1. Getting her New Jersey driving license
How she did it: Waited and waited, procrastinating until the day before her Indian license and IDP were about to expire. Then spent a night reading the NJ motor vehicles manual, before running to the testing center in the morning. Took the knowledge test (multiple choice questions) and vision test (unless you're totally blind, this shouldn't be a stumbling block).
Aside: The cool thing about NJ is that if you have a long driving history in in some other country, and you pass your knowledge test OK, they can waive the road test - as they did in my case.
2. Digging her rental car out of 20 inches of snow.
Two and a half hours on a Sunday afternoon. Charming weekend. And to really provide us with a challenge worth sinking our teeth into, every hour or so, after all of us trying to liberate our cars had more or less cleared the snow behind it, the snow-plough would come back and push all the snow from the road into banks behind the cars.
3. Buying a car.
How she did it: She shopped around for weeks. She spoke to dealers, did some test drives, searched the web desparately for the cheapest cars, certified used cars at reasonable mileage and prices, and despaired. And finally, she walked into a dealership, test drove this one car, and said, OK, that's it, here's my cheque. Or, you know, here's 10 bucks, and I'll get a loan for the rest and come back and pick the car up.
So anyway, my 2006 Honda Civic LX will be with me on Monday! Woohoo!
4. Attendant hassles:
The problem is, when you buy the car, you need to buy insurance. And for these guys, no driving history in the US = no driving history whatsoever. (To be fair, perhaps records are not easy to access - and it's difficult to believe that there could be a driving record for each licensed driver in India. Still, in one's nastier moments, one tells oneself that this is the same mind-set that calls a national event "the world series".) Which means, high premiums. *sigh* But, the silver lining - the insurance business is not all about making money - there are caring insurance professionals out there. Like one guy Frog spoke with, who told her he wasn't comfortable giving her the NJ state minimum coverage because what if she got in a collision and got sued for more, and had to pay it all herself? No no, he'd feel really bad if that happened, knowing he'd OKed the coverage, and so he was going to give her higher coverage and (of course) charge her higher premiums. Frog almost broke down and cried, at how this individual was shattering all myths about insurance professionals. Then she told him where he could put his premiums and rung off.
5. Traveling. Like fury.
Hurrying from meeting to meeting, whirling across the east coast like a ... well, hurricane, she guesses.
See also: waiting around at airports for delayed flights, waiting around at airports for someone to provide some information about whether the flight I'm scheduled to take is just delayed, or has disappeared into the blue, waiting on board flights for delayed take-off, waiting on flights circling airports to be cleared to land, waiting at airports for connecting trains. NB: A margarita, taken just at the point where the waiting is beginning to climb over the hill of bearability and grab you by the throat, preparatory to making you grab someone else by the collar, is wonderfully calming!
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Friday, February 10, 2006
Movie Recommendation of the month: Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain, based on a book by Pullitzer prize winning author Annie Proulx, is one of the best movies I have seen in a very long time. It's not that the story's so unusual - after all, it's a love story, and what could be more common? OK, so it's a love story involving two people of the same sex, but that's not unusual either.
It's just that the evolution of their connection, from spark to romance to tenderness to angst and resentment, all the while growing stronger, is shown so beautifully. And the starkness of the story against the starkness of the landscape - a land where men are men, not "queer"s - gets under your skin and nestles there, refusing to leave. One viewing will not be enough. (I'm headed back to the theatre this weekend.)
Powerful performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall. I know nothing about direction, but if the Director's job is to get the movie to pull you in and get under your skin, Ang Lee has worked wonders.
This is not a movie review. It's just that I can't stop myself from writing about this movie. Even though I can't seem to find the right words to describe it. So go watch.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
You Know You're Becoming American When...
... Someone asks you how much she has to pay for the gas this month, and you say, "Gas? But we just filled the tank on the way to work."
HELP!!!!
HELP!!!!
