2:30 am - Lahore

I just hopped on after the most recent (late night) load shedding here in Pakistan to write a small blog.

Dubai was pretty awesome. Although I’m not really into the typical Dubai experience (tons of shopping), I did go to one mall and walked around some neat places, even though it was pretty hot. One thing I *had* to do was buy a new Hanayen abaya, to join (replace?) my 3-year-old abaya from them. The store clerks there are so nice and helpful and the abayas are perfect. (black on black!)

It’s extraordinarily hot here in Lahore during the day, (over 100 F / 38 C) and quite bearable but muggy at night. The city seems exactly the same as last time. Lively, interesting, a bit sad.

Today I (with some family) went to a local movie theatre here to see “Shutter” (English movie! with popcorn!) which was neat. My 6-year-old niece went with us and sat on my lap while I covered her eyes during the scary parts and tried to stop her from throwing popcorn on people . She whispered to me during the movie “Some people will think you’re my mom” hehe… She doesn’t know how funny that is. She also “tests” my Urdu… She’s softening my heart a bit toward children but still reinforcing my decision NOT to have any.

We also had ice cream at a very neat shop (pics coming soon). Nice to see all the Westernized youngsters hanging out, being cool in their jeans

This place is really … different bordering on strange. Last time I only caught glimpses of stuff and I reminded myself to pay closer attention this time, which may have been a bad idea. Within my first hour being here, I saw some pretty sad and heartbreaking things (I won’t go into details). The state of animal and human welfare here (and on this planet in general) is so poor and inexcusable. Seeing things like that out in the open just shocks me. I don’t understand it.

Visit the Flickr album for this trip, where I’ll add all my shots as time goes by when I can grab some internet time in between electricity outages.

Saara recently asked how I manage to stay vegetarian while in Pakistan. I find it’s quite easy! Thankfully, my husband’s family is very understanding and always makes sure there is some vegetarian dish available for us. I don’t budge on it and they don’t push. Maybe they are unusually accommodating for a Pakistani family (I have no other experience to draw from)? They just know I am vegetarian and there is no problem. Thank God for that… (It seems there is usually chanay or daal around, I hope all you veggie ladies married to Pakistanis don’t have too hard of a time :/)

More later…

I forgot to post anything for Earth Day, lots of people across the blogosphere have contributed great stuff.

My contribution will be a suggestion (plea?) for you to go vegetarian! It’s really tasty, environmentally-friendly and generally just a good thing to do.

See also:
Meat and the Environment
GoVeg.com
Environmental Effects of Meat Production
TreeHugger

I feel like a bit of a hypocrite, talking about Earth Day while planning a big international flight. My consistent reducing, reusing and recycling kind of falls away then.

EDIT: My dear commenters mentioned reducing meat consumption and buying locally-grown food, both of which are excellent things to do. I made up a little scale/list:

Less Meat = Good
Vegetarian = Great
Local Vegetarian = Better
Local Organic Vegetarian = Best
Your own organic, sustainable vegan garden = Glorious!

Doing your best is always best.

Grizzly bear kills trainer. This is such a terrible story, but not a totally uncommon one. I don’t know when (or if) humans are going to realize that using animals like this is WRONG.

It was good; could have been better; hopefully will be better next time. It’s good to meet other “Quranies” in the world and know what’s going on. Humans are always let-downs, though, which is sad. And I’m horribly anti-social. But anyway…

I had a little tiff about the food. For the Saturday dinner, there was no vegetarian food available (well, rice, but… come on, we paid for this stuff.) For a group of concerned and justice-minded folks to not serve at least a vegetarian option was upsetting to me. I made my disapproval known, of course.

Trips are always interesting for people-watchers like myself.

For instance, the mini-experiment at the “full trashcan” at the airport — 99.9% of the people who approached it and found it full simply placed their trash on top of it, instead of turning around where there was another can. Or any of the likely dozens in the area. Human nature annoys me…

Also, I saw a dude on the train carrying his little daughter on his shoulders as he exited. He looked like a total goofball and I knew what was going to happen. As soon as he came to the lower ceiling near the exit — bap — his daughter’s head smacks into the metal. It was only a scrape, she didn’t cry or anything but thankfully ducked down in time to miss the next ceiling, because the dumbass didn’t stop. Like the evil person I am, I laughed. I can’t believe what kind of doofuses have children. Ugh, what a shame.

