random

Two travelling Honda salesmen. Abhijeet jumps off the train in the early morning light, running along the platform, laughing, happy. It's monsoon, and the day is dewfresh, misty, cool, green.
Heavy rain, later. S&A are in my office, working. I see a small plant on my desk. I water it.
Night. Stealing jet fuel from the camp's storage trucks. The place is flooding. Silver Hornets disappearing under the rising water, shimmering in the orange light.

Some months later
Hot, dusty sepia evening. The car's empty now, except for Inanna, uncoscious in the back seat. I'm sitting on the bumper, watching the evening fall. A small child runs up to me, waving something. It's a bunch of peacock feathers. I buy one off him - I don't really know why, right now, but it seems important.
The other children are playing by the road, but their faces... tired. Afraid. Their movements are jerky, fearful. They're always watching. Above the street, on a balcony, a young teenage prostitute stands, screaming in anger at someone inside. The clothes strung up on the lines between the houses - as dusty as the road, don't really see the point of washing them - are hanging still. Not a breath of air, just the dry heat of dusk.

I'm in water. Cold. Deep blue-black, motes of sunlight dancing off the surface, streaming down in geometric perfection until it glitters off the fishes in dancing, random chaos. The fish are brilliant - flickering about, too fast to identify, apart from the silver movement, swimming with us.

house hunt: a fitting end

Finally, it is over.

After going through n number of assorted houses, flats, apartments, 1-BHKs, 2-BHKs, societies, brokers, colonies... we finally found the perfect house.

It's cheap.
It has internet.
It has a non-interfering landlord.
It's walking distance from Andheri station.
It doesn't flood more than 3 feet.
It's quiet.
It will give us a room each.
It's big.
It's well-lit and airy.
It receives equally good, equally cheap dabba.
It has balcony.
It has nearby stores.
It's the same one we're in right now.

So we're continuing.

I feel like Veronica Lodge in a shoe shop, surrounded by mountainous piles of shoes and exhausted, broken salesmen, finally finding the Perfect Pair. The ones I came in.

House hunt: The story continues

The story so far:
After roomie recovered from spiritual anguish, and we finalized the Embassy society to move. Papers were signed, advances paid, NOC's done, cops bribed, photos clicked and submitted, biodatas given and signatures signed.
Then the Embassy society called an emergency meeting to ban bachelors from entering the premises. Our shadows can no longer darken their doors again.

So, the search continues...

Perizaad (The Fairy) building has excellent views of both the Andheri Sports Complex ground, the under-construction building in front, and the excavated canal filled with a black sludge that looks like Ardros from the ST:TNG - Skin of Evil episode, a psychotic, malicious, unkillable black tar-creature who murders the security office for fun.
Guru Dhrishti (The Sight of the Guru) building can be reached only by land rovers or tanks. We watched a girl in an Accent nose-dive into a camouflaged ditch and bleat pitifully for help from within her trapped vehicle for half an hour.
Amiya (Sanskrit - "nectar, delightful" or "boundless") building is precisely behind the DN Nagar Towed vehicles holding area, so recovering my bike from it's frequent stays at police hospitality is going to be a lot easier. It also has horrific scribbles done by an apparently mentally disturbed child in crayon on every wall.

...and so the hunt continues...

house hunt: rejections and rabies

this keeps getting better and better.

3 days left, and we've finally selected the house we're going to shift into. Lease on the verge of expiring. 90% of all stuff packed, which means I'm living out of a suitcase and eating out of the single plate which I need to wash when I finish... and the Embassy society calls an emergency meeting to ban Bachelors from living in it.

I'm beginning to get a feel of how a discriminated minority feels.

So now we need to vacate by Wednesday, and there's no alternative in sight. I need to think of some options, fast. Managed to recover the token money, at least; was worried about that, since this Arora broker is so cheap he only makes missed calls until you call him back.

We can either now

1. search, finalize, and sign up for another option - probably as a compromise solution, settling for what we can get because there's no time;

2. Extend the lease and search for another place properly;

3. Renew. Which means dropping S.

After we got this call in the morning, unwashed and unbreakfasted, we were practically biking from broker to broker to more house options, subsisting on tea and cigarettes. And finally when I come back home in the evening, the pups living in the compound greeted me so enthusiastically that I realized they'd drawn blood when I went to wash up.

