Bladderly Disinclined

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.