Tuesday, July 13, 2010

One Japanese husband to go please!

My Birthday's approaching in a couple of days and let me tell you my little brother is far too worried about it more than i am. He thinks that because my mom got married at 20 that means every other person who turns 20 has to get married!! The other day i had the following conversation with him.

LB: so what are you gonna do on your 20th birthday?
Me: ummmm...
LB: are you gonna get married?
Me: huh?
LB: do you want me to build you a house?
Me: no thanks, i'm gonna live in a box
LB: but how are you gonna live with the person you're moving away with
Me: I'm still here!

he leaves for a while then comes back,

LB: didn't you say you loved Sushi?
Me: yea
LB: so you can marry a Japanese guy and he can make u Sushi!

 Good thinking kiddo, Japan and sushi here i come!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Camping while Egyptian part 2

"Ok, so tents go here and here" I say making two marks on the ground.
"Also we better hurry" i say glancing up at the sky, "looks like it’s gonna rain"

My brother takes hold of the bigger tent and goes on to setting it up, while my sister and I pick the other one, pull it out and stand there looking at it.

"I have no idea how to set this up!!" I say looking at the tangled mess.

After what seemed hours of struggling, we finally made what seemed to resemble a blob.

“K, so wanna head to the beach for a while?" my sister asks

We head over the sand dunes and to the most spectacular view. Best of all we had the whole beach to ourselves.

I took a chair, plopped it into the sand and extended my feet into the icy cold water.
We sat there with lightning and thunder in the background, trying to calculate how far off it was.

Now that I think about it, it was probably a not so good idea being wet holding metal fishing poles with lightning in the sky, despite the attractiveness of the combination.

When it started to rain we decided to get back to the tent before we got seriously wet ( only reason was, I didn't want to break my record of not taking showers for the longest time possible...i kid, i promise)

The thunderstorm was like a faucet that would not shut off, best of all one of our tents was not waterproof, so all of us were stuck in the other tent. We called it family bonding time and we did what any other Egyptian family would have done. Played cards!

As we fell asleep, my mom asked from her corner of the tent, “Did anyone actually check the weather?"
Ah small details, they get me every time.

storm approaching

sand dunes

setting up the tent

Chai and fooul( beans)

their catch

<3

Friday, July 9, 2010

Painting Walls at 4:00 A.M

So yesterday I had a friend who wanted to paint her basement, so my sister and i volunteered to help, considering we're such experts we should be awarded the label of interior designers. Our experience goes as far back as painting the Masjid walls, oh and did i mention the Masjid walls?

So anyways, we head over LOWE'S to pick out the colors and that alone took like 40 minutes.

My friend and I wanted to go with a reddish color

her mom was like, over my dead body!

She showed us a light yellow and we told her she might as well tear down the basement.

Finally, we decided on a light pearly pink and a maroonish color and to work it was.
Since it was getting so late we decided to sleepover and pretty much spent the next few hours telling scary stories about jinn and listening to my friend’s mom telling us stories of things she saw with her own eyes when she lived back in Pakistan.
I don't know about others but jinn stories beat Zombie takeovers, Alien attacks, and sparkly vampires combined.

ya'll, my stories wander all over the place but I promise painting the basement and Jinn stories actually ties up

SO anyways my friend’s mom decides to go get some sleep and after a while we decide that we're gonna go and work on the basement since we weren't tired.

In the morning my Friend's mom wakes up and goes to check the basement to see if the colors coordinated and finds a finished wall! She almost got a heart attack thinking some Jinn were in the basement working on the walls in the middle of the night.

Although if you ask me I wouldn't mind pair of handy Djinn like that.I know the house could use some help.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Camping while Egyptian part 1

" Yalla omo wghzo ray7een camping, 7gtkom tekon gahza fe nos sa3a*"

ahh lovely way to wake up. Saba7 elnoor to you too Mama.

seriously, only in my family does a camping trip get decided like that and we get half an hour to get ready? the generosity!

I was not complaining.

" mama where to?"
"ma3rfsh, your father didn't tell me anything"

ok, guess that's fine too.

An hour later my dad comes home and we start listing stuff we might have forgotten.

tent? check.
sleeping bags? yep, got them
lantern? mhm
everyone have their clothes, toothbrushes, and shoes? yeaa

and then the unfortunate happens, we move onto the kitchen. and true to being Egyptian they start packing half the kitchen. Enough to last us the next two month.

"Do we really need the 3 pans? and Omg, mama all this Fooul!! we're only staying like two days"

we were just a 7alet ma7shy* away from being true to our roots of Egyptianese

well, i told myself,If we happen to get lost at least we'll be able to survive.

My dad looked at the time.you guys, looks like we're going to have to head out tommorow, what do you think?

rolling Arab standard time, i think we're pretty accurate.



* get up and get ready, we're going camping
* 7alet ma7shy- An Egyptian dish