Saskawhere?

Well hello there!

2008-11-21T11:13:00.002-06:00

Well, hello there Jean and Anita...can't believe you two still check this page! (And yes, I am secretly...well not so secretly anymore...happy to know someone reads this thing.)

Sooo, the question was; what have I been up to? Well, it all began with me deciding to take a Reiki class, which then spiralled outwards, and I am now working towards my Naturopath Doctorate Degree. I am completing the diploma portion first, which still gives me the ND title and is recognized here in Canada, and then after that will pursue the actual MD ND if the requirements haven't changed. Right now I expect to conclude my diploma portion in the summer of 2009 and then it will be 3 years after that if I want the MD. The thing is, when you use the ND the only restriction is that you not represent yourself as a medical physician, but rather a doctor of naturopathic medicine. (Don't ask me!) If you then apply and are accepted and blah blah blah, you can actually get your medical degree in Naturopathic medicine (after the 3 years) and call yourself a physician. Sooo, I kinda think I will be able to practice quite successfully without doing the medical degree portion, however, this avenue supposedly will soon be closed and it will be like all other medical subspecialities where you do pre-med, then apply to the college of medicine and then specialize. So, if I go my current route, I am bypassing a lot of work that will be in place in the future.

Anyway, at this point, I'm just sick of being a student. I foolishly also decided to take some other Uni classes...and well, I suck at being a student. I'm not carefree and happy, drinking coffee, studying late, falling asleep in class (okay maybe that one), hanging with friends, partying on the weekends...nope that's not me. I am more like this: Drag my sorry butt out of bed, take the bus...yes the BUS to school, more on this later. Attend class where I barely understand a word my prof is saying because of his accent, however, apparently I have a better grasp of the material as all other classmates understand even less than I do. Then I go have lunch with myself or some other older idiot who has decided to return to school. Head to the library and try to learn what I should have learned in the previous class but didn't understand, then head to my next class, which I actually like. Finally last class, then off to catch the bus home. Then I get home, plug in my water heater for the stones and await my first client for reflexology or stone massage or whatever. Finally, I make something to eat, swallow it without thinking, talk to my mom, do some homework, or study or watch tv for an hour...do laundry, since I now have bedding to wash because of the clients, play with the cats, clean the litter box and go to bed, then start the whole damn thing over again 7 hours later. Does it sound like fun? Cuz well...

I'm not having fun...I hate taking the bus, but I can't stand trying to find parking and now that it's cold I don't want to have to warm my car up...so I shall do my part in going green and keep taking the bus. I think if I actually understood my one prof I would be much happier. It's as though he drops the the last syllables of his words. For instance, if he wanted to say, "If you are ambidextrous you are able to use both hands" I would hear something similar to this: If you are Uhhhhmbiduhs,...uuuunh den you are able to you zzzz boat hunds. Okay...not so bad...but try this one. The study of iridology both compliments and is used as a part of naturopathic medicine with relation to physiological representation, unlike the components used in medical practices such as Ayurvedic or Chinese herbal treatments. And now my professors version: The stuhdy of earieeduh..uhhn boat complea..uhhn and is use as part of natch..uhhntic medi scene wid relaunhh to fizzy...uhhnnn cal ripreeuhhhnshun un like dee compuhnnnts used in mediunnhcal practice such as Ayuhhhhnic or chinunnnnhz hairball treeuhhnts.

Kill me now please.

Anyway, I am now certified/qualified to practice and even teach in some cases in the following areas:Usui Reiki, Celtic Reiki, Acupressure, Reflexology Foot, Reflexology hand, Stone massage specialty for lymphatic drainage, Crystal healing, Energy balancing, Iridology. A lot of these areas are not governed by a licensing body yet, however, if you go towards the ND then they are at least regulated which helps when deciding what to take and where to take it from.

On the bright side of things, I love the actual practice that I have going, and have some very cool treatment stories to tell you about. However, it's time to run!

- Swapna
PS In case I deuhhnnduh to be lauhhnzee and duuhhhnt post zun, I wish you ull hauuuuhh pee hall eeeuuhn days. (translation: In case I decide to be lazy and dont post soon, I wish you all happy holidays)

The Fugue State

2008-11-04T22:33:00.002-06:00

Yes I know this post is long overdue, but man, who would have thought the American Presidential election would be the catalyst to get me off my butt and start typing again! So I began the evening watching CNN being extremely bored with the campaign coverage...this is what happens when you are watching when the polls aren't even closed and all that's there to hear is the exit polls...which the pundits keep saying aren't worth a damn. Anyway, as the evening progressed so did my emotional state. The stages were distinct and well, extreme to say the least...so here's how it went

Bored, Bored, Irritated, Confused, Slight interest, Interest, Bored, Bored, Interest, Total Irritation, Indignation, Hysterical laughter, Cynicism, More Cynicism, Fear, Disbelief, Getting sappy, Thinking I should blog.

Now I know the above means nothing, but uhh, let's break it down a bit by adding in the triggering factors and an expanded view of my reaction:

Bored - polls still open
Bored - polls starting to roll in
Irritated - predictions with less than 2% reporting
Confused - pundits squawking about how useless exit polling is and has been...then using exit polling to make predictions
Slight interest - going online to actually see what the criteria for the exit polling is
Interest - Seeing the Ballot measures which incidentally did nothing for my general view of Americans
Bored - CNN getting so hyped about their stupid holographic thingy which made everyone look like they had hobbit legs and their virtual Capital Hill (boys with toys)
Bored - I channel surfed at this point and found nothing more interesting than the election

Interest - now because I had previously been channel surfing I missed the names of the people who were speaking...and well, I have no idea who these political pundits are but there they were, the five or six lined up to give their comments on what kind of an impact it would make if Obama were elected. This is also when I began my emotional rollercoaster. So they start off with the usual...Change is in the air, this could be an eye opener for the Republican party blah blah...then it happens. They start discussing the racial aspect and one of them says...When Obama is elected, if he's elected, the the world is going to have to respect us. WHAT???? Did that guy really just tell me that I have to respect the US because they are not being racist? Why yes he did. Oh wait it gets better, now he goes on to say yes it's true, there are a lot of people who said race would affect how they voted, but when faced with the continuing downfall of the economy or taking their chances with a black man who advocates change...well that trumps racism and so they would rather vote for a black man. He was really proud of himself as he discussed this aspect of the race.

Total Irritation - At this point I'm thinking I REFUSE to respect a nation just because they appear to have overcome a racial barrier....I might think, yes! it's about time, or Thank God change really can happen, or even Okay, I guess I can't continue to paint the entire US (with the exception of my friends) as redneck, racist, ignorant, arrogant loudmouths. Yes, I know I'm probably going to get slammed for this...but hey, I don't think that 24 hours a day, but quite often I do think it. Anyway, let's move right along. My point is, I don't think I can congratulate an entire nation and give them respect just because they finally do something that I think should never in our lifetime have been an issue anyway.

Indignation - this is still part of the emotional baggage from the above.

Hysterical laughter - They show the McCain hoopla where it's reported that no news is being forwarded to the guests anymore since it's all bad news. I admit, I'm not a McCain fan, but I still respect the man, and I found that single point so sad it made me laugh....not hahaha that's so funny, but hahaa, that's tragic.

Cynicism - I now KNOW Obama is going to win...I mean we all knew it...but there was a tiny portion of my brain that said...Oh God, what if there really has been no change in peoples' base natures...what if....

More Cynicism - They are about to call the election and yet I don't feel this is a historic moment, I don't feel it's amazing, I feel mad, cynical, and irritated I'm even watching.

Fear - Suddenly, I'm not cynical I'm scared. Scared someone is going to try to assassinate Obama, scared that a country has thrown down the gauntlet and is going after change but may not be ready for the price that may be exacted.

Disbelief - My cynicism and fear gives way to disbelief as I realize that Americans should feel proud of themselves...they just did something that in my heart of hearts, I did not believe they would do. And for the first time in my life, I felt a teeny weeny tiny bit of, well, happiness that the American people had previously voted for Bush. Yes, that's right, I was happy that Americans voted for someone I loathe. Why, well because I think only his grotesque manipulation and abuse of his position is what made the people of America mad enough to exact revenge in the form of Barack Obama.

Getting sappy - I hear McCain give his concession speech, and I believe him. He is gracious, he does want only good for his country, he would try to help if he was called upon. I think I'm getting sappy...how can an election make me feel this way. I'm still going up and down...one minute I'm laughing over the disparity between the campaign headquarters...blue hairs at McCains, kids at Obamas, now I'm mad that race even matters, now I'm proud race matters, it's just a mishmash of emotions and I can't wait to hear Obama. At this point my overwhelming feeling is this...no I don't have to respect the US for overcoming fears and challenges in the areas of bigotry, but I can feel proud that it's turned out that way. I don't have to diminish Obama's win by knowing that after what Bush has done this was inevitable, I can believe that the world can change...the world can grow up. Whether Obama lives up to what is expected of him and what rests upon his shoulders now is up in the air, but I really don't care...they are going to give him a chance and that's what really matters.

Thinking I should Blog - As I wait for Obama to make his appearance I think I should blog...and so that's what I'm doing. And now, Obama's done, I typed throughout his speech, he didn't really inspire me. I was happy to see his supporters didn't boo McCain, which is more than I can say for the McCain supporters, but he didn't touch me the way McCain did. Maybe because he won, being a gracious loser is far more difficult than being a gracious winner, maybe because I'm still lost in the mess of my own feelings. Somehow I didn't think the US election mattered to me, but it did, it does. I may make disparaging remarks about the US but some of my best friends live there and I don't think that way about them...it's just a blanket feeling I've had; No different than when I am discriminated against because of my color, since my disgust with the US began when they elected Bush. Tonight I feel differently, maybe the US isn't the only one who has finally taken a step forward in ending stereotypical thinking.

And so my final thought is this...it's been a long time since I blogged, mostly because I've been so self-absorbed and the thought of blogging was more like a chore than something that would allow me to express myself. So yes, I know tonight is considered historic but to me it was only significant, maybe as the fugue state lifts even more I will fully realize what this means and perhaps it's enough that not only has a racial barrier been crossed, but at long last my self imposed exile from something that actually makes me happy, has been lifted.

- Swapna

Mission Complete

2008-01-15T11:46:00.001-06:00

Now I know many of you were surprised that I seemed to have gone meekly into the darkness after the comment about the Colony on the last post. The key word here is "seemed", as I was just lying in wait for a certain opportunity which happened to present itself 2 days ago. That was when I finally had the time to take a trip back to the Colony to snap the following picture:

And for those of you unable to clearly see why I was so excited about taking this picture...here's a larger version:

Please note the OPEN TO THE PUBLIC part. While I realize that the beach might once have been designated as 'private' and may be waterfront property owned by The Colony, their sign clearly states that they are no longer an exclusive members only ladeedah type of holiday spot. While they maintain the aura of it being private, and have not done a lot to make it seem like a place for anyone to come and lounge about without buying a meal, taking a snorkeling class, or even partaking of a beverage... their sign says otherwise. So Ms. or Mr. Anonymous, if you think you are paying for exclusivity and you pay the big bucks for that exclusivity....perhaps you should rethink your spending habits. All this aside from the fact, as Anita clearly mentioned, that the idea of anything being private when you are publicly displaying yourself on a beach at the Gulf of Mexico (which is not owned by The Colony) makes the whole idea of thinking you are doing anything privately a farce.

So, now that I have taken care of that snarky little comment, let me update you on my latest forays into the oh so wild side of Bradenton. Sunday evening we had dinner at a little Mexican restaurant where the owner ventured out to meet us and after a discussion where my Aunt and Mother (born and raised in India and having spent the better part of their lives in America) surpised the owner by speaking Spanish fluently, albeit with a Indian tinged accent, managed to wrangle him into making us a special seafood paella which was not on the menu. After several pitchers of Sangria and enough paella to feed China, we managed to roll out of there and into our cars to head home. I would love to recommend the place, but for the life of me I can't remember if it was called Casa de Sol (House of Sun) or Costa Del Sol...either way, if you come to Bradenton look for it on Cortez around 59th Street.

We also went to an artisans fair at Lido Beach, where my aunt Shara and I were suckered into buying a few purchases. The first and most notable being the following....can you guess what it is? Aha! I'm almost sure most of you are guessing it's a vase...but watch closely and see its true use.

It's made out of honeycomb paper and made me laugh for an insanely long time as I tried every single one in the stall out. BTW trying to take a picture while squishing a vase into a hat on your head is not easy!

Then we headed out to a restaurant at the end of Anna Maria's historical pier where we indulged in coconut shrimp and then caught this little guy hanging around looking for leftovers.

Then yesterday we went to the Hardrock Casino in Tampa and frittered away a great deal of money in an obscenely long day. We arrived there, gambled for about an hour, then had a leisurely lunch, gambled some more. Decided we should stop for a break, so it was martinis and Bloody Marys all round, then gambled some more and returned home to 4 messages from my aunt Kavita begging us to call her as she was sure something horrid had happened since we had not returned home and it was after 6pm, then after 9pm, then after 10:45 and finally the last message was at 11:45, at which point she not only wanted us to call her, but also call my aunt in Virginia as she had also raised the alarm there and now the entire family network was awake and worried. We listened to the messages, called my brother to see how his opening went, then gabbed till 2 am, at which point we buried the phone under some pillows in the living room (so much easier than turning the ringers off) and went to bed until 9am :)

Thank god mom had to answer to my aunts and not me! Oh and before I go, almost forgot to mention having a most divine manicure and pedicure at...now wait for it....Walmart! That's right folks, over here in the U S of A, one can recieve spa services at Walmart. Not only was it a kickass manicure and pedicure, it was also provided at Walmart pricing, 30 dollars for a regular manicure and pedicure, and 45 for my more elaborate french manicure and french pedicure. Mom and I have now decided that we will have our hands and feet done at least two more times before heading off for India and Saskatoon respectively.

Woops before I go, must mention my brother Raj (Flowing Line Pictures) had the premiere of "The Instigator" in Saskatoon the other night. He was the editor and director and did all the filming as well. It's the story of what bullying can lead to, and was really meant to be a feature film for the school system. Apparently the premiere was a huge success with over 450 people walking the red carpet and very positive reviews.

I was fortunate enough to have a sneak preview at Christmas and thought it was good. I have to admit I thought there were serious script issues, but as far as my brother's work goes...I was impressed. I was also impressed with all the hard work Jade did in set decoration, wrangling extras and generally making their locations look like places I have never been...even my brother's house looked completely different! And of course T-Bone did a fantastic job on music. So congrats to everyone who worked so hard in making this short film.

If you are interested in checking it out, go to http://www.theinstigator.ca/

Ahh, now it's time to sip on a margarita while I work on my painting inspired by Klimt, and yes I will post a photo of it once it is complete.

Cheers!

Swapna

They couldn't care less if I lived or died.

2008-01-07T09:26:00.000-06:00

Can't believe it's already been a month in this glorious sunshine. Of course we did have two days of near frost while Saskatoon managed a warmer temperature...but things are back as they should be and I'm on the deck in shorts, while my Saskatonian friends should be wearing coats, mittens, scarves and hats. Not that I'm trying to be mean or anything, but seriously, if I ran away from there for some heat and found them sunning themselves while I froze, I would be seriously irritated.

Much has transpired since my arrival here, but other than one tiny little tale of jellyfish, not much else seems worthy of recounting. Anyway, on to the jellyfish story. It was a bright sunny day, and I decided I would go to the beach while mom and Shara went shopping. My beach of choice - the Colony. Now the Colony boasts world class tennis courts and very pricey condos for those with wealth dripping from them like an icecream cone in the sun. Despite my not fitting into that category, I found that the beach is actually open to the public, and if you wander into their restaurant (straight of of Cocktail with the hut and a feisty bartender) one can order a margarita and then head towards the white sands to find a lounger or a little shaded lounger complete with the banana leaf thatched umbrella to shade yourself. I, of course, chose the loungers closer to the water.

I was there early, and although there were a few people milling around, not a single soul was venturing into the water. This did not deter me, I headed to the water's edge, and noticed a lot of little jellyfish had been washed up on to the beach. They looked like clear jelly-like bubbles, so I was glad I was wearing water shoes. Anyway, I figured what the heck, they can't be dangerous, after all there are no warning signs posted around, and if there is any danger, someone will come charging down from the pool to yell at me to get out, after all, what else are lifeguards for? So I slowly waded into the water. The sensation was bizarre. Kind of what I think jello wrestling would be like. Every move I made I could feel the jelly fish swirling around my legs and every where I looked I was surrounded by the little suckers. Undaunted I waded further in until I was in up to my neck. I wanted to go further, but the thought of my hair full of jellyfish kind of made me hesitate. Anyway, other than the weird sensation of swimming in jello, no one seemed to care that I was in the water and all was quite peaceful. So I spent an hour or so swimming with the jellyfish. By then a few more people had wandered out to enjoy the sun and sand, but none of them came in the water. Surprisingly, the gulf water was really warm and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. After about an hour of swimming alone I started freaking myself out thinking of sharks...at that point I decided why the hell would anyone stay in the water if all they were doing was trying to remain perfectly still in order not to attract the attention of sharks...so I decided to get out.

Now you may wonder why I would be freaking out about sharks and the reason is this: About six years back when I was in Florida, I waded out into clear shallow waters and was just enjoying the view when I suddenly felt a strong bump against the back of my knees. Looking down I saw a large, very large, fish swimming near me. A second glance had me realizing it was a baby shark. I was a bit scared but not freaked out or anything and just stood there watching it. Then suddenly I had another thought...if the baby shark is out here bumping my legs...mama shark can't be far behind.

About then I started to panic and was about to bolt for the shore when I remembered that sharks are sometimes attracted to splashing and motion, so I slowly backed out of the water. I think those few moments felt like forever, but I was safe, nothing chewed off half my thigh, so whatever! Anyway, by the time I was out of the water I was over my fear and sprinted for the lifeguard all the while screaming "Shark shark!" feeling quite proud of myself. They closed that part of the beach that day, but by the next all was back to normal and I was once again frolicking away in the water. So apparently I've had some sort of delayed stress regarding the shark, cuz it never once bothered me again till now. But this year I am totally paranoid about a shark chewing off my leg.

Err sorry, forgot I was telling you the jellyfish story...anyway, I got out of the water, dried off, headed back to the bar for another margarita and then Mom and Shara showed up and off we went. When I mentioned the jellyfish, they seemed horrified and wondered how I didn't get stung. I happily reported that I was SURE these were non stinging jellyfish since no one had freaked out on me going in the water and there were no signs posted saying swimming was not allowed. This seemed to appease everyone....everyone until I got home and was near a computer. I started wondering about non stinging jellyfish, so I decided to do a search on them, and search Manatee beach. Turns out marine biologists in the area have been confounded by the sudden influx of large numbers of jellyfish and are thinking it's because of low salinity in the water. Also turns out there were lots and lots of warnings about not entering the water and special warnings about the manatee beach jellyfish that could incapacitate you should be stung! Soooo, how did I manage to swim peacefully with literally hundreds and hundreds of jellyfish all around me? I have a theory, I think my flabby thighs jiggled so much the poor little jellyfish thought I was the mother of all jellyfish, and chose to bow down and worship me, rather than sting me.

But the big question is...why did the Colony staff not stop me from entering the water? My guess, they couldn't care less if I lived or died..what's one less tourist in Florida after all?

-Swapna

I've lost my blogging touch...

2007-12-11T08:07:00.000-06:00

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

Don't Just Own it, OM it

2007-12-01T21:17:00.000-06:00

Today is a mixed bag of sweet and sad, another death in our little East Indian community of Saskatoon. Much love and prayers being sent out to the Chakravarti's and to the Datta's who lost their mom last week and Carla who also lost her Grandmother recently. As much as my thoughts keep fleeing back to all those families, they seem to run far and fast just as often. Every death, every illness reminds me of Dad. I'm sure in time this will lessen, but for now I share in every death, remembering Dad, remembering them, and thinking and praying for their families.

But, I'm just not ready to wallow in grief. Sometimes it is what you have to do, other times it's just not what you can do. Today is one of those days for me, so I shall focus on the promise of a good tomorrow. Jade and I are having a girls night complete with manicures, pedicures, facials and hair masks. I also ran over to Mom's today to pick up this CD she wants me to bring out to Florida, I absolutely ADORE the CD. It's kind of new agey east Indian chanting, and I was getting a bit freaked out about things and Jade turned to me and said, "Just OM it all away."

How right she is is, OM OM Shanti OM. Peace and serenity. Anyone who says religion has no place in life has not lived enough. Whether it be a very strong faith, or just enough to make you find hope on a dark evening...religion can bring something to your life. And yeah, okay I'm not a zealot, and I am not even a properly practicing Hindu, but if you ever find yourself facing a day when you have no one to talk to, your dog's dying and your cat vomitted all over your carpet...try looking up and pleading to God for a bit of sanity and help. Somehow it always works for me. Believe me too when I say had this been 6 years ago I probably would never have blogged about God, or praying or listening to new agey chanting music, but it wouldn't have been because I didn't do it, it would have been because it's such a touchy subject for so many. But hey, it's six years later, I'm older, wiser and harder. I really don't care what anyone else thinks about me praying. So, if you are in the mood, try out this CD The Essence - Deva Premal
and if it doesn't make you feel more peaceful or able to see something positive in life...then ummm, I dunno, leave some mean message for me!

Well, I'm off to find comfort in refined pores, less crepiness around my eyes and full bodied hair. I shall return from the sunny shores of Florida sometime after Tuesday.

Much peace and happiness
Swapna

Rumblings and Grumblings

2007-11-08T20:42:00.000-06:00

At long last my contract is over! Well, not quite, I still have the final report to write, but the actual event is over and things should be returning to a sluggish pace soon. In fact, I shall be taking my mini sabbatical in just a few weeks, and not a moment too soon.

