Monday, June 29, 2009

The perfect weekend

Delta and I went camping this past weekend with an unimaginable amout of kit and caboodle. Like a Chevy Chase vacation, we'd put down the backseat of the car, and had stuffed the back with various recreational odds and ends. There was a tent, two sleeping bags, two mattress pads, two camp chairs and two bikes (!) in addition to our clothes and enough food for an army. Yes, when we go camping, there is no elegance or subtlety to it.

On the way we stopped at a Target (partially because it's a cheap place to buy everything in the world one could ever want), but mostly just for the excitement of pushing a car-sized cart through the kind of suburban, commercial sprawl that we just don't get to see in the city. There, having procured even more paraphernalia, we finally felt secure enough to take the plunge of camping in the wilderness (albeit 10 mins drive from civilization).

With the infantile euphoria of children with fireworks, Delta and I then proceeded to build the largest campfire I have ever seen. (Later, when we walked away from our campsite to look at the stars, I remember turning back to look at our campsite in the distance, and it looked like a towering flame of fire next to the glowing embers from the other camps around. A great fire to warm your feet and all, but try melting a marshmellow in an inferno.

But there it was, the perfectest evening I could have hoped for: a heartwarming fire, a bottle of wine and the sky ablaze with stars jostling each other for attention.

Rousing ourselves early the next morning, we packed up camp and headed over to where the bike ride started. We were supposed to ride 53 miles, but in a last minute change of heart (and surge of panic), I asked Delta if we could change to the 27 mile route. Something about the hilly terrain had made me uneasy. When we started off on the ride, I was disappointed with myself at first, for selling out to the shorter ride.
"You should have more confidence in yourself!" Delta had urged. "You could easily have do the 53 miler."

And it may be so, but let me tell you - by hill #45 of the ride, I was pretty happy to have chosen the shorter route. To put it succinctly, the ride kicked my butt. And though he'd never admit it, I quite believe Delta was thankful for the shorter ride too.

Tennis, a sunset walk on the beach, camping under the stars, and a bikeride through the country. What more could anyone ask for in a weekend.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Dinner with Queen Noor

Last night, Queen Noor and I met for dinner, at our beloved eating spot, Fatty Crab. The name is an oddringer for sure, but don't be deceived - this Malaysian seafood find is one of our faves.

If there were a term I'd use to describe Queen Noor, it would be global frenzy. I have never known anyone who travels more vastly and more frequently than her - in her eternal quest to keep life stimulating and inspirational. Over the last few years, I've learnt that at any given point in time, Queen Noor could be anywhere, from with her family in Bombay, to white water rafting the Zambezi, or exploring Iceland or Argentina.

But the more I think about it, the more it strikes me as odd in a heart-string-pulling kind of way, that Queen Noor has always been around for the significant haps in my life. I first met her when Doobs and I were in Barcelona to celebrating my birthday all those years ago. And then as it turned out, despite all her convoluted whirlwind travels around the world, Queen Noor found herself in back New York celebrating my birthday three years ago, and then to celebrate our wedding a year ago, and then again to attend our reception last month. That's Queen Noor for you in a summary. Not around all the time, but around just enough that she's an integral part of all those significant moments in our lives.

Which brings me to yesterday, when we met for dinner. As soon as she hopped out of the cab, I said, "Wait, I have to show you something first! Come with me."
I'd wanted to show her the Highline, the fantastic new park that's opened in the city. I knew the artistic union of the chic modern design and historic setting would be right up her alley, and so I'd wanted to surprize her with the view.

I guess I'd intended to walk her up the steps to the elevated park, and do a dramatic "ta-da!!" with all the flair and flamboyance that she commands in life.
But when we were still a block away, Queen Noor turned to me, "Are we going to the Highline?"
I was stumped. How the hell did she know about the Highline, when she didn't even live in this city.
"You know about it?" I asked, disappointed that my surprize had been pre-empted.
"Of course I know about it! It's fantastic! Let's go spend some time up there and catch the sun set."
How in the world someone who has only been in this city for the last three weeks would have already seen the Highline, which only opened a couple weeks ago, is beyond me. But there you go, that darned Queen Noor had one-upped us again.

Still, it was a beautiful evening, and a beautiful park, and not to be ruined by my own crushed sentiments. We spent half an hour strolling around the park, and then headed over to dinner.

Which brings me to Fatty Crab, our "spot". Over glasses of wine and the general chaos of West Village restauranterie, we rolled up our sleeves and dug into the crab. There's no delicateness here. It's not a date place. It's all about having a glass of wine, getting down and dirty with the food, and catching up with old and dear friends.

A fortuitous weekend on the beach

This Sunday, Delta and I will be doing the 53 mile Harbours Bike Ride along the north shore of Long Island. I have to admit, when we signed up for it two months ago, it seemed a ride in the distant future, as though we'd never have to actually deal with it in reality. Now, just three days away, it seems (rather differently), quite a daunting prospect.

