Ha! So There...

So I was chilling with one of those most-ill-advised whiskeys one night at a strange party I found myself in. This guy showed up. A bit thankful and all cause I was almost falling asleep because there was one person in the entire gathering that I knew, and this person (i.e. my husband) was talking to someone who was staring at the ceiling the whole time. Anyway I started asking how his running was going, you know, cause the marathon is on the 20th and all. He told me in detail about his training, which seemed to be going real well, and miles better than mine, so sort of spontaneously I told him, dude you should run the full marathon next year, you seem to be doing so well. Now this person is SO super competitive that I routinely hide all my good and bad timings from him. But I was in a good mood, really, I meant what I said. Its a great thing to do, run the full marathon. The ultimate test of your everything in some sense (at least for guys, you know, because they obviously lack the anatomy required for carrying and delivering a child and stuff. HMPH).

So guess what he says. He says, oh with my job its too difficult to train for a full marathon. Ok I said, seemed fair. But you should go for it, he tells me. Now I really do think I am going to 'go for it' next year, despite the fact that my toe is supremely swollen a week before the half marathon this year, and my bones creak. And to be honest, I started the whole thing by blabbering with my big mouth and giving him unwanted advice. But nevertheless, I got SUPER angry. Maybe it was that sort of condescending-ish tone I detected in him. Maybe it was because I think (heart of hearts) that his job sucks big time and mine rocks hugely (OK I know that that is sort of not nice of me to feel like that, blame it on the anger..). I don't know, whatever, I was (still AM) mad.

So heres the deal right. I am by no means lazy. I love running as much as the next person. My job is cool (and it rocks, HA) and all but it comes with certain amount of responsibility. The work hours are somewhat flexible and if you are my friend you will know that I can make time for you 95% of the time. Like if you show up suddenly and want to eat lunch, most likely I will be game. I will not come up with weird excuses. I can usually move my commitments around, at worst pushing them over to a Saturday. I am in a lot of meetings through the day but usually pick up the phone anyway. The others are cool about it as long as I make an effort to convey that I am doing something and need to hang up for now. I am a bit scatter brained about calling back, but that is something I am trying to attend to, a character flaw you may call it. I spend a lot of time with that monster of my child. Used to do a lot more for her earlier but now that we are more friends than mother and daughter (well, sometimes at least), I concentrate a bit more on my work. I take weekends off, usually, though the past month and half I have been slogging through some saturdays and sundays as well. I work intensely hard through the day anyway with my exercise and motherly stuff and vegetable shopping and a hundred other things. Some of them are out of my personal interest, some are due to my job, and some are due to the fact that I am a committed parent (usually).

And then here is a guy, who runs, and does his super-important-job, is home for dinner every night, takes most weekends off, has a wife who is so super efficient that she plans their vacations and takes full care of the kids and the house and everything, who tells me my job is somehow less important and less time-consuming than his. Argh and a half.

Of course I did not react at him (rarely do that these days, after years of admonitions from my dad, I seem to be able to rein it in, till I get home and face my mom or husband, who get the brunt of my short temper). On our way back home, I say

"Hey this guy really pissed me off. You know he said ....."

"Whats wrong with that? Why should you get worked up about it?"

"Well, it was that tone, and the fact that he has NO clue what I do for my job or for the family"

"Yeah but what do YOU know about what he does at work, let me tell you, he travels and is out of town two days a week, surely you cannot train on the days you are out of town"

So it set me thinking, oh this guy is travelling for important meetings, maybe he does not travel well and gets tired and cannot exercise. Anyway I had to go out of town for a day on thursday. I ran around on wednesday afternoon at work, with my office door closed to prevent random interruptions, prepared my presentation, spoke at length to the creche people and the mom of the monster's friend regarding taking her to the school, explained to the driver a few times that he had to do a few complicated maneouvres through the day, told my parents-in-law that all they had to do was pick her up in the evening post five.

On thursday I woke up at 4:45 am and showered and stuff. The flight was at 6:30 am, was damn sleepy cause I only went to bed at 11 pm because the monster was asking me a billion questions. But I managed to catch a good nap on the flight, and then went to my meeting. The morning went in that, then lunch.

Since I was finished a bit early with my discussions, I had the chance to chit-chat with my uncle, who works next door to where I went. His daughter's wedding is coming up and we talked about that, always a proud moment for a parent I suppose!

And then, I had to look up ludwig to do some marathon related things, and of course because its always fun to see him. It was an interesting coffee where we compared battle scars and drank two cups back-to-back.

I hopped over and on to the flight stopping only briefly to pick up the customary book for the child at the airport book-store (I almost always buy her a book when I am in an airport without her). Back in Mumbai and home by 8 pm. I found her hanging out with grandparents and of course they insisted that she was most well behaved (we will take that with a pinch of salt, needless to say!). Anyway 8 pm meant I was home in time for her dinner. I felt very jubilant at this. I ate a bit on the flight so I was not starving, and, possibly this was going a bit over-board, but I took her bowl and actually fed her while telling her the story of the lions I saw on the plane TV.

And, bright and early on friday morning I went to my kick-boxing class. Partly this is foolish because of my toe problems, but I need to do this else I will feel fat, I mean I HAVE to get over this funny toe business by next Sunday. I guess I have now gotten over that remark, because it is true. With my job anything is possible, but not inherently, its because I will it to be so, and am willing to work as hard as required!!