Wake Up Call

This morning we woke up to the doorbell ringing at 7:30am. We tried to ignore it, but apparently we forgot to lock the door last night so whoever it was just came right on in. It actually turned out to be a 'they', and after listening to a little rummaging around (but strangely no speaking) we (Luanne) decided I better get out of bed and see who was bothering us now. Also, Micah was in his pack-n-play out there in the living room with the unknown guests. They were sure to need protection from him if he woke up.

I got out of bed and found Mary and two other women in our kitchen, performing some sort of culinary operation on two coconuts. Since that's about par for the course, I asked no questions and reported back to Luanne. She decided to get out of bed, and we sat down on the couch to wait and see what would happen next.

In the mean time, one of them had gone out on our balcony and collected a bunch of laundry that was not yet dry.

After a few minutes they congregated in the kitchen, lit wicks on top of the coconuts on fire, paraded through the apartment once, and went out the front door. We waited a few minutes to see if they would come back for an encore (since they had left the door open on the way out), but it was not to be so.

At that point, the only thing left to do was have some breakfast, which we did.

When I got to work I decided to come right out and ask. I just couldn't come up with a natural segue to "so what's up with the flaming coconuts?". Apparently we were on the receiving end of a puja, which is a Hindu ritual performed on auspicious dates. It appears as if February 24 is such a date, but what it is I've yet to find out. More to follow..