you spin me right round baby right round

the other day, my family had a barbecue. no big deal, right?? except that it was held under the hot desert afternoon sun. yes, we have become that big of a group of bbq addicts. we'll risk skin cancer and heat stroke for a good hotdog/hamburger combo. it's a disease i swear. it was mainly held for two reasons: my brother-in-law has the worst bbq addiction of us so my dad was throwing it for him, and my cousins all wanted to experience one of our bbqs because apparently the million pictures of them we have on facebook make them look really fun. almost everyone wimped out though and hid away in the cool air conditioned house. my dad was doing the grilling and a couple of cousins kept him company while me, another cousin, and my brother-in-law spent the entire day running up and down the stairs to get from our house to the grills running errands. lots of stairs. in the heat. with my hijab on. for hours and hours. it was torture. i couldnt even eat any of the food.

today - as i'm sure everyone who is not hiding under a rock somewhere has heard - is the first day of ramadan. so last night a group of us went out to bid goodbye to food for a month by having a really late super fun dinner at some chinese restaurant. okay that's a little over dramatic since i'll still eat 1.5 meals every day (i'm not a big fan of breakfast, but ill get down a small cup of water and a cookie) and the purpose of the outing was not really saying goodbye to anything. it was just a planned thing that got delayed for a few weeks. when we were done, the mall was practically closed and the door we came in from was locked. a security guard had to let us out of his secret security guard only door.

anyways, we got home last night at 1:30ish and i ended up going to sleep close to three. only to wake up at four to get ready for umrah. i could barely open my eyes and my contacts burned like crazy when i put them in again after only an hour of being in solution. i wear them too much - over twenty hours a day. my doctor tells me not to exceed 8 or 9 hours. but as i was saying, we went up to makkah for umrah and omg it was so freakin crowded. it was more like hajj. and that's after everyone said they're not risking going because of the big scary monster known as swine flu. mashallah though.

speaking of swine flu, we were at the supermarket yesterday and this lady started to lecture/yell at us for not wearing masks. apparently we were not taking care of the kids that were with us or ourselves and pretty much deserved to die of swine flu because that's apparently what we wanted. my cousin tried to explain that she works in the hospital and the masks do little to nothing to help protect you, but she wasnt easily convinced. today in makkah, this dude was wearing one of those eye-coverer-things (the ones you get on the airplane so you can sleep or whatever) over his mouth and nose as a mask. i had a really strong urge to ask him if he knew he was using it wrong. i didnt.

my point - which i assure you existed at one point - seems to have gotten lost somewhere around the second paragraph and has refused to ask for directions. going right back to the beginning though i'm pretty sure it was supposed to be about my family's love for bbqs and how ramadan is going to put a stopper on them for a while.

*You Spin Me Right Round - Pete Burns (not the new ugly version)

i'm afraid that this complacency is something i can't shake

the swine flu epidemic. for me, it was over. sure, i heard about the cases that were still cropping up, but i didnt care. not really. it was not as big of a deal as it was when it started (not that i was too worried about it then. i suffer from chronic complacency). not as scary. just another common cold... one that had stayed pretty far away from me. it got a bit closer when when K saw two cases (she works at a hospital), but still not close enough for me to take it seriously.

now, my cousin's husband's family has gotten it. his brother and nephew. his niece (the infected boy's sister) was sent to play with my cousin's kids after her brother got the flu (their mom conveniently forgot to let my cousin and her husband know that she had swine flu in her house). this was three days ago. she's been freaking out that her kids have gotten it, even though they havent shown any symptoms thank god. yesterday, we had our weekly family gathering, to which she brought her two kids. if - god forbid - her kids do have the disease, we would all have been subjected to it.

that should be close enough to shake me a bit, right?? it should make it more real for me... but it's not. i'm still as close to apathetic about it as i was from the beginning.

*Be My Escape - Relient K

and it's all in my head

swine flu is only step away from being declared a pandemic and has everyone in the world completely freaked out. i got a cold a couple of days ago and while i really wish it would go away, i'm fairly certain that i am not dying of swine flu. my mom on the other hand... not so certain. the fact that the odds of me being the first person to get swine flu in the DC area are so close to zero they are practically nonexistent doesntt seem to register with her. i'm not saying that the disease isnt serious and stuff, i just think people should calm down. the paranoia is getting a little out of control.

my brother has allergies - always has - but the nurse at his school called an emergency assembly to warn the students about swine flu and suddenly he's convinced that he has swine flu. my dad told him that until he starts to get a pig's tail and nose, he shouldnt worry about it... so he's been checking often for the tail to show up.

maybe it's not the best topic to joke about, but really, everyone who sneezes now is automatically thought to be infected. if you get it you get it people, not much we can do about it.

*Mr. Brightside - The Killers