(I’ve been working through a difficult entry, and I still haven’t figured out what I’m trying to say in it, so in the mean time, this will have to do.)

It has only begun to grow cold here, and as far as Islamabad is concerned, 70 F has the bite of autumn. Though life in Pakistan is wildly different from what I left behind, and there will be no snow, no frost, and no chill, here so many leagues away, it still feels like fall.

When we‘d finally settled down in the US when I was in middle school, my parents bought a house on a still street in the old European and now Desi part of town. There my mom made her long-harbored dream of a garden come true, with the help of slave labor from yours truly. In the autumn my job was to bury bulbs for the spring flowers, remove the summer annuals, plant perennials, weed and mulch. Together my mom and I would plot out the next season’s growth, plant, bury, and wait.

When the holiday season neared, we would drag the two-story ladder to the attic roof to replace our green and white Eid lights. My younger brother and I would take turns giving each other heart attacks, shaking the ladder, tipping it, and screaming for dear life. I would climb to the top, and sit above the attic window, soaking up little warmth from the pale yellow sun. Down below people passed, cars came and went, squirrels haphazardly interned nuts in our lawn and dogs barked. From above the sounds of life on the street were muffled and colors muted.

When my brother called up for me to hurry up and finish already, I’d slowly slide down to the edge of the roof, set my heels on the cuff of the rain gutters and reach down and replace faulty lights. Eventually, the whipping wind would make it too hard to properly feel anything with my gloved hands, and I’d come down to defrost.

Fall was the only time I’d leave for school early and skate or walk the mile with no haste, taking in the smell of hickory from wood-burning furnaces and the deep musk of fallen wet leaves. I had a preferred route that took me by my favorite streets. Though I didn’t know the occupants of the houses, I was well acquainted with their lawns. I knew the house with the stained-glass cat in the window would have its front-yard carpeted in maroon, yellow and orange mums. The bungalow with the address numbers in bent red neon lights would have cut back its shrub hedge, bordered with violets. The three-story Georgian would have a blue and jade foliage garden pushed up against its gray walls.

One block down, the tan brick house with the red roof would have its rose bushes covered in Styrofoam shelters and a thick layer of scrub protecting the roots underground. Three blocks down I’d cross over to the right side of the road. Another two blocks I’d turn right, skirting the main streets. A few more blocks later and I’d be at my school, quieter now that the weather was no longer hospitable to groups of half-dressed teenagers and pickup games of basketball. Some stood stagnant in groups, smoking, waiting. Others met the wind full in the face. I would walk over to the nearby park, climb to the top of the swing-set, balanced on a wide wooden beam, open a book and read.

Autumn here is not quite the same. Hickory smoke is replaced by the smell of fires fueled by coal and buffalo chips. The chill outside is not enough to numb your hands and turn your nose red, but within our stone and cement home, it is like a crypt, and we shuffle about in sweaters and socks. The leaves are still green, and are unlikely to redden before they suddenly drop off later in December. My seasonal chores are limited to taking the warm bedding out of storage, making sure the windows throughout are closed and readying the dog house. Our garden here, full of flowers whose names I don’t know, and a variety of grass that I would have called a creeping weed before, is now managed by a gardener. Our house, like all others here, has a flat walled roof, with no rain gutters to clean. The seasonal lights run ‘round the balconies, and are easily accessed from the French doors near my bedroom.

The harbingers of the season here aren’t the early Christmas Santas and candy-canes, impatiently replacing the jack-o-lanterns and skeletons of Halloween. In Pakistan autumn is hinted by the sight of men in shawls, children in silly crocheted hats, roasted sweet potato sellers and the arrival of the fish mongers. From my second-floor balcony I can see the villagers pass with red, magenta and pink cotton comforters in bundles on their heads. A cart has appeared nearby with flawed and second-hand jersey clothes, sold by the item or by the pound. The nearness of Ramadan has brought out fryers, men with huge vats of oil, selling jalebis, egg rolls, samosas and pakoras, the typical snacks for break-fast. At dusk the smell of hot oil hangs thick in the air. When the temperature drops, the dark night clouds with low-lying smoke from the fires burning to keep homes in the village warm.

