shokufeh is…home

This morning, as I rolled myself out of bed, my first words were, “I should call Naysan. My baby brother is 19.” I get a little emotional, probably every year on this day. With 10.5 years between us, with every year that he adds to his life, it makes me feel like two years older. So I’m now nearing 50.

I have a hard time reconciling pictures of him in his Osh Kosh B’Gosh, sitting on my early-teen hip, with the man-like creature that now hulks over me. When I rewind over the past 19 years, I really do start to cry. It’s just so amazing that we come into this world as these tiny creatures, dependent on others for everything, and eventually (very quickly in Naysan’s case) become independent with very distinct personalities. And the physical changes are rather phenomenal.

It was about nineteen years ago right now, given the time difference between here and New Orleans, that my mom rushed home to take care of some last minute things, after having been told by the doctor that it was time – four weeks of extra pregnancy was verging on too much. Anis and I were picked up from elementary school so we could go home and hope that our younger sibling would hold off just long enough to be born on February 29, wishing for the kick we would get out of wishing a teenager a happy fourth birthday. But he beat the clock by six hours.

Naysan, thanks for sharing yourself with me. Even though you’re no longer a cute baby, you continue to amaze me.

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This Movable Type rocks! Lacey rocks! I am so excited that I can now pepper my entries with URLs and bolds and italics.

Thank you, Lacey. Thank you.

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Last night, our Ruhi Book 1 study circle went to dinner and a piano bar. Our group is rather eclectic. (I use this word because it’s one of the words I’ve contributed to our facilitator’s vocabulary. He originally hails from Austria.) We range in age from 11 to 70-something, with varying interests and experiences. The happenings of last night took place without the 11-year-old. I’d never been to a piano bar. Very mellow.

While there, I realized that my two favorite musicals, are about people escaping persecution – The Sound of Music and Fiddler on the Roof. The latter is the first movie I remember seeing, when I was like 4, at this movie theater that no longer exists, in Old Metairie. We grew up singing the songs of both. Of course, the political and historical components of the movie escaped me until I was older, but it didn’t hinder my enjoyment.

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Welcome to my new abode, compliments of the lovely Lacey. How cool is she? Created this as a big surprise, but I’m just now getting around to using it.

I’ve been rather silent of late (last entry on diaryland was more than a week ago). Just trying to catch up after my week-long trip to New Orleans.

Last Monday, we were off for President’s Day and got to experience the aloha spirit up close and personal. Sam and I helped one of his coworkers move. Her mattresses were strapped to the roofs of two mini-vans. We set out to the new apartment, cruising along when plfft, off flies the boxspring. Amazingly, it was in a gap of traffic that it made its way from the right lane, across the left lane, to the center median.

We were about to tackle attaching it to the roof again when this woman in a pick-up truck pulls over. She insisted upon carrying the mattress in her vehicle, completely going out of her way, 45 minutes in each direction. Just because she wanted to help! She would hardly accept a bottle of water.

Let’s see if I press the right buttons to post this.

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