Plans for Florida include art, writing, and finally getting caught up on my Hindi homework. Of course plans always go awry, but I still make them. Speaking of plans, I have gone against the countless warnings from friends and family and have finally made the leap...yes mom and I will move in together next summer. At least that's what the plan is:P

The new home is being built and will be completed by June. So sometime in the spring when I return to Saskatoon I'll put my house up for sale. Even if plans change and mom doesn't want to live with me, I shall go to the new home for a number of reasons. The first being the fact I really don't want to pay capital gains and I want to make some cash, the second...well I think some of you will understand this. All my life I've always tried to find character homes to live in. Ones with 10 foot ceilings, archways, hardwood floors, glass door knobs, french doors, huge mouldings etc. I have all that right now, and truth be told, I want a new house! I'm at the point where I think I will need new shingles, my furnace really should be replaced and I need central air, not to mention central vac. Plus I'd love a garage for a change, not to mention a house that looks spotlessly clean. Old homes, no matter how much you clean, just don't have that same look that a brand new house has. So yes, I'm lazy, I'm giving up on character and going for ease and comfort. I think that's a sign of age.

Anyway, assuming mom and I don't kill each other in the upcoming months, we shall attempt living together. One would think this would be easy seeing as I am closer to her than anyone else in the world, but somehow things don't work that way. She seems to think that I'm overbearing, bossy and critical. Oddly enough, that's how I have felt about her all my life. Coincidence? I THINK NOT. We are copies of each other...at least as far as flaws go.

Hmm this leads me to believe I should be revamping my plans for Florida, perhaps I should put learning some patience at the top of the list. Most of my family thinks mom and I are both nuts thinking we could possibly live together, and most of my friends think she will drive me crazy, while I'm sure most of her friends think I will drive her crazy.

But what's the right solution. Okay, mom can stay in her own place, and I stay in mine, but if anyone took the time to actually monitor both of us, I'm pretty sure what they would find is that out of a 24 hour day, I spend at least 14 hours worrying about her, and she spends at least 10 hours worrying about whether I am worrying about her and the other waking 4 wondering what I'm doing. We both have 10 free hours which are spent sleeping, bathing and getting work done. Other than that, we obsess about each other. It's not healthy, but I honestly don't know how to stop it.

Any suggestions? Btw I'm sure this post doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I don't care :)
Ciao for now
Swap

Sparking a Thought

2007-09-18T09:44:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Janet who mentioned something on Jean's blog, which got me started on this particular post!

A few days ago I was discussing food with a friend and then we moved on to India, from there to food in India and finally to restaurants in India. Once there I started talking about veg and non veg foods and how it was important in India to have vegetarian choices. Obviously there are a lot of vegetarians in India...but my friend decided to ask me what a vegetarian is and how vegetarianism came about in India.

I could and should have just looked it up, but I chose to use my favorite method of all and did some open free flow babbling to get to the root of vegetarianism in India. So please beware, the following hypothesis is not based on any facts that I have substantiated as of yet...but as usual I feel confident in my bizarre sense of logic. So here goes!

First of all, as far as I am concerned a vegetarian is a person who does not consume the flesh of animals, fish included and refrains from eating eggs as well. However, they do not refrain from dairy products such as cheese. I know there are people who now refrain from cheese because of renin/rennet but for the purpose of my discussion, those people are being ignored.

Secondly, as far as I know, the cow was never really 'sacred' as far as the western understanding of the word goes. Yes, the cow is 'worshipped' in one sense, but I believe that was because it was such an important part of daily living. The cow's milk was sustenance, the cow dung fertilizer, the cow plowed the field, blah blah blah...so the cow became so important you only slaughtered one on very special occassions. Let's face it, when the cow could provide so much, why on earth would you kill one...hence the rarity of beef. In fact, if I remember correctly, the Vedic scriptures even refer to feasting on the flesh of a cow...so yeah, our ancient and most holy and venerable ones ate beef!

Okay so if I am correct so far, and I think I am, how exactly did vegetarianism become so prominent. I think it is based more on the idea of how prayer can affect your life. In India faith is strong. Bottom line, put your faith in God (take your pick of which God) and viola all can be resolved. Now how exactly would one show they have faith in God and believe that God will fix their problems, why by picking a day to worship that God of course! Okay so now we have picked a day, and we obviously have a specific problem in mind, so how are we to show we are worthy of God's intervention. Well let's see, the easiest way would be to make a sacrifice of some sort. Sacrificing an animal would be stupid, since that would harm one of God's creations, so let's do something that shows we have strength of will and commitment. Okay why not fast for a day and begin and end that day with prayers.Logical move to me. (I have to interject at this point my friend asked why cutting down a stalk of corn was not considered harming one of God's creations and although I have an answer for that, I chose to answer in the following way. "Shut up and listen, I'm on a roll, we can discuss that another day!"

So now we have someone picking a specific day on which they will observe prayers and a fast of some sort. Whether it's just fasting in the form of no food before sundown, or fruits only, or no meat...whatever, it's just some sort of a fast.

Now we get to the interesting part. As far as I can see, any of the following are common and apparently good reasons to ask for God's intervention:

A family member needs to find a suitable mate
A family member needs to do well on their exams
A family member needs a good job
A family member's health is failing
Your health is failing
Your daughter is not pregnant yet and should be
Your daughter in law is not pregnant yet and should be
You aren't pregnant yet and should be
You wish to be more patient
You wish to be more compassionate
You wish to be successful
You need to make more money
Your son needs to make more money
Your husband needs to make more money
Your daughter needs to visit you more often
Your son should observe his family duties and care for his aging parents
Your son or daughter need to take better care of their children
You daughter in law needs to stop abusing you
Your grandchild is not particularly pleasing to look at and you wish to help them become more attractive
Your child is not that attractive and you want to make sure somebody finds them attractive
Someone in your family has been touched by the 'evil eye' and this needs to be removed
You feel oppressed and believe an 'evil eye' has been cast upon you
Your mind is restless and you do not feel at peace
You think your child's mind is restless and they need to find peace
You think your son or daugther in law's mind is restless and you want them to find peace
You don't know what you should be doing in life and you want direction
You want someone you know to find direction in life
There are tragedies happening around you, and you want those affected by that tragedy to find comfort
You feel your actions caused strife for your family or friends and you wish to recitfy the solution
Your pet is ill
Your need a better home
Your children are successful and you want to ensure their continued happiness and protect them from the 'evil eye'
Your family is happy, you want to protect them from the 'evil eye'
You have lost someone you love and you wish to find comfort
Your business is failing and you wish for it to become more successful
Your son/daughter/son in law/daughter in law/husband is lazy and this needs to be rectified
Your friends are all married and now you need to find a husband
To pray and abstain from eating shows strength of character and fortitude which can only be increased by continuing to pray for the strength of character and fortitude to allow you to keep a fast

Now remember, that is only a partial list! So basically if you give up eating meat on a specific day to accomplish one task...the bottom line becomes clear - Be a vegetarian and pray every day and your life will be good. Thus vegetarianism and the strong faith in India is now explained.
My tendency towards fatness, my lack of direction in life, and my lack of a husband are now also all explained.

Well I'm off to buy some steak, see ya later!
Swapna

Thugs, blood and the Zodiac's return

2007-09-15T09:27:00.000-06:00

I slept upstairs last night for a couple of reasons. One because the bed has the best mattress in the world, two because as of this weekend it's no longer the guest room, as Jade has officially become my roommate. She's still just spending weekends in Saskatoon and the week out in Marcelin, but come December when I go traveling with mom she will rent the entire house. And thirdly, I slept upstairs because I felt to weak to walk all the way downstairs...no I'm not kidding, all of a sudden I felt like I couldn't walk another step, so I just lay there and finally burrowed under the covers. Prior to that I had a sudden boost of energy and had cleaned out the fridge and bleached the kitchen in the hopes of killing any of my sickness germs that might have been floating around.

So anyway, all of that is unimportant, what is important is that I had watched Zodiac earlier in the evening. For those of you who do not know the story or movie, it's obviously about the Zodiac killer, who's identity is thought to be known although it was never proved. Anyway, I watch some scary crap, decide I can't sleep while kind of creeped out, so I open all the windows in the living room to air out my germs, clean the fridge and then suddenly pass out on the guest bed. Needless to say I did not have a peaceful sleep, Arthur Leigh Allen (the suspected Zodiac killer) wandered in out of my dreams taunting me, then it happened. I heard other voices, male voices, and they penetrated my dreamworld. I sat straight up in bed, totally freaked out, as they sounded like they were right outside the bedroom door. The conversation went something like this.

"Do you think she's awake?"
"I don't know she's up late a lot, but it seems quiet"
"You should go in there and check"
"And do what, hit her over the head with a brick if she's still awake"
"HAHAHAHAHA yeah that might work, I swear she never sleeps, she probably already knows we are here."
"Yeah but this time I think she is asleep"
"But she's never going to buy our story"

By this time I was ready to pee my pants, who were these men in my house? Why were they talking so loudly, why did they want to hit me over the head with a brick, where could I get help from, where could I hide, how could I escape, why was my body frozen....why can't I move, what the hell is going on? Are they going to kill me? Move body MOVE!!!!!! At that point the fear totally overwhelmed me and I tried to scream. A pathetic high pitched little squeak came rattling out of my mouth, but it was enough to allow me to regain control of my body, I yelled the most blood curdling thing I could think of, which happened to be, "EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Prepare TO DIE" as I leapt from the bed looking for something to hit the intruders with. For the record all I could find was a bottle of contact lens solution and the table lamp, both of which I grabbed hold of, I yanked hard and sure enough the lamp came loose from the plug point and armed with my dangerous weapons I ran screaming into the living room. Now for those that don't remember, this is my all time favorite tactic when scared witless. I figure if someone is trying to kill me I should go on the offensive and scream like a banshee and perhaps this will freak them out enough for me to escape.

Turns out I did freak the thugs out, as they started screaming too, "Holy **** SHIT SHIT! What the hell!" (and then a bunch more expletives.)

So I'm standing in the dark in my living room screaming, there's a bunch of swearing coming from somewhere, and all of a sudden lights go on outside and some man is shouting, "What the hell is going on out there?"

Turns out the 'thugs' were my neighbor and his friend, standing outside my living room window (which happens to be right by the gate leading into his yard) in a drunken state wondering if they should go in or not since his parents were in town visiting. and the other person yelling was his father wondering what was going on. Once I realized what was happening, I went to the window and meekly said, "Sorry, I thought someone was trying to break in, I'll just go back to bed now," and then slammed the window shut and did just that.

On a totally unrelated note, I was interrupted while typing this post. So halfway through I got up to turn on some music. As I walked to the stereo I saw what appears to be blood on my floor. Looking around I spotted more smears of blood. I tried to think whether it was possible this was just a squashed strawberry being dragged around my living room, but I don't think so. Then I wondered if one of the cats were injured, and finally I found the cause of the blood smears. One dead mouse lying on the entryway carpet (thank you Tinka). So really last night wasn't as bad as it could have been, had I run screaming into the living room, turned on the lights and seen the blood, I think I probably would have just fainted.

-Swapna

What does it take to get a Kudo around here!

2007-09-14T14:55:00.001-06:00

Okay, so I'm still sick, but no longer feeling like I am about to die. Being sick can be quite boring so I decided to try my hand at a game called Kudos. Big fat mistake I tell you! Basically the idea is to start a character and then take her from her 20th birthday to her 30th. In those ten intervening years you have the opportunity to advance your career, love life, health, etc. All my games started with my character being a waitress.

Okay so the first time I tried it I started out as a reasonably happy waitress...I ended up a famous extremely miserable chef. So yes, I progressed in the area of career but I failed everywhere else. Friends were dropping me like flies and every day it would say I woke up and went to work depressed and unhappy! I finally got tired of trying to fix that character, so I started another one. This time I was prepared, I wasn't going for the chef, I would be a doctor by taking night classes.

So we start with our reasonably happy waitress, and she progressed to being a surgeon, and there were a lot of ups and downs but at last I was asked out by a guy! WOOHOO right? Wrong. Of all the male characters in my game, that was the one I liked the least, but when he asked if I would be interested in him, I had the choice to say, "Sorry I only like you as a friend" or take the relationship...by then I was so horrified that it had taken me 4 years to get a date, I obviously clicked on TAKE THE RELATIONSHIP. Sadly, even my game generated boyfriend was the most boring of creatures and even with a boyfriend my character still ended up being a Successful Materialistic, Miserable Surgeon. Now, I still don't know what I'm doing wrong, but my characters become quite materialistic really fast, however, if I try and make them characters who like bowling and beer in the neighborhood pub...then all the people I get introduced to snub me saying they don't want to be seen in public with me.

I decided this game was going nowhere so I took another nytol and headed to bed. During the night I had an epiphany! The reason I didn't have the character of my dreams was because I was trying to accomplish too much, raise the salary, night school, be social, have a clean house, etc...so I awoke thinking AHA I have the solution, I will forgo my character's career advancement until I have secure friendships and a relationship. Armed with this new tactic I headed back into the world of Kudos. I did exactly as planned, let the career slide...well I upgraded my kungfu enough to become a security guard cuz I was having trouble making ends meet as a waitress and my house kept getting broken into. But never mind that! I was a social butterfly...then I realized all my friends ever wanted to do was go have beer, and the only way you bring your alcohol level down is by sleeping on the sofa (don't ask me why), so that would atrophy my muscles, which made my job precarious, so I would have to work out all week, binge drink with friends on Friday, sleep all weekend and continue along. I gave up that character 4 years into my 10 year stint. I retired as a miserable, reclusive, alcoholic nightclub bouncer.

So I have come to this sad conclusion...if I can't make a simulated life work, it's no wonder I'm sitting at home alone dying of the flu wondering why no one is here caring for me!
Swap

The Facebook Skit

2007-09-11T17:40:00.001-06:00

My brother posted this to my facebook account and I was laughing so hard I felt it deserved a viewing here too!

Thanks to my Brother, the walking well of deadly pathogens and pure contagion!

2007-09-10T22:19:00.001-06:00

My brother was quite sick so I stopped over to drop off some soup, juice and drugs. Turns out he was rather contagious...so yes, I'm at home unable to sleep because of the death rattle in my chest and thought, "wow, what a perfect time to blog!"

Last week Jade was sick with the flu and was staying at my place, she insisted on me buying her the antiviral kleenexes and we were extremely vigilant about using hand sanitizers and the like. Obviously all that worked, since I didn't get sick then...but I still question these darned antiviral kleenex. Basically they should be lined with gold flakes since they are so expensive, and to top it all off it states that 90% of all germs will be killed within 15 minutes. So if you use them, make sure no one runs around picking up your snotty kleenexes until they've been stuffed in the side of the sofa or on the floor for at least 15 minutes. Not only that but the active ingredients in this amazing germ destroying kleenex is citric acid and sodium laureth sulfate...which I do believe is the foaming agent in most soaps and a known skin irritant....go figure!

Perhaps I should be blaming Jade and my brother for my illness...she weakened my immune system, put it on the defensive so to speak, and then my brother went in for the kill. Damn them both! Oh well, enough about them and more about anything else. Mom is in Florida at the moment and had convinced me to take 6 months off work starting in December to spend time with her. I've made all the arrangements and my only request was that she find a way for me to bring Oli and Tinka to stay as well.

Sadly mom's condo is in a seniors complex where I am not even allowed to stay for more than one month and where pets are strictly prohibited. I figure we should just rent out her condo (since she rents it out when she's not there anyway) and then find a new place to rent for all of us. Unfortunately, this idea doesn't seem to be panning out. Mom's been there for 3 days and she's about ready to throw in the towel. Today she said, and I quote, "I will look for one more day. If I don't find anything that will work, then it's just not God's will."

Errrrr, come on now! Okay I understand not wanting to spend a cartload of money to get this accomplished, but there has to be a way. The economy in Florida is so depressed we should be able to find something. However, I guess what's happening is the real estate market and the general economy there has fallen so much that tourism is still going strong so everyone is choosing to rent rather than sell, which means rents are quite high. Oh well, battling God is one thing, battling my mother and God...I just can't do it. I guess I do have to leave it in their hands (sigh).

Oh before I forget I have to mention to Jean that I never meant to insult her with my tarred and feathered post. I just thought it was rather funny how the most gentle of reminders from her could make feel like a naughty little child. I did NOT intend it as an insult at all, in fact it was kind of a tribute to how much I take her suggestions to heart. So, Jean, if I insulted you, I am very, very sorry. Please forgive me.

Ahh, speaking of forgiveness....Another apology goes out to Carla as I have neglected her as well, and wasn't there when Ariel passed on. Ariel was her lovely old dog who slept with me every night of my visit.

Okay now that I've made my rounds in apologies I shall retire to fill my bed to overflowing with used kleenexes. I figure since these are the ordinary type I'll have to leave them there till at least tomorrow morning in order to ensure the death of all my little germies!

Night night!
Swapna

Googalicious

2007-08-13T13:27:00.000-06:00

Every now and then I will click on sitemeter and check out who is looking at my blog, where they are located, and if they were referred from another site, then I will go check out that site too. Today was quite amusing as there were some recent Google searches resulting in people checking out my blog.

So if you ever wonder who checks out my blog, well it's people using Google to search out the following phrases:

"daydream+work+sex"
"i come home after work, park the car she's sleeping in the other room"
"sex "Olivya""
"mosquito like bumps inner thighs come together go away"
"Timothy Treadwell Autopsy"
"scratch red patch, psoriasis"
"man with one finger missing"

What I find even more amusing about all of those searches, is that most of those people actually spend a fair amount of time reading through my posts, looking for the ever elusive post about me at work daydreaming about Oli having a sexual dream, which obviously results in me getting so excited that I get a rash on my inner thighs, that could resemble psoriasis, and drives me crazy all day so finally when I get home from work, I park the car, run in the house and find someone sleeping in the other room, so I beat the crap out of her until my house resembles a retelling of Timothy Treadwell's grizzly bear encounter. Finally when I'm done all that, the police come to take me away and lo and behold, the detective interviewing me has one missing finger.

Okay enough of that, on to more pressing matters. Anita also appears shocked to hear I put carrots in my chili. To make a long story short, Carla posted about her husband who suggesting she put carrots in her chili and how ridiculous a thought that was, to which I replied that I had made chili with carrots in it. Carla found this deplorable and would have liked to have had me sentenced to death, but apparently the governor gave me a reprieve...why, well probably because of this (check out the last ingredient in all of these recipes):

Halftime Chili Recipe
This is the perfect chili dish to serve at your next halftime get together. Serve with grated cheese and tortilla chips for dipping.
Ingredients
• 3 Tablespoons olive oil• 1 1/2 cups chopped onion• 8 large garlic cloves, chopped• 2 pounds ground chuck• 1 envelope taco seasoning or 1/4 cup taco seasoning• 1 teaspoon dried basil• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme• 1 15oz can tomato sauce• 3 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth• 1 6oz can tomato paste• 2 15 to 16oz cans of kidney beans (drained)•1lb diced carrots

Day Before Chili Recipe
This chili recipe is called the Day Before recipe because it's better when you cook it the day before and let it refrigerate overnight!
Ingredients
• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef• 1 Tablespoon olive oil• 2 medium onions, chopped• 4 cloves garlic, minced• 3/4 Teaspoon salt• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper• 1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper• 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper• 7 Tablespoons chili powder• 2 Teaspoons garlic powder• 1 Teaspoon hot pepper sauce• 2 15 to 16oz cans of red kidney beans (drained)• 1 15oz can diced tomatoes• 1 15oz can tomato sauce• 6 oz beer (1/2 can)• 3 Tablespoons ground cumin• 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce• 1/2 cup finely chopped carrots

Three Bean Chili Recipe
For those of you who don't like the meat in your chili, this is the chili recipe for you. It's fast and easy to prepare. Serve with shredded cheddar cheese and chopped scallions.
Ingredients
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil• 2 medium onions, chopped• 1 medium red pepper, chopped• 1 medium green pepper, chopped• 1 large jalapeno pepper (seeded, de-veined and chopped)• 6 cloves garlic, minced• 1 cup beer• 2 16 oz. cans diced tomatoes• 1 14 oz. can black beans• 1 16 oz. can dark red kidney beans• 1 tablespoon ground cumin• 2 tablespoons chili powder• 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce• 1 teaspoon salt• 1 can vegetarian refried beans with chiles• 1 can diced carrots (can substitute fresh)

Winter Chili Recipe
Take the chill out of winter and cook up some chili and corn bread for you family! Winter can brings a cold chill into the house at times, so what better way to warm and spice things up! You and your family will be feeling cozy in no time with this Winter Chili and corn bread recipe. The kitchen will also be a warm place for you to stay while enjoying making this fabulous chili.
Ingredients
• 1 finely chopped onion• 3 finely chopped garlic cloves• 2 piece of bacon cut crosswise into pieces• 2 tablespoons of chili powder•2 cans of cannelloni, pinto or red kidney beans• 1 ½ teaspoons of dried crushed oregano• 1 ½ teaspoons of paprika• 1/2 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper• 3 cups of water• Coarse salt• 3/4 cup of Monterey Jack Cheese or cheddar (shredded)• 2 tablespoons of fine cornmeal• 1 ½ cups of chopped winter squash or zucchini• 1 ½ cups of frozen or fresh kernel corn (whole)• 1 1/2 cups frozen or fresh diced carrots

So you see, the entire world is making chili with carrots in it, it's not just me and Jon!

Ciao
Swapna

PS: BTW I added the carrots to each of the above recipes...but I swear someone somewhere puts carrots in their chili besides me!

Halfway to being Tarred and Feathered

2007-08-07T10:32:00.001-06:00

You know no matter how hard I try (and I obviously don't try that hard) I can't seem to get back into the blogging rhythm. I've had my cousin's kids visiting for a month and then my cousin and her husband joined them for the last 10 days, and I did my kids creative writing summer camp, and blah blah, but all of that was over one week ago, and still I did not blog. Then it happened...I received an email from Jean, well it was a blog comment but it showed up in my inbox. Now you see, every now and then I do receive comments like this, but usually they are from Anita or Carla.

