Babar's Ingenuity!

The legal kids had a departmental dinner with their boss recently - just after we all moved floors*. Duckie decided to rag a little on Babar by having the following conversation with their boss:

Duckie: I feel very sorry for the person who will be unfortunate enough to have to use Babar's office.

Legal Boss: Why, Duckie?

Duckie: The poor person will walk into a disaster zone. It looks like it's been hit by two tornadoes, a flood, and a pack of famished hyenas. The carpet is completely worn, torn and stained, the desk is cracked and has marker doodles, the doorknob is broken and comes out in your hand... I could go on forever.

Legal Boss: Babar, how embarrassing!

Babar: Yes, Legal Boss. They'll find a broken doorknob, a tattered carpet, and a battered desk. And they'll wonder who could have damaged an office so badly. So they'll walk out to see who was in there previously, and they'll see Duckie's name.

Babar switched name tags with Duckie's office before leaving. INGENIOUS.

*To clarify: We were kicked out of our floor when it was rented by a new company and are temporarily sharing with another. We should be moving to our own floor within a month or two.

Je Suis Le Fat

I almost posted yet another work rant (and a much deserved rant, I might add), but I had a light bulb moment that I just had to share.

I've figured out the real reason people don't like casts. No one likes to admit it because it is embarrassing. So they make up lots of silly fake excuses like so-called crazy itching that requires an endless supply of rulers to assuage, or atrophied calf muscles that take forever to rehabilitate, or bad skin due to lack of cleaning/breathing. But none of this is true. These are all pretend reasons to hate being in a cast.

I'm not afraid. I will tell you the truth. The real reason people hate casts is weight gain.

When your movement is limited, what do you do to pass the time? You eat. When you are bored and are watching tv, what do you do? You eat. When you've run out of things to watch and are roaming around the house on crutches, what do you do? You visit the kitchen to eat.

And after you do all these things, what do you do? You eat some more.

This has been my modus operandi for the last 12 days. Compound the fact that I ate like Michael Phelps on crack while in London for a month and you can probably imagine about half the weight I've gained this summer. Maybe. If you've got an incredibly overactive imagination. If you don't, then you're still way off. Double that. Yes, now double it again. Now add about 5 more kilo's to that. There you go. That's close-ish.

And glory be, the fates won't ever let me be. The month of binge eating is fast approaching, meaning not only will I still be stuffing my face out of boredom, but I'll be stuffing it 4 or 5 times as often due to the countless iftars (breaking of fast meals) I'll be going to because I'm everyone's token Christian friend. And you know you have to have that token Christian friend at the iftar or else you wouldn't have fulfilled the Ramadan "feed the unfortunate lesser beings" rite.

So expect another ballooning of the Eureka next month. Hopefully I'll have managed to lose some of all this weight by London-time next year. Only to gain it all again. T'is the circle of fat. It moves us all.

Enter Elton John, stage left.

Bum Foot Update and Other Stories

Doc says the cast should come off in about 4 weeks, which is a surprisingly shorter period than I anticipated.

Yay for positive thinking :)

I think I spent a grand total of ten minutes at my desk today. I had a 14 hour lunch break, followed by a 7 hour gossip session with all the women at work. Then Mr. Boss Man calls at 4:15 (which is early by his standards!) and says he wants a graph of XYZ and a bunch of other things.

That took me the ten minutes referred to above. Then I went home.

He calls again at 7:55pm asking for more stuff. Lucky for him I felt so guilty for not doing ANYTHING all day that I didn't mind working from home this evening.

He really must do a praise his god dance because that god saved his ass from a major whooping with my bright yellow cast as the main weapon, assisted by side-swiping using my crutches. They'll be the right-left punches to my cast's roundhouse kick. Chuckie would be proud.

Then I would have called upon my personal fire-breathing dragon to burn him to the ground like the Egyptian Parliament is burning as I type this. So sad. That was one of the few remaining beautiful buildings in Cairo. Of course, there is no way we'll ever know what happened because the authorities will claim it was an electrical malfunction of some sort. Some things never change.

