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No, not the load of crap that was recently passed out as a film by Bollywood yet again.
(Yikes!! That didn’t sound good at all, did it? haha)
Blue is the color that ‘I’ chose to paint ‘our’ bedroom in ‘our’ new house.
(Please note the stress on the pronouns.)
Blue was an easy decision.
Thanks to HGTV (which has been excessively watched at the R&P household lately). :D All designers on TV say that it is the best color for a bedroom since it is a cool and a refreshing color which is supposed to have a relaxing effect on dwellers who paint their bedroom blue. Since TV people say it, it must be true. ;D
So, blue it was. :)
Just like that.
Who knew doing up a house would be so easy?
(Oh no no, not so fast, Miss Roopie. Trouble is yet to begin.)
And it did …
… when I (with P in tow) confidently walked into a paint store to pick up two gallons of blue for my future bedroom. I didn’t think that there would be many choices at all. I mean, how many blues could possibly be there? Sky blue, turquoise blue, teal blue, blue blue, dark blue, navy blue, … a couple more … that’s about it rite? Nuh-uh-uh-uh roopie, how could you be so daft?
There were far more blue there than I could care to count! Some with a tinge of gray, some with hues of green, some bordering violet, some lighter, some darker … a whole array of them that had me muddled within seconds! All me poor confidence drained down to me weakened ankles. I was deep in blues before I knew it (pliss pardon cliche). :D What next, you ask? Well, as always in times of need, one should not shy away from asking help.
I did not shy either. I asked for help.
Are you thinking that I approached a consultant in the paint store for assistance? Ho Ho Ho! How off can you be!?! Who needed their expertise when I got my darling husband rite by my side? Sure he was engrossed with net surfing on his phone but who better to ask than the man who promised to be by my side in my rough times in not just this birth but next seven too!?
Me: Pati (in a low voice that you’d normally use in a public place)
P: (doesn’t hear me)
Me: Pati! (voice still at the same volume as before but with some urgency in it)
P: (unfazed)
Me: (a tad louder this time accompanied with a stern stare in my eyes) P_____(his name)!!!
P: (looks up from his phone like he was shocked out of a deep slumber) Wha.. what, pari?
Me: Help me pick a blue please.
P: Sure. (puts his arm around me to show that he cared about the decisions that ‘we’ make for ‘our’ house uh huh)
Me: How is this blue? (pointing at a blue swatch)
P: I like it.
Me: hmmm How is this? (pointing at another one)
P: I like it.
Me: (still looking at the same swatch but with raised eyebrows) Do you?
P: No, I don’t.
Me: (looking up at P’s face now) But you said that you like it?
P: Umm all blues are blue for me though. I like it if you like it and I don’t if you don’t. (he smiled generously with his eyes twinkling with love as he tightened his grip around my shoulders to show me that he was there for me – do you see me rolling my eyes yet????) :||||
Me: Gawd, P, I want to know YOUR opinion if you want to help me.
P: But that is my opinion.
Me: What opinion and on which one?
P: The one you that you have in your hand (referring to the blue I had raised my eyebrows at); I don’t like it.
Me: hmm but it might go well with the mahogany blinds that we have ordered for the window.
P: Yes, it might.
Me: It’s not bad actually. It’s quite good in fact if you see it in a different light. We should get a sample and see how it would look on the wall. Are you sure that you don’t like it cuz if you don’t, then there is no use wasting time even looking at a sample?
P: Oh no no, I like it.
Me: (I could no longer suppress squeals of laughter that only emanate after you’ve given up on a situation and you laugh at yourself to bust stress cuz if you didn’t, you’d hit your head on a wall so hard that you’d break the wall. I swear I did try to keep my laughter sealed up and give him a nice screaming instead. Too bad the man is cute. ;p)
So yeah, we I decided on the same blue now. Sample was purchased. It was painted in the bedroom on the wall behind the door where it wouldn’t be seen. It was seen in different lights during the day and was settled on. I don’t know about it being ‘cool’ or ‘refreshing’ but it surely isn’t irritating and I am quite content with that. :D
Blue is blue after all.
Isn’t it?
;)
frig and more!!!!
