Sunday, March 30, 2008

An at-home weekend

This weekend turned out to be bit of a home weekend. Doobs and I had meant to go to Connecticut to visit Mr. and Mrs. Pooks, but what with her battling the flu and all, we decided to lay low instead.

So Friday evening, we decided to have a girlie evening at home. "I'll make dinner," I suggested, offering to whip up some grilled chicken tacos. It had been a while since I'd made dinner for the girls, and it felt good to be rustling odds and ends together in the kitchen again. We perused the list of new movies on Pay-Per-View, and collectively settled (with surprising ease I might add) on Into the Wild. If you've ever had the experience of trying to pick a movie with friends, you know it can lead to debate of a testing and prolonged nature (not so different from the Clinton-Obama fanfare, I guess you could say). So when we all agreed on Into the Wild, we quickly put it on before anyone could change their mind.

And what a soul-searching, life-questionning movie it turned out to be too. For half an hour after the movie was over, we sat in a stunned silence, gradually absorbing the enormity of the theme. Kind of like the silence that followed Braveheart (except that time, it was because I'd fallen asleep).

The following evening turned into an impromptu affair. Ilajna brought Dannyboy (her fella) over, and we were all lounging aimlessly, lulled into a semi-stupor by the senseless drone of the telly, when Lahsiv finally returned my voicemail.
"Say, I dont' have any plans for this evening, shall I come over?" he asked.
"Sure, the party's rocking over here!" I said. I'm not quite sure why I said that. Especially to someone who now thinks my idea of a rocking party is to sit in front of a telly watching sitcom re-runs.

But Lahsiv is accustomed to worse from me. "Do I need to bring anything?" he asked, unfazed.
I checked the (empty) fridge. "Um, yeah, you might want to bring some beers for yourself," I said.
"Got it."
I glanced around at everyone else. "Oh, um, Lahsiv?"
"Yeah?"
"While you're at it, could you bring a sixpack of beers for Dannyboy too? And some wine for the girls?"
"You mean you guys don't have anything in the apartment?"
"Erm, no not really."
Sigh.
"Oh, um, and Lahsiv?"
"Yeah?"
"And while you're at it, you might want to pick up some food for yourself too. We pretty much cleared the fridge for our dinner. There's like a cinnamon roll or something, but that's about a week old."
Sigh. "I'll pick up my own food."
"Oh, um, and Lahsiv?"
"Yeah??"
"And while you're at it, could you pick up some dessert for us?"
"Gawd, you guys are such losers!"
But there he was, half an hour later, hands full of food and bevvy. What can you say about friends like that, eh.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Back scratching

One of my colleagues entered my office the other day.
"Oh, Ficali," he sighed heavily, shaking his head.
"Oh, crikey. What did I do now?!"
"Did you know I normally hide my laptop in your office, under your desk?"
"Erm, no..." I was puzzled. "But that's okay, you know I wouldn't mind something like that."

He shook his head, sighing again.
"It's just that, with all your boots and shoes there now, I have to do a lot of fumbling around just to get my laptop each day."
"Oh." I was mortified.

"Erm," I continued, "I'd rather you didn't tell everyone about my shoe collection."
"And I'd rather you didn't tell everyone about my laptop."

"Perfect, then," and we shook on it.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

My shoe army

Over the past week, my shoe collection has taken on a life of it's own. Four times last week, it marched me (under duress) to the shoe stores and procured new members.

Honestly, I have no responsibility in this.

I woke up the other day and realised much to my chagrin that my shoe collection has now outgrown it's original hiding spot, under my bed. Members of my shoe army now align to every wall space available in my room, and stuff themselves under my bookshelf, and have even launched an invasion of my clothes closet.

As a matter of emergency control, I brought some of the overfill to my office, and have started storing them under my desk. (This has also had the unintended consequence of upgrading my general attire at work from sneakers to boots).

I was telling Delta yesterday about how I had been victimised by my burgeoning shoe collection. I hadn't been intending it, but he picked up on the plot right away.
"Well," he sighed, "I suppose you could store some in my apartment too."

