An Opportunity

A purchase was made
A new project started
A vote ended a debate
Someone's success was charted
While you were reflecting on a riskless opportunity

Mistakes did happen
lessons were learned
Where there's no action
You miss your turn
While you were working on a flawless opportunity

A dream came true
a cycle was completed
Their theatrical breakthrough
Had your audience seated
While you were longing for a lifetime opportunity

Poems were recited
Under a candle flame
Her beauty got him excited
She changed her last name
While you were waiting for a romantic opportunity

And while you were planning and waiting
Playing it safe and hesitating
Thinking and calculating
Arguing and debating
Loving and hating
Dreaming and meditating

Guess what happened while you were still contemplating!

Life ....................

Not a Morning peson?

When someone tells you "I'm not a morning person" and you have something that can't wait to tell them, what do you do? How long do you have to wait before that morning tunes into their swinging mood to give you the green light to talk? Do they mean they need an hour or two for themselves after they wake up, or do they mean you should avoid them till noon? Is a "morning person" someone who wakes up early and "Not a morning person" someone who wakes up late? How do we know the exact meaning of those terms and labels?

My mornings are pretty much the same. I wake up around 7 or 7:30 to make my Cafe-latte; one shot of espresso, 1% organic milk heated with foam and no sugar. I prepare my oat meal with nonfat yogurt and sit by the large window in my living room to check my emails, while the morning breeze is flirting with the leaves of the four large Eucalyptus trees in the middle of California Ave by the 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica. Normally I play soft music, mostly Fairuz, the Arabic morning symbol of music. And as the Lebanese put it, our ambassador to the stars. I love Fairuz, she makes me a "morning person" or in other words, she gets me in a good mood. I'm someone who believes that having a good peaceful quiet morning sets up the tone pretty much for the rest of the day. But my morning rituals are not set in stone, when and if I have company in the morning, I would enjoy a little casual chat that goes along with our coffee.

My latte never gets old. I still drink it after years of that routine as if it's the first time I'm discovering its flavor. I check my emails with the same enthusiasm since a lot of my friends live overseas. I still listen to Fairuz and still get in a trance every single time because of her angelic voice. I have lived by myself for a decade with the exception of the year 2004 when I had a roommate; A friend of mine God bless his morning energy. We would wake up to have breakfast and instead of enjoying the flavor of my coffee, I make so much effort to make out the meaning of his morning loud conversation which took away from the peace and quiet I prefer to enjoy in the AM. Lot's of times I found myself using that term with him "I'm not a morning person dude, could you please tune it down a notch?" I look back and wonder if that was pathetic of me since now I have my mother with me for a few months as my morning buddy, and I wake up with a big smile on my face and a lot of times in the AM we sit down and chat..... quietly though.


So am I a "morning person or NOT a morning person"? Is it really the morning that we blame or is it the routine that we become enslaved by? Is it our mood, or is it the person we see first thing in the morning? Do we hide our agendas with the "Morning Person" expression and are we consistent in treating all people around us? hummmm, something to think about

When someone tells you "I"m not a morning person" (guilty) and you have something that actually CAN wait to tell them, what do you do? Here's what I would do nowadays, I would say "I'm sorry you're not, but if I got something to say, I'm gonna say it now because your mood is not going to dictate my mornings. So why don't you go bury yourself back in your blanket and wait till the night owls wake up to hang out with them and then hang yourself upside down like bats do, so when the sun sets, you would think it's rising all over again declaring your worst enemy, morning that is, then continue your sleep till you get bored and wake up to ask me what it was that I was about to tell you, which I would then respond to by "Nah" not in the mood to talk to you right now, try me some other time because I'm not an evening person, let's find a time that works for both of us. AKA NEVA".

