Misery May 2, 2009
Posted by faranaaz in Uncategorized.Tags: family, friends, homesickness
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It only took me 14 hours since we landed in Johannesburg to realise that everyone at our house is depressed. Sameer spent 12 of those 14 hours playing some slice-n-dicey Xbox game in the lounge. I spent about twelve hours in bed with the laptop balanced on my tummy and watched two movies, half a documentary, two episodes of House, and seven episodes of Greys Anatomy, skipping the boring or irritating bits. Izzy spent most of the day meowing in random corners of the house, compulsively grooming herself or trying to escape into the great outdoors. She’s now retired to her fluffy pink blanket in the guest bathroom. We’re all miserable. We miss home and by that we mean Cape Town.
We miss familiar street names and eateries. We miss popping into cousins’ houses for catchup chats and pudding, we miss people randomly turning up at the house to say hi, we miss being asked to go to the movies or to lunch by people who’ll actually set a day and a time and turn up.
We miss friends who call us “The Parkers” and get the in-joke, who go shopping with us and tell us what size jeans to buy, friends who surprise us with Doctor Who books, who worry about us when we’re sick and send orange juice, neices who tell us they “always free”, cousins who greet us in their PJs and entice us to chat until midnight, aunties who invite us for specially-made crayfish curry, sisters who put extra blankets on the bed when it’s cold, and mommies who’ll make lemongrass tea for Sameer and milky tea for me.
I think Izzy just misses being the centre of the Dalvie universe. We cannot compete, of course.
Basically, today is the day we remember why Joburg sucks so bad.
The sweetest thing! December 2, 2008
Posted by faranaaz in Life.Tags: children, family, parenting
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There’s a blog I follow on and off called Spain Dad. It’s about a young American couple who live in Spain with their toddler. It’s a reflective parenting blog and I find it really interesting – well written, never boring or sappy, just a mom and dad learning more about themselves, each other and their baby. What I really enjoy about it are the little moments in life that it highlights, captures and preserves.
I haven’t read it for a while and also haven’t used my Google Reader in a while. I went in this evening to go clear out some stuff and came across this post. It’s about how the parents went about setting up a bedtime routine for their little daughter, who has just moved into her own room and bed. The dad created a book about the whole process for his kid, and used it to explain to her what was going to happen, and what each person in the family would do along the way.
They’ve posted the book online here. I somehow didn’t expect it to be so darn sweet but I got to the end of it and was all “Aaaawwww!”. I’m filing this idea away for future use, along with so many other notes I’ve taken from the blog.
The prodigal post October 7, 2008
Posted by faranaaz in Life.Tags: Cape Town, family, schedule
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(Original title “The prodigal blogger” This is the one that disappeared so mysteriously back in August.)
Sunday afternoon (barely) and I’m finally getting some time to sit down and think and do other stuff that doesn’t involve driving up and down and being at specific places at specific times. Oh wait, I still have that but at least now there’s some wiggle room in The Schedule.
A lot of people have asked me what happened after shady San Francisco and the short version is
- Chicago
- London
- Damascus
- Amsterdam
- London
- Cape Town
But we’re in the midst of admin and packing in preparation for our move up to Joburg so it’s all been a bit busybusycrazy. I will be filling in some details re: the list above and adding some of the pictures that I took (though I literally took only about ten pictures in the last three weeks) but it’s likely to be much abridged and much delayed. My apologies to everyone.
For now, I’m just enjoying a lazy Cape Town Sunday (despite our breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner arrangements with various friends and family). I almost forgot how gloriously bright and beautiful this city is.
Now, I have a lunch to get to.
Syria, here we come May 13, 2008
Posted by faranaaz in Life, Travel.Tags: family, Syria
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Hey all. I know I’ve been scarce of late but hopefully that will pick up in the near future. Mr Parker mentioned something about a jazz club and an architecture tour so hopefully there will be pics and details and what soonish.
In the meantime, the only other real news I have is that we applied for our Syrian visas last week and got our passports back yesterday. Yay! It was surprisingly easy to do. You just download the forms off the internet and post it to the Syrian embassy in Washington along with your passport and photos. No booking appointments and queuing or anything.
So now we are definitely on for Syria. The plane tickets are booked and the family informed. I’m just hoping my dad manages to make it over there before we do. I’ll be really mad if he’s still puttering around Cape Town while we’re in Syria with mum, Nadia and the kids.
Now my only stress is to find out if there’s some kind of dress code thing that we need to adhere to when we are there. If so, I might be in a spot of trouble as I have nothing but jeans and t-shirts with me!
