Ramblings of a Marathon Support Group Member

I do not wish to belittle the achievement by stating it as another marathon. Nevertheless, yesterday my husband finished another marathon along with 2 of our close friends.

The arduous hours of training, the "interesting" pain(Yes - he does state that the wrenching pain is interesting!), the accompanying medal were all taken in the spirit of a true sportsman. While volumes get written about the marathoners, nothing gets written about the support groups (in this case, a sturdy troupe comprising of the 3 wives, 1 toddler and a teenager). So, I have decided to pen the support experience.

Through the training sessions and the carb-loading phase prior to the Marathon, the support group has no mean task. There you are, with your unswerving loyalty to your loved ones, dishing out all the wonderful dishes. There is the potato fry (just the right shade of golden with the crispy texture), the fluffy rice and the creamy soups. On the subject of potatoes, I could swear they mock you from the frying pan, and just would not stop enticing you till the darn dish is over. I could feel the extra burden during the carb-loading phase. The only thing I can thank God for, is that the carb-loading is a short span of time. I ran a pantry in the kitchen serving hot dishes every 3 hours. You could judge by the loose pajamas I wore that day to make room for the extra carbs.

All the carbs safely tucked in, the marathon day arrived. While the runners braved the early morning weather to venture into the first part of their marathon, we, the supporters braved the roads and got together with bananas, apples and baked potatoes at the Mile 18 touch-point. I had mild butterflies in my stomach, just hoping that they will be fine and running sans injuries. Already, we knew one of them had an injury and had slowed down. At this point I could tell you that no amount of carb-loading prepares you for the elated sensation you get when you see one of your close friends running towards you in steady strides. You want to tuck into some baked potatoes for support, but you refrain. One must have self-control!

We stood watching groups of people run by. The plan was for us to give the runners a boost at Mile 18 with baked potatoes and bananas, and then head to Starbucks to get a boost for our hoarse throats and proceed onto Mile 21 and then to the finish line. It turns out that there was a mis-reading, and that the Mile-18 point was indeed Mile-15, and we had missed 2 of the 3 guys.

We are a sacrificial lot, as mentioned earlier, and we decided to forgo the Starbucks visit, and dash it to Mile-21. We checked our watches, and sped away as fast as our cars would take us without drawing the attention of cops. During this particular ride, my toddler decided to fall asleep. So now, we parked at the 21-mile point, lugged a 2-year old on my shoulder and legged it across a Farmer's market cum bakery exhibition (I swear the temptation never stops!) to cheer the boys on. Guess what, they just left!

We now had the dubious reputation of chasing the marathon runners by car, and they were leading!

This was no time for dilly-dallying. Decisions had to be made, and fast. We decided to look askance at the wafting smells of baked products, and got back into the car, determined to get to the finish line before they did, and guess what?

WE DID! HA!

We reached the finish line ahead of the runners, and managed a decent photo shoot at the very end at least!

Great job guys: No mean feat. I am proud of you all!
Good job support group: No mean f(e)at.

Football Shoes

I may have to acknowledge my brother-in-law's prophetic powers here. Last year, during their visit to the US, I had blogged a post called 'Children of Heaven'. The blog drew attention to the shoes my nephew purchased. They were football shoes for heaven's sake. Of course, we all tried rationalising with him that football shoes may never be used by him. He enlisted my brother-in-law's support and got himself Nike football shoes.

A whole year has lapsed since. Here is what my sister had to report from Dubai:

You know Siddarth is not 'into cricket' these days 'coz it stinks'! The 'cool dudes' are 'more into football these days' ! I think the 'these days' started soon after the World Cup...the Ronaldo...Ronaldino types started with all those appalling hair styles. Siddarth only wears sleeveless T-shirts nowadays to show off his 'biceps' and he eats every meal only for his 'biceps'!!!

