Thursday 9 September 2010

Weekly Round-up

Time hangs heavily in the mornings. I am not running this week. My last run was a fun Marina beach run with the Sudha-Machine. Its a special Chennai Girls (Wimmins) group she has initiated (you are most welcome to join. Sunday mornings at da beach, girls!). So, yes, that was on Sunday. I happened to be feeling light and young that day. I happened to channel a bit of long jump (we used to call it broad jump in school; till someone snigger -ed; Beavis and Butthead style, "Broad. Heh Heh." Anyway I just call it Longg Jump now). I longg jumped over a puddle of rain water. Mounted policemen (Not the Canadian variety, just our local home grown Chennai Police), clapped. I love Chennai Police, not just because of that, but in general, I like them. Chennai Police, if you are reading this, please, can I be your groupie?

"Good Day Gang" the dude on the 8 minute Abs video on Youtube says. I do that routine. I like it. Don't tell me its not effective and all that bull. Its fine. I sleep half an hour extra. Then I check my emails (not that anything earth-shaking has happened overnight, just an obsession). Then abs. Some push-ups. Sometimes, I do nothing, I just loll around, chat with the maid, boil milk on Sim and shocking stuff like that. I know! Whats up with that! Well, circumstances are such that I..Could..Not..Run..This..Week.

No, you silly, its not my period or anything, I totally run through my period, in fact, one can argue that its good for you to do so. Yes, it is, i do argue. I should know. I have done it for years. Played basketball. Check. Run. Check. Longg Jump. Check. More Basketball. Check. Run the Mumbai Half. Double Check. When the last happened two (or was it three) years in a row, my friend remarked, WHAT? You are that regular?

So I am home alone with the monster. This is the reason I cannot run. Mr. Consultant husband is gallivanting, parents-in-law are out visiting their saner children and grandchildren. So its me and her. Which is not as scary as a situation as it used to be in earlier years (not her fault, of course).

We had a reasonably fun week. Tomorrow having been declared a school holiday for Eid.. (yes, yes, Eid Mubaarak; Wishes as appropriate for Ganpati and Vinaayaka Chathurthi and so on).

Monday was the teacher's day thing at school. Much fun was had. Many dreams were dreamed for the country, upon meeting enthusiastic children of the nation. And no, they did not all want to write the JEE. At least not so far.

Tuesday was a regular Blue Uniform School day. Monster attended a work meeting and read Haroun and drank department sponsored Maaza. If I was a bit worried about it all, I hid it well, lets say.

Wednesday was a hectic day with me having an exam to invigilate at 8 am and a show by the monster in the afternoon at her after-school place. She was very cute, but is clearly a geek, no doubt.

Today was a chilled out day where I spent a large fraction of the day walking or driving to and from the coffee place on campus. Monster came to the office in the afternoon but we had to leave soon due to a sudden potty threat.

Tomorrow is, of course another day. As I age, I identify more and more with Ms. O'Hara. Take things a day at a time; I am up for that these days. No more deep planning of the next ten years of my life. In fact, I put all my meetings and stuff on my phone and just wake in the morning and think about things then. The monster is going through a 'boy-phase' as we call it. She is pretending to be a boy. Careful readers of that demi-classic 'Scarlett' will recall that her child is supposed to have somehow morphed into a girl one fine halloween day; a few seconds post-birth. And also that she loves her daughter more than love itself and even good ol' Rhett is second in place to said child. Which may or may not be true in my case.

If I have a vague sense of loneliness, a bit of discomfort, a smidgen of uneasiness at the time I have on my hands because I am not running or cycling to my run or running upstairs post-run to get the child ready for school, and I miss adult company as it were, I manage to keep it at bay. I celebrate it, in fact. And ponder on things with a little less despondency than last week. And wonder how one can:

(a) Find peace amidst noise and chaos (Kumbh Mela, anyone?)
(b) Be lonely in a crowd (I can so do that; so..do..that)


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