Tag: pet peeves

Semi Old Dog, Heap New Tricks

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I am adaptable with technology but the kind of technology that’s been a constant with little tweaks here and there. Same goes for the hardware part of it I guess. Am currently in the limbo between Windows and MAC OS. The lovable geeks in my life (and a few of the non-geeks) have praised the MAC *quite* a bit and have looked askance at me for using an HP or earlier a Dell laptop. Ok that was just the husband but his askances don’t count since they’re a constant also.

Image result for once you go mac you never go back

Apparently the image above resonates with a LOT of people but somehow I was muddling along with my Windows 10 and all the long-used keyboard shortcuts and whatnots when a MacBook was thrust into my hands today. Red set it up and gave me a basic tutorial and has since left me to find my way through a keyboard which is further scooched up and some two-fingered jazz I have to keep doing to get things to move around. I ended up almost closing this tab a few times before being able to complete the post.

Right now, in this moment, I am a Luddite crying out for the comfort of a Windows laptop with the keypad comfortably located in a way that you don’t feel carpal tunnel-y and where you keep looking to close or minimize the page on the wrong side. Kind of driving on the right side of the road vs the left…erm yeah….Image result for luddite meme

But here are the positives- it’s so pretty!!Image result for blinking eyelashes gif

The darn thing starts up before I can say Siri (or Alexa to some of you) and the resolution is crisp and clear. Just like sparkling clean, artesian well water. I am slightly enamored if you couldn’t already tell.

Oh..conundrum thou art being caught between two OS.Image result for sophie's choice gif

Patrick Bergin Had It Right!

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Well his character, of Martin something or the other in Sleeping With The Enemy, had it right. There’s no reason why things can’t be kept in a particular (I mean PROPER) way. Just no reason at all. Barring the fact that Bergin (lovely old stud that he is) did play the role of a psychopath, his insistence on a neat and tidy order to things is something I appreciate. And how!

When I thought about having my own place, and my own kitchen in particular, I knew the size would be a toss-up. I wasn’t going to get my studio apartment with a wee loft for the bed and an open kitchen. I did however want a kitchen a la country rustic and pretty with glass jars labelled with blackboard paint labels, all facing the same way so it’s easy to know if you’re reaching for the dill instead of the rosemary or parsley or the powdered cumin vs the powdered coriander. If only everything was a dead giveaway like chilly powder and turmeric, then we’d be gravy!

Image result for chalkboard label kitchen jars

But with more people using the kitchen and in their own ways, it was deemed best (with a lot of difficulty…look down to understand the extent of the difficulty and you’ll know what I mean) that we stick with plastic, Tupperware and other things which may not be aesthetic and terribly eco-friendly but more than earn their keep by being big-time user friendly.tantrum throwing a fit GIF

I also like the idea of hand towels and face towels being used for… well the hand and the face…DUH ! rather than a bigass beach towel being used to wipe a tiny portion of one’s body. I can blame my father for this bit of idiosyncrasy outright because that’s what he instilled in me..there’s a grammar to everything aka the madness aint madness if you can justify it. So I justified it BIG TIME- matching sets of hand towels, face towels and bath towels. Each one neatly hanging on the rod and the spares nicely rolled up next to a small dish filled with potpourri. And it is nice too…for all of 30 minutes. Then the dinos eat the potpourri or else they end up rummaging in it and for a bathroom that stocks up 2-3 towels of each size, there’s usually nothing around when you enter it.

The loves of your life go and use the bath towel to wipe their faces and horror of horrors…either leave it on the bed, on the back of a chair or just leave it to slink to the bathroom floor in an untidy crumple.

And so it goes…you become used to necessity over emotions at times. Until one day you find the nth damp towel on the ground when it just takes a teensy second to make sure it’s properly put back on the towel rod…and you have a mini eruption inside. And the  you remember Patrick Bergin’s steely eyed, cold-smiled demeanor towards Julia Robert’s handling of hand towels and think…this guy really knew what he was doing!!

And then you think back to HOW long it took you to get the offspring to wipe his hands and face at all, let alone not wipe them on his clothes or on you and you figure you have a few more years to go before you break out the full-fledged psycho mode. Or do you?..

