I am now a bad aunt to at least six sets of nephews and nieces. I acquired another a new nephew to be a bad aunt to today – he is not new to the world, being around two, but this was the first time I’d seen the son of one of my closest university friends. As usual I had little to say, though given the seemingly global male toddler obsession with trucks, and especially dump trucks, had I been a better aunt I would have acquired a small repertoire of knowledge, questions and games.
This morning we went Nishantashi, which turned out to be just around the corner from a place we’d visited a couple of weekends ago. Nevertheless, we had a pide and then found a cafe with good coffee, then strolled on to the farmer’s market, stopping first to buy some speciality olive oil. The farmer’s market was very good, again, but I forgot to buy a few key items including parsley, which threw off my dinner preparations and left me completely unable to think what to do about dinner.
Before we left, in the actual morning, I had my second successive day of no tea because the milk was off. This time, after the first cup of tea split into a disgusting vomitous mess, instead of sinking into grief I boiled a bit of milk to see when it would split. Not until it came to a boil, so with science on my side, I made a cup of dum vali chai, or English style tea, leaving the brew to sit for a few minutes until it was cool enough that the milk would not split. The milk itself I later split purposefully to turn into a little bowl of cottage cheese.
I would very much like to learn to play an instrument, also I think it would help in my efforts to understand desi classical music a little better. I considered a jew’s harp for portability, but then actually listened to it and realised it was a drone instrument, so not much use. I considered a Turkish flute, which would be slightly less portable than a jew’s harp but more so than a piano, and then learned it is widely considered one of the most difficult instruments to play. I am now thinking I will wait till I get to the rhythm bit of my lessons and then learn to play the taal as that doesn’t really need anything other than a pair of calloused knuckles (portable) and a table (widely available).