(Hemlock demands an update. Smartness must be put on the backburner. Can't be angering a woman who sends me checks. Nope we can't. Maybe in a few days I’ll hammer out something with value. But for now, eat this!)

If I wasn’t a God-fearing, camel-riding, condemnation spewing Muzlamic, I’d say I have bad luck, or shoddy karma, or something like that. But as I am - complete with allahuakbar action and multi-purpose head-scarf - I’ll have to settle with just sighing at the oddness of my life.

What happened, you wonder. Another inexplicable run-in with Fatman at work? More weird marriage proposals from shifty aunties? Have I become the target of all of Islamabad’s most manic drivers? No, nothing that severe. I just happened to notice that I have the worst luck when it comes to Literati.

The other day desperation and boredom drove me to seek the sister of Scrabble online. I logged into Yahoo Games and entered a social Literati lounge. After being booted from countless games, as no one wants to play an unranked ‘provy,’ and then being kicked out of another for putting ‘azonic’ on the board, I created my own table and waited for an opponent. One joined me shortly, and a game was begun.

A few minutes in, jarred by the silence only broken by the electronic shuffling of letter tiles, I asked my opponent where they were from. “New Jersey” was the answer, and the question was rebounded. To avoid the long explanation of my location, origin, and parentage I answered “Pakistan.” My opponent, lets call her Anna, then quickly typed “Me too!”

Those who know me know I’m the untrusting skeptical type. Not for a second did I believe Anna’s admission. “Really,” I said. “What city are you from?” There was no answer for many minutes as we sat in front of our computers trying to make viable words from the gobbledegook that lay before us. Finally, she answered “Makhabu.”

*cough*

If you’re Pakistani, or reasonably versed with geography, you know there is no place in this country called Makhabu. I called Anna’s bluff. Great, I thought to myself, I’m playing with an obnoxious bigot type who probably thinks Chinese sounds like Chingchongching, brown people are all Gandhis and reducing people’s cultures is somehow ok. They’re trying to be funny. I began to stew as I waited for her defense.

“Alright, I’m not REALLY from Pakistan,” she said as she tried to spell boy with a ‘u’. “But, I thought you were joking when you said you were from there, so I was playing along too.” Oh, well it’s an honest mistake, I thought. “That’s ok. I can understand,” I placated. Again we turned back to the game.

A little while later she typed, “But, it’s too weird. Hey tell me some things about Pakistan that only a they would know.” Um, ok. I rattled off a bunch of facts and waited in silence for them to be researched or refuted. As Anna attempted for the tenth time to play a misspelled word, she said, “Well, maybe, but for all I know you could just be some guy who just learns all these things about Pakistan to fool people.”

*blinks*

I was dumbfounded, and not at her assumption that I was male. Why would anyone do that? Is it so hard to believe I’m really from Pakistan? You know we have Internet connections, English skills and Scrabble clubs here? She said nothing for many long minutes.

“My friend thinks you’re rude,” she continued. “And if you’re really from that place then you’re giving them all a bad name.” What the hibbitydibbity?! I told her to quit acting all of 13. She asked me what that was supposed to mean. I rolled my eyes and wished someone else had chosen to sit at my Literati table, not this Anna character.

In attempt to bring things back to normal, I conversationally asked, “So how old are you?” Instead of answering, Anna asked the question of me. Fine, “I’m 21.” “Really?” she asked. “Yes, really.” A few more minutes of silence, and then her answer appears - “Oh, well, I’m 9.”

0_0

Suddenly, everything makes sense. I’ve been matching my linguistic wits against and verbally sparring with a 9 year old. I feel so guilty. I tell her that if she’s really 9, then I’m definitely sorry for my rudeness. What seemed like hauteur and stupidity a few minutes ago, was really just childishness. Again, silence while the game came to a standstill. I wait. “Anna, if you don’t want to finish the game, let me know and I’ll close the room,” I offer. Eventually she answers, “It’s ok. I forgive you. My computer lab class is ending, so I have to go now. Bye.”

At least I won. Right?

