Confronting Asshats in Public...

My sister, Monika, directed me to a blog on here called Mom101 where this woman
tells how another woman directed her two little girls to leave their half-eaten hot dogs, foil
wrappers and dirty napkins in the middle of the aisle in the Target in Brooklyn. She went
on to say all the clever things that she WANTED to say and actions she WANTED to do
but then didn't. While I appreciate her justified outrage over the mother's irresponsible,
pig-like and uncivilized behavior, I am a little saddened that she didn't go one more step
toward crazy. I have taken this step and believe me, it feels GOOD!

About 7 years ago, we lived in a townhouse in Maryland. One of the neighbors across the
street from us consistently walked his dog on our front lawn and at least twice weekly
left us a big pile of dog poop on the grass near our walk leading from the front door to the
sidewalk. Dude had to have walked up our front sidewalk and stood no more than 10 feet
from my front door in order for his dog to do his business. I caught him twice and yelled out
the door for him to pick up the other half of his dog and he just shrugged his shoulders and
walked away. The second time I swore to him that I'd get even!

Well, since I had just had my 5th baby about the time of this neighbor's THIRD offense of
irresponsible dog-walking, I decided that I'd have to go on a stake-out. I made my oldest son
look out the window and tell me when the Doggie-Do-Dude came to our lawn. He yelled, "Mommy, the man with the dog is back." And I came a-running. Since the windows were
open, the guy heard and started to leave at a quick pace. I squatted and peeked out the
window to see exactly which townhouse he went into and then grabbed up the 6 month
old baby who had fortunately just completed his daily constitutional and changed his diaper.
(Yes, I am fast....after 5 kids, I could win in any diaper-changing event in the MOTY olympic
games!) I grabbed the poopy pamper and raced out the door, ran across the street and up
into their front lawn and opened said pamper dumping it's contents onto his lawn, closed up
the diaper and turned to walk back home. His wife threw the door open and yelled, "What
the hell do you think you're doing?!"

And I looked at her and shrugged and said, "I don't have a dog but I've got 5 kids....three of
which are in diapers. You keep your shit to yourselves and I'll keep my shit to myself!"
They started walking their dog on their own side of the street!

What Wives Should Remember about In-Laws...

I don't think that I'm going to go into this into too much detail as to the why's and how's of
my simple little policy regarding In-Law's. Really, all that can ever come from it is pain and
embarrassment and hurt feelings. So, instead of all that, I'll just put this out there!

I chose the man. I fell in love with my husband; not his family, friends, relatives or his
millions of dollars in numbered accounts in Switzerland (real or imagined). I promised to
love and honor and cherish HIM not his sister or brothers or their spouses or his cousins
or any of the others that are related to him via marriage or blood. I explained this to him that
when one marries, it's sort of like buying something off of one of those TV info-mercials.
"Buy now and get this super duper plastic piece of crap for free!" You really WANT the blender
but you're gonna get this plastic bowl scraper shaped like a chicken whether you want it
or not. So you buy the blender and trash the excess or leave it in the box or use it AS a doorstop
or whatever.

I chose the guy. Any of the rest of the folk that seemed to come along with him are just the
" free tag along" gifts that came along extra. I can be polite and friendly but all in all....I didn't
marry THEM. Just him. HE completes me. The rest I can take or leave.

More photos from our vacation...

Here are a few more photos from our trip. Below is the sunsetting on the Meditteranean Sea.

And a REALLY REALLY close up of Ismail and one of Mohamed. I can't figure out how to make

these pictures plop into different places in the text yet and far be it from me to read the damn

directions.....so I'll just be "a man" about it and figure it out as I go along. Lemme try one more

that has the girls in it and then call this a "blog".

Yeah, okay...it's a blog all right....with a funky

arrangement of photos. WHATEVER.

Beggars can't be choosers........be happy that you can see 'em at all.

MAN.....it'd be so much easier to figure this out if Ismail wasn't in here bugging me as I type

about WHY motorcycles are dangerous for 9 year old kids to ride. GRRRRRR!

Later.

Well, not just yet. I just realized that I forgot to put one in of Aiman, so here goes:

Hopefully, this will turn out okay. If not, just

chalk it up to my computer-illiteracy and hope

I improve with time. This silly blogger site doesn't really LIKE the multiple photo upload

option. Whatever.....here are some pictures of

my young'uns. Enjoy!

Our Trip to the Beach 2008

Our family took a trip to the beach last week. We were in an area called Fuka (pronounced Foo-ka, you potty-mouths!) which is located on the Northern shores of

Egypt on the Meditteranean Sea about 185 miles west of Alexandria and about 5 hours east of the Libyan border. It's basically in the desert but on the beach.

The kids LOVED playing in the water and got to catch WHITE lizards and one big

green chameleon (it changed to brown and then to green again.) They also played with their cousin's turtle and caught dragonflies and a hermit crab and I caught a

praying mantis. It was definitely an earth-science kind of week.

The kids' Uncle Fawzy caught a ton of fish (okay not an actual ton but about 25 beautiful big fish, 6 rays and 4 little very bony fish called Denise.) We ate very well

that week and played hard. Only got some minor sunburns this time thanks to SPF 65

sunscreen and Mommy's vehemence about not allowing ANY of her kids to go down

to the water until after 4pm. We got home late Saturday night and have been recuperating ever since. Home sweet home.

And pardon my "newbie-ness" I'll get the swing of this blogspot thing soon enough

and perhaps be able to upload more than one photo at a time.....

More later.