fear factor

I started this post earlier today, and it had a very lighthearted and optimistic tone. I wanted to tell you about how I was in an anomalistic good mood this weekend and decided to do something productive, rather than spend another weekend afternoon watching television and feeling my butt get bigger. (Ever notice that it's when you are sitting and eating junk food that you become acutely aware of the gelatinous regions of your body?) Anyway. I decided I wanted to bake cookies. Not exactly helpful in thwarting the hind region expansion, but it was definitely something very much outside of my character.

I wanted to make nankhatai, or Indian butter cookies (flavored with cardammom, yum!). And bake them I did. Not to toot my own horn, but they turned out to be edible! The texture and thickness were way off - they are supposed to be thick and crumble in your mouth. Mine were on the thinner side and were pretty crunchy. But the taste? Spot on. A bit too greasy. But mmm good. I did something remotely womanly. Unbelievable. Maybe I'll make them again one day. And grow petunias. Ha.

That was pretty much the highlight of the weekend. That, and catching an episode of the Golden Girls I had never seen. Never seen! I was more than shocked. I thought I had seen every single episode at least 100 times, but I guess I was wrong. There was one out there that was being saved to surprise me all along. How fun!

But after I began writing, my mood changed. I started to think a lot about my cousin, an amazing wonder woman who is my sheer opposite yet mirror image. She works for the UN and is based in Kabul. Where there was an explosion yesterday. She is OK, thankfully. But still. I know she reads this sometimes so I'm stepping out of character and addressing a person directly. BE SAFE. WE MISS YOU. COME HOME SOON. We were, and are still, shaken up. Her parents were here with my family yesterday and it made me very sad to see that the best thing they had to eat when hearing the news about the explosion was my halfhearted attempt at nankhatai.

Today I spent the entire day in my dad's office. Again. Of course I will work whenever my parents need help. But today I admit I was feeling frustrated. Is it specific to families, Asian families, Indian families, or just my family in general ... the idea of misery loves company? The notion of hiring temporary help is heretic. If I weren't free, I have a good feeling my mom probably would've had to have taken vacation from her job to go work at his office. Ironic, huh? OK, I'll stop being a brat.

Wait just give me one more minute of venting. I'm seriously warning anyone who is faint of heart or stomach to stop reading right here. (I know it's mean of me to say that because you won't, even if you have a weak stomach, you curious sadists you. So I apologize in advance. But for real. Don't read anymore if you don't like a bit of graphic detail about bugs).

There was some trash behind his office that we had to move. We being my mom and I - she came to help me after she finished work; I wasn't joking about what I said before. This stuff reeked worse than Arthur Kill during a heat wave. Jesus. I think it had just been neglected in the back of the house (perhaps by the secretary I discussed before. I am purposely not writing about her because I like to refrain from cursing in this blog. And it would be virtually impossible to write without injecting a swear word in every single line). Bottom line: nasty, nasty, NASTY garbage. Reeking garbage. Garbage, I realized while heaving it, that had decomposed and had some maggots in it.

I am still wretching. I cannot handle that. I am a bug baby. Hate 'em. Scared to kill 'em. Am convinced they will morph into gigantic mutants and eat my head off. I am convinced there is a bug somewhere on my body right now. It's like an acid trip without the fun part. I have lost my appetite for the foreseeable future (which sucks because there is a Burger King next door to the office). I am a morning shower person but I am going to shower in scalding water before bed tonight. And spray myself with Lysol.

Whimper. Hold me.