Have a good night

Feeling Blue

When I was working in a liquor store 10 years ago, I had a customer who was consistently negative. I had to call her Debbie Downer. Naturally I would ask customers "How are you?" after greeting them, but at one point I made a promise to myself to stop asking her about how she was. I was never able to fulfill that promise. I only caught myself after doing it, when it was too late and the usual response "Oh, don't ask, I'm miserable. I work way too hard and get paid too little (Mind you, she's telling a stock boy who was working 7 days a week and making $ 5 an hour) I have to take care of this and that, I don't have enough time to blah blah blah……." And the complaints kept on coming as if it was the end of the world. I always smiled and said "Hang in there, tomorrow is another day" and went on with the transaction. One day I talked about the weather, a typical thing to reference when you have nothing in common with someone "Oh winter is starting, we're gonna lose an hour of day time soon" and immediately, as if she knew I was going to talk about winter, she responded " An hour! wait till it's dark by 4:30 and cold and miserable then the rain that only God knows when it would stop. And with the rain comes the mudslides and the threats it has on houses and………." Dear lord, did I say Tsunami was coming to LA? I just wanted to be polite and say something about the weather instead of saying "How are you?". I remember that customer because I was always able to see some kind of kindness in her eyes and I knew that happiness was somewhere within, she was not able to find.

One day, I wasn't feeling well, I really don't remember what it was, but she came to the store and saw me not feeling hot. She asked what was wrong, I might have mentioned jokingly that I was getting older. I wasn't 30 yet. And Debbie Downer immediately said "Wait till you get my age Tony, the joints will hurt, the memory will be long gone, the back will ache, the head will spin, the eyes will weaken, the stomach will get poisoned, the …. " Now you can only imagine the look on my face with my eyes wide open and my lower jaw hitting the floor, and in my head I kept telling myself "It can't be that bad, it can't be that bad, don't listen to her Tony, it's not true" and before I knew it, she was comparing me to a car that gets old and needs spare parts and annual maintenance then semi annual then quarterly maintenance and if I were lucky, it will go down to once a month. I wanted to disassociate myself from that conversation and from that woman who was only 50 so bad that day.

And today, I'm feeling blue. I guess her words sound vivid and loud in my ears. I don't think I understood her words back then, but I do now. I kept on telling myself,  be grateful, it could be worse. And yes I'm fully aware of that. But I'm sharing in my blog for the first time that I'm complaining. It's been a few years since the pain in my groin started and no doctor was able to give me a straight answer about why and how and what happened to get to a point where pain starts after I take a simple 10 minute walk. Then an inflammation took place somewhere in my body where also no Doctor was able to tell me how it happened and how to avoid it in the future, thank God they were able to treat it (I think, I'm not 100% back to normal yet) then my inner ear got infected and at one point I couldn't hear from my right ear anymore, however I tend to think I hear well now (I have to, otherwise it would show in my songs). Then a struggle with a wart started and kept on going for over two years and now it's gone I would like to think. And this week, after two months of going back and forth to different doctors, I found out that I have a meniscus tear in my right knee: the kind of tear that needs surgery. The surgery involves taking away 30% of it without replacing it with anything else, which according to the doctor, would increase the possibility of arthritis in my older days. But are my older days far away anymore?

Sometimes we sympathize with people, we feel sorry for them, for their conditions, we even associate their pain with other people who went through the same. We dare say at times "I understand, it's really tough, I can only imagine how painful that must be" But that's not true, we don't understand or even have the ability to imagine unless we personally go through it. True, the only way we can get a real taste of people's health issues or sadness and feelings, or financial difficulties is if or when it happens to us. Sure we say to the loved ones "I feel your pain and I'm here to support you" and that's great, I'm not taking away from it whatsoever. But no one can understand it like the ones going through it.

I sometimes ask myself "I'm only 36, why is this happening already? I want to be able to walk and jog and hear and smell and touch and enjoy life" and then again I remind myself to acknowledge what I still have. But I'm only human, and having a cut in my skin hurts, so what do I say when it's more than that? This is my secret complaint, I still see myself as a lucky and privileged man. And I'm grateful for all the blessings. But sometimes, rarely I'd like to say, I can be Debbie Downer, however, I will not deal with it by going to the liquor store. That, I don't have the curiosity or the need to understand.

