"just relax, take it easy. you're still young, that's your fault, there's so much you have to know"--cat stevens

made the mistake of buying swiss cake rolls (swiss roll cakes??) yesterday. dunno why i did it. must have a secret, subconscious wish of becoming a lardo. the whole day i thought about how i can't believe i bought them and that it was a waste of money and i'll never eat more than the one i had last night...well...like most things in life, i was wrong. even after my very filling dinner, i stuffed my face with chocolatey delightness, and i enjoyed every freaking second of it.

yea...that's right. lardoville, here i come.

with mom in pak, i have rather longer phone conversations with the paternal unit. i always enjoy talking to him and he likes hearing about my day, so i just babble away whether or not he's listening and it's all good. on a regular basis (even before mom went to pak), my dad reminds me of all the blessings in my life. he'll go through the last few years of my life and all the moments that might have upset me, he'll show me how really they were blessings in disguise. spiritually...emotionally...i dunno what...he's at this whole other level...and i say that not because he tells me things that i don't know...but because he always remembers the good. he's always the optimist. he can always find good in bad and he will patiently wait (most likely with a smile) for the worst to be done.

to be honest, it's hard for me to keep in mind the blessings of being here in michigan when all i want is to take a flight home for eid weekend, which happens to fall the day after thanksgiving. my eyes may or may not have welled up (i admit to nothing) when i couldn't find a ticket for less than 400-some odd dollars for a trip that would be only 2 nights at home.

i've missed so many eids and whatever that it shouldn't even matter at this point if i miss another, but it still does.

and i guess really it's not even about the eids. there's always just so much more.

i wish i could be my dad. bleh.