Archive for September 11th, 2009

This morning, as usual, I walked to the garage, pulled out my bike, and started out on what might be my favorite part of the day: my bike ride to school. It was nice and cool, the sun was hidden, it was good.

And then it started to rain.

I was walking my bike up Ranch View, out of Tanglewood, and I felt the mist, drizzling down. “Ah, this isn’t bad! Nice and cool.” By the time I got to the top of the hill, it had started to rain in earnest. I peddled along, smiling to myself. Figures. “Should have checked the weather,” I mused as I got progressively more and more wet.

I passed a guy about my age jogging in the opposite direction. I smiled, he nodded – and in that moment we had a short conversation that went something like this:

“Ha! How about us, huh? Whether because we are so macho we don’t care, or just not paying enough attention, caught in the rain.” And then we laughed at ourselves.

Water droplets dripped off the bill of my cap, like tears falling off someone’s nose. But underneath, I was smiling. And grateful class wasn’t for an hour and a half.

As I rounded the athletic fields and came on to campus, it started to pour – serious rain, causing people to run and duck and there I was, peddling through campus, soaked to the skin, water flowing off of me like streams off a snowpacked mountain, and all I could think was 1) thank goodness I didn’t put on eyeliner this morning, and 2) I have a serious date with the hand dryers when I get to a building.

You will be happy to know that within about four and a half hours I was dry again.

In the past few weeks, a very exciting thing happened nearby: new playground equipment was installed at Kellis Park, near the junction of Trail Lake and Granbury, which is just down the street from Foster Park, known around here as “The Duck Pond” since, well, it has a pond with ducks in it. Here is a map:

I have noticed an increase in the number of kids playing there since the new eqiupment was installed - and we have been there quite a few times ourselves. I am very happy the city is working to improve our parks in this way (down the street at Foster Park they are planting new trees and redoing the sidewalks and bridges over the creek)

Ang trys out the new structure

New swings were part of the improvements

 

After a long day of teaching, when I feel like, as we say in this house, “Anywhere but here” a good Indian movie is just the thing. We have recently gone through not just “Jodhaa Akbar” and “Eklahva” which I reviewed, but “Jai Santoshi Ma” and “Ashoka” and finally, most recently, “Om Shanti Om.” The last two star Shahrukh Khan — an Indian actor and producer whose top-dog status in Bollywood led to him being named one of Newsweek’s 50 most powerful people in the world in the world in 2009.

Why our current fixation on Bollywood? There are a number of reasons. First of all, we enjoy the multicultural experience. Anything procuded in Bollywood is bound to involve something new and different. Then, there’s the length of these movies. At three hours long, average, a Bollywood movie can last us, who watch for a half hour or hour before bed, for days, prolonging the reflection and discussions you can get from viewing with your spouse. Then, there’s the interesting family and spiritual storylines of Indian film — in this cosmology, mothers and mother in laws really are conniving and try to control children and wreck marriages, and religion and God or gods are part of the action — there is reincarnation, goddesses coming down from heaven, karma, dharma, all kinds of interesting things. Perhaps most unexpectedly, we have begun to enjoy the trademark musical numbers, long, drawn out song and dance routines reminicient of 50′s era Hollywood musicals. Over all, it adds up to a very amusing package.