World Leaders and Others I'd Like to Throw Shoes At...

Now I could totally support "World Leader Shoe-Chucking" as an Olympic sport. Although I think it would probably lose it's glamour if it became an Olympic sport since I'd then be forced to watch the Olympics. Obviously, the Iraqi team would be the gold medal favorite.
The thing about this event that totally floors me is that Bush is so completely ignorant of any culture other than American. He totally laughed at this and doesn't understand how completely insulted he should be. Don't get me wrong. I'm 100% on the Iraqi guy's side and I'll tell you why: In his goodbye speech, President Bush announced to his Iraqi audience that after 8 years of their country being destroyed by the US military under his command that, oh by the way, there really WEREN'T any weapons of mass destruction. Oh, well. Maybe next time things will go better.
In Arab society, showing someone the soles of your feet or shoes is an insult. As is calling someone a shoe or hitting them with your shoes.
One would think that after EIGHT YEARS of warring against another country, one would know SOMETHING about his enemy's culture. Bush does not.

Anyway, if I were to be on the "World Leader Shoe-Chucking" team, my dream targets would be Condoleeza Rice, George W., Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, M. Hosni Mubarak, Prime Minister of Israel du jour (they change a lot), Mayor Bloomberg, and
Hillary Clinton. I would love to open this up to be more than just chucking shoes at world leaders. Maybe we could include the rich and famous such as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Madonna whose shopping trips count as world news events on tv. We really don't care....unless they're being slapped in the temple with a pair of Jimmy Choo's, it's not news. Don't show it.
Maybe we could also stick other famous people in the list...you know, people we love to hate: Ann Coulter, Tom Cruise, David Hasselhoff, Regis Philbin and anyone with a show on FOX News.
Anyone wanting to be a member of the Shoe-Chucking team initiative, please forward
their video applications via You Tube showing themselves chucking a shoe of their choice at a poster of their favorite target.

Public Announcement...

Ordinarily, I don't beg people to read my stuff....okay, I lie! I am a limelight lover
and I have no pride........so PLEASE read my blog and just click on the "Follow
This Blog" option over there on the right of your screen.


It would SOOOO help me in the "Emotional Health Department" to know that

what I have to say is important to SOMEONE in the world. My kids certainly don't listen to me....husband, not so much. So I'm asking friends and relatives and hell, even complete strangers to help me develop a better sense of self-worth and just read my blog.

Okay, I'm pathetic. But truthfully it would give me a better feel for who would buy

my book when it finally is published. THANKS!

Why My Husband Refuses to Buy Me a Taser

I've been asking my husband for about 2 years to buy me a Taser...but he won't. He just shakes his head and laughs everytime I try to explain my latest reasons for having one. He says I'm too "reactionary" and "hot-headed" to own one. Humph! Says HIM.

I promised him that I wouldn't shock the big-butted woman in front of me on the bread lines at the bakery and that I wouldn't shock the kids' new principal at the school EVEN if she "has it coming to her." I promised that I would NEVER use it on his siblings or his children and that I'd wait until AFTER his brother's wife has her baby before I used on HER irritating ass. He actually considered this for a brief moment and then shook his head and said that even if he wanted to buy me one they don't sell them in Egypt. I, being the ever problem-solving genius that I am, suggested that he just pick one up for me in Greece or in the US next time he goes on a business trip. He thought that he could out-maneuver me with the ole' "it won't get past customs" trick. But I was one step ahead of him as usual, and I retaliated with the ole' "but they come in leopard print carrying case AND have headphones with 1GB MP3 players now!" Surely he couldn't step past THIS intellectual landmine. But DAMMITMAN! He's been watching me and listening to me sidestep HIS issues with such grace and finesse for so many years that now the grasshopper has become the master....and he blew me away with this: "You are so accident prone that you'd probably plug the headphones into the wrong part and zap your own ears off! And even if that didn't happen, I'd have to leave a power-of-attorney with my lawyer every time I left the country so that someone would be able to bail you out of jail the two or three times a day that you get upset or impatient with someone and try to fry them."
I stopped and thought about it and sulked. I knew he was right. If you think he's wrong, I'll have to ask you to go through my blog archives to see my ramblings on why it is a good thing I don't choose who lives and dies on this planet as I'd be awfully lonely.

كل عام وأنتم بخير

Happy Eid Al-Adha! (Festival of the Sacrifice!)

Yesterday was the first day of the Festival of the Sacrifice. This is the celebration of the prophet Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his only son to God and Muslims worldwide sacrifice cows, buffalos, sheep, goats, and/or camels and distribute the meat to the poor and family and friends.

We sarificed a sheep this year. Mohamed bought it Saturday night and put it out on the balcony, where he stayed until Monday morning. Sunday morning I mopped up after him and then I guess he decided that he'd had just about enough of me and stomped his foot and lowered his head at me....so I decided to mosey on back into the house and just hang my laundry INSIDE the house. That sheep may have won the

"Battle of the Balcony" but Monday afternoon when I was eating him for dinner I decided I'd won the war.

My brothers-in-law sacrificed two gamousas (buffalo) and the kids were just excited

as all get out to watch the sacrifice and butchering and clean up. Samiya was watching out the window with me and was asking the name of each part of the buffalo in both English and Arabic so that she could write them down. That's my girl! Always looking for new vocabulary. She'll be a polyglot yet...just like her Mom.