Atlanta was quite nice (what little I saw from the train and the people.) It was nice to be in a place where my slight Southern accent is almost Northern.

I finally had a chance to catch up on Speaking of Faith today. The ones I heard today:

Reflections of a British Muslim Extremist
A New Voice for Islam
Whale Songs and Elephant Loves

They’re all EXCELLENT. Ingrid Mattson (from New Voice…) is admirable and gentle and lovely.

Katy Payne (from Whale Songs…) is an inspiration to me. She helped identify elephant infrasound communication because, according to her, “I never really grew up” … how beautiful! I don’t want to grow up either. This one reminded me of the SOF episode “Brother Thây: A Radio Pilgrimage with Thich Nhat Hanh“, where he speaks of mindfulness. Usually “growing up” means losing a lot of your wonder and awareness, we gradually work it out of ourselves to concentrate on other, more “important” things. Being mindful and aware can be very powerful.

She also talks about conservation and our responsibilities in the developed world for what’s happening in the developing world. It’s an absolutely magical podcast. I’m hoping to get her book from the library next week.

First: Leslie Hall was featured on NPR Music recently. Thankfully, they have the episode online: Taking Over the World One Sweater at a Time.

The episode reinforces why Leslie is so dear to me and all her fans. The 5′ 10″, 200-pound, size-16 beauty says of her size, “I like to eat cookies. Peanut butter cookies. And I don’t like to exercise that much, so this is what I got.” Fantastic. I love cookies, too. :-)

She’s much more comfortable with her body than I’ll ever be with mine, but she’s inspiring nonetheless. During her concert in the episode, she says, “I’d like to sing a song, now, about my butt cheeks — so round, so ripe…” referring to her song “Blame the Booty”.

Second: While reading a recent NYTimes article, “India Nurtures Business of Surrogate Motherhood“, I was inappropriately disturbed to find out that one of the clients of the surrogacy business in India works for Greenpeace. Of course, as a human, he’s free to be as silly as he wants, although it’s still sad to me. It would be unrealistic to think that all Greenpeace employees don’t have or want children, but using a poor woman as your baby carrier is beyond that.

I suppose it’s because I tend to think of activists associated with such remarkable organizations, that want to change the world and make a difference, as people who really TRY. They really want to eliminate oppression, obtain justice, save a tree! My experience (with myself as well as others) tells me no one is perfect and we all could do more. But somehow, flying to India, ejaculating into a cup and sitting back while a stranger makes a baby for you to enjoy while millions of children in your own country and in the birthplace of your offspring wait around in orphanages doesn’t seem like a “Greenpeace-y” thing to do.

Maybe that’s just me, being an arrogant, childfree, cookie-loving, condescending idiot. (Just to save you the trouble of commenting. ;-))

[Edit: Some follow-up: I’m not the only one to have pointed this out. A commenter on Salon.com also noticed that this doesn’t look good for Greenpeace to be associated with this guy.

IHT.com has the article with photos and voiceovers from the client.]

I think the upcoming miniseries on HBO about the life of John Adams will be great. It’s so nerdy that I found out about it at the local post office, where they had a large ad in their window. Is it weird to see a movie poster at the post office and think “I need to see that”?

The USPS, in promoting the miniseries, is celebrating “The Power of the Letter” and letter writing, which is neat.

They have some good links and info there, like the Massachusetts Historical Society’s John Adams minisite which has images of letters sent between Adams and his wife. You can catch a lot of neat, strange English with lovely phonetic spelling, interesting capitalization and the penmanship, oh the penmanship! There are also some sweet sentiments, like:

“There are perticuliar times when I feel such an uneasiness, such a restlessness, as neither company, Books, family Cares or any other thing will remove, my Pen is my only pleasure, and writing to you the composure of my mind.”

- Abigail Adams, September 23, 1776

Aww. :-) Also:

I feel that agitation this Evening, a degree of Melancholy has seazd my mind…

Darn English spelling reform. Seazd is much better than seized, come on…

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!

Oh, dear… Rufus is an angel. He was perfect. Charming, funny, amazing. Stunning.

I almost cried during “Sanssouci” (why?) … I probably should have let myself, but I didn’t want to miss a note of his beautiful voice.

Ahh…

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.