A little shake, a little jive

You know your social life is a little too active when you hear of earthquakes and tremors on Facebook and not on the news. The minute I logged in to FB, I was flooded (no pun intended) with posts on how everyone in Chennai and B'lore had their world shaken. Some were even rueful that they missed the tremors (they were asleep apparently and thought it was a dream). Morbid.

Still, our Indian neighbors weren't the only ones affected. Infact, Indonesia measured 8.9 on the Richter scale, even the aftershock measured at 8.3. And then everyone claimed there was an earthquake in their city.
So what does this mean? The Mayans got it right? Damn, they shouldn't have made that movie (2012). 'Cause that's all I have running in my mind right now.
Either ways, I hope all my fellow earthlings stay safe. For all we know, it could have just been Rajnikanth's phone on vibration.

Married and happy !

It's not always that a girl gets married off to the man of her dreams, to settle into happy woman-hood (if such a thing exists). Contrary to what people believe, it doesn't change a lot of things.
For one, I still run from massive hugs given out for free by elders. Elders, like my parents, specially my parents.
Now, don't mistake me for a heart-less person, I enjoy hugs, I do. But not once every 7-8 minutes.

My folks came over, the first month after my wedding. By now, me and my husband had started living on our own. So, they came over, I made chai, some dinner while I chatted with them, etc. etc. Its one of those times when your parents feel proud of everything you do, like, how incredible the chai tastes. Or how good I got at making dal and how neat the house is. Every such compliment is succeeded with a big hug from dad. That's too much, even for a daughter who missed her folks terribly.

Then it finally happened, I snapped! It was 6 am and I was woken up by my dog barking. Also, my dad was on the phone, talking so loud, he didn't need the phone at all for the other person to hear him. I woke up with my eyes burning, only to be spotted by my dad. He rushed over, wanting to give me a goooodd-mooorning hug and I panicked! I jumped on the bed, hopped all the way across the 4 poster, jumped down to the floor, tripped over my dog's tail and nearly fell over. I stumbled across the dog and managed to run out of the room. Then, I stood at the door and a thought flashed across my mind, "What did I just do?"

By now, I was more worried about what my dad would feel, did I hurt him? What was he thinking?
Silence, for maybe 15 seconds..and then he burst out laughing. My mom,who was watching all this, cracked up at the same time. They laughed uproariously for about 15 minutes. Then, dad stopped to wipe his tears of mirth and said -
"Come here you!!"
And I sheepishly went to give him that hug he wanted.

Over cooked maggie and blogging

After reading a few hundred blogs posted by random folk, I figured, well, this isn't so bad after all.
Here's how I came about this un-usual miracle.

For years now, I had maintained a journal of sorts on my PC, hidden under a folder-under-folder-under folder. I always wrote my everyday updates in there and was horrified by the idea of someone reading it. Nevertheless, it included a lot of name calling, so everyone's better off not reading it.
I remember opening a blog page with no enthusiasm anyway and my first post happened like ages ago. Boring.
So I sat at my desk considering all possible ways of killing/ murdering time (I've thought and executed several ideas like junk-eating, staring off at my screen, staring off into space, looking at my schedule several times, playing with yellow sponge ball and what not), when I finally decided, "its time."
But wait, a girl's gotta eat first.
Well, Sunday being Sunday, the whole world, inculding my office cafeteria thinks morons like me who work on weekends dont need to eat. The only thing even remotely edible that can be eaten was - Maggie noodles.
Now there are several ads and people who are willing vouch that maggie can be the yummiest fast food in time of need. I beg to differ, I'm sick of it. I think it tastes like salted batter at times, but hey, beggars cant really be choosers.
So went down, got the Maggie-making guy to make some for me.
"Thoda juicy banana" I told him, he looked at me like I asked him to donate his virginity. And no, "banana" here doesnt mean the fruit metaphor, I meant "banana" in Hindi as in "make".
He gave me a half-smile and proceeded to add a bowlful of water to the already cooked maggie. Ugh !
I came back to my desk and opened the I've-forgotten-this-blog-and-am-never-gonna-open-it-again page once more. Lo-behold ! Here I am.
Half way through the over-cooked maggie, I decided I cant eat this crap anymore but it got me through my almost-first blog. Ha!

Done for now and hopefully, I'll be back soon to follow-up on this.