Category: 2006

Sikander and I woke up at 6 in the morning (i know it’s crazy) and had chicken kebab before we left his parents’ Mississauga house.

Later, at home, we got hungry again so we had a home-made chicken sandwich.

We had to move a few more things from missisauaga house to our apartment so we went to Mississauga house again and started loading boxes. On the way home, sikander wanted to have Wendy’s spicy chicken; he has to have Wendy’s spicy chicken whenever he feels exhausted or frustrated.. so here we go.. our third chicken treat.

Oh, talking about Wendy’s, about two weeks ago, when we were fixing the pickering house, we went to Wendy’s to have spicy chicken. Later in the evening, when we were still fixing things in the pickering house, sikander’s mom called to say that Wendy’s called asking for “sikander”. After we hung up the phone, we thought:

“hmmm Wendy’s called… why?”
“oh did we win something?”
“oh my god.. we won something, what is it, what is it”
“i have never won anything in my life.. but it’s happening right now!”
“but how did they get the Mississauga phone numnber?”
“maybe through my credit card. i haven’t updated all the addresses and phone numbers”

Later, sikander asked me for something and I told him:

“it’s in my purse”
“where is your purse?”
“somewhere overthere”
“no, i can’t find it”
“oh no, i think i left my purse in Wendy’s”

Thankfully we found it at Wendy’s. The restaurant manager was keeping it safe and she told us that after waiting for an hour she went through the purse contents to find a phone number.

We unloaded the boxes at our apartment and headed back to Mississauga to return the van. At Mississauga, we went out on an errand and also visited the Halal meat place to buy some meat. When we came out of the store, there was an indian/pakistani restaurant nearby called “Tandoori Bazzar“. the smell comming out of the place was so nice so that you can’t just pass by. So we went inside even though we were full :) and ordered “Chicken Katakat” which is sikander’s favourite. I love Tandoori and wanted to try the tandoori chicken here. The last time I had tandoori was at the Indian restaurant in Luzern, Switzerland back in October 2005. So, we had two more chicken meals… omg, we were so so so full…

We came home by GO bus and counted how much chicken we had today: Chicken kebab, chicken sandwich, Wendy’s spicy chicken burger, Chicken katakat, and chicken tandoori… nothing but chicken. No wonder everything tastes like chicken.

The pigeon’s scientific name is Columba livia, given it by Johann Friedrich Gmelin, a German naturalist, botanist, and entomologist in 1789. Pigeons have been domesticated for several thousand years and have been used for numerous puproses by man. There are almost 300 breeds of pigeons and all of them are thought to descend from Columba livia.

One such breed is the homing pigeon, capable of findings its way home over extremely long distances. Because of this trait, they had been used to deliver messages tied to their legs as early as 1150. In fact, Paul Reuter, founder of the Reuters press agency, had a fleet of pigeons that delivered news and stock prices between Belgium and Germany. They were also used extensively during World War I and World War II. The United Kingdom used about 250,000 pigeons as messengers during World War II and even considered using them to deliver biological weapons.

Pigeons were actually introduced in North America in 1606 through Nova Scotia, Canada. Their natural residence is Europe, North Africa, and south west Asia. Nowadays, pigeons are found in almost every city in North America.. especially in front of the strip-mall near our apartment in Toronto. Their life span is 3-5 years in the wild and up to 15 years in captivity. Numerous people, lunato and I included, give these pigeons food occassionally. Any and sort of bread left-overs are more than welcomed by these birds. They are so well trained that as soon as they see you reach in your pocket or shopping bag, they start flying frantically towards you. It’s pretty scary.. the way they swarm around you in seconds (see Video).

Fat, lazy, dirty pigeons. They don’t have anything else to do now except eat and sleep.