Saturday, July 14, 2007

Saturday "Day" Fever :)

From recent memory, today would easily count as the best Saturday I have had!!

The beauty of the day lay in the fact that it wasn't a planned, campaign day which I might have been looking forward to for a long time. Was just a regular weekend day which I spent in the company of people I like.

As weekends go, the day began early around 9am. Woke up to a nice, tranquil breezy morning - perfect day to be reading a book sitting by the window. Literally skimmed through Prey, my last Crichton novel, till around noon when Addie called unexpectedly.

He asked me whether I'd be eating lunch - to which I obviously said yes, and if I'd be game to hop over to his haunt - to which I again obviously n shamelessly said yes :). The best part about being a 25-year old bachelor is that you are old enough to be invited for luncheons and get-togethers, yet escape from it being viewed under the aegis of "social obligations".

Now, delightfully, the lunch (which was wondrous in its own "home-food" right) also had another tacit invitation piggy-backing it - a long awaited turn to try my skill at the Sony Playstation 2. And boy, did I have a blast!!
Played NFS and to my own surprise, drove pretty well for a stark amateur. The sheer thrill of that game is in its simplicity - accelerate all the time, keep the car straight, keep collisions to the minimum. Plus, there was the sadistic glee of seeing the game chide Ashim saying "you were last" - in a 2 player race ;-).

Then my teammate at work, Claire, came over to Addie's to see his house, as Addie is vacating it soon. The vacancy though is not just restricted to the house. Addie is quitting and going back to India. I am 99.9999% sure that office won't ever be the same again without him :(. The poignancy of the whole situation was inextricably woven into the mirth of the afternoon.

Addie deserves a full post dedicated to him. It'll be one I'll write with utmost care and a swell of emotion in my heart. Can promise him that much!!

Anyways, getting back to the main thread of the post - the afternoon flowed to a evening coffee with a friend, here for a conference, at Orchard. Was fun reminiscing about the old times, how she totally fell in love with everything Singaporean, how the bevy of petite, super-modelesque Singaporean beauties made her feel like Humpty Dumpty :). And for the first time ever, I found the Starbucks coffee palatable! And no, it wasn't the company, the coffee could actually pass on as "tasty" and "potable" :).

The library beckoned after this evening hour fleeted by. That turned out to be an adventure that shouldn't have been :). I was to show some juniors (who didn't have a mobile phone) to the library and we spent 20 mins on the footpath trying to trace each other, when we were all but half-a-football-field away at different ends of the mall. Amazing how obsequious we've become to mobile phones & how paralyzing absence of one can be!!

The crowning caper of the day was the surprise birthday party for Arthi. It was a coordinated, conspiratorial surprise treat at Modesta's. 15-16 of her IIM A batchmates and some other friends had conspired to not wish her the whole day, turn down any dinner/meeting calls from her and then surprise her when her roommate got a dejected looking Arthi to the restaurant for dinner.

Well, that was the plan!! As it turned out, we got there before she did ;). When she got there, there was already a huge table for 20 set out, with some of us conspirators seated at it. The icing on the cake, though, was that in spite of this she didn't suspect that somethin' might be cookin'. She still believed that it was coincidental that some of us were at the same restaurant at the same time. So, we kinda did pull the surprise off :).

As for the food - l'italiano era deliziosamente fantastico!! We downed copious amounts of food. Brace yourselves, here is what all we devoured :-
  1. 3 12" pizzas
  2. 4 pastas
  3. 2 salads
  4. 2 king prawns
  5. and the star of the evening - 3 20" pizzas.
They had to get a separate barbecue-style stand to hold the 20" pizza trays. It took 2 people to serve - one to balance the tray, the other to serve ;). Was terribly amusing to just see them orchestrate that spectacle!!

All in all, I had a great day yesterday. The wait now begins for the next Horsie's Day Out :).
Hope the coming week passes by quickly!!

No comments: