My FB friends’ English writing skills have jumped by leaps and bounds. And the ability to write haikus and poems? Writer’s Block to Life Time Achievement overnight!

I got to get me some of that water!!

To my friends who did not grow up in India: did you folks read the Lockhorns as part of your childhood?

To my friends who grew up in India: I am sure you remember the inimitable couple and their caustic but really funny humor!

To my friends who refused to grow up: good for you!!!

Thinking of getting a few of the Lockhorns series books if I can find them. Vikram Das and Somshekhar Baksi, you two are most likely to have a collection…

For about a year, my keyboard was showing signs of aging. Just like me. “Joints” would get stuck, “parts” would stubbornly refuse to cooperate with some hilarious and some not so hilarious results. It had gotten bad enough that my friend and CFO of the company – Hunt – had threatened to buy me a new laptop from the company if I did not change mine.

It started innocuously enough. The letter “A” started getting disfigured. In the end, it was a big circular blob. That did not bother me (come on, I knew which was the “A” button even if the keyboard tried to fool me) as much as the fact that every time I pressed that button, instead of one “a”, two “a”s would come up.

Did I say every time? That would have been a bit easier. Infuriatingly, it would be single “a” at times and then two “a”s at other times. On some very generous moments, the keyboard would type out even three “a”s.

Well, with time, I got used to it. Basically, every time I typed an “a”, I had to look up and press the delete key. This interim truce between the keyboard and me went on for a few months. Not without its own share of hilarious misspellings, though.

There was that time when DJ-PJ’s son Dhir concluded that I must be an avid gamer. Apparently, that button is used in a lot of video games. I am glad he did not venture to ask me what my favorite game was. I do not think I could have named even one if he had asked me to. (I assume Tetris is not played any more?)

The hardest part was dealing with passwords. I can name you all the websites that allow you to see the password you have typed (have you noticed that small “eye” icon?) and those that do not. Bank of America, are you listening? I would have to literally count the “*”s to guess whether I got it right.

Our truce was rudely broken one day when the keyboard decided to throw tantrums with the “s” button too. Same sequence as before… first the letter looked like a disfigured blob and then more “s”es would be thrown in than was desired.

I was determined to clench my jaw and power thru it even as the keyboard was getting really sassy with me. There! Take that “sassy” as an example. Instead of a simple keystroke sequence of

“s”, “a”, “s”, “s”, and “y” it would be something like
“s”, “” , “a”, “”, “”, “s”, [look up to see if there are two s’s already to be take advantage of], “y”

Enough to give one sleepless nights (not that I would have dared to write “sleepless” with that keyboard!).

I still would not give in.

The keyboard retaliated by upping its game. Next key to go down (or rather rise up) was “l”. Now this made life really really hard. Have you ever tried writing “really really hard” and then try counting how many “l”s have been put up? I literally would take me glasses off and pull my face to the screen and squint to see if it looked like three “l” or two “l”s. Meticulously avoided all discussions of lamas. And llamas too!!

The tide irreversibly shifted against me when the Shift key stopped working. The one I use with the right pinky. The confusion of too many a’s, s’s, l’s and then the wrong upper and lower case locked me out of at least two airlines’ websites. I had to call them up and make up a cock and bull story on why I could not get my password right.

I finally waved the white flag and showed up at the Genius Bar at the nearest Apple store.

“Your keyboard has taken quite some beating”, commented Sherri. Clearly, that was not the genius part. The genius part was she was able to get me a new keyboard under 24 hours.

When I went to pick it up, she asked me:
“How would you rate Apple service?”
“Excellent”
“How would you rate Apple products?”
“Excellent”
“What do you like about it?”
“Your delete buttons never cease working!!”

We both had a laugh and I left ready to pound on the new keyboard.

First, a “before” picture for all of you. In a few months, I will have an “after” picture replete with all the food crumbs, beach sand, dropped wine marks….

In the meanwhile, watch me as I type “Assassination”!!!

… this one is my personal favorite. Got it from Avi. First there is that topical bit of me discussing Tintin in the recent past. And then the fantastic pun on “thirty first” and “thirsty first”!!

Airports are a veritable mix of emotions. If you go to the west end of Atlanta airport, you are going to see a lot of emotional good byes, last hugs and tears. If you go to the south side, you can actually feel the anticipation of the crowd waiting for their loved ones to show up. And the excitement, hugs and tears – happy tears – when they actually unite with them.

I was at the airport this evening to pick up Nikita coming from Washington DC. As I was pacing up and down, I saw this young kid with another lady and an even littler kid also waiting there. The kid had a sign in his hand. I was walking past him and had in fact, gone a good couple of yards past him when I had to do a double take.

