Lizard!

One would expect that after a two-month absence from this blog (the cynics among you may call it neglect) that I would have plenty to write about. After all, my hiatus from this blog stems from the busyness that surrounds getting married, having family and friends coming to visit, going on a trip of all of Egypt, a honeymoon on the Red Sea, numerous trips to the village, and everything that follows from those. Let it suffice to say that they were all more fantastic and unusual than even I had imagined they could be. Those of you on Facebook have already seen some wedding photos, and for those of you who haven't.....you can see the wedding photos I have posted on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2073133&l=bf47c&id=2902097
I have lots of other lovely photos of the wedding, the henna party, the trip down the Nile, my family and friends who came to visit and my honeymoon, but I have learned not to promise to do things that I have no intention of doing, so I recommend that none of you hold your breath waiting to see them posted here. I do, however, beg those of you who both read this and were in attendance at any of those events to post (or send) whatever pictures (and glowing reviews) you have.

But.....I'm not going to write any more about any of those things on this blog now. I would rather write about (and I'm sure you would all rather read about) the mundane occurrences of my current everyday life. (If I am overestimating the excitingness of my everyday life and it is, in fact, tedious, tell me and I may actually post pictures of all of the exciting things that I have not promised to post pictures of).

Last night, when I walked into the kitchen to get a drink of water from the refridgerator, sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor was a terrifying pure-white lizard. In my recollection and in the interests of good storytelling he was roughly twice the size of godzilla, breathed fire, and had a german accent, but in reality was closer to about 6 inches long and promptly scuttled behind the refridgerator. I did what any brave and unphasable woman in a pink nightie would do. I calmly exited the kitchen, stood in the hallway, and screamed for my husband to come and kill it.
The killing of the lizard was the stuff slapstick comedies are made of. Wahied decided that a lizard is no match for "crawling insect spray" and managed to produce a can from inside the pantry. The can was empty, save for one single spritz, which Wahied sprayed behind the refridgerator before retreating into the pantry to locate a second can. Though he had clearly not sprayed enough to kill a lizard, he had sprayed enough to enrage one, and my (now furious) creepy white lizard scuttled out from behind the refridgerator and....straight into the pantry after Wahied. As I gave an incomprehensible play-by-play of the Lizard's actions Wahied found himself weaponless and alone in the pantry with the Lizard.
As I could not see what went on, I will give the dialogue instead:
Me: "It's in the pantry! Kill it! Kill it!"
Wahied: "How?"
Me: "With a shoe!"
Wahied: "But I'm only wearing ship-ship" (flip-flops)
Me: "...."
Ship-Ship "Smash! Bang!...Thwack Thwack"
Lizard: "Neiiiiiin!"
Wahied came back, triumphant, claiming that he had knocked the lizard through the grating leading out into the elevator shaft and that the lizard had fallen to his doom.

Despite a severe lizard infestation, consisting of a singular lizard sighting, life here has been excellent. The apartment is mostly furnished and looks gorgeous. Ramadan has turned out to be excellent, rather than terrible, as every morning is like a Saturday morning, and there isn't a single person or vehicle out between 5:30 and 7:oopm, which has made shopping trips, if well planned, incredibly easy. The weather has cooled significantly, and for the past week has been exactly perfect. Wahied and I have been more social too. We were both sorry to see Britta back to the U.S., but managed to spend some time with her before she did. We have also been seeing a lot of Anita and Omar recently, which has been really really great for me in particular, as smart, english-speaking friends with a sense of humour are relatively hard to find when you're effectively unemployed in a non-english-speaking country.

As for my effective unemployment---it has been a godsend. I didn't realise just how much time, effort and energy moving in, getting married, and getting settled in Egypt would really take. There's no way I could have done it without this time off. It has also let me relax a little, enjoy my first months of married life, and get comfortable driving around Cairo. I have also read 13 books this summer (17, if you count the books I re-read during my early summer book shortage) and could happily get through another 8 or 10 before needing alternate forms of entertainment. My only source of unease is the very real sense that my vacation will end, and very, very soon I will have to return to work.

I'm sorry I've been so delinquent over the past couple of months. I have never been particularly adept at keeping in touch but I'm hoping that this blog, for those of you who read it, will at least let you know that I'm alive, happy and I haven't forgotten about those of you whose only form of communication with me is via the internet. I miss you all, and will write more as soon as I can.