tonic

It's Friday night, we're home in our jammies watching the supremely ridiculous Bollywood movie Dhoom II, and we are drinking kiwi vodka tonics.

Oh yeah.

have you seen this monkey?

WANTED

October 21, 2007
India Official Dies After Monkey Attack

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:28 a.m. ET

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Wild monkeys attacked a senior government official who then fell from a balcony at his home and died Sunday, media reported.

New Delhi Deputy Mayor S.S. Bajwa was rushed to a hospital after the attack by a gang of Rhesus macaques, but succumbed to head injuries sustained in his fall, the Press Trust of India news agency and The Times of India reported.

Many government buildings, temples and residential neighborhoods in New Delhi are overrun by Rhesus macaques, which scare passers-by and occasionally bite or snatch food from unsuspecting visitors.

Last year, the Delhi High Court reprimanded city authorities for failing to stop the animals from terrifying residents and asked them to find a permanent solution to the monkey menace.

Part of the problem is that devout Hindus believe monkeys are manifestations of the monkey god Hanuman and feed them bananas and peanuts -- encouraging them to frequent public places.

Over the years, city authorities have employed monkey catchers who use langurs -- a larger and fiercer kind of monkey -- to scare or catch the macaques, but the problem persists.

We told you Delhi was covered in monkeys.

cereal killer

Some of you may remember the saga of the $8.00 box of Cheerios, and if you are one of those people you will not be surprised to hear that for this latest trip back to Mumbai I filled my suitcase with boxes of various cereals, granola bars, soy jerky, etc., in order to help me get through these 6 weeks without having to take out a second mortgage on my house and/or start wolfing down mutton tikka masala out of sheer calorie-deprived desperation. One of the cereals I brought along and really liked and wish I'd brought more of is something called Special K Red Berries.

We went to HyperCity yesterday, which I have deduced must be owned by the British grocery chain Waitrose, since they have a lot of Waitrose house brand products. I was excited to notice that while HyperCity does not carry Special K Red Berries (or any other version of Special K, for that matter), they did have a Waitrose brand product called Special Choice with Raspberries, Strawberries, and Cherries. It is clearly a knock-off of the other cereal and I got extremely excited about it.

And then I looked at the price (at least I've learned that much). One box cost 575 rupees. At today's exchange rate, that is $14.46. This was not a Costco 8-pack, this was not a 10-gallon bucket...no, my friends, this was a standard size box of cereal. It turns out it isn't vegan anyway (it has milk powder), so the point became moot, but JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER ALREADY.

food and critter update

A woman true to my word, I made vegan (banana oatmeal) pancakes for breakfast last Saturday:



And tonight I made Moroccan vegetable stew and couscous with raisins:



When we got home this evening, we were greeted by a tiny insurance salesman. Alex and Robin tried to catch him while I started making dinner, but they lost sight of him. He may or may not still be in the apartment. Earlier Lon was trying to freak me out by deadpanning, "You know, geckos really like to crawl on your face when you're sleeping."

headline news

Lon, Robin, and Alex have made it here safely. Hooray!

Here is an article on the front page of today's Times of India:

5:40:50

Well, I did not realize my dream of cutting 20 minutes off last year's time, but I did cut off almost 9 minutes. I would have been faster except around mile 10 my right hip decided to say, "Hey lady, you're almost 40...don't make me come over there." And I was without ibuprofen and they don't give it out at the medical stations. Doh.



Anyway. Last year's pace was 13:21, or 4.54 mph. This year's pace was 13:00, or 4:62 mph. And before you laugh, please remember that this was walking. I am too lame to run these things.

prepped

All ready to go tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. Whoohoo! I'm bummed that I signed up a little too late this year to get my name printed in big letters on my bib.

I used the marathon as a perfect excuse to buy vegan doughnuts from Voodoo Doughnuts. You can even get married at Voodoo. Hmmm, I may have to reconsider my position on that issue.

getting my knit together

I was stuck at home sick and miserable most of this past week, so I decided to start on a sweater I'd purchased the yarn for back in March. It's called the Bauhaus Fair Isle and the pattern is in Interweave Knits Spring 2007 issue. I got the body done last night:



The stripey part above the little orange clip at top center is a steek for the V-neck. For the non-knitters out there, that means I will be cutting that open with scissors. Same goes for the arm holes. (The whole thing is basically a big knitted tube right now.) Xtreme Knitting, people. It's what I do.

I thought about taking it with me to Bombay to finish it, but then I remembered (a) one should never take anything to India that one would be upset about getting ruined, and (2) Bombay is not where you want a couple pounds of wool sweater sitting on your lap as your work on it. So, it will have to wait till December to get finished.

selling it

I just now had the TV on and a Jeep commercial came up and I thought to myself, "Hey, that sounds like my friend Steve singing on that commercial," and then it was. (Steve and my ex husband were in a band together for many years.)



Groovy.

Tomorrow morning it's off to Portland. Marathon on Sunday. Limping on Monday. Lots of good Portland vegan food in between.