Beardful o' Sheesha Smoke

Matthew's mother is in town (or should I say, in the country) and treated us Moore-ites to dinner at Leisure, a restaurant/sheesha cafe in Al Ain. I got the Mexican shawerma which just wasn't as good as I remember it. And for afters I shared with Miriam and "Leisure Special" sheesha, which is who knows what kind of sheesha...Miriam thinks it's just a little bit of everything, from leftovers of other flavors. But it was the best sheesha I've had there. I could taste it, and I barely coughed. I bought a pack of cloves when we were back in America (before the ban went into affect) with the idea that I didn't get much out of sheesha, so I'd go out and smoke the cloves instead. Well, I haven't gone out for sheesha since coming back, and even if I did, I'm not sure I should smoke the cloves if I did. Cigarettes seem a little taboo here. Maybe not taboo, but just not something some one of my "status" (i.e., Westerner; i.e., someone not a Filipino or Pakistani) should be doing, especially when everyone else is sheesha'ing it up. "What, our sheesha is not good enough for you?"

The India trip is coming together. I have confirmation from one hotel (Agra). I haven't heard back from the Delhi hotel (it said to give them 48 hours). And the Goa hotel wants an advance, either by PayPal or putting money directly in their bank account, which is just weird to me. Obviously, I'll go the PayPal route, which I'll probably need Miriam's help because I haven't done PayPal in forever and a half. Oh, and I requested confirmation from Gulf Air for our flight from Dubai to Delhi, and haven't heard anything from them. I know that we've been charged for the tickets, so that's something, at least.

They're showing "LOTR: The Two Towers" dubbed in Fus'ha Arabic right now. I was thinking about how cool it would be to create a world like Tolkien did. But then, to just try and copy what he did...it's bedoon faida, without result. Why try to copy? I think that's what a lot of fantasy writers set out to do, and that's why I don't see the fantasy genre as being all that great. But is it possible to step out of Tolkien's shadow? Or the C.S. Lewis' in the realm of fantasy for younger readers? I think maybe it's easier to say "fuck that" and just write about the future instead.