Phew, thank gawd for boyfriends that get it.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

A weekend in Seattle

Since I was meant to go to Seattle for training this week, Delta and I figured we might as well go for the weekend before, and spend the weekend with my Cos and her hubby. It turned out with a spot of luck that Seattle was in a reasonably clement weather mood, and we made a marvelous weekend out of it.

Although Cos and I always manage to wrangle a bit of time to catch up with each other when I'm in Seattle, it had been a long time since I'd actually had a chance to spend the wekend with them. I'd (almost) forgotten how it feels to wake up in the morning to a whole host of animals staring you in the face expectantly. Or to have a cat stroll self-importantly into your room in the middle of hte night and decide to curl up again using your stomach as its bed. I'd (almost) forgotten how much I loved it all.

I must admit, I was curious to see how Delta would take to the animal farm - but he seemed to adapt to it right away (in fact by the second night he had taken to mumbling "here, kitty, kitty" in his sleep even when the cats weren't actually in the room).

That Saturday, we decided to go hiking in the Cascades. The train we had originally wanted turned out to be still snowbound, but we managed to find another little one and stomp off into the woods after all. Everywhere we looked, we could see signs that spring was afoot, and instantly, our spirits soared, for we knew this marked the start of a full season of biking, tennis, hiking and camping.


That evening after our hike, I asked Cos' hubby whether he'd be up for cooking dinner at home that evening. I've learnt from experience that he's a fantastic cook, and far be it from me to miss out on such an opportunity whilst in Seattle.
"Of course he will!" Cos interjected when I asked, thereby not leaving her hubby any option. I reckon she'd had her sights set on his cooking too.

And so proceeded a great evening at home, with the boys taking over the kitchen (tilapia vindaloo), while Cos and I - well, someone had to be decent enough to make sure the wine didn't feel neglected!

I'd never quite appreciated female emancipation quite like this before, I must admit.



The next morning, we all headed out for a walk by Alki beach, and then around Green Lake. A perfectly peaceful and relaxing day (punctuated by periodic stops at Starbucks, wouldn't ya know it).

(Note above how Seattle residents do not bother using sunglasses - they'll try to fool you about the weather, but don't let them tell you otherwise. :)

Friday, March 07, 2008

Nothing like a spot of luck

The IT fella popped his head into my office today.

"It's laptop refresh time," he told me, "that means you're getting a new laptop next week."
"Oh, really?!" I blurted, "but I just got a new one last year - I get one again?"
"Yep, you're on an old model, you need an upgrade."
And he headed off.

I sat in my office, beaming at myself.

I'm getting a new laptop! Now I don't anymore have to figure out how to confess to him that my 'A' key isn't working properly because I have cookie crumbs lodged under it.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

An elephant on ice

A couple of weeks ago, Delta and I woke up with an unsuppressable urge to go ice skating. So there was nought to be done but to don our woolies and mosey on down to Central Park, where we could avail of the tree-lined ice rink.

I knew that Delta, having played hockey most of his life, would be a great skater. But nothing prepared me for the gazelle he turned into as soon as his feet touched the ice. Swooping, swishing, swaying and swirling amongst the crowds while I on the other hand, like an elephant on ice, had to focus all my energy on preventing my legs from getting entangled in each other.

As always, I was most amazed by the little kids on the rink, who torpedoed themselves in random directions (seemingly all aiming to take me down), with little regard for self or life. I thought it was quite cute.

Until, as was inevitable, one kid bumped right into me. "Oh!" I thought, but the kid was little affected. He bounced right off me, and simply changed his direction and hurtled off again towards another unsuspecting stranger. I, on the other hand, engaged in much unsteady teeter-tottering and precarious swaying, before I finally managed to steady myself by the sheer strength of luck.

But who goes ice skating for elegance anyway, eh?


Smooth criminal

The other day, for the first time in my life, I knowingly and intentionally committed a crime (Well, other than the time that I refused to pick up Bella's poop, which would have resulted in a crime had Doobs not stepped in to help out).

