April 31 will be my last day at the news agency that has claimed me as it's chief editing troll for the last three years. It's been a difficult time, having to force the slacker Owl to feign the obsessive compulsive, anal-retentive, perfectionist nature of editors. But I managed. And now I'm done. Praise the Lord.

What I've come away with, after acting as last-string editor, damage controller, translator and grammar fixer – aside from a nervous twitch – is a list. Yes, another one. It's a list of things that must be shared with Pakistani journalists to prevent further editors from reaching the brink of madness.

EDITING IRRITATIONS

Referring to all female officials as 'female.' Thank you for telling us that it was a 'lady ambassador' and not a mere normal one. We much appreciate you informing of us the obvious - gender. Had you not, we might have taken their opinions or actions seriously. Now we know better.

Referring to all women leaders and officials by their first names. Apparently, last names are for men only. Women aren't worthy of them.

Editorializing news in a big way. Yes, we do notice when you put a whole paragraph about your take on an issue smack dab between two viable quotes. The give away is the opener – "It is this correspondent's esteemed view that…" No, it doesn't get to stay. Get your own damn column if that's what you want.

Editorializing news in a small way. You cannot give officials you don't like your own titles like "the uneducated minister" or "the unloved general." Similarly, you cannot refer to those you like as "the mighty" or "the enlightened."

Using the introductory paragraph as purple prose practice. Yes, introductions should be a bit interesting. As a rule of thumb, however, having to put more than two commas in a sentence means you've made it too complicated. Also, grouping verbs and adjectives in sets of three does not make your opening more literary. It makes it horrible. Stop it now.

Being whimsical. If you don’t want to end up on the Editors' Hit List, do not EVER try to be cute in a news story. I'll only warn you once.

Using the 'w' and 'v' interchangeably. Contrary to desi pronunciation, they are not the same letter. There is no word 'wictorious' or 'vesterly.' Get a dictionary if you can't afford a brain.

Inventing proper noun spellings. There is no artistic license for the spelling of a person or place name. None. And yes this even goes for the Orientals and Africans. When you quote someone, ask them to spell their name. Then ask them again. Get it right. Google it if you must.

Forgetting science. Please do not send me a story about a dubious invention or medicine. If it claims to flout the laws of physics or wanders into the realm of the supernatural, it's probably risky. Always ask an expert for their opinion before you go to the lengths of proclaiming "Cure found for HIV!" supported only by a theory on the healing qualities of pink oil.

Forgetting geography. Countries only have one capital. It's not hard to check what it is. Please do that. And please don't put Canada in Europe. It just doesn't fit.

Forgetting math. Yes, it is confusing sometimes to remember the proper conversions for mathematical values like a thousand million equaling one billion. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. When something seems a bit unlikely, say perhaps the ownership of Rs7.5bn ducks by a fowl enthusiast, please check on it. And when you deduct something from a number, the result should not be larger than the original sum. Take my word for it.

Confusing gender. A male is a he. A female is a she. Never the twain shall meet. And if you do get it wrong, at least keep it wrong. Don't have a person changing gender all over your story like an uncertain transsexual with forgiving medical insurance. It gives me a headache.

That is all. Carry on.

My oven is not my friend. I'm dying and it's all the oven's fault. It's 8:30pm, there's pizza dough sitting ready beside tomato sauce, shredded cheese and sliced mushrooms but the oven won't light. So no dinner. So I'm dying. Ya dig?

Sigh.

It's been widely documented on this blog that appliances do not love me. And yes, that means I don't love them nuthin neither. I unearthed a huge pile of dead and decrepit appliances during the Big Move of 2005 (not to be confused with the Big Move of 2004, 2000, 1999, 1998 or 1997) and they all come with their own unsavory memories.

I've had three toasters in my recent adulthood. All of them decided to join the giant junk-shop in the sky rather than provide me with my breakfast. They had the choice – lightly browned toast, or, destruction. Their burning spree was ended when my dad accidentally plugged them into the wrong voltage outlets, and they were fried. Poetic justice, no?

I also found four non-functioning irons while packing. They lead ornery and persnickety lives before meeting their eventual ends. One I blogged about after I smashed against the wall in an effort to jumpstart its heart in a very violent form of CPR. The others mysteriously fell to their doom after adding the last burn mark to my already crispy scarves.

In the bag there are also two sewing machines. I only requested simple things from them – sew a straight line. Nothing fancy. What I got were pedal-powered fabric eating dragons that ripped and chewed up countless sewing projects. One just went kaput after I’d spent hours seam-ripping some jalbs to cut them down to size and put them back together again. Now I have three jalbabs – in pieces – and two self-satisfied but utterly useless metallic paperweights.

