Cobras, Batman, Abhyangam, and Henna

I had a fun filled day yesterday. It all began with my neighbor coming over to inform me that she had found a Cobra in  her house. Yes folks, IN her house. It was neatly removed by an Indian charmer who caught it with his bare hands and coaxed it gently into a basket before removing it from the neighborhood. I was in shock. So in shock, I couldn't even get close enough to take pictures to share with you. Sorry! But I did spend the rest of the morning looking around in every crevice of my home in fear that another way lay lurking in the shadows.

After a crazy morning, one of my friends asked me to go see a movie with her and her two daughters so away to see the new Batman movie I went. Ready to shake the snake out of my mind.

3 hours later, after loving the show, I head out to meet another friend of mine, and this is where my day got really interesting. My friend just said,"Hey let's check out this place I found that states it is an authentic ayurvedic therapy spa." Not really knowing what that was, I thought, hey why not. I thought well I could always just get my nails done. Boy was I in for a treat. I really should have asked, 'What is an authentic ayurvedic therapy spa?' But no, typical me. I just jump right on in.

Here's what happened.

I walk in with my friend to see what the spa does and instantly I realize that this is not my version of a typical spa. The list of options does not include nails and hair removal but instead includes some different options with names like Sarvanga Abhyangam, Mukhalepam Njavara, and Takra Dhara. My friend and I look at the list with growing confusion so the lady behind the counter takes pity on us and asks if we want a massage. I look at my friend. She looks at me. "Sure," we say at virtually the same time. I am still unsure why we agreed to something we didn't know anything about but what the heck...when in India right?

So, we first have a consultation with a doctor. This is a first for me at a spa but she smiles at me and asks all these invasive questions before taking my wrist to measure my heart rate. She then proudly announces, "You are an easy going person. Willing to try anything, aren't you." She states this as a fact rather than a question.

I smile, "Yes, that is true." Given my decision to come into this thing willingly I think she is SPOT ON. I begin to wonder if this meant something about my upcoming massage or if she was just referring to my general nature!

I am then lead away to a small room where a tiny Indian woman asks me to undress and put on this G-string looking piece of cloth underwear. I have seen these before while having a massage in Goa, so I head into the bathroom and quickly realize there is no robe in this room to cover my body once I put on the string thingy. So I strip off my clothes, put on my "loin cloth" covering thing, and drape a towel strategically over my upper body. I emerge back into the massage room only to find my little Indian lady waiting there for me...with the lights on. Seriously! Every light on. I was in shock but thought, 'well lady, you are gonna get an eye full today.'

She tells me to sit down on a stool and without ceremony she grasps the towel leaving me virtually naked sitting on the stool because apparently being naked is part of the therapy. My backside and front side are hanging out for the world to see. She then starts to massage my scalp, neck, and back with the thickest looking hot oil you have ever seen. She scoops it into her hands and drips it with one finger, like a funnel, wherever more oil is needed. I am intrigued by the specific way she users her hand to apply the oil as it has a very practiced and artful manner.

Afterwards she asks me to lie down face up on the massage bed, again I am embarrassed but thought, 'what are you gonna do about it Twitty!' So I lie face up with my body exposed again, as there was no sheet to strategically cover my body, as she proceeds to give me a VERY complete massage. Deep tissue. All over. I was shocked! I don't even think I could relax. Now, mind you she avoided the loin cloth area. Which was clearly good as that would have been a NO GO. I am not trying to say she wasn't a professional about the massage because she certainly was but this was not any ordinary massage. After finishing the front she asks me to flip over so she can do the back and same thing. Deep tissue all over my body. At one point she unties the loin cloth off my back side, which of course made me flinch and tighten up every muscle in my body, until I realized she was just doing this so she can rub my body head to toe. I did think to myself, 'what will you do if she does something crazy down there?' Immediately I think over my options...'kick her in the face and run naked from the room screaming like a crazy person?' I felt like a ham covered in that gooey brown sugar glaze at Christmas. Lying there pretty much naked, her fingers dripping oil all over me trying to work out the deep kinks in my back.

After she is done. She smiles at me and asks if it was good. I nod. She helps me to stand. It is hard to no slip and fall when you have just been covered in this slick stuff, and she helps me get into a steam shower, again with all the lights on. I never once caught her looking at my naked body. You could tell she does this all the time. Expert hands. Flawless steps. Flowing one into the next. Very complete.

I sat in the steam shower, trying to relax, and just started to laugh out loud. If you had told me an hour ago that my day would have entailed this kind of strange therapeutic massage I wouldn't have believed it but sometimes you just have to go with the flow of things. See where life takes you.

