Bob's Ressurrection, etc.

People tell me I have an adventurous life. My initial reaction when one says that is, "Nah! Not really. I'm not wrestling great whites, walking across tightropes, or climbing Mt. Everest." But the fact of the matter is, when I really think about it, there tends to be a lot of excitement in my life.

Case in point. Just in the past few months, I've had some "interesting" adventures that I'd like to share:

* I inherited a gecko. Yes, that's right. My cousin and his family bought a new dog and were concerned that their gecko was being neglected, so they asked if I would be his new mommy. So I became the proud new parent of a gecko named Bob (named by my 9 yr old friend, Jacob).

* Bob died. I was in DC for a week and had my friend Marlene take care of him. The day after I got home, I looked in his cage and noticed that he was completely lifeless! I poked him with a gum wrapper and nothing happened. He just lay there pale and cool. I called my cousin and sadly told him that Bob had passed away and had entered gecko heaven.

* Bob was resurrected. After I told some friends that Bob had died, they told me that I should put him in the freezer and then have a ceremony for him during the weekend. When I got home that night, I immediately walked towards the cage to put my dead scaly friend into the freezer, but I noticed he wasn't where I had left him. He was standing on a branch staring at me. If he could talk, I swear he would have said, "Haha, SUCKA! That's what you get for leaving me for a week!" Imagine my cousin's surprise when I called him and told him that Bob was actually alive and kickin'.
Some non-Bob adventures:
*I was in D.C. at a restaurant last month and used the men's bathroom...on purpose. I really had to go, ok??? Kharma struck when the next day, I was waiting forever to use the women's bathroom at Starbucks only to find out that the person who was occupying the single stall for an eternity was none other than a man.

*I was speaking to an elderly gentleman before giving a presentation on Arab culture, and he was telling me all about his Arab friends that own a coney island. All of a sudden, I noticed he was stumbling with his words and got kind of jittery. He looked at me and says, "I'm sorry, but I'm really nervous. You're really pretty." I didn't know whether to thank him or apologize to the 65 year old man.

And now time for the portion of my blog you've all been waiting for:

NU-HADVENTURE OF THE DAY

For those of you who know my mom, you know that she's a clean freak. And if you know me, you know that I am not one. What happens when a passionate OCD Arab woman gives birth to a girl who would rather watch "You Can't Do That On Television" and eat cherry Pop Tarts than remove every single plate/dish/cup out of the cupboards once a week to wipe down each square inch with rag doused in Pledge? Well, here's what happens...

One day, my mother and I had just got in a huge screaming match over... you guessed it: cleaning. Apparantly, I hadn't done a good enough job of dusting the couch or something like that. After we got sick of yelling at each other, I wiped the countercops as hard as I could to kill two birds with one stone. Bird #1: Attempt to make Nuha happy by making her countertops immaculate. Bird #2: Let out my anger and frustration by scrubbing as hard as I could. As I was doing this, my mom- sporting a cotton nightgown- was on her hands and knees "mopping" the tile floor Nuha-style. All I could think about was how livid I was and how much I wanted to move out of the house, UNTIL...

I noticed my mom had taken a break from scrubbing the floor, yet she remained on her hands and knees. When I looked down to see why she had paused, she looked up and smiled. Before I even had time to wonder why this angry Arab would be smiling at me, I noticed a yellow stream flowing from underneath her gown onto the freshly mopped floor. Yep, she peed herself. I guess the excitement from our argument did something to her bladder. Once again, Nuha had turned a seemingly horrible encounter into a moment that cracked me up so hard that I was very close to releasing my own stream.