Which means rabies shots tomorrow.

Drat.

And there's a dubious plan being implemented in office which promises to triple my workload over the coming 3 months.

Life is Beautiful.

cant move

just hope its worth it... so tired. have 2 days left in which to finish moving and more than 80% is still unpacked, just scattered. living in chaos is psychically draining. I can see my time running out, but I can just sit here and watch it coming.

Deer in the headlights, frozen.

I know what they're thinking. They're thinking, "Run away? Again? I've been running fifty times a day every day of my life..."

Even if I will a finger to twitch, somewhere down the line the signal is getting lost.

On the plus side, though, I found a callus on the inside of my right wrist. One more mark my life habits have given me... a mouse burn.

It's like getting some cult tattoo.

Mumbai Marathon

or,

I'm shuffling wild, yeah, I'm shuffling free

I'm shuffling free, yeah, I'm shuffling free

Though that probably just earned me yet another black star from The Dark Forces that be, it wasn't that bad.

Scenes from a marathon

Fifty-foot line at Andheri station's journey extension counter, of people in tracks and sneakers, while the occasional regular looks around in bewilderment

Rising buzz of a city while to all appearances fast asleep in the dawn, is still full of thirty thousand runners and three hundred thousand spectators moving purposefully through the darkness towards Town.

From the suburbs they came, the colonies and the chawls, singly and in color-coordinated packs, stripped to the minimals or staggering under costumes, silently half-asleep or chattering like dawnbirds...

For a day, routine was suspended. People saw the dawn. Breathed sea air without SPMs and dust. Walking, instead of fighting for a toe-hold in a bus or struggling for a cab, strolling instead of searching frantically for parking space.

The loudest cheer of all that went up as the wheelchair run went past.

Loudspeakers on every corner, belting out everything from remix to Reshammiya (and once, awfully, remixed Reshammiya) and it was still okay

Human sounds. Voices, cheers, chatter, footsteps. Sneakers on asphalt. Birds.

No traffic. No horns. A sense of time. No deadlines. Nothing to do but enjoy yourself.

Brilliant sunshine, clear air, cool breeze.

Azad Maidan. Colour, colour, colour. Pageantry.

Jet Airways yellow. Shiamak VAF maroon. Stanchart blue-green. Kingfisher red. HLL white. Mumbai Police khakhi. GiveIndia green. And orange, and pink, and black, and sky blue, and...

The towers of CST on one end, the BSE on the other, faraway through the haze... sense of huge open spaces.

Me: wandering around like a lost soul. Every second person with a search on his face and a cell on his ear.

People dressed like leopards.

People dressed like dabbawalas.

People dressed like Shikari Shambu.

People dressed like demons.

People - actually, extremely attractive girls - dressed in not very much.

Face paintings.

Banners, hoisted reluctantly up by harassed flagbearers being extorted to "raise higher! higher! you haven't had breakfast today or what, atul?!" by a hyperactive self-appointed event-manager type creature.

Caps, caps and more caps.

Balloons.

Mediapersons.

Placards.

Headbands.

Cameras.

Pompoms.

Headphones.

A leopard taking off it's head to wipe off sweat.

A group of people dressed like the typical contents of a mumbai local - roadside romeo, salesman with tie and laptop, woman with fishbasket...

An ambulatory workstation - PC on a frame with speakers, monitor and CPU - carried by a someweight troubled-looking participant with an expression that hinted at a re-evaluation of the wisdom of running 7 km with the frame on his shoulders.

Spectators cheering, laughing, clicking, waving.

And thirty thousand people going for a - shuffle, walk, trot, slow run, (and the occasional wild sprint when around the Aramex and Kingfisher cheerleaders and anyone with a camera.)

It must have been fun to watch, but actually running those 7 km gave you a little taste of how this otherwise hellish city can - in a minute - also become, literally, a fun, vibrant, exciting, colorful, and enthusiastic heaven of camaraderie.

All of Bombay is here, in all it's ages, communities, shapes, colors and avatars, but they're not snarling or indifferent. They're smiling, happy, having fun together.

And there are the occasional nice surprises - ran into a gang from my ex-office whom I'd gotten completely out of touch with.

Captions

Ran from everything possible. Save the Tiger. Help the Old. AIDS awareness. Don't take the path we have taken. Etc. Etc.

