You have to love air travel in India. A veg meal is one of the standard options—no need to pre-order. Hitting turbulence gives people at the rear of the plane license to shout epithets at the captain. And attendants apparently are allowed to treat customers like rival siblings:
Passenger: Orange juice, please.
Attendant: I’ve only got coffee and tea.
Passenger (irritated, each word pronounced slowly and distinctly): Can you just get me a fruit juice? (In Thailand this request would be couched as a hint.)
Attendant (while moving along, bordering on sarcastic): The inconvenience is regretted. (No suggestion that anything can be done about this issue.)
My only other trip to India was many years ago. Memories of similar peculiarities began to flood back. This time I was on my way to meet my friend Edie, whose son is studying in the northern district of Ladakh. We planned a ten-day stay in that dry, mountainous part of the country, which is also sometimes known as “Little Tibet.”
Just before getting ready for landing, the cabin was fumigated, protecting India from unidentified Thai pests. The inconvenience was regretted.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Mind Games
Jip is mostly happy most of the time these days, but her moods do malfunction now and then, often at a moment’s notice. The caregivers and I are used to the big swings. We each have our special techniques for coaxing her out of a funk. Sometimes we team up and do a kind of triangulation therapy.
Take yesterday morning, for example. Upon overhearing words heat up between Jip and the woman who was on duty, I deliberately cranked up the volume on some music that I guessed Jip wouldn’t want to listen to right then. She promptly directed her frustrations at me instead, until the silliness of the whole situation hit her after a minute or two. Jip began giggling as I turned the music back down. The laughter cure.
Yesterday a new technique grew out of something I was reading to her from a website aimed at people with her disease. Jip’s attention had been wandering, which she usually shows by interrupting to ask how many blankets are covering her legs or to request that somebody close the windows (I don’t think she’s really cold, but ensuring that she isn’t has become a sort of reset button for her.) Then I described one of the site’s simple brain strengthening exercises—you say a word, then think of another one that begins with the last letter of the one before. Jip amazed me with how quickly she went from being fussy to being engaged.
Check out the words that came to her mind as she played the game happily for the next few minutes: Toddler, Reptile, Elephant, Totem, Marmalade, Egret, Telephone, Eggplant, Thailand, Dump, Papaya, Absorb, Bowling, Golf, Foolish, History, Yogurt, Tamarind
Occasionally she would revise her first choice for a follow-on word, rejecting it as “too easy—the words should more than one syllable.” Good clean fun.
Take yesterday morning, for example. Upon overhearing words heat up between Jip and the woman who was on duty, I deliberately cranked up the volume on some music that I guessed Jip wouldn’t want to listen to right then. She promptly directed her frustrations at me instead, until the silliness of the whole situation hit her after a minute or two. Jip began giggling as I turned the music back down. The laughter cure.
Yesterday a new technique grew out of something I was reading to her from a website aimed at people with her disease. Jip’s attention had been wandering, which she usually shows by interrupting to ask how many blankets are covering her legs or to request that somebody close the windows (I don’t think she’s really cold, but ensuring that she isn’t has become a sort of reset button for her.) Then I described one of the site’s simple brain strengthening exercises—you say a word, then think of another one that begins with the last letter of the one before. Jip amazed me with how quickly she went from being fussy to being engaged.Check out the words that came to her mind as she played the game happily for the next few minutes: Toddler, Reptile, Elephant, Totem, Marmalade, Egret, Telephone, Eggplant, Thailand, Dump, Papaya, Absorb, Bowling, Golf, Foolish, History, Yogurt, Tamarind
Occasionally she would revise her first choice for a follow-on word, rejecting it as “too easy—the words should more than one syllable.” Good clean fun.
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