BABY,BABY

We had never been able to understand it. We in this case being my dad and I. Babies who had been smiling and gurgling until a few seconds ago, would take one look at us, screw up their tiny little faces, and let out loud wails which would bring their mothers running post haste. Moms would pick up their bawling angels, glare at us like we were foot soldiers of Genghis Khan and walk off in a huff, leaving us wishing the earth would open up and swallow us.

It has been a standing joke in our family that the two of us were guaranteed to make the most good-natured of babies cry. Dad blamed it all on his bristling handlebar moustache. I, on the other hand, had no such recourse. Wild stories made the rounds, fueled by none other than my mom, of me having dropped a baby just because it had dared pee while I was holding it. The fact that I must have been barely 7 years old and that I had “dropped” the baby onto a large fluffy pillow on a bed was conveniently forgotten. And to add fuel to the fire, I married a man who could make babies smile benevolently by merely crooking his little finger.

All that changed when I had one of my own. Suddenly, I was granted entry into an exclusive club. Babies will now smile at me and trustingly go to sleep cuddled up against me. And better still, I can now pick up and hold even newborns with panache. Moms who would not let me near their little darlings even at gunpoint, will now trustingly put them into my arms.

As I glimpsed the sleepy smile of my toddler outside the airport, it hit me. That what they said was true. There is no feeling in the world that can match having a baby smile at you.

HOME SWEET HOME

It’s that time again. Time for me to say goodbye. I don’t know why I put myself through this over and over again. And this time, as always, the goodbyes are going to be hard. Because it was so difficult to find people who really care. And to know you might never see them again.

My desk looks empty, since I have moved all the stuff….right into the trash can. It is kind of fun not to have to answer that constantly ringing phone. Little gifts from people at work. Exclamations of how quickly time went by and promises to keep in touch.

Wrestling with stuff that refuses to fit into suitcases. Does stuff multiply or something? . Figuring out what can be given away to goodwill. How on earth can I have so many memories attached to clothes? And dear lord, how am I going to carry all those chocolates back home since I am way over the allowed baggage limit???? Looked in the airline’s website. They do have a section on what to do with antlers, yes antlers, I kid you not, but nothing on whether u can sashay in with chocolates in your purse!!! And what on earth am I going to do for 8 hours in Singapore? There is an 8-hour wait for a 2-hour flight that takes me home. Somebody sure messed up somewhere.

Final phone calls to be made, final emails to be sent, goodbyes to be said. The final hugs and the tears…. Things are never going to be the same again.

But at the end of all this gloom, a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel. I am going back to my family and a month long vacation. So Bangalore, here I come!!!!!!

SHENANIGANS AT WORK

I work in insurance. Typical reaction: Boring with a capital B. So an insurance office has to be duller than dishwater right? Not our office; far from it. Dont believe me do you?

Sampling of typical conversations at work:

Lady 1: Can you believe I just got a medical bill from a Dr. Decock?
Lady 2: Oh yeah? Well, I have a hearing at the Board tomorrow with Judge Pussey.

Me: Oh, oh, I have been sitting so long my foot has fallen asleep.
Lady 3: Oh the poor thing, now it is going to stay awake all night.

On Halloween, we had an office full of witches and warlords and everything in between. I wonder what the people whose claims we administer would have thought if they had happened to wander in.

A colleague decided that she needed a broom to complete her witch outfit. She went into the broom closet and helped herself to a rather old and misused one. She left it at her desk that day. She came in to work the next morning and voila!!!! a brand new broom!!!. (The cleaning lady had, out of the goodness of her heart, exchanged the old one for a nice new one.) The expression on her face sent us all into peals of laughter so loud that the supervisor had to come and get us all to quiet down.

Our office has to be the worst place for anyone on a diet. I am definitely blaming the office for all the extra rolls of fat I now lug around. There is simply so much food lying around. Cookies, chocolate, donuts, and if that wasn’t enough, every time we had a training, the trainers would order in yet more food. Probably to make sure people would attend.

So when the Weightwatchers program was announced, it was felt people would make a beeline for it. But not here. To date I think they have been able to recruit 6 people, two of whom were managers who were compelled to set an example for the rest of us. Well, we obviously believe in being fat and jolly.

A colleague’s birthday and since she loved Starbucks coffee, her workstation was decorated with empty cups and cup holders with green, black and white helium balloons to match. We all thought it looked gorgeous until we got an email the next day stating that the balloons had to come down the same day they went up. The reason? Our manager was mad at being woken up twice in the middle of the night by phone calls informing her that there were intruders on our premises. The swaying balloons had apparently set off the motion sensors triggering the phone calls.

I rest my case.

DIAMONDS ON BLACK VELVET

A freezing cold night up in the mountains. Patches of snow everywhere. Moonlight so bright that it hurt to even look.

Four people peering at the night sky through huge telescopes. A whole new world, made up of supernovas, galaxies, and stars. Distances unfathomable by the human mind. Revelations of how insignificant we humans are in the broader scheme of things. A chance to peer into a world hundreds of thousands of light years away with an awe that supersedes speech.

A “magic” star colored violet. Stars that revolve around other stars. Stars being formed. Stars being destroyed. A world that proves that change is the only permanent thing.

Grand finale: Shiny Saturn in all its splendor; rings and moons included. MAGIC…..

BLACK BUBBLES

My fascination with my only tipple continues. This time it has been dressed up with black tapioca beads and it’s called Boba tea.

Boba tea or bubble tea is all the rage the world over and is slated to take over Starbucks coffee. Boba tea is believed to have originated in Taiwan. The “Bubble” refers to dark colored, chewy tapioca balls in the tea. They are also called pearls and these are sucked up along with the tea through a wide straw.

Bubble teas can be fruit-flavored or milk teas. I tried the mango-flavored black Chinese tea, and its one of those drinks that instantly elevates your mood. Considering it was one of those rainy evenings, that was no easy task. I persuaded a friend to try the exotic- sounding green tea with tapioca milk, so I could get a taste of it too, but not have to drink it all if I didn’t like it!!!. It was surprisingly good and came in a cup large enough to be a bowl with a soup spoon in it.

The highlight of the expedition came when my friend decided to investigate why we could not understand a word the pretty waitress was saying to us.. He was convinced she had a tongue piercing. And the true scientist that he is, he had to get to the bottom of it all and so he went right up to her and asked her if she had had her tongue pierced. The poor thing shrank into a corner in confusion and fearfully pointed out the manager. The said friend, instead of leaving things well enough alone, repeated the question to the manager.

Suffice to say that for a moment I was not sure we were going to get out of the cafe with all our limbs intact. My scientist friend is still mad that he could not get to the bottom of the puzzle and madder still since I told him that he had been rude to have asked such a question. The argument continues to this day whether you can or cannot ask someone if they have had their tongues pierced.