Lumpy Brownish Milk Ain't Half-Bad in Coffee

Shuffling into the kitchen at 6:30 in the morning, I tend to do things in a rather rote way:  Grab coffee mug, pour coffee (that is ONLY made because I set it up to go off by itself the night before...GOD bless the inventor of THAT TRULY MOST AWESOME INVENTION EVER!) and then grab the gallon of milk out of the fridge and pour it into the mug, then drink delicious, caffeinated goodness that is my ante meridiem nectar.

Yesterday, I noted to myself that this jug is already at the halfway point and that maybe I need to pick up another gallon before the end of my day. And as I thought this, I began pour the milk into my coffee and it fell into my mug like white stew. "What, WHA????"

me:  "Oh, crap!"

Ismail:  "What?"

me:  "I can't believe this! I just bought this milk yesterday and now I have to return it to the grocery store because it's bad."

Ismail:  "It's not bad."

me:  "Son, it's pouring out in chunks . My coffee looks like it has quark floating in it. OH, THE HUMANITY!"

Ismail (audibly annoyed - remember I hadn't had coffee yet and could barely see past the mug) : "MOMMY! The milk is NOT bad."

me:  "THEN PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY IT IS BROWNISH AND LUMPY????"

Ismail:  "Because Randa squeezed an entire bottle of chocolate syrup into it and then  poked marshmallows through the opening and shook it up."

me:  "Cool. Rocky Road coffee."

Coffee IS My Xanax

As I've mentioned, I'm fasting. Today is the 10th day of Ramadan. And so far, it's been fairly easy. We thought that it was going to be a bear with it beginning in the middle of July this year. But all in all, it's been fine. I guess that with the heatwave hitting in June, we've grown accustomed to not sleeping until around 4 or 5 in the morning because it's too hot. And then we get up around noon. I had someone remark to me that we aren't "really fasting" if we sleep all day...but we aren't "sleeping all day."  We're actually sleeping less. And
we aren't "eating all night." We eat at sunset (around 7 pm) and then again around 2:30 am so that we have something in our bellies before we sleep. The really hard part for the kids is water. And so as soon as the call to prayer at sunset goes off, they start walking around the house with a 1.5 liter water bottle in their hands and drink and refill and drink refill.

For me, the hard part as usual is the coffee. I am admittedly a coffee addict. And before anyone starts with the whole "you could start drinking decaf and eliminate caffeine completely" ideas or offering of 12-step programs (is there one for caffeine addiction?) I LIKE MY DRUG OF CHOICE. You have no  idea what it's like. I'm raising five kids in a foreign country with my husband working overseas and I am doing this stone-cold sober and without the assistance of SSRI's. Look. When I got pregnant with the first one 17+ years ago, I stopped smoking. I stopped drinking. (This made becoming a Muslim easy later.)  I cut back on coffee to only 2 cups a day while pregnant and 3 cups a day while nursing. (Damn. That kind of explains the ADD issues, doesn't it? Oh well.)
So, here's the truth that I tell my kids:  I drink coffee for YOUR protection! I do. It's true. I don't think that they ever believed that until today. I usually serve several types of juice at breakfast before I hand out plates. They get their choice of carob juice, tamarind juice, mango juice or Tang. Then they can switch it up and have another type. Whatever. The important thing is that they get that blood sugar up after fasting all day and juice is the quickest way to do that. Then we eat. While I'm serving plates, I'm usually making a cup of coffee at the same time. I drink coffee WITH my breakfast. Only tonight, the milk was disgustingly chunky.....so I dumped the cup down the sink after a swig. And then....OMG, is it possible?.....I forgot to make another cup.
I finished eating and then a little while later announced that I was going to nap for about an hour. I awoke three hours later with a throbbing headache from hell and feeling panicky and sick. I didn't even get off the bed. I handed my purse to the youngest and told him to go buy me a liter of milk ASAP. The oldest came in to check on me and I told him to go make me a cup of coffee. I'm on my third cup now and no longer resemble the pulsating swollen bruise on Tom's head after Jerry smacks him with a hammer.
So, you may ask, am I ready to give up my last addiction? NEVER!
But I am ready to make sure that we have fresh milk in the house before sunset!
(By the way, all of the above images are courtesy of user uploads to Photobucket.com and are not my own personal property.)

