My cat that liked potato chips

The five years before my migration to the land of opportunity were spent in the company of (among other creatures), a rambunctious feline of the Siamese descent, with a lot of personality, attitude and character. Her name - Simbo. Now Simbo was no ordinary cat, and I know most pet owners just like parents believe their cat, dog, hamster or for that matter iguana is like no other, but trust me when I say this, Simbo was not your everyday domesticated pet. She could beat up three cats at the same time, usually male cats twice her size and refused to mate with any cat of high pedigree. She hated to see me cry and kept hitting me with her paw until I stopped, She felt no shame in begging for food, even on a full stomach, and she never ever pooped in a dirty litter box and would never go if anyone was watching her. She showed happiness, anger, remorse in equal amounts. She would fight our German shepherd with so much zest for no apparent reason, perhaps to prove who is the boss, and poor Axle being the sweet dog and an eternal puppy always thought she was playing with him. She gave birth to one weird looking kitten every year that usually never survived past a few weeks, it was heart breaking to watch Simbo look for the ugly kitten afterwards, at all hours for the next few days, not eating or drinking, and last but not the least, she loved to eat potato chips. When I say love, I mean LOVE to the point of insanity. You so much as open a bag and she would jump out of nowhere to beg for her share. If she was lost Id go around crinkling an empty packet of Super Crisps, and sure enough she ran right up to me. One time my cousin, being the cheapskate that he is, was eating chips, showing them to her and putting them in his mouth. Suddenly, Simbo jumped on the arm of of the sofa he was sitting in totally freaking him out, much to my amusement of course, and started meowing sweetly. My cousin then told me that Simbo was an embodiment of how I would be if I had been a cat myself. I laughed out thinking that he is probably right.

Of course she did a lot of the things that other cats do, sit in fresh laundry, go crazy after fish and chicken, play with chords, thread and wool, get running attacks in the middle of the night, think the freshly ironed clothes are layed out just for her, follow the sunlight and sleep in it 60% of the day, hate getting her nails clipped or taking baths, get freaked out by hair dryers and vacuums, and don't even get me started on the days on heat.

The highlight of her career as a domesticated feline came when a mouse got into our house and was being hunted high and low by the many, many people who lived in our house (separate post on how my mom turned our home into a foster home of sorts). the mouse was in one particular room that had glass sliding doors. Five people in the room were searching for the wretched rat and my cat was just lounging around in one corner. Everyone was laughing at how disinterested she looked and that she is too old to know what is going on. After half an hour of unsuccessful hunt, everyone came out for a break and closed the door, with only the rat and a sleepy cat inside. As we were conferring about what should be done, suddenly we saw Simbo leap into the air to do a double somersault and land in the other corner. When she turned around, the mouse was in her mouth. Eat your heart out Jerry. Everyone cheered and eventually separated the dead mouse from her mouth. It was gruesome, yet I was so proud of my lazy old kitty.

One time she was lost for a week and I cried my eyeballs out, posting lost signs all over the apartment complex. One day a kid from the neighborhood informed us that he had seen my cat in another kid's house. He had kidnapped (or catnapped perhaps) her and was going to sell her off. I was enraged and walked over to the kid's apartment and rang the bell. The kid came out, I asked him about my cat and he lied that he knew nothing about her. From inside the house I could hear a cat meow, repeatedly. I pushed the punk aside and went in to find my Simbo in the kitchen, sitting next to an empty bowl, asking for food I believe (contrary to what I had perceived to be a cry for help). She recognized me and started circling around my legs. I glared at the kid and picked up my Simbo and walked out of the house.

The reason for this post (boring for the non-catlovers) is that I believe this to be Simbo's fifth death anniversary. Before coming to the US, I had given her to another family after my father refused to take care of her. I felt horrible walking away from her, but I knew it had to be done. Turns out a month later, she died for unknown reasons. I have no idea if she got sick or got run over by a car or perhaps she missed me so much that she stopped eating and just died of heartbreak. Yeah, I know that last option is a bit too dramatic to involve a cat, but they don't call me the drama queen for nothing.

RIP Simbo, I will always miss you. Thank you for the years of companionship. You lived life on your terms and did it with so much attitude that makes me believe....you were no ordinary cat. Enjoy the heavenly potato chips.

