Take a bow!

A new discovery about myself was made over the weekend. I cannot hang out at home for long, have to go out and do something, anything. The past week was the launch of ‘Homemaker Kenny’ – I was back from vacation early, the maid & cook were unaware of this, and so all the work had to be done by me. I had a good system going, dug out the vacuum, changed the curtains, did several loads of laundry (washing machine, thankfully no washing by hand), threw away about 20 kgs of unidentifiable rubble from various parts of the house, cooked, did dishes, mopped, harpic-ed, the whole works. Made up a schedule where I still got to go to my office in the morning session with the child in tow, did some minimal set of meetings there, and returned to homemaking by lunch time. It was a good life.

Then it happened. Over the weekend, husband showed up and scolded me for overdoing such things. He also got furious at maid & cook (who were supposed to come on Saturday, in any case, but did not). It did not help that I had twisted my ankle on Friday in my exercise class. I had a doctor’s appointment at an odd time on Saturday. We decided to eat at KFC, as we were just next door buying gifts. Bad idea. Everything sucked there, there was a fly buzzing around, child refused to touch anything we got her, had to return home and mix up a bit curd rice, she was tired, cried, finally slept. Then I had to go to my appointment & there was traffic. I think with that Homemaker Kenny died a premature death.

And also the cook returned on Sunday morning, and I convinced another lady to do the maid’s work for fifty bucks. So I was left free to do what I normally do. Morning became evening, and after the hundredth pleeeease I took off to the park with the child. Husband made himself busy watching the making of Ocean’s Thirteen, his educational fix on the idiot box. We were in the park for five minutes, going high, high, higher on the swing when the winds started. It churned up the sand into our eyes, made the world dance. We did a quick, obsessive slide down the blue slide and ran into the lobby and sat down near the pillars to watch.

An amazing sight of course. It’s the beginning of the monsoons. I don’t hate it yet. It does not remind of wet smelly clothes or slush or worse traffic situations. We both sat there and watched in awe. The trees were dancing and swaying, looking remarkably green. There is that one tall palm tree near the new building that was going berserk. Birds were flying away fast and sheltering under awnings. We found a perfectly aligned set of leaves on a branch, it came flying over to us. The smell of fresh wet mud, the winds buffeting the rain from all directions, making an ‘X’ in front of us, and we both sitting there eating colourful goldfish crackers. It was, by Mumbai standards, not very heavy rain, and thankfully motherhood tensions and fun did not have to clash as the kid did not ask to go out and get wet in the rain, so we had fun, watching the show and breathing in fresh air.

Finally, we convinced husband to give up on George Clooney and took a drive out. Presumably to give the clothes to the laundry. We stuck that branch on the back windshield wiper of the car for effect. We had not been in the car five minutes when the kid found it.

Stretched out across the sky, this splendid display of colours. Raindrops, white sunlight, diffraction, words in my head. The two bows across the sky, one perfectly crisp, and the other a little diffuse, just spectacular. We chased it, talked about gold at the end of it, a shiny yellow metal, she said (this is from Winnie the Pooh, she does not yet connect it to jewelry). Went to the nearby stadium so we could get a clear uninterrupted view. Took a photo (bad camera on mobile though).

I enjoyed being at home, but now this Monday I am ready for the world, for work and for running around the place. Perhaps I will get to see more rainbows this way. Housework will always be there, I will get to it sometime, maybe next year.