Doobs, Bobbis, Delta and I were at the multiplex cinema near our place. It was an overcast, thunderous, monstrous day - the perfect day to spend watching movies. We went to watch Vantage Point, which turned out to be so bad, just SO bad, that after the two hour film had finally ended, we felt we rightfully deserved our money back. How many times has that happened to you? All the time, right? Me too. But this time, it was different. This time, we were having none of it. We were going to make a stand for consumer respect and dignity.

"I know, let's make up our money by sneaking into another movie!" said Bobbis. Mostly as a joke, but somehow, the idea stuck.
Somehow, we convinced ourselves that sneaking into another movie was our birthright, after having wasted two ours of our precious lives on Vantage Point.

We walked by the other movie theatres in that area. The only other movie about to start was Charlie Bartlett. Heard of it? We hadn't either.
"I don't know," I said dubiously, "none of us even know what this movie is about. Do we seriously want to go risk this again?"

But now that we'd gotten the adrenalised mode of criminal intent, there was no stopping us. In fact we might have even snuck back into Vantage Point if that had been the only option, so intent were we on doing the sneaky thing.

You might think, talk about having a really wasteful approach to time. And you wouldn't be too far off the mark. But turns out, as luck would have it, Charlie Bartlett served us just fine to lift our moods. There was even a poignant moment that brought the single tear to my eye ("I can't believe you're crying at Charlie Bartlett!" Delta whispered, appalled).

As we left the cinema, we still felt obliged to whistle and yawn in feigned nonchalance, to dissuade the wily ticket checkers who might have suspected our malfeasance. Now I feel quite seasoned enough to pull off ye' ol' Italian Job.

Who says we can't be artistic?

"Do you have plans for Friday night?" Doobs asked me.

"Nope, I was just thinking of staying in, having a glass or two of wine, and painting one of my canvasses."
"No way, can I join you and paint something too?!"
"Sure thing, let's make it an art evening! Let's get a bottle of wine, I'll put out all my paints, you can use one of my canvases, and let's see where the evening takes us!"

"Hey guys," Bobbis asked, "if you're going to do that, can I make a short film of you creating your paintings?" Bobbis has recently started a challenging course in short film making at NYU, and was constantly looking for interesting subject matter for her films.

We all looked at each other in glee. This is going to be one hell of an art evening, I thought.

I told Mrs. Pooks as much as I was chatting with her later in the day.
"It's Art Evening at out place. Doobs and I are going to paint canvases and Bobbis is going to make a short film about our work," I told her.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" was her reaction.
"That's it. For that lack of faith, we are going to have to give you our paintings and fully expect you to display them in your house."
Mrs. Pooks laughed, being used to our inanities as she is.

And so we started the evening. Doobs picked up a bottle of wine. We ordered in some take-away. I spread out all my art supplies across the dining table. Bobbis set up the spot lighting and positioned the camera.

And strange as it might seem, what an Art Evening it was!


Empire building

Last Tuesday, there was an unusual email awaiting me in my inbox when I got in to work. My cousin Sal, who is normally to be found immersed in his medical residency in Chicago, dropped me a single line:

Am going to be in NYC this evening. Want to meet up? Call me.

Did I want to meet up with my cousin whom I only get to see once a year?! Of course! So we made some quick plans; and that evening found Rohinton, Delta and me heading off to meet Sal on the Upper West Side.

As we gorged ourselves on Peruvian food, he filled us in on what he was doing in the city. He'd come for an interview for a specialised fellowship at Columbia.
"I really hope I get it," he confided, "this is a great program."
"When will you move here, assuming you get in?" I asked, ever-hungry to have more family in the area.
"This autumn."
Sal's brother and his wife were due to move to New York sometime this year too. "When's that happening?" I was curious.
"Oh, they'll be here by this autumn too," he clarified.
Brilliant! I thought.

"Yeah, I think we're going to stay on in this city for another couple of years too," Rohinton added. I'd been dreading Rohinton and Jeet's upcoming plans to move to Chicago for a while now, so my heart surged when I heard this news.

Did you catch that? Suddenly there's going to be brothers and sisters in law and cousins and all sorts in this city with me. A whole bamboozled family.

Watch out, the Jones's, for here come the McPipes!