The other night we had dinner with one of Wayne's work colleagues, hosted by his parents, Mr. & Mrs. Bhakta. Mr. & Mrs. Bhakta are Indian, and have lived here for many years, owning and running a motel. They live in part of the hotel, a modest kitchen and living room, and their bedroom is a partition of the motel lobby. They are hard working, cheerful people with strong accents. Mrs. Bhakta made us a delicious chicken curry, and we learned a bit about the Indian culture.
The meal, like I mentioned, was chicken curry. Whole chicken drumsticks, smothered in a delicious curry gravy. Mrs. Bhakta was even kind enough to make me an 'unspicy' version, although I had a bite of Wayne's and it wasn't outrageously spicy. There was rice and coleslaw, along with a cheesecake for dessert. I'm assuming the coleslaw and cheesecake are not Indian, and it shows that they are a bit 'Americanized.' After dinner Mr. Bhakta offered us some anise seed and some 'mukwas' an Indian after dinner spice mix. Sort of like an after dinner mint. I tried some, you take a small pinch of the mixture, which looks like a tiny trail mix, and nibble on it. It was quite good. Interestingly, Mr. and Mrs. Bhakta never ate, they only served us.
Mr. Bhakta told us that 'ka-ka' was the word for uncle, and so for the rest of the night Wayne's colleague was 'ka-ka Saj.' We also learned that Indians calculate age to be one year more than Americans. So all of you that are 29, time to give in: You are 30.
Our hosts loved Penelope. There was nothing Penelope could do wrong. If she ate their cell phone - no big deal. Tear up papers? That's fine. Mr. Bhakta was on the floor playing with Penelope most of the evening. He really liked her, and she gave him lots of smiles.
we love Penelope too and so does ka ka Philip, wish she were here to play with my cell phone I have a ton of books I could and would love to read to her.
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