Image result for psycho mom meme

A Blog A Day- Day 2

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I had hoped I’d have enough time and material to write again today. Lo and behold! The universe conspired to bring me a muse in the form of an annoying and kind of naive salesgirl who I’ve hexed from here to Kingdom come for her utter and complete lack of even a half-assed sales pitch and because she hurt my feelings…kind of.

See, when you’re carrying around extra weight, no one is more aware of it than you are. Partly because you’re living with it and also because people around you don’t let you forget it either.

Spouses make fat jokes, kid you about your big bites and even raise eyebrows if you so much as swallow a watermelon seed. Your offspring squeezes your lard each time he passes you by and thinks it fitting to tell you to eat less because you’re getting SO FAT!!

Note: the child in question is pretty young and no clue how close to doomsday he gets when he speaks to a woman about her weight. But then again the ‘foot-in-the-mouth-gene seems to be passed down from the paternal side ergo the kid didn’t really stand a chance.

Moving on, so a myriad of people make overweight people realize that they are in fact OVERWEIGHT; either knowingly or unknowingly.

Today’s incident was funny, sad and kind of made me want to throw a pie in the face of the girl who brought it all about. So it went like this- I accidentally knocked over a few packets of innerwear when I was managing a turn in the supermarket aisle while doing my mother-with-periscope-neck routine.

An eager beaver sales girl came running to help me pick them up thinking I was shopping for the said articles and took it upon herself to help me find stuff in my size instead of the smaller size I’d knocked over. Before I could tell her I didn’t need anything from that rack, she took a quick look at me and started off saying that the size I had was too small for me and she’d find the right one for me…and she did. Or so she thought. While my neck was still periscoping around for the offspring, this proactive child took out something which could have doubled up as the flag of an impoverished nation and waved it around to get my attention saying, “this will fit you!

I’m not ashamed to say I tore right into her saying that wasn’t my size at all and why didn’t she give help after it was asked for instead of bothering the customers for no good reason. And then I immediately felt bad, for this girl had a pout remarkably like what tots do when they’re denied another cookie, pool or t.v. time. So in sticking up for myself I had hurt her feelings. Ye Gods.

I went through the rest of my shopping in record time and MLM, sensing he should stop asking for every other piece of Hot wheels and chips, also came along rather demurely.

I guess I could have also rolled my eyes at the girl at the store and moved on but summers keep my temper brimming + there’s a perpetually chattering child along with his newfound love for IPL and Virat Kohli; tagging along more often than not. I was in no mood to be pleasant and embrace XXXL clothing because somebody didn’t get their eyes tested!!

In the words of the immortal Obelix-” I’m not fat. I’m just big boned, that’s all.’

Pet Peeves Maketh The Person

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I almost wrote “maketh the man” and then reminded myself of gender neutrality (another pet peeve of mine) and changed it to “person”.

Anyone following my blog of late would have wondered if they’d landed on the same person’s site or not because I’ve gone slightly berserk with my template changes. And that’s the super-duper pet peeve I’m addressing today.  I NEED THINGS PERSONALIZED. And how! If it doesn’t vibe with me, I don’t get no satisfaction!

I think I can blame Livejournal for that. With icons for depicting different moods, being able to mention the place one is blogging from and the kind of music that one’s listening to at that time…they spoiled me. Of course they got in tons of spam as well and as a result it was ‘adios amigos’ but I miss a few of their blogging features.

I bring in lots of little (and often inconsequential) details to my blogs. To me- it adds to the ambiance. To another (read Red) it was often a WTF moment to know that I’d been listening to Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Hansi Sitam while ranting on a blog post. He always asked, “what’s the damn value add for me to know what you’re listening to if it’s not reflected in the words you’re writing?”

But we all have our quirks. Some of us more than others and some of us need to see something and make it our own. Whether it’s putting the world on hold while a new phone’s wallpaper and font is chosen or the blog’s template is changed for the nth time; it adds to a sense of satisfaction to see something and think, “there it is…that’s how we roll baby!”

Call it a quirk or a mini-disease, those of us who need to make things a part of our personality, need to have those things reflect who we are or what we’re thinking about, and get fidgety if we have to settle for something which is close but no cigar. Because damn it, we want the cigar!

Note: the author is *not* promoting smoking or any kind of tobacco usage. She however does have a thing (here we go again) for proverbs and liberally peppers her speech with them.