“Wait! Is that what I saw?”, I asked myself.

I paced back. Read the whole sign again and laughed out aloud.

I had to make friends with the kid.

I asked the lady “Did he do this himself?”

“Yes. We can’t wait to see the look on his mom’s face!”

I turned to the young kid and asked “Who made this?”

“Me”

“Was this your idea?”

“Sort of”

“What do you mean, sort of”

“Well, I had seen something like this in a video once”

“Ah! That is very funny. I want you to know that you made me laugh very loud today!”

Unfortunately, an office call came in and I had to step towards a quiet area. When I came back, they were gone.

I would have LOVED to see the look on his pranked mom’s face.

… is that I can now say ‘He/she is not picking up the phone” in about 15 different languages. 10 of them are from India alone…

I was mildly irritated when I got the annual (property) tax bill from Fulton county. Not because you would expect any irrational exuberance from me upon sighting a tax bill but because I did not owe Fulton county anything. It was not even my property any more.

You see, we sold our house in July. And part of the sales proceedings is that the lawyers withhold prorated property tax from the buyer and the seller and pay the authorities. So, for that year, nobody has to pay any more taxes. From next year, the owner pays directly.

So, I was irritated that Fulton county systems had not caught up yet. Called up our broker who checked with the lawyers and confirmed that I did not need to do anything. I also notified the new owners of the same.

But bureaucracies are bureaucracies. Just because I did not owe anything does not mean that the government authorities will see eye to eye. I realized I would have to “go thru the process” to get everything squared away.

The good news is that the Fulton County website has a fairly well documented section on how to protest. So, duly protested with a photocopy of the bill and proof of sale to them.

Did not hear anything for about 6 weeks.

Then I got an email with a link to my property tax bill!

To make sure that this was not about my current house, I followed the link, went to the bill and sure enough – just as I had feared, it was about the house I do not own any more.

Next Monday, first thing in the morning, I called up the Tax office. A chirpy sounding lady picked up the phone. This incredible conversation happened after I explained my situation to her…

“Okay, let’s see what is going on. What is your address?”
I gave the same.
“Who am I talking to?”
I gave the name.
“You own this house or you sold it?”
“Sold it, ma’m”
“Ok. Yes, I can see the property record. It was sold on July 7th.”
“Yes, ma’m”
“Let’s see what is going on with your bill… ”

And then after a few seconds, she came back…

“I have your bill in front of me. You said, you received this bill by email?”
“Yes, ma’m.”
“You opened it and checked the details?”
“Yes, ma’m. It is the house I sold.”
“Did you check the amount?”
“Check the amount…?” I stammered a little…and quickly pressed Page Down twice on my screen to go to the bottom of the bill.

There it was staring at me – a big fat “$0.00” !!!

“Oh!” I exclaimed on the phone. “Why did you send me a bill if I did not owe you anything?”

“You had protested. That was our way of letting you know that we have adjusted your new bill to zero. You have proof now you owed nothing.”

“Oh! Thank you!”

Both of us laughed a bit – me far more sheepishly than her!

Needed a strong coffee after that!!

A sign inside the bathroom of Community Cup (coffee place) in Cumming, Georgia!!

Folks are walking into the flight with their laptops still open and you can see all those Excel spreadsheets popping up all over. Two just walked by me while on Airpods. I have already heard “CapEx” and “EBITDA” thrice!!

When I came to the USA, back in 1993, it was in October that year that I had to deal with Daylight Savings Time. Not sure it quite made any sense to me. Then. Or now.

However, I quickly got Americanized. And twice a year, I dutifully went around the house and changed all the clocks and watches we had. And then the ones in the car, the oven, the microwave etc. I remember what a simple delight it was in the 90s when I realized at least the computers had the intelligence to set themselves right.

You might remember that I had complained seven years back why I was the one who had to go around fixing all her fancy wrist watches and why is it that I always cut my nails the previous day.

In a mark of – call it empty nesting, minimalism, digital advancement … what have you, today I had absolutely NO watches to reset! In fact, it was not till late in the afternoon that I realized even that we had reset Daylight Savings!!

We gave away all our fancy wrist watches and got rid of all clocks during the move. Literally, other than the two Apple watches, the only other time giving devices in our house are cars, motorbikes, microwaves, oven, computes, iPhones and iPads. And all of them self correct!

They say not tracking time in life is a bliss.

I concur. I could have done with the reminder that I had slept for an hour more than I thought this morning though!