A non-discriminating fan

The heat has returned to Delhi.
Which means it's time to turn on the fans again--non stop for the next six months.

Watching cricket last week exposed me to a number of commercials.
This is one of them. It's about fans and I find it kind of amusing.

Egg experiment

Due to the comment on a post from last week, and because I had an egg in the fridge which was so old that it was beyond the point of risk-free eating, I decided to try something.

Is it possible, I wondered, to fry an egg on my balcony?

I began my experiment at 12:12pm. With an egg, a plate, and a thermometer.
At that time it was about 102 degrees F on the balcony.

1:12pm.
An hour later I looked at the egg.
No progress.

2:12.
So the egg no longer looked quite the same. But it also didn't appear to be "cooking".

While this experiment was going on. I tried to get some other things done around the house. You know, some work, or something.
I admit to distracting myself with thoughts of other fun egg memories. :)

3:12pm.
So now the thermometer said something like 113 degrees F. Is that hot enough to start cooking?

4:12pm?
What happened?
Well, this is when life caught up to me and I was sucked in by the tyranny of the urgent. I had to leave the house, and I had to leave right away. So the egg was left to fend for itself while I was away.
During the four hours I was gone, there was a dust storm. "Aw man," I thought from the other end of the city as I licked the dust from my lips, "There's an egg on my balcony."
Then there was a short thunderstorm. Poor exposed egg. Certainly not a sterile testing environment.

8:12pm.
When I arrived home, I checked on the egg.
It was out there in the dark.
It did not look to be cooked, but it was definitely not in a liquid state anymore. The egg white was "crystalized" (what else would you call it?), and the yolk was sort of crispy.
So does that mean it was cooking or got dried out?
Is it a dehydrated egg?

This is perhaps an odd thing to post about, but, uh, now the question is answered.
Maybe.

Proof

In case you are unimpressed by the number 112° F (or 44.4°C for my metric friends), here is some proof that the weather here is hot:

• When I take the butter from the fridge and set it on the counter, it's already melted before I get out a knife and open the bread. My counter-top acts as a heating surface.
• I have no cold water. Everything that comes from my pipes is hot. And in the kitchen it's hot enough to scald when I wash the dishes.
• And the weightiest proof of all is that even I--I who am always cold and appreciate hot weather for the relief from winter that it is--think it's hot out.

I think that at this temperature, the eggs come out of the chickens already boiled.
Yes. It must be hot.

Not so exciting

I've been thinking to myself, what more can I write about? I haven't had a lot to say lately.

Well, I can tell you that it was a year ago today that I moved into my flat. And at that time there was so much happening that there was plenty to keep me posting frequently.
The flat shaped up in January, and since then, there's been less excitement.
So to speak.
Don't get me wrong. Every day is still an adventure, I'm just looking for a little less of it.

Take this week:
I've spent most days in the house hiding from the hot and melty-like weather. Inside I think of myself as spoiled to turn on the air-conditioning. I use it at night and during the day the cool marble floor and fan are enough. But at around two in the afternoon, I think I need a nap.
The only things it's not too hot to eat are mangoes, watermelon and koolaid. I made pasta sauce one day but was so tired afterward that I didn't eat any of it. I went and took a nap.
When I leave my room, which is cooler than the rest of the house, I immediately head to the fridge for more water, then think: "why did I come out here?" I go back to my room, remember why I went out and open the door to face the heat again.
The dust storms cover everything in dust. I could spend all day dusting and then start at the beginning again.
My refrigerator is half full of water--it's the only cold water. The tank on the roof spends the day in the sun and all the water that comes through my pipes is nice and hot.

No wonder I'm exhausted--and I LIKE heat.
And no wonder there's nothing to write about if I'm napping so much of the time.

My friend and I were talking:
"This is what hell is like," she says. "So hot and you can't do anything to be cool."
"No," I reply, "Hell is when you're cold and nothing can warm you."
Yes, we are opposites in this.
It's kind of funny how she sat there near dead--it is how I would look if you'd caught me in the middle of winter: immobile near a heater.