Monday, January 23, 2006
Learnings
1. I'm not yet old enough to not secretly enjoy my birthday.
2. I miss having someone turn up at my doorstep with cake at midnight.
3. Finding one's way around using mapquest directions ain't so scary after all. Except when it's dark and rainy and nothing looks the way it does during the day.
4. Quietly, sneakily, my house is taking on the feeling of a home. Things have Their Own Places, cabinets Contain Things, the boiler's hum-and-gurgle routine has become Only Background for my pottering around, or reading, and has ceased to annoy.
5. I used to love twilight, once. Dusk once stood for the reluctant close to a happy afternoon of play and stories, coming home and skolling half a bottle of cold water straight out of the fridge, bath, homework, dinner, TV, reading. Or perhaps it stood for coming home. But yesterday, as I watched the sun set over dull brown rooftops, and my room turn from gold to ink and shadows lengthen, I felt mopey.
2. I miss having someone turn up at my doorstep with cake at midnight.
3. Finding one's way around using mapquest directions ain't so scary after all. Except when it's dark and rainy and nothing looks the way it does during the day.
4. Quietly, sneakily, my house is taking on the feeling of a home. Things have Their Own Places, cabinets Contain Things, the boiler's hum-and-gurgle routine has become Only Background for my pottering around, or reading, and has ceased to annoy.
5. I used to love twilight, once. Dusk once stood for the reluctant close to a happy afternoon of play and stories, coming home and skolling half a bottle of cold water straight out of the fridge, bath, homework, dinner, TV, reading. Or perhaps it stood for coming home. But yesterday, as I watched the sun set over dull brown rooftops, and my room turn from gold to ink and shadows lengthen, I felt mopey.
Friday, December 23, 2005
Yule-tide Greetings
When I was about 7 years old, my cousins and I discovered the art of card-making. Instant thrill! We could finally wish everyone we knew (about 3 people) with a personalised card, hand-made to their specifications. A hand-made card said, in the nicest possible way, “I'm thinking of you”. It also said that we had too much time on our hands and not enough entertainment... We didn’t discriminate: everyone got their own card. Mostly the kind of card that’s sure to give you a paper cut - badly cut, created by folding a sheet of chart paper and running a knife down the creases. Crooked cards, that stood only with support from other cards, and that never, in all the years we persevered, fit any envelope.
Diwali inspired flames, leaping from red and gold diyas on muddy brown earthen plates. Not-quite-believable sparklers and tubris (anars) spat sparks all over the white paper, and chorkis spun across the landscape, narrowly avoiding upsetting the diyas and causing carnage. Lacking the capability for accurate representation, we decided to settle for flamboyance: our flames made up in colour - red, orange, yellow, blue, green - what they lacked in credibility.
There were no cards for Pujo (we knew better than that, and scornfully corrected non-Bengali classmates who had the gall to wish us “Happy Pujo”). Pujo was new clothes and “thakur dekha” - going from pandal to pandal to see the different protimas and murthis (earthen images of the goddess Durga, her 4 offspring, her vahan and the asur she’d killed. The asur always looked defiant, even with his chest cut open and spurting blood. Durga herself always looked serene and peaceful, and it always impressed me that after having battled for so long, she didn’t look scarred and bloody, that her expression never reflected the wrath of god. But that was as far as my spiritual wondering went. Pujo was less about religion and more about that particular colour of light, when the sunlight turned to sunshine; about riding endlessly on Ferris wheels in fairs after a cursory pronam to the protima occupying the same park. (Many years later, it would be about wandering around the city all night, eating indiscriminately from food-stalls, commenting on the resemblance of the asurs to the demons of the day - at various points, the asurs in Calcutta pandals looked like Saddam Hussain, the Tyrannosaurus Rex from Jurassic Park, Osama Bin Laden, George Bush, etc.)