So the verdict is I should keep on blogging, but try to make it a worthier use of our collective time. That sounds like work to me. Meh. I’m a lazy bum you know. It’d have been easier if you guys all just said “Kill it now and put us out of our misery.” But ye didn’t, and instead you all made gross comments about the palatability of my brainbarf, much to Ayan’s revulsion. Oh, and you want me to change the layout. So demanding we are. :)

So I guess I’ll make an effort to intersperse my regular nonsense with stuff with purpose. It’s not as if I can go cold turkey from being stupid. No, that’s ingrained. I simply have an unhealthy leaning for the absurd. Can’t change that now.

Right. So I’m supposed to be writing intelligently eh? It’s five minutes into this blog and I haven’t even rounded the bend on intelligence. *stares* *blinks* *tries to slip out unnoticed*

You see, it’s not that there isn’t a lot on my mind. Or anything for that matter. Except a bit of purplish dust. Cuz there is. I’ve got more thoughts ricocheting in my head than I could wrestle flat and attempt to iron into a blog in a million years.

The problem is, usually I don’t like sharing my thoughts unless I’ve come to some revelation or found a conclusion or sorted something out. No point in passing along uncertainty. That’s easier said than done. Today’s only revelation that ought to be written in stone – or at least magicmarkered into my forehead is – thou shalt not eat more than one piece of pizza. Do so and thou shalt have indigestion, copiously.

Other things, I just worry about. Like what’s happening in Iraq. And Palestine. And Afghanistan. And Pakistan. And Chechnya. The world at large really.

I spend a good part of my day reading news of some sort and it seems like the more I know, the more troubled I get. The facts and events just seem to pour over me, and instead of landing neatly in a pile to be processed and dealt with, they fall chaotically like Tetris blocks on fast. Hours don’t seem to pass without a new brick thrown to the heap. And yet still there is no final supposition. I still don’t understand.

Knowledge is supposed to be power, but I find it all debilitating at times. I wish I could just close my mind and be left alone and not have the reality of the world knocking at my conscious every minute. I joke about running away to live a life of solitude as a hermit, of becoming a sheep herder, a remote guru, the lone resident of my own island – a deserter. I can’t though. It would be cowardly.

So I keep on reading, learning and storing. I let it all pour in, over and choke me, in the hopes that somehow that by at least knowing what’s wrong, I may not be wholly guilty of it.

Is that what I feel? Guilty. Yes, I am. Because I know and I do nothing. Because I know and I don’t know enough to act. Because I fool myself into thinking that my role as the recorder of the wrong, as the one who remembers and realizes, is somehow the best thing I can do. I know it’s not.

And yet still I don’t know.

I called in sick today, and for the first time in about seven months, it actually worked. Usually, I wake up feeling substandard, fall out of bed, crawl over to the phone, dial my office and have a conversation that goes a lil like this:

Me: Assalamu Alaikum, this is Aniraz.
Office dude: Walaikum Assalam.
Me: I’m feeling sick today, I think I’ll stay home.
Office dude: So you’ll be working from home then?
Me: I hope not. I thought it smart not to barf on the work computer, and the same applies to my own PC at home.
Office dude: But madam, you know there is no one to fill in for you.
Me: No one? Not even that guy who handles Sundays?
Office dude: No, he’s gone to his village. You’ll have to work from home.
Me (deflated): Really? Then I have to work then? Oh, okay. I guess.
Office dude: Bye.

Then I spend the next four to seven hours in our dark den editing nonsense while trying to block out the usual household chaos – dogs barking, banging, construction, telephone calls and unexpected visitors.

Usually, working from home is an even bigger pain than going to the office, as the sector we live in is known for it’s sporadic electricity and elusive telephone services. By the time I’m done and have sent off all my files, I generally feel worse from the experience and vow to head into the office the next day no matter how crappy I feel.

But here I am, with my first extra day-off since God knows when, and I’m writing about work. I’m such a loser. I need to get out more.

On a side note - hey remember when this blog was smart….. ish? When I wasn’t just abusing the literary leeway of hyperbole while chronicling my sad little life and there was actually a point to my entries? What ever happened to that? When I started this blog, I intended it to be writing practice and I vowed never to let it just become uncensored brainbarf. Too late. This thing has got to get back to being a service of sorts, something informative to readers and challenging to me, lest I axe it. There I said it. Now we gotta see if I’ll put my money where my mouth is.

0_0

My mom is coming back from her visit to America in a couple of days. She’d been staying with my elder brother’s family for the past year, parenting my younger brother and helping with my nephews.

