Category: rants

Myopically Yours

FortunateCaveLeave a comment

I have myopia. I inherited from both my parents. I helped it along but for the most part, it’s their fault. I also have TO..that’s all Red’s fault. And I’ll tell you why…not why it’s Red’s fault; that’s Biology 101 and I have no desire to relive it. But when my myopia and my child’s influence overlap with each other, it becomes like a 3-beer, 2-black coffees+3 beers kinda Saturday for me.

So my myopia is fairly severe. Minus my glasses and more than 5 feet of distance between and the object, everyone’s The Blob. I kid you not. And with the humidity post the rains last night, I took off the glasses to go wash my face and came out to look for my hand lotion. The tube was open, with the cap on one side and the tube lying a bit further away. Sign #1 of TO infestation.

I thought I’d put it back and lifted the cap to find quite a bit of lotion inside it. Sign #2 of TO’s presence. So I thought I’d give him my patented ‘Thou Shalt Not Waste Beauty Products’ spiel once he got back home and liberally look the lotion from the cap and started to smear it on the back of my left hand. Danger bells ringing yet? No? Well…it should!

The “cream” was heavier, stickier and didn’t seem to get absorbed into my skin like before. If anything, my skin was beginning to look rather albino-ish when I squinted at it properly. Being a mother, I sniffed at it for good measure. It was WHITE. POSTER. COLOR. I mean why wouldn’t it be? I found a dinosaur in my bra once so why not poster color disguised as hand cream? Totally in my wheelhouse. So I squinted a bit more and found the open bottle of color shoved haphazardly amongst his books on the bookshelf and then decided it wasn’t the little imp’s fault. It was my myopia. I should know better than to touch anything on any surface of his room that I can’t either clearly see, smell or what doesn’t set off a Geiger counter.

So this post is dedicated to my folks…because this morning’s “colorful” experience is all on them and their shortsighted genes! And am seriously tempted to go Buffalo Bill on someone’s little behind right about now!

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The Housewife Chronicles

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Note: The author knows that women put up with the vagaries of the hoomans they live with whether they are working inside the home or outside of it but it does seem a little tougher to escape said hoomans when you’re chiefly inside the home. You either have to buy a ticket to the tropics (minus the drama of the song) or buy your hoomans one and get yourself some METIME.

So the latest hurdle to hit this cozy household was one of milk. Yup, that’s M-I-L-K. Why did milk become a crisis as it were? Well our earlier milk vendor who sent us yummy, delicious, thick milk in good quality glass bottles (yay for the eco footprint reducers!) was unable to provide the milk due to some operational hitches. And the milk delivery stopped abruptly.

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I got back home from a trip to my folks’ place to find my husband saying “fix this” and a child who’s a food critique par excellence in the making; his terse and discerning palates lead him to say, “Yuck, this is disgusting” and that particular item is deemed unfit and doesn’t cross his lips again. Ever.

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So a bit of a background about my two masters- they are fussy eaters. Not an extensive palate. Extremely limited fare goes down their gullet but that must be consistent and be the same-ish. And if you ever need a bit of a feedback about what may or may not be making the dish taste good or bad the answer comes back in a way that redefines being succinct for all eternity- “Doesn’t taste good” OR “tastes good”. And you’re left trying to decipher what the bleeping eff you’re supposed to take back from the exchange.

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So when I went back to an earlier brand of milk we used to have before our new favorite, Red came to me with a scrunched up face. And for an-almost constant poker-faced guy a scrunched up face can signal the beginning of the Apocalypse. This is how the exchange went-

Red- Is this the new milk? Me- Umm no..this is the old new milk..hee hee, we used to have this brand before we switched to the latest thing. Red- We did? Why? Doesn’t taste good. Me- You liked it earlier. Red- Don’t like it now. Too thin. M- OKAY…how does it taste though. R- I don’t like this..it’s too thin. M- $%@#$^@#^@$^. Red- get something else for tomorrow.

