Saving one Cry at a time

Lake County Health center, is were i got my appointment for vaccination shots and medical as a part of immigration process. Located in the town of Painesville, aptly named so i thought, especially after the painful vaccination moments. Painesville is a sleepy little town about 30 miles east of Cleveland with Sidewalk Cafe and Robertos Italian restaurent and the Casment club public golf course which is a picturesque, fun little course and Lake County Health center amoung other small and big and not so small and not so big things.

I was asked to scoot my chair over to the front, with two fine young ladies by my side, one on the left and one on the right, with syringes, i might add, in their right hands. Syringes looked far less threatening when they were capped but looked blood thirsty when they were uncapped. The sweet voice from the right said we are going to do this together, Tetanus on right and MMR on left. With that kind of a package, i bet WalMatrons would have asked "Would you like to have an apple pie with that?" with smile on their face and smile on their chest, had i been at you know where. But since i wasn't, i wasn't. The sweet voice however put me in a predicament(s), to greencard or not to greencard, to be painful in painesville or painless in painesville. I wasn't sure if it was even an option for one to be painless in Painesville. Anyway i summoned up some hard found courage and asked, why together? Why? Why? WHY? Why do you have to take the two injections together, at the same time, one on the right arm and one on the left. A wondering thought as always started wandering wondering in my mind. Will the people applying for citizenship be given four simultaneous shots, citizenship being steps above greencard? Two in the arms, left and right and two in the cheeks, that is ass just to be clear, left and right. If greencard shots is PITA ( Pain In The ARM) then citizenship shots would as well be PITA ( Pain In The Ass) or it could be, no offense to Indian chicks with the same name, ARPITA. A Royal Pain In The Ass. What would Arpita's husband call her, if she becomes ARPITA? My wondering thoughts landed, when i heard sweet voice's answer, "We do this to trick the babies who get vaccinated, they will have one" united state of "pain and hence one cry, if two shots are given together, one from the left and one from the right!". I was envious of the american babies who cry only ones for every two vaccination shots and felt sorry for the indian babies who are let to cry ones for every shot.

May your eyes never drip with vaccination tears!

Detox Day 3

Just woke up.. I am feeling wonderful. I am hoping I can get thru this day and meet my initial target of 3 days..

..to be on the sunny side

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

[Bertrand Russell]

Vish U

Vishu! Golden!

The critical opening phrase of this poem ..

At the club house the ranger ejaculated, "this is one of the loonies who played in snow last tuesday"! ..from crazies to loonies was quite an easy transition and later at the 10th tee the three loonies from last tuesday were evenly split between three foursomes to balance out the lunacy. While at the tee, waiting for non-loonies to tee off, the eloquant narration of golf swing, from Tin Cup swung into mind..

"The critical opening phrase of this poem will always be the grip. Which the hands unite to form a single unit by the simple overlap of the little finger. Lowly and slowly the clubhead is led back. Pulled into position not by the hands, but by the body which turns away from the target shifting weight to the right side without shifting balance. Tempo is everything; perfection unobtainable as the body coils down at the top of the swing. Theres a slight hesitation. A little nod to the gods. That he is fallible. That perfection is unobtainable. And now the weight begins shifting back to the left pulled by the powers inside the earth. It's alive, this swing! A living sculpture and down through contact, always down, striking the ball crisply, with character. A tuning fork goes off in your heart and your balls. Such a pure feeling is the well-struck golf shot. Now the follow through to finish. Always on line. The reverse C of the Golden Bear! The steel workers' power and brawn of Carl Sandburg's. Arnold Palmer! the unfinished symphony of.. [ Tin Cup]"

It felt good, it felt good just to be on the course, the grace, the smell of fresh cut grass, contours on the fairway and undulations on the green, the grim gloomy sound of ball taking a drink and the sweet sensuous sound of sinking the ball , the fore cries, the vast pictureque expanse, bell at the 7th, the solitude, the thud of a chunky shot and the melody of a crisp one, the sound of birds and the sound of birdies, the bogey woes and the par saves, the exhilarations, the silently vocal frustrations, the words of wisdom, higher aspirations all of it makes it simply great. Great enough to make one come back, time after time, to swing at a roughly 42 mm ball with about 400 dimples, repeatedly from tee to green, with persistance, character, pleasure and pain. Are lessons of golf, lessons for life?

The symphony began, bogey -doublebogey -bogey -par -bogey -triple-bogey -double-bogey -bogey -double-bogey was more of a cacophony and the only thing on the other side of the rainbow was pizza and beer and all the fun of trash talking at Time Out. and so we headed to the nineteenth hole in dim light and bright spirits. Keeping alive the annual tradition of beer betting this year, was the ping pong bets and it led to a title matches being scheduled at the "ping pong resort" in mentor ohio. A whopping wager of $1 each was collected, from the better lou and the betty lou, to seal the deal and washingtons, two of them, now rest in my wallet. Yesteryears bets of fame included basketball bets, racquet ball bets and last but not the least a bet to bowl cricket ball at 85 mph. The dreams of these bets never came true but they live, thrive and die in the noisy, non-smoking, often packed Time Out grill, while the scores are tallied and skins are won, tuesday after tuesday!

Three Crazies

Prognosticator of prognosticators Punxsutawney Phil, on Feb 2nd, predicted six more weeks of mild winter weather and was right on target, but what wondered me was that it snowed in April! Isn't it way past the six weeks? ..I shouldn't be wondering about it at all after living in Cleveland for more than 3 years: but because of my fondness for wandering wondering thoughts, i still wondered. I have wondered and wished if i would had the opportunity to relive some of the days that i had lived and i do some course correction.. Course! ofcourse! Course, Golf Course. It rained on the first tee, it drizzled on the first green, it snowed on the second fairway but we marched from tee to green, driving, ironing!?, pitching, chipping and putting. Two crazies plus another crazy, making it all together three crazies, for the opening day of our 2006 golf outing, which, i fondly call Bob Ritchey Open, a weekly event which happens every tuesday till fall, a gathering of friends and co-workers which starts with 9 holes of golf at St.Denis Golf course and culminates with pop-corn, pizza, wings and beer at Time out Grill a small suburban sports bar, with "all the cleveland chicks with crimson lips" that Drew Carey talks about.

In the beginning there were two crazies, and then came the third crazy. Three, in the whole damn course. When there were only two crazies, on first tee, and me being one of them, i fondly wondered if being crazy enough to golf when snow is in the forecast, means my professional future is doomed? But the third crazy who joined us, a senior vice president at the company that i work for, changed my doomsday predictions for my professional future but instead i also started believing that may be being a little crazy, a little whacky and may be a bit kinky indeed could be what it takes to scale professional summits. I made a mental note to myself to find out if stephen covey has written any book called "Seven Crazy habits of highly effective people" and also find out if reading books by Kinky Friedman helps paving way to professional apex.

Weather tested us in the first 3 holes but after that it was with us. With rain, snow and windchills in mid 30s we still managed to have a good cold time. After surviving the initial weather onslaught and lasted till we finished off at the ninth, quarter past eight, with a three way tie for skins going into the ninth. The ranger, back at the club house, if it was in his power would have give us a medal of honor for braving the weather. The parking lot was also a different site with just ranger's car and then three other cars which possibly might have been driven by the three crazies.
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