Tortoise gets Alzheimer and speaks to everyone in an incoherent fashion, and makes his way across the finish line drunk.

“Where the Wild Things Are” is a movie I wish never existed. If you are even thinking about going to see this movie with the hope of reminiscing on the enchanted nature of one of your favorite childhood books, DON’T. It will kill your childhood memories.

The film was certainly not for kids — not because of any obscenities but because of the dark, depressing nature of the film and not to mention the scariest looking monsters ever.

CNN and USA Today both examined the reactions of parents who took their children to see the movie. One reaction from CNN:

“[The film] was joyless. There were maybe 15 minutes of the hour and a half that my kids were into it,” said James Griffioen of Detroit, Michigan. His 4-year-old daughter asked, “Why is this movie so sad?” in the middle of their family’s matinee viewing, while his son, a 20-month-old who normally can’t get enough of the 1963    children’s classic, was simply bored, he told CNN.

The main character in the movie was a boy named Max. He is a lonely boy looking for acceptance and has some rage issues.

The kid is just as weird in the movie as he was in his interview on Conan. But than again, I’d turn out weird too if my real name were “Max Records.”

In one scene he actually bites his mom out of anger and runs into the forest, onto a little boat, crosses the ocean and lands on an island where the “Wild Things Are.” He thinks he is a wolf and howls and growls a lot in the film which is all pretty annoying. Everyone in this movie, including the monsters, are either suffering from loneliness, feeling different, sadness or anger. The mother in the movie is losing her job, the older sister cares more about her friends than her little brother Max and at one point in the movie the “wild things” ask the boy, “Can you make the sadness go away?”

It was also very incoherent and had the worst story-line and dialog ever. Nothing made sense in that movie. It was so boring and finally when you think the conflict is finally here, it just becomes more disturbing.

Throughout the whole movie you are trying to understand where the conflict is and what the real story is. Finally, when the real conflict comes in it’s about the boy not being able to keep the “sadness” away, and thus out of his anger, one of the “wild things” rips off the arm of another monster.

When the movie ended I turned to Belal and said, “I want two hours of my life back.” The guy walking out behind us told his friend, “This movie was so depressing I feel like committing suicide.”

It’s like they always say, the book is always better than the movie.

Oprah is generally looked upon in American society as a great empowered but honest woman. She definitely has great interviewing skills. However, if you’ve always been an Oprah fan, this post may change your whole perception of her and her show.

I have a little bit more time on my hands now that I have spring break, and so I decided to turn on the TV to America’s favorite day-time talk show host, Oprah Winfrey. Unaware of the subject matter of today’s show I watched as she brought on a guest who was publicly taking the innocence of little children right before our eyes.

The guest was Laura Berman, an author who decided to talk today about how to speak to your kids about sex.

A concerned mother of a 10-year-old came on the show seeking advice on what to do. Her daughter for the past eight months has been asking her mom what “sex” was. The mother kept telling her child she would “tell her later.” The child knew it was something possibly embarrassing and refrained from asking her father, but still had no idea what it was and wanted answers from her mother.

“Doctor” Berman gave the mother advice. She told her to talk to the girl and tell her sex was just the ways babies are made. “That’s not too bad,” I thought to myself — after all I there was nothing explicit about that answer; but the doctor went on.

She decided to show the girl diagrams of human anatomy, both boys’ and girls’. She also told the mother to tell the child about “pleasure.” And forgive me for getting explicit, but the 10 minutes I watched of this show SHOCKED me. She decided to talk to the child about what I’ve seen IslamQA.com call “the secret habit” and tell her that it’s perfectly normal and OK to do so!

AHH! WHAT! Did I just hear that right? Oprah, have you gone mad inviting someone like that on your show!? A 10-year-old girl who had a simple question because she heard this word used around her school, and this is what they teach them in return?

Wallahi I was so disgusted. But it didn’t stop there! Berman proceeded to recommend getting their daughters toys (of the bad kind!) to “explore.”

I didn’t watch anymore. That served me right for even trying to watch anything. Wallahi I feel like it corrupted even me and I’m not a 10-year-old girl! It was so embarrassing I couldn’t watch another minute of it.

Lesson of the day – get your children out of public school and into Islamic school. Don’t let non-Muslims teach your kids! Islamic schools are not sheltered, I understand that, but at least there is a sense of disgust and reprimand that children learn when it comes to Zina. Instead of feeling it’s perfectly normal to do, at least the students KNOW it’s wrong!

