Having a Good Day

Hubby and I are often asked by friends and family back home how our life in Egypt differs from the life we might have been leading had we remained in the States. These questions are usually prompted by kind folks who want us to move back home, settle down, have children, and hold down jobs like normal people do.

These kind folks have obviously forgotten that we are not normal.

Usually, my first step is to remind people what Hubby does for a living requires a great deal of travel and that I like seeing him more than one or two days a month. But today I’m feeling rather ornery so I’m going to explain some of the differences between our lives in Egypt and the lives of our friends and family back in the Real World.

Waking Up
You are awoken by your alarm clock.
I am awoken by a grumpy muezzin who no more wants to be awake at 4:30 a.m. than I do. On good days he doesn’t have the loud speakers turned up full volume.

Grocery Shopping
You go to one store and buy everything on your list. If you feel truly adventurous, you can also seek out a butcher or specialty shop but you don’t have to.
I go to nine different stores, none of which has the ingredients I need to make the dinner I planned for this evening. Just because they had my ingredient every day for the last five months means nothing. If I had truly needed this item, I should have bought nine of them the first time I saw them and known this day would come. It is, as always, my fault.

Repair Men
You call the repair guy who listens carefully to your explanation of the problem at hand. When he arrives, he removes his shoes and kindly asks you to direct him to the broken machine that requires his services. He fixes it and leaves.
I call the Housing Department and explain the problem. My explanation is ignored and five wrong guys show up and are angry that I didn’t correctly explain the issue to Housing. Two hours later they send the right guy who doesn’t want to talk to me because I am merely a woman. After discussing the issue with my husband who asks if it can be repaired the reply is, “Insha'allah.” Repair guy then fiddles with some wires, shorts out all the power to my flat, and leaves blaming me because I am merely a woman. (Repeat this scenario three times to ensure power returns but item is never repaired.)

Going Out
You get in your car and go where needed to complete your daily chores. Or, you hop aboard public transportation and the same occurs.
I flag down a black and white taxi. The fourth one finally agrees to take me where I want to go. He takes the long way there, almost kills both of us numerous times, and then demands an unreasonable amount of money when we arrive because I am a woman and foreign. I tell him where to go, throw the money through the window and walk off the opposite direction. Many hours later, hot, sticky, and not looking anywhere near as cute as I did when I left the house, I repeat these actions to return home.

Walking
You walk down your sidewalk, admire the scenery, and nod to the occasional person you see.
I walk down the road because the sidewalk is blocked by cars. I dodge moving cars whilst ignoring comments from men who disapprove of the full-length skirt and loose fitting, long sleeved shirt I am wearing.

Oh you thought this was going to be one of those posts filled with the positive things about living in Egypt? As soon as I remember any, I promise to blog about them. Until then, I’m going to stand in front of my air conditioner, ignore the thermometer that reads 110F, pray the power doesn’t go off again, and hope tomorrow will bring better veggies to the market and saner drivers to the road.

I Am Not PMSing

The following is a brief list of things men don’t have to go through. Things men don’t get. And most of all, things men need to learn a little bit more about before they complain about anything to any woman ever again.
There’s the bloating, the cramps, that time of the month, and all the euphemisms that go with it.

During the summer, there’s the bikinis and the bikini waxes.

At least those are only in summer. Because all year round we have to deal with lip waxes, high heels, and eyelash curlers, all of which go with the dress you can’t sit down in anyways.

Don’t get me started on childbirth.

In the workplace, we have charges of being b!tches when we fight the glass ceiling. While on date night we’re called sluts for smiling at cute boys, or frigid for not giving them our numbers.

And at home, we’re accused of PMS just because we want to eat everything in sight, write bitter blog posts, or snap at our loved ones who dared to suggest that books don’t always have to be in alphabetic order. Just because I’m cranky doesn’t mean it’s PMS! Maybe you did something wrong!

Oh and I’m never, ever cranky!

But when all is said and done, I have to admit that I wouldn’t trade it for all the Y-chromosomes in the world. You see, I enjoy being a girl!

Log Cabin Update

Those of you who knit may find today’s post interesting. You’ll mock my skills and feel far better about your own but hopefully you’ll enjoy the post nonetheless. Those of you who don’t knit will hopefully forgive me for my bragging posting about the project I currently have on my needles.

Since this afghan is going to take several years months to finish, I wanted to document my progress. Hopefully this will inspire me to keep going when it doesn’t seem to be growing no matter how many stitches I pick up for each new log.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I am working on a Log Cabin Blanket. I decided to try this pattern after seeing several amazing finished blankets online. I like recipes with photos so I know what my dinner is supposed to look like, and the same goes for my knitting patterns.

The first (vaguely geeky) thing I did was to play with colours in Excel. I copied the pattern into Excel and popped different colours into the rectangles until my mother, father, and I were finally able to agree on a colour scheme.

Next, I did something I never do – I knitted a swatch. Swatches or gauge squares are much talked about and beloved in the knitting community. I for one have never believed in wasting good yarn and, better, time on knitting a tiny square whose job it is to tell that I knit too tightly. But I’m weird like that. My goal for this swatch was to learn how to pick up stitches – a fairly common knitting skill I had managed to avoid thus far.

With a firm plan in mind, my mother drove me to Mary’s Yarns – our fabulous LYS – where we bought three skeins of Cascade 220 in each of the needed five colours. (Remind me to tell you about the rather interesting economic reasons behind yarn being sold in skeins rather than the easier-to-use balls.)

