Strawberries!!

M: "I love strawberries."
A: "I think I'll plant some, then."
M: "They grow beneath, right?"
A: "Beneath...the sky...? Yes. They. Do."
M: "Nooooo. Beneeeeath..."

A staring at me, as though I were mentally challenged, which, perhaps, I often times appear to be.

A: "No. You're thinking of potatoes."
M: "Ooooooh", while laughing hysterically and nearly falling out of my chair.
A: "You are perfect."

I must really brush up on my farming. Because growing strawberries amounts to farming, n'est pas?

The Best Anti War Sign

Thanks to A for sending this along. It's brilliant and hilarious and angry and exhausted and hits all of the right buttons for your blogMistress...

On Writing A French Exam

Once upon a time, a little while back, I wrote…

Oh MY GOD, what is UP with the “people” who create French Exam Practice Tests?

I have to take both my written and comprehension French language tests quite soon and today, we – myself and three others way smarter than I - completed a “practice test”. I place this in quotes because they really ought to be called “this is what hell fire will feel like, sinner”.

It felt as though right before beginning our practice test, we excused ourselves to first wrap ourselves in those blankets…I forget what they’re called…you know the ones…oh! They’re called Stupid Blankets and they’re sold at a drug store near you next to the Depends, for the days your brain leeks. (My a** will suffer for that comment, some time in the future. Yours will too, if you laughed.)

Dude, I don’t know how thick those Stupid Blankets were, but we couldn’t even answer the English question correctly. And when you try to look up the answers, an evil French guy laughs in that evil French way that sounds as though he’s laughing through his nose into a glass of red wine and while seated on a baguette with butter.

By Question 30, our conversation turned to (guess who I am):
“It’s definitely not no 4. I think.”
“Right. Because that’s the infinitive of a verb that I’ve never heard of before. Have you heard of it? Should we know it? ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT ONE? I’VE RUN OUT OF INK.”
“I don’t think it’s nos 2 or 3 because they just don’t sound right to me.”
“Ok. I agree. Why are you running out of ink? We’re using the computer. OH MY GOD, DO I NEED TO BE USING INK?”
“I don’t waaaannaaaaa do this anymore it’s making me feel stupid.”
“There’s no WAY the real exam’s going to be as hard as these ones. NO WAY.”
“What did we decide?”
“I think that there’s only no 1 left. It has to be no. 1.”

Click.

“Oh my God, please let us be right. Please let us get JUST ONE right.”
“I don’t waaaaannnnaaaa anymore. Why are there no questions about Crack?”

”INCORRECT! HO! HO! HO! COCHON! YOU ARE A JAMBON!”

Final conclusion: We are stupid people crossed with imbeciles and divided by morons.

“It’s because it’s on a computer screen. It’s always way easier when you do a test on a piece of paper. I read that somewhere. It makes sense, too.”
“I told you not to!”
“Of course.”
“And it’s 4 pm. We’re beat. We’ve been here all day. It’s just not right.”
“It has nothing to do with the fact that we’re dumb.”
“No. We’re just tired.”
“I’m not gonnnnnna do anymoooooore.”
“I’m sure they’ve given us the hardest questions.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m still out of ink.”

Update: I completed two of my three French exams a week ago and inshallah I did well. And by that I mean I neither ran out of ink nor broke down while staring at the incomprehensible French. It also means I ordered a mean cheeseburger after class and then killed my day with the world’s best gourmet chili dogs, onion rings and chicken wings.

At no point in the drafting of the above entry were any French individuals hurt or maimed or wounded; only the egos of the non-French.

The Honour of Being A Daughter

Sarah & Sharshoora: Alhamdulilah all is well, so please make no mention of the following to your mothers. Shukran ya amameer.

This happened recently and I’ve been uncertain as to how or what to post, so forgive me if it is a little without context.

Recently, mama had a health scare which landed us in the hospital. The Doctor feared it was something…not good. Either that or muscle pain. (I know, I know…the gulf that exists between the two potentials is ridiculous.)

Due to the nature of the pain and the fear of the Doctor, tests were performed immediately and we weren’t allowed to leave before the results came back. I hadn’t been in the room when the Doctor explained to mama what it could be, and so it was mama who told me.

By Allah’s mix of my grandparent’s genetics, mama’s eyes are a stunning and unusual crystal pale green. Her younger sister has what can only be described as yellow eyes, a younger brother with lime green eyes and a third brother with…someone once described another’s eye colour as “seafoam green” and I am using this to describe my uncle N’s eyecolour. All of the siblings have black hair and so they have always made for a stunning family. Mama was always the prettiest, her reputation and beauty preceded her in Gaza. She was the storybook “the prettiest girl in the city” because Gaza was small enough that everyone knew everyone else. And by small, we’re still counting in the thousands. Here’s a photo of mama at my age…



I’m lucky I look like baba because if I had my mother’s looks, I would be charging people money to look at me. That’s not true, I’m kidding. I wouldn’t sell myself so cheap; I’d be charging them money to breathe in my direction. But this isn’t about me or my ego…

When mama is emotional or tired, her eyes become an even more vivid shade of that same green that wallahi glows. When she was telling me what the Doctor said it could be, her eyes were the greenest I’d ever seen them. And although she was looking directly at me, I could tell she wasn’t really focusing on me and it scared the sh*t out of me because I could taste the fear coming from mama and if I could have eaten that pain away and carried it with me for the rest of my life, I would have. I will never be prepared to lose Her. I just can’t. It’s just not a possibility. Never.