I just wrote a longgg post explaining my absence and wordpress froze on me!! Is there no justice in this world? This is not fair! I vehemently protest!!! Isn’t wordpress automatically saving drafts anymore? Because I don’t find it in my drafts either! Disgusting. :( I am so upset. I come back after so long and this happens. I guess wordpress is upset with me. :D As must be you. I have no energy in me to rewrite that post but I can summarize it to you in three words: I am SoRrY! I am. But I had to leave. Blogging was getting a bit too overwhelming for me. I needed a break. And one day, I … quit. I walked away. Simply and quietly. And didn’t log back into this blog until today. It has been much over a month now. I owe you a longer explanation, I know, and I did write it out too but, as luck would have it, it’s somewhere lost in the tunnels of cyberworld. :+
Thank you so much for your concern to all of those who asked for me. :) I am much better now than I was two months ago. A few circumstances were such that needed me to be away from here. My sanity was much under question. By me of course. :D I needed to get the screws and bolts of my head back together before coming back on here and unscrewing yours. Talking of screws and bolts, our house is ready to be moved into!!! Yes yes, that quick. It started on August 14th and we signed possession on November 12th! How fabulous is that!?? We are moving in gradually. We are there every evening in any case. Can’t stay away! :) Can’t wait until when I’d be spending day in and day out there. This weekend, party’s on me at the new place. Would you like to sneak a peek???
Here we go :) … I left you with this in September:
And now:
:) Yep, that’s Pati in the last photo. Haha. Looks enthralled, does he not?
For the amusement of those who missed Pati stories, the man’s head must be an amalgamated mass of copper wires, circuit breakers, modems, routers … whatever electrical/techy sounding name you can think of. We are quite sure that is the case although we are not quite sure about what component is in exactly what proportion though. We can’t even risk getting his head MRI-ed fearing that our health insurance may not cover breakage costs of the machine after it senses all the aforementioned clutter where it is accustomed to seeing a chhota sa nanha sa human brain in normal majority of people.
So today’s story goes as such … We got Vonage today. Yes, the phone line through internet. Yes, the same one with unlimited calls to US, Canada and India. Yes Yes, that. Surprizingly, voice quality is excellent. We are quite pleased at 25 dollars a month. I thought he’d be satisfied with the deal as well. But no. Right now, he’s running tests to dial through his Iphone and making calls to my cell phone using Vonage as a carrier somehow. Umm you would think that picking up the regular phone and dialing would take just as much effort as picking up his Iphone and dialing, isn’t it? That’s what my chhota sa nanha sa human brain says. But no, the machine feels differently. I told you I married a machine. :+ No further comments.
And jes, please don’t forget to welcome the ‘me/us’ back!!!! :D Love you too.
I have to have to … rather MUST … post this rightaway.
I am in my bed at the mo. Just woke up. Saturday morning. And Pati came into the room with Parul’s Bringing up Vasu: That first year.
Omg, yes.
Why am I hyperventilating??? Well, because I had mentioned the book to him in passing a while back. I had told him that I love Parul’s blog and that I’d like to read her book but never got around to buying it because of various stuff going on at the mo; his family being here et al.
And he remembered that …
And he surprized me with it …
Omgomgomg, how lovely!!!!! :))))
Thanks Parul!! :D In some indirect way. I owe you a review. :)
Blogging from San Antonio. Actually on the way back from SA to Houston. P’s on the wheel; so Roopie can blog :D.
We spent the entire weekend in San Antonio at the Sea World. Man, never have we had such a bittersweet experience. First day, both our cameras – point’n’shoot and SLR – got splashed with water and are not working. Yes yes – cue for a sad face – :( :( … We’d try to get it repaired but it’s going to cost a good chunk :( :( … That aside, you do know how much I love my lil cambabies :( :( … Can’t see them not working … That and we had no camera to take pics of our mini-adventures. :( :(
And, second day, today, we went swimming in the wave pool which btw has to be the highlight if the trip. To go to the pool, I had to change into my swimwear which I did and put my day clothes in a bag which I handed to my mother in law. She, being as lovely as she is, took great care of my clothes and P’s clothes.