Looking back, looking down, looking on, I still stand divided, feet in two lands, mind in none.

So many hours are spent seeking laughter, distraction and entertainment. We turn to friends, books, TV, music, projects, net surfing, blogging, anything to divert our attention from the dim awareness that struggles to smolder inside. We paste over the images imprinted in our thoughts - the crying children, the charred bodies, the smoking wreckage, the hunger, the want, the pain, the injustice - with the pretend lives of others, with jokes, with school, with static. The nagging questions, obligations and uncertainty screaming in our minds are drowned in seas of noise, dialogue, color and application

The daily papers are simply shells for the comic section nestled in the inner folds. The sports section and the features are an added bonus. All else in the sheets of gray, black and white are filler. Editions covered with photos of blood and death are flipped over, covered with other magazines, or idly set away from public view. Eyes glance over headlines, pictures, captions, but nothing registers. The redness is not allowed to set, lest it stain.

The rare silences in our days are plugged with music - cassettes and CDs jammed quickly into the stereos and walkmen always on hand. We ride the notes, journey far with the lyrics, let ourselves cry and laugh, feel anger and release, without leaving the perimeter of the sound. When frustrated, we turn our radios up loud, sing along, yell, head-bang, shout, and when the last notes crescendo, we feel better, as if we’ve done something. Tragic love songs consume us, lending want and hunger for those borrowed experiences. Mental disquiet is soothed with the mathematical precision of classical music, steeping us in borrowed culture and accomplishment. We coat ourselves in layers of sound and define each other by the our noise preference.

When the color and the laughter stops in between sitcoms, dramas, talk-shows and cartoons, we turn off our TVs and wander away. On the rare instance when the news is on, we change the channel if the smiling anchor people speak of war, death and misery. Stomachs clenched tight, soul jaded, we’ve heard it all and our raw nerves are tired of feeling. “I don‘t even want to know any more.” “It never changes.” “If something important has happened, someone will tell us.” We switch back when the segment changes, lending eyes and ears to hear about the world’s biggest pizza or the many surgeries of a fading celebrity, tsk-tsking, laughing and shaking our heads.

The second and third decades of our lives are spent in shaping our minds, in learning, in thinking and becoming informed. Books of history, theory, fiction and non are all absorbed in an effort to make the mind as efficient a tool a possible. Trial and error, cause and effect, logic and reasoning, concepts are drilled into place, bolting down the foundations for our individual intelligences. So much of our lives are spent in teaching us how to think, and the rest of our lives are spent in quieting and detouring that thought. Look beyond and hear “You think too much,” “Give it a rest,” “There are no clear answers.” “Better men than you have tried and failed.” Fail in silencing the questions, and for a sizeable fee a psychiatrist can talk them away, or drug them into submission.

Acquaintances who worry, argue, urge, rant and rail are soon dropped. To meet with them we feel judged, insufficient, unworthy, and uncomfortable. They are too tiring, always calling for action, always demanding your notice, your time. We slowly slide away, weary of hearing “Did you read about this today? What are we going to do? Can you believe this? Something has to be done!” Ingrained in our minds instead are the laws: no one likes a firebrand - it’s not in our hands - it’s not our responsibility- we can’t save the world.

By we, of course, I mean me. These are my crimes. I stand guilty of criminal negligence to my self, to my world and to my mind.

Yes, it can be done. You can fall asleep, upright, in an incredibly uncomfortable chair, in the middle of editing some gory news stories while typing on an unergonomic keyboard. I would know. I did that a number of times today.

I found myself going cross-eyed with absolutely no power to stop it. My head grew impossibly heavy, slowly lowering itself to my shoulder as if the helium was being let out of the balloon that kept me upright. Mouth agape, half cross-eyed, dazed, deflated, though not yet drooling, I lost the ability to focus on the words in front of me and simply slipped into sleep. Sadly though, while my hands did remain in place over the asdfjkl; keys, they did not continue on editing without me. I guess it was asking too much of them.

Times like this I’m thankful that I have my own office with a door that is kept closed. Wouldn’t do to have my coworkers see me looking like I’m recovering from a recent frontal lobotomy.