On a happier note (which is how I like to end posts to give you reasons to smile) Roonies passed part two of her CFA! ALL HAIL ROONIES, QUEEN OF THE FINANCE GERMS. Blah, blah, Hooray everybody.

Open Casting Call for Banner Art

Do we like the current banner?

Well, if you don't or are bored of it, this is your chance to stick your thumbprint right on the face of this blog. Feel free to lick your thumb, smash it hard against my forehead, then pick my nose for anything I may have missed in there.

The only rule is that it needs to say "Eurekaisms" on there somewhere so that people don't mistake this for any of the 1000000000 million other self-indulgent blogs out there.

Happy creating!

Oh, your masterpieces are welcome as attachments in an email sent to eurekaisms@gmail.com

Enjoy.

10 Reasons Why I Should Have Been A Boy

1) The most common comment I get from every girl I know: "If you were a boy I'd so date you". Apparently, I would have made the perfect boyfriend because I know exactly what women want (news to me; I don't even know what I want for lunch today) and how they should be treated. I know what to say to make them feel good about themselves without it being a lie, I know how to make them feel better and give sage advice (sage being the exact opposite of how I'd have reacted, of course), and I unwittingly make them laugh sometimes. Like when I tell them I've had a broken foot for three weeks and hadn't even noticed.

2) ESPN and What Car? Magazine trump E! and People any day.

3) Burping, farting and excreting are the body's method of releasing excess air/gas/waste, not disgusting unmentionable functions. With IBS and FMF, that is the only sane way to look at things.

4) I would have had impeccable taste if I were a boy. I have enough polo's to prove it.

5) The Eureka brain is built like a guy's brain. All logic, no emotions. Emotions are stupid because they don't make sense, so really, there's nothing to talk about. I don't need to discuss why I'm feeling X or Y because you didn't call when you said you did. If you didn't call you must have had a perfectly good reason. No questions asked. And I don't understand why women like to ask a question to which their answer would be the only right answer. I don't want to be trapped into telling you whether you look fat in that skirt or not. You know the answer to that already.

6) I had a broken foot for three weeks and didn't notice, man. Name one girl who wouldn't have declared it a national emergency and insisted on a week's stay at the hospital for chipping her little toe's nail on the pavement. Tough like Rambo. ROAR.

7) Just watch me attack that medium-rare steak. I'd eat it raw if they'd let me.

8) I despise long phone calls. They drive me crazy. Phone calls should be short and to-the-point. 2 minutes is 1 and a half minutes too long. This is my version of what a phone call should be like:

"Hey, what time are we meeting for lunch today?"

"5:50"

"Ok, bye"

Click without waiting for the other person's response.

Now THAT's a phone call.

9) I never remember gossip. I never notice what people are wearing, let alone what season's collection it came from. Hell, I'll be happy if I could remember people's names.

10) If my boobs are any indication, then I would have had a GREAT penis.

Tuesday Morning

He walked past the woodcutter’s makeshift workshop, briefly closing his eyes to fully absorb the warm smell of freshly cut plywood against the crisp charred cinnamon effused by the heavy oak. The sound of the machinery did not disconcert him the way it did his sister. On the contrary, it was a strange sort of comfort to him. An assurance that it was a day just like any other. Nothing extraordinary would happen today. There was no need to worry, no need to think. It was a day like any other. He would not turn grey today.

He stopped for a moment, pretending to look both ways before crossing, though he knew the street’s beats better than his own heart’s. He just wanted an excuse to breathe in the planks’ refreshing simplicity once more, to allow the invigorating vibrations of the saws one more chance to rouse his soul. He counted to five, and sure enough, on the fifth beat the red Daewoo pick-up loaded with vegetation rumbled passed. The street was his timepiece. The woodcutter’s his gauge to the day’s mood.

