We had a great day yesterday. “We” being Beck and I. She’s been doing our taxes herself since I shut down my business, but this year we decided to have them done. The YaYa’s highly recommened the guy they’d been using for years, so we called him up and made an appointment. We were warned that he had a few eccentricities. Picture this office. A ten by ten room surrounded in shelves, with a desk in the middle.The desk and shelves are piled to the ceiling with folders and papers and pamphlets and what have you. That’s not mentioning the shelf built on top of the computer monitor that’s also piled to the ceiling. One swivel chair behind the desk, two comfortable 80’s vintage office chairs facing the desk from the other side. In the swivel chair sits our guy. Three hundred some pounds of him. Headset on and ready to rock and roll. The man works confidently and quickly, concisely explaining every move as he goes. And when he’s not explaining, he’s talking to himself. I’ve never been quite so entertained in a meeting that involved finances. Things went well too. I’d forgotten about some overpaid taxes that occurred in the middle of the year. REFUND! That is if I can get my insurance company to tell the IRS that I really did not get 11 grand in taxable funds from them last year, like the 1099 they sent out says I did.
After the tax meeting we decided to go looking for a market that one of the YaYa’s had mentioned, and where they’d picked up a jar of Ginger Garlic paste for me. We only had vague and incorrect information on where it was. So we were cruising around in an unfamiliar part of town looking on the wrong street for a market who’s name we didn’t know. In the course of our search we stumbled on “Brand Name Deals” where we bought snacks for tomorrow night’s Oscar party and two shirts for me. The shirts were originally marked at $65. Our total bill was under 15. Then we found the “South Asian Market and Indian Deli” What a find! The aroma when you walk through the door jolts your appetite to attention. Ten kinds of Basmati Rice. Shelves full of curries and chutneys and mystery. I’m thrown back into the chapter in Rushdi’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet in which Rai is rhapsodizing about the food in Bombay. We are the only Europeans in the place. And it’s crowded and alive with conversation. I drift back to the Delhi Deli to scope out the menu. These words jump out of the blur of conversation in a thick Indian accent, “KG has matured now and he’s stepped up as the leader of the team.” I was still grinning from that when a herd of belt high children spun me around as they dashed down the isle. We bought a couple of bags of Basmati for the price of one. We didn’t buy the brand that “Makes You Think of Home.” I went for the sturdy zippered bag. We now have a year’s supply. I bought some pistachios and a brick of chashews cemented together by sweetness. We found a bag of Hot Mix, which is mentioned in The Interpeter of Maladies and Beck asked the man behind the counter, an imposing guy about thirty, tall and handsome and very friendly, “Is this really hot?”
“No, well…You don’t like hot?”
“Well hot’s ok, but I don’t like things too spicy.”
He’s thinking, “God, these Norwegians!”
“Buy it, if it’s too hot, I’ll give you your money back and I’ll eat it myself.”
It’s not very hot.
Next stop a pawnshop to browse. Pawn shop didn’t smell as good as the Market. I was looking for a bass for Q, but there were none. I came to the conclusion that bass players always have gigs so they don’t have to hock their axes. There was nothing at the pawnshop that we couldn’t live without so we headed home.
Simple pleasures. The money for the taxman was well spent!
Tonight is the Oscar party. It’s a girl thing. It’s been suggested that I get out of the house.
that’s so cool! I wish there was an Indian market like that around here.
oh man. see, that’s the kind of thing i’m looking forward to when the kids are old enough to not be attached to my legs like some kind of freakish tumors. that, and napping.
did they tell you where you should leave the house to? or are they just expecting you to sit out on the lawn? cuz that would be funny.
Its a girl thing. Sheeesh. That sounds like something rache would never say.
It won’t matter anyway since all the Oscar stuff will be on Xanga for the next month.
Sounds like your day of fun was actually lots of fun.
Well I’m certainly glad that you got a year’s supply of Basmati out of the deal. I mean, I don’t know what that is, but I think having a year’s supply of it is just great.
It’s Rice. Let’s try to read more carefully, young man!