The Cell Phone Souk

In the old days, Egyptians went to the souk (market) to buy and trade camels, now they go to the souk to buy and trade cell phones. Yesterday we went to Sharia Abdul Azeez and it was the craziest thing I had ever seen. There were about 50 stores on each side of the street selling new and used cell phones and there were also thousands of people in the middle of the street selling, trading, and buying cell phones. Basically, if you are tired of your current cell phone (which you have probably only had for a month) you go stand on this street and hold up your phone and wait for interested buyers. New cell phones come out every day here and they go out of fashion just as fast. Hamdy's sisters had motorola rasers (sp?) in the summer and now they have Nokia 9300 and imate pocket PCs! How the average Egyptian, with a monthly salary of about 400-500 LE ($80-100) can afford to buy cell phones for 1000-2000 LE is beyond me!

to the queen of Egypt, Saracoota

Dearest Saracoota,
We the founding members of the CC wanted you to know how much we appreciated your yankee swap gift this year. In fact due to your effort of flying in the gift to grandma's and the quality of the gift itself we have decided there will be know penalties for missing the meeting this year. We also wanted to inform you that your "gift" has now actually become the CC handbook where all of our records and annual notes will be kept. It has also been suggested that the handbook make an expedition in a "sisterhood of the traveling pants", or "flat Stanley" sort of way. Either way your dedication to the council is deeply appreciated and has been noted in our new handbook. We will update you on the notes of the December 25th 2006 meeting by way of the telegram which as we all know is much more secure. Give our love to the middle east.
Yours Truly,
The Cousin Council

Up for Auction

Hamdy and I ordered some Chinese food to go today and when we got home, we realized that they had given us the wrong order. So Hamdy drove back to the restaurant and they were very apologetic and quickly fixed our order. And just to let us know how VERY sorry they were, they gave Hamdy a 3 FOOT long, bright NEON YELLOW calendar of HALF-NAKED CHINESE WOMEN standing in front of fancy Asian cars!

Now, I thought of giving this very classy, tasteful calendar as a CC gift or as a Christmas gift to Grandpa, but the mere size of the calendar makes it difficult to send. Therefore, I am putting it up for auction. Please place your bids....and yes, interesting trades will be considered.

Change O' Plans?

Cousins, I was just informed that Aunt Diane's Christmas Eve party is not taking place this year (apparently news travels more slowly west of the Mississippi). Now, I have no doubt that the CC Yaaaannnkkeee Swap! will be taking place this year and have already purchased a few gifts in good faith. But given this news, the challenge will now be:

1. when and where will this event take place (and will it conflict with (g)nate's toga party)?
2. how will fake olives mysteriously find their way to the non-existent relish tray?

Do comment.