The Seahorse Chronicles

Kauai: an entirely different world

2012-01-29T16:01:00.000-05:00

Our vacation Kauai didn't start out quite as idyllic as I'd imagined it in my mind. In fact, after a couple of last minute flight changes thrown our way by our friend the standby system, we arrived in Kauai late on a Friday evening. It was already dark, and we still had to shop for supplies in the local Walmart and drive 2 hours up into the Canyon where we were planning to camp. So all we had time for by way of food was to gulp down a barely edible sponge-like burger from the McDonalds right in the Walmart.

There you have it. Our first meal in paradise was scarfed down in the McDonalds in the Walmart in Kauai. It makes me cringe to type it as much as we cringed to actually eat it.

But when you start a vacation like that, the only place to go is up, right?

Wrong.

We drove cautiously, with a snail-like hesitance, for 2 hours to our campgroupd, up the narrow, twisting canyon road enshrouded in fog which afforded us really no visibility at all. Made it there, set up tent and pretty much collapsed into our sleeping bags immediately, exhausted by the preceding 12 hours of flying.

And woke up the next morning in the midst of a rain storm. A deluge. A huge big unfiltered gush of water as far as the eye could see. Still. Hardy campers that we are, we didn't think much of it at first. But when, after a while, it didn't show any signs of letting up, and the thunder and lightning were rather increasing in frequency, we asked a kindly person at the neighbouring lodge what the weather forecast was like. Turned out there was a huge unseasonal weather system hovering ("stuck", as describe by the weather service), over the island of Kauai. They didn't expect it to change for a few days.

Our hearts sank. We had had our minds set on hiking in the canyon, we had flown 12 hrs to get here, only to be stuck in an unseasonal weather system. Not even a passing storm. A weather system. Definitely no way to hike the treacherously steep canyon slopes. So there was little else to do but jump back into our car and head down off the mountains, towards the beaches.

Through the dense cloud cover spread across the island, we could see glimpses of sun breaking through near the southern tip, so we headed down to Po'ipu on the southern coast. Here we explored the Makewehi lithified cliffs, built over hundreds of thousands of years from fossilized sand dunes. Here, a narrow trail tracked the coast for miles along the cliffs, offering stunning views of the coastline. We'd been walking for about an hour, when Delta suddenly grabbed my arm and stopped me in my tracks.

"What's that?!!!" he gasped, pointing out to sea.

Far out in the ocean, almost to the horizon, there was a disturbance in the water. Spraying, splashing, flailing. It was there for a second, a big old hubbub out in the ocean, and then suddenly it was gone. As if it'd never been there at all. A boat in trouble? A trick of the eyes? We continued to stare at that spot in the ocean with concentration, to see if anything more was to transpire. Nothing. And just as we were about to conclude we had imagined it after all, there it was again! A huge splash, followed by another, followed by a couple sprays of water. Whales!! And just as we realized it, there appeared a magnificent arch of the distinctive tail, just to reconfirm our realization. All around us, in the ocean, were hundreds of whales. It turned out it was breeding season in the Hawaiian waters, and the whales continued to be our faithful oceanside companions for the rest of our vacation.

The next morning, when we woke up to a second day of storms and downpour up in the mountains, we decided to call it quits and packed up our tents and checked into a hotel. Our clothes were all wet, nothing was drying, everything was starting to smell, our lovely Hawaiian adventure was beginning to turn unejoyable.

As it turned out, a day in the hotel waiting out the storms was exactly what we needed. It was like chicken soup for the soul. A hot shower, a clean bed, a beachside bar, a lovely pizza dinner, a leisurely buffet breakfast, and Delta and I were good as new. Like two shiny new pennies, ready to take on the world once again. The sun started breaking through the clouds, all indications were that the storm had passed, and we shook out our tent and headed towards the beach campgrounds on the north.

A view of Kilauea lighthouse.

Everywhere we turned, we were greeted by stunning views of the countryside around us.

The campsite was right on the beach. Just what we needed after a couple of cold nights up in the stormy weather in the mountains.

With the weather having turned for the better, Delta and I decided to spend a day walking the famous Kalalau trail. The storm had thwarted our hopes of backpacking the entire trail, so instead we decided to go in as far as we could before time constraints forced us to turn back.

At every turn, every corner, it was easy to see why the trail is one of the most famous in Hawaii. And in the distance, in their own merry, splashy way, the whales kept us company as we trudged the cliffsides.

Kauai was one of the most beautiful places we had ever seen. The beaches, the reefs, the cliffs, the rainforests - all of it, out of an entirely different world. The untamable nature, drawing us in, and yet always warning us of it's absolute power. The thunderous storms, filling the sky with flashes of brilliant lightning. The fiercely ominous waves, curling over us as they broke, pummeling us into the sand: the blue oceans welcoming, inviting, irresistable; and yet, signs everywhere warning that raging currents frequently take human lives each year. The giant tidepools, seemingly benign, and then suddenly gushing with ferocious bursts of ocean tide that threaten to pull you out to sea. And, of course, the whales. Always, the whales.

Ready for the new job

2011-12-30T12:04:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me the other day that I don't really have an attire suitable for the corporate world, lulled as I have been for the last six years into a sartorial sinkhole of jeans and sneakers.

Actually, I lie. It didn't occur to me. And it probably would not have occured to me at all. It was pointed out to me by a gently chiding Delta: "I want to point out, that you don't really have clothes to wear in your new job."
I blinked in panic. Holy crap, he was right.
I ran over to the closet and looked at my sweaters. Yup. Confirmed. Only two that were acceptable to wear anywhere outside of an IT firm.

As $ signs skimmed in a blur of motion past the glazed panes of my eyes, I tried to do a quick mental calc on what I'd need to buy before starting my new job. New sweaters. At least a couple pairs of trousers. Socks that were not in all the bright shades of the rainbow. Shoes. Blacks, browns, colours, boots, pumps, flats. A lot of shoes.

If you must do an extreme makeover of your wardrobe, there's no better time to do it than during the post-Christmas sales. Although be warned: If you do take advantage of those post-christmas sales, be prepared for a wardrobe bejewelled in red spangles. As I learnt.

Which brings me to where I am today. A few new sweaters ("at least have enough clothes for two weeks," Doobie had urged, and Doobie is my Official Advisor on All Things Corporate), a couple new trousers, several new pairs of shoes, a book about project management and a book about M&A.

Bring on the new year!

The turn of the year

2011-12-24T13:51:00.000-05:00

I'm ready for a few changes in my life. And what better time to usher them in than at the turn of the year.

Early in the new year, I start my new job.

Yes. After more than 6 years at my beloved Avanade, I'm ready to forge a new beginning. Avanade's been home to me since I moved to New York. It's been the place I grew up, and graduallly metamorphosed from general HR comic relief to professional(ish) HR bod. It's been years of good friendships and technicolour memories.

But now, at long last, like a baby turtle plunging into the ocean and hoping it can swim, it's time for me to see if I can survive in the world beyond this little tidal pool of Avanade.

The change has, of course, caused me no small amount of consternation. I'm not the most adept at change (as evidenced from Delta and my 'Friay night is Sushi night' - always the same restaurant, always the same sushi). For instance, in my new job, I'll no longer be able to just roll out of bed and turn on my laptop still in my pyjamas. To think I'll actually have to do something as revolutionary as getting dressed and turning up at an office everyday. Imagine! The horror. My life to date has ill-prepared me for such kind of extreme early-morning activity. But all the same. It was inevitable that I had to try something new at some point, and all of a sudden, that point is upon me.

But that new job is still a few weeks out, like a distant light at the end of a long tunnel. And you know what it's like in this crazy world of Family McDelta; a few weeks can be an eternity. Before I even get to that new job, I still have more pressing and dear events to look forward to: an evening at the comedy club tonight, trying desperately to blend in with the furniture and avoid the comic's beady eye; a Christmas brunch with Dr G, her hubby and their little peanut; a New Years party (at ours, as always, because we're too scared to leave the building on New Years and face the inebriated youths outside) and most importantly - a week of camping and hiking out in Kauai. Kauai! Adventure abounds.

The clock ticks on. A year draws to it's end, and a new one grabs the baton and plunges onwards. Needless to say, regardless of the passive role I continually strive to play in my life, the story continues to unfold around me, sweeping me with it. And just as I did on the rollercoasters as a young whippersnapper, I don a brave smile and hang on for the ride.

Honey number 2

2011-08-01T18:00:00.000-04:00

When we returned from our camping trip in Minnesota, we had to dive headfirst into a flurry of cleaning and washing. Delta and I stood side by side, trying to sort through our packing.

"Here, why don't you take this, unzip the sleeping bags, and load the laundry," Delta told me distractedly, handing me an armful of stuff to sort through.

And then in the next moment, he turned to Queen Jaffa as she strutted past, and his tone melted instantly.

"Hi, honey," he said, his voice caressingly loving, "how's my sweetie pie doing?".

To the cat. I pouted.

"Hey. When did Queen Jaffa become honey, and I'm just the person who helps you with the laundry?!" I demanded, hands on my hips.

Delta gave me the toothy grin of a kid caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

"Oh don't worry, she's just Honey number 2," he tried to reassure me. "You're the real Honey number 1."

"Hmmmph." I was not convinced.

I with a jealous pout as Delta gently picked up Queen Jaffa, gave her a cuddle, and scratched her behind her ear. QJ for her part preened, stretched and yawned, proffering Delta her belly to get tickled. As she rolled over, I caught a glint in her eye.

Yeah, right, she seemed to say. Wouldn't you want to be Honey number 2 like me.

Boundary Waters, a fairytale experience

2011-07-31T18:42:00.001-04:00

Last week, Delta and I finally went canoeing in the Boundary Waters, a trip we'd been planning to take for a couple years now.

We'd known we were going for a few months now, but I'd put off the whole canoeing thing until the trip was almost upon us. And then, a few weeks before our vacation, Delta turned to me and said pointedly, "you know a canoe trip is going to involve portaging, don't you?"

"Yeah, of course," I tried to nonchalantly brush it off.

"You know portaging invovles actually carrying the canoe, right?"

"Right..." my voice had lost it's edge of self confidence now.

"Do you think your arms are strong enough for that?" Delta pressed on.

We both looked down at my arms, which have been used for nothing more strenuous than typing over the past ten years. These ladies were meant for nothing greater than washing my hair. They hung limply down at my sides, like a couple linguine strands from my neck.

Suddenly, I was full of panic. "Delta, what do I do? I'll never be able to carry a canoe!"

"What do you mean?! Go to the gym!"

And so started my new routine at the gym. Arms, core, legs & cardio. Arms, core, legs & cardio. Until suddenly the day was upon us, and we excitedly caught our flight to Duluth, MN.

As it turns out, portaging can only be done by one person. So Delta was lumped with carrying the canoe after all.

But enough about portaging, which ultimately turned out to be a relatively small part of the whole experience. If there are just a couple things I took back from our Boundary waters experience, it would be the absolute solitude in nature. And the heartmelting views, simply uncomparable.

A moment of respite, before we launched from one lake to the next.

Gathering firewood to cook our daily dinner.

A sunset view from the campsite, drying off on the shore after our evening swim.

A view of the cove where we had our morning swim

Ultimately, Delta carried the canoe on his head. I'm still happy I worked on my arms, though.

Each portage point was unique and spectacular in it's own right.

A lazy afternoon reading on the beach

A sudden mid-portage crisis of "I quit! I'm hungry! I'm tired!"

I knows someone famous now

2011-07-15T17:30:00.002-04:00

This June, Rohinton played on the Bermuda badminton team for the Island Games 2011. That's right, suckers. I NOW KNOW SOMEONE FAMOUS.

For my American readers - yes, in the rest of the world, Badminton is actually a serious sport. Not just hitting around a birdie in a backyard picnic. I expect that you'll treat this announcement with the appropriate level of gravity.

So family McDelta, father, mothing, sister, wife, husband, and uncle, all bumbled kit and caboodle to the little known Isle of Wight to cheer for Rohinton.

I dont' blame you if you're scratching your head at the Island Games. I hadn't known what they were before this year, either, before Rohinton's foray into fame. It's basically like the Olympics, or the Asiatics - a large international sports meet that takes place every two years, specifically for island countries. That's right. Not only do those people have all the clean beaches, good weatger and beautiful oceans. They also have their own olympics.

And there he was, our very own Rohinton, representing the country of Bermuda on their badminton team. Delta and I couldn't have been more proud. And so it was that we found ourselves on the flight across the pond to London, the coach to Portsmouth, the ferry to Ryde and the little train to Shanklin, which was to be our home for 4 days while we dove into an intensive international tete a tete in badminton.

A couple of the islands there were decidedly dodgy. Like Aland and Gotland. Delta and I were convinced that some of these were made up - a group of people who had made up an island, flag and national song of their own so they could participate in the Island Games. So we did some nifty googling to confirm the credibility of our oponents. I mean, seriuosly. Aland? Gotland? But as it turned out, they do exist, mere dots on maps though they be.

Family McDelta, taking in some sun at the Island Games parade.

The Island Games parade, not to be underestimated for it's pomp and grandeur.

Badminton. A real sport, fyi.

The prodigal child returns

2011-07-09T23:48:00.000-04:00

In stealth, I slip back into the room. Somewhat horrified. Somewhat frustrated. But mostly just mortified at my own lack of fortitude. Really, has it been three months? Has it taken me three months to revisit this blog, to come back home?

Like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar, I slink back to the table red-faced with embarrassment.

Every week, just a few minutes of creativity. A few minutes of introspection, and self-mockery. And yet, for the last three months, I have proved myself to have time for neither. In the same way, frankly, that it seems I never have time for cleaning. Or laundry. Or the dishes.

There is no reason. There is no excuse. And more importantly, I've missed my dear blog terribly, so it all really doesn't make any sense. In typical fashion, I've foisted myself again.

And so this, here, is my mid-year resolution. A coy homecoming.

A month of travel

2011-04-26T00:41:00.000-04:00

In the Wit Hotel in Chicago. Lovely little place, they gave me cookies as a welcome present. I was excited - until I found out they were orange flavored. Seriously. Who gives orange flavoured cookies??! I ate them anyway.

New Rule: please let me know when your birthday is, because I have no intention to remember by myself

2011-04-24T17:30:00.001-04:00

As we do every year, a group of us volunteered to participate in Hands on New York Cares Day last weekend. In the spring time, we mostly end up cleaning parks. In the autumn, it's usually painting schools. So this April we were asigned to a little waterfront park in Queens, where we were directed to remove unwanted debris from the coastal water-edge.

We were each given a pair of pickers, and had to poke and prod between the large rocks to pull out pieces of plastic and litter. Doing this every year is always a great lesson for me on the horrors of our plastic generation. But this time, we were otherwise preoccupied with other horrors. What with the recent news reports about the Long Island serial killer, everyone was slightly nervous about reaching their pickers between the rocks, only to discover the remains of a human body. But of course, this didn't transpire in the end (luckily). Instead, the events took a far more pleasant course, with our team wrapping up work early on account of the rain, and heading over instead to the nearby pub.

A few drinks into the afternoon, Lahsiv suddenly announced, "so guys, what should we do about my birthday next week?". We all looked at him in disbelief. How could none of us have known it was his birthday coming up?
"There's no way it's your birthday, man," someone said.
"Isnt your birthday in September?" I asked.
"Are you trying to just get free presents out of us?" someone else demanded.
"Guys!! It's my birthday next week!" Lahsiv launghed at our ridicule.
Not the most supportive of friends, I suppose you could say.

Finally, we checked it on facebook (the wikipedia of personal life), and realised that he had indeed been telling the truth. And so Delta and I decided to throw an impromptu party at our home yesterday, in honour of the ever mistrusted Lahsiv. I even decided to bake a cake (using case mix), but miscalculated the proportion of batter to pan, and we ended up with two cakes instead.

But a party's a party, whatever it's origin, and however many the cakes.

A sedentary month

2011-04-23T17:02:00.000-04:00

The last few weeks of our lives have been somewhat circulating around Delta's knee. Of course Delta himself, of the busted knee, hasn't been circulating around anything. He's been pretty much restricted to the five steps between the couch and the bathroom.

Although Delta's own frustration at his situation is starkly apparent, Queen Jaffa and I for our part have both adjusted our lives to this new situation with remarkable ease. Having lost my close biking/hiking compatriot, I relishingly embraced the more sedentary life snuggled with Delta on the couch. We doubled our netflix queue, bought a bunch of microwave popcord, and prepped for a month of catching up on all the movies we'd ever talked about. Queen Jaffa, for her part, warmly embraced having a napping buddy to share the couch with all day.

But if all goes well, Family McDelta's life of sloth will shortly be coming to a close. Delta finally had his surgery last week, and his knee has been steadily (if more slowly than he'd like) improving each day. The day is fast approaching when we will have run out of excuses. When once more, we'll pick up our backpacks and head out into the woods.

But until that day is upon us, until we are compelled by a driving force outside of our control, you'll find us quite warm and comfortable with our posteriors parked comfortably on the couch.

A long journey hoome

2011-03-27T19:19:00.000-04:00

With Delta's gimpy knee, it was a very long journey back home from India. It was torturous to watch him hobble along slowly, navigating the airport crowds through his pain. I grimaced in sympathy. Not knowing exactly what was wrong, both of us were nervous about where this would lead. Just a bit of recoup? A more serious surgery? I kept a panicky eye on each tentative step.

And then I said (apparently) the most offensive thing any wife could say to their husband. "Delta, do you think you should get a wheelchair? It might be - "
His look cut me off.

From the fact that he gave me the silent treatment for the next few hours of our journey, I gathered that I had threatened his manhood. The infraction was so grave that I might as well have driven the car of our relationship off a cliff.

Speaking of threatened manhood, we, erm, noticed that the security guards in Amsterdam's Schipol airport wear European shoulder bags. Far be it from me to criticise cultural peccadilloes, and gawd knows I have some of my own, but honestly - aren't security guards supposed to look at least somewhat tough-ish? I hate to judge on appearance (and yet I will), but when the security guards sashay around the airport with european shoulder bags, it doesn't quite inspire the confidence it's perhaps meant to.

But I shouldn't criticise them too much. They did serve the purpose of uplifting Delta's mood, what with his sense of masculinity being instantly restored.

Compatriots

2011-03-23T01:05:00.001-04:00

After eighteen hours of arduous travel, our flight finally landed in Bombay, exactly on time. It took us about seven minutes to clear immigration and pick up the bottles from duty free that my father had given us explicit instructions to buy. And suddenly we were released out into warm, moist air of the city beyond, to a warmly welcoming set of parent.

For the first couple of days, Delta and I coccooned ourselves on the verandah, enjoying the peaceful oasis while the city bustled, teemed, banged and clanged all around us below. Then on our second afternoon, we decided to shake the inertia and go to the gym for an invigorating workout.

But barely fifteen minutes into the workout, Delta jumped off the speeding treadmill with a yowl. His knee had, all of a sudden, buckled under him. He hopped around the gym in pain while I stared on frozen in horror, not quite sure what to do. His knee had been a bit vulnerable ever since a bad accidental sprain a couple years ago. But nothing like this. He gingerely tried taking a couple steps, but his knee gave way again. And again. We looked at each other in fear, and he grimaced against the pain. There was nothing to be done but to hobble cautiously, tenderly back to the apartment, where he sank onto the bed and popped a couple Alleves gratefully into his mouth.

Since then, we've been back to passing away gentle hours on the verandah, Delta confined to hobbling about with his knee securely bound in a support.

Then this morning, a pigeon landed on the verandah next to our table, as we finished the last dregs of our coffee. It hopped about tentatively, and at first we didn't notice anything unusual, until all of a sudden, I pointed out, "Delta look! It's wounded, the poor thing! There's something wrong with it's leg!". And so it was. The poor bird was nursing an injured leg, and hobbled about slowly by itself in a corner, shunned by the other, fitter pigeons around.

Delta, in his own state of crippled vulnerability, immediately felt a bond for the pigeon. He started throwing small nuts and dried fruit towards it, that it might get some food. They cautiously eyed each other, man and bird, sizing up each others ailments.

In this wild, aggressive city where everyone and everything's fighting for survival, bound by circumstance, this pair of unlikely compatriots.

A note to my Unc

2011-03-22T01:14:00.002-04:00

My uncle left me a voicemail the other day, just before Delta and I jumped on our flight to India. In typical uncle fashion, there was no preamble, no wasted time on senseless greetings or terms of endearment. Straight to the point, just like I like it.

"Hey Ficali," it said, "I noticed you haven't been blogging much. If you're out of topics, I think you should write about me. Just sayin'." Click.

And so, Unc, I'll call your blog post exhortation, and raise you a family reunion invite.

We, erm, noticed that we haven't yet heard when this year's family reunion is taking place. Milwaukee? August? I thought as much. Just that Delta and I were a bit surprised that we haven't received the official word yet, that's all.

