fudge it

I was thinking about your fasting thing. It's a good thing; you're going to be spiritually cleansed and all that, it's good for the soul. But on the other hand, you must be f*ckin' hungry.

right now i feel like i can't do anything at all. i have no energy, but then i think that's just me being lazy. anyway. instead of words, here's another picture. from niece #1.



hope you're happy. i posted this with one arm rocking nephew #4 to sleep in his chair.

bushra | permalink | |

progress report.
looks better than monday, i guess. brother #2 is in hiding. he knows i'm going to bother him about fixing my lawn after all that toxic stuff he put on it in august. if you're finding this extremely boring, well, what d'you expect? i ain't eaten for like, eleven hours!

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I will be out of the office until Monday November 3rd. Erm, that's it.

new job and no idea what to write for my out of office reply.

first day of ramadan. if you're crap at cooking you'll do what i did and sort out the leaves in the garden. this is going to be my project for this week. eeh, nowt like fresh air. of course people in yorkshire don't really talk like that. no, people like my aunt get on the phone to ask 'how the fook did yer manage to get yer contacts in, cos mine are drivin' me round t'bend.'

anyway, the first crisis. no chappatti flour. no seriously, this ain't no typical joke. but i found a ten kilo bag in the supermarket.

sister-in-law #1: imagine people came round and saw such a small bag of flour. they'll think they have such a big family and all they can afford is this?

wait til they see the goats in the garden. just kidding.

also. update on the chainsaw:

the dad: so when are you going to get the chainsaw?
me: what's the point? they're not going to let me use it, are they?

enough. sister #5 has been on the phone to her friend for nearly half an hour. someone needs to go piss her off.

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you have e-mail

JW: Bushra, I hope you realise that you will probably never in your life receive another email simultaneously containing the terms 'plinky-plonky' and 'walloping'.

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i got my phone. but i haven't a clue how to work it. dammit.

bushra | permalink | |

10:51 - the phone hasn't arrived yet. the woman on the phone said it would be here between 9am and 4pm.

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dinner table conversation

me: i'm not buying it.
brother #2: but you're working. on the garden. next week.
me: yeah, but still. i am not paying 60 quid for a chain saw!
brother #2: well. then. the trees. will just. have to. stay there.
me: innit.

i would have added a remark by brother #3, but the fact of the matter is i didn't whack him one for saying what he said, so it's a bit pointless.

i get my phone today. TODAY. ok?

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i suppose the guy from the indian peugeot 206 advert could have done with this guy's help.

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i'm currently working out a way to explain the word 'innit' to a regular visitor to fudge it. i found this after a visit to google:

innit "inn-it"

1. (British slang, esp. Asian, i.e. Indian, Pakistani, etc.)

Contraction of "isn't it", "isn't he/she", "aren't they", "isn't there" and many other end-of-sentence questions. For greatest effect use in places where it would make no sense whatsoever if expanded.

2. General positive exclamation meaning "yes, I agree!"

1. "Hey dere's some pigs in dat cop car over there innit?"
"Yo look at my new car innit!"

2. Raj: "Da Matrix is to'ally cool!"
Nisha: "Innit!"

[from urban dictionary.]

course, dat dere is zactly how i speak, innit?

bushra | permalink | |

the story of the bug and the vacuum bag.

ok, so here's what I did done.

what looked like this giant earwig or something was on one of the kitchen walls. so I go for the vacuum cleaner innit. no more scary bug and i can get back to my breakfast.

the dad: it's 7.30, nobody vacuums at this time.
me: there was this scary bug...
the dad: and...
me: and i vacuumed it.
the dad: no! no, why did you do that? what had the bug done to you?
me: well it looked pretty scary.
the dad: do you realise that what you did was wrong? you're not to harm any creature, besides wasps and any other creature that has poisonous venom!
me: i'm sorry.
the dad: where is it now?
me: er...in the vacuum cleaner?
the dad: go get it out.
me: no! i gotta go to work! i'm not going to work covered in dust!
the dad: fine. i'll do it.
me: sure. i'm leaving now.
sister #5 and niece #1 arrive.
the dad: think about what you've done. you'd better pray.
me: ok.
sister #5: what did you do? what did she do?
the dad: this bug, that had done absolutely nothing to her, she vacuumed it up.
me: my face is burning with embarrassment. can i go now?
sister #5: oh that's bad. what you did was b-a-d.
me: you wanna die?
niece #1: can i have a cup of tea?

later that day.