When Anita does it, I feel like I used to when I was a kid and my sister and I would be getting ready for school, and I'd be fussing with my clothes or something and she would start her whining...Hurry up, we're going to be laaaate! Yeah yeah I know I should be posting, and thanks for reminding me, but I'll get around to it when I get around to it. And then I go do it.

Now if Carla sends me a reminder to blog it's more like my sister cuffing me upside the head saying, MOVE YOUR ASS or I'll move it for you. Of course my response to that is, Shaddap you scrawny little monster, you don't scare me! But again, I go and post.

Now we come to Jean. Dear Jean, the gentle, wise, comical, astute lady from England whom I have never met. She leaves this comment:

Swapna, dear -- isn't it time we had another blog entry? I don't mean to criticise or anything, but I miss you. Posted by Jean to Saskawhere? at 3:47 PM

A very sweet and kind message, but oh my god, my reaction to it was one of great shame! In fact, this is kind of how I reacted..

Oh no Jean messaged! Oh man I've let her down, should I post right away? No no, that looks too pathetic, I should wait. (5 minutes pass) Oh god I still haven't posted, what if she checks back, she knows I will see that comment, well maybe she doesn't know I get email notification, nawww, she knows! I'll just leave it a bit longer and then I will go post. (hours pass). Dear God I haven't posted! Hmmm, it's too late I should go to sleep now, I will post first thing tomorrow morning. Then the dreams begin....Okay I didn't really dream this that night, but I woke up feeling as though I had. In fact, I woke up feeling like this: Someone has put a noose around my neck, shackled me and is dragging me behind a cart while reciting a grievously long list of my lifetime of transgressions. Finally, I am brought before the magistrate in a public forum where the verdict is delivered...I am to be tarred and feathered for crimes against the Crown. Now they are dousing me in hot pine tar then rolling me around in feathers before my ultimate humiliation where they parade me around town on a cart. And to add insult to injury, I'm being pelted with rotting vegetables. Finally they stop at the town square, right under the hangman's noose...

So basically, after waking up and feeling like that, I was too scared to open my computer.

However, it is now Tuesday morning after a long weekend, and after a good night's sleep, I managed to look at myself in the mirror this morning and realize I'm only halfway to being tarred and feathered...seriously, I'm black, black, black. I can't say it's tar, but gardening all weekend has definitely left me looking like only the whites of my eyes and my gleaming teeth would show late at night. So before the feathering begins, I have managed to muster up the will to drag myself back here and prostrate myself before you all as I grovel for forgiveness.

The bonus to all of this is that my ridiculously long-winded explanation of my shame in not blogging is basically enough to count as a full fledged posting! Ooooo don't I feel clever now!

The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, 1774 British propaganda print referring to the tarring and feathering of Boston Commissioner of Customs John Malcolm four weeks after the Boston Tea Party. The men also poured hot tea down Malcolm's throat as can be seen. Note the noose hanging on the Liberty Tree, and the Stamp Act posted upside-down
(Wikipedia)

Cheers!
Swapna

The Tables Are Turned

2007-07-02T22:08:00.001-06:00

Quick bit of background, my mother has had this problem with her foot/leg for a month now and it's making life quite difficult for her and me. If any of you are thinking my mother is this decrepit, dying, old woman, you are way off base. She's vivacious, beautiful, upbeat, a bit controlling and not dying. But, there is nothing worse than seeing your mother in pain, not knowing what is causing it, and not knowing how to fix it. I guess the only thing worse would be having a child in the same situation.

One night last week I even drove to mom's and sat outside her door frantically phoning all over looking for her while my brother drove around searching for her. It all started when she mentioned she had to get a friend to drive her in the afternoon because her foot was hurting so much. Having said that, she then mentioned she was going out that evening to a lecture, and I asked if she needed a ride. She said no, so I assumed someone was picking her up. Ten p.m. came and went with no phone call from her, so I called. No answer. 10:30, still no answer, 11 no answer 11:30 NOTHING. Okay by then I was starting to panic since I thought she would have been home by 10 at the latest.

So I decide maybe she's fallen and can't get to the phone, maybe she's unconscious...maybe she's in pain just inches from the phone and unable to move and crying her eyes out! I couldn't take it anymore so I decided to drive over to her place. Since she had just moved I had loaned my keys to her carpenter so I called my brother and asked to borrow his, but he only had a key to the main entrance, not her suite. I go pick up his keys and now I've worried him too.

11:45 I'm at her door knocking away, no answer. I go to the garage, er....her car is gone. Okay so she was not well enough to drive this afternoon, but now she's gone, it's midnight and her car is gone too? I was getting a bit freaked, so I called the person who had sponsored the lecture. He said she had left around 10 pm (fortunately he was still awake and was entertaining the speakers.) Then he told me to check with another friend who was sitting next to her at the lecture, so I make another call just after midnight.

Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to be phoning people after midnight looking for your mom on Thursday night? Again I got lucky, this time the people I called were still awake because they were waiting for their son's flight to arrive. However, still no mom and no closer to knowing where she was. By then my brother was calling me every five minutes to see if I had found her. I finally figured I knew where she was, but I couldn't figure out why she would be out so late. When Dad was alive, he and her would go to this little pub around the corner from their house and have something to eat and a drink. Dad loved to go there and it's a family run place and the waitress was one of his patients and man did she ever love Dad. So anyway, when I realized mom would have driven right by that spot upon leaving the lecture I figured maybe she went there. What I couldn't figure out was why she would still be there since my mom just wouldn't go to a pub alone other than to stop in for 15 minutes to chat....but it was my best guess, so I told my brother I would drive there and check it out. He vetoed that and said I should stay at her door in case she came home while he went and checked it out.

So I sat in the hallway of her condo while my brother drove off to find her. All of a sudden my phone rang and it was my brother saying he just spotted my mother driving home. He turned around and started following her. Apparently this freaked her out, so first off she tried changing lanes, but then my brother changed lanes and that freaked her out too, so she started weaving in and out of traffic, so my brother followed suit. Finally he realized she was acting like she was trying to escape him, so she must not have recognized him or his car, so he decides to drive up next to her and let her see it's just him. So he pulls up next to her, but will she look at him, nope. He's waving like crazy and she refuses to look over then drives off like a bat out of hell and heads for her garage. At that point he calls me and says she is safely in the underground parking and should be emerging upstairs any moment now and he's heading home.

So there I am at 12:45, irritated, tired and cranky standing at her door like a mother waiting for her kid to come home 3 hours after curfew when in strolls mom. The look on her face was not at all what I was hoping for. I think somewhere in my mind I figured she would feel remorseful and almost scared...after all she did just think she was being followed by some weirdo and now she'll see me standing at her door all upset, this should scare her a bit shouldn't it? But nope. She walks off the elevator, sees me, and breaks into a huge smile and is overjoyed that I've come for a late night visit. Then when I tell her I've been worried sick, and that the guy following her was Neeraj, and what does she do? She starts laughing her head off. Then she goes on to mention that my brother looks like a terrorist now that he's grown a beard, laughs some more and then decides that it's so late I have to spend the night at her place. And the final kicker...before she goes to sleep, she gives me a kiss and says, "You know, I should make you worry more often if it means I get to have you stay over."

Man, how can anyone be mad after that?

Btw, mom explained that she was the only one in the pub so she just sat there reminiscing about dad with the waitress for hours. Dad used to call mom the Queen of Cliches, and we always would tease her and try and use them on her. Dad's favorite was to catch her doing something she said she never would and then would yell, "Tables are Turned, Tables are Turned!"
Guess Dad's up there watching us and laughing at me now.

-Swapna

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

2007-06-19T00:53:00.000-06:00

Okay let's start with the good...Mom is not dying of some horrible degenerative bone disease. However, she does have active rapidly advancing osteoarthritis. Not great news, but she hopefully will have some relief tomorrow when they give her some injections in her foot. They also started her on some medication that seemed to actually ease her pain quite a bit. The bad news is that she may suffer from bouts of this off and on and there really is no cure. Though I must admit, it was a huge relief to see her have a little break from pain. I'm hoping the drugs keep her pain free enough to make it through the injections and then hopefully she will be on the mend, and in the future if she gets a flare-up we can catch it in time and not have a repeat of what just happened.

Now on to the UGLY, now that would be my hair. Man I hate bad hair days, they can ruin your entire day just by making you feel horrendously ugly all day. What I want to know is do men suffer from this as well? Not the pretty men who actually coif their hair, spray it, check it, blah blah, no no, I want to know if those other guys, the wash and wear or maybe a touch of gel guys have this problem. Seriously, I did my hair this morning, but it just wouldn't go the right way. It was as though Donald Trump came to visit and offered to style my hair for me. Part way through the day it was driving me so batty I decided to try and wet it a bit then slick it back behind my ears and go for the smooth polished look. I might have pulled it off had I not been driving around with my windows down. Consequently I was wishing for la Trumpignon when I looked in the mirror and realized I now looked like a muskrat had made its home on my head and then been electrocuted. Not only that but my pants kept creeping up my inner thighs. So there I was with my pants bunched up around my crotch while my head looked like some sort of freak show...when what happens....You are now thinking I bumped into an ex boyfriend or some hot guy right? WRONG. Nope, even that would have been better. Instead of bumping into some guy I bumped into a woman who I almost hate. I say almost, since I don't really hate anyone. Well not true, I hate one person, but that's not worth going into. So anyway, I bump into the woman who for most of my life wanted to scratch my eyes out, and then suddenly I wanted to scratch hers out. It is a mutual almost hatred. So anyway there she was, looking rather skinny, tanned and tall....grrrrrrrrr. And of course I couldn't duck and hide without looking like some sort of animal was running for the woods, so I just tried to be gracious and be all fakey nice. You know, after I realized I couldn't escape her, I did a careful perusal of her no wrinkles, no sagging, no lumps or bumps, not even anything stuck in her teeth. Aww well, hopefully her husband has a small....er nm, I'm going to bed before I wish something really horrid on her and karma comes back and slaps me in the face with not only a bad hair day, but a face full of pimples too.

Night night,
Swapna

Father's Day

2007-06-17T22:45:00.000-06:00

I woke up feeling great, even though Dad's not here anymore, I don't feel like I have to mourn Father's Day. So, I headed outside very early, transplanted some trees and then sat back and watched as the rain started to come down, just a light sprinkling at first, but not for long. It's almost 11pm and it's been raining non-stop, I swear I want to go outside in the backyard, strip down to my undies and wash my hair. In fact, I'm waiting for the neighbors to go to sleep and then I think I'm gonna go do it. Of course I'll be smart this time round (yes I have done this before).

Last time was, well let's just say a bit of a fiasco. I was so excited, stripped down and raced outside with my shampoo in hand. Feeling free and one with nature, I suddenly looked down at that shampoo bottle and started wondering if washing those chemicals off around my plants and grass was such a good idea, so, being the semi conscientious person I am, I raced back inside and dripping wet, scoured my bathroom and the storage closet for that environmentally friendly shampoo. Having secured it I raced back out and started the hair washing. Now environmentally friendly shampoo doesn't quite lather as much as I would like it to, so I poured it on a bit liberally. Three quarters of the bottle later I finally had a lather I was pleased with and then the rain stopped. Just like that....BAM done. So there I am outside with shampoo running into my eyes wondering what to do next, so I got the brilliant idea to stand under the eaves trough. It worked as far as getting rid of the shampoo went. However, standing under that eaves trough added more to my hair than it removed. So I finally came inside freezing cold, scratching like crazy from the ten million mosquito bites, and to top it all off, I had to have a shower to get rid of the dirt, leaves and twigs in my hair.

This year I'm starting with DEET, screw the plants, I'm using Aveda shampoo, and I will have the garden hose ready in case the rain decides to quit.

On a more somber note, I'm very worried about Mom. Something's seriously wrong with her. She has had horrible pains in her hands and feet, at first we thought it was from her cancer medication, but since going off only her hands seem to be getting better. Now her feet are so bad she can barely walk. She has an appointment with a specialist Tuesday morning, but I'm going to see if he can see her tomorrow morning. Right now I'm beginning to think mom and I should be living together, I can't handle seeing her in this kind of pain and then worrying if she's able to even go to the bathroom on her own without falling down or something. Ugh, I just don't know what to do and I feel so helpless. Oh well, let's hope tomorrow is better.
Night night,
Swapna

Single...Am I Lovin' It?

2007-06-16T08:43:00.000-06:00

I spent this week helping Mom move from one condo to another...my back hurts, my feet hurt, my arms hurt...you get the picture. Anyway, all of that is understandable, mom was just moving up one floor, so we did the majority of moving ourselves. Okay, but someone explain this next part to me. Mom's house now looks fantastic. A few things, like the custom draperies, are not arriving till next week, and her office needs sorting out, but other than that, she's done and the place is more than just livable, it's almost a show home once again. However, my house now looks like a tornado hit it.

Apparently my week went something like this:
Get up around 6, head to the bathroom while shedding anything I might be wearing along the way. Shower and get ready, go upstairs feed the cats, make breakfast and a lunch for mom and I, leave the kitchen in a mess, head to mom's. Work at mom's, come home around 11pm. Unload whatever junk I have now inherited into my living room, check email, check phone messages, work till 2 am. Head downstairs and shed all clothing along the way, climb into bed, sleep till 6:30 and start all over again. Not once did I put an article of clothing in the clothes hamper, load the dishwasher, put anything away that I brought from mom's etc. Now seriously, if I wasn't single this just wouldn't happen.

Just one more reason why I need a guy...er wait a minute. What if I wasn't single. what then? Would I really come home, and put things away....probably. BUT, what if it was more like I put things away and then had to cook dinner for him, clean the kitchen, head down to do both of our laundry, then headed to bed where I would have a whole other job waiting for me...then start all over?

Oh alright, I admit there are some perks, I wouldn't have to mow the lawn, take out the garbage or move the loveseat into the other room. But you know what, it's 9 am and the garbage is out, the loveseat has been moved and the lawn is can wait till tomorrow. Maybe I've been approaching this all wrong, maybe what I really need is a guy who can cook, decorate, knows how to wash clothes properly and loves to go shopping with my mom. That way I can come home from work, take out the garbage, and mow the lawn before he calls me in to enjoy the fabulous dinner he cooked to go with the red wine he picked up on the way home from shopping with mom.

Any gay men out there looking for a roommate?

Ciao
Swapna

The Real Reason I Can't Pick Up a Guy at the Bar

2007-06-10T00:02:00.001-06:00

Don't be so shocked that I'm back, it's just that I needed to post this while it was still fresh in my mind.

Okay so it's one of those rare occasions where I actually went to the bar with some girlfriends. There was a band we all wanted to hear, so off we went. Of course, we were probably the oldest females there, but we looked hot I tell ya. So anyway, here's my story with the obligatory name disguising to save face for all but me:P

Let me set the scene, Swapna, Charina, and her cousin Karlotte go to the bar...I'm cracking myself up with their name changes, like swapping the first letters of their first names really works...but hey, they don't read this anyway. Okay so off we go and settle in at a table near the back for some good music. After the first set Karlotte leans over and stabs me in the hand with her straw and tells me not to look, but there's some guy eyeing me up. Turns out she was right, he was eyeing me up, and when Karlotte was in the bathroom and Charina was at the bar ordering drinks, he made his smooth entrance. The conversation went something like this:

Him: Hey
Me: Hey
Him: Mind if I sit down?
Me: Sure, just pull up an extra chair though, my friends are coming back.
Him: No problem
Off he goes to find a chair....time passes, the girls have returned before him, now he finally comes back with a chair.
Him: I'm back
Me: I see that
Him: So can I buy you a drink?
Me: Actually Charina just got me one, but thanks for asking. Oh and uh so this is Charina and that's Karlotte, and your name is?
Him: Oh right, Dan, sorry bout that.

Now at this point the band starts back up and they are really loud...this is an important fact.

Me: Hi Dan, I'm Swapna
Him: What?
Me: I said, Hi, my name is Swapna
Him: Sorry, I didn't get that the band's really loud.
Me: Yeah I can barely make out a word you are saying.
Him: HUH? What? Sorry I still can't hear you.
Me: Uh so you really can't understand a word I am saying?
Him: Yeah I really like what they are playing too, have you heard them before?
Me: Not live, but someone sent me an mp3 of theirs.
Him: Sure no problem I'll just sit here and wait for you if that's okay.
(Now I've tried and tried to figure out what he might of said, but at the time I decided he heard me say...Not live, but now I have to go pee over there by the stairs. So off I went to the bathroom. When I returned he was happily listening away to the music and there was a new drink in front of me, so obviously he had no probs hearing the waitress.)
Him: Welcome Back.
Me: Thanks, by the way, did you buy me this drink?
Him: What do you mean what do I think?
Me: No No, I said THANK YOU FOR THE DRINK
Him: Oh, Okay, no problem.

By then I was having trouble keeping a straight face, as were my two friends. So we kinda just sat back and listened to the music for a bit. After a while of silence, he tried again.
Him: So I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?
Me: Swapna
Him: Um sorry what was that?
Me: SWAP NA like you swap something with an N A on the end.
Him: Swapna?????
Me: Yes
Him: Seriously?
Me: YES
Him: No, I meant what is your first name?
Me: that is my first name
Him: No I mean not your....oh what's it called, well not your last name, what's the word for that, but not that, your other name.
Me: Swapna is not my last name it's my first name, and I think the word you are looking for is 'surname'
Him: Your name is Tremaine?
Me: No the word is SURNAME and my name is Swapna
Him: yeah not your surname, what's your first name?
Me: My NAME IS SWAPNA PADMANABH
Him: Swami Patmybag?
Me: Yes, yes my name is Swami Patmybag. Well it's not really, but I'm not sure if you know much about the Hindu religion, but I'm a Swami, so we are forbidden from disclosing our first names. It's a rule.
Him: You're a hindustanian swami?
Me: Yes, yes I am
Him: I knew someone who spoke hindustanian before, but I don't know if they were a hindustanian or pakistanian.
Me: I see. Well, I try not to discuss my hindustanian beliefs and such, since I just want to be like everyone else, I don't like being treated differently.
Him: Yeah okay, and I wouldn't have known you were a Swami, you look just like everyone else.
Me: Well thank you very much, that's a very nice compliment.
Him: If you don't want to answer this that's okay, because you don't want to talk about hindustanian things, but is it okay for you to be drinking alcohol?
Me: I'm not drinking alcohol. That is STRICTLY forbidden! That's the real reason why I said no the first time you asked if you could buy me a drink.
Him: Oh, but hey, stop drinking that. I bought you that drink and I thought the waitress said you were drinking Jack Daniels with Coke, so that has Jack Daniels in it.
Me: Right, I can drink Coke, it's okay to drink Coke.
Him: NO it's coke, but it's Jack Daniels too.
Me: Yeah, like I said, coke is okay, but I thought you said your name was Dan, not Jack Dan.
Him: NO NO THAT DRINK HAS JACK DANIELS IN IT, JACK DANIELS IS ALCOHOL.
Me:What? There's alcohol in this?
Him: Yes.
Me: Oh, I thought it tasted funny.
Him: Sorry I didn't know.
Me: That's okay, it tastes kinda nice anyway ( then I take another sip).

At that point Charina leaves, just up and leaves. Later she told me she thought she was going to pee she was laughing so hard. Karlotte, on the other hand, had no intention of going anywhere, since she was thoroughly enjoying this convo.
Him: You really shouldn't drink that, I don't think you understand but there's alcohol in it.
Me: Oh I understand but according to the Wemic scriptures (it's really VEDIC but anyone who has played D&D or other such games knows a wemic is a half man half monster type of creature, so I couldnt resist)I'm allowed to drink it if it was accidentally given to me. Our Gods are very understanding they will forgive me.
Him: Gods, you have more than one God.
Me: Oh yes, there are thousands we even have a God of Echinacea
Him: Oh I see (personally I don't think he knew what echinacea was)

By this time the conversation was getting a bit slower with longer and longer pauses in between, and the last set of music was over, so we were back to talking without having to shout at the top of our lungs.

Him: So what do I call you?
Me: You call me Swami Patmyass, or if you see me in a more formal setting and I passed all my hindustani religous exams you would call me Divine Swami Patmyass. (now see, for those of you who didn't catch it, I changed the patmybag to patmyass...however this was not done intentionally, I just forgot what he had originally thought it was and patmyass came out)
Him: Swami Patmyass?
Me: Swami PatmyAZZ (I was kind of saying it more like Paatmyazz)
Him: Oh I thought you said something else.
Me: Yes it was hard to hear in here before.
Him: Yeah, and I think I'm having a bit of a problem with your accent too, no offense.
(That was too much for Karlotte...since well I was born in England, moved to Canada when I was not even 2 years old, and don't even speak proper Hindi myself and certainly have no accent)
So now I'm left alone with the guy, so I decided it was time to make my exit.

Me: Well, I really should go too, it's almost time for prayers.
Him: Oh you have to go?
Me: Yes, but it was really nice meeting you Jack Dan
Him: It's just dan.
Me: Okay it was nice meeting you. ( I wanted to say okay it was nice meeting you JUST DAN, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, besides I had no audience anymore)
Him: Yes it was nice meeting you too, are you sure you can't stay longer?
Me: No, I'm sorry I really must go and pray.
Him: Oh Okay
Me: Bye and thanks for the drink and then I gave him the traditional little Indian Namaste with hands folded and bowed head. He even did the little bow back.

I finally found the girls and off we went and laughed about it all the way home. So basically, I think the reason I'm no good at getting picked up is because it's just too hard to say my name. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

-Swapna

I see dead dragonflies...

2007-06-09T09:11:00.000-06:00

Before we begin this week's post, I must say thank you to everyone for their birthday wishes...although Jean and Lillian did freak me out a bit. I finished posting last week's blog and within minutes Lillian had commented. Then Jean followed shortly after. It happened so fast I was kinda taken aback. Now it is not beyond me to attract total whackos who would sit in front of their computers day and night hitting the refresh button just to see if I've updated and if they can fulfill their fantasy by thinking I'm really writing about them, not me....HOWEVER, I'm sure neither Jean nor Lillian are whackos. This leads me to believe they get some sort of blogger update that tells them when someone posts to their blog. If that's the case, I wanna know how to do that! Oh, and also, I'm not sitting here hitting the refresh button repeatedly just to see if someone commented either, my email alerts me so there!

