Howling

Um no, this is not about vampires. This is about a dog who thinks... um no, she doesn't think she's a vampire either. This is about a dog who thinks... ready for this? Thinks she is pregnant. Yikes!

Ok, not the first occurrence for me, Sweetie used to think that too from time to time. But maybe a first occurrence for Cher. If all the whining, scraping and howling is any indication. The howling especially is a bitty funny, cause she howls when:

• The Phone rings
• Any song with whoo-whoos in it
• Snow yowls
• I yawn loudly

I always burst out laughing when she looks up all surprised at the noise and starts howling with gusto. I have to then quickly answer the phone, switch songs, shut Snow up and cut myself in mid-yawn. The better aspects are, a lotta snuggling and a lotta smoochies.

When she gets rather antsy, I always try to soothe her with belly-rubs and I love the way she presses herself close, lays her head down and sighs. At peace.

Since we are on the screaming

Ok, you know how when you are listening to John Mayer sing his speshul songs, where he has this incredible guitar playing, no I don't know the technical terms, in the middle of it and you are just being carried away in a half swoon and half wonder at how beautiful it all sounds and how much you wish to just, to please oh please just LISTEN to it withOUT the mindless, fanatical, hysterical SCREAMING of all the teenage girls in the background? Yeah. Can't stand that one bitty. Why? Why? WHY the screaming? I get it, you are wrought with emotion and perchance arousal as well and by screaming like mindless fucks you think Mayer will spot you orgasming shamelessly in the midst of 1000 other orgasming mindless fucks. Really. Right. The rest of us mindful fucks really just wish to listen minus the screaming, just wish to enjoy if we can the speshulness of his voice, his words, the guitar oh dear sweet lord the strumming fingers and thats it. Thank you very much. Goodnight and Godbless America.

Uff!

If I'd known that GAIL was infested with ill-mannered, ill-tempered, ill-bred kids, I'd have rented a room under the train tracks and bathed every morning with the hobos... or not (since I'm assuming hobos don't have access to water to drink much less bathe!). Well, anyhoo, the blimey kids are pawns of the devil, I kid you not, meant solely to make any moment I wish to spend at home in peace... well not peaceful. They howl, screech, shout, scream, wail, cry, yell at the top of their cursed lungs, making me wish I was deaf. I swear. There is this one particular brat, who relishes his playtime by ONLY calling out the name of another boy, Ishu, in varied tones ranging from hoarse screeches to high-pitched wailing. Then there are the assorted shrieks of all the girls aged under 5, which could mean anything from spotting a bug on a leaf to a random boy who strolled into their midst. I especially cringe when I have to take Cher for a walk, the stinking runts spot her from way off and come running in hoards screaming, CUTE WALA DOGGIE AAGAYA! Why? Why? WHY scream? I get it you are all excited and I understand as kids your brains are not yet developed enough to know that hearing is not subjective to higher decibles and a LOT of adults can hear a normal tone just plain dandy-fine, and the sight of a cute pup, and MY GAWD is Cher a cute-break-your-heart-pup, will send you into a mindless frenzy, but really the screaming, it's unnatural I think and it really should be illegal!! Did I mention all the pubescent boys playing basketball pretending to be THE dudes... ah... sorry kiddos, you plain suck, at basketball and at attaining puberty. And, oh! the language! It's DESPICABLE. They talk worse than adults, their dialogs peppered with abbe, oye, saale, chal na, ja na, maar doonga, chup be... it's shocking! Where in the heck are their parents? Do they even know what pests their kids are? Do they care? Of course not, cause if they did I would not be writing this damned post to begin with.

Doofus

The fridge is on the blink for 2 weeks now. The freezer works fine, or TOO fine as the case is, but the lower segment does not cool. The repair guys came and dismantled the lot of it 2 days back and well now it does nothing except look all exposed and sad.

So.... I bought Ice Cream tonight, my first for Summer and I was all excited that I'll have a leisure slurp session after dinner while watching Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Hmmm.

No sir. I had to eat ALL FUCKING FOUR of them as soon as I got home cause I realized the damn fridge DOES NOT FUCKING WORK.

Grrrr.

It was NOT fun, cause now I'm OLD and I cannot hog down 4 cones at one go. So fucking mad.

Angel

Why do I run after you like I do I love you
Whatever you are I swear
You'll be my angel
You

When you're gone...