We also own an assortment of blenders and blendery-bits. How we've managed to collect all these things is a mystery, especially considering that I have no memory of actually ever having a working blender. Now though, I have enough mismatched blades, jugs, lids and bottoms to cobble together my own Franken-blender-stein. It'll be no big deal if I create a monster – they were all monstrosities to begin with.

In a last ditch effort to join the modern age, we've taken all these uncooperative appliances to the repair shop. We may and may not, however, pick them back up. I hope they all get cannibalized.

Abez and I have decided to make this relocation of ours to the UAE a bit of an extreme challenge. After years of moves, we figure we've probably got it down to a science and want to see how many days it will take us to condense our possessions and pack them for shipment. The clock is ticking! Quick, pack something!

That means every day is moving day. We begin bright and early, sometime after 1:30pm when I've finished my editing and Abez has rolled out of bed. Then we suit up to protect ourselves from dust poisoning, the lesser known cousin anthrax. Take my word for it, it's deadly. From then, it's nothing but unearthing, sorting, throwing, boxing and bagging until Abez bonks me on the head around midnight to put me to sleep.

Right now, I'm on break. I've packed everything in a ten foot radius and I have no idea what to pack next. My brains are addled, my skin is dust-encrusted, my arms are sore and I've run out of sugar power. If I didn't stop, I'd probably have shaken out, folded and then packed myself away.

Now I'm trying to blog, but as you can see, I've got boxes on the brain. Seriously, last night I even dreamt about packing. Scaaaary. I bet if I tried to write something creative right now, it would relate wholly to cardboard, tape and junk like the adventures of boxy the box.

So yeah, that's why I'm copping out. And yes, this is probably the most drawn-out way of saying that. I shoulda just said "Dude, I'm tired, goway!" Instead of expending my limited brainpower and sugar juice blogging something new, I'm just going to write up some of the weird stuff I've found while packing.

The Snobs

When the snobs had something to snob about
They snobbed.
But when the things that the snobs snobbed about
died out,
Then the snobs had nothing to snob about,
So they shut their snobbish snouts.
(1993)

As you can tell, Abez is the poet in the family. I'm just the inadequate comedy relief. That poem is me, peaking out at 11.

Oh, and here's a deep thought from an English assignment in 1999-

Now we all know that animals live basically an unexamined life. They are never nominated for the Noble Peace Prize, can't vote, and aren't very good at writing poitnant poetry. They don't really leave a mark on the world, or even are aware if they can (not that I meld with the doggies or anything).

Write for your audience, they say. Mine, the unsinkable Ms Dalicandro, was a Trekkie. I got a B for this bit of nonsense. Whoohoo!

Awright. Now I'm done. G'night.

To Mr. Man at the Chatkhara Snack Stall,

Are you quite well? I mean, quite? Because I think you mustn't be. It is not normal to watch, enrapt, as two sisters sit in a dim car on a busy Saturday night, eating gol gappay. I mean, what could you possibly have gotten out of it?

There were definitely more exciting things to watch that evening. There were the crazy stall-waiters, who threw themselves at every passing car while screaming out their menus. Or you could have watched the soda guy, who hit himself in the nose with a rocketing bottle lid. There were even far more appealing women around, ones who weren't swaddled in 9 yards of fabric and covered in chutney and yogurt.

How fun could it have been to see us artlessly cramming disintegrating gol gappay into our mouths? Granted, we were probably the worst around – two insufficiently-Pakistani girls without the hand-eye coordination and mouth-size to manage the roundies. I imagine you probably see people using their car-seat-covers as napkins all the time. But still, you didn't laugh along as we struggled to keep our faces and laps clean.

It could have just been morbid fascination. Yes, we were quite morbidly fascinating as we took turns dipping our gol gappay in the bowl of tamarind water and stuffing leaking atrocities into our mouth while the other pointed and laughed. I'm sure it was interesting to see us run through our entire shared tissue collection trying to dam the nasal springs activated by the consumed spice. And I admit, we were pretty darn creative in our innovation of napkins when we'd run out.

Or perhaps you were vicariously enjoying our dinner? Yes, maybe that was it. Maybe you don't have the constitution for gol gappay so you are forced to sit at the snack shop and watch others eat them, trying in vain to steal a measure of their joy. Then I can understand why you watched us like we were your favorite TV show. We were definitely enjoying our plates of a snack that is one part food and three parts sport.

Anyways, I still don't think you're quite right.

Signed – The small-mouthed tamarind-water-drinker

Sometimes I forget I live in Pakistan.

