And Now What You've All Been Waiting For.....

I know I promised full disclosure as to the details of our trip from Egypt to the U.S.   And yeah, it's been three weeks since we got back so I can't blame jet-lag any longer.  The truth is, nothing really happened.  I know, right?  Who the hell's life am I living and when will the chaos begin again?!

Okay, so back in late April or early May, I contacted my travel agent and tried to book us on Lufthansa to Dallas because there would only be one layover and the Germans are usually extremely efficient and keep to schedules. Also, because I avoid New York like the friggin' plague because I think it's stupid that all international flights are IN to JFK and then we have to claim all our luggage and go through customs and all that noise just to find a cab (yeah, right!) who can haul all five of us and our 10 suitcases 5 carry-on bags and whatever crap we purchased at Duty-Free all the way over to LaGuardia in Queens and then have to check in again and wait for a flight (that isn't free, by the way) to Dallas. NO THANKS. It's hard enough to travel with kids internationally. I don't want to have to do the whole intracontinental thing, too.

So my travel agent told me that she could book me on Lufthansa for 30, 800 EGP but that Emirates Air had a better price. So I rolled my eyes and asked how many layovers that one had. She said just one but it's in
Dubai. I asked what the price was and she said, "20,000 EGP."

Say WHAT?! "What's the catch?" I asked.

"Well, the transit is in Dubai. So you would have to fly 5 hours from Cairo to Dubai and then you have a 3 hour layover and fly directly from Dubai to DFW. The flight time would be 15 hours from Dubai instead of only 9 hours from Frankfurt to Dallas."

"Girl, we've GOT time. It's money that we seem to always be short on.  Book the Emirates flight."

So that is how we got to fly over Iraq and Russia and the North Pole and Canada and Minneapolis and all the way over Oklahoma and land in Dallas. Yeah, really. I've flown over the North Pole.

I have flown my entire life....and NO, I'm not embellishing.  My dad was military and we traveled back and forth from Europe my entire life. I flew a lot in the US to visit family and then started traveling overseas for my job. I am just as comfortable in the air as I am on a road trip. Maybe more so. I've never endorsed an
airline before.  But I will right now.

EMIRATES AIR RULES!

From the time that we checked in at the desk in Cairo, we were whisked away on a bus by ourselves just as soon as I notified the attendant that we had a special needs child and explained that Autism can sometimes cause my daughter to become overwhelmed and freak out a little but that I can get her to calm down again provided the flight attendants do not try to restrain her. (That happened on the Lufthansa flight last time we traveled to the US and I was nearly at the point of knocking out the woman who was attempting to force Randa into her seat while yelling in her face to keep  calm.) They boarded us in the back of the plane at the same time the first and business class passengers were boarding int he front.

This is a great spot as far as I'm concerned. We're close to the back where the drink carts are stored. We're close to the restrooms. AND most importantly, we're located close to the jet engines where argumentative teenagers and their noise gets drowned out. YES.  The flight attendants were SO very nice to us.  Honestly, they were nice to everyone.

When we arrived in Dubai, the kids were a little hungry and Mohamed had asked me to buy cigarettes at the duty-free store. So, we bought the cigarettes and then wandered to a food court and I decided that it was just too damn expensive. But I did buy them each a coke and got myself a Snapple and we wandered back over to our gate and sat and snarfed down all the cookies and chips and snacks that their uncles had purchased for their backpacks before we left Egypt.

We still had another hour before we were supposed to leave which meant another half hour before boarding started and Randa started to have a meltdown. She was bored and tired and hadn't had her internet fix in more than a day. A gate attendant called Ismail over and asked if we would be able to control her on the flight and Ismail said yes and tried to explain what autism is to him. Finally, he decided that the guy was kind of a rock and called me over to explain. I could barely understand his broken English so I spoke to him in Arabic and explained that my daughter is just extremely tired and bored and that once we were on the plane I could settle her down.  He recognized my dialect as Egyptian. Turns out, HE was Egyptian.

So, what does one Egyptian do for another Egyptian? They "hook a sister up"and he called some Scottish dude who was in charge of security and told him to board us early. He didn't want to but the Egyptian dude told him, "Special needs child" and the Scottish dude asked me what was up and I explained that Randa is Autistic and gets overwhelmed when she is overstimulated and can freak out a bit. He said, "My niece is autistic. I know how that goes."

The Scottish dude said, "Follow me." So we did. And he introduced us to Faris who was the head porter on our flight. Faris introduced us to Mario aka Mex (which apparently was short for Mexican) and they shook hands with Randa and were very polite and asked if she would like anything.

Randa said, "Chocolate." And then she laughed. So they laughed.

Damn if they didn't bring her a mini-Toblerone and a Mars bar just for her from first class. And they sent a color book and a fake Etch-A-Sketch thing. She was just stoked that they had Toy Story 3 on the in-flight movie and they're all high-tech so you can even rewind over and over again like she enjoys doing on the touch screen that was on the back of the head rest in front of her seat.

The only "incident"so to speak, was about 9 hours into the flight when Randa started shouting, "Butt hurts! Back hurts! Go faster. FLY FASTER!" The whole time she was pretending to row (yeah like in a boat) as if air- rowing was going to get us there quicker. They were handing out drinks at the time and the flight attendant sort of giggled but then told Randa, "I will tell the pilot to fly faster, dear."

Once we were over Oklahoma, we hit every air pocket that we DIDN'T hit flying all over the rest of the globe. All I could think of was TORNADOES. But thankfully, we weren't in any tornadoes. But the air pockets DEFINITELY did a number on my stomach, as well as Randa's. Because then she decided that she didn't want him to fly faster any more. And she started to stomp on her imaginary air brakes and shouted, "Slow down. Fly slower." This of course, delighted the two men sitting on the other side of her and they tried to hide their amusement but failed miserably.

Good thing she doesn't give a shit what other people think.

Anyway, a few hours later we landed and even though it took us about 2 hours to get through immigration and customs, we did it fairly quickly and uneventfully. It was awesome. Boring and uneventful almost NEVER happens to us. So this was amazing to me and my family.

I cannot emphasize enough how awesome Emirates Air was on both legs of the trip and at all three airports and if you ever have a need to fly anywhere in the world that they service, TAKE THEM. It is an awesome experience.

Also....it was amazing to see my husband, my son, my mom and my sisters and their kids waiting for us at the  airport. These are my favorite people in the world. (My brother, too, of course but he had to work that day and he lives in Austin.) And here's a photo of Randa hugging her grandmother at the airport upon our arrival while her father looks on:

T Minus 2 Days and Counting...

So, it's 8:30 in the morning here in Alexandria, Egypt (we're at my brother-in-law's house) and I'm up alone drinking coffee since 7 and wondering "What in the hell is it with getting older that you start waking up earlier and earlier and going to sleep earlier and earlier?" And all of a sudden it hit me:  Preparation for early-bird dinner specials for seniors in Boca Raton when we are in our 60's and 70's.

Who knew?

Okay, I'm out of my apartment in the beach community of Hanovil, El-Agamy, Egypt. The kids, 10 suitcases, 5 carry on bags and 2 loads of dirty laundry arrived at my in-law's house yesterday around noon. Good thing we're only staying for 3 days, huh? (What's that expression?  House guests and fish...? Yeah, that.)

