Snack for a coyote

My knack for being the data whisperer is sadly not preventing the fat cells in my fingers from multiplying. I know this when I fat finger all my texts and am left at the mercy of auto correct. We all know that has led to only clear communication (yeh right!). In fact I tried to draw Zentangles to practice my dexterity but the results are so creative that a 2 year holds a better chance of beating me at them. So perhaps running? This fine Sunday morning,  I chose to run at roadrunner park where we have  demographics ranging from one year taking their first steps to little league to Senior citizens walking to keep themselves in shape.  It’s a big park. The board near the parking lot boasts of covering 14 acres with ponds, baseball fields, tennis courts and just trails for hiking.

I started my pedometer and waded through the sidewalks. I took a couple of rounds around the pond and the ducks in the pond are pretty supportive. They only come in your way when you want to take a break (thank you!!). I crossed an old lady on the walker a couple of times, counted my steps, thought about big bang (the show not the origin of the universe) and weighted for Ryan gosling encouraging voice on my Nike app. Suddenly I got a tap on my shoulder, I turned around to a petite bespectacled 5 ft slightly bent figure who was using a walker to complete her walk. She complimented me on the length of my hair, I smiled in gratitude and then she said something very interesting,
“Every time you ran past me in this hour, all I wanted to do was pull your hair. It’s very tempting.” Duh! Hmmm.

That’s newJ. I took the hint (what if she was not joking??) and decided to change my course. I moved to less populated trail of the park to complete my run. It was just me on the trail as far as I could see. After running for a few minutes I soon realized how wrong my assumption was about solititude. I saw a pair of gleaming eyes in the distance, I assumed it was a dog on a leash with the owner close by, but as I approached closer my worst nightmares were soon coming to realization. A big brown and grey coyote was standing 150 feet away. I paused and thought will I be snack to this coyote? Dibs on oxygen to my brain cells, I immediately took out my phone to call 911. A patented mix of fear and fat fingers lead to me clicking on the flashlight app instead. The flashlight from my phone deterred the coyote. It traced a few steps back. Encouraged, I shone the lights directly in his eyes. The coyote turned around and walked away.

Ha ..Fat fingers to the rescue.

Adrenalin filled; I did not know what to do?

Should I runback which might reduce the fat in my fingers that’s what I started for but then it was the fat fingers that saved me. Decisions..Decisions..Guess being a klutz has its own perks. I ran back to the park entrance and realized this was destiny. After all this was the roadrunner park, I was bound to run into the coyote. Finally they caught up.

Beep bEEp.

Go FIGure

South Mountain is a peaceful spot that has many beautiful peaceful hiking trails and the best part is that it is just couple of minutes away from Tova’s house. Tova or Tovazzie as spelled on her pendant is my window to the Native Indian culture .She lives with her elsi (grandmom) a kind-hearted warm soul. Tova can write many a haiku about her handmade eye arresting silver jewelry ..ohh..so am so J.
As the house is at the base of south mountain, it is also the residence of  a lot of non rent paying occupants that look good only in biology books and nowhere else. Yesterday as we sat on her porch after the hike trying to bring our heart rate down, we  spotted two caterpillars on her porch which reminded me of this one time with my Nanaji (Mother's dad). I am always pushed to do more things by him . His only regret with this philosophy he admits is when I want to talk about those things AND he has to listen about it .With grades in my report card  tipping in the lower scale of Biology, a subject which I never enjoyed ( I am so glad Ma you are the doctor in the family and not me..Biology..Euugghh.), he came up a indigenous plan.He spotted caterpillars in the park  and started asking me all sorts of questions about butterflies (basically let the goblins in my head think that it was my idea to raise a butterfly ). I fell into the trap and picked up the caterpillar carefully on a mango leaf and brought it home.I fed it with spinach leaves  (My driving licence would have stated my height as 5' 7 inches tall had the caterpillar not eaten my share of the spinach).
After 21 days of feeding ,staring,petting,singing,cajoling and lot of praying  and waiting and waiting and waiting for the cocoon to break and a beautiful butterfly to unfold instead  the cocoon yielded a
Black grotesque bug with 11 tentacles and 4 eyes.
My beautiful caterpillar had turned into a monster (I blame spinach)
Some anthropoid’s DNA is just sequenced wrong and they never learn from their mistakes  so when I spotted the caterpillar at Tova’s house I was still tempted to pick and see if this one turned into a butterfly. The goblins in my head resurfaced and I reached for the caterpillar. Before I could begin my journey of discovery, Elsi with her kindest warm heart stepped out and looked at the object of our captive attention . She brushed the caterpillars off the ledge with an air of complete nonchalance.
Tova and I echoed  “What did you do ?”
She shrugged and chimed “Dinner”.
Exasperated we sit on the dinner table. I am pretty sure that if we had housed this caterpillar this would have turned into an amazing butterfly, a rare species whose wings could be used to cure the Ebola virus.
Ah well ! We will never know now. This one’s Elsi’s fault..So close to a breakthrough..
2 min later..Bannock melts in my mouth..all is forgiven!
After all the pharmaceutical industry needs few viruses to make a living.
Live and let die!

