There are few things in life more satisfying than hitting a 6 and filling the perfect dish washer. Both of which I've been quite unsuccessful at in my life. And the times I did achieve them, it was by fluke. Having said that, I do remember a few occasions when I cleared the long on boundary of my former club in Singapore, Indian Association. If it sounds like I'm boosting, that was my very intention. Village cricketers around the world would share that sentiment. My teammates would cheer in unison and we would talk about my innings late into the post match session. Ok, that's a lie. I would talk about it late into the night with whoever was willing to listen. But there was some clapping. It could have been from the adjacent cricket ground but screw the details. Unfortunately, there's only one dish washer in a household, so when I placed the last plate in my well planned vacant slot there was zero applause. Mrs did not oblige. Totally unreasonable and I plan to discuss this topic in length once she's read this blog. So that's early 2014 then. This was in our friends, Lotta and Tomi home in Helsinki. Now there's nothing that this couple can't do. They have built this amazing house recently and both are extremely hard working, modest and giving individuals. Everytime we visit them, they plan incredible menus and serve us an inexhaustible amount of booz. Tomi is a true masterchef in my book. His chicken rice was bliss. And on top of that, he juggles. Poorly but still 2 balls more than me. O'Malley still working my way up to 2 balls. He even manages to make my kids eat better than I can. So my visits to Finland always end up with all kinds of envy. This time it was house envy, cooking envy, bicep envy, putting kids to sleep quickly envy, cutlery envy, coffee cups envy, cheese slicer envy, microwave envy, balcony envy, hat envy, scrambler envy, Christmas tree envy and snowman envy. Tino's snowman was better. I even had a resurgence of height envy. As I was trying fight against gravity and genes, to reach the plates at the top shelve (which seem higher in Europe), I saw a hand, a feminine one, effortlessly pick up the required items. There was strength envy when my mother in law asked me to open a jar. Thankfully, i managed, just about but I had to go into the other room just incase. You know, I had a lot to eat and the risk of the contents exiting my body was increasing by the second. I don't think its the 'grass is always greener on the other side' syndrome, I suffer from. It doesn't. I didn't see any grass here. Back to reality on Monday. Back to Geneva. Looking forward to it actually.