Running late? ........... Again?

Running Late? Again?

It feels like everything started in NYC for some reason. On December 10th 1999, I stood at night in front of the huge public library on the corner of 42nd St and fifth Ave in Manhattan waiting for a friend to arrive, so that we would go have dinner. I was new in town, new to America. It was dark, very cold and a bit scary I admit. All I knew about the US was the violence I saw in movies and I didn't spend enough time (4 days by then) to realize that the movie industry is NOT a mirror of reality. Naturally I thought someone would drive up the avenue and open fire randomly and I would lose my precious life at 26, way too young and premature not to have the opportunity to go through the adventures I was about to experience. I stood there wondering when would my friend arrive. I thought seven means seven but it' was 7:15 now and he was not there yet. Silence prevailed in the cold darkness, with the exception of some yelling here and there from couple of homeless people, but as long as they were far away, I didn't mind their words and their lectures and gestures to themselves. The light in the street was flashing annoyingly. It refused to give steady beams, but lit nervously as if it was giving some sort of warning that it was not safe there. The last thing I needed while I was waiting, was more signals about the lack of safety. And while I was distracted staring back at it, a sudden loud sound of pulling a knife or more like a sword from its case took place right by my right ear. I looked with alert and wanted to beg "spare my life please, it's not my time to go yet". But the sound turned out to be a can of coke being opened, and the smelly dirty Knight sat down on the stairs couple of feet away from where I was standing. I was wondering why he was covering his coke with a brown paper bag. I looked at the bag then up to him, I was able to see that he had lost most of his teeth in a battlefield through the big smile he cracked on his hairy face. I moved a bit farther after the smell of alcohol found its way to my nose, and after figuring out that beer is never coke or you would be sued by CocaCola for hiding their healthy drinks in paper bags. I forced a pale smile on my face so that I would not socially offend him with my behavior of stepping away (or maybe because I was scared, I don't remember). I looked at my watch, it was 7:40 pm. God damn it! Forty minutes was kind of offensive to my valuable time (Yes, I had nothing to do, but still, I mean had I known he was going to run so late, I might have established a friendship with one of the three homeless guys who were protecting me and entertaining me through my waiting agony). I then started hearing, or maybe noticing that I started hearing the police car-sirens. Must be someone running away from the police in Manhattan. Wow, no one helped me with that conclusion, but also no one told me that the one on the lose, could be hiding somewhere in the closed Library. I looked back, thank God, he was not behind me, but he could approach any minute and take me as a very important ransom. What do I do? I have an idea, maybe curse my friend a little bit more.

Then God called my name, oh my name sounded like music when God uttered it. I looked up to see where he was calling from. But the car honking kind of ruined that fantasy and God's voice transformed into my annoying friend's voice calling me and waving "Here here in the car". I ran into the car and without a word I jumped into the backseat and yelled "Drive the car, drive away!!!" I had no idea whose car it was or who the driver was. Turned out that it was the car of the son of a co-worker where my friend worked. I looked at my watch and it was slightly past EIGHT. I asked "What? Don't they do the daylight saving time in NY?" My friend, without even an apology but with a big smile on his face said "Tony, you're not in Syria anymore, it doesn't work the same way here in the US. People run late here, things happen".

It's been over 10 years since that first late experience. And I'm still making it on time. As a matter of fact, even writing this blog has Friday midnight as a deadline and not once I was late. Sometimes I wonder if it's all a coincidence. I mean when there's so much traffic on the freeway, or when your garage door doesn't open, or when your alarm refuse to alarm you, or when you could not find parking, or when you forgot to iron your shirt, or when you had a last minute food poisoning, or when you got up at night and walked in your sleep to your boyfriend's or girlfriend's apartment. Is it all a coincidence or those things just don't happen to me!!!

