a walk in the park

took musa on a hike yesterday - a tiny hike, which i took him on once as a fetus :) before i knew he was a he. the afternoon was mild at centennial lake, cloudy, warm but not sultry. i parked and put him face-forward in the babybjorn for the first time - he seemed to like it, and held onto my finger as i kept my arms around him. i tried to point out things to him (though of course he looked wherever he wanted), tried to notice things myself again: tiny new leaves curling out brightly against the already midsummer-deep-green of the rest of a tree, little birds taking sudden flight from the path and disturbing bits of bark in their wake. walked through a couple of gossamers. the small route i took goes through a patch of woods so small that you can always see the edge of it wherever you are - either the parking lot behind you, the open, paved path on one side or the lake on the other. we stopped by the lake for a few minutes so he could take in the water, then walked up to the main part of the park, next to the pavilion, and sat for a little while on a bench facing a meadow thick with summer vegetation - white clover at its feet, rabbits bouncing into its deep grasses. honeysuckle (still?) threaded through a short fir tree next to the bench, all the way to its top. passersby smiled at musa... but he didn't like sitting too long, and when i saw a bug that might have been a mosquito perched on his fat little middle finger i stood up to go. was thinking of going to the library after that - they have on thursday evenings an activity for parents and infants - but he fell asleep after two minutes in the car, so i came home and made honey-baked chicken, couscous and salad for dinner...
last night, it might have been the mylicon and gripe water, but musa managed to sleep from about 12:30 (when we usually go to bed) until AFTER fajr, about 6 a.m. or so, then after nursing again until 9. i still woke up at night when he fussed in his sleep, but still... major accomplishment. now let's see if we can make it a habit...
he is getting so heavy!! mashallah mashallah :)

"Prime without the rib", or "sheets of meat"

well, since there's already a website about it, i guess it's not as far off as one might think: New Harvest.

hubby and i were talking last night about the ethical dimensions of technological advancements in an islamic framework; his thoughts had been spurred by reading about this research, which aims to engineer actual meat from a single muscle cell, so that theoretically you could have a chicken nugget without ever killing a chicken - and theoretically, a single cell could be used to "grow" enough meat to feed the global population for a year.

back to that exciting thought in a minute. but hubby was citing, for example, space travel - what spurs modern space exploration is, perhaps, a desire to find out where we come from (although i argue that it is also a matter of understanding our place in the universe, etc etc). but as muslims we already know "where we come from," and then there's the ayah from surah ar-rahman, "O ye assembly of Jinns and men! If it be ye can pass beyond the zones of the heavens and the earth, pass ye! not without authority shall ye be able to pass!" (that's yusuf ali). i don't want to speculate rashly, being as far from a qur'anic scholar as one can be, but is it a warning? could it even apply to space exploration? what would our goals be, as humanity, for space travel, in an islamic framework? would it be more islamic, for example, to redirect NASA's billions into addressing social ills and inequalities? (yes, this reminds one of dan brown's "deception point").

that's one aspect of scientific study, just an example (other than human cloning or embryonic stem cell research) that could have moral or religious dimensions. not that there's anything inherently immoral about space travel. but as muslims, do we simply allow our human curiosity to carry us as far as we can possibly go, the way, for example, we know if we CAN clone humans, somebody somewhere is going to do it no matter what the laws? obviously it doesn't have the same ethical implications, but, if we can grow meat instead of ziba-ing animals, should we?

my reaction to "sheets of meat" was "ew." i feel like it's in my fitrah to react that way to the thought of eating meat that never really came from an animal. well, it would, in a way, but the issue of zabihah or not would be moot. technically even vegetarians could eat this meat, depending on why they are vegetarian. but one of the scientists on the project, jason matheny from UMD, has a different take on the reaction:

"It is unnatural, actually culturing things outside of an animal," he says (quoted in a village voice article). "On the other hand, you don't find intensively confined animals on antibiotics and growth promoters in the forest. I think part of the reaction to cultured meat is based on not knowing how their meat is produced."

which doesn't apply if you try to eat only organic, free range meat, for example (that's another blog entry entirely, organic or zabiha?). but still. does this natural human reaction give us a clue as to how we should approach these questions? william saletan in this slate article argues that culturing meat rather than killing for it is just another step upward in human evolution:

"Every society lives with two kinds of moral problems: the ones it's ready to face, and the ones that will become clear or compelling only in retrospect," he says. "Human sacrifice, slavery, the subjugation of women—every tradition seems normal and indispensable until we're ready, morally and economically, to move beyond it."

i wonder what the mullahs and shaikhs will say about it. i wonder how many more different questions musa will face growing up that we could not even imagine a couple of years ago...