But the approach of December was when the home-made paper card industry really boomed. All month, we’d be busy drawing crooked, cactus-like holly leaves and berries, none of which we’d ever actually seen. Attempts to draw Yule-logs blazing merrily in fireplaces were beyond our artistic abilities and died a natural death. But on occasion, and only for very special people, we would persevere with an almost completely inaccurate “Christmas tree”. This always took weeks and many drafts to create, dusted with what we fondly imagined looked like lightly fallen snow (but what, in fact, looked like some strange and virulent form of white fungus that was slowly engulfing large sections of the branches) and decorated with enough round, shiny ornaments hanging from the branches to make the tree collapse. (It never occurred to us that a tree was unlikely to be covered with snow and ornaments at the same time.) The piles of wrapped presents under the tree was where we really went to town – hideous wrapping paper and red ribbons emerged from our hours of effort, making us almost salivate with vicarious glee. “The kids” - younger siblings - got cards with torturously mis-shapen Santas creeping through the snow, reeling under the weight of huge sacks bigger than themselves. Occasionally, Santa would be sitting in a mysterious vehicle that looked like a chair with runners, but turned out, after much examination and huge leaps of imagination, to be a sled. A magical, self-propelled sled (in the manner of the Knight Rider), because reindeer, too, were beyond our ken (Irish for "can do").
I can’t remember the last time I even sent someone a card… or made one for them, though, in my mind, it still ranks up there (with the making of mixed tapes) as a way of showing abiding affection. It’s been a while since I’ve sat on sheets of chart-paper strewn around the floor, surrounded by scissors and crayons and rulers. And I suddenly wondered if I could still, at a pinch, draw a semi-believable Christmas tree and gifts. So here you go – this one’s for you. Merry Christmas. :)
By the way, the strange thing behind one of the presents is a puppy – something I asked "Santa" for every single Christmas, until “he” finally caved in under the unrelenting pressure of my “I have been a good girl this year” letters, stopped worrying about pee on the carpet and fur everywhere, and got me one.
Diwali inspired flames, leaping from red and gold diyas on muddy brown earthen plates. Not-quite-believable sparklers and tubris (anars) spat sparks all over the white paper, and chorkis spun across the landscape, narrowly avoiding upsetting the diyas and causing carnage. Lacking the capability for accurate representation, we decided to settle for flamboyance: our flames made up in colour - red, orange, yellow, blue, green - what they lacked in credibility.
There were no cards for Pujo (we knew better than that, and scornfully corrected non-Bengali classmates who had the gall to wish us “Happy Pujo”). Pujo was new clothes and “thakur dekha” - going from pandal to pandal to see the different protimas and murthis (earthen images of the goddess Durga, her 4 offspring, her vahan and the asur she’d killed. The asur always looked defiant, even with his chest cut open and spurting blood. Durga herself always looked serene and peaceful, and it always impressed me that after having battled for so long, she didn’t look scarred and bloody, that her expression never reflected the wrath of god. But that was as far as my spiritual wondering went. Pujo was less about religion and more about that particular colour of light, when the sunlight turned to sunshine; about riding endlessly on Ferris wheels in fairs after a cursory pronam to the protima occupying the same park. (Many years later, it would be about wandering around the city all night, eating indiscriminately from food-stalls, commenting on the resemblance of the asurs to the demons of the day - at various points, the asurs in Calcutta pandals looked like Saddam Hussain, the Tyrannosaurus Rex from Jurassic Park, Osama Bin Laden, George Bush, etc.)
But the approach of December was when the home-made paper card industry really boomed. All month, we’d be busy drawing crooked, cactus-like holly leaves and berries, none of which we’d ever actually seen. Attempts to draw Yule-logs blazing merrily in fireplaces were beyond our artistic abilities and died a natural death. But on occasion, and only for very special people, we would persevere with an almost completely inaccurate “Christmas tree”. This always took weeks and many drafts to create, dusted with what we fondly imagined looked like lightly fallen snow (but what, in fact, looked like some strange and virulent form of white fungus that was slowly engulfing large sections of the branches) and decorated with enough round, shiny ornaments hanging from the branches to make the tree collapse. (It never occurred to us that a tree was unlikely to be covered with snow and ornaments at the same time.) The piles of wrapped presents under the tree was where we really went to town – hideous wrapping paper and red ribbons emerged from our hours of effort, making us almost salivate with vicarious glee. “The kids” - younger siblings - got cards with torturously mis-shapen Santas creeping through the snow, reeling under the weight of huge sacks bigger than themselves. Occasionally, Santa would be sitting in a mysterious vehicle that looked like a chair with runners, but turned out, after much examination and huge leaps of imagination, to be a sled. A magical, self-propelled sled (in the manner of the Knight Rider), because reindeer, too, were beyond our ken (Irish for "can do").
