Cairogal, this is for you

Just got back from the most racist shopping experience of all time in Villeneuve at the Centre Commercial Riviera. Racist dude cut in front of me and a swiss chick in line, then he let the swiss chick go after we both complained but then cut in front of me. Efftard. Then we get to the parking lot and these dudes behind us honked after we had been in the car like five seconds to take our place. Nice Husband said nicely at first, “look we weren’t in there that long” and the guy was an ass to him and was like, “Yeah well I am in a hurry” instead of doing the civil adult thing of saying, you know, “sorry for honking.” Nice Husband should come with a warning sticker not to make him mad. All I am going to say is that the conversation ended with the honker being called to his face a racist and a xenophone and a UDC voter. Those buttheads would have apologized if I didn’t have a headscarf on, I know it. Anyway, on to serious topics. Sprained ankles. If any of you ever sprain your ankle do not try to walk it off. So Cairogal this is for you.

When I first sprained my ankle in February, I asked my father, as I inherited his insanely small feet (who in turn inherited them from his mother, I look at my feet and I swear I see my grandma’s feet, it is kinda freaky at times) for his professional opinion, having had two major sprains and a broken foot.  We also both have weird high arches but anyway I digress.

First, Ladies, Picture it.  Sicily, 1918 Gulfport, 1981. My father has a steamroller run over his foot at work. Diagnosis? A couple of broken bones in his ankle and foot.  Healing time? About ten weeks.  How long did his foot take to feel 100%? He said about five to six months, and he was walking at 80%  once they took the cast off.

My father. Standing on a boat ladder in Gulfport, circa 1987. Falls off the ladder and sprains his ankle, rolled it over completely.  The helicopter came to airlift him out and as my father was about to pass out from the pain, the paramedic lady says to him as she is cutting off his work boot, “You better hope to God that you broke this” and my dad was like, “Whaa?” Paramedic lady says, “If you sprained it, you are effed, if you broke it, you’ll be ok.”  He sprained that sucker. Tore a couple ligaments, the whole deal. He didn’t have a cast, but was bandaged up for a good three months.  He wasn’t walking right, by his and my memory, for six months, and wasn’t 100% for a year or a year and a half.  He said that sprain hurt way more than the break ever did.

Geneva,  February 2008.  DP, acting the fool, trips in front of the train station for no good reason and her foot immediately swells to the size of a softball.  She completely rolled it and fell flat on the ground. Having had major ballet sprains before (and a minor sprain doing the same thing one year prior), she thinks she can walk it off and proceeds to not only go to work the following day, but also go to a conference in the mountains the following week against medical advice and work when she should have been home with her foot up.  Stupid me thought I would get points at work for working through the pain, when in reality all they thought was that if I was coming in, it couldn’t be that bad.  First set of doctors and PTs she sees think that it is just a fat girl sprain (likely what my former bosses thought, buttmunches) and if I didn’t get it skiing then it couldn’t be that bad.  In all honestly, I can’t blame my former boss 100%. He was only about 50% *sshole and 50% personal experience. His family are all semi-pro or pro skiers so he honestly can only be blamed half for thinking I had a fat girl sprain, as most of the leg injuries he was familiar with involved the REGA and emergency surgery.

Geneva, May 2008.  DP is perplexed as to why she still can’t walk unassisted and her PT tells her that she should have stayed home for a couple of weeks in February and not gone to work since her *sshole bosses don’t appreciate her anyway, so no wonder her ankle is still messed up. So she decides to get an MRI.  After the MRI, the doctor comes out to tell her personally that her ankle is “completely screwed.” (The French expression was “complètement petée”) diagnosis: SHE WALKED ON IT TOO MUCH.

Lausanne, June 1st.  DP was able to stop walking with a cane for short distances. Still need a cane for the mall, the grocery store etc.

Lausanne, Mid June 2008.  One of the most promininet sports medicine doctors in Switzerland looks at MRI, looks at softball size ankle, and pronounces the profound diagnosis of, “I don’t know what the hell is going on with your foot and why it is taking so long, I think it is because you walk on it to much.” Got two months more PT and might have surgery.

