Meet ups...and surprises

Surprise for one of us...yeah, Joshna, the kid among the four of us. Well, there is something that cannot be defined, ie, the sheer pleasure of peeking into your childhood. We are bound to forget what were like when in school, but trust your buddies to remember every embarassing detail....that is exactly what happened when we met...KP, Sunil, Joshna and I. Seated around a table in a noisy food court in a mall, nothing mattered but the journey into the past, surprisingly everyone remembered more of the other than of themselves, but Sunil Shenoy took the cake, wonder what ememory pill he takes...and Krishna? Oh mi gosh, from being the shortest one in class standing first in any every assembly line to being over 85 kgs and touching six feet, he has come a long way (no pun intended!!) Joshna, the giggly pony tailed gal is much the same...from what I remembered of her, (Prasad and Sunil have stories to narrate!!).

But yeah...it was the mother of all surprises for Jo and a moment of unbridled joy for all of us...eating pizza and munching on fries, giggling and clapping when secrets were revealed...

Friends...gods way of reminding you that you are never alone.

Have you ever lied to your doctor???

I don’t recall when I began enjoying having thyroid, but for three weeks now, I am over myself with joy. A week before that, I thought I would die, the emergency doc of Welcare hospital having scared me shitless. I am going to die, I thought, but what about the list of things-to-do-before-I die? I mean, I was nowhere close to the 100 things I had planned, and then there was this thyroid promising to spoil everything.


I was upset.

Then someone recommended Him. Dr ZG (no full names)

So to Dr ZG (specialist endocrinologist) I went on a Saturday morning, with a long face, hoping he would tell me that I wasn’t going to die in the next few months. I so wanted to finish trekking Kokoda in PNG and if I had to leave this world, I would do it in a blaze of glory etc.

ZG scanned my reports. No change of expression. He ordered me to sit down, checked my glands, reflexes, skin, asking me a thousand questions and promptly ordering another round of tests, I think there were at least a hundred.

And changed my medication right away.

Dr ZG was one of those docs you wish you have as your personal medic. You don’t want to share him with anyone. He is the kind of guy that makes you glad you are sick, because you know you are in good hands and if he told you that you would live to be a hundred, you believed him unconditionally. You wish he asks you a zillion questions so that you can stay a little longer, studying his face, his voice, measure the length of his fingers (meaning stealing glances at the ring finger!) the cut of his suit, the colour of his tie, (if possible his shoes), going over the reports, asking him the reasons for disorder_ understanding nothing, trying to look intelligent and innocently curious at the same time anything to engage his time.

Okay, so that was my first appointment. The next was 28 days later.

Cut to 28 days later

In the meantime, my health and my mood improved (I think closer to the appointment time!). The medicines were clearly working.

Dr ZG looked the same I suppose, but I appeared different. Result of chopping off my hair and losing some of the bloated, hippo look I had developed. Thank God for that, for one didn’t want to look unhealthy to a doc so determined to get you better.

When the nurse checked me, I was doing great, having lost weight and vital signs all rosy and nice, but that changed soon.

Having to wait 35 extra minutes (because the earlier patient too, I suppose, engaged the good doc in the ask-me-a zillion-question-routine) my mood changed, I was positively livid. The nurse disappeared after depositing me in the “treatment room” and I was ready to barge in to the doc’s room when he appeared.

Sorry to keep you waiting, he said like a good gentleman, letting me walk ahead of him into his room.

He hadn’t changed, I had. I felt anger dissipate, but what was I going to do with the heartbeat?

I suggested a blood pressure test. (The zillion-question-routine)

Something was wrong. In the last 35 minutes I had managed to get my BP soaring.

I suppose you were upset over waiting, he said with a smile that only doctors could manage.

I agreed. He walked me through the results. Nothing but a miracle, he said, studying them. Naturally, I couldn’t have done anything but get better, seeing that I was safely in ZG’s hands.

There was only one little worry and he soon addressed it, warning me about the immediate side effects.

