Posts tagged updates

As I spent most of last week getting Windows 7 to work properly on my computer (which will be in a next post – it takes a while for me to get such things together) – I completely missed the chance to post about walking my dog in Brooklyn. Oh, my dog? Tashi. Was invisible. Was awesome. Was amazing. Like everyone else’s.

So, there I was doing cool cancer research in my lab when IE mailed me about a possible stunt on Sunday Sept 27th 2009. And I, like the good little jobless-but-willing-to-travel-randomly person that I am, promptly responded. And rounded up the only available suspect that I know – TH. Whose recent start in comic-dom is well worth checking out, BTW.

Having traveled a good 90-odd minutes to reach Bergen Street from NJ, we and a crap-load of people assembled in what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. When Charlie Todd told us about what was going to be done that afternoon, it turned out that we were indeed meeting in an abandoned warehouse. Which had once upon a time manufactured Invisible Dogs (TH is waiting for his “dog” to finish “business” alongside). Turns out IE had 2000-odd invisible dogs, and they hoped that there were 2000-odd of us around too. The prank, as Todd put it, “pretty much wrote itself”.

We picked up our leashes and headed outside to give our “dogs” a nice stroll around Brooklyn. TH and I headed up and out of the street to ensure that we spread out and gave enough people in Brooklyn a reason to stare. Initially, barely anyone seemed to notice. Once we hit the main road though, cars were constantly stopping near us to find out just what the hell we were doing. No-one seemed to buy that “it was just a nice day, and we decided to take our dog for a walk”

A break’s a break, no matter how I put it. I last blogged nearly a week or more ago, and here I am now trying to come up with good excuses to myself as to why I haven’t posted. I’m going to skip past it and focus on topic 2: “Life Continues to Move Along its Winding Trail”.

Actual physical moving/relocation has happened again, making this the 6^th time in 3 years. Yes, I know. Insanity. However, I now feel like even though I have a mountain-load of crap, it compacts itself pretty well to be transported. I’ve also come one step closer to a dream of a recliner, in that I actually own one now. Yes, in all its lever-pressing leg-resting glory. It’s not the La-Z-Boy E-cliner 3000, the chair that Sit Magazine calls ‘Chair of the Year’. Not yet, anyway.

A recent incident is still demonstrating after-effects. In short, I’m without vehicular transportation. The why, how and wherefore are slightly irrelevant, so I don’t want to talk about it right now still. This lack of transportation is hitting home in interesting ways…

I currently feel as though I’ve been transported back in time to 2005, when my only mode of transport was walking. Back then I had recently acquired my iRiver H140, and it was the be-all and end-all of my existence. Now I realize that it still is, in many ways. I hook up the player, the remote, the headphones… and I walk down the road jigging every now and then to a song I know well. A lot of the songs are from back then too, so it sort of adds to the illusion. The streets have changed, the city I’m walking in is different and a lot of things have changed for me too… but somehow a little bit of the world as I knew it from 2005 appears to have transplanted itself into my life today.

My life is not instantaneous any more. I have to actually plan events a few hours in advance at least to manage to get to places. Again, reminiscent of the UK, where nothing could be done without taking into account transport time. It’s cool and sad at the same time; I don’t quite know which one to focus on.

Obviously, there are feelings of loss as well. However, I haven’t written about any of my cars, and I don’t know if I ever can. A car is one of those possessions that should not have the kind of good bye that I have given, and somehow I feel as though writing my in memoriam post is too final. They are all actually lost to me in real life, I know… maybe I will find it in me to post about them someday.

A trip to upstate New York happened this weekend – specifically to Saranac Lake where Reshma & Vin live. In short: Awefomeness. Yes, the missus is responsible for such explorations, once again proving her awesomeness. Reshma and Vin were awesome too, cooking up a storm of pancakes and uthappas as well as taking us to one place after another, each more beautiful than the previous one. We managed to see quite a bit in the time we were there: Lakes Saranac, Flower, Placid, Raquette, Tupper; Mounts Whiteface, Baker; and a whole lotta places in between.

The Adirondacks have to be one of the most beautiful places I have been to in recent times. Given the number of lakes and mountains around, I felt transported back to the Scottish Highland road trips that I have made – the colors, the pristine beauty, the wildness – all untouched by man, other than to put a road within. Miles of road with no seeming end, next to no cars, and expanses of green and blue flashing by. I can only imagine the fall colors that would explode in this area, and am really sorry that I won’t be there to see it this time round. Even now, I sit in my train wrenching myself from attempting to capture the beauty flashing past my train window. The twilight of a deep orange sunset remains, the sky and water reflecting it perfectly. Trees stand dark against the banks, occasional boats and canoes flash by as they float in rippled waters. Clouds line the sky, highlighted by the orange and providing a perfect gray to contrast it. Small islands exist in this river, and some of them can be seen to house some kind of dwellings, all of which look idyllic. I can only envy these houses, it is a peace and quiet well worth living in. A far cry from the places I have lived in my life.

Interestingly, villages and hamlets exist here where there is NO cell-phone network coverage. Yes in this 1^st world country, such regions do exist. What is interesting is that there IS Wi-Fi coverage in such places. Need I say more? There was also the baby bear that got scared away as it tried to cross the road while we zoomed by. Poor thing indeed. But it lent credence to stories of bears wandering into your backyard and eating any form of food that’s available. And of course, the baby squirrel that pecked away at the nut in its paws until it realized that the 4 of us were generally behaving like boorish paparazzi, and then darted away into the underbrush.

I’ve now realized that there are a bunch of other posts I need to get writing, having procrastinated them for over a month. So off I go then.