Editing the edit

A few weeks ago I started filling in on the editorial staff of an automotive magazine. There are two great things about this scenario; the extremely affordable curry in the canteen, and the extremely hilarious people I'm working with. Unfortunately, strapping myself back into a cubicle has  sapped my strength and blanked m'blog.

So, in an effort to catch up, let me tell you about Ramadan.

Ramadan, at least as a heathen, is more Rama-don't, than Rama-do. As in, Rama-don't eat or drink in public, as the Muslims find this annoying while they're fasting. Vanessa and I spent one extremely hungry afternoon running errands, until we finally broke down and bought an oversized bag of peanut m&m's at Ace hardware. We drove home covertly munching all the way, I had all sorts of fake yawn moves worked out to get them down discretely. 

Other restrictions include Rama-don't play your tunes audibly because that's disrespectful as well. Rama-don't wear revealing cl0thing-- as you can imagine, I struggle with this one in particular. 

Actually, none of this is a big deal, we're guests here and it's actually very refreshing to be somewhere new and exciting. The things is, we're especially terrible at planning and keep finding ourselves in search of meals on the run at say, 5pm.  This means you have to find a hotel eatery, as regular restaurants won't be serving until Iftar at 6:30-- although one place did begrudgingly offer to let us wait out the hour and a half.

Iftar, the Ramadan feast,  occurs after sunset and is a serious Rama-do. The Iftar we went to with Vanessa's co-workers was quite lavish and tasty. They had to beg me to get out of the chocolate fountain at the end of the evening. 

As a temporary fake car guy, I was invited to the big General Motors Iftar tonight, and while I'm sure it would have been amazing, neither of us were up to it. Guess I'm more of a nap guy than a car guy, because that's what I opted to do.

Above you see the gas man delivering to the neighbors, he was kind enough to wait while the camera lens de-fogged, so the least I can do is post his picture. After that, a few random Dubai shots.