Saturday’s shawarma
Today we greeted the return of the Falcon. JP’s red motorbike has been off sick since the accident on 1st December. We missed her enormously.
To celebrate, we took her over to Medio Oriente for a midday shawarma, now a Saturday tradition. It feels good to scoot once more through the city again at our own pace, giving La Falcon an affectionate pat on the rump as she gurgles along.
Medio Oriente is all about speed. Snap off a ticket as you get in the door, elbow and sidestep your way to the front with your ears flapping for your number, then flutter your ticket over the waiting heads and yelp Si si, acá when it’s your turn. Order. Two shawarmas and this time round some sweet treats. We’re celebrating, after all. Six locum – delicate pink cubes dusted in snow, or Turkish Delight to you and me but I kept that to myself in an Armenian shop – and two mamul con nueces – small nut cakes that crumble to dust if you glance their way. Pay. Squeeze and permiso your way over to the juicy rotating kebab and its attendants. Wait for your second number to be called. Relay order (one spicy with no tomato, one ‘soft’ with no onion) and collect shawarmas. Grab napkins, christen shawarma with fake lemon juice and make for the door. Relax sitting on the curb eating your shawarma and catching its juices. Lick fingers.
The round hairy man in a stripy yellow t-shirt is the gruff owner. JP overheard him one day grunting that a certain politician had ‘more properties than aloe vera’.
I’m reading The Kama Sutra before next month’s trip to India. Fixing stained glass into a floor; chemistry and mineralogy; knowledge of mines and quarries; art of teaching parrots and starlings to speak; various ways of gambling; knowledge of gymnastics and arithmetical recreations (is there such a thing?) are among the 64 arts a woman should study. Why have I been wasting so much time? Bewigged Europeans Making Love on a High Terrace are apparently the cover’s stars, both having stopped to point at the penguin. JP was told at the Indian embassy this week that he’ll definitely be taken for an Indian when we get there and will be spoken to in the local language. Neither of us knew what to say to this.
Impatiently waiting for these green beauties to wake up, prodding them a couple of times a day. I’ll miss the fruit when summer’s gone.
‘More properties that aloe vera’. love it! Interesting re JP being mistaken for a local. He needs to learn how to say ‘can’t talk right now, off to make love to my beautiful woman. toodlepip’ xx
I see the shorts match the bike and hope yours do too? Looking forward to reading the talents that will be required for entry into India and trust that J-P is brushing up on his too! Apples, persimmons, yellow plums . . . cut through and show!
I’m not yet sure I’ll be allowed into India, the way my visa application is going… Gosh I think it’s a greeny-yellow plum ? Delicious!