I am realizing daily how extremely blessed I have been. I have made so many wonderful friends over the years here. Experiences, knowledge, friendships, love and laughter that I never would have encountered had it not been for that decision 12 years ago to just quit my job and move to Egypt and be a SAHM. I guess, if I look back further, it was 18 years and 7 months ago...when I married the love of my life:  Mohamed. I became part of his family here (and of course, he mine in the U.S.) and the laughter and love and  tears and joy and pain and fun that we have experienced together, on both sides of the globe, are things that neither of us would trade for the world.

One of my friends commented on Facebook how leaving Egypt would be so bittersweet for me.  She was right. I've become "bint al-balad" ("daughter of the country" = an Egyptian woman) and now I have two homes. I am going to miss this place and it's sights and sounds (really, LOUD sounds....this is by far the LOUDEST country in the entire Middle East) and well, SOME of the smells. hahahhahahah.

Sights:  Buses, trucks, cars, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, donkey-driven carts and Vespa's carrying families of 5, date-palm trees, the colorful fruit and vegetable markets, people praying together in the streets, the generosity and hospitality of people helping others, no matter what.

Sounds:  The azan (call to prayer), the street vendors yelling out what they're selling from their rolling push carts in the street, bird-chirping doorbells, bus drivers yelling out the name of their destination while trying to collect enough passengers to fill the vehicle before departure "Mahata, Mahata, Mahata!" (station, station, station!,) and the cow bell ringing that announces the foul mudammas (fava beans) vendor at  night during Ramadan (and I mistook him for the ice cream man my first year here.)

Smells:  Mangoes, tomatoes, felafel cooking, string pastry made in front of your eyes, the cotton candy vendor who made his cotton candy in a rented store under our apartment, and the sea breeze coming in off of the Mediterranean, the bread from the bread factory next door to our house and the pastry shop we used to walk past on our way home from the bus stop (mostly because it reminds me of my days in Greece with Mohamed when we we were first engaged - he's a pastry chef.)

All these things I'll miss. But I'm ready. I'm ready to move forward and experience all the wonderful things that Texas will have to offer us. And maybe it doesn't sound as exciting as "Egypt," but you know what? It will be. Because I will be with my entire family and that will make it HOME.

Now I'm off to finish my last few errands in Egypt. We leave the day after tomorrow, insha Allah (God willing.)

6 Days and a Wake Up

Things are rolling along. Managed to sell off the last of the big ticket items and people are coming by and picking up their purchases....at the oddest of hours. BUT....who cares? As long as I have money in hand and they take the stuff with them when they go.

My glasses broke in half (at the bridge of the nose) yesterday and it's hard to deal with life peering through Scotch tape and bent frames. I got an exam last night and ordered my new glasses. Only 24 hours more of headaches and then I'll be fashionably...dorky...again. Okay, so they're not the awesome frames I wanted but I had an 12 yr old and 13 yr old with me who were more interested in trying glasses on themselves than to help me find a pair that doesn't make me look like I'm a new recruit on her first day at boot camp when issued a set of BCG's. (That's Birth Control Goggles, for you civilian folk.)

I've got most of my to-do list, to-done. Just a few more items to tick off before we leave this apartment and spend our last 3 days in Egypt with my husband's brother and family. I'm so excited. A friend mentioned that this would be a bittersweet move, and truthfully it is. On the other hand, I'm READY for a new chapter and this is the right move for us. If it weren't, then things wouldn't be just falling into place the way they are. (Thanks, God.)

Our internet service should be disconnected any second now so I will have to post once we arrive in the US and I come out of the jet-lag coma. Thanks for following our story. I should have mega-stories about the travels. ;)

PANIC

I was having coffee this morning and checking the notifications on my Facebook, when I noticed a status update from a girlfriend who is also moving to Texas soon. She posted that she has only 11 days and a wake-up before she hits the road.  At first I thought, "How exciting for them! They're about to start the next chapter of their lives in a week and a half and we're not too far behind."

Then all of a sudden, about the time that first caffeine boost kicks in, I realized that her timetable is only 4 days ahead of mine.  HOLY ANXIETY ATTACKS, BATMAN! I couldn't think. I got that "someone-just-hit-me-in-the-stomach-with-a-metropolitan-yellow-pages" feeling and my breathing got quick and shallow and my palms got clammy. My chest tightened and I ran to the bathroom.

I have so much to do. My two youngest start final exams this Saturday and Sunday and won't complete them until next Thursday.  I have 2 suitcases and a ton of shopping to do. I still have paintings on the wall and books on the shelves to go through. I have a master bedroom set, a queen-sized mattress, a set of bunk beds, and a wardrobe to sell and 15 days ain't a lot of time to get rid of big-ticket items. I have to meet the landlord next Friday to get back my deposit and I have to have the gas and light bills paid up before then. Still need to cancel the phone and internet service and arrange for the people who bought all of the furniture and appliances to pick up their crap before the 28th of the month. THEN I get to move all these (still not packed up) suitcases and kids over to my brother-in-law's house where we can get on their nerves for a final 3 days before riding down to the airport in Cairo to start our trip home.

Crap. I need to confirm the ride to the airport one final time, too.  I'll get right on that after I dig out my English to Arabic dictionary and find out how to say Xanax in Arabic.

28 Days and a Wake Up!

We are SHORT TIMERS!

Most of you who didn't grow up in a military background probably don't understand that. So, I'll explain.
We are 29 days away from leaving Egypt. I've got all our appliances and furniture sold and I'm in the middle of packing up the stuff we're taking with us and getting rid of the stuff we're not. Plus screaming "QUIT FIGHTING!" and "GO STUDY YOUR HISTORY!" and "DON'T FART ON YOUR BROTHER'S HEAD!" or whatever usual shout-out I have to yell regularly to keep this house a home.

So this is why I've been so lax in my writing lately. I've just been too busy. (Between all of that stuff and keeping up with my Criminal Case game on Facebook, you understand.) But really mostly the busy stuff.

I'm hoping to make the time to do a brief photo-mentary and upload that before we leave, so that I can share the beauty of Egypt as we know it.  Not the touristy crap that everyone sees...but the day to day people stuff and how we live. It's a lot earthier and real.

Anyway, I guess this isn't really as much a post as it is an apology for not being more prolific in my writing. But I will post a few more times before we leave here and hopefully once I get into my rhythm after we get back to the People's Republic of Texas, I'll get all regular on here again.

In the mean time, thanks for reading my stuff.

Conversations with My Kids - Study!

"Mom! I want a turn on the computer."

     "You had a turn. Leave me alone."

"I want another turn."

     "Uhm, did that whole 'You're grounded from your second turn' thing slip your mind?"

"But I'm BORED!"

     "Do I LOOK like Julie from the Love Boat?"

"What's a love boat?"

     "Never mind."

"But I'm still BORED!"

     "You're still grounded from your second turn today. Go study."

"I don't want to study. Today is Friday. I don't study on Friday."
 
     "You don't really study any other day of the week either."

"Mommy!!!!! Come on. I want my turn back. I don't have anything else to do."

     "Read a book. Draw some pictures. Watch TV. Go to sleep."

"Boring, boring, boring. I'm going to get a job at the cyber cafe."

     "No, you're not."

"Why not?"

     "It smells like smoke in there because the owner is always smoking and won't even turn on the fan."

"So what? If I work there it will be on Friday and Saturday when I don't have school and I will work when he is upstairs eating dinner."

     "I'm considering banning you from going there again. Besides, you can't get a job a month before final
exams and we're moving next month. You need to focus on your studies."

"But I can't work in the States unless I'm 16 and that's another 4 years away! That's a third of my LIFE!"

