so it seemed as though everyone had watched avatar. everyone but us. we would go out to dinner and be unable to participate in a conversation unless it was to change the subjet. we would go out to an improv show and watch a skit that ended up being about avatar. we turned on the television and it seemed as though it was all avatar all the time. so, finally, hidef and i gave in and, on friday, we went to watch it.

i will say this - all my life, i have been told that the aliens are tiny green men with huge heads and they come "in peace" but really they come to probe us for nefarious reasons. boy was i wrong. first of all, the aliens are absolutely massive, they are blue AND we sought them out for nefarious reasons! i'll wait a little to let that big bombshell of information sink in. i know, right. BLUE! who woulda thunk it? only james cameron, that genius. are you ready for more? they have tails. it's mind-blowing.

so after i had adjusted to the new concept of the alien, i thought about the stories i had read about how people were depressed after watching avatar because pandora is so incredibly beautiful and that level of wonder cannot be attained on earth. i have decided that there is something wrong with me because i kept thinking - there are so many little bugs in pandora, i wonder if they bite, like mosquitoes. and then there are quite a few really large and rather scary beasts out there too that seem as though they could snap me in two while picking their teeth with their free paw. okay, so they have floating mountains, but i have a fear of heights and i got vertigo just watching the movie, so, i wouldn't be trying to get up there and hang about, suspended, goodness only knows how far above the ground. and yes, yes they do get to fly in the most awesome ways on some birdlike creatures but, then again, their clothing consists on some thong underwear deal and, i believe that thongs are instruments of tortured created by some very evil people.

the thought also, often crossed my mind - this pandora place, is probably not so far off from what the world could look like if we treated it with respect. maybe if people were like the massive blue giants and tried to live in harmony with the world around it then we could happily frolic with our own locally grown creepy crawlies and big roaries. if we let them, grass and trees would grow and all and sundry could feel free and climb up and leap off them. i just can't guarantee floating mountains, but you know, they cause vertigo.

Labels: not so deep thoughts

the other day i was called into a meeting. it was a meeting where bankers were trying to get the business of the company i work for. i am not sure why exactly i was in that meeting since only on person in the room of about 14 was making the decision and he didn't ask us what we thought. but, what was i to do? i work for the man and the man said - go to the meeting.

so there i was in this meeting that started at 11. there was talk of an online presentation and that made things sound like they might be interesting. but, you know, things are hardly ever like they sound. the meeting started late and then went on and on and on. for two and a half hours. two and a half hours. and i have no idea why. in truth, i barely remember what happened in the meeting beyond struggling to stay awake. i thought about doodling, but that wasn't helping. so i decided to engage my brain with haiku. and... well... this is what resulted:

rumbi yawns stretches
wishes she were somewhere else
so she could laugh dance

AND:

head falls back, oh no
a blink turns into sleep
what am i to do?

and when people saw me counting syllables, maybe they thought i was counting bank fees.

Labels: daily life

as not just the new year but also a new decade began, i thought about all the fantastic things that came about over the year leading up to this moment. i listened to every episode of NPR's This American Life that was broadcast during 2009. i even listened to some extra archives here and there. for those of you who are not familiar with the radio show, it is a show where, according to them, every week, the staff choose a theme and bring you a number of stories based on that theme. I don't know how they find half they people that they do, in order to make these shows, but people have incredible stories to tell. Stories about themselves, their families or people they just bumped into on the street. Stories that start as innocently as a super who is not taking good care of an apartment building to that super turning out to be a hitman for the landlord and many others. i smile at my super all the time now.

Labels: beginnings...

so yesterday i pulled out my trusty notebook so that i could share, with you, the tale of my recent harrowing flight. i went through the notebook multiple times and came up empty. i mean, i clearly remember writing furiously in the notebook and, at most, was afraid i would not be able to read my scrawl. but now i have empty pages and a lingering fear that my trauma led to hallucinations. let me tell you (and hopefully this typing is no illusion).

it was when i was headed out to california for my run up many mountains. i decided to take a direct flight, so i could kick back, relax and maybe take a long nap. after a series of delays, we set out on our trip and the plane took off. all was well with the world until it hit me. out of nowhere. like a sucker punch to the chin. an awful rotten smell. someone had just farted. i willed myself to get through it, without making it too obvious that i had noticed - everyone has the right to release a little gas every now and then. but then, no sooner had that smell dispersed, than it returned again in full force. and again. and again. i was trying to fan the air around with my magazine, while not being too obvious but it was not helping. those next to me seemed unaffected but no one looked guilty. the stink, oh the stink. i leaned forward and the odor followed me. i whipped my head back and got no clues. i was trapped in the window seat, next to windows that don't open. what to do... what to do?