And Last Of All, in the end... the caption on the back of Grey's Tshirts.

"I'm running because I want to get it over with."

I'm in next time, and with a better camera and more organization.

Let's have even more fun.

New House: The story so far...

Rajkumar (Royal Prince) society belives bachelors will corrupt their morals, proposition their daughters, tempt their wives, offend their traditions, and hurt their sentiments, apart from throwing loud immoral parties.
They're right, but it's offensive to think our intentions can be read so easily.

Deepali (The Wall of Lights) had a giant earthmover parked in front of it, shovelling up tons of stinking black muck from the canal.

Guru Kripa (The Mercy of the Spiritual Leader) had so much furniture I could barely get into it, forget the other two and all the stuff we were planning to bring with us. Rats wouldn't be able to move within.

Oasis had a dug up courtyard and several carcasses of rats, entrails artistically draped over the landscape.

Pratap (The Glory) had one bedroom opening into another, and that was the only access. Privacy redefined.

Embassy is so close to current roomie's ex-girlfriend's house he would experience spiritual anguish just standing there.

(Unknown Building) did not let us in. The door was opened a crack, from where an eye of an elderly albino Parsi lady was seen and we were quaveringly queried, "Rent? This house? Who said? Who is renting it?" When the broker indicated me - me looking as respectful, nice, morally upright and harmless as is humanly possible - the Eye let out a screech and yelled "to HIM??!" and slammed the door shut. Kinda unnerving.

Model Town (The Town Of Models) was shown from outside, with the broker enthusiastically describing how pretty and beautiful the interior is, and how I can attain Nirvana by merely imagining it's spacious dimensions, beautiful colors, good furniture, etc etc. Wish we had the key to the damn place, though, for that dream shall remain forever a dream.

Shreeji Dham (Respected House) had a beautiful view of a ravine filled with garbage and plastic bags thrown from the slum opposite.

Sagar City (Ocean City) had an approach road filled with razor-sharp stones and suicidal slum dwellers throwing themselves into your path as you negotiate a 25% slope on loose footing around a blind curve.

With such a brilliant range of options, how can we ever miss getting the house of our dreams?

A moving story...

This is a story about a young girl who fought against overwhelming odds, imposed on her by her circumstances, incurable disease, George Bush's War Against Terror, abusive parents, heartless friends, an uncaring system, and evil corporations to still stand fast and succeed in her life and achieve her goals.

Naahh, just kidding. I'm moving again.
Really hate to do it - current setup is good, but maybe it's time to think of bigger and better things. and maybe own some furniture as well.

And no, one PC table and 6 bamboo racks of books and DVDs don't count as furniture.

And So The Quest Begins.
The Quest for a
1. cheap (or at least affordable, and failing that, not ruinously expensive) flat
2. within a half-hour walk from Andheri station (bus / bike / auto would take at least 45 mins, cosidering the state Andheri is in)
3. in an area not infested with pigs, pigeons, rats, open drains, and galli cricket
4. somewhat accessible by main road
5. less than 5 km from the beach so I can continue to jog
6. having a reliable trustworthy domestic help
7. and also receiving dabba services
8. with a balcony / open space to dry clothes
9. with 3 rooms so each of us has some modicum of privacy
10. and a passage entry so one of us doesn't have to share his privacy with 25 smelly shoes
11. reachable by a cable internet provider
12. with cellular connectivity in the house
13. and walls a light color (enough with the pinks, blues, greens and hospital whites)
14. where flooding isn't higher than 4 feet at ground level
15. non-nosy neighbours
16. a live-and-let-live landlord
17. has bike parking
18. pretty single women staying WITHOUT families
19. nearby general store and cig shop
20. And a society that allows that scum of the earth, 'bachelors' to live in it.

21. personal guardian angel with flaming sword, 'coz if I get all of the above than I know I'm either God or near enough thereabouts.

