I wanna Fly

So what follows a snow storm?? Well lots of things - Road blocks, traffic delays, icy roads, sub-degree temperatures, bad colds and of course flight delays.


So I am starting my holiday season by flying down to sunny California and I have made two mistakes. I chose the weekend before Christmas and I chose a weekend after a snow storm. Oh and there is another one, I chose to do this in Seattle.
Seattle maybe a great city but it does not know how to deal with a snow storm of any magnitude. We got about a foot of snow and the whole of Seattle greater area came to a slipping sliding halt. The place has been iced to perfection, literally. Reason being, historically the area has not been prone to snow storms until a few years ago and each passing year the city gets a bigger and whiter surprise than the last one. Hello global warming :)
Given the situation, its natural that the shuttle dropped me at the airport 5 hours before the flight and its also natural that the airline is sneakingly adding five more minutes to the scheduled flight time every 20 mins or so. It now stands at 11:00 pm, 2 1/2 hrs later than the original time. Poor M will have to drive in the middle of the night to pick me up at the airport.
So seeing that I am stuck here for a while I decided to write a blog on people that are sitting around me:

A fifty something white guy who has removed his shoes, obviously oblivious or perhaps uncaring of the weird smell and conspicuous brownness of his white socks.

A really friendly over weight Hispanic guy in a weird poop color shirt. Should I tell him that?

A guy looking over his shoulder from behind me, making me feel like he is reading this blog.

A man hogging the only electric outlet at Gate B10, pretending to not notice that I need to use it as well. Finders keepers I guess, discourteous but keepers.

A Marine officer and his wife, who have the tendency to talk to a person at the same time. They finish each other's sentences and sometimes they are talking about completely different things. Again to the same person.

A bitchy woman with extraordinarily sweet and well-behaved boys. Maybe they are making up for their mother's lack of courtesy, manners and friendliness. Maybe they are adopted. Maybe they are like their dad. Their dad sounds nice ;)

An Asian person whose sex I cannot guess. I think its a girl, no no its a boy, no a girl, no a boy. I sound schizophrenic.

A woman stuck in the 1960s and should really get her first haircut in 40 yrs. It is 2008 for God sake!!

A man who is able to sleep through so much noise and chaos. Oh how I envy him.

A person who finished 15 sudoku puzzles in the past 60 mins. Wow, I am impressed. If only he were cute as well.

A desi guy who likes to stare, for no apparent reason. And when I look at him he pretends he wasn't looking. How unusual and non-desi (lol)

Two cute little girls. The younger one is getting more attention from fellow passengers and the older is pulling all sorts of stunts just so she can share some of the limelight. Poor baby.

An unnamed, unfaced child displaying his vocal prowess by screaming in the 8th octave, consistently for the past 60 mins. Something tells me this is a desi child. Such talent, such persistence and such pig-headiness. Bravo!!!

A weird South Asian girl, who is observing people like...well like a South Asian person. She looks like she hasn't slept in ages and needs to shampoo her hair. She does have a super cute red laptop and brown boots though. Ah, wait a minute!! When did they put a mirror on that wall...

Latest on the snow and the car :)

I have always said this. Snow is the prettiest thing I have ever seen, specially when it falls down. It is my first real snow. Well first real snow in a place that I reside in. So I have to deal with the daily chores in snow and worry about things like my car and driving in the snow. After the below described car waxing experience, I decided to chill out and let snow take its course :) Here is my car in the mild snow storm that Sammamish Plateau (the small pretty lil town east of Seattle) had this morning. That meant no work :). (Hourly employees should get paid on snow day now, come on!!)

why do i even bother??

Various events in the last three decades have made me accept certain things about my life. Some of them being:
I should never make plans.I should not prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I should just do nothing.I will get really good things in life, but not before I have made an utter fool of myself and suffered long enough to almost give up hope. So no need to panic just enjoy the sunny days on beach.

