Yaya at Night of 100 Stars

If only Chipsy knew....

I walked past a baqal yesterday and the sight of the chips on the snack stand outside made me hungry. I walked upto the shopkeeper and asked, "3ndak Chipsy bel mal7? (Do you have salted chips?)"

He held a bag of Chips up to his face intently and read, "la, fee bedoon mawad hafza. (No, I have 'No preservatives added')"

Egyptian Idol

Even though I had abandoned my blog, I could not resist coming back to share THIS:


Enjoy:





Classic:

"Mr. The BeeGees"
and
"I want to love a girl from the hair to the nipple."

You Know You're Mental When....

I was opening the door late last night to let my dog out to pee. I was really tired, grumpy and couldn't wait to call it a day.

I clumsily opened the door too wide without moving out of the way. The door hit my arm. I held my hand up in an apologetic gesture towards the door and said, "Oh. Sorry."

Teenage Guidance 101

Ladies and gentlemen,

I give you the smart, the talented, the hilarious Crystal on how to outsmart your smart-ass teenager.

Watch and learn. She rocks!

When Being Right Is Wrong

Work Deadlines + PMS + Traffic from hell + Running Late =

Driving down Gameat El Dowal St. batkhanek m3a deban weshy (fighting wiz ze flies of my face)- there's no way to translate that except basically picking fights with anything that comes my way.

It seemed that all the morons in the country were in Gameat El Dowal that day driving or crossing the street and in my way. If my temper that day could take form, I would've looked something like Cruella DeVille with Don King hair.

I finally made it to the right turn after getting through what seemed to be an eternity and from 6th of October City to Mohandessin, when just when I was about to take the turn, Mr. Hyundai in front of me decides to stop. No flasher, no signal, no wave, nothing.

I wait for about a second, maybe he's dropping someone off. No one gets out. I honk my horn. Maybe he'll wave in apology and someone will get in. No one gets in.

Smoke was coming out of my ears long before I reached this turn, so, I hold my horn down in rage. He's holding the whole lane up.

Nothing.

I bypass him and find a zabet (police officer with the mental capacity of a humming bird) about a meter ahead. I really want the guy to get a ticket. I stop to complain.

Me: "Law sama7t, yaani yenf3a 7ad yewakaf el shar3a kolo keda? (Excuse me, but is it OK for someone to just hold the whole street up?"

Peanut Brain Police Officer: "la tab3an ya fandem. ma yenf3ash khales. (Of course not, not at all.)"

Me (gloating the way tattletales in KG do): "Mesh mafrood yet3akeb da?" (Shouldn't he be penalized or something? )

Him: "Ah tab3an ya fandem, bas el lewa mestany 7ad. hayerkab we yemshy 3la tool. (Of course he should. But the General is waiting for someone; once he gets in, he'll leave.)"

Ahh.. the land of kosa (big-shot gets his way, even if it means stepping all over everyone else). How could I forget?

At this point, I shake off the impulse to remake Michael Douglas's movie Falling Down and take things into my own hands. I hold my breath, nod and drive off.

I guess we'll see who screwed who at my next license renewal when I have to pay off my next lot of tickets.

...and my Mommy told me it serves me right! :(

An Artist's Inspiration

These pieces were displayed in Sequoia.



Hey, I didn't say anything. Get your mind out of the gutter!
El artist t3aban (or t3abana) awi.

Silence Is Golden

I’m never going to a 3za again. (A 3za is the Egyptian traditional funeral where friends and family come to pay condolences to their immediate family).

What happens is I go dressed in black, say “El baqa’a lellah” (Eternity is for God- it basically means that nothing is eternal, except for God, and that is our destiny).

At these things, usually people start chatting with each other and you always end up finding out that you know the person’s relatives or friends or friends of friends.

You end up exchanging stories of things you may have in common and how you all know each other. Eventually when it comes time for me to leave, I want to tell the people I have newly met that it was nice to meet them. You can’t always say it in English; sometimes people think you’re being cocky. So I blurt out, without thinking too much of the meaning-, “forsa sa3eeda”.

This is the second time I have gone to a 3za and left saying, “Forsa sa3eeda.”!!!! (It literally means “This was a good opportunity to meet you.”) I can never think of something that comes out smoothly meaning plain “Nice meeting you.”

Then I hear myself say it and want to shoot myself.

It’s basically like saying, “It’s a good thing he died because we got a chance to meet.” Please someone shoot me. That’s not even mentioning WHO I said it to.

I should walk around with a manual of situations and what you’re “supposed” to say in them.

Calling Egypeter

Enta fein ya ragel? Long time no (hear).
Everything OK with you?

