The Pool, Continued

In case you're wondering, I've been swimming at the condo's pool several times since this happened, the most recent of these times having been this morning. I thought I'd share the good news that each of these swims was completely uneventful and unremarkable, i.e. no more angry racist swimmers trying to ban me from the pool for wearing too much. Thought I'd let y'all know.

Shopping in my mother's closet

There is massive "summer cleaning" happening at my parents' place in Ottawa. Left with a huge pile of stuff to store/get rid of from my sister's house now that she is in Dubai, we, or rather they, are going through everything and trying to get rid of what can be gotten rid of to make space for new storage. My instant coffee supply has been instantly replenished. I also now have new scarves (fabulous, I might add), a new skirt, and a new pair of pants, courtesy of some boxes and my mother's closet. I talk to my Little Angela on the phone every two or three days. She tells me every time, as if I don't already know, "Khalto Nonno, I'm in the Emirates." Sometimes, her voice is excited when she says this, other times, it's tinged with sadness. It's hard for a two-year old to understand moving across the world. Exhibit A: a conversation that took place with her mother a couple of days ago (translated from Arabic to English for your benefit below):
"Mama, I want to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house."
"We can't sweetie. They're in Ottawa. It's too far away."
"No it's not. It's close." A pause. "Sacramento's far."
Sacramento is where my other little angels and angela live, with my eldest sister. Everything is relative.
Speaking of little angels, the last few months I've been savouring every last moment with them before they left when I came to Ottawa, but now I focus on some of the big angels in my life. My parents really, truly are angelic. They're brave, they're generous, they're giving, they're impossibly hardworking, they're not tireless, but they don't quit a moment before their bodies just can't take it anymore from pure exhaustion. They are such beautiful, beautiful people, and while it can be tiring to get up at 4:30 a.m. on Tuesdays to catch my bus, and while I miss M insanely for those 2.5 days we're in different cities, this is an atypical kind of blessing I have, to spend such long moments alone together with my parents as a grown woman, to have the great conversations we have so often, to find myself shopping in my mother's closet, kissing my father's cheeks after sunset prayer, eating leftovers together. To bond.

H & M will answer my prayers

So, I've been complaining about finding hijabi appropriate clothing where I still like the style, right? Well, I think I've made a breakthrough: Over the weekend at camp, I had the following conversation not once, but two times:

• Me: I love your (insert item of clothing here: shirt/jacket/skirt/etc). Where did you get it? Please oh please don't say another country.
• Fellow camp attendee: H & M.
• Me: woohoooooooooooooooooooo!

In the past, this answer would irritate me to no end, because H & M has no stores in Ottawa. Now that I live in Montreal, this answer delights me. There will be an H & M opening in August 6 blocks from my house. Can I wait that long, or do I trek across the city next week to check out what I can find?

Random Other-Post Follow-ups

Some unrelated-to-each other ideas that may each be related to older posts:

• They say the proof is in the pudding... well, I say the proof is in the brownies. As promised, I bought cocoa, and on a whim, made some wheat-free, cane sugar brownies a half hour ago. The difference between these and the carob ones is astounding. I am truly a chocoholic, and it's not to be cured.
• Because I complained about the lack of hijabi-friendly clothing this season: 1)For any hijabi-Montrealers, there is a booth inside the Eaton's centre near the Metro McGill entrance that sells scarves, long tunics, and other hijabi stuff for reasonable prices. I went last Monday and have a new tunic to show for my efforts. 2) My mum-in-law is way too sweet: after listening to me complain during our last outing about the lack of long sleeved items available, she apparently found one of the very very few things on the market the other day and picked it up for me.... 3) There's a new hijabi clothing store in Montreal called "Inty" (cool play on words because this is how to say the feminine "you" in Arabic). I haven't been there, but I hear from a friend that the stuff is good quality and affordable. If you know the city, it's located where the old Multi-vision store was.
• I finished Bel Canto, the first book from Jen's suggested list, and in an effort not to spoil it, all I can say is GO READ THIS BOOK. Sooooooooooooooooooooo good. Meets all my super-picky criteria: good characters, good writing, good plot. As for Jen's request that I tell her what I thought of the controversial ending, I'll just say that it's crushing, but marvelous, and totally plausible. This book leaves your heart-aching. You love the characters that much. Next, I'm starting The Namesake, which is supposed to also be great. I hope it's as great. Keep your suggestions coming. I'm planning on reading a lot, as I'm hoping to write a lot and for me, the best way to do that is through reading.