Yesterday, he was making lists in every scrap of paper in the house....he called it 'Team Planning'. There were phone calls being made and received from all the 'dudes' the whole afternoon and heated discussions were on. I usually do my best to ignore all this unless it gets out of hand and I find it difficult to live in the house..! Then I called and enquired...all hell had broken loose!

Here is the narrative :
Siddu : Amma,you know Pranith? Okay...he is the football hunk of our class and he was the captain of our team!
Me : What 'team' are you talking about? I thought athletics practice is going on in school now for the Sports Day?
Siddu : Yeah...that's going on, Maaa- that's the first thing we do every morning before class! These are football matches...are you going to listen to me?
Me : Oh...I will listen...go on.
Siddu : Can you believe what Pranith did yesterday? Something real daft!! He went and scored a goal for the opposite team!! He actually 'sent the ball into the goalpost for 6B' !! Isn't that real dumb?
Me : Yeah...I guess it is quite dumb!!! So what happened?
Siddu : The whole team said ' Down Down Pranith' and pooed him out of being the captain! Dumb Pranith!
Me : Ummmm....then...
Siddu : Usually whichever dude is the VC ( Vice Captain!!) gets to be the captain,right??
Me : Yeah right.
Siddu : This silly dude is Pranith's pal and turned the post down! So all the guys voted me to be the Captain! So the great Siddarth is the Captain of 6A!!!!
Me : Oh! Good. That's why you are so busy, is it?
Siddu : Yeah...I need to plan the team before tomorrow's match, right! The Centre Forward,Mid Forward the Defender, Goal Keeper...do you know all this at all??
Me : No da...I don't know much about football!Siddu : You are such a bore, maa! One day when I have time...I will teach you!
Me : BTW, Siddu when is the match?
Siddu : Everyday,Maa..we play 6B every day during the break!
Me : Oh...who conducts these matches?
Siddu : Us! But 'football sir' gave us a 'thums up' so that the school team gets stronger!

She then reports that this whole match thing is the break time play of these dumsies, and that there is a big gang mafia going on in the break time!

I wish I were around to see some of these "matches"!

Background Music

Did you know I was a radio star? I have performed a few times on the All India Radio (I meant that to sound pompous) Before you go and start searching for my name in the halls of fame, let me put it in context. There is only 1 important characteristic in all those programs. Nobody can make out that it was me. The only way one could have guessed is by listening to the announcement prior to the program proclaiming my name in the list of students performing.

To be fair to my father, he recorded one event. When he rewound the tape and listened to the program again, he figured it would be enough to just retain the announcement section, since the rest of the program could have been performed by anybody. So, he promptly used the tape to record M.S.Subbulakshmi songs when he got a chance. It would have been nice to have the announcement proclaiming my performance followed by MS singing. Tut Tut....That was not to be: the announcement got over-written too.

So my claim to fame is solely by word of mouth. It goes like this: List of students in today's program: Subashini, Venkat, ............., Saumya,......!

I was a versatile performer. I sang at times(never solo lest you start bad-mouthing AIR), and some other times performed in skits. The school stationery manager stepped forward gallantly and mentioned that he had left an illustrious career in the theatrical industry to serve the school, and therefore he should be the person who provided the background music skits. We nodded and the practice sessions started.

To state it as mildly as possible, the background music was HORRENDOUS. Every place in the play where you think some quietness would do, there was music blaring. Some other places where mild music would have done the trick, we had garish music making us shout out every line in order to be heard over the music. I would not call the program a fiasco, but there were no folks waiting outside for autographs. The highlight of all this drama was the lunch we ate at Annapoorna restaurant in Coimbatore (Plus: the day-off from School to drive down to Coimbatore, perform and get back)

There are times in my life when I envision my life as a movie, and there is background music. So I see myself cooking *Sax playing mildly indicating a chef's beauty being developed* Never mind that I am making Rasam and vendakkai curry. It provides spice in my life! The washing clothes, folding them section gets a banal harmonium. Playing with my daughter and taking her on walks gets melodious flute accompaniment.