Wallahu alem.

Sorry for the explicit nature of this post, but seriously be aware of all this garbage.

Wanting to steal someone else’s baby may not seem like normal to the average guy; OK fine, the average person. And sure, we don’t actually steal them, but this “thing” is what makes us talk baby talk at any Johnson and Johnson or Pampers commercial we see on TV. That’s right, it’s those motherly instincts that overtake us women and make us reduced to a puddle around children.

I can’t help it. I see a cute baby and I’m melted. I want kids.

But it’s the other motherly instincts that make me terrified of bringing a child into this world.

I’m not talking pangs of birth (although one of the scariest thoughts). I’m talking raising a kid, in America — actually, the world.

There is so much filth out there, much more than when we were growing up. And there has been a lot of filth that went around with generation X. Elementary kids know about sex, drugs and curse words. It seems like what used to be sheltered until high school, is now, sheltered until 3rd grade.

They are growing up in a society where being Gay is normal and culturally accepted, and anyone to speak otherwise is a hate monger.

When I was working for the Reveille, we had this columnist who decided to write a story about why America should stand together against homosexuality. The guy was right on point. However, I don’t think there has ever been a column that got more hate mail, more threats, and more responses in the history of the Reveille. Not even I, with my record hundreds of hate comments a week, had that much of a backlash against me.

The sacredness of the institution of marriage is questioned. After all, why get married when you have all the perks of marriage without any of the responsibility? Producing illegitimate children is a fashion these days, the latest accessory.

Then comes the issue of what am I going to do with my kids and school? Islamic schools, I hope that they can come up to par on the education level one of these days. And there is no way I’m sending my kids to public school, and then again I can only home school up to a certain level.

I hear many times people say, “I’m going to take my kids and live overseas.” Unless you live in Saudi, I can assure you, globalization has taken its course. What happens a lot of the times, is that the parents think their kids are now “safe” give them more freedom, and in the end the kids do much worse things “back home” than they do here.

Wallahul musta’an.

I want my cute, cuddly baby. But what’s a mother to do?

Surely, we can find some comfort in knowing that Allah protects and takes care of the children of the righteous, but have we really attained righteousness?

Scary thought…

There’s this common perception among some sisters their photos on Facebook are “safe” because only sisters can see it.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way. One of three scenarios are bound to occur:

1. Your friend’s brother, father, uncle just happens to walk by the computer and sees your pictures.

2. Your friend isn’t really the great friend you thought she was and she passes your pictures along to others without your approval.

3. Your friend is trying to play match-maker and shows your picture to a brother who may or may not be interested in getting married to you. — This is the most common scenario, in my opinion.

Perhaps it’s not a new phenomenon, but it’s definitely something that needs to be talked about.

Sisters, please use some common sense.

It’s the youth girls that probably fall into this the most, but then again, “shaadi” pics are pretty common as well.

We know you’re beautiful, OK? We know that when a girl wears make-up she can be very incredibly gorgeous…. or look like a clown, but I’m just sayin’.

Shaadi pictures are a phenomenon on their own. It’s like shaytaan loves weddings not because he’s happy for the bride and groom, but because he knows he can really get sisters to do acts they normally wouldn’t do.

This notion that says “I can take off my hijab on my wedding day because it’s only one day out of the year.”

Wrong! It’s everyday a picture of you not wearing your hijab gets pass around to friends, family and a million strangers.

Sisters, don’t let other sisters take pictures of you, even if you are wearing hijab. Trust me I see pictures all the time of sisters who I know wouldn’t want their pictures passed around. And who knows you may want to wear niqaab one day.

I needed to rant. It’s been a long time.

Egyptian Gumbo is on Mardi Gras break, what do you expect .

Here are pictures of my winter wonderland, including my new friend, “Greedy.” Enjoy.

My snow cutie, Greedy

My kitty is sad because she can’t go outside in the cold

**UPDATE**

MR. GREEDY FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE!

While this isn’t a rebuttal of Br. Haytham’s post there are some things from the POV of a sister that I feel brothers just are clueless about. In fact, I think brothers are usually about 90% clueless when it comes to the female brain, but let’s take baby steps in helping them on their roadmap to marriage:

Let’s be frank here — we as a Western society are picky when it comes to our marriage choices. Things aren’t as simplified as they used to be. Whether that’s good or bad is not the issue.

