slept out, I will be ready to have kids and inshallah one day I’ll be surrounded by a bunch (and by bunch I mean two) of cute mini-me’s; a few lazy babies to cuddle up with and take naps with on my big sofa. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I’ll tell you when I get there.

UoB the place to be...a clone.

2006-10-13T21:56:00.000+03:00

This was my response to the retarded University of Bahrain law which will not accomplish jackshit.

Why is it that when I studied in a university in Boston, 10,000 kilometers away from my parents, and where your freedoms are pronounced, and enforced daily, I never dressed “skimpily”? How come the student body there looks respectable, without any Fascist or Victorian rules hung over their heads like death sentences?

I mean sure I shaved my head, at one point, and I went to my classes like that, but I soon learned that it wasn’t a good look for me. No one pulled me aside to give me a talk. راسي و كيفي. However, had I been a student in Bahrain University, I would’ve had to fake a fatal illness, to try the GI Jane look.

Could it be that the lack of detailed micro-managing rules and misbehaviour are not actually related? God forbid, someone should do something, that you personally don’t agree with. We must make up new rules to combat everything. Can you imagine if the law had to uphold some of my suggestions?

If you chew with your mouth open, you will be escorted to a cattle farm for 5 hours daily of labor to see how unpleasant it is, when chewed food is on display.
If you burp in public, you will be fined 500 BHD which will be shared equally among all the victims who heard you and were disgusted at the time of the incident.
Any spitting, phlegm-ejecting out of car windows will be punished by a round of spit balls from a firing squad of 10 unruly teenagers.
If you push in line, and don’t stand at the back of the queue you could be arrested and sentenced to 20 hours of queuing, and when you get to the end of the line, you get slapped.
Anyone who is rude or unkind to his wife in public, will be punished by making him kiss his wife’s feet and beg for forgiveness in front of all the local mosques, the sentence depends on the number of mosques, maatams that are in Bahrain.
Any woman wearing a hideous shade of purple lipstick, that is so offensive even catwalk models won’t try it, should be punished by being made to eat the above mentioned offensive lipstick.
All men who think it’s cute to say something perverted to girls passing by, have to be tied up and pelted with rabbit dung for 3 days by any girl who has suffered such annoyances. This will be held in the Seef Mall; the Mecca of such people.
People who don’t signal when turning left/right or changing lanes, have to be pulled aside and asked to do the YMCA dance, while singing during high traffic.
Any man who makes his wife eat in public, with a burqa, doing the garage-door move to reach her mouth, should be sentenced to eating spaghetti and peas wearing the same…for the rest of his life.
Anyone who smells, due to lack of showering, sweaty clothes, or lost their deodorant should be sent to a zoo to start an alternative skunk exhibit.

There. The above rules will make a lot of lives easier and more pleasant. I hope that you will all appreciate the fact that I don’t enforce them, because I’m tolerant of others. Now maybe someone should smack the University upside the head and knock some education into them.

Obesity is a state of mind

2006-10-09T02:03:00.000+03:00

I’m starting to believe that I have cancer of the fat. My chemotherapy in this case is diet and exercise which is proving to be about as potent as spritzing melon-scented body spray at a big hairy alley rat on a dark night. Meanwhile the fat cells have their own agenda of spreading their troops and mutating to resist the normal means of burning and they are pissing me off.

In this battle my progress is non-existent. I’m starting to believe that metabolism is a mythical character from some Greek tragedy. My body is not reacting to endless spinning classes, the sweating, the running or the minimal soup for dinner. It’s as if I’m not politely excusing myself from the daily breakfast rituals of my colleagues which involves carbs upon carbs of deliciously filling food. The other day as I walked past the desk of one of my work mates, enjoying his happy meal, I spotted the small toy that came in the box. Having gone for about 2 weeks without any form of potatoes, I picked up the colorful plastic object and put it to my nose and fiercely inhaled the sinful scent of French fries right out of it. I looked like a freshly fixed crack addict. That whiff alone caused me to gain two kilos.

Since then, the evil scale in my bathroom mocks me daily with the same number. Even the most minor fluctuations only ever go upwards, if anything. One day I’m going to sacrifice that damn scale to a bonfire and then dance joyously around the flames.

And it’s not like they can find anything wrong with me. I’ve been turned away several times from the hospital staring begrudgingly at a lab result informing me that I had no thyroid problems or unnatural hormone levels, and that I was fine. Damn it!!

Most of the time, when I look at food I can hear the music from that Clint Eastwood movie in my head where he stares at the bad guys just before asking the punks if they felt lucky. It’s either you or me, buddy. While I am battling with the carrot cake to stop seducing me, others around me are happily eating what they like and stylishly donning clothes 4 times smaller than mine.