Moral of this very long and rambling story, Cairogal: Don’t walk if you absolutely do not have to and go to PT as frequently as possible. Even if your foot feels good, just chill.  Get an MRI if you haven’t already just to make sure they didn’t miss anything in the x ray (like they did with me). If you overstretched or tore a ligament (or three or four like I did), just settle in for about six months, swim, bike, but don’t walk. When you are at home just keep it propped up. I used to be very active on the weekends and now I do laundry, I go out one day for groceries for a few hours and that is IT. If I’m not feeling it, even for short distances, I bring a cane.  Your PT will say that you need to walk on it to get your muscles back. This is only partly true. When I do that, I find I favor my other leg too much, and I wind up hurting in my opposite knee.  The cane balances my weight out and keeps my opposite leg from hurting by being favored too much. The only thing I don’t do now is wrap it and take pain meds (unless I am doing major walking, like if I have guests) because I want to know exactly how swollen and painful it is so that I can report back to my doctor. That is why I am a fan of the cane.  If you don’t want to feel like a grandma, get a nordic walking pole (that is what I did), it helps just that much to make you walk evenly. 

Also, I know from your blog that you are active and outdoorsy. I am too, and not being able to do stuff for six months just about made me depressed. I was pissed off at the doctors and pissed off at the PTs (for not being magic voodoo healers) and pissed off at my ankle (for not healing fast enough) and pissed off at my bosses (for, well, being themselves) and pissed off at my husband (because I couldn’t make him understand that I look normal but I just can’t do anything). In fact, if it involves standing or pivoting I just can’t do it. I used to work retail and could stand for ten or twelve hours. This is hard for me.  I spent a good three months being mad at people because I couldn’t do anything. Please don’t be like me for that. If I could go back to March and tell myself something, it would be to chill and focus on healing and not be mad at stuff I can’t change. I would have gotten my “sport” cane earlier.  I just wish someone would have told me (I didn’t talk to my dad about it until May) in February not to expect anything for six months.  I still can’t do downstairs, but these past few weeks are the first time in ever that my foot almost looks a normal size and feels good enough to do normal daily activities.

What people don’t understand is that there are sprains and then there are sprains. That was the hardest for me- people looking at me like I was crazy because I  “only had a sprain” and didn’t break something. A lot of times broken ankles heal faster than sprained ankles- that is what happened to my dad.  I have walked off a lot of sprains- I mean, I took ballet as a child, I must have sprained my ankle four five times a year. If you can’t walk it off in three days, then something else is going on and there are ligaments involved.

Don’t walk. Just don’t. Do however much sitting around you need to heal. And keep your foot elevated as much as possible. I totally feel your pain.

 

 

Trick Question

A while back I asked the trick question “Which Continent has Nice Husband NOT been to?”
The answer is…Australia. Incha Allah one day. I am secretly plotting to get him there so that I can say he is truly worldwide. I wish I knew if he was the first Algerian in Antarctica or not. That would be kinda cool. He went to Antarctica with my stepfather on one of those science tour thingies. But it was a science for scientists ecotourism thing. He saw penguins getting eaten and everything up close. I need to investigate the whole Algerians in Antarctica thing, he would be pretty chuffed.

Ok so it is not Australia but close but I am dying to go to New Zealand. It’s like a dream of mine, I just don’t think there is a bucket of Xanax and Ambien big enough for me to handle the plane ride. I am totally interested in how people likeMs. Mac and Antipo do that kind of plane ride, and with children. Are drugs involved? Massive amounts of books? My mp3 player only lasts 14 hours, what happens then?

My mom went there and evidently she like was about to lose it an hour before landing. She loved Australia once she got there though. The only sucky part was finding out that my stepfather, the rocket scientist (no really, he is a rocket scientist, I am not joking) can’t drive stick that well and he sure as heck can’t drive stick on the wrong side of the road. So guess who did all the driving. This was ten years ago and she hasn’t gone back.