Funky Errands

Here is a journaled out version of what I did this morning. I'm telling you, I am exhausted just re-reading it. And I have a serious impulse to take another shower. But for any of you who don't believe that I'm as busy as I am, here's proof:

‎0800 Egypt Local Time (ELT) - Answered phone (wake up call from neighbor)
0830 ELT- Finally got my arse out of bed, showered, made coffee, got dressed and left.
0930 ELT- Arrived at school and picked up Mohamed's administrative records.
1000 ELT- Went to the high school to find out he's 4 points shy of being able to register there and unless the grade curve drops in the next couple of weeks, he'll have to go to trade school. This is not good.
1030 ELT- Arrived at bank, got number, found an empty seat right under the air conditioner vent. Very glad I brought my book.
1045 ELT- Smelly, disgusting guy takes empty seat next to me and proceeds to clear his throat and cough a lot. Begin to wonder if he has tuberculosis or just smoked too much hash last night.
1049 ELT- Smelly, coughing dude REMOVES HIS SHOES AND OH DEAR LORD WHY DID I LOOK? He hasn't cut his toenails in 6 years apparently. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
1055 ELT- Smelly, coughing brain surgeon wants to know how the number thing works...specifically, "How do the tellers know what number I have in my hand?" (Uhm, because you hand them the fucking ticket after the computerized number board announces that they're serving your number.)
1059 ELT- Wondering how Mubarak was so successful with his evil plan to make the majority of Egyptians morons.
1115 ELT- Smelly, coughing, toenails dude is now aggravating some young man to his right. Thank God. He'll now be coughing somewhere other than on my shoulder.
1138 ELT- Number 117 is called. I'm number 118 so I get up and run to the open space between the only two teller windows open waiting for my numer to be called.
1145 ELT- EFF-word. Apparently, numbers don't mean shit around here. 6 customers who've already been at the teller windows have been called back by name. What gives people? Whatever. At least the gnarly toed dude is hacking his lungs on me.
1150 ELT- Still waiting. What is that smell? OMG. It's me. I was sweating so bad outside that my sweat under all these layers of clothes (that are still soaked from while I was outside) all smell like Fritos. Wondering if the smelly, guy was really smelly or if it was just me smelling me.
1155 ELT- Really self-conscious now. OMG. Did I really forget to put deodorant on?
1202 ELT- NOW SERVING 118.....Oh, thank God.
1204 ELT- Exit bank and go directly to buy garbage bags, ground beef and cookies.
1217 ELT- Start pulling clothes off as soon as the front door slams shut. Shower. Dress. PUT DEODORANT ON....twice.
1300 ELT- NAP

Lazy, Hot Summer

It's about 4,000,000 degrees F outside (that's 2,222,204.44 degrees C, in case you were wondering.)  I melted four days ago.  But then I guess someone scooped up my big, ole puddle of body fat into a Nikki-shaped mold and stuck me back in the freezer.  Because here I am again....all corporeal and able to type.  Maybe there's something to this whole cryogenics thing, after all. Who knew?

So along with all the heat and humidity of Summer, comes the weird sleeping hours and laziness to a degree you would be flabbergasted over in the Winter.  It's just too hot to sleep or eat or cook or clean or hell, breathe, even.  The energy required to towel off after a cold shower just makes you get all sweaty again. So I'm thinking of waterproofing my computer somehow and just sort of staying in the bathroom until September.  Fortunately for my kids, who are concerned about privacy issues with me turning the bathroom into an office and it's the only bathroom in the house, I haven't figured the whole CPU waterproofing thing.  But let me tell you....as soon as I do, they're peeing across the street at the neighbors' house.

For about 9 months out of the year, I'm a "get 'er done" kinda gal, to borrow from Larry, the Cable Guy.  I get up early and get some laundry hung while I pound back coffee after waking kids up one at a time to utilize the aforementioned one bathroom in a sort of assembly line fashion, get 'em off to school, buy produce and carry it all the 2-mile walk back home.  I have more coffee while I write on this blog or work on my novel or just screw around and catch up on email or Facebook. I always have laundry going and manage to get something started for lunch and the wash hung again before running out the door to pick the kids up from school.  I carry the dish-washing throughout the school year but during the Summer I delegate to the kids. This year, they've been pretty substandard (read: SUCKY) at completing their tasks.  Anyway, I am one well-oiled machine running this household until about mid-June. And then you can hear my gears grinding to a halt.

