Lost Weekend

When they come out to find you
And they cannot describe you
Someone somewhere has to buy you out of your weekend

Friday is the fever
And Monday the destroyer
You are a permanent feature
Perpetual weekend

on a wired morning, there’s a city growing in my head
Where there is no weekend

When they come out to find you
And they can multiply you
Someone’s been caught in the crossfire
Of your weekend

Friday is the teacher
And Monday the tormentor
You are a new kind of creature
Perpetual weekend

on a wired morning, there’s a city growing in my head
Where there is no weekend

You took the “end”
You took the “end” out of the weekend

Days something or other: Isloo
What are the tricks of the trade to writing a travelogue? I usually carry a small journal with me and whenever there is some downtime, i.e. my traveling companion is brushing his/her teeth at night, I'm on a plane/train/automobile, etc., I take the opportunity to compose some thoughts and jot down observations so that, upon my return, I can flesh them out and share them with you. This time, however, the downtime was on the slim side. Whatever moment of peace I had to myself was spent eating, sleeping, or bathing. I brought two books with me (The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones by Anthony Bourdain and Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert) and cracked open neither of them. That is why, this final post is a mishmash of the weekend rather than a well-thought-out entry. In exchange, however, I will provide a pix to enjoy.

So, Friday morning was spent running around getting ready for the wedding, the afternoon was spent attending the wedding, and the evening was spent recovering from the wedding. We had promised my cousin Naima that we'd go out one night, just the cousins, but with our departure looming ahead and limited time on our hands, we ended up bringing the night to us. We fashioned our own homemade HotSpot with various snacks and played several rounds of the card game three-two-five.

Saturday morning, the boys went to the archeological site Taxila to get their history and culture on while LB and I were escorted by Aunty Nusrat for one last shopping spree. We weren't going to take all of those rupees home with us! We all met up for lunch at Umber's in-law's house and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening trying to cram everything from carpets to cricket bats into our luggage for our early flight the next day.


Sunday morning, we were up before dawn to gather all our luggage, passengers, and hugs goodbye. Honestly, the next 24 hours were a blur. I do remember running around the terminal to get us checked-in, hanging out in the VIP lounge in the vicinity of Imran Khan (pre-jail, of course), and struggling to try to break ZP of his newly-discovered habit of lap-jumping while in a moving vehicle. The flight from Isloo to London was rough because everyone was awake but oh so very tired. I spent my time in Heathrow during the six hour layover indulging in hot chocolate and then running around the length and breadth of the terminals in search of whole milk (also known as "full cream") for ZP. I felt like Hagar only my Safa and Marwa were known as WHSmith and Boots. Thank goodness for the ubiquitous Starbucks. Our delayed flight finally arrived and the trip from London to DC was much more relaxed - mostly because everyone was knocked out.

Lesson of the weekend: If someone asks for Pakistani decorations, netting, and hand-painted clay bowls for a wedding in the U.S., better pack it yourself rather than rely on someone else arranging them loosely in shoeboxes such that they arrive with some intact, some shattered, and some dangling from the cardboard box.