me: i'm home. not that it matters. not that i care.
sister #5: good! i've done all my work, you need to vacuum the house. now!
me: bitch.
the mother: the vacuum cleaner needs a vacuum bag.
me: uh oh.
sister #5: what happened to the one already in there?
me: uh oh.
the mother: the dad took it out. and he threw it away.
sister #5: there are some over at brother #2's house. send him to go get some.
brother #2: what happened to the bag already in there?
me: uh oh.
sister #5: the dad threw it out.
brother #2: why?
me: he was liberating a cockroach. (it sounded better than bug.)
brother #2: why did you throw the vacuum bag out?
the dad: uh oh.

later that evening.

the dad: see that? all that fuss because you hurt a poor defenceless bug.
me: ...

the moral of the story? well there's two. there's my moral: next time you see a scary bug (that looks like it owns some venom), you flippin well squash it. the second: never volunteer information. actually, that's another one of mine.

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for J: bullets and stuff, or something. [found on RiG.] you've got these high-speed pictures of bullets cutting through stuff like cans and playing cards. hmm yes, playing cards. look for the title 'Queen of Hearts in two parts.' well ok, funny. but then when you hover over the image it says 'queen of hearts with broken heart.' ow!

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you know when you wake up and you remember you have to go to that job, and it happens so many times that you start getting that sick feeling in your stomach about it. but then you get to work, and a few hours into it, you can't understand why you were dreading it?

the fact that i'm listening to this has nothing to do with it. come on, i couldn't not mention it.

to balance things out, let me tell you about some of the souvenirs the dad brought back. check it out, vcd's of arif lohar and more nusrat, man. why bring this up? because i get this post on auspicious fish, but if you ever saw some of the outfits this lohar person wore you'd run away screaming (fact: he doesn't wear them on the streets of bradford. sister #2's husband pointed him out to us once).

i got a serious telling off from the dad this morning. what i'd done would seem so tiny and trivial that i can't bring myself to tell you about it, except even at 25, getting told off by the dad feels the same as a telling off when i was a kid.

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sister #5: have you heard? tony blair has been taken to hospital.
me: uh...
sister #5: apparently he's got heart problems, and needs to be checked up on every three hours.
me: do you have any idea how crap you are?

unlike brother #4. on two seperate occasions he managed to convince me that james spader and mike tyson were dead.

so hey! after a visit to the clothes show last year, and thanks to the power of the mailing list, i'm told that this year's event will have the first ever style awards. sister #4: we-gotta-go-we-gotta-go-we-gotta-go!

monday tomorrow. hi-bloody-ho.

20/10/03: ok. so maybe sister #5 was right. the point is, she was kidding at the time. scary.

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i had a bitchin' headache today, and almost burned my face with olbas oil. don't ask.

is it my imagination, or is there really something called greasemania on the tv right now?

me: trust your dad to buy you a hair band with the word 'princess' on it.
niece #1: that's because i am a princess!

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what we have here, is a failure to communicate

in the kitchen, avec laptop and walkman. the kitchen table is the only place where the laptop doesn't seem to crash. anyway. the dad walks in. usually when he walks into a scene like this, i get the whole 'what? what is it you're doing? this isn't work. what could you possibly be getting out of sitting in front of that screen for hours?'

but not today. oh no. because he knows my reply: 'well, if i could just get to the TV...' god forbid he misses his chuck norris movie, or whatever it is they put on channel five. and so he walks out of the kitchen. i look at the screen and do one of those screams where no sound comes out, except for a teeny tiny 'argh.'

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look. another picture. and different colours. i'm bored, man.

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i just heard the person next to me say: 'did he? he didn't! he's my manager and if he did i'll kill him.'

45 minutes. to. hometime.

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i haven't watched TV for like, weeks. i hate the channel five movie at 9. the dad watches them every time. and they're so rubbish. but he watches TV every night. it's got to stop. on wednesday evening, i tried to take control while he dropped sister-in-law #2 and nephew #3 off home. on his return, he sat there watching whatever i watched, ready to pounce. we still haven't switched to cable or anything (years ago the dad banned it because it was deemed evil, but now we're all playing a waiting game; whoever gets it will be the one paying for it for the rest of their life), so it was just five channels. on five: football. forget it. on four: teachers. try watching that in the dad's presence. on three: coyote ugly. another no-no. on two: that documentary where michael portillo goes and looks after four kids in liverpool, see how he likes it. and on one: that professor winston going on about how the mind works faster than a computer at parties. i dunno, was he being sarcastic or ironic or something? anway, there are images of alcohol, so out of the question. we sat there watching michael portillo for half an hour until i got up, gave him the remote and said 'i give up.' never try and beat the dad at mind games, he always wins, and your brain ends up hurting like it's been bashed by a tin of whatever.

