"My Weekend As An Imperfect Fatty"

Greetings one and all!
Mubarak Eid! Happy Holiday!

Well, its official, Ramadan ended for us on Saturday. And to be quite frank, I couldn't be happier.

I kept to many of my pledges:

• drank a lot of water when I could
• started out taking my vitamins but then because I didn't have enough food in my system, they were making me sick
• exercised once but walked everywhere
• i lost 6 lbs as opposed to the 5 I normally put on
• read the Koran or listened to it (at least in the beginning)

I didn't go to the mosque this year or pray like I should--I'm not there yet, I guess. I cured like a sailor--need to work on that for next year.

So this is how my holiday weekend went:

Up late Friday night cleaning the place, cause our house is Ramadan central. Then got up early on Saturday to start making breakfast for 20 while the guys are at the mosque. The door opens and the only people to walk in are Issame & his brother. And I'm waiting for the rest of the tribe to saunter in. No such luck. So the 3 of us eat. Then, literally one-by-one, people come in so there I am racing back & forth re-heating things (without a microwave) and re-washing coffee mugs (cause honestly, who owns more than a set of four or eight mugs).

In the midst of all this, work wanted me to go in to re-package two boxes (weighing 50 lbs) and send it Fedex that didn;t arrive by UPS in time. I tell them the Fedex office in our building isn't open, so by myself I'd have to lug 2 boxes weighing 50 pounds into a cab to another fedex location and spend hundreds of dollars to ship books that we're now not going to make a profit off of. It will take me over an hour and a half to get there and I've got people in my house on my holiday. Anyway, it didn't happen

Then more people (uninvited) show up and Issame tells me that we don't have enough food for lunch. "Tough!", I say. No one brought goodies or beverages to our house so they'll eat what they can get. So 10 of us sat around our coffee table and ate a great lunch that Issame made. Then everyone dispersed.

You think this would be the end to our day but nooooooooo! I find out on Friday night, that we've been invited to a Baby Shower at 4:30 on Saturday. I had no time to buy a gift, and to top it all off, the couple (guy-Moroccan, girl-Puerto Rican) have asked us to be the baby's godparents. So the godparents show up to the party without a gift or an envelope. Now at the same time we arrive at the party, a new batch of people are on their way to our house for dinner. This dinner is to help one of Issame's friend's marry this very, very strict religious girl-but I'll get to her in a minute.

Back to the Baby Shower, so we think it's just a quick, quiet get together right? Nope! They've rented a restaurant with a dj. Everyone is dressed super nice, and we're in jeans. Plus, Vanessa just told her parents that Issame & I are the baby's godparents. Well, that didn't fly to well with Mom. The parents have never met us and so the Mom didn't realize I was standing right there when she started talking about me. Ok, imagine the whole head bobbing, finger snapping, Latina hip gestures when she says this: "Yeah, let me meet this "godmother" I don't know who the hell she is, making this girl a godmother I never met before, where the hell is she?" Turn to Stacey's embarrassed face as I hold out my hand to a cold claw.

So, to top it all off, we, the godparents, show up without a gift and we need to leave cause we've got people waiting for us in the house. Going to hell, I tell ya. So we get back to the house (Forgetting to mention: the brief bliss then argument we had in the cab when Issame starts talking about babies and then says forget it!)

So now, we're back in the house: there's me & Issame, this other couple we invited, Issame's brother and what should have just been Hasan & this girl he wants to marry Khadija. But in addition, (being a nomadic people) Khadija has brought an entourage because she's a strict muslim and won't go out of her house with out a male & female family member. So I've got 2 additional strangers in my house, and the poor cat is looking to me like: "Why Momma, Why?

So hugs & kisses with apologies and holiday greetings. God bless Hasan for having prepared all the food at his house so all we had to do was re-heat everything. So I had met this chick about 4 years ago when she was trying to warm up to another of Issame's friends. So I sit down with her and the two other girls to chit chat. Khadija goes to me, "Stacey, you've put on some weight since I last saw you, you use to be perfect and well now, you've put on so much weight." Oh yes, she said that! So I get up, say nothing to her, I'm about to head into my room to go to bed cause I am done but on my way there, Hasan asks me if he can go down our side entrance to smoke, I go to show him out and then fall down the stairs on my imperfect fat ass.

Dinner is served shortly after that and I don't eat anything cause I'm too busy glaring fire darts at Miz-My-Uni-Brow-Got-Thicker-Since-I-Last Saw-You Khadija. She leaves and I tell Issame what happens and he doesn't believe me. He thinks it must have been a communication error. So I had to ask his friend's wife to tell him what happened. Then this fuels a huge fight between me and Issame about how inconsiderate and insensitive he can be and then I went to bed.

And to think, this was only Saturday.

Sunday I went out by myself to a viewing of some Latin American art that's going up for auction at Sotheby's, then met Ann and we went shopping for baby clothes and ate cheeseburgers and onion rings at Johnny Rockets. The UPS thing still hasn't been settled as of Monday morning and I'm ready to quit at this point.

I WIN!!!