Spring introspection and acchh...acchhhoooo!

When people told me, "Oh, I have Spring allergies", I used to think that they were oh-so-delicate dahlings that needed to develop a better immune system. That was until last week when I developed a bad case of Spring allergies. I sneezed uncontrollably and my eyes and nose itched. Serves me right for thinking those thoughts. So anyway, to cheer myself, I updated my food blog and gave it a new look! For those of you who didn't know that I had a food blog or err...that I cooked, consider clicking the little icon on the right of this blog right below the google custom search bar once in a while :p.

Other than that I am in a pretty vacuous state of mind (read d u m b). Today at work, one of my colleagues asked me a technical question that I should have been able to answer and I just looked blankly at him and said, "I don't know" - maybe I should stop reading those articles that celebrate these situations -

Yeah! Go ahead and say, "I don't know", people will praise you for your honesty and assume there are a lot of things you actually do know

or

Change your career, give up your job, take a sabbatical and get to know the real you, it's okay to retire early and goof off at home.

All my life, people have been telling me that I have a "confidence problem" which perhaps is true, partly at least. I have been in several situations at work where people with far less knowledge on a subject than me have shot off their mouths confidently and worked their ways out of it pretty decently. So, maybe I just need to trust my instincts and gray matter and speak up and appear more confident. Or maybe just be the way I am, perhaps my perception of me is not the same as what others perceive me? Gaaaah.

There was this lady on the Bob & Sheri radio show who claimed that women needed approval from people and that differentiated them from men. k, for instance would ask me, "How does it matter what a particular colleague thought of you? You deliver your work on time and do a good job and that's all there is to it..." You know, I think that lady had a point, women pay way too much importance to other people's opinions, think of the times you had a crush on someone that all the hep girls in school had a crush on? Or think of a more relevant analogy that would prove my point (Don't blame me, I have the sniffles).

So, all this thinking did not help with my allergies. So for now, am goin' to return to my vacuous state of well-being and nothingness. S'long!

Oh, almost forgot, here are some pics we took at Georgetown Kite Fest this year - Spring allergies, gloomy skies and pouring rain couldn't keep us away :)

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STOMP!

I am in a black and white flashback sort of mood, so much so that I took black and white snaps using my SLR although I loaded color film on it :p


Anyway, we went to see the STOMP yesterday at Danville. And they rocked! It's amazing how they beat out a tune using newspapers, plastic water cans, trash can lids and mops! Gosh! Almost made me want to lead a different life where I could stomp out a tune with my feet, just like they did. I really like attending artsy shows in Danville. I have seen a couple of plays at Pioneer playhouse and now the Stomp at the Norton center for arts. Of course, the Shakespeare plays at Lexington were a lot of fun too, too bad we won't have them any longer. The nice thing about the Shakespeare plays was that it was outdoors, spread out a blanket on the grass, grab some funnel cakes, relax and watch the play! I always bought one of their tshirts although I never wore them more than once :) To me it was the equivalent of an American thiruvizha or maybe one of those travelling stage drama troupes back in India...never did watch one in India, but, you get the picture?

Which brings me to this Saturday, Georgetown Kite Festival! I really hope it doesn't rain this Saturday! I guess I'll switch my SLR back to color mode, way too much color at the park to be clicking black and white photos, no matter how whimsically old-times-romantic I feel!

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The importance of being awkward.

You know how it is when people invite you to parties? Not the people you normally hang out with, the other people. Like office colleagues for instance or the kind of people who are nice to you and whom you are nice to but have not entertained in a contained space, your home or theirs. The kind of parties that make you feel a bit awkward. Like "Hmm, I might have fun at the party or may find that I have nothing to say, I guess I should go..." - those sorta' feelings.

Anyway, last week, we went to one of those parties after fighting some initial reluctance. There were a mix of people of all age groups, some we know well, some not so much.

And we had a blast!

The newness of the interactions there had something to do with it, I think. Since these were people we would not meet so often in a social setting, we ventured to topics we normally did not discuss at get-togethers. Also, coming from different age groups, they all had something new and interesting to contribute to the conversation - recipes for sweet potato soup, early morning risers and how they manage to wake up just before the alarm, arangetrams and dances, karate and small Indian men as easy opponents, skiing and doctors, medical school costs and bad direction sense and of course food - it was a potluck after all!

So anyway, it was a lot of fun and I would have missed it all for fear of being awkward! No wonder all these bond-together articles in magazines have a bulleted point, "Explore new activities with partner to enrich blah...blah".