Each block or “log” is twenty rows or ten bumps high. I finished the first complete round (one block of each colour) before I left Toronto at the end of April. Now a month later, I just finished my fourth complete round and am still miraculously on the first ball of each colour. The afghan measures 57cm by 63cm. This thing is going to be huge by the time I’m done!

I’d blog about my blanket some more but I obviously have some knitting to get to.

An OMG Moment

Yesterday I blogged about my recent trip to the opera. What would have been an otherwise overall fantastic experience and rare cultural treat was marred by one tiny, little detail: blackface. Let me leave you to think about that word for a moment before I continue. Blackface.

As the curtain rose on the second act of Aida, we were greeted with gorgeous scenery, beautifully costumed handmaidens, and two groups of children representing Ethiopian slaves, dressed in brown bodysuits and wearing brown makeup on their faces. It was horrific. Sitting on my right, Adelpha turned to me and whispered, “Is that what I think it is?” I was too shocked to respond.

Midway through the scene, the children stood up and performed a primitive dance at center stage. When their part of the performance was over, the applause was uneven as people throughout the theatre worked through their shock. (To be fair the dance could have been blamed on their age and ability, or the overall poor choreography rather than attempt to make the dance look "primitive.")

A few minutes later, Little One leaned forward from her seat behind us to whisper what we were both thinking, “I’ve heard of blackface but I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it before.”

Sadly, that was not the last we would see either of these children or of the outdated use of blackface and it overshadowed what was an otherwise fun evening. No one in our group was able to understand how anyone allowed this to make it to the stage. “Surely a discussion period or editing process should have taken place at some point?” posited a still shocked Adelpha.

The next morning, I tried to look up reviews of the current run but failed to come up with any that raised the issue I wanted to discuss. Then I broadened my search and was amazed to learn that having people appear in blackface and “afro wigs” to portray Ethiopians during performances of Aida was common. Not just in 1871 but in modern productions in the US. To quote one American reviewer, “Could you not, in Los Angeles, find 8 black dancers?”

Descriptions of this particular “artistic choice” abounded. I was flat our astounded. It’s 2009 yet opera and dance companies think this is appropriate?

I was so flummoxed by this discovery that I immediately called Black Beard and Adelpha. BB claimed this was an artistic choice and was in keeping with the way the opera would have been presented back in the 1800’s. I challenged him to visit a doctor in the 1800’s to determine if medicine too should be “historically accurate.”

This sparked a debate that ran for several hours about the cleansing of history versus artistic freedoms. I understand that modern productions want to be as close to the original as possible but I sincerely believe this is going too far. This may have been a valid artistic choice in 1871 or even in 1909 but bonehead moves like this today are flat out racist and offensive. Hire black actors or dancers, or if you must use white actors costume them in a manner that does not make me want to run up on stage and give a lecture about civil rights in the 21st century.

A Night at the Opera

Two weeks ago, I joined several friends, including Little One and Adelpha, for an evening of culture, music, and dance. The Cairo Opera Company was staging the famous opera Aida and, we were told, there were still tickets available. Although Hubby was unable to go (he was busy with elective open heart surgery, exams, and washing his hair) I was thrilled to be included.

The chance to see an opera about Egypt, that was first performed in Egypt, while I was living in Egypt was too much to pass up. So that Tuesday night we all got dolled up and set out for the theatre. I was surprised to hear there were so many seats available for what I felt was an rare cultural opportunity.

Cribbing from the notes in the program a little, Aida is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi (Rigoletto, La Traviata,) with an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. This opera was first performed here in Cairo at the Khedivial Opera House on December 24, 1871. That opera house was later turned into a parking lot but the new one is lovely and more than up to the task of staging this revival.

Verdi’s opera tells the tragic story of Aida, an Ethiopian princess, who is captured and made a slave in Egypt. She falls in love with Radames, a military commander, who struggles to choose between his love for Aida and his loyalty to the Pharaoh. Since love is never any fun unless three people are involved, the Pharaoh’s daughter Amneris is also in love with Radames who doesn’t exactly return her feelings.

Before I go into the negatives of the night, let me first mention the things I loved. Despite amusing details like the Colossus of Memnon being on the banks of the Nile, the sets were flat out amazing. The costumes were equally sumptuous if slightly ill tailored for some of the performers.

The symphony was fantastic and truly shone during Aida’s famous Triumphal March. I don’t think I was the only one humming along to this majestic piece of orchestration.

The soprano who sang the part of Aida, Julie Karagouni, was fantastic. I have read reviews that indicated that her Typ0-esque size deterred from people’s ability to see her as the heroine, and I have to disagree with those narrow minded people. The singer’s voice was exquisite and she was one of the few people up there trying to act.

Which brings us to some of the not-so-good parts of this almost amateurish production. There was the crew who could be seen running around backstage; the rather unimpressive tenor, Walid Korayem, who played the hero, Radames; and the initially disappointing performance of Amneris. The latter was swapped out in the final act due to health concerns and replaced by a fantastic singer named Dragana del Monaco.

As Little One noted, Egypt isn’t exactly famous for its male ballet dancers, which must be why the choreographer seemed to give the men very basic steps or strength work to perform. I love ballet and was greatly disappointed by the choreography in general.

Despite the uneven performances, I had a fabulous time out with my friends. Attending the opera is something everyone should do at least once. You may not like it in the end, but at least you can say you tried. That said, I guarantee that if you try it at least once, the thrill that goes through you when a great soprano holds an impossible note for an impossibly long time will stay with you forever.

