apropos of anything

The “ish” because it wasn’t the wedding so much as our final destination (also known as “home”) that was doing its best monsoon impression. Because of the vigorous typhoon sweeping over Atlanta, we were stuck in the not-so-lovely Ft. Lauderdale airport until such time as the Hartsfield ground crew deemed it safe for us to get the hell out of there.

It was the second time this year I’ve found myself stranded in an airport, but in comparison with the last time, this was like a day at the spa. It was climate-controlled!

We didn’t push back from the gate until well after midnight. We didn’t land in Atlanta until sometime after two in the morning. And then, the chaos! I am not sure if the cleaning crew quits after 11 p.m., or if there were just an extraordinary number of people in Terminal A, but trash was overflowing out of every bin in the entire terminal. Meanwhile, in baggage claim, so many flights were being assigned to each carousel, with every carousel being utilized, that there was a line just to claim bags, most of which were squished under two other rows of bags. The reissue line to the Delta ticket counter had wrapped twice around the North Terminal baggage claim.

I took Shaheen home because we didn’t want Ghaffar to have to pack up the baby and come down to the airport at such a crazy hour. Then, because I am paranoid and hate going home late to an empty house, I spent the night at Shaheen’s, finally getting to sleep sometime around four in the morning.

I know this post is supposed to be about the wedding — which was lovely, except for when the waitstaff stole my cake; if it’s sitting in front of me, but I haven’t taken a bite because there are no forks in front of me, rather than taking my cake away, it would be nice if you could bring me a fork — but I haven’t the coherence of mind to do it properly. Soon, though. I’ll at least post a few pictures.

Really, y’all, I am so confounded I don’t know what to do or where to turn. I am completely kerflummexed, far more than Miss Cornelia ever was.

Here’s what I don’t understand, see. Does our Congress, the body whose members we regularly elect to represent us and make decisions on our behalf in exchange for prestige, benefits, and a healthy salary, think it has nothing to do? It’s the only possible explanation I can come up with for their recent behavior, yet I simply cannot fathom how they might believe they have no work to be done.

Let’s examine their recent workload, shall we? Steroids in baseball and Terri Schiavo. I

	I love the game, but it’s not what I pay my Congressmen to discuss. And if they want to talk to Mark McGwire, they can do it on THEIR OWN TIME.

repeat: steroids in baseball and Terri Schiavo. The presence of performance-enhancing drugs in a SPORT that serves to ENTERTAIN, and the players’ union’s refusal to stand up and act like mature adults about it, is apparently a subject of concern for our national policy makers. I’m dumsquizzled, I tell you. Has Republican Representative Tom Davis of Virginia’s 11th district read his Washington Post lately? Does he not see all the other pressing issues that might warrant his time? Heaven forbid we discuss our looming energy crisis, the state of our health care system (drugs from Canada are bad, unless they’re helping fill the shortage of flu shots during a public campaign for the presidency), or hell, even the war on terror, when we could be getting to the bottom of something obviously FAR more important: sporting events.

And then there’s the Terri Schiavo case, which is sad and complicated in itself. I feel for Schiavo’s parents; nobody wants to watch their child starve to death, and anything else would be considered euthanasia — thereby, illegal. However. This should never have become a federal issue. Congress had no right nor reason to get involved, and if any of them had a modicum of ethics, they’d shrug off the PR value of this case and send it back to the state of Florida where it belongs. And also, where it has already been decided. Repeatedly.

It’s not just the items Congress’s agenda that bamboozles me, though. I can’t comprehend some of their recent decisions either. Do any of them, even the Republicans, really think drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuge is the best way to solve our energy problem? Truly? Are they seriously that dumb, or have they zero ability to see past the end of their own noses? I knew in November that some Republican leaders saw their congressional victory as an opportunity to pass this legislation, but… I thought perhaps, just maybe, even Republicans would have a shred of sense or a smidgen of heart. I didn’t realize they were all secretly Death-Eaters.

What’s absolutely maddening about this energy fiasco is that our supposed leader would rather plump the pockets of his (already plump) oil buddies than promote legislation in support of the people who put their faith in him. And also those of us who didn’t but are stuck with him anyway. Alternative. Fuel. Sources. It’s the only way to go as we continue to suck the earth dry at a much faster pace than it can handle.

It’s all so clear to me. Why it’s not as clear to them, I don’t know. It’s befuddling.

Last night Mansoor and two of his UNC friends arrived in Atlanta for the first half of their spring break. They specifically told me not to make anything for them, that they’d eat out and manage and I should not cook.

Well, of course I ignored that completely because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my mother, it’s How to Feed Your Guests Properly. Somebody might get hungry later, or maybe the restaurant would suck (has been known to happen, as in the case of the Restaurant Occupying the Space of The Dunwoody Location of the Roasted Garlic two Saturdays ago), or, you know. Things happen.

