27 September 2020

From the bartender’s corner – Barbed Wire

Five years back, I had made this drink for the first time. The ingredients are such that they leave a fairly pronounced length and after taste. Tried it again today. Some bartender’s suggest sherry instead of raspberry liqueur.

This would be 3 ounces of vodka with half a teaspoon each of absinthe, sweet vermouth and Chambord raspberry liqueur. It is best to shake it with chipped (or crushed) ice instead of ice cubes. Cooler and little more dilution brings the ingredients to the palette better.

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27 September 2020

That occasional moment of mirth

As listless as his life has become, we have been able to get his pain level down with all sorts of life support around him. That includes dialysis – which means he has to be heaved off to the dialysis center three times a week and then four hours later brought back. There is a fairly large support system of four people my brother has set up for him. That includes domestic help at home to give mom some respite, a couple of able bodied people to lift him and get him in the car and all that…

On his side, he is mostly sleeping and has gone very quiet. Does not talk as much and in those days when there is a 2-day gap between dialysis, he gets very fidgety and restless. But does not complain of any pain. And then, once in a while, when he gets a bout of normalcy, he gets stressed realizing all the support system set up around him. His biggest fear is that all that expenses will dry all our money dry and mom will not be able to buy food. Needless to say, he has no idea how much money he has or how much a kilogram of potato costs for that matter.

My brother is once again at this bedside this weekend. I look forward to that since that means I can see my dad thru Whatsapp video. He clearly looks like a much-stricken patient. The most painful part for me is when he keeps asking me when will I come to see him. Unlike a month back, he has lost his ability to understand the pandemic and that flights are not possible right now.

In the middle of all that, we did see a streak of his old humor though.

At one point, he asked me what was I up to. This was around 10 at night for me.

“Tomakey taaka pathabaar byabastha korchhi”.
(“Oh! I am fixing the system to send you money.”)

He knew immediately that I was making fun of him. You can see him laughing in the bottom left screen shot. After a good laugh, he sobered down for a second and then with that familiar mischievous countenance (see bottom right picture) shot his comeback..

“Byabastha-ta a-byabastha korle ki korey?”.
(“How did you break the system to begin with?”)

Even my brother was laughing so loud that he could not hold up the phone for me any more!!

Category: Family in India | LEAVE A COMMENT
26 September 2020

Coffee art

One advantage of the virus pandemic is that I have been trying out a lot of coffee shops in the next 20 miles from our house. Most are owned by individual families. They let me sit inside or outside. (Starbucks is allowing us to sit outside now but not inside yet). The coffee is usually a little costlier and they take more time than Starbucks to prepare it. But the output, for some reason, I am finding to be far more enjoyable.

This is my cappuccino from this morning. He took a lot of pains to create the art. I messed it up with one long sip đŸ™‚

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26 September 2020

Paid the penalty… with a 10 mile run

This week, I had not run even one single morning. There were too many breakfast meetings and then a couple of days, I was just lazy to get out in the rains. This morning, it appeared that I needed to post 36K in 5 days to keep up with my goal of 110K this month.

Gave it a shot and pulled in a 10 mile – 16K run in 1 hour and 52 minutes. Ran into Vijay Nagarajan (colleague from prior job) and Debjyoti, Rituparna and their daughter Tania in the trail. Did not get a chance to chat much since I was trying to get in as many miles as I could.

4 more days and still 20K to go. Tomorrow is ruled out (legs are too sore). Will be an interesting finish to the month…

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20 September 2020

Some more progress in skateboarding

Getting started is still a challenge. But staying up is getting easier. Tried some down slopes to see if I can stay stable as it gains speed. Nikita has figured out how to get started and get up. She told me it took her about an hour of practice. Which means for me, it would be three to four hours. Let’s see…

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20 September 2020

Skateboard now?

In a bit of sheer lunacy, I tried unicycling. Learnt the hard way that at the age of 54, I have certainly lost a lot of my sense of balance that came naturally to me as a kid. I am told that this process continues thru our old age. (one key reason why elderly people fall down so much).

I am pausing my attempts on unicycle. But to extend that streak of madness, I am now going with skateboard to see if I can master it. Well, when I say master it, for my age, if I can get up, go for fifty yards steering around a few objects and get off without hurting myself, that counts.

None of those flipping tricks I see the kids do in Fowler Park Skate Park. Now, my problem is that I need some space to practice. Which would mean I have to go very early in the morning before the kids show up. Nobody wants to see a old man trying desperately to stay on a skateboard and falling down…

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19 September 2020

The Sylvesters!

Of the various aspects of flying every week that I miss, the topmost must be making new friends. I probably have made more friends on the road – at airports, hotels, restaurants – than by any other means. It has been a great experience even keeping up with them (I send FB requests to many of them – some of them make the mistake of accepting).

Now that I am not flying any more… I am having to adapt. Truth is I do not meet that many strangers any more. However, I am getting a few opportunities in the open areas where Sharmila and I go for late evening drinks. The most fascinating friends was a small kid call Dylan who played soccer with me in the Halcyon mall open area. I have not seen him ever since.

Today, we made friends with the Sylvesters. They were sitting in the adirondack chairs in Alpharetta downtown next to where Sharmila and I usually sit. It started with if we were comfortable they sitting down at the next set of chairs. From there we discussed beers – they were having Shiner Bock and we found the common connection in Texas (their son and Tom’s dad is in Texas and of course, both my daughters were born there) to Turkey (where Tom spent a few of his early years – his dad was in General Dynamics). Nikita, our younger one, went to a private school run by mostly Turkish teachers and actually learnt Turkish for a year.

Silvania is from Brazil – and that of course got us started about my experiences in Brazil including the crazy crowded city of Sao Paolo (where she is from). I thought Silvania Sylvester was a nice alliterating name. Found out that her middle name (dad’s name) is Silvi !!

We hope to run into them again. This time I need to talk about soccer!!

Category: Intersection Points | LEAVE A COMMENT