Okay on to dead dragonflies. First, I must tell you that I have an affinity for dragonflies and Birds of Paradise flowers because they always remind me of my father (little story about them for anyone interested). I'm pretty sure my dad was near perfection so I assume he has reached that state where you get to go wander around with God, look down upon us mere mortals and laugh at our stupidity, and every now and then he chooses to remind me he's keeping an eye out on me. So, whenever I see a dragonfly, I figure it's dad's way of telling me to pay attention and do right by the world.

Now that's a rather sweet way of looking at things, I mean I would be out in the backyard, and see a dragonfly, and feel all is right with the world. But then came this week. First off I head downstairs after work and find a HUGE half-dead dragonfly at the bottom of the stairs. I'm not sure how it got in, but I felt awful. So I gently scooped up the poor thing and took it outside and left it in amongst my pretty flowers hoping it would recover enough to take off and enjoy life again. The next morning there it was, dead in the flowers. Okay, I'm not so nuts that I think this is some sort of ominous sign, I mean dragonflies do die. However, by last count I have found over 18 dead dragonflies in my basement this week alone.

What could Dad have been trying to tell me? Why are they all dead? Is he angry with me? Have I done something wrong? I thought about trying to fast and pray to find the answer...but then I got hungry. So then I thought perhaps I should try to do some good deeds, but just as I was about to walk out the door to go do some charity work, the mailman rang the doorbell and delivered a belated birthday present of a new computer mystery game...so obviously I was meant to go play that and not go do charity work. Finally I thought maybe I was to relinquish my hold on all things materialistic, and choose to walk the path of those who renounce such things as makeup, curling irons, fancy clothes, shoes, cars etc. Having settled on this being the answer I headed downstairs to empty out my closet and clothe myself in rags, but ZOUNDS, on my way I found another dead dragonfly.

Why would Dad have sent another dead dragonfly if I had found the correct answer to my transgressions...so my M.A.C. cosmetics and new Baretrap sandals were saved. Saddened with my inability to solve the dilemma, I looked for solace in a gin and tonic with a pretty twist of lemon. With a heavy heart and my drink in hand, I headed out to sit on the patio and contemplate the loser I am. It was there the answer was finally revealed to me. Sitting in the sun, sipping on that gin, my cats, Oli and Tinka, came out to give me comfort. But their comforting was short lived for they grew distracted and began to chase bugs and butterflies and such. My eyes began to close, and just before I nodded off with a heavy heart I saw it! Yes, that's right....I saw Tinka jump in the air, pounce on a poor old dragonfly, then with her treasure safely ensnared in her mouth she headed into the house through the catdoor and straight downstairs.

So thank you Dad I finally get it. The moral of this lesson....Lock the cat door till later in the day. When it's time for all good cats to come in to bed, make sure they pass inspection first and are not trying to sneak in souvenirs.

In case you think this is a dumb idea...and it couldn't possibly be what Dad's dead dragonfly messages were about, did I happen to mention Tinka brought in a HUGEASS pigeon the other day. I'm not even quite sure how she dragged it through the catflap, but fortunately I was there and was able to rescue the pigeon and set it free, once it had recovered from its state of shock.

Oh and Oli's a pain too. She's not quite the hunter that Tinka is, so she settles for dragonflies, butterflies and worms. Don't ya just wish you lived with me, so you too could get up in the morning and find dead bugs laid out as a loving offering on your bed.

Okay I'm off to do some yard work, next post I promise pictures...mainly because I'm so darned proud of how my yard is looking. I finally have a vision of what I want in there, and it's all coming together.

Ciao for now!
Swapna

The keys to a successful birthday week!

2007-06-01T10:14:00.001-06:00

Omg I'm so pathetic, however you can't yell at me since it's my birthday. Of course, feel free to berate me tomorrow.

Anyway, time seems to be slipping through my fingers like water...drip, drip, drip...damn it's all gone! Aw well, no time to whine about it, instead I should do something about it, which is why I am here. Birthdays are a funny thing, they can make you happy, they can make you sad or depressed, or in my case, they can just be a pain in the butt.

I think this is the first time in history I can remember thinking I really don't give a hoot about my birthday, and yet, everyone seems to want to do something with me. Now if we look back at past years, I was craving, and I mean CRAVING attention...alas I never got enough of it for me. Now I tell people it's just another day and I'm don't care about presents or doing anything special, and everyone seems to feel as though that is somehow extremely depressing and wrong. In fact, I think people think I'm depressed. Truth is, I'm busy! But I've been reprimanded enough about being so lacksadaisical in my attitude that I did decide to do some thinking about myself and my birthday.

For anyone who has read this blog in the past, you will know I have a neverending supply of desire when it comes to bettering myself. Of course I usually fail miserably, but I still have the desire. So anyway, I started thinking about what I would like to change about myself this year. Once again I get on and off the non-smoking bandwagon...falling hard, bruising my ego and other sundry bodily parts, and yet I try again, but this year I want...no NEED to quit. I hate the darn addiction, so it's on the top of my list. The other thing I realized is that in my quest for balance in my life...I have no balance. None whatsoever.

If the truth be told, I love blogging, it's not a chore, it's a way of relieving the inner stress built up from thinking rude and hilarious thoughts about others and yourself, and yet never feeling it's quite the right moment to spit it out. On the blog, I can trash myself or others as much as I like...so yes, I must put regular blogging back into my life, just to achieve some balance. Not to mention the fact that blog has managed to bring some very special people into my life, and when I do not blog, they too fall by the wayside BAD SWAPNA BAD!

Okay so quitting smoking, blogging and what else, oh yes, Sleep. I am sleep deprived individual. Why? Not because I don't have enough hours in the day to sleep, and not because I'm so overworked I'm up late at night slogging away, but because I'm a procrastinating moron. That's right, I procrastinate about sleeping. I mean seriously, why sleep when there are other things to do. Of course when I'm sitting in a meeting and feeling my head suddenly make that horrid jerking motion, I know I've carried my zest for insomnia too far. I'm probably not even an insomniac, I just keep myself up so long that it doesn't seem worth it to go to bed, or I go past that magical moment of sleepiness and get my second, or third, or fourth wind.

You know, there are many other things for me to look at when it comes to balance, but seriously people, I rarely achieve all the goals I set for myself, so maybe I should be realistic and just concentrate on those three. If I don't post within this coming week...I'm already failing, how's that for a happy birthday thought!

Hey, speaking of birthday thoughts, this one makes me laugh my ass off. Okay the first part doesn't make me laugh, but the end result does, so now bear with me while I go through the convoluted evolution of this scenario. Since Dad died, I now think of my life in terms of Before Dad and After Dad. Everytime I try to think back to when something happened, I wonder whether it was while Dad was alive, or after he died. Consequently I have just given up on remembering dates. I forget what year I graduated in...that's just BDD (before Dad died), I forget when I last went to visit a relative, I only know it was ADD (after Dad died), and the only dates I do keep in mind are the ones regarding appointments and even they are short lived. It's like I stick them in short term memory and once the appointment is over, bam my memory is erased.

Anyway, as part of this new system my brain seems to have committed itself too, I seem to have forgotten how old I was. For the past year I have been telling everyone I was 42, and then a few months ago I started saying I was 43..since, well darn it, it was so close to my birthday I might as well admit I'm 43. Slight problem...I turned 42 today. This information was brought to my attention by a close friend, otherwise I swear I would be telling everyone I was 43 today and probably by tomorrow I would have been saying I was 44. So basically I have been lying to everyone for over a year. Now as much as this does not pose a problem for me in general, it has turned me into one of those women who lie about their age. Now everyone thinks I'm one of those women who stop celebrating their birthdays and say they are 29 forever...only none of them can figure out why I would possibly want to be 42 forever. Er wait....it is 2007 isn't it?

Other age related moments of short-lived hilarity have also ensued. For instance, I am seriously starting to feel the effects of what I will term the "scatterbrain syndrome". Apparently, once you hit 40, your ability to multitask decreases drastically as does your short term memory. On Monday I was getting ready for work and as usual was going to be right on time when I hit a small snag. I couldn't find my keys anywhere, so I tore my house apart. I mean seriously tore it apart, throwing cushions off chairs, whipping open every drawer in the house, emptying every purse I own on to the counter, checking the fridge, the freezer, the car, the door of the house, my pants pockets, pants I wasn't even wearing, all my coats and nothing. No keys were to be found anywhere. Sadly the clock kept ticking away and now I was starting to get very panicked. I don't mind being right on time for a meeting, but I hate being late. Finally I decided I would call my mother and ask her to drive like a maniac to get me and then run me to the office. Then I decided, no that would take too long so I decided to get the extra set of keys out and use them. Fortunately, my brain did not fail me, so I found them right away. Armed with my car keys, I grabbed my uhh purse...I'm not sure what you call it since I carry everything in it including my laptop and extra shoes, and headed out the door. DOH I hit the door and realize I can't lock the door since my spare set of keys are just for the car. Ugh, okay time to get the extra house keys. Ermm, bad news, at some point in the past I had decided that putting all your keys in one spot is not a good idea in case you are ever burglarized, so my house keys are somewhere else. Now really, why do I really give a damn if the burglar finds my house keys or not? I mean he's already in the house...

Anyway, I had to find the house keys and that took a bit longer to do than anticipated but I did find them. So out the door I went, locked it behind me, ran to the car, threw in my bag/purse thing and headed for the office where I was 2 minutes late for my meeting. After the meeting I was heading out to an appointment with someone else and we decided to take my car, so I go to grab my keys...er I couldn't find them. I check the desk...nope, I check the meeting room, nope, I check at the reception desk, nope...Just as I was about to give up hope I spotted them on a big box in the hallway. How they got there is beyond me. So anyway I scoop them up and off we go. The appointment went well and finished early so I decide to stop in and visit mom when are finished. Crap, key issue AGAIN. I don't have keys to mom's place since these are just spares, oh well I will just buzz her. However, once I reach her place, someone else is going in the building who knows me so they let me in, I get to mom's condo, bang on the door and she's all happy to see me, so we have a quick visit...which turns into a long visit. Finally it's almost 8:30pm and I'm bagged, I still have work to do at home and so I go to leave. Errr, where are my keys? After about 3 minutes we locate them on the kitchen counter and off I go. Finally I get home, park the car and head for the door. Oh right, these are the spare car keys, my house keys aren't on this bunch, they must be in my bag/purse thingy. So I start fishing in there, but can I find them...noooooooooooo. Finally I empty my entire bag on the front steps. Guess what I found, that's right, my regular set of keys but no house keys.

So now my extra house keys are floating in the world of Saskatoon, but my regular keys are safely ensconsed right next....er wait...where the hell did I put them? GAH I give up!

Love ya lots,
Swapna

A bumpy week

2007-05-14T09:27:00.000-06:00

We made it through last week, and that was no small feat. Last Wednesday was the third anniversary of Dad's death. Just knowing it was coming up made for a horrid Monday, but on Wednesday we were all troopers and went to the Friendship Inn and cooked a huge curry dinner for about 400 people. It was a bit more work than I expected since we had thought our friend, who is a caterer, was going to cook the chicken the night before. Turns out she went to cook but the place was locked up. So early Wednesday morning, mom and I headed out and started cooking. Cooking for 400 is very different from cooking for a small dinner gathering.

Since I never use recipes and just throw in my spices, it was kind of weird to be adding 10 fistfuls of something rather than my usual pinch. Also, the Friendship Inn's cook decided the chicken should be prebaked and then we would add the curry sauce over it, ahem, I don't think so! I compromised and told him to cook the chicken half way, then we would put it in the curry sauce and cook the rest of the way. Then I found out they weren't going to skin the chicken...er GAG.

I gave up at that point and said fine, but what I should have done was pull that skin off when it was half cooked, it would have just fallen off really, but I was too tired to think by then. Mom and I started the curry by chopping ten gazillion onions and garlic. Fortunately, mom had the presence of mind to bring her food processor and told me to bring mine as well, if not, I think we would have still been there chopping. Anyway, the cooking process is a boring story...the chicken turned out wonderfully, lots of friends came to help, so it was a good day. Sad but good.

Then came the ramp up to Mother's day. Sadly, when Dad died three years ago, he died on Mother's day. I doubt it will fall on the 9th again for a long time, but it really doesn't matter, as far as mom is concerned, she really doesn't ever want to celebrate Mother's day again. I can't blame her, so on Friday I took her some flowers and we went and had lunch together. Then I planned to keep her occupied all Sunday.

So while most of you were out pampering your mother, or being pampered yourself, I was keeping mom busy a different way. That's right, I put her to work in my garden. Brilliant plan really, since she enjoyed it and now my front yard is picture perfect. Actually, it wasn't a total day of making mom into a slave. She came over really early, so we started the day with porridge and fresh fruit and yogurt, then around lunchtime I made grilled salmon and veggies on the barbecue, and finally, we ended the afternoon with me giving her a hand and foot massage. Then it was off to Hindi class for me (I had to go sit in the corner and work by myself because I missed last week's class and I hadn't done any of my homework...as if that wasn't humiliating enough, I should remind all of you that other than Anu and I, the rest of my classmates are all about 12 years old.)

So after that I dropped Anu and her kids off which was a whole other production! Anu looked so tired, I felt so bad for her. Anyway, we get to her place and the kids pile out of the jeep, and she just sat there. So we started chatting, I think she needed a tiny break. Sadly our tiny break kept getting interrupted by her kids. First one daughter comes out of the garage door and yells, "MOM! You were supposed to pick up the food for dinner on the way home!" "Great" says Anu, "Mother's Day and I decide not to cook then I find out I was supposed to pick it up." Turns out her daughter was just kidding the food was on the table, but I guess everyone was hungry and didn't want mom out chatting with me in the car. This notion was reinforced when the second daughter sticks her head out the garage door and literally shrieked,"Mom tell Aunty Swapna to come in the house and talk to you, we are STARVED and daddy won't let us eat till you come in." About then we realized our chat was just not going to happen, so I watched Anu drag herself into the house, then drove off. Next on the list was to call mom again and make sure she wasn't alone and unhappy. Turns out my brother had snagged her and they were on their way out for dinner, so home I went!

By the way, it was a rather uneventful night, other than watching the season finale of Survivor, where I screamed in outrage at stupid Dreamz...
Yau Man, I weep for your misfortune...but geez why would you trust the psychotic Dreamz???? *cry*

Err I had more to tell you but work calls and so far this is a boring post. Let me return when I am inspired.
Swap

In response to Ptooey

2007-05-07T11:41:00.000-06:00

So Anita decided to "ptooey" me not once but twice...I think that along with Jean's comment about how nice it was to see me blogging again, and Carla wondering what I am doing, is far too much shame for me to bear, so here I am.

Last post I mentioned the Vegas trip, well it was fun, and I came back having spent only a hundred or so dollars, so I did quite well on those darned penny machines. But you don't care about that, you want to hear all my hilarious stories. Alas, they were few and far between. But do not despair I have a couple for you.

The first day we arrived, mom and I flew in ahead of everyone else, so we had to wait for everyone to arrive, and so we figured we get down to some gaming right away. Within fifteen minutes of being on the casino floor, at least 3 guys had offered to buy me a drink. This might not seem so odd...but check it out. The first guy caught me off guard so I just said thanks but no thanks. The second was so drunk I just moved away, the third was rather slimy looking so I had to retort. The conversation went something like this.

Slimeball: "Hey"
Me: "Hello"
Slimeball: "So are you winning beautiful?"
Me: "Uh...umm...er...no, no I'm not."
Slimeball: "Well let me cheer you up beautiful, why don't I buy you a drink, what do you want?"
Me: "Uh...did you just say you wanted to buy me a drink?"
Slimeball: "Yeah, what do you want to drink?"
Me: "Hmmm, let's see, I think I kinda of want to slash your throat and drink the blood that gushes from your artery."
Slimeball: "WHAT THE ???!#@$@?#$@??"
Me: "What else do you expect me to say dumbass, the drinks here are all free you cheap moron!"
Slimeball: "Freaking weird baaahtch" (yes he said baaahtch instead of bitch)
Me: Retard

What is most sad about this conversation is that I was politically incorrect, I wasn't rather witty, I was already kind of in a bad mood since I was tired from travelling, and despite all that, this one conversation made me laugh so much I kinda kept hoping someone else would come and offer to buy me a drink so I could continue to try and freak people out.

Another funny tidbit for you...convo between me and my brother shortly after telling him about the above story.
Bro: "Vegas is kind of depressing"
Me: "Why? Because it's geared towards an excess of everything, money, food, drink, sex?"
Bro: "Naw, it's more about the 70 year old men with hot babes on their arms and not one chick taking a second look at me. Although when you take a closer look at them you can tell those chicks are kind of hardened."
Me: "Hardened, what do you mean?"
Bro: "Well you can tell they've been around the block or something, they just look harsh, I mean check those two out."
Me: "They look kinda hot to me. In fact that old guy they are with doesn't look so bad either and he's probably rich, I can see why they are with him."
Bro: "Freaking weird Baaahtch"

I laughed so hard I almost peed, and to tell the truth, those women were harsh looking and I don't even think I could see the guy they were with. Anyway, enough of them and on to more of Vegas. For anyone who hasn't been...it's bizarre. Seriously, the strip is a string of hotels with casinos, all connected via this intricate maze like walkway system that is designed to keep you inside malls and casinos forever. I think the idea is to stop you from ever seeing the light of day. Not only that, but even the hotel rooms are designed to keep you awake. The beds are set right next to windows that overlook the strip with flashing neon lights, so no matter how many curtains, blinds and blankets you throw up, there is still some flashing light seeping through. Then, if you have to get up to pee in the middle of the night, the only light you can turn on in the bathroom is like a megawatt light that floods the entire room waking everyone up. And see, I'm not exaggerating...our room was set up so the door to the bathroom was an archway, leading into a huge space with a circular tub for oh I don't know, four people, and then a half circle marble counter with two sinks and it's completely surrounded by windows. Once you walk around the entire tub you get to this little cubicle at the very end where you have your toilet and there is actually a door on that little room. Problem is, there's no separate light for the toilet cubicle, so if you want to turn on the light, which you have to do in the night, you end up lighting up the entire bathroom and light spills out through the archway on to the beds where your companions are sleeping.

Oh and then, okay let's say it would take five minutes to walk from point A to point B if you were outside on the sidewalk. Well, it takes 15 minutes to get to the sidewalk, since you have to go through the casino and mall to get there, then once you reach your destination you spend another 15 minutes walking through another casino and mall to get inside. It's all so weird. I have to admit it was fun walking through all the hotels though, and checking out the architecture and grandeur. Honestly, we were in one hotel, and my brother was two hotels down from us, since the conference had booked his rooms. But to get from our hotel to his took about 25 minutes when it was not even a full block away. And you could head outside and try and bypass the malls and casinos and just use the outdoor walkways, although it would still take the same 25 minutes since they are built in such a round about way, but then you also risked your life since they were all polished marble walkways. I swear my toes have never hurt so much. Walking with flipflops seemed so dangerous I ended up gripping my shoes with my toes in an effort not to wipe out.

And then there are the people in Vegas. What a variety! You have your tourists in shorts runners and tshirts, your young touristas in sexy, revealing outfits, and your young couples with the girls dressed in sexy evening wear with stilettos, and the guys wearing tshirts and jeans. What's up with that? Ooooh and at night, omg I have never seen so many women with their boobs about to fall out of their dresses. Talk about sluttywear....it was a festival of next to nothing clothing time.

Finally you have your Vegas shows. We went to Mama Mia, which we all thoroughly enjoyed, then V the variety show, which we all liked too, though not quite as much, and finally we went to Showgirls...you know one of the longest running shows that is a typical Vegas show. So yes, it was a topless show. Anyway, I spent the first ten minutes trying to find one girl in the show that had boobs that jiggled. Seriously, nothing jiggled on any of them. They have this weird way of walking so nothing in their upper body moves...then I spent the next ten minutes checking out the guys butts. Some of them seriously could have cracked walnuts with their butts. Finally I spent another ten minutes marvelling at the set, the elaborate costumes, the number of people in the show, etc. After that I spent the following 90 minutes sleeping. Yes, I fell asleep. My brother woke me up near the end so I wouldn't miss the grand finale. He and I were sitting separately from the rest of the family, so we caught up with them later. Once we were all back together I asked where Mom and her sister Kavita were, apparently they left early because they were tired. I asked my sister what part she liked the best, she said she had no clue because she fell asleep, I asked my Aunt Shara what she liked, she said the guys butts, and I asked my sister's husband what he thought of it...basically he summed it all up. "It was a parody of itself. I've never been so fascinated by something so bad."

So there ya have it, that is my Vegas trip. Well there was more to it, but it's just more of all those excesses!

Next blog will be all about how I came home and created some sort of horrible short circuit that blew my server and my laptop to smithereens, so I had to buy new computers and have had no luck in retrieving any of my old data!

Ciao!
Swapna

"Prep"ping for Vegas

2007-04-14T00:24:00.000-06:00

So I leave for Las Vegas tomorrow around noon. By some miracle the whole family seems to have been able to get it together in time to head to Vegas for Mom's 65th birthday. It all started with my brother being asked to present at a conference in Vegas this coming week. Mom had previously asked us to go there for her birthday, and we had all said NOPE! But once my brother found himself going, I capitulated and told mom we should go, then my sister and her husband miraculously worked out their schedules, followed by my aunt Shara from Toronto and my aunt Kavita from Florida. So there ya have it, by this time tomorrow I will be throwing cash into some sort of slot machine praying for the big win.

Now some of you are aware of my love of gambling, but do not fear, I'm leaving my cards with my mother and just taking a set amount of cash with me each day. Of course mom has a bit of a rubber arm, but I think she will keep me in check. Besides, the slots are not my goal. That's right, I've decided I should play cards. I am a wanna be high roller. Okay, that's not really my goal either. I actually want to slip while entering the hotel pool and have George Clooney save me. Of course, my chances of hitting the jackpot on some machine are slightly higher than that one, but oh well.