And to that I would add, "...even if it makes you feel awkward initially. Don't underestimate the importance of being awkward."

Of course, it doesn't always apply to all new experiences, the other day, I went to a yoga class where I was kind of a mis-fit, there were all these older, well-built (big?) women and a few of them gave me distinctly unpleasant stares, not the "How could you walk in 6.8 minutes late, little girl?" kind of look but the "There is something I really don't like about you, so I am going to stare and make it awkward for you" kind of glare. As the instructor went, "relaaaaaaaax", I tried to ignore unpleasant-stare-glare without much success and ended up not experiencing perfect yoga-calm for the first fifteen minutes of class. Plus I had to use the rest room and I was scared the woman would tsk-tsk if I cut through the class to the rest room!

Those kind of awkward situations are just that...awkward. Not sure if I picked up anything important from all that awkwardness :p

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Spring's in the air!

Spring is finally here and lex is a beautiful princess in white again! For once, we (k, ~p and I) captured the white flowers on lens, while they bloomed for less than a week before turning a bright green! But fabulous weather has had a strange effect on dear husband. Normally, he is a bit weird. The good weather added a good dose to that normal bit. He manifested that in many ways.

Yesterday, we drove to work; it seemed like a normal day which means we were in the middle of waking up from zombie state as we parked at our office parking lot. That's when k realized that he had forgotten his shoes again (he did that, if am not mistaken, spring last year too). Sounds bizarre but it won't sound quite so bizarre if you a part of our chaotic morning routine.


I swear I will never be one of those people who wake up with a spring in their step, brush their teeth with a manic enthusiasm and sit down to a leisurely coffee and breakfast at 6.30 in the morning and then still in the same zen-like state proceed to drive to work while listening to calming melodies on FM. Anyway, to save those precious few seconds in the morning, k drives bare-feet (or on better days, sock-feet) to work and then wears his shoes at our office parking lot after finishing his coffee (i,e whatever remains of it, the rest would have poured all around our nice coffee holder in the car, but no problem they dry and form a neat bed for the next day's caffeine fix!).

Anyway, yesterday he had forgotten his good socks and his shoes. So at the parking lot, he looks at his bare feet with a confused look and asks me where his shoes are. I did what every responsible wife does in these situations. I laughed and waved a cheerful goodbye to him. So anyway, that's how he spent an otherwise uneventful day at work without his shoes and socks.

Today was another story. The weather was nice and balmy today and k decided to be really brave. He had a dentist appointment today morning at 9. "Just drop me there and I can walk back home!" So, I dropped him at the dental clinic and drove to work and around an hour later, I get a call from a number I don't recognize.

"Hi, it's me. I am locked out of the house and I don't have my cell phone. So, thought I'd...call you."

So, I did the responsible wife thing again. I laughed.

Anyway, eventually I did drive back home, gave my husband his morning cup of coffee, which he had forgotten inside the house before we left to the dentist.


I suspect good weather tomorrow too. It's going to be one entertaining spring season.

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A good fight.

Growing up means also having to realize that good fights like good laughs are rare. I tried to think of the last time I had an honest, involved fight and gave up after counting back five years. I have had fights, actually let me take the blame here, I have fought often in the past five years but they were not what I would call good fights.

They were either the lame, watery, excuse-for-a-fight-variety where I vaguely expressed displeasure and did not wait to ascertain if my displeasure was registered, you know, the kind where halfway through the fight, I backtracked and just gave up because I thought it wasn't really worth it in the big scheme of things! These fights kinda suck. The issue is not resolved, you don't have the satisfaction of having fought a good fight and there is no closure!

The other variety is the no-holds-barred loud and ugly fights, which is fine as long as I can resolve them at some point. The problem with these fights is that while you have the satisfaction of raising your voice, expressing your opinion forcefully and disagreeing disagreeably about something, the most important part of the fight is not handled correctly - the end! If you mess up the end, you have another bad fight on your hands, the kind that can end friendships or leave it in a lukewarm, comatose almost pitiful state which makes you think of the good times you had knowing you can't have it again. Just as bad as the first variety.

Which brings us to the really good fights. The ones filled with strong emotions and powerful words, tears and scorn, the kind that scares you but then eventually dies down to a resolution - ties broken for good reason or made stronger for better. These are the fights that are fought for the right reasons, they still may involve jealousy, possessiveness and traits not really treasured but they are inspired by closeness and fear of losing the relationship. Like really good movies, such fights are hard to come by. Until then, I'll be twiddling my thumbs with empty fights or none at all.

So...wanna fight?! :)

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