Month: March 2017

Home again, home again…

Dena's Blog Posts, James' Blog, Life Under Sail

We have definitely arrived! Our crew here in the MRE dressed our boat up like an Easter doll for us! The guys at Coastal and Bacon, and our very own Kate Bishop, took care of the nervous-parent checks and saved the boat from going down while we were gone. The news of several inches of water over the floor boards freaked us out when we were in India, but they make shit right. By the time we showed up, the cleanup was minimal and the to-do list consisted mainly of readying the boat for a sailing trip. After getting the engine running (replacement starter, air filter, and alternator belt), putting the boat back together was an awesome adventure. Like we’ve said so many times before, engine work sucks for us both so it’s always the most nerve-wracking part of our “returning-to-the-boat-after-a-stupid-long-time” duties. Now the engine runs fine and we decided to move forward on the “Twin-Primary House Battery System” (TPHB). Dena says, “I’ll buy an acronym for $400, Pat.” The TPHB is a battery system that we read about a few years ago. Morgan’s Cloud is a boat with rich people’s problems, but this is one area where we can adapt the ideas to our poverty-oriented version of cruising. The system allows you to draw all your 12 volt loads from an isolated 8D AGM battery until that battery is 50% depleted.  While you’re depleting one battery, the system takes all of your 12 volt charging systems (solar/wind) and dedicates them to a second, separate primary house battery that is not being drawn upon by your house loads. When you reach the 50% mark, you manually switch the loads over from the depleted battery to the fully charged battery. The resting battery will attain a higher state of charge than[…]

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2 Days at Mahabs

Dena's Blog Posts, India 2016-17 & 2019-20, James' Blog

What should we do for James’s birthday? The shopping area can’t hold our attention for long. I know… More stuff to haul 12,000 km… Hmm, the lighter, the better. How about the 7th century rock carvings and cave temples up the street? How ’bout those teeth!? I (Dena) am rolling on slow waves of happiness. This is the good stuff. And I, the guy behind the camera above, am just blown away by the art of technology attitude behind the thing, it’s a cool place to go but there’s also no shortage of cool breezes from the Bay of Bengal at the tops of all the cool stuff, well, weird stuff for sure and the weirder the better so, yeah, cool! Mahabs is another place that draws Indian tourists from all over the country. What’s it all for? Corn?! This has to mean something to somebody, right? Too bad I don’t read this language. I keep imagining it all as astronomical measuring tools in grand scale. I know for a fact there’s a place like that not too far from here. I mean, look at this: There’s a place with a sun (maybe): Opposite what I think may represent a moon. Or fire and water? Or… I (Dena) know this one! Shiva lingum as the birth of the universe (below, silly!). This thing! The meaning of the huge scene is debated, but I especially love the lady on the left’s hairdo and the stretching cat under the elephant tusks. The serpent-woman is a Naga. By the way, the elephant? It’s life-sized, as are the human figures. I’m figuring this for a shallow basin to hold a Shiva lingum and then…the oil bath? Or is this a giant oil lamp? Or an astronomical measuring device? This one is definitely nautical. Yeah,[…]

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Meenakshi Amman Temple

Dena's Blog Posts, India 2016-17 & 2019-20, James' Blog

If you’re thinking what I was thinking, yes! Meen as in meen kappa (fish curry with boiled tapioca/coconut/tumeric), but in this case, Meenakshi as in fish eyed, an old-fashioned compliment for women with almond-shaped eyes. You weren’t thinking that? Anyway, once we woke and had a lovely breakfast of idly, vada, sambar, chutneys, and a couple new Tamilian dishes we enjoyed, life looked far more cheerful than it had the night before. (Short story: attempted mugging) Setting off in the old streets around the Meenakshi Amman temple meant winding our way toward the center. This part of town was designed so that the streets are shaped like lotus leaves and the temple is in the middle. Specifically, I think, this: But that is most certainly jumping ahead. We avoided entering right off the bat by going into the market. The bundles of trim and lace and ribbon fascinated me. Any of my witches need a new cauldron? Safety in numbers… This temple complex covers 17 acres and the original temple is over 3000 years old, it was crushed by the Mugals (of course) and then rebuilt by the Hindus (of course) and it obvious what made it through the Mugal sacking (below). And indoor prayer areas: Non-hindus aren’t allowed in the actual shrine, but the galleries surrounding it are beautiful in their own right. Seriously. No, seriously. Even the workshop area has gravitas and incredible lighting. I am amazed by the loving care given these statues…actually, I don’t think it’s insulting to call them idols. I saw a bus called the “Passionate Idolators”. This stone figure has been rubbed with so much ghee that the stone looks hot. She’s standing on a peacock, but it didn’t make it into the picture. Every building is shot with beams of sunlight, and[…]

