An afternoon in Beverly Hills
Aside from the occasional airport pickup, laundry “assistance,” and requests to help land a girlfriend (kidding!! kind of??), my brother doesn’t ask me for favors too often. That’s why, when he asked me to shamelessly plug the event he did for the Free Wheelchair Mission I readily agreed.
Jazz in June anybody?
My brother’s snazzy rooftop in Beverly Hills made the perfect backdrop for the event. Lucky for us the June-gloom dissipated and the weather ended up being beautiful.
All you can eat sushi - what more of an incentive does one need to write a generous check?
As someone who has trouble asking for directions, nevermind for items to donate for a silent auction, I was again quite impressed with the array of jewelry, autographed books, wine, and gadgets that my brother had available to bid on.
Note the camera in a sea of jewelry? I give you two guesses as to which tech-obsessed person in my life donated it....
I donated a bottle of Chateau Montelena but I was told it wasn’t “good enough” for the auction. I wasn’t too surprised. I know less about wine than I do parenting…which means I know next to nothing about wine.
MIT graduate Don Schoendorfer (not the individual in this photo) designed this wheelchair using elements already in existence. It costs just $59.20 to manufacture and deliver to the most remote areas of the globe.
I’m glad my brother and I are close now. We used to fight nonstop but we’ve limited our arguments to approximately 1 major blowup each year. Our annual fight is downright ugly and includes horrible, mean things we don’t actually mean and loads of four letter words I can’t repeat in front of Maya.
All I can say is that we are no longer welcome at Gyu-Kaku and I do believe that Ali’s cousin (who witnessed our annual fight back in 2004) will never recover.
My friend Adam, my sister-in-law Mediha, me, and my friend Nadia
Anyway, who knew that the same kid who took close to three months to learn how to tie his shoelaces (unlike my superstar Maya) would be able to throw a party for 75 people with absolutely no hiccups?
Sprinkles Cupcakes handled the dessert, and they did it beautifully.
I have to say that I was pretty impressed with my brother for putting this event on. He raised close to $10,000 for such a worthy cause!
Things got chilly when the sun set but the view of Beverly Hills got even more gorgeous.
I’m proud of you Has…now all we need to do is find you a pretty girl. This is my second offer ladies…any takers?
Shaz (Nadia's husband), Adam, Brian (who took all of these photos), and Hassan.
I feel our annual fight coming on…
To learn more about this organization, check our their site : Free Wheelchair Mission
Electric Blue Cables
As I mentioned in my last post, I was excited to get back to the real world after the wedding extravaganza last weekend. So you can imagine my anger disappointment when Maya woke up sick yesterday morning.
Now any good mother would be upset that her child is sick – and I am no exception – but since I aim to be 99.99% honest on this blog I’ll admit that I felt more sorry for myself when I realized that Maya would be home torturing me with questions all day long.
There. I said it. You can hate me if you want, and I totally deserve it, but find me a mom who loves to stay home with a sick kid and I’ll show you someone in denial.
Anyway, I got zero work done but our day was still fairly productive. Most importantly, Maya learned to tie her shoes!
My superstar kid mastered the process in 30 minutes.
After that we worked on her reading/math, took a walk to Trader Joe’s, returned something at Bloomingdale’s, bought a gift, and then returned home to make dinner for my parents and brother.
After cleaning up dinner I walked into the living room and couldn’t resist taking this picture:
My dad is on his laptop, Maya is on Ali's laptop, my brother is typing away on his Blackberry, and Ali is on my computer with my iPad in his lap.
Apparently Ali’s disease is contagious and now my entire family is addicted to technology. Next thing you know they’ll be comparing cable collections.
Speaking of cable collections, I had to dip into Ali’s precious stash today. Why you ask?
This lovely electric blue cable is currently snaking its way through my living room.
Well, I have Verizon to thank for that. Actually, I’d like to formally thank Verizon for allowing me to waste 3+ hours of my day making friends with their employees all over the world. I really enjoyed being switched from department to department only to be told that due to outages across the Los Angeles area I needed to reset my IP address. And when that didn’t work they determined I needed a new router. I know our router works just fine and it really is Verizon’s faulty service that is the problem, but whatever.
All I know is that right now there is only one internet connection, courtesy of the electric blue cable snaking down my living room. I am a bit scared to ponder the long-term effects of this one and only connection.
Things might get ugly around here and Verizon has only itself to blame.
Rules for an Indian Wedding
I haven’t blogged in four days – this is a new record for me! I’m hoping you can excuse my absence as this past weekend was a whirlwind of wedding events for Ali’s cousin, who got married yesterday.
The wedding, like most Indian/Pakistani weddings, was an epic adventure that took us from one end of California to the other and kept us awake far past our standard bedtime of 9:30pm. After four consecutive action packed days, things finally wound down this afternoon.
Indian/Pakistani weddings tend to throw me into panic-mode because there are so many different events, and jewelry and super fancy clothes are imperative for each. Talk about pressure. It’s definitely tricky trying to navigate things, but I came up with several ways to make it easier:
1. Let your far more stylish mother-in-law pick all of your clothes, jewelry, and shoes. You can’t go wrong.
Me, Ali, and Maya at Event #1 - the Dholki
2. Be sure to flat-iron your hair to death to minimize frizz in the chilly, foggy weather conditions.
Mom and me at the Dholki
3. Stay out-of-the-way of Ali and his cousins when they start dancing…you could get trampled and nobody would find your for hours.
Dancing at the Dholki...Ali's family never runs out of energy
4. When you are driving 65 miles down to event #2 and your husband is weaving in and out of the carpool lane with one hand on the horn, keep your mouth shut.
I should have driven...silly me.
5. When you commit the cardinal sin of repeating an outfit you wore to someone else’s party earlier that year, simply deny it by walking away.
Shhhh...this outfit is brand new!
6. One should never ruin their sleeveless wedding outfit by throwing a shawl on top, no matter what the weather conditions dictate.
What does one do when July feels more like February? One suffers.
7. When your daughter loudly asks “When are they going to hand out the goody bags?” during the wedding ceremony, pretend to look around as though you too were trying to identify the obnoxious source.
"Mama, I want to have my 6th birthday here." Sure Maya, why not?
8. Five and a half hours of sleep is not enough to get by on, but through the miracle of Bare Escentuals, even the most exhausted of guests can make themselves presentable for brunch.
Ali's note when he saw this photo: "I look like the Nutty Professor."
9. Sometimes it’s okay to ignore the auntie’s glares just so you can be the first girl in the buffet line.
Scones, bagels fruit, caprese salad, garden salad...way too many choices to list. Omelettes to order, pancakes, potatoes, and more.
Indian station - puri, naan, Karachi-style potatoes, nahari, and chana masala.
10. Celebrations are fun but getting back to real-life isn’t so bad when you think about the fact that you can slip back into your warm sweats, toss your hair into a ponytail, and say goodbye to your makeup for another 6 months.
"I'm tired and I want to go home Mama." That is the first and likely the last time my daughter has ever uttered those words.
While I'm not going to win Mother/Wife of the Year Award anytime soon, I haven't killed anyone yet or shot myself in the head. And that, my friends, is how I calculate success these days. 
FANCY THAT FANCY THIS 