I can pull up at a red-light, mentally in another land, and suddenly be awoken to this reality by the blaring of Punjabi music from the tractor idling in front of me.

It can be a smell that reminds me of where I am – usually that mixture of burning garbage, jasmines and charcoal fires that we call Karachi Barbeque.

Other times, as a pick a path through the bazaar, I look up from my feet and am surprised to see a market place full of people in long shirts and loose pants speaking a language distinctly not English. When this happens, I laugh quietly to myself, and continue on my way.

I guess this is because Pakistan has begun to feel like "home." It's no longer foreign to me. The differences between expectation and reality don't jar and grate any more. I no longer mentally compare everything to my once-home of America. For the most part, I accept things as they are and roll with it.

No longer is Urdu something I have to consciously translate in my mind; rather I often find myself struggling to find words in English. My mother claims it has become my medium of emotion – the language we revert to when passionate. Some things you can only say in Urdu.

The sight of brown skin and black hair as far as the eye can see isn't unusual anymore where once I was bored by the sameness of color. Now, when I see someone fair, I join the crowds of gawkers. It takes a moment before I realize what's 'wrong' with them. They're pink. How strange.

Yesterday I saw a boy in jeans hanging to his knees, giant white basketball shoes, déclassé T-shirt and an unbecoming slouch and struggled to remember in what world was that ever cool.

I don't laugh at the funny skinny boys with their painted-on jeans, giant belt-buckles and clunky dress shoes meandering down the street. No scratch that, I still do. Some things will always be appropriately nuts, I hope.

My internal thermostat acclimated me to Pakistan long ago. The summers temps, though far past the 100 Fahrenheit mark, don't wilt me like they do others. The winters only push me to my brink of cold tolerance, and never beyond. The late spring monsoon gales are loved as when the self is reflected in a force of nature.

The daily challenges don't irritate me any more. I've grown accustomed to madness on the roads, so much that when I find traffic in orderly lines it looks regimented and unnatural. I enjoy the chaos and unpredictability each day brings. The constant jostling of this swell of mankind keeps you from slipping into unconsciousness.

This country has grown me up and grown on me. It has taught me necessary lessons, some painful, others beautiful. I came here as a hasty teenager full of her own conviction, and am leaving 100 years older, a tired but wiser adult. I leave uncertain of many things, but thankful for the latitude it lends me.

Me in Pakistan reminds me of an old John Mellencamp song.

Small Town
By John Cougar Mellencamp

Well, I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Prob'ly die in a small town
Oh, those small communities

All my friends are so small town
My parents live in the same small town
My job is so small town
Provides little opportunity

Educated in a small town
Taught the fear of Jesus in a small town
Used to daydream in that small town
Another boring romantic that's me

I've seen it all in a small town
Had myself a ball in a small town
Married an L.A. doll and brought her to this small town
Now she's small town just like me

No, I cannot forget where it is that I come from
I cannot forget the people who love me
Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town
And people let me be just what I want to be

Got nothing against a big town
Still hayseed enough to say
Look who's in the big town
But my bed is in a small town

Well, I was born in a small town
And I can breathe in a small town
Gonna die in this small town
And that's prob'ly where they'll bury me ...

It seems that I've found my 'small town,' some place I nearly feel like I belong. Sad that it took so many years to see it, just in time for us to move again. :)

Now I can update. I couldn’t do so earlier. Why? Cuz my computer had the flibbitygibbits. I had just sat down to write a blog when my document suddenly went wonky and there were dots instead of spaces between the words and funny paragraph signals on each empty line.

Once upon a time, when I was more of a copy-editor and less of an idiot, I knew what that 'view' was called. Now, not only have I no idea what to call it, I also don't have the foggiest on how to turn it off.

It was too much, seeing my writing reduced to insane symbols and ugly spots. I couldn't blog. I had to wait until my Abez was awake and willing to plead for her technological assistance in 'making it stop!' With two clicks, she fixed it. Abez is my hero. I have no idea what I'm going to do when she goes away to marriage-land in a few weeks/months and leaves me on my own.

We've often joked that without her complementary skills to fill in the major gaps of my inability, life around here may revert back into the Stone Age. She's the technical, social, diplomatic, knowledgeable and placating one. I'm the hard-working, food-cooking, joke-telling, psychoanalyzing, bull-cutting, auxiliary family memory. We work well together.

Without her, Tech Support is what I'm going to name a large rock to 'reason' with the computer. If the computer ever gets a virus that a coating of pink antibiotic syrup can't fix, I'll probably have to chuck the whole thing and invest in an abacus. When we have Internet problems in the middle of my editing work, I'll probably set to scrawling out my 20 pages of news stories instead of calling up the company to fix it. Using a phone and talking tech is a double whammy of un-Owlness.

