apropos of anything

I know we’re going fruit-picking this Saturday, but we HAVE to be back in time to watch England play Portugal at 11 a.m. We just have to.

In other news, the adapter on my Dell Inspiron 4100 (I know, I’m old school!) has suddenly died, which means my personal laptop is pretty much dead too. I am scraping by with my work laptop, which is not so compatible with my old school router, until the replacement adapter comes in (should be Monday, but if I’d only ordered two hours earlier yesterday, would’ve been tomorrow), but my Internet access at home is mostly limited. And since work is crazy busy (and also since I apparently removed my brain today so I could make the dumbest mistake ever), not so much with the updating from work either. Or the answering emails.

It’s strange and limiting, this whole being without Internet thing, but at least it’s good for my wrists.

I’ve had several posts in my head over the last week, but I haven’t actually written any of them out to completion, partly because of work and partly because of carpal tunnel and partly because I’ve simply haven’t had time to write things down lately.

I had a piece half written about World Refugee Day and the exclusive interview Angelina Jolie, superstar extraordinaire, UNCHR Goodwill Ambassador, and new mom, offered Anderson Cooper, except that happened almost a week ago, and I haven’t watched it yet. The original airing I missed because the Mavs/Heat game was on (and as an aside, I’m so disappointed by the outcome of that game) and mostly because I don’t want to be up as late as the show was going to run. I figured I’d catch it in more manageable doses, at a more manageable time, the next day, or some other time whenever it was repackaged as a CNN Presents piece.

But I believe Anderson Cooper when he says the focus of the interview will be on African refugees because I don’t think Angelina Jolie would do it any other way. It’s actually the reason I’m even planning on watching a celebrity interview because I don’t really care how much hair Shiloh has on her head, or what color her eyes are, but I do care about the message Angelina Jolie is trying to spread.

Cat as Cat and Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in the classic movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Thursday, Heather and I went to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s at Screen on the Green. It was my first time back at SotG since The Sound of Music with Aisha and Sadia a few years ago. Some things are still the same as they were then, but the high-backed chairs have gotten better even if the smoking hasn’t. Also, Heather and I arrived later than normal, so we got a spot on the hill rather than right smack up in the front. I think I actually prefer the hill now that I’ve done both.

I had never before seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s, despite having it on my list for a while now. I loved it, even though I kept wanting to tell Fred (or Paul, but like Holly, I can only call him Fred) that he couldn’t keep fixing Holly’s problems, that he couldn’t keep taking care of her and making it all better because she had to do those things for herself. I know things were different in the sixties, which is why I can accept it in a movie, but I know if I saw the same thing in a film set in modern times, I’d be pretty upset. As it is, the movie was beautiful and romantic and classic and all of that, but it also made my heart hurt just a little.

Friday was a lot of back and forth to the Georgia Aquarium for corporate-type, work-related things. They bused us over in the morning, but Carlos and I decided to walk back because we apparently need to have our heads examined. It was so hot and muggy that even the short five-minute walk left us sweat, so of course that meant I worried the entire rest of the day that I smelled. When it was time to go again, the sky had clouded over and there were actual drops of rain, so it wasn’t quite so bad going or coming, and I did love both opportunities to see the fish (hi, whale sharks, and we missed you, Gasper!) without smacking somebody in the face. Oh, and there was ice cream. Lots and lots of ice cream.

Saturday, I had an engagement party. (My entire office finds no end of amusement in how many engagement parties and weddings I attend, especially as they usually coincide with some upgrade or another that we’ve got scheduled.) I decided at the last minute not to wear the clothes I’d had set aside for weeks and doing a sari instead, which meant first I had to find a sari that had a blouse in my size, and then I had to go to the fabric store to find matching material for a scarf, and then I had to do it all over again when the store didn’t have the right material in the right color. Now, looking back, I wish I’d gone with a shalwar kameez after all.

I think I’m off saris for a while. Actually, I’ve been off saris for a while already, but on Saturday I thought perhaps I was ready to end that streak, and it turns out I’m not, really. I’m just having the hardest time finding blouses and scarves to go with all of my mother’s fancy saris, and my fancy saris that I brought back, blouses sewn, from India are too fancy for just any event. It would help if I had a reliable tailor to make blouses for me in Atlanta. I do have a reliable tailor — an awesome reliable tailor I recommend to everyone who needs alterations or whole outfits made — but that particular shop is American, and for sari blouses, I need somebody Indian. Not desi — Indian. They know their way around a shalwar, but Pakistanis just cannot make good sari blouses.

