May 18, 2004 - May 30, 2010

I half heartedly started this blog 6 years ago on May 15th. Three days later Oliver was born and in July he officially became a part of our family. If it wasn't for the request for Oliver updates this little corner of the internets would have been unceremoniously abandoned without a second thought.

Anyways, Oliver died this morning at 11:45. The last three days have been the most horrifying I have ever gone through. My heart is broken and I'm shattered, but at least he's not suffering anymore. April 28th, 2009 is when he first took seriously ill, it's been a long 13 months for all of us. He was a fighter who defied death so many times.

I'm still processing everything that happened and I'll definitely be doing a more thought out post later on. He was a fantastic little creature and you guys need to know how brave and wonderful he was even to the last moment.

To the hustings!

I always love a good election and I was kind of glad that I'd be in Colombo during the lead up to Tuesday's vote. My parents weren't too enthused with my timing because they remembered election violence, assassinations and all sorts of other lovely things when they still lived and were able to vote. On the whole, aside from all the Mahinda love, things were pretty tame in my opinion.

There was that one evening though...

I was on my way home in a 588 cab, making a left turn onto the Galle Road, there was a pick up truck reversing erratically in our direction. The cabbie lent on the horn, but the pick up kept coming at us, the windows were darkly tinted and one slowly rolled down, a man with bloodshot eyes looked at my driver, waved a pistol at him, shook his head and the pick up continued erratically along. The cabbie and I just looked at each other dumbfounded and he told me that because of the elections exchanges like the one we just had were more common place.

Great! Nothing like pissing yourself at 3:20 in the morning to remind you how fantastic it is to live in a country where only 30% of the public gives a shit enough to vote and 'election violence' means a paper cut.

Same same but different Part 2

My cousins have this gigantically obese golden lab named Kiara. She's
an absolute lazy lout, but I love her to bits. Whenever I'm here in
Colombo I get my pseudo-Oliver fix from her. It's sad to watch dogs
grow old. In the mornings she usually goes and hangs out in the back
verandah while the house is being cleaned. The last couple of trips
over she'd run and jump up to say hello when I'd come by her hood.
This morning all I got was the rhythmic thump of a ferociously wagging
tale beating against the floor tiles and huge languid upturned eyes.
She is still sweet as sweet can be but definitely slowing down.

The thing about my family here in Colombo is that they belong to
Thathi. He's the oldest out of 4 and all of them are exactly alike.
Spectral met the youngest of the lot and readily agreed he's a total
mini-me of Thathi (he's a good foot shorter though I think). It's
funny watching them interact with their kids and hear their tones of
voices when they talk about certain things because they're exactly
like Thathi. Ammi's side of the family is not like this. The only
shared trait they have is their insanity.

I may more closely resemble Ammi's people in features, but I am
definitely my father's daughter when it comes to certain quirks. My
grandfather, Thathi, 3 uncles, aiya, myself and 4 cousins all sleep
the same way. Flat on our stomachs, with the left right knee bent
slightly (looks like ' > ') and a notorious habit of shaking the left
leg until sleep comes. Another variation is to clutch a pillow
instead of sleeping on it. Then it's my cousins' strong heaterade for
all things stringhoppers (unless they're deep fried and are doused
with kithul treacle). We also have the same toilet infused, immature
sense of humour. I could go on, but it's these types of little things
that makes me feel part of a larger whole, which really isn't the case
with Ammi's side of the family. But it's always a bit hollow being
here without Thathi...

Same same but different Part 1

The Thai's have this saying 'same same but different.' I've only been
in Colombo for three days and that's a fairly accurate assesment of
how things are around here. It's just like it used to be but different.

1. My grandfather's dead and the entire house feels so eerie.

After the funeral we re-arranged the furniture, changed some of the
light fixtures and tried to make it a bit different for the sake of my
grandmother. The thing is, it's still the same furniture! It's the
same furniture from when aiya & I were kids living in Colombo. Every
corner of this house is steeped in some memory of him. I was telling
Johnny Bappa on the ride in from the airport that it's strange to
think he won't be around.

My grandfather didn't talk much, it's not the conversations that we
miss, it's his presence. The routine of his life that we all had to
conform to, he did things in away you could set a watch too. Since he
died the cat refuses to sleep in the house, but everyday sharp at 6:30
am he'll jump through my bedroom window, make some kind of awful
racket & head to the kitchen. My grandfather used to be up at 6:00
everyday, he'd make his coffee, drink it in the yard, play with the
cat for a bit and then give him his breakfast at 6:30 sharp.

We would eat our breakfast at exactly 8, lunch at 12, tea at 4, soup
at 6 and dinner at 8. All these meals would happen promptly on the
hour. I've noticed that my grandmother, despite dealing with this
routine for 59 years, does not give a shit about it. We eat when
we're hungry now, which is what normal people do, but somehow it feels
so wrong.

I know my grandmother misses him terribly, but she's so resilient and
strong. She seems to go through periods of loneliness, the evenings
are the hardest. He used to go for an early evening walk after tea
and over their cup of soup fill her in on all the neighbourhood gossip.

As tedious as I sometimes find this whole thing I'm glad I'm here, at
least for her sake.

And we're off!

Hungry, hungry hippo

I'm at the Bangkok airport waiting for my flight to Colombo. I've got about 2 hours to go & give or take 100 baht to burn on my 'happy' phonecard. Today started off pretty chill but got all shitastic pretty fast. The plan was to take care of some last minute shopping, deal with the post office, have a late lunch & then bugger off. This was too simple to be executed properly.

I found some super, super cute postcards at the post office & couldn't resist picking some up. So for those of you who gave me your addresses I blame you for delaying me horribly. I had no intentions of spending my morning writing, but 13 postcards later...

And guys you've got to admit my postcard writing skills are pretty badass, I don't skimp & make use of all available space. Honestly I hope you will just lie to me & tell me that you keep all of them lovingly in a box because I'd be crushed if you tossed them. For reals. Plus, you never know, they could be worth something someday!

I normally don't eat breakfast, the picture above is what I subsisted on when we were in ko samed. (Yes, that is the view from the balcony, crazy eh?) Today I had some Thai pastries while I wrote away. Which is a good thing because I kept the leftovers in my bag & just finished inhaling them now. Man I'm starved.

After the postcard writing I grabbed a few last minute things for the ladies in my life, had a lovely lunch & then headed back to the guesthouse with ample time for a shower etc. Of course the minute I step outside it starts to pour and I can't find an empty taxi, the traffic is horrendous & I begin to panic.

My uncle's going to be mortified when he gets me at the airport. I had just enough time to get back to the guesthouse, pay my bill, throw my suitcases in & then head to the airport. I'm still wearing the crap I was in this morning. Linen shorts, a tshirt & flip flops. I am certain to freeze to death on the plane yo, also because of the rain my hair has a certain je ne sais quois about it. Not the good kind.

You know how I always 'misplace' shit at the worst times? I thought I lost the keys to my luggage, then I thought my passport was gone along with my watch and iphone. Then I feel like throwing up. This is what sucks about traveling alone & being so absent minded. There's no one around to tell me to calm the shit down.