I've lost my blogging touch...

Ahhh I am on the lanai watching ducks in the pond, smelling the heavenly smell of jasmine, wishing all my bestest friends were here with me. I swear to God, sometimes I do feel like Florida is heaven, which of course, leaves me living in hell the rest of the time. So sorry Saskatoon! I miss the kitties, but for more stories on the adventures of Oli, Tinka and mice, check out Jade's blog as she has much fodder for us. As for me, I shall replace my Oli and Tinka stories with Pari (mom) and Shara (aunty) stories.

For instance, I arrived here a week ago, at which time their fridge had been on the fritz for over a week. How does one survive without a fridge in muggy weather, well one just runs four doors down to the condo owned by another Aunty and stores the food in her fridge since she's not here. Allright, that's an okay plan, but uhh, why hadn't a repairman even been called till I arrived. No worries, I was the heavy and whined enough until mom found the receipt, we checked the warranty and called for a service man. Alas, more drama and choices...should we repair the old fridge, should we buy an extended warranty for another two years, should we buy a new fridge, or should we buy Laxmi (aunt four doors down) a new fridge and take hers, since she replaced her stove and dishwasher last year, but never bought a matching fridge????

After much debate the decision was made to replace Laxmi's fridge as a surprise and then take her fridge to our place. Then the hunt for a new matching fridge started. Time passed, no fridge was good enough, mom waffled, then she started thinking maybe she should get our old fridge repaired. Now I must tell you all, after the first complaint I did not whine again, and I had every right to complain since I became the kitchen runner. Meaning, they need milk for coffee, I must go get it, they forgot to ask me to bring the tomatoes over too, I go get them....blah blah blah. On the upside my calf muscles are starting to take shape. But I digress, back to the fridge story. So yesterday I make my regular morning trip for milk, toast, eggs whatever and I get to Laxmi's place, open the fridge and CRAP, everything is frozen. So now we have one fridge where only the freezer works, and another where the regular fridge part is acting as a freezer...too many freezers and not enough refrigerators!


So later in the day I ask mom when the repairman is coming, she gasps in horror and says "Oh my God I forgot! I was supposed to call back, I will call right now!" So she grabs the phone and off she goes. A little while later I hear her doing her regular thing...it's actually quite funny. She calls the Sears automated line and talks to the machine like this...R E PAAAIR.. REFRIGERATOR, Nooooooo dummy! I said Ffffffridge NONONO I said FRIDGE, oh you are so stuuupeeed! RE FRIDGE RATOR!


Next thing I know she's standing next to me looking rather puzzled and saying, "Swapna, I don't know why, but they keep saying they are going to charge me 68 cents per minute from here on in and say I have to be at least 18 years old." I immediately grab the phone and hang it up. Then I ask her to show me what number she is dialing...turns out mom was accidentally calling for sex. Ahh well, it was remedied quickly. Uhh time has passed since I started this post this morning, it's now 6 pm and I'm back on the lanai, but this time with a margarita. We are celebrating the return of our fridge! Yes, it has been repaired. Next on the list...finding the missing remote control.

I would write more but I'm celebrating and drowning my sorrows at the same time. I left the mother and aunt at home earlier today and went off to do errands, part of which was buying vermouth. Oh God! I almost forgot the vermouth story. I shall make it short, suffice it to say we wanted martinis for cocktail hour and mom said "Yes, yes I have vermouth, just buy gin." So I only bought gin, then I come home ready to rip into the roasted chicken and baguette we bought at Sweet Bay (uhh since being here they have deprived me of meat and all white starches) so having a chicken and baguette in the car with me was testing my willpower. Anyway, I get home and desperately dive into the kitchen to make a martini. Alas we have no ice, so I go to the Aunty's for ice...er, they turned off their ice maker, so now I go door to door looking for a neighbor that will donate some ice to a very worthy cause. I find Irene, a little Greek woman, who says she will gladly give me ice. I fear my explanation was not detailed enough, as I then returned home with enough ice to fill the bathtub. But hey, it was ice...time for martini's right? Wrong! Yes we had vermouth, however, I don't think we even had 5 drops left in the bottle. So off I go to Aunty's place again, this time for vermouth. How can you tell they are sisters? Well by the amount of vermouth in her bottle! So I come back home, fill a pitcher with ice, dump in a ton of gin, splash 10 drops of vermouth in there, throw in some olive juice and tell everyone to drink up their dirty martinis..we were all happy, so happy, we decided we should try for martinis again this evening.

So on the way home I stop at the liquor store and pick up a bottle of vermouth. Then, as I am just walking past my Aunty's condo, on the way to our door, apparently one condo shouted to the other and said, "Hey!!! there's the bitch that stole our vermouth GET HER!" At which point I promptly dropped the vermouth bottle which shattered into ten gazillion pieces. I'm sure the walkway still reeks, and I was very tempted to scoop up some of it from one of the huge pools, however, seeing as I had also purchased some fine margarita's in single serving PLASTIC containers, I just headed home reeking of vermouth and poured myself a big fat margarita.

Btw, in the midst of all the vermouth smashing, the repairman arrived and fixed the refrigerator. So I am slightly tipsy, out on the lanai, smelling like vermouth, dreaming of...well to be honest I'm dreaming of a cigarette, but that's as far as I will get.

Now I'm off to put some more toxically strong topical steroids on my upper lip and then perhaps retire with a good book. (The topical steroids are because I was a moron and got my upper lip waxed which left me with huge red hives, which then turned into huge pus filled zits, which were as far as they got, when I then started popping them and slathering on cream!)

Ciao for now
Swapna