     "See? You totally own fractions! Go work on geometry."

"You NEVER let me do anything fun."



     

The Countdown Begins

We did it. We finally bought a house. My husband went to closing last week and he and the oldest son have moved in. YES! I finally feel like we're making progress. And while he's busy setting things up there, I'm busy taking things apart here. I've finally got my list of household goods, furniture and appliances made with prices so that I can hock all our crap and get the hell out of dodge just as soon as the kids complete their final exams at the end of next month. Am I excited??

HELL YES!

And while I'm still spinning my wheels in some aspects of this move, I'm actually moving forward in others. Like I've already got a customer to buy my washing machine and refrigerator, my desk and shoe cabinet, and yes, even THIS very computer I'm using to type up this blog post. Randa's been running around the house putting "SOLD" stickers (made out of white electrical tape and a ballpoint pen) all over our stuff. She can't wait to get out of here and see her best friend in the world (her big brother) whom she hasn't seen in six months.

And I'm super anxious to get started with the next chapter of our lives in Texas; to be near MY parents and siblings for a while. But I can't help feeling this giant hole ripping in my heart when I look at the waves of the Mediterranean rolling into the fishing boats of Al-Maks while we drive past on the city bus, or when I see the   date palm trees blowing in the breeze and hear the fakahany (fruit-man) yelling out, "Oranges, apples, cantaloupe!" as he pushes his heavy wooden cart through the streets.

Egypt has been good to us over the last 12 years. We have enjoyed the safety of our neighborhoods, where our kids could  play soccer in the streets and run to the store five or six blocks away to buy a specific type of candy that they wanted or rent bicycles by the hour. We have fresh vegetables, fruit, dairy, bread and meats
within a block from our home. We  pick which chickens we want for dinner, and they are slaughtered and cleaned for us while we wait. Living on the coast, we pick out our fresh fish while they are still flipping around in the water-filled bins in the market. Our kids wear plastic flip-flops (known as shib-shib) all summer long because it's too hot to wear sneakers.

Soon we will be buying our foods in supermarkets and wearing shoes and driving everywhere instead of walking or catching the bus. We'll  be living the suburban dream on a much tighter budget. I'll be able to buy ketchup and mayonnaise instead of having to make it at home because it's cheaper. I'll be happy that we are together as a family; that we are near my parents; that if we want to go away for the weekend and have a full tank of gas that we can just jump in the car and go for 2 hours in any direction and stay with any one of my amazing cousins, aunts, or uncles....and without having to watch the news or call around to find out if there are any political demonstrations scheduled first.

I will miss Egypt terribly. I will miss my friends and my family here. I will miss the natural beauty here and the light-hearted and generous people that I now consider to be my own.

But I'm ready for Texas again...Yee-ha, y'all. Here I come.

Mid-terms, Classics, and Falling Concrete

Where do I begin?

I have been intermittent at best with posting since the new year began.  I've been incredibly busy.  My two youngest are in the middle of mid-year exams at school and it's been a nightmare for me running one up in the morning to school and hanging out for an hour and a half for him to get out and then running him home, grabbing the girl and running her up to the same school (it's a junior high for girls in the afternoons and an elementary for both sexes in the mornings.) At any rate, our house is a half hour walk from the school and who the hell wants to walk all the way home and have to turn around and walk all the way back just a few minutes later.

So, yeah, waiting really blows. It's exhausting. Probably more exhausting than housecleaning, rug-scrubbing, or jogging (HA! Like I even remember how to do that thanks to the embarrassment that is post-pregnancies incontinence.) I'm making the best of it by sitting in the outdoor cafe catching up on my reading though. I'm nearly done with Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.  I started reading it a couple of chapters before bed last week and in the last two days I've devoured more than twenty chapters waiting for the kids. I truly love to read the classics.

So, we had a pretty freaky scary incident today. About ten minutes after Samiya and I had passed by the front of our building and come inside, we heard a thunderous boom and I asked, "What the hell was that?"
We heard people on the street making a commotion and ran out to the balcony where we saw that the
vertical wall that edges the roof of our building had crashed down to the street below where we had just been and where our doorman's granddaughters and our neighbor's daughter had been playing. It came fairly close and the neighbor's daughter, age 8, came tearing into the doorman's apartment with her hair covered in dust.  The doorman's sons raced upstairs to the fourth floor to warn the man in that apartment to stay off of his balconies as the  wall hit his balcony ledge on its way down and may have weakened the cement. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

The doorman sent his sons back up to the roof with sledgehammers to knock the rest of the damaged wall down before it fell on its own while the youngest of them stayed downstairs to prevent cars and foot traffic from entering our street.

We only have a few more days of exams left and then Thursday night, God willing, we will attend an engagement party for my husband's niece. Maybe I'll remember to buy batteries for my camera and I can post some photos.  More when I can stop to catch my breath.

For Updates on Gaza

Hi. I've been a bit busy the last week or so. Please don't feel ignored. I know how much everyone lives to read my blog. Pffffft! Anyway, I'm posting a link for friends and family who have expressed concern or sent me queries as to the proximity of the air strikes in Gaza as it relates to us.  I have found little in the way of accurate or reliable reporting locally or from any of the Israeli papers that I  have scanned. 

However, I am a member of a group that sent me a link to a British independent reporter who is covering the situation via a live feed on the ground in Gaza. So if you would like accurate, up to the minute information on the Gaza attacks, feel free to click here and follow Harry Fear live. 
God bless you and protect you and your team, Harry. 

Labels

I got this flash of genius about Labels around 1 in the morning while laying in bed trying to solve all of the world's problems instead of sleeping. Damn insomnia! Anyway, with Randa asleep next to me (because it's HER bed when her father is working overseas) I can't flip the light on and start rummaging through nightstand drawers searching for pen and paper to write down my brilliant epiphanies. So I grabbed my phone and used the recorder app. God bless technology. I hadn't even known that thing was on there until my kids, who are not allowed to even touch my phone, found it and began making really bad attempts at gangster rap. *face palm* 

Here are my thoughts:    LABELS.

They're what people use to define us. Sometimes they're what we use to define ourselves. And those labels with which we define ourselves are not necessarily the ones that others would use to define us. This is true in any kind of label. It doesn't have to be a good word or a bad word or whatever. We sometimes find ourselves in a position where others are defining us in a manner with which we do not agree, specifically, when people only see our outward appearances. My family is American. But when we live in the United States we are labeled as "Foreigners" because we are bilingual. We speak Arabic as well as English. We're Muslim. And because of our appearance (my daughters and I wear the hijab and cover our hair and wear modest, loose-fitting clothes in public) a lot of times in Texas, and other states too, people cannot look beyond our clothing. Immediately, we're "Foreigners." We're "Ragheads." We've been told "Go back to your own country" when we're in fact, already IN our own country. Every one of my children was born in the United States. My ancestors go back about 200 years of mostly Irish-American roots. My husband was born Egyptian, lived in Greece from 15 years old until he was 28 and after he and I married there, he came to the United States where he was naturalized. So, pretty much, we're an American family with very long roots that span several different continents and the labels that others have for us are not things by which we define ourselves.

The name of my original blog was "Square Peg in a Round Hole." And how does that fit me? Perfectly. Where you're trying to force yourself to fit into a society where you just don't fit. Being a family, inter-racial, inter-color?, international?....however you want to look at it.....couple with children, we don't fit anywhere.
In the States, we're viewed as "the Foreigners," "the Muslims," "the Terrorists," "the Weirdos who are always overdressed" no matter where we go. We have those, not necessarily prejudiced, labels applied to us in the United States.