All of which brings us to the biggest “Oh my God is that what I think it is” moment of the evening. Since I think it deserves more than just a paragraph, you’ll have to check back tomorrow to read about the moment that left everyone scratching their heads.

(I should note that none of today’s photos were taken by me since cameras are verboten in the theatre. That, naturally, must be why we heard cameras going off almost constantly during the performance. But given my history with forbidden photography, I decided not to risk taking my own camera out. Sorry!)

Cyber Love

Despite the fact I should know better, I have always assumed that Hubby and I were somewhat unique. Yes, I know our mutual freakishness makes us unique but I’m talking about the way we met. When I blogged about this topic in May, I was shocked by how many people responded by saying they too had met their significant others online.

Hubby and I were early players in the game of Internet relationships yet we’re certainly not the only ones. Even in Hubby’s own family, we weren’t the only ones. Not only did BIL meet his lovely wife, Fiona online through an RPG, but my MIL met her new husband through eHarmony.

Even with the proof in my own family, I remain amazed at how many people have met their soulmates online. Whether by chance like Hubby and me or guided by a higher power like eHarmony, millions of people right now are using the Internet to find love. Based solely on the number of commercials I saw for Internet matchmakers when I was in Toronto, I can only conclude that the “stigma” once associated with online love is a thing of the past.

And yet when people ask “How did you two lovebirds meet?” the Internet still receives more shocked and dubious looks than either “at a drunken wet t-shirt contest during spring break” or “he was in the cell next to me during that time I was arrested for indecent exposure during Mardi Gras.”

When people hear “Internet romance,” I can usually read the myriad of thoughts that flash through their heads: pedophiles, nerds, geeks, freaks, netsex, and perverts. My response to which are: eww, thank you, hell yeah, what’s your point, NOT, and no comment.

The unkind, if silent, accusations are probably why I always follow up, “We met on the Internet” with a rather defensive, “Oh but it wasn’t one of those chat rooms.” Do other cyber lovers go through this? Am I simply imagining the judgment because I’m such a neurotic freak?

I knew I should have married the guy I met in prison! At least then I wouldn’t be judged.

Au Revoir

Those of you who read expat blogs are probably sick of the chorus of goodbye blogs. Reading about people who live in cool locales bitch about leaving friends behind probably seems a little ungrateful. I get that.

But it doesn’t make the suckiest part of the gig any less sucky. I hate saying goodbye to people I’ve grown to love and call friends. Folks with whom I’ve shared a bottle of Pledge Egyptian wine, or melted with during a walk along the corniche.

The cruel Catch-22 of expat life is that you have to make friends to feel at home and fit in. You welcome strangers into your home and by the end of the night you realize how much you have in common with your fellow travelers. You attend faculty “dos” and leave with phone numbers and promises of future shopping trips with fabulous people who know the ins and outs of Cairo better than the locals. Occasionally you are even lucky enough to have neighbours that turn into best friends and the sister you never had.

And then one of you leaves.

It’s amazing how easily I forget this part of the job. ‘Cause it really, really bites. Over the next month I will be saying goodbye to several friends, all of whom have proved to be fabulously cool.

They’re all incredibly excited about going home and have started counting down the days and hours until their flights take off. They’ve started selling off those items they don’t need to take back to the Real World and pack up those items that do. I understand: I’ve done it numerous times myself. But it doesn’t make it any less suck-tastic.

Going away parties have become the new happy hour in Cairo as more and more people say their final goodbyes. Well, I refuse to say goodbye! I’m drawing my line in the sand and saying that goodbyes are a thing of the past. Instead, I will opt for “see you soon,” “until our next Scrabble game,” or a simple and plaintive “don’t go!!!”

Saying goodbye sucks like no other part of this expatriate life. The monthly bouts of ghiardia, the ridiculous oven-like heat, and complete and utter lack of even semi-decent pizza are all things you can get used to. Watching friends head off to the airport for the last time isn’t.

See you soon guys!

It’s a Celebration

Like most children, I have a difficult time accepting that my parents existed or had lives before I was born. Sure there are those nebulous years between when my older brothers were born and my birth but I’m not sure those really count. After all, since the world revolves around me what was the world doing before I was me?

As I got older, I realized the world didn’t revolve around me. Worse yet, there still remains a small chance that I am not the centre of the universe.

This time every year I am forced to recall that the world is not a giant holodeck that exists only when I am in the room. In fact, the world and the people in it exist entirely separate of me – or so I’m told. You see, on this date back in 19*cough*cough* a great and wondrous event occurred in a small town in Wales that would later impact my life. My mother was born.

In so far as mothers go, mine isn’t half bad. She’s a lovely lady who puts up with nonsense like children who show up on her doorstep with 24 hours notice. She’s also an amazing cook who should someday write a cookbook to share her fabulous recipes with the world… or at least her children.

Mum is good looking and thin (see photo below taken less than a year after the birth of her first child) and gave none of the lovely thin genes to her only daughter. Not that I'm bitter.

This lovely lady is also a sharp dresser who taught me that if you buy a purse at half price and pay $100, you should only mention the half price part to your spouse when you later discuss your purchases. She also raised me to believe there is no such thing as a stupid question; however, if you ask the same “smart” question enough times, you deserve whatever you get.

My mother is one of those people who knows someone everywhere she goes: shopping at the local supermarket, parking her car at a random lot downtown, and even a museum halfway around the world – this lady knows everyone! My mother is well respected by people who don’t live with her. (And by those that do, she is both respected, loved, and feared.)