	Not my muffins exactly, but close enough. Mine were missing the sunny halo, as it’s a little bit gloomy in Atlanta today.

Last night I went grocery shopping, made baked ziti and shortcake, and cleaned some while watching snippets of 24. I assume both the ziti and the cake turned out okay; I haven’t tried either, although the boys had some of the shortcake after I went to sleep. This morning I made my fabulous crowd-pleasing giant blueberry muffins while handling a ticket from work.

Let it be noted that I was juggling instant messenger conversations and phone calls and an application that thought it was 434-123654-948 51:00:00 at 8:05 this morning. There was a lull (on my end, anyway), so I began mixing up my muffins, starting, of course, with the flour. Sugar was next, and though the recipe said to use three-quarters of a cup, and though I knew I needed three-quarters of a cup, and though I had figured out exactly how I’d measure it, I added a full cup of sugar to my flour. And then proceeded to panic because I had GUESTS and the muffins would be TOO SWEET and then they would all GAG and EAT OUT THE ENTIRE REST OF THEIR STAY.

So I picked out one-quarter cup of sugar. Yes, yes I did. With a teaspoon, I scooped up piles of sugar not yet mixed in with the flour, analyzed for the presence of flour, and dumped into a waiting one-quarter measuring cup.

The rest of the process went off without a hitch, not even the usual problem where the muffins are too big for the pan and therefore flow over into the other slots, resulting in one giant muffin cake. I even had time to do the dishes and monitor work long enough to be reasonably comfortable letting the application run on its own. I had to skip the oil change I’d planned for this morning. That’ll be for tomorrow.

Disembodied fingers clutching a bloody something, even. I’m sure it tastes great (rumor has it everything at Chocolate and Zucchini is divine), but seriously. Ew.

Last night, I had to stop by the halal meat store to pick up some ground beef, and my favorite Al-Madina being both closed and well out of my way, I stopped off at the new store that’s opened on Roswell Road, a mere two miles from my house. It’s very convenient, so if the meat continues to be of decent quality, I have a feeling I’ll be going by there a lot more often. Think of it: No more defrosting meat EVER AGAIN.

So I was wandering around the store, waiting for them to grind my beef when the door to the meat locker opened and out came the owner of Al-Madina. I felt so guilty at having been caught at another store, I promptly forgot that his store isn’t even open on Tuesdays, choosing instead to babble incoherently about how this store was so close to my house! It was on my way home! But when I go to Augusta, I buy from him! In massive bulk for my parents who have a second freezer just for meat! For all their friends and their second freezers too! And by the way, did he own this store as well, so I could feel less guilty about shopping here?

He didn’t own the store; he only delivered meat there, which speaks well for the quality of the meat, as Al-Madina is the best around. Then he was awfully nice to me, heaping coals of fire the size of Cleveland on my head, asking the butcher people what was taking so long and generally being friendly and chatty.

Meanwhile, the store owner began speaking to me in Arabic, which I don’t understand very well, and especially not when it’s spoken as fast native speakers tend to do. He looked surprised when I told him I didn’t speak Arabic, but he promptly switched to English, and they all continued to be chatty and friendly. Then, as he was ringing me up, he asked the standard question.

“So where are you from?”

“Oh, my parents are Indian,” I replied.

He blinked at me. “Both of them?” he asked, as though it obviously couldn’t possibly be true.

I confirmed. He blinked some more. “Well,” he said finally, “you don’t look Indian. You look Arab.”

I grinned and repeated I was 100 percent Indian. After all, what else was there to say? But if I had a dollar for every time somebody thought I was Arab… well, I could at least pay full-price for the new Harry Potter book.

Cover art for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Let’s hope this one is better than the last one. Which is not to say I didn’t like the last one. I did, but it wasn’t as good as the volumes before it, particularly Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which remains my favorite Harry Potter book yet.

You would think I, who watched the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives the first time it aired, would know better than to leave a candle burning when I went to sleep.

Thank God my house didn’t burn down.

Back in December, my DVD player choked on my Gilmore Girls disc, thereby rendering itself useless as anything other than a space-filler in my entertainment center. Today, I finally did something about it. Or rather, Ken and Ivan did.

It began with the Great Screwdriver Hunt because of course I’d brought in the DVD player but no tools, naturally expecting my coworkers to pry the lid off with their bare hands. Luckily, Ivan keeps a screwdriver in his desk. Even more luckily, Rajul keeps an entire tool set in his desk. And even more luckily, we have a lab upstairs for stripping cables and the like, and it’s practically Home Depot up there!

Once we had the proper tools, Ken took off the casing protecting the circuitry inside the player. Before the two of us could blink, though, Ivan’s inner engineer took over, and he was sitting on the floor taking all the pieces apart. Ken helped by redirecting the desk lamp so we could all pretend Ivan was being interrogated. I helped by sitting on a chair and watching.