(just to be safe, "prime without the rib" is a subhed from a july 6 2005 UMD newsdesk article...)

something to think about

"The weight of all the ants in the world is roughly the weight of all the humans, to the nearest order of magnitude." - from the may 2006 National Geographic magazine.
that's a lotta ants...

Leek, Boursin, and Baked Potato Soup

i'm sure there are hundreds of variations on this; i took one from allrecipes.com, but made enough changes to it that i'm putting this out as my own:

two baking potatoes, 1/2 a package of garlic and herb Boursin cheese, two leeks, 1/2 package of mushrooms or two portobello mushrooms, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 tsp mustard powder, 1 tbsp flour, two cups broth, 1-2 cups milk.

bake the potatoes. while they're baking, prepare the leeks - removing a few of the tougher outer leaves, trimming the tops, washing them thoroughly. slice them into 1/2 inch pieces and wash again in a colander to remove any dirt.
in a pot for the soup, saute the leeks in olive oil (or butter!) until softening, add cleaned, sliced mushrooms and cook until they release liquid. add salt, pepper, mustard powder and flour; stir for one minute, then add broth, bring to boil and reduce to simmer until potatoes are done baking.
cut potatoes in half and scoop out flesh into a bowl. mash in the cheese thoroughly, then add the potato mixture to the soup pan, mixing thoroughly. add 1 cup milk and stir, and add as much more as you want to thin the soup. simmer until heated through.

it is yummmmmmmy! i made it last night. you can adjust anything you want, less salt, leave out the mushrooms, use cheddar cheese instead of boursin (but then you want to add garlic when you're sauteeing the leeks), etc etc. oh, and for broth i used the maggi halal chicken bouillon cubes (1/2 of one for 2 cups water). serve with croutons if you like, or salad and good bread on the side. beats panera any day (although you might get the bread from panera :) ).

to blog or not to blog

this from the bbc today:

"If you believe the hype, blogs are as significant as the invention of the printing press for their ability to change the way the world will be seen. If on the other hand you believe the counter-hype, blogs are a self-indulgence which pander to dull people's misguided beliefs that they have something interesting to say."

which one? maybe a little bit of both. something in the middle, more like... people who need a chance to voice something and don't really care if people find it interesting or not (but think it's nice when someone does).

ever notice how the british say "the bbc" but we americans say just "abc"?

jealousy, sort of

i have been checking nermeen's blog for a few days now for updates on her travels in namibia, and found my way to aisha's blog where i read about her experiences in rio... felt the old familiar twinge upon hearing of other pakistani muslim women like me who have the opportunity to travel like this... but it's not as strong now, not sure why. content where i am? but am i stagnating?
one of my best friends visited me a few weeks ago from out of town, and called a few days later to let me know she was worried about me, that i didn't seem myself, i was sort of subdued. i felt that... i felt i couldn't match her ebullience the way we used to flow together. but it's changing, too... if i characterize it in terms of love expressed, well, i've loved musa of course since the moment i knew i was pregnant, if not before - but now, now it's like a river, i can't kiss him enough, and every day i mourn a little that he is growing up even as i am excited to see who he will be. i know what cousin koonj means when she says raihana "cuts through my jaded cynicism, my tired lack of expectation, my years of disappointment." except i think i have been waiting to be awoken like this... is it unfair, to allow Baby to be the one to awaken us? too much of a burden? is it in our control at all?
and then again, the second i begin to imagine i feel my heart (or is it my soul) opening up again, i wonder if i'm thinking too soon...

ps, i didn't mean for this blog to be "personal"... more about my interaction with the world... but, i'm still not interacting... argh!

pondering

nermeen says inshallah you can have it all, just not all at once... now i think i will be pondering this for many days. the context is the mutually exclusive life that i dreamed of living when i was single (travel the world as a writer and photographer) and the life that i live now (happily married and new mother)... the funny thing is (and this is the crux of a problem i have been facing for three years now) even when i was living that previous life (studying in scotland, for example, or studying journalism and working as a photographer for the student paper, etc) i "dreamed" of meeting someone i could be happily married to... now here i am.

has anyone out there experienced this - the end of dreaming? i have nothing to fight for, to struggle toward, anymore. well, on some level, i guess. i am just quietly floating along, happiest when i am with my love, but not learning, not growing, just being, and not being much.

or maybe this is just a quiet time of my life i ought to be thankful for...

