Bulk Festivities!

I’ve been having busy weeks these weeks. I started a contract interpreting job and I’m studying for a second try at an oral interpreting exam that I need to pass before the end of this year. My first born turned six lunar years today– How I know this? She was born the day before Eid Al Adha also known as Yaom ‘Arafa (the day of ‘Arafa). “If you had a son you would traditionally name him ‘Arafa” I had a baby girl lying next to me. I was exhausted, wanted to sleep and eat Fattah. I received a platter of fattah the next evening from two Egyptian friends. My baby suckled milk made from that same meal eight hours later. My second and youngest born turns four “sun years” this Monday, she’s been anticipating her party since October’s arrival. Time is a tricky business at this young age, she’s been VERY patient!

Tomorrow if you haven’t guessed it from the previous paragraph is Eid Al Adha (the one where we traditionally sacrifice a sheep, yet any animal that is permissible to eat would suffice) there are a number of festivities that somehow crept up on us without us being fully prepared.

We wish you all blessed Eid days, fall days, birth days, and spooky days.

I’ll be hopefully coming tomorrow to show off our traditional Eid getup.

Peace.

Priorities

So it boils down to should I go to the Gym today or tackle the laundry and make an elaborate dinner instead of steamed everything blah. I finished most of my laundry and the girls fansy stuff that need to go on the gentle cycle and get line dried. The man does the rest. And no these are not #firstworldproblems because they aren’t problems at all, they are blessings.

Someone shared this short video about poor africans filmed in their slums reading twitter hashtags of first world problems. He named the video “first world problems read by third world people”. The title is already incorrect because I come from the third world and I experience similar “first world problems”. The irony of this is, the short video maker didn’t make a point at all. The hashtag is a parody. It’s people recognizing their lame complaints and making fun of them. Which is kind of the same like #muslimrage. If you’re familiar with Twitter world you need to check this hashtag out, I contributed a few in there.  Here’s my personal favorite (which unfortunately I can’t take credit for):”@HijabiGrlPrblms: You lose your nephew at the airport but you can’t yell his name because it’s JIHAD. #muslimrage”

Where was I?

Oh priorities. There must be a balanced way where one can exercise, eat right and not obsesses about it. It’s important to care about the right choices, but there must be a balance where one remembers his real purpose in this world, right? To do laundry…KIDDING!

Conclusion: Breaking habits are good even breaking from a good habit. Eat something that contains a stick of butter sometimes, it’ll do you good–unless you have high cholesterol, then skip it and eat oats instead.

You see why I haven’t been coming here much recently? 

Also….JIHAD!

Peace!

Btw this post was written in its entirety as a reminder for myself, I get carried away sometimes.

Scraps

Apparently I have no triceps muscles to speak of, and yes I’m boring you with a workout complaint because I’m doing a sixty day challenge at the Gym so this is where I’m currently at. My left triceps muscles have been randomly shaking through out yesterday and they just did it again right now. I believe this should only mean that they’re getting stronger. That or I’m getting muscle atrophy, Lets pray for the first.

***

I have some random phone photos from last weekend, some of them are crazy cool (or at least that’s what  I think) if you ever find yourself in Wisconsin do check out The Foreverton and Dr. Evermore’s Scarp Metal Art Park. It induces a lot of jaw dropping. Also very steam punky if you’re into that sort of thing.

These pictures don’t do it justice, there was so much details to look at and giant metal nonsense scattered around, and above you.

In other news, I experienced my first flat tire ever in the U.S. Seven years in, I say… pretty good!

Peace.

Fall links

I catch myself smiling while driving the girls to school every morning. The magnificent season is what fall should be called. My mother once told me that she would’ve probably become an artist if she was raised amongst such beauty. She was only talking about Canada Spring. “You need To come and see Fall in the midwest” is what I always tell her.

On with the links:

This made me happy this morning.

Did you watch this show yet. It’s really well made and very informative, ( not for young eyes.)

This song has been stuck in head for a while now. Love it.

Nathan Fillion is prepared for the zombie apocalipse. Are you?

“Don’t you feel like you’ve–For lack of a better word and bordering on sounding cheesy– summoned the inner warrior during your work out?” “I feel terrible during the work out, did you see my face?” My gym instructor was noticing my increased strength at class today. Also, I managed to lift the kettle ball without bruising my wrist, says something right there! This video is at the gym I go to. Tough tough tough! This guy would be handy when the zombie apocalypse hits.

