red letter day

for the seventh of october

it is here, the big 31 as M puts it and thanks to the boyslog it glided by most beautifully!
after having woken up very early and downed several cups of bitter-sweet filter kaapi fuel, i spent the first part of the day paying a lot of attention to antony bourdain, who i have developed a certain weakness for.
the boyslog then picked me up and we went over to A's place for the most sumptuous spread of dal, baati, churma and hot green chutney! auntyji is the most divine cook and she exudes enough warmth and goodness to light atleast a 100 light bulbs all at once! apart from rooting for auntyji's most favorite singer on a telly show, there was of course the inevitable football that had to be watched!
now there is only one legal and correct way to eat dal baati. the baati needs to be smashed and crumbled, a dollop of ghee goes onto this, some chutney and then the dal, this has to be then squished and mashed into a nice blurry splosh, squeeze in some lemon and a smattering of thinly sliced onions... and here's the important thing... you just have to use your fingers... using spoons is a criminal offence.
so we tucked into total and uninhibited greed and ate about enough to last us the entire winter.
the boyslog mysteriously disappeared and came back with a cake.
S and A (gosh, too many A's, i will have to think of some other ingenuous nomenclature) joined us too and i turned several variant hues of red as the HBSong was sung. the boyslog out of great concern for my rapid aging, kindly tucked in only one candle.
we then picked our sagging and satiated stomachs carefully to U's home.
R and his interminable legs dropped in and so did K with her delightful retorts and quips.
the boyslog and S again mysteriously disappeared and came back with a charming little candle-frangrances-pot-thingummy for me (how did they figure i was such a sucker for this stuff?).
the rest of the evening found us rolling about the floor in various stages of convulsions as we played 'taboo' (a word game, will you not be too imaginative dear readers?) and balderdash along with some nice chardonnay and chenin blanc. we chatted late into the night as the As regaled us with stories of growing up.
a merry red letter day indeed!
i spent the most delightful day with some wonderful people. people who dont even know me all that much, some who dont know me at all, but who extended so much warmth and kindness. now kindness might sound like an archaic word, but i really do mean it here.
this is a good way to step over into the wrong side of thirties...
big fat hugs all around!