Today is Eid beneath the gray skies of Jordan. The city is quiet at this time of the morning, but the weather seems to be angry again. In most of the countries we share a border with, like Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and umm, Sunni Iraq, who share our sky too, it’s Eid today as well. A few countries a bit farther away, although their sky is not attached directly to ours, it’s Eid too, and those countries are Kuwait, Qatar, the Emirates, Yemen, and Libya.

Yet, tomorrow is Eid in Syria, for although they’re only a couple of hours car trip from my couch right now, I guess God sent them a different moon. He also went ahead and sent that same moon of Syrias to Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Shiaa Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, Sudan, and Pakistan.

On the occasion of Ramadan ending under our sky, I’d like to share a little movie that my friend Ibra made about our schism as a culture, as an identity, as a nation:

Yesterday, we went out for ftoor, and in the car on the way, I looked at the nearest supermarket that sells alcohol, and they had the whole section of alcohol walled off neatly with white walls, keeping the “sin” away from the holy eyes of the month of Ramadan. When we went back home, less than two hours later, after Eid has been announced, the walls were gone, and the store looked like it did before.

Roba: Can you believe that place is going into its fifth year in business? Man, next September it’ll be five. DAMN. Five years is a lot of time. It’s almost a quarter of my life.

Moose: Almost. But yeah, you’re right, it is a lot of time. Next year, on its fifth birthday, we’ll throw it the biggest party ever, complete with cake, candles, and tabbouleh.

Roba: Yeah! That would be so much fun! And we can invite a hundred people, and choose music that it may like, and decorate the place with little red shoes! Oh, and confetti, and a lot of candy, and pizza-

Moose: And Ferqet Sala7ef il Ninja.

Roba: A clown! Oooooh, we can use the free Mubaweb ad that came with our Al-Ghad subscription… Hahaha, that would be awesome.

And this blog turned four early this month.

How anyone in the world would save a burger for over ten years defeats me, although I am a grade A hoarder. I stopped “saving” food in the 4th grade, when my grandmother gave me a very prettily wrapped Eid chocolate, and I put it away in my cashbox, only to find it bug-infected a year later. I did keep the wrapper though.

Anyway. This woman, who gives classes on good food, has a McDonald’s hamburger from 1996.

And it looks exactly the same as it did on the very day she bought it, 12 years ago.

And here’s a comparision between the 12 year old burger and a new one:

From her blog: “People always ask me – what did you do to preserve it? Nothing – it preserved itself. Ladies, Gentleman, and children alike – this is a chemical food. There is absolutely no nutrition here. I marvel at how McDonalds has infiltrated our entire world. A hamburger here tastes exactly the same in China or some around the world place. It’s cloned. Makes you wonder doesn’t it?”

Being the kind of person who doesn’t exactly care about nutrition, I must say I feel a lot more comfortable eating a McDonald’s burger now that I know that it’s that well preserved.

Do you believe that the world sends vibes, and that people’s moods influence one another?

A time to escape

People on the weather

People on rituals

Related:
September and the summer is over
The end of August
Weekend Update
Beginning of January
Feelings going around this February
April Sentiments
Status Update Special: Lubnan
June and things are getting brighter
Cause you know, there’s no one from home to support
August Status Update

One day it was quiet, silent, still. The sleeveless shirts, skirts and sandals happy and excited.

Suddenly.

The coal, the jackets, the heavier blankets. THE RAIN.

And I’m not ready yet.

As much as I hate pasting links, this stuff is really funny.

N.Y. man caught using mannequin to drive in carpool lane
Utah turns to Twitter to update residents on news, state events