… this would really make my day… the puns for headline just roll off your tongue…

CNN reports:
“Man suspected of money laundering after $400,000 found in washing machine”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/11/23/europe/money-laundering-amsterdam-scli-intl/index.html

The two days in a calendar that I dread like the plague are her birthday and our anniversary. Not because I forget them. The school of hard knocks – also called Life – long back has taught me that the easiest way to forget your spouse’s birthday or anniversary is to … simply forget it once!!

The problem is that I am not the one who believes in grand celebrations and gifts and parties and special dinners and all that to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. A quiet drink together? Yes. But nothing more. I have always marveled at all those Facebook posts I get from my friends with sparkling photos of them surrounded by innumerable friends in dazzling dresses with a cake thrown in here and a candle over there on such special days.

And I have wondered – with no less measure than my marvel – what made them wait for a day decreed by some random Gregorian way of counting an integral number of times of the sun going up and going down repeatedly to show such love. Why not pick a completely random day? Or two days? Heck, how about every day?

If a silver jubilee of a marriage has taught me anything it is that such clinical assessment of sanctity of revolutions of the sun is not going to get me anywhere.

Fearfully, I admit her birthday is around the corner.

I can almost sense the tension growing from the pervious night.

“Will he get me something this year, at last?”, she will wonder, more hopefully than realistically.
“How weird is it that our mind believes that one thing one day somehow outweighs the value everything else done all the other 364 days? Have we all reduced our feelings to Hallmark card templates?”, I will philosophically wonder.

Both quietly.

Both waiting for the storm that is welling up not too far.

I will spare you all the details but the conclusion will not surprise anyone. Somehow I will be at fault. Somewhere, I will get a lecture that I do not care about her.

“But, I was the one who suggested that you go back to India
to be with your mom a month after you came back. It was I who told you that I will take care of the daughter in spite of having a job in a different city. How come that does not count?”
“I did not ask you for that”, she will righteously declare.
“And I was the one who searched online for two days and got you tickets. And arranged for all our travel in India. I even called up the driver to be at the airport to pick you up when you arrive at the dead of the night. How about that?”
“I did not ask you for that”.
“I even went to the extent of arranging you to be at the 24-hour restaurant in a five star hotel so that you can relax, eat and refresh while waiting for daylight so that the driver can take you for the ride home. How about that, huh?”
“I did not ask you for any of that”.

Normally, I would walk away trying to compute how is our brain wired that unasked for events carry less value than the expected-but-not-gotten ones.

Normally, like I said.

Not this time!!!

You see, her Highness after relaxing and refreshing in the aforementioned hotel, messaged me – a full half world and ten and a half hours away to call the driver – who was merely hundred yards away downstairs in the garage to come and pick her up from the lobby.

Might I mention, like always, I did what she asked me to?

I can’t wait to pick her up from the airport on her birthday when she comes back.

With a broad, all-knowing grin and folded arms. (Even I know it would be rude to tap my shoes and go Tut Tut along with that).

But no gifts.

“Did the driver show up when I called him?”, I will ask innocuously.

Ha! Ha! No more of those “I did not ask you to”, this year. Game, set and match.

I have to think about something else for next year now!!

If I am still married.

To the same woman, of course!!!

Sat down at the breakfast table this morning after my run and saw this packet on the table. No idea whether this is for Sharmila or Nikita (fairly sure it is not for Jay Jay or me) but that really does not matter.

This just makes no sense to me.

First, did you know that there are different kinds of makeups – like the stubborn ones, the compliant ones and the – I guess – schizophrenic ones? And how do they even decide whether the makeup is stubborn and not simply misunderstood?

Hilariously, there are degrees of stubbornness, it would appear. Neutrogena prides itself in dealing with the “most” stubborn ones.

99.3 ???? Not ninety, not ninety nine, not ninety nine decimal nine … But precisely ninety nine decimal three??? Did Neutrogena go around putting makeup – nothing but the most stubborn variety, mind you – on one thousand women in a mall and then go around scrubbing their faces only to find that the results were unsatisfactory on seven such women?

I had to chuckle at that #1 Choice of Makeup Artists bit. Those artists are made up for sure.

I am not done. Yet.

Why 114 towelettes? Whose great packaging idea was that? Not 100, not 120, not 125 but 114. Hundred and fourteen? Did some family of 19 people demand that they be able to divide the towelettes evenly amongst them, or what???

Ok. Now I am done. I need to scrub out some sun tan I got on my face from my run 🙂 🙂

As one photographer to another, let me ask you… “What phone are you using these days?”
😉

Check out the invite I got. I thought the role this lady plays – elegant and upscale social events for single Ladies and Gentlemen in Metro Atlanta – was pretty intriguing. I blurred the picture and redacted some of the info to maintain privacy.

But I have noted down the names of the 11 friends that I have who are connected to her. I have a few interesting phone calls to make today 🙂 🙂

… which raises the obvious question… “How many “karats” was it?” 🙂

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-45220825

I too want to get in on the game and impose tariff on somebody 🙂

All the countries of the world seem to be singing that old “Kashmir Ki Kali” song “Tariff karoon kya uski” in unison ….
(sorry for the reference to a Hindi song to my non-Hindi readers)

… I guess so that I do not mistake it for an omelette or something!!!

I am not totally conversant with the New York subway system … but don’t all their customers come in contact with the train? 🙂