Why do I blog?

I love to blog though ironically the frequency of blog posts on this site is may not be the best indicator of my passion. Let me share with you a little secret, I may be pretending to listen to you as I nod and my eyes glaze but if you throw in few buzz words like “Blog”, you have my attention. The word blog makes me focus the lens of my DSLR brain in manual settings and waits patiently to capture what you are saying.  Being on the listening side of the phone for tooooooooo long my sister finally asked me yesterday why do I blog? Hmm… To answer that I need to write a blog. The answer my friends and readers lies wrapped in the following paragraph.
Twenty years and few months back when I was 8 years old and my sister who has seen 365x4 years less of sunlight than me on this planet were tucked blissfully in our room. My sister Sakshi has a different version of the story but since this is my blog let me tell you what “really happened” that afternoon.
We were playing superheroes. We had the bed sheets tied to our necks as capes and we towered high above our bunk beds looking down at the neatly lined teddies and dolls on the floor of our bedroom waiting to be rescued from the evils clutches of the Invisible force.
I wanted to be the first when I saw that a bullet was coming Sakshi’s way and I pushed her only to save her life a heroic act for which I am yet to be thanked. The push resulted in Sakshi flying down from the bunk bed on the floor on all her four’s.
I nervously peered down, her overactive tear glands were ready to open the dam gates in her eyes, her face was a shade of fuchsia and her lips threatened to wake my parents. My parents who had lied down for a nap after a very long week and the only thing they had asked me to do was to take care of my sister and keep her safe. Well that did not go very well. Then at that exact moment my “creative” mind had dibs on the blood flow and I turned to Sakshi and said “Did you see that? You landed as Tinkerbelle. Only Tinkerbelle lands on all fours”. My poor sister had emotions conflicting on her face where she was in a dilemma of whether she should cry wolf which would ultimately lead to some kind of medication (eeyuckkhh) or be proud that she was Tinkerbelle, There was nothing more than Sakshi wanted to be in the world than to be Tinkerbelle. So Sakshi hobbled up with all the grace of Tinkerbelle but with a broken arm and climbed back on bed.

As in the 32 syllable Valmiki’s Ramayana, the Truth had again defeated evil. The truth that I love my sister (and myself) over the evil of being reprimanded for my actions at that moment had won. So I blog so that I can share the beads of wisdom that I have gathered and hopefully inspire you to be evil to your siblings.

PS: Sakshi still secretly adores Tinkerbelle and was overjoyed to see her at Disneyworld Florida, She might not admit to it but that was the only time during the Disney parade when she did not focus on the Turkey Leg in her hand.

Hello Kitty

“Grrr—chrrr-grrr"

Chainsaw searing through the bush below my window woke me up on Saturday, not the lullaby one hopes for in the wee hours. A sound that disproved my bed sheet theory. A theory that states that

“One in state of rest or unrest cannot just get up from the 3600 thread count Egyptian cotton bed set, you have to peel yourself like a really old stubborn sticker that only comes out in tattered parts stuck on your favorite table”.

I sprung up to figure what the ruckus was about. A tiny kitten had got stuck on the Paolo Verde tree which stands next to my balcony and a fire truck was here to its rescue.