Later, I asked the doctor what I had just had done and she said it was a holistic, healing Sarvanga Abhyangam massage. She explained that this basically means that medicated, prescribed oil, is applied all over the body during massage to delay ageing, improve your sleep, and improve the skins color and texture. She asked me if I enjoyed it and I said yes, because it had felt nice despite the slightly invasive process and all my nakedness.

My friend and I laughed for hours after leaving the spa both agreeing we now had something funny to blog about. After rehashing all the details and finding out her experience was EXACTLY like mine, she headed off to get some Henna on her hands and I headed home to deal with Cobras.

All in all, it was a pretty fascinating Indian experience today. All in all. 

A 4 Inch Lizard Attack

My dog is a maniac. She wakes me up in the middle of the night to inform me that there is a 4 inch long lizard in our bedroom. She was so funny. She kept barking at it then walking over to the bed to make a whining doggy noise at me as if she was saying, 'Oh goodness mommy, there is a strange little thing skinny creature crawling on our ceiling. It is up to high for me to get to it to kill it. Please do something before it murders the whole household.'

Whine at me, walk over and bark at the lizard, whine at me some more, walk back to the lizard and bark, over and over again. My husband snoozed through the whole ordeal. So I try to shoo the lizard out the door but it goes the other way directly over our bed. I wake up my snoring husband who tells me in a sleepy, bored tone to throw a slipper at the silly thing to get it to move.

Bella keeps whining at me as if to say, 'Oh goodness, I want to get it. Do something.'

So, I chunk a slipper at it hoping it would head down the wall where I could get to it more easily. The slipper skids off the wall and lands on my husband's pillow beside his half asleep body. He shrieks in a high pitched voice and bolts upright thinking it is the lizard that has landed with a thud on his pillow. I start laughing hysterically and my dog barks and whines loudly laughing at the funny situation too.

After we all stop laughing, including my husband, we realize the lizard hasn't moved. So, I turn on the ceiling fan and the movement of the air forces the little guy down the wall and into a plastic bag I had waiting for him. I then swiftly head out to the balcony and open the bag. The lizard is then thrown, unceremoniously, out of the bag into the soft grass one floor below. I hope at this point that the little guy made it.

Then early this morning I take Bella out to the go potty. In the fresh light of the new day my dog begins to chase the same little 4 inch lizard around the yard, along the walls of the fence, and up a small shrub. Around and around. She barks and chases. I yell at her, "Leave it Bella." But to no avail. I look around frantic to find some way to save the little guy from the 90 lb dog who is desperate to play with the thing until it's heart gives out.

I realize that the only way to save the lizard is to grab his tail and fling him over the fence. So, I distract my dog with a doggy bone and grab the little guy by his long tail and FLING...over the fence he goes. I figured if he could survive the fall from the 2nd floor and the playful but painful attack from Bella he could survive a flip over the fence from me.

Later today I spotted him lounging up in the tree several feet from our home. He survived. I figure he will find a more hospitable house and yard in which to lounge. 

Shiva Trekking

Shiva is considered to be the most powerful god in Hinduism. He is a yogi, which I like, who supposedly sees everything that happens in the world around him. He is often depicted in statues as meditating or dancing in celebration. In Hindu tradition it is said that he lives high up in the mountains as a sage, and he is both a destroyer and transformer of life. In many ways he reminds me of our Christian version of God.



So India has been very busy over the last week or so due to the flood of devotees traveling around the country dressed completely in orange. These men and women walk considerable distances along major roadways carrying large poles across their shoulders that have paper temples attached to the poles rising proudly up to the sky. And attached to each end of the pole is a metal bowl that contains (or will contain) water from the Ganges river. This water is collected by the devotees and carried to a different temple somewhere in India that is devoted to Shiva. That water, once delivered to the temple, will then be poured at the base of the statue of Shiva in honor of his immortality.

The interesting part is that many of these men and women will walk 200km or more to carry this water to deliver it to different temples (for those that measure life in miles that is 124 miles). That is a long way to walk for devotion to a god. In route to the temples, there are all these resting stations for those carrying their heavy loads where devotees can set their paper and pole temples down (note: the water can never touch the ground so they have to prop these monuments carefully up in the air). They rest their feet for a while, sleep or chat with others, and eat free food supplied by the local people in the area.  It is all so interesting to me as a foreigner so Lance took a quick picture from our car so I could share it with you. Devotees making the trip for Shiva this week in India.



I have to admit....seeing all these people walking for their faith made me feel lazy indeed. I wondered how many people I knew in the US who would walk 124 miles or more for their devotion to a higher power. Interesting to think about isn't it. Trekking for your faith!