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Madurai Mad

Dena's Blog Posts, India 2016-17 & 2019-20, James' Blog

We arrived in Madurai at nearly midnight, after an emergency dental tightening and a long train ride. First thing, right after we left the train station proper, a young man starts following us. He tries to talk a couple times, but we wave him off. “No,” he says, “help you. My hotel.” Dena’s version: We’re good, man. Leave us alone. But he doesn’t. Instead, he walks with, around, and tries for between us, but we won’t let that happen. He’s jockeying for a position that will let him walk up to the suitcase James is carrying, but I cut him off. He pulls out a phone and texts and I’m thinking he’s got a crew and he’s setting up a group to roll us, but no one comes from the open gate or the next side road. Finally, I get impatient and wave him away. “Go. You walk that way.” In the process of waving, I swat him in the shoulder…he is following that close to me on an otherwise empty road. James is walking faster and getting tenser, and then the kid darts at me (I see him coming because I’m not taking my eyes off him), flails at me, and slaps my chest. I don’t know if he’s after my backpack strap (stupid) or retaliation for touching him, but he’s not so stupid he doesn’t know to run once he’s touched me. He’s long gone in no time and James doesn’t chase him far in case the distraction is the whole point. We’re basically at the hotel by that time anyway, so we sweep in past the lounging dudes out front and handle the check-in with ill grace. All I want is a private room with a lock and some time for hugging. James’ version: Rolling one of[…]

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Attukal Pongal

Dena's Blog Posts, India 2016-17 & 2019-20

I was riding my bike not long after 8 in the morning on the 11th, heading into town for Attukal Pongal. When an event is the record holder for the most women gathered in one place – and the number is up to 4 million at this point – one would expect traffic to be a mess. Like most sporting events, though, people trickle in and pour out, so the ride in was a cake-walk. If by cake, you mean millions of women sticking to the shade but ready for some sacred fire, and by walk, you mean rolling through among a half-dozen other kinds of traffic. Gopikrishna is Maya’s son and took most of the photos in this post. Here’s the photographer at work. That’s Maya in the foreground, Sangeetha in the middle ground, and Gopikrishna in the background. He asked to see the camera, I showed him a couple basics, and he was off! When I say off, I mean I looked around and I couldn’t find him. As you see, though, he was doing great work in the meantime. Pongala is a ceremony wherein I set up a pot of water on three bricks (or would have, but Maya beat me to it), put some coconut palm fronds underneath, and wait for the temple fire to make its way to me. The temple has an eternal flame, and every one of the 4 million fires was lit from that flame. The fronds are folded in half and allowed to stick out, then pushed in a little at a time as they burn down. Maya, middle, and Naishnavi mess around while I get ready to burn! I ended up with sore thighs from doing hundreds of deep knee bends. The fire also creates a decent amount of smoke…times[…]

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The first draft

Dena's Blog Posts, India 2016-17 & 2019-20, James' Blog

Many people that I’ve known through out my (James’) life have expressed a philosphy about the third person, an individual personality that is (okay) “born” from two people that love each other, respect each other, live with each other and spend their lives together. I tend to agree that something else entirely arises from the romantic joining of a couple and that something/someone becomes more developed as the years and the maturity of the relationship moves forward. I have learned to really love the person that Dena and I have made togther. As a matter of fact, we’ve given our third person a name and she just wrote a book! Her name is Rose MacNeil, Jr., and she just completed the first draft of Indoor Boh. It’s our first literary collaboration, and I fucking love the way she writes! Rose is a much better writer than I am because she seems to understand the idea of moving a story forward better than I have ever been able to. She has a grasp of what the story needs to move it along. And I (Dena) think she’s got three times the spark either one of us do alone. It’s already a bright, exciting, erudite shit-talking collection, and now we get to play with all that promising material. So yes, Rose wrote a book and it impressed it the hell out of us both. I can’t wait to see what other wonderful stories she has to share with us in the future.

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The Big City!

India 2016-17 & 2019-20, James' Fiction

Ever since my early days of watching Bollywood movies in awe of the sheer volumes of talent and resources that go into these truly incredible works of frivolous entertainment I have held onto the fantasy that everyone in India knows,  at some point in their lives, the chorus line will form up behind them and it will be their inevitable moment to shine. In other words, everyone gets to “lip-their-lead” in India! It’s just the natural balance of the universe. More often than not your “lip-lead” will occur at some point in your post pubescent life (unless of course you’re Dev Patel who will never actually have a post pubescent life), or rather, sometime in your 20’s or 30’s but sometimes your “lip-lead” will happen even well into your 50’s, 60’s 70’s or even 80’s, in India, you just never know. Now, my all-time favourite lip-lead’r, Shah Rukh Kahn (AKA SRK) has probably had more “lip-leads” than any other human in the history of lipping or leading and with good reason, he’s fucking great at it. The guy has the perfect disposition for lip-leading, he looks great, he’s managed to stay in shape and on top of his game for three decades now, and let me tell you, when he’s lipping his fucking lips are sync’d godammit, I mean spot on and it doesn’t matter what language the dude is giving lip-syncing service to, he nails it every time. Anyway, Dena and I went to Bangalore this past weekend and believe it or not, I got my lip-lead and it was about as religious a moment as this old atheist will ever have and check it out, it was a Shah Rukh Kahn song! Ok, it wasn’t really a Shah Rukh Kahn “song” it was actually an A.R. Rahman song[…]

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