Marking ten years with nary a monkey a bite

It was the best of times. It was the blurst of times. Ten years ago, Christine and I met at a Mumbai train station but were nearly thwarted that same day by a pack of aggressive monkeys. Now we have a little monkey of our own. I documented our initial encounter on this blog without a thought of what lay ahead. The comments to that blog entry are pretty funny: you should read them; my mom was worried I'd catch Bubonic Plaque from the monkeys that were hounding me that day. What Christine most remembers from that day is that I planned to jump from a train speeding into a station but was ultimately thwarted by my own ill-conceived plan.

(For more info, click here.)

Nonetheless, we celebrated this fateful milestone in London yesterday with Indian food for lunch and wine and cheese for dinner. At a restaurant with white table cloths near our temporary apartment, Bobby tried dal and chicken tikka masala -- he seemed to like them! This kid won't be eating fish sticks off a kid's menu.

Bobby, anxiously anticipating a mouthful of chicken tikka masala

Celebrating 10 years of acquaintance. Less for Bobby.

After lunch we strolled through an old city center market and bought some ingredients for dinner. We bought some bread and cheese and other sundries for an evening feast. The market focuses on gourmet food, but there weren't as many locally-sourced items as we expected -- no cheddars in sight! A shame. We walked home through the City in the afternoon and, once home, feasted on wine and cheese while watching the UEFA Champions League Final (a big deal around here).

At the very crowded market

In the City of London, we found a street called Poultry. End of street name.

Anniversary feast. Christine always criticizes my plating. I see it now. The small plate of finely chopped bread, cheese, and tomato was for Bobby, and he enjoyed the plate very much. Mom and Dad had a baguette, some Schlossberger cheese from Switzerland, some Issau Iratty from France (sheep's milk cheese from the Basque region -- if you ever see it in a store, buy it; it's better than Manchego), some mushroom pâté, tomatoes, and some French wine (a Châteauneuf-du-Pape of 100% Grenache).

In retrospection, many events of slim probability transpired over the past ten years to draw together Christine and me. What sort of happenstance caused our itineraries to intersect briefly in Mumbai and then saved me from the Black Death, brought on by several monkey bites? Luckily, with my plans to go to school in Asia, Singapore ended up my only real possibility. Luckily, I didn't succumb to the many tropical ailments I contracted over the years: in India, Ethiopia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Cedar Rapids (where I became very ill on the southeast side!). Luckily, I was offered gainful employment in Singapore after completing my graduate studies and then Christine's dad invited me to stay at the Chen home when I couldn't afford to pay rent and student debt on my meager Singapore salary. Wrapping up this ten year story, most pleasingly of all, the stork delivered to us a healthy, happy baby boy. We are very lucky indeed.

At Indian City, Bobby said, "Put it on my visa!"