I don't sleep at night anymore. I wish I could.  It's just too damn hot. I sleep around dawn when the mosquitoes have backed off enough that I can open the windows so that the ceiling fans aren't just blowing hot air around. And I have so many things that I want to get done before noon...but unless I literally pull an all-nighter/morning-er I will never get them done. Sleeping from 6-12:30 isn't conducive to my errand list.

And that  perpetual lie I tell myself daily, "I'll just take a quick nap and get up at 9" isn't even fooling me anymore. Apparently, my subconscious has checked out with a quick "yeah, right!" retort and somehow the alarm never goes off.

So, what do I do? I may get off of here now and take a quick nap so that I can get up at dawn and "get 'er done" but that's not bloody likely. My youngest has sort of pushed my hand at making him an apple  pie by peeling and cutting 2 lbs of apples and if I don't do it now then they'll go bad and I'll feel guilty for wasting food.  And then Ismail has the clippers all set up for me to give him the mohawk I've been promising to give him since Summer started. *sigh*

I wonder if  Pinterest has any computer waterproofing pins.

To-Do Lists Are Not Getting To-Done

SAHMs are constant list-writers, for the most part. We have lists of things to do, things to buy, whose turn it is to do the dishes and who is grounded from computer and for how long.  Sometimes my life is so jam-packed with activity, responsibility, items we've run out of, that I have to include things that ordinary people never forget, like eating or pooping. Yes. My to-do list will actually have -go poop written on it most days.
I've given up adding the more decadent activities to my to-do list.  I now write "shave legs" and "wax mustache" to my bucket list with the hopes of experiencing these things at least once more in my life time before I kick that damn bucket which seems to be further out of sight daily.  If I could remember to refill and actually take my cholesterol medicine, I may never have to put " -go poop" on my to-do list ever again. That job will be "to-done" before I finish my first cup of coffee.

So, today I've added the following to my B.B.T.D.L. (that's Big Bad To-Do List): three official emails to write, copies of one child's entire medical history to be made, pick up oldest kid's school records and copy, and find a cyber-cafe with a working printer so that I can print off my absentee ballot and get that thing in the mail. All of these in addition to the usual grocery shop, cook, clean, break up fights, hang clothes, break up more fights, pull hairball out of bathroom  pipe, break up fights, pay whatever unexpected bill collector that shows up at the door, break up fights, make dinner, pry the remote control out of teasing 11 yr old's hand and break up fights.

Oh. Emergency to-do list interruption, "Mom, I need to go to the dentist. I have a big, huge cavity and it hurts to breathe." *sigh* 

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!

Today is Pretty Quiet for Anxiety Thursday

I am having one of those weird days where I actually have all the quiet that I need because all five of my kids are sleeping in today and I have managed to bring in the laundry and get a cup of coffee and turn on the white noise fan (which is kind of cold on my back right now, come to think of it) and I don't have stacks and stacks of dishes from late night refrigerator raids by teenagers and I sat down at the computer and managed to NOT
open Facebook or that evil, evil Pinterest (I'm sorry, Pinterest. I love you!) and I managed to pound out the rest of chapter 6 of my (seemingly perpetual attempt at writing a) novel and I made the mental connection that the HORRIBLE and ROTTEN person who is SPAMMING on Pinterest is ALSO stealing photographs from the Nouveau Raw website and the photographs are copyrighted and belong to Amie Sue Oldfather (who you can find HERE on Facebook) and YES! I certainly am tattle-telling about it right here and right now because I don't dig copyright infringement and while I do post photos that don't belong to me on this blog site from time to time, they are always from free sites that encourage sharing such as the above photograph that I got from Photobucket  or else I use my own photographs because YEAH, I own a digital camera and I figured out how to upload photos so there!  (hold on....need to catch my breath.)

So anyway, I was pinning yesterday and found this really cool-looking photo with the promise of a recipe for "raw peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes" and of course I had to comment by tagging it with my friend's name, because Bonnie and I love to torture one another with really delicious dessert pins.  Only when I tried to follow the links back to where the recipe is I was hoodwinked!  It was a fake "scavenger hunt" pin that leads you to believe that Pinterest itself is giving away these huge prizes to 5 pinners daily that range anywhere from $50 to $1000 give-aways from companies such as Amazon.com, Starbucks, Victoria's Secret, and Apple, etc.