Whatever you say, I thought happily. Ten minutes after our conversation on my job, trek, family, eating habits later, I suggested another BP check. Normal. I caught him smile. I looked at him sheepishly and all I could see was a medical curiosity in his eyes. ZG was playing it close to his heart.

The next day I woke up feeling very much in love! Okay, it’s not something I take seriously and no one should either, for ‘feeling-like-in-love’ is a frequent occurrence in my life, not lasting beyond a day or worse, two.

But I simply had to speak to him.

When I was connected to him, I repeated the symptoms he had warned me I would have (but didn’t) and played it up a little, hoping to be called in for an ‘emergency consultation’.

He suggested a different med. He would leave the prescription with the nurse, he said. I could collect it any time I wanted.

Never lie to your doc, I told myself severely. Your doc expects you to show some responsibility with explaining your symptoms, expect you to be intelligent enough to understand yourself and the limitation of your body, to treat your body with respect.

But seeing that I had no choice, I collected the prescription. Of course I changed my mind when I saw the enormous cost and wondered if I could “try out the original med for a few days, you know, sort of giving my body time to adjust etc, before switching. The pharmacist didn’t care one way or the other.

I am on the same med he gave me, with no symptoms of my body adjusting to the new drug. Oh, I suppose I am built like a horse, I could walk though jungles, climb mountains, but for my heart, I would even lie to my Doc.

I hope ZG doesn’t find out!

The End

Sometimes you just know that the END is around the corner. I guess I feel the same...and so very strongly. Time to take stock of the situation around me. I need to make my WILL. Sounds wierd, but its true. I just know it.

Sometimes you just know.

Hill in the clouds

Horsley Hills...a dream holiday. Seems like a long time ago...but the memories are green, just as the hill was then...green, abounding in love, awash with passions that never left the heart. Okay, passion never leaves the heart, no matter the time and distance. I wish Horsley Hills would happen all over again.

THE GRAND SAVING WEEK

Well, last week has been a fne example I have set for myself, which I hope to follow strictly. Its called the 'GRAND SAVING WEEK.'

What I did was this...

Didnt eat any junk food. Instead ensured that I packed a light lunch daily.
What I saved: Dhs 15 a meal per day for 5 days.
What I gained: NO extra calories from junk food AND Dhs 75!!! (App USD 20)

Walked where I would usually get a taxi after handing in my Jeep for servicing.
What I saved: Dhs 15 and LOST many calories in return!!!

No Starbucks or Costa cofee either!! Used all the MacDonald coupons and saved on that as well.

Resolutions_ and how far I am sticking to it

Yeah, I made a resolution. Save for a rainy day (read as TRAVEL).

And as mentioned earlier, this begin with evey dirham or dollar. I now have a box labelled TRAVEL and dirhams converted to dollars go into this. The resaon for converting into dollar is to ensure that I dont spend it. Heck, there is something comforting is seeing the dollars pile up but the sight of the Dirham sittng by itself makes me want to go shopping!

This year's travel budget is pegged at about 10,000 USD (It's the upper limit of course and I like the upper limit because it pushes me to save more) and if I didnt use all of it, then I have enough for the next year! This upper limit includes all airfare, visas, stay, spending money on each of the trip I would be on this year. Clearly not all of it is going on one trip!!!!!!

Happy saving and Happy traveling.

PS. On a happy note, I save USD 2.5 today. Here is how. I walk into MacDonalds for my favourite coffee and hash browns (which costs AED 9) and remembered in time that I had some copons left over from last year. I remember seeing that the date of expiry on the tickets was Dec 2010, however upon enquiring with the cashier, she seemed okay to let me use it!

Call it luck. So I got my coffee, hashbrowns and a sausage burger and a free Coffee Mug to boot. AED 9 (about 2.5 USD) goes into the kitty!

Shopping, Saving!

