A little aluminum foil underneath your scarf will keep the aliens from sucking your brains out.

Remember how on one of my previous blogs I was complaining about my tailor? How he made my pants too small and made my shirt smell like armpits before I even got to wear it (and stink it up myself, he he)? Well, I sent the pants back to be fixed, and I retrieved them from his shop last night. He did make them a bit bigger, but you won’t believe what else he made them: FILTHY! like someone threw them on the floor and danced on them, and they were WET and they smelled like VOMIT!

Last night I got home all excited, I rushed to try the new and improved pants on, and as I stood in front of the mirror, frowning at the fit, I was suddenly hit with a horrible smell and a realization of coldness. I sniffed, trying to figure out where the disgusting smell was coming from, and why I suddenly felt cold and wet, and once I realized it was the pants that were cold and wet and smelling of vomit, I wailed aloud, threw them off and ran to take a shower.

I give up. I’m just going to start wearing home-made clothes everywhere. Just call me Ella Mae, Hill Billy, Pk. I’ll be starting a new, rustic, ’Tailor like it’s 622 AD’ line of jilbabs. From what I remember anyway, when the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, first recited the ayah from the Qur’an for the proper wearing of Hijab (it’s in Surah Noor, I’ll find it) the women made do with curtains and bedspreads because no one had too many clothes in that day and they needed something modest right then and there. Scarlet O’Hara made a dress out of curtains too, though the stuff I make pales in comparison to her sartorial skills. -sigh- I’m going to wander around in two flour sacks sewn together and aluminum foil on my arms as sleeves. It may look funny, but at least it won’t be WET AND VOMITTY! (AAAAaaargh!)

I suppose I have to go off and make a pair of pants, since my tailor wasted my other pair and I wasted my money on him. I have to make them myself. Now where’s the aluminum foil...? :P

I can’t think of anything else to write. I woke up this morning after dreaming about centipedes all night, horrible dreams they were. Fortunately when I came downstairs there was halva and poori and chana (halva is halva, poori is fried flat-bread, chana is chick-peas) for breakfast from Chez Daddy. My daddy does that in honor of it being Sunday morning. When we lived in the states, it used to be donuts every Sunday morning, and sometimes on weekdays too. I remember once us kids came home from school and opened the front door, and there in the entryway, hanging from the ceiling, were four donuts. Each donut was a different flavor, with a name and a picture of each one of us kids attached to it.

We ate the donuts by standing and jumping underneath of them with our mouths open, and when that wasn’t working out too well, we had to drag in a dining chair and cut the donuts down. Listen up people: do cute things for your kids now (or whenever you have them) because these are the things they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. I remember another time when my dad came to pick us up from school (we usually walked) and he stopped the car and then said, ok kids, get out. We opened the door, and we weren’t home, it was the candy store. Now THAT was fun.

Even now, sometimes my dad just shows up with ice-cream cones. You can be sitting in the car waiting for him at the bazaar or somewhere, and suddenly an ice-cream cone will be thrust at you from the open window and my dad will be behind it, grinning. He says it because it’s psychic, and he knows exactly when we want ice-cream and what flavor. He’s usually right too, but probably because when do we NOT want ice-cream, and is any flavor really bad?

The moral of today’s story is: I love my daddy! Or, love your daddy! Or, be a loving daddy! So there.

Oh, and here’s the Ayah from the Qur’an about hijab: “..And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest; and let them not display their adornment except that which is apparent; and let them draw their head-scarves (khimar) over their chests so as not to reveal their adornments except to their husbands and mahram.” The Holy Qur’an, Surah 24, ayah 31

(The Arab women were already wearing khimar (scarves) but they were tying them behind their necks, like some women do these days. This verse told women to wear it properly, by putting it back out front to cover the neck and the chest as well as the head.)

posted by Abez @ 4/27/2003 11:04:00 AM