I have worked hard at directing my life, so why not revel in my role as music director?!

Wars

I know why the US starts wars in far-off lands.

It is a place to groom future presidents.

X: I am going to contest the presidency
X's much older opponent Y: Which wars did you fight in huh? Come on you! Tell me which war you fought in?
X: None
Y: NONE!!!!
X: But...but there were no wars for me to go to.
Y: Well..too bad. There is no metric to measure your patriotism. I went for the War in Dracola Land. I know the pain and suffering and I would like to use this office to make the world a better place to live in. So you're out!

Tag-Phew!

Archana made me think. Now when you get an email stating your head will blow up in a thousand pieces if it is not forwarded to all your friends, I belong to the class of people who test the limits of the email, and co-erces my friends into collecting the shards of my fractured skull if that email were true, and promptly deletes it.

That said, I will say some things about myself only because it made me think. But please respect my opinion that I do not want to tag other folks.

! I admire creativity. Any job done with a flair of creativity gets a mental pat on the back from me. For the same reason, I love to read, dance and sing. I am...well was.....a Bharatnatyam dancer in my "hey-days" as I like to call it (Said with a jaunty look and a look of the glazed one looking fondly upon their past with a nostalgic tinge.) As for the singing, I am very creative with lyrics, and have found on several occasions that the latest Tamil movie songs have my lyrics in them. I should be a little more guarded while singing in public I guess. Too many copyright violations of late (Kunju kutty - dam-pu-chik, pattu kutty dam-pu-chik. Amma kutty - thanga laalee! My daughter loves these songs of mine, and looks like Kollywood is lapping it up too!)

@ My folks tell me I am very determined (Well... their words are not exactly these, but I am an optimistic soul, and so "determined" I am!)

# I reminisce about pleasant memories, and thank my stars for the wonderful life I have (family and friends) I adore to spend time with my family and friends.

$ I am passionate about anything I take up, and from there stems point (@) I guess.

% Travelling is great fun, and I have my father to thank for making me love people and places. Every school holiday, off we went gallivanting around the country. I see now that he really did think it an important aspect of education, and therefore, did not hesitate to spend for vacations. I can think back about every vacation we had (well almost all - if you discount those we went when I was too young to remember)

^ I was brought up in the beautiful Nilgiris with bountiful nature for company. My parents were both teachers, and we grew up inside the school campus. The most beautiful place I have ever seen. It is a tiny place (the School nestles in 800 acres of its own land), and every vacation was spent in adventure trips exploring the hillsides! College in Coimbatore, and thereafter the software industry it is for me. I now work as an analyst in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

& I love to learn new things, and believe that the more you learn, the more exciting life becomes.

* I detest hypocrisy. So when I look at hypocrites, I play the fun game of guessing their actual thoughts, and then process their thoughts through a very defective prism, and imagine how distorted the image must be in order for them to say what they did. So, if I were to hear about the great beauty of a garbage can, I spend precious moments trying to figure out the various adverbs they might have used...and well...you get the drift!

( I was hoping that use of the special symbols would make it easier to say 9 things about me. Seriously, it is not helping! It really is too much to say 9 things about yourself!

Now that I have shed the burden of responding to the tag behind me, I shall continue on with my posts without procrastinating!

The author lives in California with her husband and 2-year old, both of whom she loves way beyond words can say.

Lakshmi Devi

It is Navarathri, and I can imagine the festive frenzy in India now. Lakshmi Puja and Saraswathi Puja will be performed in every single home. Come to think of it, even now, I always put a coin in a purse (even if empty and stowed).

I was musing on these very thoughts on my way back from lunch, and stopped in my tracks at a seemingly normal gesture. Two men, dressed in business casuals and evidently working in the city, threw their one-cent coins on the street, like people sometimes throw trash, and moved on with not even a second glance. I was somehow disturbed. Why could he not have given to the numerous homeless? Or simpler still, dropped the cash in the donation jar kept almost at every counter?