He sighed and half-skipped across the broken asphalt. He did not feel any differently. The sun was blazing in the early morning smog in typical March fashion, brazenly evicting the wisps of winter the city coveted. The sandstorms would begin soon. He gazed at the austere blue sky, wondering which palette it would choose this year. Would it select last year’s abundance of oranges and pomegranates or revert to the safe saffrons of more conventional seasons? Or would it decide to turn the city beige, blinding all inhabitants in the endless yards of fabric as it had in 1998, frightening all the children. The factory warehouse behind him will probably fade further. Although he couldn’t really imagine how much of a change could happen to walls already indiscernible from desert dunes. Had it not been for the handful of terra cotta shingles remaining on the disintegrating roof, no one would even remember that solitary memento of Soviet days of yore.

The bakery was approaching; the air was becoming grittier. So much flour lost because of its capricious nature, always duped by the breeze’s transparent seductions. It was only destined to be dropped at the first hint of tedium, to be perpetually trampled on.

The loaves were of pitiful size and quality, but they would have to do. They were all he could afford, especially with inflation taking its toll on even subsidized bread prices. He was getting less and less for his painfully pursued pennies by the day, the hour. In some cases even the minute he thought, recalling how the price of tomatoes shot up five piastres as he stood in front of the grocer, mouth agape. His brow furrowed at the thought of arriving to the point where even his measly loaves would become a luxury. They already were in a sense. Those miniscule slabs of plaster and gravel, barely large enough to cover his palm.

He spat and banished the thought as he surveyed the mob he would have to shoulder through. It was a day like any other. He refused to grow grey today.

August One-Liner

Bloft, upon hearing about our security guard's night job:

Now all I have to do to give people directions to our house is say, "just ask for the Cairo Whore House." This just made life a lot easier.

Of course, she said it in Arabic using much cruder terms.

Holy Snap, Crackle and Pop, Batman!

This is just unbelievable! Remember my building's security guard who's a crook? Well, turns out he's an honest-to-goodness PIMP, too!

Yes, way!

Turns out he's been using an unused room in the garage and an unoccupied apartment on the ground floor of our (WHAT I THOUGHT WAS A PERFECTLY RESPECTFUL) building to rent out some women he's been sneaking in while we go about our daily business with our heads up our asses. Seriously, how oblivious am I to not notice that the security guard is running a side business right under my nose?

And what about the customers? Do they all have invisibility cloaks? That would explain all those times I thought I bumped into someone when no one was there... Eww.

Dude was on top of his game, I'll give him that.

I'm starting to worry about myself. Does this mean I'm ditzy enough not to notice if I'm on drugs? Someone's got to be slipping something in the water.

Oh, he was fired. Just in case you're wondering.

Ode to Crackhead in Highlighter Yellow

I finally got my foot checked out yesterday to appease my father's growing concern.

When I told the doctor the story of how I banged it chasing after a bus, he waved his hand as said the foot is covered in tough veins and should be ok. Then he found out that this happened 25 days ago and that it is still uncomfortable and weak. His face did a little flip. He took one poke at my foot and said "You're not going to like me," then took an x-ray.

"You're really not going to like me now," he sighed. "See this line across here separating this piece from the rest of your foot?"

"Yes," I say, crossing my fingers. Please say that this isn't a break, please, please.

"This is where you broke it three weeks ago." Oh, snap. I was afraid of that. "And see these flecks of white around it? That's where your poor foot was trying to heal itself, but you snapped it off again yesterday. Good thing too, or else it would have healed incorrectly causing a lifetime of discomfort and complications."

He then went into the differences between old casts and new casts and basically insisted on a new-style cast in highlighter yellow.

So now I'm lugging a good 3 kilos of fluorescent resin shaped like a peep-toe boot engulfing my foot and leg up to my knee. In August (so much for the chance of a tan this year then). For an unspecified period because he said he couldn't tell me how long this would take to heal. All for a tiny little break I never noticed to begin with because I'd never broken anything before. Then again, you'd think it would hurt if you broke your foot, right? I was convinced this couldn't be more than a little sprain.

Who'da thunk it?