An interesting scene unfolded in front my now alert eyes. The owner of the misplaced kitten was standing in a corner ready to break into sobs any moment. Three unruffled 6ft fireman stood next took her and took little notice and continued to look at the fourth fireman who was trying to trim the hedges so that he could place his ladder to reach the kitten.

I am not a fan of kittens but this one was particularly ugly. It had no fur on its body and was pink and skinny, to me it looked like a skinny pink rotisserie chicken with beady eyes and pointy ears.

Eucck.

I was ready to step back in my room when I heard someone shout “Watch out”. 

I turned around and found that the fireman was near my balcony and had spooked the kitten. The horrendous creature was now leaping (read flying at 35 mph) towards me. I was in a dilemma, should I deflect it like a volleyball or try to catch it in mid air ?

 I did neither, I dropped it.

Letting go of all her inhibitions, the owner shrieked, am sure now waking people around the block. The cat lay still near my feet not moving. The tables had now turned. I was suddenly the evil one responsible for the cat’s unfortunate situation.

The fireman leaning on my balcony witnessed the sea of horror emotions on my face and grinned.

I stood frozen as the fireman stepped on my balcony and lifted the cat up, he rubbed the ears and pressed on the kitten’s chest, the kitten opened its eyes. Thank god for 9 lives of the cat. I am sure this one was 9/9.

I wasn’t sure who was more relived the owner of the kitten on finding the kitten back in her arms or me that I was not witness to a cat kill.

Alas somebody did climb my balcony, not my Romeo with flowers but a bulky stranger holding a near dead cat.

Back to my bed. Happy thoughts. 

Only Happy thoughts.  

whether Weather

Suddenly it's summer. Just the other day we were sitting shivering indoors, bundled up in sweaters, room heaters blazing, wondering if it mightn't be warmer if we crammed ourselves into the fridge.

And now, before you can say 'heatstroke', the mercury is rising, the woollies have been packed away, and the AC’s are in full swing. And everyone is moaning and groaning about how hot the days already are and how much hotter they're going to get, and how they just can't stand the heat, and how winters are so much better when it's nice and cool.
These are the same people — and i include myself — who till a few days ago were whining and cribbing about how cold and horrid it was, and all you felt like doing was staying huddled in bed under a nice warm quilt, and couldn't wait for it to get warmer.
And as summer advances and it gets hotter and hotter, and then hotter still, so that you sit indoors with a glass of cold cucumber water by your side, dripping sweat and wondering if it mightn't be cooler if you were to switch on the oven and shove yourself into it, you ask yourself when , oh when, will the blessed monsoon come and the rain cool things down a bit, or will El Nino — whoever the heck he is — play spoilsport and leave us gasping and panting in this dreadful heat.
And finally the monsoon will come — yah boo to El Nino —and the rain will come pouring down, and streets will get flooded as they do every year, and there'll be endless traffic jams, and no one will be able to get to work, or to school, or to anywhere on time, and everyone will say when, oh when, will this awful rain stop which is ruining crops all over the country.
What would we do if we didn't have weather to talk about? How hot it is, how cold it is, how wet it is, how dry it is, and so on and on and on?
In an age of increasingly sharp political, social and cultural differences, the weather remains just about the only safe subject to talk about without getting into a heated argument — or worse — with someone or the other who takes a point of view diametrically opposed to yours.
As a subject for polite conversation, politics has become a distinct no-no. Because while you might be an ardent democrat , or a supporter of Seahawks , the person you're talking to could turn out to be a Osho admirer and the next thing you know is that the fur and fists start flying.
The same thing goes for that other grand passion of Indians — cricket, particularly of the IPL variety. Was that last match fixed or not fixed? Is such-and-such in cahoots with bookies or isn't he? Nope, cricket has become an explosive minefield where not only angels but even fools fear to tread.
Movies ? What about movies as a safe topic of conversation? You never know. The movie you say you loved might be one that some group or other is up in arms about and wants banned for hurting religious/community/cultural sentiments and before you know what's what, you find yourself being punched in the face.
No one's going to punch you in the face for saying how hot it is when it's hot. Or how cold it is when it's cold. Or how rainy when it's raining. Thank God for weather. For without it we'd literally be at a loss for words and have nothing to converse about. Or, in this case, to write about. =)