And...Scene

Internet, the search is over. I've found the one. Behold:


- Horizontal Stripes: CHECK
- Height: CHECK (the photo is deceiving, but trust me)
- Ability to carry heavy things: CHECK

And wait! It gets better!



-SQUINTY EYES!

Must find a way to make it onto the set of One Tree Hill, even if it means changing my name to something ridiculous like Trapp or Button or KreditKard, and pay someone ridiculous amounts of money to turn me into an horrible actress. It'll be worth it. I'm sure.

Might be time to leave the house

So, I'm sick. I thought I'd only be away from the internet, and this blog, for a few days during the flurry of activities surrounding my cousin's wedding, but things took a turn for the worse the day after the final showdown, and I've been in bed pretty much ever since. I carted my butt into work on Monday morning only to be told that I'd be doing field work under the blazing hot sun for six hours. After returning to the office, I promptly planted myself in my car and into my bed as quickly as possible. Since then, nerds, I've been horizontal. And in these 101 hours from 4 pm Monday till 9 pm Friday, I've come to several conclusions.

1. Your family will cook the best food they've made in weeks right when you THINK you're getting better, but the mere taste of a fried potato sends you running back to your bed.

2. Your sister will love you slightly less when she has to wake up to the sound of you vomiting.

3. Your cousin from out-of-town will not object, for the first time ever, to going to a party with music YOU BOTH LIKE, only to have the idea of it shut down on account of not being able to stand on your own chicken legs.

4. The "no white food" diet you went on was pointless, seeing as how everything you've eaten, and ever thought of eating, in the past six months has made a quick exit.

5. The possibility of your appendix growing back, though rare, is still a possibility. Your sister will even read you horrifying web articles on 'stump appendicitis,' whereby a tiny segment of your appendix is pushed into your intestine after an appendectomy, and later goes on to slowly take over your being, leaving you one giant, unnecessary body part.

6. You shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet.

And we're off

Dear Internet,

Today is the last day of relative calm until at least Sunday afternoon. I'm going into the belly of the beast known as "(successfully) pulling off a wedding." I'm not sure if all of this activity has completely put me off marriage (just kidding, Mom!), or makes me really excited to do all this planning for myself knowing that I'll get to enjoy it even more when it's for me (my husband too, I guess, but really me). While I'm leaning more towards the former, we'll see how I feel after Saturday. I expect to get pulled and tousled and tweezed so much in the next few days that I'm not sure I'll even be recognizable after the wedding. However, seeing as how I've been feeling under the weather for roughly, umm, SIX YEARS now, anything will be a step up.

Later nerds!
Me

Insanity by the dozen

My cousin Jones is getting married this weekend, and the next few days are going to be a whirlwind of activities. Another cousin and her five month old, Marvin, arrived a little over a week ago, and the rest of the clan flew in last night. After getting their ears violated by unsanitary thermometers in the Cairo Airport (presumably they were checking for symptoms of swine flu, but really I think they were looking for some Saturday night action), they filed into one of two homes we've set up as bases for the family reunion. The two-bedroom house I'm currently in now holds six adults (five women, one man), a five month old, and a cat (also a female). The other house holds three women and two men. Throw in two, sometimes three, housekeepers, a driver, the grocery man, and the gas guy, it's officially become the full house of the century. There is TOO MUCH ESTROGEN between the two houses, and I predict a monumental blow up very, very soon.

Internet, if you don't hear from me in a few days, send the sniffer dogs.

Cheating. Usually (but not this time) does a body good.

At lunch today, one of my coworkers, a husband and a father, rehashed this story:

Father: So, how did your Arabic exam go?
Nine Year Old Son: Good, Dad.
Father: And how about the dictation part? Has your handwriting improved?
NYOS: Dictation? Would you believe it? I must have forgotten to do that part!

With the Egyptian education system as ridiculous as it is, forgetting to do this simple section of the exam is actually a HUGE mistake. No less than three seconds after finishing the story, my coworker's furious wife called him to complain about HIS son (of course, when he does something right, he's HER son, but she wants nothing to do with the cretin today).

