A bird in the bush... is best left in the bush

Pooper’s gone and I miss her already. I decided she was a she without googling pics of pigeon anatomy.

She had fallen off the window ledge where her mother had built her nest, into the bushes below, either because of excessive fidgeting or because she was attacked by a predator. And my daughter happened to be among the witnesses to this tragic fall.
My daughter, one of two daughters, to whom I had refused ownership of dogs, cats, mice, squirrels – sentient creatures of any size and shape. Not even plants, for that matter.
(Commitment issues.)

Dear Shubhanker,

When we drank tea together at your place on the evening of New Year's Eve, and when we laughed on the phone on Saturday night,  I never suspected that you were going to pull a fast one on me.
Coming at the end of a long year of heavy losses and at the beginning of a year when hope was renewed, you have dealt me a bitter blow. You, my trusted friend, who has held my hand through many a dark day. You, who have allowed me to offer you some strength and support during your troubled times.

Will I never drink your too-milky tea again?
Will I never again smile at your flashy shoes?
Are you never again going to try and talk me into colouring my hair or tell me to get down to my paper corrections?

Bombeck it!

On the days when the hair refuses to allow inroads for the comb, even the wide-toothed one; when the tummy goes forward into uncharted territory that even the boobs have not conquered (at different altitudes albeit), when the love is nowhere in sight, and the neighbor has a beautiful golden retriever and you, a closet dog-lover, have to keep saying no, no, no to your children’s pleas for a pet, the best thing to do is to Erma Bombeck it, I say. Swig your day like it’s your third shot of tequila, take its saltiness, its sourness and its lemony tanginess like a hardened drunk, let your wicked sense of humour unpeal and wipe your drink down with a teenager’s giggle.

For me, it’s either that or a downhill ride on a bullock cart with the wheels coming loose.

Are you ma'am enough?

"So what did she call you?" I txtd her, with a smiley. She replied that she'd been called by her first name - the short version. Soon after, came her irate message, "What's happening to kids these days?"

The issue was this. A girl (she wasn't really a kid; just hadn't hit 30) we'd met a month and a half ago, had txted us, addressing us by our first names. As opposed to 'Ma'am' which she used the first few times.

Tomorrow - the promised land

“Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, ’cos you’re always a day away”. Is what the super-cute child star Annie sang, in her heart-melting voice, sitting at that window-sill of long ago.

Tomorrow, the day of gilded edges that will rise over me like a beautiful phoenix, giving new life to all my dreams and hopes. Tomorrow, dearly loved by Today; whom Today will protect and keep perfect.
I love you too, Tomorrow.

Mother Vs Doctor

When our kids fall sick, my husband dreads having any illness-related conversation with me. That's because I nag him to death. He's a doc and so I call him every 30 seconds and accuse him of not being sensitive to a laywoman's reasonable anxieties if he tries to tell me to stop being a pain.

First, there's the issue of the dosage. The only one I can remember is 10 mg per kg for Paracetamol. Even for that, more often than not, I ask him to compute the exact dose for me so I don't need to do it myself. Self-reliance is, after all, one of his strong points.

Then when the medicine is being administered, if the child is supposed to get 4.5 ml but her sister bumped into me when I was giving it and I spilled some, how much more should I give? And what about when the baby spits some of it out and there's nothing more in the bottle?

Against all odds

We are speeding down the road and I have already checked my watch five times. The kids have been shouted at three times in the last fifteen minutes and because I am not driving, I am monopolizing the business of shouting. When post one scolding, the irrepressible six-year-old starts off with yet another question, hubby, who believes he can handle this better than I can, tells her quickly, “Don’t talk to your mother. Talk to me!  Talk to me!”

We make it to the venue of the wedding with half an hour to spare, thanks to a gross miscalculation, on my husband’s part, of the time required to get there. However, when I step out of the car, feeling like a flamboyant success, this detail seems to be utterly inconsequential. What is of cosmic significance is the fact that we have made it to a wedding – ahead of time. I beam at my cutiest, beautiest, spousiest spouse.  We are a team. We did it. Nothing can stop us now.