That’s what happens when Aniraz, insomniac extraordinaire, Night Owl of the House Khan, goes without caffeine.

As the Islamic month of fasting - Ramadan - is beginning sometime around October 27, I thought I’d ease into it by doing a couple fasts in preparation. If I don’t wean myself off my four-cup-a-day-coffee-habit and start drinking gallons of water and taking vitamin supplements in the evenings, then I end up either passing the whole month in a migraine blur, or becoming seriously dehydrated or both.

I guess I’m getting old. When I was a kid we could eat the silliest breakfast, if we ate anything at all, and then run and play hard all day until time came to open our fasts at dusk. Then of course, my mom would stand on our heads after we finished our iftar full of greasy fried foods until we drank at least eight glasses of liquid in front of her. Smart woman, my mom.

Now that I’m an adult *dies* I try to be smarter about how I handle myself while fasting, avoiding unhealthy foods during the dark hours, eating slow-digesting complex carbohydrates for breakfast and breaking my fast with fruits and vegetables instead of the traditional friend pakoras and samosas. I try to remember to take vitamins and drink enough water to make up for what I miss in the day. But still, I just don’t have the insane zinging energy I had when I was a kid. Maybe the secret is in the pakoras. Maybe I should be eating more of them. *nods wisely* Yeah, that’s it, Pakora Power!

Ramadan is definitely my most favorite time of the year *queue holiday music, no not that holiday you idiots, the Muslim one!*. If done properly, when you’re not just refraining from food and drink, but also anger, malice, pettiness, ingratitude, miserliness, selfishness and man’s baser desires, then it is like a spiritual smack upside the head. Ok, maybe that’s a weird metaphor. It’s more like a spiritual renewal. There ya go. It gives you what you need to keep going the rest of the year. Muslims are urged to take full advantage of this month when God chains the devils who taunt and tempt. If you want to quit a bad habit, or accomplish something, or simply change and better yourself, then Ramadan is the best time to do it. Course, your own Nafs, your lower self, is still there, but it is easier to control when you don't have that boogery devil egging you on.

Like a lot of other Muslims, I try to set out a list of goals that I’d like fulfill during this month. Inshallah, God-willing, I’ll be able to hit a few of those targets, and hopefully, the good habits I’ve formed during these thirty days will carry-over into the rest of the year. It’s a sort of detoxification and refreshment of your soul. Atleast, that’s how it is for me. I know Ramadan is no guarantee for piety or holiness. If you want to take advantage of it, you can, if you want to ignore it, you can. The choice is yours.

I’m not sure whether I’ll be blogging during Ramadan. Generally speaking, I only write nonsense and stupidity, which I try to cut out of my life when this month rolls around. If I can’t write useful stuff myself, then I’ll probably just post ahadith and Islamic things lifted from elsewhere. I dunno yet.

Today I rediscovered why I hate talking on the phone. I’ve never been a big phone person. I’ve done good to avoid them, keeping my correspondence down to letters, emails, and the occasional gate-crashing parties. But today I had to play phone receptionist at work and it was a lesson in patience.

First off, I am NOT the secretary of the Aurora advertising agency. Hell, I’m not even on their payroll. We just happen to share a head techie and an office building. But sometimes, when all the important Aurora dudes go missing, and it’s just me and the peons (actual term for lower grade clerks in Pakistan), then they peons will sheepishly ask me to pretend to be the “madam of the office” *queue intimidating music* and take brusque messages from clients.

I’m generally handed a phone with an introduction along the lines of “No, the accounts manager is not in, but here is Madam Aniraz.” I don’t mind if the peons do that, at least get a title, albeit a fake one. I know you’re thinking I’m some kinda snob, needing a title to talk to folks on the phone. It’s not that I’m snobbish, its just if I don’t get an official title, then I have no shield to protect me from the likely humiliation and embarrassment that will ensue if you put me on the phone with folks who think I’m just a ditzy receptionist, not a white-washed pseudo-American journalist moonlighting as a phone minder.