We've lived in Egypt now for 11 years. And here we're also labeled. We still don't fit into the package people want to shove us into. We're "the Americans," "the Foreigners," "the Weirdos....how could you leave America to come here?" or the reverse "How can your country bomb all of these innocent people?" It's all just more labeling. Here, at least, most people understand that Ahmed Q. Public is not writing foreign policy for his government. So in Egypt, people tend to be more forgiving of your countries actions with which they disagree. In the US, people forget that people are separate entities from the governments that represent them sometimes.

But the point is, we don't fit the labels of any place where we live. I'm very strict with my kids. I'm a lot stricter with my kids than my Egyptian counterparts are with theirs. In the States, I'm stricter in some aspects and laxer in others seemingly. I guess we have different parenting styles. I know my mom thinks that I'm raising my kids wrong. I guess. I don't know. But the things that we prioritize are different than those she  prioritized while I was growing up. We don't fit into a particular mold. Where my sarcasm and sharp-tongued wit is acceptable in the States. In Egypt, it's less acceptable. They think I talk "weirdly." I mean, they laugh and think I'm generally a funny person. I get comments to that affect all of the time. But self-deprecation is not something that people "get" or appreciate as much and it catches them off guard.
   "How are the kids doing?"
"They're brats....so I guess they're just fine."

That kind of a retort is considered scandalous. But we come from two different types of cultures. And where I am so adaptable in so many cultures, I still stick out like a sore thumb. In the States, I've been labeled as "leaving my American heritage" because I've chosen to conform to Islam on some points that I've come to agree with more than the things I was raised with. Not everything....but some things. The manners here are different than they are in the States. There are so many things culturally different....and so many things that are exactly the same.

I fit well here because of my Southern background. The Southern part of me is very generous. We're very good hosts to our guests. We offer refreshment immediately to our guests and come to aid those around us and we get to know our neighbors. And that's very much how it is here in the Arab world. It's like Southern-hospitality meets Lawrence of Arabia. Respect for elders is a huge part of society here like it was the way I was brought up.

Some of the things that I now find unimportant, things I've adapted to in Islamic/Egyptian culture leave some of my American family members at a loss. Like thanking everyone for every damn thing they've ever done for you in their entire lives, I don't think that's important. I would rather God thank me for those things on Judgement Day. I also don't want my kids to accept money for helping anybody with anything. Like if they were to babysit their cousins or to look after a neighbor's pets or plants while the neighbor is away, they're not to accept money for that unless there was an agreement in place for that ahead of time. Monetary rewards for being a good neighbor seems counterproductive to me. You're just a hired hand and no longer a good neighbor. You do this and you will be paid by God, in blessings. If you accept the offered cash, you've been paid and the blessings offer is no longer on the table. In Islamic culture the same is true of a verbalized thank you. When one thanks you for doing something, the customary reply in Arabic is " There is no thanks needed for duty." Because it is one's duty to assist his neighbors and no thanks should be required.

I want my kids to learn that not everything needs to be paid for. They have learned that. I have witnessed this in action. They've noticed their aunt struggling with groceries from the car to the house and without any prompting from me or anyone else, immediately go to her aid. My kids immediately offer to help neighbors or relatives by carrying heavy packages, groceries, or hold doors open because they know that that is what makes them good neighbors; good Muslims. They're very polite. They see that something needs to be done and do it. Okay, they're still not helping me with the dishes or whatever, because they're still teenagers for crying out loud. But if there is broken glass on the steps of our building, they'll not think twice about getting a broom and dustpan to clean it up before someone gets hurt. My two older boys climbed up on the roof of the bakery next door to us and cleaned up all of the trash and junk that neighbors had tossed on top of it from their windows or balconies over the last few years. It took them and a neighbor boy 4 hours to get the job done. And instead of thanking them, the neighbors all told them, "May God shine His light on you."

These are their expressions of love; their expressions of respect. And they don't expect payment. They don't want payment or tips. They don't want thank yous. They understand the appreciation is there, just as their appreciation is there for things that we do for them. They know that. And they know that if they're not thanked in this world, that in the Next World, they will be. That's the difference in the way that we're raising our kids. We trying to teach them also to respect each other.

We're having a hell of a time attempting to get that through to them right now. Respecting one another and respect for me are both pretty much out the window at this point. I'm only missing one in my teenage spectrum right now. Aiman will be 12 in January but because he's the youngest and prone to early-starts in everything developmental, he's already begun the "put upon" drama and teenage angst early. This is only because he's already witnessed it 4 times over in his older brothers and sisters. So, a houseful of five teenagers, I'm losing my marbles. My oldest is only 17 so I have a couple more years of all of them being teenagers at the same time. Oh yeah...back to labels...which, "teenagers" is just another label, isn't it? But with all of the hormonal crap I have to  put up with on a daily basis, I think it's appropriate.

So, labels. My son and I had a long discussion about the N-word recently. To him, it's something that he hears in video games like G.T.A. (the bane of my existence that I've deleted from our computer at least 3 times), and in gangster rap. He hears it used by 50-cent, by Ice Cube, by Snoop Dogg and others. To him it is nothing more than a word used by cool guys. I've tried my very best to influence him with original hip-hop from the early 80's, where rap was more about self-promotion and pride and not about keeping others down with the use of the N-word, "bitches," and "hoes." He likes that stuff, but still seems to be drawn closer to the  "clippin' N's with my 9" kind of lyrics. His response to my continued efforts to break the use of these words is always, "It's just the song. It doesn't mean anything."

Well, YES. It actually DOES mean something. The degradation of words like the n-word, is used to hold people down; to dehumanize. It was a term applied to people who were given a status one step above that of an animal. It indicates stupidity, ignorance, laziness, less than human. And it was meant to make our black brothers and sisters to feel inadequate and powerless. That is the history behind the word. It's a word that we hear the younger generations use interchangeably with "dawg," "brother," "homeboy" now. Maybe they're too young to remember the insult attached to it. I don't know. But I don't like it.

A similar comparison can be made to words like "bitch" and "ho." The degradation of these words is used to hold women down; to slander them; to make them feel like their sole purpose in life is for the sexual gratification of men. They are terms applied to women, usually by men who do not respect them. Or by other women, who seemingly don't respect themselves. While I agree that we've come to associate the meaning of the word "bitch" to someone who is crabby and complains all the time, this ultimately is NOT what it means. Bitch is a female dog....which means what? Pretty much the same as whore. Since dogs don't mate for life and tend to mate with anything anatomically opposite when they're in heat, wouldn't that be an appropriate definition? And when my son gets mad and calls his sister a bitch, isn't that true definition of what he's insulting her with?

I've explained to him that according to his religion, what he is saying is 100% haram, wrong. In Islam, we are ALL equal in the eyes of God and no man is better than another save for ANYTHING other than his deen, religion....AND HOW HE PRACTICES IT. Also, in the Quran, women have the same value as men. (Oh, yeah....far different than what many people in the West believe.) Women, just like men, have rights and responsibilities. And there is an entire book of the Quran called "the Women ( النساء ). Throughout the Quran and in the Ahadeeth or sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) the sin of sullying a woman's name or spreading untrue slander about her is a sin punishable in this life AND in the hereafter:

Al-Noor 24: 23 reads as:

Those who slander against chaste, innocent, believing women shall indeed be cursed in this world as well as the hereafter. For them shall be a grievous punishment.