Warrior.

I’ve been making different sides for our meals lately. I made grits tonight, I’ve also been making bulgar, lentils, and wild rice. I might pick up baking bread again now that the weather has cooled off enough to make my toes complain. What sides are you into these days? I ‘m always looking for inspiration.

I used to add a lot of bands and thing to my headscarf before marriage and motherhood. I’m thinking of re-adopting my funk after spotting this. We’ll see if I have any patience left in me.

That’s it!

Peace.

 

Our Cousins

My mother with a big smile asked the western looking two young kids (about 4 and 6 years old) sitting on the table opposite us– at our neighborhood KFC– about their country of origin:

“You speak Arabic with a “Shamy accent” are you from Syria?”

“No”

“Lebanon?”

“No”

“Jordan?”

“No”

“Palestine?”

“No”

At this point their mother who was probably using the rest room came in with a frown on her face and held her two kids close and answered:

“We are from Israel!”

My mother immediately pulled our arms tightly and her face transformed from a big smile to the most hateful face I ever remember her giving to anyone “stay away from them, don’t speak or play with them, do you understand!” my mother yelled.

We knew better than to argue with that face. We (meaning my sister and I) were fourteen years old and very confused.

After making our speedy exit from the restaurant and sat in our car the questions started:

“But mom, they were only children, and the war has been over for decades”

“the war is never over! we were sent faulty weapons that blew up our soldiers instead of shooting the enemy”

We are not a war generation, we will never understand. Is what my mother always said.

***

The first time I set foot in America I saw a jewish man dressed in his full jewish attire, I started to point at the jewish man to my husband (he promptly put my hand down and reminded me about the rudeness of my gesture) “I’ve never seen a visibly Jewish person before, only on TV” –which now that I think about it is curious since I traveled to Europe before.

***

A couple of years later we permanently moved to America. Our first upstairs neighbors were two American graduate student girls from New York, they were also Jewish. They invited me to Latke pancakes on Hanukkah and gifted Mei with a hand knit baby hat with a knotted cord at the top to represent the umbilical cord. They brought us meals on my first week of recovery from labor and one of them sold authentic Jerusalem olive oil to help support the palestinian olive tree farmers. I am not a war generation, I will never understand…

***

I have a Jewish cousin whom I’ve met only once in my life. My uncle was married to a German woman, had a son and a daughter, then got divorced. They were raised in Germany. The girl was raised christian and the boy converted to Judaism and moved to Israel. The last time I saw them, they were teenagers and I was in kindergarten. I used to get a kick out of the fact that I have a Jewish cousin. I find it normal now that I am married to an American myself.

***

After having my first born by a month my mother made it to America for the first time in her life (also possibly the worst winter she’s ever experienced in her life). I did not tell her that my neighbors were Jewish and we all hid from her that my husband’s aunt, my dear aunt (the woman who spent many nights and days of Mei’s early months with us caring for her and allowing a first mama some precious sleep and making wonderful healthy meals) was ethnically Jewish. We wanted my mother to give her a chance, and at the very end of my mother’s stay, we told her. Quick background about my mother, if you’ve watched any greek or Mediterranean movies before and think these people are passionate, I have one questions for you: have you met my mother?  During her brief stay, my mother grew to LOVE my dear aunt. So naturally when she found out she was shocked and devastated. She cried for a long time and then… she hugged my husband’s aunt. We are not made of stone, we have our loyalties, our culture and our experiences but we also have a heart.

Now my mother explains to her friends (who I assume are from the same war generation) “No, they’re not all bad, there’s a difference between Zionists and Jewish people. I met a good one, trust me”

***

There is this recent controversial advertisement that is in several NYC subways. It is really offensive to say the least. Jihad is an arabic word to mean struggle. The highest ranks of Jihad is Jihad al nafs or the struggle against ones lower self. My mother accepting her heart and love of this wonderful woman over her culture, upbringing and her generation was a high form of Jihad. If what my mother did was savage, and this racist message is an act of the civilized man. Than I believe we should all support “the savage”.

Also thank you to our Jewish cousins.

Peace.