Speaking of rocket scientists, you know what makes me mad? When people knock on secretaries. Um hello, I have a college degree (discuss amongst yourselves the worth of an Ole Miss BA) and all these fools I work for with major degrees and corner offices and titles and stuff don’t know how to fix a printer, fix a copy machine, set up their email, type a freakin report, use Excel…all things I know how to do. Most of the effers who bash on secretaries only have BAs themselves anyway. But I digress.

EDIT: After consuting Dr. Google, I found out that some Algerian astrophysicist dude name Karim Agabi went there before Nice Husband, so Nice Husband was not the first, unfortunately. Oh well, I am sure NH was in the first ten maybe even number 2.

I forgot to say I got froached!

I am so jetlagged and still not up for a wedding post. Also I am trying to find a picture in hundreds we took of the venue without outing various family members. And my new SIL is so hot we have to hide her, say Macha Allah, so I will not be posting pictures of her on teh Interweb.

That said, I forgot to mention that I got my headscarf froached for the very first time at Madrid “Ghetto” Airport! You know what they say about how women with headscarves get froached because their clothes are loose or whatever? That has never happened to me in hijab, alhamdoulillah. And I have been to some crazy airports in hijab, including all the 9/11 airports. The weirdest experience up until Madrid was when a security lady had to feel the underwires in my bra to prove that yes, they were the only metal thing on me. That was kinda weird. Until Madrid. That airport gets on my last nerve and going through security there, I had my hijab felt up! The lady smooshed my head like it was the Coneheads or something. I’m not one of those sisters who puts on twenty scrunchies so that I look like I have a big hunk of hair under my hijab either (I hate that, I knew this sister once with this beautiful hijab and what I thought was a big bun of what I imagined to be luxurious locks of hair and when we were making wudu in the bathroom it turned out to be scrunchies, I thought that was what the hadith about camel humps was about but whatevs) so I have no idea what the Madrid security lady was feeling for.

I actually have less drama in hijab in airports, I don’t know why. Alhamdoulillah for that.

Makeup Meme While I Wait for Laundry

I just got back from a very brief trip to Mexico for my brother’s wedding. All that tomorrow with pictures (I LURVE my new SIL) but right now I need to go to bed very soon so as to be fit for work tomorrow. I will also likely spend a good deal of time ranting about our plane in Mexico City getting requisitioned for an impromptu trip to Shanghai so we had to be rerouted, thus adding nine hours to our journey and rerouting us through Madrid, which is the most ghetto airport I have ever had the displeasure of flying through, Algiers airport is way more organized but anyway. Let’s do a makeup meme tonight because I have ten minutes before this laundry finishes and not enough time to do a wedding post justice. I ganked this from Ms Mac.

Foundation: I only wear it for extremely special occasions at night, and only if I have a dark headscarf (white headscarf and foundation are bad bad bad). Otherwise it is tinted moisturizer (big fan of Laura Mercier and Shiseido). In reality the only thing I wear every day on my face is SPF 345987 bazillion sunscreen.

Mascara: My husband does not like mascara. His sisters are big fans tho and while they get away with it me not so much. I have found that a good eyelash curler does the trick for me most days, and a nice understated no clumpy mascara is Chanel Inimitable when you just want color but not volume or length. I also like Maybelline (Gemey, if you will) Define-a-lash (cil definition) in the green tube. Rubber brushes are the way of the future.

Day Cream: Whatever TM I am using but usually just my sunscreen, which is either Clarins or Avene.

Essential Beauty Product: Carmex. I am a junkie and I cannot live without it. I need to join Lip Balm Anonymous.

Favourite Makeup Product: bronzer. I love bronzer. I am so white, the sunscreen makes me look whiter, and with bronzer on I look like a normal color. I am an equal opportunity bronzer lover and have tried them all, my favorite being Guerlain.

Perfume: My signature scent is an old skool grandma perfume, Chanel Cristalle. I rock the grandma perfume. It is what my mom wore back in the day (she has now moved on to more youthful things) but I just love it. Chanel was so hard to get in suburban New Orleans when I was a child, and it is just so nice for me to be able to walk into most pharmacies and makeup stores here and buy it. It is more of a summer scent though, so in winter I do something a little less lemon-y. Last winter it was Serge Lutens Santal blanc but I don’t know what it will be this year. Another standby is Chanel no 19 but Cristalle is my fave.