Soooooo, عيد سعيد
which is pronounced 'Eid Sa-eed and means Happy Feast to all.
I'm going to go eat some more meat!

Memories of December

So, I was in the vegetable market yesterday and a woman was arguing with a fruit vendor (NO! It wasn't ME.)about whether or not the tangerines he was selling were ripe. I tuned them out again and looked through the line at the bakery to see if my friend had finally gotten her bread so that we could leave together. That's when it hit me: the smell of December in my childhood.

The vendor had finally handed the woman a small tangerine to taste and as soon as she popped open the peel, I could smell the juice from it and it dragged me back 35 years (OH DEAR GOD....am I REALLY old enough to SAY that???) to when I was a little girl in Germany on St. Nicklaus' Day.

We would position our rubber boots (because they were the tallest and held the most

loot) outside our front door before heading off to bed. And at the crack of dawn, Denise and I were trucking down the hall in our pajamas to dump out all the tangerines and chocolates hazelnuts and sometimes small toys onto the floor before diving in!

"HEY! Are you in there???" asked my friend, now back from the seemingly endless

bread line. "Yeah, I told her...be right back."

And I bought 2 kilos of tangerine-flavored memories from the fruit seller.

All Hail the Blind Ding-Bats!

I took Hamo and Ismail to the eye doctor last Saturday night. (YES! Saturday night. Egypt is THE epitome of a nocturnal society.) I've been putting off this particular errand for quite a while. But then Hamo poked Ismail in the eyeball two weeks ago and I had to take him in to make sure it was still functional and all. (They were wrestling.) The doctor told me to bring him back in a week for a regular vision test.
Sooooo, I did and brought Hamo with us as I've procrastinated long enough getting
his eyesight tested, too. Ismail is far-sighted...and
I-----N-----C-----R-----E-----D-----I-----B-----L------Y SLOW
at reading the friggin' eye chart. Hamo was convulsing next to me and whispering
in a NOT-SO quiet voice, "What's wrong with him? He's taking forever and the doctor is going to say there's not enough time for MY exam!" FINALLY, after 20 minutes of
pulling the up, down, left, right answers out of him, it was Hamo's turn. Took him 4
minutes to read the chart....9 for the complete exam.

Now a bit of historical baggage to pull out of my graveyard of a closet, I NEVER
understood how my mother managed to let me walk around squinting and bumping into walls until the age of 9 before getting me into an eye exam only to be fitted with
big thick bifocals. I thought until the age of 40 that my mom must have just overlooked me as a clutzy kid or was too busy with the 3 siblings behind me to notice I was blind
as a dingbat. Fast forward to last week's eye exams of my sons.

The doctor looks at me and asks, "How long exactly has Hamo complained of
headaches?" To which I sheepishly replied, "Off and on for about 3 years or so."
(The hairy eyeball is not so cool when on the receiving end.)
Then I got indignant and yelled, "HEY! Don't judge me! I have 5 kids, a husband and
a priority list that does not get rearranged daily but hourly............His eye exam has been Overtaken By Events on several occasions and then he just stopped complaining! The squeaky wheel gets the oil, Man! And frankly, he just stopped
squeaking! BESIDES...it's a family tradition!"
Ismail just laughed while I pulled Hamo out from under the chair he was hiding under in humiliation, grabbed the boys' prescriptions and left. When we got home, I sat down and wrote my mom a long overdue letter of apology. She only let me bang around until I was nine. I left Hamo to do the same until he was 13. I win the MOTY award.

By the way, they are both cute as anything with their new glasses on!

Happy Birthday, Turkeys!

That's right! Happy birthday, you TURKEYS!

Thanksgiving is and always has been my favorite holiday of the year. It's a time of bumper-to-bumper traffic, "sweater-weather", pick-up football games in the front yard, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, sweet potatoe pie, cranberry relish, BIG FAT BIRD and pitchers and pitchers of ice tea! My favorite Thanksgivings were always around my
Granny Jean's dining room table with the big long blue wooden bench pulled up for us kids and me and my cousin, Wendy, forced to sit next to one another so that when
we cracked up laughing and spit tea out of our noses it got all over each other and
nobody else.

Our first Thanksgiving in Mobile after Mohamed and I got married, he got embarrassed by how tired he was after dinner. It was his first experience with "turkey naps." Granny just shuffled him off to her room to nap on her bed just like every other person in the family had done at least once before in his life over the years. It made him feel very welcome that he had been initiated into the family via napping in Granny's bed.

I am thankful for my husband and all five of my ornery children. I'm thankful for my family, friends, relatives, and even those people I don't like very much, because I've
learned something from all of them. I am thankful for all that God has blessed me with and all of the things that He has not blessed me with. I am thankful for my health, home, and all of the love that I give and receive daily. I am thankful for the pasta and salad dinner that we had on this Thanksgiving day because none of the poultry vendors had turkeys today. (It's an American holiday, for crying out loud. And THIS
is Egypt.) I am thankful that I have internet access and that I can share my Thanksgiving message with all of you.

Be grateful for everything that you have and for that which you don't have.
Praise God for all that He gives you when you ask for it....but don't forget to praise
Him anyway if he doesn't give you what you ask for. Praise Him in ALL things....not
just in what's convenient for you. This is true thanksgiving.
May Allah bless you and keep you all on this truly special family holiday.