God loves me. I am a good person, I take care of people, I am compassionate, I am righteous etc. etc. etc. But most of all because I can provide constant and pleasurable entertainment to his otherwise mundane and tedious days.I am a waiter. My life will be spent waiting, literally. I will not be satisfied with the present and I will wait for a better, brighter and fun-filled future.But sometimes accepting is not enough. I am genetically programmed to plan, prepare, expect and panic. I am extremely impatient and hate to wait and every time my life becomes a sitcom episode for God Almighty's entertainment, I get annoyed and frustrated. Its like I have no learning curve.

So I bought a new car :). I feel proud and happy, and am extremely careful. So imagine my concern when the weather man reported of an Arctic storm heading to the western Washington area. Snow, rain, winds. Oh no!!! So My genetic instinct told me I need to cover the car with a cover and make sure no snow gets to it. I have to be extra careful. So I go buy the cover and Friday night under the slushy rain, I covered my car and hoped it will be safe and sound.Come Sunday morning I wake up to a snow covered landscape. everything was white and beautiful and other than the below freezing temperature, it was all so perfect. I decided to go out for a walk and went outside. I could see my car cover was covered with a layer of snow. I felt so smart and happy for doing such a good job of protecting my car. See sometimes it helps to plan and prepare. As I was thinking this, I also thought about how well the cover fitted the car and all that wind had done nothing to disturb it. Odd??I pulled up the cover to make sure there were no scratches or damage of any kind. The cover did not budge. I pulled again and it gave in with a sound very much like the sound of someone waxing the legs. Oh yes...the cover was frozen to the surface of the car. "Oh nooooo!!' I wailed.

After carefully separating the cover from the car, all the while cursing, crying and praying, I stood back to see the damage. Gasp!! my beautiful car looked like a used wax strip. The lint from the car cover was frozen all over the shiny black surface. I was horrified. Panicking, I hurried inside and grabbed a wet towel to remove the lint. Of course the genius in me didn't factor the below freezing temperature and my towel turned into ice as soon as i stepped out. I tried to clean a part of the car to make sure no damage was done. The lint came off and there was no damage but the water instantly iced on the surface. It was like being stuck in a vicious cycle. So I stepped away from the car and screamed. "Stupid, Stupid, Stupid". I could see the neighbors watch on with concern. A mother even hurried her kids inside obviously nervous with the outburst. I decided to call it a day. At 11:00 am, I did just that.

This morning on my way to work, I stopped by to check on my beloved car. It gleamed under the sun. The ice had melted and the lint was nowhere to be found. I sighed as I got into my roommate's car avoiding her laughing eyes. Why do i even bother?Oh in case you are wondering, my new plan is to avoid the ice and potential car damage by carpooling with the roommate. I have no idea how this plan will end up.

Random Thoughts of An Idle Mind

My mind refuses to cough up a decent post. I guess it is the gloomy weather or its the gloomy me or its just the way world is right now, depressing.

