Sunday, August 2, 2009

Typical adventures

Life has been moving very fast lately. And to get to and from most of it, I've been on the back of Nicolette's scooter, The Blue Wonder. Adventures are typical.
Our daily commute to work is less than ten minutes, but every day there is, consistently, a brand new pot hole to swerve around or fissure in the asphalt to avoid. Some days we pass the man with gigantic slabs of raw meat strapped onto the back of his bicycle cart -- you can always tell he's coming because of the swarm of black crows ominously swooping down into that spot in traffic. Other days we pass families of four, not including the infant, squished onto a regular to small-sized motorcycle. Many days we are the object of laughter, fascination, gawking and other not-so-nice stares. Yesterday Nic was the target of a rude bird who also singled out "the foreigners" (I scraped the bird poo off Nic's arm as she drove with an envelope I dug out of my purse).

On weekends (and special week nights), we reunite with our third half and have the pleasure of cruising the streets of Chennice in Paco, Magda's zippy white car. This weekend we celebrated her birthday in varied forms of fabulous, including lunch at Kipling Cafe. Rich, dark wood and billowy white curtains are nestled into a tiny avenue off East Coast Road, sea breeze wafting through the bamboo and palm trees marking off this charming oasis. The three of us lingered over Indian-Western fusion food featuring special occasion imported delicacies like filo pastry dough, kalamata olives and goat cheese, plus our very own Bordeaux (no, we are not that savvy, they're just still working on a proper license).

Feeling even more relaxed than all those adjectives, we headed home rocking out to MGMT on the blissfully long and relatively empty ECR Road. Until. The front right tire blew. To make a hilarious and long story short, we were safe and the tire was changed. A nice and not sketchy young man on a motorcycle stopped to help the three girls at dusk changing a tire for the first time (actually, so did another man and his curious son. This do-gooder didn't seem to have much to offer, other than a very rusty tool of some sort that was useful in prying off the hubcap from Paco's stubborn little wheel).

Needless to say, adventures are typical.

Always up for a challenge, Nicolette utlized her emergency tights and crouched down to lift Paco off that dirty road with the handy dandy jack. She was all set to finish the job using Prasanth's over-the-phone instructions, which we're going to save in the trunk with the tools.

You just never know what to expect on the roads of Chennice...

3 comments:

the fickle underground said...

Santosh! Our angel in red t-shirt.

mags

tierney short said...

Is Paco still feeling shy?

the fickle underground said...

He's SO shy.

I'm gonna coax him to try come out and have some fun with us soon.