You know. Just sayin'. :)

HR bods live life on the edge too, dammit

2011-03-20T23:59:00.002-04:00

Last weekend, being the responsible denizens that we are, Delta and I regrouped to do our taxes. As turbotax walked us through step after step of our financial confessions, the conversation quickly degenerated, as it does each year at this time, into an overall lamentation of the state of our financial affairs.

We were glancing over all our numbers, when one particularly leapt out at me.
"Hang on a sec!" I exclaimed, grabbing Delta's arm. "$200 a month for life insurance?!! Two hundred??!"
"You're right, that does seem a little high," Delta agreed, puzzled.

Momentarily distracted from our taxes, we started meandering down the tunnel of life insurance instead. And here's what we found:
The $200 we pay each month is broken down into:
- Delta, $196
- Ficali, $4

I get why Delta's is so high. Being a pilot and flying internationally and frequently flying to Africa and ... I totally get it. He's high risk. And we're happy to pay in acknowledgement of this.

But really, $4 for me? Just $4? Was that kind of slap in the face really necessary?

"Well, erm, I don't think HR is considered to be, ah, a very high risk profession..." Delta ventured tentatively, trying to tread the dangerous line between life's practicalities and a happy wife.
But I was non-plussed.
So what if I spend my life plugged into my laptop and my greatest threat is the risk of carpel tunnel? I live life on the edge too, dammit.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to pay any more (thank you). I just a little acknowledgement that HR bods are like the Jason Bourne's of corporate mediocrity. Is that too much to ask for?

A quick jaunt across the pond (and then some)

2011-03-04T09:16:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, Delta and I went to Jordan. For several years now, we've been talking about going to Petra. And then all of a sudden last month, we decided it was finally time. Delta bid it as a trip, and I tagged along as his partner in crime.

Jordan itself was wonderful. The country is modern and extremely clean, the infrastructure is impressive, the people are incredibly warm and welcoming, and above all, the food is just wonderful.

But one of the most enthralling parts, by far, was actually being right there in the Middle East during Ghaddafi's first speech. Jordan itself feels stable. Delta and I never felt personally unsafe. Rather, it was as though the country was spellbound by a trill of tension, closely following all their neighbours on the telly. A mood of electric exhilaration was pervasive. When Ghaddafi came on to give his first rambling speeches, it was aired in arabic. But one of the Jordanians standing nearby instantly took us under his wing, translating the highlights for us. The nation was stupefied. Riveted. Frozen. All around us, history was in the making. And there we were, li'l ol' Delta and me, right in the middle of it all, shoving olives in our dumbfounded mouths like popcorn at the movies.

And then, of course, there was the spectacular Petra. Every bit as magical as it's reputation, and even much much more so. We were lucky: it wasn't yet high season, and we ended up having large stretches of the trail pretty much to ourselves.

A whole new look

2011-03-03T22:40:00.000-05:00

Last week, we gave our living room a facelift. And seeing as our apartment really only has two rooms, I guess I could say we gave half our apartment a facelift. We bought ourselves some new furniture - an armchair, a sleeper couch and a bookcase, to be precise.

As soon as the couch and armchair were in place, we noticed that skulking cat Queen Jaffa eyeing them from her corner of the room, immediately sizing them up as good scratching posts. So Delta and I had to run out in panic and buy little plastic guards for the arms of the couch.

And let me tell you, nothing downshifts a facelift as much as plastic covers on the couch arms.

And then I noticed another new feature I hadn't seen before. How had I missed this in the showroom? Both the couch and the armchair are too big for me. Yes, I kid you not. If I sit upright leaning against the back, my thighs are too short, and my knee joints don't quite reach the edge of the seat, so I have to sit with my legs sticking straight out in front. It's not the furniture's fault. The furniture is just made for the normal human body. How could they have known I map to the height of the australopithecus afarensis?

So there you have it. A couch with plastic covered arms, and a girl with her legs sticking straight out. Like I said. We gave our room a facelift.

Laugh though you might - visitors, rest easy. Our guests now have a sleeper to rest their weary heads on. No more airmattress that keeps infinitesimally losing air throughout the night. No more having to patch the air mattress with bike tire seals.

Like I said. We gave our room a facelift.

A moment of vanity

2011-02-09T21:19:00.000-05:00

I can't even believe it myself, let alone actually broadcast it. Yesterday, I went for a laser hair removal appointment for my legs. That's right. I'm going to get all those stubborn hair suckers lasered off my legs if it's the last thing I do.

Laser hair removal feels like some kind of fantasmagorical version of Gulliver's Travels. You're lying very still blind-folded on a table, as little lasers are shot into your legs like an army of lilliput arrows.
"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" I exclaimed for the first few minutes. Until I tired of the monotony of my own protests, and settled instead for a kind of whimpering presence. For one and a half hours, little lilliput arrows up and down my legs.

So why would you go through this, you ask?

When I was yet a babe in womb, I had specifically asked Gawd to be born slim, tall, long-legged and modelesque. It didn't happen. Let's face it, instead he made me into the little sausage-dog version of the human race.

Gawd, don't think I don't know I've been short-changed in the legs department.

So I'm going to take matters into my own control, and obliterate them hairs. What's the world come to when you can no longer depend on old white bearded men with tridents in their hands to solve all your problems for you.

That's right, World. Today, I've taken matters into my own hands. Today, I have the smoothest, hairlessest legs in town.

A rather flurried catch up

2011-01-23T20:44:00.003-05:00

It’s been appallingly, disappointingly, inconsiderately snowy here in NYC. Which means, for the most part, that Delta and I have been hunkering down indoors, spending significant stretches of time prostrate on the couch.

Not the ideal way to spend a winter. I wouldn’t quite say I’m proud of watching a ten hour marathon session of Law and Order. Even Queen Jaffa started casting us worried glances from time to time, no doubt wondering if her parents had spontaneously metamorphosed into slugs.

On the other hand, our sloth has allowed us to do a flurried catch up of all the Oscars nominations for this year. After a year replete with films devoid of any merit, Hollywood pulled a typical stunt and released all the quality stuff en masse right at the very end.

Which would not be a problem in itself, except for peeps like Delta and me who get disproportionately competitive about predicting the Oscars results. If you’re going to do that, you need to watch the films. Ergo, the flurried catch-up.

Five years ago, Delta swiped six plastic, golden Oscars award figurines from Nooj’s apartment. A long story, perhaps for another day, but needless to say it left us with six gold figurines, and Nooj without. Every year since then, we’ve been holding an Oscar’s party and giving away one of the figurines to the winner who predicted the best. Because – even if one can’t act oneself – there’s nothing to stop you from judging others, of course. To date, rather infuriatingly, Bobbis has won the award almost every year. Now there’s only one figurine left, and this year, I’m determined to win.

Ergo, the flurried catch up.

A peopleish weekend

2011-01-12T22:18:00.000-05:00

This past weekend will go down in the books as a rather social one. A couple birthdays and a reunion of friends is apparently what it takes really to beckon the McDeltas out of social hibernation. Both birthday girls had chosen restaurants in the East village, which peaked my excitement, not least because we could use the Select Bus. Everything about the Select Bus is enthralling to me, but nothing more so than the flashing blue lights. Never said I wasn't infantile like that.

Friday night it was Cafe Mogador, and for Saturday, Ilajna chose Boca Chica. I mention them only because they were both great, and I want to actively recommend them to anyone who cares to listen.

Delta and I typically suffer from a case of extreme homebodiliness that keeps us physically tethered to our neighbourhood. Which is a shame, because really with the advent of the Second Avenue Subway, our neighbourhood rather leaves something to be desired. It typically takes a special occasion of sorts to lure us out, and this weekend, the occasions did not disappoint. The food had a unique flourish unto it's own chef. The wine came in hefty prohibition-era glasses whose quantity boggle eye. The atmosphere had flair and exuberance.

And of course, the company. Always, the company.

A cat to be proud of

2011-01-04T23:45:00.002-05:00

Lately, Queen Jaffa had taken to licking the one spot in her body where she really shouldn't. She had mastered the yoga move inolved. In truly ungainly fashion, she would lay on her back and splay her legs in the air, and then do a sudden sit-up and lean forward to bring her head between her back legs, at which point she would start licking her privates assiduously.

Delta and I were, at first, so horrified by the appalling lack of propriety that we forgot to consider her potential ailment. Were we really to be saddled with a bottom-licking kitty?

So yesterday, we took QJ for a dreaded visit to the vet, Dr B.

Now, I always think of QJ as a rather docile kitty, seeing as she spends about 18 hours of the day sleeping, and the remaining 6 either eating or cuddled up in our laps. Not an ounce of hostility in that cat.

Except when we go see Dr B. For whatever reason, the Doc, who I personally find to be rather charming myself, unleashes the wrath of gawd in QJ. She unfurls all her latent feral felineness, puffs out her lungs, and releases a crescendoing opera of hiss and yowl.

Delta and I just stood back from the cacophany, alternately apologizing to Dr B and trying to pacify an obstreperous QJ. It was all rather disconcerting, really. The entire time we were there, QJ yowled in the horrific tones of fighting alleycats, although Dr B was barely even touching her at all. Drama queen.

She created such a racket in fact, that when we opened the door of the exam room to leave, we found we had company: All the other patients in the clinic (a huge great dane, a tiny chihuahua, and five cats), flustered by QJ's yowls, had gathered together in collective alarm behind the closed door of the room, to investigate what all the yelling was about.

There was a moment of awkward pause while we all stared at each other in embarrassment - two comical dogs, five cats, Dr B, QJ, Delta and me. Suddenly realizing that the examination was over, and that she had an audience, QJ brushed us off with a disdainful shake, and jumped into my arms soshe could be carried out with her head held high.

Nothing, if not a cat to be proud of.

A Winter Wonderland

2010-12-30T11:17:00.000-05:00

We had barely been back in NYC for a week, when the ticker announcement at the bottom of the telly started blaring blizzard warnings at us.
"Wha....?! Seriously? Blizzard already?!"

Apparently, yes.

Delta and I were lucky enough to have nowhere to go, so once we'd made sure that the kitchen was stocked with enough food, soup, hot chocolate and movies to weather a snowstorm with the respect it was due, we had naught to do but rush out and play in the snow.

Everywhere, the world around us was blanketed in deep snowdrifts. A silence presided the city of the type only possible in snowcover.

The city was instantly pristine. The city was instantly transformed. The city was instantly our playground.

Torres del Paine Hiking Circuit, Day 1 (Camp Seron)

2010-12-22T11:50:00.000-05:00

Once Delta and I had set our sights on hiking in Torres del Paine national park in Chile, we quickly realized there wasn't too much literature available either online or in books to help us prepare for what it would really be like. We knew it would be breathtakingly beautiful. We knew it would be windy and cold. We knew it would be the single-handedly most challenging experience we had ever put ourselves to. But other than that, the rest remained for us to find out when we got there.

It isn't an easily accessible park. To get there, we flew from NYC -> Atlanta -> Buenos Aires -> El Calafate (Argentina), followed by a six hour bus ride to the park. So when we finally got there, Delta and I were quite ready to stretch our legs and rid ourselves of the planes, trains and automobiles.

Our plan was to spend 10 days hiking the 90 mile hiking circuit around the park. Donned with our 40-lb backpacks that contained our clothes, food, tent and stove that would take us through the next two weeks, we staggered off the bus bowlegged under the weight of our own packing.

I think the best way to describe our first experience of the park would be to say it wipes the cockiness out of a hiker straight away. As soon as we hit the trail the wind whipped around the corner, slapping us in the face. Gusting at 50 miles an hour, it instantly knocked us off balance and kept pushing us off course. It felt like it was going up my noes and out my ears. Then it started raining on and off, a sideways precipitation that whipped around us from all directions. We tried to pull on ponchos, but they caught the wind like sails and once almost blew me away. Twice, I got knocked over and left by the wayside, gasping for air on my posterior. The wind howled around us, making talking impossible. Twice I yelled, "DELTA!!!" to get his attention. But Delta, just two feet in front of me, was already deaf to my shouts. I squeezed my eyes shut against the wind, and they started tearing like leaky faucets. I wasn't sure if it was the wind, or I was just crying.

Delta and I were shell-shocked. We simply didn't know what had hit us. We had certainly expected inclement weather, but nothing had prepared us for this onslaught. And yet, neither of us thought of turning around. It didn't even occur to us. We simply struggled doggedly on, using our poles to brace ourselves against the wind, determined just to reach the campground, where we could get an evening of respite and gather our senses.

It was about 3-4 hours into the hike before our bodies started adapting (if only slightly) to the environment. Gradually, we got better at maintaining our balance. We learnt how to find ditches where we could shelter from the wind, get a spot of rest, and drink some water. We even got comfortable enough to pause and take in some of our stunning surroundings. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't easy, not at all. And my pack weighed down on me like a ton of bricks. Yet, very slowly, I was getting better at learning how to deal with this situation in which we now found ourselves.

It took us more than six hours to get there, struggling against the wind the entire way. I had just reached the end of my tether and was about to just demand that we set up tent right where we were, when we caught sight of the little refugio far out in the distance. I've never seen a heaven as heavenly as the tiny tin roof of that little shack. My heart soared, and my legs got a new lease on life. Excited despite ourselves, we completed the last mile, located the refugio owner and paid our camping fees.

That evening, we had just enough energy in us to set up tent (blew over twice in the wind before some kindly strangers helped us and we finally managed to stake it down), cook ourselves a quick freeze-dried meal, and crawl bone-tired into our sleeping bags. I wouldn't call our first day enjoyable. Not enjoyable in the least. But we had, despite our unpreparedness, survived it, and I fell asleep with a smile of exhausted elation on my face. That night, both Delta and I slumbered the sleep of dead men for a solid twelve hours.

Taken right after one of the times I was knocked over by the wind.

Torres del Paine Hiking Circuit, Days 2 & 3 (Dickson and Los Perros)

2010-12-21T14:48:00.000-05:00

We woke up on the second morning feeling immeasurably refreshed. The rain and everywhere the world around us was lit up in golden sunlight, instantly lifting our spirits and optimism. Even the seemingly relentless winds had died down, at least for the moment. It was cold - somewhere in the low 40s - but still I stepped into the tiny tin showerstall for a quick cold-water shower. The glacial water was so cold my eyeballs almost jumped spontaneously out of their sockets when it hit my back. It was like a current of electricity re-energizing my entire body, all the way down to my vestigial little toes.

Basking in the sunshine on a little picnic bench by our tent, we each ate our breakfast greedily: hot oatmeal fortified with nuts and dried fruit. I'd honestly never had anything tastier before in my life. Little red-headed birds, tweeting excitedly to eachother and us, hopped about, eager for anything we might drop. All around us, the world seemed to have come to life. Lingeringly, we finished our breakfast, rolled up our tent, and readied our packs. It was time to hit the trail again.

Our second day, from Seron to Dickson, at 12 miles over mountainous terrain, turned out to be our longest day on the hike. The trail followed along a beautiful river for a while, as it wound it's way lazily across the steppes. But then, just as we settled ourselves into a comfortable pace, the trail started rising sharply up a mountain side. Up the mountain face it went, higher and higher, with switchbacks so steep it made you question the value of having switchbacks at all. It was a gruelling hour - but Delta and I steeled ourselves for it and slowly worked our way towards the top, one foot after the other.

As we gained height, the wind had picked up again, and we found ourselves hunching against the wind and keeping our balance by digging our poled into the dirt. Finally, breathless and with trembling legs, we found ourselves at the top of the mountain pass.

We paused to take a couple of pictures, and were just putting the camera back in it's case when we heard a growing roar. It started as a dull roar in the pits of our stomach, but within a matter of a second or two, and grown into a deafening roar filling the space around us. A gust of wind about 60 miles an hour whooshed at us like an oncoming train. We didn't have time to react or even know what it was. Suddenly, we were pushed to the ground with the wind knocked out of us. The trail itself was only two feet wide. On one side, the mountain rose sharply to it's peak, some 300 feet above us. On the other, a sheer drop down the cliff to the river below, still flowing calmly more than a 1000 feet below. And there on the trail, pawns in this nature-comedy, were Delta and I, smashed up against the rocks and entirely at the wind's mercy. As a matter of sheer luck, the wind was blowing up the mountainside, and pushed us upwards against the rockwall rather than down into the valley below.

"DELTA!!!" I screamed in futility. But there was nothing either of us could do. After about ten minutes like this, pressed between the rushing winds and the rock face, we realized that this was no passing gust. Infact, the mountain pass, squeezed as it was between two talk peaks, created a keyhole that served to funnel the winds and strengthen them even further. We had only two options: we could either sit here forever, pinned to the rocks by the wind, or we could force ourselves to struggle on.

So we got onto our hands and knees and started crawling. Inch, by inch. Trying to pretend there was no sheer drop off just to our right. Inch, by inch. Punctuated by an "OWWW!" each time one of us punctured ourselves on the cactus shrubs all around.

It took us half an hour. Half an hour of pushing against the onslaught of wind, ploughing over us like an oncoming train. It wasn't far, but it seemed an eternity. And then, all of a sudden, just as quickly as it had come, the wind was gone. We had rounded a corner in the mountain, and in a matter of seconds, the wind had receded into a dull roar in the distance. Delta and I collapsed against the wall, catching our breaths and regaining our strength.

"I think it's lunch time!" I gasped, and we pulled out a pack of tuna and some crackers and greedily stuffed our mouths.

The rest of our hike that day was uneventful. Very very long, definitely exhausting, but stunningly, excruciatingly, breathtakingly beautiful. In every direction, a different view stretched out before us with a grandeur to behold.

It was coming up on 8pm when we finally saw Camp Dickson. We came up over a ridge and saw the tiny refugio far below us in the distance. Jubilantly, we sauntered down the cliffside to find ourselves a secure spot to set up camp. The refugio was on an exposed, open promontory stretching out onto a large lake, with a huge water body on one side and a glacier on the other. The wind was whipping the trees around, and this time, it carried in it a chill coming right off the glacier.

But this time, we knew what we were doing. We had learned how to stake our tent before we set it up, and how to find a shelter between two trees in which to light our stove. Exhausted though we were, Delta and I smiled at ourselves in pride. Painfully though it be, we were rising to the challenge of the Patagonian way.

Our third day was always intended to be a relatively easy one. It was a six mile walk to through the forests to the next campground, Camp Los Perros. It was a day of "R&R", to prepare ourselves for Day 4, which would be the hardest day of the hike. The dense forests provided a welcome change from the steppes of the day before, warming the air and protecting us from the fierce winds. Delta and I took our time completing the 6-mile walk, pausing frequently to take in the surrounding scenery.

There was a hush of anticipation and adrenaline in the air. Tomorrow, we would attempt the John Gardner pass, easily the toughest point of the hike. An unspoken silence hung above us. To ourselves, each of us wondered the same question: The trail to date, supposedly the "easier" part, had almost killed us. How in the world would we be able to make the pass? But neither of us voiced our concerns. There was no need to. We both knew that no matter what what, we were forging ahead, and were going to make it happen.

Camp Los Perros, when we reached it, was nestled right at the foothills of the mountain we would climb the next day. The weather had changed instantly to mountain weather: there was a damp chill hanging in the air, and Delta and I (along with the 10 other campers there) shivered as we lit our stoves and cooked our dinner. The campground had a three-sided cooking shelter to offer protection against the wind, and all the campers huddled in there together, looking out at the thickening mountain clouds with a mounting nervousness. In hushed tones, everyone shared whatever information t hey had on weather conditions and the pass traversability. But none of us really had any information. The words just masked a deeper tacit, unspoken meaning: that we were a team, we were in it together and we would look out for each other.

Torres del Paine Hiking Circuit, Day 4 (John Gardner Pass and Camp Paso)

2010-12-20T16:05:00.000-05:00

Delta and I woke up early on the 8th, full of anticipation for the challenges of the day ahead. Excitedly, we pulled open our tent screen. And stopped short. Over the night, it had snowed. All around us, the camp was covered in 2-3 inches of snowfall. 2-3 inches doesn't seem so bad itself. But that's 2-3 inches in a campground densely protected by forests. What did that mean for exposed mountain pass above?

Unsure of whether or not we would be able to make our pass traverse today, we headed over to the cooking shelter to speak to the other campers. The refugio owner, who had a radio, which was our only contact to civilization, was trying to get a weather update from the park rangers office. But through the snow and thick cloud cover, the radio just wasn't working. Finally, he gave up and headed over to the eagerly waiting campers.

"Sorry guys," he said in spanish, "I just can't get through. No idea what it's like up there in the mountains. What you could do is just try, and turn around and come back if it's too bad up there."

All of us turned to each other in uncertainty. No one wanted to get caught in a mountain top blizzard. But neither did anyone want to just spend another day here at Perros, waiting restlessly for the weather to clear. Finally, a general consensus emerged. We would attempt tentatively to cross the pass.

