News Flash: My momma has a new blog, and I'll try to get her to update it weekly by Friday. Visit at www.ourmarvymomma.blogspot.com

I finally put two pics up on my fotolog. They were both taken with a highly horrible borrowed digital cam, and so I apologize for the complete lack of quality. The first photograph is of Chez Daddy, my father’s restaurant and barbeque. The second is of our man-eating dog. She was the only one I could get to pose on such short notice. What can I say. Notice how happy she is in the photo. For a dog, she’s really quite a ham.

And now people reading this will go, eeewww! You have a dog! Nasty! And then I say, I think she’s kinda gross too, and initially I objected to having a dog, but then we cracked open our Bukhari Sharif and found a hadith that said, “Whoever keeps a dog for other than hunting or guarding will have one good deed subtracted from his record for every day he keeps it.” Then we decided fine, it’s ok for us to have a guard dog And that’s what she is, too. She lives at the gate and rages at people, and the fur on her back stands straight up and she turns into a bouncing, snarling ball of fury and teeth. It was either that or hire a guard, the human kind. Here’s why: shortly after we moved into this house, something happened that made my dad decide to get a guard dog. I was home by myself, asleep, when the bell rang. I went down and answered it, speaking from behind the gate. There were two men on a motorcycle, and they said, “Is your father in?”

I said, “No, what do you need?”

They said, “We’re the electricians. Your father sent us, he’s going to be meeting us here shortly.”

I said, “He’s not here right now.”

Then they said, “Can we come in and wait for him?”

I was kinda sleepy and groggy (I wake up after a tankard of black coffee, and not a minute before) and I said one sec. I walked back into the living room and looked around. It was a wreck. So I came back out and asked them if they would come back later. They implied that they wouldn’t be able to come back later, and that they wouldn’t mind waiting inside. I said sorry, my dad will be back in an hour. Come then. Then they drove away and I went back to sleep.

I told my dad later that he missed the electricians, and he said, what electricians? I didn’t send any electricians! And he asked the REAL electricians, and it hadn’t been them. Those men never came back, thank God. It actually makes me nauseous thinking about what could’ve happened if I had let them in. In our neighborhood there are a lot of burglaries in the daytime, people come to your gate, saying they’re doing a survey, or distributing polio drops, or they’re a cousin of your father’s or something, and once you crack the gate open, that’s it. You get tied up and locked in a room while they go through your house, or do worse things.

A man we know is a gems dealer, and word of his wealth got out, despite that fact that he’s been hiding it, living in a small neighborhood, in a simple house and with a very normal car. He had to move from his last house because people kept trying to burglarize him there. He’s already had a few men come to the gate demanding to be let in. They always come in the daytime too, because that’s most likely when the man of the house is out and only the women will be home. It’s scary, but you know, Alhamdulillah, he’s ok so far, and so are we. Anywhere you go is dangerous, so Islamabad isn’t any more or less dangerous than Chicago I think. But yeah, that’s why we have a ferocious guard-dog. She does a good job too, she goes off if she can see people just walking on the driveway. Beggars don’t ring our doorbell anymore, but then neither does the garbage man, so yes, there are some drawbacks. he he

I had an interesting afternoon today. After work, I was leaving one of my student’s houses and I couldn’t get my car to start. (treacherous bucket of bolts!) The battery transistors are loose, and the way to remedy that is to beat on them with a rock, or pour Pepsi on them. No, I’m not lying. The Pepsi eats away some of the erosion and helps conduct electricity. I popped up the hood of my car, and was standing there with a rock in one hand and a bottle of Pepsi in the other when the gardener from my student's house came out and looked at me like I was crazy, and said in Punjabi, “Does your battery need water?”

I said, “No, it needs a beating and some Pepsi.”

He looked at me with his eyebrows raised and then came and stood beside me and watched me pound away at the transistor with a rock and then douse it in Pepsi. He offered his help, and he alternately whacked and poured while I tried to start the engine. We did succeed after about twenty minutes. I must remember to buy him some mithai. A very nice man.

That’s one thing I like about Pakistan, if your car breaks down, people will come out of the woodwork and help you. Once my car broke down while I was substitute teaching at the Japanese School here (where I first acquired the honorable title of Sensei) and all the school guards came out to see what was wrong. They popped the hood, and the six of them had a pow-wow while leaning around the engine. They did some tentative banging and debating, and then the car started.

Therefore, I dedicate this blog to all of the nice old uncles and gardeners and security guards that have fixed, pushed, beaten and doused my car at when I needed it most. May Allah bless them and reward them and show them kindness, as they showed kindness to me. :)

I am reminded of a Hadith found in both Bukhari and Muslim. The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him) said, “You will find the Muslims among themselves in mutual cooperation, love, and compassion as if they were one body, where when one part of the body is in pain (or trouble) the entire body feels sick and can’t sleep.”

posted by Abez @ 4/24/2003 05:11:00 PM