In keeping with the spirit of Br. Haytham’s post, I’ll keep to the outline he’s listed for the pre-marriage issues: Parents of prospective husband, prospective husband and our own insecurities:

Our view about parents of prospective husband:

Guys are terrified of fathers. Women are equally terrified of mothers. Let’s face it — some of the biggest problems after marriage originate between the wife and her mother-in-law.

Before we meet your mom, we make dua’a that she is very nice and not too over-bearing with high expectations of us when it comes to cooking and babying her son; and not to mention we hope she isn’t too critical of our looks.

And unless we are pretty traditional from certain backgrounds, there is no way we want to live with the brother’s family after marriage; especially if we grew up in the West.

It’s not about us being afflicted with this whole “Western Aggressive Girl Syndrome.” It’s just the reality of how we feel. Now that’s not to say that a sister will not be respectful of a guy’s mom. Truly, if a sister fears Allah, she will be very, very respectful to your mother regardless of whether or not she disagrees with her.

But that doesn’t take away from the fact that we are terrified before we meet your mothers. And generally, we tend to have no issues with the father at all.

Our view about the prospective husband:

Many of br. Haytham’s qualities he listed that brothers look for in sisters can go for both ways. The points I’m about to list are not in order of importance, but figured i’d offer a little different side when it comes to the sister’s POV:

1– Sisters look for good looks too. Although we are more flexible when it comes to looks, we definitely have to be attracted to the guy. We don’t necessarily need supermodels. Just follow the sunnah, and naturally iman and noor on your face will make you more attractive.

2—Maturity- we want you to be charismatic, not stiff, but mature. Show us you’re ready mentally to get married and take care of a family.

3—Religiosity—much like guys want their future wife to have the eagerness to learn the deen, it’s even more stressed on our side. Most sisters want a brother who is on the same level deen wise or above. We want someone we can look up to, because this encourages us to be better.

4—Dressed Islamically- Yes, that’s right — religious girls like beards! Contrary to popular belief, we are not scared of them, and in fact that’s one of our main concerns up front. I guess it’s the leeway in knowing and finding out about the brother’s religious mentality.

On a side note, one of my personal, biggest pet peeves is when a brother trims his beard really short for unacceptable reasons.

I always hear of cases from sisters where a brother says he shaves his beard for fear of airport security. And if you ask him what opinion he follows, and he usually responds that it’s haram to trim it or to trim anything more than fist length.

But even worse than that is when he shaves it because his mom doesn’t like the way it looks on him. Brothers, this is your hijab. If you follow an opinion, be firm on it. It shows weakness to us when you do this, especially because we as sisters wearing full hijab have much bigger pressure than you do when it comes to outside scrutiny of our attire.

5—Someone to find comfort in—we definitely want not only a husband, but a best friend. We want someone to console in and that will not only listen to us when we are down, but to tell us words that will make us feel better. Analyze the situation with us, and give us “words of wisdom.”

Usually, this is a “gamble” because we really can’t tell if this quality exists in a brother before marriage.

6—Knows how to treat his wife kindly and with respect—there’s a difference between being the man of the house, and being the prison guard. We don’t want the “What I say goes!” type of brother.

7—Has to be more intelligent than us to a certain degree—we don’t want to feel smarter than our husbands. You must be able to hold an intelligent conversation and know about things we don’t know anything about.

8—Too sensitive is too feminine—some girls like sensitive guys. But some guys take that too far. Believe it or not there are a lot of guys out there that love to spill what they are “feeling” all the time. We want someone masculine, but not afraid to say what’s wrong if they are upset. Just don’t cry me a river every time.

9—Jealousy- we definitely want the same from brothers as they want from sisters. We want to feel like we are special and protected. But don’t be too over-bearing in your jealousy. I know sisters whose husbands are so jealous they hardly let their wives go out of the house, even if it’s with other good sisters. Again, be a husband, not a prison guard.

10– Demeanor- the way your carry yourself is what makes you attractive. Carry yourself with respect and confidence. We view confidence as being very attractive. Seriously, a guy doesn’t have to be that physically attractive, but if he is confident it really can make a guy stand tall in our eyes. Finally, be respectful but also be fun.

Oh, and definitely a #11

11- Chivalry is not dead! Girls love chivalry. We want our husbands to open doors for us, surprise us every once in a while, give us their jackets when we’re cold. This is something almost ever girl loves.

Finally, our view of our own insecurities:

We are very self-conscious about our looks even the girls that know they are somewhat attractive. We are scared that when the brother sees us for the first time, and if he’s not interested we always think it’s about our looks- even if he states other reasons.

