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HP Pavilion DV4 2110TU
320GBHD / 2GB RAM/ 3USB/ DVD +RW (Lightscribe) / 1.4 Pixel Webcam / Card Reader / Remote
INR 39,700
Windows 7 (Basic)
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)
Dual boot, single data store (Tip of the hat to Lifehacker)
Time to purchase decision: 6 months
Time unbox to setup: 3 days
This machine is sponsored. X-TREME gratitude is expressed to the following people:
Onalyah Smith
Jan Owen
Diamond Bridge Ltd.
Dancing Dakinis Inc.
in memory of Mr. Bill
June 28th, 2010
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Well, the blog took a hiatus there for while. The truth is that for a long time I just couldn’t bring myself to continue to blog about the next set of kitty adventures.
Shortly after the previous post, Chime’s family line dwindled to almost nothing, except Tsilu who still comes to the house now and then. In the midst of mournful chaos more kitties arrived and went. I held a pessimistic wait and see attitude, uncertain who would finally make it, or, having survived, would stay around the house.
What happened? Well, life and death happened. After Pixit and Dixit’s arrival, Tsilu happily settled into the role of benevolent uncle. He played with the kittens and looked after them as if they were his own.
Dixit was first to go. A tomcat came for him as we rested in the heat of a summer afternoon. Chinta woke me with “Didi…didi…the kitty’s dead…” I got up to find her holding Pixit in one hand, and a large piece of wood in the other. The rogue tom was hiding under a couch to get away from Chinta. We got Pixit to safety, and chased off the tom cat, only to find Dixit with his throat ripped out and the body tossed aside like a rag doll. Tsilu and Pixit spent the rest of the day looking round and round the house for their lost sibling.
Chinta knew of a friend up in the villages with an orphaned boy kitten. The very next day she brought the kitten down to the house, wrapped up snugly in a bed sheet, and tucked in a shopping bag. I was so pessimistic about the newcomer’s chances I ended up naming him “Redux” (”Again”). Little Redux quickly made friends with Pixit and Tsilu, and the threesome readjusted to each other well.
Then one day Pixit left the house for a walk. After a day or so a tired Tsilu, his fur full of burrs, came in. He’d also been looking, apparently, for his wayward niece and had no luck. For the next couple of days I wandered the hillsides and waddies near the house, hoping to spot Pixit. But two days became four days, and four days became a week, and after a while longer both our human and feline family members realized we would not be seeing Pixit again.
Meantime, down the hill in Rewalsar, other feline dramas were occurring. Street dogs killed and ate a mother cat, orphaning three kittens in the process. One was taken in by a helpful Western visitor; the others by a Tibetan restaurant owner who knew little about cats. The visitor was only staying a short time, and the restaurant owner couldn’t keep the kittens long, so in time the orphans came to live with us at the Casa de Mommywizards.
In time the three newcomers began to display distinct personalities. “Wild Thing” earned her name almost immediately. Her MO was to bite first and ask questions later. Her brother, on the other hand, was a mild-mannered sweetie that all of the other cats sat on. We ended up naming him Steve, for a similarly gentle soul we knew back in the States. The last sibling was the one the Westerner had taken in. As a result, she rapidly became used to being the pampered one. She earned her name Shahzahdi (Hindi for “spoiled princess”) in short order.
All of the newcomers underwent the same regimen. Gentle (but insistent) flea treatments, meals of milk and tsampa, and separation from the older cats until we were sure there would be no killing. Meantime, a trip to town turned up a friend who wanted a little girl kitty. Steve was so shy and fragile looking we couldn’t give him away. Also, at that time…
…we thought Wild Thing was a girl. Sexing kittens is not for the faint of heart. Even with fairly simple rules to follow, mistakes can still be made. For years I’d been going by the “:=boy, ;=girl” rule, and so far had struck out. This time all three of us carefully examined Wild Thing’s underpinnings, and declared the result to be a girl. Oops. Wild Thing got along with his new owner for a while, only to run away during a road trip to Kathmandu.
So now we have: Tsilu, a grizzled and venerable three-year old uncle. Redux, the village orphan. Shahzahdi and Steve, the Rewalsar refugees.
