apropos of anything

My DVD player. It ate the fifth disc in my Gilmore Girls season two set, and it seems to have choked on the pieces. On my list of things to do tomorrow: Take the player to a repair shop.

My HVAC unit. It sputters a little bit, but as of this morning, it has stopped actually working. And that means NO HEAT, people. In December. Thank the lord God I don’t live north of the Mason-Dixon line. On my list of things to do tomorrow: Call an HVAC maintenance company.

My hair. Or rather, my haircut, as my stylist is on maternity leave and I had to go with somebody else today. I feel like a throwback to the 80s, and while that will hopefully soon, I currently have little confidence in the cut itself. On my list of things to do tomorrow: Wash my damn hair.

My emotional sanctity. I’m burrowing even more now than I was before. On my list of things to do tomorrow: Try to… not.

Here. Or here. Or here. Or some other charitable organization that is collecting for the tsunami victims for purely humanitarian reasons.

Do it because I say, or because, to borrow a phrase from ABChao, giving makes you pretty.

And if that’s not reason enough, do it because but for the grace of God, that could have been you.

It’s no secret that I’m as likely to celebrate Christmas as I am Hannukah. (Although, when you consider some of the people I know, there is a tiny chance, exactly equal in both cases.)

And yet tonight, Christmas Eve night, we had a family party over turkey. My father’s nephew (who is married to my mother’s sister-in-law’s sister — think about that family tree for a moment (my father is the second-youngest of eight)) and his family (three girls, the youngest of which is a freshman in high school) came to Augusta for the weekend, and Ammi made the turkey we’d originally bought for our usual Thanksgiving bash.

I actually got a larger one than normal this year because for once she didn’t pretend we weren’t going to invite anyone; when we ended up going to Chicago, the turkey went back into the freezer, and didn’t come out until yesterday, when my parents decided eleven people would be able to polish off a twenty-pound turkey unassisted. Also mashed potatoes, broccoli, corn, biscuits, stuffing, cheesecake, pecan pie, and a cookie cake. (And to be fair, it was more his decision than hers.)

Yeah, I hear you laughing. We finally discovered what it was like to be “typical” Americans who have to eat turkey sandwiches and turkey casserole and turkey soup for two weeks after the big day.

The cookie cake was for my father, who has a birthday coming up. Mansoor picked it out after I nixed the black forest cake on the grounds that our father doesn’t like chocolate cake. I don’t think he likes cookie cake either, but Mansoor does, and I have a feeling they were running short on choices at that point. Anyway, my father first insisted it wasn’t his birthday — which we acknowledged because it wasn’t, but we wanted to do the celebration while everyone was there — and then denied that he even had a birthday and said we were all crazy. We considered that to be a sign of success.

One from our drive up to Chicago on Saturday:

In the left lane, a tractor trailer. In the right lane, us. Suddenly the tractor trailer decides it wants to go right, turns on the blinker accordingly, and begins to move right… except we were still there. Right next to it, in fact. Aamir begins leaning on the horn in an attempt to get the truck driver to notice he was about to squash our little Honda Civic, and also to massively accelerate so as to move out of the way before we become the next statistic. Truck driver pays no attention whatsoever, continuing to move right to the point that we end up on the shoulder of the highway. Aamir finally manages to pass ahead of the truck, into the left lane, just as the driver notices what’s going on and belatedly stops his lane change. Aamir then rolls down the window and flips off the driver for a looooong time.

My mother says to me, “What did he do when he put his hand out the window? Why did he do that?”

Just how do you explain that, people?

And that someody would be Ivan, who this morning STOLE FROM HIS CHILD to pay his MARTA fare.

Yesterday on my way home from Chicago, my flight was delayed due to a maintenance problem in Atlanta. This was after I just barely missed getting on an earlier flight. (The gate employee wouldn’t let me switch flights because I’d checked bags for my original one, and the check-in employee didn’t mention there was room on an earlier flight, as I had become accustomed to when I used to fly United, courtesy of my 30 percent corporate discount that is no more, thanks AOL!).)

And then there was this thing about forgetting that I was on-call and because of the delayed flight would be in the air AFTER normal office hours rather than before and so would have to expect PSES would do the normal post-office-hour thing, which is to page the on-call (ME) while I was 37,000 feet above the ground with my pager turned off. Of course I did get paged and thankfully I work with good people, and Ken covered for me.

And then there was this thing about my parents and their need to find something to be upset about every time I take a trip without them, so there was yelling and me feeling horrible, as is the custom in our family. While that was happening, there was this thing where I had to WALK TO BAGGAGE CLAIM because otherwise all the other people in Hartsfield Airport would hear my end of the conversation that I was having with my mother who did not appear to care that I was very late and also unnerved by the whole being on-call thing.