I hesitate to throw out usable clothes, and try my best to donate them whenever possible. I guess our thinking is just ....well "different"!

Bladders and Airlines

I was reading DilbertBlog on the stifling airport procedures and couldn't help this post! A fortnight ago, we had been to Alaska with friends. Apart from losing a small perfume bottle to airport security, I emerged unscathed.

Beyond the security gates lies a hungry explorer's haven. Pretty soon, we were tucking into a dish from every restaurant. I'll spare you the details of our mastication, but suffice it to say that we were stuffed beyond belief. That was the time I got pondering on pants with extendible button loops. (I shall save this for another post)

To settle the turbulence in our stomachs before our red-eye flight, we bought a large bottle of water. We neared the gate, and guess what? No bottled water aboard. The whole thing ticked my friend off in no small manner, and he insisted we finish the water before boarding the flight. Don't ask me why we humoured him, but we did! We drank, and drank till we had to force a bathroom break to make more room for more water. We boarded throwing out the empty bottle, and taking in the full bladder.

At this point in the narration, I would like the reader to take note that airline seats don't function well with squirming passengers. Pretty soon, we had frowning passengers with all the creaking of the seats. The seat belt sign was still on, and the bladder was sending urgent signals to relieve the built-up tension in the there. Barely had the seat belt sign turned off, when we made a beeline for the loos. Once inside, the slow and steady release of tension was sheer bliss (to be experienced to comprehend the full extent of relief!)

Sometimes, security measures don't consider the irrationality of folks drinking up a gallon of water before boarding, and that's why it is so inconvenient!

She felt sleepy

She felt sleepy: She stared into her boring face as she narrated the incident. It was impossible to not think of how lifeless her good story sounded just because she was looking into her eyes. There was nothing there, and she found her thoughts wandering to how her life partner must feel.

A few days later, she showed her a photograph of her lover, and she saw her partner's boring eyes looking up at her. She felt sleepy.

A Stone's Throw

The missiles were landing continuously. One even hit the window hard. Everyone looked up startled - we thought these were times of peace - where were these coming from? The shopkeepers stepped out, and spent a silent moment pondering who will muster the courage to stop this attack.

All eyes were fixated on a six year old boy with mischief writ large on his black eyes, and a large pebble in each hand. As he aimed and threw a larger stone this time, he gleamed with pleasure and looked around for accolades. There were none forthcoming, and the poor boy, in his mistaken stake at fame continued with renewed vigour. The saloon owner stepped forward and "Ahoy"-ed the boy, and said:

"Can you stop doing that please? Thank you!"

The boy said "Sure", and simply changed the direction of his stone-rain.

I could not help thinking of the same situation in India. Fat chance the boy would have got a "Please" and a "Thank you" in the same sentence for his deed! He would most probably have had an assortment of expletives muttered before being asked to cut it out! But, the point is this: the boy listened, and the fact still remains that an adult did manage to stop a boy from pelting stones at his shop window.

Just the vast difference in the manner it was handled was interesting to note.

VM Vs ME

Life always gives everybody moments to cherish and nourish. I am sure most call-center representatives talk to customers with a gargantuan effort to stop from splitting their sides at our stupidity. Today, I have the supreme satisfaction of livening up a family's dinner table with my knowledgeable call to my cell-phone's customer service.

I have a cell-phone with keeps blinking to my face that I have n voicemails. I tried telling it, that I KNOW I have n voicemails, I just can't retrieve it! My voicemail has been password protected (and my password works no longer) to ensure that nobody else retrieves my voicemails. I am trying to think of one person who is interested in messages left for a pearl-aged mother of a 2 year old, and draw a blank.

After a couple of indignant phone calls from my friends who had to repeat the message again, since I had no method of listening to their winding messages, I called customer service, and it went like this:

She: Sure Ma'am. Resetting your password should be easy to do.
Me: Gee....thanks

A minute later, she said I am all set.

