Cribbings

It is half past two in the morning and I am up at this ungodly hour to see to a task that just could not wait until morn. While online, here's an update:
I have a theory about myself. I am a first born, and I don’t blame my parents for all those experimentations I was subjected to while growing up. Here is what it was like. Picture a newly wed couple, all lovey dovey, and both absolute trouble makers in their respective families. Try to imagine the havoc their progeny were to wreck on the world. Knowing very well what they were in for, they prayed for a real good first child. A kid everyone could look up to and cite as an example of extraordinary achievements, behavior…the whole hog of parent’s boring expectations. Unfortunately for them, they were told the only specimen of mankind (tbdl) available fitting their timetable and a suitable hotch potch of their combined traits, physical and mental, was erm…slightly flawed, a wee bit dented in the brain, nothing discernible from the outside and if they took it, who knows what wonders their bringing up could do for it. And there was a huge amount of sawaab thrown in if they took in this particular model. And so they did. To this day I can’t make out if I was accepted because Mom and Pop believed in themselves enough and had hope that I could turn out right despite the dent or was it the sawaab factor that led them to my crib.
And so I was brought up and with each passing day Mom and Pop realized what a rotten deal they had gotten themselves into. Perhaps they should have waited for the next available model, which, it turned out, was not really any better than the first one. But forever optimists, they did not give up hope and did what they did best. Somewhere in between genes got mutated. And since all of us siblings had had a dip in the same pool, the effects manifested themselves. This theory of gene mutation is quite a consolation to my parents. How could all of their kids be the way they are? Oftentimes I find myself wondering how lucky Mom and Pop are to be blessed with us all, and look up to find them staring at each other in disbelief/horror/speechlessness at one of their kid’s recent antics. The thing is, we siblings believe we are just Mom and Pop short of perfection, and Mom and Pop refuse to partake in our idea of perfection, so that essentially means we are perfections personified each pending parent participation.
And did I say I had a theory, well, I thought I did, but see how my brilliantly brazen brain works? And did I say it was about myself? Well, one thing, erm… kid lead to another.
If I am lucky, which I am so far, no one from my family will ever get to this blog entry. Mom and Pop couldn’t be bothered and in any case none of the ideas expressed here would be new for them. My siblings have conveniently forgotten the existence of this blog and I want not them to waste their time reading all this. I am sure they would have better things to do, like run some errands for me, or listen to me talk about all this in person. Life is bliss, follow the loser, dear ones!
And for certain passive readers of this blog who fathomed not how Her Kvetchness could listen to Mahi Ve ad nauseum, here’s an update. I heard Atif Aslam’s Yaqeen on Indus Music and downloaded it from Sangeet Radio. It’s been playing on my laptop since, much to the musical annoyance of those who live with me…Hmmm hmmm, ho hooo, ho hooo, ho hoooooo…
There is something seriously wrong with Asian tastes in chocolate. It does not agree with me…or rather,I don’t agree with the brown slab they proudly call chocolate. I made a big mistake when I picked up these chocolate covered hazelnuts on a whim from the supermarket today. It was swiss chocolate and that more or less settles the matter for me, but when I came home and popped in a hazelnut in my mouth, I was devastated. Too much sugar. Just to be sure, I checked the package and it said, chocolate made in Singapore, packed in Malaysia for….Zurich. It is always the same back home too, any locally produced chocolate and it would be sweetened to massacre the very spirit of cocoa. There should be universal standards for chocolates. And I don’t care who wins the US Presidential Elections next week, as long as it is not Bush and as long as the new Pres. assures me personally that the strictest of AWK compliant standards would be maintained in chocolate manufacture around the world and violators would be assigned the task of writing speeches for George W. Bush.< Rab Rakha!

Coups and other trivia

Disclaimer: This is a real girlie rant, you may or not agree with what all comes, read at your own risk. Actually, now that you are here, why not read it through? It can’t be as bad as some of the older stuff you have wasted your time reading?
It is a conspiracy, I tells you all. Just when my credit card limit is at its end, just when I am financially in dire straits, just when I am depressingly depressed and the only ray of light in the gloom is shopping, the whole of Sharjah goes on sale. And I am not talking of any measly end of season sale…I am talking of Sales at every nook and corner, at the small grocery down the street, at car garages, at optician’s shops…and *gasp* a whopping up to 70% sale at Lifestyle…and G2000…and ShoeMart…Jumbo Sony…can you imagine? How unfair can life get? Sure I can max out my card but I don’t want to commit payments when I can’t cough up the amount. I am not brand reliant, in fact I’d rather be my own brand ambassador but I need to have things on me to promote them right? Oh, yeah, this is a trivial, shallow rant, but what do you expect?
Actually, my brain, that lazy lump of grey cells, thinks it is oh so high and mighty and refuses to do work any more than is necessary. And when I am out of work, or bayroazgar, it simply freezes all thought processing operations and goes on vacation, leaving me feeling vacuously like a zombie. So I go about shops in search of it, knowing how its idea of vacation is ogling at window displays and working out the status of my wallet contents to buy things it deems worthy of spending over. I stopped by at the butchery corner at CarreFoure and eyed all brain offerings displayed. But a coup was not to be as my wretched body retched at the very idea of an animal brain hoisted in place of that missing brain. Such loyalty is hard to find. I even tried reasoning how a goat or even a hen’s brain would do more work than that officious lump but no. It did not, however, object to buying some fresh chicken that ended up as a delicious meal. Poultry was to be a part of me, one way or the other, so there, both won.
Some days ago I had invested in a blusher brush and some lovely spongy make up sponges. Today I washed my face after erm…some days and set to painting my face. It did not take much time, the task, that is how small my face is, so amiably and oft reminded by Waj and Bhai. And so I first wet a sponge and evened foundation on my face. Then I took out the blusher brush and two large strokes gave color to the cheeks. The brand new eye liner bought at sale from Lifestyle yesterday was painstakingly traced over the eyes and finally, I fished out a long forgotten lip liner and lipstick from the caverns of my bag and voila! A spectre to behold! And since I am done with cleansing my face for the day, what comes off it would be due to splashes of water from wadhu. Yawn. I slept yesterday, throughout the day and only woke up for iftar. By that time Waj had come home and told me off and then tooted at me enough that I went with her to, not one, not two, but three City Centres. Torture, nothing but torture of the thirdest degree. I mean as it is I am not in a condition fit to be taken to places where things are sold and then I am taken to three shopping malls…all selling amazing stuff for peanuts (or so it would appear to a bulging wallet) Moi? My wallet is bursting too, with receipts and four sad looking notes in green. They are green because they get sick every time they think of a parting from my all natural fibre wallet and ending up in a nauseating leather one, and because that is what their color is. Which reminds me again…where is that newspaper I had asked the grocery wala to send? And where is my brain? Not that I need I, but I feel safe when it is tucked away and contentedly snoring away in my cranium, its rightful place of repose, and not lurking about shops.
Later: Oh my god! It just occurred to me…what if it has decided that Eid shopping is more fun back home than here? Come back you idiot, don’t you know prices rocket to the skies in Ramadhan? It is here that prices are reduced for the Holy Month, and choices varied and shopping more fun…Oh please come back…I promise I will allot a whole day to you and your dilpeshawari and take you shopping, just the two of us, my brain and me…in a borrowed car you can guide me not to bang anywhere. Just come back. It ain’t the same without you.