Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

Read Part I here

Who let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof)
This song by the Baha men always reminds me of AP. (no doll, I am not talking about you.)

Probably because I’d heard it for the first time, getting drunk with him. Probably because my butt wasn’t the only thing I’d frozen off that night. Yeah my toes were frozen and had turned a weird color but maybe a few of my grey cells had followed suit.
Let me start from the beginning, as that’s usually a good place to start from. So yeah I was born in …… hey wait up, where are u running off, to?
What, you dunn have the time to listen to that long a story?
All right I’ll cut it short. So yeah, it happened on Dec 31st 2001. Cold day. The schools were off for Christmas and new years and having recently arrived in the US of A, I was all alone in my apt, with not a soul to speak to. With 9 days of such gulag like atmosphere, I was raring to go. Thankfully some friends from India had recently joined at various univ.s in NYC and I was meeting them. One of them was at Rockefeller and Id also been introduced to AP who was also working with the said friend. The Plan was to meet up, have dinner and then maybe head out to Times square to see the crystal ball drop. AP was the only one Gung Ho about the ball drop plan. It sounded pretty idiotic to the rest of us. Post Dinner, Sane friends bid us good luck and parted company, leaving AP and me to fend for ourselves. It was 10-o-clock then. Pretty late to start on this foolhardy endeavor but we were hard fools, it seems. We were around 27 Lexington Ave then. We took a cab, which left us around the 55th avenue. From there it was the two of us on the number 11 bus. Reminded me of the mudrika trips on Delhi ring road. Barely any motion. Gazillions of people and temperatures that were rapidly dropping down. Add to this equation one highly cynical female and one equally shy male and all the gazillion people around them indulging in various degrees of PDA. Sounds amazingly funny now, but wasn’t so then.
Add to that, this was just a few months past September 11. NYC was still on high alert, and I definitely have terrorist tattooed on my forehead because my back pack got checked at least 5 times and we still cud not make it to times square. 13 blocks, two hrs and umpteenth security checks later, we had to content ourselves with the fact that it wasn’t going to happen. The ball dropped and we were still a block away. AP gave me half a hug and all I said was, “lets the get the hell out of here.” Now Since AP could not celebrate a new tradition, he had no mind to let go of an old one -to get drunk on a new yrs night. Who was I to argue? We trudge back to 66 something. The bar was called Becky’s. It was the regular haunt of the Rockefeller crowd. Thankfully that was the extent of the trudging we did. I don’t think my toes could have taken any more. My patootie being eternally grateful for the seat we found in the back of the bar, we made ourselves comfortable. AP ordered the drinks for us, as I wasn’t the lush I am now, back then. Who let the dogs out was the only song I remember from this drinking session. The stewardess kept bringing our drinks and kept insisting that AP take me to the dance floor and we kept sitting and talking and every time the song went woof woof AP did a funny thing with his head and hands.
All good times come to an end. The bar closed at 4 and we just moved our good time to AP’s studio. A little more trudging to his place, and then some more of talking. We finally called it a night at 5 in the morning. And woke up at 10. AP’s studio had an awesome view of the East river. So while he fixed some coffee for the two of us, I perched on his dining table to admire the view. I spied a blue balloon that was floating towards the river. It came into view from our side of the river and started drifting across. There were many moments when I thought it’d make a landing on the river and then float on it. It dipped a few times but picked up, never touching the water and then it finally made its way across the river. It started climbing and I last saw it over a few treetops. I thought I’d lost the trooper when AP pointed it out to me again and together we followed it for a few moments more. I was so engrossed in watching my balloon and prattling off about it, that I hadn’t noticed when he’d finished making the coffee and come to stand behind me watching and following the balloon. I am glad he did though because I could watch the balloon in its flight for a few moments more.