Weekend project

So my best friend Arpana's getting married and she coudln't find the 'Bombay Store' stuff in Canada and guess what, I've valiantly offered to MAKE her photo album for her.Yes folks, I'm gonna put on my artistic cap and bring out the tools of the trade(gotta dust off first after being kept dormant and rotting for months!) and make her one heck of a Wedding Album that she's gonna keep until she becomes an old biddy and shows it to her grandkids!And this will definitely have to look better than the one I made for Sheetal and Nehal.Hmmmmm....I can't wait to rush off and buy some paper and stationary!I love projects!!!Anything that is not related to work!Oh....will definitely put up a picture of the 'artwork' once it's done...ehm, ehm....And Arppy you cow, you owe me one!

Yummy!

My baby made a yummy banana and strawberry dessert today...and ate it all alone??!!Meanie!

I'm feeling mushy today.....

If You Forget Me


I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda

Zzzzzzzzzz.........

Sleep

Though wakefulness my domain
In sleep I remain,
For wakefulness is sleep
One shallow and one deep.

© Shahriar Shahriari
Vancouver, Canada
May 11, 1997

Weekend!

......Garfield!

So, I heard from an old pal of mine today.....she was a very good friend of mine from grade 9.We didn't have a lot of things in common except for the fact that she was the only other muslim girl that I was close to from school those days.And we shared the love for Garfield.....I know it's lame....head over heels in love with Garfield when most girls our age were already beginning to develop their first crush on guys.Man.....if Garfield was a real person, he would have been impressed with our dedication to him!We'd swap Garfield stickers, t-shirts, sit for hours and diligently draw and color huge Garfield posters, get Garfield memorablias,and even.... eeeeks.....i'm embarrassed to admit now, talk the 'garfield talk'!!Anyways....my fellow Garfield lover has moved on to better things and was writing to let me know that she was going for her confinement soon as she's expecting her second kid anytime now.
What about me??I still follow Garfield comics on the local daily without fail!

I am craving for.....

.....RIGHT NOW!!

bleaghhh...

10 things that annoy me now!

1)my digital camera that 'refuses' to click pictures at nights!What the hell's wrong with it??

2)my phone that always seems to slip through my hands and come apart...thank god have been able to reassemble it each time!(need to get a shock-proof one when this crashes into smithereens again!)....I'll never forget the time when it actually fell out of my coat and hit the person i was trying to resuscitate, on the head!

3)....all that mush around now...ugh!Ashlee Simpson's L-O-L-O-L-O-L-O-V-E is sooooo incredibly annoying that i am gonna puke if i hear it again!!

4)Dr Lau.A real pain in the ass if there ever was one.(Oh, I know this is a long shot but I hope you're reading this!)

5)'educated' Malays who speak such terrible English!Stick to Malay y'all...problem solved!Tak perlu berbahas dalam bahasa yang tidak difaham!!

6)Islamophobia!

7)A very very stubborn Dad.

8)the heat....what an energy sapper!

9)My stupid webcam!

10).....the fact that I can't be where I want to be right now~

Ivan and his Dad

I recently got to know Ivan while I was moonlighting.
He's a 7 year old kid with Cerebral Palsy and severe spastic quadriplegia.
Ivan's been through a lot.
His parents however, have stood by him through thick and thin.
They've pretty much foregone a lot of life's little pleasures just so they could be there for him....
So, when the assisting nurse asked me, (while Ivan and Dad were still in the examining room), "So Doc, what's the plan for Valentine's Day?"
"Bah!Valentine's Day indeed!", I scorned.
To which Ivan's Dad said, "come on Doc, you gotta have a Valentine.....mine's right here (affectionately ruffling Ivan's hair),.....and I thank God everyday for giving him to me."
I felt like an ass....
I'll never make fun of Valentine's Day again.
Ever.

BLUR-red

Did we have fun or what???

The many adventures of Raj and Faiza!

Evil has no easy explanation.....

Evil has no easy explanation.
Everyone is evil and is good.
Sometimes we watch ourselves do something evil
Frozen in a scream that's never heard.
We cannot stop ourselves, so we go on,
Knowing somewhere else the horror plays
And plays and plays until we are forgiven,
Healed by someone's gift of unearned love.

When someone has been tortured as a child,
Evil, like a mad dog, crouches near.
One buries it deep in a vaulted, lead-lined chamber,
But zombie-like it stalks the world within.

It's strange that darkened children need forgiveness
For evil that they suffer, innocent.
But guilt's the trademark of humiliation,
Burned into the flesh of memory.

Love washes over evil like an ocean,
Sweeping over seething, fisted anger,
Drowning it in cold, unquiet depths,
Leaving you weak and weeping on the strand.

You wouldn't be yourself without the pain
That twists inside like penitential dancers,
Making you the stage of some strange beauty,
Like no one else, the host of our redemption.


The above poem is dedicated to a 2 year old child I met yesterday.

Unbelievable!!!

.............got my car whacked again!

And now i proudly present to you....

......the work of artistic kids!Brilliant ain't it??

Another one bites the dust!

So, Shabir is finally getting married.We were the only 2 'rebels'out of our huge clan...he's the male version of me in short.And he's finally agreed to an arranged marriage.After all these years....it was great hearing from you again even if it was to tell me, albeit sarcastically, that good things only happen to 'good' people....what are you implying, you ass??Am so happy for you though and i hope you have a wonderful married life.I know you're an excellent hubby material so don't you worry!

Boredom!

How does Fawwaz know all these wierd websites???
http://www.mysticalball.com/

Airports

Have landed at plenty of airports in my lifetime but I have to say that the Bangkok Airport sucks!Even the one in Karachi was better in my opinion....it had McDs open at 4 am!Was layed over for a couple of hours before my connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur and boy did it suck or what!It cost a bomb to even get a bottle of mineral water there!They had some seedy looking 'beauty parlours' and foot massage centres.Even their dayroom looked like some cheap joint!There was just simply nothing to do and the first time ever, I, Faiza Wahab, an airport junkie, was bored with nothing to do but read my John Irving for 5 whole hours before my flight.Will never ever complain about the KLIA.....

Pakistan

Finally made that trip to Pakistan.....SOLO!
Have no regrets and am priviledged to have met so many wonderful people.
Had a brilliant time!
Wish I had a longer break....but oh well.....worth every minute!

Statistics

Apparently, if we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

There would be-

* 57 Asians and 21 Europeans
* 8 would be Africans
* 52 would be female, 48 male
* 30 would be white, 70 non white
* 80 would live in substandard housing
* 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth
* 70 would be unable to read, 50 would suffer from malnutrition
* 1 would be near death, 1 would be near birth
* 1 (yes, only one) would have a college education
* 1 (yes, again only one) would own a computer