I spent my Thanksgiving at Virginia with Delana, and here is what happened before, during and after.
Airport Fun
On wednesday, I lugged my mountaineering backpack filled with clothes, shoes and assorted, boring stuff because I was planning to go to the airport straight from work. Of course, I had totally overlooked the fact that someone dressed in formals sporting a 3 1/2 feet tall mountaineering backpack looks like a complete retard in 49 states. In Utah, anyone who’s not a Mormon is a retard, so that statement becomes redundant.
As luck would have it, the DHS had raised the threat level to Orange. Which of course, meant that I just had to be pulled by the totally not-racist TSA (they don’t do racial profiling at all, they just are jerks to everybody) to go through a machine that would see if I had explosives in my undies. And while I am really tempted to discuss further on that topic, I want to keep this blog open to all age groups, so we shall ignore that statement for now.
While on the plane, I was reading a book called Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics by Max Planck. A surfer-dude from San Diego plonks next to me and the first thing he tells me is, “Dude, I do not mean stereotype, but why are all you Indians so good at Math and Physics?” Quite obviously, he has not seen Bollywood or Kollywood movies. The laws of mathematics and physics do not apply there.
Anyway, I landed in Virginia in one piece, my undies and all, and was picked up (man, I’m very punny today) by Lana in a dress.
Thanksgiving
Starting early morning the next day, Lana cooked a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with several vegetarian dishes for yours truly and an even more astounding array of pies - three pumpkin pies, an apple pie and a mixed berry pie. Not to mention other assorted goodies that basically meant that I had to climb at least four mountains in two days and save thirty different pretty lasses (all of whom happen to look like Lana, of course) from 40 different evil villains to make up for the calories gained.
Lana made up for it because she stood and cooked for nine hours, and I absolutely adored her Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle, minus the Gingerbread (which had eggs). Mucho yummo.
Anyway, the Indians gave thanks to one another and the others gave thanks to us while we drank beer and chilled out and ate pie. It was wonderful.
That done, we conked out for the day.
Black Friday with Mr. James CC Bond
Early next morning, I was quite unceremoniously dragged out of my bed at 5 AM to go do some Black Friday shopping. For those of you non-American readers, this is when the women of this country decide that waiting in a line real early the day after Thanksgiving that will get you awesome discounts is somehow normal and acceptable behaviour. They say that they are dragging you along to fend off cunning, old women from grabbing the same piece of clothing that they are after, but the truth is that they just want brag points: “Hah! I dragged my guy out of bed this early, bow before my awesome powers!”
Of course, to be fair, there was a woman who was totally mean and tried cutting our line (and her son/grandson tried — I am not making this up — hitting Delana’s ass). Obviously, a staredown later, she cowered in fear and I guffawed my totally wicked Dr. Evil laugh.
We rounded off the evening at the Olive Garden with Lana’s friend Ericka and had a wonderful time.
Once Delana was done proving her superior powers to her friends, we went to watch the new James Bond movie - Casino Royale. Now, I know that it is true to the books and that it is the first James Bond movie where he isn’t that awesome and all that, but honestly - it sucked. James Bond has character, elegance and grace. This one? Not so much. Apart from the romantic chick-flicky style and James Bond being totally puppy eyed and in love, this guy did not have an iota of charm. And Matrix-meets-Jackie-Chan style chase and struggles do not make it any more classy.
What are they going to do next? Make him look at you with wide, open eyes and blink like an innocent-eyed eight year girl and give him a pomeranian puppy? They could do that, too. I mean, if you are trying to make a chick-flick, at least go the whole way.
This poor, innocent pomeranian puppy needs James Bond to save it and take it to its kennel - is Bond up to the job?
And if you are wondering about the title of this section, CC stands for Cuddly Cute — because that’s all he was, to the women. Outside of that, it was absolute crap.
Pie Saturday with crappy Indian food
And on Saturday, we basically lazed around watching Stargate and Dr. Who (did I tell you that we were both geeks?). The good thing is that most of Lana’s friends and room-mates are also geeks, which made it awesome. Nothing beats discussing the physics behind Battlestar Galactica’s reentry into the atmosphere while watching O’Neill kick some Goa’uld’s ass while talking about how much cooler the Tardis and the USS Enterprise are and eating some delicious pie.
Oh, sorry. Geek mode.
