The best things are the things I find on the ground

Do you remember Diwali? The fireworks, the fun, the dancing, the ear-splitting explosions from 6 am to 1 am for a week straight, the super-sized helping of smoke/smell/"it tastes like...burning..." But my favorite thing was the morning after the very last night, when entire blocks were lined with three-feet high mounds of fireworks boxes and other trash. But, now, this:

Has become this:

And is hanging in my kitchen. Now I can ask myself every day, "Hmm, what will I blow up today?" as I drink my orange juice. I also got this picture framed, which I bought at the Prince Albert museum downtown for approximately cents 75. So it wasn't totally free, but it was pretty close.

Lastly, I've been reading the blog lately and Karen's been talking about her big and tall issues. I don't know about that, but if you want to talk about Chubs, have you seen Alex lately? Look at that belly!! Guess he's been at the burritos again.

KTHXMUMBAI

Alex and I are stuck at JFK for about 8 hours, having missed our connecting flight to SFO. We only had a 90-minute window to get through customs, and after being delayed at the gate for almost two hours back in Bombay we naturally did not make it to JFK in time.

What caused the 2-hour delay? Maintenance on the runway. Which, if you've ever seen the state of asphalt in Bombay by the end of Monsoon, is not at all surprising. We assume that the repairs were being made by shoeless eighteen-year-olds, as that seems to be the primary labor pool for all construction jobs in the city.

Here's a photo I forgot about the other day when I was discussing the state of cleanliness in the city. Clean-up Mumbai! indeed. That campaign seems to be really working out for them.



Last but not least, yesterday Alex and I came up with the idea of combining cat macros with Bombay. The result is our new photo blog, KTHXMUMBAI.

Enjoy.

the action, it is not so much

I think this is what is considered action-packed TV programming here:


A guy in lotus position clenching his stomach muscles rhythmically. For a really, really long time.

My action-packed day today has included an hour of power walking and a 4-hour nap. So I guess I can't really make fun.

On an unrelated note, I had trouble while in San Francisco recently conveying to people just how CLEAN it was compared to Bombay. I snapped this typical scene on the drive home one day this week:



Often you'll see people and/or animals picking through small fields of garbage like this. It is so amazing to think that there is anything of enough value in there that it is worth digging through it with one's bare hands. (Click on the photo to get a better feel for just how...trashy it is.)

You also sometimes see big green bins that say "Clean up Mumbai!" in the middle of a pile of garbage. The bins typically are empty.

And also I made another lolcat, from a classic shot of Marie:

the sky is falling, but not on us

No, we were not in this building, nor anywhere particularly near it (it is in a neighborhood a little north of us). It doesn't surprise me, though, that there is a known issue with buildings collapsing during monsoon. Everything here looks a little...collapse-y.

Does anyone else find the following sentence from that news article somewhat odd? "Seven people, including four women, were plucked from under mounds of concrete, twisted metal bars and mud by rescuers who carried them to a nearby hospital on makeshift stretchers." Seven people, including four women? Because, uhh, women are some kind of special subset of "people," so you should mention it specially when they appear somewhere? Okayyyy.

Casey and I and some other people (including one woman) are going to Delhi and Agra and the TAJ MAHAL this weekend. Saturday forecast: 97 degrees. I predict we are gonna be seeing some *hot* monkeys. If you know what I mean. (If you do, please tell me, because I HAVE NO IDEA...but it was fun to say.)