meisa's lagoon

it's easy to forget that khalid is not american. he has no accent and while his complexion is darker than your average caucasian, it's not way darker. i'm reminded of his foreign-ness every once in awhile, like when he says "ear muffins" instead of "earmuffs", and last night it came up again.
he volunteered to go out to buy halloween candy for our trick-or-treaters and for my students. i requested something chocolatey and something not. he responds with "like m&m's and skittles?". "yeah," i said, "that sounds good. as long as you make sure it's something we like so if we have leftovers, we won't mind."
so he goes to the safeway, and comes home with the worst candies - almond joy and payday. he claimed they were on sale. of course they were! they suck! i'm almost embarassed to hand them out. granted, they aren't as bad as those peanut brittle things that kids practically throw away or better yet, raisins, but still. these are no twix bars.
and if that choice wasn't bad enough, he does buy skittles. but he buys the big bag of free floating skittles. i was like, "how do you expect me to give these away?" "can't you just pour them into the kids' hands?". no. that's not really how it works in america.
i guess if you've never trick-or-treated before, maybe you don't know. but i definitely won't be letting him do our future candy shopping.
by the way...happy halloween!!!!!!!!

Posted by Meisa at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

there's an eerie quiet in the house. everyone is officially gone. khalid's parents left yesterday, and his brother this morning. i actually had a better time than i anticipated having. i think today is going to be very strange with no one around.
it is amazing how clean our house was when khalid's mom was here. you barely finished a glass of water before it was taken away, washed, dried, and put in its proper place. the bathroom trash was constantly being emptied, even though it never filled up. the towels, although just used a few times, were always being laundered. she was like a domestic powerhouse. the first thing she would do in the morning was cook. dinner would be made before most of the house even woke up. she couldn't sit still. but as a result, our house was beautiful, and everyone was quite well fed. it's incredible how, within minutes of their departure, the coffee table filled up with crap and the sink was full of dishes. but her influence is still here. she's inspired me to try to stay cleaner. in fact, i've already done a load of laundy since she's left. now on to the coffee table...

Posted by Meisa at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

khalid's whole family has been in town visiting this past week. his parents and one brother are staying until next weekend, but everyone else has pretty much left. i didn't think we would be able to handle it, but we did it...9 people in one small house with one bathroom.
because of work, i haven't been able to be involved in very much sightseeing and stuff, but i did make it out to napa with them on saturday. it was my best napa experience yet. we found one winery with a nice deli and picnic tables where you could buy a bottle of wine and some sandwiches and enjoy the view. khalid's mom also took (okay, perhaps stole is more the word) a whole bunch of grape leaves from the vines to make stuffed grape leaves. the vineyards really only want the grapes anyway, right?
in other news, i've lost my voice. very frustrating, especially at work. someone suggested to me that i declare it "stephen hawkings day" and type out everything i wanted to say for the students to read. instead, i opted to struggle through speaking, but i'm definitely worse off now than i was this morning. luckily though, on the homefront, this was a good time to become a mute. most of what is being spoken around our house these days is arabic. so, not understanding the language, i don't really have much to add anyway. works out, but i'd still like to be able to talk again.

Posted by Meisa at 09:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

hello blog, this is meisa. i hope you remember me.

i have had so many entries taking shape in my head and for some reason, never found my way here. i especially wanted to give a cat update - so here goes...

my parents visited about 2 weeks ago. my dad was on his way home from ho chi minh city in vietnam and so he stopped in, and he got my mom a free ticket to come for the weekend as well. it was really nice to have them again. plus, they got to meet "our" cat. i finally caved and started to feed him, and by the time my parents were here, i had already bought cat food from the target. i know, i know - i'm weak. but i was still good, cause i hadn't yet given him a name (although i was testing out a lot of them). anyway, the cat and i were getting pretty friendly. and i was giving khalid increasingly more dirty looks for being allergic to cats.
so my parents come (also not cat people) and they start to really like the cat too. i go outside at one point and my mom is sitting there with the cat on her lap, reading. and this woman really does NOT like cats. my dad even gave her/him a name that stuck - "ho chi minh". bizarre, but it worked. so ho chi minh was becoming more and more a part of our family out here (hey, if we can't make friends, at least we can befriend a cat) until the middle of last week. as i open the door, ho chi minh runs past me and makes it into our house - again. but this time, i hear a little jingle jangle. ho chi minh is wearing a collar. and the collar say "pixie rue". pixie rue? ho chi minh is waaaaay better than pixie rue. evidently, "pixie rue" lives two doors down and was just using us.
so it turns out that cats are exactly what i thought they were to begin with, even this one - manipulative little punks trying to take over the world by using humans.

Posted by Meisa at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)