Is it Wednesday? Can I be Random?

*gasp* Shocking:

In England they did a study on the “Doner kebab” (or in Americanese we would call it a Gyro) and found that as well as being incredibly unhealthy:

Six kebabs were found to include pork when it had not been declared as an ingredient, of which two were described as Halal. (source)

Ouch. I’ll be up-front, I don’t restrict myself to “zabiha halal” when I’m in the states because of this reason; its expensive, its hard to find, and you can never be entirely sure- unless you butcher it yourself- that it is actually zabiha. Case in point I know of a small pizza and chicken wings place off of Larpenteur and Rice St in St Paul (for my fellow paisanos its the shop next to Club Kristal) that had been originally owned by Muslims and the food was labelled as “halal” and “zabiha” so I knew of a number of Muslims who would eat pepperoni pizza there because it was halal. The shop changed hands to some Mexicans who I was friends with, of which one of them was Muslim and the rest were not, they co-oped, kicked the one Muslim out, and stopped buying the meat “zabiha.” Heck, they may have even started buying pork products by now as they are not constricted by their religion, and yet in the window and on the menus it still said “zabiha halal” and Muslims were still coming in to buy food (last time I was there.)

So, really, there’s no way of knowing unless you are butchering the animals yourself.

Moving on but still talking about animals…

There was a small ray of hope for me today in terms of Cairo not being all hate and corruption: puppies. Those of you who have been to or live in Cairo know that it is liberally populated by feral dogs and cats so seeing animals starving in the streets is a daily occurence. Two days ago I noticed a couple of new puppies living in an abandoned lot near my house. They are very young and extremely emaciated, you can count all of their ribs and vertibrae from 5 feet away. Every morning I see them and my heart breaks a little wishing I could adopt them and feed them but knowing that I cannot and that I don’t really have any food I could give them, I have to walk on by knowing that they probably won’t survive. This morning I was greeted by the sight of a pile of shredded bread left at the gate of the abandoned lot for them and them wolfing it down like the hungry little wolves they are. Humanity strikes again. There are some warm hearts left in this cold world.

Hnh Wha?

Found while doing research for a door knocking campaign in the gulf region:

Major Oil Companies Operating in the Gulf Region

Now, does anyone see what makes me go “huh?”

Wtf does a list of Oil Companies in the Gulf Region have to do with a Jewish Virtual Library and a US-Israeli co-operative?

Now, I’m not really a conspiracy theorist but this just raises all sorts of them red flags. And before anyone gets riled-up about Jewish this or that– I would get suspicious if it were a Buddhist Virtual Library and a US-China co-operative.

But we all know the Isreali activities in the Middle East just make it that much more suspicious.

Of all the funny things to stumble over.

Fishy fishy fishy.

No Time

I’m super crunched at work right now, also I’m distracted. This makes it not so much fun as I can never concentrate on the piles of work I have to do.

I’ve got some problems with concentration and I’m not sure what its from but whenever I try to focus on something I seem to get confused and I can’t make my mind work. It scares me because I consider myself a resonably intelligent individual so to have my brain just simply not comprehend makes me nervous. Why can’t I wrap my head around it? I’d like to blame it on not having been trained, by any slim definition of the word, to do the work I’m doing. I got thrown in the deep-end and I’m just having to dog paddle and learn as I go, but I find that I sometimes can’t understand even simple things until I’ve read them three times.

My thoughts are jumbled and when it comes to voicing them I get confused, I often cannot put them into the proper order. I’m talking about in-depth discussions not your random “what did you do today” questions before anyone gets really worried. I don’t understand why it has become so hard for me to concentrate.

I do think a part of it may come from my fibromyalgia which I was diagnosed with at age 13. When I become stressed, as I have been since I moved here, I become more confused and its harder for me to concentrate. I have not suffered, and do not now, from fibro as much as many have suffered; in fact once I finished puberty and went on hormone-balancing birth control I went down to very little outward symptoms beyond chronic fatigue and sleeping problems. But since moving to Cairo my fibro has flared up to almost as bad as the first flare-ups, with which I was taken to the hospital and to doctor after doctor after doctor until finally being diagnosed. I’m in almost constant pain now and I always feel exhausted. In fact even when my husband brushes his hands along my ankles or across my shoulders patches of skin will flare up with pain even from those feather-weight touches.

This deterioration could be caused by multiple things: the pollution, the food, and the bc I switched to when I moved here and could no longer receive my American Rx.

Its a strain on me and I don’t know what to do. I just really want to go home back to the things I know and trust.

I just want to be able to concentrate.

I promise I will write a big long post about my vacation, I’ve been avoiding it both due to work and also because if I talk about it like it was past then I’d have to full admit its over. Or something equally subconscious and neurotic.

Can I give up yet? Oh, another side-effect of being unable to concentrate: desperation and the desire to just give up.

What do I do?

Also for some odd reason I’ve been locked out of all the private blogs I was previously invited to. If you have a private blog and you invited me (or you would like to invite me) please, please, please send me an invitation to mollyannelian[at]gmail.com

That means you umm Travis and Safa and… well a lot of people but I can’t remember them right now. Aalya.

Side-effect #147 of concentration issues: memory issues.

le sigh.

Inaugural Blogpost

Now watch me misspell inaugural. Oh ok, its good.

Sure I’m a day late on this, but consider that he wasn’t inaugurated until 7pm here in Cairo so add in traditional Egyptian lateness and I’m right on time.

I won’t wax poetic or go into great sobbing detail of the momentousness of the occasion but I have three things to say:

1.) I feel so proud to know that we have finally elected someone of color to the presidency. Its not about him being black, its about breaking the back of the WASP tradition. It means that from now on even Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, or any other ethnicity and mixture of  can be eligible to be president and every single parent in the United States can look at their child, no matter their skin color, and truly say, “You can be whatever you want to be when you grow up, even President.” Here’s to hoping that the next President is a woman so that we can break the back of that tradition as well.

2.) I love how Michelle Obama is a healthy woman. Ya’ll know what I’m talking about, she’s not the stick thin beanpole that most First Ladies have needed to be. I love it.

3.) I can only hope that the Bush Administration will be held accountable for their actions these past eight years. This should be high up (maybe like 4th or 5th) on the list of things to do for the Obama Administration in the first year.

No matter if you agree or disagree with his political leanings, I hope you understand the importance of what has happened in the United States because its one of the biggest steps our country has ever taken.

Seriously?

Its been over two weeks since I last blogged. Wowza.

I’m sure you all understand why I was away.

It was probably the best vacation I’ve ever had and watching my mom disappear into security was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I got a free bag of tortilla chips from On the Border because I think the waitress saw me crying on and off through dinner.

Our flat is so quiet and empty I almost hate to be there.

I can’t wait to go back to the states.

I’ve got a million stories as always. Someday I’ll get them all typed, but right now I’m still in the funk of the vacation being over.

I made it through 7 months of living in Cairo being able to look forward to my mom coming to visit me and now I’m not sure what I can look forward to in order to make it through each day.

I just keep thinking of home.

I can, also, honestly say that living here is so much harder because I live in Cairo. One doesn’t realize the true cost of constant chaos until you leave and then have to return to it. I was  so much more content in the places outside of Cairo that I could, for a moment, enjoy this country and the good things in it. But that all leaves when you come back here to the noise, pollution, and rabid masses of discontented people.

Anyways, I’ll be throwing myself a pity-party for the next couple of weeks I’m sure.

To mom and Maria, I miss you guys oodles and oodles. My teapot is despondent without you Maria.

I miss you guys so much.