bushra | permalink | |

the colour co-ordinated car park.
my first picture message from K. thank you! note the image quality, 65000 pixels or whatever, innit!



this was the view from my old desk. occasionally we'd look out of the window and comment on how bad the parking was, every now and then there would be people shouting when they got stuck. is the dimwit who had the car with the crazy sound effects still visiting?

bushra | permalink | |

must. keep. eyes. open.

where the hell is friday?

stuff said and heard. yesterday:

sister #5: i'm not doing the washing up.
me: oh but you are. or i tell everyone you wagged school just because you wanted to get out of PE.

today:

him: oh hello...is she...well i'm in birmingham...oh gawd...are you sure it was today...oh gawd

great. what was going to be a quiet day will involve my first ever videoconference. must hide. or at least try to.

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kill bill kill bill kill bill

track 1 of the soundtrack sounds very dodgy when you minidisc it, but the rest of it is pretty cool, especially when you're trying not to notice the woman with the ruler out the corner of your eye. i thought the film was really good too (thanks to brother #4, and his friend of a friend of a friend). if anyone 'disses' me for getting the cd, i'll punch their nose. i can't believe i just used the word diss. and mentioned violence too.

me: so are you going to come watch kill bill with me, only in the cinema this time? (i'm hoping she's forgotten that two for one voucher we got at boots for down with love - please.)
sister #4: who is this bill? he'd better be fit!

kids these days.

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"Information Pollution: E-mail, the net, weblogs, instant messaging, text messaging, multi-media messaging... the list of ways to communicate electronically in the 21st Century is growing. To some, all these tools which are only a couple of clicks and screen flicks away have transformed the way they work and run their lives. To web guru Jakob Nielsen, it is the computers which are starting to control us, and it is time to "rule the computer and put them back in their place". "

so do a checklist. which ones do you use the most?

E-mail. Responsible for my first ever warning at job #3. But that was all part of a conspiracy. Honest!
The net. The Dad on Sunday: this isn't for work. so what are you doing? show me!
Weblogs. Well, duh. And I'm impressed I've managed to stick to it for so long.
Instant messaging. I keep meaning to get Trillian.
Text messaging. I get to send 500 free text messages each month, so it's not really an addiction, right?
Multi-media messaging. In a couple of weeks time, I'm changing my phone to this.

do i need help?

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a few weeks ago i knew what a lithotripter was, and now i've forgotten again.

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g-reat. the nosiest neighbour in the world has arrived. she looks at me tapping away on my laptop on the kitchen table. her english is very very bad. 'you've got one of those as well?' she asks in mirpuri. she sounds surprised.

me: i had this way before your daughter got hers, okay?
her: and where do you think this will get you? why, when you get a mother-in-law...
me: uh oh.
sister #4: (you are so stuck!)
her: ...when you get a mother-in-law, she's going to take every penny you earn off you.
me: yes well, i won't do any cooking or cleaning then innit.
her: and i'll be right there to see it.
me: why are you here?

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our doorbell isn't working. sisters #4 and #5 have been out shopping. to mark their return they knock on the door, and sister #5 starts coughing to the point that she is about to throw up. 'so go on,' i ask them, 'were you a pair of bitches in town?'

sister #5: we got shoes!!!!
sister #4: would you believe she started trying them on in the bus?!

i'm hoping this means i don't have to take them shopping anymore.

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the whole morning, there has been a man wandering up and down the road with bright orange hair.

the nieces are gone. i took them to the supermarket yesterday, we were going to make a special dinner before niece #3 and her mother go away. the supermarket is only a minutes walk away, so it's more like a corner shop to us. apparently an hour or so earlier there had been an armed robbery. there's a set of chairs where people waiting for taxis and ring n' rides can wait, i usually let the nieces sit there while i pack the shopping and stuff. i don't care, they can sing and yell my name out all they like next time, but they stay by me from now on. niece #3 in particular likes it when i pick her up, she pretends she's about to hug me and slaps my face with both her hands.

oh yeah. my dad's take on honour killings? 'i'd rather kill myself first.' this is why we never have serious conversations at home, and if we do, we pretend we're not serious at all.