By the time Delta and I finished our breakfast, packed up our tent, and were ready to head out, all other campers had already left the camp and we were already running an hour behind.

"Let's hurry, Delta!" I urged, nervous about having to traverse the mountain conditions on our own.

The path rose steeply from the camp, up the thickly forested mountain side. An hour into the hike I was over-heating, and cursing my choice to wear so many layers of clothing. I pulled off my hat and gloves in desperation.

"Put your hat back on," Delta admonished. "If your hair gets wet there's no way to get it dry again." We were both nervous of hypothermia, so I obediently jammed my hat back onto my sweltering head again.

A couple hours into the hike, we suddenly broke out above the forest line onto the bare, exposed, mountain face. Relatively protected by the trees in the forest, we hadn't quite appreciated the extent of the snow. Now on the exposed mountainside, our feet instantly sank knee-deep into the snow. It was snowing heavily and flurries of snow swirled around us, settling everywhere - our hats, shoulder, eyelashes and noses.

Although we were less than an hour behind the previous campers, their trail had already been obfuscated by the wind and snow. The only way for us to to keep track of the trail was to follow the orange trail markers staked periodically into the ground. The snowy air, the snow-covered ground, and the white, cloudy sky all merged into a single backdrop of white, and it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. The snow kept getting heavier and our visibility reduced to less than 40 meters. Sometimes we couldn't even see the next trailmarker, and would have to stop in our tracks and wait for the visibility to clear enough that we could at least find the next stake and determine our direction.

Every year, hikers die losing their way when crossing this pass in stormy weather, and this knowledge was front and center in Delta's mind.

"Do you think we're close to the pass yet?!" I asked Delta.

"We must be," he said reassuringly, "we've been hiking straight uphill for about three hours now."

Good, I was already exhausted.

And just then the trail wound around the corner of the mountain, and for an instant - just an instant - the snow stopped and our visibility cleared. We were staring up the face of the mountain, and as far as the eye could see, the trail just continued up and up and up. Higher and higher, into steep snowy drifts. And in that instance, it hit us. We had barely done a fraction of what we had to do. And the part in front of us was far harder, and the snow far deeper, than anything we had done so far. And then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the snow started again and the curtain on our sight. All we could see again was the next stake, some 40 feet above us.

"Effin ^%##^ freaking crapping *&&%$$ shit!" I muttered.

Delta didn't say anything. My string of profanities had said it all.

We took nervous gulps of water. Ready? I nodded. And we plunged ahead.

Sometimes, the snow was deeper than we had anticipated, and our leg would sink in past the thigh. Sometimes, one of us would set our foot on an unsteady rock that caused us to trip. Sometimes, our feet would land in water, and we'd realize we were talking on a stream flowing below the surface of the snow. Many, many times, I stumbled and face-planted right into the snow, and had to pick myself up and brush the snow off my cheeks and brow.

Our legs turned into lead. Woodenly, we plodded on, higher and higher. When we reached a point where we couldn't move our legs anymore, we'd pause for a few minutes to catch our breath and have some water.

"Delta, I have to pee."

"You're kidding, right."

I shook my head miserably. So there, behind a rock, amongst the snowdrifts in the middle of a blizzard on top of a mountain, I had to go. Definitely the most daring place yet that I've bared my posterior.

Then suddenly, the wind picked up, creating a snow-storm that started below us but was moving up the mountain side toward us. I stared at it, frozen, pointing impotently.

"Come on! We got to move!" Delta barked. And the urgency in his voice snapped me to attention and fired a renewed bout of adrenaline through my body. Somehow, we found the energy to clamber hurriedly to the top.

We turned a corner and found ourselves in a spot that looked somewhat definitely like the mountain pass. There were also two other figures vaguely discernable through the snow stumbling in the other direction towards us.

When we approached them, "are we at the top?!" we asked them, full of hope.

"I don't know," the other man said, "are we at the top?!"

If we were coming from different directions and both of us wondering the same question, then we had to be. Finally, impossibly, we had reached the top of the pass! We smiled at each other in elation, but the high winds and snow made any more indulgent form of conversation impossible. A quick shaking of hands, and we were off, stumbling blindly down the other side of the pass. Whatever happened, we had to get out of the wind and snow.

The rocky layer under the snow was sharp and treacherous. We stumbled often as we clambered down the mountain side. But finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we descended into the tree-line again. Instantly, the snow and wind ceased, and we could pause to catch our breath. We took exhausted gulps of water and quickly scarfed down some tuna and cookies - but a break for more than a few minutes was out of question because we instantly started shivering uncontrollably.

Once in the forest, the descent because unaccountably steep. At parts, there were no switchbacks at all, and the trail simply went straight down the mountain side. The mud was slippery and offered no traction, and incredibly, Delta and I found ourselves actually missing the snow. On several occasions, we lost our footing and slipped down 15-20 feet down the mountainside. Twice, Delta took a complete spill where we actually had to stop and see if he'd broken anything. Partly, the ground had become slippery to the point of impassable.

Partly, our legs had just lost their ability to support themselves any longer. But onward and onward the path went, winding it's way through the forest. And just as we were both at the absolute end of our limits, the path suddenly brushed up against the edge of the cliff, and broke out of the tree-cover. And there before us was a site that simply took our breath away.

We were standing on the edge of one of the largest glaciers in the world, Glacier Grey. There, below us, stretching out till the horizon, were mounds of cracking, churning, growing ice. Glacier Grey, the tip of the Southern Ice Field, dwarfing everything around it by it's enormity and grandeur. And there we were, tiny mere mortals on it's very edge, offered a glimpse into the magic of the scene. We stood there for a long time, just absorbing the beauty of what stood before us. Then gradually, silently, we turned around the proceeded the rest of the way to Camp Paso.

When we reached the camp, the other campers had already arrived, and were anxiously waiting our arrival. It was reassuring for Delta and me that someone had been looking out for us. For Gawd knows we needed looking out for!

All of us were wet, cold, bone tired, bust just happy to be alive. One of the campers had started a fire. Campfires are prohibited in the park for risk of forest fires, but on this wet and snowy night, there was no risk of starting a forest fire. We all toasted our hands and feet by the smoky fire for a couple hours, then headed exhaustedly into our tents to collapsed into a relieved slumber, just grateful to be alive.

Torres del Paine Hiking Circuit, Day 5 (Camp Grey)

2010-12-19T18:01:00.000-05:00

We had been really hoping for some warmth the next morning so we could dry our clothes and warm the chill in our bones, but such is the way with mountain weather that we woke up the next morning to another day of snow.

All the same, there was little that could dampen our moods. We had completed the hardest part of our trek, and after today, we would gradually start entering the slightly more touristy part of the park, commonly referred to as the "W" on account of the shape of the trail.

With no real reason to dilly dally in this tiny, freezing campground, we quickly hit the trail. Today, all along the entire way, the trail followed along Glacier Grey. It afforded us frequent viewpoints and glimpses of the glacier. Dark clouds had gathered ominously across the sky, occasionally burying us in bursts of snow or rain, but for the most part they had the decency to hold off on the intense precipitation. Not that it would have mattered in any case, Delta and I were in a decidedly elated mood.

The face of the glacier was deceptively tall. The icebergs at the edge of the water, the smallest ones, were the size of Manhattan skyscrapers. The entire glacier was alive - from time to time, it emitted murmerings and rumblings that spoke of movement beneath the surface.

One has to be very lucky to actually see a large chunk of ice break off the glacier, and Delta and I had been hoping for a glimpse of this. We waited by the edge of the glacier for a while, watching for any cracks or movements in the ice.

Nothing.

But as soon as we got up and turned to leave, and there was an enormous clap that filled the air, as loud as a clap of thunder in a desert storm. This was followed by a loud, grinding roar, and we rushed instantly back to the glacier, but we had missed it by a second. The iceberg had already fallen into the water. The plunge created large waves that resonated outwards towards the shoreline of the lake. We watched on, stunned.

We waited for a few more minutes, and were just about to head out once more, when it happened again. A loud clap that caused my heart to jump into my mouth, and suddenly a grinding roar as another hunk of ice dislodged itself from the glacier. It was the size of a Manhattan building, plunging into the water below. The waves created were enormous.

Delta and I watched on, our eyes like saucers. We were just grateful to have had a chance to witness any of it at all.

Then silently, filled with awe, we turned in unison and headed further down the path.

When we reached Camp Grey that night, and set up camp, it instantly started raining again. By this point, Delta and I had been wet, cold and shivering for two days straight, and we just couldn't bear the thought of another evening in the rain. So we headed over the refugio and bought ourselves a hot dinner and a bottle of wine.

The refugios only cook one item for each meal, so you don't have menu options. So we just ordered "dinner", whatever it was. When the food came out to us, it was a large steak. Delta turned to me in concern, since I don't eat red meat.

"How are you going to eat?!" he asked.

I turned to him. "What do you mean?!" I was already half way through devouring the steak.

After being starved and cold and hungry for so long, nothing was going to keep me from a hot meal. Not even red meat.

Torres del Paine Hiking Circuit, Days 6 & 7 (Paine Grande)

2010-12-18T18:46:00.000-05:00

Remarkably, we woke up the next morning to sunshine and warmth. Instantly, our spirits soared. The trail took us inland, away from Glacier Grey and into dryer terrain. Spring was in full bloom in the park, and everywhere, the scenes were lush with blossoming trees and blooming flowers.

Almost the entire way, the trail took us along a cliff's edge, bordering the lake that lay below Glacier Grey. When we looked back over our shoulders, we'd get our final glimpses of the glacier glistening behind us.

In front of us, grasslands stretched out once again towards a horizon of snow-peaked mountains. In every direction, the scenery was just stunning.

As we finally approached the campground Paine Grande, we saw that it was situated on the edge of the bright blue Lago Pehoe, that lay nestled in the grasslands like a shining jewel. We instantly knew we'd like this place.

The walk from Camp Grey to Camp Paine Grande should have been a relatively easy one - and yet, Delta and I found ourselves exhausted by the time we reached camp. It dawned on us that the cumulative exhaustion and tension of the past few days was catching up with us, and we needed some rest. Delta's foot and swollen to the worrying size of a pomegranate, and my bunion was none to happy with the state of affairs.

We were two days ahead of schedule in any case, because we'd left buffer days incase of bad weather that we hadn't used yet. So we decided to take a day off and just take things easy. The next day turned out to sunny and bright, and we spent the day lazily lounging about our campsite, focusing on doing nothing at all.

It was the best decision we made all hike, and replenished us with renewed strength and enthusiasm for the rest of the trip.

Torres del Paine Hiking Circuit, Days 8 & 9 (Britannico and Cuernos)

2010-12-17T19:42:00.001-05:00

Delta and I started the following Day feeling rejuvenated from our revered day off. The evening before, with a taste for "civilization", we'd spent the evening at the refugio bar dining over a bottle of wine. As we stumbled back to our tents in the dark that night, we suddenly noticed a streak of brightness across the sky.

"Delta, what is that?!" I'd gasped. "Clouds?!"

Turns out, they were the southern lights (aurora australis). Yes - I finally saw the polar lights I've always wanted to see. Streaking across the sky with it's luminiscent, dazzling beauty. We stood gazing at it for a while, before the wintry chill forced us to shuffle silently into the tent. Two hours later, when I crawled back out for my nightly pee-shesh, they were already gone, as though we'd imagined it all.

So the morning of the 12th, we woke up with rested legs, re-energized, and filled with a joie de vivre brought on by the aurora australis. It was a bright and sunny day, a perfect kind of day to visit the glorious Valle Frances. After two days in the relatively more touristy Paine Grande, we were already raring to lose the crowds and return to the solitude of the more remote regions of the park. So we decided to eschew the larger campgrounds and decide to camp instead at the tiny Camp Britannico right at the top of the mountain.

As soon as we entered the Valle Frances, the trail started climbing steeply up the mountains. There were large stretches of rock scrambles that had us hopping precariously from boulder to boulder. Most people do the Valle trail as a day hike, and as we passed others on the trail, I envied them their lightness of foot for not being lumbered with packs.

But we weren't pressed for time, and could afford frequent breaks to quench our thirsts and absorbe the stunning views.

We had just rounded a corner of the mountainside when suddenly we heard a loud roar that resonated across the valley. We'd barely had a second to look at eachother in fright when we saw the source. A rush of wind coming down the valley had collided with a jutting out section of the mountain and turned into a little tornado. It was less than thirty feet high, but spun all around with a ferocious speed, ricocheting off the walls of the valley, and hurling dust and rocks in all directions.

"GET DOWN!!" Delta screamed, and we both threw ourselves to the ground and covered our heads with our hands just in time to have the little tornado pass over our heads. We lay there like that for a few moments, just catching our breaths, and waiting to see if there was more. But it slowly started to quiet down. From the corner of my eye, I could see the tornado go past us further down the valley, bouncing off the walls leaving a showering of dust and rocks in its wake.

Cautiously, we picked ourselves off the ground, weak with the passage of exhilaration and adrenaline. The world around us had settled down, as though nothing had happened. So there was naught to be done but to continue to pick our way up the valley, ears pricked intently for any sounds of further dangers.

By the time we finally reached the top, it was getting late in the day, and the last rays of sunset lit up the magnificent Cuernos. We stood there, gazing in awe at the breathtaking volcanic mountains, feeling rather diminutive in their imposing presence. The clouds swirled powerfully around the mountain peaks, as a constant reminder of the feral power that surrounded us.

Camp Britannico was a tiny flat ground set in a dense outcropping of woods just below the peaks. Delta and I were the only campers there, everyone else having decided it wasn't worth the effort to lug their backpacks up the mountain. Just like we'd wanted, we had successfully lost the crowds.

So we set up camp under the gaze of the mountain peaks, filled our water in the nearby stream, and lavished in the solitude of the surrounding mountains. It was the most beautiful campsite we'd had on the entire circuit, and here we were, having it all to ourselves. At that moment, right there, I felt like I couldn't ask for anything more in my life. It was just absolutely, quintessentially, perfect.

We got an early start to our day the next morning, and after a fortifying breakfast, we packed up and said a said goodbye to our perfect camp spot. The journey back down the mountain took unsurprisingly far less time than it's upwards counter-part, and by lunchtime we were already back out of the Valle Frances and well on our way to Cuernos.

The hike was a fairly easy one, although it involved a couple rock scrambles that my feet then punished me for later. There were a few small rivers that required fording however, which were probably fairly small streams as a norm but which had doubled in size and force with the meltwater of the previous two hot days. Suddenly, the streams started posing a hurdle to reckon with. A couple times, we had to walk up and down the river for a while, trying to find a suitable crossing points. At other points, we had to just bite our lips in tenacity and rock to rock in a more precarious crossing than we would have otherwise preferred. But all in all, we were lucky enough to get across without incident and relatively unscathed.

As we approached Camp Cuernos, the wind started picking up again and whipped around at a ferocious fifty miles an hour. Several times, we were thrown off balance and had to steady ourselves with our poles to keep from being swept over. The lake right by the campground seemed to have a layer of mist hanging over it, which we soon realised was just a film of water that the wind was whipping up right off the surface of the lake. It moved in waves towards the land in approaching walls of water rushing through the air. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before, as with almost every other phenomenon of nature in the park.

When we went to set up our tent, we noticed several torn ropes and fragments of fabric from previous tents, in instances where the wind had just ripped poles or ropes right off the tent. Quite nervous about losing our tent too to this ferocious gale, we started collecting all the largest boulders we could find. Every available corner or stake in the tent we then bolstered with the largest rocks around. When we were done, we took a step back to sit and admire our art. Here, before us, was the most arduously and securely staked tent you would ever find. And, I'm proud to say, our efforts paid off. Despite all odds, our little two-person tent survived the feral Patagonian night.

Torres del Paine Hiking Circuit, Days 10-12 (the Torres)

2010-12-16T22:08:00.006-05:00

We were now in the final stages of the circuit, our packs were decidedly lighter, and there was something of a jump in our gait. The section of the hike from Cuernos to Camping Las Torres was a relatively easy one, and the terrain being somewhat flat and steady, we were afforded the ability to actually look all around us as we walked, rather than just at our feet. For the last several miles, the trail took us through wind-swept flatlands with a rather barren, desert-like appearance, different from any other part of the park we'd encountered till then. The wind swirled in all directions like a mischievous nymph, whipping dramatic shapes in the cloudy expance of sky all around us. All we had to do was watch in open-mouthed awe, at this celestial theatre orchestrating itself before us.

We camped at Camping Las Torres for the night, close to the entrance of the park, revelling in the hot showers and warm refugio meal to line our starved stomachs. A relatively restful day in the scheme of things, but we had still to climb up to the Torres the next morning. Similar to what we'd done in the Valle Frances, our plan was to carry our backpacks up the mountain and camp at Campamento Torres, right by the peaks, to try and catch a sunrise glimpse of the towers in all their glory.

But the next morning, we woke up to a rainy, stormy day. All around us, the world was enshrouded in heavy, ominous cloud cover that hung low in the mountains. I took a single glance out of my tent that morning, saw the steady downpour, and just crawled right back into my sleeping bag with a heavy sigh. I was tired of the rain. Tired of being wet and cold and shivering. Tired of trying to pack the tent hurriedly while trying to keep it dry in a downpour. So we hunkered down in our sleeping bags for another couple lazy hours, trying to will the rain to go away.

By late morning, it still hadn't stopped, but it had abated significantly, and we decided it was time to get going. Luckily, pretty much as soon as we hit the trail, the rain stopped entirely, making for a far more enjoyable trek. The trail followed a steep incline up the mountain side. Although it had none of the treacherous boulders or rivers of the previous days, it tested our mettle by its dogged consistentcy. It was like walking on a treadmill at a 30% incline. For four hours. With a 30-lb backpack. Yes, enjoyable, really, I promise.

But Delta and I took our time, shuffling slowly up the incline at a leisurely pace. After all, we had nowhere else to be. And from the looks of it, our camp was right at the top of the mountain, enshrouded in the dense, rainy, thunderclouds above us. So we had no real incentive to hurry. Our only constraint was our pride. We would not let little women in their sixties overtake us. If we felt at risk of being overtaken by a kindly old lady motoring up the mountain trail, with tacit unspoken agreement we'd both increase our pace to ward them off. Sometimes, after two weeks without decent meals or shelter, your pride is all you have left. And you can get quite ferocious in how you protect it.

When we reached Camp Chileno, about halfway to our destination, the storm was brewing again, and the wind had started gusting wildly down the ravine. Several times, the trail had taken us around the edge of the mountain with a sharp unprotected drop into the ravine below, and I was none-too-eager to face something like that in steadily strengthening gusts. So we pulled over into the refugio for a cup of coffee and to wait out the storm. We ended up staying there all afternoon, warm and cosy in the refugio as the winds and rain swirled thunderously around us. We pulled out a pack of cards and played gin to keep ourselves entertained, but around 4pm, Delta abruptly stood up.
"We have to get going" he said, and started heading out. He pretended it was because the rain had died, but I have a feeling it had something to do with the way the games had been going in my favour.

Once we got back on the trail, the rest of the hike didn't take us very long, other than an accidental spill I took and twisted my ankle. Sharp pains shot up my leg and I let out an involuntary gasp. I twist my ankle often, but this time it was more serious, and I could feel it. I sat down on the trail for a few minutes, taking my weight off the ankle and feeling it's tenderness. After a few minutes, the worst of the pain had subsided, and we continued onwards. There's naught else to be done but motor on, really, when you're almost all the way up a mountain.

We camped there in the wooded campsite that night, and headed in early. We had a 4am start the next morning to try and reach the peaks by sunrise. When our alarm went off the next morning, it was still dark outside. Worse, we could hear the soft patter of snow on the roof of our tent. It was not going to be a clear morning, as we'd hoped. We weren't even sure if we'd see any sunrise light at all. It was so, so tempting to just go back to sleep. But we'd come all this way, and we were going to do the sunrise hike the peaks, whether we liked it or not.

Grudgingly, we hauled ourselves out of the warmth of our sleeping bags, pulled on our jackets and headlamps, and started scrambling up the steep rock face towards the peak. Little reflectors stuck to rocks from time to time guided our way up the mountain in the dark. This last part of the hike was steep and took us almost an hour to get to the top. But when we finally emerged, the timing was just perfect. The sun was just rising, and the sky was filled with the faint glow of pink.

In the end, the clouds didn't lift. When we got to the top, we could barely see the Torres at all. At first, I was crushingly disappointed. I'd had my heart set on a stricking sunrise picture of the Torres. But it soon dawned on me, somehow, that after everything we'd been through, everything we'd seen, it actually really didn't matter at all.