Anyone know a place like this and is crazy enough to tell me?

stop the world i want to get off

life stagnant
nothing
speed burn
slipstream that tears the flesh off bone
die like that
quests
pushing to the limit
beyond
far beyond
something more than just what you are
what you can hope to be
impossible
do it anyway
tearing away the stereotypes
all you see before you is a wall
this is not my life
this was never meant to be my life
walk away
run
stop the world i want to get off
helplessness
frustration anger blind rage
escape
rabidly biting
darkness
light
there are no absolutes
why
why not
can't but must
jealousy
greener grass
guilt
self loathing
i can't live this anymore
i have to
what is me, myself
what is
what
just don't know
can't think anymore

Deja Vu2

now I have the nasty feeling that some lesser god is playing games with me.
went back home and installed halo
after you've killed off all the convenant bugs that boarded your ship, guess where you crashland on.
an artificial ring-shaped habitat. classic arc of the ringworld rising overhead.
if it wasn't so blatantly obvious, it'd be creepy. disturbing.
right now it just feels like fate is beating me on the head with a rubber mallet.

or am i just missing something altogether?

Deja Vu

picked up strata and within the first twenty pages i was flooded with having seen this before.
you've read ringworld? same thing. artificial habitat on a cosmic scale, collapse of civilization, marooning of the motley crew - one/two rational humans, a bloodthirsty kung/kzin, search for the builders, a paranoid pierson's puppeteer and a long-suffering shand.
the two books are identical, and that's not what inspired the deja vu.

kzinti have two arms. kung have four.

i can distinctly remember, even as i read ringworld, that Speaker was supposed to have four arms. everything else fitted. i visualized him like that. so when Marco turns up now with four...

I hadn't read strata. yet somehow this one insconspicuous detail is haunting me. how can two books be so similar, and how could i see the other while reading the one, six years ago?

Attack of the Columba livia domestica

Day 1

5 AM

scrith-scratch. scritch-scritch-scratch.

roo. grroo.

Day 2

8 AM

CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP

I leapt up, eyes gummed shut with sleep, heart going like a triphammer on Ritalin, adrenaline washing through my blood. Not pleasant. Damn near killing on a sunday morning. I actually had to struggle to draw that first breath.

CLAPCLAP

clunk

roo.

grroo-roo.

CLAPCLAPCLAPclapclap

scratch

roo

clap clap clap...

Look around. Nothing. Roommate fast asleep. Clock ticking. Birds chirping. Distant muted traffic. Lying back and dozing off.

Day 3

6 AM

CRASH!

CLAPCLAPCLAP

Argh! Huh-what-mmf-splutter. Wide-eyed jerky vision flickering around. Getting up.

Pad quietly into corridor. Door closed. Bolted. Nobody. Clothesline slightly swaying.

Peek into kitchen. Vision blurry, eyes watering with sleep and fright. Sense of whiteness.

Small, quiet but very deliberate movement.

groo

scritch-scratch

Quietly move back. Slowly reach into the dark behind me, fingers skittering across the door edge, the wall, the wire, onto the switches. Fingertips sliding over plug, switch, outside light, kitchen light.

Press.

Click

brightness

Sudden violent explosion of sound and motion into my face!

CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP

scratch-clunk

clapclapclap clap clap

gasp. gasp. gasp... gasp... breathe... breathe.

Look.

Smashed jar on ground. Salt everywhere. Nobody.

Day 4

8:30 AM

Alarm missed. Late. Struggle up.

Mouth dry and tasting like dessicated ashtray. Cold water. In the fridge.

Head for kitchen.

pad-pad-pad-squelch.

Stop. Lift foot. Warm gooey wet sensation mixed with small soft lumps.

pad-hop pad-hop pad-hop wassssshhhhhhh

roo? groo-roo. roo.

Look up.

Pair of black beady and completely insane eyes looking into mine less than a foot away. Grey feathery body. Cracked and veined pinkish-gray skin. Yellowed claws.

groo! roo-groo-roo!

Pigeons are in my home.

Day 4

11 PM

Close all windows

1 AM

scratch-scratch. scratch-scratch.

roo.

scratch-scratch.

Mumble unintelligibly and turn over.

scratch-scratch.

roo.

scratch.

scratch-scratch.

scratch.

Leaping up staggering into bathroom light explosive flutter of wings from window silence

Sleep.

Day 6

2 AM

Wake. Bladder painfully full.

Complete darkness. Silence. Dogs barking in the distance.

Pad into bathroom. Light. Peeing.

roo.

Look up.

It's there. Six inches from my face. Sitting on pipe. Watching me. Not moving. Watching. Looking in my eyes.

Heart jumping straight into throat. Flow clamping painfully closed. Spontaneous backward lateral jump putting back of head straight into edge of door.

