shedded and renewed

… Not I in my entirety, but my nose has been going thru a lot of shedding and renewing. And the brave soul in me learnt a very brave lesson - never challenge mother nature.

I was out apartment hunting a couple of weeks back. And as usual, I ventured out without checking the weather forecast. It was about -45 degree celsius combined with the wind chill. So what! I am close to a polar bear, at least that's what I thought. So I reach the area, see a couple of apartments, and then decided to walk down a couple of blocks to see the next one. Wonderful description - spacious wooden floored apartment right by the elbow river.. As I was walking down, I did feel the cold in my bones, but hey, I am the Indian superman. How bad it can be!

Reached there and the apartment owner is not around, I can't get in to the damn building.. and that’s when I felt for the first time "Dude, you were being stupid".. My desperateness led me to knocking and trying to break open several doors.. Aren't there people in there; are they hibernating? I saw a big van parked on the street and walked up to it. An elderly gentleman was sitting in the van with a strange look on his face.. He was starting the vehicle and resembled one of those worn out grandpas who gets abused by his wife everyday.. I asked "Are you leaving?" He looked at me like I am an alien from a planet named GT216450110 or something like that and said "Yeah! I am".. Dude, can't you see that I am dying here..

To my relief, as soon as the van moved away, I saw the apartment owner pulling her car in.. She looked at me and said "Your nose is all white".. I looked at my nose. Yup, it was beyond doubt extremely white.. Infact if I had that color on my entire body they would have given me an Icelandic passport.. may be even an Arctic passport if polar bears were allowed to issue one.

Anyways my nose changed to bright red as soon as I entered the building.. The image in the mirror reminded me of a joker I'd seen in a circus long time back..

Next day I get to the office, and a client stares at my face and goes "Oh! you got a frost burn..wait.. it will change from red to blue, then to black and ur nose will fall off in a week or so.." like it was the most wonderful thing to happen to anyone.. Was he helping me or the project in anyway? You tell me..

The next few days passed with me measuring the length of my nose with my fingers every 10 mins, touching to see whether I have the measurements intact.. seriously, I can't afford to be nose less, trust me.. My nose went thru various stages of shedding and renewal.. Initially the upper skin which was all black started shedding, then it became red, then the lower skin started shedding.. I guess I have at least 5-6 layers of skin (that could explain my unusual shamelessness).. the final update - I have a renewed nose thru naturopathic nose renovation therapy.. but I think I will stop with my nose.. it's indeed a scary treatment..

As you read this, I am setting up an entire home for the first time in my life, definitely with lots of remote help.. and DD and Yogesh has been doing a lot of manual labor..

And I am back with my creative guns firing again..