The sad news of the plane crash in Butte, Montana, (Allison's home town) made the India Times in Bangalore. Small world.
March 24, 2009
March 19, 2009
Wallpaper
It has been awhile since substantive posts have been made to the Tabbies, which would leave our readers to believe we don’t have time, we don’t care, or we’re dead. None of which is true; well most is not true, Alli corrected me stating that she is time constrained. However, the sad fact of the matter is that for myself, I have crossed the honeymoon boundary of being in a new place, and it all looks like a wallpaper mural. Simply put, our daily lives do not present new and remarkable observations requiring comment in the Tabbies.
As an example, in February we took a wonderful weekend trip to the Kabini River area in Western Karnataka [the state we live in]. The Kabini river bisects two national parks, Nagerhole and Bandipur, and the area is rich with wild life including big cats. We encamped at a very nice resort, The Kabini River Lodge, and took a very nice water safari to see the beasties. I was even considering a Tabbies post called “That Croc almost ate my Kayak on the Kabini” as we did see crocodiles big enough to eat a kayak, Jessie and I did go kayaking, and we were on the Kabini – and, it sounded catchy. However, upon our return to our daily lives of going to work, school, and being the hunter gatherer, the notion passed without posting words.
Another example of never written post was to be entitled “Mad Dogs, Englishmen, and Village Chicks”. I was going to write about another Sunday bicycle ride. You can guess the mad dogs part as there are a lot of strays in India. I now truly understand the old saying “let sleeping dogs lie”, and the dogs lie anywhere they choose including the middle of the road. The Englishmen were a couple of recent additions to the riding blokes, which has changed the dynamics of the group a bit. And the village chicks are the chickens that are pervasive in the villages, and you have to be careful riding so as to not run over one of them lest you discover just whose chicken it was and its current street value. I know, you thought the village chicks were a new “valley girl” – admit it.
Other un-remarked-upon quests have been to obtain a can of WD-40, which required a rather lengthy discussion with various grease jocks over the course of a three day search to define the term de-grease, and the folly of removing grease from a bicycle chain, completely unfathomable, as it is necessary for proper operation. I do miss Home Depot. Or, currently, I am attempting to acquire a couple of sawhorses to put a sheet of plywood on top of to be a Lego table for the kids. Now you would think that obtaining saw horses would be rather straight forward, but no, not here. I got a picture off the net, and then showed it to a couple of carpenters. One guy said it would take three days and Rs. 6,000 (about $ 140) in labor to make two sawhorses, and I had to buy the wood (he suggested Burma Teak). Incredible! The notion of milled, planed dimension lumber does not exist, or at least I have yet to find it. There are places where you can get rough cut lumber; however, the carpenter does the planning and dimensioning. Unbelievable! I really do miss Home Depot (and my tools). Just so I don’t get a bunch of suggestions on a resolution to this, I am about to purchase a bunch of cinder blocks for legs, as those are readily available. Alli and I have already noted the irony of choices made as we discussed in September when we were packing for the move to India if we should take two folding sawhorses and an old door – for just this purpose. Obviously, we didn’t. Anyone coming to India have room in their luggage?
We have encountered a quantum of apathy towards reporting in the Tabbies, including the picture taking as we have not taken nearly the volume of pictures we took in the first three months. Not much amazes and dazzles us anymore. It’s not that India has changed; rather, I think we are just immune to observations normally requiring interpretation and comment, and daily life is just part of the mural in the wallpaper. We have read other expat’s blogs, and all expats seem to experience the same phenomena. Early on in our various assignments to India we are chatty, but the level of “OMG, did you see that” drops off after 4-6 months. I discussed the phenomena with another expat, and his conclusion was that we needed to travel more, to see new places and new adventures. That may be true, but I think it will have to be to really special and unique places, like the Himalayas, or the Taj Mahal because Puducherry did not rate a post (nor pictures) either, and we enjoyed a very nice long weekend in Puducherry. Hopefully, our next trip, the Maldives, will generate some words and pictures.
So, dear readers do not give up on the Tabbies. We are here, we are here, we are here (as all good Whos in Whoville should be), and as soon as something really dazzling or amazing is observed and endured, verily I will report its depth. Oh, yea, BTW, the actual Tabbies are doing just fine. As three year olds, they eat, poop, and sleep the days away. The only prey of note was a rather large cockroach that succumbed to a stalk and pounce in the middle of the night a couple of weeks back. See what I mean, even three inch cockroaches are not worth noting. I would be willing to bet that if our readers encountered a dead three inch cockroach on their bedroom floor first thing in the morning whilst heading to the head, it would discussed considerably – possibly at higher than normal vocal intonation, but the roach was dutifully disposed of, and life went on. JADIP, sigh.