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Similar exchange with TO- “Ayu…the chocolate milk doesn’t taste good. Me- it’s the same as it always was. TO- No it’s not. Can I have juice? Me- No, we don’t waste food, finish this and I’ll get you something different later. TO- Add some chocolate sauce and put a straw in it like Ma (my mom) does. This is weird. Me- Weird how (because, yes…I’m that much of a masochist). TO- IT.IS.WEIRD.” Nuff said.

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So after having a couple of mind-boggling, eye-popping experiences by seeing the prices of the stuff out there and even contemplating buying a damn cow to please the two ogres I live with, I finally got a brand home that’s passed muster with OGRE#1. Am waiting for OGRE#2 to wake up and put me out of my misery and give me his trademark thumbs up approval for the new milk brand.

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If that doesn’t work I’ll just interview the milch cows of Hyderabad and see if anyone wants to generate milk customized to the taste buds of two (semi) high maintenance males who seem to get hungry and thirsty the moment they see my face. If that doesn’t work either they can live offa Soya milk because I’ll be saying MOO to you!

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P.S: how do people inherit food genes?! Baffles the mind.

Conversations On A Monday Monday

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I live with two people who want me in their space but refuse to let me breathe the way I want to. I like the windows open with loads of fresh air coming in. TO wants the inside of a freezer all around him and greedily watches the AC to see when it’ll be turned on. Red wants the AC switched off when I would rather have a slightly chillier atmosphere, leading to genuine chill emanating from me that ends up baffling him for some reason. Go figure.

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So I wake up this morning and do my usual stuff of opening the doors to the balcony, opening the windows; take a deep breath of air which hasn’t yet been saturated by exhaust and what not. This lasts all of 2 hours. When the offspring wakes up, he goes around closing the windows, drawing the shades and closing the blinds as well.

On being told to keep everything back the way it was, he starts objecting, “But Ayuuuuuuu”. Mondays are tough enough without another month and a half of holidays remaining. I tell him to give me my fresh air and ” GO BE A TROLL” in his own room with the curtains and windows closed!

11yo has a 'pot belly'

His response? A beaming smile. This is how monstrous ideas are formed…by loose lips of uncaffeinated mothers. Ye Gods!

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Sleepless in Salt Lake

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We’re visiting my folks during TO’s summer break. It’s tradition. It’s also H-O-T and H-U-M-I-D and we’re in one of the two rooms that has aircon ergo limited choices about where I crash at night.

Now we have a biggish bed for our use and it comes in handy because I play musical bed-sides atleast once every night. On the really fun nights I do it twice. Oh joy!

This is what happens. TO rolls and then he rolls some more and then some more again till I’m bracing myself on the floor with one leg out.

That’s followed by some amount of pushing and shoving and words that I’d not rather admit to using with a child present. I gain some ground, sleep for a bit and then the steam roller known as my flesh and blood advances again. This time it’s one foot and one hand on the ground aka time to switch sides.

So I go and cozy up in the other side of the bed which has to be warmed up and made sleepable.

And then the bundle of joy and sunshine in my life wakes up in the morning and says, “Hey! How did you get all the way over there?!” When I stare daggers at his well-rested face and say, “I flew” he bursts into peals of laughter and calls me silly.

Kids should really be tagged with their own caveat emptors before they let us take them home from the hospital.

Y-A-W-N

Movie Review: Godzilla King Of Monsters

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Gorgeous GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS Posters Celebrate ...

There are few things people won’t do for the sake of their children. Sitting through this movie falls in that category because this is a film that shouldn’t have been made, IMHO. It’s hackneyed and the special effects not quite so special barring in a few instances and the power of good over evil is so passe.

This movie is a sequel to the 2104 flick and if that was worth a gander, for the most hard core monster movie buffs, this one pulls in an overabundance of monsters and satiates everyone till they says ‘enough’ and head for the hills.

Which Godzilla Monster Are You? | HubPages

The problem isn’t in the direction, which is uninspired or the cinematography, which is meh but in the plot which has huge holes in it and does nothing for people of Vera Farmiga’s caliber (remember Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring or the manipulative Mrs. Bates in Bates Motel?) or basically gives Kyle Chandler even lesser to play around with than in the role in Grey’s Anatomy as the bomb squad leader.