Flashing lights, stars.

Pain.

groo.

CLAPCLAPCLAP struggle clapclap clap clap silence

Don't sleep for two hours.

Day 7

Stuff T-shirt into hole in bathroom window. Close all windows.

9 PM

Back home.

Open door.

Darkness

Hot stuffy, dry, and, yes, feathery smell.

And... something else.

Something's in here.

groo.

I left it in the house

Lights

Crap.

Pigeon crap. Everywhere. On my books. My electric drill. The DVD player. The floor. TV. Stove. Kitchen counter.

roo.

Gaze drawn inoxerably upwards, slowly like my dawning understanding.

Shoerack. Shelves. Wall.

And... loft.

groo.

Clamber up. Look inside.

Five beady black homicidal avian glares.

It's a nest.

What do I do now?

wannabe wannabe

I remember when I used to look up to these people, wanting to look like them, be like them, be them. An yesterday I caught myself dismissing them as wannabes, remembering how I used to idolize them.

All I want to know is -

If I went from aspiring to, to aspiring away from; if I went from one end to the other;

Why can't I remember ever actually being them?

a blog on a blog

I was looking at my two blogs recently, and they're so - starkly different.

Look at the travel blog, for instance. There's a distinct sequence on events, a process. Each post has a series of things behind it.

An event. A journey, a trek. An effort made in doing that.

Photos taken, transferred, cleaned, and uploaded on flickr.

People. Different people, from different places, with different stories.

Research. Where did we go, what is it, where it came from, what is there and what was there. A history.

Remembrance. The incidents, the stories, the words.

And last and least - the post.

There's a discipline.

And then, look at this one. It rambles. Posts for the sake of posting. Anytime. On anything. Random.

The question is - can you even decide which is better? Or if that adjective is even relevant.

Free flowing or disciplined?

Random or restricted?

Blank verse or haiku?

Maybe I should start applying some rules to this. Restrict each post to an event, an evocative image, an emotional connect.

Horrifying Parents part - 1

Have been thinking more and more about getting a tattoo done for a while now.
Obviously, permanent. So now the question is - what? Everything that looks damn cool today will be horribly embarassing tomorrow. Besides, I'm not really the kind of person who'll be able to wear a naked-woman-entwined knife-through-left-eye fire-breathing-snake-through-right-eye kind of thing without having a "Yeah, I know how it looks, :(" added on under it.

What else? Abstract celtic patterns is good, with the tremendous advantage that if I put on 20 kgs over the next couple of years, the tattooed Charlize Theron won't become the tattooed Aileen Wuornos.

Japanese Kanji characters is pretty good too. Looks nice, and you can always customize what it means to anyone who asks according to what they want to hear. A 'No Smoking' sign in Kanji could become the basis for a lifetime bonding with a Gladrags Model Of The Decade if you tell her it means Save All Cute Furry Creatures Of The World. Or some such crap. Some marketing needed.

Even your own name can be a pretty good idea. check this out -

Nice, huh?

Anyway - feedback invited. What do you think would look really good? I'll probably go for a full-back-and-shoulderblades-thingy; everywhere else is too much hair and I'm not disposing of the best mosquito protection I have during treks just for a little beauty. Best suggestion gets five-star dinner and a chance to give me back massage on brand new tattoo.

another meeting

9th floor

light playing across the ceiling
windshield reflections from street below
sound muted
dim light, cold air

skin drying, fingertips going numb, goosepimples
hair standing up, brief muscletrembler shudders
killing chill

blazing sun dusty heat strident traffic an eighth of an inch away outside
a sheet of glass, a different world
dust motes dancing in the projector's lightstream
a rushing icestorm in a cold blue searchlight
silent violence
cold

geekgasm

The high point of my day has been getting a meebo widget installed on my blog. (see further below, in the Contact Me section of the sidebar. It's a neato little bit of code that lets anyone reading my blog chat with me live on the net and tell me how much he admires me and my writing.) Not much use, and quite probably a major irritant in future... but somehow the whole deal of getting a bunch of raw material, and sitting down and fiddling around with it, tying, soldering, cutting, twisting, glueing, taping, stretching, sealing, and painting it until you have a... something else in front of you is extremely... entertaining. It could be junk from your grandparents' storeroom, or a hedge sculpture, or a Red Alert 2 mod, or a broken amplifier, or code, or plumbing, or an anthill, or a messy desk, or the electrical system of your house, or a model plane, or somebody's self-esteem, or anything, really.