See, my hearing isn’t very good. There’s probably technically nothing wrong with it, but on the phone, when there’s distortion, I’m grabbing at straws, guessing at what the other person is saying. Paired with that is the sad fact that my Urdu is even worse than my stupid hearing. It’s fine for superficial conversing, but when it comes talking shop, with warped Urdufied English wordage, then I’m useless. I don’t know about you guys, but the hardest stuff for me to figure out when I’m dealing with Urdu are words that USED to be English. Plus, folks here have that funny Punjabi accent that I haven’t quite got my brain around. So stick me on the phone with these disgruntled advertising clients speaking the mumbo jumbo at me in Punjabi accented Urdu-English, and I’m at sea. Yeah, and I ain’t none too social myself.

Anyways, the dudes at the Aurora agency didn’t tell me they were going to go AWOL. They just did. I don’t know if it was a coincidence or what, but suddenly I was the only person at work today. Seeing as how we also share our office phone numbers, I didn’t want to just listen to the phone ring without answering it. It could have been for my news agency. So after listening hearing the phones and ring and ring I eventually got off my duff and wandered out there, prepared to my duty as a message-taker person.

So today I had no warning and no fake title from the peons to save me. Just me and my lack of hearing and socialization skillz.

The conversations went a little like this:

Dude: Alo?
Me: Hello, Assalamu Alaikum.
Dude: What? Is this Aora?
Me: Ji? (Yes, what, huh?) Yes, this is an office.
Dude getting angry: No no, is this Aroori?
Me: Um, no, there is no Mr Aroori here at the Aurora advertising agency.
Angry dude: That’s what I’ve been asking you, is this Aurori?
Me: Oh, yeah, this is AurorA, can I take a message?
Angry dude: No, no message, I want to talk to Mr Arif.
Me: Um, Mr Arif isn’t here, can I take a message?
Angrier dude: What?! He’s not in? When will he be back?
Me: I’m sorry, he didn’t say. Would you like to leave a message?
Angrier dude: He didn’t tell you?! You don’t know? You didn’t ask? Well, tell him I want the interface made color for the national ad in the Dawn paper immediately!
Me: Ok, lemme just write that down. Color.... national....dawn.....
Angrier dude: And I want the gerafick imaaj juskapposite with the iteksut aart, in a falooted banner, on the right.
Me *scribbling hastily*: Right..... image.... text art..... juxtaposed...fluted banner......
Angrier dude: Oh, just forget it, do you have his mobile number?
Me: Uh, mobile? I didn’t know he had one, sorry.
Angrier dude: What? Who are you anyways? What is your position at Auroro? What do you do?!
Me: *panicking* Um... me....uh..... I’m....er...... I’m the head of editing damnit, you wanna leave a message or not?!
Supremely pissed dude: No, I don’t! Tell Arif to call me! *click*

I can imagine the confusion when Mr Arif reads his message memo saying, “Hey, man three angry dudes want to talk to you.” I wonder what he’ll tell the dissatisfied clients I dealt with - “No, she’s not a mentally challenged janitor from Mars, she’s that acidic looking editor in chief of the news agency next door. Yes, really.” Sigh.

(I give myself a disclaimer: I have a migraine. A nice whopping, slightly blinding, piercing, murderous migraine. *stabs it* So thus, if I am stupid, sorry.)

Today Abez and I visited a wonderful ghetto bazaar here in Islamabad. As we dodged wagons blaring musical horns and mustached pedestrians, I turned to her and said “Guess where we are?!” She answered excitedly “Pakistan!” And I said, “Uhuh. Does that make us Pakistanis?” and she very matter of factly answered in that same happy voice “Nope!” My cheerfulness slightly diminished I asked again, “But, we are IN Pakistan.”
“So?”
“Shouldn’t that make us PakistanIS?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yup.”
“Oh.”

Incidentally, we do this quite often. Sometimes, if you’re not paying attention, you can almost forget that you’re in Pakistan. The din of Punjabi-talk, nasal crooning, crows cawing and loudspeaker announcements silence for just a bit. The semi-clean, semi-ordered streets of Islamabad can, when one is squinting and upside-down, almost pass as a tacky soulless suburb in the first or second world. But then a beat-up taxi attempts to drive into your spleen while two children simultaneously launch themselves at your moving car, and you remember where you are. Indeed, I am living in Pakistan and have been doing so for the past few years. So again, the question begs to be asked, “Does that make me Pakistani?”