And one more. A feral tom saw the comfy life the other cats were leading here, and decided he wanted some. Bit by bit, he moved in, finding a comfy spot to sleep and turning up for meals with the others. He’s partway domesticated by now, enough to flea-treat on occasion and pet on other occasions.
So, meet “Buddy”.
May 24th, 2010
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A few days ago Chinta and I went to her friend Poku’s wedding up in the villages near Durgapur. Poku is a guy who originally rescued a small orphan kitten I ended up raising and naming Redux. (That’s a story for another time.) What’s more, Lena treated Poku’s sick father, as part of her work for the Emergency Medical Fund. The original plan called for us to attend a bit of puja, and then have lunch, before returning to Rewalsar. True to form, I thought I’d be back by 2 pm, and wander down to Baisakhi Mehla for a couple hours. But this is India, so you know how the punchline to this goes. Anyway, learned some important stuff I thought I’d share with you guys:
1) No matter what the pandit says, the first full day of Baisakhi Mehla is not a good time to travel anywhere near Rewalsar. The traffic in and out of town is horrendous. The jams started happening around 9 in the morning, and continued throughout the day. At one point three cops showed up outside the house and attempted to direct traffic. That lasted about 15 minutes or so. After that the traffic snarls became this ongoing audience participation group therapy style of thing. Anyone who had an idea how to make traffic flow smoother basically got out of their vehicle (yes, leaving it smack in the middle of the road) and started directing traffic. Meanwhile people in other stopped vehicles would look down the hill, realize it would be faster to walk, and begin to do so. We’re talking busloads and truckloads of pedestrians in the middle of the traffic snarls making for the nearest path down the hill to town. And then, any people left in stopped vehicles would recognize old friends/family/inlaws/outlaws and start to visit with each other in the middle of the traffic.
The plan called for a friend of Chinta’s to show up in a car at about 10 AM that was going to the wedding with some other people. The car managed to inch its way in front of the house about 11 o’clock. Chinta and her friend and I piled into this teetiny compact taxi that already held three people and the driver. And then…the car didn’t go anywhere. There was no place for it to go, the traffic was that bad. After a while I realized it would actually be faster for the seven of us (including a lady in her sixties) to get out of car, pick it up, and carry it to the mandir (shrine) we were headed to. I told Chinta that in America we had traffic problems too, and everybody in the car laughed.
An hour or so later we made it the 5 kilometers down the road to the mandir where the ceremony was happening. Although we’d missed earlier portions of the puja, we were in time to catch the bride and groom as they made seven trips around the mandir.
Once the bride and groom are officially married in the eyes of Shiva, Parvati, and everybody, you get to actually see the faces of the bride and groom. This would be something like the umpteenth wedding I’ve been to where I had no idea what the spouse-to-be even looked like until after the excitement’s over. The dulahana, in this case, turned out to be a young freckled version of Selma Blair.
I then spent some time discovering the next important lesson:
2) Village events do not involve precision scheduling. Instead there’s this group consensus thing where enough people finally decide for the next event to happen before proceeding. The ceremony was almost over by the time we arrived, but we were in time to meet with folks and present gifts and such. Looking around, I realize I was seeing no lunch preparations. The shrine is just a small one next to the road and a ramshackle general store/tea shop.
We got served plenty of prasad (cooked, sweetened wheat cereal), meetha (fudgy sweets), water, and chai, but no actual food. Turns out lunch was scheduled in the groom’s village down the road. The car went off with a load of people and was supposed to come back for us.
Yeah, so….no, the car didn’t come back.
We ended up hitching in this truck whose driver may or may not have been part of the wedding party. It was never clear. At any rate, a bunch of us piled into this truck (as the visiting Westerner/VIP I got a seat up front). And then…the truck didn’t go anywhere. The driver stood outside the truck, either looking for somebody or waiting for something. After a while, he got in, started up the truck and drove a total of 10 meters down the road, stopping in front of another shrine on the other side of the road. And then…the truck still didn’t go anywhere. The people tending that shrine gave us more prasad and some pakora while the driver got back out, and proceeded to wait some more. More folks piled into the truck, and finally the driver headed for the village.