Into Fall

As the day shrinks down, and the rhythm of school kicks in, I find it tricky to visit here as often as I would like. I am a night blogger– which means my inspiration kicks in usually sometime close to midnight. But with the shift in everyone’s schedule, this tired mama has finally given in to her age needs and is leaving this late night, teenage reminiscent life behind (or so I hope) and conquering the new world of early nighters (Ha!). They’re fun too, they do most of their partying in their dreams– way cooler and better for your skin (also I’m old)

I have some random pictures from the week, food which everyone needs, and a farm visit for pumpkins, a small bag of apples (our farmers lost 80% of their crop this season, no apple picking for us) and a jar of fresh honey, maple syrup, and strawberry rhubarb jam. Yum, yum and yum.

My man made us chicken pot pie, we were all very impressed, yet he still insists on giving it a couple more tries until he perfects it. Hey, no complaints from me. He has perfected his lasagne using the same method. Mei will tolerate my lasagne but her favorite dish is preferred out of her father’s hand. I agree (without any ulterior motives)

Scones are never a bad sight, so here you go.

Lastly, a drying rack full of fairy costumes for Sarah the fairy, we’ve been at it since summer, and now fall. Whenever I’m about to allow boredom take over, Grabby appears at my door in full costume and then I melt. I can do another season. Yes, yes I can.

Peace.

Lets talk religion and politics shall we? (the two things my father advised me not to do, sorry dad!)

This week has been a challenging week for myself and fellow regular Muslims everywhere but especially the ones living in non-Muslim lands. Double that if you wear a headscarf, triple it if you cover your face. Are you a coptic christian walking the Egyptian streets these days? My heart is with you, for you are currently facing an insane amount of harassment and bullying from fellow Egyptians. I am but merely embarrassed to wear my religion on my head while the world watches my brothers and sisters pretend that their anger and frustrations are because of a silly movie, their violence in the name of Islam. They are frustrated because their lives are leading them nowhere, because they can’t feed their children, because they have no jobs, because America has been to them nothing but a big bully telling them to dream about democracy while supporting their oppressive governments for decades, for turning a blind eye on the atrocities the Israeli state commits against the palestinian people, for so many reasons that are no excuse to turn to violence, vandalism, or murder. Yet, these are the facts and the sad truths. We are a people that can be easily played by a bunch of wacko extremists. Hey do you want to set the middle east and the Muslim world on fire? I have a plan–in the name of freedom of speech and expression. This country (America) was founded on great ideals, and the same ideals that allows someone like myself to practice their religion freely, and wear a headscarf that might offend some. It also allowed people to display signs to impeach former president Bush (no thanks to him) in front of their own homes (I took pictures and sent them to my mom, I was in an absolute state of shock “and it’s in front of their doors mom, they’re not even hiding their identity!”). A protest by the infamous KKK group was protected by police cordons so they too can have their freedom of speech exercised despite  the anger by everyone around them, also protesting their protest. American TV has a genre of shows dedicated to make fun of their government and presidents. If you are a fellow middle eastern you’ll understand the state of disbelief I experienced in my early days. I grew up in a country where you couldn’t whisper displease with your government or state even on the phone.

Freedom of expression won’t always work in our favor, because people are diverse, and yes some of them are lunatic extremists who abuse their right, and they should absolutely be held accountable for their actions. Democracy works the same way, the majority ain’t always right. And I must– after going through the Egyptian democratic election process and the failed recall campaign of our horrible Governor Walker–confess I lost complete faith in democracy. I thought, this is a s**tty system that doesn’t work. But you know what, it’s what we have, and it’s the most that makes sense right now, and if we don’t like the results than we have four years to suck it up, and work harder and educate people (because of course we are right, and they are wrong, right?) and same goes for freedom of expression. Some people will abuse their right, or make horrible choices about their given rights. And what do we do, we first pray to God to save his religion from the hands of ignorance, and then we go out wearing our currently shameful scarf with pride, and we smile while feeling uncomfortable (and pray that we don’t meet a nut job who will blow our heads off because our fellow Muslims decided to harm us with their interpretation of doing right by our prophet) and stop reading the news please and thank you, and pretend we don’t notice the increased stares in the streets.

When some arguments were made against the violence spreading like wildfire now beyond the middle east, some people claimed that we don’t love our prophet and that we don’t care about the offensive movie. I say to them, the movie spread wider and received more viewing because of the publicity it received thanks to you, it got everyone curious including myself, although I couldn’t finish a whole minute it was incredibly offensive, I almost puked. We should ask ourselves one question, are we burning down embacies and harassing our fellow coptic Egyptians because of our anger to the Messenger of God, who by his example never ever responded with insults on himself by insult (and he was insulted plenty) or are we just angry and making this an excuse?

