Rantings in general

My life is on hold. For last six months I’ve been living out of suitcase in temporary housing, first in Hyderabad and now in Seattle. This move has affected my life in more ways than one. Let me explain. I’ve never been very fond of camping, really! Yes, I diligently attended all the NCC camps I could find back in school, not because I enjoyed them but because they allowed me to skip exams (clever, hmmm?) I travel quite a lot and camp in various hotels around the globe…but in those cases I know exactly how long I’d be camping, where I’d be going, what I’d be doing and also that I won’t have to make my bed, do laundry or cook for that period of time. This arrangement works out pretty well for me. But these last six months’ camping has left me exhausted. Not only I’m not living in my own house and I don’t have all my stuff which makes me feel so darn incomplete, but every time I need something I have to rush out and buy it, even though I might have that exact same thing locked up in a 20 feet container crossing the Atlantic at a snail’s pace!!!! My brand new house is sitting vacant while I sit here, twiddling my thumb, waiting for that damn container to show up so that I can move into my house and get on with my life!

I should really start looking for work, just to keep myself sane. But I have been procrastinating…a) because my portfolio is in that container and b) once that damn thing shows up I’ll anyway have to take sometime off to get unpacked and get the house in order. I know it’s the lamest excuse in the whole wide world…but since I’ve already waited out two and a half months, a few more weeks wouldn’t hurt, now would it?

My Liquid Yellow Mini Cooper is sitting in the shop. Apparently these cars are notorious for landing up in the shop every now and then. For whatever reason, my car had to develop a problem which the technicians have never experienced before...they are so stumped that even after taking apart the car 3 times they haven't been able to figure out the malady!!! * Gnashes teeth in frustration* So heaven knows when the car will show up!

I just got back from a cruise to Alaska. It was fun…well mostly! It was a family reunion, called by the patriarch of the family (sounds vaguely Godfather’ish, but this patriarch is a far cry from Vito Corleone) which no one could say no to. So all his children and their bitter halves boarded the super-luxurious cruise liner to be trapped with each other for the next seven days. In fact one bitter half actually paid $50 a minute (or something equally exorbitant like that) for internet connection on board so that he could vent on his blog every night! And no, he didn’t give us the blog address, the chicken! :-)

It was somewhat entertaining to see a bunch of people, who are not particularly fond of each other trying to be civil. Its really hard…people got mild cabin fever, fangs and claws came out once a in a while, but no serious injuries happened as far as I know. What was I doing, you might ask…I was hiding most of the time. There was a lovely library in ship with huge glass windows from which you could see the whales jumping once in a while and I had a couple of really nice books to read…a perfect place to hide with a tall cup of green tea.

Other times we’d go for shore excursions and we all tried our level best to avoid each other. Spouse and I went dog-sled riding on Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau. It was quite amazing…after a stomach dropping helicopter ride (my first) we landed deep into this gigantic glacier where there was camp with about 200 dogs. While we were shivering in 5 layers of warm clothing and gloves and caps, the dog mushers were walking around in shorts and t-shirts. Our musher, a comely lass from Norway, took us for this once in a lifetime kinda ride through pristine white, almost surreal landscape of the glacier on a sled pulled by a dozen really frantic dogs. Pretty amazing! I wish I could share the pictures with you, but that brings me to my next reason to vent…spouse lost the camera! Yes, a lovely 8 mega-pixel digital camera brimming over with pictures of a life-time was inexplicably lost. What do I say to that? I wish whoever got it had the good heart to at least return the SD Card.

My gal pals have ditched me. By some quirky co-incidence, all of them are out of town this week, while I’m languishing here waiting for my stuff to arrive. One is in LA looking after her mom who just had a surgery, so she’s excused. Another one is in Cancun frolicking on the beach…may you get the seat next to the toilet on your flight back home! The third one is sailing somewhere around the San Juan Islands in her brand new boat…she’s too dear to me to wish anything ill…I’ll just have to guilt her into taking me out for drinks more often.

Couple of Sat’days back we went to a club in downtown Seattle, which was hosting a pre-Independence day bash. In the recent years Bollywood music has gained tremendous popularity among the club-going crowd of Seattle. In fact there is a club which devotes entire Sat’day nights to Bollywood/Bhangra which attracts major crowd, desi and firangs alike! This particular night we had to stand in line for nearly forty minutes to gain admission. The place was full, bodies were packed like sardines on the dance floor and it was easy to get it into the mood. We were having a great time, till spouse went to the bar for refills while the DJ was playing some Punjabi number. Lo and behold some guy showed up right next to me. I tried ignoring him as much as I could by slowing down and getting closer to my sis-in-law who was there on the dance floor. Out of the blue, he slapped me on my butt, grinned at me, leaned closer and said “Have fun!”, and disappeared into the crowd. I was completely flabbergasted. I left the floor in a daze to find the men, who of course wanted to beat the crap out of the fellow if only I could recognize him. But he looked like anyone in there. I kept wondering if I should have retaliated and caused another mini-stampede (read Shame for reference) or did the right thing by not making a big deal out of it. And two weeks later I’m still wondering…hmmm!

Few weeks back, following spouse’s corporate membership in the swankiest health-club in the area, I went in for a physical assessment with a personal trainer called Sebastian. He greeted me with a “Bonjour Madame” and for the next two hours I was mesmerized while he assessed my fitness. Okay, he was not particularly great looking, but that French accent was so delightful…it was pretty easy to close my eyes and pretend that he was Olivier Martinez! I smiled indulgently even when he measured my “waste to heap” ratio and declared me clinically obese. How could I not…even when he called me fat, he did it with so much flair :-)
“Help me” I said dreamily “I can’t work out. My knee is broken!!”
“In zat case you need to sweem, madame. Zat is zee best excercise for ze bad knee.”
“But I can’t swim either!”
“Don't vorry, madame! I vill teach you. I’m ze master coach. In 2 weeks’ time you vill be sweemming like ze feesh!” he declared.
Needless to say, I haven’t gone back there. I don’t trust myself around men wearing nothing but a swimming costume and French accent! :-)


That’s the current status of my life. I had this overwhelming need to vent today, which has been achieved. A few days back Ichatteralot mentioned that I sound happy and not disgruntled in general while White Magpie said that I lead a charmed life. Sure I do! :-)