Abez and I, you see, have big identity problems. Being half Pakistani and half Caucasian American, we’ve never quite fit in anywhere. Growing up in the US our fellow Americans called us ghandis, budabudas and stinky Indians. When we lived a few years in Pakistan we were called ghoras (whites), Amreekans and ghairmulki (foreign). Claiming to be an American hasn’t seemed right, as I’ve spent nearly one third of my life outside the country. Plus, my identity, my values and my beliefs, are contrary to the American state of mind. But at the same time, me, with my pasty-white skin, grammatically laughable Urdu, aversion to desi culture, and social nonconformity, paired of course with my American citizenship, means I’m not a Pakistani either.

When I was little I really, REALLY wanted to be Native American. They seemed so cool, with their um.... teepees? Actually, now that I think about it, I have no idea why I wanted to be Native American. I probably figured I could simplify things by claiming to be an American Indian instead of having to explain that I was the child of an Indian-born Pakistani and an American. And then the long braided hair my dad expected me to keep wouldn’t be tacky and old fashioned, it would be cool and exotic. I know why I wanted to be Chinese though. I thought that nothing was lovelier than the Asian eye, and I spent hours trying to look at myself while pulling at my eyelids. Hey, I was five, and five year olds aren’t known for their smarts. I think that was the year I had plans of being a ninja-scientist-doctor-teacher when I grew up. It still seems like a viable career choice.

Anyways, most mixed kids I know pick the nationality of one of their parents and stick with it. They’ll either be completely Pakistani or American, depending on where and with which parent they are living. My siblings and I lived in both places, and with both parents. And then there are always the odd ones who’ll try something exciting and instead pretend to be Hispanic, Assyrian, or Mediterranean. We probably would have been wholly American, right down to an inability to speak any language aside from English and an ignorance towards any culture outside the contiguous states, had my dad not brought us to visit Pakistan when we were still malleable. But by doing that he stirred us up a bit, and we’ve yet to settle.

And then Abez and I have messed things up even further by being fundamentalist Muslim types. So not only are we two semi-Caucasian people of indeterminate origin, but we’re also scary people in headscarves and long overcoats, which make us stand out pretty much everywhere we go.

So we’re not quite Amreeki and we’re not quite Paki.



We are, however, black.

My dad and I have officially begun - The Nagging Wars.

I come from a family of very strange people, particularly in regards to how we deal with our health. Though we none of us ever seem to pay the least bit of mind to our own problems, we’re always coming down hard on anyone looking the slightest bit ill. Last week my dad started getting sick. He’s a bit at risk for bronchial problems, so at the first cough I launched my barrage of nagging (doing the job of my misplaced mom of course).

When my dad ran around in a t-shirt, he was asked to put on something warm. He did his darndest to avoid any proper sick people behavior. When he tried to sleep with the fan on high, it was turned low. He’d turn it up, we’d turn it down. We’d throw an extra blanket on him while he slept, he’d throw them on the floor. When he sounded hoarse, he was made to drink cough syrup. We banned him from tearing around town on his motorcycle while he was sick. His happy plans to wash the car and driveway in his sandals were quashed. Each coughing fit was answered with the question “Have you taken your medicine?” Each time he sat down was an opportunity to pour more medicinal tea into him.

Of course, most of the time my dad didn’t listen and very skillfully managed to avoid most of our ministrations. He ended up with a severe case of bronchitis and actually took himself down to see the doctor. Now that he is pretty much better though, he is launching a counter attack on me.

As I’ve sort of had a fluish thing and have now moved onto a cough, my dad has readied the arms of war and has begun nagging (doing the job of his absent wife). Each nose blowing is answered with a displeased look of calculation. If I’m seen wearing more than two layers of clothing to beat the cold, he looks at me sternly and declares “You’re sick!” I cough, and he yells, “Drink some juice!” I sneeze and he shouts to Abez, “Call the clinic!” If I’m quiet or tired looking he checks if I have a fever and slaps some pills down in front of me with a no-nonsense order of “Take them!” All of these orders are met with a recalcitrant pout. I’ve been running around in HIS waistcoat because “it’s warm, beta” and the constant threat/order to get some medical help hangs over my head.