Eventually, he got to the part that held the disc, and we managed to slide the disc out. Having watched the deconstruction process, I was ready to toss the player because it seemed broken beyond repair, but Ivan still had hope. Or delusions, depending on how you look at it. He insisted on putting it back together to the point where we could see if it would work. He did. It didn’t. The tray would open but not close unless we manually pushed it, and then it made a horrible scraping noise that sounded like a dying robot from AI.

We still had to do some talking to convince Ivan to give up, but really, nobody who heard that machine “operate” would have thought there was any hope of salvaging it. So, for all of you who have been waiting with bated breath to hear the end of the DVD player saga: I got my disc (thanks, Ken and Ivan!), but I’m in the market for a new player.

Just now, I got the following IM:

ivan: FYI – Mets vs Nationals (Spring Training) on ESPN (ch 73)
ivan: baseball is back!!!!

Spring training! Which means Opening Day is right around the corner! The Braves’ first home game is Friday, April 8, against Tom Glavine, Pedro Martinez, and the rest of the New York Mets. Can YOU wait?

I love Bend It Like Beckham. I can quote lines from memory. I watch the DVD regularly, especially on the difficult days, and I listen to the soundtrack at work all the time. I love, love, love Bend It Like Beckham.

So it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to Gurinder Chadha’s latest effort, a Pride and Prejudice take-off starring Aishwarya Rai in the Elizabeth Bennet role. And it was with great boredom and annoyance that I walked out of the theater tonight after the movie ended.

The only way this particular film doesn’t suck royally is if Chadha is spoofing the

	Darcy chases after Lalita in Los Angeles

stereotypical Bollywood movie. Bride and Prejudice has all the trademarks: splashy dance sequences and spontaneous fits of über-cheesy singing, ridiculous dialogue, even more ridiculous fight scenes, and wooden acting. It’s a movie that certainly has fun with itself, but claiming pedigree from Jane Austen’s unmatched Pride and Prejudice requires some responsibility as well.

I think that may be my largest problem with the movie: if you’re going to use Pride and Prejudice to sell yourself, if you’re going to claim to be a Bollywood version of the classic novel, make some effort to capture the spirit of the work. It’s not dancing transvestites or American-flag-inspired underwear, that much I can tell you. Very little of the satire or social commentary from Austen’s work makes it into this particular interpretation.

Also, I appreciate a fun movie as much as the next person. I’ve even been known to complain that people’s DVD collections are “too serious.” Everything in moderation, though, and if there are more scenes that make me cringe (whether from cheese or from pity for a character’s truly desperate action) than genuinely touch me, it’s time for the movie to dial back the fun a little. I’m not the party-all-night-with-a-kegger kind of girl.

Then, we get to the cast. Martin Henderson’s Will Darcy doesn’t have leading-man charisma. He’s less suave and more inarticulate, and he’s always unsure of himself. The superb Anupam Kher is sadly underused while Nadira Babbar’s spot-on Mrs. Bakshi, like pepper when taken in large doses, is sometimes rather scorching. Namrita Shirodkar turns in a credible performance as Jaya… until the “shy, quiet one” starts dancing around in her pajamas singing “No Life Without Wife” like a Radio City Rockette. And Aishwarya? Proved once again that she is, and always will be, a Bollywood actress. Hindi films require their leading lady to be lovely and coquettish; the characters are routinely “spunky” and have an amazing ability to banter beautifully with their male co-star(s). Aishwarya does as much as any Bollywood extravaganza would ask of her, but she never manages to become the endearing, witty, loveable character she’s meant to be. Some of the blame lies in the shoddy script; the rest falls squarely on Aishwarya’s pretty shoulders.

Ash is certainly stunning, but she comes off more bitchy than witty as Lalita Bakshi

Finally, for all the protesting Lalita does about Indians, their place in the world, and the brutal exploitation they suffer from the British and the Americans, this film does not exactly paint Indians or India in a positive light. Lalita snipes at Darcy that tourists never see the “real India”; we movie-goers see precious little of it too. Many of the natives are silly, dirty, uneducated, money-grubbing, or some combination thereof; the characters with class and culture are all raised in the West, and even those Indians who’ve emigrated to Western countries are unbelievably absurd. Two words: Cobra. Dance. Jaya and Lalita, their father Mr. Bakshi, and possibly Chanda are the only Indian-born Indians who retain a modicum of sense and composure.

My iron-clad faith in Gurinder Chadha has certainly been shaken. Bride and Prejudice was not a movie I enjoyed seeing in the theater because then I had to sit through all of it without the luxury of a pause or a fast-forward for all the frivolous — and frequently subpar — songs. I did like the opening sequence of the movie; the fun hadn’t worn thin yet, it was beautifully shot, and it had the just the right amount of Bollywood atmosphere. Perhaps as I think about it more, I’ll find more to like. In the meantime, though, I’m content knowing there’s little chance I’ll ever have to see it again.