Last weekend, while Delta and I were preparing for the ride, for the first time we focused on it's start time.
"8.30 am!" I exclaimed, "there's no way we can get all the way out to Brentwood by 8.30!" It'll mean waking up at 5 at least!"
As you might guess, we don't do waking up at 5.
"You think we should spend the night there somewhere closeby?" Delta asked.

So we researched places to stay nearby, but everything was too expensive, or more than we wanted to pay anyway. I was just about to get disheartened, when Delta suggested, "hey, we have all this camping equipment now, why don't we just see if there's a campground somewhere we can do spend the night there?"
I hadn't thought of that, and it struck me as a rather brilliant idea. D'oh. Why not.

And after a bit of nifty googling, I came across the Hekscher State Park, which as it turns out is the perfect campground for us and just twenty minutes from the ride starting point. It even had a beach, so we might just be able to combine some fine photography into the weekend. Just took a second to book ourselves a campsite, and all of a sudden, here we are, our first camping weekend of the summer. Who woulda' thunk.

So all of a sudden, without much forethought, here's our plan for the weekend:
- A walk in the woods
- An evening on the beach
- A night under the stars
- And that 53 mile bike ride. Sigh.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Mr and Mrs Pooks

Mr and Mrs Pooks (aka Lewis and Clark), were on their way from their adventures in Tanzania to their home in San Francisco. En route, they decided to make best use of their 12 hr stopover in JFK by coming in to the city.

Beside myself with excitement, I rushed over to meet them for the brief time that we could. We exchanged warm hugs, and instantly I burst forth with the multitude of questions that had been swirling in my mind. Did they get to the top of Killimanjaro? What was it like? What about the safari, what did they see? And Zanzibar? Did they have pictures? And patiently, interrupted only by more questions, they recounted all the incidents of their month gone by. What the language was like, and the locals, and the food and the hiking. They brandished a laptop full of pictures, a visual account of their adventures.

We listened like silent disciples as anecdote after anecdote spilled out of them. All the funny things that had happened, how tired they'd been, what they'd loved, what they didn't.

And inevitably, we started missing them terribly all over again. Camping and hiking just wasn't the same, without Mr and Mrs Pooks. And their silly three-bedroom, floral orange tent. And their tandem bike.

San Francisco might be lovely and all, but I hope they move back to this crazy city.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Camping adventures

Over the past couple of weeks, Delta and I have engaged ourselves in a flurry of preparation for camping season (to culminate in our Machu Picchu summit endeavour in October). Over multiple trips to Paragon Sports, the pinnacle of outdoor sporting goods in Manhattan, we've procured ourselves a tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, trail maps and hiking shoes.

I have to confess, I was somewhat unprepared for how rapidly equipment can deplete the wallet. But here we are, light of wallet but full of anticipation and excitement for the summer to come.

In our excitement to practice hiking, we decided to plan a camping/hiking trip in the Catskills. I researched a campground known as a good base for hikers, and we booked a ground. Sent out the link to everyone, beside myself with excitement.

And then I decided to read reviews of the campground. Predictably, everyone raved about it. But then I noticed what else everyone said. Everyone (and I mean everyone) said they saw black bears. Yes, the campground is full of bears.

Exciting. Right?

Right?

Of course Delta and I, after our little grizzly encounter in Yellowstone, are bear veterans. Its the others I'm worried about. We know how to use the bear-mace and run squealing for our lives. As Richie Rich once gave me sage advice, "if you're running from a bear, you don't need to outrun the bear. You just need to outrun the people you're with."

Let me tell you, in our group of friends, I am quite the turtle (sans protective shell).

Needless to say, last night I had a dream that Queen Jaffa had turned into a bear.

I mean, I'm not scared or anything. No way. Not me.

But just - Queen Jaffa was a bear. Rattles one cage a bit, doesn't it.

Need to temper my enthusiasm?

So now that Delta and I had bought ourselves all this camping equipment, the next natural step was to figure out whether it actually worked (aka whether we knew how to work it).

"I know!" I suggested excitedly, "let's set up the tent right here in the living room!"
Delta eyed me dubiously. "You think it'll fit?"

Determined, I started pushing chairs and tables towards the edges to create a large space in the centre. I mean, I know we live in a little Manhattan shoebox and all, but if we can't fit a tent in our livingroom, then there's a serious problem.

So we started setting it up. There was a fair bit of flapping around with the fly before we realised it was the rainfly and we didn't need it. Followed by a fair share of kerfuffling with the poles, which seemed unnecessarily long, unweildy and unpredictable in the directions they chose to go. A couple of near-death incidents of eye-poking. But finally we got the poles where they were meant to be. And got the tent up.