I know I know, this is so exciting it’s unbearable. Really, unbearable. Sigh.

For what it’s worth, I think in this round of the nagging wars, I just may win. I’ve yet to go to the doctor, so nyah.

*cough*

(oh yeah, and in response to the discussion in the comment box as to what exactly I do as a writer/editor/journalist and whether this stuff is being published in print. My nine-to-five is editing, my once in a while is feature writing, and I refuse to do reporting. In between, nowhere and no one publishes anything the likes of which I plaster on my blog. I’m lucky to get my odd interviews with octogenarians run in the press, let alone my devious plans for chaos and insanity. Sigh. So I‘m both published and not published. Any ideas?)

A friend of mine has just been promoted to the most marriageable status. That means she’ll be having to do the dreaded tea-trolley thing. That’s when a girl presents and serves tea, on a trolley of course, to her prospective in-laws and possible future husband. It’s really just an excuse for the dude appraise the girl. Seems iffy if you ask me, but luckily my family doesn’t do that sort of thing, it’s considered demeaning.

Anyways, so this friend of mine is worried cuz her dad has bad taste in guys. She’s afraid he’ll be bringing unsavory Quasimodo types for her to serve tea to. She doesn’t really want to be approved by anyone like that, so she phoned me the other day and asked for some serious help.

Well Seema, you’ve come to the right place. I am a vessel of mischievous mayhem.

Aside from pretending to be nuthouse escapee, or arriving with teeth blackened out, there are a number of subtle ways to frighten off your prospective in-laws and Munay ki Abba.

Number one, make extremely disgusting chai. Pakistanis are practically tea gourmets, and if you can’t make a decent cup of chai, then you may as well be dead. I recommend throwing in some black cardamom (that would be the big kind that look like dehydrated cockroaches) instead of usual white cardamom in the pot. Use only 1/3 of the normal amount of tea grounds. For an even more delicately disgusting taste, add some salt and chat masala.

Number two, dress for non-success! Clothe yourself in the most frumpy and unfashionable outfit you can find, preferably one borrowed from your grandmother. Wear your shalwar backwards. For an unbelted shalwar, make sure to put all the pleats in the back. If you’re not a hijabi, wear your hair in a severe braid and wrap your head with a woolen shawl, even if its the dead of summer. Litter your hair with small paper bits and dust bunnies. Wear plastic flip flops and white gloves.

Number three, the make-up makes the woman. Regardless of what your eyebrows usually look like, draw on a uni-brow. Darken your skin, though not too noticeably, or your mom will make you wash it off. Like the ‘before’ part for one of those skin whitening cream ads, spot your face with eye-liner blemishes. For added bonus points, pull an English Ubtun Turmeric Cream and at least once during teatime loudly grumble, “Why is my face black like my destiny?”

Number four, have some attitude. The idea is to spook your guests, but not noticeably enough to let your parents know what is going on. Plaster on your face a look of unearthly remoteness. Make unflinching eye contact with your potential mother-in-law. Follow her movements around the room. Laugh uproariously whenever your would-be father-in-law talks. When the would-be groom speaks, look around the room suddenly, under cushions, behind the sofa, in the tissue box, as if trying to locate where the sound is coming from. Never look at him directly. Ignore his existence entirely.

Number five, serve up some madness. When dishing out the hors de oeuvres to your unwanted guests, make sure to squash all the foods upside-down. Push all the snacks to the absolute corners of the plate. Cough on your mother-in-law’s dish. Wait for when your future father-in-law tries to eat something. Jump up and grab the spoon or fork from his hand and brightly say, “Let me do that abba,” and try to force large amounts of whatever into his spluttering mouth. Don’t serve your potential husband anything but water. Tell him he could stand to lose some weight.

If all else fails, hum and suck on the ends of your hair.