A few kilometers the truck stopped in front of a house. One with no wedding preparations in evidence. Chinta’s friend explained to me that we would now be taking a “shortcut” to the grooms house. Yep–another “just down here” hike down the hill to a picturesque family home filled with villagers. We parked in a shady room out of the sun, and were plied with more water, prasad, meetha, and chai, leading to the next lesson:
3) Everybody in this region should have turned diabetic years ago. No joke. I’d had a bit of chai and biscuits before going off to the wedding, then nothing but water, chai and prasad at the wedding, then over to the house…basically I’d eaten nothing but combinations of water, milk, carbohydrates and sugar since about 6 that morning. Yipe. We sat around for a while, and finally Chinta inquired about “lunch”. By now it was about 3:30 in the afternoon, and we were out in the villages with no way of getting back home, except for a 4:30 bus. A couple people held a puzzled conversation in Hindi, the gist of which was: “Lunch? I dunno…maybe we’re having something at 4:00…” “Are you sure? I thought we weren’t eating until 6:00…” Finally things got sorted out, and we were seated on the ground with plates in front of us by a little after 4:00.
Your typical wedding feast takes place sitting on long mats laid out on the ground. “Plates” are either fresh leaves stapled together with small sticks, or paper plates that are safe for a cow to eat. Yes, you eat with your right hand. As usual, I was offered a spoon, which I declined. (It’s the equivalent of a concerned waitperson in a Chinese restaurant offering a fork in case you can’t handle chopsticks.) The eating takes place in shifts–the next shift can’t come in until the previous one finishes, so being a slow eater is something of a social no-no. By now I’ve become something of an old hand (so to speak) at these feasts, having learned the proper hand signals for “more,” “less,” and “none”. Without these, the catering wallahs will load up the plate at every opportunity to make sure you have enough to eat. Afterwards, you get up, wash your hands with the last of the water in your cup, and move off so the next round of hungry diners can have a place.
As it was, Chinta and I had only a few minutes to eat, because we needed to get back “just up there” to catch the bus by 4:30. Leading me to the next little lesson:
4) When it comes to planning out your day around a visit to the village, just give up. Seriously, it’s not worth the effort attempting to be precisely on time with anything. Since most people around here travel by foot or bus or truck, visit planning is “you get there when you get there, and you leave whenever.” Chinta and I looked at our options for getting home. Not an inspiring sight.
We tried calling Raju, an friend who drove an autorickshaw, but that was hopeless. He was stuck in Rewalsar, somewhere near the bus stand. If he actually made it out to the village and brought us back, fighting the traffic both ways, we might possibly make it home by oh…7 PM. We settled for the hike “just up here” to catch the bus, waiting with a group of other folks headed more or less towards Rewalsar. No bus. Instead, we all hitched on a truck that was headed more or less towards Galu, a small village 3 kilometers outside town and up the hill from the jungle surrounding the lake.
Galu gave the two of us a wonderful view of Rewalsar. As we looked across the valley two things were immediately obvious:
- The jungle just above the lake was on fire, and full of smoke.
- It didn’t matter who we called to come get us. Traffic was backed up from a kilometer along Mandi Road leading into town all the way up to the house.
So along with everyone else, Chinta and I started walking down the road toward town. A kilometer later we managed to hitch another ride with another truck headed more or less toward Rewalsar, arriving at the house by about 5:30.
Final total: 2 hikes and two truck rides to get 5 kilometers back home, taking about an hour. With no traffic, because it was all in Rewalsar…leading us to the final lesson:
5) There really is no such thing as being alone in India. There just isn’t. Once Chinta and I got back to the house she immediately wanted us to leave again, this time for Baisakhi Mehla, down in town. Looking down at town, I could see the kora path packed with people, shopping, selling, and celebrating. I ran some calculations…and realized I had not so much as been out of sight of another person since, oh, 9:00 that morning. Despite the spaciousness of Himachal’s great outdoors, I’d actually spent a good deal of the day pressed cheek-by-jowl with other folks in various modes of transportation. Meals and snacks happened the same way. I got a special bonus for stepping outside the groom’s house to make a phone call. Mid-conversation I turned around, and discovered I had an audience of about 10 goggle-eyed kids who had never seen anything like me before. Politely, I begged off the trip to town, and stayed home, certain there would be more chaos in the future.