Now I have NO IDEA whether or not these companies are actually sponsoring these giveaways or not....but if I were a betting person (and I'm not because I believe gambling is wrong), I'd put my money on NOT....because when you attempt to "collect your prize" you are then linked to these applications that you need to fill out in order to collect. And there's a whole lot of "required information" such as your home address, telephone numbers, email address, birth date, etc and an agreement to share this information with some giant list of companies such as Fingerhut and cheap airline ticketing agents, etc and basically, you're just providing your own information for telemarketers and spambots.  At any rate there never was a recipe listed or a link back to the Nouveau Raw website, which I'm pretty sure is where the fake pinner got the photo from.  I just happened to notice the copyright tag in the bottom right corner of the photograph and I am already a newsletter recipient from Amie Sue Oldfather because I went through a vegetarian stage last year (that only lasted 45 days but still....don't judge me!) and I still use some of the recipes from that site.

Wow. Did I ever go off on a tangent. Let me get back on the rails...if I can remember where they were. Yeah, I got nothing.....

So the next topic I wanted to discuss in my ADD-forum of thinking, was hair.  Yeah, I'm usually a big time ponytail-but-only-comb-it-while-it's-wet kinda girl....but I got this wise idea that when my husband left to work overseas again that I should hack it all off and attempt to go platinum blonde....only at my age, twenty-twenty-three, it just REALLY  looks stupid.......(or 'fucktacular' as my friend, Buffy, described it) and so I decided to darken it up a bit to an ash blonde....which is okay but still kinda looks weird on me. Maybe I'm still not used to seeing anything other than a deep red on me. I've been dying my hair red for more than 20 years and it does look much better.  If it were just a matter of color (and apparently texture because after bleaching the crap out of my hair four times and then dying it to a darker blonde version my hair is the same texture as those rectangular hard bristle brush brooms that they sweep public streets with) I could deal with it.  But NOOOOOOO!  I also had to have it cut. And since my trusted hair dresser (20 miles away from here) quit doing hair because she had a baby three years ago and is now a SAHM, I had to trust a stranger to cut my hair. OH! The humanity. I look ridiculous. You know that "in-between-stage" that you have to go through a few weeks after you get your hair cut?  Well, this woman managed to cut my hair into an "in-between-stage" cut.......so I got to skip the whole "ohmigosh how cute" cut in the beginning. I hate her.  I'm grateful that my husband isn't here to criticize it. (Although he did see if over Skype and laughed while he was saying how it looks good.  Nope. They still don't offer that Skype-app of chisel-punch to the kidneys. I looked for it.)

So, I am waiting patiently for my hair follicles to rest and repair with lots of conditioning treatments until next month when I go back to red. While I wait, I'm going to try to catch up on my mending that's about to break the sewing table it's stacked so high and then perhaps I'll try out at least 10 of those hundreds of DIY crafts and sewing projects and recipes I've madly pinned to my Pinterest boards. (Oh, Pinterest you ARE the devil.)

I think I need to have more coffee....my feet are beginning to touch the floor again.

Possible New Careers for Me

I'm looking for a new job. Something less stressful than being a Stay-at-home-Mom (SAHM.)  See, being a SAHM requires me to work between 18 and 23 hours a day, eat cold meals, and drink so much coffee that I am not only jittery but usually constipated for days at a time, unless I accidentally take my cholesterol medicine twice in the same day and then....LAWD!  Don't block the path to the bathroom.

I want a new job with benefits.  Health insurance, you ask?  Pish-posh.  I want  the benefits like the right to a daily shower with hot water, whether I need one or not.  I want to be able to sleep a full 6 hours at night without being awakened 20 minutes before the alarm clock goes off to be asked, "What time is it?"  I want to be able to have a "lunch break" where I can actually get more than one forkful of food into my mouth before someone else asks me to serve them seconds.  I want it all.

I'm thinking that a career in firefighting might be a good choice for me.  I got tons of training in how to get people someplace safely in record speeds by being told 12 minutes before soccer practice starts that I was unknowingly volunteered to drive the carpool.  I'm also pretty good with bandaids and antiseptic, so maybe I could train to be an EMT.  I break up fist fights between teenage boys at least three times a day.  Perhaps an official on a nuclear disarmament team?  Peace talks?  Referee for a football club in Liverpool?  Or maybe rodeo clown...but clowns creep me out.