When we came out of the pool, we took our clothes bags from her and instead of changing onto them immediately, we chose to dry off a bit. I bought a sundress to wear over my swimwear from a shop close by. So we walked ourselves dry and went to a restaurant to feed sis-in-law’s son. While sil, mil and our nephew waited, me and P went to order food. It was at that time when P put his shirt back on and I handed him my bag of clothes. “Give me your sunglasses et al too”, he said, “why are you carrying any weight at all?” I thought a second and said, “nope, I don’t trust you.”
We returned to the table with food, had lunch and were about to leave when I asked him for my clothes. Of course, you knew this was coming … HE LOST MY CLOTHES! Ugh! What were the chances of us finding them in such a huge overcrowded park? You guessed rite: none! I’m thankful to my luckiest stars that I didn’t hand him my shades!! That would’ve been another few hundred dollars in water. May curse be upon him/her who stole my clothes but can you imagine the look on that person’s face when he/she opens the apparent bag of winnings! A year old shirt and a pair of capris! Psssh.
But, guysss, I lost my clothes! Imagine haha. The following pic, forgetfulness-ka-baap, Pati took with this phone rite when we were exiting the park. I am in the dress that I had luckily purchased. If there were no places in the park to buy clothes from, I would’ve had to parade my not so nice bod in lingerie slash swimwear. Gosh! Pliss pour in sympathies. :(
Other than these two incidents, we had a fab time. :) I wish I had pix to relive the tales of these two days. Alas!
Aite I’m sleepy now. Very sleepy. I shall sleep now. We’d let P drive in peace. Night night all. More when we reach Houston slash home.
(image deleted)
One of the biggest disadvantages of not getting to blog regularly is that I don’t get to record any moments that I might look back at in a few year’s time and giggle at. One such moment passed just recently … two weeks ago in fact. I had to write a Uni entrance exam (I have enrolled myself in a couple of classes, I told ya) that I wasn’t much worried about. P, however, urged me to take it seriously and write at least one practice test before sitting for the exam. Only if I ever listened. ;p
The night before the exam morning, P asked me, “Did you manage to do any practice tests?”
“Nope,” I replied quietly, looking at the floor to escape his eyes since I felt bad for not having listened to him.
“Good”, he smirked and continued, “achha hai kal subaah practice ho jaayegi“.
:p :p
hehe I still can’t stop giggling.
Thankfully, I did well in the ‘practice’ test next morning and got admitted into the courses I wanted or else I’d forever hold me guilty for not having listened to him. :D
Another disadvantage of not getting to blog regularly is that things change at such a fast pace and I don’t get to update my journal in a timely fashion. As you know, we are building a house. Last I mentioned the house was post the Independence day weekend. They had started laying the foundation for the house at that time. Now it has been two weeks since that day and LOTS has changed.
This is how the lot/house looked like on the weekend of Aug 15, 2009 – Aug 16, 2009 … never mind P, he is a clown and some more:
A week later, things changed:
Yeah, that’s me. :p Welcoming you into our future humble abode. Time flies eh??? Imagine what happened within another week … before you can imagine, I’d post some photos:
As you can imagine, I am pretty excited about how this is all turning out. Nothing like having a place you can call your own. It might not be the biggest building there is … but it is something that’s yours. I really can’t wait to see the final product, and at the rate they’re going at, I hope to see it close to my birthday. :) This is a very exciting time for both me and P and I constantly keep thinking of the best wishes that you guys sent our way when I told you that we might not get the lot to build the house. Thank you so very much for thinking of us and blessing us with the best. :) I have to share the developments of this beautiful dream with you because I do feel strongly that if it weren’t for your prayers, we might not even be building our home. Thanks once again!!! :)
At lunch today (less than 45 minutes ago), I rang P.
P: Hello?
Me: Hey P, am I supposed to be mad at you?
P: huh?
Me: Am I supposed to be mad at you right now?
P: What? Why?
Me: I don’t know. I have this mad feeling in my heart that I normally have when I am upset with you. Did we fight this morning?
P: Are you alright?
Me: Ummm I guess I am okay. I don’t remember us fighting. We didn’t fight, right?
P: No, we didn’t.
Me: Okie, in that case, what you having for lunch?
P: You are crazy.