Saturday evening, we headed out to this Indian restaurant called Nawab in Virginia Beach. Okay, now I am going to write another blog entry telling you in detail just how much Nawab sucks, but that is for later.
Right now, let me just tell you that nowhere in this world have I tasted such crappy Indian food - trust me, I have eaten crappy Indian food in places you’d not have guessed had Indian restaurants. But this beat the hell out of all those places.
For one, I was wondering why I was the only Indian in the whole restaurant. Secondly, it also turns out that this place was voted one of the best restaurants in Virginia Beach. Quite obviously, this place has been blacklisted by all the Indians who like Indian food, not Americanized whipped cream topped microwaved frozen junk with Indian names.
Take these cases, for instance. Lana loves Pakoras. So, we ordered Pakoras. What do we get? We get Bhaji. We asked for drinks and Lassi. And the guy does not show up with them for 20 minutes. We asked him where the hell it was. He asked us if we wanted it with the food. Sure, because we all drink Coke, Pepsi, Lassi and water after the food. And I ordered Raita, which never showed up. And of course, we love Kulfi. We ordered Kulfi — and what do we get? We get frozen milk. I kid you not — frozen milk, labelled as Kulfi.
So, just a piece of advice — if you are ever in Virginia Beach, stay the hell away from Nawab Indian restaurant. It sucks.
The Fountain Sunday
On Sunday, we went to watch Darren Aronofsky’s wonderful new movie, The Fountain.
I will just say this - it was one of the most wonderful and beautiful movies I have ever seen. Movies rarely move me, this was one that did. As always, Darren Aronofsky’s genius shone through. Half the movie, I was thinking just how wonderful a wallpaper a particular scene would make.
After the lousy Casino Royale misadventure, this one was fantastic.
And guys — take your lass with you. Nothing beats having her next to you, because you know she is going to be misty eyed, and you can use that as an opportunity to put your arms around her and go, “There, there. It’s just a movie.” Of course, if you need help with what follows next, you need help. Actually, considering that you are reading my blog and taking advice from a geek on women, you probably do need help. And considering that I just wrote this out on my blog, I probably need help too (more along the lines of need saving from the clutches of my lass, but I digress).
Later that night, we decide to start a tradition by putting up a Christmas tree. Have you ever tried putting up a tree in a house with several animals and people running around? The cat wants to climb the tree and the dog wants to chase the cat. Actually, I think the dog really really wants to pee on the tree skirt around the tree, but we never found out. Hey, don’t ask me. It’s a dog, how would I know what it wants or why it wants what it wants.
Now that I think of it, it is funny — the Fountain had trees in it all over the place, and we put up a Christmas Tree after watching it. I think it was the lass’s wicked plan.
And oh, we also got drunk drinking some cheap but delicious Peach Champagne that was wonderful.
Lousy Monday
On Monday, I woke up at 4 AM and went to the airport a little after 5 AM. Other than the fact that I absolutely consider it inhuman to be woken up before 10 AM in the morning (and that’s on a good day), it was also sucky that I was leaving and that there was a crap-tonne of fog. I had imagined the airport to be empty, but I guess there were a lot of people who considered flying out on Monday morning. Asshats. Can’t they all leave a few hours earlier and make my life a little less miserable? Jerks, like I said. Fortunately, the wonderful folks at TSA did not consider me worthwhile to be probed, so they left me all alone. Jerks. At least they could have made me feel important, but no. They had to leave me the hell alone. I was having a lousy morning. Couldn’t you tell?
And then, the flight gets delayed. After everyone had boarded, they told us that because of the fog, we were going to be delayed anywhere between 5 and 55 minutes. Guess which one it was? I think Russel Peters had it right. I think Indians are the result of God’s sense of humour. If God can mess with ONE Indian, he will do that just to piss him off. So, on top of feeling lousy and having the urge to kill the guy in front of me who had smelly shoes, I am hungry and in a delayed flight behind a desi with smelly shoes. Wonderful.
Anyway, I landed in Cincinnati and went straight to work with my backpack looking like a Mormon (i.e. a retard). Went back home, conked out at 7 PM and woke up this morning at 8:30 AM and have been having a not-so-bad Tuesday.
And now that I look back, I think I had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Except for Casino Royale and Nawab. Asshats. Just like Uzbekistan.
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