P.S. Bloft is loving this. She had her arm in a cast in June last year when she broke her wrist. Since August is even more of a bitch, she can't wait to watch me suffer as I try to itch inside with various tools. In her defence, she is being nice enough to give me tips. She recommended plastic over metal rulers to avoid infections and to fold sheets of A4 paper into ruler-shaped strips if necessary. Sunshine, who has ample experience with broken legs - having broken both - recommends knitting needles, if used with caution.

So my 6 and a half readers, all and any tips on dealing with this thing are very much appreciated :)

Ouch

So I really hope bad luck only comes in threes because I don't know if I'm up to dealing with any more of it.

Yesterday morning: zipper snaps in half as I put on a skirt. I quite liked that skirt. Cost me an arm and three toes, too.

Last night: drop my iPod. It refuses to function past a whirring and clicking sound of the harddrive skipping and won't even restore factory settings. I know because I was up until 2 am hitting the reset button and begging iTunes to fix my baby. This obviously means I've lost EVERYTHING on it since I now need to take it to the distributor to have them fix it.

Today: Snap my foot/ankle again about 15 minutes ago. In pain, unable to walk, and dreading the next 3 hours of traffic and several flights of steps I'll have to endure to get my iPod and skirt fixed.

Not at all amused.

If You Can't Say Something Nice...

Don't say nothing at all. Thumper was spot on.

Shame so many Egyptians haven't learnt that lesson, because this is just an embarrassment to us all. Reinforces every misconception about us that exists, and then some.

For the link to the original video, click here.

Apparently I'm A Stay-At-Home Complaining Londoner

Or: Eurekaisms is just self-absorbed mumbo-jumbo.

That sounds a lot more accurate.

Baby Kangaroo just blogged about making word pictures out of blogs using www.wordle.net.

This is what Eurekaisms resulted in.


You can click to enlarge if you can't see the smaller print.

Chapeau BK!

Summertime Snooze

Once again, apologies for the lack of attention.

On second thought, no. No apologies. It is the summer. Everything slows down during the summer. And in Cairo's eyeball melting heat, I should be given blogger immunity. I can't be expected to have the energy to come up with fabulously exciting stories for you while cooling my forehead with a semi-cold Coke can that's dripping all over my already hot, sweaty and wet face, causing rivulets to tickle my itchy neck and soak my t-shirt.

It's August. In Egypt. Therefore, the above description is an understatement, to say the least.

Plus, I'm lazy. This leads to a complete lack of creativity juice in these tired brain veins.

I was complaining to Doolittle earlier today that although I do have ideas for proper pieces to write, I have zero discipline and focus to get me to sit down and physically bang them out. I've been rewriting the same lousy paragraph for two months now. Probably longer. And it isn't even particularly good, let along worthy of such attention. Now that I think about it, it even feels like a half-assed We Were the Mulvaneys knock-off.

I'm feeling extra demotivated with regard to writing because of the book I'm currently reading. The level of creativity some people enjoy is just mind-boggling. How do people come up with this stuff? My only contribution to fiction has been endless recycling of the same plot points, tone, style and characters in slightly different situations and sexes. Same depressive shit, different fillers. Even I'm bored of my penchant for morbidity.

I know I promised fun London stories, but I'm going to have to renege. I basically shopped, ate glorious junk and hung out with my family the entire time. The one time I bothered to try and see a friend was a disaster.

Babar was in London for the weekend the second week of my trip. We agreed to meet the Saturday morning for a meal. No problems there, right?

Wrong. Little did I know that this would be the ruin of the remainder of my trip.

Ask why. Go on.

Because the Eureka gods decided to leave their Cairo perches and pay me a visit in London that morning. Of course, this inevitably equates catastrophe.

As I ran to catch the bus, I slammed my right foot on the pavement. By some miracle, the gods decided to go easy on me by avoiding the final indignity of a sprawled lips-to-ground landing. Instead, I remained on my feet but hopping around - a scene straight out of Looney Tunes. The old lady I almost knocked over in the process did not find this amusing.

Never did end up seeing Babar due to the immediate and significant swelling of my foot. Still a little swollen and sore at the moment but I'm walking now.

Can't say the same about the last two weeks. but hey, at least I caught up on Eastenders.

Only Eureka, right?