In it's own way, enshrouded in snow as we were, it was a beauty in it's own right. All around us were mountain peaks, covered in a soft dusting of snow. A beautiful, complete silence resonated across the peaks and valleys around us. We, too, were silenced - by our awe, of the breathtaking beauty around us.

It was bitingly cold, and we stayed up there by the Torres as long as we could bear. But it soon became clear that the clouds were not going to lift, and we decided to head back down the trail to the bottom. As always, the way down was significantly faster, and it was barely an hour before we were by Camp Chileno again. I paused to take a picture of the lovely refugio, nestled there in it's little valley.

When we reached Camping Las Torres again at the foot of the mountains, we set up our tent for the last time. We could hardly believe it, but we were done. We'd finished the entire circuit, and here we were, with a whole day to spare. All we needed to do was wait for our bus the next afternoon - and what a lovely place to pass a leisurely day.

All we wanted to do was rest. We crawled into our tents for a lazy nap that afternoon, to be followed by a leisurely dinner over a bottle of wine later that evening.

My twisted ankle was the size of a melon, but none of it seemed to matter. The relief was tangible. We were done. No more hiking, no more taking apart and setting up the tent, no more cold showers in glacial water. Now, it was just time to rest and feed. And that's exactly what we did, for a day. Just rest, and feed.

The afternoon of the 16th arrived far too quickly, just as we were settling into our life of leisure. All of a sudden, it was time for us to pack up for the last time, and to take our leave. Images of everything we'd seen were still raw in my memory, and flashed through my mind in rapid, unsequential, bursts.

As much as I craved the comfort of a real bed (and pizza!), I felt my heart sink at the thought of leaving the park. It truly is a magical place, pristine in its perfection, majestic in it's splendour. As we boarded the bus that would take us back to El Calafate, we turned back to the park to get one last glance, to capture one last memory, just for ourselves.

After almost a year of planning, our Torres del Paine adventure was over at last.

It's time

2010-12-02T11:08:00.000-05:00

After two months of silence and restraint, it's time to break out the blog again.

It's time to interlock my fingers (aka typing weapons) and give them a good stretch; it's time to shake the cobwebs from my literary mind.

"Why da two months of silence, yo", I hear you ask. If truth be told, the answer is neither riveting nor in the least amusing. It's just work, plain and simple. As an HR bod, the end-of year processes are to me what February must be to an accountant. To put it plainly, it sucks. To put it more articulately, it's a moratorium on life.

And so, now, we find ourselves at the end of the year, with a bit of time on our hands and a fair share of making up to do. Don't worry - I won't talk about all those hours of work.

Having shaken off the last chains of my occupational bondage, Delta and I are about to head out for a three week hiking vacation in Patagonia, where we'll test our mettle against the elements. Finally, with exciting times facing us ahead, there' something to blog about again. It's time.

Welcome Baby G

2010-10-18T09:17:00.003-04:00

Dear Baby G,

Welcome to our world! It ain't the most glorious, and I wish Second Ave wasn't under construction, but all in all it's not too bad a place to be.

You should know, you surprised us all with your early arrival. Just this past Friday, when we met Mommy and Daddy for dinner, all was still well and normal. Your starting line was still 3 weeks away, and Mommy was still walking around with a bit of a waddle, fondly stroking you in her round little belly as we meandered down the street for icecream after dinner.

And then, all of a sudden, the the characteristic way that babies have of deciding their birthdays for themselves, there you were, when we all least expected it!

Mommy and Daddy are of course, over the moon. And Delta and I are besides ourselves with excitement too. We're going to be your cool aunt and uncle around the corner, it's going to all be a boatload of fun. We've already found the little place we want to take you for painting pottery once you've had a couple years under your belt. And all sorts of other fun stuff, just you see, little fella.

Well, go catch a nap, li'l kiddo, and we'll see you this evening. We can hardly wait!

Love and hugs,
Ficali and Delta

Exhausted, but jubilant

2010-10-17T19:27:00.005-04:00

Delta and I had planned on going camping up in the Catskills in early October to catch the initial glimpses of autumn colours. We'd been hoping to persuade some of our friends to come with us, so were particularly enthused when Davis, Simone and the Vish decided to join the bandwagon as well.

I'd never gone camping in the fall chill before, so wasn't quite sure what to expect. But it was simply perfect. The trees were positively jostling eachother for their turns to display their resplendent, fiery foliage. The weather blessed us with bright sunshine, and the lingering chill in the air only made us appreciate the blazing fire that much more.

I'd had my heart set on climbing a steep trail we'd never undertaken before, and luckily everyone else seemed pretty happy to comply. But none of us, me included, expected quite the task we had undertaken. Up, and up, and up we went, until several hours into the hike, we finally burst through to the top, and sat at the cliff edge, munching our sandwiches and gazing down in awe at the vast expanse of the autumnal Hudson valley before us.

And then, as Newton pointed out of all things that go up, it was time to go down. Painstakingly, knee-crunchingly, anke-twistingly, unalteringly, down. I must confess, my knees would have been rather more impressed with me if I'd had the ol' preemptive alleve. But all the same, we all made it to the bottom in the end, just in time for the setting sun. Just in time for a quick shower, getting the fire alight, and a glass of wine.

Exhausted, but jubilant. No better feeling in the world.

Help, please

2010-10-05T21:41:00.000-04:00

Dear Gawd,

This year, you've presented me with an impossible conundrum.

The truth is, even if I hate to say it myself, you gave me the looks of a cherub. I have Ficali and Delta wrapped around my finger, just like you taught me. Every time I'm a bit bored, all I have to do is lie on my back and profer my belly, and both Ficali and Delta rush over to pet me. When I want to be picked up cuddled, I just rub myself against their legs, and they can't help but oblige. It's not their fault, that's just how cute I am.

But did you have to also make Ficali allergic to cats? Does she have to sneeze everytime she picks me up? It really is rather disconcerting. Yesterday evening, she spent a cumulative 4 hours just racked by a series of sneezes and nose-blowing antics. Really, quite the buzzkill when all I want is a quick cuddle and a snooze. This whole allergy business is quite cramping my style.

So, Gawd, I'm asking you to help. Can you please get rid of Ficali's allergies, they are intruding upon my life of pettings and hugs, a life I believe I'm entitled to.

Thank you, and sincerely awaiting your response.
Anxiously,
Queen Jaffa

Pedalling for a cause

2010-10-04T21:17:00.002-04:00

Oh, crikey. Delta and I left our home at 6.30 am this Sunday for the MS Bike Ride, and it hit us like a crashing mass of icycles that all of a sudden, winter has arrived.

Without fair warning or the necessary preamble we fondly term autumn, Winter just decided to pay us a visit of it's own volition. Delta and I, shivering uncontrollably as we waited for the ride to start, found ourselves woefully unprepared for this icy onslaught.

Rather unfair, need I mention?

In any case, once the ride started, I pedalled with unrivaled furiosity just to warm up the ol' corpus sanctum. Inevitably of course, all the crazy pedalling came to naught because of a mischievously gusty head wind that kept the entire crowd treading in place for large parts of the ride. Rather comic, when you think about it. Less so when you're actually the poor sod freezing your butt off.

But all the same, as in every year, we did make it to the end in good time after all, and our first thought on making it was, "oh, that wasn't that bad after all!". So to those of you who supported us by donating towards fighting multiple sclerosis - thank you. We're proud to do this every year, and couldn't do it without you.

Autumn summons our biking limits

2010-10-02T10:46:00.005-04:00

Every year, Delta and I participate in an arduous, hilly, soul-bludgeoning, day-long bike ride in the Jersey Higlands. I have no explanation for why we do this, other than our own gluttony for punishment. For I cant, in good conscience, call four hours of uphill biking "enjoyable".

And yet, it's one of our most looked-forward to events all year. This year, just like previous years, I almost started crying right at Mile 50. I was gazing up at (yet) another long uphill looming in front of me, and my legs started screaming out, help, get us away from this crazy woman! But we lumbered on, Delta, my mutinous legs, and me. Up, and up, and up. Crying and swearing under my breath the entire way.

But eventually, just like every year, we made it. Suddenly, just as we reached the end of our tether, we turned the corner, and there we were, right at the finish line. Instantly, we were filled with an incomparable euphoria, mingled with relief, and a sort of pride at what we'd achieved. It wasn't quite solving cancer or world peace, but we'd pushed ourselves to our limits, and there's always something to be said for that.

The bike ride was, of course, inevitably followed by a lot of sitting around on the couch with our feet up on the coffee table. An exercise not to be scoffed at in its own right. But not for long: for tomorrow, we embark again on another bike ride, this time fifty miles around NYC. This time, to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis (it's not too late to donate).

Again, I have no doubt it'll be a day of panting and puffing and swearing and gruffing. But I wouldn't have it any other way. For autumn is our time for pushing our biking limits.

Got kayaking out of my system, thank you

2010-09-25T19:51:00.017-04:00

For several years now, I'd had my mind set on going kayaking. "Let's go kayaking up in the Boundary Waters!" I'd tell Delta. Or "let's go kayaking up in the Adirondacks!". So when we finally went to visit Rohinton and Jeet in Bermuda a couple weeks ago, I was determined to not let this kayaking opportunity slip through my fingers.

That Saturday in Bermuda dawned on a beautiful day, golden skies stretching generously over bright blue seas. "Let's go kayaking, let's go kayaking!" I insisted, until Rohinton drove us down to a little cove where we could rent kayaks. Once we'd gotten in, Rohinton pointed out to a little distant island on the horizon.

"Let's go out there, there's a small deserted beach on the back that we can lounge at for a while, before we start paddling back." It looked idyllic. The sea was smooth and a bright turquoise, a cool breeze gently caressed at our backs as we started paddling towards the island, barely a dot in the distance. I couldn't think of a more perfect way to spend a day. This was exactly what my kayaking dream had looked like.

The paddling seemed fairly easy going, and before too long, we were half way across the bay already. But then all of a sudden, just when we were about half way across the bay, a freak storm started blowing in. The sky suddenly darkened, blotted out by rolling thunderclouds. The sea suddenly jolted out of it's pristine blue calm, and large, rough waves started battering against our kayaks. The currents picked up, pushing us in the wrong direction: away from home, away from the island.

Rough waves rocked our kayaks dangerously. I cast around for nearby land, but in any direction, it seemed very very far away. I started panicking. All those years I'd been whinging and whining about going kayaking, I'd never really intended to die this way. Delta, seeing us start to panic, shouted loudly over the wind and waves. "Just keep low and keep paddling! Head towards the island, hopefully we'll find shelter there!"

It seemed an impossible task. The rough waves, the gusty wind, the darkening sky and murky ocean all seemed to be closing in on us. My adrenaline was pumping and hearth pounding, as each wave brought with it the renewed possibility of capsize. But we kept our eyes on the little island, kept our mouths closed against the waves crashing on our faces, and just kept paddling doggedly on. Our kayaks swayed and were pushed off course, but eventually, in a roundabout manner like a drunken swagger, we eventually drew close to the island.

"Let's paddle past that outcrop of rocks," Delta shouted, "and we'll be able to shelter from the current there!"

We paddled around the rocks, and huddling in the shelter of the outcrop, and spent a moment gathering ourselves and just marveling in our survival. Now here, clinging to the rocks for safety, we knew we could shelter until the storm blew over. For the first time since the storm started, we knew we'd be safe.

With nothing to do but wait for the storm to pass, we pulled our kayaks onto the rocks, and dove into the ocean for a swim. The waves were still high, but sheltered here in this little cove, it didn't seem dangerous anymore. And so there we stayed, playing in the relatively shallow water of the ocean cove, revelling in our safety and alive-ness, until eventually, about an hour later, the storm finally blew over. Instantly, just as suddenly as they had arrived, the thunderclouds blew swiftly past. The sky cleared up, the waves flattened out, and the ocean returned once again to it's characteristic turquoise shine.

It was almost as though we had imagined the whole thing, as though perhaps nothing had happened all morning. But as we got back into our kayaks to start the journey back home, we felt the strong currents still pushing our kayaks back, and it brought home how real the whole thing had been. Have you ever tried kayaking against a current? Needless to say, there was a lot of treading water without much actual progress. A seemingly endless treadmill of water. And everytime I paused to rest, the current would push my kayak back 15 feet again.

"Keep paddling!" Delta would urge encouragingly. But that's easier said when you don't have toothpicks for arms, mister. Still - there was no choice but to keep persevering, futile though it seemed. And finally - finally - we drew close to home again, and I gazed at the approaching shoreline with a mixture of exhaustion, gratitude and relief.

Needless to say, spectacular though it was, and grateful though I am for the day, I've got kayaking sufficiently out of my system for now, thank you.

Bladderly Disinclined

2010-09-18T10:29:00.004-04:00

Dear Delta sent me the following picture, courtesy of the Huffington Post.

He sent it to me right in the middle of a serious promotion meeting, and let me tell you, an image like this does nothing to help the straight-faced demeanour I like to portray at work.

All the same, the least I could do was share it with everyone else similarly bladderly disinclined.

A perfect Acadia escape

2010-09-03T18:55:00.009-04:00

Last weekend, Delta and I took a couple days off and drove down up to Maine. It had long been on my list of things to do to go see the famous Acadia. It was a long drive, and I was Chief Navigator, a role that comes rather effortlessly to me because the vast American countryside offers long stretches of snoozable time.

Maine itself is gorgeous. And Acadia specifically even more so. As it turned out, our campground was ideally situated in prime hiking territory, and afforded us easy access to all the trails.

I learn efficient showering: There were public hot showers nearby, allowing us 4 minutes of shower time for $2 worth of quarters.
"Four minutes isn't a lot," one of the women cautioned me kindly, "so plan your washing strategy before you go in." I don't do well under such kind of pressure, and she brought out in me a mild sense of panic. So when I jumped in the shower, I immediately launched into a frenzied series of movements, hair - soap - shampoo - knees - ears - ankles - face, scrubbing away and forgetting even to breathe, and then I realised I'd done everything in about 45 seconds. The second day, I got a bit better at pacing myself, and realised a 4 minute shower is absolutely fine after all.

A renewed faith in humanity: There were firewood stands every mile or so along the road. Each one had a little sign above piles of firewood: $2.50 per bundle.
"There's so many of these firewood stands," I asked Delta, "but are they all closed? I don't see anyone manning any of them!".
So we approached one of the stands, and incredibly, it turns out they're not manned at all. Just a little tin box next to the stand, where you're supposed to put your money as you help yourself to firewood. A real, true, trust system. I gawked at Delta - I'd never seen anything like this.
"Do you think people really put money in there?!" I asked incredulously, ever the city person. I couldn't believe that people could actually be trusted to put money there if they weren't monitored.
But as we picked up the tin to put our own $5 in, we noticed it was absolutely crammed full with everyone's money - we could barely fit ours in. It renewed my faith in peoples again.

I have to confess, in the run-up to our trip, I had worked myself up to the level of disproportionate excitement where the reality could only disappoint.

And yet, incredibly, it didn't.

A mini-reunion

2010-09-03T09:55:00.005-04:00

It's time to dust off the cobwebs, and reopen this pandora's box of jumbled anecdotes.

It's been a crazy month. Delta and I have been away every weekend, indulging in little forays outside the bustling anthill of our city.

A couple weeks ago, we went to Milwaukee to have a little reunion with our family. Not everyone could be there unfortunately, but we still got to meet my aunt and uncle, Rohinton and Jeet, my cousins, their spouses and their kinder. All in all, enough people to cause the commotion that any self-respecting family reunion should have.

Every time I rounded a corner, I was accosted by a whirlwind of chaos.
"Mum, where's my markers!!"
"What's the sleeping arrangements tonight, who's sleeping where?!"
"What's to eat, I'm hungry!"
"Where's my towel gone?!!"
And every once in a while, it was the more inarticulate "WAAAAAAAHHH!!"

It was the quintessential confluence of chaos to make for a fun reunion. We ate (lots), we played tennis, we swam. It was perfect, simply perfect. I hope we do it again next year!

Before the downhill, there was a peak

2010-08-06T21:17:00.003-04:00

Luckily, before I launched a personal assault on my feet, Delta and I snuck off with a few friends for a weekend of camping in the Catskills. Unbelievably, it didn't rain. Infact, though I'm hesitant to say it out loud, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

A long, golden day hiking in the mountains, two lovely evenings sipping wine by a campfire, and bowlfuls of Delta's famous chilli. Absolutely perfect.

My feet must hate me

2010-08-05T20:03:00.004-04:00

My feet have been through a bit of an emotional roller coaster this week, the poor chicas.

It all started last weekend, when Delta and I decided to head to Paragon to pick up a new pair of hiking boots. Nothing wrong with the ones I currently own, of course, except they just aren't cut out for the heavy backpacking thing, so I have to take it up a notch. And let's face it, the truth is we just love getting sucked into the heaven which is Paragon.

So I tried on a few pairs, but none of them felt right. They just all seemed a little bit narrow. Are hiking boots getting narrower?! So I asked the sales guy. "What's up with these boots, I swear I'm a size 6 but they don't seem to fit?!"
He glanced at my foot. "Oh! With a bunion like that, you're going to need Wide boots. I'll go get you some."
"Oh, ok, show me what you -
- Wait a minute. BUNION???"
He squirmed.
"I mean, erm, bump," he said softly.
I looked at him stonily till he bowed off to get the wide boots.
I turned to Delta in horror.
"I have a bunion??! And what the hell is a bunion anyway?!" It sounded like a disease. Like a third arm or fifteenth finger - just something that I definitely didn't want.

Delta looked down at my foot.
"Well, there is something crooked about your big toe," he said sheepishly.
That was it. The nail in my coffin. I had a bunion on my foot, whatever it was, and I had to get rid of it at all cost.

So I rushed home (with wide hiking boots), and immersed myself in a feverish bout of googling. Bunions. Bunion cures. Bunion treatments. Bunion surgery. And I found out everything there is to know about this evil infliction. And I saw pictures (damn you, google images) that quite convinced me I had to do an emergency correction to my anatomy.

The next morning, I rushed to the local pharmacy, and stocked myself with every kind of bunion-combatting accessory they had, and assaulted my poor foot in an assortment of toe separating devices. I splayed my toes in a way that would make a duck envious.

"Buy shoes with substantial arch support," every website had read. So I rushed to the shoe stores and equipped myself with three new pairs of shoes. All of them had arch support. But the first pair, on the first day, inflicted upon me a plague of blisters.

So yesterday, my feet which had been perfectly fine till that fateful day in Paragon a week ago, now limped home with separated toes and stinging blisters.

Blisters which, by the way, Delta had to burst this afternoon with a needle heated on our gas flame. Yes, I was horrified. I thought I might almost pass out from the concept, but as it turned out, I couldn't feel a thing. I guess they aren't as sensitive as, say, the eyeballs or something.

All the same, covered as they are in bandaids today, my heart goes out to their little feelings. It might be a while yet before they forgive me.

Hitting a milestone

2010-07-22T15:30:00.003-04:00

Last weekend, despite all my efforts to the contrary, I was dragged kicking and fighting into the decade of the thirties.

I have to say, given how frequently it's referred to as such a milestone event, I was rather expecting a bit more, well, oomff. But in the end the darned day snuck up on me in a somewhat anti-climactic manner, squeezing itself almost unnoticed between an afternoon of tennis and a day of telly-watching. The Vish made a comment about my multiplying grey hairs, and I retorted with a comment about his belly (because that is exactly how low I would stoop), but other than that, growing older turned out to be somewhat of a non-event.

We did make it down to our new favoured bar in the East Village, however, so I could prove to everyone that this ol' geriatric can still down a glass of wine or two.

Pork chops, please

2010-07-11T19:09:00.004-04:00

Dear Spain,

This morning, as in every morning, they brought two boxes of food into my tank and asked me to choose one for lunch. One had the Netherlands flag on it, and the other had Spain.

All year, I've been listening to people talking about Spain and the PIGS, and instantly assumed the Spain box would hold some delicious roast pork. What else could they have been possibly talking about?! Or maybe there'd even be some pork chops or bratwurst. I smacked my lips greedily and rushed over and opened the box with the Spain flag. But it was just the normal food I get everyday! I felt so cheated. What a waste.

But apparently my choice helped you win the World Cup. So some good came of it somewhere. Congratulations, I'm glad to have been of help.

Best,
Paul the Octopus

p.s. - please don't let Germany make calamari out of me.

For those of you who need some context to understand what this is about.

Just like Tuscany

2010-07-10T15:16:00.007-04:00

Last weekend, Delta and I headed to Rochester to spend time with the fam. It was a warm and sunny weekend, a pleasant change from our previous wintry trips up north. It was lovely as ever to see his mum, sis and her hubby again.

We headed over to the local Wegmans, where I got to wheel around a cart the size of truck through huge suburban food aisles with fifty types of toilet paper. We waded through unending aisles of food, with me randomly reaching out and pulling things into the cart in my excitement. And we headed home and built ourselves one of the largest lunches I've ever eaten. As Delta heated up the barbecue, the rest of us set up everything outside in the backyard.