By what religion do you destroy public property and harras women in the streets in the name of? by what love of the prophet do you watch women being harassed every single day in the streets and do nothing (if you’re not amongst the gang)? where is the example of the prophet when you turn a blind eye on the millions of the poor? Where is your love of the prophet with young girls getting their clitorises removed they are no longer marriageable? Where is your anger when the default setting for any bearded man on the EgyptianTV is that he’s a wife beater and with double standards and probably a terrorist ( these ones were made by fellow Muslims, just so you know)?

May God have mercy on us, we have done a great man wrong.

Peace.

All photos are currently in wide circulation on social media websites–photos credits unknown.

Not my religion

Whenever something like this happens (and unfortunately it happens every two or so years) I want to run away and hide. Or go out in the street and yell: NO I AM NOT WITH THEM. I seriously consider removing anything from my visible attire that would indicate that I am somehow associated with these people… I am not!

These people don’t represent Islam or how Muslims should behave, these people are barbaric and crazy. And unfortunately for Islam they also happen to be Muslim, and their simple minds tell them that this is the way to be a “good Muslim”. I am not one of them. Please don’t judge me by my headscarf, I follow a completely different religion from what they follow. My religion is based on love, compassion, mercy and understanding. My religion is innocent of these people’s actions, my religion tells us not to cut off a tree during war time, how about during peace? My religion empowers women and honors mothers, my religion promotes knowledge and learning. It condemns violence and murder “…if any one slew a person – unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.”–Al- Quran 5:32

Prophetic sayings on the etiquette’s of war before engaging in battles:

“Do not destroy the villages and towns, do not spoil the cultivated fields and gardens, and do not slaughter the cattle.” (Sahih Bukhari; Sunan Abu Dawud) 

“Accustom yourselves to do good if people do good, and to not do wrong even if they commit evil.” (Al-Tirmidhi)

“Do not kill any child, any woman, or any elder or sick person.” (Sunan Abu Dawud)

“Do not practice treachery or mutilation. Do not uproot or burn palms or cut down fruitful trees. Do not slaughter a sheep or a cow or a camel, except for food.” (Al-Muwatta)

“If one fights his brother, [he must] avoid striking the face, for God created him in the image of Adam.” (Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim)

“Do not kill the monks in monasteries, and do not kill those sitting in places of worship. (Musnad Ahmad Ibn Hanbal)

“Do not wish for an encounter with the enemy; pray to God to grant you security; but when you [are forced to] encounter them, exercise patience.” (Sahih Muslim)

“No one may punish with fire except the Lord of Fire.” (Sunan Abu Dawud).

Mind you we are not at war.

To the families of the the American envoy who were killed in Benghazi, my deepest condolences. Nothing… NOTHING not even the destruction of the holy Ka’aba is worth the loss of innocent lives. I am so sorry.

Door County

“My theory is that when it comes to important subjects, there are only two ways a person can answer. Which way they chose, tells you who that person is. For instance, there are only two kinds of people in the world, Beatles people and Elvis people. Now Beatles people can like Elvis and Elvis people can like the Beatles, but nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere you have to make a choice. And that choice, tells you who you are.” Mia Wallace from Pulp fiction

I have the same theory only I apply it to Beach people and Mountain people. My husband is a Mountain person, I am a Beach one. This is where we spent our last weekend. Door County. Wisconsin’s sticking out “thumb” on the map if you will. It’s all beach, and this friends tells you who I am…

There were goats on a grass roof of a breakfast place! It made my girls giggle and jump for a good fifteen minutes, a definite crowd pleaser. And they had all these wooden trolls. Door County was settled by swedes, so not only do you get the awesome goats on the roof spectacle but you get it after having consumed special swedish pancakes with lots of whipped cream on top. 

I am also a Beatles person…

Peace!

Words

I have words that pop in my head. Words that linger after everything else fades. A two hour conversation with my cousin leaves me with: She remembers. An old man walking purposefully with determination that makes his body jolt with each stride: Youthful. A yellow field of soybeans as we drive by: Beautiful, Drought, Climate change.

I have words that linger when I sit at the end of each day. I won’t remember everything but these words they stay… at least for now.

Peace.