I'm not sure how the two are related, but I keep getting flashbacks of high school, senior year, Special Religion (yes, the name really is that bad) class, where Danoosh missed a mid-quarter test (insignificant anyway, seeing as how your grade was directly related to how short your skirt was the day of the exam). Danoosh successfully coaxed the teacher into letting her take a make-up test after he had passed back the graded exams, whereby which Danoosh tucked Tookie's test paper (she had received a 20/20) into her desk and copied it word for word. When Danoosh received her test a week later, she had received a 16/20. She must have been wearing pants that day.

Actually, these stories aren't related at all. Never mind!

Sunday. Swine Flu. This job. Actual work.

What are...things that suck about today.

Been holed up in my house since Thursday night with what appears to be a common cold manifesting itself into swine flu. I couldn't, for the life of me, get out of bed this morning. Either the H1N1 has me by the theoretical balls, or my job really HAS gotten this bad.

I debated staying home again today, but the newest addition to the family, while incredibly cute, was being fussy and whiny. Until Little Marvin can whip up some scrambled eggs and warm cocoa (maybe not together), I'm going to resort to spreading my germs to my officemates. If all goes according to plan, they'll be on bed rest as soon as I get better. And you know what that means! Watching YouTube clips WITHOUT my headphones as opposed to with them. WOHOO!

God, must get out of here.

Surely there are better ways to be productive

Things I did while the internet was down from 9:30 am to 2:45 pm today:

• Curse the IT guy
• Watch an old episode of 30 Rock
• Curse the IT guy
• Receive multiple text messages from Female J and More Positive Than Your Average Bear asking me if I was still alive and if I'd thrown my computer out the window yet
• Curse the IT guy
• Read old e-mails from my boss that I should have been reading over the past week (one of them was actually important - whoops)
• Curse the IT guy

Let's just say, thank goodness it's Thursday. The thought of having to spend another day in this office without internet makes me want to cut my ears off. I don't know how that's related, but it is DAMMIT.

In other news, I told my coworker that I didn't support the diamond trade yesterday (and after explaining the reasons why, she said, "I guess il hasal hasal!" [whatever happened, happened"]). She informed her husband of my stance on the issue, and he said that if I wasn't interested in buying purses either, he could probably find me a husband. Sorted.

Gossip Genius

Internet, it's official. My IQ has dropped so many points in the recent past that I'm unable to follow a Gossip Girl story line. Part of the reason why I don't watch movies is because there are too many characters to follow and I don't have the patience to pay attention for extended periods of time. The beauty of television is that in 45 minutes, most dead bodies are identified, babies are delivered, and coke dealers are not only apprehended, but they've already repented for their sins. And I'm gullible enough to believe it, and even shed a few tears in the process.

Last night, I was watching the most recent episode of Gossip Girl when I realized that I had NO IDEA what was going on. Maybe I was blinded by all the pretty people, or the designer clothes, or the witty(ish) banter, but I found myself retracing episodes past to string the story line together. Gone are the days of teenage dramas when the biggest mystery was which football player the cheerleader contracted syphilis from, Internet. Now we've got Ponzi schemes, incarcerations, and socialites getting their Madoff on.

The insanity of it all was too much for me, so I picked up a book instead. And by 'picked up a book,' I really mean Googled when the next season of Entourage starts. If ever there was a dumb show...

Color of the season: Sick Yellow

Internet, if you could control the weather, I know you'd have done a better job yesterday. Last Thursday, all pumped up for the weekend, I made plans to have a relaxing Friday by the pool - listening to music, reading an overpriced magazine, and eating so much that I'd leave looking far worse in my bathing suit than I did going in. Plans changed, as they usually do when organizing activities with more than half a person, and the pool date was switched to Saturday.

Woke up yesterday to check the weather, and the forecast read a little like this:

High: 31C, but don't even think about enjoying the day because clouds and gloominess will dampen even the brightest of spirits.

Dejected and forlorn, I spent the next ten hours on the couch YouTube-ing a tv sitcom. The way things are going, I may resort to holding one appendage at a time out the window in an attempt to get some color. Judging by the raised eyebrow from my neighbor who saw me in a skirt yesterday, I'm guessing all-out tanning on the kitchen balcony MIGHT not go over so well.