Avoidance Tactic

I am a walking piece of TIRED. And The Movement for the Preservation of Shev's Laundry has turned into a failed experiment. Have I mentioned that Alex is HUMID this time of year?
While, on the upside, I have a topsheet finally, my topsheet is dirty. Well not dirty, but stained.
I have to write a media presentation for tomorrow that should last 10 minutes. Its going to be on this article that Rachel Baker (Raybay - there's a shoutout for you!) sent me. Should be entertaining, but I still have to write and practice it. And I'm taking all of my other finals tomorrow since I can't take them on Saturday. I don't think I'm going to study. Is that bad? In fairness, it IS Tisha B'Av. So I'm going to try and write that media presentation sitting on the floor. But in the meantime writing this blog is an avoidance tactic. But its 11:48 and time is flying.

Speaking of Tisha B'Av I had to run out of class today. I all of a sudden realized, at 6:30, in the middle of the 3rd hour of my FusHa class, that I had had a cup of tea, some nuts and a mango to eat and I was hungry. And then I realized that I had to stop eating at 8pm. I get out of class at 8pm. So I ran out of class at 6:30, walked to the only restaurant that I eat at here in Egypt (Muhammad Ahmed's. That's really its name. No joke.) and had dinner, finished at 7:30, and had enough time to shower and put on non-leather shoes before sundown. It's now Tisha B'Av. I think I mentioned that.

Today I went to the gym. Before class. (Back up in time in your mind.) On my way back I needed a cab, so I walked to the main road. Cabs were scarce so I stood by the road for a while -- being stared at by Egyptian men -- but also experiencing something very odd. The road I had come to is a semi-highway and its one-way, but that didn't bother the caravan coming the other way. Headed by six or seven motorcyclists (two or three to a motorcycle), there were maybe nine or ten packed cars, alternating men and women's vehicles (microbus/vans for nakabed women and trucks where men hung off the sides, sitting, standing, kneeling, etc. This was not a wedding party. No one was trilling, there was no screaming, and furthermore, there was no furniture being moved. This mass of probably 60-70 people came through, and I all I could think was "...WTF? Egypt is weird."

Immediately after they had gone, I got a cab. He didn't tell me this when I got in, but we needed to pick up his sister. He told me this as he pulled over to pick her up. Literally. She was in a wheelchair. I opened the door for them and helped them a little, and then got in the front as the cab driver had requested. We started driving and he handed me an apple fanta. I asked him if he wanted me to open it for him. He said no, its for you, drink it. So I opened up the apple fanta and tasted the first soda I'd had in maybe 3 years. It was a strangely sweet treat on so many levels.

If I weren't going to write my presentation now, and if it weren't Tisha B'Av, and if I weren't so tired, I would listen to Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers (thank you Bina) and chomp on some fruit and drink some water. Enjoy.