Plan A Plan B

The plan for Saturday was rather neat. Praveen would come over to my place and help me get my broken spectacles fixed (of course, by driving me to the optician..!) Then we would move onto check a car in one of the local dealerships. Then, per his plan, we would proceed to go for the movie - "ஆதவன்", the show timing being 06:50 PM.

My spectacles were fixed. It was lunch time. Lunch time also meant decision times - especially if you are out traveling. "Why not we check out the greek restaurant in Milford?", I suggested. Praveen obliged. We drove all the way up there, only to find that it operates only for dinners..! A complete bummer..! What neither of us realized is - we just started our day.. all is not over yet...!

We would then want to settle with checking out "Liquid Lunch" and "Sammiches". He settles for a Santa Fe and I for a vegetable lentil soup. This is probably the best decision that we could have ever made. The food tasted great. I couldn't leave without a ton of thank you note to the lady who recommended these dishes for us.

Next comes the car dealer part of the day. We land up in Beaconfalls, which looks like a one-road town to us. The keys were given to us and the good old Subaru Forrester was all us for a good 30 minutes. I felt there was more problem with the way I drove than any problem with the car itself. However, Praveen's keen sense of hearing did ensure he got hold of some noise while doing a full-right forward or a full-right reverse turn. He advised to check that with the dealer. The dealer drove the car with both of us. We could "hear the silence" of a pin being dropped..! "Issue not replicable / Root cause unknown", I thought to myself.

We drive along CT-8 North, I-84 East and then onto I-91 North before exiting on CT-178 West. That was a terrific drive, I must say. The fall colors were awesome. While crossing the city of Hartford, I call up my friend to ask if he can join us for the movie. He responded stating he is moving to another apartment but added, "I don't think the show that you guys are trying to go even exists for today"  Do I care to check? Definitely no. We had supposedly done our "research". I tell him, "you are missing this today!". And does my friend stand by what he said? No, he would have me go and get SIX tickets for tomorrow's show..!

We land up in "Bloomfield Cinema 8" to find that the show was on yesterday night and it would come only by next Thursday. Wow..! Another bummer for the day. Oh - but we didn't target the movie, did we? We were out to see the fall colors in the "All American Valley" region and along I-84/I-91. That was supposed to be our initial plan anyways. We are always good at the art of consoling ourselves for something we didn't get.

The next question - where do we go from here. I suggested we eat out and go to the temple in Middletown. Praveen suggested it would be very odd thing to do, coupled with the fact that it isn't too late for dinner yet.  So, temple first - eat next. The spiritually inclined Praveen and Ravi, for God's sake, land up in the temple during Diwali day..! They are now surely good boys in the books of the elderly. They goto temple without fail, keep up traditions and values even when they are far removed from their hometowns ;-) :-) Well.. it wasn't all that bad.. the only thing is - we couldn't make it in a little earlier to grab that nice "rava kesari" at the temple.