It's Saturday Night, So It's Time to P-A-R-T-Y!

Had a slow start to the morning--my husband took off for a three-day soccer tournament, and I dragged through my morning trying to get motivated to do anything.

Around 1:00, I went across the street to the neighbor's house--one of their girls loves organizing and cleaning, and I'd told her I'd pay her to help me out. Four hours later, we'd cleaned, reorganized, and moved furniture and toys into my daughter's room as well as made a decent dent in a couple of other projects.

I have a HUGE bag of hand-me-downs to sell at our upcoming garage sale, mostly clothing and stuffed animals. I was ready to haul off the box to Goodwill, I was so excited to have purged all of it, but the same neighbor is going to be having a garage sale and seems to think it will be worth the $2.75 I expect to collect from it.

We also--this is good and bad--filled our garbage can. I'm glad the stuff is gone, but I have a couple (read: all) rooms left to purge, not even counting the garage. I may need to rent a dumpster. Or two.

So my progress on the house was great, even though the rest of the house looks like something blew up. Even robbers don't leave that much of a mess. Unfortunately, all the bending and leaning and lifting and walking rendered me useless by about 7:00 pm.

We (meaning my husband and I) then had one of our typical "conversations" when I walked out onto the deck and noticed he was starting up the barbecue.

Me: MMMM, Yummy! What are going to cook?
Him: A barbecue. (How he can say this with a level tone and straight face, I don't know.)
Me: Yes, I assumed that, since you are standing in front of it and lighting it. What I meant was, WHAT are you going to barbecue?
Him: Chicken.
Me: Is there going to be enough for me? (This actually is a reasonable question for me to be asking.)
Him: Yeah, I guess, if you want some.
Me: Were you going to fix anything else or do you want me to make some rice?
Him: Rice would be nice.
Me: When is the chicken going to be ready?
Him: About 20 minutes.

Now, I know I married a Moroccan and he lives on Moroccan time. Some of you may be chuckling and thinking to yourself, "Oh that must be like (fill in the locality) time, where it means half an hour later than what is stated." Clearly, you have never had to deal with a Moroccan on a regular basis. Moroccan time is "It happens when it happens, if it happens at all." Since he was lighting the barbecue, I assumed that it (being barbecued chicken) was going to happen, but it could be anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours later.

Me: So do I have time to make a quick run to the store?
Him: Where are you going?
Me: Trader Joe's.
Daughter: I WANT TO PUSH THE CART! (Trader Joe's has miniature push carts which I let her use and thus it is her favorite store.)
Him: Oh.
Me: So do I have time to go?
Him: Probably not. I'm going to put the chicken on soon.
Me: Okay.

So I went inside and waited, figuring when I saw actual chicken-on-grill movement, I would start the rice.

I'm not sure what distracted me, but I ended up at my computer. Half an hour after the conversation, my husband came in and asked if I was going to cook any rice and if so, dinner would be ready soon and I needed to hurry. I jumped up and told him I'd start right away, which I did.

Then I came back to the computer and noticed he was heading into the shower.

Me: I thought you said dinner was going to be ready soon. (Despite KNOWING that he operates on Moroccan time, I can't always wrap my brain around it as the majority of the people I know, even if they are chronically late, operate on a much more immediate basis and thus I'm not always in synch. With him or normal people.)

Him: It is. But first I have to take a shower. It's going to be like 15 minutes.
Me: Okay, 30 minutes ago, you told me it would be ready in 20 minutes.
Him: Yeah, but I have to take a shower.
Me: I'm going shopping.
Him: Where are you going?
Me: Trader Joe's, like I said earlier.
Daughter: I WANT TO PUSH THE CART!
Him: Oh.
Me (to daughter): Sorry, honey, you're not coming.

I grabbed my purse and took off, figuring that if the first five of twenty minutes equaled a half hour, then I had another hour and a half before dinner--plenty of time to do grocery shopping before the store closed.

As a side note, one of our Arab friends (also a late-running time group), when my husband told him we would be there in five minutes (we were already an hour and a half late), once replied, "Five American minutes or five Arab minutes?"

I got home about an hour later. My daughter ran and grabbed my leg as I walked in the door and hugged it, yelling "MAMA!" Then she pulled away and told me, in French, that I was bad and had made mischief. I looked to my husband and asked him why I was in trouble. I was informed that 1) I had not taken her with me to Trader Joe's and she was upset by this because she wanted to push the cart and 2) I had not given her a hug and kiss before leaving. Also, where was I because dinner was ready awhile ago.

Dinner was actually still hot (another quirk of Arab time is that despite while you are waiting for something it may be near forever, once food is ready, minutes are counted in seconds if they have to wait to eat--thus if I'm one minute late, he feels he's already waited an hour), so we sat down and fended off the dogs while trying to eat our meal (which was marinated chicken skewers that were fabulous).

My dessert? Lying down and reading while letting the anti-inflammatories and painkillers kick in. Yes, our family knows how to P-A-R-T-Y.

Notice how there is no mention of a workout? That's because there wasn't one.