Usman's 6th

This last weekend was a lot of fun; I flew out to Toledo, OH to see my nephews, sister and cousins in MI. Usman turned 6 on Saturday. His parents threw a nice birthday party for him. There was a lot of chaos with so many kids running around, my cousin and I played air hockey, ski ball and hoops which was fun. We socialized some more later that evening with some friends which I hadn't seen in years, so it was nice. Sunday we headed off to MI to see my cousins. They took us out to La Shish for lunch. I had been here long time ago and had some really fond memories of their food. It was even better this time, this place is authentic as can be and has some of the best Lebanese food, the likes of which you'd find in Beirut. We feasted on delicious barbecue with hummus and baba ghanouj followed by mint tea :) I flew back Sunday evening with a stopover in Detroit.

On my way to Toledo, due to weather related cancellations and delays, I found myself at the Detroit airport with no hotel room or a rental car or even my checked in luggage for the time being. The best that North freakin' Worst could do was rebook me for the next flight which was 10 the next morning. I already had a long day and had enough. Refusing to stay the night at the terminal, I hitched a ride to Toledo at 11 at night. This guy who was sitting next to me on the plane from Boston volunteered to drop me at my sister's place citing he had been stranded before. Also, he refused to take any money and said just keep the good karma going. I was very impressed at first, then sort of scared and then impressed even more when he went out of his way to come down to Toledo to drop me off. He got me scared for sometime when he jokingly said that he could be a serial killer. But I said to myself that I said my prayers when I set foot out of my apartment this morning, as I try to remember to do every morning... I went Insha Allah Khair! Moral of the story.... there's still goodness left in this world, and still there are good Samaritans out there who would help anyone and everyone in need, so we should not give up on this world and keep the karma going.

I was reminded of this twice this weekend. The second time was on the flight from Detroit to Boston when I met a guy from my workplace who was on the same plane and had the steward upgrade me to the First Class just like that.

That was my weekend...