Author: lunato

2007

Accidental sandals

Accidental Sandals

I feel good whenever I wear formal high-heel shoes. They make me look taller and nicer (in my opinion) but soon after my feet get so tired that I envy the people who are wearing sneakers or slippers.

Today as well, I tried to ignore the pain of my feet, but grrrrr it was just hard to ignore. feet, o.k o.k you exist, I get it.

Sikander and I stopped at an Aldo shoe store in Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto and we bought accidental sandals. A few white straps with a huge gem on the toe strap. My feet became quiet and were in peace again.

29th April is International Dance Day and there were many performances at the Yonge and Dundas Square. a few dance schools performed Salsa and other dances. It was fun to watch.

We walked all the way to Bloor street along Yonge street to enjoy the weather and people. There was an Asian music band playing some music near the Bloor TTC Subway entrance. We watched them play for a while but they seemed unorganized.

We talked a lot, as usual, about everything and everything. By the way I just remembered something we have talked about and since sikander is forcing me to write a journal everyday, I am going to start revealing his secrets one by one so that he would block me from writing.

He has a very very old silky pajama which I call ‘persian prince pajama’. How long has he been wearing that.. it used to belong to his dad actually. It has vertical stripes with an elastic waist and he wears it all the time with his socks over the pajama legs. So, the shape is really like an Arabian Nights costume. Anyhow, it’s very old and has holes everywhere. I begged him to dump it out but he loves it. I took him to Sears and showed him nice and new pajamas, but he refuses.

Recently he confessed to me that he actually has a huge fear whenever he wears the persian prince pajama under his pants. He imagines what if we went to a bank and all of a sudden bank robbers come in with guns. Then, just like the movie “inside man” they force the hostages to strip down to their underwear. Sikander has a plan for it. He would refuse to take off his pants, he will just say “man just shoot me, i am not taking off my pants man”

He would rather die than display his old persian pants in public. Actually it was once displyed in public in Ottawa. Almost about 10 years ago, no wonder he was still using the pajama, he had to give sunny a ride to a movie theater. He thought he was just dropping sunny and he would stay in the car the whole time. So he dared to go out in “persian pajama” without wearing any pants on the top. Once sunny got off the car the car door didn’t close. So he had to call the car repair people and they asked him to stand outside in front of the main door of the theater to make it easy to find him. Sunny was working at the theatre so sunny could not help. Sikander had to stay in that pajama at the main door of the movie theater where all the cool kids in town were hanging out.

Poor sikander in his poor persian prince pajama. One day i’m going to take a picture of the pajama without him knowing about it. Next time you see him, ask him if he is wearing his persian prince.

2007 Events

Milaad of 2007

Ever since a serious self-questioning about religion during my teen years, I left the concept of religion unresolved. I developed myself into someone who doesn’t seek the meaning of life in religion. For me, religion is an optional choice, like being a vegetarian, which I am not by the way. People can choose to follow a religion or they can choose not to. I don’t see it as a must-choice for every human being.

However, my mother-in-law is a serious Muslim and she wanted a original Muslim daughter-in-law but her first one is me, a converted one. If I had committed to another religion, it might’ve been a big problem for me, but it doesn’t matter what religion I belong to. I’ve found that the core of every religion is all same. Be good, don’t hurt someone else physically or mentally, don’t take advantage of others, don’t steal, don’t lie, blah blah blah.

So here I am on the third Sunday of March with my mother-in-law who is arranging her annual huge religious gathering in Mississauga. I had to be there as her daughter-in-law. The gathering was held in Urdu and I had no idea what was going on. I was hoping that there might be enough errands or work for me to do so that I wouldn’t be bored. Unfortunately I had nothing to do except sitting and taking pictures from time to time.

The event started with counting kidney beans while reciting something muslim from the Quran maybe. I was making shapes like houses and animals with the beans until someone took all the beans away to start the actual event. Mom was the MC and under her supervision many recitation and stuff went on and on and on.. I could see some people pointing at me and my mother-in-law. I guessed they were talking about me being her daughter-in-law. How outstanding it was an Asian girl wearing Pakistani traditional clothes and being in a muslim gathering in a Pakistani community.

I was so bored by the time the event finally finished after 5 hours. It was the longest and the most serious religious event I have ever been in, even though I didn’t understand a single word. I even lost my appetite to take pictures of food which was served in the end. I called sikander and he arrived a few minutes later with my recent addiction Lifesavers popsicle. Lifesaver really makes me happy. He calls it Marriagesaver haha.

Later I gave one to sunny and he said “this is go~~~~od” hehe spreading my addiction to others is something to feel good about.

2007 Food

vegetable pancake recipe

Ingredients: flour, 1egg, 1potato, 1 zucchini, 1 carrot, 1 onion

Open the refrigerator to see what kind of vegetables have been sitting there for days.
Shred vegetables: In my case, I shredded 1 potato, 1 zucchini, 1 carrot, 1 onion.
Put them in a big bowl.
In another big bowl, put 1 cup of flour, 1 egg, and about one and a half cup of water (I am not so sure how much water I putÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ add more water little by little until the mix is as thick as pancake(breakfast pancake) mix)
Now, mix all vegetables with the flour with a half table spoon of salt(a little bit will be fine because you can have it with sauce later if it has too flat taste)
Put a little bit of olive oil on the frying pan and put the vegetable mix. Make it as thin as possible for better taste.
Flip the pancake two or three times until the surface becomes yellow brown.
In the mean time, put a little bit of soy sauce, vinegar, pepper, and sesame seeds in a small bowl for the sauce. Actually pepper, vinegar, or sesame doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t make a lot of difference. Only soy sauce is fine too.
Cut the pancake into pieces. And finally, itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s food time.

Here are the pictures: