[MasterONaniFiqh]

Every house you to go usually has a nice little buffet, shmorgasboard set up and you're kindly expected to eat some at each one--even though they must know that you've mostly been house hopping and eating at each place you go. The food is all usually very good, mashallah. But basically, after a month of spending all day not eating, you spend one full day eating.

The get-together at our house last night was wonderful. A good old-fashioned party like we always used to have growing up. Probably about 150-200 people or so here. Guys and girls breaking off into seperate rooms to gossip or watch football, aunties uncles and kids spread throughout the house. Uncles in the living room, aunties and kids in the connected family room. No divider or forced segregation or anything like that. Just sort of the natural way people have gotten used to coming in and sitting down. Nowadays with more and more married couples you see more and more mixing. I've always been one of those good kids allowed to move from one sphere to other without any problems, though. Particularly if it's at our own house. But anyway, like I said, not a big deal. Not iron clad.

my older sister, in town with her husband and four girls, organized games for the kids like hot-potato and a gift-exchange, and got out a board-game for the young adults.

i spent most of the time cleaning my colosally messy room--parties like these would be the one time of the year when certain things get cleaned up in our otherwise quite busy house. i hadn't slept much the night before--having gotten used to a ramadan pattern of staying up late, eating sehri and then going to sleep till noon--so i was a complete zombie through the night. but the room eventually got clean-ish just in time for the end of the party.

little kids were everywhere running around, screaming, playing, hiding, laughing.

everyone wore nice clothes. teens and college girls had their hair done up.

we packed cars into the front yard expertly as ever, and many had to line up in the median in the street and some, with permission, on neighbor's driveways. our record for cars crammed into our own driveway is 26. with our own family cars parked at a nearby supermarket parking lot. i'm not sure if we beat that number lsat night.

friends and relatives present were caught up with, and, now as has become a new reality for our maturing community, old friends and relative gone were missed.

it wasn't really an ethnically diverse gathering, i suppose. mostly just pakistanis and indians from family-friend circles that have built up over the years. none of us kids are college right now so we're not interacting as much with people from outside the shell. it's not necessarily a good thing, but it wasn't intentionally this time around and has certainly been broken up healthily over the years. but this party wasn't really all that planned at all. just a natural side-effect of it being eid, and people needing a place to go at night to meet.

our house always served that role, by my parents' design i now realize. people come here and feel at home. the five bedrooms fill up with people treating them like their own. laying back, lounding, relaxing, talking, laughing, exploring the books on the shelves, the things on the walls, the pictures on the picture-frames full of family pictures covering almost every spare inch of wall--one of my mom's hobbies.

my father's face smiles out from them.

i don't think anyone went out into the stillness of the backyard this time around. to stand or sit by the grass beyond the covered patio, or next to the pool. to stare out at the dark, still lake, dotted around the edges with the lights from other houses. cathing the drifting bits of noise or latin music from their parties or get togethers.

maybe it was too hot for it last night.

the party wrapped up at about 1 am, with the last stragglers ending their heated game of Crainium by about 1:30 and heading out.

my brother started to clean things up and bring the cars back. i finally went to sleep in my younger sister's room alongside my little 9 year old niece. (my little sister, her husband, and little brother spent the holiday together in chicago. with the kid brother driving from college in wisconsin to spend it there with the newly-wed sister. my cousin moved up there recently for phd studies, so i hope she was able to join them for it. they miss the big chaos of home at times like this. but are carving out a bit of it there for themselves, i'm sure.) since my room was guest-room-worthy for once, i let my older sister and brother-in-law have it for the night.

the other three nieces and four little cousins were passed out in various rooms throughout the house. my brother and sister-in-law and their little baby retreated to the master bedroom.

my mom probably went to sleep alongside one of the kids, as well. she had been sleeping through the shouts from the Cranium match right in the living room at the end.


for the second day of eid, today, i got up at 2 pm feeling awfully sick from all the sweets last night. my family has mostly gone off to a traditionally "Eid Mela" at one of the local mosques. Eid Mela is the urdu word for "Eid Carnival" or perhaps picnic, or festival. there will be rides there and stalls taking cupons as money. proceeds will go to the vendors and the mosque.