The "when you are gone..." undoes me completely.

John Mayer has the most sexiest voice when he gets all low and heavy...
a tad off-key but just oh! so brutally pretty.

Saturday

Woke up this morning to find Cher snuggled on top of my tummy, over the blankie, snoring. It was just such a silly noise, as if she had laboured the previous day stacking bricks on a wall under the hot sun, instead of sleeping and sleeping and sleeping some more and oh yeah some more sleeping.

Snow doesn't snore as much as he grunts and groans, at times making the most hideous racket in the night forcing me to get up and shush him! The worst is when he needs to go potty at night, he'll completely FLIP, and I do mean F.L.I.P, out. Bouncing and jumping at anything and everything, yowling and howling like a freakzoid, at times scaring the crap outta me. He'll go potty then, stinking up the whole country, and like a deflated balloon afterwards will collapse at the nearest cozy spot and fall asleep.

This morning he discovered the strangest thing he never had encountered before. ANOTHER CAT!!! His eyes practically popped outta his lil skull in amazement when he spotted this gray stray jumping window sills outside our balcony. His expression was "WHA? WHAT? What IS that? Looks a lot like me!" His lil head cocked to an angle, his eyes WIDE open he stared at the cat in pure and utter fascination as if to say, Woo, I never knew there were more of me out there! I was practically rolling on the ground laughing my ass off at his expression. The stray jumped off the ledge and disappeared from our view and Snow flipped completely out, he scrambled off his perch on the chair and went racing this way and that, not really knowing which way to go, making lil mewling guttural sounds, frustrated beyond belief.

Sad and dejected he finally moaned about a bit and settled back on his perch looking out at the spot where the stray had sat, hoping he/she will come back I presume. He looked ever so cute, with his lonely depressed face, blinking slowly at the world outside.

Cher and I went back to bed, me back to my crochet and she back to snoring.

Boom Box!

Listening to my iPod on my NEW Boom Box! YaY!

Been wanting to try it ever since I got it on my last visit to US but I didn't want to fry the thingy by plugging it in without finding out if it will work on our voltage. I finally got the lil puppy out this morning and asked Roomie if I needed to get a converter for it. No siree, all I had to do was plug it in with a flat to round pin plug connector and TA-DA! Muuuuuuzac!

La-dee-da-da-da... So happy!

P.S. It has this tiny sweet lil remote. Which I'm pretty sure I'll lose before the week is out! :P

Vacation

Couldn't sleep on the train to Dharwad. Why? Roaches. Crawling ALL fucking over. I tried to stuff the gaps on the sides of my berth with the bedsheet, still the cretins gaily scampered about, on the curtains, over my eyelids, behind my head, over my toes... Fuckity FUCK hated it!

Actually ate 3 full meals for 2 weeks. So happy. Ate idlis, biryani, interesting variations of paneer, fried rava fish, homemade chicken tikka (yes... me... non-veg... just one piece... couldn't resist!), fresh fruits, chirtsmas goodies, khara puri, poli, mysore vada. So happy. No, didn't gain much weight though.

Trippy to Dandeli was fanfuckingtastic. Moi got in the natural jacuzzi, way up to my knees! My lovely knees loved it. Hot searing sun, icy cold water. An awesome way to feel alive, get all your senses perked up and happy. River Kali interestingly tasted really sweet. Wasn't too smart though, drinking untreated water from a raw source, but it tasted soooo sweet. Food at the resort was delish. Not kidding. It was DELISH!

Chaddi paddi phaddi! TeeHee. I don't know why but I love saying that. Thank you Krys! She has dramatically changed since the last time I visited Dharwad. Happier, better behaved, smiled often, talkitive as heck, inquisitive and curious about every damn thing, wanting to always PLAY. Loved her lil games; Shopkeeper, Office-Office, School, shapes she could make out of her kerchief, objects she imagined the stones to be. And, yes, the khadoos in me did get tired of playing soon enough, so no drastic change there.

Chikoo that tasted sweet as sin, more especially so cause we plucked it straight off the tree in the backyard. Was fun trying to figure out how to pluck the fat buggers high up with just a pole and crude versions of bags and baskets hooked to its end.

GRILLS! The houses there have the most facinating grill work I have ever seen. Except maybe what I saw in Pondicherry. Deers, musical instruments, dancing figurines, hearts, apples, flowers, swans. Art. Lovely.

