Patio

Yawn. Get a drink... Got drink and got a couch out onto the patio. Also got some bird seeds, the kind that Remy was addicted to, that Miz left over when he had lunch at my place today.

Nahida woke me up today to get some petrol. There's been somewhat of a petrol crisis for the past week and I haven't been bothered to get into any extra long queues preferring rather to take cabs should I need to go some place instead. Petrol is also needed to run the generator. A day can go by without any electricity from the government these days. I can't remember how long it's been since I last I had a shower. Which aside from the sometimes itchy scalp, isn't much of a big deal since the weather isn't so hot as to cause profuse perspiration. For the past few days we've been using black market petrol for the generator. Can't use black market petrol in my car because every time I did it screwed up the injection system in my car.

Oh crap! the generator ran out of fuel just now and my stereo stopped too. And I can't hear the birds chirping any more. Instead I can hear the sound of the neighbour's generator, the distant mosques yelping and rounds being fired. Oh here's a little bird, it's got a black head and white cheeks and it's friend is here too. Got to feel sorry for the birds with having to put up with all the noise we make.

So after Nahida and I spent over half an hour queuing for some petrol and got home, Miz called and then came over. I told him that the queue at the petrol station wasn't long, so we went off to fill up his car too. Came back, had lunch, watched an anime together and the beginning of The Machinist. And then it was time for Miz to go back home so we copied The Machinist to his portable hard disk along with a bunch of other movies before he left.

Ran out of battery charge but now I'm back. Still outside, it's night time now and I've got the driveway lights on. My generator and the other neighbourhood generators are on, but I can still hear my stereo from the living room. My stereo which is my iPod connected to half of my Creative speakers. I must say it's nice to be outside. The weather is only a tiny bit cold, but the whiskey in turn compensates for it. The setting reminds me of the one time I made a house party at my place. Sure enough all those people that came are no longer in the country and having a house party is no longer possible.

Some punk just threw a handful of pebbles into my driveway. First time that ever happens. And I didn't pop my head over the gate straight away because of the possibility that the punk is carrying a gun. I turned off my music went back outside and shouted 'speak cowards' with no answer. Then went upstairs to tell Nahida and her brother what had happened, they came down to take a look at the street with me. The street was empty.

Well on one hand it could be considered insensitive that I'm sitting listening to loud music on a day when Shiites are mourning for the death of some dude over a thousand years ago which in my opinion would of course be better spent mourning for the Iraqis killed daily. But the music isn't so loud as to be considered disturbing the peace. Nahida's brother concluded that it's just a youngster that peeked over my gate and thought it'd be fun to startle me with some pebbles. Nahida is on the other hand is freaking out a bit because it's the first time something like this has happened in the nearly 30 years that she's lived in the house. But sure enough during the past few years a lot of my neighbours have left and have been replaced with dodgy folk.

Well anyway, screw all that. I'm still outside drinking and listening to music but with only one driveway light on. Sure wished there was a gun in the house though even it was just for the sake of just scaring such a punk away like Nahida's brother suggested.

Oh well it's been a couple hours since the pebble throwing incident now. I'm hungry and sleepy now so I'm going to drag my comfy seat inside and get warm. I wonder if Nahida's started making me food or not.

I'm now thinking that I'd fit in quite well with those apocalyptic folk down south. The ones that are suggested to be the ones that were thought yesterday by the government. Because they're all about committing sin to bring forth judgement day. And in a muslim perspective I'm really good at that.