Me: Nooo, seriously, I thought I was mad at you all morning but then I thought and thought and thought some more only to realize that I never fought with you … so I wasn’t sure why I was feeling angry with you; that’s why I called you to confirm. I guess I am supposed to be angry with someone else. I think XYZ (name withheld).
P: You are crazy.
Me: :( ! Hey, what’s wrong! Can’t a girl get angry for no reason at all once a while and misplace that anger too while she’s at it? Pshhh!! Don’t you dare say PMS! :D
Wouldn’t y’all agree? ;p
Talking of forgetfulness, I forgot to put Canada trip pics here, did I not? Well, there’s one featuring in the header of the blog at the mo. Here is another one of the same lake:
I’d repeat the word that I always use for Canadian photos: bliss.
A look up close (the header pic):
:)
And I’ve got busy again. I sorry. :(
A bit of comic relief though courtesy P again!
I was in kitchen … cooking dinner … whilst he relaxed in the living room in front of TV when this conversation happened:
P (shouting over the collective noise of TV and the kitchen vent fan): Wow, it really smells good, Pari!!
Me (shouting back): Can you please come here and help me for a second, P?
A few seconds pass.
No answer.
Then,
P: I can’t. I don’t think I’d be able to swim against the intrepid tide of aroma emanating from the kitchen to reach you.
:|
:|
:|
I HAVE married a crazy man.
.
.
.
And then when he did come to the kitchen, he was pretending to SWIM!!!!! ugh crazy indeed! but cute as heck cuz I sure was laughing mad by the time he did reach me … it was a tough swim, I could tell. :D hehe
(A very honest post follows … please be understanding. I am ripping my heart open cuz I need to do this for my own sake. This post is self-introspection again. Not a sermon to anyone. It’s my way of talking to myself because I do that through writing. I need to answer a few doubts I am facing lately. Might as well share those doubts with those who love me and care about me and have always been there for me when I needed them the most. Why this disclaimer? Because it is very much needed given the current environment of overheated tempers on the blogworld.)
I did not want to write about the drama (I need not post a link) unfolding in the blogworld on my blog but since I have made myself a part of it, I can’t escape it. I don’t know whether it was a good idea for me to follow my heart and express myself as I did or not. I just did it in the moment. I don’t regret it but I don’t look back at it with pride either. I’ll share reasons why in this post.
This morning, I woke up with Parul’s post and Goofy Mumma’s post. Both of them impacted me … in completely different ways. Parul’s post reminded me of the struggle that I’ve been going through for the past two years to achieve goals which I could see unfolding with the ‘discussion’ I got myself into. Goofy’s post, on the other hand, reminded me of the person that I used to be and how I am trying so hard to change that consciously. She wrote very objectively even when she could easily be scathing with her words because I know she can. She ‘chose’ to be objective and not indulge in aggressiveness: something I’ve been working sooo hard to achieve. It’s tough, mate. It’s tough to keep emotions in control and weigh words before they come out. It’s a child’s play to even eye for an eye. (I have been there as you will read on.) Maintain your composure when someone slings mud at you and you shall have my respect.
I showed the ‘discussions’ to my best friend who I’ve known since high school. He was surprized and asked me about what happened to my acid tongue. I used to be a total ‘insensitive bitch’. No one needs to call me that; I can do myself the honors. :D I never spared anyone who dared to ‘mess with me’ as I would’ve said back then. Taking someone on and reducing them to splinters within seconds was not an issue for me at all. I had the words to scathe, I had the callous attitude, and I didn’t give a f#$&. Now I can reason that behavior as of someone (a kid) who was stuck in an abusive environment and had to take frustrations out on people outside home. That didn’t mean I bitched everyone out but anyone who was not very nice to me got the worst of me. And I did get known for it too. Some people loved me for it. Some hated me. I didn’t care for what people thought of course. I did as I felt best. If someone wronged me, I wronged them back nicely and they never dared speak back up again.
