Random. Structured. Haphazard. All Me.

A Tangled Yarn of Thoughts Being Unravelled…

Recent Posts

  • The Child Wranglers

    Last night Red and I were watching Outback Wrangler on t.v last night and thinking how tough they had it out there; herding their cattle, their wild horses and what not.

    Fast forward to this morning. MLM discovered the swimming pool in our complex that had been unused during the winter months was being used by some kids and raced upstairs to get his gear and jump in. We both had a good time splashing about but when it came time to head out it was an epic meltdown. You could call it a Fukushima for parents. Red was heading him off from  out of the water and I was flanking him in the water and between the two of us we captured the wild beast…erm…beautiful child we are obligated to love and witness tantrums from occasionally.

    I’m sure the thought in both our heads was that the wrangler on the t.v. show we’d watched didn’t know of the dangers that lurk in the urban jungles populated by little beasties with the power to shatter the eardrums with their shrieks and seemingly relentless crying over not being able to doggy paddle.

    Gimme a wild horse or a bull any day. These mini humans are lethal!

    Bull_Rush_-_diatomicmedia.com
    Image courtesy- http://www.diatomicmedia.com/

  • The Bearable Lightness of Being

    Red would frown seeing Kundera being quasi-plaigiarised in this manner but I honestly couldn’t think of any other title for this blog post.

    I sometimes get the sense of things being in a separate reality as it were. And while that may have shrinks reaching for a diagnosis of psychosis but there often doesn’t seem to be a bridge between what’s transpired and what currently *is*.

    Take for example the new place we moved it. It’s only been 3 months since we moved here but I can’t seem to recall the time of my life when I lived in the old apartment. It’s almost like that’s ceased to be.

    I had gone back to the old place today because a former colleague and fellow bookworm wanted to take some of my books that I’d left behind in the move. And while I can find myself heading back to that place on autopilot, it seemed surreal to be back in the actual apartment.

    Our voices were echoing slightly in the empty livingroom but somehow I couldn’t envision myself and my family there although the better part of 7 years of married life had been spent there.

    This is a form of moving on. It’s firmly categorized as a closed chapter. Something that’s been traded for a better object, situation and we’ve moved on. All of us. Red and MLM took about 2-3 days to get settled into the new place and get acclimatized heart and soul.

    I kept thinking that I alone still had a hankering for the place but it’s no longer home.

    It’s a curious phenomenon, moving on. People you couldn’t do without at one point of time, places you couldn’t think of not being in all get left behind and you march on. Not always to something and someone better but you always proceed further and further ahead. Often you progress as well.

    Another day, another realization. Such is life.

  • Pedicures and Percy Jackson

    I’ve found my happy place and NO it’s NOT any place that doesn’t feature my kid! It’s getting a pedicure in a particular salon that has vibrating chairs that massage your head and back and have rainbow lights in the swirling foot bath where you soak your WEARY treads.

    Why did they go the extra mile and add lights when people don’t always look down? Well because it’s pretty, silly!!

    I like getting pedicures quite a bit. My feet are smallish so they are done with the exfoliating jazz pretty soon and spend more time massaging the chunky calves and soles till I feel lightheaded and quite cheery. Very soleful…excuse the pun.

    Best thing about this procedure is that you have your hands free to read, text or blog, as I’m currently doing.
    You don’t have to move your head this way and that while someone strips dead cells off your face or gets rid of the face fuzz that insists on taking root again and again!

    The boy (since he barely looks out of his late teens) who tends to my feet usually clucks his disapproval in seeing feet he prefers seeing with some polish and soft skin, looking dowdy and not funky. He constantly tells me to moisturize and doesnt bat an eyelid when I end up taking two jazzy colors to alternate on my toenails, usually neon or just loud ones. He’s used to oddballs and their funny feet.

    And now after having set me up with the colorful bubbly water and all the chisels he’ll need to get my feet human again, he sits diligently plodding away while I turn to the Heroes of Olympus-Mark of Athena.

    Fridays sure turn out fabulous once in a while!

    Happy Weekending :)

  • Scary, Creepy Kids!

    I used to love slasher flicks while I was growing up. The gorier the better. Blood spurting out and my day was made! Ok..am not as ghoulish as that sounds but it was fun to watch…thrilling even while Michael Myers silently crept up or Jason advanced with his machete and the background score with its slightly chilling nuances…

    But I grew up and the blood and gore just wasn’t fun anymore..it wasn’t even remotely scary.

    A long time after that, of not being scared or even remotely rattled, I saw The Ring. And Samara…she was creepy. Not in the grotesque form she comes out from the t.v in the end but the unflinching, unblinking facade of human Samara…it was eerie and she did more for the creepy factor in the movie than anything else. The menace in her voice when she’s being interviewed by the shrinks of the asylum she’s admitted in…C-R-E-E-P-Y.

    Another kid who was undoubtedly creepy and could’ve very well been the bad guy of the movie was the little kid from the same movie- Aidan. I mean what is with that frigid glance and unmodulating tone?

    Let’s hark back to the good old days when the original Damien Storm made one wonder *how* such a small child could actually have been found suitable to play the role of the Antichrist…his eyes cold and features devoid of warmth. *brrr*

    Last but certainly not the least- the little kid from Grudge takes the cake. The geisha-like face, eyes black like marble…Toshio is pretty freaky and has quite a a bit of startle factor!

    No wonder the Jasons, Freddys and Myers have conceded their spots. The Gen-X of scarers are here to stay!

    Check out this more comprehensive list of scary kids-http://www.chillertv.com/friday13/13-children-from-hell-some-literally

    Here’s to goosebumps!samara_morgan

  • Lazy Sundays…A Myth For Parents

    MLM kept tapping my face relentlessly first thing early this morning till I sleepily opened my eyes to find him mere milimeters away from me and smiling beatifically. A smiling face when am still not awake and ready to smile awakens my inner dragons. They are baby dragons when the person who wakes me up is my child. But fire breathing nonetheless.

