Their Language

English, German, Spanish, Arabic and a little Greek. Those are the languages that I speak. I dabble a bit in French, meaning I've picked up enough to help my son maintain a B average in French class three years running now. But I apparently have lost the ability to speak TEENESE.

I used to be a teen. At one time, I spoke TEENESE fluently. Maybe it's a new dialect that my kids speak. They totally do not understand me. When I was a teen, "Go to bed now," meant walk down the hall, pee, brush my teeth, get my pajamas on, piss off my sister by stepping on her pillow or hiding her jeans that she wanted to wear the next morning, and then getting in my bed and actually going to sleep. Of course, that was 27 years ago.

Language is a constantly evolving thing. New words are born every day and occasionally some old words, while never really dying, will lie dormant for years at a time. At least in English, this is true. My kids speak Arabic and English. I assume they speak TEENESE in both English and Arabic dialects. And while I do speak to my kids in Arabic, I'm the native American so I primarily boss them around in English while my husband, the native Egyptian, bosses them around primarily in Arabic. My husband and I got together and compared notes earlier this week and made some shocking discoveries:

"Go to bed" whether spoken in Arabic or in English to our 16 year old son or 12 year old daughter means "go open up the fridge." To our 13 year old and 11 year old sons, it means giggle and wrestle around the room with no shirts on, causing the entire bedroom to take on that pubescent tube sock/ball sweat odor.

"Go to sleep" to all of the kids, in either language, translates loosely to "make a sandwich."

"Stop talking" translates to "start fighting." And "SHUT THE HELL UP BEFORE I POUND YOU" has multiple meanings: 1- roll over and accidentally pull the curtain rod off the wall on your own head, 2- make the peace sign at your brother and say, 'Peace out, Dog' in a Randy Jackson voice and promptly get slapped in the face by the same brother with a dirty handkerchief, 3- giggle so hard that you fart and make your brothers laugh barrel laughs at two in the morning until mother comes in and takes away your privileges for computer for 2 weeks straight.

I'm in the process of compiling our findings into an English-Arabic TEENESE dictionary. I'm hoping that I can get it published before the next generational dialect comes out rendering mine the "new Latin."

This is WHY I Don't Have an Advice Column

Dear Nikki,


My children are the most obnoxious, sassy-mouthed, rude, disobedient spawns of the unholy one that ever set foot on planet Earth. They embarrass me at my in-law's house and talk to me like they are thugs who hang out at the local Greyhound bus station. They sass off to me, their grandparents, their teachers and even total strangers. They steal things, break things, spit on things, pee on things, and lie constantly. How can I get them to behave?


~~Frazzled


Dear Frazzled,

BEAT THEM.

~~Nikki

Dear Nikki,


What is the proper etiquette when one is visiting a neighbor and in the middle of the visit, the neighbor excuses herself to the bathroom where she proceeds to vomit violently?  This situation arose last week while I was visiting with one of my neighbors. But my four children were playing so nicely with her five children that I didn't want to interrupt the play time. What does one do in a situation like this?


~~Curious

Dear Curious,

Are you fucking kidding me??? Not only do you get the hell out of her house, you take her five kids with you. Obviously, she's not up to the task of entertaining you and your four monsters (because I can only assume you're the same insensitive bitch from the first letter above.) Just because you don't want to deal with
your garanimals alone doesn't mean you should dump their hellacious asses on your poor sick neighbor and her five kids.....she MAY be expecting her sixth, what with all the puking and all....OR she may have just been nauseated to that degree by your inadequate parenting skills. My advice? G.T.F.O.

~~Nikki

Dear Nikki,


Last week my 76 year old uncle showed up at my house to visit. It so happened that my son's teacher was also there tutoring my oldest son. It is proper etiquette in our country to remove one's shoes upon entering the home. My uncle left before the teacher. When the teacher looked for his shoes when it was time for him to go, all he could find was my uncle's ratty old shoes, two sizes too big and with a hole in the side. I was so upset and embarrassed that my uncle had taken the teacher's brand new leather shoes and worn them home. He didn't return them for three days and claimed that he hadn't noticed that they were not his own.What should I do?


~~Ashamed
                                              
Dear Ashamed,

A good, sharp chisel-fist punch (described here) to the testicles is a sure-fire way to illustrate the anguish and humiliation that you must have felt while trying to explain to your son's teacher why your kleptomaniac uncle lifted his shoes. Of course, I'm guessing that apples don't fall so far from the trees and that this is the sort of behavior that lies ahead of you from those little hellions who keep shouting bad words and insults off the balcony at your puking neighbors kids! Stop writing all these letters to me, get a good leather belt and beat those brats back into the house and make them do push-ups until they fall asleep on the living room rug. Then, when your husband comes home, give him a good, sharp, chisel-fist punch to the testicles, as well. Ensure to make that punch in an upward thrusting motion to attain permanent damage to those puppies so that you two make more really bad kids. While I do not believe that kids are born bad, I know who you are and you just suck at raising kids. So stop having them. Try to fix what you broke in the first four and QUIT SENDING ME LETTERS. I've got a restraining order RIGHT HERE and it includes ANY form of contact, you sick, twisted FREAK.

~~Nikki



                                              

My Baby Brother

Whenever I think of my sweet face baby brother, I see him as the little blonde-haired, blue-eyed cherub that he was when he was two. He was so ornery growing up but had a soft spot in his heart for his three "guhlies" (girlies) that were me and my two sisters. Mom once told me that when we had gone to spend the night at a friend's house that Lloyd wandered the house crying for his "guhlies" to come home. We dressed him up like a girl and painted his toenails and all sorts of other torturous big sister games that only a little brother would tolerate until his dad came home one day and threatened to beat all three of his daughters if they put one more dress, application of lipstick or hair barrette on HIS boy! Good thing we still have photos, huh?

