Week of 5/19/2008

Highlights:

• We were told the foam mattress Heather asked for had been finished. Since Heather asked for it we assumed it would be at her place. Nope, they measured a bed in my apartment so the finished mattress was at my place. They promptly went to Heather's to measure her bed.
• Received snail mail from my god-daughter.
• Received an e-mail from Erin about the dates she is coming to visit me in India.
• Talked to my parents on Skype.
• Friday after work we stopped @ Dev Ark Mall to pick up movie tickets for a Sunday show, that was interesting.

Lots of funny stories this week (in paragraph form):

1) Ankoor and Gemar came to asked me to test out some cooks since Marty is requesting a cook for when he is here. I was told the cook would be coming to my apartment at 8 am the next day and what would I like him to prepare. It took a lot of effort not to laugh in their face. Me do taste testing for food, Indian food at that! (I hope you all know that I am a SUPER picky eater otherwise this is not a funny story) So off the top of my head I say the only Indian food item I can think of "naan" and Gemar chimes in "cheese naan". Ankoor explains that naan takes a lot of time to prepare. So then I asked him "what would you like for lunch tomorrow?" To which Ankoor replies "I will just tell him to make a traditional Indian meal." And the conversation is over.

Later that day I am telling Vevaik the story and remember that my stove is still not hooked up so the cook can't come to my place to cook, hahah. I go and tell Ankoor and tell him to send the cook to Heather's place. Before I left work I also told Heather the story and to let her know to expect a cook at her place the next day.

2) Ankoor comes up to ask me if Rs 800 for the cooks fee was okay. So I do some mental math and get 20 USD and think that is a lot for one hour a day to cook one meal for one person when Ankoor told me he cooks 2 meals for 4 people @ Rs 1800. So I ask Ankoor what Abby paid Meena to cook, he wasn't sure because it was included with the cleaning also. So I tell Ankoor to offer Rs 650 to Rs 700. The cook had said he would not take lower than Rs 800. Later I talked to Vevaik to find out what he would pay a cook. He told me what his brother (in Delhi) pays, granted the cost of living is about 2.5 times what it is in Ahmedabad. After talking with Vevaik I came to realize that Ankoor was talking about Rs 800 a month and I was thinking Rs 800 a day! I laughed soooo hard. Later when I saw Ankoor I asked him if it was per month and he said yes and we all laughed because everyone realized there was some miscommunication. I told Ankoor Rs 800 was fine but he had already talked the cook down to Rs 650. I told Heather the story later and she laughed too.