What's with the Invincible Corks??

Mimi / Arliemol and I have history..... of the DISASTROUS variety!
The simplest, most mundane activities we try to perform (post Serenity's bedtime, post midnight!) usually end in disaster and de-wash-tation (to quote Mimi!)....
Here we present 2 case studies of the more memorable kind. The second is what prompted this post. Unfortunately, Case study 1 is not accompanied by pictures.


Case Study 1: 2 women trying to paint their nails.
Method: Volunteer to paint Mimi's nails RED. Shake bottle vigourously. Watch helplessly as said bottle flies out of hand and splatters on pristine white guestroom floor. Realise there's about 2 ml of nail-paint remover left. Try and prioritise whether to clean Mimi (who is spattered upto her knees in red nail paint) or the floor. Fail miserably at both.
Result: Guestroom floor now looks like a scene from Dexter.


Case Study 2: 2 women want to drink a mini bottle of Rosé
Method: Try and open with Corkscrew A. Helplessly watch as corkscrew A breaks, embedding itself in the cork. Proceed to sloowwwwly chip away at cork with knife, avoiding embedded corkscrew to further avoid blade joining corkscrew in the cork. Progress to potato peeler. Abandon hope. Resume chipping away at cork, tea- strainer on standby. Involve mighty Ikea toolkit. Successfully pull out remnants of Corkscrew A. Resume mission with Corkscrew B. Mission successful. 
Result: 2 measly glasses of wine that in hindsight - a) we could have done without.... and b) REALLY did NOT justify the effort we put into it.

(Nothing) Lost In Translation!

While in Phuket, on one of our shopping expeditions, I was looking at a stall that sold t-shirts. In most of these countries, where English is not the first language, bargaining happens in pidgin English with the help of a calculator... You ask the vendor the cost of something, he types it into the calculator... you shake your head and mime that you don't have that much money... he hands you the calculator and you punch in your figure.... and so on.


So my travel companion was looking at some stuff in another shop, while I looked at the t-shirts looking for something to get Serenity....and I told the shopkeeper I was looking for something as a gift for a boy... He pointed this one out to me... and WINKED!! 

To which I laughed and shook my head.... 

and then he points to THIS one!!

To which, again, I shook my head to say no, then made an angry face and a "cut-throat" gesture and pointed to my ring finger to say "I'm married to him!" To which the guy made a sad face, shook his head sorrowfully and pointed out THIS one!!

And then we both laughed our heads off !! 

Not one word spoken, but SO MUCH said !!

Picture This....

So here I was, preparing to leave on a long-awaited GIRLS TRIP to Phuket.... Numerous checklists were made, wardrobe decided etc etc...


On the morning I was supposed to leave, I was enjoying a sleepy morning cuddle with Serenity and he asked me if I had packed my medicines (I am diabetic.. yeah - bummer!) and I, equally sleepy, said "Yeahhh.... I have to go to the chemist before I leave - need to get The Pill also..." Which obviously woke him up good, because he was like "The pill?? For what?!" And because I'm evil (obviously!) I said "Because I'm off to have lots of unprotected sex with strangers!!" And proceeded to explain that I didnt want that time of the month to coincide with my beach holiday!! And then I did a "Gotcha! Didnt I?" on him!!


So then, he left for work etc etc... and I decided to take off my rings (because I didnt want to get mugged / lose them) and I left them in HIS cupboard.... and it struck me much later that he would come home, empty his pockets, take off his watch and find that I've taken off my wedding ring!! :D 


And then... just before I left, I was taking off my gold earrings and I dropped one of the screws into my cupboard. Not having the time to look for it, I wrote a post-it saying "FIND SCREW!!" and put that on my desk!!


While I was sitting in the cab on my way to the airport, I suddenly thought of this whole sequence and laughed my head off!!

A Series of Unfortunate Events.

I saw this on someone's blog today and remembered an article (true story, yes!) that I had written based on my flatmate's and my experiences with domestic help in the city-that-never-sleeps. It has languished in my drafts folder forever....

My mother often says that she'd like to write a book on her experiences with different maids over the years. From the one that bit my sister to the one who chased me around the house trying to break my skull with a butter-churn, to the one who had the bigamous husband (who was married to her sister, no less!!), they're all worth a lot of page space.

Having moved out with a fellow designer from the dry state and having polished off the better part of a bottle of very pricey scotch that a friend had gifted me, I was rather alarmed to see the remaining alcohol's level dip rapidly in the bottle. Does Scotch evaporate?, I wondered. I checked and rechecked that the bottle was closed tightly, but lo and behold! the next time I checked on it, the level had dipped alarmingly AGAIN!

Having come to the conclusion that flatmate had been having a night-cap to relieve work-pressure, I did not spare it a second thought, though I had assumed upto this point that she was strictly a wine drinker, while she assumed that I had been imbibing copious amounts of scotch!

It turns out that we were subjected to a rather one-of-a-kind specimen of the house help category. Let's call her Urvashi. Let it be known that Urvashi was a silent shadow upto this point, who came, did her bit and disappeared, with little conversation exchanged with either of us. And then one evening, came a phone-call that rattled us both!

It was our house-broker, who happened to be in the area while we were both at work, to register a tremendous ruckus ensuing from our humble abode. Initial suspicion that it was the TV was quickly dispelled when he, and a LOT of other people came upon Urvashi, who was not just a wee bit tipsy, but completely SMASHED!

