R2I diaries - Day 6

Sunday

Our first proper day in the new home. Woke up early (see how this is also becoming routine;) ). We decided to check out what we needed to do for newspaper deliver, milk, groceries etc. We went to the front of the apartment complex (this whole complex has some dozen buildings, and they are spaciously laid out, not cramped into a small area, and that floored both of us) and asked the security guy. He said there was a grocery store in Building#n and the milk store was in Building #m. While we were walking to the security, we noticed the newspaper-wallah in Building#n so we ordered delivery with him already.

We went to this store next. I wrote a post last year when I was in India about how enterprising our folks are. And was I happy to see this store. They rented an apartment in the ground floor (its been so long since I saw ground floor+ first floor etc as opposed to level 1 level 2 etc;) ) and setup shop there. Some 3-4 guys were moving around handing supplies billing, weighing etc. We went in and were surprised to no end. Everything you can imagine was crammed into that 400 sq foot living area/dining area of this apartment converted to a shop. We picked up some basic supplies like "Kelloggs Chocos" (Did I mention this was my favorite cereal brand before I left for the US? Was I disappointed to not find the exact same thing there or what?!), some bright bulbs (we hate yellow coloured lights) etc. These guys said that if we called them and told them what we need, they would deliver it to our apartment (happy happy happy :D :D)

We then went to the Milk Shop. I saw Nandini and I was happy. I love "Nandini Tuppa". I used to hog on it when I was a kid being pampered by all my aunts;) I badly wanted to drink flavoured milk (a ritual that my friend K and I used to regularly perform every evening in Hyd's summers coming back from college) so we got the Kesar flavoured one in a tin. We bought a packet of milk. The guy told us about the coupon system for milk. Just buy a booklet of coupons, hang a bag outside your door with coupons in it (as per how much you need) and lo and behold! in the morning the coupons are gone and the milk appears ;) Convenient? You bet! I remember painfully carrying those gallon cans of milk upstairs whenever I did groceries. Sigh!

I thoroughly enjoyed our little round-trip walk (little less than 1 KM) to the front of the apartments and back (ours is the last but one block). People were jogging/walking/taking kids for a stroll. In general chatting away when someone familiar came by. Boy! Did I not come back for these sights and sounds. Yes! I did!!

We came back and got back to unpacking. Subhash did the majority of it while I did some minor parts. We made Pongal and ate. We remembered we forgot to buy pickle while we were downstairs at the shop. So we called him and he brought us a Priya pickle jar and we paid him and that was it!! Didn't have to take out the car to go anywhere to buy it. Better still, didn't have to compromise and eat this stuff without any pickle! :D :D

We had to go to SSK's place for lunch. The Airtel guy was going to come over to pick up the application forms for Broadband at home. Not sure what we owe no-thanks to but he came at 1.30 PM instead of his promised 10.30 AM ;) And this caused a push out in all our plans. We were late in going to SSK's place for lunch. We had to take home a gas cylinder from their place (Subhash had this connection before he left for the US and he left it with them. When we met on Saturday, they mentioned they had it and that we should take it as they had one too many cylinders now;) And we were happy, because that one LPG gas cylinder seemed a problematic thing and a thing of distant future, but now we could have one!! And an almost full one at that! :) ) So we went to their place had lunch and I endlessly admired SSK's wife V's painting talents. She had some of them framed and they were amazing!! Wow! People have so much talent, I feel so deprived of any talent whatsoever.

We had to go to Metro to buy some things. This is a membership thingy like Costco and you buy in bulk. Membership is not easy to get and V had somehow managed one. So we went. And shopped for some things. Again cringed about how expensive it was and got ready to pay. But this guy only took cash. Alternate was pay with Citibank cards and pay 1.5% surcharge. We cringed and agreed. V was going to swipe her card since we didn't have one. Only to find that all his gateways were jammed and their calls wouldn't go through. We were kangaal, didn't have any cash. After innumberable attempts finally our payment went through but SSK and V's didn't. They had cash so they paid for theirs and we finally got out. A good half an hour spent just to pay for the things. Reminded me of those long lines in Walmart. Except for that here we didn't wait in the line, we waited at the counter ;)

V was going to pick up something close to Y's place and so we went along and then dropped by Y's place. We were actually going to take the cylinder and the stuff from METRO and head back home in an auto but we didn't find any so SSK had to drop us home yet again, so we thought might as well tag along with them wherever they went ;) So we also went to Y's place, I updated S on the happenings between yesterday and today and then the boys went off in their typical style to "The Lake" while we girls discussed interesting things;) Reminded me of the gang back in the Bay Area. Boys off to Starbucks or some place while girls stayed home and talked on endlessly about all kinds of things. We used to call ours the "PJ Party" and the boys felt threatened by this cult and so they used to go off to do their own thing and called it the "Lungi party". Boys, I tell you! ;)

SSK and V dropped us home after that good time in Y's place and I made dinner (Plain dal+Pickle(remember the one that was delivered?)). Simple dinner but all the same. We used our new cylinder and hence that nice Faber 4-burner stove in the kitchen this time instead of my single Primus Cabson one:D

I was thinking about writing this last night/today and it seemed so long ago. I could have bet it was a week ago or at least 4 days ago. But it only happened less than 2 days ago. And I am amazed at how slowly time moves. Our days are just filled with so many things that something that happened early morning yesterday seems like ages ago when you think of it tonight! Wow!