The other half of the family - me, Abez and my dad- had been manning ‘the bachelor pad’ with a lax hand in her absence. Needless to say, we’re in a bit of a rush to get things ready for her return. What, bedsheets used a tablecloths? Garbage cans used as plant pots? Antique napkins as dishrags? Hmm? Of course not! Perish the thought!

We moved into a new place while she was gone, and unfortunately all the lovely order that my mother had set up at our old house didn’t make the move. The well-organized cabinets, the folded linen closet, the alphabetized pantry and all that jazz was all unceremoniously crammed into boxes, hastily labeled as “stuff” and may or may not have been unpacked when we shifted. Hey man, it was enough that we managed to pack the three floors of insanely gratuitous junk and haul it over here with only one glass broken. There’s only so much you can ask of a bunch of bums like us.

So today when I came home from work I took it upon myself to attempt to unjunk the junk drawers. My first discovery – ALL the drawers were junk drawers. That’s a bad sign. Somehow we’d managed to fill any empty ones with crazy things – old batteries, keys, mysterious pills, wrappers, coins, tape, thread, superglue… the list goes on. I don’t know why we insist on keeping all these things. I think we harbor some long-forgotten-but-still- ingrained religious belief that expired batteries can be resurrected if left in a dark corner somewhere for a few months. And I’ve got this strange feeling that if I throw away the jumble of unclaimed keys I’ll have seven years of bad luck or a really itchy palm or something. If I was smart I'd ball it all together, pour the super glue on and call it art.

Then I had to fix up the kitchen cabinets. I think I spent the longest time repatriating all the lentils that had bravely escaped from their oppressive bags and were wandering freely on the bottom of some shelves. They weren’t happy with their new places of residence, two sad little plastic tubs that Abez, with more relish than is natural, strangely labeled “communist lentils” and “W.A.S.P lentils” – meaning red and white. The oatmeal was given its rightful home back from the tiny, ten year old bag of alphabet noodles that had zionized its two liter container. Don’t ask me what we’re saving them up for. I think it has something to do with the Second Coming.

I’m wondering though if my attempt to fool my mom into thinking that we’d been running the house as proper adults in her absence will do any good. No amount of arranging in the kitchen can hide the twenty packets of instant noodles that we’ve crammed in there. Nothing says domestic negligence quite like Knorr Chatkhara-flavored madness.

Now she’ll know. As if my blog didn’t already blow our cover. Shucks.

What does one do when they've already done all their editing for the day, sent off their files, worked out - twice, eaten lunch, had tea, showered and prayed all before 3:30? I dunno. I've never done it before till today. I'm rather in shock. I guess I'll blog.

By the way, if my blog entries seem to be more rife with spelling and grammar errors than usual, then blame it on Microsoft Word. Two weeks ago the saucy little talking paperclip that I despise so much had the cheek to tell me that my blog file was too long (about 250 pages) and too full of spelling errors, so the computer was disabling auto-spell check. Since then I’ve had to rely on my wits alone. Judging by the fact that I almost spelled wit with an ‘e,’ this may not be such a good idea. What, me editor?

I want to register a complaint. Against Pakistan. Who told this country it could be so damn hot? It?s the middle of May, and we’ve already pushed past 100 as a temperature average. And no matter what everyone else keeps telling me, mangoes being in season does NOT make up for the fact that I’m being boiled in my skin. Here I am losing my structural integrity and somehow the plate of mangoes pushed infront of me by an addled-looking relative is supposed to make me feel better? If the lawn-zombies don?t assimilate you, the cult of mango will. My only consolation, (which isn’t fruit) is the hope that the heat may melt off excess Owliness. And yes, there is an excess. I’m still five pounds above that ideal weight target I set in spring. Curses.

Remember back in the day, when I was still blogging on Xanga, I wrote an entry about my dreams of owning a shoe-gun? I wanted to launch some much-needed justice at the heads of the jerks who seem to hang out at all public places here and make crude remarks at random females. Well, here in Pakistan summer not only brings mangoes to the markets, but chichoras (greaseballs) as well, and with them comes my urge to use plastic sandals as a tool for social reprogramming. Using ‘Mashallah’ (praise God) as some sort of pick-up line is more than just whack-worthy. It’s hold-on-a-minute-while-bust-out-my-tazer-and-fry-some-fear-of-God-into-you worthy. Atleast, that’s what I think and the next moron who uses God’s name to be gross is going to find out the hard way.