Anyway, I don't have Vegas stories for you....yet....but I can always talk about the packing frenzy once again. First off let me state for the record that I learn from my mistakes. (Are you reading this Carla and Anita?) Okay this time the house was well in order more than a week ago, and all cat food, cat litter, etc has been rounded up and appropriately stowed away. More importantly I found myself a decent pair of walking shoes, so hopefully I won't be limping around trying to pretend I'm fine. And finally, I planned my wardrobe down to the last accessory. That's right, I have a list of every single item of clothing I plan on wearing, as well as what earrings, rings, bracelets, shoes and hairdo go with each outfit, AND the weather is going to cooperate so I am not forced to bring clothing that will work in snow or a heat wave.

Sadly, the one thing I did not foresee was falling sick last week. So basically all week I've been a snot factory. My sinuses were exploding with green gunk and my ears hurt, but I'm on the mend! The downside of the illness was an unexpected brush with what I think is acne and ...........
a COLD SORE!! I've never had a cold sore before, but I'm pretty darned sure that's what is threatening to explode on the edge of my lip. I was desperate, so I broke into my secret stash of medicinal ingredients. Basically, when dad was still alive, he would always get samples of some sort of antibiotics, or creams, or whatever and I would steal them and stash them away. Not only that, but when a family member was given a prescription for some sort of medicine and didn't use it all, I would steal that too and stash it.

Yeah I know it's dangerous...but, but, it was necessary! You have no idea how many times some outdated antibiotic has saved me the trouble of visiting a doctor. Of course there have been times when the packages were so outdated they didn't quite do the trick. But hey, a girl's gotta try. Anyway, my point is that I have a vast, though mostly outdated, pharmacy in my downstairs bathroom. So now we get to the impending cold sore, and some horrible bags under my eyes from lack of sleep and sinus congestion. And we all know those bags and congestion are just going to get worse once I'm on that plane breathing in all that recirculated, infected airplane air. So I did what any nutcase would do, I went through my home pharmacy and settled on a huge plastic bag filled with these tiny tubes of cream. They are a very mild corticosteroid cream to help reduce inflammation, so I figured they should cure the bags under my eyes, and one can pray they will fend off the impending cold sore. So I've slathered my face in the stuff and hope that it works. Oh wait, did I mention that I'm pretty sure the stuff is actually hemmorhoid cream? Yes that's right...I've slathered my face with hemmorhoid cream.

If you hear a blood curdling scream tomorrow morning, put it down to my scientific experiment going horribly awry.

Now everyone cross your fingers and pray for me...not so much for the bags under my eyes or the cold sore, not even for me to win a huge jackpot...pray I don't go the way of so many others and find myself hungover and married to some jackass that loves wearing Elvis pants.
On second thoughts, with the way my love life has been going, that might not be so bad.

Ciao for now, and I shall return with Vegas stories next weekend!
Love ya all,
Swapna

Konji, Konjee, Kongi, Kongee, Jonki, Jahnki????

2007-04-05T15:03:00.000-06:00

Guess what? I suck. How's that for an apology. Truth is I have no idea why I don't blog when I'm busy or stressed. Writing actually makes me feel better, so I'm not sure why I don't do it. Ah well, go figure. Hey! I bet some of you thought Carla killed me *cackle*!

Alas, I am not so easy to do away with. Alrighty let's get on with it. So, at long last spring is supposedly around the corner. I seriously spent the last three weeks running around the city like Henny Penny or Chicken Little or whomever it was that ran around screaming "The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!" One moment it would be sunny and warm..then BAM snowing and freezing cold, then the greyness settled in, and woooo lucky us we were treated to days upon days of sleet for an hour then nothing, then sleet, then nothing, then sleet..etc. It was horrible I tell ya! Not only that, but I'm sorry, it's freaking April, I have done away with my winter coats. They are not seeing the light of day again for months. So this means I am wearing my spring jacket, my shoes, (not boots), maybe a light pair of gloves, although bare hands are much better, and absolutely no scarves. Sounds perfect for normal spring weather. However, on a grey blustery day, with sleet and a temp of-10 celcius...you can get awfully cold with just a thin jacket on. So yes, I have been cranky, busy, irritated, bitchy and cold. You should all be thankful I haven't blogged.

As for the family, well for once Mom seems to be healthy, my brother is rocking his business and happy, my sister and her husband are busier than ever, and things are quite busy on my end. Actually, I've been really busy, which is good, but not so busy that you want to throw yourself under a truck or anything. Medium ground is what I should strive for...in fact, mediocrity might be the thing to go for as well.

Seriously, perfectionism is highly irritating, not giving a damn is impossible for someone like me, so I might as well reach for the stars and attempt to be an average joe. Okay whatever, we know that's too boring. Anyway, I have the urge to find a replacement for Konji...however the idea of topping a name like Konji Nu Wai Ashiko Matimaihima is too daunting for me. How tacky would it be to get a new fish named Konjee Nu Wai Ashiko Matimaihima? I also feel like replacing Oli and Tinka as well, but since they are not lost or dead (yet) I have no reason to do so. Seriously though I can't take any more cat hair floating in my tea, stuck to my clothes, even on silverware straight out of the dishwasher...it's just insane.

Alrighty, I really should ease back into things or I might injure myself...so that's enough for today kiddies.
Catch ya soon I hope!
XXOO
Swap

Once again Im unable to type anything in the body of my post

2007-03-07T10:41:00.000-06:00

Let's Try This Again

2007-02-06T00:47:00.000-06:00

Wow, it's letting me post now! Yippee!

Okay, so I haven't been absent because of Blogger, I've been absent because I was actually busy with work. Only 2 and a half more days and I'm off to see Carla then my mom in Florida, until then, I'm cramming in as much as I can. I never realized how stressful it can be getting ready for a trip. Actually, it probably wouldn't be so stressful if my many multiple personalities wouldn't get in the way. For ease in understanding the rest of this post, I give you just a few examples of who I am contending with:

Swaperfectionista: Insists on getting every corner of the house clean and organized. Not a bad thing, just difficult when every time I open a drawer or cupboard some random synapse fires telling my brain this means that I have to rearrange that entire drawer or closet, and make sure I remove items for charity and replace those items with something else from somewhere else in the house.

Sworksalotna - Decides that all work for the rest of the year should be completed before I take a 12 day holiday and also insists that every email I have sent over the past one year be re-read, sorted, filed and then backed up.

Swapnasnoozealotna - Figures nothing is worth the worry and she likes to set the alarm for five thirty, get up, walk on the treadmill, take a shower, turn the heat up full blast, then goes back to the bedroom, makes the room pitch black and goes back to sleep all curled up in her towel. Sadly, she likes to go back to sleep until the next day.

Swapnacoveryourass Padmanabh: This one decides that she must cover every possible contingency for possible problems while she is away. This means the paper has to be stopped, then the paper girl has to be called to make sure the paper was stopped, then 2 months worth of cat litter and cat food should be in the house for the cat sitter, not to mention stocking up on groceries, leaving cash in case of emergencies, sending out letters to people who are named as emergency contacts on your alarm system, shoveling the snow and then finding someone to shovel the snow while you are away, then skulking on the weather network site in order to approximate how many times the snow shoveling person will be around, taking all that into consideration and leaving money to pay the snow shoveling person, then deciding it's a waste of money so she cancels the snow shoveler, and then feels guilty that the cat sitter will have to shovel, so she then tries to figure out how to compensate cat sitter for snow shoveling and decides a present is appropriate, so she calls cat sitter's mother to find out what cat sitter would like or needs, and makes a list of gifts to buy. This particular Swapna also tries to buy gifts for everyone she is going to see, by doing this she no longer has any room for clothing in her suitcase, so she's basically screwed.

Swapyourfatassforaskinnyone- This Swapna is rather pathetic. She worries about her fat bum a lot, so as a holiday nears she starts to panic. In order to reduce her sizable fanny she begins a retarded exercise regime that anyone, and I mean anyone, is bound to fail at. Having failed at it, she panics and starts eating non stop. This causes her rotund bottom to swell even further, which makes her even more panicked, so she tries to start exercising again. Unfortunately, by this time she's either too bloated to move or she injures herself on the first day of her regime by trying to up her calorie burning by wearing rollerblades in the house.

So basically, I'm getting very little accomplished other than moving things from one end of my house to another. On the bright side, I do like how I've rearranged things:P

Swapnasnoozealotna is calling, so I'm off to bed, see ya tomorrow!

Errr, blogger wont let me type a post, just a title....

2007-02-06T00:44:00.000-06:00

Life Can Be Shitty

2007-01-29T19:00:00.000-06:00

This weekend a 24 year old good looking guy hit on me. I should have been flattered, I should have let him buy me a drink, perhaps I should even have gone over and sat with him and given him my number. Instead, I felt really uncomfortable, refused to look his way again, and rushed outta there as fast as I could. Aaaugh, when did I suddenly get old!

Outside of that, it wasn't that exciting of a weekend, but oh, I almost forgot, well not forgot...tried to forget... Okay fine I will tell you. I fell, and it wasn't a slip or stumble, it was an actual fall where you crash. So yes, I fell off the non-smoking wagon really, really hard. So hard my lungs hurt this morning. I'm back on the wagon and feeling all twitchy and nervous all over again. I would complain more, but really, it's my own fault. *grumble* On the bright side, uhhh there is no bright side.

Geez I had all these things I was going to blog about and now they've flown out of my head. I think this is what happens when you start banging your head against the wall. Why am I banging my head against the wall? Well, I think it's a bit cultural. In India you beat your head against the wall or wail and beat your chest and head when tragedy strikes. I've adapted it slightly, and just do the head pounding thing. Not that hard, just kinda a light constant thud thud thud thud. In fact, I'm so used to crappy things happening, I'm thinking of just incorporating it as part of my daily routine. You know, get up, go to the bathroom, stand in the shower and beat your head, get out, get dressed and go about your day.

Today's head beating was courtesy of Tinka. I had a meeting at 9:30 to try and find a sponsor for one of our conference speakers. So I got all dressed up and was ready early, so I did some work, and then decided to play with the kitties. They chased a toy for a bit, then I decided to try and brush them without picking either one up. Hey, once I pick one up, I have to spend at least 30 minutes with a lint brush trying to rid myself of the coating of hair they leave on me. So first was Oli who obliged by lying sprawled out on her chair. Next was Miss Tinka on the hammock. However, when I started brushing Tinka I also started smelling poop. I took a quick peek at her backside, but nope, all looked okay there, so I started brushing again, thinking it must have been noxious gas. All of a sudden...gloop, the brush got caught, I reached up my other hand and bam, there it was. Yes a gob of cat poop on my hand. Ugh, just thinking about it makes me want to gag. And it was gross poop! Uhh, not that there is non-gross poop, but I mean it was all watery and runny.

Obviously I immediately gave up brushing Tinka, made a beeline for the sink, threw the brush in a sink full of bleach, soap and water, and then washed my hands thoroughly. Back to Tinka who was subjected to a quick dousing under the sink and nasty rubdown with antibacterial soap. Then I had to scrub down the cat hammock...but I could still smell poop! By the time that was all done it was time to leave for the meeting.

So I'm driving along but I still smell poop. Now I start getting paranoid thinking that maybe I have some on me. As soon as I get to the meeting I pull off my coat and surreptitiously check my clothing. Nothing on my blouse, not on my sweater, nothing on the sleeves, my pants look fine...I must have been imagining it all! So I make my presentation and I think they were suitably impressed, but I was kind of off my game seeing as I could still smell something kaka-ish. In the end, I left them with a proposal and hoped they didn't smell anything. Then it was back home where I made a beeline for the bathroom...too much tea. Once there, I happened to glance into the mirror. AHHHH so that's where the poop smell came from. It was smeared on my forehead of course.

Note to self **when finding poop on your hands, be very conscious of the fact your first response may be to use the back of your hand to sweep the hair off your face...thereby leaving a smear of kaka on your forehead.**

After that, my day was a piece of cake!

PS anyone else noticing a trend in my postings?

Redemption SK

2007-01-27T12:53:00.000-06:00

First off, forget I'm related. This past Thursday night I was able to catch the first of six episodes entitled Redemption SK on SCN. This happens to be a labour of love for my sister and her husband, Larry. They have worked long and hard on this show, and I was impressed.

It's very different, odd one might say, but I loved it. Starting out slow, the show has minimal dialogue and fantastic scenery. While many might get caught up in our regular TV, I happen to think this was innovative in more ways than one. Too often I find the 'hot' picks of the season move rather rapidly and the dialogue tells you everything. We aren't stupid, let's leave something to our imagination. Okay, there is LOST where everyone is confused, and I really shouldn't even mention it, since it's not a show I watch. However, from the snippets I see in advertisements, and from what friends have said, it's complicated and out there. Well complicated is nice. I, for one, don't like TV producers and writers who feel I'm unable to put anything together and so they have to spell everything out for me. I like mystery and I like trying to learn more about the characters through their actions and emotions rather than every word they speak.

Now to me, mystery via a convoluted plot line is very different from mystery via silence. That's the draw of Redemption SK...the silence and the beauty. Again, yes, it had a slow start, but if you hung in there past the first five minutes you were in for a big treat. I have no idea where the next episode is going to take me, but I'm certainly interested in finding out. Using our vast pool of home-grown talent, and no, I'm not being sarcastic, we really do have an amazing amount of talent in our province, and innovative approaches to film making, Lasa Media Arts has made a fan out of me.

Back in 1996 Mike Leigh made a movie called Secrets and Lies, starring Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. I was drawn to the film because I read somewhere that Mike Leigh actually kept the actors a secret from each other. Basically, Marianne Jean-Baptiste is a black woman searching for her mother, who turns out to be Brenda Blethyn, noticeably white. Anyway, what Leigh did, was keep the two actresses a physical secret from one another, and then, on the day of filming the scene where the two would actually meet...that's when they did actually meet for the first time. Right on the set, right during the scene. Hearing about that was enough to have me hooked, and for good reason too, the film went on to win numerous awards

Larry took a similar approach, allowing actors to flesh out their characters. They were given general plot lines and took it from there. I have to believe this is a big part of what makes Redemption SK so appealing to me, each actor was their character, I believed in them. Okay there were a few moments when I wondered if the acting was about to go into that forbidden territory of over-acting, but whew, they pulled back and I was sucked right back in. You are drawn to the characters, you want to know more about them, and the oddness of their situations are juxtaposed with quirky, sometimes funny, and odd dialogue. I can't say I laughed out loud at the show, but there were some moments that had me giggling.

More than the story lines, I was mesmerized by the camera work and scenery. Thank you so much for showing Saskatchewan in a realistic light. Personally, I don't mind making fun of some of our small towns and I like humor, but come on, we aren't all rednecks...thankfully Redemption SK knows this. This isn't Corner Gas or Little Mosque on the Prairie, it's something different, it's something more real to me, it's something so much bigger.

When the camera could have taken us to a seedy, run down bedsit, which was what I was fully expecting, they took us instead, to a pretty, bright room. It looked comfortable though sparse. Now maybe it was by accident, I don't know, but the minimalistic set decor added to the ambiance all the way through. Think of what we see on TV today. The sets are designed to either take us back to the 70's, show us the high tech land of hospitals, or have us guffawing at how backwards some people still are with their old fashioned radios and ugly checkered Lazy Boys. Redemption doesn't do this. Everything is clean, everything is bright, everything is minimalistic. Where do you look, why at the characters, what a novel idea. Oh and don't think the characters are all fluffed up with fancy hair, bonded whiter than white teeth or there to make you cringe in their outdated clothing so they look like they are trapped back in the disco era. Nope, they just look like people you would see when you walk around the city on a normal day. Maybe the rubber pony tail holders and baggy pants are boring, but they are honest.

Okay now let's forget the characters and story lines, let's talk about the actual production. When my sister told me the entire series was shot using a hand held camera, I was dumbfounded. Production on Redemption SK is right up there with the best of them. It doesn't look like a home movie, it looks like a big production with all the associated costs. The background score and soundtrack are Saskatchewan too, and fit perfectly, although I did feel the audio was a bit too loud in some spots, almost covering what little dialogue there is.

If you ask me if I recommend the show, I have to say yes. If you ask if I am proud of my sister and brother-in-law, well again I have to say yes. If you ask if I'm blogging about it because she's my sister...HELL NO, I'm blogging about it because I was impressed.

Redemption SK airs on Thursday nights at 10pm on SCN (Wooo no commercials!)

-Swapna

B is for Bad....bad bad bad bad BAD

2007-01-23T23:30:00.000-06:00

I think the broken mirrors are catching up to me and I'm going to have to do some hoodoo voodoo to right things pretty darn quick. Actually, things were so stupid, it's not worth rehashing. Although, the morning was kind of funny. Well, it wasn't that funny, but perhaps I could make it a bit more amusing. Okay, just know that this might make it more amusing for me...and you might find it rather dull, but I'm going to give it a shot. I shall attempt to recount my morning using only words that contain four letters or less. Here goes!

I wake up late. I don't know it is late. I don't know it is late cuz it is dark. Why time box no go beep beep beep. Why it dark? I look at time. Time box is dark too. I walk to pee room. Pee room is dark too. I don't know what is up. I check plug. Plug not work. I go to box. Fuse is bad. I fix bad fuse. Now fuse good. Now it is not dark. Now I see it is past 7:30 am. I am late. I hate late, but I okay. I make mush food with milk and 'nana. I sip mush 'nana food and walk on mill and see news on TV. I take bath in tall bath. I dry hair. I put goop on face. I do hair. I look good. I feel good. I go up to feed cats. I can't find cats. I am sad. I look for cats. No cats. I call and call cats. I look more. Still no cats. I am tiny bit sad, but now I also mad. I look more for cats. I no find cats. I more mad. I hear bang. I be shhh. I no hear any bang. I be more shhh. I make ears perk up. I hear bang again. I go look for bang. I hear bang from not on top of step step but uh flip of on top. Hmm how to tell. Okay. I go down step. I hear bang from spot down. I hear grrr. I hear hiss. I open door to bad dark room. This room bad and dark even with good fuse. It not on top of step step, it flip of on top. Get it? Okay so I open door. Two bad cats come out of bad, dark room. One grey cat has Oli cat neck in its maw. Oli cat has grey cat tail in its maw. Bad cats hiss loud. I try to stop bad cats. Bad cats turn on me. I fear cats, I run away. I run up stair. I slip. I hit head, I go THUD THUD THUD. My head hurts bad. Now I not fear cats. Now I mad at cats. I turn on cats. Cats now fear me. Cats run from me. Cats run to bad, dark room. I so mad I slam door. I go THUD THUD THUD up step step now. I slam door to step step. I go get coat, book, etc. I go to car. I get in car. I do in car what you do in car. I in car when I stop the mad. I now feel bad. I stop car. I turn car and go back. I go home and open door to step. I go down step step soft. I open door to bad, dark room. Bad evil cats come out. Bad evil cats are now cute good cats. I feel bad, bad, bad. I go feed cats. I go to car and go to work. I get to work. Girl at work ask why I am late. I say, hey, I wake up late. All dark, bad plug, I fix fuse, I go to feed cats. I no find cats. I get sad. I find cats in bad, dark room. Cats now evil bad cats. I fear cats, I run. I fall. I go THUD THUD THUD. I hurt. I get mad, I turn evil. I lock cats in bad, dark room. I go to work. I feel bad, I go back home. I free cats. I feed cats. I now good girl. I come to work but I am late. Get it? Girl don't get it. I ask myself, "Why I work with dumb girl?"

Evil cats as they fake cute and good.

-Swapna
PS - If this isn't fun to read, just try doing it, you'll pee your pants laughing!

Wrapping up the Weekend

2007-01-21T20:46:00.000-06:00

Okay the God Warrior and Trading Spouses sucked so much it's not worth blogging about, besides the buggers turned it into a two part show. Maybe next week we will have some proper fodder.

Question: How do you know you are watching too much TV?

Answer: When Jason Lewis (Smith Jared Jarrod?) from Sex in the City gets a part in Brothers and Sisters where he plays a gay guy, and you get upset that one more good one is gone, and turn the TV off in a fit of anger.

Question: How do you know it's been far too long since you vacuumed the downstairs?

Answer: You start vacuuming and decide you need a new bag, so you put it in. Two hours later, you need to change the bag again, and you still aren't done vacuuming the downstairs. In the end you give up, put on your Sloggers and dance on the carpet dragging your feet as you do so. This makes the cat hair clump up and pill up into a roll that you can then vacuum. Anyone else think I need a new vacuum cleaner?

Question: How do you know you overdid it with the greasy food on Saturday?

Answer: On Sunday all you can bring yourself to eat is fruit and ice cubes.

Question: If you say you are over being angry about something, how long do you continue to smother the real feelings of anger and ill will that are roiling up inside you like a volcano about to explode?

Answer: When I blow, you will know.

I Feel So Dirty

2007-01-19T22:53:00.000-06:00

Alas, I know many of you are going to kill me...and I don't blame you, but I couldn't help myself! Yes, I went and did it...I got myself a myspace account. Now before you get your shotgun Carla, Anita, or anyone else...give me a chance to explain.

It's really all Buckwheat's fault! I know he's gonna blame Google/Blogger, but it really is his fault. I tried to read his blog, but apparently I don't have access anymore. Soooo, I went searching for his other blog, which happens to be a myspace blog. Once I found it, I had to subscribe in order to leave him a message to give me access to his blogger blog. So you see, I had no choice. Afterall, what's a day without Buckwheat in the morning?

Also, my blog on myspace is very exciting! It says "Check out my real blog - Saskawhere- at http://swapnap.blogspot.com/

So there ya go, I didn't totally sell out.

Errrr I was going to entertain you a bit, but I just realized the 'GOD WARRIOR' crazy woman from Wife Swap or Trading Spouses or whatever is on...gotta go watch! Will be back tomorrow with an update if she doesn't somehow find her way through the tv to destroy me in my sleep. (I'm scared)

-Swapna

Snit Fit over Wit(h)

2007-01-18T18:53:00.000-06:00

I'm in a good mood again, so all is well - relatively speaking.