Leave a suggestion in the comments section.
Oh, and check out my friend, Nuala Reilly's webpage for great reading material at this LINK.  She's awesome.

Chest Pains, Homeschool and Housework, OhMy!

Saturday I posted on Facebook that I was again experiencing serious chest pains and that my husband took me to the emergency room and of course, no cardiologist was on duty. That was on Friday night. We paid for an appointment for Sunday night. And I went Sunday night with his cousin (because he had an appointment with the dentist to complete some dental work already started.) And the stupid cardiologist called in sick and we proceeded to walk about 8 miles in circles through about 4 hospitals in the area looking for one with a cardiologist. And of course, NO JOY.

I got home sweaty and hot and really pissed off, wondering if I were to drop dead of a heart attack would anyone in the Egyptian medical community give a crap. Probably not. I decided to contact my best friend, Sara, who I had neglected to bother with all of this because she just had her third baby and has enough crap on her plate with getting used to having 3 kids, going back to work as a surgical nurse after maternity leave, school for her oldest son just starting within the last few weeks and her mother-in-law living upstairs from her. But the whole "surgical nurse" thing and a plethora of knowledge as to where to find specialists in this city trumped all of her problems. So she told me to call the "heart center" downtown Alexandria. I did. And I have an appointment tomorrow at 5:30pm YAY. But what to do with the rest of my day?

So, while I was trying to track down the "heart center" phone numbers online today, Aiman started yelping and howling about ants "eating" his legs. Apparently one ant climbed on his foot and he freaked out. He IS my bug-fearing germophobe. I sent him to shower and then found out what the problem was. Aiman was charged with sweeping the living room last night after dinner and Mohamed was charged with wiping down the coffee table. (Our place is too small to have a dining room unless we want to lose a bedroom....so we opted to just eat in the living room at the coffee table.) Mohamed got his usual case of TWC's (Table-washing cramps) and had to go poop for about an hour or so. Of course, by the time he got out of the john, he'd lost 2 pounds, was light-headed and completely forgot about the task he'd been assigned. Aiman just said, "I don't want to" and went to bed. I was pretty much in pain and had already gone to sleep so it didn't get done. At any rate, I pushed furniture around, swept the house and mopped the house with kerosene water (kills bugs and as long as I don't smoke while I'm doing it, it's not dangerous provided the house is well-ventilated.) I swept off all the area rugs and put them back, returned the furniture and then made my phone calls to the hospital while sucking down the coffee I hadn't had due to Mop-mania Ant-Killing Mission.

I did three loads of laundry, "homeschooled" for math because no one went to school today because my husband was afraid that the ongoing in-fighting had reached our outskirt area of town. WHAT DID I EVER DO TO HIM TO DESERVE THAT??? Truth be told he thought he had it on good authority that it was unsafe to send the kids to school today. When I found out that his source was one of his cousins who barely understands the evening news, I reminded him that she was the same one who dragged his nieces down to my apartment when she was babysitting them and had all of them terrified that Israel had attacked Alexandria and were currently bombing our neighborhood. Why? Because the people on the block behind ours were having a wedding and shot off about 30 bottle rockets all at once. They'd never seen this type of fireworks before (they're illegal here) and freaked out and ran downstairs terrified and crying while my kids were staring out the bedroom window going, "Ooooh!....Aaaaaah!" So, while I shifted gears between 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th grade levels of geometry and algebra, I managed to fold and put away another 2 loads of laundry, solve a Rubik's cube (by popping all of the pieces out and putting it back together so that the kids all think I'm a genius), pick all the pubic hair off of the bar of soap in the shower (far too many males in this household) and get the dishes washed up. I sent the boys out to pick up the stuff I needed for dinner and got the kids fed and MOST of the homework done before my husband got out of bed at 2.

I try to keep busy because activity actually makes my chest hurt less. So, it's not exercise-induced. I'm thinking it's stress. But with the high-cholesterol levels and this houseful of teenagers, I really need to have it checked. Here's to my health.