Landon Donovan after the U.S. lost to Ghana in the 2006 World Cup

In between, I have been watching a lot of the World Cup, the American games in particular. The match against Ghana was painful, especially towards the end as it became more and more obvious that we were not going to get the win we needed to advance to the quarterfinals even though Italy was holding up their end by beating the Czechs. And I know a team that only scores one goal in four matches doesn’t really deserve to advance, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t roll my eyes as the Ghana team flopped all over the pitch on Thursday. The stretcher team got a nice workout, running back and forth onto the field every time yet another Ghana player lay moaning on the ground.

But no, I’m not bitter.

Really, I’m not. We probably should have won that game, but if we wanted to advance, we should have shown up against the Czechs in the first place.

If you want bitter, get me started on the Braves this season. Or, for all our sakes, don’t.

Or possibly, you are a Republican, but even then, you have to admit it’s a little bit funny.

Time is on a roll today, actually, as they have another cartoon that’s pretty funny too. Ken says he particularly liked the bullet holes.

BILL GATES IS RETIRING.

I KNOW!

When Dan first told me, I was in a kind of shocked and disbelieving state, and then he all-caps’d at me to “READ [MY] DAMN WEBSITE”, and then he had to clarify which one because as far as I know, this one does not magically update itself, and then I had to tell people, and then there was more disbelief and all-caps’ing and there was chaos and calculation of how much the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is worth ($29.1 billion) and jokes about Microsoft’s stock price and now here we are, finally breathing a little after writing the second longest run-on sentence ever.

Even in retirement, Bill Gates inspires us all to new heights.

Hmm. I suppose that’s not entirely true, but close enough.

Tomorrow is Ice Cream Friday at work. I have been looking forward to this ALL WEEK. They bring in a Ben and Jerry’s man, and he has six or seven tubs of B&J ice cream, and there are toppings, but I so rarely get them because the ice cream is too good to pollute with sprinkles and crushed Oreos.

Tomorrow I’m also going to Chicago for the weekend because Rashaad has graduated from college, so of course we all have to show up in the same place and have a party. There was a suitcase issue (namely that I didn’t have one, as my gargantuan suiter that I took to India is still in Augusta), but that’s happily been resolved by me borrowing Mansoor’s carry-on for the weekend. Now I’m having a packing issue as I realized halfway through, while on the phone because I like to multitask, that everything I’d packed was either black, white, or denim. I know this season is all about the monochromatic, but I think that’s taking it a bit far.

There’s a possibility my plane reading material is going to be my hardback copy of Jonathan Strange, which is also monochromatic, and that’s no end of funny to me. And possibly only me.

(Also, y’all will be proud of me for going to Borders purposely to buy plane reading and walking out with nothing because I have several books at home that work perfectly well as plane reading. I almost caved on In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, which Doppelganger loved so much, but I decided I had to start at the beginning of the series, and The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency was only available in hardback.)

I was going to take a laptop and work on the blog somewhat, and work on work somewhat, and catch up on my email a little, but now I think a few days away from the computer will be good for my carpal tunnel and for me, too.

Maimunah and I had plans for dinner at Cafe Lily in Decatur tonight. She had things she needed to do first, so we planned on meeting around 7:30ish. Since I was coming from work, I figured I’d stop by Masjid Al-Farooq* to pray ‘asr rather than doing it at work because why pray in a “quiet room” when you can pray in a musallah?

When I got to Al-Farooq, there were cars everywhere, which was odd because normally people don’t come to the masjid in between jamaats unless there’s something going on, and as far as I knew, nothing was going on. I didn’t see any women, but that’s not too unusual at Al-Farooq. The men were all staring at me as I drove in, but then, that’s not too unusual at Al-Farooq either. I didn’t really care because I was going to be there for all of ten minutes; I’d slip into the women’s section, pray my ‘asr, and slip right out.

Except they wouldn’t let me in. The first man wouldn’t let me park, and then as I was trying to understand exactly what was going on, another man told me there was “no space” for women. They were having an ijtimah, and women were not invited. I said all I wanted to do was pray, and if I didn’t do it here, I’d miss it, and he said there was no room. I’d switched into Urdu at this point because this man was more fluent in that language than in English; I don’t know what a non-Urdu speaking woman would have done in the same situation. I asked how they could not let me in for five minutes to pray, and he seemed to falter, but then he said they’d taken down all the curtains, so there was nowhere for me to pray.

At that point, I gave up, half in tears, and drove away. Situations like this usually make me angry instead of weepy, but there’s something very hopeless about being locked out of your own place of worship simply because of your gender.