So this is the movie in a nutshell…it’ll be a titan-sized nut albeit. Gojira aka Godzilla’s gone underground erm..undersea. No one knows exactly where he is. Emma Russell perfects a gadget that uses a creatures bioacoustics (dafuq!) to get it to heel, sit and roll over and it works on titans too! Amazeballs.

Enter an ecoterrorist who wants to let things revert to their own primal and primeval stage but has no compunctions using tech to make weapons and fly his boney behind out of areas which are under attack and near annihilation. Emma and ecoterrorist team up and release all the other hitherto unknown titans from their places of captivity under Monarch and they all converge towards the sound of The Alpha which is also lovingly referred to as Monster Zero or…wait for the drumroll….King Ghidorah!

King Ghidorah (MonsterVerse) | Gojipedia | FANDOM powered ...

Amongst the smorgasbord of mythical monsters served as on the menu we have the mighty Rodan'Godzilla: King of the Monsters': Rodan, Mothra, and ...

Mothra 

Godzilla: King of the Monsters Posters Unleash Ghidorah & Mothra | Collider

And of course the star quarterback…God…zillaaaa!!

So is this a review or a lambast? It’s essentially a piece that says that if you’re a fan you’ll find something to like. If you’re not a fan, you’ll end up playing something on your phone while waiting for the small human on the next seat to stop bouncing up and own and just shush!

King Ghidorah vs. Godzilla in New King of the Monsters Posters

The special effects are cliched and nothing outstanding but there are times (when Mothra appears fully grown and flapping it’s wings or when Godzilla goes thermonuclear) that it seems to hit the spot but else this one is a let down. My last 2 cents? Stick to the original version of Godzilla thumping about on the roads of Japan with cardboard houses getting crushed and falling helter skelter. That was still believable and kind of funny. This one is nothing but a shoo-in for the Razzies!

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The Serenity Prayer

FortunateCaveLeave a comment

It’s not just in rehab that one prays for serenity. Or even on Seinfeld. Parents frequently pray, atheists and all, for deliverance or the ability to bear with those who we do not understand and want to spank the butts of.

This conversation took place just 5 minutes ago: TO storming into my room, “HEY AYU! S aunty made the bread that I don’t like! Me: But you ate it so well last time she made it, you like French toast. TO: No! I HATE French toast! It’s disgusting!! Me: Ok, just eat it today because you need to take your medicines after food. TO: I DON’T WANT TRIANGLE BREAD PIECES! Me: Just put both together and make a whole bread and it won’t be a triangle anymore! TO: But it won’t taste the same (whine whine whine grumble grumble grumble and exit stage left).

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Pointy Elbows and Drool

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Everytime you think you’ve reached a time and place where you don’t have to be a crabby cakes about your kid, they prove you wrong!

Of late TO’s been climbing into our bed. Resulting in either one of us sleeping on our own somewhere else (bliss) or us getting through the night but with pokes and prods and occasional limbs flying about.

Early this morning but still at a time I choose not to be woken up at, someone went poke-poke at the soles of my feet. It was TO asking me to make room for him, his pillow and coverlet.

I made room for him and then did a quick recon of the room he’d been sleeping in to see if the fan or AC had still been left on. We apparently have mood lighting in this house you see- when one leaves a room and *if* they feel like it, the fan and lights get switched off. Else, they don’t.

Anyhow, I came back to my room within a few seconds and found a small child could take up a ridiculous amount of space; yet again. I squished him up and moved him down towards Red (who always sleeps like a baby I might add resentfully).

I kept dreaming of the world being all cold and wet and me baby proofing the house for some reason…putting those cone guards on the edges of tables and sharp pointy things and then realized why that particular dream had come to me…TO was sleeping with arms akimbo and his rather pointy elbow had caught me in the ribs! To add to it, he was drooling. Everything one likes to wake up to an extra hour early, for no good reason.

This parenthood stuff is a doozy!