Rainclouds

The sky is grey and leaden but it's only drizzled lightly so far. Rain clouds in Karachi are such a tease! Back in the day, we'd bunk classes and get soaked... In summers, when cousins from Saudi were over, we'd play in the rain, and do "jharoo pocha" using wipers to push the water into the garden and "washing" the roof with old towels donated by our grandmother.

I like watching the sky, breathing in the slightly moist/musty smell and being wafted by the sea breeze as I drive along Sea View, listening to FM 89 :)

Karachi, despite all your issues, I love thee :)

The Grand Reunion - We met, we hugged, we conquered...

Wednesday was a normal working day. I went to office, turned in a report and blasted emails. Then, I went home, packed and went to the airport.

Three hours later, I was in Dubai!!!!! M and Il came to pick me up, then we drove back to Masdar City in Abu Dhabi listening to "Give Me Everything Tonight" :D

Masdar City is pretty cool. The PRTs were finally working and it was sort of like the Jetsons as we zoomed away in a driver-less cube.

Next day, we went to IKEA on Saadiyat Island... I had the 1 dirham ice-cream, a hot-dog and a showarma and bought a garlic crusher, a solar lamp (to counter the load-shedding in Karachi) and scented candles... :)

We came back and watched "Due Date" followed by an all-night long girly gossip session.

Spent Friday in Marina Mall (Abu Dhabi), Saturday in Dubai Mall and Sunday in Mirdif City Center... and now I am officially broke :P

Shamsi Farm

So our firm organized a "day-out" for employees at Shamsi Farms... Twas quite a painful experience!

We arrived at office at 8 am and got into the buses (without airconditioning!). Humidity was high and I would guess temperatures to be around 45 C... People were sweating and emitting BO :-P ewwww...

They'd hired 2 chalets, one for the men and one for ladies... except, no one felt like getting into the dirty water or going on the water slides. The boats weren't working, there were no paddles and it was too hot to do anything but curl up in bed with a book and sip iced lemonade.

Rather than team-building, the event seemed to be aimed at getting people to annoy one another and strain already-fragile nerves.

It was also my first company trip without Mr. F to entertain me :'(

Slowly, I'm coming to appreciate him more and more... lol

Someone Didn't Have Breakfast Today

EMAIL

Dear Mr. ****a,

Please review the attached FIDIC Agreement. Our European Consultant M**&**H requires this format to be followed. Please advise if this is in line with our company policy.

Thanks,

Regards,

Gaia

RESPONSE

FIDIC Contracts are internationally used as a base for negotiations-- our "Policy" will allow us to use any contract reviewed by Legal--however to send a FIDIC one for "review" without first understanding what its for and what our "clients" (ie yourll ) want is a waste of everyones time-- suggest yourll go thru it and see if it fits your commercial need and then discuss it with us--most of the contents of most agreements are common sense matters anyway and im sure thats one commodity E***** is not short of !

Ouch!

Almost a Year...

Around this time last year, I was busy freaking out about my wedding... I'd returned from my Bachelorette trip to Abu Dhabi and my parents were pretty stressed out with the wedding preps.

A year later, Alhamdulilah, I'm a lot more calm, generally wiser (at least I like to think so :)) and a lot more assertive than I used to be...

I've grown to love my husband and I think we've both gotten accustomed to our quirks and idiosyncrasies. My faith is stronger today... I'd agreed to this marriage more out of blind faith (that it was the right thing to do) than anything else and Alhamdulilah, things have worked out for the better. It could have worked out otherwise as well and for that, thank you Allah Mian.

Dear Mr. F,

I know I still don't let you read my blog, but I want to say, "thank you" for being a great husband/companion and for keeping all the promises you made to me at the time of our wedding. Thanks for not abusing my trust, for taking care of me and for being patient with me when I'm being unreasonable/difficult.

I've learned a lot from you over the past 11+ months and I'm looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together... hopefully, we'll manage to keep it fresh and fun and not fall into the marriage rut...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Password Recovery Nightmare

A month ago, I decided to donate my old laptop to my dad. I changed the password, wrote it down on a piece of paper and gave it to dear Dad.... except, he probably forgot about it and somehow, the paper got lost.

Sigh... so, a month later, I decided to try logging in, only to get locked out :'(

I've been trying all possible combinations of numbers, letters, names, pet's names but I can't remember my password :"~(

Ana sad, jiddan jiddan!

If there are any tech-savvy people out there, any suggestions?

June

When I was in school, June used to signal the beginning of the summer vacations... long days spent with my cousins from Jeddah, playing guns and robbers, having "midnight feasts", reading Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Sweet Valley and going for our annual ride in the "victoria". We'd gorge on Mr. Burger and chips and Pakola, have carrom board and ludo championships and watch WWF (anyone remember Bret, the Hitman Hart??!).

We'd watch Johnny Quest and Ninja Robots and stay up till 5 am while our moms and grandmother watched old bollywood movies...

We're all grown-up now (N, A, S, Ai and myself), two of us are married, A recently got engaged, S has started his first job and Ai is about to graduate... The kids who came later have different experiences... My 13 year old sister plays badminton, hangs out with her friends and watches movies in the cinema... N's younger sister is now in Canada, the cousins don't visit as often since it's become more expensive and their holiday schedules don't match. Our priorities have changed; husbands and our own homes and jobs need to be managed.

I miss the good old days... Thank you Amima and NanaAbbu for giving us a grand childhood :")