Just back from Egypt. Another journey fulfilled. Walking by the Nile in the foggy morning was miraculous...there is little to compare with that feeling. But this blog is not about the Nile or Egypt and the Pyramids, this post is about something else. Something which I casually read in one of the blogs of some unknown person, but which stuck me as very important ane practical.

It was on saving_ so one could travel.

The blogger was absolutely right. For a traveller, a backpacker hoping to see as much of the world as possible and on as little as possible, the most important thing is to have the money to do so...and that money, taken out of our accounted means doesnt really go a long way, unless you have a plan of action. A plan that touches every aspect of your life, be it in shopping for clothes, groceries, doing away with the 5 STARBUCKS a week, the unnecessary drive around town etc.

And because I belong to the above category, I have decided to SAVE SAVE SAVE everywhere I can so I can make the dollar (or Dirham) an extra mile!

Lets say its my New Year Resolution to travel more, far and wide and in a way I havent done before. There fore I have firmly resorted to the following.

My tips for saving

1. I admit I havent been the best when it comes to saving, primarily because I always find a reason to buy slightly expensive or branded clothing (...because they go a long way, I tell myself) and end up with a huge bill on my hand. If am using my credit card, then the interest per month adds to the total cost and thus the actual cost of the garment shoots up.

My solution to this: No more using credit cards. Pay in cash. And since I have a no-carrying-too-much-cash policy, I save myself the temptatin to indulge.

2. Gocercy shopping: Here I tend to go over board. I like to see my huge refrigerator full. It makes me feel secure against any food crisis that may suddenly crop up the next day. Foolish, utterly foolish, I realise. So, no more buying for a rainy day, esp things such as fish (which usually gets thrown out within 2 days of purchase), too many veggies, esp greens (I never get arount to cooking any of them and am left with rotting veggie matter and a huge stink), eggs (several occasions they have been left unattended and had to be thrown away....15-20 at a time).

My solution to this: Buy as much as is necessary for a week or two. Food wont go out of stock in 2 weeks time, for sure. Make sure I know what I am going to cook (and eat!) and buy accordingly. No more being embarassed to arrive at the weighing counter with a quarter kilo of ldies finger...heck, that is all I need anyway!

Knowing what I eat. Very important I think, for someone like me. I can never eat beyond say, 3 eggs a week...also because I am avoiding the yolk. I am not an Egg-lover, so why stock eggs and let them go bad?
Same with fish (at best I can manage a piece per meal, once a week!!).

Okay, these days, the price of Indian onions have shot up dramatically and the onions avialable are frightfully expensive. So I have now resorted to buying onions procured from other parts of the world which are far cheaper...Eg, Egypt Onions cost nearly 2 Dhs less than Indian onions...and so long as the chicken has no idea that its been cooked with Egyptian onions, why should I care?

Buy the toiletries in bulk. Usually super markets have the buy 2 get 1 free offer. I now buy soaps and toothpaste in these offers. Smetimes during festive season, this offer applies to rice, cooking oil and other essentials. I now look for offers and make a list of absolutely essential items and buy them in bulk. Rice, lentils etc dont go bad easily.

Shopping fr clothes: I think I have enough Adidas, Nike and Northface to last me  decade. Therefore yesterday I went window shopping (okay, deep down the instinct to buy something keeps nagging and am slowly overcoming it) and went straight to the absolute-bargain section. Okay, I loved a black top and a white and a read top...but held myself back severely when I reached the cash counter. Suddenly reminded that I was to save that money (I had alloted USD 10 for shopping...ouch!) and that USD 10 wouldnt cover my bill, I told the guy at the counter to keep aside two of them. The black top was well within the budget. To my surprise, it was on sale too...and instead of USD 9, I ended up paying only USD 6 for it!!!

Three dollars went into my travel kitty!! (Just to have you know USD 3 can get you a decent B&B in Phnom Penh. I stayed at one such place!)

Every dollar I save hence will go into a box. So I can travel.

I hope to add tips on how I am saving for my next BIG ADVENTURE.

Happy Travelling.

Pls share your tips for saving and help add to my kitty!!