Nonetheless, I need to exercise the brain , this blog has to serve its purpose and I cannot go back into a writing drought of 5 yrs. SO i decided to write whatever comes to my mind. Today's post is dedicated to the randomness of my thoughts.Today I called up my favourite cousin in Pakistan to wish him a happy eid. As we talked i realised being grown up really sucks. Whats to like? Your responsibilities increase each passing day, you parents grow older and older, you have to take care of yourself, you need to know answers to all your questions, manage your money and your relationships. On top of all this, you have to work. **I really don't like my papa Ami getting old :( **
Awareness/knowledge/ambitions inversely proportional to contentment. The more we know, the more we expect from ourselves and our lives and more discontent we become. My mother's mother didn't even think she could be anything but a mother and didn't think husbands are supposed to do anything but provide, result: fairly content life. My mother felt she could do a little more than just be a regular housewife and mother and also felt my father needed to more attentive, result: not so content life. I grew up believing I could do anything I want, I expect to be a mother, a wife and career woman and I want a husband who is a partner in marriage, result: a schizophrenic, sort of discontent life. Hence proven, ignorance can be bliss.
Why cant an hourly paid employee take a paid sick day off or get paid for public holidays. I can work on Christmas but I cant since the office is closed. I cant even switch Christmas day with Eid day if I wanted. I work on Eid day, I can work on Christmas day. But I cant since the office is closed, so how come they don't pay me. PAY ME NOWWWW
Seattle is rainy and green and has more company head offices than Id like to count. It is here that Tom Hanks was sleepless, and it is here that Frasier was listening and its where Dr. McDreamy found love again. It is a really gorgeous, dreamy place. Every time I sit in a warm coffee place with a fireplace and old Sinatra or Dean martin music, rain pouring softly against the window panes, I feel like I am part of a Black and White Hollywood movie and any minute a Gregory Peck look-alike will walk in through the door and sweep me off my feet. Hmmmmm maybe I should stop drinking coffee. *sigh*
When do I wash my car? It is new and it is black and it lives in Seattle. The day it rains you cant see if it is dirty, on the days it doesn't rain it looks like a black and Brown polka-dot car. But if I wash it , it will rain the next day and the cycle will continue. Sooo when is the rain going to stop? anyone?
So are we constantly trying to recreate the time when we were the happiest? The most unadulterated, unbroken happiness? The time when our spirits and our minds were fully integrated. No conflict, no sadness and no discontentment. When every dawn was brighter than the last, when anything was possible and when our laughter was as pure as it can be. No time measures up to it and no company measures up to the company we had then. At some sub-conscious level, perhaps we are. Is it fair, perhaps not.
When is too much hard work...too much? When do you know you should quit? When do you know it is OK to give up and that no matter how much you stretch out your resources you will not be able to accomplish what you are trying to achieve. And how can you give up without feeling like a failure?
I see too many people running on the treadmill single-minded as if running away from some unseen ghosts and demons. They are too thin already. They are too fit. What are they trying to proof? Hmmm wow this was such a deep thought. Maybe worth a post.
Why doesn't it rain the day I have my umbrella and am wearing my rain boots? Sunny days, I leave home in my nice coat, wearing my suede boots, and by afternoon its raining. Why is God having so much fun at my expense, or rather at the expense of my boots. I love my shoes :(
My mind works non-stop and the thoughts never seem to end. How will I ever end this post?
Diesel - my new roommate's two year old cat hates me. Animals have always loved me but he hates me. He is black with white paws and he likes to bite. A cat that bites, please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks this is weird.
My new roommate doesn't want me to say "Oh my God!!" when I am at home and she is around. All I say to that...OH MY GOD!!!!!!!
I am tired and its almost time to go home. I have a yoga class to go to and hopefully I have taken all my thoughts out here and now I can have a truly spiritual and mind/soul cleansing experience. Ommmmmmmmmm

Imagine

I want to write a sweet song about hope, but I could never write poetry. God knows I tried. I could play with words in my native language Urdu, but composing lyrical perfection in English was something I could never achieve. So I gave up.

I want to write something deep and profound about the current hopeless and chaotic situation in South Asia. But my mind is too involved and my thoughts are too scattered. I don't want to make commentary on things that never change, the situation that remains as unresolved and absurd as it was 60 yrs ago. I don't want to talk about hatred. I don't want to talk about anger and terror and violence.

What I want to say what I want to write and what I would have tried to compose in my message of hope..is embodied in these beautiful words of John Lennon:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

How I wish for Lennon's dream to come true. I guess we all need to be stoned to realize what the world is becoming and what we are transpiring through our ignorance, intolerance and unwillingness to feel, care, love and understand

