Om Eyebrows Om

Today Lizh and I went to Little Kabul, a neighborhood of Fremont that has the largest population of Afghanis outside of Afghanistan. I'm not quite sure how this happened. Fremont is wicked suburbia bursting with strip malls. We're talking Hooters, Applebees and Fuddruckers up the yin-yang.

But deep fried onion blossom was not on the agenda today. First, we went to Salang Pass and had an excellent meal. Two appetizers: Borani Kadoo, pumpkin sautéed and seasoned with garlic and topped with a special yogurt sauce. I'm going to try and recreate this for Thanksgiving, it was so good. Then we had Mantoo, Afghani dumplings stuffed with beef, onions, and seasonings, topped with ground beef, split peas and a special yogurt sauce. This was fantastic. Then a kabob platter, which was also good. Definitely plan to go back there.

Then we went a store in the same strip mall where I bought this beautiful scarf/shawly thing, which I am loving and is very warm:



This store sold a lot of head coverings, which prompted Lizh and I to have one of our classic conversations in which we tried to piece together our woeful lack of knowledge to make sense of our surroundings:

Are the head coverings a Muslim thing?
No, I don't think so.
Are you sure?
No.
I think it's called a chador.
It's not a burqa?
No, a burqa is the thing that covers you totally except your eyes.

What we were seeing was not a chador, a full length cloak that covers the head and is held shut by the wearer, nor was it a burqa, the head to toe garment with the little grille for the eyes. What we were seeing were headscarves, and whether they're Muslim things, I still really don't know.

Then we were planning to see Om Shanti Om, which was playing at the Naz 8 on the hour, every hour of the day. Unfortunately when we showed up at the box office at 5:15, every show was sold out until 9pm. If you were wondering where the Indian people are in the Bay Area, they're at the Naz 8.

So instead we wandered over to a nearby beauty supply and salon that was doing threading. One of the women could tell I was intrigued but hesitant and told me to come over and sit down. I surprised myself with my own compliance. But I was afraid and told the woman so, and she laughed, reclined my chair and started threading. It took her about three minutes per brow and was mostly not painful, except at the delicate skin at the outer eye, which makes me cry when I tweeze or wax. I like that my eyebrows still look exactly like my eyebrows, minus the rogue hairs. See?



Threading was a deal at $7. I would definitely do this again. But we still want to see Om Shanti Om.