The date: Friday, February 15th. The place: A horrible bar in Philadelphia where I probably got the flu.

LESLIE HALL. The Diva, the Myth, the Legend.

I finally had the honor of witnessing Leslie and the Lys. Since being visited by Mother Gem in a dream long ago I have been a fan of hers. She lived up to every expectation. She kicked, flipped, be-dazzled and christened a few sweaters. She educated us about zombie outbreaks. In summary, she dropped a giant gem on Philadelphia.

She’s actually a great singer and a wonderful performer. She’s just lovely. If she comes to your town (or if you’re going to ROFL CON) PLEASE see her and imbibe her Wisdom.

Corn-fed, unwed, drop-dead gorgeous.

More at my Flickr album!

I saw this over at Shakesville and felt it necessary to repost. The message is clear and simple.

The poster is part of a campaign by Stonewall in the UK designed to help stop homophobic bullying in schools. A Scottish actor supporting the organization (who I don’t know because I barely watch TV) added: “Be bold. Be brave. Be a buddy not a bully.” That short, sweet message applies to everything.

I’m going to be a buddy to Rufus Wainwright tomorrow night in NYC.

Yes, indeed. It will rock. [Edit: IT ROCKED. HARD.]

Another thing that rocks is getting back my glasses that I left halfway across the country over a year ago. They are amazing. I missed them so much.

Although Donna Karan is an idiotic bitch for continuing to use fur in her designs… damn it.

for Photo Friday: Peaceful

I thought about using a picture of one of the dogs for this challenge because they are naturally peaceful and mostly calm and always happy. I passed by many photos of my cat Naji because he is almost always sneaky or spiteful, and always unpeaceful. But this photo of him captures one of his quiet moments.

He was living outside before we met. He showed up at the front door one day while I was cleaning the living room with my mom. I heard a meow and went outside to see him walking around trying to peek inside. I called my mom out to look at him and we wondered who he belonged to. “Look, he’s so friendly and nice!” I said…

Of course, I fall in love with every animal I see so I started to pet him and within two strokes he had attempted to bite my hand. I was disappointed. “He’s not nice after all!”

But I started to feed him and slowly bring him inside with me. I wasn’t sure if he was 100% feral or had belonged to someone who just let him wander away. I named him Naji, since I had read somewhere that Naji means “safe” and it seemed fitting for him.

His first trip to the vet was interesting. The vet remarked, “I see he’s been scratching you,” looking at the streaks on my forearms. “Yeah, he’s a little aggressive,” I said. He would attack my arms at night and any other time he felt like it. The vet took his temperature, while Naji made obvious his hatred for thermometers. When the vet let him go, he quickly crawled across the table and pressed himself against my stomach as if to say “SAVE ME!” and I held him close while everyone in the room laughed in amusement at him.

He’s been with us for a long time but he’s currently living with my parents, after putting up such a fight to go back home in the car (he hates traveling, too).

He’s now mostly sweet but it took a few years to get him that way and he is still mischievous at times.

See, you guys didn’t even know Lailee got sick, that’s how out-of-the-loop you are as my readers. It’s all my fault.

Anyway, two days ago (middle of the night ~2am) Lailee vomited a little bit and suddenly collapsed on the floor! I thought she may be choking so I pried her mouth open to look for a blockage and there I noticed her gums were GREY! Like zombie-skin grey! At that moment, I began my total-and-complete-freak-out session, wailing and crying for Lailee to be okay. I haven’t cried so hard in a long, long time. We immediately rushed her to the vet (thank God for them being only seconds up the road) and they decided to keep her overnight for tests and monitoring.

We went back home and I worried about Lailee, thinking of anything we may have done to make her sick, anything she ate or got into… A few hours later, the vet (bless her) called and said that Lailee has a low white blood cell count and they don’t know why but they wanted to keep her another day. God, you know I stayed up all night and half the morning sick with worry, wondering if she was going to die in the night, alone in a strange place…

THANK GOD she did not die then, and after two nights away from home she is BACK with us and Squig is so relieved to be with her mommy again.

[We still aren’t sure what it was but apparently an infection or something…]

I just posted a boatload of pics on flickr recently, I hope a few of you will comment on them!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/leena/

And now for a Squig chronology:

This story is funny - a teacher in Washington declared he wouldn’t shave his beard until bin Laden is caught. While I don’t know exactly why not shaving his beard makes any difference, it surely makes him look a lot like bin Laden.

I’m totally exhausted. I don’t know why I can’t ever seem to maintain healthy sleep lengths on a trip, maybe I feel like I’ll miss something if I sleep too much?

We visited Detroit and a few nearby cities where hubby’s family lives. That was great. Lots of delicious food!

Being so extremely absent-minded and stupid, I left two important items in Detroit — my “regular” glasses and my notebook (which contains… everything). If you saw me at ISNA, I was undoubtedly wearing my sunglasses. Thankfully both of my glasses are prescription so my backup wasn’t bad, but it probably made me even weirder to people I talked to.

The sessions and lectures were really good. The whole experience was great. The only downside I would mention from the whole thing would be CHILDREN.

Almost everywhere I went, I was met with the powdery(?) smell of babies. In the lectures, it was common to be seated next to a crying, complaining or mischievous child. Too many times, my husband and I noticed a child ripping up paper or other things and leaving them on the ground. The parents never bothered to pick up their mess. There was a lot of “mess” at ISNA. I wonder if convention centers always encounter this much mess, or only when Muslims come to town?

I saw a few of the “famous” people, Aminah Assilmi, Zaid Shakir, Ingrid Mattson, Suhaib Webb, guy from Native Deen, Hesham Hassaballa and for some strange reason: Morgan Spurlock. I felt like I wanted to congratulate Dr. Mattson in real life, but I didn’t approach any of these people. I’m sure they had enough people stopping their paths as they walked around.

I also got to meet two people I like and admire: Yasmine and “Izzy Mo“.

We stayed at “the other Hyatt” but we had to catch the shuttle at the “main Hyatt” where I observed what Eteraz described as the “Club Hyatt” meat market. A lot of fashion and tight clothes, brown boys thinking they’re the ish, etc… Kind of funny for my old, married self. On the other hand, there were a few devastatingly handsome maulvis there too, furiously avoiding the gaze of all the scantily-clad ladies.

My photos from ISNA.

In ending, I leave you with the best toy EVER. Hijabman’s pig. Who, oddly, thanks the very Muslims who consider him repulsive. I wore him around on my bag all weekend.

We’re kind of just sitting around, waiting for our departure day… Wednesday, 26th of April… I do need to do a bit of shopping.

My parents came and went, it was great to have them up here. I felt like a child again and not a child pretending to be an adult. We had to give up Lailee for a few weeks, too. The house isn’t the same without her. :cry: I’ll be making plans to go and get her back soon enough. :-)

Time for pic sharing in lieu of actual meaningful content? Yes.

I’m getting the hang of things on the Mac, I think. Here it is, featuring my own photo as wallpaper…