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this is what i had to say about sister #2 last year. i remember years back when she first arrived. she didn't come to live in this country until she was around 12 and i was 5. when the dad moved here way back when, his dad had forbidden him from taking sisters #1 and #2 with him. 'they will be corrupted by that country,' he said, apparently. he died a year before i was born.

after that, she ruled the house. the dad had asked her if she wanted to go to school, but she said no, and after 10 years of eastenders her english is bloody perfect. anyway. we didn't get on at all. 90% of fights, screaming matches, flying furniture were down to us. when i was around 10, she'd decided there was no need for me to be wandering the streets and coming home so late (read 10-11pm). could she be more horrible?

this one time i came home even later (really stupid when you think about it, especially when you find out years later that a serial killer lived on the street next to yours). i figured that if i came in through the back garden, she wouldn't hear me knocking on the door and therefore forget all about me. so i went round the back of the house, through an alley where i once started the biggest fire (2 fire engines i think, 2 always sounds better than 1, right?).

the backs of the gardens had these 6 foot high fences and gates, and though there was washing on the line, i could see the lights were on, the back door was open, but i couldn't tell if there was anyone in the garden. there was a gap under the gate about 8 inches high that i used to be able to slide under, but i knew i was going to have to climb over very very quietly. not impossible, i'd done it a hundred times before. as i went over the gate i could see the house and there didn't appear to be anyone in the garden still. imagine creeping though all the washing and coming face to face with sister #2, with a scholl slipper in one hand, the other hand a clenched fist and a face like well, a very mad dog or something. this is the only way i can explain how, out of the blue, i won the 200m race at school a couple of years later.

of course we get on amazingly well now. no really. proper catch-ups on the phone, lunches and shopping together, and her kids are brilliant. but every now and then the monster inside her will appear. run for the hills, i know i will.

it's friday, and no-one is doing anything.

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i remember when i first saw this weblog readme ages ago. read it again and you think: you what?

over the past couple of months, or at least since the mother came back, i've seen her mutate from mother to mother-in-law. and what i've seen scares the hell out of me. the dad has been unable to stop eating crisps since he got back.

niece #3 is heading up north with her mother for the next two weeks. niece #1 can't go because she can't miss school. sister-in-law #1: 'don't worry, bushra's going to take care of you.' eh? i'm sure i only volunteered to make her breakfast every day. sister #2 is thinking she might come to stay either in the coming month (when it just so happens i've booked a week off) or round christmas time again. did you catch the fear in that last sentence or not?

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the noisy people haven't moved yet. they used to sit kind of scattered about the office. due to some departures and stuff they are all now sitting around one bunch of desks. and they will not shut up.

so hey, here's a plan. i've lost count of how many christmas doooo's i've had invites for. who wants to bet that i can make it to 2004 without going to any one of them? flippin' heck. 2004.

is it really really hot today, or am i still sick?

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today's email 'fwd:fwd:re:' the eye. i dunno, it freaked me out.

other news today: too sick for work. it's bad enough that i sound like a foghorn, but when i phoned the work switchboard to call in, the guy at the desk kept asking me to speak up when i gave the name of my colleague. dimwit.

y'know how people really hate those touchpads on laptops? i didn't know this, but you can tap the touchpad to 'click' buttons, links or whatever. course now i think it's fan-tas-tic.

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yesterday i managed to convince sister #4 that instead of saying 'es-tay lauder', you're actually meant to say 'east-ee louder.'

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the fourth post.

shoot me if i ever blog anything music related ever again. it's not that i don't mind people saying listen to this, listen to that, i don't mind suggestions. it's just too can of worms, if you know what i mean. (example lee's message in the guestbook. i'm not saying you're a bit of a bitch lee, i'm just using your message as an example.) this ain't no music blog. sorry.

one day, one day i will tell all about the music ban we used to have at home, where all you were allowed to listen to was nusrat fateh ali khan (endless days watching brother #2 just sitting there listening to it, totally wrapped up into it, thinking, 'has he gone mad?' or even singing along to it in the dad's huge fridge van). until the dad rejected sufism of course. so just being able to listen to music, and not have the dad tell us off for it, we're happy with that.

enough. the list of blogs has grown, i expect to be told off about this any day soon at work.

by the way, brother #4 isn't going to go to jail, but then a lot of you probably already knew he'd find a way. imagine one of those situations where you're about to fess up to your boss, when your lifeline is sitting right on her desk. like that, it was.