First off, if you haven't watched or read An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore I suggest you go out and get the book or rent the movie now. Don't put it on your list of things to watch or read, just go do it. Last April I decided to change my life. A total revamp. While I can't say it was a total success, it has definitely been a partial success. I'm still exercising, I'm still trying to lose weight, my house is in much better shape and I'm on day 18 of my non-smoking.

The Inconvenient Truth reminded me that I shouldn't just sit here thinking about the ways we want to change our lives and the world. Too often we read or watch something that propels us into motion. We get excited, we get hyped, then we start to think of things we can do to change the world and Uh OH it happens. All of a sudden it becomes too overwhelming and so we push it to the back of our minds and pretend it doesn't exist. If someone brings it up at a later date, we say, "Oh yes, I was reading about blah blah the other day and I was appalled with...yada yada yada." Hey, I know this because I do this, so don't pretend you have no idea what I'm talking about. However, since my life revamp last year, I've been trying to approach things differently. So instead of just reading and watching the Inconvenient Truth (I have the book and rented the movie) I decided to do something about it.

Hey, I know I'm going to die, and I most likely won't have any kids...so it's not like I want to make the world a better place for them, although I am thinking that would be excellent motivation. So why should I care about global warming, well because I live in this world. Besides, I'm not saying I'm going totally green, I'm talking about baby steps.

I've already changed my light bulbs over to the low emission ones. I try to carry a cloth bag with me when I go for groceries, and I turn the heat down to nothing at night or when I leave the house , I've switched to cold water washing only and I'm working on only buying things I actually need. Today, after listening to Al Gore, I'm vowing to do the following:

1) Next car I buy with be a hybrid or at the very least will be by manufactured by a company that has higher standards than GM or Ford.

2) The next appliance I buy will be a super duper energy efficient washing machine. (If you are wondering if it's worth it all you need to do is listen to Anita rave about hers, and you will be sold. )

3) This summer I'm planting at least two trees in my back yard. This one kills me as I hate the idea of more maple bugs or tent caterpillars and other creepy crawlies, but I'm pretty sure I can find something they don't like.

4) I'm going to start recycling my pop bottles. I don't really buy pop very often, just club soda, so I normally throw them out, but that's just being lazy...so off to recycling they go.

5) I'm stopping my newspaper and switching to the weekend only editions. Basically, I never get around to reading the whole thing, and hey it's a waste even though I do recycle those.

6) I'll stop leaving my car running (even in this weather) when I'm running in and out of places doing errands.

7) I'll recycle my cat food cans.

That's it. Okay I'm not saying I'm going to save the world doing this, but I do believe every small change makes some sort of a difference. Besides, I really think I've picked small enough changes that it really won't seem like much of an effort.

Okay on to more retarded things. Many, many moons ago I wrote a post that mentioned a reality TV show called Wife Swap. In it, I was horrified to watch the mental breakdown of a woman. I mean she really had a melt down, and I was kind of stupefied that no one stopped filming, or got this woman help. Yesterday, in my funk, I turned on the TV and there it was, an advertisement for an upcoming episode of Wife Swap where they bring back that very same woman. Although I really don't want to watch it, we all know I probably will. I'm just hoping she's received some psychiatric counselling since my last viewing. Then again, if she had, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have invited her back.

So in conclusion...watch Wife Swap if you want to see the demented woman. and more importantly, think of something, anything you can do to help better our world, then go out and do it. Just one little thing, and go do it. For tips on what you can do, check here!

Ciao for now
Swapna
PS Yes Virginia, cold water washing does work just fine!

An Unhappy Camper

2007-01-17T23:29:00.000-06:00

Turns out I had to put aside George fantasies for the day. Work was really hectic and I didn't even have time to stare at any plants. I had marinated the chicken before going to bed last night, and got up early to do some prep work for the dinner. Then I headed off and started my busy day. Around 5 o'clock I still hadn't made it home and I was starting to panic. I left work in a rush and called my brother from the car. I had planned on stopping for cucumber and cilantro on the way home, but I had to let him know dinner wouldn't be ready quite at six. Not that it should have mattered, since I had invited him and Jade for dinner at six, and I wasn't thinking they would walk in the door and expect to be fed that instant. Turns out I was wrong.

When I called my brother, I told him I wasn't even home yet, and wouldn't make it till shortly before 6, so the food wouldn't be ready till about 6:30. He then told me he had other things to do this evening and had to leave by 7. I was kind of confused so I said, "Um, so you were just going to eat and leave?"

Turns out that's exactly what he head planned. Apparently he didn't have time to "hang out". He also told me it was fine if I wanted to reschedule, since as he mentioned, he had things he had to do. I just said fine, and mentioned I would still cook the chicken and would save him some. I was mad but I figured I would just have a nice evening with Jade and could send him a doggie bag later.

So I raced home trying to put my irritation aside. As I entered the house I could hear the phone ringing, it was 5:35. I didn't quite make it, but my caller ID said it was Jade calling, so I rang back and told her I had just walked in the door and that I was about to start cooking so she should come on over. It seems I didn't need that cucumber and cilantro afterall. She said blurted out some sort of apology saying she had dropped by earlier and I wasn't home, and so she thought some sort of an emergency must have come up, and so she had just finished eating because she was starved. "Eating? As in a full meal, or just a snack to tide you over?" I foolishly asked. Oh a full meal.

Then she started telling me about her horrible day. I was still kinda in shock, but I tried to follow what she was saying. I interrupted to ask if she was still planning to come over and visit, but no, turns out she had to go pick something up from her uncle's and then was going to go over to her boyfriend's place.

About the only thing I mentioned was that I had a whole lot of chicken lying around. She said to freeze it and she would make sure to save some time to visit this weekend, and she could eat it then. I don't remember what I mumbled in reply...all I can remember thinking is...Right bitch, like I'm gonna save this meal for you or my lousy brother.

It's not like I said come on over for a sandwich, I invited them for dinner. I specifically told them both what I was cooking. It's not like they think I just slap it together. Not only that, but I had to go out and buy the stupid groceries to make everything, all I had at home was the chicken. More importantly, my conversation with my brother happened around 5:15, and my convo with Jade happened at 5:35...they were invited for dinner at 6. Forget about my brother saying I could reschedule...reschedule what, working my ass off to be his personal chef? And as for Jade and the lame excuse that she thought some sort of emergency had come up. Come on, if an emergency arose, I would have called to cancel. Not only that, but she kept on saying, well I remembered you had an early morning meeting, but I didn't recall you saying you had to go out later. Do people really think I give them my entire schedule..besides what if I had just gone out to get the cucumber and cilantro. GRRR never mind it's all just a bunch of crap.

Btw, if I don't sound supremely pissed off, I'm not hitting the keys on this laptop hard enough.

I fumed for a bit, and thought of all sorts of nasty things to do, then I planned on calling them both and telling them I was upset. In the end I'm settling for blogging. I know Jade will eventually read it, although that might be a month from now. As for my brother, he's never going to read this...not that it matters since talking to him would elicit absolutely nothing.

Anyone want to come over for dinner? I have lots of leftovers.
-Swapna

Crumb Cake

2007-01-17T00:24:00.000-06:00

So it's almost 12:30, I'm slogging away at blogging and all that comes to mind is the fact I have an 8 am meeting and I am still trying to print the documents I need for it. Why is it when you need to print something you are either out of paper, ink or the printer is being fussy. Also, why is it I make three calls to my cable company for help with my email, and three times I am made to test the same things over and over, and three times they say they solved my problem, and three times I find my problem is not fixed within ten minutes of hanging up the phone after talking to them? After the fourth call, the guy said something was wrong with my cable connection.

So on Thursday they are sending someone out here to check out my connection. I'm pretty sure that will be the first of three visits where they tell me everything is fixed when it's not. Then I will be told it's a software issue, so I can begin calling the software help line to be told it's a hardware issue, then I will call Toshiba, and they will tell me to take my computer in to the nearest dealer, and then I will have no computer for three days, three weeks or three months. At the end of all of this, I will be told my computer is all better, I will come home, it will not be all better, and my head will explode.

Okay less complaining and more babbling. Tomorrow my brother and Jade are coming for dinner. I promised Indian food, I lied. I have no idea why I asked people over when I have a full day. I could order some Indian food, throw it in my own pot, let some gravy slop over onto my stovetop and pretend I made it, but that's only fun when the people care what you give them. I'm pretty sure my brother could care less what I feed him. As for Jade, well she won't care either, as long as it's not soup. Jade hates soup. Go figure.

You know, after saying I don't have the time to do it, I'm now hellbent on making Indian food. So the question comes down to this...what can I cut out of my day in order to make time for cooking? I could skip bathing, but this will leave me crabby, and may prove to be a bad choice when I'm facing a boardroom of people. Okay, so bathing has to stay. How about I skip my workout? Now see, that is so tempting, but if I skip my workout I will feel guilty all day, and if I feel guilty, I will not be able to concentrate, if I can't concentrate I could make a potentially damaging error in my morning presentation. That can NOT happen, so the workout stays. I could skip cleaning, but then I would be too horrified to let my brother and Jade into the house which would totally defeat my having cooked at all, or I could skip shovelling the front walk, but then someone could slip and die, and the ensuing trial would be far more damaging to my career than a fumble in the boardroom. GAH, I think it's obvious I'm going to have to skip things I actually like if this is going to work.

I am loathe to skip things that make me happy, so I shall leave it to you, please vote on which of the following I should skip in order to make up the two extra hours I'm going to need. Obviously, I will have to skip more than one thing, so add em up, and mark em down!

1) Slathering myself with lotion after my morning shower - 5 minutes
2) Using my makeup mirror to create a flash of light on the wall that the cats then try to catch...invariably they slam into the wall or slide across the hall and go THWACK into each other and then start fighting, it's all rather amusing, but it does take about 15 minutes.
3) Skip my mascara application. It was a lot easier when I didn't buy that stupid expensive mascara. The new stuff requires me to put on a primer, then the mascara - 2 minutes
4) Whitening my teeth. I have this ultraviolet light thingy that you stick in your mouth and it supposedly whitens your teeth. Normally I wouldn't care about this at all, but since I quit smoking I use this to make me feel proud of my nice bright white teeth. - Seven minutes
5) Choosing my outfit - 2 minutes (I would end up wearing the same thing I did yesterday, but it would save valuable time)
6) Straightening my hair - 4 minutes
7) Reading my morning emails - 5 minutes
8) Drinking my morning tea while doing nothing else - 5 minutes
9) Writing my morning pages - 15 minutes
10) Letting the car warm up - 10 minutes
11) Eating breakfast - 37 seconds (yogurt can be gulped)
12) Daydreaming about all the fantastic things I should have blogged about - 1 hour
13) Daydreaming about all the books I should have written, started writing, or want to write - 1 hour
14) Daydreaming about buying a Spanish villa that I decorate from scratch, including putting in the most fantastic tile mosaic in the entryway, which George Clooney then hears about and drops by to see - .5 to 1 hour depending on what type of home renovation skills I choose to pretend I excel at.
15) Fantasizing about the Spanish Villa having a secret door in the master bedroom that swivels and you enter a labyrinth-like tunnel that leads out to the beach not far from my home. Then daydreaming a bit more about how one night I am forced to use this secret exit when someone breaks into my home and tries to kill me. Ultimately, I escape from the villa and end up wandering the beach in a storm where a wave knocks me from my feet and sweeps me into the murky depths of the sea where I have a vision of the assailants trying to get to me by going after my mother. This frightens me enough that I begin to struggle and finally surface, gagging on the sea water as I drag myself out to save her. To make a long story short, much excitement ensues and in the end I save the world. - 35 minutes
16) Daydreaming about George Clooney living next door to my Spanish Villa, but he's away on a shoot so he loans his house to Nicole Kidman, who is filming nearby. She brings her two kids to the place, but one day she is late getting back and the kids are on their own, so she calls me to see if I can watch them till she gets back or arranges for someone to pick them up. I, of course, say it's no problem and take care of the kids. We are having a wonderful time making these amazing blown glass mobiles when there is a knock on the door.....Guess who it is? Yes, it's Tom and Katie coming to pick up the kids. Katie is all pissy and wants freshly squeezed lemonade, and for some reason they assume I'm the maid and order me to squeeze some lemons. I find this all rather amusing so I figure I will just go make some lemonade with salt and come back to find Tom ready to kill me. He's spotted my cigarettes (in my daydreams I get to smoke!) Anyway, he freaks out on me and insists that I call the owner because he wants to get me fired. Then Nicole shows up, and is all embarrassed and irritated with Tom who starts jumping up and down on my one of a kind chaise lounge as he declares his love for Katie and berates me for putting her at risk with my second hand smoke. Nicole starts screaming back, Katie bursts into tears, so I hand her the lemonade, which she sips and spews all over. Now she starts screaming. I have no idea what happens to the kids, since they seem to disappear from my daydream at this point, anyway, while everyone is screaming and freaking out, George arrives back and walks in on this mess. Tom flips out on George about letting the kids come over to a house where the owner lets the maid smoke, while Katie is screaming at him about the maid trying to poison her, while Nicole is screaming at them both saying thetans should no better than to be racist while George finally figures out that Tom thinks I'm the maid and finds this all horribly amusing so he starts cracking up. This makes Tom even more angry, so he storms out with a crying Katie, while Nicole freaks out about how pathetic they both are and takes off to find the kids and take them home. Eventually George and I end up making out. - 10 minutes (it's so ingrained I go through it in super fast-forward mode)
16) Procrastinating about cleaning - 2 hours
17) Cleaning - 25 minutes
18) Trying to recite all the real names of the cast members of all the tv shows I watch regularly
19) Staring at my plants wondering if they really need to be watered or if I can wait another day - 20 minutes
20) Shopping for things I don't need - 30 minutes
21) Thinking about smoking - 18 hours

You know, it's rather exhausting thinking of all the hard work I do every day, I think a good night's sleep is required.
Night night!
Swapna

Familiarity warms the Cockles of my Heart

2007-01-16T01:17:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's that time again! What time you ask? Well, it's actually 1:19 am...yes that's right folks, I'm back to my old tricks. It's way past my bedtime, I have an early morning meeting, but I shan't go to bed before I blog. And please refrain from the snide comments about my being MIA this weekend...I needed a computer break.

In any event, nothing that exciting happened. Today though, that was another story. I finally got a hold of the keynote speaker I have been trying to book for our conference. I think he's going to do it! I'm so excited. I'd tell you who 'he' is, but then I would have to kill you. On the other hand, if I wait till it's confirmed, I won't have to kill you. And, well, seeing as killing you when I don't even know who is reading this, might prove rather difficult, I shall save myself a lot of hard work and just not tell you who he is.

Oh wait, I have to backtrack, there was some hilarity this weekend. A friend, unnamed for my own personal safety, came over to visit and gab. She's like family, so we normally sit at my dining table and drink tea and smoke. I said normally! This time the smoking was absent, but we did sit there and drink tea, and well, she has a weak bladder.

Now she is so at home in my home, she and I will be in the middle of our convo, and she will just whisk out to the bathroom, which happens to be right across from my dining room through a very short hallway, plop down on the toilet and pee while she continues conversing with me. One day, someone will walk by my big bay window and see her doing this, but she likes to live on the edge. Anyway, she's peeing, when all of a sudden she rudely interrupts my very important discourse on cat hair removal from black pants with a "Ohhhh! I almost forgot! I finally took a poop at XXX's (her boyfriend's)house!" I think she was so thrilled and proud of herself she almost missed my sarcastic..."HUH?"

You see I was very confused, she stays over at her boyfriend's place most nights. So I couldn't let it go, I had to ask. So I say, "Uhhh you mean to tell me you have never had a poop in his house before?"

"Oh no! I poop there a lot, but only when he's not home."

"Whuuuuut? Are you telling me you never poop when he's in the house?"

"Well, I never did before, but I did now. Pooping takes trust you know. And, I didn't tell him I pooped either. He knows I have pooping issues. If I had told him, he would have run in there to sniff and make a big deal out of it all and call me stinky and such, and that would have set me back years."

"Errrr, okay"

Then we started talking about something else, but I couldn't let it go, so I go back to the pooping topic one more time.

"Wait a minute. If you never poop when he's there....well then what do you do in the morning? Are you telling me you don't poop after you spend the night there?"

"I'm not a morning dump person."

At that point I almost choked on my tea as I gurgled, "What the hell are you saying? Are you saying you don't poop all day!"

"Yes, that is what I am saying. I'm an evening dump person."

"Omg that's not normal. How can you not take a poop in the morning."

"I ALREADY told you, I'm not a morning dump person!"

"Uhh, but when you go to his place in the evening he's there. So when exactly do you poop?

"Well, if I stop at home I take one at my house, but mostly I just take one here."

"WHAT THE @#$)@#)$@(#? You mean to tell me you don't come here after work because you want to visit and have tea, you come here to poop?"

"Yeah. You have a problem with that?"

"Uhh, do you shut the door when you poop?"

"Yes, haven't you ever noticed that?"

"Well I just thought you closed the door when you thought there was a chance someone would walk by the window, and later you just got lazy."

"Oh no, the first bathroom break is my dump break, after that it's all pee."

"Wow, that means you poop fast cuz I never noticed."

"Yes I do."

Then we talked about other things for another half an hour or so. As she was leaving though, she had to mention the reason she has all these pooping issues is because one day, many, many, many years ago, when she was at her grandmother's home...it happened. She went over there and had to poop, so she went into the bathroom and pooped. While she was still in the bathroom her uncle stopped by. He walked into the house only moments before she left the bathroom. As she was walking back to the living room he yelled out at her, "God XXXX (unnamed friend)! That's one stinky shit!"

Apparently that traumatized her and since then she has been unable to poop in the presence of men, in most other people's homes...or in general, I think, as she does often complain of constipation.

And that was the most interesting conversation I had all weekend.
Now I shall head for bed, and as I fall asleep, I know I'm going to be asking myself...omg why didn't I ask her what trust in a relationship has to do with pooping?

Night night!
Swapna

Food for The Secret Society of Smokeless Sinners

2007-01-11T21:14:00.000-06:00

Two Posts in one Day! Actually, it's really only one, but I wasn't able to get my computer to work yesterday so I'm posting back to back.

Anyway, last night a friend of mine informed me that she had found my blog. Amazingly, she spent a few hours reading through my rubbish. She also wanted to know why I had not mentioned her when referring to my renovations. I'm actually pretty sure I did mention her, but maybe I never put her actual name in the post. In any event...now I can. Thank you PAM and BARRY for coming to my house one early Sunday morning, ripping out my cupboards and then thanks to Barry for hauling them away while Pam and I started tearing out the tiled floor. We never finished it that day, but had it not been for them...well I wouldn't have my kitchen! And without my kitchen, why I would never have been able to create the masterpieces that have been pouring out of there in an effort to stave off the smoking.

Now, see even though I tell everyone I'm good at pretty much anything, the truth is I really am a good cook...the rest I just wing my way through. Much of my brethren may turn their noses up at the kind of cooking I've been trying, but I urge you all to throw down your recipe books, smash your glass measuring cups and embrace the idea of winging it. Not only that, try winging it with stuff that has been sitting in your kitchen for far too long.

For instance, mom had this stuff sitting at her place for over a year, finally she sent it to me. It's been in my house for about a year...but I did it, I tried cooking with Nutrela (high protein soya product)! When I poured it out of the box it looked like dog food. Then I soaked it in hot water for 15 minutes, then squeezed all the water out, rinsed it, then minced it. By that time it looked like pale, uncooked ground beef. I could pick many other ways to describe it...but you might actually want to try this stuff.

After that I fried some onions with a bit of green chilies, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, ground ginger, fresh garlic and 2 tomatoes. This made a delicious gravy which I then added the Nutrela to, and also some peas, carrots and green beans. I did a taste taste prior to serving...it needed something (badly). So I turned up the heat, added a pile of water, threw in some cinnamon and a couple cloves and boiled the crap out of it. Then another taste test...still needed something. To be honest it tasted like shredded newspaper in this fantastic gravy. I was at a loss...what to add, what to add...ahhh yes, the miracle sauce. That's right, I added 1 tablespoon of ketchup to my Nutrela dish. Surprisingly, that's all it needed. Of course next time I will brown the Nutrela with the onions and garlic first...I think I expected it to be like tofu, where it takes on the taste of anything you cook it with. This is not the case with Nutrela. Also, if you plan on trying this, just a little note of warning, the Nutrela doubles, or even triples in size after you soak it. So never, ever, ever make a half a box in one sitting unless you plan on eating it every day for a week.

Okay, hrm what else did I try making, oh yes...this is interesting...I was craving cake but had no cake. I ended up opening the box of Bisquick, pouring it into a little bowl, adding a bit of milk and water and a tablespoon of honey and then formed it loosely into a ball of goo. Then I made a big depression in said ball of goo and filled the depression with Saskatoon berries from the freezer. Then I slopped another gob of goo over it...to kind of make a hat for the depression and baked the whole shebang. It was soooooooooo delicious!

Ahhh and for those desperate for french fries late at night this was fantastic. I took two russet potatoes and grated them (raw), squeezed them to get rid of the excess water, added some chives, salt, pepper, cayenne, a tiny bit of grated asiago cheese and an egg, then I mixed that all together and fried it up like a pancake. Omg it was heaven. Seriously, I think that's just how you actually make potato pancakes...the thing is, I've never had potato pancakes before, nor did I ever think I wanted potato pancakes. I was wrong!

Okay I'm tired, it's -47 with the windchill, and my back hurts from digging myself out past my front door...I think I shall go snuggle under the blankets with Oli and Tinka!
Ciao

All in a Hard Day's Work

2007-01-10T16:50:00.000-06:00

UHHHH this post was eaten four times...
I did not smoke
I did not maim anyone
I think I'm doing well

Okay on to more important things. We had a major blizzard yesterday. So major that I can honestly say I had never seen anything like it in my lifetime. The usual blizzard warnings went out, and I ignored them as usual. I mean I'm not totally reckless (you may not believe me later) but honestly, we get these blizzard warnings all the time. So unless I plan on highway travel, I don't pay that much attention to them. Besides, yesterday morning was quite nice, a bit gusty but other than that the snow was falling softly, it was just pretty. Then the snow kept falling, and falling, and falling, and the temperature followed suit. Oh and the wind, not to be outdone, instead of falling, picked up. By afternoon we were dealing with 115km per hour gusting winds creating huge snowdrifts. I still was not worried. Besides, I was good, I got up early, went outside and shovelled.