Things You Don't Know About Me

Tagged by Alluring.
They were supposed to be 5 but I got carried away. ;)


1. I have absolutely no interest in chocolate or any sweets for that matter. Walking down the candy aisle in the supermarket doesn't move me. Pickles, however, are a different story. ;)


2. I look much younger than I actually am. When I wear my hair in a pony tail and wear no makeup, I can easily pass for a teenager. I get a lot of "Enti fi sana kam ya habibti? (What grade are you in, sweetie?)
My husband hates it because it makes him look like a pedophile.


3. My deepest fear is for my son to ever get into drugs. I've lost so many people I've known to drugs (both physically and mentally).


4. I think Sharm El Sheikh is heaven on earth.


5. I'm prejudiced against veiled people. I can't help it. My mind automatically paints a negative image.


6. I have never understood advanced math like Calculus. God knows how I ever passed it. My mind was always more artistically-inclined than scientifically.


7. I once beat up a guy when I was 11. He made fun of me so I punched him in the nose. He punched me back. He almost broke my nose.


8. I have really small feet. (I wear size 4.5 US size and 35 Egyptian size.) Sometimes I have to buy shoes that are slightly bigger than my feet out of finding no other choice.


9. I dream of travelling on my own (or with my husband alone) again to Europe, the Far East, Australia (without a kid- the really far distances would be really hard on a 3 year old.)


10. I'm afraid to watch horror films. I can't sleep for days if I do and I become a big baby.


11. I have a terrible fear of heights. I actually get dizzy and nauseaus.


I'm gonna shutup now.

I tag Sukie, Usual Suspect, Seneferu (where is your blog?), Halal Hippie. and I know Forsoothsayer and Carmen have already been tagged. So we're waiting for yours, OK?

Winter Butt Plea

Each winter, my ass decides to get a mind of its own and to double in size. (OK, I'm exaggerating, but it does get bigger!)

I lust over hot chocolate, soup and anything else that's rich and creamy and drips calories.

God damn those hip-hugging, low-waist jeans and pants! When will they go back to making regular-waist jeans?!! I cannot find a single pair of stylish pants that don't leave half your ass and butt-crack hanging out! I mean does the world need to know whether each person is wearing granny panties or a thong and the color of them?

I have the shopping bug and I'm just itching to go splurging on shopping but I can't get my winter butt into these eensy weensy pants that are everywhere!

For the sake of my winter butt, someone get me a pair of normal pants!

Uff!

Fade Away

I promised myself it wouldn’t hurt. I promised myself it wouldn’t bother me. I promised myself it was too late and too much had happened to begin hurting. But I was wrong.

I can’t believe I’m actually crying. I thought I had gone numb over it permanently. It had been clear for a long time now. I was just in denial. Strange. Carmen wrote a post about this recently. The same thing. I read it and thought that I didn’t go through the same stages she spoke about but I was just shoving it aside, blocking it out. Until today. That was the last straw.

It’s over.

I have this uncontrollable urge to call her up and lash out at her. Bring up the past, bring up every single thing. It wasn’t what she did, it was what she didn’t do. How could you go from being soulmates and understanding every unspoken word, feeling every suppressed emotion, to bland nothingness? How could you go from years of spending every single minute together and practically residing at each others’ houses to this eerie void?

I want to throw up. Literally. I feel sick to my stomach, the kind of sick that you get if you’ve just been dumped by a boyfriend or rejected by a crush.

I reacted very passive aggressive today. I dropped a hint to show I was annoyed but I did not directly confront her. Why? I’m very straight-forward usually.
I know why. What good would it do?

Would it make amends? Don’t think so.
Would it bring things back to the way they used to be? Never.
Would it fill in the gaps from things un-said and un-done? Impossible.
Would I be even willing to try after that? No.

It wouldn’t be the same.

What would’ve happened?
She would’ve put me on a guilt trip, blaming me for loading this on her after all she is already going through and how ‘miserable’ she is. She would’ve turned the table on me and made it all seem that it was me who was not there, who did not do, who did not say…
She would’ve had a nervous breakdown following the confrontation and I would feel like shit.

Whatever is bad now would become hideous. Whatever is left of our now insipid friendship turned bitter, spiteful and ugly. Too many people would get involved. Too many people would not understand. Too many people will talk too much about something with so little to do about it. Too many people will make too much of something that is beyond repair.

I believe that anyone who wants to do something, can. Anyone who wanted to be there, anyone wanted to see someone.

Since when did my down-to-earth, simple, free spirit friend become one of them? Since when do we care about Yves Saint-Laurent bags that cost $3,500! Bite me. For the love of God, there are people starving.

Since when do we care about seeing and being seen? Since when do we care about what ‘they’ say? Since when do we judge people? Since when is a person deemed ‘good enough’ by a quick up and down evaluation? Since when can we not attend a wedding if our dress is no less than an Escada? Since when do we name drop?

I guess there is no more ‘we’.

She now lives in a world which I despise, a phony world with phony pleasures and phony friendships. A shallow world based on fraud. I find no appeal in this, I feel no desire to be part of it. On the contrary, it repulses me.