The Islamic Society of Augusta isn’t fancy, but at least it’s welcoming.

I know many of the Atlanta Muslim community leaders scoff at the masjid in Augusta for being “too modern” or “too liberal” or too whatever, but I also know that something like this would never have happened in Augusta. The women would have been invited to the ijtimah in the first place, and even if none had shown up, the men would have let me in and let me pray because that’s the kind of masjid we have in Augusta: one where the actual Islam of it all comes first.

In February, I was wondering how the Prophet (S) would have reacted to the Dutch cartoons. Today I am wondering how he would have reacted if I had come to his masjid in Medina for prayer, and the men had some kind of session going on. I think I know, and I think it would not at all be like the men at Al-Farooq tonight.

Mansoor tells a story about a man who wanted to convert to Islam, but he didn’t want to do wudu. The shaykh he asked told him okay, convert, and don’t do wudu. So the man accepts Islam, and one day he goes to the masjid for prayer, but he doesn’t do wudu. Another man in the masjid is horrified and says that he must do wudu, that he cannot pray without wudu. The first man gets upset and leaves, saying if he has to do wudu, he’s not going to be Muslim. The second man then goes to the shaykh and asks him how he could possibly tell the first man that he didn’t have to do wudu because it’s not true as wudu is an important part of the religion. The shaykh said, “At least I got him to step towards Islam. You just drove him away.”

Tonight, Al-Farooq drove me away. If I had any other options for a downtown masjid, I would never go back, but Al-Farooq is the only one on my way home from work right now, and I refuse to stop going to the masjid simply because some people think it’s okay to kick the women out on certain days. If their Web site were working (and yes, I know I linked to it above, but that’s mostly for the future when it IS working, and while I’m on that note, why, exactly does a regime change on the board entail downtime for the Web site? Couldn’t they have just left the old one up while they did the new one?), I’d have looked up the President’s name and email address by now, but since it’s not, I’m going to have to work a little harder to find it. This kind of thing is NOT okay. It’s not. And while I hesitate to ever channel Asra Nomani, I can’t just let it go.

Update Sunday, June 4: I asked Mansoor yesterday, and he said it was Tabliqi Jammat who was there Friday afternoon, so at least it makes sense now… but it’s still not okay. It does, however, make me even more glad I didn’t marry that guy from the Tabliqi family way back when.

The other day while I was researching Starfish Sushi, I discovered that Raving Brands, the company behind Moe’s, Doc Green’s, and several other fast-casual restaurants, had purchased my favorite breakfast spot, The Flying Biscuit.

I’m a Moe’s fan; AM and I take their food to every Braves game we attend. I also like Doc Green’s, despite the whole you-could-make-this-yourself argument. I could, but all those ingredients wouldn’t be cheap, and as an inexpensive, moderately healthy family-friendly restaurant, Doc Green’s does quite well. Mama Fu’s I could give or take, but I know some people who swear by it, and Planet Smoothie is quite the institution nowadays. There’s one on almost every corner. In fact, there are very few corners that don’t have at least one of the Raving Brands franchises.

What’s RB going to do with the sign? And the shingles? And the power lines?!?

The last would be the first reason I’m disappointed that the Biscuit sold out. I love the Flying Biscuit because it’s an Atlanta trademark and because every table has quirky hand-painted crockery full of sugar cubes, and the chairs don’t match, and sometimes the tables wobble, and the french toast is delicious. I love it because it’s not a chain with a pre-packaged menu designed for mass appeal. Or at least, it wasn’t.

I wonder what Raving Brands will do to my restaurant to suck away its personality, or how they’ll tweak the menu. Will they keep the fried green tomatoes? The love cakes? Are they going to throw in verbiage on the menu so you know you can add meat to any menu item for a mere $1.99? The Flying Biscuit is NOT ABOUT MEAT. IT IS ABOUT VEGANS AND VEGETARIANS AND EVERYTHING IS FREE RANGE.

Right. Taking a breath.

I don’t even want to think about what it’s going to feel like to walk into the fifteenth Flying Biscuit franchise in the city, to sit at the new, uniform cafeteria-style tables, and grab my silverware from a bin beside the soda fountain. That’s not the Flying Biscuit. It doesn’t remotely resemble the Flying Biscuit. I know RB will keep the name because that’s what they bought more than anything else, but for myself, I wish they’d change it. Even then, I don’t know that I’d go, really.

If Little Szechuan ever succumbs to the Power of the Conglomerate, I swear I’m done with loving restaurants.