(special thanks to Abez, who furthered this insanity)

I had this mondo serious rant against some particularly Pakistani crap, but that’s all out the window. Why’s that? That’s cuz right now I’ve got donuts on the brain. (Thanks Chai!)

Ummm..... donuts.....

You’re going to have to pardon my Homerisms. It’s been something like two years since I had a right proper donut. I’ve made some myself, but homemade donuts don’t have that same magical Dunkin Donuts goodness.

Funny how a smell can take you back years. When I was a little kid, maybe about six or seven, donuts were the world. They shared my galaxy with jawbreakers, sour candies, bubble gum and the ice cream truck. But donuts were even more special, because they only made their rare appearances when my dad brought them home on Eids and sometimes out of the blue.

I remember coming home from school one day, when I was in the first grade. Abez and I were latchkey kids, so we let ourselves in. We walked in the door and saw two chocolate donuts hanging from the ceiling. We were in total awe. When you’re only about 3 feet tall, the ceiling is miles away, and it was beyond us how they got there. We pulled a dining chair into the foyer and set about trying figure out the mystery. On closer inspection, the donuts had little paper labels attached. One label had a funny little Aniraz drawn on by a wobbly uncertain hand, and the other had a little Abez. My dad had come home and left us the donuts, and even drew us little pictures so we’d know who they were for. Since I was six and Abez was eight, we weren’t allowed to use my mom’s sharp scissors, so we just bit at the donuts, while perched precariously on a chair, until we could get them down.

Later, when we started attending Islamic classes at the masjid near by, which were taught by my dad, he’d always bring donuts as incentive to we brats who’d rather be watching cartoons and playing in the park on a Sunday morning. Sadly, I remember little of what we were taught, but I do remember the donuts.

I remember the first time I was old enough to walk down to the nearest donut shop without a grown-up. I was in second grade. Abez and I had saved up some quarters and had planned this big adventure. We left for school early, and ran a lot of the way. It was blocks past our school. We had to cross two big intersections, and walk near a major road. Very scary. I stored my quarters in my kangaroo sneakers (Keds?), which had a little pocket in the tongue. When we finally got to the shop, it took me forever to squeeze the quarters out of my shoes. We solemnly placed our horded coins on the counter and bought two donuts. We ate them there, perched on the stools around the counter, trying hard not to fall off. Some desi cabbies recognized us as “Khan Sahib’s girls.” I was shocked. My dad was a celebrity.

When I got older donuts had lost their magic. When you’re a teenager, deep fried sugary foods are the devil and donuts had way too many calories even to be considered. Nope, it was corn flakes for me. When my dad brought them home, I’d eat half of one, and shove the rest in front of my brothers. Of course, they never complained.

I can’t believe I’m waxing poetic about donuts. *grins* Hilarious, but ah well.

Chronicles of Owl’s Engeniositousness

I had to make some salsa today. Why? Oh, who knows. It had something to do with a lunch party on a Mexican theme or something. And I’m in Pakistan. If you want stuff, you gotta make it yourself.

Yeah, so I was making salsa. You have to cut large amounts of tomatoes, peppers, chilis, onions and stuff for it. I was busy having an argument at the time, so I was just cutting things on auto-pilot, grabbing and chopping without a thought. No there were no disasters. Yes, I still have all my fingers.

So I was merrily arguing with the my fellow Primate House monkey Abez and cutting vegetables. I went through the tomatoes, then the onions, then the garlic, and the peppers. After I’d cut all the vegetables, I looked down at the next line of the salsa directions. The recipe apparently came with a warning - when cutting the chili peppers, make sure to wear gloves.

You know when you first get into high school they give you this test in homeroom. It is a paper full of instructions. The first instruction is, read the list entirely before beginning. The second instruction is to write your name in the paper, fold it, and sit patiently. The many orders afterwards are absolutely crazy, like drawing circles, shaking hands with the person on your left, exchanging your papers with the person on your right, and clapping three times. The last instruction is disregard all instructions after the second one. You’re supposed to have read all these things BEFORE beginning, and thus hopefully will be sitting snidely while your classmates who don’t follow directions properly make fools of themselves. Anyways, I was one of the losers shaking hands and clapping. I don’t follow directions very well. Chalk it up to my mile-wide rebellious marbling.

