huda kazi in the big city

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?

It’s easy to be grateful for snow if you live in the sunbelt and only make it north of the Mason-Dixon line once or twice every winter. Also if you don’t have to stick around for the ice and the slush, if you don’t have to shovel it, if you don’t have to wade through knee-deep drifts, if you don’t have to worry about your car skidding out of control. In short, if you are me, it is easy to be thankful for the snow on your Thanksgiving weekend.

We drove to Chicago this year, the first time in a while that we didn’t do a Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house. And while I missed my mother’s style of turkey and the usual assortment of Augusta folks who gather at our house, there was a different sort of contentment in being able to spend Thanksgiving with family, as per the age-old tradition we have adopted. There was food all weekend and so much to do that I don’t think we managed to get it all done.

My aunts and mother made me and Uzmaa go to a matrimonial function thing at the Islamic Foundation yesterday. It was as horrible as I expected it to be, but at least now I have ammunition when I decline to go to another one in the future. I would have refused to attend this one as well, but they sprung it on us so carefully neither one of us had much time to formulate a good argument. Sumaiya and her mother were of the opinion that at least I could write it up for the site, but at the moment I am so tired I can’t even begin to describe it accurately or interestingly.

Apologies to Khurram for missing his party tonight. We were supposed to be back early, considering we left Chicago around 8 (EDT) last night, but there was a small mishap (flat tire, which conveniently happened while we were stopped for gas) outside of Nashville that slowed us down for about two hours. Today I learned there’s only so many times you can walk around a Sam’s Club before you begin to get really bored.

Of course, I’m thankful we had a Sam’s Club to walk around in, as I think I’d like circling the car while it sat on the shoulder of a busy interstate far less. I think I may have been more thankful for the snow, though. Just a tiny bit. It was so pretty!

In Chicago, life’s a little different than it is in Atlanta. In Chicago, we stay up late and get up early. In Chicago, we play to win, not for fun, and we pulverize our competition in the process. In Chicago, we don’t believe in porch sitting. In Chicago, we put Worcheshire sauce and bell peppers in our qeema, and we LIKE IT. In Chicago, sometimes our stool gets stuck. In Chicago, there is more family than we know what do with; sometimes we find out we are not the favorite niece or nephew, but in Chicago, it doesn’t matter. In Chicago, we make cupcakes for babies-to-be nicknamed Peanut. In Chicago, we go to three-story masjids for jummah prayer and we see more Muslim people in one place than we have since ISNA. In Chicago, we spill secrets and throw snowballs and have doughnuts for breakfast every morning. In Chicago, we take hundreds of pictures, so many that every time you turn you see a camera flashing somewhere.

In Chicago, there is so much love you could reach out and touch it, like on an AT&T commercial, and there is so much laughter your abs are always getting a good workout. Those are theBalbale Rules.

Apparently, I have an small, teeny tiny bit of Arab in me. Some guy waaay up on my mother’s family tree was Arab.

So… yeah. That explains all the times people have asked me if I’m Egyptian. I’m not sure how I feel about this, although I suppose it could be worse. I could be French, like some people.

Also, possible whiplash? Ow.