Later I found out all the provincial highways were closed, the city closed the bridges and visibility was so bad you couldn't even see one car length in front of you. In fact people took more than five hours to get home from work when a normal drive would be 30 minutes, stores closed early, the hospitals, schools, etc, all followed suit. Sadly, there were also fatalities. Two people died, just 200 metres from their home, when their car hit the ditch and they tried to walk but got lost. I should have been worried, but I wasn't.

Instead, I went for lunch! Yes, yes I know. Well see it was like this, around 1pm Camellea called to tell me she had the afternoon off, since the University sent her home. I've never heard of the University shutting down... but all that happened was I did a quick mental check to see if I was stocked up on all the basics. *CRAP* nope I was down to the last can of cat food and no more cat litter. So I started whining about cat food and litter as Camellea started babbling about going for a late lunch. Not only that, but Camellea knew that the Shopper's Drug Mart was going to stay open till 3:30 pm, so we decided I could get the cat litter and food there, then run across the street to the restaurant for lunch.

I threw on my jacket and headed for the door, opened it and gaped in horror. Not only did it not look like I had shovelled that morning, it looked like I've never seen a shovel before in my life. I quickly called Camellea back, and she said she would try to get down my road, but if she couldn't I should just walk to the main intersection and she would pick me up there (approximately five houses away).

In theory, that sounded like a good plan, however, it wasn't. Fortunately for me, Camellea managed to get her car in front of my house, and then waited the 4 minutes while I navigated from my door to her car basically swimming through waist high snow. It was so ridiculous we were almost crying with laughter by the time I stumbled into the car.

Then we drove at a snail's pace to the store, where I then stood in line forever. People were flocking to the store, stocking up on milk, bread, flashlights, batteries...and there I am with cat litter and cat food.

Okay forget that, we then go to the restaurant, and the owner greets us at the door. I ask if she's going to close, and she says, "Why bother, there's no way we can get home anyway, might as well stay open all night!" So we settled in for lunch, which took a rather long time since there was only one waitress for the entire place. Finally we decide we should get moving. By then the gentle snow was harsh pellets of some sleet like thing pounding us as we ran for the car. The car was almost frozen in place, but we made it out, and then 6 blocks later we were stuck. Fortunately, Camellea is the queen of rocking the car then stomping on the gas, so we shot around the corner and headed for the home stretch.

After reaching home, I spent the rest of the evening was spent listening to my friends tell me their horror stories and watching the news spew on and on about how you should not go outside in this weather unless it's a matter of life and death.

And I say I'm not reckless!
-Swapna

I'm Planning my Funeral, Could one of you bring a hot appetizer?

2007-01-09T12:56:00.000-06:00

No, it's not the cigarettes, today happens to be an okay day regarding withdrawal...it's mirrors. Yes mirrors. Now I know you are thinking, don't despair Swapna, you will lose weight...but uh, that's not it either. It's umm, 21 years of bad luck and I didn't reverse it correctly!

That's right, I broke three mirrors this morning. And...well nevermind, let me just tell you what happened, and you decide what my future holds.

The morning started out fine, I slept in till about 7:45, got out of bed, did my morning ablutions then headed for the treadmill. After that I headed for a quick shower then went to do my hair. It was at that point I decided my eyebrows were looking a bit shaggy, so I grabbed my tweezers and hand mirror and started the painful job. Partway through, the phone rang, so I jumped up to answer. In the process I thought I was placing the hand mirror on the table, but apparently I kinda placed it on the edge, so it started to slide off. I even saw it sliding, but I wasn't too worried, I mean those things are sturdy, and it was just going to land a couple inches down on my chair. So I turned my back on the mirror and got the phone. When I returned, there was a shattered...and I mean shattered mirror on my chair. I still can't figure out how it could possibly have shattered, specially since my chair is nice and cushiony and has a cloth cover.

Alrighty, I was irritated, but I cleaned up the mess, gave up on my eyebrows, and headed to the laundry room to rescue the duvet from the washer and throw the towels in. Now last night I cleaned out one of the drawers in the spare room, and had filled a basket with stuff to take downstairs and put away. One of the items was an outdoor mirror. It's really pretty and perfect for the gazebo, but not really something that could withstand our winter. So I was planning on storing it till the spring. Now the mirror was safely ensconced in the basket, which was safely placed on top of the deep freezer way out of the way of anything else in the laundry room. So I head into the laundry room, open the washing machine lid, and started hauling out the wet duvet. It was really heavy, so I was tugging with quite a bit of force when BAM, I pull out the last part of the duvet, and the Downey ball (one of those balls that you put your fabric softener in, and then they open during the rinse cylce) flies out of the wet duvet, soars across the room, angles around a corner and THUNK! smashes into the mirror and breaks it.

Like geez, what are the chances. Arrrgh. Okay so I clean up that mess, get the duvet in the dryer, put the towels in the wash and head upstairs to feed the cats and eat my yogurt. Everything was going just fine till I decided to read some blogs while I drank my tea. I sat down and started reading when all of a sudden I heard a huge tinkling crash. It was such an odd type of crash. Kind of reminded me of a million lightbulbs hitting the ground and bursting. I sat still for a moment, wondering if I had a chandelier that could of fallen...but nope, I don't have a chandelier. So I got up to explore. I kind of thought it came from the basement, but I went to look in the living room, since I just couldnt think of anything in the basement that could have fallen and broken.

Nope, nothing in the living room, nothing on the porch, kitchen, spare room, cloak room, upstairs bathroom, hallways blah blah. Okay time to go downstairs. I didn't even have to hit the bottom of the stairs and I could see hundreds of little slivers of glass all over. I think I mentioned I was on a bit of a mission over the holidays to rid myself of things I hadn't used. As a result, I had a pile of stuff downstairs that I am holding for my friend's mother. She is coming to pick up all the items this weekend, but until then I had them all stacked downstairs. So I had a microwave, a microwave cart, a toaster oven, a computer monitor and tower, computer accessories, a small table, two chairs, a box of dishes, one light and stashed way behind this pile, and right up against the wall was a huge flat mirror that could be used anywhere. Yes, you guessed it, that mirror somehow managed to slide out of there, hit something else and just explode into a million pieces. I was ready to explode in a million pieces, but I went and got the broom, the vacuum and a box and cleaned up the mess.

Upon reading up on supersititions, I found that if a mirror that is undisturbed suddenly falls and breaks, it means there will be a death in the house. And the proper way to reverse all this bad luck is to wait seven hours after breaking a mirror (one hour for each year of bad luck) then pick up the pieces and bury them under the light of the moon.

Well damn it, I already picked all the pieces up...and bury it...under what..snow? So now you know why I am planning my funeral, although I might be jumping the gun a bit. I know the first two mirrors were kind of my fault, so I will take the 14 years of badluck for them, but that last one....at first it appeared to have mysteriously slid sideways and smashed, which would mean fortelling a death. But thinking back, I remember Tinka skulking around the stairs as I investigated. Seems much more likely that she was the culprit, so perhaps I'll give her the last 7

And just in case you think I'm making this all up....

the hand mirror

The gazebo mirror minus its pretty wrought iron frame which I'm keeping

The mirror that mysteriously slid sideways and smashed

The guest of honour for either the funeral or 14 years of bad luck

I can't prove it, but here's the real culprit in my humble opinion

Bite Bite Park

2007-01-08T14:44:00.000-06:00

Nothing like trying to find an old research paper of yours, so you search the net with your own last name and BAM you find that your sister has a blog...okay so far so good. I mean my sister is allowed to have her own blog...heck she can even trash me in it, BUT, she had something else on there that totally irritated me. She had something close to 160 messages of people saying Happy New Year!

Okay maybe the Marlboro-free moment is wearing thin on me, but but..why am I feeling jealous over a stupid blog? And, I'll admit it, when I started blogging I hoped that the family would read it. I started two sites, this one, and the one about my father. I don't think anyone in the family read the one about Dad, and I understand that. Mom did check on this one every now and then, but other than that, that was it. Okay, that's fine too, don't be interested in my mundane little existence. But somehow, the thought that she has this fully developed myspace site, and she never even bothered to tell me to go take a peek at it...that kinda hurts my feeling for some reason. Then, to know that 160 people stop by her blog to say HEY YOU ARE COOL I LOVE YOU...that's just the final kicker.

Actually, I think my pettiness is misdirected...I should be sending waves of hate to myspace, that's the evil culprit! Either that or it's time to viciously chew some nicorette gum.

By the way, anyone who says your sense of smell and taste return or are heightened when you quit smoking, needs a kick in the ass. How could I possibly distinguish one smell from another, or one taste from another when all I've been doing since I quit is making potfuls of food and cramming my face. Seriously, chain smoking has been replaced with chain eating. Yesterday I stood over the sink gnawing at a Pomelo for at least 20 minutes. It was super sweet and very delicious, but omg how can one possibly peel one of those with these stupid gel nail thingies on. I finally gave up and just started using my teeth to rip away huge hunks of the rind. In hindsight, as I write this, I am wondering why I didn't think of using a knife. Of course, in a nicotine deprived rage at 2 am, do I really need to ask that question?

Joking aside, the smoking thing is rather fascinating. First of all, I have quit before. Once I even quit for more than 2 years, then went back to it. (I never said I wasn't stupid) In the past I always felt like I could go away for a weekend to visit relatives and not smoke...or go for an entire day without a cigarette without a problem. Then things took a nasty turn, and about two years ago I did not have that same feeling. I started feeling anxious if I knew I was going some place where people didn't smoke. I would walk into a non-smoking home and feel like I smelled like a used ashtray. Then it escalated even further, where I wouldn't feel safe if I didn't buy two packages of cigarettes all the time. One wasn't good enough, what if I dropped it in the toilet!!! What if one were accidentally run over! Then the final straw- I started smoking both packages. Not smoking two packs a day...although I'm sure I could have had I wanted to, no I just started opening both packs and then I knew if I forgot one downstairs, the other open pack was safely upstairs by my computer. Or if I left one pack in the car, no worries, the other was nearby! Uhhh that's just pathetic!

So I quit. So what I'm trying to say is that the true nicotine addiction...the one that drove me to quit, didn't actually start till after 25 years of smoking. How bizarre is that! Anyway, I tried searching the net for withdrawal symptoms to see what other horrors I can expect. I keep finding the same boring things...and I keep seeing the same damn statistics that are supposed to keep you motivated to continue on your path of quitting:

At 20 minutes after quitting:

blood pressure decreases
pulse rate drops
body temperature of hands and feet increases

HELLO I'm at that age where hot flashes are incumbent...do I really need hot hands and feet?
Also, how can my bp possibly drop when I'm continually freaking out over not having a cigarette in my hands. (Same goes for my pulse)

At 8 hours:

carbon monoxide level in blood drops to normal
oxygen level in blood increases to normal

It's exactly that situation that caused poor Konji's death!

At 24 hours:

chance of a heart attack decreases

These motivational points are giving me a heart attack

At 48 hours:

nerve endings start regrowing
ability to smell and taste is enhanced

That's right, more nerve endings so I can feel even more agitated, and I can smell my friend Tom, hiding in his basement, lighting up a cigarette...he's only 7 houses down the road from me! I know it's HIM!

At 2 weeks to 3 months:

circulation improves
walking becomes easier
lung function increases

Are you kidding me? I'll be dead long before I can walk to the corner store to buy a pack of smokes.

The rest just makes me want to laugh...these people do NOT understand the mindset of a smoker. Telling me that 15 years from now, no one will know I ever smoked doesn't do much for me. Particularly since everyone I run into keeps saying, "Huh, you smoke? I never knew that, well good luck with the quitting." GRRRRRRRRRRR

1 to 9 months:

coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, shortness of breath decreases

1 year:

excess risk of coronary heart disease is decreased to half that of a smoker

Long-term Benefits of Quitting

At 5 - 15 years:

from 5 to 15 years after quitting, stroke risk is reduced to that of people who have never smoked.
risk of lung cancer drops to as little as one-half that of continuing smokers
risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas decreases
risk of ulcer decreases.

At 15 years:

risk of coronary heart disease is now similar to that of people who have never smoked
risk of death returns to nearly the level of people who have never smoked.

You do realize it will be about this time that I say...what the hell, you only live once, might as well enjoy myself and light up!

-Swapna

PS Just to ensure I've freaked out enough, I'm going to go see how many people love my brother on his myspace site...

Cats Are So Selfish

2007-01-07T22:13:00.000-06:00

You would think after all I do for them they would be quite willing to help me out now and then...but NOOOO. Oh well, I forced my fake dog to be my model instead. Basically, this post is to show off my knitting/crotcheting expertise (read - lack of expertise). It is also really for Jean, since I think she might be the only person in the world who cares that I actually bought some yarn and tried to make something.

Now I call my particular form of knitting or crotcheting .... knotcheting (pronounced noshaying). Basically, I use my knitting needles, but when I have, oh, say, 25 stitches instead of the 37 I started with, then I use my crotchet hook to create fake stitches here and there in the gaps. Conversely, when I am crotcheting and I suddenly find a big loopy thing hanging off somewhere, I grab my knitting needles and make some sort of delicate little bizarre mini doily and then tack it on to whatever I am knitting. In the end it all works out for me, however, things that should be symmetrical are not my forte...nor are things that you use a pattern on. Basically, I'm a free bird knotcheter!

Anyway, Jade found some weird velour yarn and convinced me to buy it and promise to make her a hat and scarf. Instead I made a wide headband and scarf...and my widdle doggie has kindly acquiesced to model it.
Okay, in other news, I'm still on the non-smoking bandwagon, and if Jade doesn't come by to pick up her scarf pretty darn soon, I shall be hanging from the end of it. I am using the patch...but for some reason it doesn't stick so well and sometimes falls off. I'm also supplementing the patch with nicorette which I'm pretty sure you are not supposed to do. However, I'll take my chances, I'm daring that way.

Totally off topic, but I think I should name that dog. Oh and in case you can't tell how huge it is, it's almost the size of a real Saint Bernard. In fact, I'm pretty sure Jade's headband has been stretched now, hmmm there is one way to check....

I suck at photoshopping, but this still made me laugh...so what do you think, will the headband still fit?

-Swapna

One more time...Murder or Suicide, You Decide.

2007-01-05T21:33:00.000-06:00

Okay today I won't bore you with the details of the death of a fish, instead I shall regale you with this little conundrum.

Imagine, it's around 10 pm on December 30th, and you are on your way home. You decide to cut through one of the local high school parking lots, and as you walk towards home, you realize there's a rather large mass lying on the ground up ahead. You move cautiously towards it and find that you've just stumbled across a dead body. You call for the police, and while you wait, you take some time to do some amateur sleuthing.

Your victim is a large man, who looks to be in his mid to late 50's. He's lying on his back dressed in a t-shirt and ball cap. He has a big gaping hole in his chest...so you are pretty sure he died from this chest wound. Nearby you see a pearl-handled revolver...obviously the weapon that caused that hole in his chest.

For some reason the person seems familiar to you, but you can't put your finger on. As the time slowly ticks by, you get antsy waiting for the police to arrive, so you decide to take your detective work a bit farther and you take the end of your pen and rifle through the victim's pants. His one pant pocket contains a 4 dollar betting slip, time stamped 4.44 pm for that day for the Delta Downs. You hear the police sirens coming closer, so you push the slip back in his pocket and settle back to wait.

The police take your contact information, but they don't seem too interested in your theories, so you head home hoping someone will be up to hear your extraordinary tale.

The next morning you get up early and rush outside to grab the paper, wondering if there's been any mention of you finding the body. Sure enough, the headlines are all about the body...but sadly no mention of you!

Anyway, you find out the reason the victim seemed familiar is because he just happens to be the newly elected mayor of your city. Thinking back you recall this jovial fellow tooling around on his Harley Davidson dressed in leather pants and chaps. He was always very popular, and you are kicking yourself for not recognizing him (A tip to the local paper would have been worth a C- note at the very least).

The paper notes that his last day was a rather sad one, as it coincided with being his first day on the job as Mayor of the city. Apparently he spent the morning with the outgoing mayor. First on the list was to learn how to arm and disarm the alarm system, then how to raise and lower the U.S. flag. After that he ordered a new mayoral letterhead and a button-down shirt embroidered with his name and "Mayor". Finally the two men ambled outside to lower the flag to half mast in honour of Gerald Ford.

Later that day he stopped by the Delta Downs for one of his favorite past times...a wee bit of gambling. After that, the next time anyone spotted him, it was you, seeing him dead in the parking lot of his old alma mater.

The coroner's report shows that the mayor was shot in the chest. There were deep soot impressions on the body, leading to a conclusion that the wound was self inflicted. Apparently, although it is more common for suicide victims to shoot themselves in the head, it is not uncommon for chest shots either.

Upon further investigation you find that the victim was to be sworn in as Mayor only a few days later, and had left no suicide notes, or telltale preparations to indicate he was going to do away with himself.

So now you, my little Sherlock Holmes, tell me, is this Murder or Suicide....

Need a hint?
Okay maybe it would be of interest to you that.....
1) The police found the body Saturday night around 10pm, and initially ruled it a homicide and was investigating.
2) By Tuesday afternoon the police officially ruled the death a suicide.
3) Family members objected to this quick conclusion and asked that State Police intervene and take the investigation over from the local Sheriff's department.
4) Initially the Sheriff's department said there was no need to involve the State Police but quickly offered to turn the body and investigation over to them.

So now do you know...or need some more hints?
Okay....
1) The town has a population of approximately 4500 people
2) There population is approximately 80% Caucasian
3) The new mayor was the first ever African American elected to the mayoral office
4) The new mayor was overwhelmingly elected by something like 69% of the total vote.

Now have you figured it out? If so, please immediately contact the Westlake Louisiana Sheriff's department to tell them you've deduced the real cause of death of Gerald Washington, age 57, the town's newest and most recently deceases mayor. Personally, I'm not willing to risk even a dollar saying this was suicide, although I'm not willing to risk a dollar saying it was racially motivated either.

What do you think?
-Swapna

Murder or Accidental Death...You Decide

2007-01-04T23:25:00.000-06:00

I woke early yesterday, so early it was still dark outside. One of those days when you dread rolling out of bed because you know something bad is going to happen. But, being the sucker I am for punishment, I jumped up anyway. About two hours later, I was finally ready to venture upstairs. (No I don't take that long to get ready, I worked out first:P) Anyway, I headed upstairs, grabbed myself a cup of tea, and fed the cats. The I moved into the sun room to sit down and do some writing when I saw him. Normally I wouldn't even have noticed anything was wrong, but I slopped some hot tea on my way in, so I happened to glance his way and noticed he was listing slightly to the left. Again, this isn't that abnormal for him, he often is kinda rolled over on his side, swaying slightly, but that morning he was still, very, very still, and well, nose down.

I knew the day would come, but I had expected to find him floating belly up, not nose dived down among the fake plants, his pretty tail swaying gently in the water. Poor Konji, at first I wasn't even sure he was dead. I tapped on the glass, expecting him to sidle up and slide along the bowl as if he were caressing me, but nope...nothing. Dead fish, dead dead dead dead!

I really was sad, although it didn't last that long before I decided I should have a funeral. Of course I also wanted to examine the body. I had heard these bettas live 3 or 4 years and I had only had poor Konji for a year. So, I grabbed the vase (don't judge me you 10 gallon aquarium owning bastards, I just read the write up in Wikipedia!) and headed for the sink, where I proceeded to pour Konji out into a tiny little fish net.

Now what followed really should be preceeded with a little explanation. First, the betta has a labyrinth organ which allows it to take in oxygen from the surface air, similar to the human lung, so if a betta can't reach the surface of the water, the betta will suffocate in a matter of hours.

There is a well known story out there, about how bettas live in mud puddles and actually prefer stagnant water and small enclosed spaces, but according to wikipedia, that is a stereotype. Btw, it kind of cracks me up that we stereotype fish..but anyway, the truth is that normally bettas live in vast paddies, and the puddle myth originates from the fact that during the dry season, the paddies can dry out into small patches of water. However, that is not their natural habitat, nor is it a normal state of affair, and in the wild, fish trapped in such puddles are likely to die in a short period of time when they dry out. BUT!!! it is true that they can live outside of water for a period of time, unlike most other fish.

Basically, all this means is that I should have checked out Wikipedia first, and would have bought one of those biospheres at the very least. However, having said that, Konji seemed very content and happy, at least to me, in his little vase with the sickly lily floating up top. He had even created a bubble nest, although where the magical fry were going to appear from for him to take care of, was beyond my comprehension. Anyway, back to the betta lesson...really all I was trying to get across was the fact that the darned fish had a lung type system and can breathe! That's the key people, now pay attention.

Hmm I think I should just post the official autopsy report now:

AUTOPSY REPORT 04/02/07
case 4444444

I performed an autopsy on the body of Matimaihimo, Konji Nu Wai Ashiko at the KITCHEN SINK DEPARTMENT OF HOME FISHERIES, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on January 3, 2007 at approximately 0900 Hours.

From the anatomic findings and pertinent history, I ascribe the death to:
Suffocation Due to Or As a Consequence of
_____________________________________
Anatomical Summary:

Upon physical examination it was found that the body was consistent with that of a healthy male betta of approximately 1 to 1.3 years of age.

Rigor mortis had set in, and the victim's mouth seemed to have an unusual grimace or down-turned appearance.

There were no visible signs of physical struggle or injury.

NOTES AND PROCEDURES:
The body is described as that found in a Standard Anatomical Position for newly deceased fish. Due to the lack of floatation, it was determined that the fish could not have been dead for more than a few hours. Reference is to this position only.

