apropos of anything

Or inside out, if you prefer that phraseology. ALL NIGHT. And despite there being twenty other people in the house, I think nobody noticed until Maimunah pointed it out half an hour or so after everyone else left. I think. I hope?

I’d planned for this party well in advance. I thought I had it covered. I would have, too, if unexpected circumstances hadn’t required me to stay in Augusta almost four hours longer than I’d planned. I suppose if I’d truly had it covered, I would have accounted for unexpected circumstances, like in that one Anastasia Krupnik book whose title I can’t remember. Instead, I ran late and got flustered and had to omit a side dish and PUT MY CLOTHES ON WRONG.

We prayed maghrib in the garage. Somewhere around the Turner Hill exit on I-20, Mansoor was sleeping in the passenger seat while I was driving back to Atlanta, and I suddenly blurted out, “Where are we going to pray?” as though I hadn’t really given it a thought when actually I had been obsessing about it for days. He replied, half-asleep, that the garage would do.

For a moment I assumed the fasting was getting to me so that I was no longer comprehending things properly because surely he didn’t just suggest that we pray in the garage. I’d planned on moving tables and shifting chairs to create enough space on the first floor. But no, he seriously meant to do prayer in the garage. When we got home, I ran around clearing clutter and slicing tomatoes and Mansoor… swept the garage. I refrained from asking where we were supposed to park our cars, as that would have earned me the you-are-too-stupid-for-words look, figuring I had enough to worry about, and if he wanted to handle prayer arrangements, that was one thing off my list. The garage worked well. Plenty of space. Fabulous acoustics. And temperate, too.

	Tonight’s main entree. Mine wasn’t so pretty.

I am not sure this party was an unqualified success, or even a qualified success, for that matter. The last big shindig I threw was Dan and AM’s engagement party, where I didn’t worry about whether people had eaten enough because I knew for certain they did, and which, even though I singed my bathroom wall and refinished my dining room hardwoods with candle wax, even though I ended up sending Dan to Publix so many times that they set up a tab in his name (the final run being necessary to ward off possible heartburn as my Indian food had been perfectly spiced for my Indian self but not so much for my party composed entirely of non-Indian guests), I was satisfied with because it had basically gone well.

This party was different. I know I am not going to sleep tonight for worrying about whether I sent guests home hungry or whether the food made people secretly want to gag. If there was a lot of leftover dessert, does that mean dessert sucked, or people were too full to want any? I think the salad was good. And maybe the fruit salad. Perhaps I should stick to throwing parties where the entire menu is salad.

The bright side is that because leftovers get old faster than normal during Ramadan, it’s good we don’t really have any, other than the desserts, as aforementioned. Aasif is coming on Wednesday, so I would like to save some pie for him. Hopefully, it’ll stay fresh until then. The rest I can pack up and leave in the office breakroom tomorrow morning and watch it disappear in a twinkling.

Also, Brad Lidge gave up another game-winning home run tonight, putting the White Sox up 2-0 in the series. If that’s not a bright side, I don’t know what is.

I know, I know. I speak of hiatus, and then here come two posts in a row! But when one has been tagged, Icelandically, even, one cannot simply plead “Ramadan!” and ignore it, can one?

I thought not.

So, because Aisha asked me to, five things you probably don’t know about me, unless possibly you’ve known me almost ten years, in which case you simply don’t count for the purposes of this revelation because that kind of challenge is not fair.

Not the same waterfall, but just as gorgeous

I can remember the tiniest details about old events… but sometimes I’m ridiculously absent- minded. I know exactly what I was wearing the first time we went hiking on our Gatlinburg trip, the time we found the small pool water at the base of an equally small waterfall, and Sumaiya and I went wading a little bit, and I spoiled Musab’s picture by turning my head at the last moment. I don’t know why I did that. And that was in the year 1996. It’s a snapshot in my head that I pull up on command. Where I put my keys, or park my car, or leave my purse, however, would become a daily ritual if I didn’t leave them in exactly the same place every time.

I don’t drink tea. Or, for that matter, coffee. I think my father believes my dislike of tea makes me un-Indian. He’s always trying to talk to me into it, whether it’s by offering me a cup he knows I’ll decline or presenting me with some kind of study that shows tea’s beneficial health effects. Of course, those studies are typically about an herbal tea, not the caffienated kind that would qualify me as properly Indian. Coffee I love to smell but despise to taste, even in ice cream or desserts like tiramisu. Before y’all ask, I made it through college on Coke and sugar.

	The state of Texas as we know it today.

As a child, I thought when Texas joined the United States of America, it literally joined the United States of America. They taught us Texas history in elementary school in Houston, so we learned all about Davy Crockett, William B. Travis, and Santa Anna, about the tragic Battle of the Alamo and how Texas finally won its independence from Mexico and became its own country. I thought becoming your own country meant becoming your own continent, like an island. Then we learned how Texas joined the United States. I could not for the life of me figure out how they made Texas fit. How did they detach it from the bottom of the ocean (because I thought all the land was connected at the ocean) and move it over to the United States? Eventually I assumed they sent some divers all the way down to saw Texas loose and then somehow hauled it in place. It couldn’t have been very far away, I supposed. There were obvious logical flaws in my plan, like how the divers managed to breathe, and how they didn’t get crushed by the pressure — an odd child was I, one who knew about the enormous pressure at the bottom of the ocean but still thought blocks of land were dragged together to make a country. As for how the country of Texas managed to precisely the right shape and size to neatly slide into place beneath the future state of Oklahoma… well, that was just a lucky coincidence.