Initially the most creative "Late excuses" I heard were when I was first assigned as a manager. At one point shortly after, I knew who's saying what, or who's using which. And it was always the same people. The pattern was not random. When I felt that "I heard it all before", it got boring hearing "My car won't start, no no, my car key was lost, we found it on the couch between the pillows, I had so much sex last night; I couldn't fix my hair this morning (but you're bald!!), my grandfather died (for the third time this year?)" I mean come on, all that has already been used before, be more creative.

Running late has always been something I frowned upon since I was a teenager. When my friends who lived 10 minutes walk away from my place, arrived 15 or 20 minutes late while I'm waiting in the street, I would give them a piece of my mind. I have always felt that it's disrespectful to make someone wait for you. But now I know that there are some people who just don't make any kind of effort to make it on time to….. anything really. It's a pattern, when you run late to work every day. When they tell you report to work every morning between 8 to 8:30 and you always arrive at 8:40, what makes you think you'll get anywhere else on time? My problem with that is when I have to make the effort and ask instead of getting a courtesy phone call or text saying AHEAD OF TIME that "Sorry I'm running late". Some people love to be street smart and say "I told you around 9" and they argue that around 9 could mean 9:30 or even 9:40 and when you try to explain that around 9 also could also mean 8:45 all the way to realistically 9:15, they say "Well sorry dear, I didn't think you wouldn't know what around 9 means". But the second time around they text you PAST 9:30 that they'll be arriving around 10 because of ….. unforeseen circumstances.

When you already run late, what piece of information or what news are you providing when you then decide to declare that you're running late? Don't you think it's already late to make that announcement?

I have always had a problem with people running late. They say "Late is better than never". I sometimes beg to differ on that one, sometimes not all the time, because I'm still waiting for the lottery, for that one I'm okay with it being late. Running late occasionally happens. But running late all the time is disrespectful and it's an expression of carelessness. What makes it even worse, is when people aggressively defend it upon being confronted with it. Now, I move on, I simply make other plans. And when I ask you if you're running late and I add "Again?" Chances are you won't find me when you arrive. Sorry and I know it's ….. my loss. But I'm willing to take my chances …..every single time, unless of course I'm in NYC in Manhattan at 7 pm on a cold dark winter night in front of the public library…

My Story with "كذبة" a so-called "Friend"

"Lie to me once, and I'll place my trust in my experience and judgment, instead of …………. in you".

When you don't lie, you don't think that people lie to you. Yes, that's me telling you that I don't lie. I don't like lying because I feel that if I lie to you, then at one point I'll forget what I lied about and have to cover it up with another lie, then cover up the second lie with a third lie and so on. Choosing to tell the truth makes life simple. I like simplicity but the story I'm about to tell has nothing simple to it. Here's how it goes:

Once upon a time over 10 years ago, I met a nice shy little girl in NYC when I first arrived to the US. She and I moved separately to California shortly after our first encounter. We both worked in the same field and lived close by, we hit it off.

Our relationship was innocent, spontaneous and full of joy. She traveled back to NYC for work. But fate brought her back to California for the second time and I couldn't be any happier. And for the sake of keeping her name confidential since she's not a work of my imagination, I will ironically call her "Kezbeh" and as you read on, you might figure out why.

Kezbeh was young and so cute, she used to dream real big. Her imagination had the sky as the limit and her conversations were full of hope and ambition. She was also very hard working and culturally well diverse. Kezbeh almost knew it all, almost,  just not quiet yet.

Kezbeh loved helping people, however, her eagerness to meet everyone's needs put her sometimes in trouble because she would not say to anyone "I don't know". She would voluntarily give the answers; even when she had the slightest knowledge about the topic in question. I remember telling her once "Kezbeh, it's okay to say "I don't know", I ask questions but my questions are sometimes rhetorical, I'm really not after the answer" But that never stopped her, it alas, challenged her more.