*sigh* meanwhile, here is more musa and issa (newly ganjofied!):

i don't know what a meme is but i'm doing one

do you "do" a meme?
anyway, it's funny, just before i went onto my cousin's blog (from whence i got this... meme...) i had just finished up doing one of those emails, "how well you do you know your friends", with questions like, "what are you wearing right now?", "do you think you are strong?", "favorite food", etc... really meaningful stuff :) so i guess this is a morning for introspection, even before breakfast...

I am? procrastinating doing something meaningful with my life (other than mothering)
I want? to be eloquent, articulate, poetic
I wish? for my son (and any forthcoming children) to have a non-dysfunctional family life
I hate? being lazy
I miss? Scotland
I fear? calling up people whose loved ones have died in order to get quotes for articles about the deceased
I hear I am not? huh?
I hear I am? um... well, i don't hear much in this sense, to be honest...
I dance? used to do bhangra with friends, but now it's me and the bellydance fitness videos, with nobody watching
I sing? to Musa quite often, and he smiles and tries to sing back!
I cry? rarely... i mean like once or twice a year, if that
I am not always? as selfless as i wish i were
I make with my hands? dinner these days, but used to be much more - paintings, drawings, mehndi...
I write? not NEARLY as much as i should, as much as i need to, as much as i want to
I confuse? people's concerns over my baby with what i perceive as their judgment of my parenting skills
I need? to eat breakfast
I should? there wouldn't be an end to this sentence, once started
I start? art projects, short stories
I finish? not them. but i do finish my meals.

i am going to go eat a chocolate cookie that my friend taiyyaba made for me. then i will make some cream of wheat for breakfast, and possibly an egg. then i will web surf some more until musa wakes up...

on music, and walking in the rain with a baby

Yvonne Ridley's opinion
http://www.muslimsweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1807&Itemid=238

Sami Yusuf's reply
http://samiyusuf.com/press/Sami_Yusuf_open_letter.htm

got these in an email, though i had read ridley's opinion before. i do listen to music myself, though my tastes have certainly changed over the years (alhamdulillah)... a sister who taught in our sunday school years ago nearly convinced me to stop, and i did for two days, by noting the way music makes you "feel good" - i guess, if you're listening to nelly furtado and timbaland's "promiscuous", which i have to admit is a great dance song as far as those go but you get to the chorus and remember you're a muslim... (that particular song, with the chorus lyrics that include "Promiscuous boy/Let's get to the point/Cause we're on a roll/Are you ready?"[no, i didn't have it memorized, i looked it up], reminds me of surah al-nur, ayah 26, which yusuf ali translates as, "Women impure are for men impure, and men impure for women impure and women of purity are for men of purity, and men of purity are for women of purity.")

i digress! but, and i think koonj's hubby wrote about this too, it's impossible to lump together something like "promiscuous" with something as lovely and haunting as that one signature instrumental from the film "a beautiful mind" or a lively irish fiddle tune. during my pregnancy i would play enya's "caribbean blue" in the car and hope my baby could both hear the music and feel the upswelling joy the song inspires in me... and yes, i played and recited plenty of qur'an to him too, don't worry :)
these days, however, i've discovered that "this old man" gets him grinning... love it!!

look at that... even as i was typing (with my left hand only, holding nursing baby with right) the light dimmed and the rain began outside, and a peal of distant thunder... i wish i could take musa outside in this summer storm! in my doctor's waiting room (i've been much luckier with my OB's than my poor cuz!) i discovered a book called "the sense of wonder" by rachel carson, with some lovely photographs, and... the internet being the wonderful resource that it is, here is the first paragraph:

"One stormy autumn night when my nephew Roger was about twenty months old, I wrapped him in a blanket and carried him down to the beach in the rainy darkness. Out there, just at the edge of where we couldn't see, big waves were thundering in, dimly seen white shapes that boomed and shouted and threw great handfuls of froth at us. Together we laughed for pure joy - he a baby meeting for the first time the wild tumult of Oceanus, I with the salt of half a lifetime of sea love in me. But I think we felt the same spine-tingling response to the vast roaring ocean and the wild night around us."