After all, we definitely want the one person who will see us without our niqaab or hijab to be the one who thinks we are the most beautiful.

A little secret—most girls don’t know how to cook in the beginning of marriage. But we learn. We’re also insecure about that. We know we can’t match your mom’s cooking yet, but give us time.

Wallahu alem.

-Egyptian Gumbo

Disclaimer: This post is in no way, shape or form an advertisement for marriage. I’m simply responding the post on Muslim Matters because I don’t see anything previously out there complied into one post about this issue from a sister’s POV. This is not to say that all these things are what I personally see or feel, but I believe it represents a lot of sisters as a whole. I know there will be some sisters that disagree. And again, these are general, not necessarily what I think or don’t think.

The long awaited (and delayed) post is now here. I know, I know you’ve all been waiting anxiously for my rant. I don’t blame you– my rants ARE usually randomly awesome, hehe j/k.

For all of you who wish to comment on any blog, this is a good article to read before doing so.

First, let me just say on Egyptian Gumbo, all comments are welcome, even the stupid ones.They are welcome to find their way under this very post, and for those of you whom I’ve moderated, they are welcome to come to my inbox where I either let them go through or delete them.

But I love them all, even the deleted ones. (There is a certain satisfaction that comes with deleting… ahhh.)
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The Attention Lover:

“FIRST!,” you say proudly– as if being the first to leave a comment will make you have more friends. “You’re GAY,” you say to any video you see on the web.

I’ll be you’re friend you poor, poor misunderstood geek. Being first doesn’t make you number one on the social scene. Sorry guys.

The Skeptic:

“PHOTOSHOPPED! FAKE!” to anything remotely amazing caught on camera.

Listen, if I want to watch a dog nursing a kitten, I WILL!

The Arguer:

These usually amount to about 30 comments back and forth between two people. Please know when enough is enough. Your back and forth disputing will avail to nothing. If you’re really serious about giving someone dawah take it off the forum and into your email, ok? Thaaanks.

The Unintelligent Debater:

These are usually the people who comment on very important indepth topics, and all they can say is “That’s silly!” or “My sheikh disagrees and my sheikh is much more knowledgeable than you!”

The Promoter:

These are the people who come and say.. “Heyyy everyone, look at what I wrote at www.gettingyouraudience.com. In general, that’s really OK and cool, but don’t come and pop by our sites only when you need to grab our readers, let’s hear from you more often .

The Internet Linguist

“PAWNED!” “W00T!” “OWNAGE!” “INCROYABLE!”

Seriously guys, no.

The Macho-Man:

This commenter loves to show what he/she would do if put in a similar situation. “Dude if that happened to me, I’d punch his face out! But great video.”

“You wanna come say that to my face?!”

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There are so many different commentators out there. But this post was dedicated to a specific category. I’m sure many of you can add on to this list if you thought about it…

Regardless of the types of comments out there, I appreciate everyone who comes by my site. But pay attention as you go blog hopping, I’m sure you’ll find some of these out there, hehe.

Last Tuesday, Muslims went into elections booths justifying their vote by saying their intention is to go out and pick the “lesser of the two evils.” Alhamdulillah, there is nothing wrong with the intention. And It’s pretty apparent Obama is the lesser of the evils and a McCain administration would have probably been horrible fate for Muslims. But even if that’s the case, it does not absolve Obama from the status of evil (even if it is lesser.)

People’s intentions were not reflected by their actions. The intention went from picking the lesser of the evil to becoming a huge fan of the candidate as if he were their idol.

After Obama had been announced the winner, people were so excited as if he was going to be the best thing that happened to the Muslims. I heard Muslims saying slogans like “Barack Mubarack” and “Ba-Rocked the Vote!”

The question is, why are Muslims so happy with a man who does not want to be associated with us at all? What about the “Muslim Smear?” What about the hijabi woman who was removed from one of his rallies?

Honestly, we’re very naive. It’s like an abusive father who hits his children. The child thinks that because the father say he won’t hit him anymore, he’s safe now. But afterward, the child learns of how naive it was trust a man who gave no reason to believe that he would actually be different.

Muslims were of the belief that Obama HAS to praise Israel in order to win the election (which is true.) And after he’s elected president, he’s going to be on the Muslim’s side. How much more obvious can it be that this is NOT TRUE. After all, look at the first thing he did after being elected; he picked a Zionist for his Chief of Staff.

