How we pass the days...

How do we spend our time over here? In lots of ways!

Duller moments include activities such as laying flat on the bed, positioning onself under the ceiling fan in a way that, should the ceiling fan fall, won't result in an amputated head/arm/leg. This is an idle but relevant thought because the ceiling fan blades here are metal. This is probably to prevent termites, ants, mold, humidity and other enemies of all things tangible from eating them away and them spinning off into a less gory version of my idle day dream.

There's reading: Saby's already, as of a few days back, gone through an entire year's worth of India Today (or The Week? I can't remember) weekly magazines, plus the 2004 first quarter worth of Reader's Digests (from which he's culled interesting information about our allergies). He's also finished an IQ quiz book, the dirty scenes from The Godfather, and an interesting tome called Hitler's War Directives, 1939-1945.

There's sleep. First nap comes as early as 10am, but sometimes we wait until after lunch. You need to siesta the hot part of the day away. We're getting weird dreams here. I saw a sea lion slide down the driveway to the little road, then dreamed I flew one morning to Paris and back without anyone knowing. Strangely enough, when I told Saby (in my dream) I had already begun to think that it had only been a dream (again - in my dream!) and so we sat and checked my passport and there were all the stamps! Seems I had also gone to Barcelona. Saby dreamed a Korean man was trying to steal Elena, and he couldn't get back to sleep after that because he kept checking to make sure she was there in her crib.

There's eating. Note to self: SIT WITH MUMMY AND GET RECIPES!!!!

There's America's Funniest Home Videos, affectionately known as AFV. At 5:50 pm it's neither 5:50 nor 17:50 - it's "ten minutes to AFV!"

There's Mummy watering her plants. There's something very graceful and romantic in the way she fills a bucket at the spigot and carries it around, doling out splashes of water to her trees, bushes, and flowers. It's very much how a movie would picturize the pretty farm hand feeding her prized chickens, a sort of routine familiarity with a little love mixed in. She does this two times a day (calling it her daily exercise) and the 2nd time around is more leisurely, perhaps because she's not racing to beat the midday heat that begins around 10:30am. Last time we were here, she showed me all the different plants and flowers - some brought from Bangalore, or California, or other places from relatives and friends; she had said something along the lines (I don't remember exactly) of being a crazy retired lady who talks to her plants. This time around she's either not talking to them as much, or is more at peace with the whole process and didn't feel the need to bring it up.

There's nature watching. Mummy and Daddy have been in this house for almost 10 years now, and they know the coming and goings of all the local wildlife. The crow family operates from our three family houses (ours, Appapan's, Chackochen Uncle's) and flies back and forth looking to see who's most recently dumped out some food. Two cranes look for worms in the rubber trees just beyond the driveway, but during a brief period where the flower bed was a little fish pond, they would swoop down and eat all of Mummy's fish pets. I myself like to look out for a lack of wildlife (namely bugs, but also bats or God forbid, a random snake.) But I like to show the different living things to Elena. She learned, in just one meeting, that the house lizard is called puhley in Malayalam, and now whenever we hear his call she yells back, "Puhley, puhley! Va, VAAA!" (come, come!)

I showed her a gaggle of ants that were gathered around a lump of something or other on the veranda, and said, "Look Elena! These are ANTS. ANTS."
Very seriously she looked where I was pointing and repeated, "anch. Aaaaanch."
I continued. "The ants are eating something. Look at them! They're eating their lunch." Already on all fours towering over the ant feeding frenzy, she leans in super close to the little pile, ponders a second, and then says, "MMMMMmmmmmm!" with great gusto, as if they were sharing their treat with her. Then an octave higher: MMMMMMMMMMMMMM! Anch!!!