I breezed into the voicemail, and the automated conversation took an ugly turn:
VM: Please enter your password
Me: ----#
VM: Please enter your password -- in a more indignant tone, but that's entirely my perception
Me: ----#
VM: Sorry you are having trouble, please try again later. Beep.

The blasted thing just blew me off! Perseverance thy name being me, I persevered.
I huffed and puffed, and called customer service again. Several calls later (Both to customer service and my VM), I was getting more and more piqued with the utter callousness with which the system cut me off while I was interacting with it.

The system kept cutting me off on my face. I pick my battles, but this one was rubbing itself on me the wrong way. I was ticked off, and intended to show it a piece of its own abyssmal behaviour. So, I called VM, and when it asked for the password, I disconnected - Ha Ha!!

Throughout this drama, I had Mike sitting on the other side displaying a remarkable restraint from popping out of his chair and laughing. I know what his family hears at the dinner table tonight!

PS: I still can't access voicemail, so, don't bother leaving me a message!

Till another Renaissance

I.D.Iot was a proud man. His single contribution to the world of Science was purely unimaginable. He had a series of startling discoveries to his credit, and his genius mind had put every single grain of truth to use to change the world in the most remarkable way. I.D.Iot prided himself on his thoroughness and had painfully documented every startling discovery in his vaporizing sheets. The idea behind these vaporizing sheets was simple. He help the passkey phrase, and on whispering the passkey phrase to soap bubbles, the sheets would appear - a ton of information regarding atoms, elements, wormholes, time warps and what-have-you.

I.D.Iot was around for generations. He had mastered the art of travelling to the planet near a black hole where time barely passed, and consequently aged slower than most mortals. He was an amiable man with a humble demeanour, and his intentions were always noble. He had in him, as much knowledge to destroy as to create. He never once thought of destruction. He was considered God by virtue of all the above.

Now he lay dying. His time was up. He was tired and could not muster the energy to take up the time travel to rejuvenate himself. He had wanted to pass on to his most trusted follower access to all his learnings. His memory was failing him - but he knew the key to the vaporizing sheets had to do with the theme that "Everything was made up of atoms", and that's what he muttered when he died.

His disciples tried hard to get the sheets, but failed. Instead of using the knowledge they had from I.D.Iot, they spent time trying to retrieve his work. Time passed and only the mantra got passed down from generation to generation: none of the knowledge.

The idiot mantra was unquestionable.

The querulent few who did question what atoms were made of were quickly rebuked as mavericks and the world settled into a state of knowledge inertia. What we don't know can't hurt us. IDIOT was there to protect the world.

And so it goes, till another Renaissance was born.

Trying to contact...

We are trying to contact Karthik.

Any South Indian knows the futility of this statement before they hit the full-stop. I am a bit fuzzy on the statistics, but it surely figures in the top 10 list of most frequent names. You see my parents-in-law and his parents became friends when they last visited here. Time passed...Karthik changed apartments and moved on. Now I want to contact them without their contact information.

I have a friend who works in the same company Karthik works for, and I shot him an email asking for Karthik's contact information. So, he must've dutifully contacted the Karthik and within the hour, I had all his phone numbers.

My husband (H) called him and this is how the conversation must have looked:
H: Hello.....May I talk to Karthik?
K: Yes.....that's me
H: Eh......how are you? So, did you guys move?
K: No.....why, and who is this?H: Introduces himself - ** Still not sure because he doesn't sound anything like Karthik**How is Chitra doing?
K: Who Chitra? My wife's name is Lakshmi.
H now feels that the conversation is not going as well as it should. So, he volunteers more irrelevant information
H: Oh, doesn't Chitra work at Google?
K: Chitra may be working at Google, but I am married to Lakshmi.

At which point, H would have found it prudent to end the conv. BTW, the above piece of conversation is purely fictional. Point is: We got a different Karthik.
So, I shot off another email to aforesaid friend, and qualified it saying: He speaks the Coimbatore dialect of Tamil.