Every day going and coming from work I pass by a large assemblage of plastic pools sold by the side of the road. Maybe it’s the memories of hot summers at my grandma’s house splashing about in that sad outdoor tub that we stored frogs in during the off-season, maybe it’s their shiny plastic prettiness, or maybe the intense heat and blinding sunlight has finally cooked what remained of my brain, but I’m seriously beginning to covet the rainbow coloured one with the neat arch on top. I imagine hauling it home, carrying it down to the basement, inflating it, filling it full of icecubes and hopping in. Who needs mangoes now?

You know what’s an absolute good? Water. I know when I was little I hated it. If it wasn’t Koolaid, juice, pop or chocolate milk, I wasn’t interested. My mom used to literally force glasses of water into me during the hot Pakistani summers to prevent me from dehydrating into a little prune. I dimly recall that being sheer torture. Now though, I never can seem to get enough. And on the occasion when the pump that fills the water tank in our house is broken, or I’m stuck in stifling traffic without a drop handy, or I see women and children walking miles to fill pots of water that they carry home balanced on their heads, I’m reminded what a blessing water is. And how kind Allah is that most of us aren’t inconvenienced in the slightest in getting a glass of it. So yeah, can I get an Alhamdullilah for water?

It's a blog. I’m done. Carry on.

I was ten when we moved to Islamabad for one of the three years we spent in Pakistan. Prior to that we had been living in Karachi at my dad's family compound. Being in Islamabad was our first time in Pakistan away from the khandaan, away from the cousins, away from the full and crazy life we'd gotten used to.

In comparison, Islamabad was still and hollow. Us four kids rattled around in our big empty house on the edge of the city like peas in a drum. Time not spent in listlessness at school was used to wander the wide mustard fields and rock-filled gullies that covered the empty sector we lived in. There was simply not enough to do indoors.

The few books we'd brought with us from Karachi had already been read, and read again. In boredom, I'd turned to reading the encyclopedias and textbooks that had collected dust on our shelves. When my mom bought me "Poems for Pleasure" for my birthday it quickly became my favorite book. I used to copy-out the bright illustrations that accompanied the verses and would memorize the funny poems, like the Colonel Fazackerley, My Sister and The Tree Hippopotamus.

I remembered the book yesterday when Abez, who has a memory like a steel trap (rusty and illegal in 15 states), started reciting one of its poems as she sat at the computer. It's called the Jumblies.

She recalled a few lines and then laughed, saying "You know, you and me, we're Jumblies." I thought about it and laughed too. That first stanza oddly mirrors our lives, when we decided to leave the US and move to Pakistan four years ago. Here's the poem so you can see for yourself.

The Jumblies

by Edward Lear

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a Winters morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, "You'll all be drowned!"
They called aloud, "Our Sieve ain't big,
But we don't care a button! we don't care a fig!
In a Sieve we'll go to sea!"
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.

They sailed away in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they sailed so fast,
With only a beautiful pea-green veil
Tied with a riband by way of a sail,
To a small tobacco-pipe mast;
And every one said, who saw them go,
"Oh won't they be soon upset, you know!
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long,
And happen what may, it's extremely wrong
In a Sieve to sail so fast!"
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.

The water it soon came in, it did,
The water it soon came in;
So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper all folded neat,
And they fastened it down with a pin.
And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,
And each of them said, "How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
While round in our Sieve we spin!"
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.

And all night long they sailed away;
And when the sun went down
They whistled and warbled a moony song
To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,
In the shade of the mountains brown.
"O Timballoo! How happy we are,
When we live in a sieve and a crockery-jar,
And all night long in the moonlight pale,
We sail away with a pea-green sail,
In the shade of the mountains brown!"
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.

They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,
To a land all covered with trees,
And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
And a hive of silvery Bees.
And they bought a Pig, and some green Jackdaws,
And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
And no end of Stilton Cheese.
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.

And in twenty years they all came back,
In twenty years or more,
And every one said, "How tall they've grown!
For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
And the hills of the Chankly Bore;"
And they drank their health, and gave them a feast
Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast;
And everyone said, "If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!"
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.