Today, on the anniversary of my mother’s birth, I would like to raise a glass of her favourite Champagne and toast this amazing lady. Sure, I wouldn’t exist without her, but more importantly, I wouldn’t be who I am today without her.

Happy birthday, Mum!

The Stupidest Person in the Room

The world I live in is a little different from the norm. No, I’m not talking about the traveling or surviving in different cultures every few years. You see, I live in a world where 90% of the people I know have PhD’s.

Pretty much since the moment Hubby returned to grad school to finish his doctorate, I have been surrounded by people with more letters after their name than I have in my name. Like Hubby, these are über smart people who have decided, for one reason or another, to enhance their smarty status by attending school for an extra six years.

I cannot tell you how many events I have attended with Hubby where I was literally the stupidest person in the room. A fact that was only reinforced by the pitying looks I would receive from some people when I told them what I did for a living and it didn’t involve being a professor or Nobel Laureate.

(Before I get too far into this sulky pityfest allow me to clarify one thing: 95% of those 90% of people are amazing folks I have adopted into my own personal world. They are, for the most part, simply awesome people who happen to be brilliant. I'm just annoyed by the other 5%.)

Where was I? Oh yeah: I’m still the stupidest person in the room. Among the Master’s candidates, ABD would be PhD’s (all but dissertation), actual professors, researchers, and genius’s there I stand: the blogger without any letters after her name. Most of the time this doesn’t bother me that much but it all came to a bit of a head last week.

I was being introduced to someone who works at the Institution and the person making the intros literally paused for ten “um” filled seconds before making something up to justify why I was with them. “She works as a consultant with her husband.”

I know I’m not an awesome, internationally recognized smart guy like Hubby. Nor am I busy publishing papers on world issues like my wonderful friend Adelpha. I’m not a stay at home mother. I’m not even writing the great Canadian novel.

I’m just Typ0 and most of the time I’m totally okay with that. But sometimes it takes ten seconds for someone to justify my existence. I’m sorry I’m fat and unattractive and don’t fit in with your group. I haven’t found my niche in life – but I’m looking.

Sorry to dump on all of you. Tomorrow we will return to our regularly scheduled unwhiny posts.

Filth-tastic

Nothing reminds you that you live in the middle of a desert like dirt. And in this town it’s everywhere and appears literally out of nowhere to attack previously clean surfaces.

People may mock and get rather up in arms about the fact that I have a maid but around here it’s a necessity. In addition to the age-old excuse of “But I’m giving work to a local at good wages who might otherwise be unemployed!”, there is also the incredibly accurate excuse of, “I couldn’t keep this place clean by myself if I tried.” Heck, even my housekeeper brings help in the form of her daughter.

Sadly, only hours after Queen and Princess finish, the dirt and dust make return visits. When it comes to life in Egypt the “five second” rule is the “five millisecond” rule.

What prompted this post, however, is my beloved and formerly white Mac laptop, Mickie. Most people are physically repulsed when they see my Mac and ask why I haven’t tried to clean it. The screen is gross and the keyboard is even grosser. Several keys have turned a sadly permanent shade of brown.

The problem with my (formerly) white computer isn’t a lack of effort on my part to keep it clean - although I’m sure that’s a contributing factor. The problem is the desert oasis I call home.

The other day in the library I was saved from my dirty shame when I saw the Mac of the girl sitting next to me. Not only was it gross and grungy, it may actually have been filthier than my own.

Happiness is someone else’s grimy Macbook.

Things Overheard In a Library

At least once a week, I like to make the insanely long trip into the desert to the Institution where Hubby works. Once there, I spend my mornings in the library writing, I enjoy a bagel for lunch with Hubby, and then head off to the fancy, newly completed gym before its time to head home.

My biggest pet peeve about the Book Palace is its insane level of noise. In all the years I worked at Central, the level of unlibrary-like noise never bothered me. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m getting old but I spend more time shushing people in this talking-friendly building than I do working.

Which is why its more than a little odd that given my druthers I tend to set-up camp in one of the noisiest areas of the Palace on the main floor. What can I say -- I’m a glutton for punishment.

The following are things I actually heard people say between shushings last week.

In favor of plagiarism: “If we reorder the sections we can totally hand in the same paper. He’ll never figure it out!”

In favor of laziness: “Wikipedia is the best resource for the truth out there. As long as I footnote it, I can just copy and paste the whole assignment!”

In favor of break-ups: “It doesn’t count as cheating if he lives in Zamalek and I’m in Maadi.”

In favor of atlases: “I wish we could have made a trip to Africa before we had to leave.”

In favor of return tickets: “Why don’t more people speak English here? All this f*&@ing Arabic is so annoying!”

In favor of being punched: “That fat chick needs to move so we can sit next to each other.”

In favor of studying: “Do you think I can get my ‘D’ bumped up to an ‘A’ if I offer to sleep with him?”

In favor of better nutrition: “If I pay for McDonald’s today can I copy off you during the test?”

Winner of the Sad But True award: “I’m trying to find a word for my paper. What do you call that place where they keep all the books?”

Coveting Literacy

There are a lot of posts out there right now about how the current economy is making people less covetous and materialistic. Living overseas away from many of the “things” that make consumerism so rampant, I have found myself purchasing less “stuff” and focusing on what’s important in life – like my family and health.