i toyed with the idea of pushing the call button for a flight attendant, but what was i to tell them? someone is farting around me, i don't know who it is but it's killing me! i considered asking to be moved but the flight was full. i was exhausted - the flight had taken off hours late and so it was getting to my bedtime but i couldn't sleep. heck, i couldn't breathe! once again, i jerked myself upright and scanned those around me. no signs of anything. i started having crazy thoughts related to farting. he who smelt it dealt it - i certainly smelt it but i knew i hadn't dealt it. instead i was the one who had been dealt a cruel hand. maybe that's what the rhyme should be - he who smelt it has been dealt it. then: ooh this is one silent but deadly gas attack. i wondered how this mystery person was able to control their farts so they made no sound. i wondered what they had eaten that disagreed with them this terribly. i was surprised that they were not running for the restroom to get it all out.

i grabbed my travel blanket and tried to bury my nose in it and oscillated between suffocating on the blanket and suffocating on the foul air, all while trying to get a little sleep. i would drift off and then be jerked back to wakefulness by another explosion of funk. it was a six hour flight and at least five were stinky. i started trying to relate this silent stench to the theory of the tree that falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it. does it make a sound? and if a fart is released in a plane and we are all there but no one hears it, does it make a stink? tragically and traumatically and resoundingly. yes. and creates a fear of flying like no one has ever known. and inspires an overwhelming desire to run off the plane. and brings about note-taking hallucinations.

Labels: daily life, issues, issues..., ugh...

i doubt anyone would make movies of my family christmases when i was kid, heck, i don't really remember them myself. i have vague memories of laid back days where we hung about doing very little. sometimes we were invited to a christmas party for family friends but we never hosted anything and my parents seemed happy to just not have to go to work (i assume that is why they were happy, since that is why i am happy now on holidays). at some point in this holiday deal, my mother decided to plant a fir tree in a massive flower pot and that there tree remains our family christmas tree to this day. during the most of the year, it hangs out in the yard but, come december, the tree is brought in and decorated with some lights and tinsel. any christmas cards that are received are propped up around and on the tree and there you have it, christmas. we would put little gifts around the tree that we would open on christmas morning. my mom pretty much always bought me a pretty nightie and my dad always gave me a diary with his name printed on it. i still love nighties and am yet to find a diary that i wish to fill as much as those i used to get for christmas.

it doesn't sound like much, does it? yet it really was a perfect family day, even when my grandparents gave me a dress i would only ever wear to make them happy. and it wasn't even a day that i would rave about if anyone asked me how my holidays were. but you know there is a saying about hindsight giving you excellent vision or it's my mother saying, "you'll think about this later," and, well, adage writers and my mom were right.

i have lived in new york for ten years now and, for years i have honed the art of the 'orphan holiday season.' and i am not alone. the the time i have been here, i and my fellow expats who are unable to be home with family for the holiday season, come together to pretend we are not drowning in a heavily marketed christmas. i cook enough food to feed people into an amnesiac trance and we do things like watch a coupling marathon or the matrix trilogy. and then it's time for dessert! the day of big feasting and vegging out was becoming a great time in december. but then, as some party pooper once said - all good things must come to an end.

friends moved on, and some even returned to pat, and i have new family, by way of hidef. and it is wonderful and it is great and at the same time, it is poignant and a little sad. having moved out of the purgatory of denial, i am a part of a new family tradition but it is one that has me thinking of my own family, scattered around too far and wide to join us. perhaps my mission this year is to invent a word for this happy-sad transition from one place to another. something as cool as schadenfreude or marmalade!

Labels: not so deep thoughts

so, i'm sitting here, pretty much watching hidef watching american football. he tells me it's a good game, so it's a good game. the fans tell me that it is a most interesting game and that, when i understand it, i shall understand all the starting and stopping and high impact crashes.

Labels: not so deep thoughts, ugh...

Four weeks ago... Wow! It's been four weeks? How time flies but let me not ponder upon the relativity of time. That is a conversation for another day.


Sooo.... four weeks ago on Friday I boarded a plane headed for San Francisco. I was relaxed and happy - I had given myself enough time to stop at the candy store in the airport that sells Cadbury's chocolate and picked up a couple of bags ot stock for my emergency stash. We sat in our seats and watched the safety video as the plane made its way out onto the runway. Then we sat, and sat, and sat. Then an announcement - apparently there was some technical issue that we had to go back to the terminal for. And then we sat a little more and were informed that the issue could not be solved and we were going to switch planes. I was fine with that - once they tell you your plane has technical issues, how comfortable can you really be with it?


We deplaned and sat in the terminal for a half hour. Then another announcement - apparently our problems had been solved and we were getting back onto the plane; the same plane that, just a few minutes earlier, had a problem the could not be solved. Back onto the plane we went and watched the safety video one more time, for luck, I suppose. Then, as we headed back out onto the runway, the pilot came onto the intercom system. I paraphrase - "ladies and gentlemen, let me explain what has been going on. we had a indication light that was on earlier. the engineers said that they fixed it earlier but, when we went out onto the runway and tested it, we received conflicting information that led to us going back to the terminal. the engineers now say they have fixed the situation so, we'll see what happens."
And with that, we set out on our trip. That was an adventure, but more about that later.


