it was good, it was bad, but it was real

I had to be at the office at 7:30 this morning, and so I had quite the long day--it's pretty rare when I can be in the office for eleven hours and leave when it's still daylight outside. I left around 6:30pm to help Saamra, Lauren, and Arod look for birthday presents for Brian. We celebrated his birthday (and mourned Matthew's departure) by having dinner at Angeethi, since murgh makhni and garlic bread is amazing stuff.

We struck gold at The Dollar Store across from Touch; it had the same random hodgepodge of stuff that one would expect to find at a dollar store. I found this sculpture thingy that said 'friends' in various pastel colors, with doves perched on the letters. It may have even rivaled the awful ceramic things that we used to get for Mr. McFarland's birthday back in high school. We also got him a sari-clad Indian Barbie, a bunch of pop rocks, and a little black book (which we helpfully filled with random names and numbers). The best, though, was this shocking pen--it looks like a ballpoint, but when you push the button, it shocks you. The guy at the store showed it to us so that we knew it worked, and no one I was with wanted to try it. I'm stupid, and I'm used to getting shocked by my computer, so I figured it couldn't be that bad. So, I picked it up, pressed the trigger--and immediately dropped the pen because the damn thing was extremely powerful. It was like I had actually been electrocuted, and my thumb hurt for at least five minutes after that. The girls later pointed out that trying an Indian shocking toy was perhaps a bad idea, but it was extremely funny. The sad thing, though, was that Brian barely noticed when he got shocked, although whenever anyone else at the table tried it, they all agreed that it was awful. Who knew you could have so much fun with dangerous Indian electrical gadgets?

We also got Brian a cake, and we found some of those spontaneously-relighting candles. The waiters at Angeethi tried to light them for us, but they were taking forever, so we stopped them before the already-lit ones wore down. The candles themselves burned extremely high, like an old-fashioned lighter with the fuel turned all the way up, and they shot off nasty-looking sparks. They sparked even more when Brian tried to blow them out, and we ended up having to throw them in a glass of water since they wouldn't stop sparking.

Things are even more fun here than they are back home because nothing ever, *ever* works correctly the first time. For someone who enjoys absurdity as much as I do, this is a heaven-sent gift. The sparking candles, the strong shock of the toy pen, the amazingly ugly stuff that they had at the dollar store, all made me extremely happy. I'm going to be thoroughly sick of it by the time I get home, but tonight was great.

Now, though, it's time for bed--I need to rest up for the weekend. There are about six birthdays amongst the expats in the next two weeks, so we're having a big party Saturday night at Fusion 9, followed by drinks at Cinnabar Redd (this is convenient because they share a building and are owned by the same person). Sunday, we have an official work dinner thingy, and I have tons of work to do as well. But, a week from now, I will be packing my bags for Europe!