Yesterday and today were really something to blog about and that’s exactly what I am doing now! My day yesterday started out with almost falling out of bed after the long weekend and although I did my best to sleep earlier than usual, I really needed another couple of hours to make me human again, but eh! Sleeping does not pay the bills, does it?

After performing my morning rituals of getting ready; I headed out of the door with my sister. It was her first day at her new job and I had to give her a ride, naturally! But to do that, I had to change my daily route in order to drop her. I work in Sweifieh and she on third circle, so I drove from Sahab to the 3^rd circle and then I had to deal with the traffic from there to my office. Needless to say; I arrived at work so depressed and tired; not a good way to start the week!

Work day officially started and things became normal for a while. Some of the team members were at Webex preparing for the opening as we are one of the event sponsors. We were all supposed to be there so we headed towards Hayyat Hotel in the afternoon, my colleagues 7ala, Rasha and Wedad rode with me. Wedad suggested that I park at Zara and since it is my first time there (believe it or not), I did exactly that.

We were stopped, searched and checked; so were the car and our purses. After we were finally allowed in, we took the elevator to the floor that hosts the exhibition but I had to go get my badge and papers for the IAA conference that I am attending the next day; i.e. today!

Calling the lady who called me in the morning to ask where I was supposed to pick them up was of no use; she said go to level B, I asked in which tower? She said: who is this? I identified myself and my company and then she says: is Nisreen there with you? Who the hell is Nisreen and what does this have to do with my question? She said: ok no problem, thank you and she hung up!!

I was fuming and started talking to my cell phone repeating the word; stupid, stupid, stupid!!! I went down all levels and then climbed up again; no use! Finally; I came across someone who recognized me from VIVA article! He introduced himself and strange enough; I had just come across his blog that very same day! Although he works for Maktoob (kidding), but I think that God was looking after me at that time!

Samer told me that I had to go to the hotel to get the IAA papers and complete my registration and off I went. Anyone who knows this hotel well will know that it is not a picnic in the park; it was a long walk! Finally; I arrived that Level B and was able to complete the task I came for, and then headed back.

I had set up an appointment with my dear friend Lina to show her a catalogue of traditional dresses that my mother makes and met her at our booth at webex. We took a small tour around and out of no where; an elderly guy comes to me and insists that he talks to me. I thought that he was about to ask me why I was taking pictures or that he will pitch me about something technical or give me a brochure, but no, it was none of the above. The main reason he wanted to talk to me was that he has a cure for my obesity! He has some magical recipe that will turn me overnight into Miss Jordan; that is if we had one! I said: thank you but I am really not interested, he said: but I can prove it to you, I said: thank you but I really don’t want to, he said: are you sure? It will make you lose weight and I said for the last time: I really, really don’t want to know about it.

Lina was shocked how he had the courage or the nerve to approach me like that and I told her that I am used to these nice gentlemen trying to cure my problem for me; every time I go downtown; someone pops up with yet another magical recipe to lose weight. Lina said that this is worth blogging about and here I am!

She said that she is happy with how I deal with the issue and I told her that I had learned to come to terms with my weight problem and accept these gestures with an open heart and not take them as insults. It took me four long years to understand what lazy thyroid, PCOS and hormonal imbalance really mean and I am doing my best to work on the consequences of all of the above, so I am not going to worry myself with little intrusions like that one.

After I showed Lina the stuff I brought and I hope she liked them, I gave her a short ride to the front of the hotel where she had parked and found my sister waiting for me there, took her and drove to Jebal Al Hussein were I bought some shoes; I promise you that if I did not desperately need to do that, I wouldn’t have gone but that was that.

Finally home at 10:30 and already feeling dead, I saw the family a bit and then tucked in my bed at around 12:00, I was ready to sleep deeply.

I woke up this morning at 7:00, showered and thankfully did not slip like Hala did, and made it out of the house at around 8:00. I dropped my sister at her work and headed back to Hayyat Amman Hotel to attend the first day of IAA conference. This was a whole day event with interesting speakers, but talking about it will have to take another post; probably tomorrow. All I remember now is why the hell did I have so many things in my bag? Boy! it was really heavy! Right now; I really want to get some rest because I had a really long couple of days with little rest in this hot weather; God save us in the summer!