Al-Noor 24: 4 - 5 reads as:

Those who slander against chaste women and then do not produce four eye witnesses, shall be awarded with eighty lashes and their testimony shall never be accepted after this. These are the [true] transgressors, except those who [sincerely] repent after this and correct themselves, for, then, God is indeed forgiving, merciful. 

(**These texts are from a source I fully respect, Understanding Islam. You can see it here:  http://www.understanding-islam.com/articles/sources-of-islam/can-slander-of-chaste-women-be-forgiven-32 )

Anyway, I didn't start writing this piece to proselytize. I'm merely pointing out how I explained to my son the wrongness behind the use of these words. I also tried to explain to him by examples he might get since he's a boy whiter than mayo on Wonder bread. Because he isn't black or a girl and imagining just leads to all kinds of tangent conversations because that is how ADHD works. (Trust me. I know THAT first hand, too.)

I tried it this way:

     "Ismail, you know how when we lived in Texas those four months and the people across the street would let their kids play with you until they saw Randa and me come outside in our scarves?"

     "Yeah. That was weird the way their grandmother came out and ran them all back into the house and shut the door and they weren't allowed outside anymore after that. Why'd she do that?"

     "I heard what she was saying. She told the kids to come inside because we were terrorists."

     "But she was speaking Spanish."

     "I speak Spanish, too, son."

     "But why would she say that? We're not terrorists. We don't blow up planes."

    "I know. But a lot of people associate the word terrorist with Arab or Muslim. And so they think we're bad people because a lot of people want the world to think that about all Arabs and Muslims."

     "But we're American."

     "It doesn't matter where someone is from, what religion they are, what color they are, whether they are boy or girl, fat or thin, young or old, rich or poor. Labels are not a good thing to put on others and they are definitely not something we should judge others by."

     "So what does that have to do with gangster rap?"

     "Well, I think that you're missing the point of some of the lyrics. The underlying meaning of SOME of those raps have more to do with a situation or background that you cannot relate to because whether you were born in downtown Augusta, Georgia or not, you are NOT from the hood and you've lived an incredibly sheltered life. I am not certain why some rap artists find it necessary to use degrading words to define themselves and their family or friends and women in their lives. But I do know that the use of those words has done so much more harm than good. And I want you to stop using them. They're not cool words. They are 1,000 different types of inappropriate. Do you understand?"

     "Yes, ma'am."

Has it stopped it completely? Well, come on. He's a teenager. So, no. But he has agreed to work on it and I'm trying to stop dropping F-bombs. No reason to just blame THAT on my Irish label either, right?

Self-Confident or Narcissist?

I LIKE ME! Actually, I LOVE ME! No, really. I do. I can honestly look at myself in the mirror and say, "Hey, you good-lookin' specimen. If I could have an out-of-body-experience, I'd totally do you....TWICE!" And then I accidentally drop the towel and think about how long it's been since I've done crunches. But you know, that doesn't take away from my love affair with me.

It took me an extremely long time to like me. I grew up in a military family, where my dad had issues with weight vs. height standards according to the Army charts in the orderly room. I don't think he realized that the standards are different for women than they are for men. My mom was always concerned about her weight and size. I think she's always had an unhealthy view of herself...even when she only wore a size 5 jeans at 5'5". I haven't seen a size 5 jeans since I was in the 8th grade. And my mom had had 4 kids by then.
I think at her heaviest she was 135 lbs......without being pregnant. And probably only 155 lbs while 9 mos pregnant with my baby brother...who was 10 lbs 11ozs at birth. My mom always had a rock star figure. Even the guys in my high school thought so. But she continued to diet and jog and workout all the time. And never for the thrill of the workout or because it made her feel better. Seemingly, it was to lose weight so that she could make my dad like her better. What she never knew was that he liked her fine as she was.

I remember once when I was a senior in high school and a member of the track team and dance squad and running between 2 and 5 miles on the weekends because I liked how it made me feel, my dad asked me how much I weighed. I told him the truth. I weighed 120 lbs. He said that at 5'3" I shouldn't be more than 105. I told him that I'd inherited his mom's body type and short of lopping off a boob, there was little chance of me losing weight. I wore a size 9 which is incredibly thin for my fairly muscular frame. (And when I say muscular frame, I'm talking about back when I was 17. I still have that same muscular frame now at thirty-thirteen but it's very well insulated.) I always blew off the height/weight standards to how I felt in my clothes. I don't think my sisters or my mom felt the way that I did, though.

I managed to get out of my parents home with more self-confidence than my siblings, I think. (I may be wrong about that. They can correct me in the comments section if they like.) And although I thought that since I moved out at 17 years old, that I didn't get any of the low self-esteem issues or lack of self-confidence problems that I had seen in my mom, I was so wrong. I dated guys who were losers. I treated myself very badly. I carried myself in a manner that I WANTED to be but underneath, really wasn't. I wanted to be a mover and a shaker. I was instead, a shover and a faker. It's true. But about the time that I finally decided that I deserved better than the shitty relationship that I was in, I decided to take my faking to a whole new level.

I applied for a temporary assignment overseas....via backdoor means....and then pulled the, "REALLY? I didn't know that was how I was supposed to do it" excuse when I got lectured by my boss about protocol and blah blah blah......Boy, was he PISSED when they called me and offered me the assignment. I took it. And I swore it was all this self-confidence that I had that led me to doing it. But in retrospect, I think it was just a way for me to get away from my ex without having to actually deal with him. And little bits of self-confidence were beginning to grow roots within me. But I don't think they had actually taken root to me yet.

I think it took me about four years or more from that point to feel those roots of confidence start to wrap themselves around my core and then an opportunity to move overseas for a long term assignment. I took that assignment and ran like the wind. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Three months after I got there, I got my final documents giving me back my freedom and partied hard for another three months. I dialed back the partying after that but still had a great time with wonderful friends that I still keep in touch with today. And then I met my husband.

I continued to fake a lot of my self-confidence. I don't think he knew it even....until we talked about it one night last year. It was so weird. I was so certain that I loved him 100% and that he probably loved me 50% or maybe up to about 60% but just wanted a wife because his younger brother married before he did and he felt obligated to marry and I was handy....and kind of cute. But I still felt this way, six or seven years into the marriage. I have no idea why. I had already left my job and we'd moved overseas to Egypt when it finally dawned on me, "Hey, this guy REALLY does love me and REALLY would give me the moon if he thought it would make me happy."

I started to work on making me happy after that. I continued to read more and learn how to do things that I never thought I could. And you know what? It worked. I really, really, really started to like me. I also improved my Arabic skills, learned to sew, learned to make homemade ketchup and brown sugar, homemade pizza dough and to cook awesome Egyptian foods. I taught myself how to make a perfect pie crust, make my own fitted sheets, how to haggle with vendors in the open markets and souvenir shops. I learned how to rewire a lamp, change a valve in a faucet and to snake a floor drain in the bathroom. I discovered that I really suck at making my own clothes but I'm really good at making curtains, valances, sheets, pillows, and mending. I'm also one lesson ahead of my son in learning how to speak French.

I managed to lose 28 kilos through hard work and diet and kept it off for two years. Then it slowly crept back on and I haven't been able to finally decide that I want to focus the attention I need to lose it again. But I will. Soon. And even though I'm way overweight again and unhappy with how I look, I STILL like me. I still love me. And I can see myself through my husband's eyes. I am an incredible, sexy, intelligent, confident woman who does whatever she sets her mind to do. And I no longer need to fake the self-confidence. In the words of Abed from Community, "I've got self-esteem falling out of my butt."

