Lists to Keep Me Happy

Thursday, Jan. 1, 11:48AM
Mahendranagar (West border of Nepal)
1069 km

I'm in a pretty bad mood, as it's been a pretty rough week, so the only sensible thing to do is make a list of positive things I can think of about this town and my situation.

/ > Getting charged an unbelievably fair price for services. (Is it even fair at these prices?) I had a couple small errands to do yesterday: replace a broken link in my bike chain, and un-bend a hook (that attaches my bags to the bike) that got wrapped around my axl that got mangled when I went over a bump somewhere near Mugling. I went to a bike shop, pointed to the link, the guy popped it off, hammered away, fitted a new link, voila! 5 rupees! Sweet. I went to a shop that had things made of metal and showed the man my bent hook and a good one. We walked around the corner to where an old man with a hammer pounded on it until it was good as new. They didn't expect any payment, but I insisted. 5 rupees! ($0.07)

/ > Little baby cows. (I know, they're called calfs.) This town has few goats, and the ones I see are big and steal oranges from the fruit carts. But then there are the baby cows. I laugh and smile so hard when I see them, standing square in front of a store or restaurant, looking in. I don't ever see them going-in, but they stand there so mild and sweet, just looking. Incredibly adorable.

Holy baby cow, glowing tranquil

/ > The safety factor. So I'm riding around a bike the equivalent of a Rolls, and people do comment "wow, nice bike!" But I have NO worry that anyone will take it from me. We park our bikes outside many places and keep our eye on them, but we know deep in our hearts, Nobody Will Take Them. It's hard to convey this truth, but Truth it is.

/ > 20 rupee DVD rentals. They're all boot-legs but who cares.

/ > "At least we're not dead." The proverbial ball dropped last night and Jamey told me he's glad to be here with me -- better than being alone! I tried to think of a positive New Year's thought and my response was "At least we're not dead."

That's about all I can think of. Which brings me to the subject of Health... (see next Blog, "My Bowels Tried to Kill Me")