I’ve lived a life a lot of them would never dream of living, spiritually and materialistically, but I am humble enough not to brag about it or walk around flaunting it. It does not make me who I am. It does not put value or worthiness to me. No one will stand at your grave and say, “Allah yer7amha. She had some nice diamond rings.”

Money comes and goes. People don’t.

I keep picking up the phone, feeling the adrenaline run through my veins, then thinking, “What is my goal?”, and putting the phone back down again.

She’s ruined my day. I cannot function and I cannot get my work done. Just when I was thinking, “30 is such a comfortable age. You no longer worry about what people think. You no longer feel the need to win acceptance or belonging.” There is this comfort with one’s self that comes with being 30, sense of self-loving and self-acceptance. A sense of fulfillment that comes from within, from no longer caring what other people think, do and say.

Today, I feel 20- in the sense of the emotional roller coaster, the hurt, the drastic and devastating let-downs.

Today is the day I will have to face it. Today is the day our friendship died.

Was' Up

Why I Love Working From Home

1. I can wear my pajamas even when I’m at “work”.
2. I can wear my fuzzy animal slippers all day.
3. I have a cat for a colleague. (I’ve always thought animals are better than humans.)
4. My other colleague is a dog.
5. Colleague number 1 likes to sit on my lap or laptop and purr as I try to type.
6. I have meetings at coffee shops over nice hot cappuccino.
7. I can work whenever I feel like it, morning, day or night.
8. I can not work whenever I feel like it.
9. I can decide to go jogging whenever the hell I feel like it. (Awesome on sunny winter days)
10. I don’t have to worry about driving in traffic from hell or trying to find a parking spot.
11. I can have conference calls while plucking my eyebrows (or picking my nose for that matter)
12. I don’t have to wear the constricting piece of clothing which is better known as a bra all day.
13. I can freely give the finger to my computer screen, something of instant gratification and satisfaction over containing myself from an uncontrollable urge to curse at or punch my boss in the face.
14. If there’s a fart smell in the room, I know who did it.
15. I can work in my lingerie or skimpy nightgowns in the summertime.
16. My boss trusts me blindly and does not ask what I am doing or when I am going to do it. He knows it’s going to get done.
17. I get to do things that only unemployed people can do, like meeting up for breakfast or shopping with a friend.
18. I can work 12 hours one day and 0 the next.
19. I don’t have to listen to shitty French music my ex-boss used to torture us in the office with all day.
20. I can attend and participate in functions or special days at my son’s nursery.
21. I can care for my son when he is home sick.
22. I can take personal calls without worrying about which eve’s dropper is silently listening in.
23. I can actually get more done without the interruptions of office discussions on sex, guys, mascara, our ex-bitch boss and unfulfilled schemes of revenge on our her, and other office gossip.
24. I can ditch work to play fetch with my dog.
25. I like to see the look on the faces of the stay-at-home moms who don’t work when they find out that I work from home. (It seems to intimidate them.) *Dr. Evil laugh*
26. I don’t have to drink gross coffee-machine coffee that tastes like the remains of brown mop water in a bucket.

That’s just to name a few.

Coincidence?

Since I cannot decide whether I ever want a 2nd child, or how soon or late there might ever be one, I have decided to socialize my son as much as I can, by arranging play-dates with his the mommies of the children he likes best from the nursery.

I’m making it a point that at least once a week, he can have someone over, go over someone’s house, or make plans with someone else for us to take them to an amusement park, etc.

One of the Mommies I have been doing with this recently is an American woman married to an Egyptian man. I really like the woman and I am one of the only people she finds she can relate to, so she is especially excited about this idea.

Her house is still incomplete and she says things are pretty much upside down. So every time we make plans, she wants to bring her kids over to our house. I don’t really mind since we have a garden and the kids can play outside.

I have come to a very disturbing conclusion about hanging out with this woman though.
Every time she comes over, after she leaves, my husband and I get into a huge fight and end up on the verge of divorce. This is very strange considering that my husband and I get along great.

Judge for yourself and tell me: Coincidence?

From the minute she comes over, it’s “Wow, you have that? Wow, you’ve traveled there?; Wow, your son has that toy?; Wow, you’re so thin.; Wow, you’re such a good Mom.” You get the picture…until it becomes kind of creepy and weird.

My husband later calls and I’m like, “Hi habibi. How’s your day? Talk to you later. Love you, Bye.” …

Then the kids play, we talk, they go home after a few hours.

After she leaves, I get a phone call from my husband… the conversation always takes some strange turn and *KABOOM*, we get into a huge fight. We hang up abruptly. We talk later, we fight some more. He comes home later, we get into an even bigger fight and suddenly we’re talking divorce.

This has happened a few times.

I’m not superstitious, but el 7asad mazkour fil Quran. So you tell me: 7asad or coincidence?