The Rabbit Hole

THINGS TO DO

After my mid morning tea and cookies I started making a to-do list. Two entries in, I suddenly felt a sense of purpose. A weight being lifted. I could go on, but I might run out of clichés.

I’d actually forgotten how freeing it is to write things down. Making a list means you can get rid of some of the clutter in your head. I used to write all the time. At the end of the day, writing a journal helps you unload stuff that you don’t need any more. Or it helps you keep stuff forever. It also helps to sort out problems because sometimes the solutions present themselves as you write. After getting married, all of a sudden I had no time to myself and I stopped writing. As a result, there was always this nagging feeling that something was missing. It’s a bit funny that the urge to write should come upon me in the middle of a mundane chore but I’m glad it did.

I Am Ledger

To quote a friend; “it’s so sad when beautiful people die”.

Uh-huh

Came into work today looking like I’d raided a refugee camp and made away with the discards. The kindest thing you could say about my outfit is ‘ironed’. post-lunch, I’m an even bigger mess as the baby decided to wipe her pumpkin stained hands on the front of my blouse and a few minutes later, splatter me with baby lotion. This, I fear, is one of the ‘cons’ of having a crèche at work. Oh, well, no harm done. Nobody at work will notice since I don’t have wires coming out of me and keyboard attached to my chest. And I’ll miss the sproglet like bugger-all if I had to be away from her for the whole day.

Back to the clothes; since when did I stop wearing clothes that actually reflected my personality and start looking like a reject from the napoleon dynamite casting call? Hm. Hard to say. Maybe it’s because I actually have no time to clean my closet, or try on different outfits to see what works. Or MAYBE it’s because my closet if currently full of my mother-in-law’s hand-me-downs. I dunno really. Frankly, I think if I made an effort I could find some time for myself. But it’s so tempting to squander away my precious minutes of freedom doing other stuff like, hell, reading a book.

A Day in the Life of

Lately I’ve been finding it very hard to concentrate on work. Fact is, it’s the only ‘me’ time I get these days and it’s hard to resist the urge to slack off, read or fall asleep.

A normal day for me would go something like this;

5:00 AM - Woken up by screaming baby. Coax her back to sleep and place her in the cot.
5:05 AM - Baby refuses to go back to sleep. Take her into the bed
5:15AM - Woken up rudely by being kicked in the face by the baby.
6:00 AM - Alarm goes off. Take baby’s foot out of eye and get out of bed.
6:00-6:15 AM - Prepare baby’s lunch and get it going on the cooker.
6:15-6:22AM - Take a break for much needed coffee and cigarette
6:22-6:40AM - Shower/brush teeth etc.
6:40-7:00AM - Wash up bottles, prepare sterilizing kit, check on baby’s lunch.
7:00 AM - Yell out time to Paddy and ask him to get up.
7:00-7:40 AM - Prepare juice, fruit puree, iron baby clothes and pack bag. Yell out to Paddy again. No response. Poke him to make sure he’s alive. Say “I’m not going to wake you up again” and walk out of the room. Return five minutes later and remind him to get out of bed.
7:40-8:00AM - Get dressed, wash and dress baby.
8:00-8:08AM - Nervously pace living room while calling out “we’re getting late” every two minutes.
8:10AM - Leave home

6:30PM - Return home from work
6:30-7.00PM - Prepare Baby’s dinner and feed baby
7-8:00PM - Have dinner with frequent interruptions due to baby’s demands for attention.
8:00-8:30PM - Give baby her milk and put her to bed.
8:35PM - Pick up screaming baby and coax her to fall asleep again.
10:00PM - Go to bed
10.25PM - Get out of bed to sooth baby
12.30AM - Feed baby
3:00 AM - Calm baby. Change baby/cot sheet if necessary. Throw several venomous glances at Paddy, fast asleep and snoring blissfully.
3:30 AM - Give baby her milk
4:00AM - Inform baby that this is NOT playtime. Bash head against wall.
4:30AM - fall into bed in a half-coma
—Go back to top—

Is it any wonder that being at work is my idea of a relaxing time?

FAC(Z)ED

I recently found a long lost friend on Facebook. After adding him, I view his profile and realized that we have 6 friends in common. And all six of them I’ve met through different means. It’s kinda surreal really. All these connections that we never knew existed.

‘Tis a small bugger of a world after all.

EQUUS

Went to watch Equus on Saturday. I really wasn’t keen on going because I expected it to be boring but ma-in-law offered to baby-sit and I don’t refuse ANY baby-sitting offers! Boy am I glad I went. It was brilliant! If it wasn’t for the fact that my view of the stage was obstructed by the bullet head of the giant sitting in front of me, I would have enjoyed it more, and not walked out with a crick in my neck.

The only things that jarred a bit were when Tracy spoke she wobbled her head too much which made me giddy and the girl who played Jill wasn’t really all that great because it felt like she was forcing herself to act.

Well, what with Marsh and his mind blowing The Devil and Billy Markham, and now Equus, there might yet be hope for English theatre in Sri Lanka.

Incidentally, Daniel Radcliff plays Alan Strang in the West End production of Equus and he’s supposed to be really good. Fancy that.

For a review of the local play, go here.

Krakow! Krakow!

