As of 21 September 2013
Most beginnings are unique in their own peculiar ways, but the way I started my first project, since returning to Indian soil, had an unpleasantly familiar feeling about it. Allow me to elaborate.
Due to our chronic famine of tables, I was determined to remedy the situation and, after a short period dithering on how to begin, I set about scrounging up an the necessary material old door remnant for a tabletop and several lengths of hefty door frame boards, of a kind only known to India, to serve as legs for our improvised table. After securing in my possession all the materials necessary I attacked the dust encrusted door with a battered broom creating a miniature duplicate of a Sahara dust storm lacerating both eye and sky. With that task taken care of I proceeded to redefine my door, with one of those long curved saber toothed tree saws, into two identical pieces. What should have been one short dividing cut was proving to test my perishing patience. 10 minutes later my sabertooth was wheezing and rasping only halfway through. Compared to the incomprehensible extend of eternity ten minutes becomes less than insignificance itself, but to the operator of such a incongruent instrument, eternity was glimpsed in that minuscule amount of time. Slowly but surely, we succeeded! Then just like I had not learned a thing from those prolonged monotonous moments of observing my struggling saw, I commenced subdividing the potential table legs in very much the same fashion. Only a few minutes into the grueling effort, I stopped contemplating the pathetic progress I had achieved and realized I was risking long term enslavement to my primeval method. Deserting my methodless madness I resorted to technology. I remembered that we had recently purchased a metal grinder capable of dealing with impenetrable wood. Delighted by my own ingenuity I gleefully retrieved my problem solver and started into that wood with all the excitement of a scientist newly discovering the obvious. That stubborn stud’s resistance melted under my hyper-empowered hands. A few seconds later, the first chunk clattered on the concrete. Readjusting the wood, I flipped on, again, my problem solver. I moved my hand in to get a better grip and unexpectedly felt some pressure on the tip of my thumb. “That was weird” I thought to myself, “Could I have touched the gyrating blade…wait a minute, if I did, it must have indubitably sliced open my thumb…that would mean it is bleeding!” a quick glance confirmed my hypothetical deductions. A crevasse-like feature had been added to the topography to my right hand thumb. I do not know how these things happen, but no worries, an ample application of cayenne curbed the clotting cascade, and as proven many times by my personal experience, a quick coating of cayenne always prevents infection. So far this wound has followed implicitly in the footsteps of its cayenne treated predecessors. I am just glad I did not extirpate my victimized thumb. That incident, coupled with the impending summons to dinner, quickly dissuaded me from any further attempts in embodying the table idea into a physical reality. Tragic as these recurring tragedies may be, they unfortunately have almost become a part of me.
The moral of the story would have to be if at first you do not succeed do not even consider trying to eradicate you other thumb. If that is a little too far-fetched, try this moral; hear and internalize advice from older sisters like Katie’s continued admonition to me to be more careful. Anyone up to climbing a 100 foot coconut tree with me?
This used to be your two-thumbed Post Host, David. And this post took longer to write. Have you tried typing with eight fingers and one thumb? Be grateful for the little things like thumbs while you still have them or you might be doing them honor post-“thumb”ously. Stop twiddling your thumbs because you never know when I will post again.
Most beginnings are unique in their own peculiar ways, but the way I started my first project, since returning to Indian soil, had an unpleasantly familiar feeling about it. Allow me to elaborate.
Due to our chronic famine of tables, I was determined to remedy the situation and, after a short period dithering on how to begin, I set about scrounging up an the necessary material old door remnant for a tabletop and several lengths of hefty door frame boards, of a kind only known to India, to serve as legs for our improvised table. After securing in my possession all the materials necessary I attacked the dust encrusted door with a battered broom creating a miniature duplicate of a Sahara dust storm lacerating both eye and sky. With that task taken care of I proceeded to redefine my door, with one of those long curved saber toothed tree saws, into two identical pieces. What should have been one short dividing cut was proving to test my perishing patience. 10 minutes later my sabertooth was wheezing and rasping only halfway through. Compared to the incomprehensible extend of eternity ten minutes becomes less than insignificance itself, but to the operator of such a incongruent instrument, eternity was glimpsed in that minuscule amount of time. Slowly but surely, we succeeded! Then just like I had not learned a thing from those prolonged monotonous moments of observing my struggling saw, I commenced subdividing the potential table legs in very much the same fashion. Only a few minutes into the grueling effort, I stopped contemplating the pathetic progress I had achieved and realized I was risking long term enslavement to my primeval method. Deserting my methodless madness I resorted to technology. I remembered that we had recently purchased a metal grinder capable of dealing with impenetrable wood. Delighted by my own ingenuity I gleefully retrieved my problem solver and started into that wood with all the excitement of a scientist newly discovering the obvious. That stubborn stud’s resistance melted under my hyper-empowered hands. A few seconds later, the first chunk clattered on the concrete. Readjusting the wood, I flipped on, again, my problem solver. I moved my hand in to get a better grip and unexpectedly felt some pressure on the tip of my thumb. “That was weird” I thought to myself, “Could I have touched the gyrating blade…wait a minute, if I did, it must have indubitably sliced open my thumb…that would mean it is bleeding!” a quick glance confirmed my hypothetical deductions. A crevasse-like feature had been added to the topography to my right hand thumb. I do not know how these things happen, but no worries, an ample application of cayenne curbed the clotting cascade, and as proven many times by my personal experience, a quick coating of cayenne always prevents infection. So far this wound has followed implicitly in the footsteps of its cayenne treated predecessors. I am just glad I did not extirpate my victimized thumb. That incident, coupled with the impending summons to dinner, quickly dissuaded me from any further attempts in embodying the table idea into a physical reality. Tragic as these recurring tragedies may be, they unfortunately have almost become a part of me.
The moral of the story would have to be if at first you do not succeed do not even consider trying to eradicate you other thumb. If that is a little too far-fetched, try this moral; hear and internalize advice from older sisters like Katie’s continued admonition to me to be more careful. Anyone up to climbing a 100 foot coconut tree with me?
This used to be your two-thumbed Post Host, David. And this post took longer to write. Have you tried typing with eight fingers and one thumb? Be grateful for the little things like thumbs while you still have them or you might be doing them honor post-“thumb”ously. Stop twiddling your thumbs because you never know when I will post again.
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