Morning Rituals

Our apartment has the singular distinction of having the worst working shower I've ever experienced.

I say "working shower" to clearly differentiate between the many non-working showers (e.g. using buckets or ducking under the low bathtub faucet) I've had during my four years in India. For Tyler's entire year living in Hyderabad, he would fill up a large bucket and bring this to his "shower" corner in his bathroom. Since his faucet did not have hot water, he would take (no joke) an electric hod rod and stick it in the bucket of water until the water warmed up.

Come to think of it, my first year in Hyderabad was without hot water as well, although I was thankful to at least have a shower where I could stand upright (for most of the year). The funny thing is that you don't realize what you actually need in Hyderabad is a "cold" water faucet. My bedroom did not have air conditioner either (brutal in 110 degree weather in May and June!) Often I would just hop into the shower to cool down... but the pipes made the water feel just about as hot as the air, and just about as refreshing.

So compared with that, we're both grateful to have a working shower here in Delhi. The problem is that it just doesn't exactly "work" all that well. Sure, water comes out. But the first ten minutes of every shower is spent waiting for the hot water to come. Then once it does, it comes full force, and in random, powerful spurts. So then comes another 5-7 minutes of tweaking with the cold and scorching water -- it's never the same consistency each day. Often by the time I get the temperature just right so I can begin shampooing, the hot water runs out. Today, the temperature just kept getting hotter. Either way, I always end up getting out of the shower sooner than intended, either because the hot water has run out or it is scorching and can't compete with the cold water on full blast.

I read an article a while ago saying that one of the greatest predictors of daily happiness is your commute to work (with another being your relationship to your boss). Well, I've got the commute part covered. But I do think there's something about daily rituals and daily habits, and how the relative ease of these affects your daily happiness. In that way, the shower and I have some working things out to do.

But in the meantime, I suppose I should just enjoy it. I'm sure I'll think my shower back in NYC is just plain old boring after this.