Nails: SOme of you know that I am an ex-pianist. As such I have a deep hatred for long nails, probably due to years of getting berated if they were more than a millimeter long. I keep them filed extremely short, and clean up my cuticles. There is also the whole Islam and nail polish thing where the going standard is that one shouldn’t pray with nail polish on (subject to differences of opinion, see my caveat in my About page) so I just try to keep my hands tidy and no more.

Hands: Piano hands mean Piano callouses. Like guitar callouses but on every finger. And when you stop playing, they don’t go away. I fight a losing battle with my cuticles on that.

Feet: I had nice feet until unfortunate ankle incident which gave me cankles, one on the hurt leg and one on the healthy one from favoring it. Other than that, I did ballet as a child and my toes are permanently bent into an en pointe shape and I have good arches, which means my feet look hot in a ballet slipper but not much else. My feet were my favorite body part until four months ago.

Three Products to bring on a deserted island: Carmex, sunscreen, and bronzer because I am vain like that.

Women I admire for their beauty: My mom’s skin looks fierce for her age. True story- the other day we went to a salon, and the lady said to me, “Hi how are you”, blew me off and then said to my mother, “OMG you are so beautiful”. I felt the love there, not. Emily’s mom (not going to link because I am not going to out people like that) also looks totally fierce and has absolutely perfect skin. The secret of these two women? They stayed the heck out of the sun. They both have the skin of someone ten or fifteen years younger. You can always tell the difference between someone who looks good because they took care of their skin, and someone who adds up the botox and the peels and the lifts.

Women with the Best Sense of Style: One of my old coworkers at the law firm has a quirky style that would look weird on me but looks good on her and she has the self confidence to rock whatever she is wearing. I think style isn’t wearing fashionable clothes but rather wearing classic stuff that looks good with your body type, and feeling good about what you are wearing. Look at Princess Di, she wore skinny jeans in the mid 90s even when they weren’t in, but she rocked those jeans so it looked good on her, even though they weren’t in fashion at the time. Ditto for her blue eyeliner fetish.

My Ultimate Dream: To have normal hair again once this whole thyroid-adrenal-who-knows-what-else business is over. Not that it is bad now, I just want my old hair back.

How Do I Define Womanhood: Self confidence and a DIY attitude.

Favourite Fashion Publication: I love makeup magazines. I wear so little daily, but I love looking at pictures of makeup. I am a freak like that. Allure is a fave just for the pics.

Mexico story tomorrow incha Allah! Good night

More gratuitous self-congratulation but with a Thanks God thrown in

My step grandmother (I don’t even know if that is a term) had what could be considered an extraordinary life in its normalcy. She had the chance to do a lot of cool stuff in her 80 or so years on this planet, she saw the world, lived in a lot of places, and did a lot of cool jobs and had hobbies.  My grandmother (my father’s mother) also had an extraordinarily ordinary life. Everything she could have been as a child she went in a completely different direction. Not a bad direction, just different. I was thinking on this the other day. I have been comparing myself unfavorably to other people in my entourage who have stuff like real careers and kids and so on and beating myself up for being almost thirty and not where I thought I would be professionally or personally.  Then I decided to look on the bright side, and that’s where the Thanks God comes in.  I too, like my grandmothers, have a normal, banal, albeit unexpected life. I’m ok with the banality of it all now. So thanks God for the random things:

1. I never thought I would marry some Barack Obama looking dude who speaks six languages. Macha Allah. I always thought I would marry a cool guy, but not like him. Speaking of him, here’s a trivia question: He has been to every continent except one.  This is a trick question. Which continent has he not been to?

2. I always knew I would leave Louisiana/MIssissippi but I never knew I would live in Switzerland. Even if Switzerland drives me crazy, I’ve had good times there.  Of all my high school dreams, I made that one happen: I live in Europe. Just not in the country I expected to live in.

3.Thanks God for not having to drive if I don’t want to.  I effing hate driving.  If I lived in Mississippi right now I would have to drive, and it would suck.