Image result for memes about personalization things

Kids: Boon Vs Bane

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The jury is still out on that one.

On one hand you can remember them as the cutest, cuddliest, chubbiest drooly monsters that walked around with a diaper-covered bum. And on the other hand you wish you could sedate them or keep them in suspended animation when they’re getting their best and most annoying bratty groove on.

At the risk of pissing off my husband, who is more predisposed towards liking the offspring and not wanting to punt him over the fence into the neighboring building, let me say that kids are the people who test your patience to the extent you want to chuck everything and join a convent or do a Hansel-Gretel with them and leave them in a forest clearing somewhere…preferably in a galaxy far, far away.

There are some day when praying for divine intervention does no damn good at all and the only thing that helps you get through things are longing glances at the booze cupboard or the promise of a weekend ending and school starting up again.

And kids really can be quite rotten. They are trying on the days they need to be angelic. They mouth off at the time when they need to be mimes and they stay up like owls on the nights you need them in bed and knocked out by 7:30 on the dot!

But if they always did what was expected of them they wouldn’t be kids at all. They’d be flitting about with wings and halos and spotless white clothes. Instead these oompa-loompas have decidedly tarnished halos and the wings which mimic the headless chicken scenario.

Oh well…c’est la vie.

 

Snake, Rattle&Roll

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By now everyone would have realized that I pun and desperately so. It’s almost my calling card in my blog posts. Titles especially.

So to jump to the topic, my kid is into Nature. Likes some parts of it even more and absolutely j’adores bits of it. And those bits are far-flung, disjointed and only he knows why certain things send him into raptures.

Our old printer was on its last legs, cartridge, carriage…you get the gist; so another one came and took its place. And Red being Mr.Technologically-Advanced wanted a wireless printer. So we got one. 

So now the situation is like this- MLM will pick up my phone after switching on the printer and making sure there are REAMS of paper in it, and simply command me-GIVE ME A PRINT OUT.
And his litany will begin-

  • Secretary Bird (no short necks only long-necked ones)
  • Gila Monster.
  • Komodo Dragon
  • King Cobra (proper one not cartoonish, cutesy snakes)
  • Alligators AND Crocodiles- because yeah, like he knows the difference between the two.
  • Leatherback turtle
  • Vampire Squid
  • Armadillos

And the list goes on. And as each page rolls out his eyes turn bright and he rubs his hands in glee and hisses in my ear, “Give me birdsss of prey Ayuuu.” I swear it’s like having your own personal Smeagol leering at its Precious! 

For those who glossed over that reference-watch LOTR ok? You can’t miss out on Smeagol and his Precioussss. Half the memes on the internet have to do with those two.

So after condors, peregrine falcons and vultures flew out of the printer and we called it a day, the hissing ceased and Gollum..I mean MLM went his merry way with his printouts.

A new day. A new pet peeve for me. Life is just full of opportunities!

The Check List

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We test drive a car before buying it. We ought to be able to test drive our spouses, partners too. Here’s why-

  • You meticulously switch off the lights and fan when exiting a room. Their motto in life is to forget it. Always.
  • You hang your wet towels out to dry on the clothesline or drying rack. They feel a bed is the best way to get the job done. And somehow never seem to leave it on the side of the bed they sleep in; its always on yours.
  • You love to read in bed. They act like a minute beam of light is blinding and continue to toss and turn till the bed seems to be suffering from tectonic movements.
  •  You watch/read mainstream movies and novels. They watch award-winning foreign language movies which are dark and dreary and someone always seems to die or be dying and read books which are as straight and uncomplicated as a jalebi (or pretzel, take your pick).
  • You want your bathroom tiles to be “cheerful”. They raise eyebrows at you and say just pick something where the grime won’t show up and keep mumbling about the ridiculous adjective of cheerful for bathroom tiles!
  • You usually know where your essential accessories are. They need a map. Everyday. Without Fail.

That and many more reasons are why you should know a person beyond their favorite color and food.
You just might end up shivering next to a person who ends up rolling themselves up like a spring roll in a comforter meant for two while you ponder about whether you would be justified in kicking them of bed altogether.

OR in time you could gaze upon your giggling offspring and say isn’t that the most beautiful face ever? They would agree.

So it works both ways 🙂