So that means I didn’t get to the part about the gloves until after I’d cut the peppers. I’d already done the whole lot without a hitch, but when I scratched my face I realized suddenly that my chin was enflamed by a particular type of fire that was rapidly spreading to my hands. Within a few minutes, my hands were red and burning as if I’d dipped them in drain-opener (and here I’m assuming, since I don’t, as a practice, go about dipping my hands in corrosive liquids).

Generally speaking, I’m not too stupid. Except of course, when I go about giving myself chemical burns with unsuspecting salsa ingredients. I figured the pepper probably had some sort of acid in it, and I’d be wise to neutralize it with a base. I sat there, watching my hands go red, and tried to remember those fuzzy lessons from my chemistry classes.

I wracked my brain, and my only tangible memory was one day my teacher asked me, “And Aniraz, which element does the Pb abbreviation represent?” To which I wisely answered “Peanut butter.”

Dimly I recalled that milk was a weak base, so I soaked my hands in that. When it didn’t work, I tried soda, which seemed like a good idea. That didn’t help either, and just made my hands more raw. I didn’t have any ammonia, which, in hindsight, was probably a very good thing. Even healthy hands are unlikely to be helped by a soak in that stuff.

Then I got a bit desperate, since the burning was only spreading. I set on a madcap dash about the house, dipping my hands in pots of things, coating them in medicine, caking on toothpaste, slathering them in Vicks, freezing them with ice - basically trying any and everything possible to take the edge off the burn. Nothing worked.

Thankfully, in all my hasty insanity, I avoided causing an even more splendiferous chemical reaction on my hands with the weird medicinal mixing I was doing. Eventually I resigned myself to my fate. I sat there, with stiff, aching hands, and marveled at my own engeniositiousness, waiting out the burn.

After about five hours, the burning stopped, Alhamdullilah.

The lessons learnt from this adventure:

1. Always follow directions.
2. Leave the salsa making to the Mexicans.
3. Pay attention in chemistry.
4. Pb does not represent peanut butter, it represents lead.
5. Vicks, unlike time, does not heal all wounds.
6. Owl is not smart.

The weather today was 84 °F / 29 °C degrees. As far as Islamabad is concerned, this is frigid. Already you can see people walking around in sweaters and shawls, with hats and scarves, complaining about the cold. Soup stalls, only present to help fight the chill, have mushroomed around the plazas and markets, and we’ll probably see the haadegwalas - boiled egg sellers - next week. Yes, it’s winter time here. Bust out the wool blankets and gas heaters.

The weather here always seems strange to me. I grew up in the Mid-West US, where blizzards in the winter are common (unlike in the summer, where they’re all too rare) and there are only 3 months of summer at the most. When October rolled around it’d be cold enough for heating, and in the morning there’d be a frost. December didn’t always have snow, but January did, and despite our daily no-holds-barred snow-ball battles and sledding, there'd be no shortage of the stuff till March.

But I really should cut out my snootiness cuz I have a confession to make. Not only have I caught a cold from this absolutely freezing warmth, but I’m also wearing a sweater and socks as I sit here typing with blue fingers. Me German-ish mum would be ashamed of me. I dunno what’s happened. I went from being a fairly durable and hale human being to being rather fragile and given to illness. Sigh.

It will get colder though, as much as in the 40s (12-15C) around January. It’s not a proper winter though, as it lacks snow and proximity to the freezing point of water. It’s more like long bitter fall, without the lovely colored foliage. The greenery here, or brownery as B-filer calls it, just goes from off-yellow to gone. There’s no redness in between. By November we’ll have these wonderful deadly heaters on in every room and do make sure to leave a window open, or you’re liable to die of gas poisoning.

We’ll be bundled up and blue most of the time despite the heating. Or rather, I’ll be bundled up and my dad will be running around in t-shirts, asking me if I’m off my rocker or near death for being so cold. Then he’ll shake his head sadly and mutter “kids these days.” If I’m lucky, I’ll manage to not catch pneumonia and will make do instead with a serious lung infection that will put me out of commission for a good month. Oh joy. I can hardly wait.