I can’t remember the last time I even sent someone a card… or made one for them, though, in my mind, it still ranks up there (with the making of mixed tapes) as a way of showing abiding affection. It’s been a while since I’ve sat on sheets of chart-paper strewn around the floor, surrounded by scissors and crayons and rulers. And I suddenly wondered if I could still, at a pinch, draw a semi-believable Christmas tree and gifts. So here you go – this one’s for you. Merry Christmas. :)
By the way, the strange thing behind one of the presents is a puppy – something I asked "Santa" for every single Christmas, until “he” finally caved in under the unrelenting pressure of my “I have been a good girl this year” letters, stopped worrying about pee on the carpet and fur everywhere, and got me one.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Learnings
a. If affection is to be judged by the volume of email one gets from someone, then the only people who truly love me are someone-Volkswagen, something-or-other-Honda, la-la-la-Toyota and whoop-de-do-Kia.
b. It is strangely liberating to watch a movie on one's own at a theatre. No worrying about your sweaty palms or someone else's. No interruption from someone leaning over and asking you to explain something. No distraction in the form of frissons of pleasure from your knee touching someone else's. Nada. Just you and the big screen. Everyone else fades into oblivion and you sink into the movie.
c. Of course, when it comes time to get pop-corn or a drink, it's more fun when someone else is there.
d. Even when it's not snowing, it can be @#)!%$* cold outside.
e. Speaking of which, feeling cold is partly psycho-somatic. 15 degrees F doesn't sound too bad, until you do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation and realise it means MINUS 8 degrees C. That's when you really begin to freeze.
f. Nothing tastes better on these freezing nights than green chillies, added by the pound to everything you cook. Of course, the chillies rather drown out the taste of other masala you put in, but that's sort of the point.
g. There are few things as wonderful as hearing friends' voices from across the oceans, even when you can also hear the sounds of their morning ablutions over the sounds of your laughter. Happy birthday, T. :)
h. It is possible to get really tired of listening to "jingle bell rock". Really, really tired. Claw-out-the-damn-radio-and-throw-it-out-of-the-window tired, because every%!_)*! channel is playing it.
i. Procrastination is bliss.
j. Russell Peters rocks.
b. It is strangely liberating to watch a movie on one's own at a theatre. No worrying about your sweaty palms or someone else's. No interruption from someone leaning over and asking you to explain something. No distraction in the form of frissons of pleasure from your knee touching someone else's. Nada. Just you and the big screen. Everyone else fades into oblivion and you sink into the movie.
c. Of course, when it comes time to get pop-corn or a drink, it's more fun when someone else is there.
d. Even when it's not snowing, it can be @#)!%$* cold outside.
e. Speaking of which, feeling cold is partly psycho-somatic. 15 degrees F doesn't sound too bad, until you do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation and realise it means MINUS 8 degrees C. That's when you really begin to freeze.
f. Nothing tastes better on these freezing nights than green chillies, added by the pound to everything you cook. Of course, the chillies rather drown out the taste of other masala you put in, but that's sort of the point.
g. There are few things as wonderful as hearing friends' voices from across the oceans, even when you can also hear the sounds of their morning ablutions over the sounds of your laughter. Happy birthday, T. :)
h. It is possible to get really tired of listening to "jingle bell rock". Really, really tired. Claw-out-the-damn-radio-and-throw-it-out-of-the-window tired, because every%!_)*! channel is playing it.
i. Procrastination is bliss.
j. Russell Peters rocks.
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