But that changed. That changed post marriage. I had no reason to be aggressive anymore. Things at my new home were nice and dandy. Yes, demons of past still existed but I got help for them and began to work on myself. I started to keep my words in check. I started to strive to be more diplomatic and civil than I ever have been. I no longer wanted to wear my emotions on my sleeve and wanted my head to guide what I said. I chose to change myself. Goals were set two years ago but my struggle is still on. Nope, I haven’t reached my goals yet and maybe never will. But I am trying. I am trying very hard. I hit myself (metaphorically) in the stomach many times and stay quiet even when I want to ‘knock sense’ into the other person. Old habits die hard. Yes, I can even it out with anyone who is rude to me even now but I choose not to. And that choice is tough to follow. At least for me. I am not used to it. For example, there have been times when I had to go to the bathroom, close the door behind me, clench my fists and suppress a scream. But I do that … cuz I want to change.
Coming back to what happened recently, yes, I spoke up again. I felt strongly about some things and I expressed them in so many words. Should I have done it? Was it my place to? Some think that I did a fantastic job by speaking what they wanted to. Some don’t think the same. One thing that certainly hasn’t changed from the past to present is that I still don’t care about what people think. Both accolades and bricks ‘n bats are the same. I can’t afford to be insecure like that to get affected by someone else’s views. I decide what’s wrong and right for me based on how I feel about my actions. I will not deliver the first blow but I can’t sit and watch unfairness or injustice being done. Once upon a time, I would’ve blown my head and ‘put the receiving party in his place’ but now I try to watch what I have to say and AM politically correct so to speak. That’s what I tried to do this time as well. However, did I cross the virtual line of diplomacy? Parul’s post made me think that. In fact, it made me think further about whether do I even need to indulge in expressing my critical opinion? Isn’t it just better to be quiet if I am critical of something?
But then I think … if some of us are not critical … how would we progress as a society if we look at it from a generic point of view? In Saudi Arabia, criticism is banned and, if independent sources are to be believed, their society is a lot less progressive than other Islamic countries. If we don’t constructively discuss and debate opposing views, how do we expect to move forward? True that indulging in mud-slinging and character assassination does not solve anything, discussions do or so I think. A different view than that’s popular will always attract unwanted attention but leaders of society still do it and have done it in the past with their head held high. In my previous post, I mention one such case (Dixie Chicks).
I am not crowning myself a leader; no, I don’t think of myself of anything like that despite Pati’s constant insistence that I stand for local elections haha. Stupid poor jokes aside, the thoughts expressed in last paragraph often circle my head. Yeah, I think too much. ;) I want to keep evolving. I want to question everything around me. I want to know how life and world works. I want to know how and where I fit in before age catches up with me and I lose the enthusiasm to question and become a part of the system. I don’t want to be ever too sure of myself. I want to give myself a chance to change and better myself. I want to understand others, give them a chance to explain their point of view, explore the other point of view, absorb what I feel good for myself and respectfully return the rest. I want discussion, I want debate. I don’t want to be just another submissive element of the population until I have to be. As long as I can think and have the will to fight and struggle, I want to continue doing it.
Am I wrong and wasting my breath in doing so?
Perhaps I am.
But it makes me comfortable with being who I am. I don’t want my heart to rule me anymore and let mind lead me for a while until I have to retire it and let heart be in charge again.
Is that a bad decision?
Perhaps for someone else.
For me, it works.
I think.
hmm
Doubts resolved. ;p
Thanks for reading. :)
When Pati came home today, he asked, “Do you want to catch a movie tonight?”
I said that I wasn’t much too keen.
Half an hour later, when I called him into the kitchen for dinner, he asks again, “Want to go out for a movie now?”
“We are watching No Smoking at home tonight anyway, isn’t it”, I replied with a straight face.
That was my amateurish strategy of getting him to agree with me without him realizing it haha. He hadn’t been wanting to watch No Smoking that we got on Netflix for the longest time. He wants me to watch it without him but I don’t want to watch it by myself. So I figured I’d sneak it on him making him think that he had agreed to it hehe. Too bad the idea flopped miserably hehe.
He just laughed in my face. :(
I guess we are not watching No Smoking tonight. It sucks when your husband starts to know you so well that you can no longer manipulate him. Blah. Marriage does go downhill after the first few honeymooney months when the husband’s too dazed to realize what way he is being dragged onto. hehe Later on, husbands do smarten up. Bah. Bah indeed. Pshhhhh!!!
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