I turn 8 tomorrow

Once in third grade we were given a composition assignment that asked us to write about our parents. That in itself was not much of a challenge since at that age my entire world revolved around them. But it did pose as a threat to my parents’ sanity as my normal count of 100 questions per day quadrupled in a matter of minutes to get the information I needed to complete the said assignment.
During my quest to learn everything there is to know about my beloved Papa and Ami, I discovered that Ami is 33 yrs old. She is my mother and so she is older than me, but I remember being in awe of this fact - the fact that my mother was sooo old. Compared to my single digit existence, the number seemed phenomenal and I wondered how I would feel when I got that old. The prospect was scary. I was abnormally aware if not fully mature in my thoughts and had an almost inane capacity to understand the complexity, certainty and seriousness of several life issues – aging and death included. I really did think 33 was that much older!
Time flew by and tomorrow after many years of good and very few of not so good fortune, I turn 33. I know perspectives change and I am no longer eight, but the number does not sound scary or old anymore, and in some ways it really seems great. Of course what choice do I have and of course now 33 has to seem young and hip, but truthfully I have realized over the years that you are as old as you feel.
When I really think about that little girl looking at her mother with awe, I realize how mature and grown-up she was for her age. How burdened she used to feel because thoughts beyond her years used to plague her and how she felt truly incapable of being a normal third grader, carefree and full of life. Going by what I have learned about being as old as you feel, I was actually 55 in the third grade. In fact, most of my childhood was actually near retirement age.

Somewhere during the course of these 33 years of existence I secretly grew to my actual permanent and spiritual age and birthdays became mere reason for celebration and the numerical age, just a number. I now realize that age truly translates into spiritual beauty, health and the presence of love and peace in your life. So no matter what my age, I won’t feel old as long as I have all these things.

Maybe this post will make no sense to some people, while others will know exactly what I mean. In any case, I am more a free spirit now, than I ever was as an eight year old. Happy 8th birthday to me !!

BFF

Stars in the eyes, head in the air. She is a friend, a sister, partner in crime and constant source of entertainment. She can be annoying and infuriating but she can be just as sweet and caring. She can be insightful but can be just as clueless. She makes me laugh till I have tears in my eyes and she can make me angry...till I have tears in my eyes.

A life that has given her lots of ups and downs has made her into a strong woman. Perhaps a woman of substance.

It is not easy to write about her. Its not that she is very complex or there isn't a whole lot to say about her. Its just that at this time I am talking to her on the phone (well mostly she is talking) She talks non-stop and I give her a hard time every now and then (I should add as always).

You know how people sit and think about different things, quietly, by themselves. Well M does it too...only with me as audience. I will either be sitting on her couch or will be at work reading her chat or will be on the other end of the phone, like right now.

Well now that I have hung up and I can think a bit more clearly, lets see if I can come up with more material. She will read this tomorrow, I am sure she will. I think she opens my blog every day secretly hoping that perhaps today I have mentioned her. Just kidding M. But you know you do...no no just kidding ;) (but you do, admit it lol)

She is smart (when she wants to be) , funny (read very funny), hyper (read extremely-bouncing off-the-walls-on-most-days-hyper), very caring , loving and sweet. I met her 2.5 years ago when my ex-friend/raakhee brother hooked her up with me as a roommate. We clicked instantly. She was all I wanted in a roommate plus I could boss her into cleaning and washing the dishes on time lol. I tell you it was meant to be.

We have had lots of ups and downs, some fights (mostly in New York), some distances (I am a nomad after all), some differences of opinion (I discuss/She thinks we are arguing ) and many endless nights of gossip, laughter and girl talk.

She has been a great friend, someone I can always be honest with, knowing full well she will not judge me. She tries to get me even when she has no idea what I am on about (lot of people feel that way, but she is a lot less vocal). She puts up with the drama in my world (and we all know there is plenty), and I try to help clean-up the messes in hers. She opens her house, her heart, her brand new car for those who give her unceasing love and support, and whom she loves unconditionally. I am lucky to be one of "those".

M, no matter how many times you will make me wanna beat you up and no matter how many times we fight (in and out of New York), and no matter how many times you have to step back to give me the space to change, I know that we will find our way back to each other, because friendships like ours can actually brave the test of time. You, me and Guru ji, truly make "threes, a company".

The crazy, great-hearted, totally clueless M. Love ya girl.