The Tuesday Eid Report

(Eid Mubarak in Arabic)

What's crack-a-lackin' yaars?

Eid-ul-Adha was quite enjoyable yesterday. It ranks up there as one of the better baree Eids (big Eid). Despite the fact that I came in with low expectations, I left with good memories, and one that left me a bit ticked!

Quick note - For some reason they refer to this Eid as "Big Eid" while the previous one is "Little Eid". I have no idea why, especially since "Little Eid" involves fasting for a month and money gifts on the celebratory day whereas "Big Eid" involves no money, no fasting, and the slaying of a lamb. The beauty of religion I suppose!

On to the report. After falling asleep at around 4 am, my mother managed to wake me up at around 9, totally pissed and worried that we would be late for prayers. From what she's told me, you get more blessings from God the earlier you're there and the closer you are to the front. Which is all good and dandy, but why all the rush when our prayers will be ONE block away!

My mother was CONVINCED that if we left after 9:30 for 10 AM prayers, we would be late, as there would be too many people, too little parking, and problems. My brother being the dorkaramus he is, managed to get INTO the tub to bathe at 9:25! Luckily for the first time ever I was ready at my mom's scheduled time and got the rare chance for her to ream into him for being stupid. Of course after those 10 seconds she managed to group the lateness as both of our problems! The trials and tribulations of being the eldest!

We managed to leave our home at 9:45 to get to the place, which was the Banquet Hall/Basement of "Flipper's Fish House". It obviously didn't sound to enamouring. With my mother huffing and puffing, we managed to pull into the plaza at 9:50, with ample parking RIGHT in front of the restaurant. As we got into the banquet hall, we saw that it was HALF empty. And to top it off, prayers started 15 minutes LATE!!! I could have used the extra sleep!

Prayers were good though. For the first time since I can remember, my brother and myself managed to find family friends to sit with and pray, making the experience much more enjoyable as we actually talk a bit (if you've ever met my brother, you know he's not the talker I am, so chilling with him can at times be quite the silent movie). In the 30 minutes before prayers, we managed to have a little group around us, composed of people I actually have known since childhood! It was amazing, seeing as our normal, GTA community gatherings are so large, you seldom meet more than one or two familiar faces. It was completely heart-warming to share the experience with old friends.

The sermon by the speaker was - as much as I'd like to cut him some slack - lame. The gentleman had a bit of an English speaking problem, and went into a tedious, repetitive speech style that had us asleep within 10 minutes. Admittedly, his message afterwards WAS quite interesting, he just lulled us to sleep with his slow intro. And it seemed that his Urdu speech (which was interspersed after English paragraphs), was a completely different speech. He was MUCH more comfortable and elegant in his mother tongue - though I wish that his English was too.

So after prayers we gave celebratory hugs to family and friends we knew. After that, for some reason we were given "refereshment" paper bags, consisting of jalebi, 2 samosas, namak paray, and a juice box. It was quite fun avoiding meeting with my 1st cousin (who I don't exactly get along with) by drinking the juice box. It WAS Eid though, so I did dish out the love (I didn't want to rack up black marks with the Big Guy on EID!). Plus, the party was at OUR house for the first time!

We drove the 1 block home (don't ask, my mother didn't want to ruin her clothes with a 1 block walk), and upon reaching home saw that there was a lineup of guests waiting at the door. We opened up shop, chatted a bit in the living room, and the PLAN was for us younger folk to head out to Mandarin for some all-you-can eat lunch. Right when we are leaving, I made the bone-headed move of informing my mother of our departure. She manages to force us all back in, ensuring we eat some of her Pakistani appetizers, thus killing any chance of leaving. I mean, who goes to all-you-can eat after having appetizers?!? An hour later, after slyly killing our plans, she coyly asked "Why aren't you going now?". Not only do I HATE when my mother does stuff like that, I DESPISE when she manages to talk about the topic with her friends (who then gabbed about what dishes they love at Mandarin!).

The young guests (young as in under 30) managed to go inside and watch The 40 Year Old Virgin. I had alrady seen it so managed to get into my room and fall asleep on my bed (with dress shirt and necktie on!). By the time I awoke, all had left! Which is probably not the worst thing in the world, as I was too tired to answer the typical "auntie" questions. So I went back to bed, this time in p.j.'s and a blanket to warm up in! And hours later I awoke to a beautiful smell...

My brother brought home Chinese Hakka! My mother I think felt semi-bad over killing our lunch and sent my brother to get some Hakka Chow Mein from Lucky's. Though it wasn't Mandarin, I couldn't complain. Well I could, and did. My brother picked the spicy noodles! Though for those scoring, I've had worse (as you very well remember Jamie!).

The night was capped with the final of the inaugural Madden Bowl. And in true Naveed/Zan rivalry fashion, I managed to lose 12-7 to Zan, as he beat me with a SAFETY and field goal! I FINALLY managed to stop his run game, yet still lose as I can't throw for the life of me! GRRRRR!

That's the Eid report for Tuesday. Today is the Eid for a majority of Muslims in Canada, and we've been invited to a party of non-Ahmadi Muslims (if you didn't know, I'm of the Ahmadi Muslim denomination of Islam - my paternal grandfather a founding member). It is most definitely going to be strange explaining to old ignorant men why a "village sect" celebrated Eid a day early, but I'll try my best to represent (even though I have no clue either!). Oh, and if it didn't get any better, we're PAYING for dinner at their home. Somebody came up with the brilliant idea of buying Chinese and splitting the cost last month for little Eid and it seems we're doing it again. So So Wrong!!!

Talk to you l8er dawgs (and bitches :P )