My 80 cent haircut; friendly dog; crow on the wing; family on a bike

Once again, I face the conundrum: I have many, many pictures I believe I could do some good things with, but I haven't the time to edit and post them - let alone write much about them. Also, I am learning that I need to clarify the word, "edit." Here, in relation to a photograph, many folks tend to use the word "edit" to mean to manipulate it in Photoshop in a way that changes the content.

Basically, that is something I never do. What you see is what I photograph. I do adjust the levels of brightness and contrast to bring the values closer to what my eye saw in real life, but that's it. So, to me and most of my colleagues, to edit means to sort through and choose.

And this is the one I chose of my haircut the other day. I left home feeling very disappointed that I had not found the time to get a haircut, mustache and beard trim. Once again, I had become a shaggy mess. 

Worse yet, by the time I got here, I had reached the point where I got to taste all my food twice - first, when I ate it, second, when the leftovers would slip off my moustache onto my tongue.

But now I am glad I did not get a haircut in Alaska. With tip, it would have cost me about $25. Sree Venkateshagents charged me the equivalent of 80 cents. I was told tipping was not required, but I tipped him about 25 percent. 

He did a fine job with a haggard subject. He took his time. He used clippers only to trim the edge around my neck - the rest, scissors and comb only.

Yesterday, I also made a purchase of a service at a fraction of a price the same service would have cost me at home. In so doing, it looks like I may well have extended the years of my own life. More later.

Most street dogs ignore you. This one is friendly. Very, very, friendly.

I have written, mostly in my other blog, about how Soundarya loved crows and ravens - along with the other creatures of this earth - and how she twice defied taboos and customs to save the life of one or the other. I have always been a little worried about the raven part.

The first time I was here, someone pointed out some birds to me and called them, "ravens," but they did not look like ravens to me. They didn't look like crows either, but I saw enough other birds that did look like crows that I knew for a fact they were.

Two days ago, I was stepping into the shower when I heard a familiar shout just outside the window. So I pulled back the curtain and there was a very familiar looking big, black, bird. A bit smaller than our ravens at home, but too big to be any kind of crow that I know of. I'm not sure it was a raven. It might still have been some kind of big crow.

But to me, it looked more like a raven than a crow.

This one is a crow - Suji tells me for sure.

They really have little choice. If they want to get around under their own power, then this is what they must do. It kind of makes one understand the value of making economical tiny cars, like Ganesh's new $4000 Tata. Yet, the streets here are already so crowded that if all the motorbikes were to be removed and replaced by even tiny cars, the thoroughfares would completely jam up.

Maybe the upcoming Metro - a big train in the sky - will help.

Comments

[Martin]

From the shape of the tail I would have thought it more likely to be a crow than a raven.

[Logbook - Wasilla - Beyond]

Yes, Martin is a crow. It was the one outside the shower window I wondered about, but I didn't get a picture of it. It seemed too big to be a crow, but it probably was.