Roller-coaster...

This past weekend was; hell of a ride! The festivities began on Friday night, "itself"! Played the first match of the Pro Club in-house tournament against Steve and won pretty comfortably, straight games. Found out that my next match was going to be in the morning at 10:30am (dreadful, I hate playing in the morning), packed up and left the Pro Club for once before 8pm, much to the surprise of the crew working there - what can I say :) Stocked up on some groceries and drove back to get ready for dinner with the boyz - Wes, Mithun, Arun, Vikas and Nitin. Vikas is going back to India this Tuesday and we believe he might come back with a ring on his finger - decided to help him live it up these last days of his bachelorhood :)

Took a "ahem" short detour to Geni's before I drove to Starbux to hang with said boys. Being late sets you up for incessant insinuation and mocking from the boys and I got my fair share of "Where were you?", "Who were you with?", "No time for boys no bench!" but the focus soon shifted to Wes, M and other topics of immediate interest so I can say that I got off easy. I should've called it a night once we left Starbucks given the fact that I had to wake up early the next morning but no, how could I have, I ain't that smart.

Broadway Grill and carbs - the inseperable duo. After chomping down Nachos, Apple Crumble and some other munchkins, we were ready to roll back to good ol' Redmond. Arun borrowed the Kal Ho Naa Ho cd from Mithun (big mistake) and we started the drive back home. When I went to sleep around 4am that night, the sole thought hovering in my head was, "It's the time to Disco"! We played the song twice in my car, thrice in my office at full volume and danced all over the 6th floor hallway of bldg 40. Forty-five minutes of dancing, brain-storming on what song to mix with this one later we had the 3 songs for our future dance "performance". And yes, we are not 10 year olds but I'm so glad to have met someone as insane as myself :)

I was hella groggy Saturday morning but played a great match against Rob Moore. We played 4 games that lasted 75 minutes and I believe Rob won the match more than I lost it. One observer called it a spectacle, we played long points and ran each other ragged on the court and Rob for once had no words of advice; he said I just played out of my skin, extremely tight and focussed. My time will come... The kind words left my disappointment undiminished - I should've won, I wanted to win. But losing is a great teacher and losing graciously is a hard to acquire virtue and I'm glad I possess it in some measure.

The rest of the day flew by in a daze. I spent some time with Vijay and Anu; watched Miracle with Biz, Bhargavi and Arun; ate dinner with Arun at Queen Sheeba, an earthy ethiopian restaurant on Capitol Hill where Arun and I discussed relationships, past and present; saw the start of Identity before calling it a night - it had been a long, hard day...

Three loads of laundry, dishes, vacuum, bathroom cleaning, sorting mail - I'd never have to do any of this on a great Sunday morning had I been in India. With Sunday morning wasted doing chores and running errands I decided I'd had enough of my apartment. So I came to office :) I'd forgotten my cell phone at Arun's the night before so I was cut off from the rest of the world and for once, I was enjoying it. Without the distraction of the phone, I got a lot of work done in a reasonably short duration of time. And I cooked dinner at night...

Black-bean pulav, Mushroom Korma, a bottle of Red Wine, candles and Geni... 'Nuff said!