Granted, we haven't yet "gone back," and sadly we aren't blue and green, but our decision to leave the US for a 'Muslim country', to go to sea in a sieve, was met in the same way. If you think hard enough anyways. Which you really oughtn't. ;)

I gotta give props to my momma. Despite all my years of teenage angst-filled declarations of "you just don?t understand me!" I have to admit, the woman does know this wild child of hers.

The cause of this revelation? My mother sent this half of the family (Abez, me and my dad) a carepackage. It included some desperately needed things that I don't know how I lived without until my mother had the good sense to send them my way.

For instance:

1. A pair of socks with monkeys. The Christmas socks I'd been wearing to work, complete in their red and gold glory, were getting old. I needed monkeys like nothing else. Now I have some.

2. A ten pack of Lucas lemon salt. This stuff is the bomb. I used to always have packs of it on me back in the day. Good for car sickness, malaise, and whatever ails ye. And its way more posh than eating salt out of the shaker. Not that that I do that. Of course not.

3. A double-decker tin of fudge from my Aunt Elaine (I LOVE YOU!). And if you think fudge made in December might be a little on the old side, you've learned nothing from my blog. Fudge, like diamonds, lasts forever. And like a fine wine, it gets better with age.

4. A pair of snazzy sneakers. My old pair, bless them, were more than a bit dead. I'd accidentally ripped out the back and broken through the sole while working out on my elliptical trainer. They were fine for indoor action, but not sea worthy for out of doors. That is, unless you like shoes with serious ventilation. Some do, some don't.

5. A yule log. I didn't actually remember what this thing was until I had a good look at the box. Recollections of the Pecan Log Shack on I-90 in Indiana came flooding back to me. Ah, sweet memories. And yule logs are the cousins of fudge, and immortality runs in the family so no worries about expiration dates.

6. Classic literature - 'Life's a Beach and other SpongBob-isms' ("As long as these pants are square and this sponge is BOB I will not let you down!") I'm a closet SpongeBob fan. It's a fair cop but society is to blame.

7. Van Holsten's Hot Momma - One Sassy Pickle. That's a pickle in a bag for those who aren't on a first name basis with their preserved vegetables.

8. A hat that's a cat. No, not the Cat in the Hat. The hat has a cat on top. It joins the jester cap, purple kuntop, magenta ski cap, Kazak topi, Viking helmet and other insane headwear we've managed to collect over the years.

9. Five pounds of Jelly Bellys. The name forebodes badly for us all.

10. Two pairs of seriously hip shoes. The best part about them? The bags of chocolate wedged in the toe. Momma, you're a genius.

11. Thin mints. The box lies. I ate them and I still aint thin. Hmph.

12. Some home videos that we haven't managed to make work yet. We enjoyed the box though and my brother's unique spelling of ViDeOZ. Hookt on fonix didn't werk for hims.

13. A blue million packs of Nerds. Nerds for the nerd? Sweet for the sweet? Shut yo mouth. I'm fly dangit! Hip, cool, straight, shizzle, whatever. All that. Yep.

14. Two Scrabble Mugs that came with one pack of Scrabble hot chocolate. The next grudge match decides who gets to drink it.

15. Various other wonderous things that this resident of the third world had forgotten existed.

Thanks momma. You made my day and broke my diet all in one go and I love you for it. :)

My dad said an interesting thing the other day. A man he knew was trying to convince him to enter into a business deal that involved money on interest. My dad politely declined.

Later he came home and sat quietly at the table for a while before he said, “You know, I consider myself a sinner. I’m not perfect and God knows all the bad things I’ve done. But still, one thing I can never do is deal on interest. God says if you deal on interest, you become His enemy.

“But here though, so many Muslim men don’t seem to care. Yes, they’re still Muslim, and God, if you even have a grain of faith in your heart, will eventually free you from hell and allow you to go to heaven. But why would you want to go to hell just for some extra money? Why would you make all of your earnings black? Why would you feed your children from that?”

He looked saddened and perplexed. My dad is not a greedy man, so he doesn’t understand greed. He doesn’t understand how it can completely consume a person to the point that even a believing Muslim will knowingly put his afterlife at stake for the sake of money and comfort. He doesn’t understand the compromise so many of us make, swapping a painless afterlife for worldy pleasure.