As we poured ourselves glasses of wine and settled into our leisurely lunch, the sun dappled lazily through the trees, gently touching everything with a golden caress.

"It's just like Tuscany!" I exclaimed happily, taking a picture of everyone at the table.
And then I paused, and reached over to move the little bowl of mac 'n' cheese out of the view of the picture. "Now let's try that again. Yep. Just like Tuscany."

Just for jury duty

2010-07-10T13:52:00.005-04:00

A week ago, the timing oddly appropriate just before US Independence Day, I went over to City Hall and finally got my US Citizenship.

After the year-long process of getting my background check, my eyeballs scanned and my fingers printed, I had approached the appointment like any administrative process, just like getting my drivers license from the DMV. But as it turns out, I had vastly underestimated the capacity for American sentimentalism. In fact, everyone involved in the 'swearing in ceremony', from the judge and clerks to the security personnel, took pains to make the event as meaningful as possible.

The morning I got my citizenship, some two hundred other aspirings were also in the hall with me, receiving theirs. I glanced around the room in awe. It represents people from countries and continents all over the world. Everyone had come with excited families and friends in support. Likewise for me, Delta had accompanied me cheerily, sitting in the back of the room, where I could turn around and give him a small excited wave from time to time.

The ceremony itself was brief, but meaningful. After a short talk about the values of citizenship, the judge handed us each our "naturalization certificates", and off we could go. As soon as I got mine, Delta and I hugged eachother in glee, and scuttled off to find an American flag to use as a backdrop for the stereotypical photo.

Finally! After all the waiting, and all the bureaucracy, the day had finally arrived. I applied for my passport straight away. After all, the flexibility to travel was a driving reason behind my application in the first place.

Well, travel and, erm, jury duty, of course.

A non-Rainier weekend

2010-06-27T21:03:00.005-04:00

I mentioned a few days ago how I was so disproportionally, disingenuously excited about hiking on Mt Rainier. I showed a picture (courtesy of bing images) of the glorious views I fully expected to greet us.

I failed to take into account, however, as I inevitably always do when I travel to Seattle, that it might rain. That it might downpour steadily, unremorsefully, all day. And that, dear folks, pretty much sums up our Lewis and Clark escapade in the Cascades. It would have all been a lost and futile weekend, had it not been for the cos and her lovely fam.

Super troopers that they are, they decided to join us for the first night of camping down in Longmire, little critter in tow and all. I could barely believe it, but there he was, their little baby, barely a year old, still proudly displaying the dimples in his knees and elbows. And already learning the joys of camping. After a cosy evening warming ourselves around the campfire (my Cos' hubby made curry, and not the freeze-dried kind nuther!), we retired early to our tents, in preparation for the long day of hiking ahead of us.

Delta and I woke early the next morning, but the rain had already got a head start on us. Sipping our steaming mugs of coffee silently, each of us hoped it was just a passing shower typical of the Seattle area. Despite the Cos' exhortations to abandon our hiking plans and return back home with them, we decided to press on. After all, we'd come all the way from New York for this very experience, and here we were on Mt Rainier. We were hardly going to give up at the very onset.

And so we set off, up the mountain. Thirty pounds on the back. Rain, rain, rain. Up, up, up. Pretty soon, the friendly drizzle had turned into an outright deluge, and everything we had with us, including our spirits and souls, were soaked through. Finally, some three hours into the hike, we reached a point when I started shivering uncontrollably, and Delta brought us to a stop.

"We have to turn around," he told me firmly, "we'll die of hypothermia here in the mountains otherwise."

And just as we'd made the decision to turn around, we came upon a forest ranger. "I'm just advising everyone to turn around and leave the mountain," she told us, "there's some pretty large thunderstorms rolling in that could be dangerous."

And that, right there, was the end of our Mt Rainier non-adventure. Soaked through and shivering, miserable and unaccomplished, and without yet so much as a glimpse of the mountain itself. Inevitably, I was disappointed and disheartened as we stomped our way back down the mountain.

But just there at the entrance of the park, we pulled over into a little cafe and had some homemade hot chocolate - and, well, it's remarkable how little it sometimes takes to make things feel all better again.

It might have been a failure mission all around, except that we headed back to the Cos' house in Seattle, to be greeted by a smiling family, hot showers, and a warm hearth. :Make yourself at home," her hubby said after we'd laughingly related our tale, "and we'll order in some thai food for din." Nothing like some nosh to heal the soul.

And so we got to spend the entire weekend with my Cos and her family. And really see how much their little son had grown. How he was about to utter his first words, and walk his first steps. Watched him grip our fingers in his little hands, giggling and babbling in excitement. Crawling speedily behind the dog and cat.

All in all, a wonderful weekend. Far better than a weekend on Rainer after all.

I'm in love

2010-06-15T18:20:00.003-04:00

with Amex.

They charge a hefty fee each year, and of course I grumble when it's deducted each year - but you know what that fee is? It's dumbness insurance. For all the times you bought something you shoudln't have or gave your number to someone you shouldn't have or lost the card and just need someone's shoulder to cry on. The fee guarantees you a real person at the end of the phone who will extend a sympathetic ear and try and help.

And really - what more could I ask for.

I've had my Delta Amex card since the beginning of 2007. So, let's see... that's about 3.5 years. And just today, today, I thought to check my card and make sure that my Delta number was listed correctly on the card. And it wasn't! I had the wrong Delta number linked to my Amex.

Which might sound petty to most of you. But it means that all this time, for the past 3.5 years, that I've been spending freely on my Amex and thinking I was stacking the miles - someone else was earning them all the time.

So I called the friendly voice at the Amex helpline, and explained my quandary.
"That's ok, we'll update your Delta number right now so that you start earning miles to your correct membership right away," the rep told me cheerily.
She made it a point not to say what I'm sure she was thinking (it took 3.5 years for you to figure this out, lady?), and for this, I was grateful.

So I thanked her for her help, and was about to hang up the phone and resign myself to starting earning miles from scratch, when suddenly she added:
"By the way, just so you know, you've earned over 72,000 miles over the past three years. We'll transfer those over too."
I was stunned. Really? Three years of my error, and Amex was going to make it right by me? And as you know, I have no sophistication in such situations. I don't even dream of aspiring to have sophistication. So I blurted out:
"Really? Three years of my error, and you'll still transfer the points over?"
The rep laughed. "Yes, Ms McDelta, we'll still transfer the points over, no problem."

She didn't say what I'm sure she was thinking (that's what you pay that hefty annual fee for, lady), and for that, I'm also grateful.

Infact, I'm just grateful all around.

A personalised note

2010-06-15T10:27:00.006-04:00

Each week before leaving on a flight, Delta leaves me a little note to find when I return home from work. "Miss you!", "Have a great week!" some little spousal quip of the sort. And he signs off each note with a little smiley. It's a loving gesture and a cherished part of our routine. I guess I hadn't quite appreciated the amount of self-personalization that actually went into the note, particularly into the smiley. Until a few weeks ago, Delta picked himself up a pair of cheaters at the local pharmacy, to help with night time reading. It's a big transition, the day you find out you need glasses, if you've never needed them before your entire life.

I hadn't quite appreciated the enormity of the moment, I guess. But it must have traumatised him senseless. Because nowadays, I've noticed that each note is being signed off with:

A stroll in the hills

2010-06-14T22:48:00.003-04:00

I am absolutely positively beside myself with excitement.

Since I was supposed to go to Seattle for work this week, and since we couldn't make it to Bermuda this weekend (see aforementioned citizenship saga), we decided that Delta would come join me on the West coast instead this weekend and we would dapple in a bit of West coast hiking. Maybe even see ourselves some bears.

So I called my Cos in Seattle this afternoon to tell her about our plans, and somehow managed to convince her to join in for our little camping foray as well! So there you have it - this Friday will find a rather motley crew - Delta, my Cos, her Hubby, their Cherub, Hubby's Mum, their Dog, and me - all pitching tent (and opening a bottle or two of wine) at the base of Mt Rainier.
As much as I would love for a leisurely weekend of wilderness lethargy, our plans have transpired into a rather more active story. Early Saturday morning, Delta and I will set forth on the Wonderland Trail, which encircles Mt Rainier. Here's more or less how it'll go. We'll stagger ten miles along the trail, up and down the mountainside, munching trail mix along the way. We'll try desperately hard not to get eaten by bears or cougars, but no promises there, it might well be out of our control. We'll exhaustedly set up camp at dusk, cook ourselves a meager meal of noodles, comment on how noodles have never tasted better in our lives, and crash into a dead person's sleep. Only to wake up early on Sunday morning and repeat the routine again.

That, my friends, alarming as it might sound, is exactly why I am beside myself with excitement right now.

In our own backyard

2010-06-13T11:51:00.005-04:00

We have spent a silly amount of money and time trying to appease Queen Jaffa with ridiculous cat toys - all kinds of scratching boards and plastic mice with randomly protruding feathers. All kinds of sparkling strings and rattles and widgets on wheels that scuttle across the floor. The only thing consistent in the whole process of courting QJ's attentions has been her disdainful boredom and our escalating desperation.

Then a few days ago, Delta crumpled a waste sheet of paper into a ball and threw it towards the bin, when QJ's head suddenly perked up. Crouching low and tensing her entire body, she pounced on the ball as though it were a mortal enemy. Amused, we tried to kick the ball away, but QJ was having none of it. She chased and bounded and pounced and clawed - all of a sudden, she had adopted the paper ball as her much-quested toy.

So we tied the balled paper to a piece of drawstring pulled out from Delta's boardshorts, and there you had it, the perfect cat toy. Through no effort or credit of our own, QJ had found for herself her own little enemy to stalk, pounce and play with.

And seriously, play with it she does, in much of her waking hours. Who woulda thunk a little ball of paper would have done the trick. They never told me that in the pet stores, that's for sure.

The World Cup positiveness

2010-06-12T15:34:00.005-04:00

I love the World Cup. I love the idea of an event that brings the world together in a microcosm of positive, healty competitiveness. Just like the Olympics.

But other than admiring the overarching notion of grandeur it entails, I find the actual act of taking a more participative role in the World Cup rather tedious. Because let's face it, soccer is just a little bit boring to watch. The most redeeming feature by far is how each player has four shadows, which makes for a some quite distractingly pleasing on-screen graphics.

But I'll be darned if I can tolerate those freakin' trumpets for more than a few minutes before it drives me batty.

Nope. It took about five minutes of watching the US-UK game to get over my feeling of worldly goodwill, and urge Delta to change the channel back. It's true beauty lies in admiring from afar.

A recap month

2010-06-12T14:11:00.003-04:00

A month has gone me by, a dormant time on the blog. The sun has shone, the sky has blued, and the world outside has beckoned. It's been an active month in the McDelta household - a month brimming with biking, hiking and tennis. A lot has transpired during this blogatorium, and it seems almost remiss to relegate each memory to a mere line or two. But there you go, such is the nature of the catch-up post following a dormant month on the blog.

Much to our excitement, Delta and I finally procured ourselves our tennis permits for the summer. In a seemingly ridiculous move, tennis permits in the city are available at only two locations - Paragon Sports, and Central Park. And yet, despite how regularly we frequent each, it seems even more ludicrous but it still took us two months to get around to actually procuring our own permits for the summer. But finally, here we are, permits in hand. A whole summer of potential has opened itself before us, and excitement abounds.

And just as our action meter kicked it up a notch, Rohinton and Jeet came to visit last weekend. It was lovely as ever to see them and hear about how happily they had settled into their new home in Bermuda. Delta and I had been hoping to visit them in Bermuda in a couple weeks, but as it turned out, the whole US Citizenship thing has taken longer than I'd anticipated, and I won't have my papers in time. Perhaps August or September now.

Speaking of my US Citizenship, I didn't hear from the USCIS in the longest time after my interview. For the first few weeks, it seemed normal. In about the fourth week, a nagging doubt arose in my mind. What if I hadn't passed that interview at all? What if they had forgotten to update my status in the administrative systems? What if their letter had gotten lost in the mail? And then one of my colleagues told me a story she had read in her local newspaper about a mail man who had been arrested for hoarding bags of undelivered mail for twenty years. And the nagging doubt in the back of my mind instantly flared into outright panic. What if my letter was being hoarded in a mailman's house even right now? When I entered the fifth week of my waiting period, I could take it no longer, and I called the USCIS. After about ten minutes of combating the phone system, ("press 1 for..., press 6 for..."), I reached a recorded message telling me that I should not call unless my letter was delayed by at least eight weeks. So I hung up in discouragement, I still had three more weeks of waiting to go before the USCIS would listen to my concern.

But then, all of a sudden, I received my appointment letter in the mail last week. It lay there nestled in our pile of catalogs and junk mail, glowing with a halo of brightness and purity. I ripped it open in my excitement: July 2. On July 2, folks, I go in for my swearing in ceremony to take the oath of americanism, pizza, apple pie, and all.

I'm sure the day will be upon us before we know it. But there's still a fair amount to keep us occupied between now and then. Next week, I go to Seattle for work. Instead of catching the Thursday night red-eye back as I normally do, Delta will be flying out there to come visit me instead, and we're going to try our hand hiking and camping for a couple nights around Mt Rainier. Finally, after a few urban weeks of tennis and biking, we'll be back out in the mountains again! The week after that, we're taking part in a challenging fifty mile bike ride in Long Island.

There's no denying it, the summer is fully here!

Travelling expertise

2010-05-14T21:23:00.005-04:00

Every once in a while, I am jolted to exude a burst of energetic efficiency from my life of otherwise general complacency. It's when I'm confronted with an airport security checkpoint.

All of sudden, I'm a veritable blur of motion: out come laptop, toileteries, shoes and bags; breeze through the metal detector; in go laptop, toileteries, shoes and bags - all this, in probably less than a minute. Whatever I might be in my normal life, I'm not a faffer arounder at the airport. At the airport, I'm military.

So when catching my flight from Chicago this afternoon, I specifically chose the "Expert Traveller" security queue. Of course, the "Expert" designation just means no families with kids, and that you're supposed to generally know what you're doing. It's not like being knighted, it's not meant to get to your head.

So I was particlarly put off when the guy in front of me turned to me in irritation.

"Can you see these other people in the line?!" he exclaimed, "there's no way they're experts. There's no way they should be in this line."

They looked like perfectly normal travelers to me, so I just smiled politely but kept silent. I put on my conversation discouraging face. But he was far from being discouraged.

"I mean, look at them!" he turned to me again. "That woman totally messed up taking off her shoes in time. There's no way she should be allowed in this line. I hate people like that!"

Asswipe, I thought. There's always one of those on each flight I suppose.

So you can imagine, I was particularly gratified when the fellow walked through the metal detector and it went off.

"I'm sorry sir but you're going to have to take your watch off" the TSA guard reminded him politely.

He turned bright red as he walked back to place his watch on the x-ray conveyor.

Walked back to walk through the metal detector, and the thing went off again. I almost laughed out loud.

"I'm sorry sir but I think it might be your sunglasses" the TSA guard told him with the unlimited patience that you must inevitably develop in that job.

And so he had to walk back again, by now creating a backlog of people behind him, face flushed an unhealthy colour of purple. And the airport security queue can be a pretty unforgiving place to bungle.

"Hey move on already!" someone behind me muttered, but loud enough for us all to hear.

Boy, these "expert travellers" sure are a breed of their own.

I know, I know, it's a mighty petty quality to feel such glee from another person's misfortunes. But this one time, I was pretty happy the chap got his face rubbed in it.

Bellyaching

2010-05-08T18:34:00.003-04:00

For the past three days, I've been suffering a distinct pain in my abdomen.

Not the sort of pain that comes from ingesting lettuce inhabited by e.coli. No, I know that kind of pain intimately, and could identify it precisely down to the specific ingredient.

No, the kind of pain I have is of a dull, throbbing sort. A somewhat more nether pain, pulsing in the grey matter that exists between my ribs and my hips.

Caused by a ruptured spleen, maybe. Or an abdominal tumour. Or (and I shudder to say it), just excessive overeating. Chronically excessive overeating.

Is it too much to ask, for quality news?

2010-05-07T15:27:00.006-04:00

I have a deep and hankering revulsion for CNN's Rick Sanchez, and although I hate for my blog to be a rancorous one, this time I geniunely feel compelled to spill the beans.

And if I were to put it into context, it's not really Rick that I hate. It's what he repesents. Everything about someone like him decries the downfall of true journalism: using twitter as a valid news source; the conversion of fact into melodrama; and most of all, the sheer recklessness of inaccurate information.

Delta and I watched him on live tv, pointing at the Galapagos Islands on a map and calling it Hawaii. A couple weeks later we watched him pull the dogtrick again, this time confusing Madagascar with the Maldives.

I find it absolutely dispiriting that someone like this, with no concept of geography, would be qualified to deliver the news. To have his own daily show on CNN!

I had almost recovered from these heartaches, and would have been happy to leave bygones as bygones, when he pulled another gaff yesterday by criticising the USCIS for something which turned out to be factually wrong. Again. And this irked me instantly - partly because he's just so frequently wrong, but also mostly because he criticised the USCIS. And you know how I hold them so dearly to my heart.

Maybe I'm just ticked off because every time he comes on, I'm compelled to change the channel (don't want his viewer ratings look any higher, even inadvertently). Which means I have to scrounge around for the remote every afternoon when he comes on, which is pain in its own right.

I regard with great sadness the decline of journalism as an industry. Of course there are still great journalists, driving the forefront of true, investigative reporting. But increasingly, the Amanpours of the world are fewer, and further between. But let's face it - more often than not, we're lumped with the Rick's of the media.

Although frankly, this isn't about Rick, as it is about us. What has our world come to, that we find it acceptable to receive news at such levels of incompetence? What does this say about ourselves? It hurts my head that we have resigned ourselves to this standard of ineptitude.

Sometimes the bridesmaid, sometimes the bride

2010-05-03T08:37:00.004-04:00

Every year, Delta and I have participated in the Five Boro Bike Ride. It's an organised 45-mile bike ride around New York City, and some 35,000 folks from all over the country particpate each year. Basically, a good ol' bike fest.

Unfortunately this year, we forgot to register by the deadline, and so couldn't paricipate in our beloved ride. Worse yet, we had no one to blame but our own decrepitude, which is of course an inconvenient position to be in.

We'd just started settling comfortably in a morose sulk, when right then we stumbled upon a fun Global Mosaic project hosted by Lens, the photography blog of the New York Times. It was a challenge to people all over the world, to take a picture of wherever they were in the world, at exactly the same moment: 15.00 hrs GMT on Sunday, May 2.

Irony of ironies, that moment in time was exactly in the middle of the Five Boro Bike Ride in NYC. So Delta and I got to participate in the event after all, if not as bikers then at least as photographers.

You know how it goes. Sometimes the bridesmaid, sometimes the bride.

Welcome back, Dee

2010-04-29T14:48:00.008-04:00

Yesterday, Delta and I caught up with our dear friend Dee.

Dee is, absolutely and without exception, the most accident prone person I know. I kid you not, and I exaggerate only mildly. As she describes it, at some point or another she's broken pretty much every bone in her body. I'd estimate that about every other time I see her, she has a cast on one of her appendages, as a result of one bodily assault or another she has wreaked upon herself. It's tragic almost to the point of being comic.

Last year, we invited her to join us hiking to Machu Picchu, and she said "good gawd no I would kill myself on a mountain!". At that point I had thought she was being ridiculous. Now I know she was only being realistic.

Yesteday, we saw Dee after six months. Six months during which she has been recuperating from a terrible motorbike accident. It was great to have her back again, looking healthy and happy and mended.

Frankly, it was just great to have her back at all.

We love you, Dee. But please remember, with such infallible aptitude for mishap, motorbikes, boats and kitchen knivees should be considered strictly out of bounds.

Red, White and Blue

2010-04-28T13:17:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, I went for my US Citizenship interview. I wasn't sure what to expect really, and despite everyone's assurances that this wasn't rocket science, I worked myself up into a bit of a tizzy anyway. That's just the way it goes with tests of any kind. If you're a product of the Indian education system, you know what I mean.

As has always been my experience with the USCIS, I was interviewed by a very kindly officer. She went through all the details of my application, inspecting each area of my life with a fine-toothed combs, only just barely stopping short of asking about my highschool boyfriends. Not that I minded, frankly it's sometimes cathartic to ramble on about oneself in general.