April 16th, 2010
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Those of you who remember the saga of Chime and her various offspring may be interested in the latest developments. A year ago last May, Chime brought a kitten to our door. Literally:
This cat got named Tsilu, and grew up to replace Leopard once he struck out on his own on the hillside to find a good female to settle down with and raise a family. Once Leopard moved on, Tsilu grew up as the Only Child for many months.
Then the siblings arrived. In early July I visited the statue of Padmasambhava, and after a cup of chai one of the construction workers led me down into the basement room, where Chime’s latest litter resided. At the time the kittens were only five days old, and Chime was still nursing them. I eyed them dubiously. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that the life expectancy of a baby anything in Rewalsar is kind of dicey. I told the workers that if the kittens were still alive in three weeks, I would take them.
Time passed. Then one day a friend from the construction site turned up, with too little kittens in tow. The younguns were frightened by the trip up the hill, dusty from living in a construction area, and full of fleas from their feral mother. Chinta and I set to work cleaning them up, and three days later we had kittens that were actually presentable for the camera.
First up: Pixit. A mighty but playful adventuress who thinks nothing of satisfying her curiousity come what may.
She also quickly figured an escape route out of the little kitty house she and her brother were stashed in.
Next: Dixit. His name in Hindi means “scholar,” and he earned it by being the shyer, more reticent of the two. Like his continually bad-tempered mother, Dixit often has a grumpy, and seems to be of two minds as to whether to share.
July 30th, 2009
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Ghari (car — local dialect)
Bajaiya (musicians)
Mommyji (mother) Sue wearing a sari for the very first time
Mamaji (mother’s brother) Bob wearing a pallu (wedding headdress) for the very first time
Parivara (family): Mommyji, Mamaji, Bhai (brother) James, and Behan (sister) Chandra
Dulaha (bridegroom) Martin
Dulahana (bride) Tara
Shaadi (wedding)
Saatiya (husband and wife — local dialect)
July 26th, 2009
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This is our living room:
This is our living room during monsoon:
Any questions?
July 15th, 2009
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India |
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Among our bhi-bhi Chinta’s varied household duties is that of produce shopping. As a local villager who’s known most folks since they were children (and is probably related to the rest) she has the best chance of getting decent quality produce at a reasonable price out of a profit-minded subji-wallah. She can usually haggle the price down from what a Westerner like me would be charged to something a bit more affordable. Also, since she has a bit of farmland in combination with her neighbors, she’s often able to bring in seasonal “local-local” vegetables at no cost.
However, this year everyone has the drought to contend with. Monsoon has not yet reached our region of India. The few rains of the last couple of weeks have been enough to moisten the ground, but not enough to do the farmers much good. And so, several days ago, Chinta turned up at the house empty-handed.
“Kuchne,” she reported disgustedly. Nothing.
Just the day before we had reeled in sticker shock at vegetable prices in Mandi. A subji wallah had informed us–with a straight face–that peas were 70 rupees the kilo. To understand the seriousness of this, most produce here normally runs under R20 a kilo when in season, with exotic stuff like broccoli running closer to R40, and fragile fruits like grapes running probably 60 or more. In this area the average produce seller has no qualms about quoting any price he feels like to Western tourists; after all, he reasons, they can afford it, and they’ll be gone in a couple weeks, anyway. Quoting the same price to a couple of Hindi-speaking women in local salwar suits and dupattas, especially in Mandi where the subji wallahs all sit cheek by jowl selling the same produce, means the vegetable shortages have started in earnest.
After Chinta struck out finding reasonable produce near her village, I wandered down the hill to check the produce available in Rewalsar. It was just as bleak. No tomatoes, at the height of the season. Stumpy, undergrown cucumbers. The kicker was finding peas that were not selling at R70 the kilo. No, these were priced at R80.
I returned home also without buying anything, and Chinta and I commiserated over the current state of vegetables. Nothing was worth buying, and what there was was too expensive.
“Well,” I said finally,” I guess we’ll be losing a bit of weight over the next couple months.”