My brother was always a charming, funny, and ass-kicking machine like I was. He was only eleven when I moved out and I always felt a little guilty leaving him behind. Not because the rest of my family was totally psycho or anything. (Maybe a smidgen of psycho.) But I missed all of his middle school and high school years because I was living and working on the East Coast and he was all the way out in El Paso. (Yeah, the tee-shirt is pretty accurate. El Paso actually IS 10 miles from water and 3 feet from HELL.) And while I got to see him when I went home to visit for holidays every year or two, I missed out on all of his shenanigans and first dates and swim meets and prom and graduation. I wish I could have been there for that....sort of. I wish I could have sheltered him from some of the crazy he had to endure during the years that led to my parents eventual divorce.
By that time, I was working in Greece.

Just before I shipped out to Athens, I drove out to El Paso to drop off a bunch of stuff that I didn't want to take with me for fear it would get lost or destroyed. So I drove for three days with my suitcase of dirty laundry (to keep my sisters from hijacking all my clothes because they CERTAINLY wouldn't wash them before swiping them), a box filled with my high school diploma, awards from work, yearbooks and my mom all packed into my car. (Yeah, Mom only has one leg and I had a 5-speed Ford Escort so she was sort of along for the ride....and to tell me to slow down a lot.) I spent about a week with them and then my brother offered to drive back to Baltimore with me. COOL.

It was a great trip. Except when he got a speeding ticket about 4 miles outside of El Paso city limits. And except for when we stopped to eat cat fish at a truck stop outside of Nashville and they towed my friggin' car basically because it had out of state tags and it cost me about $150.00 to get it back and delayed our arrival to Baltimore by about 6 hours. I still hate Nashville because of that. But my brother and I had the laughing-est, singing-est, fun time during those three days on the road. I haven't seen him but about 5 or 6 times since then. Damn. That was back in 1992.

I'm thankful that we both have Facebook and Skype and email. If it weren't for that, we'd never hear from each other. But thanks to the internets we have an awesome relationship. And the last time I saw him back in May 2010 at a mini-family reunion outside of Austin, I spent several hours just talking to him and it was like we hadn't been apart at all. I love my brother so much. I'm very proud of him. He's a Navy veteran. He's a fantastic chef and butcher and has a plethora of knowledge about cheese. In fact, during the Whole Foods market 2008 "Crack Heard Round the World" attempt to break the Guinness Record for cutting the most wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese open simultaneously, MY brother "cut his cheese" in 1 minute and 36 seconds....which is TOTALLY AWESOME! (Click here to watch Lloyd kick cheesy ass!) (He's the cute guy on the right!)

Lloyd is one of the coolest, smartest, and funniest people I ever had the pleasure to meet. I think he and I would be friends even if we weren't siblings. He's just that great a guy. And I miss him.

The Honeymoon's Over

After seventeen years of marriage and the development of a social conscience, I've stopped running the faucet when I'm pooping to cover up any loud and bombastic gastric releases he might hear on the other side of the bathroom door. He KNOWS I fart.

And we DON'T have a noisy ceiling fan here like we did in our house in Dallas.

So now after leaving the bathroom, I curtsy or bow and he applauds. I've yet to achieve a standing ovation, but I'm working on it.

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

Becca's Right...I Have Stress-Induced Gas

So a while back I was experiencing chest pains so strong that I couldn't breathe. I blogged about it a few times here.  Then I spent hundreds (thankfully, not thousands) of pounds paying for tests and cardiograms and ekgs and yada, yada, yada. At the end of the month of two hour bus rides across the city to the International Cardiac Center, my heart had been declared 100% healthy and I was prescribed fat-blockers for my high cholesterol. Really? So why is my chest still hurting like a MOFO?!

I talked it over with my phlebotomist and she said that I should do the bloodwork to eliminate thyroid issues that my cousin, Heather, suggested may be causing it. I'm probably going to do that today. My good friend, Becca, thinks it's just gas. (She knows my family FAR too well to be able to make such a diagnosis.) I wondered if it was a digestion issue and opted to try a vegetarian diet for about 6 weeks. I'd have been able to last longer if it weren't for the autistic kid who has to have only crunchy  food and the 10 year old who hates everything and then the husband and 3 kids who eat whatever I cook but really like meat and chicken and fish.....and that's like 4 different dinners to cook for each meal. So, I just gave up and went back to forcing all 7 of  us to eat the same thing. Yeah, I'm "lazy" like that. (And so over it.)

So now that I'm cholesterol meds, I'm regular........WAYYYYYY regular. (Please don't block the door to the bathroom when you see me running for it. It could prove messy for both of us.) The chest pains eased up for a while. And today came back with a vengeance. My husband and 13 yr old have been doing a weight-lifting program the last few weeks. And my husband's trainer mentioned that they should eat a lot more protein, including a lot of legumes. So we had lentils two nights ago. And yesterday I made Greek chicken in the oven with rice and a large pot of white beans and marinated cucumber and onion salad. While I only had one bowl of beans (for the sake of my family), my husband and sons tore up the pot. All.THREE. pounds. of. beans. Maybe they fart vicariously through me?!  Or it could be that I'm stressed out from the constant fighting between the teens. I'm going to find the Egyptian equivalent of Xanax and try that. And see if that helps at all. But ultimately I think that Becca is right. It's gas.