I'm Going to be Bald by 2012

I woke up feeling like someone had pounded the snot out of me with a Louisville Slugger this morning. I guess it's time to pull the blankets out of the closet. Or maybe just turn the ceiling fan off at night. But that hyperactive ovary has me doing the pre-menopausal night sweat dance. You know the one. Where you are hot as hell and feeling like your clothes are choking all the oxygen out of you even though you're only wearing a thin cotton nightshirt and going commando in case your husband decides to wake you up for a zesty session once the kids finally fall asleep. And then after about 10 minutes of comfortable sleep once you've kicked the covers off your sweaty body, the ceiling fan cools you off from comfortable to "damn, I feel like someone jammed an icicle through my spine" and then of course, you can't find the bedspread that you kicked across the room only moments earlier. And the mad vicious circle continues all night.

So after little to no real sleep, I awoke to a vicious headache and pretzel-like muscles. Then my kids started the  "he was supposed to be third today on the computer and I was supposed to be first"--"No, you're a butthole liar" routine not only before coffee...but before I'd had my morning pee. This was my first clue to Suckfest 2011. I asked the kids to please be merciful and quiet since I had all the signs of an oncoming migraine and they promised they would just before the youngest two decided to host an indoor soccer match in the boys' room. The two older boys engaged in mortal combat for the remainder of the day and well into the evening. (As a matter of fact, they only called a truce about 20  minutes ago when "Hancock" came on tv and sat down on opposite ends of the couch to watch it together.)

I was supposed to take Randa back to the dentist tonight. He tried like hell to get her broken molar out yesterday but he made a mistake and let her see the needle before I got her sunglasses with the electrical tape on the outside lenses on her. And she said, "Dentist is jackass! No way, Jose! Wanna go home!" and  proceeded to argue with him for the next half hour as he tried to coax her into opening her mouth. He started to come at her with the needle and she actually yelled, "No. No. I love you." at him. At which point all he could do was crack up laughing and ask me to try and bring her back tonight. I tried to prepare her all day for it. I poked her in the gums with my fingernail several times and said, "See? 2 small needles here and here and then the dentist will pull out your tooth." And she answered each time differently. "No way," turned into "Uhm, no thanks," and then "Maybe later, Dear," and then finally, "Okay." Then she went to sleep about 7:30pm. I went in to wake her at 8:15 so we could be at the dentists by 8:30. I asked her one more time, "Are you going to let the dentist give you a needle here and here and then pull out your broke tooth so it won't hurt anymore?" And she said, "No way, Jose! It's sleepy time."

Screw it. If she finally gets sick of it hurting, she'll let him do it. Or we'll wait until it comes loose and falls out on its own. Either way, I'm tired of pulling my hair out over it...and everything else.

Coffee Poser

For lack of youth and natural energy, there is caffeine. This is a well known fact for mothers. (And I mean  'mothers,' not 'Muthas.') I started drinking coffee long before I became a mother. I started drinking coffee regularly and in huge quantities while working the night shifts when I was 18. Quality was not even an optional vocabulary word at that job. Coffee was not something that we had an actual taste for. It was merely another tool for the job. We used pens to log information in a log book. We used computers to store pertinent information. We used air conditioners to keep the computers cold. We used coffee to stay awake all night.

If a more accurate word to describe the shit we drank was to be chosen, I'd probably use something like
"swill," or "jet fuel," or "motor oil," or perhaps "mud." But we called it coffee simply because it was easily understood that we meant that really thick, hot, black liquid that tasted like cigarette smoke smells. It did the job. I stayed awake. Even.when.I.didn't.want.to. Honestly, I am quite certain that I still have trace amounts of that stuff in my body now....twenty-five years later. It may be the secret to my insomnia.

Since then I've developed a taste for GOOD coffee...the kind that doesn't make you close your eyes and think happy thoughts in order to choke it down. I mean, that's not the only criteria for my definition of "good coffee" but it is the first. So I tried a variety of the canned brands and decided that I preferred Folgers over Maxwell House, Dunkin' Donuts over Starbucks, store brands over all because they were good and cheaper (at least in the world of choose the beans, grind them yourself and you can even choose flavors.) Personally, I think that Starbucks tastes like cat pee smells. I guess it's personal preference. I have one sister who agrees and shares Dunkin' Donuts coffee with me. My other sister is a total Starbucks fan. Who knew?
I hear Tim Hortons is good but I think travelling to Canada is a bit extreme for a good cup of coffee. I know that they have American franchises now but not in Texas. Really, what difference does it make? I live in Egypt now.

