Aw. AW!

Hi there, my beautiful Erin!  How's business today?  How's it going in the life of the ravishing sports princess, selling all those wonderful sports accessories?  You are so loved, my All-American Sweetheart.  I love you.

And Natty, you are so happy you can hardly stand!  I glad to see your brother is OK.  Did you go café hopping all by yourself?  Food business is big business Natty, so make sure you dress sharp.  Your bosses should dress you up and buy you dinner at the more expensive places.  Just enjoy the food you like and take snapshots.  Take snapshots of the food and the place.  Now you be careful when you drive around on that Vespa.  Wear a helmet, OK?  You're so precious to me.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Oh Erin honey, all those people are rallying behind you and posting all those beautiful portraits of you on occasion of your birthday!  I'm thinking they did not agree with the photo I chose of you on the greeting I gave.  But really Love, I love that photo.  Yes, I know there are many beautiful photos of you, but that particular one I chose is so endearing to me, it makes me want to squeeze you.  I love that goofy smile.  I've always loved the things about you that no one else pays attention to.  I'm not being calculated.  I really do.

Hmm.  Natty, now that you are in the heart of the fashion industry, I want you to be aware that I am very well known in the fashion biz.  It's not a particularly good reputation.  Let's face it, I have a bad reputation all around.  You got mixed up with a wolf, I'm afraid.  After all, I am much older than you, and in our lives we go about life seeking happiness and happiness in love.  So of course I've screwed up many times.  But YOU are the one I will marry inshaAllah, I want you to be certain of that, and not let the gossip mess with your heart.  My precious Natty.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Yes, but there's also God given beauty, which is much deeper than perspective.  A truly precious thing indeed.

Oh, I have TWO baby fish, not one!  I'm anticipating a population explosion in my fish tank.

Aw Erin

You are so beautiful, and I love you.  I hope you got to listen to the song I recorded for you.  I encoded it on .mp4, and .mp4 won't play on my Mozilla Firefox, nor would it play on the Google Chrome I have in my cell phone.  It does play on Internet Explorer, but in general I'm getting fed up of having to install plugins.  I think the next time I upload a video, I'll just encode it in .flv.  That's pretty universal, don't you agree?  I do think it's odd that YouTube uses .mp4, and Firefox can play YouTube but won't play .mp4. 

Natty, is that your Vespa?  It's so cute, and totally suits you!  It looks ancient though.  It must be fun putting around Paris on that thing, and seeing the sights.  Do you skateboard?  Have you thought about skateboarding around Paris?  I'm not particularly a connoisseur of haute couture, but I have a feeling you're going to be showing off a lot of that in Paris.  Rich women's clothing.  Go Natty!

It's time for another installment of "The Vicious Lives of Fishes", starring the guppies in my fish bowl.  A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning out my fish bowl.  I had put 3 smooth and large rocks in there for decoration, and they were slippery from the slime buildup.  One rock in particular was too large to comfortably hold and pull out of the bowl, so it slipped from my fingers and crashed to the bottom of the tank.  I screamed, "Aaaaaargh!", and my guppies scattered.  One female got crushed by the rock, and it took her 4 days to die.  Poor thing.  Now I only have 1 male and 4 females in there.  I since have removed that rock from use, but the bowl looked so bare, I decided to get one of those plastic plants.  I bought one for dirt cheap at a newly opened DIY store, it's pink and yellow and looks great in the fish bowl.  No sooner than a couple of hours that I had put the plastic plant in there, a baby guppy was sheltered within the leaves.  That fish bowl was so bare, that baby fish had little chance of not being eaten by their parents.  Talk about perfect timing.  I bought that plastic plant just in time to save the life of a baby fish.

Here's a photo of the male fish swimming around the fish bowl.  Not necessarily a blessing, but a great snapshot.

Pina, you must be hungry.  Here's a photo of my noodles in soup.

And here's a snapshot of a curry calzone and a sausage calzone.  They look kind of like hats, huh?

And I love you, Natty

Happy Birthday, Erin!

In the middle of a pizza

I am in the middle of cooking a pizza right now.  I have only a small oven, so I have to make sure the crust is done before I put on the toppings.  It's been a while since I had pizza, and today is my usual favorite: sausage and basil.  Make that sausage and whatever basil I have available in my garden.  Erin, I was thinking that when the time comes I will need to send you things like a ring or something.  And for me to do that I will need a mailing address or something.  It's not as simple as calling you or writing you: I have to talk directly to you, but not on the phone.  Not over Skype either.  Not yet at least.  This will be first contact, Sweetheart.  That's why I'm thinking Second Life is the solution.  The Instant Messenger in the game is relatively private, and if I know what your avatar looks like and you user ID, then there's little chance of someone pretending to be you.  I'm sorry to force more work on you, but now is the time to make your avatar as unique as possible.  So no one can copy you.  Then when the time comes, you can display your avatar on your page so I know it's you.  Then we can meet.

Natty, are you drinking lots of water?  Please consume one 1.5 liter bottle of water every day.  You must drink lots of water dearest, to help you maintain your composure, and stabilize your tummy.

Late start

Hi Honey!  How was your day?  I had a late start today.  I was up late last night working on something, then I got hooked on watching "Secrets of the Dead", even though I had seen it many times before.  So when I woke up, the sun was almost up.  Gotta pray!  So I stumbled and fumbled as quickly and groggily as I could to catch the dawn prayer.  I'm surprised none of my cats woke me up for their breakfast: they're usually flawless in that regard.  I usually have a hard time getting started.  It's not just that I'm lazy, it's more along the lines of "I might as well be lazy."  I still can't get started in music, after all these decades.  Always just beginning.  Otherwise, it's a normal day.  I made fried noodles for lunch, with some leftover for dinner.  I went to the supermarket to buy cat food.  I got some ice cream, too.  Purple ice cream.  Then I made marinara sauce.  It will be pizza time soon.  I finally figured out why my basil wasn't surviving: the ants were turning my basil into an aphid farm.  Right now, I'm watching Jaco Pastorius.  Want to watch it with me?  He sure looks kind of red in this performance.  He must have been drunk or something.  Immaculate playing, though.  He shouldn't have sung.

Natty, are you still nervous?  Don't worry Sweetie, everything will be OK.  InshaAllah.  Just hang in there, and have confidence in yourself.  You can do it, Natty!  Make sure you eat simple and familiar foods only.  Fries, burgers, pizza, sliced turkey, fried chicken etc.  No spicy foods!