So, now what would my friend do with this useless piece of information? Stick a mike to another Karthik and ask him to say a few words in Tamil to validate?

I can't stop myself from giggling while imagining the following:
1) The quizzical look on Karthik's face when my friend approached him for contact information. He must have thought that his parents sphere of influence extends far & wide, and given him the numbers anyway.
2) The increasingly embarrassing conversation between the husband and the above Karthik.
3) Friend sticking a mike to all the Karthiks in the company and asking them to say a few words in Tamil (Thankfully, there was only 1 person by this name, and we had already established that he is not the person we were looking for)

Salmon

We had just moved to Coimbatore (a city bustling at the foothills of the Nilgiris), and within a few days had several offers from prospective maids. We recruited the one who was amongst the first few to approach us, and had a strong recommendation from our neighbour. She was a sturdy lady in her sixties, and weilded a broom like a brickbat. She was a lady of few words, and generally nodded her way through the home. If she had to sweep, she would, whether or not you were in the wake of the broom's sweep. If you were prudent and nimble, you would jump away from its wake.

Usually, we were up about the time she came, and so were in possession of our mental faculties to escape the broom. One day, my brother, after a late night movie was sprawled out in front of the TV on a straw mat, and was asleep when she arrived. She had decided to give herself an oil massage before coming, and stepped into the home beaming like Durga Devi. She was dark complexioned, her eyes were red (probably with the heat and fury of her oil massage). With the shining oil, all she had to do was stick out her tongue, which incidentally was extremely red thanks to the betel leaves that she relished, and she was all set to attract the most ardent devotees!

My hapless brother was probably smiling in his dreams when he stirred at the sound of the broom swishing around him, and to date I can visualise his extremely adroit move that was pretty much how salmons travel upstream. He leaped from his supine position on the floor to the sofa in one graceful move and his eyes didn't blink for an entire minute.

PS: Don't ask me why I came up with this post, I was reading about the migrating patterns of salmons, and this incident came to my mind!

Banned

The tea vendor had tears in his eyes. His shop: the one he had christened "Kajol" after his favorite idol was closed, and he knew not when he would be allowed to reopen. He had poured his heart and soul into his tea-shop, and it had acquired quite a clientele from the neighbouring offices.

Apparently, it was found that a gangster, sought heavily by the Police department, had been observed drinking tea. Therefore, all tea shops were closed with immediate effect. Nobody drinks tea, gangster or otherwise, to deter future gangsters from refreshing themselves before their drastic deeds!

Does this fictional piece sound sort of far-fetched? This is the parallel I could think of when I heard the Indian Govt had banned all bloggers, because they believed some terrorists in the recent Mumbai blasts had used the blog media to communicate amongst themselves!

God help Policy makers!

What's in a Spelling?

At the outset....this is a light-hearted thought on the spelling of my name, and I mean no offense to the Sowmyas of the world.

Every time I spell my name out to Indians, I always get asked: how come it is not spelt "S-o-w..."? As a child I immensely thanked my parents for spelling my name without the "Sow". With the typical innocence of childhood, I used to explain that "sow" meant female swine, and therefore, with the gloriole of knowledge glowing bright, my parents had chosen the alternate spelling.

I can very well imagine the havoc that children could wreak on another child's self esteem with some trivia like this! Of course, this also depends on how many children actually lay their hands on such trivia - but 1 precocious child per school could do the trick!

I can still look at my certificates - some of them with the spelling so wrong, it hardly reads like my name! I have one certificate that when translated in my daughter's language means "Saw a cat" because it is spelt "SAW-MIYA".

I ramble....but my point is, my name is still fun.

In so many parts of the world, the spelling of a name could be the tender line between life and death. In war-ravaged Iraq today, everybody is required to carry on them a form of national identification, called "Jinsiyas". Apparently, the market for fake jinsiyas is thriving. For ex: Omar could mean the person belongs to the Sunni sect, while Amer could mean either Shiite or Sunni. Depending upon the checkpost where they are stopped, people know which jinsiya to brandish and live life. (Source: Newsweek July issue)

Hmm...Now what to do?!