Not only she didn't stop at giving answers, which put her in trouble over and over, she also refused to learn from her mistakes. She was the prefect example of "History repeats itself" only in her case, there was not really enough history before it repeated itself. It became an addiction and she wanted to be like a bell that rings from any side you ding and ring it. Kezbeh wanted to always be the center of everyone's attention and she found out that when she exaggerates in telling her stories, people get more interested. That became her art ...............  the Art of Exaggeration.

Now Exaggeration as we all know involves sometimes little white lies. But the lies of Kezbeh were far away from being white, or even as the French put it " blanc-casse " and she always justified those flashy colors by saying that when you spin a rainbow colored wheel fast, you get white.

Kezbeh's life became a gamble, and she became addicted. It got sick when she started believing her own lies and living them as if they were the ultimate truth; an ongoing fictitious world she chose to step into, out of reality. She kept on standing people up. Same with friends, even her mother. She became disrespecful and careless. She extended her lies to her own husband and started cheating on him…. only that time with ....... women. The mentality behind it, or the lie behind it was "Cheating with same sex is not considered cheating, it's more like: exploring". She dragged every one who came her way into her game one way or the other. It all became so messy and a lot of people dropped out of her circle. I personally had to draw the line when I found out that Kezbeh was covering up her "casual" relationships by telling her husband that she's been hanging out with ................. ME!!!!

I had closure with her first. I gave her the benefit of the doubt way too many times. I had a heart to heart conversation with her about her choices, but nothing worked. My conscience is clear.

With everything she did, I was not disappointed at all. Look at people's actions, listen to their words and place your trust where it should be placed. You'll never be disappointed.

"Lie to me once, and I'll place my trust in my experience and judgment, instead of …………. in you".
"Lie to me again, and I'll know that you're always .... always joking. And I get it ............... hilarious".

Children Versus Adults

Do you have nephews and nieces? do you have children between the age of 2 and 5? Do you pay any attention to how easily they're amused and how simple it is to entertain them? There's happiness in children that you can't see in adults. That happiness is always there, in their eyes, in their smiles and it's real.

Children love participating in everything, especially with the adults they live with. You say let's go to the supermarket and they scream their hearts out and declare in triumph that they're going to the supermarket. So imagine the noise they would make when you tell them that you're taking them to Disneyland or six flags. Their whole world is in the 4 walls of your house, their safety, their references, their little history. They're happy with the small back yard that you always wish it was bigger. They love the neighborhood that you keep telling yourself that it is not where you belong, it's temporary. They love the bathtub that keeps on reminding you that it's time for renovation. And they love you in all your moods, and all your looks and they really want nothing in return more than you getting down to your knees to play for a little while with them or listen to their adventures.

But what's most fascinating about children is the freedom they have. Those free spirits are wild because they don't care about the past or the future. All they care about is the moment. That's where their freedom comes from. Today they want to eat, play, rest and play and eat again. Tomorrow? oh well, tomorrow sounds like ages away. Yesterday? we fought? oh, here you go, I don't want that little car anymore, you can have it.

There's no one, children need to impress, other than mom and dad. Even those, impressing them is not a constant complicated work in progress. It's a simple gesture to get their attention. They don't have to dress up for a client, or wear a certain brand to impress the interviewer or go to a certain restaurant to be seen by certain people and get the approval of a certain "popular" society. They go anywhere, wear anything, care less about what the neighbors might or might not say. They just want to be. But then you come and domesticate those free spirits and teach them valuable lessons about life. You start using the word "wrong", "unacceptable", "SHAME" and "bad" and they learn to be less of themselves. With that powerful knowledge, they start clipping the freedom they have. Then the older they get, the less they participate in certain activities, the less they go to certain places, the less they want to eat certain kind of food, and the less they want to wear this and that color. And you wonder and even tell them "Who do you think you are! We are doing this and we are going there" but you don't remember that it's all the "appropriate" behaviors that you implanted in their circle of freedom, in their "be"ing. So the older they get, the less they participate in..... life.