I’m a klutz. If there’s a wall to be walked into or a chair to be stumbled over, you can count on me to do it. I don’t expect that I’ll ever be called upon to take the walk-in-a-straight-line DUI test, as I don’t expect that I’ll ever be drunk, but if somehow I did have to do it, I’d fail despite being stone cold sober. I have to be very careful when I go up or down stairs, and a railing must always be within grabbing distance in case I don’t quite make the next step. I can trip over my own pants, the ones that I am wearing. In my own defense, those pants are usually shalwars with wide legs, but still. This inability to retain balance wreaks havoc on my obsessive-compulsive need to do everything just right on a daily basis.

I’m a from-scratch cook, for the most part. This one is AM’s fault, I think. Two years of bi-weekly (or, lately, bi-monthly) dinners where you’re served fresh pasta and homemade pie crust make you re-evalute your stance on the boxed cake mix. I do have a couple of boxed staples that I won’t give up, and I don’t think I’m going to be making my own pasta anytime soon, but… I largely prefer to start from non-processed ingredients these days. It’s more fun.

	A more irritating sight I rarely do see

So said Skip Caray of the Washington Nationals as they narrowly beat the Braves in August. From what I saw of today’s season-ending loss to the Astros, I think a similar sentiment might apply again. Eighteen innings, a fabulous grand slam from Adam LaRoche that marvelously silenced the crowd at Minute Maid Park, and yet we lose to the wild card. I hope the Cardinals sweep them next round, and then themselves get swept by the White Sox in the World Series.

Doesn’t help in the least that the Michael Vick-less Falcons lost to the Patriots tonight, or that my Yellow Jackets played Reggie Ball, who was coming off a bout with bacterial meningitis, and dropped one to N.C. State on Thursday.

And let’s not even get into Georgia’s win over Tennessee on Saturday. If the Yankees beat the Angels in game five, I may boycott sports until March Madness.

That headline would be a good way to end the blog, I think. Perhaps one day I might use it… but in the words of the Lord Aragorn as played by Viggo Mortenson on a mysteriously disappearing horse, that is not this day.

I might, however, go on a temporary hiatus. There are several reasons: it’s Ramadan, which means I have less time to write if I’m going to be able to function normally; work is super, super busy, so I don’t have even the normal few minutes to update; and I have slim pickings for material, as the things I’d really like to write about are off-limits for the usual reasons.

Tonight Dan and AM had me over for our supposed-to-be-weekly-but-lately-bimonthly dinner. I think AM has made me an iftaar dinner at least once every year since I’ve known her, always working around my taraweeh schedule, always serving something savory and succulent. It’s one of my New Atlanta Traditions, one of those truly considerate and affectionate gestures that reminds me yet again of how amazing my friends are.

Dan has seemingly learned that when he goes up against both me and AM, he’s not going to win, and that I’m always going to take AM’s side, and AM’s going to take mine, regardless of who’s known each other longer and who’s married to whom. Tonight’s dinner conversation, then, went something like this:

Dan: Talk talky talk Dogster.
AM and Huda: (not paying full attention) Snarky comment.
Dan: (exasperated)
Huda: We’re sorry, Dan. Please continue. We promise we’ll be nice to you for the next five minutes.
Dan: No, you won’t.
Huda: It’s Ramadan. I have to keep my promises during Ramadan!
Dan: (gesticulating wildly) She doesn’t do Ramadan!
AM: Yes, but I’m a good person, dear. I’ll keep the spirit of a Ramadan promise.
Dan: (grudgingly) Okay. Talky talk talk talk bizarre email written from the perspective of a dog. Talk talky talk talk… HEY!
AM and Huda: Yes?
Dan: Didn’t we do this last year? During Ramadan? This never works!
AM and Huda: We don’t know what you’re talking about.
Dan: Last year! You promised to be nice during Ramadan!
Huda: We’re sorry. Your five minutes are up. We’ll see you again next year!

Sunday morning, after you’ve gone to bed extremely late and woken up relatively early because the phone keeps ringing. You’ve had breakfast, but you’re still sluggish, so you head back on upstairs to the room with the sunlight and the bed that would be the envy of the entire population of three states, if only they knew about it.

You’re not there ten minutes before there’s someone stretched out on the other side of the bed, and a third person sprawled across the foot, and you’re lounging, chatting, catching up, strengthening bonds that are already pretty darn strong.

This is what keep you coming back, despite the expense and the stress, despite the 5:30 a.m. flights, despite sometimes dropping your suitcase and laptop bag down an escalator and bowling over two people.

(Confidential to S.: Do you understand now?)

Plane problems.

No Leta.

So. Tired.

Fresh air in the car?!?