NO I Don't Know Where the Promenade Deck Is

It's 5 million humid degrees outside and it's 1 a.m. and my kids are "bored" and begging me to entertain them and I would LOVE to play "TAG with a Cattle Prod" and I'll be "IT" but I don't have a cattle prod and I already made the rule that we can't run in the house.  And for the record, my name tag, if I were required to wear one for this SAHM-gig, would read MOMMY and not "Julie McCoy - Cruise Director" so it's not my responsibility to entertain you people.  This is a really small apartment packed to the gills with hot and sweaty people and no air conditioning. It's not the Love Boat.

Have I mentioned it's hot?  I HATE the summer.  Winter is cool because, even if we don't have heat, we can put down area rugs, pile on the blankets, wear two  pairs of socks and snuggle.  But summer? YUK. You can only BE naked. I mean, what's after that? I don't even plug in the water heater in the summer. And you'd think that that would provide us with cold showers all around, right? Wrong. Egypt is so damn hot that the cold water comes out of the pipes hot. Yup. Like solar powered water heater without the inconvenience of putting all those little solar panels up on top of the building.

So I've got the box fan blowing on me on high and hoping that my computer doesn't overheat because you know, NO AIR-CONDITIONING. I'm going to go take my fourth shower for the day and hit the sack. But I'll be dreaming of the Yukon, baby. And snow and polar bears drinking icy bottles of coke. And maybe I won't wake up so sweaty tomorrow.

Summer Schedules

It's hot. (Yeah, Africa hot because it's only June. I expect it'll be Dallas-hot by August.) So I'm not a big fan of the heat because it's so doggone humid here and we don't have air conditioning. I can live with just ceiling fans and open windows. Probably, it's healthier this way. (And if it's not, just can it! I don't want to hear how I'm doing it wrong mainly because I can't afford an air conditioner right now nor the additional 100 Pounds per month on the electric bill.)

Every summer I have these huge plans involving how much I'm going to get accomplished. I usually plan to complete my novel, teach my kids how to type without hunting and pecking, teach them to swim and we'll spend every other day at the beach, and I'll make awesome desserts that I saved from the internet and maybe I'll go back to freelance translation of articles online to make some extra money. And every year I'm lucky enough to get my butt out of bed before noon because it's too hot to sleep at night and too hot to do anything during the day.

However, this year is different. Today I got up at 11 o'clock. (That's EARLY in Egypt.) I managed to wash and hang a load of laundry, shower, have a cup of coffee, and complete five more pages on Chapter 7 of my novel! YEAH! I then got up and went to pay the internet bill (only three days late) and managed to keep my service from being interrupted. YEAH! And I brought Randa with me...she NEVER wants to go anywhere anymore. And we went to the vegetable market and bought fresh green and red grapes and apples and okra (YUM) and meat and rice and most importantly, a new remote control for the satellite receiver. Our old one bit the dust when it fell on the floor during a fight about which ridiculous cartoon we were going to watch. (I'm seriously considering grounding them from watching any cartoons with the exception of Warner Brothers cartoons. At least then they'd learn about classical music and how to cross dress in order to prevent hunters with speech impediments from blowing their brains out.

I got home and made a light lunch of fava beans with cumin and peppers and cheese and tomatoes with Arabic bread. And then I attempted to "catch my husband" on Skype. No joy. Oh well. He's  probably doing laundry or fixing his car...it IS the weekend.

It's been an incredibly weird week for me. I finally looked at myself in the mirror and decided that blonde is NOT a good look for me.  So last night I went back to red. I feel like I've got my own skin on again. It's still in the beginning days so any water on my hair drips off red and my t-shirt that I'm wearing now has red stains around the collar because it's so EFFIN' hot that I was sweating and my sweat dripped red onto my shirt. Oh well. And it's still pretty bright. (LOVE the Koleston Intense Cherry Red by WELLA.) I kind of look like I'm wearing a Fasching wig . Except that after bleaching the crap out of my hair a month ago and then dying it blonde and now red....all of my natural curl is just gone. I've never had such limp straight hair in my life. I don't know what to do with it. Perhaps it will curl back up again in a few weeks. I sure hope so. I love my curls.

Also, my kids have decided to get into classic rock recently. I went through my son's favorites  playlist on YouTube and he's got nothing but AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Metallica and Queen saved on it with a couple of Bob Schneider songs thrown in for good measure. Also, Randa was walking around singing "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin yesterday. That was weird. This is my autistic kid who still soothes herself by listening to Barney songs. Aiman has always had a thing for anything he can play air guitar to. But Samiya prefers only Michael Jackson and Ismail, my rhythm-less wanna-be rapper, is still a sucker for anything remotely gangsta.  (I'm trying to gently push the old hip hop because I don't want him walking around calling women bitches and hoes all the time. I think "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five can provide him with more intelligent lyrics and still give him that funky bass line that he admires so much.)

Anyway, I'm hoping to continue with some semblance of a schedule this summer that starts with me writing each morning. If I can just get a few pages or even paragraphs written daily, I may make this novel a reality instead of just a dream.

Next dream to make a reality:  Killing this blankety-blank-blank mosquitoes that have taken up residence under this desk!

Did You Know You Can't Flush When the Power's Out?

After 29.5 hours of no electricity, our power has finally been restored. What does this mean? Well, certainly NOT that I can plop down at the desk and start "pinning" like crazy although my left-mouse clicky finger is itching to do just that. Nope. I had to cook three days worth of meat that had thawed in my freezer before it started to rot. This, while a tad exhausting, actually works out quite well for me and my daily quest for "what the hell to cook."

Tomorrow we'll have beef and okra stewed in tomato sauce and the day after tomorrow....or whenever....I'll just thaw the garlic and orange roast that's cooked and in the now operational freezer.  I caught up on the dishes, washed the sheets that were in the washer all day fermenting in that nasty "wet dog" smell because the water was old. I fed my family the Texas-fried steak and convinced my 13 year old that he REALLY needed a nap. (Apparently, teasing and fighting the 11 and 12  year olds is exhausting work, too.)

Because we have such low water pressure out here by the beach, we require electricity to pump the water up to the upper floors of the apartment building. Soooooo, guess what we ALSO didn't have for the last nearly 30 hours? That's right. Water.  I did have water, but not via the faucet. I kept sending the boys downstairs with buckets and empty soda bottles to fill up from the house on the ground floor. Whatever. It worked. And I gave the bathroom a much needed cleaning and flushed a couple of times....just.because.I.could.

So, the next time your power pops off for a couple of hours during an electrical storm, just remember:  It could be worse. You COULD live in the Middle East where some idiot could be digging a foundation for a new apartment building and because he's doing it without the proper licensing or permission, his digger could cut a major grid cable in half and you could be a really long time without internet and the ability to read MY blog. And that would be terrible. Oh, the humanity!

Prelude to Sleeping In

Exams week has been whippin' my ass.  I am up by 6:30 a.m. each morning and out the door dragging two half-asleep kids a mile up the main street in order to put the boy on the bus to his school and then drag the girl another mile to her school.  Usually, I just sit and wait for her to finish and then we buy groceries and come home.  (I could go home and wait...but the wait would be long enough to use the bathroom and then put my shoes back on and head back. So why bother?)