Maintaining my mental health has always been important to me. Yet I frequently let it fall to the wayside in favour of all those pesky things that arise every day under the auspices of “life.” To battle this descent into reality, I attempt to keep certain rituals in my life sacrosanct. In addition to blogging, the one thing I know is key to my sanity is reading. I have spent a fortune on books in my lifetime and will read virtually anything I can get my hands on.

One of the worst parts of living overseas is my inability to purchase books as soon as they’re released. I usually have to wait until either I go home in the summer, Hubby goes to the UK, or we have generous mules friends come to visit.

All of which brings us to my new obsession – the Kindle. I want one of these so badly, it shames me on many levels. Not the least of which is that I have been so anti-Kindle for so long. I love books. I love how they feel and smell. I love curling up with a good book in bed and have been rather militant in my condescending manner toward e-books. “You can’t curl up with a computer!”

But I want to! I really, really do!

I want to be able to download the latest book the day it comes out rather than waiting six months until I go home. I want to pack a slim, lightweight device rather than four heavy books every time I go away on vacation.

Sadly, Amazon does not want me to have my heart’s desire. In addition to the ridiculous price tag for the device ($359 ) and the books ($9.99 and upwards for new releases), is the simple fact that they refuse to ship the Kindle outside of the United States. Because they hate me.

In the States, people purchase an e-book and it downloads wirelessly directly to their device. People who have Kindles overseas, download the book to their computers, and then upload them to their devices. For this and (I assume) other reasons, Amazon won’t ship overseas.

So now, I have to wait until a willing mule friend visits Cairo and can bring me this necessity for living. I know I shouldn’t want “things” and the Kindle is hardly a life or death purchase but I can’t help it! I want to read on my next vacation without having to pay excess baggage fees. *sigh*

Any other Kindle users out there? Any Kindle haters?

The Shameful Lie

Finally, my friends, we arrived at the lie I told. You see, I never worked for all three major newspapers: the Star, the Sun, and the Globe and Mail. This isn’t a big whopper but the stories are fun so I decided to include in our game anyways.

First, I will tell you about how I sort of worked for the Toronto Sun. Or rather, how my brother worked for the Sun and I had to wake up early on Sundays to not get paid to help him. You see, my elder brother, BBA, got a job delivering the Sunday Sun to subscribers in two of the apartment buildings near my house.

The job required him to wake up at around 5:30 a.m., walk to the first building and put the papers together. After that, he had to walk through the floors of both buildings and fit the paper through the mail slots of the appropriate doors. He and I would split up the floors in order to get the job done more quickly. When we were done, we would drag ourselves home to wash the newsprint from our hands.

I’m still not sure how much he got paid for this task but I’m pretty sure that I was paid bupkis for helping. There were even occasional weeks when my mother and I would take over, although for the life of me I can’t think what BBA could have been doing at the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning that was more important than making a pittance delivering the Sunshine Girl to her devoted fans.

Many years after that brief foray into the publishing world, I returned home from university for the summer in desperate need of money. The job I had worked at my entire high school career wasn’t available and I was faced with perusing the want ads in the paper. That is how I was hired by the Globe and Mail to do their dirty work.

You see, I was a telemarketer. My even more shameful secret is that I was a damn good telemarketer. I rarely used the scripts we were given and yet always managed to close the sale without ever having to so much as stretch the truth let alone lie – I was the wunderkind of the telemarketing world.

A week after starting, I was given the task of selling this “national” Toronto newspaper to the Ontario-hating Western provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. But even that challenge could not stop my evil talent and I made sale after sale.

I finally realized that I had taken my gift of the gab too far when I was pulled into my manager’s office and offered a promotion as a manager during the early morning hours. It was only my second week on the job.

Despite my need for money, I declined the job and quit the next day. Telemarketing is the lowest form of sales out there and I was the top seller in the room even on my off days. It was time to stop the insanity.

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit it but the Globe and Mail wasn’t even my last telemarketing job. I later took my skills and used them to cold call for charitable foundations, raising money for great organizations I sincerely believed in.

So there you have the truth behind my whopper. I’ve schlepped papers for the Sun, I bartered my soul for the Globe, but I have not yet worked for the Toronto Star. Although if they’re hiring travel writers, I’d be more than happy to change that status!

Truth Number Two: Vogue

After yesterday’s gushy, romantic tale, I thought today would be a good time to amuse you with tales of my amazing modeling career. That’s right, my runway career wasn’t a lie. It was, however many, many years ago and very, very brief.

The scoop about my brief foray into the modeling world happened when I was six. My elementary school was trying to encourage parents to purchase non-mandatory school uniforms for their children. Since no one looks good in red, green, and brown plaid, the pinafores and kilts weren’t exactly flying off the shelves.

In an effort to boost sales, the store that sold these fabulous outfits decided to host a fashion show at the local church. I’m not exactly certain why my incredibly adorable self was selected to walk down the runway, but when the big night finally arrived I was one of many children lining up to receive a brief lesson in how to strut the catwalk like a professional.

This is exactly what I remember being told: Walk to the end of the stage, stop, turn slowly, pose, and smile. Then, look for your mummy or daddy out in the audience, smile, and turn around and walk back. In my defense, what happened next was really the fault of the person who gave me those instructions.

When my turn arrived, I smiled and walked to the center of the stage. I made my way to the end of the catwalk, turned, and smiled. I was on fire and the audience loved me! Then I tried to find my mother in the audience. I looked and I looked but I couldn’t find her anywhere!

