Recap

Have been absconding after only 2 posts. Not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.

It has been a good week. Wednesday, met ex-boss. Then hung out with ex-colleague over Dominoes' Pizza, waited at a bus stop for half an hour, then spent quality time at "the most wonderful oasis of a park" at Andheri's JB Nagar. We were waiting for another ex-colleague, who incidentally is getting married on 29 November this year. It is an arranged match, but apparently, she and her to-be-husband are completely in love and have been meeting regularly behind their parents backs. Aah! Young love!

The high point of meeting these two was a surprise birthday pastry at a very nice coffee shop (read: not-noisy, nice view, great menu) in Miradore Hotel. The chocolate birthday pastry took me completely by surprise.

For some reason, people like surprising me. This is officially my fourth surprise event and my third birthday surprise. I'm a sucker for such things too.

Here's a photo of my wonderful ex-colleagues with the surprise birthday pastry:

Sadly, this was followed by a Mumbai darshan ride on an auto rickshaw. The jury is still out on whether or not the auto driver was conning me and taking me all around the city.

My pig cake thankfully arrived the next day, in time for our cousin Deep (good name: Shourjya; he calls himself SJ). There was much game playing (the three kids played Game of Life while I worked; sigh, the trauma of adulthood), followed by a CCD trip, dinner, and a lot of Poker (with fake money from the Game of Life. Had it been real cash, I would have been richer by 2,70,000+. Sigh.)

This wonderful day ended with the cake cutting. Here's the cake:


The bakers cheated. It was supposed to be a pig-shaped cake. Not a square cake with a picture of a pig drawn on a sheet of white chocolate. It may be cute and all, but hello, this is NOT a pig-shaped cake. But I'm not one to complain. I blew out the candles, cut it, ate it, liked it. Birthdays should never be complained about.

This marks my fifth year in a row that I have not worked on my birthday. This is a tradition that I plan to continue in the years to come.

Birthdays don't make me sad. At 27, I don't feel old. Hell, I can still pass for a college kid, despite the occasional grey hair.

This year, I plan to go geeky on Existentialism. I may be a natural Existentialist, so I might as well know-it-all by heart before letting the world know of my philosophical leanings.

PS: Watched 2-and-a-half movies this week: (1) Adored "X-Men: First Class" [N.B.: Was an X-Men virgin until this movie.] (2) Liked, but didn't love "Shaitaan" - the song sequences were top-notch though. (3) Couldn't get enough of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", but a faulty Disc 2 put paid to my plans of feeling enriched by the end of the movie. Am still cut up about it :(

PSS: Tomorrow is shopping day. I'm not a fan of shopping. May God help me.

Birthday Bumps

1. Last Night's Dinner: I finally went with the "Make Your Own Pasta" option. My customized pasta had Conchiglie (the shell-shaped pasta), Mushrooms, Pesto Cream and Lamb. It would have been nicer without the lamb, but us Bongs feel cheated without some meat in our food. And if there's a choice between chicken and lamb, the latter it is.

As it turned out, the online menu was not identical to the offline one. Plus, many of the desserts were unavailable. What to do? Khush and I shared a Ferrero Rocher pastry. It was really dense and we ended up wasting a little. Sigh. Sometimes the body refuses to cooperate with the food on the plate.

(It did not help that we hogged on paani-poori just before dinner :|)

Desert 2: We then drove to Bachelor's (drive-in icecream place facing the sea) - I got greedy and had watermelon icecream :) Manu had Mausambi juice. Don't remember what Father and Alpana Auntie had. Khush had nothing. She may have been contemplating a snooze, but somehow the Sandman missed her last night and caught Manu instead.

2. Meeting ex-colleagues: The high point was a surprise birthday pastry by Usha and Nisha at the Mirodoro Hotel cafe. This was preceded by an hour of conversation at this beautiful oasis-like park in the middle of the Andheri desert. This was preceded by a Dominoes lunch with Usha. This was preceded by a meeting with ex-boss and his current wife at their not-yet-ex home.

3. How I know I'm older: Gone are the days when a cockroach in the bathroom would make me scream. Or shrink against the wall. Or shudder. Today, I coolly covered my hand with the handtowel, reached for the roach, caught it, then threw it out the bathroom window. There will soon come a time when I shall catch roaches with my bare hands. By then, I will be truly ancient.

4. Birthday gift to me: Well, not quite. But at least I managed to pick up two pincher clips. Llamas like pincher clips to keep their hair out of their food. Boyfriends of llamas hate clips. It is the whole gender divide. Maybe someday I'll tell you the real secret: why boys don't clip their hair back, and complain when girls do!

5. Miscellaneous negatives: There was the auto-wallah who took me on Mumbai darshan. There was the Patchi chocolate that totally ruined the taste in my mouth. There was the whole question of my boss asking if I am basically wasting time again. :|

But overall, it has been a good 24-hour period. Llama largely pleased with life.

Llama Turns 27

Time: 1:27am. Date: 07/06/11

It is past midnight, which means that I am now officially 27-years-old.

But since I was a 1:00pm baby, I still have approximately 11-and-a-half hours of being-26 left. There are no grand plans for these final hours.

***

Apparently, afternoon babies are born foodies. Is that why spent the last two hours sifting though an 11-page menu and wondering what I should order at my Cafe Basilico birthday dinner? After 120 minutes of ogling at dish after dish after dish after dish, I have selected 2 finalists:

1.





and 2.




Yes, pasta is my first choice on Birthday No. 27.

But just in case tomorrow does not smell like Pastaday, I have been eying some non-pasta dishes as well. These are:

1.




2.





3.





For desert I'll be going with the Baked New York Chocolate Mousse Cake. If that is unavailable, I'll try Crunchy Chocolate or Gooey Chocolate or (if I'm feeling really really adventurous) Chocolate Cheese Cake.

While we are at it, a little ice-cream wouldn't hurt either!

N.B: Do NOT drop food on new Ritu Kumar blouse!!