Thursday, August 31, 2006

A Super Model and the President of Bulgaria

It was a really nice restaurant. Very elegant and upscale. Most of the men sitting outside had come straight from work and were in suits. I broke my promise and drank gin and tonic. I was with a lot of young people who were interesting and intellegent. After dinner, my friend had dragged me there to join an ongoing party. The supermodel was Nordic and she was really pretty, which you would think is odd, I didn't expect supermodels to be. And bright too. She lives in Paris.

One of the girls asked a gay chinese man to donate sperm for her baby and he volunteered to deliver a bucket. And reading the menu, someone loudly said, "There is no Sex on the Beach. We have sex on the beach all the time." And then she realized that she didn't use her inside voice and was quite embarassed. Young people, just fun and games.

I am subjecting some of them to my cooking next week. Unfortunately all I can really cook in Turkish food, a chance of never learning to cook in India and my college room mate who taught me cooking happened to be Turkish. May be, I will download some recipes off the internet and practice it on them.

Burned Turkish steak anyone?

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Back in the summer of 1996 (for the mathematically challenged, that was Ten years ago), one Tuesday, my sister and I drove from Indianapolis to Saint Louis, Missouri (which, once again for the uninitiated in the ways of the Mid-West, is pronounced Missourah in local circles) to visit the University. We had not gone by ourselves on a long drive like that ever before I think. So, this was simbling bonding time. I love driving in the Mid-West, even though the scenery never changes, the roads are uncrowded and well maintained and there is a rural simplicity that is very calming. After we were done with our business, we thought we will hang around for a little while and see the famous St. Louis Arch. It is a pointless structure that looks like it is waiting for its twin so you could collectively call it McDonald's Silver arches.

To reach the top of the arch you get on a elevator-train contraption and on top of the arch (630 feet high, I just looked it up), there are windows that you can look out of and enjoy the summer day. So as I looked down, I saw a fleet of black SUVs pull up all under the arches and it looked like a major scene from CSI or Law and Order, since everyone knows FBI travels in style in black SUVs. Before we had much time to process the information, blue-jacketed men came up and told all those of us who stood in the narrow confines on top of the arch that we couldn't leave the space and no one could come up because the President of Bulgaria was coming up. And thus, my sister and I spent a few very uncomfortable moments in the close and crammed company of Zhelyu Zhelev and his myriad bodyguards, wife and FBI. He looked positively disagreeable and bored.

By the way, there is no point to this story. Just like most things in my life. And stay tuned, one day I will write about how I knocked Minnie Driver to the ground accidentally, how I bumped into Richard Gear on an elevator and sat next to the very tall Christine Baranski for six hours. You just have to get me going or ply me with alcohol.

I have plenty of pointless stories.