I started drinking German coffee in Georgia because I worked with a Coffee-nazi . It was fantastic. I re-entered the world of cappuccino and espresso and frappe slowly, as I could afford. Then when we moved to Greece, we bought an automatic drip coffee maker and German coffee. I loved it. Then we moved to Egypt. And it became increasingly difficult to find good coffee. Arabs seemingly prefer not just dark roasted coffee beans but burned coffee beans. So I packed away my coffee pot and went with the only available option that was not Turkish: instant. I know. I know. GROSS! EWWW! What a sacrilege to the coffee world. Well, here's the thing: It.ain't. tea.

So Nescafe has been my main means of caffeine intake over the last 10 years. Except when my sweet and wonderful husband brings me a kilo of German coffee back from Greece or a couple of pounds of Dunkin' Donuts coffee beans from the US. I am a miserly sort. I store the bags in the freezer and only make drip coffee on special occasions so as not to suck it all down and be forced to go back to the instant with no other options. Recently, I discovered a store that sells instant Maxwell House. YES! Score. It's soooo much better than Nescafe rock gut that brings all those midnight watch coffee horror memories flooding back with the overly acidic aftertaste. Is it still instant? Yes. Is it still not up to par with the stuff I've got stashed in the freezer? You betcha. BUT it's NOT Nescafe and it's not making me shut my eyes and think happy thoughts in order to choke it down.

p.s. This is not a whine page in an effort to "beat-around-the-bush" begging for sympathy coffee mailed to me. It is what it is. My thoughts on caffeine and my means to getting it short of a melt-proof plastic bag and IV drip. Thank you for your well-intended thoughts about mailing me some. God willing we'll get back to the US in the next couple of years and then you can meet me and buy me a cup at the local coffee house!

Insomnia

Insomnia and I have a long history together. She's that unwelcome
bitch who visits me every time my husband travels. She hangs out
for at least the first week he goes, sometimes longer. I hate her. I
think that she hates me, too. Otherwise, why would she stay and
make me so miserable.

On the other hand, I appreciate Insomnia for getting me motivated
to get the "early stuff" done that I ordinarily would blow off and
leave for another day. Like today, I'm supposed to go start the
paperwork for transferring Ismail from the really crappy middle
school in Abu Yusef to Hamo's not as crappy middle school up in
Betash. And since Ramadan is supposed to start tomorrow, God
willing, today would be the best day to get it done. So I suppose I
should be thankful that Insomnia popped in for another unannounced
visit.

But I'm not. I hate her. She jacks up my eating schedule, my sleep
schedule and she leaves me so exhausted that I feel like puking. Her
visits almost always have an effect on how I handle my kids. The
usual bickering and arguing and occasional fist-fight seem amplified
by about 60 decibels whenever Insomnia is around. Why is that?
And the kids always seem to feel her tension and then they get
irritated by her effects on me. But seemingly, she's not in the least
swayed to get the hell out of here and leave me alone. Nope. And
the kids' irritation always come out on me. They're far too respect-
ful to mistreat a guest...even an unwelcome one like Insomnia.

Maybe I'll give her the cold shoulder after lunch today and just
ignore her and take a nap. She might get the message and finally
hit the bricks.

But I have my doubts.

Moving is EXHAUSTING

While I admit, I AM totally SUPER-MOM, I do have limits.
I can do a bunch of junk simultaneously but I have to draw
the line at cleaning two houses that are 3 miles apart at the
same time. So while I'm cleaning all the dust and dirt out of
the new apartment which had been empty for about a year
after not having been cleaned by the previous tenants for
the last ten years, I cannot possibly clean the apartment we
are still living in. I am good. I'm DAMN good....but not
THAT damn good.

So here's a message to the family: Hey, Sponges. (And I
mean that in the sucking the life out of me sense of the word.)
Pick up your dishes off the table and WASH THEM when
you are finished eating. If the washing machine goes off
after I turn it on before walking out the door to go hose off
12 pounds worth of dirt from the window screens, PULL
them out and hang them on the line. While it IS an automatic
washing machine, it too has limits. You kids are all over the
age of 10 and none of you has had your hands amputated,
thank God. So if you're hungry while I'm out, don't use
digits to call me to inform me of this information. COOK
something. Make a sandwich. Give me a flippin' break.

Okay, the soap box I'm standing on is getting wobbly....
I'd better get down.