It has rained every.single.day.this.week.  I now have a throat infection and little to no sleep is not helping matters.  But the kids are doing okay on their tests.  I think Mohamed has some concerns about his Advanced Algebra/Calculus test from today.  Tomorrow is a day off.  It is 25 January and the one year anniversary of the biggest youth uprising ever in Egypt that eventually succeeded in forcing Mohamed Hosni Mubarak to step down from his 30 year sham of a presidency. (Yay, Egyptians!)  And because we are still living under military rule until elections are complete in June, God willing, we expect that there will be demonstrations tomorrow but whether or not the thug factor pushes these demonstrations into something more, God only knows.

So, Thursday we expect to finish the testing. And then I will be able to sleep in until I wake up on my own.  You know, providing that my kids don't decide to get up at the crack of dawn to start fighting over whose turn it is to play on the computer first and for how long.  I'm so looking forward to NOT getting up before 7 in the morning.  We'll see how it  plays out.

Yeah, my blog posts are getting boring of late....but what do you do?  These exams are sucking the life out of me.  Here's hoping I at least have some weight loss due to the nerve-induced diarrhea.

YEAH.

I'm Going to Kick My New Neighbor and the Good News

For the last six months we've enjoyed being one of only three occupied apartments on this 6-apartment floor. The best part is that we had no one living on our side of the hall but us. Until about 4 days ago. And of course the new tenants want to renovate before they actually move in. But in typical Egyptian fashion, they are FRIGGING NIGHT OWLS and I have kids in school who have to get up at 0530 hours every morning and there's not a lot of sleep going on at night around here thanks to these ass-clowns banging on the walls to all hours of the night.  So I may welcome them to our floor by stomping them with my husband's new steel toe boots. WELCOME (stomp) TO (stomp) THE (stomp) NEIGHBORHOOD!

I'll move on to some Good News now.

It's getting colder here in Alexandria. And humid.  And I'm wondering if I'm part labrador or something....my nose is kind of damp and cold lately. Weird.

Anyway, I've been attempting to write a novel...no, SEVERAL novels for the last ten years and I always start out with a bang but then my computer crashes and I've not backed anything up or I lose the notebook I was scrawling in or I develop writer's block or I'm just interrupted by that annoying thing I sometimes call "my life."

So I've completed pretty much about 14 chapters of several stories that add up to bird cage lining.

Until this week.

I've FINALLY got a fantastic idea and it's a subject matter that I know quite well.  My teachers always told me to write what I know. So I finally am doing just that.  I may slow up a bit on blogging for a while, but I'm still writing. Just in a different place. I will try to get something on here every 5 days or so just because I really like others patting me on the back more than doing it myself. Less cramping that way.

May all my Christian friends have a wonderful Christmas.  May my Jewish friends have a Happy Chanukah.  May my African friends have a Blessed Kwanzaa. May the peace, love and force be with you.

Customer Service ... Another OXYMORON

"Customer Service" is a catch-all phrase coined by salespeople and middle management in Corporate America to make customers think that their patronage is actually valued. It really isn't. Now the salespeople will schmooze you and suck up to you long enough to get access to your money and then they never want to hear from you again. I used to think that Customer Service meant something....maybe it actually did. It did when I worked at the customer service desk at Sears Surplus in Laurel, MD. I was such a good customer service rep that I even ran around from behind my counter to hold the door open for a customer carrying out an air conditioner. It took a few seconds before I realized I'd helped him out the "in door" and called security who promptly tackled the shoplifter rendering him unconscious and the air conditioner destroyed. But being the good customer service rep, I promptly slapped a RECONDITIONED/REFURBISHED sticker down the side of it after super-gluing the knobs back on it and discounted it by $10.

Today I've been running nuts with "customer service" issues. At least in the US there's someone with a Stepford Wife-like honey sweet voice to calmly blow smoke up your ass when it comes to "challenges or issues" you have with whatever product that you're dissatisfied with. I mean, eventually you're going to get a refund or an exchange or an apology or a coupon or even just a "customer service survey" where you can say "Your company sucks ass!" and feel better about the whole situation.

Here in Egypt, the customer is always WRONG. No matter what. The school administration secretary misplaced my child's permanent records? It's my fault and I have to replace all SEVEN YEARS of paperwork....myself.....at my expense. A taxi driver plows into my son while we're walking on the side of the street....it's HIS fault for not walking on top of the parked cars on the sidewalk. The ultra-pasteurized milk with a shelf life of 3 months that I purchased 2 months before the expiration date is spoiled and comes out like cheese on the DAY I purchased it......I must have stored it wrong....in the bag that the store owner put it in while I carried it up to my apartment ONE BLOCK AWAY and immediately opened. ???? Those three letters W.T.F. keep popping up in my head today. But these are things that I've come to expect in Egypt. With the exception of ONE place:  the American Embassy in Cairo.

I've had NOTHING but good experiences with the American Embassy in Cairo over the last ten years. (With the exception of the FBI agent in charge there calling me and asking me to drive to Cairo so that he could grill me about my possible involvement in the September 11, 2001 incidents. Asshole. My family and I were inconvenienced as hell that day. Granted, we didn't die or anything but we were supposed to fly out to Greece that day (a permanent move) and we became homeless immediately with all the airports closing and hotels filling up, etc.....and with 5 kids under the age of 7 at that time....the odds of me being involved were slim and none and I know for a fact that it was racial/religious profiling that got them to call me in the first place because you know Arab/Muslim last name MUST mean terrorist. Needless to say, I told him I'd be more than happy to meet with them in my mother-in-law's living room and he could feel free to drive up at anytime but I will NOT repeat NOT go to Cairo. Ahem.....I digress.)

Anyway, so I've been trying for weeks to get an appointment with the Consul when he comes to Alexandria because driving to Cairo (3 hours away) with 5 kids is a bloody nightmare. And of course, their appointment making website (acuity.com) is jacked up for the last 2 weeks and all the appointments are now full for December. So I try for the end of January. And it works fine until you reach the "confirm your appointment by clicking FINISH" step....and then you get the HTTP 500 error.....that means INTERNAL server error for those of you are not in the know. I contacted the embassy via email. They said, as though my clicking abilities are faulty or something, "Sorry for the inconvenience, many other US citizens managed to schedule their appointments.  Please try again."   My response of course is, "WTF?"


I emailed them again and explained what HTTP 500 is. They said the same thing....try again later. So I called the American Cultural Center here in Alexandria and asked if there was something I could do here. She said no that it was via the embassy. I called the embassy, wasting 2.50 pounds hearing that I should call back between 1pm and 3pm. I explained that I really only want to make an appointment but the link is down. She transferred me to a guy who transferred me to another guy's voice mail.....who, as it turns out, doesn't subscribe to voice mail and I was disconnected. "WTF? ...... G.D.S.O.B. M.F. piss ant!
So I fired off another email, taking care to correct the MR. to MRS. which only told me that it's a foreign national worker that I am dealing with and not an American employee. Americans know that the name NIKKI spelled like that is a GIRLS name.  After several email exchanges, I think it got passed to an American employee because the acuity.com link went off line completely and I got actual timely responses asking me what I wanted and they've tentatively scheduled me for the appointment on the day and time that I want but I have to follow up with them later for confirmation. Yay.


But still--- acuity.com is on my shit-list, the gas tank salesman who overcharged me by 15 pounds for a desperately needed gas tank has been handed over to God for revenge, and the guy who sold me rotten milk has permanently lost a customer. No. I'm NOT happy with my long distance company and Customer Service is an oxymoron.