And then there was this thing where I was supposed to call Dan and AM when I landed because AM didn’t want me to take MARTA, but since everything was so late and I was getting a little snotty, I decided not to wake them up and to take the train instead.

And then there was this thing where I was trying to zip my laptop bag, and both it and my suitcase slipped out of my hands and went bouncing down the escalator, crashing into some poor (but VERY KIND) woman in a red coat, almost knocking HER suitcase down the escalator as well, had it not been for some (VERY KIND) man who caught it.

And then there was this thing where I started crying at the MARTA station, but only before I got on the train because of course then people WOULD SEE ME.

And then there was this thing where I didn’t pay attention to the North Avenue MARTA station, which is tricky because you have to come out the right end, otherwise you’ll wind up in the bottom floor of the BellSouth building rather than on North Avenue like you wanted to be. So, I had to walk around in the block in the dark and cold, but I did not get mugged, even though I was carrying a suitcase, and a laptop, and a digital camera, and several hundred dollars worth of jewelry. Not even one potential mugging!

(Really, Anne-Marie. Nary a mugger in sight!)

And then there was this thing where the concierge at Aasif’s apartment complex told me there was NO ELEVATOR to the sixth floor of the deck where my car was parked, so I would have to TAKE THE STAIRS with my massive suitcase. But then she let me leave the suitcase with her while I went to get the car, so yay, Concierge Lady!

And then there was this thing where I went home. Finally.

It’s Tuba Christmas Day. And from the looks of it, today will be the Biggest. Tuba. Christmas. Ever. Properties has cleared out all the tables in the atrium, whereas in previous years, they’d only allocate half the atrium space to our tuba friends. The crowd has started to arrive (T-minus 29 minutes until the festivities begin), men, women, and children in various shades of red and green, with Christmas trees or snowmen decorating at least some aspect of their clothing. A good chunk of my office is out today, some because they had vacation days to burn, and others because it’s Tuba Christmas Day and they NEED to be anywhere but here.

The thing you have to understand about Tuba Christmas is that it’s loud. Concert-level loud. Even up on the eight floor, we can clearly hear the tubas. I can’t imagine the audial fortitude required to actually be on the same floor as them. And as this will be the Biggest. Tuba. Christmas. Ever., they’re likely to blow the roof off this place. It’s not always conducive to work to suddenly have to be dodging falling debris.

Still, Tuba Christmas is a tradition around here, and for that reason alone, I can tolerate it. I’ve also developed the ability to relegate it to “background noise” even if I can’t tune it out. Worst-case scenario, we can always take an outdoor lunch. Plus, it’s funny to say: Tuba Christmas. Hee!

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working towards something that I didn’t want to put into writing or even verbalize very much because I was afraid the details wouldn’t work out and then not only would I be horribly disappointed, my disappointment would be available for everyone else to see as well. As of today, we have finally come to a place where I am comfortable announcing my plans to y’all, the Internet.

No, I’m not getting married. (Sorry, family!) I am, however, going to hajj next month, insha’Allah. (Which, fyi, means “God willing.”)

This trip is number one on my 101 in 1001, and while for a large part that list is in random order, this particluar item was at the top because it actually is the most important. I have wanted to do this pilgrimage for several years now, but since the Saudi government will not le me in without a mahram (male relative), I had to wait until my father or one of my brothers was willing to go. This Ramadan, Mansoor decided he wanted to do it, and, well, here we are.

I have mailed off all checks, vaccination certificates, passports, photographs, and birth certificates. As far as I know, there is nothing else left for me to send to our travel agency. There are still a dozen small things left to do, but for them there is still time. I am excited and scared and hopeful about this trip, that it will be good, that it will be spiritual, that I will come back feeling I have truly accomplished something.

We leave on January 10.

It seems the President has a sense of humor:

I’m just as shocked as the rest of you. At least, those of you who didn’t catch the line on Jon Stewart first.

And not because there are any Toros (or Clovers, for that matter) in the atmosphere.

This afternoon/early evening, I made ande ka pulao (egg pulao, and if you don’t know what pulao is, you need to get yourself to an Indian restaurant at your earliest convenience). As is my wont when making Indian food, I open every window in my house and turn on all my exhaust fans so the clingy smell of fried onion doesn’t get a chance to set up shop.

Too bad that didn’t work this time, huh? So, as a method of damage control, I decided I’d leave all the windows open for a while to let some air into the house. Yeah, I know. And if I didn’t before, I certainly figured it out when I opened my 350 degree preheated oven and thought, “Wow, that feels pleasant.”

Speaking of the 350 degree oven… that leads us to the Dumb Thing I Did Today. Except I did it twice, so make of that what you will. I pulled the stainless steel pot out of the oven, using oven mitts as any sane person might do. Then I used my bare hands to remove the lid. Yeah, I know. Then I did it again. Yeah. I KNOW. It’s a good thing my fingers were so cold there was barely any feeling in them anyway.