I honestly have no idea how long I was out there but eventually MaryKat, a girl in my brother’s class, walked out to come and get me. “But I can’t find my mummy!” I distinctly recall the audience laughing at me in a “that child is so cute but I’m glad she’s not mine” kind of way. My mother finally figured out what was going on and waved her arms so I could see her.

Happy to be able to fulfill my duties properly, I waved back, took MaryKat’s hand and walked backstage knowing that I was the best model in the whole world.

So ends the tale of Typ0’s first and last modeling adventure. Just think -- if my mother had been in the front of the audience that evening I might have been the next Linda Evangelista instead of a world traveling blogger.

Don’t forget to return tomorrow for the even sadder and more shameful tale of how I haven’t worked for all three of Toronto’s major daily newspapers.

True Romance

On Friday, I asked you all to guess which two of my sneaky statements were true and, more importantly, which one was the lie. Rather than give away the answer today, I thought I would draw this out a wee bit by helping to narrow down the field.

One of the odder bits of truth from Friday’s post was option two: my husband and I met in a computer lab. Of course, that’s only the truth by the narrowest of margins since we were in computer labs in different cities. Heck we were even different countries.

One of the best-kept secrets in the history of Hubby and Typ0 is that we met on the Internet, in an IRC chatroom. We like to tell people that we “met through mutual friends” and that isn’t technically a lie since the people on our IRC channel were online friends whom both we knew.

Here, for those of you who asked is a brief take on the truth of the courtship of Typ0 and Hubby. Back then I was still Typo and Hubby was better known as echobelly. In January of 1995, the Internet was nothing like it is today. I don’t want to whitewash the past but the ‘net was a far more innocent place back then. Meeting people from online wasn’t dangerous like it is today.

Our IRC channel was devoted to music but we were known to get up to all sorts of crazy high jinx. On January 10th of that year the “floofmobile” went crazy and those of us who were online had to “hide.” And that is how it all began. Echobelly sent me a /private message and I responded. Before I knew it, we were exchanging real names and regular emails. Before long, we started “talk”ing (another early days application). By the end of the school year, we had graduated to snail mail and talking on the phone.

This is where I get to admit how lame I am because during this entire time, I thought echobelly and I were simply good friends and that he had a crush on my friend, SGH. So when he invited himself to my parents’ house in Toronto, I didn’t think twice about including SGH in on all the fun.

My parents were oddly astute and cool about the whole thing. Echobelly stayed in our guestroom, which meant that I wouldn’t be rushing off to meet my strange Internet friend at his hotel. We were also incredibly well supervised… for the most part.

When I opened the door on August 25th I saw a tall, lanky guy on the other side and I thought, “He’s taller than I thought.” I’m still not sure what his first thoughts were. (Hubby Edit: I think it was, "She's shorter than I thought.") Within an hour, the amazing camaraderie we had developed online and over the phone had translated itself to real life and we were chatting like long lost friends.

By the end of the evening, I finally figured out that echobelly had a crush on me. Me! I’d had no idea and hadn’t even hoped for such a thing. SGH is hot and that must be who he wanted to crush on. Echobelly finally got it through my thick skull by kissing me on the ugly blue couch in the basement.

He pulled back from the kiss and asked if I was going to hit him. Umm.. No.

And that, my Friends, is the brief story of how the man I now call Hubby and I met. We met in a computer lab. I told him I loved him in a computer lab. And he told me I was his best friend in a computer lab. And that’s the truth.

Check back in tomorrow when I narrow down the list yet again!

Two Truths and a Lie

Jane at Gaston Studio recently blogged about this always amusing game that I learned at camp when I was a kid. Called two truths and a lie, the point of the game is for you to figure out which of the three statements below is a falsehood and which two are true. I immediately knew this would be a fun way to tell some amusing stories.

I tried to make these statements vague enough so that even people who knew me well might not be able to guess the lie. The only person who might be able to decipher my code is my mother. So, sorry Mum, but you’re disqualified. After all, if my mother tells which way she’s voting it might give the whole thing away!

So which one do you think is the lie?

1. I was once a runway model in Toronto.
2. My husband and I met in a computer lab.
3. I have worked in some capacity for all three of Toronto’s major newspapers; the Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, and the Globe and Mail.

The only hint I will give is this: each statement is either true or false by only the thinnest of margins. Now, go vote and I will return on Monday to spill all my secrets!

The New Rental Vehicle

When we travel abroad, Hubby and I usually rent a car or hoof it everywhere. Oslo, being a walking town, was definitely a case of the latter. That’s probably why it is so odd that we became so obsessed with transportation while we were there.

We took the train from the airport into town and a bus back out on Sunday. While we ate lunch on our final day, we enjoyed a mini parade of classic cars driving through town. And on the day we arrived, we caught the tail end of an actual parade complete with a marching band and two mounted policemen keeping up the rear.

Yet with all these planes, trains, and automobiles, my favourite discovery was the rental bicycles. Throughout town, we kept seeing people pick up and drop off bicycles at random bike racks with seeming little care to security. It turns out that these were rental bikes.

After swiping a card, a person is allowed to borrow a bike and return it to any of the designated racks anywhere in town. I don’t know how much the bikes cost to rent but I was fascinated by this brilliant scheme as soon as Hubby told me the details.

It turns out that they have these popular, eco-friendly rental vehicles in many European cities including Vienna where Hubby traveled last month. I don’t understand why more North American cities haven’t taken this up as being both a healthy alternative to driving, and an eco-friendly way of navigating the city.