Socially, I have two options - to learn how to operate a phone, or say goodbye to human contact. My friends won't necessarily be the winners if I manage the former and not the later. Sure I'll remember their birthdays, anniversaries, favorite foods and dislikes, but to what ends? I'd have them over and then camp out in the kitchen, cooking, serving and washing. It's safer that way, as my guests are protected from my sometimes scalding humor and left-handed compliments.

And the welfare of our family machinations is most definitely going to be at risk if I'm to play referee and peanut gallery. I'm not a particularly patient person. Nor am I tactful. Come to me only if you want to hear it like it is and get some no-nonsense advice. Me as the middleman between bickering siblings, crabby parents and testy friends may result in wide scale anarchy and civil unrest complete with angry mob at our gates. It would be like having Anne Robinson as your councilor. You are all the weakest link, goodbye.

Once upon a time I thought I was good at general knowledge. Today I know better. I found this out the other day when we had a guest over from Kazakhstan. Someone asked the capital. I offered Almaty. It's Astana. Did this stop me from trying to field questions I had no business answering. Nope, I'm that marvelous combination of thick-skinned and ignorant. Then they asked about food preferences. I said rice. The foreign friend shook her head in amazement. Then I took a vow of silence. It's Abez who has a freakishly accurate grip on odd facts, not me. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no made up answers.

Of course, without me, Abez is going to have to learn how to wake herself up in the morning, bake bread, do dishes, eat fruit, bargain, remember what day it is, navigate while driving, make sense of the nonsense-able and maybe kill her own cockroaches, if the husbandfriend is squeamish.

Sigh. It's going to be an interesting time. Pray for us, eh?

I've been feeling highly substandard. Is that an oxymoron? Highly and yet, sub-standard? I dunno. I'm not smart enough to figure it out. I was doodling an unflattering portrait of my 9th grade English teacher when she taught us the differences between oxymoron, irony and paradox.

So yeah, I feel crappy, oh so crappy. That statement, by the way, is set to a tune in my head, something I've completely warped from one of the many musicals I watched in my youth. If only Stephen Sondheim could hear it now. No wait, upon googling the real lyrics to "I feel pretty" I've decided mine are a total improvement.

My craptastic feeling may have something to do with the fact that me, of the radioactive constitution, am quietly battling a mild case of food poisoning. No, it wasn't my round roundies or even a failed culinary adventure. My undoing was a pinch stolen from a fresh box of celebratory mithai. You'd think with all that sugar, fat and complete absence of real food value they'd be safe until the Second Coming. Guess not. And no, I haven’t gone to the doctor yet. That would be to admit defeat. I'm making my immune system work for its keep. Suicidal? No, just stupid.

Ornery innards aren't what have me down though. Them I can handle, with gusto. I just feel – blah. That, by the way, was the word of choice for an entire year of high-school. Every day in computer class I'd go in and type blahblahblah on all the computers before the other kids came in. What can I say, it was a slow year in an even slower class. Now is much the same.

Blah now is a feeling of absolute pointlessness. I'm Pointless, nice to meet you. You can call me Ennui. I live on BrainDead Street, in Blahabad. I'm a fulltime do-nothing who dabbles in sleepwalking and hot-air spouting. I enjoy long walks on short piers and candle-lit dinner-tables. If I was an animal, I'd be a sloth. If I was one of the seven deadly sins, I'd be sloth. If I was a sloth, I'd be sloth.

But is a sloth ever anything more than a shaggy two-toed beast suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome? Maybe. Sometimes, sloths are Chewbacca – a bandolier-wearing, saucer-flying, bounty-hunter. Huzzah. So maybe there's hope for me yet. I just gotta find me a spaceship and maybe an elusive whitewhale to track.

Right now I have some very important questions.

1. What kind of name is Rambo? Is it his first name, his last name, or is it short for something like Rambino, Rambob (short for Ramrobert) or Ramborne? Are there other Rambos out there?

2. What was the Rafhan pudding company thinking when it made banana flavored pudding green? If a banana was green on the outside, it'd be unripe. If it was green on the inside, it'd be a plantain. If it turned you green, you'd have grounds to sue.

3. What happens when you cross a hedgehog with a bat? Do you get a nocturnal winged animal that rolls into a spiky ball when attacked? Would it be called a hedge-bat or a bat-hog, and can I be one?

Abez (enthusiastically): Hey, guess what! I've invited ten people over for lunch in two hours! *teeth*

Aniraz: (pulling out hair) Do you hate me?! We don't have any groceries in the house! How am I supposed to feed a dozen people with three carrots and a box of cream?