4. I have learned more about money laundering than any lay person should ever know. I don’t even have money to launder. Ditto for smuggling cigarettes. That’s just two of the crazy things I have picked up on in my “non career” jobs. 

5. Thanks God for all the travelling I get to do. Some people don’t get to do the things I do just as a routine matter of course. I have been to eight countries this year, just because. I feel blessed for that.

6.  I am way more domestic than I was in high school. I kick butt at cleaning house and doing laundry.  I can think of at least five people whose jaws would drop in sheer surprise at how well I clean. I am so totally domestic. I can even cook couscous under duress.

 7. Before my unfortunate ankle incident, I was doing something no one said I could do- train for a marathon. I will make it happen incha Allah. I tell myself that back in the day people said I would never make it to Europe and here I am. Such is the way of the marathon. BTW my ankle is much better now but I still can’t do down stairs that well or cobblestones.

8.  Not only do I make good coffee, I can totally do makeup. I turned down the makeup artist and did my own makeup for the *top secret event I attended at an undisclosed location* this weekend, and looking at the pictures, my mu looks totally fierce. Yes I am going to give myself props for that, because do you know how hard it is to do makeup that photographs well without looking like Bozo the Clown?  Thanks God, I have mad skeelz.

9. Speaking of my ankle, thanks God for the fact that I walk somewhat normally now. It has only been fifty bazillion years (ok four months) but I might actually be running sooner than I think.

10. Thanks God anyway for the not doing what I thought I would be doing professionally. I have made peace with it.  It’s all good, at least this way I can work for crazy people and live vicariously through their craziness and laugh.

WordPress was acting crazy so let me give you some more

Here are some more of my friends. I totally love them.

Ooh virginity!

The latest drama in France is how there was this court case where a marriage between two Muslims got annulled because the brother found out his wife wasn’t a virgin on their wedding night like she said she was.

You can read about it here.

So-called feminists are all up in arms because this is the fault of zee Mozlims, specifically the neanderthal mozlim fundamentalist husband, and that virginity is a woman’s prerogative and by giving an annullment instead of a divorce the legal system allowed the man to maintain his barbaric, outdated image of female virginity. Or something like that.

I say let’s not think that far. Let’s take the Muslim part out of it. This is a story about a woman who lied about something that was important to her husband. Annullments are granted for people who lie about the financial situation, who lie about their profession, who lie about whether or not they want kids. The case was annulled because the person lied about something her spouse found essential.

So when I hear these so called feminists jump on the occasion to bash the brothers, I call bullshit. I’ll bash brothers (see below) but not for a stupid reason.

Getting my behind kicked but it’s all good

Super busy and just dealing with the fallout of having guests in the house for a protracted period of time. My brain still isn’t in the right place from all the flippin “togetherness” and I am lagging. So tomorrow I gotta kick it up a notch incha Allah.

Homeinkabul I so gotta tell you what to buy in Paris and Brussels.  I absolutely heart Brussels.  I don’t know how NH refuses to take me to Brussels when we LIVE in Lausanne, because he says Brussels is small and boring.  I mean hello, it’s not like Lausanne is the biggest, most happening place in the world either. 

Anyway that was a tangent. Back to work!

 

Thanks God, the Waahmbulance Version

I can safely say today sucked.  So in honor of sucky day and reorganizing my priorities, I would like to thank God for the thinks that did not suck today.

1. I went in to get contacts and took advantange of the opportunity to get my glasses fixed. I have had them for about a year and they were always kinda loose, but I never had the time to give them to the dudes and come back in a timely manner before I needed them again.  Now that I work twenty minutes from my eye doctor, all is possible. So I got an inch cut off the arms and now they fit like a dream. I truly thank God not just for good glasses, but for glasses period.  In some places in the world people, even assuming they can plunk down a month’s salary to afford them, don’t have access to opticians or glasses. Thank you God for my glasses and for the job that allows me to pay for them.

2. My uncle has been here all week, and considering two weeks ago was worse than this week, having him here has really been a treat. He is a world traveller and writer and general bon vivant by vocation and graciously spent a week of his time with us when he could have been anywhere else.