Meantime, the water rationing continues. During rationing they turn off the water supply except for public handpumps for a period of anything from four hours to a full day. Today I woke up to greetings from my next door neighbor, a schoolteacher with two sons. He told me his water tank was empty; did I have any water? By now the morning water-tank check has become routine. Climb the stairs to the roof, fish out the practically indestructible iron ladder, and climb to the water tank platform. Then use a key to unlock the monkey-proofed lid, and peek inside.
Half empty, and not refilling. The water is off again.
I grew up in California, so I thought I understood water shortages. But the situation here calls for a lot more than just putting the toilet on “California rules*”. This year’s learning curve has been steep, with little room for error. Like everyone else I’ve quickly learned to stash a couple of full water jugs against the next round of rationing. Making sure there’s enough water in the drinking filter is now an automatic thing. The Indian-style bucket wash makes more sense than a more luxurious Western-style shower. And these days, no trip to Rewalsar is complete without seeing a group of Indians, Tibetans, and schoolchildren gathered around the public water pumps, waiting to fill buckets, bottles, and jugs.
As I write this, they’ve turned on the water again. The tank has refilled, and off in the distance are fluffy cumulus clouds, promising (but not yet delivering) rain. Now all that remains is to see what the subji wallahs are selling tomorrow…
* During water shortages in California, the basic rule is: “if it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
July 12th, 2009
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A special announcement for SF/Bay Area readers who are interested in the Dharma, or Tibetan Buddhism:
Continuing today, July 4th in Berkeley and at various locations around the SF Bay Area through mid-July, Venerable Wangdor Rimpoche will be teaching from the complete text of Kaden Sho Lap, translated as “Flight of the Garuda,” a Dzogchen heart text of the Nyingma lineage. Rimpoche traces the core text back to the words of Padmasambhava himself. He has agreed to do “Flight of the Garuda” in its entirety, including commentaries and transmission of the Direct View of Mind. He will be teaching this over the course of nine or ten sessions (final number depends upon suitable locations.)
NOTE: All sessions are open to the public, and you do not have to attend all sessions to receive these teachings. Wangdor Rimpoche sincerely hopes that those of you who are in the Bay Area will try to attend as often as possible to receive the transmission and pointing out and hear this beautiful, poetic text for yourselves. As a Dzogchen Heart Text, Flight of the Garuda prepares the dedicated student of Dzogchen meditation to achieve full realization.
Here’s more info about the weekend teaching:
July 4, 2009
10:30 am - 4:30 pm
Berkeley, CA — Flight of the Garuda Parts 6 & 7
Teachings from the Flight of the Garuda
Times:
10:30 am - 12:00 pm (Saturday)
3:00 pm to 4:30 pm (Saturday)
10:30 am - 12:00 pm (Sunday)
Location:
Dondrup Ling Center (2nd flr)
2748 #D Adeline Street, Berkeley, CA 94703
Please arrive by 10am to be seated. Some cushions and folding chairs are available.
Flight of the Garuda Songs #9 “Mist Dream and Optical Illusions “; #10 “The Mind Created Universe “; #11 “The Natural State of Freedom “.
and possibly:
#12″The Crystal Metaphor and the Dynamic of Being”; #13 “Instructions in working with emotions”; #14 “Instruction in the Recognition of One Taste”; and #15 “The Nonduality of Stillness and Movement”; if Rimpoche decides to go that far this weekend. How many songs he decides to give in a given session is decided at the time of the teaching. These teachings will continue on July 7, in Oakland, CA, 7:00 pm at 1039 6th St.
The Garuda is a mythical bird renowned for its speed and martial prowess. The Flight of the Garuda is a Tibetan Buddhist text consisting of 23 poetic songs to help meditators attain Dzogchen (Great Perfection) realization—beyond the Karmic wheel of causation.
The aim is to cut through the root of the mind attached to the appearance of phenomena and experience the true nature of mind—the Primordial Awareness. The more experience you have in meditation, the more you will gain from this teaching, however even beginners will benefit from participating in a teaching from such an accomplished Dzogchen Master as Lama Wangdor. We are honored that he has agreed to teach this material.
July 4th, 2009
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Now the rains arrive.
Cool water drips on live wires–
power’s out again.
June 29th, 2009
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India |
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