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i'm thinking i want to leave early so i can go buy this, but then it's a bit pointless because i won't be able to listen to it until i get home and minidisc it. but i want to go buy it, now!

three posts in one day. i must be really sick.

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'the problem with our house,' i said to sister #5 once, 'is that there are too many of us.' she looked at me as if i'd suggested we go kill some kittens or something. 'don't say that!' she said, all shocked. on another occasion i remember telling the mother off. 'you could have stopped at me,' i told her. 'of the youngest five i've proved more functional. the others, they weren't necessary, were they?' at this point i had to run to escape flying shoes from sister #5. fortunately she hasn't picked up on sister #4's taste for dangerously high heels.

i've heard about distant cousins who have families even bigger than mine. ah-choo. again. honest to god, i am doing some work too.

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brian did this survey on his blog, using one of those search terms on google to find 'pages similar to Brian Damage.' eight of the results are pages i link to off this blog, but you'll be able to figure that for yourself. so i did a similar search on fudgeit. and well, i'm a bit baffled, i'm not sure what to make of the results. well ok. i've seen a few before, and i suppose now is a good time as any to check some of those pages out, including this one, this one, and this one.

it isn't a good time really. i have a lot of work to do. but i'll be checking back on 'em later.

it makes no difference. what's that dead link all about? this post sums it up.

and another thing. ah-choo.

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i'm sick, i'm cold, i've locked myself away after ranting to the dad how much the brothers make me mad, how they seem to think the fact that i have a good job is my fault. uh yeah. this is how it has always been. i remember when i was around 11 and still at mosque, while brothers 3# and 4# had just about made it to the level 1 in urdu, i was on level 6.

anyway. like i said, i've locked myself in my room, and i'm listening to sad songs.

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given how crap i'm feeling today, i can confirm that i will be sick this weekend. i better had. i wish i could get this bug over and done with. crap. that's another buzzword from yesterday's meeting.

on the bus home with sister #4 yesterday. brother #4 got on halfway into the journey. we were jabbering away like monkeys, when sister #4 did one of her '-isms.' she has trouble with brand names and pronunciation, for example, 'douwe egberts' became 'duvet egberts.' she looks at brother #4's trousers and says 'ooh new trousers. are they from see-ro see-terrio?' now when i saw an advert for ciro citterio ages ago, the smarmy voiceover insisted the brand was 'chi-ro chi-terrio.' the rest of the journey involved my bringing up the whole 'duvet egberts' and 'temples' episodes again, by the time we got home even she was laughing at herself.

later, we're trying to cross the road when a car pulls up to the kerb. inside is this pakistani couple, they looked around the same age as the parents, heck they even looked like the parents, and they waved at brother #4. brother #4 puts up his hand and grins back.

sister #4: who were they?
brother #4: (still grinning) they're some customers who came into work today.
sister #3: aah, have we got a warm fuzzy feeling inside? have we? eh? eh?

sister #3? that's me of course, what d'you mean you didn't know? shame on you.

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'We're having a brain storming meeting, Bushra, it'll just take an hour, if you want to come along, some stuff might come up that's relevant to what you're doing right now.'
'Oh, OK', i say.

mail sent: question: are you going to this meeting?????
mail received: Answer: Yes

dammit. we were in there for three hours.

me: snatch of the meeting: '...right, can we bring things to a bit of a close now, because i really need to have a poo...' that happened. believe me.
J: Bushra, really, somebody didn't say that. Did they? Naaaaah. Did they?
me: Oh they so did. When someone cringed about it and then couldn't stop laughing the offender then said 'has that given you a mental image?' and 'do you want sound effects?' Believe me, someone said this.

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in the inbox today: i only need to tell you that the subject is 'Christmas is coming.....' and thanks to MS Outlook i will be hitting the 'no thanks' button. no really, there's a no thanks option, to be exact it is called 'No thanks I can't make it this time.' i would have put t'other options on here, but trust me, they're pretty tragic.

when i checked the blog this morning, i'd completely forgotten that i'd changed it a bit.

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feng shui in the office. hmmm, how to put this, i'm not seriously into feng shui or anything but i think that some of the things that are mentioned kind of ring true...yes yes i'm still missing my old desk. when i read down the page (very long) i found this:

"Just as when in your own office, sit as far away from the door as possible and not facing away from it. You don't want to get stabbed in the back! In the same way, don't sit with your back to the window as you will lack support. "

that's the part that interests me. although at my old desk i sat with my back to the window, but it had a very boring view, so does it still count?

p.s. this is just sooooo scary.

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