There’s a Lizard in my Kitchen and a Peahen at the Door

A very small, very quick lizard is climbing the walls of my new kitchen.  Also, this morning when I was getting yogurt out of the frig I looked out the screen door and saw a peahen on the other side of it.  I froze, partly in fear but partly because I was about 4 feet away from her majesty and didn’t want to startle it. She moved away from the door and I scrambled to get my camera and the shot you see here before she moved on. I also saw the green bee eater the last 2 mornings.  I figured out it’s a wire sitter and stakes out the nearby blooming bougainvillea for bees. This a.m. I was treated to a display of its famous rolling and dipping flight pattern. So far it’s great fun living up close and personal with these creatures.  Someone said something about panthers running around and being a nuisance, though, and I’m just going to assume they meant somewhere else.

Some creatures, however, are best seen from a distance, or actually not seen at all.  We went to the gym this morning and I was persuaded by the teacher to join the zumba class.  For those of you who followed me in Veracruz last summer, you know I have great respect for this most vigorous of exercise classes.  Nonetheless, I walked in the door to the small room that held about 12 zumbistas, and immediately 2 pigeons flew in the open windows.  I stopped in my tracks and motioned to the birds.  The instructor calmly walked over to the windows and shut them, and shut the birds in the room.  Apparently they are the class pets. The pigeons took up their spot directly above us and settled in to watch the show.  I think I deserve a medal for not freaking out.  They were in the room during the whole 60-minute class, and they only took flight about 3 times, which is the number of times I did the lowest squats in the class, even though the rest of the class wasn’t squatting.  Zumba was too hard on my bum foot anyway, but I’m not sure I could go back knowing I’d be that close to a bird overhead.  There are limits to what I will do for exercise.

On another very happy note my driver was incredibly helpful during our running of errands today.  He gave me his opinion on some purchases, helped me pick out some sari material, told me when I should wait to get it cheaper elsewhere, and said with a small grin that I should call him my personal assistant.  Savior is more like it. He got us a 15% discount at a wonderful restaurant, Spice Court (see picture), because he has some connection there, and told us to tell him if we knew we were going to any hotel restaurant, because when he took his hospitality certificate, which included being a tourist guide, he made many friends he would contact for us. He is the best thing to happen to us in India since we met our landlady.  I’m going to have to do a serious puja for both of them soon.

Cultural Observation: I purchased a small, inexpensive, lightweight Samsung phone that feels like a toy compared to what I’ve been using in the U.S.  It doesn’t have voice mail, and the phone companies here allow advertising via cell phones, so I get messages all the time that are really advertisements, or so I guess because they are in Hindi most of the time and I haven’t a clue.  Tonight I was reading the operating instructions and one section was titled “How to Make Fake Calls”.  It said, “You can simulate an incoming call when you want to get out of meetings or unwanted conversations.” So, no voice mail but special settings for fake calls? What is that about, exactly?  I can’t decide if the Japanese manufacturer who made the phone or the Indian distributor wrote the instructions, but my money is on India; fake calls just don’t sound very Japanese, or at least admitting to it in a manual.