Calling all Clothing Designers

My mom in law and I were out shopping on Saturday (shout out to my parents in law for an awesome weekend visit) and we had the most frustrating kind of "bad" shopping trip in that we didn't "not find anything we liked", no, that would have been easy enough to deal with. No, we had one of those trips where a lot of what we saw was nice, but it was all two-third sleeves, thus making it not wearable for hijabis without those little "sleeve" thingies we can wear under our shirts when the sleeves aren't the right lengths. (My sister's friend (who is a convert), her mother refers to them hilariously enough as 'socks for your arms'). I don't mind wearing them once in a while, but they're really not that comfortable and I'm not enamoured with the way they look, so I'm not about to buy a whole load of shirts that require sleeves for me to wear them.
So here's my call out to clothing designers: if it's short sleeved, do it short sleeved. But if it's long sleeved, just make it the whole length and I predict you will find more hijabis buying your shirts. We like your stuff, it's just not convenient to wear in its current format, and all you need is a teeny-tiny bit of material for us to start buying it in droves.
There are plenty of Muslim women in this country who don't all feel like wearing jilbabs every day and really like your styles. A savvy fashion designer with great business sense would start making stuff for us and be the one to reap the benefits, so if any of you are reading this, that's my great idea for you...

Hijabi Swimwear Hullabaloo

First, to set the tone, I wear something that looks like this when I go swimming:

I bought it from a swimsuit store. You can buy it online. You can buy it around the world. It's made from the same material as any other swimsuits. My sister has one just like it, but don't worry, they're different colours and different patterns. We're not trying to look like twins.
So, today we went for a swim in our condo's pool. It was pretty quiet and uneventful, until 3 minutes before we were planning on leaving anyway, a custodian approached us and told us we weren't allowed to swim here anymore.
Excuse me? Sorry? What's that? I pay condo fees like anyone else. I hurt no one by wearing my fabulous hijabi swimsuit.
The bottom line is that apparently, someone complained about our attire and she came to tell us we had to go. Sorry but no... We stayed, we discussed, we explained, we had her call a member of the condo board, and before it was time to go, we were told we could swim in our hijabi swimsuits without any problem (which we already knew, but now they knew too).
So, the sweetness of victory, or the bitterness of feeling the sting of ignorance? Well, a bit of both... I have to admit that it hurts when I find someone out there is still determined to limit my abilities to enjoy my basic rights just because I'm a Muslim woman who chooses to demonstrate my faith. Live and let live. We're in a pluralistic society, which means we all have the right to go on and act on our beliefs, so long as they don't hurt other members of that society. Hopefully, everyone comes to that conclusion soon.

What would you do? (Smile, you're on camera)

This was on ABC a while back. Commonplacer has actually already discussed it, but this is a longer version of the same video.
So, would you encourage, discourage, or do nothing? Fascinating.

Little Angel and Angela Update

FYI for any of you who are latecomers to this blog, my little Angels and Angela's would be my nieces and nephews. Today's update refers specifically to the munchkins in Ottawa, who I saw after a 4 week absence in Egypt last week, and who've grown a lot.
My angel's crawling speed has increased significantly, and now he not only babbles, but babbles with expression while staring straight at you. I know I'm biased, but he's right in that "most adorable age ever" stage that hits around 10 months and last until about 14 months, and boy does he know it!
Meanwhile, my little Angela is turning more and more into a little girl and less and less a toddler. She was already speaking full sentences before we left for Egypt, but now her sentences are longer and significantly more complicated. Last week, during prayer, I couldn't concentrate at first as my little Angela recited the Fatiha along with the Imam. She also decided to borrow my hijab on Tuesday night when I got back from work. I gladly lent it to her, but upon trying to get it back so I could pray 'Asr, she told me, "Here Nonno, where this one" and held up an imaginary hijab for me. (We often give her imaginary cups of tea when she wants some. Can you say "what's good for the goose is good for the gander"?)
Little Angela is also really big on role playing right now. In one evening, she went from being herself, to being me, to being her father, to being someone I had met in Egypt that she had only seen in a picture on the laptop.
Next week, I'll have my little Angel and Angela almost exclusively to myself for two weeknights. I can't wait to see what they have in mind for me.

p.s. On a completely unrelated note, I attended a McGill MSA (Muslim Students Association) spoken word and poetry event last night as part of Islamic Awareness Week. All's I gotta say is this is a talented and creative bunch, masha Allah, and I'm glad to be joining the family! I'm now motivated to do some more creative writing (blogging doesn't count if it's not super-artsy). I've been in an insanely long dry-spell what with the whole wedding/honeymoon/moving thing.