I was in San Francisco to run half of the Nike Women's Marathon. I figured that San Francisco's hills were so legendary that a half marathon would feel like a full. Not that I needed any excuses to run 13.1 miles, but I had them just in case. I was travelling solo - my friends had not signed up to run with me and hi def had to work so it was just me and my t-shirt that declared that I "flatten hills". I spent Saturday walking around the hilly city and taking in breathless views from atop some of these hills. It was a wonderfully warm day and there was barely a cloud in the sky. I prepared my gear on Saturday evening and turned in early.


I rose before the sun on Sunday and went downstairs to join the many other mostly women who were milling around the entrance hall of the hotel. I went over to an overpriced coffee shop, whose name rhymes with Barsucks and had to pay over a dollar for one banana! A DOLLAR!!! Nerves and outrage kept me warm as I stepped out into the cold per-dawn and made my way to the start line. The national anthem was sung, I tied my shoelaces again (after triple checking for a potentially hobbling rock in my sock) and then we were off. I had latched on to a pacing group, so I could keep a pace that would help me beat my previous race time without having to think to much about it. All I had to do was keep my eye on the pacing flag that declared that, if I could keep up, I would finish my race in two hours. Yes, yes, according to my "hard training" schedule, I was supposed to run in 2:09 hours but, isn't two such a great round number?

A couple of miles into the race, we hit a hill. I had perused the blogs and asked random strangers at the race's expo and they told me that there really was one hill in the race and it was a short one where I could see the end from the beginning. I looked up and it seemed there was an end in sight so I soldiered on and was relieved that the hills I had heard so much about before I got to San Francisco were far less intimidating in person. It was soon over and I was still running with my pacer. I refused to think about anything else - to do so would be to find pains in my knees and labour in my breath. I carried on.

We hit mile seven and the land began to slope upwards. Our pacer warned, "take it easy up this hill" and I thought, well, that's an odd warning - this hill seems flatter than the last one. We rounded a corner and I expected a downhill. So much for expectations; more uphill ahead. I gritted my teeth, determined to keep going and not let the thought of climbing up a hill kill my spirit. I should have started repeating the mantra I had practiced in previous training sessions - I love hills, I love hills - but the only two things going through my head were - I can't keep up with the pacing group - and - oh man, why am I moving my legs and arms and getting nowhere?

I rounded yet another corner and still, nothing but hill. Was this even possible? How long can a hill be and what human with a heart would have people try to run up it? Through the foam of my earphones, I could hear the heavy breathing of those around me, yet it didn't make me feel better that I was not alone in my suffering. My lesson of the hill - misery does not always love company. I could barely see the flag of my pacing group any more. I promised myself that I would try to catch up with them if the uphill ever ended but for now, I just had to will myself to keep running, even though the running motion didn't seem to help me cover any ground. I tried to take in the amazing views but my mind kept coming back to - it's so hard, when will it end?

Just as I was about to throw in the towel, I passed the man who shouted out - keep going, you are about to reach the crest!
And he was right. I rounded a corner and I got to run downhill. Hallelujah! I enjoyed the moment and my knees did a little dance and cheer.

But I had been traumatised. I knew now that the declarations I had been given that there was only "one little hill" were nothing but lies. So now I was left to wonder how many other slopes were in my future and how much spirit I had left to face them. By the time I got to slope number 3, I was asking myself who I was trying to impress. I had no idea where my pacing group was - I could not see the flag anywhere. I could just give up and walk the rest of the way. And still, there was a little voice - come on, Pandave. You have come all this way; you worked hard, waking up early and running long. You still have something to give - give it. I was past the 11 mile point and so I told myself - this is shorter than your usual short runs. You can do it.

I passed the mile 12 sign and smiled. Just a little further to go and then it would be all over. I ran on, not even feeling too badly about the slight upward slope I had just hit. I had, maybe, half a mile to go now, I estimated. A young cheering volunteered yelled out to me - looking good. just one mile to go!

What? Not one mile? Hadn't I passed the 12 mile mark a while back? Hadn't I covered more than just 0.1 miles since? My mind had to readjust to the new distance - it's crazy how a half mile can feel like ten when one is tired. As my mind was working on this, I came to a bend and then, in front of me, a huge sign that declared "FINISH". Was that my finish line? Or was this a mirage? No time to think, my knees took charge and picked up the pace.

As I channeled all my remaining energy into the final sprint, the master of ceremonies shouted into the PA system: Come on everyone, give the runners a big cheer! They have just run 13 miles. And look at Pandave! She Flattens Hills!!
That was me he was talking about - I had those words printed on my shirt. I started waving and grinning and running even faster. What a moment. I crossed the line, fists pumping the air, to be greeting by a smiling firefighter in a tuxedo. He gave me a lovely silver necklace - a finisher's medal that I can wear every day - and congratulated me.

What for? Not just for finishing but, for finishing in 2:00:36. And really, what's 36 seconds between friends?

Labels: i am a runner, milestones