Before anyone asks, I never got around to renting a bike myself because I didn’t know where to buy a card. More importantly, though, do you have any idea how long it’s been since I rode a bike? I’m not sure I remember how! *eek*

Generations of Boats

Maybe I’m weird, but as soon as I heard we were headed for Norway, I had only one thing on my mind: Vikings! Perhaps I spent too many hours re-reading “Curse of Viking Grave” as a kid but I find the idea of these ancient conquerors to be incredibly intoxicating. (If we were to be completely honest, it’s possible I also read too many romance novels with brawny Vikings willing to travel to Valhalla and back for the love of one perfectly lovely, if bookish, maid.)

Sadly, there were no actual Vikings waiting to ravish me when we arrived at the Viking Museum, but there were some really cool boats and other assorted relics. I found the carvings particularly interesting as they are very similar to those attributed to the Celts. Cross-cultural identifiers like this always intrigue me.

A Navy brat by birth, Hubby was quite taken with the ships, pointing out all the key details to me as we walked around the large exhibits. “Look at those oar holes! Do you really think they’d mount the rudder there?”

Our next stop was the Kon-Tiki Museum about a half-mile away. I hadn’t been terribly keen to visit this museum since it didn’t hold the promise of sexy Norse gods but quickly found myself as excited as everyone else wandering the exhibits. The first Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947 was mounted by a group of men who wanted to show it was possible to possibly to sail from South America to the Pacific Islands using only materials that would have been available to the local peoples in pre-Columbian times. Their ship was built of natural materials like balsa wood and hemp ropes, and honestly doesn’t look like it would have survived a cross of Lake Ontario let alone the Pacific.

(The boat to the left is not from original voyage. My photos of that boat did not turn out that well. This is from a subsequent expedition. Check out the links above for photos of the first boat. It's really cool!)

Hubby was quite taken with the expedition boats on display and we even stayed to watch part of the Oscar winning documentary made about the voyage. If it wasn’t for my well-documented inability to sail in rough waters without dying, I think Hubby would have had us building a boat and heading out into open water before the sun went down.

Between the art galleries, museums, and natural beauty in Norway, Hubby and I were never at a loss during our time in Oslo for things to do. And I haven’t even told you about my transportation obsession yet!

Velkommen

When Hubby heard the date I was coming home, his first reaction wasn’t to jump with joy. Since I had expected a parade of 76 trombones when I told him about my imminent arrival, I very politely asked him what the problem was and waited to hear that the brass section was late but on their way. Instead, Hubby broke the news that he had several business trips lined up that he couldn’t get out of scheduled very close to my return.

Luckily for me, I married not only a brilliant man but also a generous one. His solution to our abruptly interrupted reunion was to invite me along on his trip to Oslo, Norway. Since the hotel and his ticket were already paid for, one extra little plane ticket wasn’t much compared to marital bliss.

The architecture in Oslo is a fantastic blend of the new and the old. We were there for only a handful of days but I am officially ready to move and become Norwegian. I’ve even picked out the location for my future condo right in the waterfront area Aker Brygge. I was so enamored of the bustling area I even begged Hubby to pick up real estate brochures!

Hubby and I walked from one end of the city to the other, ducking into cafes when it rained and bars when we thought it might. Between bevies, we would people watch and I must admit that Norwegians appear to be incredibly fit as a whole and my rather round self stood out.

The only potential downfall to life in Norway is the price of food. We visited both restaurants and supermarkets and came away with two distinct impressions. First, wow food costs a lot here. And, perhaps more importantly, the quality of that food was amazing! Whether it was fresh veggies in the produce section or a pizza along the Aker Brygge, the quality of the (admittedly pricey) food was phenomenal. Oslo is also home of the $11 pint of beer (for the cheap stuff!).

I realize that I’m acting like a teenager dealing with her first crush but Oslo was a great city and I haven’t even mentioned two of my favourite things. One was kitschy and the other was weird yet cool. Check back in tomorrow for more of me gushing on Oslo and I’ll tell you all about the first of my new Norwegian loves.

Show Me Your World

The fabulous NicoleB is hosting another great photo challenge over on her blog NicoleB Photography. Since I so rudely offered to join but was ultimately unable to participate in her last scavenger hunt, I was keen to sign up this time around.

All you have to do to participate is to post a picture of your country or State. It can be the one you were born or the one you live in, whichever you feel like it. Then show it off!

My first instinct was to post a photo of the CN Tower but that seemed almost too easy. Then it hit me: the pyramids! But not the pyramids that everyone sees in the history books. Rather, my photo is of the pyramids local Cairenes see every day.

Don’t forget to check out everyone’s photos over at Nicole’s place!

Things I Remember

That Saturday, I woke up early despite having gone to bed fairly late the night before. Unsurprisingly, both of my parents were up before me and were busy puttering around downstairs. I put on my dressing gown and joined them to eat leftovers in the kitchen.

I think had a glass of apple juice.

Full of nervous energy, I headed to the washroom to shower and wash my hair. By the time I got out, my hair wrapped in a towel, my friend Care Bear had already arrived.

I think she was more nervous than I was.

By the time I was ready to at least change into the requisite iron maiden, my hair had dried, two more friends had arrived, and I was ready for a nap. I knew the house would be full of people all day and yet I felt oddly serene at the center of the storm that surrounded me.

I think my make-up looked weird.