"Ok, now we have to go through a civics test, you ready?" she asked me.
I nodded. I had studied the material. I was reasonably prepared.
She asked me a few questions and I shot answers back at her, like a rapid-fire quiz.
"Who's the speaker of the house?"
"Pelosi"
"How many members are there in the house of representatives?"
"435"
"When was the Declaration of Independence signed?"
"1776"

And so it went for a while, and I started to feel pretty comfortable with the whole ordeal. And then suddenly, a question that through me for a loop.
"What are the two longest waivers in the US?"
Huh? I blinked. I swallowed. "Pardon?"
"What are the two longest waivers in the US?"
Waivers? I couldn't think of any waivers - let alone long ones. And forget about knowing the longest! Were waivers long? I had no clue.
"Erm, I don't know," I mumbled softly.

But she only smiled. "Can you name any of the waivers in the US?" she asked, encouragingly.
I racked my brain for any mention of any waiver I might have ever heard of, but my mind came up empty. Nada.
"Sorry I don't know any" I said, disappointed.

Crap! Was I going to lose out on citizenship because of a couple of waivers?!
But she wasn't ready to give up on me yet, bless her kindly heart.
"Come on, you must no some waivers."
I shook my head miserably.
"Do you know what a waiver is?"
And suddenly, of course, I wasn't sure anymore. Had I misunderstood what a waiver was, my entire life?
"Not in this context, not really". A mild panic came over me.

She handed me her book where the question was written. "Here, read this," she offered.

And there it was, plainly in print: What are the two longest rivers in the US?

"Oh!" I slapped my forehead. "RIVERS! You mean two longest rivers!" I exclaimed in relief.
She looked at me blankly. "That's what I said. The two longest waivers in the US."

And so, it turned out, it was just an accent thing.

No need for panic folks, it appears after that little false alarm, that I am through.

A Brysonian experience

2010-04-28T12:22:00.007-04:00

Last weekend, spring had finally sprung in all it's glory, and Delta and I were itching to get out on the mountains again. So we donned our large backpacks and headed out to spend a couple days at the Delaware Water Gap.

Ever since moving to the US, I'd harboured a secret desire to hike on the Appalachian Trail. Of course my notion of the AT was a romanticised one that is shared only by those who haven't actually been on the AT before. But then I read Bill Bryson's account of the AT, ever my long-time hero, and my secret desire morphed into a semi-obsession. Not entirely dissimilar to the impact that Krakauer's account of Everest had on me - except the AT was slightly more realizable.

So I asked Delta if we couldn't go down to the Gap and spend a couple days hiking the AT, and Delta, who has long-since wanted to get my romanticised notions of AT out of my system, readily agreed.

Let me tell you. The biggest hurdle of hiking the AT does not start with the AT itself. It starts considerably before, when you get out of the car and don the 40lb backpack, and find yourself involuntarily indulging in a purple chortling moment of asphyxiation. And then, almost doubled over under the weight of the pack, you lift your head up and realize the trail only goes upwards. As far as your eye can see, it's ascending ascending ascending. That moment, right there, hunched over and gasping for air, is when the romance of the AT disappears.

But it was impossible to be disheartened for long. Spring had included everything in it's spell, and the entire mountain was in bloom. And there we were, walking on the ridge, with sweeping views of the Kittanies on either side.

A truly glorious sight to behold. Simply spectacular. Well, for the first few miles anyway. Then somewhere around mile five, it rather does lose it's shine. And somewhere around mile 9, you start to hate every stone and shrub in the woods. But finally, we reached our campsite, and cooked ourselves a little meal (freeze-dried chicken gumbo and noodles). We must have been hungry, because about 90 seconds after we took it off the stove, the food was gone.

And I have to confess, when we woke up the next day to a steady downpour, it really was rather disheartening. But there was nought to be done except to struggle on with our backpacks, wincing gingerly at the sore spots from yesterday. Squinting through the rain pouring down our faces, and patting our hands to try and keep them warm. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of cheery chatter that morning. As a point of scientific interest however, it should be noted that in the haste to escape our misery, we motored back over 10 miles in the mountains with backpacks on our backs, in less than four hours. Not an experience to remember forever, but rather proud to note the ol'body was able to pull that trick out of the bag.

Even Delta, who'd been walking behind me the entire time to make sure I didn't jettison important things along the way just to lessen the load (thought I'd throw out the food and pot, which was a reasonable fear), was suitably impressed.

At least now we can say, it was a truly Brysonian experience (even if only for a few days).

There we were, right on the AT!

Gazing out at the sweeping views.

Our first campsite, where the deers visited at dusk.

The rousings of a letter

2010-04-13T20:44:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I got an email from Organising for America, urging me to write an email to my local newspaper listing my feelings about the healthcare bill.

So I put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and started to compose some of my most laudatory prose yet, to the editor of the New York Times. I extolled the virtues of a healthcare bill that makes the system more about actually caring than profitability. I talked about coverage for the less fortunate and protection for the jobless. The words spewed out of me, and for that moment, I felt quite the orator.

When it comes down to it, my email was neither exceptionally eloquent nor spectacularly informed. And yet, for a moment I entertained the fantasy that the editor of the NY Times might take a fancy to my writing and offer me the opportunity to become a newspaper contributor. Maybe even a regular columnist. But of course, I heard nothing. Not even an auto-reply acknowledging that my email had actually reached its' destination after it's cyberspatial journey. Not even an auto-reply.

But as it turns out, the email was not for naught. It reminded me after all, that I've missed writing these past few weeks. And even if my crimson thoughts aren't quite good enough for the NY times, my little blog faithfully beckons the inner ramblings of my mind.

Dear blog, and to think I had almost forsaken you (well for a couple weeks anyway).

Just like catwoman

2010-03-16T18:12:00.007-04:00

Last month, I caught a cold. A day later, Queen Jaffa caught a cold.

I remember I had looked at Delta, horrified. "Do you think the cat could have caught the cold from me??!!"
"Don't be silly! Cat's can't catch colds from humans, it doesn't work like that!" And we'd both laughed it off as a silly faux pas.

Until this week - suddenly, I caught a cold again (which I think is highly unfair, but apparently we don't always get what we demand from life).
But get this - Queen Jaffa caught a cold a day later, again.

All my googling suggests that QJ can't catch a cold from me. Now I'm a person of science. And I realise I couldn't have given the cat a human cold. So there can be only one conclusion from this:

I have blatantly somehow acquired the ability to catch cat-colds. Akin to cats, just like CatWoman (but in a rather less glamourous way).

Or, of course, it could just be that QJ has taken to immitating me mockingly, rascal that she is.

Or, I could just be turning into Cat Woman.

Games for a rainy day

2010-03-16T15:57:00.003-04:00

This weekend, being as the rain was coming down with aplomb and showing no signs of relenting, we had to concoct new and innovative indoor activities for ourselves. So I sent out an email to the gang.
Anyone fancy going bowling?
Lahsiv, as always, was the first to answer, lout that he is. I'm almost convinced he does no work.
I'll be there. And I'll be laughing at your score, hahaha.
What! That's it. He'd thrown the gauntlet down. There was nought to be done but to rise to the challenge and (try to) put him in his place.

And so we all found ourselves at Bowlmor on that inclement Saturday evening.
Delta, who had up until that point claimed that he'd never gone bowling before, suddenly started hurling the ball down the lane with perfect form and posture. So I assume he must have been lying.

The group all claimed I had a funny dance-like shuffle in my run-up to the lane. I assume they were all collusively lying.

After Ilajna had her second beer, she bowled about 10 gutter balls in a row. Infact with the last couple, I believe she might have even rolled them directly down the gutter right from the start. I'm not lying.

Nevertheless, fun and games aside, it must be conceded that Lahsiv did kick some butt in the first game. And I might have lost all my pride to him on that one evening, except by some odd miracle I managed to pull one from under him in the second game, and eked a squeak of a victory. Mostly because right at the end, at his moment of grand finale, he bowled a couple of gutters and my score scuttled past his by a hair.

The best kind of victories, I say. The gratuitous kind where they fall in your lap through no effort or credit of your own.

An altrec moment

2010-03-10T14:38:00.003-05:00

Altrec has started sending me daily "Deal of the Day" emails highlighting discounted items.

Let me rephrase that incase it came off as though altrec is spamming me. I actively signed up to receive altrec's daily "Deal of the day" email.

Yes. My appetite for punishment can only be described as gluttony.

So each morning, I log into my email and go through the agonising decision of:
- Ooh. Today it's knee-length striped yellow-and-red wool socks! Do I need those?
- Erm. No. Says the grinch in my head.
- But they're 40% off!!!
- They're ridiculous.

And each morning, I delete the email, sulking periodically at myself for not being able to buy the socks, until the following morning when I am distracted again by "a fur ski mask at 29% off". For some unfathomable reason, I feel the urge to go through this adventure every single day.

Yes. I'm loathe to admit it, but altrec holds sway over the emotional rollercoaster which is my life.

Move your money

2010-03-09T21:08:00.005-05:00

Move your money. Go on. Give it a try.

I moved my money from Citibank to the much smaller, much more personal, TD Bank. I'm done with "too big to fail" banks that fall apart and need to be bailed out. I'm tired of the annual fee that they suddenly started on my credit card. I'm appalled that they gave me the option of "going paperless", and then continue to send marketing spam in the mail every week anyway. And if I get one more of their spam emails about balance transfers again, I might just pull all my hair out.

So in the interests of preventing my premature balding, I decided to switch banks. TD bank isn't quite the tiny credit union I would have aspired to in the ideal world. But it has absolutely everything I want. It's committed to being carbon neutral. It donates significant amounts of money annually to charity. And of course, it hands out those free pens all over the city.

For several months now, I have secretly coveted a TD Bank pen. I'm not quite sure why - surely, it's just a pen - but it has suddenly become so ubiquitous in the city, it seems like everywhere I turn, there's someone with a TD Bank pen. And then suddenly I had to have one too. Probably the same sound reasoning behind why I had to open a facebook account. No need to snicker, I never claimed my aspirations were lofty ones.

So finally, I'd had enough and I moved my money. To a bank that's environmentally conscious. That's socially active. To a bank that, much to my excitement, has given me my coveted pen.

All growns up

2010-03-05T09:23:00.001-05:00

This weekend, Delta and I head to Miami (I mean, if the NYC snowstorm gawds allow flights to take off) for Milo's wedding.

This is the same Milo that once said to Doobie, "on a scale of one to ten, I rate your ass a six and mine at least an eight."

Yes, apparently even scoundrels like that can sometimes find someone in life who's willing to take them in. And now here he is, all growns up and ready to say "I do".

The dress code is "formal", which of course has me in a tizzy as anything does which requires me to change out of my customary jeans and sneakers. And maybe it's Milo's wedding and all, but of course, this is all about me.

I was mentioning all of this to Metro the other day, and he filled me in that this weekend is one of the biggest gay party weekends in the country, and it's taking place in Miami.
"You're going to see a lot of goodlooking men" he sagely advised.
Hardly anything to complain about, infact quite the contrary. Besides, this time I'm wholly prepared, after my weekend at the biker conention in Provincetown.

Yet another snowstorm

2010-03-04T11:42:00.008-05:00

Last weekend, my Cos from Chicago was going to come visit with her two little nubbins. I cannot even begin to tell you enough how cute her daughters are. She also has a little son whom I haven't met yet, but judging by the other two, I'm reasonably sure he's perfection as well.

If all kids were like hers, I think I might just want kids of our own. But I know the sad truth. Any spawn of mine would be quite the obstreperous terror, and if there's anything I've learnt from life, it's that I'm not going to put myself in the position of having to deal with the consequences of my own genetic inaptitudes.

So back to my point. My Cos was due to visit us last weekend, her little cherubs in tow. Unfortunately however, as has been typical of this winter past, snowstorms descended upon us like hell hath no fury (or, well, at least as bad as the previous snowstorms anyway), and all flights into the city were cancelled.

Typical. Just typical. We had a whole plan around painting pottery and trying sushi and having brunch, and -

Now this. Nothingness instead. I was crushed.

Delta and I were both feeling rather bereft by this untoward turn of events, and decided to seek consolation in the Park.

Of course, nothing will make up for not being able to spend time with my Cos and her fam.

But there is something rather fantastical about Central Park in the snow. Something that, to put it colourfully, rather just blows the mind. Something that makes you pause, just when you're overwrought with winter anguish, and rejoice, for just a moment, in the beauty of it all.

Note to the Invisible Office Cleaner

2010-03-03T19:40:00.004-05:00

Dear sir,

Every evening, when everyone has long gone home, you come by and tidy the hurricane we have left in our wake.

When you come by to clean the office, you sometimes can't help yourself, and just have to eat some of the fruit I keep on my desk.

Perhaps you've wondered whether I notice. Perhaps you've wondered whether it's wrong. Perhaps, sometimes, you feel guilty for pilfering a bit of fruit.

Please don't. When I buy my fruit each week, I always get a little extra, with you in mind.

It's the least I can do really, for everything you do for me.

A system is a system is a system

2010-02-24T10:49:00.006-05:00

I was trying to clear up around the apartment the other day, and noticed some scraps of paper (old bills and the like) with odd scribbles on them.
Cryptic words like "Cupcake08" and "Breadbasket09", in Delta's distinctive scrawl. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

"Erm, Delta, what are these?" I asked him.
"Oh, passwords for some new internet profile thing I had to set up."
"Seriously? In today's day and age, you write your passwords on little pieces of paper? I almost threw these out!"
"You've certainly thrown out my other passwords in the past," he said with a pointed look. "But if I put them anywhere online someone can hack in and access them."

Delta is (probably rightfully so) highly suspicious of internet security. As he describes it, he's "just waiting for this internet phase to be over with."

"Ok, I get the online thing. But don't you have an organised system for storing your passwords?"
He raised his forefinger and tapped his temple, as if to indicate it was all in his mind.

Except that I've seen Delta try to login to his accounts before, and if there's one thing I'm fairly sure of, it's that his numerous and creative passwords are not retained cerebrally. I looked at the passwords.
"Cupcake? Breadbasket? Where do these come from?!"
"Oh just whatever I happen to be thinking of at the time that I have to create the password."
Now I normally let Delta mind his affairs his own way, but this time I just couldn't restrain myself, and burst out, "Why don't you actually choose a meaningful password that you'll remember?! The way you do it, you have to ask for your password to be reset each time you have to log in! Don't you have a system for this sort of stuff?!!!"

Delta looked at me solemnly. "I do have a system. I create a password. I write it on a piece of paper. You throw the paper away. I forget the password, and have to reset it next time I login. How is that not a system? It's not the best system. But it's still a system."

Touche. Sometimes, life just leaves me bereft of words.

With the elements pitted against me

2010-02-17T14:07:00.008-05:00

Recently, in an uncharacteristic burst of self-awareness, I've become conscious of a few new features about myself that aren't necessarily, well, impressive.

1. All these years, and despite all our progression into modernity, I have no faculty for recording my own voicemail mailbox message. My voice always sounds funny and nasal and far too high-pitched to be socially acceptable. When I think back to my first mailbox message I ever recorded (when I was 18 and got my first cellphone), I had to make 26 attempts before I could settle on something even remotely palatable. Yesterday, more than ten years since my first time, it still took me 17 attempts. I think you would agree, not the kind of progress that really moves civilizations forward.

2. When someone calls at work who I don't want to talk to, all of a sudden, my bladder has to pee. I mean, so bad, I just have to end the call. I'm dead serious. It doesn't involve any conniving or other sinister motive - it's just a natural instinctive defence mechanism my obstreperous bladder has developed of its own accord. And safe to say, probably a career hazard.

3. Whenever my wallet feels fat and bursting at its seems, and I pull it out of my pocket with a swoosh! of $anticipation$, it's always full of ones. Always just ones. Today at lunch, even the guy at Subway making my sandwich gave me a rather pitying look when I pulled out my fat wallet and spilled 11 ones onto his counter.

So it is with such thoughts weighing down on my soul that I trudge wearily through life. You see how the elements are pitted against me?

The new gawd

2010-02-16T13:23:00.005-05:00

Amazon's started a new express checkout feature called "Express Checkout Payphrase". The idea is that if you just type whatever pre-programmed phrase you've assigned your account, then you can check out super-quick. You know - without having to waste precious seconds logging in or verifying your address or credit card info. The idea is, just choose your item, type in your phrase, and poof! it appears at your home.

Anyways, so it turns out until you actually designate what phrase is yours, Amazon keeps suggesting phrases to you.

Last week when I went to the site it suggested:
"Ficali's chocolates". No joke, folks, I was downing a Reese's Piece at that very moment. How could Amazon have known?! Was it watching me?

Of course it was just a stupid coincidence. Right?

Until this morning when I logged in again and the phrase was:
"Ficali correct posture."
Dammit. How did it know I was slouching?! How could it be?!!! I sat up straight on the large exercise ball which is my office chair, suddenly fearful of how amazon had insinuated itself into my personal space.

There's only one possible explanation for this, of course. Given its proven omniscience, the only possible concluion is that Amazon, keeps watching me, all the time, everywhere. Just like gawd.

A chica weekend

2010-02-13T16:49:00.006-05:00

I'm quite used to Delta being away, of course, but I'm not used to him being away on a weekend. So when he went off the work this weekend, I found myself somewhat at lose ends.

I turned to Queen Jaffa. "QJ, looks like it's just you and me for a girl weekend. What say, chica?!"
But QJ only gave me the evil eye, which is what she sometimes does if you talk to her but don't follow it up with immediate bribery in the form of food.

And so I knew I couldn't depend on QJ to be my source of moral support for the weekend.

Instead, I focused my energies on watching the winter olympics with disproportionate tenacity. Nothing makes me feel healthier than watching athletes push themselves to their limits on tv. Certainly not going to the gym myself - for that only reinforces my limitations. No sirree, by far the best way to feel healthy is to watch healthy people do healthy things on the telly. And when li'l Hannah Kearney once that gold, I nearly bust up crying myself.

Even QJ, whose raison d'etre is to curl up and snooze on the couch lulled by the soporific effect of her own soft snores, has been quite approving of my generally vegetative state of being.

So there you have it, my chica weekend. Cat, emotions, couch and telly. What more could you want.

The marital, parental exemption

2010-02-10T23:15:00.004-05:00

Ever since I announced publicly on this blog that the phrase "What Up With That" is driving me loca, Milo has been texting me the exact words insistently. Yes, that's right. About every other day or so, I get a text that reads like this:
Wooooo weeeeeeee what up wit dat?! What up wit dat?!

And this from Milo, who hasn't texted me before in the entire five years we've known eachother.

That, dear people, is the risk you run for bearing your soul to the world as I have done. For opening your vulnerable moments to scrutiny. So every other day or so, I find myself angrily muttering "that Milo!" and shaking my fist at the gawds.

But how can you be really angry with fella who's just about to get married? A fella who's about to become a dad? You can't. He has earned himself a month or two of exemption, because surely, surely, just before you get bethrothed and spawn a critter, shouldn't you be exempt from any expectations of responsibility.

So for the next month or two, I will bear my cross with silent fortitude.

But seriously, Milo? A reminder every other day? What up with that?!

How can you not love Seattle?

2010-02-06T13:24:00.006-05:00

This past week, life took me to Seattle for a spot of work. Now, I normally look upon work travel with a considerable degree of disgruntlement.

For one (and perhaps most importantly), it involves rummaging for (and shaking the dust off) my only pair of work trousers.

For another, the flight creates an environment where I am always, reliably, faced with rebuff and rejection: trying to engage my co-passengers in conversation. I'm of the philosophy that, hey, if I'm going to face six hours chained into a seat next to you, then at least I'm to turn to look at you and say hello. And I expect the same in return. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is of the philosophy that if the person next to you looks over and says hello, the best response is to look away in terror and pretend to fall asleep. Bah. Scrooges.

And then there's Queen Jaffa, who is none too happy about being left with a bowl of water and a pile of dry food for a few days. No sirree. She expects me to be there at her beck and call, and is entirely unforgiving of trite excuses like work travel.

But all the same, grumblings aside, I have to admit I love going to Seattle. How can you not love a city surrounded by snow-capped mountains wherever you look? How can you not love a city where you get to visit your Cos, her hub and their brand new little critter?

Yes, that's right. My Cos now has a son to boast along with the rest of the animal farm. The last time I saw their son, he was a tiny little baby, fresh to the world, and bawling his eyes out. This time, merely months later, he had transformed himself into a giggling cherub with dimples in his elbows and ankles. You see what I mean? How can you not love that?

A simple solution

2010-01-30T17:47:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, as Delta and I headed back from the movies, we remarked on the amount of old gum stains speckling the sidewalks of New York. Black spots on the sidewalk, that used to be someone's gum some fifty years ago. Everywhere we looked, the sidewalk was a veritable leopard of spots in varying shades of gey and black, flattened into the concrete like fossils from a distant past, darker and darker with age, like rings on a tree trunk.

How could gum from fifty years ago still be around? I thought about the thousands - no, millions, of feet that had stepped on the gum since it was left there. And the rigours of varying temperatures, from scorching summers to icy winters. And the layers of dirt and fumes which are the city.