We all make those kind of stupid concessions. We all knowingly choose to sin. Some of us choose to listen to haram music. Some choose not to lower our gaze. Some of us speak harshly and unkindly to our parents and siblings. Some of us don’t cover properly. Others don’t give charity from our savings. Some live for material happiness. Even among the best of us, the intelligent, dignified, determined and enlightened, it is rare, if not impossible, to find someone who doesn’t fall into this trap. We all think we can handle a bit of hell if it’s worth our while.

It reminds me of something a friend once pointed out about the Muslims she’d met. Many of us are studious, extremely so, to the point that we’re rarely satisfied with anything less than high marks. I don’t know if it’s whether because most of us have that ambition that comes from being the children of immigrants, or perhaps our desire to do what is right and best extends to the dunia as well. Generally though, we’ll sacrifice our health, social life and happiness to be the top of the class. We won't settle for less.

The logic is, why ruin our future careers for the sake of a bit of comfort now? It’s better to put up with some misery now so we can get the best grades, so we can get into the best college with the best scholarship so we can study to be the best doctors or engineers who earn mountains of money later. Parties are passed up, television shows turned off, books set aside, friends ignored, sleep withheld, health put at risk and hunger forgotten until demands for school are met. So much is turned away to do homework, write papers, attend lectures, rack up extra credit, and cram. There is little we won’t forgo for our academic success.

My friend said it was shame that we’ll do so much - discipline ourselves so greatly and put up with a respectable amount of discomfort for the sake of perceived future happiness, but we won’t do the same for our afterlives. We don't mind settling for average, or below average. So many times I've heard it said, "Hey, even the lowest level of Jannah is still heaven so why worry?" This life is a test, THE TEST, and yet we don't pay it even a fraction of the attention we pay the meaningless tests we take throughout our lives. There is no retaking it, and whatever you've done in this life will decide your eternal place of residence in the next. This much we admit, and yet still, it doesn't change our behaviour and our choices.

We pretend to be so smart, and yet we’re not smart enough to care about what really matters.

There are three kinds of people in this world:


Those that eat their watermelon seeds.

Those that make a pile of them as they go.

And those that shoot them at others.


It's no mystery which group I fall into. :D

I'm only happy when it rains
I'm only happy when it's complicated
And though I know you can't appreciate it
I'm only happy when it rains

Monsoon season has arrived. It’s when the giant tap in the sky opens up and soaks to the skin anything beneath it. And yes, I make it a point to be one of those things as often as I can. I’m hoping all that watering will make me grow. I still have ambitions of getting enough height to validate my shoe size.

The other night we had a mighty storm, the first of the season. As the winds picked up and the clouds moved in Abez had a crazy hankering for a more front-row seat to the coming tempest. Instead of acting as the voice of reason, both me and my dad heartily approved. You see, the innate need to get rained on, it’s genetic. So are big feet. Psh.

Despite the wind and the water, we walked for a good half hour, enjoying the sharp cold sting of the initial raindrops. We laughed at the fools who hid in their dry homes, missing out on the rare opportunity to actually feel the force of nature. At one point we passed under a line of tall dogwood trees that leaned so strongly due to the wind it seemed they were waving hello, or leaning down to listen in on our conversation.

There’s nothing quite like being buffeted about like a dustbunny to make one appreciate the might of God and the insignificance of the self. Though it wasn’t even a full-fledged monsoon gale, more than once I found myself turned around and pushed off the sidewalk like a little girl dismissed from the principal’s office. I couldn’t even face the wind. Had my open jalbab been a little bit thicker and stiffer, I’m sure it would have acted the part of glider and taken me flying. I wish anyways.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard such loud, low and continuous thunder. It was as if a giant tank was rolling up the street. When it finally cracked though, it came with a streak of lightening that lit up the entire sky in a blinding whiteness. We later heard that it touched down about a mile from our house and killed a young man. We were sad to hear it, but thankful it wasn’t us. Wandering around in a thunderstorm really isn’t all that safe or smart.

It’s fun though. Can’t wait till tomorrow night. The Meteorological Office is predicting more rain. Guess where I'm gonna be.