As an example, in February we took a wonderful weekend trip to the Kabini River area in Western Karnataka [the state we live in]. The Kabini river bisects two national parks, Nagerhole and Bandipur, and the area is rich with wild life including big cats. We encamped at a very nice resort, The Kabini River Lodge, and took a very nice water safari to see the beasties. I was even considering a Tabbies post called “That Croc almost ate my Kayak on the Kabini” as we did see crocodiles big enough to eat a kayak, Jessie and I did go kayaking, and we were on the Kabini – and, it sounded catchy. However, upon our return to our daily lives of going to work, school, and being the hunter gatherer, the notion passed without posting words.
Another example of never written post was to be entitled “Mad Dogs, Englishmen, and Village Chicks”. I was going to write about another Sunday bicycle ride. You can guess the mad dogs part as there are a lot of strays in India. I now truly understand the old saying “let sleeping dogs lie”, and the dogs lie anywhere they choose including the middle of the road. The Englishmen were a couple of recent additions to the riding blokes, which has changed the dynamics of the group a bit. And the village chicks are the chickens that are pervasive in the villages, and you have to be careful riding so as to not run over one of them lest you discover just whose chicken it was and its current street value. I know, you thought the village chicks were a new “valley girl” – admit it.
Other un-remarked-upon quests have been to obtain a can of WD-40, which required a rather lengthy discussion with various grease jocks over the course of a three day search to define the term de-grease, and the folly of removing grease from a bicycle chain, completely unfathomable, as it is necessary for proper operation. I do miss Home Depot. Or, currently, I am attempting to acquire a couple of sawhorses to put a sheet of plywood on top of to be a Lego table for the kids. Now you would think that obtaining saw horses would be rather straight forward, but no, not here. I got a picture off the net, and then showed it to a couple of carpenters. One guy said it would take three days and Rs. 6,000 (about $ 140) in labor to make two sawhorses, and I had to buy the wood (he suggested Burma Teak). Incredible! The notion of milled, planed dimension lumber does not exist, or at least I have yet to find it. There are places where you can get rough cut lumber; however, the carpenter does the planning and dimensioning. Unbelievable! I really do miss Home Depot (and my tools). Just so I don’t get a bunch of suggestions on a resolution to this, I am about to purchase a bunch of cinder blocks for legs, as those are readily available. Alli and I have already noted the irony of choices made as we discussed in September when we were packing for the move to India if we should take two folding sawhorses and an old door – for just this purpose. Obviously, we didn’t. Anyone coming to India have room in their luggage?
We have encountered a quantum of apathy towards reporting in the Tabbies, including the picture taking as we have not taken nearly the volume of pictures we took in the first three months. Not much amazes and dazzles us anymore. It’s not that India has changed; rather, I think we are just immune to observations normally requiring interpretation and comment, and daily life is just part of the mural in the wallpaper. We have read other expat’s blogs, and all expats seem to experience the same phenomena. Early on in our various assignments to India we are chatty, but the level of “OMG, did you see that” drops off after 4-6 months. I discussed the phenomena with another expat, and his conclusion was that we needed to travel more, to see new places and new adventures. That may be true, but I think it will have to be to really special and unique places, like the Himalayas, or the Taj Mahal because Puducherry did not rate a post (nor pictures) either, and we enjoyed a very nice long weekend in Puducherry. Hopefully, our next trip, the Maldives, will generate some words and pictures.
So, dear readers do not give up on the Tabbies. We are here, we are here, we are here (as all good Whos in Whoville should be), and as soon as something really dazzling or amazing is observed and endured, verily I will report its depth. Oh, yea, BTW, the actual Tabbies are doing just fine. As three year olds, they eat, poop, and sleep the days away. The only prey of note was a rather large cockroach that succumbed to a stalk and pounce in the middle of the night a couple of weeks back. See what I mean, even three inch cockroaches are not worth noting. I would be willing to bet that if our readers encountered a dead three inch cockroach on their bedroom floor first thing in the morning whilst heading to the head, it would discussed considerably – possibly at higher than normal vocal intonation, but the roach was dutifully disposed of, and life went on. JADIP, sigh.
March 18, 2009
Holi - Jessica - http://www.holifestival.org/holi-festival.html
This is a picture of Jessi celebrating Holi last week. She has declared Holi her new favorite holiday: http://www.holifestival.org/holi-festival.html
I was only tagged with a bright streak of pink down my forehead. However… some of it was still visible even three days later! After swimming in a chlorinated pool several days in a row, Jessi is almost back to her normal hue. Her clothes will never be the same again though.