    This is how our conversation went-

    Me: Why are you up? Do you want to go to the bathroom? *glances at mobile to see the time, 5:59 am*

    MLM: Noooo…I want milk. Smiles

    Me: *grumbling* ask Baba (Red) pleaseeee? Yeah right! High hopes..

    MLM: (seriously) Baba is sleeping Ayu. Ayu is getting up.

    Gaaah!! Of course I’ll get if someone does pat-a-cake to my face. Buy no one said parenting came with adequate sleep for the parents involved.

    After milk&honey is handed over, in a glass color of his choice, MLM sits and happily chats away like it’s midday instead of 6 am on a Sunday!!

    I tell him to have his milk and sleep for some more time and he chirps back how he wants to make triangles, dinosaurs and starts lining up his arsenal of color pencils in a row to start the attack of colors by small hands.

    I give him a jumbo coloring book and snuggle back down good mood restored. 2 minutes later the face tapping starts again…

    Me: ( sighing resignedly) Yes baby?

    MLM: (smiling again) POTTY.

    Sunday’s become Monday!

  • Which Mythical Monster Are You?

    Since my posts end up being about the (crab) apple of my eye I thought why not ask around and see if I’m the only nutcase attempting to raise a child or if there are others out there who see themselves as being demonized by their children in the sanity-ebbing job known as parenting.

    Here we go! Please take a few seconds (because am sure that’s all it’ll take for you to identify your very own style of dealing with your child) and go through the questions.

    P.S: Why a poll and why monsters? Well…we are the bad guys when we get in their way of what they want to be doing or when we enforce things on them- like nasal aspirations, medicines, food et al.

    Thought I’d find out which monsters are keeping me company out there in the parenting world. And who am I? I am a dastardly combination of a harpy and a lamia which either makes me a hamia or a larpy. Take your pick.

    draft_lens18618255module162053502photo_1348779992-

  • Sunset Supreme

    DSC00561 DSC00562 DSC00566 DSC00574

  • Eating Your Words

    Let me assure you that having to eat your own words is not a culinary experience to aspire to. Nope!

    Classic cases of eating one’s words that I’m pretty sure quite a few adults go through-

    • When I grow up I won’t talk to my kids the way my parents talk to me- Reality? We used phrases like “Because I said so!”, “We’ll see”, ” Wait till your father gets home”, “Sit straight and don’t slouch” and the list goes on.
    • I can’t wait to see what my baby will do next- Again reality bites hard because the same child who you couldn’t wait to see toddling and uttering his first words is now a person who flies rather than walks and can put parrots to shame with his chirping and twittering and continuous mouthing of “Why”, “Please”, “Can I”, ” Are we there yet”. And this list too is sadly unending.

    I had taken the offspring to the doctor’s office today and while I was waiting there I spied a woman who looked EXHAUSTED. I thought to myself, “this woman hasn’t slept properly in a while, or had the chance to bathe leisurely and probably has a preschooler…boy.” Three for three baby!

    We shared looks of commiseration and fatigue across the room and I recalled when I first saw MLM’s sonogram and thought to myself that I couldn’t wait to have a baby…yup. My words will need a lot of seasoning going down my gullet.

  • Percy Jackson&The Olympians

    I’ve been late as a rule in discovering books which are part of a series and have gained a lot of popularity. I caught onto the Anne of Green Gables late (actually not really since L.M Montgomery was long dead before I was born), the Harry Potter series, the Artemis Fowl series and the latest one, Percy Jackson.

    I came across the first Percy Jackson book much after I saw the trailers for Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters while waiting for another movie to start. Greek and Roman myths have always interested me and just seeing the visuals I knew the actual book would be even more exciting and it was! They all were!

    It is fantasy but it is fantastically readable and it’s funny. The author Rick Riordan is a truly talented wordsmith and one who possesses a cheeky sense of humor and as it is with quite a few of the “so-called” children’s’ writers, their works are eminently readable by adults as well. And whether we all have an inner child or not, we know to appreciate wit, humor and a style of prose that appeals to us and our sensibilities.

    Percy Jackson brings together adventure, glory, bravery, angst, fantasy, magic and most of entertainment.

    If you aren’t a snob about reading “mainstream” writing, pick up a copy today or try out the e-book.

    It’s thoroughly enjoyable down to the last word and keeps you wanting more installments of the Greek and Roman pantheons and their lore.

    Percy_Jackson

  • Movie Review: Enough Said

    I watched Enough Said last night. All but the last bit since MLM suddenly woke up howling. But whatever I saw of it seemed very believable and at times a bit slow but then again relationships don’t always ignite and flare up in the blink of an eye. While the movie makers are limited by their constraints of time and often end up packing in a whole gamut of emotions and experiences, the way this movie unfolded was very realistic. People do take their time in getting to know each other, feelings do unfurl gradually and there are awkward bits through it all.

    I have never seen James Gandolfini in such a soft role. Not that he was entirely stereotyped to play Mafioso roles but that he could be believable as a flabby middle-aged man, finding himself in a new relationship was really good to see. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus can’t help having such mobile expressions- she frowns, she smiles and her whole face transforms entirely. She too is quite different from Elaine of Seinfeld.

    A good real movie about real adults in a realistic world. It was steady rather than slow in its pace and that was the best part. That it’s about middle-aged people doesn’t stop people of different ages from relating to it, even if it’s in bits and pieces.

    Worth a watch if excitement and in-your-face romance isn’t what you’re looking for and are willing to watch how real relationships develops.

    movie poster