Dance on Saturday, Tears on Sunday, Joft Shish on Monday

It was an amazing weekend. The performance on Saturday night was AWESOME, and just as soon as I have photographs (which a kind-hearted gentleman in the audience said he would send me, as I had forgotten my clunky camera), I will write about it. I finished my Danny Postel book, and now I’m ready to write about it and his visit to Berkeley, which happened a few weeks back. I finished many projects around the house and did some work on material I have to take to a work retreat tomorrow. Yesterday morning I saw the picture of the girl who was beaten in Tehran by the police as she and her mother were walking down the street, to which both of them protested by removing their scarves from their heads, causing quite a stir. I sat there looking at that picture, crying a river, feeling helpless. If you haven’t heard about the incident, read this, and also see what Amir Abbas Nakhaee had to say about it in his blog. I really like the way he writes, so intelligently and bravely, this young journalist in Tehran. This morning, as I was running through my morning routine and checking my emails, my older son who is a delightful morning person (completely unlike his night-owl mother!) walked to my side and stood there. I asked him what he wanted and he said out of the blue, “How about a game of backgammon?” Imagine that! Well, I’m never one to lose an opportunity to spend time with my kids when they offer it to me—so backgammon it was at 6:45 a.m. this morning! He played some of his new favorite music for me, too, and helped me find some Farsi and English words I needed for my writing in the process. We played only one game and my victory over him was not a satisfying one, as I got too many doubles during the game, but it was pure joy for other reasons. As I finish this writing to post it this morning, I consider myself a very lucky woman indeed.