Muslims are humiliating themselves while the world watches. It’s like one of those instances where a person is doing something so embarrassing that no one has the guts to tell the person they are making a fool of themselves. Like a girl walking with toilet paper on her shoe. For those of us who went all Obama crazy, we’re the ones with the toilet paper stuck to our shoes.

I can’t help but cringe at the sheep-like behavior coming from us. As much as we’d like to think that we are different and cannot be brainwashed by media, It saddens me to break the news that if we were of the ones that displayed campaign-crazed behavior, we in essence were brainwashed because followed the herd; we became like the mindless sheep the media wanted us to become.

Persuasion is best done when it is seamless, and Barack Obama had all elements to a successful persuasive campaign. After all, no one can deny he is charismatic; he is the “rock star.”

And let me just say the media is very manipulative.

If anything at all we should look at this from a historical perspective, and nothing more. No one can deny that this is a big step for human rights. And as Muslims, we should be very happy with the progress made.

Be the Black sheep.

Wallahu alem.

InshaAllah, there are some great things to come after I settle down with all my work– so stay tuned.

P.S. Don’t forget to pay Zakaatul Fitr before Eid Salah

Shirien

I was thinking about the typical harassment in Egypt and wondering how guys keep trying over and over again to use the same pick up lines with no avail. And I started wondering out of how many times they harass a girl, how many actually amount to anything more than a girl hitting the guy with her purse. “Hmm…,” I wondered.  I also was curious if at any point in time it resulted in the harasser marrying the harassed.

That led me to think about bad marriage proposals, but I thought it’d make for a good post.

I asked a couple of friends to share any stories they may have about them or someone they know. I’ll list a couple here, but I’d be very interested in hearing stories from the rest of you in the comments section.

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1. “The Choo Choo” sister.

A friend of mine told me this story of a brother who was interested in his friend’s sister. He convinced his friend to let him “observe” the sister in her natural surroundings by letting him hide behind a door in his house. The interested brother hid, while his friend sat down and called his sister to make him some tea.

The girl went into the kitchen made the tea, and as she was coming with the tea she started to head towards her brother making ‘train noises.’ “Chooo choooo,” the sister came howled as she came toward her brother.

By this time both the interested brother and his friend were trying as hard as they could not to laugh. As soon as the girl left the room, they busted out laughing.

If i were that sister I would have killed my brother, if I had one.

2. The Bollywood Big Shot

A friend of mine related this story to me:

“Thankfully, my parents never put me in a rishta-like situation after the first one went disastrous:

My mom was being super nice to me, and so my sister and I got really suspicious –my mom’s generally a sweet and jolly lady, mashaAllah, but it was a little off this time. Anyway, next thing we know some limo pulls up in front of our house and it’s this dude my dad knows – guy doesn’t even drive it on a regular basis. So after laughing till our sides ached (who pulls up in a limo?! just for the getting-to-know and check-the-larhki-out?!), we snook out of the house, hopped into my sister’s car and didn’t come home till late in the evening when we were sure mr.im-oh-so-impressive would be gone. so aside from the bummy look as totally not attractive, overdoing it on the bling-bling side is a bit of a throw-off (if not ridiculous), too

4. The Playing Hoops Brother.

There was a brother who went to go propose to a sister. When he came to meet the parents, not only was he extremely nervous as he was sweating like crazy, but he looked like he just came back from playing basketball because he had jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes on. Not only that, he had the nerve to be “In a rush because he had to go somewhere.”

Needless to say, the answer was no.

5. The Single Guy in New York.

A brother approached a sister but wanting to get married ASAP, meaning like two weeks from when he started emailing her. The sister was in no rush and likewise couldn’t move in with the brother even if she wanted because she lived far and had to finish college. She was to be done in only a year. He told her that a year was wayyyy too long and that he’s a single guy living in New York. And although the girl was “Everything he would look for in a wife” he told her he didn’t want to come see her because if he liked her, he didn’t want to be  “stuck” in an engagement just in case he found someone who was willing to get married sooner.

So the brother told her that if in another year he doesn’t find someone, he’ll come back. (!!!!!!!!) Not only did the sister laugh really hard and sent him an email telling him he’s got to be kidding (not to even bother),  the sister also gave him naseeha telling him not to ever tell another sister something like that, or else he’ll have a hard time getting married.

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Brothers, if you want to propose to a sister, please don’t do what these guys did. I want to hear all your stories if you have any that happened to you or a friend of yours. Please don’t put any names. Enjoy