it makes me want to plunk him in the carseat and drive him out to the beach right now (but you don't plunk a baby in a car and drive out anywhere, do you). and maybe it would be okay, to take a wee walk outside at the edge of this storm, but he's not even three months old and i've never done this momma thing before... but maybe i should just be the mom that i really want to be?
oh well... being a breastfeeding mom, i'm ravenous, so i want to eat before anything else, now that he's asleep (and chuckling at his dreams apparently... so cute!).

ps, here is the book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006757520X/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product/103-1934515-7529443?%5Fencoding=UTF8

thanks a lot koonj...

... for putting me on the spot... the blogspot... ha ha, oh ho ho... see, even my sense of humor is awful! my cousin has this amazing ability to believe in me more than i do myself, not just about my writing... it's like we're not even related! :D
koonj has always been my favorite cousin, but i think it started (years and years ago) for the shameful reason that she was the only person in all of pakistan i could communicate with when we visited, since i spoke no urdu. well, she and her siblings... but she was the youngest and most fun, even when (i must reveal this, i think everyone will get a kick out of it) she was hesitant to put on lipstick right before iftar one ramadan (and this was not colored lipstick, but one of those orange sticks that is supposed to change color on your lips and bring out some natural hue or something) - not because it was lipstick, we were only in front of family, but because she was afraid she might eat it and break her fast :D
ah, those were the days!
thank you all for visiting my blog on koonj's recommendation... i hope inshallah i can offer something useful (other than colorful anecdotes on koonj's past) to this realm. it's funny, i haven't really had an online presence like this since the days of BBS's and IRC over a decade ago... out of curiosity, does anyone else remember what a BBS was? i feel like i'm the only one...

blogging is like baby poop

blogging, or journaling even, is like baby poop... the quality and quantity of what comes out is directly related to what goes in. well-nutritioned, plentiful breastmilk will make soft, often watery, mustard-yellow poop that doesn't stink very much at all... but a mind that has imbibed nothing but harry potter, and that mostly on the toilet, for weeks on end will produce, well, blogs about how blogging is like baby poop. in my newly small world i must find ways of expanding inward, since outward expansion is now hampered by the amount of stuff one must carry with a young baby and the stress of handling a fussy baby in public (ever tried breastfeeding a gassy, unwilling, but hungry baby in public while wearing and trying to maintain hijab, on an engorged breast that is "letting down" milk all over your clothes? and no, he won't take the bottle in that mood either...)
okay, well, while he's still sleeping, maybe i'll try to squeeze in a shower and wake him up afterwards...
by the way, here is a picture of my son

and here is one of my new nephew...

update: and here is cutie-pie raihana!!

long time no blog

nobody's reading this anyway, so why bother? but oh well. musa is fidgeting in his sleep in the fisher-price swing where i plunk him so much (only way to get anything done). i'm going to wake him up now anyway, he looks so cute in his new tommy hilfiger outfit i have to play with him. he is now... two and a half months old, so BABY he seems in comparison to his newborn cousin! whom i have only seen for a few minutes and can't wait till he comes home from the hospital so i can go see him again.
i was on pins and needles all day tuesday while my sister in law was in labor... reliving my own experience not so long ago. i was blessed with a relatively quick labor (almost 24 hours in total but it wasn't really active, hard labor until the last 6-7 hours, including pushing), but my babs labored, with epidural, from 5 cm to 10 cm from about 11 a.m. until 7:30 p.m., after contractions began around 5 a.m. turned out little issa was not so little, and she ended up under the knife, with issa delivered at 8:19 p.m. i had been so convinced he would be a girl! don't know why. but i'm so so happy. mashallah, he is absolutely gorgeous, all wide eyes and rosy apple-cheeks and fat white kicking legs. after i visited wednesday, i spent almost all day thursday online looking at the nine pictures i managed to snap of him.
i feel apprehensive for my bro and sis in law; this whole parent thing only started being fun in the last month or so, as much as i've loved and cared for my son since before he was born. i pray Allah gives them the patience to make it through the first month or so with their minds intact, and gives them the openness of mind and spirit to accept and embrace the profound changes their lives are undergoing...