What was this indestructable substance that could survive all this? And alarmingly, why the hell are we actually deeming it fit to eat?

And perhaps equally importantly, why aren't we using it to plug the cracks in roofs, roads and bridges, where it was obviously meant to be ue? There you go, Senate. Isn't that what you wanted? A cost-effective solution to the country's ailing infrastructure?

It might be scary, but at least it's not corporate

2010-01-26T15:32:00.009-05:00

I was reminded today of a conversation Doobie and I had a few months ago.

I'd been lounging at home focusing all my energy on doing nothing at all, when suddenly the phone rang. "Ficali!!! It's me! I need your help!"

It was Doobie, in some kind of crisis or another.

"What's up Doobie?"

"I'm stuck in the airport and I forgot to turn in my time report! Can you email my boss and send in my hours for me? The deadline is 5 minutes away!"

So I logged into her laptop, and typed up an email to her boss in the most Doobie-esque language I could muster.

"There, I'm done. Should I put a smiley at the end?"

"Smiley? Are you kidding? Nobody does that in the corporate world! My boss would think I was crazy!"

I was appalled. Seems to me, when you're writing groveling email to your boss explaining how you forgot to send your timesheet in and could they please regard this hurriedly scribbled email as a record of your hours, the least you an do is soften the tone with a smiley (or two). At least, seems like that's what everyone in my company does.

I mean, if you were Mr Boss Man, which one would you rather receive?

-I'm very sorry I did not submit the timesheet, but here are my hours below. - OR -

- Hey, I'm really sorry I didn't submit the timesheet, but here's my hours below! :)

You see what I mean?! Worlds apart.

"You seriously don't use smileys? Doesn't that seem a bit cold? I mean, you guys do actually like eachother, right?"

And so we embroiled ourselves in debate about the appropriate placement of smileys (Doobie thought nowhere, I thought everywhere), and argued for a while until I realised I had forgotten to actually "send" the email and her deadline was almost up.

"Okay Doobs gotta send this email bye!". And I sent it. Sans smiley and all. Cold as ice, I say.

I had entirely forgotten about the entire affair, when I receive the email below from Richie Rich the other day. And naturally, it got me re-thinking about smileys and all.

So today I did a smiley count on my emails (because that is exactly the sort of stuff that throws a bone in my efficiency on particularly busy days).

And out of the 517 emails I received/sent today, 487 had a smiley in them. You see what I mean? This is where I've learnt it from. I work in a culture where we smile to each other. All the time. In every email. And nice though it be to get the odd bolstering smile, I do believe we've reached the point where, perhaps even I would admit, it's getting rather scary.

Scary, but better than the corporate world anyway :)

The ant and the elephant

2010-01-24T12:52:00.004-05:00

Inspired by our own personal triumph hiking in Peru last year, Delta and I have decided to do a longer backpacking trip in Patagonia this December.

As soon as we've decided on our trip for the year, of course, this brings with it a flurried excitement of planning and preparation (even if it is still an entire year away and all). Without a doubt, there's some hurdles to us being able to make this hike:

Perhaps most importantly, I have to learn to balance a 40lb backpack on my back and somehow propel myself over six hours of rough terrain without having some kind of emotional breakdown. Minor detail, but perhaps a pretty significant one in a backpacking trip.

So yesterday, Delta and I decided to have a bit of a gander with our backpacks. We loaded the packs with our heaviest books, and headed our for a walk in the park. Just from the fact that I could lift the bag at all, I'm guessing it could have weighed no more than 25lbs. But all the same, it felt like a elephant on my back. As soon as I heaved the pack onto my back, I gasped. I chortled. My feet weaved involuntarily under a convoluted command of their own. My face turned purple. Of course, none of those bodily responses actually contributed constructively to the situation, and I noted with some consternation that my body is obstreperously uncooperative in this regard.

Have you ever spent an few moments watching an ant trudging doggedly on, with a crumb on its back several times its size and weight? So there was I, with an elephant on my back.

What up with that

2010-01-22T10:47:00.004-05:00

Ever since last November when we first watched SNL skit "What Up With That", the line's been stuck in Delta's head. Stuck so prominently, infact, that it's been his predominant response to pretty much anything I said.
From an innocuous comment about the weather ("crap its raining again!") to anything as serious as a relationship conversation ("Delta, we need to talk,"), Delta employed a uniform response.
He would burst into a jig and announce, "What up with that?!"

Today, I reached the end of my tether.
"Delta, I'm imposing a one week moratorium on the phrase. You're not allowed to say "what up with that" for at least a week, ok?!"
"But it's stuck in my head!" Delta whined. "I have to let it out!"

And so it got us wondering whether other people have this song stuck in their heads too. And oh dear. Oh, dear. SNL, what have you done.

Google search: "What up with that" snl stuck in my head

Bureacracy TLC

2010-01-20T19:12:00.004-05:00

Over the last few months, I have spent innumerable hours at the USCIS office getting finger-printed, eyeball-scanned and photographed. Such are the trials and tribulations of citizenship application.

So it's fair to say, I suppose, that over the last few months I have grown quite accustomed to the ways of the USCIS. And I feel the bursting desire to announce, with fond twangings of the heart, that I hold the USCIS right up there with the USPS as two of my favourite bureaucracies in the whole world.

You think I jest? Seriously - have you walked in to a USPS branch recently? They are always so lovely. It's all "yes, dear", "of course we can do that for you", "let's try to take care of that as quickly as we can, shall we, dear?". Nothing like a bit of TLC. Especially when it comes at exactly the right moment, after you've been standing in the USPS line for 20 minutes and are exasperated to the end of your tether.

The USCIS has somewhat the same feel (not just the comfortingly drab grey walls) - but the feeling of TLC. I think I've finally put my finger on it. Large governmental bureacracies breed complacency. And I don't mean complacency in a bad way, but more as a culture that actually allows people to take the time to be nice to each other.

Go on, give it a try. Go to the FedEx store and be taken care of with sharp efficiency in three minutes by a person who is so focused on the task that they barely look at you. Then go to the USPS branch and wait in line for twenty minutes, and finally reach the counter and get asked, "hello dear, how are you today?!". You'll see what I mean about feel-good bureacracy.

I could be slightly biased of course. After all, the kind lady with the lovely smile at the USCIS office today gave me a free booklet on US Civics (complete with pictures and all) so I can study for the citizenship test when it comes.

I'm jumping into US Civics with a degree of alacrity I rather failed to muster during my highschool days. Studying isn't my forte per se. But I'll be darned if I disappoint those lovely people at the USCIS by failing the test.

The inexcusable jacket

2010-01-18T22:44:00.003-05:00

There is just no excuse for the puffy jacket. None at all.

The puffy jacket was for the eighties and the nineties, when they hadn't quite got their head wrapped around the art of sartorial insulation. When warmth was merely a function how much cottonwool you could put between yourself and the world. But today, the puffy jacket should be made instantly illegal.

It's a winter jacket that is not waterproof.
Unbelievably, it's a winter jacket that is not wind-proof.
And what's more, it turns you instantly into a human lollipop.

That's right, there is simply no excuse for the puffy jacket.

Unless, of course, you're a toddler, for those critters seem like they need as much insulation as possible from everything they run into, and should probably be wearing puffy jackets all year round, even in the summer.

But for everyone else, for gawd's sake get yourself a normal jacket. And if you're in the subway in your puffy jacket, and you bounce off the wall because you failed to anticipate how your jacket doubled your size, and bump across the carriage into me flailing your puffy arms, you know why I'm giving you dirty looks.

Because there's simply no excuse.

Up there with Haley's Comet

2010-01-15T18:31:00.006-05:00

I got off a conference call this afternoon and went out to speak to Delta, and he nearly keeled right over in his seat.
"OMG what' happened to you?!!!"
"What?! What?!" When your spouse looks at you with fear in his eyes, you can't help but pick up that something must be amiss in your appearance. I ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror. And almost fainted from sheer fright.

All of a sudden, of it's own accord, without so much as the courtesy to ask permission, my eye had decided to blow up on me. There it was, ogre like, suddenly turned into a tomato. I stared at it in horror.

"Does it hurt?" Delta had suddenly materialised behind me in the mirror.
I prodded at it gingerly. "No, not really. Just feels a bit sore."
We both looked at my eye in alarm, wondering what one does next.
"What happened? What did you do to it?!"
"Nothing! One second it was itching a bit, and two minutes later, this. I can't go out in public! I'm not leaving the apartment until this sorts itself out!" The enormity of my tomato-eye was beginning to dawn on me and I started spiralling into a panic.

Then it suddenly occurred to me, the last time I'd seen myself like this. About the same time four years ago, I had suddenly woken up one morning with a tomato for an eye.

I had solved the mystery. Apparently, this is just one of those bodily afflictions which will come at me every four years, just out of the blue. Regular like clockwork. Right up there with Ol' Faithful, and the leap year. Right up there with Haley's Comet, it's the tomato-eye.

All it takes is a moment

2010-01-13T23:48:00.005-05:00

Just a fleeting moment. A whisper in the wind.
Somewhere, a mother kisses her child and tucks him into bed.
Somewhere, the sun is rising, and a city is coming to life.
Somewhere, the atlas shrugs, the earth replies,
And in a fleeting moment, in a whisper of a wind,
An entire people is left bereft.

Any of these moments could be any of us.
And I hope, when that moment comes for me,
Someone luckier will care enough to stop and help.

Haiti needs your help now.

Oh to be a Soccer Mom

2010-01-10T16:16:00.008-05:00

Last week's Economist did an article explaining how within the next couple months, the number of working women will for the first time outnumber the men in the US workforce. More women than men! Women have already considerably outnumbered men in professional services for several years now. But the entire workforce - that's a huge milestone. This sociological change has been expedited by a couple of seminal points, amongst others:
- In the recession of the past two years, far far more men lost their jobs than women
- Far far more women are graduating college with better academic standing than men

Delta and I had been talking about this phenomenon, the monumental sociological implications it has, and what if anything we thought might change in our own workplaces. There's lots of theories about the intrinsically feminine qualities that women bring to the workplace, and several theorists who expound on why women make better bosses than men.

I'm not sure I buy that really, about women making better bosses than men. At least from my own meagre experience, I'd put women vs men bosses down as pretty equal, even if perhaps different. But it doesnt change the fact that on average, far more women than men are successfully graduating through the education system and emerging on the other end, fit and primed to work. Which probably means, if we extrapolate this into the future, that the trend and momentum only seems set to increase.

The most remarkable thing, the Economist remarked, was how rapidly, and yet how smoothly (or at least with relatively little turmoil) this enormous sociological change took place. And I'd have to agree.

Overall, I'd have to say men have been rather gracious in ceding dominance towards a more egalitarian society - in the US, anyway. It takes a generosity of mind and spirit to offer jobs that have always been yours to the ambitious 'other sex'. I was still mulling over the gentlemanly graciousness of men when we went over to the Cos and his wife's house for dinner.

The Cos and his wife are both medical doctors, about to embark on their long and fruitful careers in the city. I was about to ask them what they thought about all this men-women business, when the Cos helped himself to a large glass of wine and announced, "Phew! I'm so glad my wife's a doctor! Now I can happily retire and be a house husband."
"What do you mean?!" I laughed, taken somewhat by surprise.
"Man, I'm all ready to get myself a minivan and just be a Soccer Mom!" he said, laughing.

And there you have it. The graciousness of men. Knew there had to be something more there.

The lure of the burbs

2010-01-09T18:04:00.006-05:00

For the most part, I love this crazy chaotic cacophony of a city with all my heart, and couldn't imagine living anywhere else (except that time we were in Ecuador and I wanted to move there, or the time we were in Peru and I wanted to move there, or the time we were in Cinque Terre...). But for the most part, apart from the vacation distractions, other than the fleeting flutterings of my roving mind, I'm pretty darn happy living in our mad home.

There is one huge problem if you live in NYC though. It's the fact that ultimately, inevitably, unnervingly, all your friends will eventually end up heading to the burbs. I guess I can see why the burbs are attractive to people. The space, the fresh air, the cars, the costcos. But wouldn't you miss the local Chinese dry cleaner, or the little bagel house across the street, or the old guy with his big whiskers running the local wine store? I think I'd miss that sense of neighbourhood. But never mind, for this isn't about me.

Later this month, Gus and Kate move to their new home across the river in Jersey. Problem is, we'd grown rather used to always having them around the corner. To spontaneity and being able see each other in moments, without always having to make a plan about it. And now it feels as though they're moving a seemingy interminable distance away. No matter how happy you are for your friends, when it means they're moving further away, it's rather bitter-sweet no matter what way you look at it. Delta, who will lose his diner-breakfast-and-pub-drinking-BFF as an result of this move, has been morosely brooding about it for a few days now.

Of course - if we were honest about it - Jersey frankly isn't that far away. And when we see their new home, we'll be excited for them and the huge step in their lives this means. And who can complain about having friends with swimming pools and barbecues (or for that matter cars, space or greenery) anyway.

But for right now, it's a moment of despondence. For right now, all we know is that we're losing a couple of dear friends to the burbs.

Why I shouldn't be allowed out of the house on my own

2010-01-05T21:35:00.005-05:00

I've been in Houston the last couple days, for work. I don't like business travel at the best of times, but am especially bad at travelling alone. I mean, once the last meeting's over, whats one supposed to do with your time?

So after I was done for the day I headed over to the gym. This gym was a tiny room (converted guest room at best estimate) with a couple of treadmills, a couple of bikes and a bunch of weights. There were four, sweaty, overweight men in the room already working out. I'm not trying to turn you off this blog post - people in the gym are just always sweaty, by the very nature of what they are doing, so I can't very well hold that against them. But it did occur to me, midst-jog, that I don't think I've ever been in a gym before with only men around. It's not like they looked at me - they probably hadn't even registered my presence, preoccupied as they were with their own grunts and groans. It was just me. I'd never been in a place - well, so testosteronified - in my life.

So as soon as I had done enough cardio to be able to call it a respectable workout, I jogged off the machine, out of the gym, and all the way back to my room as quickly as possible. But as soon as I'd stepped out of the shower, I was at loose ends all over again.

I checked my email about 10 times in as many minutes, but no one had sent me anything. Which irritated me quite a bit because when I'm all comfy at home and ready to watch the Wire, it seems like all my colleagues erupt in a veritable frenzy of email. But today - when all I need is a bit of work to occupy my dulling mind - nothing. Ridic.

So I walked around the block trying to find a nice spot to grab some dinner, but was left with a rather unsettled feeling. For one, there were no people about. Here I was, in the heart of downtown Houston, only 8pm, and there were no pedestrians anywhere. Nobody. Nitsch. Nein. Nada. Which wouldn't bother me - say if I was in rural Montana - but here, in a downtown city center, the empty streets felt like being in part of a sci fi movie. Or in the Twilight Zone. You know what I mean. And the other thing I noticed was that there were only chains. I passed a Subway, a Chilli's, an Olive Garden, a Ruby Tuesday, a McDonalds and a Pizza Hut before I was convinced enough that the only palatable option was to return to the hotel and huddle for my dear life.

So I ended up eating dinner by myself in the hotel restaurant, entertaining book in hand. A Marriott dinner is no less dreary than a fast food chain, mind you - but it has with it the dignity of the resignation with which I faced the rest of my trip.

And here's the climax of the evening. After the dinner, after I had paid my bill, after I had cleaned my plate and emptied my glass of wine, when all I had to do to make this a successful day was to get back safely to my room - I gone and outdone myself again. At the very last minute I suddenly suffered a lapse of the mind (for nothing else could explain this), and as I was leaving, I ... wait for it ... I gave the waitress a hug.

Yes, you heard it right. I actually gave the waitress a hug. Not the gentle squeeze of the arm, mind. A full-fledged bear-hug.

What was I thinking?! Just like all other times, I have no clue. I was horrified. I'm sure she was equally so.

But the poor girl reacted much to her credit, which is more than can be said for me. She said a mere startled thank you and beat a hasty retreat. I was mortified of course. To clarify, although I've done many a demented thing in my life, I have never, never, hugged a waitress before, just for serving me food. It was all very awkward, and I wish fervently that I've forgotten all about it by the morrow.

A little bit better

2010-01-04T23:26:00.007-05:00

Today, I read a statistic that clean threw me for a loop.

About 5% of America's energy consumption is from wasted use. Eg computers left on overnight (guilty), lights left on in rooms that no one is in, continuous heating and airconditioning even when no one's home, cellphone chargers in outlets even when there's no phone charging. The average American will go through twice as much energy in their lifetime as the average European. There's a simple explanation for this of course. Energy is such a cheaply available resource in America, that Americans have never had to learn to be conservative with it.

That just makes me so sad. I admit with a fair dollop of chagrin that I've been guilty of leaving my computer on overnight far too often. Why? So that I can save the thirty seconds in the morning that it would otherwise take to reboot? Its just simply inexcusable. Delta has told me many a time to shut down the darned machine before going to bed. But - oh - by the end of the day when I'm so tired - I just don't have. the. energy. to. go. all. the. way. over. just. to. turn. it. off.

But when I read this, I was instantly mortified. Horrified. Outraged. Aghast. 5%!

We can bitch and moan about the ineffectiveness of Copenhagen, but what's the point? If we can't even take it upon ourselves to make the smallest of these sacrifices, how could we expect large international treaties of a global nature to succeed?

So this year, for a change, a real resolution. Every night, the computers go off. No iffs or buts or other excuses I may concoct. Just off.

Now that doesnt seem like much to ask for, does it?

A knot in my stomach

2010-01-03T23:34:00.002-05:00

For the last two days, I've had a knot in my stomach.

At first I thought it was because Kima got shot in The Wire (Delta and I have just discovered this series, so we're doing a lot of catch up - still only at the end of Season 1, but involved enough to get knots in the stomach).

Then I thought it might be because we watched Crash again. And now if that movie doesn't give you knots in your tummy, I dont know what would.

But it's been two days now, and I'm still feeling rather - well, anxious - without anything to feel anxious about, really. It's quite disturbing. I don't know how to describe the feeling, other than a knot in my stomach. It's just sitting there, waxing and waning with a pulse of its own. It's throwing me off my game, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

Of course, now that I think about it, it could just be that funny salmon I had the other day. That could give you knots in the stomach, couldn't it? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I rather hope the salmon is making me feel offish.

Welcome, new year

2010-01-02T17:58:00.007-05:00

We decided again to have everyone over to ours for new year. A a couple reasons for it, I suppose.

For one, Delta and I quite simply enjoy entertaining. Besides the obvious fun, it gives us a the impetus to do a deep clean of all corners in the home. Last time, we rediscovered 'lost' coins in the sofa, pillow cases in the trunk, a jumper on the window ledge. Who knows what treasures we'll uncover next time we clean.

And for another (perhaps, one could argue, most importantly), it comes as no surprise that New Years Eve always tends to fall on a rather inconveniently cold day. And who wants to be schlepping out of the home in such inclement weather? No, far better to have the party all warm and cosy and safe in your own living room, I say.

The start of the new year is a virtual tabla rasa, which rolls into our lives every 365 days or so. A time for reflection, a time for new resolutions and for turning a fresh page.

But if you're anything like Delta and me, the pressure of such change and self-commitment might just be a bit much to live by (at least beyond the third week of Jan or so). If you're anything like Delta and me, you don't ask for more from New Years than just spending time with friends and family, having a couple glasses of bubbly, and celebrating the year that was.

The favourite part of our home right now is the fridge

2009-12-31T10:00:00.004-05:00

And that's not just because of the tostitos bag on top either.

Starting a new decade

2009-12-30T22:29:00.005-05:00

Today, we wish goodbye to not only a year, but also the decade. And a pretty crappy decade too, as decades go. Frankly - (and I guess I may be frank, it is my blog after all) - good riddance, I say. Stinky, crappy, lousy decade, get otta here already.

I wonder if people said that when the clock turned to 1920, after the first world war. Or 1930, after the wall street crash. Or 1940, after the great depression. Or 1950, after the second world war. I guess decades just don't come in shades of good.

I was feeling pretty glum as I started to write this blog (incase you missed that), but even as I continued, the snow started blustering down all over the city, blanketing my micro-world in a pristine white. So peaceful. So quiet. So scintillatingly beautiful. Just when everything seemed so pointeless, something so small can tug at your heartstrings and make you just happy to be right here, right now (even if the rest of the decade was shitty), and fill you with love for life anew.

And we must fight for hope, and change we can believe in, (so says that guy who's on tv all the time). So here's wishing for a much better bunch of years coming up (or, if the Mayans were right, then at least a much better remaining two years coming up).

And, of course, wishing you all the happiest new year.

Turning times

2009-12-30T21:24:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow, Doobie, Ilajna and Bobbis move into a new apartment.

