Klukked!
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.