Crazy Chicken Man

My husband is a nut. No, actually he is just very willing to make work interesting for his team. This past week he wanted to encourage everyone to get behind a product that they personally support in the business. For him, it was the chicken. Chicken legs, chicken eggs, chickens, chickens, chickens. So he put on a chicken hat (pictured above) and talked up chickens at their morning meeting. He even juggled chicken eggs while he talked about the numbers of eggs we were selling in the stores. Everyone was laughing and freaking out about the mess it would make if he dropped the eggs so he let them all fall to the ground. Everyone gasped thinking it made a huge mess. He just laughed and showed them that the eggs had been hard boiled (by me). It was great fun. Later they used hard boiled eggs to bowl and knock down some chicken legs that had been set up at the end of a long table. All in all it was a great way to show others how to get excited and have some fun with products they promote within our stores.



Since many of his work friends from the US read this blog I had to post some pictures of this craziness so you could get a good laugh. I know what you are thinking...'well that is exactly like Lance!' So true...I married a crazy chicken man. But I love him all the same!

$17 US Dollars = Hospital Visit

I had a big scare this week when I discovered 2 swollen lumps in my breast. Oh my, was I scared. My mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer about 12 years ago so anytime I find anything strange with that area of my body I immediately go to see my doctor. Unfortunately my "female" doctor is in the US not in India. So, I called the company doctor (a doctor here in India that helps all associates in the company get referrals, comes for house visits when we are sick, etc). He is always very helpful.

He refers me to a Breast Surgeon who knows cancer and the breast very well. He makes an appointment for me for the next morning. What service! I noticed the bumps one night and the next day I had an appointment to see someone. That never happens in the US.

So, I arrive on time and complete some paperwork. 5 minutes later I meet my doctor who is a gorgeous Indian woman who attended medical school in the US. She speaks flawless English is extremely thorough. She tells me is probably just swollen lymph nodes but she wants to do an Ultrasound on my chest to be sure. She tells me that they have an open Ultrasound time right now which means I just have to go downstairs and they will do my Ultrasound.

I stare at her with my mouth open, "You mean I just go down there without an appointment and they will do my Ultrasound."

She responds, "Yes," and laughing says, "It is not the US." I smile at her happy for the moment that it is not.

She hands me my file and tells me to take it with me. Again I am like, "What, I can see my own file and carry it around the hospital with me."

"Yes."

Shocking!!!!

I head down stairs and immediately get in to have my ultrasound done by another doctor who is a very skilled Indian lady from the UK. She shows me the images and explains the lymph node network to me and shows me why she doesn't see anything wrong aside from the swollen nodes.

She then says something shocking, "I am sending your results to your doctor upstairs right now within our system so change your clothes and head back up there and she will review them with you in detail. Do you want a copy of the pictures too?"

"Sure."

I do as I am told and my beautiful Indian doctor reviews the images with me again in her office on a state of the art computer. She welcomes me to my 30s by saying, "This is very common in women in your age." She recommends some things that will help with the pain and reviews with me how to tell if a bump is a lump or a lymph node. I thank her for her time and head out to pay my bill.

I hand the guy at the desk my insurance card and he says, "No, mam. We don't submit to your company unless you are checked in as inpatient."

Naturally I was thinking, 'Oh god, how much will this cost me?'

Then he says, "955 rupees."

I stagger backwards. What???? That is like $17 US dollars for all the doctors visits and an Ultrasound.

I respond, "Really? No way." I am pretty sure the Indians in line behind me were rolling their eyes at the crazy white lady!

Side note: The US has a large debate going on right now about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare for some) that forces everyone to carry insurance. I don't normally post about politics because I despise people that PREACH about politics or religion for that matter. But this experience got me thinking, I understand that the 955 rupees to a lower income person in India is a lot of money but how can they give this kind of quality medical care for the equivalent of $17. What is the US doing wrong? How can they do this when the US would have charged well over $1000 for the same thing? The REALITY is that I know one new US Act is NOT going to make a visit like mine miraculously cost $17 in the US. But somebody needs to realize other countries are doing health care services better than we are and stopping using Insurance as the answer. Remember in my story, he didn't run my insurance...and it still only cost me $17. Think about that!!!

Pictures of the Countryside

Lots of my friends asked to see some more pictures of India so here you go.

I had my driver take me for a ride through some of the countryside around Delhi the other day. I wanted to see and take pictures of how the farmers and their families live. It has been extremely hot and really dry since the monsoon season has not hit us yet. It should start to rain either this week or next. Hence why everything looks so...well....dry and brown in these pictures.

Enjoy.