Egypt Update: 22 FEB Tuesday

Well, life for OUR family was more of the same ole, same ole.....BUT the Chief of the Military Council finally came on the air and made a really long-winded statement in which he said that he accepted the resignation of the Cabinet. He's not stepping down. The military has no desire to extend the military rule, etc. and blah blah blah the presidential elections will be completed by July....2012. Yeah. So, people not happy. Whatever.

I can kinda see his point on one hand. I mean, you don't just hand over the country prior to elections and just hope for the best. There is no government here other than the military council. Things seemed to have calmed down a bit in Cairo the last time I checked the news stations a couple of hours ago. My eyes started to get that donut glaze over them and I was hearing Charlie Brown's teachers voice "Wah, wah, wah, wah....wah, wah..."
so I changed the station and let the kids watch Rush Hour while I did the dishes.

Alexandria is a mess. Not where we live....but across the city mainly in Samouha district (where my cardiologist is.) The police vans were firing huge tear gas cans into the crowds in a downward angle from the mount on the roof of the vans. People are being shot in the head and eyes with rubber covered bullets. It's been pretty bad according to the reports. Camera-wise in Alex, they seemingly only have one street covered (Al-Jazeera International.) They announced on State TV that a curfew is in effect and no one can be on the streets after 6 pm but you know how much anyone is respecting the police right now. It's 11:34 pm and I just got home from grocery shopping. My husband and one of my son's went to the gym to work out. S.S.D.D.

Ultimately, you can't go from a dictatorship to a democracy in a relatively short amount of time. It requires a lot of building and change and trust. At present, the supreme high court has announced that the announcement by the military last week that they will not be overseen by civilian leadership and that the military funds are not going to be accounted for by civilians, etc is either constitutional or unconstitutional. I don't know. You have a neighbor who doesn't have television but does have 4 kids under the age of 10 stop by to catch up on the news and the whole house goes nuts and you end up missing a word here and there. I'll let you know when I play catch up. Also, elections are still scheduled for 28 November. We shall see. I'm tired and need to go make a late supper for my weight-lifters before they get home. Peace out.

URGENT Update on Egypt Situation

Hey. I don't know what's being covered in the US right now as far as the 

demonstrations and clashes starting up again here.....but it's true. Tomorrow

they are calling for a "Million Man March" and there are already thousands in

Tahrir Square in Cairo and all across the country gearing up. 

The people are protesting that we're still under military regime (Mubarak's

leftovers) and the elections that were supposed to be held back in September

were pushed back until October (because of Mubarak's trials that never happened)

and then again to November 28. My kids are taking exams this week for mid-terms

but it looks like the schools are preparing for the "fit to hit the proverbial shan", as

it has been rumored that those exams may end up being their mid-year exam

grades. Samiya and Aiman are scheduled to get out of school at 11am tomorrow

morning. I'm planning, God willing, to meet them at the gate with a buttload of 

groceries for them to help me carry home and then we're hunkering down to ride

out the storm. The really good part in this, Mohamed is at home right now so it

won't be as scary.

We are still living on the outskirts of the city of Alexandria in the beach community.

While there will probably be some demonstrations here, it probably will not reach

where we live. We don't live near any military or police installations or government 

offices, so we're probably safe. Mom, you met my friend Sarah when you were here.

She lives next to a prison and police station. Keep her family in your prayers, please.

They had a lot of violence by their house last time. 

I just wanted to touch base and let you know what's going on right now---- It's currently

9:30pm (Egyptian Standard Time) Monday, 21 November. The last report on Al-Jazeera

English (International) and the BBC Arabic news channels, the military council has 

accepted the resignations of the Interim Cabinet members but nobody cares. The cabinet

ministers are really just puppet heads for the military council at this point and have done

virtually NOTHING since being appointed. They're all Mubarak-leftovers as well. The 

people are calling for the resignation of the Head of the military council. 

What you ARE seeing on tv (if you're watching) is probably the people in Tahrir Square.

There are thousands of people milling about and shouting. Also, there are makeshift

hospitals within the square set up by volunteer doctors helping the injured and so far, there

have been over 33 dead reported and thousands injured. They've made an assembly line 

to carry the injured from the side streets into the middle of the square for treatment. The

more serious injuries are being carried back out and put into ambulances for hospitalization.

What you ARE NOT seeing on tv is the attacks by the internal security forces, police and

military against peaceful demonstrators. They are firing a plastic bullets, shot gun shells full 

of bird shot and now they are using a more powerful tear gas (per the 

correspondents on both channels who've been reporting since Jan) than in the 25 Jan rev-

olution and in the demonstrations last month. Here in Alexandria (specifically in Samouha

district), the cops are up on roof tops firing plastic bullets and bird shot into crowds of 

unarmed people. I haven't heard about what's going on down in the Upper Egypt areas and 

in Suez....but it's probably the same as here and Cairo.

At any rate, as long as the internet is up, I'll give you all updates every day to let you know

that we are okay. If you want to call, that's fine, too. I probably won't be calling out because

if this goes to shit again like earlier this year, phone cards to refill balances on prepaids are

going to be impossible to get ahold of. So I'll be saving for emergencies.

Nikki, Mohamed and kids

The Weather Has Changed, but Has the Climate?

There was patience and grumbling under breath for more than thirty years. Everyone knew that the sunshine was killed by a dark and shadowing cloud. That cloud gathered smaller gray clouds around it, becoming one huge black sky that had no silver lining. Occasionally when it would line itself with the silver of freer climates from across the globe, the rays of a distant hopeful sun would shine through, but only for brief moments. And when the freer, warmer climates breezed their attentions elsewhere, the black sky would deposit the silver lining into offshore accounts and then release more acid rain onto the dry, parched ground of the land beneath it.

The product of thirty years of acid rain and very little nourishing moisture is a hard and rugged land. It still gives vegetation, but for every one pure and wholesome fruit produced there are five that are full of worms and as blackened on the inside as they are red and beautiful on the outside. These plants are mostly rootless. If they have roots, they are not hard-fastened to the sandy soil and are therefore, lazy and useless. They cannot provide for the starving plant, and the germination process seemingly stopped.

But there was a bright light. And the smaller, younger shoots caught a glimpse of it and were inspired. They pushed through the topsoil. They blossomed and rooted deep strong roots in the soil that was deep down in the earth of old. Their blossoms, bright and colorful, shouted to the lazy and complacent foiliage in the gardens across the land. They encouraged them out of their sleep and brought their pride to the tips of their leaves, forcing them to rise up against the artificial climate of the controlled greenhouse built around them by the black sky. They, too, shouted out their colors and burst through the glass ceiling that had held them down so long. They grew tall and strong. They reached the sky united and broke through its blackness and it crumbled to the ground. The warmth of the hope of a new sun was so warm around them that they felt no fear nor cowardice. The wetness of true rain with its nutrients was real and inspiring on their hungry petals and they grew stronger and overcame the blackness.

But the black sky left its residue of corruption in the very chlorophyll of the vegetation throughout the land. Some of the plants, who only knew life under the black sky, continued to live as parasite plants, choking the very life out of the smaller and younger plants. Only a new sun can provide a focal point for the lazy and corrupt plants. Can the smaller clouds gathering in the sky along with a  new sun wash away this dirt and filthy stench of thirty oppressive years of darkness? Hope is here. We'll see.