Bought a sexy red sari with black embriodery. And I mean S.E.X.Y. Cannot wait to wear it.

Late night confessions, dreams and hopes, back-bitting and venting, laughing and whispering. Watching silly movies with headphones on. Scouting for grills on Scooty. Getting dressed up for Christmas. Ragging bro. Thankful that I rediscovered Shar.

Sitting in the courtyard, back towards the sun, wrapped in my fav shawlie, John Mayers in my ear, crocheting. Pure and unadulerated bliss.

Ended all too soon.

Slippery When Wet

Trip to Chicago was... trippy. Hee.

Saw snow, my first ever. Was awesome, magical, a lil icky cause snow melts and well... it turns every goddamn thing damp. Hair, shoes, coat. I hate damp. But when it's floating down from heavens above, it's truly magical. Loved it. Loved the cold, how it would grip your knees and render them completely numb, so that as you exit the car and walk towards the building door, the 5 minutes it takes you to make that walk, you are not too sure if you really are walking cause you cannot feel your knees, your feet. They are these stumps, in lovely tan boots, somehow clacking on the concrete, a lil ungainly, yet still somehow walking. Hee.

The ungaingly act didn't last too long though. I prestiged into a fine display of surprise tap dancing on ice, a lil bitty of skidding, a tad bitty of flailing arms, a WHOA! of alarm... crash... on numb knees. Hmmm. Numb has a quality of still registering incredibly acute pain. Not fun. No sir.

Well, anyways, the paramedics arrived like in 15 seconds flat, cut open my stockings and exposed my skinny UNSHAVED leg to all and sundry. GAH! To top it off, the Dood was hunky and rather good-looking. *sigh* Even with tears rolling down my embaraased cheeks, trying to answer his calculated questions on how I would rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst I ever expreienced, all I could think of was... my leg is covered in a week old fuzz... waaaaaah!! And I wish I had worn the new socks and not this 106 year old rag handed down from the elves of Darnation!!!

Lovely NEW boots, ruined. Lovely striped black suit, ruined. My makeup was intact, thank god for smudgeproof eyeliner (cruelty and paraben-free, of course!).

Trip back home to India, through various security points in the airport, all the WALKING, sitting, loo visits were an interesting lesson in appreciating on how much you actually should look after and thank these 2 knees you have. Love you knees!!

Winter Loot!

TA-DA! I'm finally done with the sweaters! I'm so excited, cannot wait to wear them this winter.

Cotton Candy Waves

I made this last winters. Well the body and sleeves, but wasn't able to sew the seams cause every time I tried the sweater looked really misshapen and boxy. I was quite disappointed, cause I loved the pattern and it wasn't that hard to follow the instructions and make alterations. The original pattern was a cardigan, but I wanted a sweater so I modified. It wasn't rocket science tho, for which I'm thankful. And I really wanted to wear it with this lovely cola colored skirt and black boots. So this time I tried a different technique to sew the sems up and well... it still looks boxy but what the hey, I'm gonna wear it anyways. I made it and I love it.

The aggravating thing about crocheting sweaters is that you have to crochet everything in twos. It drives me nuts cause by the time I'm done doing the front body or one sleeve, I DO NOT want to do it all over again for the back or the other sleeve. I tend to lose all patience and just want the thing to be DONE so I can wear it. I have quite a few front bodies of sweaters all waiting for their backs or sleeves. :P

Sooooooooo... to that effect I hunted and hunted and reasearched like mad to find out a way or pattern that will cut down on the crochet time, I do not have to deal with front/back, fixing sleeves (which is a killer) and the entire thing should FIT. And guess what? Weeeeeeeeeee! I found this brilliant method that allows you to check the fitting AS you crochet.

The Top-Down Raglan style sweater is easy as peasy, you start with the neck and crochet the yoke in either a square or in rounds. The body and sleeves follow the same system and man was it fun. I made the next puppy in 4.5 days flat!! And I checked the fitting as I went. Which doesn't mean that I didn't screw up here and there, one sleeve is tighter than the other, there are a few missed stiches, the body is a tad bitty more tighter than I wanted it be and I fudged the yoke a bit so the top part sits a bitty skewed when I wear it.

But, all in all I'm verra pleased! This was a good exercise and I plan to make and experiment more!