After she finished telling me, she put her head in her hands and placed her elbows on her knees. I sat next to her and did what she’d done to me on so many occasions: I put my hand on her back and read what little Quran I know by heart. I couldn’t sit there for very long because it felt as though my chest were going to explode.

During that same lapse in time there was an 83-year-old man sitting across from us. Earlier in the evening he’d fallen down the stairs and had called his friend and asked him to bring him to the hospital to make certain all was well. The Doctor came in and told him – in front of us – that the scan showed he had two cysts at the front of his brain. The cysts were bleeding and they’d already called in the neurosurgeon. He wasn’t allowed to eat because they were going to perform surgery immediately. When he heard this news, his response was a stressed giggle and a “I could really use a beer” and although that was funny, it just made my chest tighter.

I excused myself to grab a coffee, make a call and go to the washroom. In reality, what I did was simply go to the washroom where I let my heart break and chest explode as quietly as possible. I sat down and cried with my hands over my mouth so no one would hear. (I think I’ve already said this but among the millions of things for which I am thankful is that I can cry for hours, wash my face and within a moment look as though nothing had happened.)

When the Doctor came to give us the results, I was watching mama. She was looking at the Doctor as would a child their saviour. There was so much fear and adoration and hope in those green eyes that I couldn’t look away; the Doctor most definitely couldn’t either. She looked like she was a four year old waiting to find out whether the world was going to be okay or not.

…she was told that the world was going to be okay.

And with that, she put her head down and just listened to the questions I then took it upon myself to ask. Alhamdulilah, it was the exact opposite of the worst and it was nothing more than muscle pain. Just as quickly as the fear had stepped into our lives, so too did it leave.

When the Doctor left, mama still had her head lowered and I could see she was shaking again. I walked over to wrap her in my wool jacket and as I reached around, she leaned her forehead onto my heart and cried. I kissed the top of her head and couldn’t do anything but hold my breath because I knew that anything else would have caused an emotional collapse and at that moment, there was only room for strength, and so it had to be and it was.

Sometimes it’s exhausting being an only child and though as a younger girl, I didn't appreciate it fully, it’s only as an adult that I understand and respect what parents are: they are giants and must be treated as such. I understand this will likely shift should I marry and have children of my own, but I can’t imagine it will shift away from, but rather make my heart expand to include everyone.

What I may have in teenage folly considered a potential burden, is now something I am honoured to carry (and I do so) with pride.

As we were leaving, I went to find the old man but he has already taken him away to surgery. I just wanted to give him a kiss on the cheek and wish him well, and I hate that I went out too late. I’ve kept him in my prayers since and I hope that he’s also been told that the world is going to be okay.

At the moment, mama and I are hitting a rough patch and I miss her. I ache for her, actually. She is my best friend and the only individual in the world with whom I wish to share my heart, but right now, and at her request, I can not. Every night, I touch my forehead down to my prayer mat and ask for her...inshallah all of what is happening is happening for the right reasons.

I rarely ask you for anything, but I'll ask that you remember her in your prayers, please.

Update...

My life is a beautiful, sad, anxious, chaotic, spectacular emotionally taxing and fulfilling mess at the moment and I will not be blogging for the next couple of weeks (sorry!). I can’t wait to tell you all about it, but I can’t do that just yet - I *promise* to do so soon enough, though, wallahi!

Think of me and send me your prayers and all of your good energy and know that even though there are tears, I am still smiling as often as possible and sometimes even in my sleep…

Take me seriously

Quite some time ago, I’d rented a car to head out to Montreal. Upon my return, I dropped the rental off at the rental place and tucked the keys into their safety deposit mailbox.

The next morning, I realized that I’d left one of my favourite CDs in the car (the slow songs from George Michael’s double ‘best of’ CD compilation). I rang the car rental place and was told they had found nothing.

That evening, T and I were heading out for coffee downtown and we parked across the street from the car rental place; I noticed that the car I had originally rented was unmoved, parked exactly where I’d left it. Out of curiosity and because I didn’t believe the girl on the phone, I walked over to the car and peeked inside. Lo and behold, my CD was sitting on the passenger seat. Alone. Sad. Depressed. Unused.

Because it was evening, the car rental demons folks were closed and so I stomped back to my car and asked T to give me 5 minutes to write them a rather severe letter…she obliged and sat quietly next to me in my car.

I pulled out my pad of paper and pen and started writing. I was using phrases like
“I do not appreciate that…”
“Unprofessional staff…”
“Expect to have my CD delivered…”
“Will never use your services again…”
“Took a photo of my CD sitting IN the car as proof…”
“I am not seeing pink!”

I was really disturbed by the fact that the saleswoman would lie to me. I mean, how could she LIE to a customer? How much effort would it have taken for her to walk the ten feet to look into the car? I told her it was my favourite driving CD! The nerve of her, I kept thinking.

I was so livid, I could barely see straight.

When I had completed and signed my letter, I asked T to read it and confirm that all was well. She slowly took it from my hand and read it carefully and at length.

When she looked up at me, I asked: “Do you think they’ll take me seriously? Do you think they’ll send me my CD? I can’t believe they lied to me!”

“Yeah, Maha, I’m sure they’ll take you seriously…especially since you’ve written the letter on this pink. Hello. Kitty. Paper.”