Errands and Such

I went to the post office and stood in line at the stamp window, which was surrounded with several hand-written signs, all of which read "Revenue Stamps No Stock."

Bought my stamps, posted my letter in the postbox by the door.

In the Department of Insignificant Things, it's a disaster when your tongue cleaner breaks, and you realise you don't have any more, and being absent-minded you keep forgetting to buy new ones, and your tongue feels ickier and ickier, until you start using old credit cards, etc. Today I finally managed to get to a fancy store, which is where you have to go to buy them. (A fancy store sells oddments -- 'fancies,' I suppose -- small things that other places don't sell, impossible to describe -- a complete miscellany.) And bought 30, skewered together with a safety pin. And a roll of cloth tape for nadas, the drawstrings of pajamas and petticoats and such.

And then I bought groceries, and had some xeroxing done, and rented two DVD's: the new Alfie, and The Motorcycle Diaries.

And we're having biryani for dinner tonight, with raita and ready-made makhani dal -- very exotic for us, not at all our usual simplified-Gujarati fare. In the Department of Insignificant Things, it's a pretty good day.

Update: Dinesh's interesting comment: In my line of work [entomology], the fancy store was invaluable. I often found myself using stuff from there in my field work. For example, I used those garish neon ribbons (the ones school girls use to tie their braids) in order to mark spider colonies. It was quite a sight to see. And here's a link re: the postboxes: The Indian PO