Drama in Real Life

So on the long weekend I went white water rafting, much to the horror and surprise of my family. No, they are not over protective or paranoid. They just know me really well and knowing me they know how deathly afraid I am, of thrill rides, water and drowning, and since WWR involves all three, I might as well have been suicidal. My father thought I'd chicken out at the last minute, my sister was sure I'd have a heart attack, my brother in law just said "cool", and M...well M is the one who got me in trouble. Since she claims to be afraid of roller coasters as well, and since she has been WWR twice before, I thought how bad can it really be? And it really was not that bad. In fact it was a lot of fun. At first I was a bit freaked out since I don't know how to swim and I knew if i fell in,everyone will witness such drama and chaos, inspite of the life jacket that I adorned, that they will actually find the rapids boring. But once in the raft, I was a lot more confident and really glad that I came. The first rapid of course, had me with my heart in my throat, especially when I felt the raft was getting swallowed by a giant black hole, but it was just so much fun to come out of it that I relaxed and just enjoyed the rest of the ride. We had some funny incidents with the people that went with us. One guy 'N' tried to save a guy 'S' who wasn't really drowning since he just had his raft voluntarily flipped over. As S floated downstream towards us, N got totally panicked and started tugging at S's life jacket frantically without much success. He kept trying to pull S up while standing in the raft until S actually started trying to break free from him. It was hilarious. The struggle went on for a minute or so and cost S his sunglasses and cap, and when eventually I pulled S in (using the technique the guide had taught us), he was just so happy that I saved him from N. Then this other lady insisted on counting each of her paddle stroke, and when M asked why was she counting and whether she intended to add all the counts up at the end of the ride, the lady just said the counting kept her sane. I immediately went to the far side of the raft and quickly went in the other raft as soon as the raft flipping craziness ended. And why do people have their rafts flipped on purpose?? Whats up with that anyway?
SO the whole WWR experience was great and I might go again but I will stick to level 3 until I learn how to swim (odds of this happening is 1 to 10, since several people have tried and quit trying to teach me how to swim...mummmyyy get me out of here..noooo..noooo...ya allahhhhh).
So the weekend was fun, spend time with family, celebrated my darling nephew's 5th birthday, watched my baby nephew walk, had some masala dosa and chaat yumm, all in all a great weekend.
Cut to this morning. I get to the airport and find my flight is 30 mins late, oh well. Tried to listen to the music, the ipod battery runs out, That's alright I guess. I reach Seattle, my friend is 40 mins late in picking me up and I am late from work, Hmmm. I get to my car and start driving to work, but coming downhill i go slightly over the speed limit, and of course a cop is there. He pulls me over and slaps me with my very first moving violation. Noooooooooooooooooooooo. I am dejected I forget I need gas and get on the freeway. I realise I need gas, so I take the nearest exit, and my car simply stops. Dead. Kaput. I burst out laughing deliriously. God finally remembers me. The source of wonderful, healthy, laugh-so-hard-hurt-your-side entertainment. He likes me, he really likes me.
Two things occur to me as I walk to the nearest gas station. Firstly, had this been Pakistan My car would have been pushed by at least four strong men, more than happy to assist a damsel in distress, to the nearest gas station. Secondly, I should be grateful that God did not use me for his morning entertainment while I was enjoying white water rafting :-)
I intend to go home soon, climb under the blanket and stay there for the rest of the day.

Suspicious

Sometimes when everything around you has started to unravel and you find your situation slowly inching southwards, somehow you manage to keep up the buoyancy of your mood. Such a situation can take you by surprise, perhaps because, based on experience you were expecting yourself to become frazzled at the first sign of trouble or at least have a few sleepless nights. But Nada. Is this denial or delusion or is it just that reality is having a hard time hitting you in the face, because you have created so many layers of distractions, duties and tasks to help you dodge this ultimate assault? Should this time be considered a blessing and should be used to enjoy the freedom of the stress-free zone or should this be considered the quiet before the storm and must be used to safeguard oneself against the storm or better yet prevent the storm?

Staying true to my element as a mental retard, I have started analysing my apparent nonchalance towards the impending unemployment. No stress about the move, no tension due to the lack of interview calls, no breakdowns about the unstable and inconstant nature of my life. Hmmm, somethings not right. This is me we are talking about. The die-hard, uncompromising drama queen.I know, I know, I should be glad that nothing is getting to me, but you see that's just what is wrong with my brain. It is so used to being worried that now it is worrying about my lack of worrying. Am I finally loosing it? Don't answer that one.

Anyway, having packed and moved to a friend's home for the remaining sentence of my Seattle exile, I am just about ready for my next big adventure. I have no idea what it is, where it is or when is it, but I do know that it needs to be in a non-snowy part of the country. It also cant be in the part of the country which is too far away from California neither can it be in a state that is predominantly a desert and has harsh, hell-like summers. Also, I am done with the rainy Northwest region. So lets see here, no snow, no desert, no rain, not too far away from my people, hmmm. I guess that just leaves me California itself. Huh, who would have thought ;).

Yes yes I know beggars cant be choosers, so I will go where the bread is to be gotten. Nonetheless, I hope the dream of working and living in my beloved city of San Francisco would finally come true. We will see.

In the menatime I am trying not panic about my lack of panic. Perhaps I have become used to the craziness of life or I have just matured into a more level-headed, sensible person, who understands that life has its share of flights and crashes. Okay the cynic in me just fell off his chair in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Hey come'on it can happen. Sighhhhh