Maybe it's a kind of displaced maternal instinct. Guys can't give birth, so we try to find other ways of creating something. Or we're genetically subconsciously jealous, and are desperately trying to make ourselves useful and justify our existence...

Either way, at the end of it... it's still fun.

life's aches and pains and sunday mornings

This morning, my breathing stopped. We were doing a contact drill in the jeet kune do class, and I took an unexpectedly hard knuckle in the solar plexus when I wasn't expecting it; and a whole bunch of involuntary functions - like heartbeat, breathing - went haywire for a second. Easy to see how you can kill someone with your hands like this.

Now I'm in a delicious fugue state that usually happens after any high-intensity physical activity followed by a bath, a pizza and a holiday. We're lying around like a pack of dogs - me, N, P, and Bd, on the mattresses amidst newspapers, music systems, wires, chargers, phones, and water bottles, alternating between F1, The Great Indian Comedy Challenge, the lifecycle of urban coyotes, napping, and SMSs.

It's like I can't move beyond the essentials - no need to. Thirsty, stretch a hand, pick bottle, drink. Send a message. Eat a Smokin' Joe's Special slice. Watch TV. Chew on a carrot. Zzzz. Smoke. Zzzz again. Stretch. Carrot.

Like a Tom & Jerry cartoon where everything you want - irons, anvils, baseball bats, pies - can be had by just reaching beyond the edge of the screen. Everything I want is within reach, and I don't even need to get up.

Sun. Day. Dozing.

God, my arms ache. Will need to start getting into some serious shape soon; Won't be able to keep up in the JKD at this rate, and I can kiss the mountain trip goodbye as well.

What do you describe that state when you know what you're going to do, and you know you're going to do it, and you want to do it, but... you're not doing it. Yet. Maybe the next second, the next hour, the next day... I guess the closest parallel is travelling, looking out of the window. Or the thinking-nothing phase during meditation, when you see grey-maroon shapes and hear faint wind-noises of your thoughts disappearing behind you as soon as they form, except for the one that says, any time now, any second, you're going to open your eyes - and conscious thought will begin again. Or sleeping in a cab. Or that pause before you sign, the pen a quarter-inch above the paper.

Today, that feeling is complete, all-pervasive, everywhere, everything. The Pause Before The Life.

You scored as Hobbes.

You are Hobbes! Resourceful, laid back, optimistic, understanding, and able to put up with Calvin on a day-to-day basis. You are the best type of friend, someone who you can get in fights with and look at comic books with, someone who will send prank letters to you through the mail and someone who leaps over cliffs with you. What more could anyone ask for? Hobbes 86% Calvin 79% Susie 61% Mrs. Wormwood 54% Mom and Dad 29% What Calvin & Hobbes character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

No wonder I loved this exchange -
Calvin: What's it all for? What is our ultimate purpose? Why are we here?
Hobbes: Tiger food.

Interestingly enough, this is a confirmation. People had already identified me as Hobbes earlier.
Mmm. Time for a nap, and maybe some tuna...

and the wettest dry day ever

Calling any day a dry day is the meteorological equivalent of hanging a 'kick me' sign on your back and walking through 1955 high school for clouds.

Dry day my squelching wet foot. Six hours on the bike. Fat rain, sprayey rain, vertical rain, sideways rain, rain like sheets of water and rain like an aerosol spray. Cold rain, warm rain, tepid rain. Rain that rained like it was the last rain on earth and stopped only 4 times -
1. When I was inside Inorbit
2. When I was inside my sis' place at Bandra
3. When I was having a chai in the shelter of a plastic tarp
4. When I was home.

In between, I took the bike through sheets of water. I did 90 on wet roads. Cars would go past like Tata Safari Dicor ad auditions. I would in turn spray elderly gentlemen standing on pavements and sitting in autos, who would shout and shake their fists at me. Finally after six hours I am home, and I find waist deep water.
Nothing is more frustrating than driving for six hours, going through half of Bombay, sloshing, splashing, Dicor'ing, crawling, and finally find the last fifty feet are the ones that're waist deep.
Sigh. Park on the main road and wade.

Hot water. Followed up with an RC + ice.
Happy Birthday, MKG.