Voiceover: Join us today to find out!

Abez and I have our own cooking show. It's on three times a week and it's never filmed. It's kind of like 'Two Fat Ladies' meets 'Ready, Steady Cook' mixed up with 'Scrapheap Challenge.'

It begins with me running to the pantry and Abez running to the fridge to take stock of our ingredients. Then we run across the screen again, this time Abez heading for the deep freezer while I rummage through the vegetable basket. We both return from that two-second reconnaissance mission with a few extra ingredients to pad the menu.

Abez: I found a box of macaroni! It may be a few years old, but I think pasta is immortal. Or is that only Sophia Loren? I forget.

Aniraz: Great, maybe we can mix it up with this frozen tub of stew and call it, um, stew-a-roni.

Abez: As dad says, necessity is the mother of invention. What about appetizers?

Aniraz: I'm about to inventionate some of those. I was thinking we could bake yesterday's rotis into crackers and serve them with the carrots pureed with the cream as a dip. I'm sure the French do something similar.

Abez: Excellent! But I couldn't find anything for dessert.

Aniraz (solemnly): You know our family motto: There's always cocoa.

Abez (places hand on heart): There is always cocoa. Of course! We still have that 10 gallon tub of baking cocoa from when we had a bakery! Great, we'll mix it up with the two old bananas and call it a cake.

Menu planning would only be the beginning of our weirdness. Once pointed in a general direction, we'd then fall to with much banging, bumping, clattering and dropping. Removing a pot from the cabinet always involves a small metallic avalanche. Vegetable chopping is never complete without a runaway rutabaga or the likes, complete with mad-dash retrieval and angry scolding of the guilty party. (bad onion, why you run away? *angry shake*) Whisking, whipping and blending tends to be hazardous to mucous membranes and passers-by. That's what happens when you improvise with utensils.

Aniraz: The recipe says to cream the eggs until they're lemony yellow. Where's the whisk?

Abez: I dropped it on the floor and it rolled under the potato bin. Use two forks instead.

Aniraz: Um, ok. *double handed whisks* Arg, my eye!

And like every great chef, we have our own personal hallmarks. Ainsley Harriet dances. Delia Smith uses made up words. Jamie Oliver dresses like a girl. Aniraz substitutes. There's not an ingredient out there that I can't find a counterfeit for. If the recipe calls for red wine, I throw in a bit of pomegranate juice. If I'm out of butter, I use ghee. Dehydrated yoghurt does a great stand in for anything from Neufchatel cheese to ricotta. Brown sugar plus ketchup is barbeque sauce. I can even make my own beef, but I don't think you would like my recipe. *eyebrow wiggle*

Abez's cooking style is all her own. She retains a happily stubborn refusal to follow recipes. The recipe may call for baking soda. She thinks she doesn't want to use the baking soda. She adds baking powder instead. And some pop. It's soda. So there. This is because Abez has deciphered the secret to culinary happiness and is beyond petty guidelines. Her nirvana is the trinity of red sauce, white sauce and/ or mayonnaise. Nothing cannot be made with any combination of the three. She also likes to cook what she likes to eat, so if it's not soup, pasta, or sandwich, she's not enthusiastic about making it. (I eats what I cooks, I cooks what I likes.)

Both of us play fast and loose with safety. No cooking endeavour is complete without some form of injury. I tend to burn myself. I forget I'm not actually made out of asbestos, and neither, apparently, are my aprons, hot-pads and kitchen towels. They seem, actually, to be highly flammable, and so am I. If I'm not burnt, then I get overly enthusiastic while cutting things.

Aniraz: Hey, could you um, strain the custard?

Abez: Why, did you make it all lumpy?

Aniraz: No, I'm only counting 9 fingers here. One's gone missing and me fears it's taken the plunge.

Abez, on the other hand, isn't very coordinated, and thus, takes the more exotic route of kitchen injury by hurting herself with common-place things. She'll manage to cut an artery with a melon-baller or break a limb slipping on a vicious cucumber slice. She can turn a harmless food item into a deadly weapon.

Abez: Aahniaaz!

Aniraz: Huh?

Abez: Ah fink ah need tah gah tah daahkta.

Aniraz (speed dialing hospital): Oh no! What happened?!

Abez: Tahns awt ah'm ahlegic to sahlt. Mah eahs ah sweatin and mah tongue ehs faht.

It's a great show with huge potential, doncha think? I could be the next Yan Can Cook and if Abez eats salt, she sounds just like Julia Child. Now if only the stupid recording crew would turn up. They never showed after we offered to make them lunch. Fancy that.