For all that hungama surrounding the release of Da Vinci Code in India, it looks there had to post a policeman to coerce people into buying tickets: so he could do his duty, and ensure the screening went smoothly!

http://www.hindu.com/2006/07/15/stories/2006071508150100.htm

Jallikattu & Bullfighting

I guess every year around mid-January, you can safely stop by my house to hear profranities regarding Jallikattu.

"IDIOTS!" My father would proclaim before going on to give his annual lecture on the insanity of the sport that deliberately places a human being in harm's way. Why would non-suicidal folks deliberately stand in the way of an intoxicated bull?

At least in the past, there was a reason. The pricess's hand would be given to the brave man who could overcome a raging bull. So, it was either marriage or a brutal injury - men weighed the odds, and decided what to do. Today, there is no princess with gleaming hope waiting for her Prince charming to tame the bull. So the morbid choices are: injury, brutal injury or death.

Every year in Pamplona, Spain these very matadors display their prowess by taking on the bulls. Despite the gory nature of the sport, I am still fine with the bulls raging against the matadors (after all the matadors have made the choice that they are willing to be gored) But why not have arenas built for them, and have bulls only run around inside the arena? At least the sadistic crowds are not injured while the masochists take on the bulls?

All I can do is sigh every time another human-being is injured in this "game".

Not Lazy!

I saw the following placard stuck on a shopping cart of one of the numerous homeless folks in the city.

Location: Posh newly re-constructed Pier 14, San Francisco

No Drugs!
No Alcohol!
Money used for food only!!
Not lazy !!!

Now, that was an absolutely ingenuous thing to do. It got me thinking about how interesting it would be to work out the returns of this homeless person, versus the returns of the other homeless people using numerous innane placards. This could give us a feel of whether people genuinely trust or whether the stereotypes of homeless, drunk and sloshed people takes over.

As I was passing this cart, I could not but help look for the self-proclaimed "Not Lazy" owner.

I found him fast asleep using the cart to shield him from the direct glare of the sunlight!

PS: I guess a post-lunch siesta is excusable!!

I was crossing the street yesterday, when a car was pulling out from an underground garage. He did not notice us, and pulled out onto the street as we were walking. It seemed like a legitimate mistake (giving him the benefit of doubt) Imagine a person with his neck craning to gain visibility when he is peering out from the car at some place much higher than his perch. At this a man kicked the rear of the car really hard - and swore that this should teach him not to be rude!

Hmm.....if rudeness would teach a person not to be rude.........

Maybe, a war on terror would terrorize terrorists into not terrorizing innocent people!

Dear dear Technology

The pace at work is pretty hectic (Ours being a small company, and one of the fastest growing in our domain) By nature of their profiles, the Production support groups and DBAs are known to be high-tension jobs, since they are always required to take care of issues NOW!

So, imagine how I felt when I walk into the break room to find a member of the production support technical team staring out the window, and making a comment about the weather in San Francisco.

"It is breezier here during the day, and definitely colder in the mornings and evenings" she explains.

I nod in assent.

Soon, she continues after acknowledging my nod, that everybody outside is walking baring their skin, and life looks so pretty outside. I let out a laugh, and move towards my coffee.

Soon, a few more people walk into the break-room, and one of them even responds to her statements: "Fantastic weather isn't it?"

To which she replies: "Yes, I really wish I could wear shorts" (Not entirely out of context, but....)
He: "Yes...that would be cool. Though the office really is cool you know"
She: "Hmm....I wonder where my white shorts are!"

Now, all of us in the room are slightly baffled! While we exchange concerned looks, she says:
"Oh ma....I really got to go. I am talking with this ear-piece on, that no-one can see, and everyone thinks I am nuts!"

THAT explains it!! Oh..for the love of technology!