Update0Rama

I have been grappling with the usual flux of emotions but a post has not emerged from the chaos. Life has been hectic as ever as I try to juggle variously, I always have that excuse, don't I. So this is just a news item post. Bullet points, for easy handling.

• My bad luck with roads, Chennai, cars, drivers, and so on continues; fourth episode in the past several months. This time it was major, although, thankfully no one was injured. Four cars one behind the other like a pack of cards. Builds character, it does, for sure. The cops were real sweet (but ineffectual). The only thing is that I was blameless, I am surprised that I did so well in such a situation. My favourite part of the event is to display my hair clip (the plastic thing with teeth) which was smashed to smithereens. My head was apparently saved thanks to the fat hair. And yes, peoples, please wear seat belts. My forehead was saved from hard impact to wheel thanks to dat.
• Another semester pulls to a close meanwhile. I am involved in the usual amounts of red ink and project reports and tearing my hair out trying to give nice looking grades and wondering why the averages are as low as ever despite my extra slog (as I see it). And as another batch of students goes on to graduate and to graze on greener grass, I set my mind clock to 'Let Go' . Dad used to manage to have good closure with his students, they had a farewell party and they invited him to sing. He loved that. I don't manage closure usually. But then this is the internet age, so I don't really need it so much.
• Monster and I are swimming. I am enjoying it immensely. I mean, I am learning, had to miss a whole pile of classes due to various reasons, but I am still enjoying it. The pool is not the cleanest water body I have seen - oh wait, compared to the cooum and adyar river and all its pretty good, but.. Nevertheless, fun. But you know, its not as aerobic as I could wish. Meaning, since I am not yet doing infinite number of laps or anything, it feels like if I ran for the same amount of time my lard would reduce more. Anyhow its fun, and its timely as I was just thirsting for some new action on the exercise front. (Thanks to my poor luck on the roads I am avoiding biking for a bit).
• the seriouslounger and associated family were here over the weekend. It was so much fun. The kids are spectacular. I missed them incredibly once they left. The older ones (his brat is a few months younger than the monster) got along really well and we barely saw them except at meal times. The younger one is like a nice teddy bear and I used every possibly opportunity to squish him. And he did not mind, which is a welcome change from most kids these days who act as if they will wilt if we so much as touch them. Hmph.
• In commemoration of my generic ill luck and random mood swings that can be attributed to that, I bought and consumed almost single handedly a dabba of milkmaid. Not to mention lot of chocolate given to me by the lounger (Milka, the giant sized bar, a hot fav as its unpolluted by nuts and reminds one of healthy Swiss cows. MOO.). And also a whole lot of murukku and chips and cake and what not. If only the swimming was as efficacious as, say, running in helping me out with these things, I would have been good. But anyway it improved my mood momentarily so thats okay I suppose.
• I was in Mumbai for a bit. It was all very good. Met up with the lounger again; captured the husband for a watering hole visit, saw ludwig's head emerge huge and mammoth amidst the traffic at Hiranandani, managed to hold my pee from Powai to Bandra in the crazy traffic that city presents to unsuspecting visitors, there I said it, I felt like a visitor there. I had a bit of tearing up in a work situation as I explained that I might continue in Chennai for anon. Mumbai! I love you but I cut you loose now, I have waddled onto to the other shore, accept my apologies.
• For some unfathomable reason the monster and I read a Hardy Boys called 'Blown Away' yesterday. It is pretty bad. I mean, how did we stand that stuff in our youth? So deprived I guess we were. I always disliked Secret Seven sort of secretly, I felt that it was no big deal, and anyway it was too short for my liking, we used to finish it in half and hour and it hardly felt like it was worth the rental money to the library. But I thought Hardy Boys was good, clean, wholesome stuff involving dreamy sounding American teenaged boys. Naah. Boring.
• This one deserves a new bullet: I remember the time I started disliking Nancy Drew - the books and the girl. It was because she shampooed her hair multiple times, thinking about the 'case' in one of the books. We used to be forced to use a yellow shampoo called 'Tresco' by a relative (actually by mom, via relative). Logic was unknown to me, possibly it was cheaper or something. Anyway it was most unattractive, and I really hated it, and I was thinking Nancy is such an idiot to go and shampoo multiple times. I was allotted two buckets for hair washing purposes and if I managed to escape the til oil treatment that was just fine, or else I would have oil creeping into my eyes the whole day, and please, Tresco, more than once was just not on. Plus my sis always teased me because I pronounced all the letters in Hannah.

With that we come to the end of the update. I am in the market for a new phone, so please leave a comment with your suggestions, which, of course, I might ignore. I don't email or facebook or anything of that sort on my phone, so I really just need a phone, with a camera. And oh, it has to be Nokia (except if it is an iphone, which it won't be because the husband and primary care giver to Kenny, disses it). And yes, no qwerty keyboard. Mua.