When the big moment arrived as many people as could fit piled into my tiny bedroom. I took off my dressing gown and put on the beautiful white dress. Care Bear fluffed the skirts while SGH tried to hide her tattoos from my mother’s dismayed gaze.

I think I felt beautiful for the first time ever.

The next countless number of hours were filled with photos in the house, in the garden, on my own, with my parents, with my friends, and even the odd one that didn’t include me. At some point Mr. M stopped by to give me a silver penny to slip into my shoe.

I think my feet were already hurting.

When no one was looking, I snuck into the basement to nibble on more leftovers. Before I knew it, the car had arrived and my father and I had to leave.

I think I felt ready.

Unsurprisingly, my aunts were standing outside smoking when I arrived. We tried to usher them so we could get started. My friends and their counterparts entered in pairs. My parents stood on either side of me and as the doors opened they took my arms and reminded me to smile.

I think I took a big breath.

Music was being played somewhere in front me but I looked only straight ahead. Faces both familiar and new smiled back at me as I walked forward but there was only one face I wanted to see. He looked so incredibly handsome. He looked nervous yet happy, his green eyes sparkling as if we were the only two people in the room.

I knew I loved him.

That was 11 years ago and while there have been occasional moments when I was annoyed with him, and even ones when I was angry with him, I have never doubted the words I said that day.

Happy anniversary, my love.

Not Welcome in Egypt

I left the States just as the Swine Flu story broke around the world. My initial reaction to the media-driven frenzy was to roll my eyes and take bets on when the H1N1 fervor would die down. Between CNN, BBC, and the Internet, I thought I had seen the worst of the hysteria and then Egypt involved itself. The solution to stopping the tide of Swine Flu here, you see, was to slaughter every single pig in the country.

In the immortal words of our good friend Antin (he’s all about the econ), “That there’s crazy talk!”

It makes me wonder what they will do when the normal everyday human flu hits Egypt. *eek*

More Proof I’m a Horrible Person

I have a confession to make: I suck at math. Typically this isn’t a problem because I’m married to a human calculator. I have a second confession to make: my Arabic isn’t very good despite the fact that I (occasionally) studied and attended classes. My brain was only made to hold so much information at one time, so unless you know the :/delete function that will remove all my Disney knowledge, new languages just aren’t going to stick. My final confession is that I’m not very good at saying I’m wrong. Even when I really, really, really am. Really.

Shortly before I went to Toronto these three factoids rose up to meet me in a rather embarrassing fashion.

Since I was starving and starting to spend my time staring at photos of nachos on the Internet I decided to order myself a nice healthy dinner before Hubby arrived home from his business trip. I placed a carb-friendly order on Otlob, chopped up some bell peppers to enjoy with dinner, and sat down to await the doorbell.

Delivery Kid arrived in record time and I thanked him for his speed. Obviously they knew that they had a hungry girl on their hands. The amount on the bill was slightly different (as usual) from the amount quoted on Otlob, which meant that the tip/change I had calculated wouldn’t work unless I wanted to be ridiculously generous. I handed him my money and requested 30LE change.

Due to my lack of Arabic and his lack of English he didn’t seem to understand how much I wanted in change. I held up my fingers to indicate 30 and then said the words for three and zero in Arabic yet he still seemed remarkably confused. My frustration level had now reached a definite seven and I told him to wait while I got my Arabic notebook out of the dining room and looked up the word for 30 in Arabic.

Poor Delivery Boy looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him whole as he took the bill out of my hands and showed me the total… Implored me to see the total. That’s when I realized why Hubby always pays the delivery guys: 50 minus 30 equals 20 and the bill totaled 21. Most of you are probably laughing at me for not being able to do simple math but what you don’t understand is that I don’t test well! I know pi to 4 decimals points (ish) but I can’t add simple numbers under pressure without a calculator. Incredibly and pathetically sad but true. And it only gets worse from here.

Not willing to admit aloud that I had screwed up, I ran to my purse to grab 5LE and then asked for 25LE in change. At this point I was about to let the kid walk away with a 9LE tip – a rather high amount by Egyptian standards. I’m still not sure what happened next but Delivery Boy started saying something about how that was the correct amount and I thought he was complaining about his tip and then my frustration level rose to a solid ten.

I took back the extra five I had given him and told him in no uncertain terms (although very uncertain Araglish) that his complaining was costing him money. At some point he seemed to realize that the hungry, crazy lady was officially and certifiably insane and he tried to give me the amount I had originally requested. That’s when my bubble burst and the guilt finally rushed to my head.

“No, no. Please, you keep it,” I insisted. We would have continued that way for hours except that I decided to shut the door gently in his face. Evidently, the inability to take a hint is one of Delivery Boy’s failings because he knocked on the door and continued to insist that I take the money. I felt lower than the grossest creepy crawly things that live in desert. “No, really you keep it.” I again shut the door softly and was relieved to hear the elevator door open.

“I am a horrible, horrible person,” I said to my reflection as I made my way into the living room. My well deserved guilty was only increased when my bowab came upstairs to apologize for Delivery Boy and explain the boy didn’t speak English and felt bad. “It’s my fault,” I explained. “I feel bad. I’m sorry. It was my fault!” The anguish on my face finally got through to him because he nodded and went back downstairs.

So there you have my confessions for today. I am a horrible, evil, vile person who can never again order from one of her favourite restaurants. While living without food from this restaurant will be a suitable penance, I still want to find someway to make it up to Delivery Boy who may be forever scarred from his run-in with the evil white woman.

I’m so sorry!!