Men aren’t from Mars, they’re from the planet Zorg. Why? Because that’s where Spaceman Spiff hangs out and every man is Spaceman Spiff at heart.
Remember that emphatic phrase used by Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire? “You complete me” he said. What demented hack came up with that tosh? Would you ever catch a red-blooded male uttering such a girly sentiment? I don’t think so. Mind you, that sort of thing probably had women swooning in the aisles and groping for the Kleenex at the movies. Heck, I guess we all wish we had a Jerry Maguire in our lives but unfortunately Homo-Maguire doesn’t exist. Nope it’s just a figment of some crazed scriptwriter’s imagination. And seriously, where would we be if men started going around actually saying things like that? At the nearest shrink probably, asking him why Tom, Dick or Montgomery is baking cookies in the kitchen wearing a flowered apron and singing I’m Every Woman.

As hard as it is to face up to facts, we must. Men don’t have the sentiment gene. Their natural hunter-gatherer instincts prevent it. Which is probably a good thing in a way because otherwise a typical food foraging incident might have gone something like this;

Unga: “Ugh eargh Bantha boh!” (Look Bantha, antelopes!)
Bantha: “Greonk! Bugh wagga boing boing” (Meat! Looks like I’m getting lucky tonight!)
Unga: “Geee waaah” (Let’s get them)
They draw closer to their prey
Unga: “Awda wada poo” (Oh look at their cute little tails)
Bantha: “Dinky goo gaa” (And their pretty eyes)
Both: “Awwwwww”

…and the human race would have come to a sorry end by starving to death.

Women who often complain that men aren’t sensitive enough just don’t get it. It’s not that men aren’t sensitive (try kneeing them in the noogas to see just how sensitive they are) it’s that their level of sensitivity doesn’t conform to ours. When we have a problem we feel the need to talk about it. Men don’t do that. When something is bothering them they either try to find a solution to it or they will dismiss it as being unsolvable and move on – usually towards the TV. There’s no in-between stage of wallowing and crying and why-me’s for them. When they try to apply the same process to our problems we perceive them as being insensitive. Face it girls, men don’t listen. In fact, their sense of hearing is bit dulled. Why do you think, as men grow older, they start sprouting hair in their ears? It’s a defense mechanism devised by nature to gradually block out sound.

So why are men like Spaceman Spiff? Because whenever a man encounters an uncomfortable situation, his eyes glaze over and his breathing slows down as he slowly calculates the distance between the nozzle of his Atomic Napalm Neutralizer and the Graknil lumbering towards him.

Sing to me Beatrice!

Sometime back I started writing song parodies. For some strage reason they were all food-related. I lost most of them when my hard disk crashed (backups? no, thanks, not with my coffee) but recently I unearthed some printouts. I shall post them as and when i have time to type them out again.

This one is a favourite:

Custard Pie
(to the tune of Dolphins Cry by Live)

The Taste of your custard pie
Reminds me of sleepless nights
My stomach churning I toss and turn, in my bed
Next morning you smile and say
“I made pancakes in a special way”
I’m a helpless fool
Yeah, I ate it all, in a mad daze
I just can’t tell you that
Your cooking makes me gag
When you look at me sweetly over burnt toast
I give up the ghost

Darling someday I’ll tell you why
(You’re a bad cook, you can’t get worse)
When I eat oatmeal I cry
Your chocolate cake just leaves me speechless
Eat the pasta? I’d rather die
(You’re a bad cook, you can’t get worse)

Oh yeah remember when
Aunt Jane she came to stay
You gave her breakfast in bed and she screamed
When I asked her why
She threw a bread bun at me
12 stitches the damn thing cost me
She packed up her stuff and left for Greece
Wait for me, so that we
So that we can go together!

Darling someday I’ll tell you why
(You’re a bad cook, you can’t get worse)
When I eat oatmeal I cry
Your chocolate cake just leaves me speechless
Eat the pasta? I’d rather die
(You’re a bad cook, you can’t get worse)

Colic and dyspepsia
Recurring waves of nausea
They all constantly hover in my life with you
In a blinding paradox
You’re as healthy as an ox
When will my troubles be over?

Over…

Of Peas and Things

I think I should experiment with food more. Today, I ate a green pea – for the first time in my life. And you know what, I LIKED it. Hm. Someday I’ll be brave enough to try Faluda.

In other news, Spielberg and Peter Jackson are getting together to produce/direct three back-to-back Tin Tin movies. That should put an interesting twist on things. I suppose Snowy will be a gollum-like talking CGI dog (with less of the schizophrenia). There will be epic battles fought on the grounds of Marlinspike Hall and Professor Calculus will die and then come back as Indiana Jones.

Thundering Tycoons.

Java Gecko

I’d left my half empty coffee mug on the living room table last night and this morning when I went to retrieve it I found a gecko swimming in it. The gecko, whom I immediately christened Charlie, was wearing a befuddled expression and a smearing of coffee grinds. I didn’t fancy fishing him out with my bare fingers and I figured a metal spoon might hurt him so I took the mug and its inhabitant into the kitchen and emptied it into the sink. Charlie didn’t seem to mind being evicted but seemed skeptical about his new surroundings. He was valiantly trying to climb up the walls of the sink and kept slithering down. I decided to help by leaning something against the sink for him to climb up. He glanced disapprovingly at the plastic plate I proffered and turned his back on it. Next I tried a piece of cardboard but that didn’t work either. (Note to self: cardboard, when it comes into contact with water, gets soggy.) Then I had a brainwave and placed a plastic serving spoon inside the sink and Charlie promptly clambered on and I was able to lift him up with the spoon and release him onto the window sill.

Half an hour later I walked into the kitchen and there was the still-coffee-coloured Charlie taking a nap next to my motar and pestle. I just hope he doesn’t breed in it.