3. I love bronzer.  This makes no sense to men, or perhaps anyone. But I love my bronzer. I love the big mirror, I love the way it smells, I love the fluffy brush I use. I use it a lot to take pictures with my new camera to get used to the settings, and I got some gorgeous macro shots of it which I may post.  I use bronzer to offset the white cast of my sunscreen, not to look like Lindsey Lohan or something. And I dare the religious police to come after me because no one has ever suspected me of wearing any.  I would look crazier going out looking like a surfer dude from the sixties than I do with the bronzer on to bring me back to my normal complexion. 

4. I ganked a totally awesome Waterman pen from my mom which I otherwise would not have been able to afford. Or, in the words of an ex colleague, “I have the money but that doesn’t mean I can afford it.”  It writes beautifully, it feels nice and heavy in my hand, and the refills are cheap and easy to find, so I might actually get to keep it ten or twenty years incha Allah.  

5. There is this totally awesome organic honey and something mix thingie here with all the vitamins I like to take and the vitamins are from halal sources.  Due to my ongoing health problem I have to avoid taking more than my daily allowance of vitamin C, and this random mix thingie that I take two spoons a day of has all my magnesium and b vitamins without the vitamin C overload that most vitamin companies like to put in.

6. I hope everyone says macha Allah and doesn’t hate or give me bad vibrations, but my new computer is my one true love. I hope everyone gets the joy of having their own computer that other people don’t gank and change the settings on and touch and stuff.

7. All my baby blankets are here now. And I do say they look surprisingly good for being 29.7 years old.

8. Speaking of old baby blankets, there is an upside to NH’s no birthday rule.  We can now casually forget that my big 3-0 is this year. No birthday celebration means I get to reject that reality. However my uncle just told me that 29 was worse for him than 30, and I must say turning 29 sucked. He said by the time he was 30 he had made peace with it because he did all the soul searching and stuff after his 29th birthday.  He also said that turning 29 was suckier for him than turning 60. He was ok with 60. One of my ex-colleagues who is a year older than me said the same thing too about 29 being worse. So Thanks God for no birthdays and to the fact that maybe it won’t be as bad as 29.

9. Thanks God for that little beast black cat next door. He has so much personality and is such a joy to see in all his meanness. What a beautiful albeit cranky creature. Speaking of beautiful creatures, God made some gorgeous sheep and they all hang out at my work.  When I get out of my waaah mode I will incha Allah upload pictures of my new “coworkers.” I love them and hearing them bleat all day is therapeutic.

10. Thank God for NH bringing me some Keemun tea from my favorite tea shop in Zurich, the Teehaus Wuhre, which contrary to popular opinion, is still open. 

A random observation from Carla Bruni

Carla Bruni, ahem Carla Bruni-Sarkozy if you will, was once asked how she was inspired to write songs (her occupation, other than of course being first lady of France and wearing really chic clothes, is that of a singer-songwriter). She mentioned something along the lines of how being alone and having lots of what amounted to “me time” as a child helped her develop the intellectual space to write songs.

My writing (which is decidedly less marketable than that of Ms. Bruni, and I also unfortunately do not have the looks to help me either) is suffering from a lack of me time.  While some of the “togetherness” has been enjoyable- My uncle has been in town for five days- other parts not so much (my teeny tiny apartment was packed to the brim last weekend). I haven’t had more than two hours to myself in maybe three weeks, and while I am getting enough sleep, the constant solicitation is really getting to me.  When people ask why I did not have kids in my twenties, this is why- I need to be alone at least an hour a day with no other person, no other unnecessary noises, and no pending urgent responsibilities. Otherwise my brain is tired. I can’t write. I can’t think. I’m cranky. I’m distracted. I’m touchy. All these things.

I can so hear the haters now saying to call the waaahmbulance, but seriously. It is getting old.

And then when I do stuff like create a personal space- like last night at dinner, I had already eaten, so I went to the living room while the men ate in the kitchen.  What did I get- DH trying to carry on a conversation with me from the kitchen.  I give up.