No, I don’t want your dog sniffing inside my grocery bag

Episodes like today make me understand that some people actually do vote UDC here.

NH was minding his bizness in H&M today waiting in line when the dog of the couple waiting behind him started nosing around in the grocery bag.

He said nicely (and keep in mind NH looks like a yuppie to boot), “Could you please watch your dog, he’s in my grocery bag.”

What did the dude say? This is the exact effing quote: “What is your problem man, do you want a coup de boule?” As in, because my husband asked him nicely to make sure his dog stayed out of our fruits and veg, the dude automatically asked him if he wanted to fight and made a reference to Zidane. “Coup de boule” is almost exclusively used these days in reference to the unfortunate Zidane incident, thus there was a direct connotation to “angry Arab (sic) male.” So the dude automatically got defensive and raised his voice.

NH goes on nicely, “No, for hygiene reasons I just don’t want your dog on my vegetables and would like some respect for my personal space.”

Then the girlfriend starts in, “What is your problem, it not like it’s a Rottweiler, and….(hold on folks, this is a good one)… we’re not in Kabul here.” Can you believe it?

So then NH raises his voice and says, “One, there is a law in Geneva about how dogs have to be muzzled, and two Kabul has nothing to do with anything. All I want is for your dog to stay out of my grocery bag.”

Dude says some other wanna-fight type stuff, asks if the police need to be called, and NH says, “Ok, let’s call the police then”…the dude, obviously coming to the slow realization of who he was messing with, walks out of the store.

The chick keeps on with some blah blah but NH checks out and moves on. Only regret is that something should have been said to her about her irrelevant racist commentary, but still. No one in the store said anything at the time, but once the dude walked out a couple people came up to NH and told him he was right for standing up for himself and right for feeling that way about the dog.

The whole exchange was a discussion that should have never happened. What was the point of even mentioning headbutts and Kabul? Where in the heck did that come from?

Finally, since unfortunately some people have the incurable illness of racism that time has not healed, the real question for today is this: is it too much to freakin ask for people to watch their dogs? On the tram in Zurich once I had this lady’s Labrador jump on me. I was like, “Can you watch your dog?!” (yes, there I was mean about it) and she was like, “Oh he isn’t mean.” That’s the normal line here. Especially in Geneva with people’s little poodles and such. Their dogs are all over you in the tram and they are like, “Oh but he doesn’t bite”…I don’t care if your dog bites or not, I don’t want your dog on me. I think it is normal to expect respect of my personal space.

Would you let your kid dig in my groceries? Would you let your kid give me a big old hug? I don’t think so. So why does everyone in this country think their dogs can do whatever the heck they want? What the heck is the problem with my husband asking someone NICELY to hold on to their dog? How can someone of the Muslim persuasion ask people to hold on to their freakin dogs without it turning into a discussion about Gaza? What if NH was “white”? Would this conversation have happened?

There are laws in Geneva about dogs in public establishments. Most grocery stores don’t allow dogs in principle, so it can be reasonably assumed that there is a food and hygiene issue there. There are laws in Geneva about dogs being muzzled. All Nice Husband was asking for was this couple to respect not only his rights as a private citizen to a personal space but also the laws of the city in which the episode happened. Instead, they had to talk about headbutts and Kabul and somehow make it his problem. In-efffing-credible. I’m gobsmacked.

Anyway I am proud of NH for opening his mouth.

What would the blogosphere do?

I’m a pretty open-minded person. You know how in France they show Fox News on cable with subtitles so people can laugh at it (no joke, they do it for Comedy Hour). I’ll be a good sport and watch that. But sometimes stupidity bothers me and it makes me all depressed and stuff.
My second true love is podcasts. Listening to them not making them. Love all those university lectures for free and news shows and all that goodness.

So I have this podcast from someone REALLY STUPID. I mean, so stupid I don’t think I would laugh. I would type her name (but don’t want the hits) but let’s just say her initials are I.M. and she makes our Ms. A.H. A. look like a savant rocket scientist.

I don’t fall for the argument that you shouldn’t listen to dissenting voices because then it affects your Islam, listening to kufr leads to kufr and all that- I think that type of mentality does a disrespect to the minds and convictions of Muslims. So my main concern is will listening to it make me laugh or bum me out? I need comedy, like Fox News-style comedy.

Decisions, decisions (You can tell I am cleaning up my ITunes in preparation for housecleaning). And no just because I have an IPOD it does not make me some latte-sipping eeevil Soofee Progressive.

I don’t know what I am on about this morning. Carry on.

I don’t know how to feel about this

Do you know what the number one search term is that leads people to this blog?
I’ll give you a hint, it starts with, “Crusin down the street real slow”

I’m not sure how that makes me feel.

You know what is totally freaky though? I met someone in Geneva who was BORN there. He then promptly moved away like most normal people and grew up elsewhere. As such he had not heard of the classic anthem of his hometown.

I’m not even from there. But I am going to blame it on her. She was the one who made the comment in the first place. Take that for linkage! Mwa ha ha ha ha.

And, speaking of Louisianians and Algerians and stuff, I need to revisit the topic of hot Algerian soccer-playing menz. The problem started with the Original Hott Soccer Playing Algerian Man himself, Mr. Zinedine Yazid Zidane, whose legacy lives on with a new group of younger hotties like Samir Nasri, Karim Ziani, Chadli Amri (if you have not seen him yet you are missing out, say macha Allah) and Karim Benzema (who, while looking good, talks like someone from the banlieue which totally puts me off, he needs to work on that). So while not everyone knows about the Algerian national love for bleach, olive oil in all its regional variations and m’hadjeb, most global citizens are aware that Algeria has one major export besides oil: hot soccer-playing menz. Herein lies the problem. As such, the average Algerian male, double if he is Kabyle, is convinved that it is his genetic birthright either to be totally hot and or one of the best soccer players in the world. This is hard to get past if you are a girl, because many of them will try to regale you with stories of soccer matches and their lost youth and the big match, injury or bad coach that stopped them from going as far as Zidane. I guarantee you that if you select 10 random Algerian guys and ask them a) “are you hot”; and b) “are you the bestest soccer player you know personally”, 8 out of 10 will reply affirmative to at least one of the questions and at least six will say yes to both. Trust.

Say stereotyping is bad. But do my random sample first and then call me names and hate on me. I’ve been there.

And if you live in Germany check out those FSV Mainz 05 games on tv. Yes please.

Stop the massacre

I told Nice Husband to turn the tv off for the France Italy match. We’re only thirty minutes in and it is UGLY. Ribery is hurt, Viera is sick, Italy just scored. Not even my two pieces of pure Kabyle hotness can save this match.

He won’t turn the tv off. And he keeps talking to the tv in Kabyle.

The French might just get the treha tonight

If your name is Umm Abdurrahma(a)n and you are homesick…

Then this link should give you two a good laugh.
Welcome to our world.

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.