Emily vanished from her home in late September. She apparently wandered into a nearby paper company’s distribution center and crawled into a container of paper bales.

The container went by truck to Chicago and by ship to Belgium before the cat was found Oct. 24 at Raflatac, a laminating company in Nancy, France. Emily, who turned 1 year old that very day, was thin and thirsty but still alive.

Emily’s escort, Newark-based Continental employee George Chiladze, said he was thrilled to be taking Emily back across the Atlantic.

“I will make somebody really happy to deliver this poor traveler back home,” he said.

I’m going back to Virginia for Thanksgiving. I’m extremely excited about it for a number of reasons. ;-)

The new National Geographic came the other day. It contains some articles about these prehistoric sea creatures which are really horrifying. Take a look at the scary monsters.

I’ve been admin-ing a chatroom on Paltalk for the past few days and I’ve encountered some of the most ill-mannered Muslims you can imagine. Surprisingly (or not?) some of the ones who consider themselves the most religious and “correct” are often the first ones to burst into the room and shout out any of the following scripted lines:

“kaafirs!!”
“you must be sufis!”
“you must be shi’as!”
“you have the wrong ‘aqeedah”
“haraam!”
“you are all going to hell”
“silly, ignorant people”
“hypocrites!”

You get the point. Bravo to all those who continue to uphold the stereotype of the “backward, intolerant” Muslim!

Hubby bought me some (electronic!) drums yesterday. I had a desire to start playing drums, since I am a percussionist by nature. So now I can quietly (to outsiders) drum away and avoid the real world… :-)

Those are his hands playing them, however.

I added Flickr badge, Ayah of the Day code and RSS feed to this page.

This season is such a beautiful one. I hope all of you have a chance to enjoy beautiful weather, wherever you live… The beauty in this world is so amazing.

EID MUBARAK!

Last night and tonight, hubs and I heard some “band” music playing outside. Turns out, we are close enough to the local high school to hear their marching band practicing. Neat! I really like band music so we drove to the school (with the cat!) and sat listening and watching them practice.

Little-known fact: I almost joined my middle school band, as a saxophonist. I didn’t, though…

Also, I feel compelled to share my recent “artistic” endeavors. Hubby wants paintings around the house, so I have complied… (These are all 16×20 canvas with acrylic paint.)

Pastiche: Poppies - Shamelessly copied from Marimekko’s Unikko design…

Al-Wahid - By request…

And most recently, an as-yet untitled sunrise and tree design.

I maintain that there is no artistic value in these, but they make the room look nice so I don’t care!

Hubs and I went to our first punk show together last night. I told him he should feel honored; his first show and getting to see one of the legends of punk music (Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys) all in one night.

Since I just moved here, I had no idea of the “scene,” but everyone seemed nice. Being an all-ages venue, there were middle-aged people and very young kids there. We didn’t get injured in any of the moshing that we were only a few layers removed from. Maybe a little squished, but no harm done. We jumped, screamed, sang along and had an awesome time…

And I saw Jello Biafra. Face to face. Outside the venue. He walked past me and looked into my eyes.

Photos on Flickr.

And tonight, we are “sharing” an iftar (breaking of the fast) with one of hubby’s friends from work and his wife. I’m making two Pakistani/Indian dishes, Bhindi Masala (okra in spicy tomato sauce) and Murgh Cholay (chicken with chickpeas) Well, hubby is in charge of the chicken…

Yesterday was apparently “Blog Quake Day” — I’m kind of feeling weird about it. I don’t feel “right” talking about charity. But I feel like this “meme” is forcing people to talk about what they are (or aren’t) giving and doing. If someone doesn’t go along with the movement, are they seen as stingy? I am not sure about the purpose of it, really. Maybe someone can help me?

Tucker Carlson is Mike Teevee from Willa Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Proof below.

And finally a work of my own hands, watermarked in hopes of destroying its chance of fame throughout the internet world…

I heard about an earthquake relief donations packing operation that was happening on Saturday and decided we should go. As it happens, we didn’t sleep at all on Friday night. Instead, both hubby and I worked on websites and studied. Saturday morning comes and we still haven’t slept, but I want to go help with the donations packing — so we go! Keep Reading …