So much so, that she could barely stand, and so was sitting there wailing her head off!

But wait, it gets better!!

Not content with the level of inebriation she was at, Urvashi had evidently intended to continue the party, because a search of her possessions revealed not one, but TWO bottles of country liquor that she presumably brought along to supplement my (now meagre!) quantity of hooch!

The little to-do involved her screeching, building people assembling, many tries to bring her to her senses (including water being flung at her through the balcony grill - we were on the ground floor), and finally ended in our broker taking away her keys, getting the woman into an auto and in both of us receiving calls from him, informing us of the exciting activities of the evening!! Since our building society mainly comprises of senior citizens, we were a little apprehensive and wondering when the eviction notice would come! But methinks, that this being SUCH an unusual situation, they figured it was really not something we could have predicted.

So now, we're looking for house help again... and this time the main question in the

interview is "Have you or any member of your family been prone to bingeing on alcohol?

If yes, then how many drinks can you take before getting completely wasted?"

Its SNOW, no?

Serenity and Calamity are back from their very eventful tour of Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Dehradun, Mussoorie and a bunch of other places in Uttarakhand (formerly Uttaranchal, even more formerly a part of Uttar Pradesh!) What Uttar Confusion, I say!

Monumental occasions on the journey:

• Calamity saw snow for the first time in her life!! (Only saw - on distant mountain peaks. Snow angels will have to happen another time!)
• Serenity spent 5 days with a taxi driver who spoke purest of pure Hindi. (He nodded and agreed to things he didn't completely understand!)
• Calamity forgot Serenity's birthday (third year in a row - explanations to follow!)
• Serenity saw the Taj Mahal (FINALLY! after being asked by many different nationalities in many different countries, and having to regretfully say he hadn't seen it himself!)
• Calamity saw Fatehpur Sikri (FINALLY! after making numerous trips to Delhi, but never being able to do so!)
• Serenity and Calamity got a man arrested for vandalising the Agra Fort (more to follow, but Calamity is very pleased with herself!)
• We had a cup of tea at the Last Indian Tea Shop before the Tibet border!
• I saw SNOW!!!! (yes, its a little hard to get over that!)
• We discovered the most MAJESTIC landscape and discovered that neither of us is fit enough for high altitude treks!
• Calamity rode in a ropeway (cable car?) and was severely disappointed it was not more of a roller coaster ride!
• Neither of us got motion sickness or high altitude sickness (and yeah, we're damn smug about it!!)
• Serenity met a lot of Calamity's friends... and finally met one who had championed his cause all along during the Great Arranged Marriage Saga!

There are lots of funny incidents that happened along the way. All in all, it was a GREAT ten days away. The funny bits will come soon... Watch this space!

Squill Babies!

For the longest time, I've wanted a pet. Not with any misplaced maternal instincts, but just because I've never had one. Oh there have been numerous adopted cats along the way, Possi-billi, Poosa (because he was a pussa cat, not a pussy cat!) and a litter called Billi Idol, Billi Holiday and Billi Jalani. 

My mum's been anti-pet (I dont blame her, a third floor apartment isnt really the best place to accommodate animals!) and so I spent my childhood feeding stray cats. One notable mention:

When I was in kindergarten (and just after a serious academic accomplishment), someone gave me a couple of Quality Street chocolates. Now these are those famous "Gulf" chocolates with different coloured cellophane wrappers for the different flavours. As a child, it was fascinating to hold these up to the light and see the world turn a different hue. (I think thats where I got my rose tinted vision from!!) So anyway, I was fooling around with these, and I thawt I thaw a puthy kat... HE was just sitting there and chilling. Was I to know that this was a particularly mean tempered tomcat? No way. I was just keen to have my animal friend experience the wonder of coloured vision. So I placed the cellophane over its eyes. Suffice to say, the cat didnt take too kindly to having the light taken out of his bright sunshiny world. (are cats colourblind?) And all I had to show for my troubles were a set of bleeding tracks which the cat (ungrateful b@#$&!d!) gave me for my pains. My mother was confronted by a howling child with bleeding furrows in her forearm. She didnt know whether to laugh or be concerned about the reason for my battle scars!! ....sighhhh.... 

Anyway, apart from the background information, I have Squill babies!! (thats squirrel, you unimaginative goof!) I dont know how many there are yet. Serenity has forbidden me from poking the nest though I'm DYING of curiosity. I've always wanted a squirrel for a pet (meaning for as long as they'll stay. I like them better jumping on the trees - yeah, I LOVE squirrels.) This liking came about since Squishy. (Cue for another tangential deviation down memory lane)......

One (daft) woman in hostel (many moons ago) found a baby squirrel that had dropped out of his nest. Obviously the little critter was oohed and aahed over by the inmates of the hostel. (Women, remember? love little furry cuddly things)...so anyway, this guy was soooo little that you held him in a fist with his head poking out of the top... and as he was passed around among coos, one (slightly deranged but good intentioned) woman said "oooh I could just SQUISH him!!"..... and the name stuck. Unfortunate nomenclature - as you will soon see.

The original owner and her roommate grew really attached to the little guy and he had his own lil shoebox residence that they toted with them to the studios, mess and canteen... (they have to be fed really often through the day).... they also slept with the shoebox between them on the double bed and the (hitherto) unathletic little guy one night got out of the box between two slumbering humans. 

The End. Fin. Finis. Khatam. Squishy got squished.