Of course I'm happy for them; they're upgrading to a far nicer apartment, complete with balcony, doorman and a smattering of posh. Although I have to admit I don't envy them having to move. Who likes moving? It's a pain in the hiney. On the other hand infinitely better, of course, since gawd invented movers.

Although of course I'm happy for them, their moving brings me a not-so-slight pang of nostalgia. After all, it was the apartment I lived in too, for a couple years. When we were all roommates. Even after I moved out, there was always the 'room that used to be mine'. Now their new apartment will be all their's, with nothing to connect me to it. Nothing to make me feel like it was a little bit mine too. I'll even have to ask the way to the bathroom the first time I visit.

Typical me, for personalising their move. Yes, it's all about me.

So woe be me, that the old apartment, my old home, will just become another address I write in my list of historical addresses. I see you blinking in disbelief that I keep a list of historical addresses. Yes. Ridiculous isn't it? I thought so too, I couldn't believe my own stupidity. And then the other day I completed my application for US citizenship, and they asked me to list all addresses going back fifteen years. Yes, fifteen years. Which is NOT easy, mind you, if you go back through your twenties and teens. And then, all of a sudden, I was immensely proud of my insightful forethought and meticulous keeping of ridiculous lists.

That was just luck though, that the address list came in handy. On balance, I'd still say that my stupidity outweighs my insight and forethought. But then again, balance is an overrated concept (unless you're a tightrope walker, in which case it's a rather fundamental basis of your existence).

Anyways, back to the apartment. Goodbye, ol' apartment. Thank you for all the memories. You've been such an integral part of my life in New York. So goodbye, and fare thee well.

Home again

2009-12-28T13:14:00.008-05:00

We stared at the desk agent dumbfounded.

We'd come to spend Christmas with Delta's family in Rochester, and here we we were at Rochester airport, waiting to take our flight back home, and the desk agent had just told us "sorry, but there were no seats available." (At least he was sympathetic, because they're actually nice like that, outside the city.)

No seats available? So what if we had stupidly chosen to travel standby during Christmas weekend. So what if we were too cheap to actually pay for a ticket to visit the fam for Christmas.

I mean, so what. Didn't he realise that this is the new age of generation Y, the Age of Entitlement?

I couldn't believe our crap luck. With unhidden resentment, I watched as all fifty paying passengers boarded the flights and they closed the doors. Why should they get on and not us (I mean, other than the fact that they'd paid for their tickets)?! And for a moment, I felt a sinking feeling in the vortex of my stomach, sucking me in. As though we might just be held in Rochester forever. What a ruinous ending to such a perfect weekend.

But then Delta suddenly exclaimed, "I know! Let's just rent a car and drive down!".

I looked at him dubiously. It was already past 6. Starting the drive now would likely not bring us into the city until 1am. And I had a whole day of work staring me in the face on Monday.

"You think?" I asked, doubtfully.

"Of course. Let's go! No time to lose."

And with that, he was off, striding across the airport to the Avis counter, where the lovely desk agent gave us a Hyundai Elantra to speed us back to the city (much to my excitement, because just before, they'd given us a Chevy HHR for the week, and if you've ever been in an HHR, then you know exactly why I was so excited to be in a Hyundai.)

And so started our little road trip. Got in the car, kicked off our shoes, turned on the radio, and motored across New York state through the late hours of nightfall. Even grabbed a meal in Wendy's, something we hadn't done in more than ten years. Singing along to the radio, we whizzed past Syracuse and Binghamton and the Catskills and Harriman, and suddenly, rather faster than we'd expected, we were back in the city.

As it turned out, not bad at all. As it turned out, through no credit of our own, quite the perfect ending to our Christmas weekend.

A winner week

2009-12-24T14:39:00.005-05:00

Yikes, geez. The comments box suddenly got quite a-ruffle, while I was out frolicking. I wouldn't've thunk anything I wrote could have evoked strong emotions akin to love or hate. Maybe a mild giggle or an aversion, at the most. But hatred? Of seahorses? Isn't that like hating unicorns? Eh, it takes all types. In any case, definitely an enjoyable few minutes googling Schrodinger's cat, so all in all quite an educational set of inputs. So thank you *curtsy*.

The past week, Rohinton and Jeet dropped into town for a few days, much to our excitement. Delta and I were a bit nervous about the aerobed holding up, after we had to hold it together with a bike tire patch earlier this summer. But somehow, it pulled through, and I felt a rush of warm love for the faithful old thing. Even Queen Jaffa was on best behaviour, and refrained from trying to sharpen her talons on the inflatable.

The weekend that Rohinton and Jeet spent in town, a snowstorm blew into the city. Typical. A surprisingly warm run-up to winter, and then suddenly, 12" of snow. I would have felt terrible for them, except that they were on their way to that cruise in Antartica, and if you're willing to go to Antarctica, then you have to embrace all such trials and tribulations of weather as a training experience. So snow angels it was, then.

Also quite a constructive week in other manners. Delta and I finally summoned the inner motivation to haul our ever-growing collection of change (which had taken up a life of its own in recent weeks) over to the nearby coinstar and convert it into something usable. Each of us had a chance to hold it in our hands, and bet on a value based on the weight.

I was the first to pick up the bag of coins, and it very nearly dislocated my shoulder. Which doesnt say much of course, because frankly I could dislocate my shoulder with a 3lb weight. But still, this bag was a big'un.

"$87", I wagered.
Delta went next. "$91!" he said confidently.
Rohinton and Jeet each took their turns after that, and turned it into a 'Price is right' kind of deal. "Anything less than 87," they called.
Now that's what I would call risk averse. But you can't hold that against him, Rohinton's an insurance guy.

So with all our bets in place, we wandered down to the coinstar in TD Bank, where the cute little cartoon girl on the ATM screen told us she'd count our coins for us. For a couple minutes, as we poured coins through the slot, numbers whirred past the screen like a Vegas slot machine. And then suddenly, kerplunk!!, it stopped. $122!!!

We couldn't believe our luck. This was the highest we'd ever accumulated in coins. It felt like winning the jackpot. So after converting this to cash, Delta and I, buoyed by the optimism of our winnings, rushed into the camera store next door and bought the new D90 we'd been coveting for months.

Yes, you heard it right. We won $122 and spent $973, all in the span of a couple minutes, for a net earning of -$851. This, right here, is the story of our life.

Sorry, dear friend

2009-12-13T14:23:00.004-05:00

"Hey, look," Delta pointed out the other day. "Someone's commented on your blog."
I peered over in curiosity. No one, but no one, comments on my blog. It's my little monologue into cyber-space. Me thinking about me, me writing about me. For no reason at all that I could fathom, except that I quite enjoy writing, and if I didn't have myself to write about, I'd be stumped at a loss for topics.

So you can imagine, I was a bit surprised to find a question posted on my blog.
"Do you twitter?" someone asked.

And I'd hate to disappoint my one lone commenter, but I don't twitter. I don't, I can't, I couldn't fathom being a-twitterized. My thoughts simply cannot synthesize themselves into little nugget-sized phrases. It doesn't sit well with me to to spell "great" as "gr8", or "later" as "l8r". It creates some queasiness in the cockles to drop all the conjunctions and prepositions. Come to think of it, even if I could wrap my head around those insurmountable challenges, the sad truth is, I have to concede, I don't actually have new thoughts often enough to uphold the mantle of a Tweetmeister.

In short, sorry, dear friend, but I have no twoots to tweet, no twots to twit.

The cause of the downtrodden

2009-12-08T19:54:00.004-05:00

When you're walking with strangers for several hours a day, as we did when we were hiking in Peru, you end up ruminating over a lot of inane topics. And one such topic of much discussion was undervalued punctuation.
"The poor semi-colon," one chap had said, "no one ever seems to use it. No one ever even seems to know how to use it. It's the unloved step-child of punctuation."

And since then, since I heard someone put it like that, I've harboured a secret soft spot for the semi-colon.

So the other day, when I was drafting a long newsletter email for the company, I insidiously inserted a smattering of semi-colons. I mean, what's an HR bod to do in life if not to protect the downtrodden puncts, right?

Three semi-colons, nestled snugly in the email. If Richie Rich notices, I hope he doesn't mind (too much).

In any case, I suppose they should just be happy I hadn't taken up the cause of the colon or the ellipses.

An encounter with (modern) gawd

2009-12-05T21:52:00.003-05:00

It was a horrible rainy, grey and freezing day outside, which meant an indoors day for me. Move over, Queen Jaffa, and get used to my company for the day.

I pottered about all morning, constantly doing things, but the kind of little things that you have nothing to show for at the end of your time. Soon enough however, the doorbell rang - the delivery guys were here with the new bed. The new bed! I was beside myself with excitement.

Of course, QJ, lapped up all the petting the two delivery guys were willing to bestow upon her, but then decided she didn't actually like the bed. It didn't have the corner that she used to always scratch, and no amount of me explaining about the wood and colour and other fun features was improving the situation. She wasn't having any of it with this new bed. A bit ironic because she's the reason we bought the thing in the first place. But oh well, there's cats for you.

By afternoon, the steady rain had turned into snow. The yucky, sleety, psuedo-snow that instantly melts as soon as it touches anything. But snow all the same, and after all it was the first snow of the year, so I decided to emerge from my hibernation and give the world outside a peek. Strategically accoutered in all kinds of protective gear, I headed downstairs to take a tentative step outside the building (Derek the doorman looked at me like I was mad, and although he's too polite to say anything, his eyes popping out of his head said it all).

I walked around the neighbourhood for a bit, savouring the first snowfall of the year, and then dropped in to the supermarket on my way back. QJ was running low on catfood, so I needed to pick up a can or two. Ungrateful cat though she be, didn't seem reason enough to starve her.

I had just picked up the catfood when I heard a loud voice booming right behind me.
"WOULD YOU LIKE SOME ADVICE?"
I jumped out of my skin and almost dropped all the catfood on the floor (I'm the kind of person that doesn't take a basket because I think I'm only picking up one thing, but then one thing leads to another and before I know it my arms are precariously juggling cans and bottles and packets and vegetables of all sorts).

So when the voice startled me, I nearly dropped everything to the floor. I spun around in alarm, but there was nobody there. Looked up and down the aisle, but I was all alone. But the voice had been real. Very, disturbingly, real.

G-g-gawd?

I thought stammeringly, looking upwards.

But (as usual) it wasn't gawd. It was a hidden microphone with a motion sensor, that activated when I passed. Yet another triumph of modernisation. So I walked back to the spot where I'd been before I jumped out of my skin (there was my skin, still lying on the floor where it fell off. Felt pretty good to put it back on).

"WOULD YOU LIKE SOME ADVICE?" the voice boomed again. Curious, I listened on. Turned out to be an add for some drug or another (probably to cure depression or ED, if I'd stayed to listen).

Man, I'm ok (kind of) with advertising and all, but do we have to scare the bejeezus out of me?

My lot in life

2009-12-04T15:13:00.005-05:00

Two months ago, Delta and I bought a new bed from the DoorStore. Our current full-size bed, while quite snuggly and comfy, just wasn't enough for Delta, me and Queen Jaffa. Especially when QJ started dominating the space.
"Look at that!" Delta used to exclaim. "QJ has half the bed and you and I are squashed in the other half. Why are you letting her push you around?!"
"She does it when I'm asleep," I was forced to explain sheepishly. "She waits till I'm at my most vulnerable, and then keeps prodding me so I keep moving over in my sleep. I can't help it!"

And so, because of QJ's dominating ways, we were forced upgrade our bed.

And when I say we bought a new bed, I mean we went into the store and paid for it, only to be told it would be delivered in three weeks.
But three weeks came and went with no bed. When we called the store to find out, we were glibly informed, "oh it's been delayed by a week, you'll have it next week."
But the next week came and went with no sign of any sleep support system.

And the same the next week. And the same the week after.

My tether is only yay-long, and very quickly, I was at the end of it. So last week, I marched into the store in a bit of a harrumph.
"Oy, mister, you sold us a bed and you haven't delivered it." That's me and my tough talk. No beating around the bush. No time for games.
But the fella behind the desk was so nice, and so apologetic, and promised me it would come this weekend, and ... so I relented and accepted his word.
"It better come next weekend," I told him, insinuating that I wielded warnings and threats which I couldn't quite articulate.

So imagine my absolute irritation when I woke up this morning and there was still no call from the delivery guys about the bed. A whole week later, nothing. The more I thought about it, the more irritated I got. This guy had given me his word. Didn't that mean anything anymore?

And I mulled over it more and more until I'd worked myself into a tizzy of boiling blood. Finally, having waited till past noon, I decided to head over to the store myself and give the sales guy a serious talking to. That's it. I had had enough of this nonsense and I would give him a piece of my mind. I'd share my thoughts on how badly we'd been treated. I'd demand recompense. I'd -

And just as I was about to enter the store, all riled up, my phone rang.
"Hello. It's the doorstore delivery team, we're calling to schedule your bed delivery for tomorrow."
The timing was just typical. I would normally have been elated, except I'd worked myself up into such a huff that this quite took the wind out of my sails. Suddenly there I was, a deflated balloon.
I wasn't built to switch gear so quickly. My emotional radar didn't quite know how to jump from irate to ecstatic, so it ended up somewhere in between in a heap of emotional confusion.

Slunk back home, and there was QJ curled up on the couch, demure as ever. Emotional as I was at the moment, I couldn't help myself, I rushed over to her and smothered her little head with kisses.

Roused from her sleep, she slowly roused her head. Looked me in the eye. And emitted a loud cat burp of emotional satisfaction.

Yes, folks, that's what I get for my effusive kisses. A catburp.

But one has to be appreciative of the hand life deals. And if my lot in life is a deflated balloon and a catburp, who am I to complain.

A dangerous accessory

2009-11-24T15:56:00.006-05:00

I'd been thinking to myself that what with the upcoming holidays and all, we should probably invest in a new speedlight for our camera. One never knows when one will want to whip the thing out to take some pics - and in today's world of HD, if you're in a pic, you want it to be with flattering lighting. Ask the movie stars, they'll tell ya.

So on the way home from work the other day, I found my legs wandering me into a camera store. Now, the people who work in the camera stores in New York are a creature unto their own. They are so passionate about photography, that any perversions or dilutions of the sport are considered outright offensive, and worthy of only derisive responses. Passion like that is to be both respected and feared. Especially feared.

There was a guy in front of me, speaking to the sales agent, so I waited patiently behind him.
"I'm looking for the kind of camera that's a point and shoot, but also takes HD video and is tiny and light."
Sounds reasonable, right? Too gimmicky for the sales guy, apparently.
"Kid, you shouldn't be in a serious photography store like this. For that kind of sh*t, you need to go to Circuit City or Best Buy. Don't waste my time."
"But... but...."stammered the poor fella, taken aback.
"When you're ready to take some serious pictures, and you aren't focused on video and being tiny and light, come back to me."
And that was that.

So you can imagine the trepidation which siezed me when it was my turn to go up. Coweringly, with much hesitation, I approached the counter.
"Excuse me, sir, I'm looking for a new Nikon speedlight. I was thinking the SB-600..." I let my voice trail off.
I flinched (inwardly) and cringed (outwardly), waiting for his response in the deafening silence that followed.
But he surprised me (again).
"That's a great speedlight! You'll love it," he said, taking it off the shelf and handing it over to me. "Works best with the Nikon D-90, you should think about it if you don't have one already."
And he gave me a radiant smile.

I was so relieved I almost peed myself right there and then.

Somehow, I had made it through the camera store sans major mishap. And now, just in time for Turkey Dinner, we have a brand new speedlight to make all our subjects look like movie stars.

The tryptophan exculpation

2009-11-23T17:12:00.004-05:00

In typical McDelta Thanksgiving fashion, we have committed the fraudulent act of ordering our Thanksgiving meal online. Yes - that's what city people do. An online Thanksgiving. Because the oven's too small, the apartment would smell of brussel sprouts, and we just don't have time. And the Fresh Direct guys, they deliver with a smile.

On the other hand - before you mock - I can assure you that all our guests will be a eating a considerably tastier meal than if I'd cooked it by hand. So there. It's a win-win, no need to turn in your graves, original pilgrims.

As we did last year, Delta and I are cuccooning together all our "orphaned" friends who have no family nearby to visit. It will be a merry affair, resplendent with decadence and tryptophan - our little group of friends who have become our family at home - and both of us await it excitedly.

Of course, the mention of tryptophan had me googling where else one might find it, and per Wikipedia:
It is particularly found in chocolates, oats, durians, mangoes, dried dates, milk, yoghurt, cottage cheese, red meat, eggs, fish, poultry, sesame, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and peanuts.

Basically, tryptophan, which makes me drowsy, is found in everything I eat!

I ask you, Gawd, how am I supposed to make it in life, when tryptophan stands against me? No wonder I can only bring myself to wake up at 8 each morning. I thought it was me being a lazy b*tt. But no, it's the tryptophan in my diet.

From here on out, I am exculpated of all crimes that result from sloth. Just so you know.

The DNA test

2009-11-17T23:02:00.004-05:00

I was on my way to meet Nooj for dinner this evening, when I got temporarily distracted by the conversation between the two women walking in front of me.
"You know what I did," one woman stated to her friend proudly, "you know that guy I went on a date with the other day? I got his DNA tested."
"WHAT?!" exclaimed her friend, (rightfully) surprised. "How?! Why?!"
"I got a brother-in-law who knows someone who can do it. And it's so easy to get someone's DNA, you know how it works."

There was a pause in the conversation, I can only assume her friend was as shocked as I was. But also, apparently, wondering the same question. Luckily, she asked it, before I inserted myself right into that conversation.
"But... why?!"
"Because you never know. If he's got something wierd-like, I'd rather know right now after the first date, right?"
I was horrified. Go on, friend, tell her off, I thought to myself, silently urging the friend to set this woman straight.
"Wow. You're the smartest person I know. I wish I could do the same."

That's actually what her friend said.

I did what, sadly, we have to do far too often in life. Just shook my head sadly and moved on.

The cost of toned abs

2009-11-17T10:44:00.006-05:00

Two years ago, the fitness ball I used to use in place of a chair burst, and I hadn't quite got around to replacing it yet. But in a little spurt of inspiration yesterday, I headed over to the local sports store and picked myself up a new one. Of course, there was (as there always is), a snag in the plan. I hadn't thought to measure the height of my desk. So when I found myself staring at a wall full of fitness balls (35 cms, 45 cms, 55 cms, 65 cms), I was admittedly floored.

My first hurdle of course, is trying to conceptionalise what a number like 45 cms high actually means in real life. Up to my knee? Up to my hip? And then to try and imagine how this guestimated height would compare to my best guess of my desk height. As you can see, there was a lot of ballparking going on in my mind.

Which might explain, perchance, why I happen to be sitting on a ball today, that's, erm, somewhat shorter than I would have ideally gone for.

Bill the tech guy popped his head into my office yesterday afternoon. Once glance at me, and he shook his head in disbelief. "You're crazy," he said, hastily moving on.

Well, Bill, let's see who has the last laugh when I get my toned abs, eh.

I suppose the Developers, they must have their fun

2009-11-12T15:01:00.003-05:00

I was quite excited about going to the gym today. So excited infact that I might have over-decked myself for the event. "Nice headband!" Eddie the doorman smiled appreciatively as I left the building.
"Thanks! Helps me bike faster," I rejoined, but mostly I was just a bit embarrassed that he had noticed I'd actually put effort into dressing for the gym. For the gym.

Why all this excitement, you ask?

They've introduced these new bike machines which, instead of the standard TV screens, are attached to video game portals. So you can choose your difficulty, choose your racetrack, and suddenly you're part of a bike race. Nothing like a bit of competition to give me the kick in the posterior that I need.

As soon as the race started, I surreptitiously glanced at the others on the bikes beside me. I wanted to make sure it wasn't one of those networked gaming systems that allowed me to compete with the guy next to me. I mean, losing to a computer might be ok. But losing to the eighty year old guy sitting next to me - less easy to deal with. So I started my bike race. I can't begin to tell you how much of a difference it makes to your effort level, the minute you know it's a race. So there I was pumping away furiously at the pedals, heart beating wildly, mind intent on beating the other virtual chappies I was competing with.

Also - the fancy scenery wasn't lost on me; I was intrigued by all the detail in the cliff sides and meadows I was biking by. And then I suddenly noticed a horse galloping through the meadow, parallel to the road. Running along, right beside me.

Oh. Faster than me. Overtaking me. I was just wondering about it, when suddenly the horse veered sharply onto the road and bumped right into me. What the ... ?!!

I might have been going a bit slow, and maybe a bit distracted by all the exciting scenery, but seriously? A horse ran right into me? And - judging from the "WORKOUT OVER" message that flashed onto my screen - apparently the horse ran me over and killed me.

Eh. I'm all for video game workouts and all, but do I have to die?

Well, I suppose the developers, they must have their fun.