My outing one day this past week made me feel it was a day of great accomplishment.
I had a list of things to do and all of them got done.
The pharmacy had what I needed.
The atm at the bank was in operation.
I found the bookstore I needed and got my books repaired.
I got some groceries.
And I did it all in an hour and a half.
Nice.

So perhaps you can understand that if the above is an exciting day in my life why I don't have so much to write about.
And really, I'm not asking for more excitement than this. The lull is good.

Serendipitious orchestration

I just lived through a day orchestrated to bring us to Mexican food--good Mexican food.
Our plan today, my friend and I, was to go to a certain market where there was supposed to be a nice bookstore and a really good (dare-we-hope: authentic) Mexican restaurant. Good Mexican food is a rarity on this side of the world.
We found the bookstore. It was as expected. Not fantastic, but had books.
Now it was time to eat.
We found all the signage for the restaurant we wanted to go to, but where was the entrance?
"Oh that place is finished," said the guard we asked.
"Finished?"
"Finished."
Sad, sad news. No Mexican for lunch.
We found a coffee shop to eat at before we melted and returned to my house.

Meanwhile, my friend's husband was supposed to be leaving on a plane. But the plane's airconditioning was broken and they were sitting out on the tarmac in 104 degrees unable to leave. Several hours later they deplaned all the passengers and moved them to a 5 star hotel in the north of the city.
A 5 star hotel? Hmm. This might be our only opportunity to go see what it's like inside...
Our "only choice", then, was to head there as soon as nap time for her one year old was over.

Riding in autos is hard, tiring work. But that's what we ended up in.
The call to the taxi to take us to the fancy hotel was at 4:20pm. The dispatcher said: "There is no taxi available for half an hour. 5 o'clock it will come for you."
That was very bad math and not half an hour. But I agreed.
At 5:15 I called the driver and went through extensive directions on how to get to my house. Twenty minutes later I called and asked the driver where he was. The name of the location he gave me was about half an hour away.
What!
Okay, cancel that taxi service.

Now what do we do? It would be fun to go see the 5 star hotel that we wouldn't normally have opportunity to go see. But it was getting late. We would have to have time to come back for the kid's bedtime.
Our new plan? Walk out of the neighborhood and find our own taxi. If we can't get one, we walk a little further and end up at the Chinese restaurant nearby.
As we walked along, an auto passed us asking where we wanted to go? An auto wasn't in the plan. Because it was hot and we were tired and we didn't want to over-tire the kid before we'd even gotten anywhere. But there was the auto...
With a reasonable price.
We looked at each other.
We took it.
So we didn't exactly arrive at the five star hotel looking as if we belonged there, but they let us in anyway.
We walked through the lobby (unimpressive) and put our feet in the pool (slightly impressive). Then we headed out again to find dinner.
We thought we would go to a nearby pizza place and we got an auto to go there. I told him which block to take us to and when he pulled up, what did I see? A sign for Sancho's, the Mexican restaurant we'd been trying to find at lunch time.
"There's Sancho's," I said.
My friend misheard me to say, "There's a sandpit." Which was also true. Because all in front of the restaurant was construction and sand and a great big hole--no way for us to walk through.
The driver, though, showed us the path where people were walking through the construction site.
So my friend and I stood outside the Mexican restaurant and had this short conversation:
"We came here for pizza, but there's Sancho's. Which one do you want to go to?"
"Well, we know what pizza tastes like, we haven't tried Sancho's."
"Right. Let's go."
When we stepped inside and were told they had a baby chair, we knew we had arrived. A marvelous baby chair. Even though I had to eat with one hand while I held my fingers on the latch to keep the tray down and the kid from escaping.
That, and the excellent food with real cheese and real sour cream made all we had been through throughout the day totally worth it to end up here.
Disappointment at lunch time.
Waiting and waiting for a taxi that never showed up.
A plane with air conditioning that didn't work.
A visit to a 5 star hotel.
A search for pizza because we hadn't been successful at lunch.
It had all brought us here.
"That's what you call 'serendipity'," I said.
"No," replied my friend, "That's what you call the orchestration of a good God who knew exactly what we needed."
Absolutely.