And I have to say, it looked beautiful. Like a work of art. Now I know the sense of immense accomplishment the builders must have felt after they erected the Taj Mahal.

Not to be stopped here, I ran to our closet and brought out our camping pads and sleeping bags. "Let's set it all up like we'll be doing in the Catskills!" So we laid down the pads and and crawled into our sleeping bags. Took pictures of ourselves 'camping' in the living room. Generally indulged in a childish episode ballyhoo and tomfoolery.

I was almost hyperventilating with excitement.

Then suddenly, I stopped short.
"Delta!" I gasped.
He spun around.
"I'm feeling nauseous," I said weakly, bending over to breathe deeply.
"What do you mean?!" he asked, alarmed. Just a moment ago, we'd been fooling around with all our new equipment.

I was about to answer - but then cut myself off as I made a panicky dash to the bathroom to see if anything was going to come of my queasiness.

Leaned over the pot, and thought it was so unfair that I should find myself in this position, without the benefits of at least having had a night out drinking. Thought how miserable I felt, as my body heaved through itself in a turbulent moment of reverse-peristalsis.

I waited ten minutes in this undignified manner, bent over in the bathroom, to see if I did a Vomit-Comet. But nothing. After a while, satisfied that my body had regained control over itself, I gingerely came back to the living room to a rather perturbed Delta.

"What happened there?!" he asked.
But I didn't know.

Then suddenly an alarming thought occurred to me.
"Delta?"
"Hmm?"
"Isn't this what happens to cats and dogs? When they get really excited about something, they sometimes throw up?"
He looked at me, amused. "You think that's what happened? Your excitement made you nauseous?"

I shrugged. I didn't know, but I sure couldn't think of another explanation.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Preparation for Machu Picchu - entering June

You'd think - an entire month since we decided to sign up for our Machu Picchu trek - I'd have progressed in my fitness readiness. Sad to report, 'tis not so. Not so at all. I do talk about it a lot though, and I guess that's at least a starting point, eh.

But not to be discounted, I've made some definite strides in the fun part - in procuring myself a pair of nice hiking boots. Warm, comfortable, waterproof, with adequate foot support, and still light enough that I'll be able to lift my feet after the tenth hour of walking. Those were the pre-requisites, and let me tell you, it's no easy task to settle on just the right pair. But with a stroke of luck, find boots we did, so by the weekend past, Delta and I were both adequately pod-accoutred.

Perhaps we should walk the loop around the park, Doobie suggested, keen to do the six mile loop to give our bodies a long-distance challenge. I donned my new boots and smartwool socks (which, by the way, really do work), and for good measure, put on my Camelbak filled with water and stuck the tube in my mouth, akin to a scuba diver. Then, finally, I was ready to take on the Park - albeit rather overly equipped.

So we plodded around the park, six miles total, with me sucking away at my Camelbak like a child with lollipop.

I thought we'd accomplished a feat akin to saving humanity. I talked about it constantly after we'd got home - I talked more than I normally would even - to make up for all the lost time when I couldn't talk because I had the Camelbak tube in my mouth.

But Delta, less easily excited than I am, just sighed. "That's not enough training at all, Ficali. Not by a far shot. You've got to go to the gym and do weights. You've got to strengthen your muscles."
"But I hate weights," I said, my voice sounding whiny even to myself.
But he wasn't having any of it.
"Tomorrow, we go to the gym. And I'll teach you how to use those machines you're so scared of."

I blinked. I guess I'd convinced myself that getting ready for Machu Picchu was all about buying the fun clothes and equipment.

Blech.

The Nine Month Wedding

Its been a fairly crazy few weeks, but as I've long-since learnt, crazy can be a good thing. Perhaps the first thing I need to catch up on is the wedding party that Delta and I had. Yes, finally, almost a year after we actually got married, we had our wedding party.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Getting married for us was like childbirth - it took us nine months before we actually had a finished product wedding. But finally, there we were, friends and family all together, with a party to celebrate. Nothing elaborate, mind - but a party all the same, and (just like any blushing bride would say) one of the happiest days of my life.

With Jenny and Tres offering for us to hold the party at theirs, we had the loveliest loveliest setting we could have ever wanted.


And - with a chance stroke of luck that we rarely experience, after weeks of downpour, the sun reluctantly ventured out on exactly the right day.


So there we were, happy as peas in a pod.


The fam: What with Rohinton and Jeet now living in Bermuda, and the 'rents back in India, it warms my cockles every time I see this picture. (Delta didn't believe 'to warm the cockles' is a phrase so I googled it, and can confirm it's legitimacy.)


My nieces. They eyed Delta funnily for the first two days, until one of them finally burst forth over breakfast, "Why are you dressed like that if you're a pirate?!". She wanted the eye-patch and all. So we had to disappoint her by explaining the difference between 'pirate' and 'pilot'. Sigh.