I have been trying to be thin since I was 12. Several years ago, when I was 10 kilos less than I am now, I went to a nutritionist with my little sister who was quickly following in my voluptuous footsteps. After our weights and heights were measured, we sat silently in her office staring at our feet in shame, waiting for the diagnosis. We watched eagerly as she tapped furiously at her calculator and scribbled numbers down, wondering which one of us was in more trouble with our BMI. The serious look on her face made it seem like we were here to take out a loan and she was looking at our two dollar collateral. A minute later she looked at us and smiled. She began politely explaining how she took our weight and factored it with our height and came up with our Body Mass Index. The number corresponds with different categories of fat such as ideal weight, slightly overweight, overweight, and so on.

“However”, she said sweetly: “You are both obese.”

OBEEESE! OBEEESSSSE? How can I be OBESE??? Then what’s the word they’re using these days for people who are really huge. Obeser??? Super obese? That’s it? They just add a descriptive term. I can’t believe that we’re all in the same category. So what comes after that? What do you call the really fat people we saw in Disney World drinking milkshakes out of bucket-sized cups with straws in one hand and holding a giant turkey leg in the other. Ill-proportioned?

So as you can see, it hasn’t been fun. My year long membership at the gym has just expired yesterday. When I joined the gym last year I was 8kg less. I don’t get it.

I actually went to the gym 75% of the year. It’s just like the cancerous cells that feed on the opposition they get. They are taking me over alive.

Although my husband tells me that he loves me just the way I am, my jeans evidently do not. Is it sad that I feel rejected and upset, because I’ve been dumped by my clothes. But no matter what, I will never give them away. They are neatly folded and allocated the VIP section of my closet, because if I get rid of them, then I will be embracing this new category that I’m a reluctant member of. The obese.

So today’s a new day, and I promised myself last night that I will not eat anything with sugar in it. I’ve been successful so far. But that’s only because I spent the day hiding in a closet, peeping through the cracks at the dancing chocolate soufflé, waiting for me to come out.

Air Freshener-the faux pas of the century

2006-10-09T01:47:00.000+03:00

What is the deal with air freshener’s? Who exactly are they supposed to fool? Just how long ago was it, that man- or more probably womankind discovered the offensive “Bad Smell”?

Exactly how did that conversation go?

“You know what, I’m tired of breathing your pungent aroma, I now pronounce you STINKY.” said Neanderthal woman.

“Huh? I’ve been hunting. Lunch wasn’t going to catch itself” retorted Smelly Neanderthal man.

“That’s not an excuse! March yourself to the river at once, before I spray you with some Forest Freshness!”

Okay maybe not. But I’m sure that after a similar scenario, some genius in a chemistry lab somewhere was wondering what the chemical compound for Forest Fresh was.

What brought this about was an exchange I had sometime ago. It was a time when my car was for several weeks, committed to an insane asylum as I like to affectionately call the garage. My dignity or pride were trace elements, as I was left to the whim of my kind family members, for donations of transport. So, if everyone was using their car that day, I watched reruns of the Golden Girls. And if they were going my way, I got lucky but then later was stranded wherever I was, because they claim that they “forgot” that I needed a ride BACK home. Like I’m new, and they’re still not used to me living there for 27 years.

It was during that time that I submitted to carpooling to work with my younger yet challenging brother. And because we are both Virgos, look alike and have similar character flaws, I would say that we can only love one another from afar, because too much together time, makes one want to affectionately asphyxiate the other.

“Its better than the smell of cigarettes..” said my sensible brother.

“No…ITS NOT! I would much rather marinate in an ashtray, than smell this disgusting nuclear powered tangerine.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Throw this obscenity out of the window at once, it is an insult to my nose, my brain and real citrus fruit. For God’s sake, it’s like a gigantic orange died in the trunk.”

The obscenity I’m referring to is a little harmless looking can with a matching orange colored plastic cover, which emits a horrendous smell. I don’t know what the hell they put in there, but I’m not going to open the cover and unleash the stench further. It is so strong, you have to stick your head out of the window every five minutes, not to get violently high on it. It claims to “freshen up your car” in my case it freshened up hostility. I wanted to kill it.

In order to save the can or myself from being catapulted out of the window, it was eventually settled. The can was punished and closed away from our senses into the little box thing under the armrest where you keep pens and tissues and things you never use.

“Here, let’s see how long the tapes can take it. I bet you anything they will sprout little legs and jump out of the box shrieking in horror and running for the hills.”

Needless to say, I never saw it again on our morning rides, although I know he secretly took it out when he was alone in the car.

I also once worked in an office, where the office boy, insisted on psychotically spraying a “rose” -and I use the term loosely- aerosol freshener. I was much younger then, and less outspoken. However in my head, I could see myself snatching the spray can out of his hands and beating him senseless with it. On the outside, I silently continued typing, seething on the inside at having to be subjected to breathing poisonous flower gases until 6pm.

So far, I’ve yet to meet an air freshener, I didn’t want to destroy. I feel that if you can’t stand a smell, either get out of it’s vicinity or eliminate the source. But, for the love of God, do not, I repeat, do not try to extinguish it with a can of Summer breeze. You will only end up with a headache and a stinky season-themed scent, also you will be somehow making it more pleasant for flies to hang out with you.