March 8, 2009
Jess's First Ride
Jess has been wanting to go on a bicycle ride outside of our community, Palm Meadows. As you recall, Palm Meadows is a gated community with a single, and well manned, gate to the property, and PM is surrounded by a very impressive wall. All of which makes it pretty safe for Jess to ride her bike around and visit friends while inside PM. However, she had voiced some jealousy about my rides outside of PM into the surrounding areas, and wanted to ride outside the wall.
So, a few weeks back I took Jess outside the wall on a short trip through a little village that is snuggled up to the wall on the East side of PM. Jess immensely enjoyed the ride. The road was a bit rough, and we had to portage over some construction. Initially, Jess was a little intimidated due to having to go along the main road for 100 meters or so - we walked our bikes, but she indicated she really enjoyed the ride.
Also, back in January, one of my Sunday rides went to a eucalyptus forest. The ride group was scouting the forest for a possible spot to take our kids out to, and it was a nifty little forest that I was quite sure Jess would enjoy. However, Jess and I went camping with Alex and Preston the weekend of the kids ride, so we missed that opportunity.
I started talking with Alex if he would be interested in just he and I and our kids going on an external ride. Alex liked the idea, and we did a little scouting on Google Earth to figure where we needed to take the kids. I did a little more on the ground scouting one day in an attempt to figure out how to get the car closer to the forest as it is about a 20 km ride, and the chillin's would never make that distance. We had the GPS coordinates from the January ride, and those were easily plotted into Google Earth. So, Alex and I thought we new where we needed to go. And, as a aid, Alex put all this into his GPS.
So, Saturday (March 7) Alex and I took Jess and Preston on a ride. We didn't really find the roads we needed to find, but we got close. After traveling in the car for a bit, we came to a spot that had been sand mined (looks a bit like a moonscape), and we decided to start with that. The GPS was telling us that we were within a half mile of the railway underpass we were looking for; so, using the GPS as a guide, we struck out from the car. So, this is the picture, four folks from Minnesota got out of a perfectly good car on a hot dusty side road that didn't seem to go anyplace useful if we were lost and came from a village we didn't know the name of, and started riding East. BTW, the driver left us there and went to lunch. So, we were kind of alone and on our own to go into the countryside and return to that spot for pickup.
It was quite warm - high 80's, low 90's - and we headed into the sand mined area. The kids really enjoyed that. Jess especially had fun with the roller coaster road left behind by the tractors pulling trailers out of the area. We were looking for a trail through the eucalyptus to get closer to the railway, and after a few false starts a trail emerged. This too was fun for the kids, but by the time we got to the other side of the forest the heat was beginning to take its toll on the kids. We had water, but they were drinking hard, and the water had warmed up very quickly in the heat.
From there we bounced down through a harvested forest, and into some young forest in our search for the underpass. We discovered a large well. The well was 30-40 feet across, and as many feet deep. Steps were embedded into the wall spiraling down to the water, which was deep into the well. As like other wells we have encountered, there was no fence around this big hole in the ground; so, kid safety was keenly on Alex's and mine minds. Bounding over a small road, and off through more sand mined ground we came upon an underpass, but we didn't believe it was the one we were looking for as the GPS was telling us it was another half mile East. And, this could not have been the one we were looking for as a car was not going through the rough road through the underpass.
By now the heat was oppressive, and we needed to get the kids back; so, Jess took the lead and following our old tracks and looking at landmarks, she lead us back to the well. Alex decided to take a short cut through the forest, and we discovered a second well as big as the first. However, the second well was empty. If you fell into it, you would not survive the fall. As this point, the kids were showing signs of being stressed; so, we hurried to the next landmark and took a water break in the shade of a large tree. From there we back tracked to where the car should have been, and sure enough it was there. We asked the driver to stop at the first cold bar he found as we needed a cold Fanta to quench the thirsties.
Our ride took about 90 minutes, and even with the heat, Jess told me later how much she enjoyed it and that she wanted to that again. She did great, and never complained once about the heat or being tired. She did tell me when we about 100m from the care that she couldn't ride on, and she was squinting, which reminded me of a moment in my childhood when I got sun stroked. So, as quickly as I could, knowing I only had 100m to go, got her to the road, off the bike, and in the shade and watered. Jess is quite a trooper in this land, and her courage to try new travels grows with each adventure.
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