It doesn't take them long before they're a copy of what we want them to be, slaves to society, blind folded and led like the rest of us to play the boring Adults" game. And it's simple, just repeat those words about "Shame" and insert more if the "Guilt" in them to play along. You take more and more of their spontaneity and tame them from wild to well behaved. And it's okay because you didn't know any better and you were brought up the same way. The constant need of being "Accepted" in your society.

But the question that made me want to go back to being a child again is, has it ever been enough? Does the "game of being an adult" ever satisfy that constant work in progress and leave us content and wanting nothing else, or do we always want more? are we ever happy and filled with joy the same way we had when we were kids? Are we ever where we want to be? Is any of it real? does any of it last?

Children, the dream of life. The look of jealousy we have when we see their happiness, knowing that it's a work of perfection.
Children, the constant reminder of what we failed in, to get a second chance to realize and achieve, only this time not in us, in them.
Children, the wild and free spirits running around us and being themselves with no shame, that make us more ashamed, not of their behaviors really, but of ourselves.
Children, an opportunity to get even with life. Let's domesticate them too.

There's a child still in you, don't domesticate your children, but reach within and un-domesticate the child in you. Set him/her free to play with the children you have. Make peace to yourself and achieve the dream of "Simplicity, Innocence, Freedom and Happiness"

"That cold morning, was the end of my mourning, for when I reached deep inside, I got in touch with the child, who whispered good morning, the snow will keep on falling, but it will make peace and turn all white" Tony Rabbat

http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/artist/Tony+Rabbat/track/Epilogue

Evil Eye

Evil Eye

When I tell my friends that I won the lottery and published the news on Facebook, they look at me as if I lost my mind to let the whole world know that I won. The common reaction comes from their concerns about protecting myself from the evil eye. But what is the evil eye?

A student of mine told me that people can put you under a spell and you won't be able to cast their spell without another. She said that people do black magic and witchcrafts that would turn my luck around so it's best to share as little as possible.

Mom brought me a round blue piece of glass with a white circle then a black dot in its middle. She asked me to put it on my door. She said that it takes away the evil eye, so if people envy me, my luck won't go away. She told me one evening as we were heading back from the ocean, right after she heard me acknowledging the blessings in my life, that I should stop saying out loud how lucky I am because I might jinx myself.

I have mentioned in the past that I'm not a superstitious man; but don't get me wrong, I say "knock on wood" and I did put the divine blue glass piece on my door, yet I feel that it's kind of cultural and habitual. I don't believe that I should put the salt on the table instead of handing it to another person if I'm asked to pass the salt. I don't believe that I if I carried a bag, that I should never put it on the floor but always on the couch. I don't consider whistling in the PM summons the devils. And I certainly don't believe that I should never walk in between two poles. I guess there's a limit to how much I would let those things control my life.

Some women say that parents jinx their own kids. When my friend delivered her first born, I couldn't help but fall in love with her. She was the most charming innocent creature that you can hold in your hands. I was not able to express my love and admiration towards her in front of his grandmother, because she would rebuke her own parents if they do that or if they share that she's growing so fast and that her clothes don't fit her anymore. It got to a point where I really wanted to ask for a manual, what is allowed to say and what's not.

Now mind you, I'm not a religious person and I don't believe that someone can focus their negative energy over another person to cause them damage and harm. I do believe that you can bring negative energy to yourself by being negative all the time, I also believe in being positive too. And I believe in coincidences, ever heard of a coincidence? But what I find disturbing the most is that those who are big on the "Evil Eye" are the ones who claim that they're religious. So my confusion is this, since they believe in God, how come they also believe that God would allow us to control each others' lives and lucks by being envious, jealous and evil. Steven Weinberg wrote "If there is a God that has special plans for humans, then He has taken very great pains to hide His concern for us. To me it would seem impolite if not impious to bother such a God with our prayers." Why bother and pray if the evil eye is around us? Sooner or later our prayers will be strangled with the power of the "Evil Eye".


P.S: I didn't win the Lottery ;-)