Eid Mubarak!

I believe that means something like “Happy Eid” – although I’m not sure if that’s even the appropriate greeting. Or if I spelled it properly. In any case, it’s Eid, or at least the day of preparation for Eid, and the office is completely empty except for yours truly. I asked the driver yesterday when he had to be at prayers this morning so that he wouldn’t have to be driving me to work at that time, but he said “do not worry, what time do you need me here?” so we agreed on the regular time. I came out of the hotel this morning to see the car sitting there, with the driver’s side door open and swinging back and forth a little, but L nowhere to be seen. I called his name, and he popped up on the other side of the door. I think he may have been praying…? In which case I feel really bad for interrupting him.

I brought some soup and oatmeal (who doesn’t love food in an envelope??) with me to make lunch today. I was just so starving by the time I got back to the hotel yesterday, I think that it would be good for me to ensure some kind of a mid-day meal. When TL is here, I’m sure we’ll go back to our restaurant, which really is quite nice, so it won’t be a problem. However, since it’s Eid, I think that almost everything shop in town will be closed until next week, at least.

I was able to work out this morning (hurrah!), and actually may go for a run (I hope, I hope that my knees don’t give me stupid problems, they should have had *plenty* of time to recover by now) when I get back to the hotel this evening. It also helped that I had plenty of time to work out this morning, what with waking up at 2 am again – but it’s okay, I called my parents to say hi before trying to go back to sleep, it was nice. Well, I called them, we talked for about 10 minutes, then they called me back and we talked for another 10 minutes. I’m not sure how far my money goes here for international phone calls – I think it works out to…fifty cents a minute? Something like that. All I know is that the hotel is likely to be worse, so this is okay. Plus, when we split, it’s not too bad for anyone.

I had a bit of a panic this morning when it appeared that I had, somehow, nuked my computer. This resulted in an edgy phone call to my friend in the IT department of our DC office, begging him to call me back because I had no idea how to fix what was wrong (Windows wouldn’t start, therefore I couldn’t do…well, anything – the computer kept restarting itself, sometimes making a popping noise when it did so, that was VERY unsettling. It finally gave me the option to start in Safe Mode, but then I couldn’t log in because there was no domain field. It was great.) I finally fixed the problem, although I’m still not sure what the problem was, to tell you the truth, I just know that my computer is now working again. But I have so much work and personal stuff on my computer (not a good idea, really – since it’s not actually my computer), that I would really just lose it if my C: drive got wiped out. (I should probably back it up one of these days…)

So, I made this roasted chicken with mustard-rosemary sauce for Christmas Eve lunch with the family (roasted chicken is what made me fall off the vegetarian bandwagon after 15 years, by the way), and lately I have been craving it. Out of nowhere, but seriously - a normal person doesn't think about chicken this much, it's not healthy. This is unfortunate, since I have another 6 1/2 weeks here. Ah well - something to look forward to, yes?