Any injuries to the body surface are post mortem and as a result of autopsy procedures only.

Body temperature was unable to be obtained, mainly because I only have a meat thermometer, and attempting to insert that into the victim's body, would have resulted in ripping the body apart.

EXTERNAL EXAMINATION

The body is that of a well developed, well nourished colored betta splendans, stated to be just under one year old. The body weighs almost nothing and was covered in a colorful variety of scales that would best be described as teal. The outer body was slightly textured, although the feel of this was reduced partially due to a small coating of slime. Although it should be noted that the sliminess was not of the gross variety that makes you scream and gag, but was rather more like a normal amount of slime, not unlike the coating of freshly peeled lychee nut, and is most probably normal for a fish.

At first glance there appeared to be a whitish tint to the gill area, however, upon closer examination this was seen to be a patch of silvery scales that would normally not be seen and again is most probably a normal variant and actually quite pretty.

The head is normocephalic, and the nose/snout and eyes are not remarkable. The mouth of the victim was found to be down turned, rather like an unhappy fish, which in itself is remarkable, particularly since we know from previous case history that this fish was extremely well loved, cared and nurtured and was known for his happy demeanour.

Examination of the anterior and posterior surface of the trunk is not remarkable.

CLOTHING
There were no articles of clothing, and while this can be disturbing, it is not likely that this was a sexual crime and appears to be a natural state for the victim.

EVIDENCE OF THERAPEUTIC INTERVENTION
None

EVIDENCE OF INJURY
1. Upon closer examination of the victim's mouth, it was found that a small piece of brine shrimp was lodged in the anterior portion. This piece did not appear macerated and mushy, but could or regurgitated.

Opinion - The piece of brine shrimp could have been sucked into the victim's mouth if he were gasping for air, or alternatively, could have been causing the victim to choke, although this is less likely since it did not appear to have been chewed or mushed in any manner.

2. Upon opening of the body cavity, a small cloud of noxious substance was released into the air, causing the coroner a moment of confusion, quickly replaced by deep inhalations and a fleeting second of happiness.

Opinion - Upon reflection, it can only be concluded that a small amount of nicotine laced air was being held in the victim's lung like organ and was released upon autopsy.

TOXICOLOGY
The victim's body was ravaged with nicotine and tar, although the lung like organ seemed to have adapted itself to this condition and had apparently further adapted to become a chamber housing highly addictive substances and noxious fumes.

HISTOLOGY
Inconclusive due to the fact the small slice of fish I took for staining was swiped from my hand and quickly swallowed by another resident of the victim's household. (Charges for obstruction of justice are pending against one Tinka Padmanabh)

Serology and Radiology - not applicable

CONCLUSION:
This unfortunate male betta was victim of bizarre circumstances. Having been moved from an miserable existence at Pet Cetera, he was brought back to life in the Padmanabh household. There, by all accounts, he began to thrive in his new environment although he was forced to live in the smoke filled haze created by a chain smoking owner. Having adapted to these living conditions, the victim then became addicted to second hand smoke, and his natural ability to adapt to changing circumstance led to a heightened advancement in lung capacity for this fish. After months of living in such conditions, his already amazing lung-like organ created a super advanced labyrinth-like webbing to absorb and hold nicotine. This allowed the victim to release nicotine into his bloodstream whenever the said chain-smoking owner was no longer present. However, after 4 days of not being exposed to a nicotine induced haze, the advanced labyrinth-like webbing of the lung-like organ was depleted of almost all of its nicotine and tar. At this point, the victim was most likely rather cranky and irritable, which would account for the down-turned, almost angry like grimace noted by the coroner, and would have begun to take large gasping like breaths, in order to try and find nicotine in the outside air. It is my opinion that during one of these large gasping like paroxysms, the victim most likely accidentally sucked up a large piece of brine shrimp and died.

Cause of death is thereby deemed to be accidental choking and no charges will be laid.

Dated this 4th day of January, 2007
Coroner: Swapna Padmanabh

Witnessed by:
Olivya (Oli)
Tinka (now in custody)

So there you have it, the tragic circumstances surrounding Konji's death. I'm still in a state of shock, and although I immediately wanted to run out and find a replacement for my loss, I held back. At this time, we the family, are contemplating suing a big tobacco company in the hopes that his death can be put down to withdrawal symptoms or at the very least a complication from second hand smoke. Anyone willing to support us in our petition is asked to send money via paypal (we expected the process to be long and drawn out), and we extend our gratitude to you in advance.

Love,
Swapna, Oli, Tinka, and Konji if only he were here.

In Memory
Konji Nu Wai Ashiko Matimaihimo
February 2006 - January 2007 - Rest In Peace

Yada Yada Yada

2007-01-02T12:52:00.000-06:00

Okay, so it's 2007, and I have lots of excuses (real and imagined) for why I haven't been here, but why bother. Might as well start fresh. Actually, I'm too agitated to rehash old news. I feel like kicking someone in the teeth, or screaming at someone, basically I want to pick a fight. Why do I want to pick a fight? Well, because it's been approximately 36 hours since I had my last cigarette.

Yeah, what a loser am I....setting my sights on quitting smoking for the New Year. Actually, I'm an even bigger loser than that, I not only said I would quit smoking, but I said I would eat healthy, exercise more, write everyday, take two classes to further myself, and finish all my renovations in the house. I'm sure I made even more promises to myself, but at the moment I can't think straight.

Anyway, I not only made these resolutions, but I actually wrote out lists. For example, I made menu plan for this week, went and got the groceries and am trying to stick to this crap I decided I could subsist on. Fine fine, it's not that horrible, Im just irritated. Okay then I made a list of things I have to do daily, and posted it on the fridge so I can highlight each item as I do it. But since I don't want a huge messy list on my fridge, I put abbreviations for everything. So basically my list looks like this:

Mon DS, J, W, CL, P, Pr, G
Tues DS, J, W, CL, P, Pr, G
Wed DS, J, W, CL, P, Pr, G
Thur DS, J, W, CL, P, Pr, G
Fri DS, J, W, CL, P, Pr, G
Sat DS, J, W, CL, P, Pr, G
Sun DS, J, W, CL, P, Pr, G

Food (1-10)
Work (1-10)
(I'm supposed to rate myself as to how I felt I did for that week regarding food and work)

Now the big thing to this fantastic list, is the legend, which is not posted anywhere. DS stands for Don't Smoke, G stands for take out the GARBAGE, J is journal or blog, CL is clean the cat litter, W is walk, P is deliver one item from the porch, PR is pray

All fine and dandy till, 30 hours after posting the list, I walk upstairs and can't remember what PR and DS stands for. Fortunately, I managed to do the PR one as I prayed for assistance to remember what DS stood for. However, I finally gave up and just decided it stood for Dare to Sing. So I sang my heart out for about 20 minutes this morning until I finally remembered it meant DONT SMOKE....

Errrr, at this point, I know I'm not supposed to smoke, I don't need a stupid sign on my fridge reminding me, every freaking moment of my day is consumed with thoughts of inhaling and letting the smoke do some french dance as it floats up my nostrils, every time I blink my eyes I wonder why they aren't watering from the smoke in them, every time I cough it turns into this big - hack until you heave up a piece of lung moment, and every time I walk into a different room I can actually smell the stupid air freshener, so I think I know DON'T SMOKE....GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Alright, I put it there, it's my own fault, but it makes me want to flog myself or something. Although, the singing was actually kind of fun this morning.

Btw, I know those are dumbass things to do every day, but those are the things I let slide...and man, once those go, I'm in big trouble, then everything begins to fall apart. And well, the garbage and the porch became a huge issue when I redid my kitchen and decided to rid my house of any and all extraneous items. We were well into winter during the kitchen reno, so bags and bags of garbage were just heaved out my back door. Unfortunately, we also received a record breaking amount of snow, so now the bags are stuck outside my back door with no way to drag them to the back gate, or open the back gate for that matter. So basically, I have mounds of huge black bags of reno materials in my back yard. My goal is to drag one of them to the car every day, and then drive it around to the back and dispose of it. Basically, by February, I should be litter free in the back yard.

Then there is the porch...because I was renovating, and cleaning house, I decided I should get rid of anything I hadn't used in a long time, no matter how nice it was, or anything redundant. So I had things like, dishes, pots, pans, microwave, microwave cart, end tables, coffee table, lighting fixtures, kitchen table, 6 chairs, two antique chairs, toaster oven, shoes, clothes, bedding, carpet sweeper, vases, cutlery, glasses, clothes hamper, blah blah blah... It was like I had an entire house on my front porch. Sadly, most the charitable organizations felt they were at capacity with donations so they didn't want anything but my clothes, which left me with a lot of crap on the porch. I've tried giving the stuff away, but I'm down to the things people have yet to pick up, or things no one wants. So basically, I'm trying to grab one item a day and drive it to a donation box. If I get the junk gone and there are things my friends have said they want, but haven't picked up, then those will be donated as well. I want my yard and my porch empty by February dammit!

Ugh, I shouldn't think about it, it makes me all irritated again. Oh and get this, my stupid nicotine patch won't stay on, so I'm really mad now. I need to go to Shopper's Drug Mart and ask for a new box, but I'm scared to leave the house right now. If I had to speak to anyone, I think I might actually spit on them or something, I'm so edgy, mad and irritated.

On the bright side, I get to mark off J in just a moment and I think this venting has helped.....well at least a little bit.

Okay, tomorrow's post shall be less ranting and more ruminating!

Ciao
Swapna

Darling Jean and The Date

2006-09-21T11:48:00.000-06:00

So first off I have to mention that I logged on today and knew at once that darling Jean had mentioned me in her blog. How did I know this, well because all of a sudden I had a upsurge in hits on the blog, and well, let's face it, I haven't been writing anything that interesting lately. Sadly, all those referrals were wasted on my last post when today's will be rather entertaining I think. Anyway, thank you Jean! Ya know I love ya!

Okay on to today's post...THE DATE. Yes, yes, I did go out on another stupid date. Seems that most of my girlfriends think I don't give guys a fair shake. Since I hate being told I'm not being fair, or that I'm doing something incorrectly, I accepted a blind date just to prove them all wrong.

We shall call the guy Mark, well actually that's his real name. I've decided that Mark reading this might not be such a bad idea. So Mark calls me up and invites me out for dinner and drinks. Personally, I like to start with something a little less time intensive, but seeing as I had a point to prove I had to accept. Not only that, but Mark was calling in the afternoon and lining up this date for that same evening. Again, I'm pretty sure all the dating books out there say any woman who is worth their salt in singledom does not admit to having nothing planned for the same evening and should try and force the prospective suitor into actually planning something rather than doing a "well I have nothing planned, so let's get this over with tonight" sort of thing, but dammit, I had a point to prove so I accepted.
The pitfall of this scenario was that I didn't have time to go home and change before the date. So once again I broke a cardinal dating rule, and ended up going out for dinner in an extremely casual outfit. By this I mean sweatpants and matching jacket. Fine, they are super nice sweat pants but augh, if What Not To Wear was around I would have been strung up by the thumbs. My defense: I had a stupid point to prove!

Okay, so just before I go to meet my date, I get a little worried. What if this guy is a mass murderer? What if he's a freak! No one even knows I'm going out with him. I figure, okay Swapna, don't be a total dumbass, tell someone where you are going, so I pull out the cell phone and call Jade. Alas, Jade does not answer, so I hang up and figure what the heck and walk into Earls to meet Mark.

Turns out Mark is pretty good looking, tall, nice face, and no bad breath upon our first meeting. So far so good. We sit down at the bar, and exchange a few pleasantries about the day and the person who set us up, then the waitress comes to take our order. Now I have two favorite drinks, one is JD and coke press with a twist of lime, the other is a gin martini with extra olives... and sometimes I'll even have a dirty martini. So I order my martini and Mark says, "Oh a martini...I think I will have something similar. Could I get a crantini with those sweet cherries in it?" Should this bother me? Probably not, but it did, I mean seriously why didn't he just order a Pina Colada and tell me he loved the Copacobana. But I then remember my girl friends, I hear their voices telling me I don't give guys a chance, I see their accusatory looks, so I let it go. At least I tried to.

So the drinks arrive, but even before they have arrived, I'm sure Mark is beginning to think I'm a sex starved nympho maniac. This would be because I can't help glancing down at his ummm... ahem...crotch continually. Why would I do this? Well because he insists on adjusting himself every 10 seconds. Maybe he was itchy! I don't know, all I know is his hand keeps straying down to his lap and pushing something around with a quick flick of his wrist, and it's basically like an accident. It's gross but you can't look away! By then I have no idea what the conversation is about, all I can do is chant in my head, "Don't look down, don't look down, no no, don't look down, aaaaaaaaargh, you looked down!"

I really couldn't stop, so I did what any quick thinking gal would do in my spot, I pasted a smile on my face, threw back that martini as fast as I could, and said we should move to the dining section for dinner. Basically my thinking was that if we were sitting down at a table, I wouldn't be able to stare at his lap so my problem would be solved. So off we go to the restaurant side and whew, I can concentrate on the conversation again. The dialogue wasn't anything brilliant, but hey, it really wasn't his fault, as I wasn't being all that witty myself. Well, that's not quite true, I was being witty and sarcastic with my running inner commentary, but vocally, I was a bit of a dullard, I admit it.

So dinner arrives, and mmmmm it looked great, smelled wonderful and I was starved. Again, I think there's some rule about not appearing to actually eat on a date, but whatever, I was going to enjoy my meal with gusto. Apparently Mark was going to do the same, because it was about then the mouth smacking started. Now I could let the crantini go, and I could find ways to avert the adjustment problems, but mouth smacking while you are eating, I just can't let that go. It's a huge peeve of mine and it immediately turned me off, especially when some food flew out of his mouth and hit his water glass.

By then though, there was no turning back, we were in the middle of dinner, I had no way to make a quick retreat. But miracles do happen! Suddenly, my cell phone started ringing. So I pick it up, and it is Jade returning my call. Sadly, she sounded like she was speaking through a bullhorn and I knew Mark could hear every word she was saying, so I couldn't make a surreptitious plea for help. Jade said she was just returning my call and asked what was up. "Oh I didn't call for anything special, don't worry about it." To which she replied, "Uh is everything okay? I was just heading out of town and thought I should return the call." You see, Jade is no dummy, she heard the desperation in my voice...at least I think she must have otherwise why would she have asked if everything was okay? But I couldn't elaborate, he could hear every word, so I just said, "Everything is fine, I had just called to chat, I'll catch you tomorrow when you get back, I'm just having dinner with a friend right now."

At that point Jade was completely intrigued. She knows me too well, so she says, "Dinner? With a GUY!!!??" But I was too fast, I could feel her response coming on so I talked over her and said, "Okay I have to go, I'll talk to you tomorrow, OKAY?" She got the hint and said okay and hung up. About 30 seconds later the phone rings again, and it's Jade again...and she's as loud as ever.

This time she says to me, "you know, I was about to head out of town, but then I realized this might be that guy thing we talked about, is it the guy thing? The thing where you call and hang up, then I return the call and pretend there's an emergency so you can get the hell out of dodge? Cuz if it's the guy thing, I would never forgive myself for not catching on and leaving you stranded with some guy." As you can imagine, I was frantically trying to find the volume button on my cell, and I now basically have an imprint of my cell phone on my cheek from trying to muffle her voice by smushing the phone against my face.

I glanced over at Mark, and yep, he could hear every word. I just mumbled something about that not being it at all and that I had to go and hung up. Now remember, I really hadn't given her this code! I might have wanted to, but I never did, I had just called her to let her know where I was going in case my dead body showed up floating in the Saskatchewan River the next day. Anyway, he looked at me, kind of smirked and then said, "You have a plan for ditching guys?" I took the path of least resistance and said, "Well yes, I do. But I never implemented the plan! It's just that I had called her when I was on the way here, to discuss...uhhh female things (and I kind of stuttered when I said that and pretended to be a bit embarrassed since I believed that would stop him from investigating further)but she didn't answer her phone, and I did leave her a message, but apparently she never checked them, she just saw I called and called me back."

That explanation probably breaks every rule of lying. Basically, I babbled too much and why I felt I had to lie and bring 'Female Things' into the conversation is beyond me. It would have been fine to say I was just letting her know where I was going to be for the evening...but no, the drama queen in me decided I had to lie. Anyway, he believed my story and so the dinner of mouth smacking, crantinis with cherries and constant self fondling continued. I sat there in misery until it was safe to leave, thanked him for a nice evening and off I went.

Now see, here's the part that kills me...KILLS ME! I tell my girlfriends about the date and one of them thought I should have run away screaming, my sister understood that the mouth smacking was probably something I couldn't overlook, although she does feel I am too judgemental about such things, and the rest, yes the rest of my girlfriends feel I'm an idiot and such things have to be overlooked or one will never find anyone acceptable. Basically they pretty much told me that these are minor problems and I should put up with them or admit that I'm going to become a crazy cat lady.

So to recap, I went on a date to prove a point that I don't discount men before I even give them a chance, my date drank girly drinks, fondled himself and spewed food at me, I embarrassed myself by not knowing how to work my own cell phone, and finally, I proved NOTHING. So, having said that, I'm off to look at newspaper, I think there's a section listing cats to give away or for sale.

- Swapna

Who Am I Trying to Kid?

2006-09-18T08:15:00.000-06:00

So, if you will recall, a few months back I asked everyone to weigh in on whether I should get a tattoo and an eyebrow piercing or not. Basically, I started asking everyone I know, and it seems there is a general consensus that the tattoo would be more acceptable, the eyebrow piercing is just stupid, and really, I shouldn't get anything done.

So, uhhhh....yeah on Friday I got my eyebrow pierced and prepaid for my tattoo, which I had done yesterday. *cackle* Seriously, why do I bother asking for opinions when we all know I'm going to do exactly what I want to do anyway.

I love....love love love....my eyebrow piercing, and I'm very happy with my tattoo. I ended up getting the Om sign on my upper back, just below the base of my neck. I really wanted to do it on my neck, up near the hairline, so you could only see it when my hair was up, but, once he placed the stencil on it, I realized that if I turned my head at all, it warped the image. So basically I moved it down so the Om never looks screwy based on my moving my head or arms.

Sooo anyway, yeah I'm a happy camper and I think they both look hot, and I don't really care what anyone else thinks :) Of course I say this, and yet I had the tattoo and piercing done while my mother is off traveling in Spain. Coincidence? I think NOT!

You know what, today is my sister and her husband's anniversary...Happy Anniversary Sandhya and Larry. Anniversaries are always bittersweet for them, they decided to marry on mom and dad's anniversary, of course, none of us knew there would be no time for the four of them to celebrate anniversaries together :(

Which reminds me, I started this entire blogging thing to get my dad's story out there, and to put it in book form. Basically, I all I do now is randomly blog rubbish. Where did my motivation go? I'm pathetic!

And on that note, I shall go workout for an hour.
Ciao
Swapna

I Kiss the Ground You Walk On

2006-09-08T00:17:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I literally kissed the ground you walked on. I ran over to the store to pick up milk so I can actually serve clients a decent cup of coffee in the morning when BAM, I do a lipstand on the concrete. I think I lay there for approximately 1.3 seconds before I sprung up like a little jack in the box. How did I manage this miracle...well I managed because I was horrifically embarrassed. So I jump up, see the couple gaping at me from the car parked by me, the people in the store with their mouths hung open, and as all this registers in my brain, I plaster a smile on my face, quickly check to make sure all parts still move, brush off my tank top, smooth down my shorts and half jog, half lurch into the store, at which point I race to the back as fast as I can before anyone can ask if I'm okay.

By the time I hit the back of the store, I can feel something wet running down my leg, my knee feels like someone just took a baseball bat to it, and my wrist and palm are on fire. Yeah, so I smashed my knee pretty good, cut the front of my ankle, and slammed my right wrist and palm into the ground trying to break my fall.

Now if you were paying attention, you would probably be asking how I managed to cut the front of my ankle. Well, this was accomplished by doing the type of slide you see in baseball games. You know, the one where the guy dives headfirst trying to reach for home plate. In this process, I pointed my toes...well it happened because my damn sandal tripped me up, so I kind of flipped over on my foot and dragged the front of it along as I scraped my boobs across the sidewalk while my right hand slammed down trying to stop my forward motion.

So basically, I've been too busy to write, and had too many frustrating moments to do anything other than swear this entire week...until now. Now, well now I have the time to come here and write some rubbish, since I can't sleep because my knee hurts so bad even the sheet on it feels like a brick of concrete.

Anyway, I've been inundated with work, and while diligently trying to get it all done, my new tenant...who signed her lease on the 1st, has already managed to get me 4 warnings from the condominium board. So inbetween work and kissing the ground, I've been following all the rentalsman guidelines in evicting a tenant. First a verbal warning along with a written copy that is hand delivered, followed by one arriving by mail. Second a written notice demanding they make some changes and have 24 hours to do so...this too is hand delivered, and a copy mailed. Then I go back to see if they made the changes I requested, which they did not, then back to the rentalsman to open a file, then another letter informing the tenant that I've informed the rentalsman and opened a file. Now I have to go back, ensure they still haven't rectified the problem, then go to the Rentalsman again and ask for a hearing...approximately 10 days after that, I will get a hearing. If the tenant doesn't show at the hearing, or the hearing goes my way, then I can give them a 24 hour eviction notice, at which time I can go pay a Sheriff to enforce the eviction.

Does this seem unbelievably unfair to anyone else? The tenant sucks, her family sucks, she's lying, she's broken countless condominium bylaws, and tenancy bylaws...can't I just kick her out?

ARRRGh, hrm there's more, but she's a sneaky little !#@)$(@!) she might find this and I can not let her in on my secret plan. I will tell more when the matter is settled. Suffice it to say I'm feeling rather devious and proud of myself :)

Other than that I've been spending an inordinate amount of time feeling guilty. I owe Carla a poem...literally owe her one and my brain refused to comply. But tonight is the night, I'm sending something to her before I sleep!

Uhh, okay gotta run, I have a damn poem to write.

-Smooch
Swapna
PS I'm smooching you since I already kissed the ground you walk on...it just seemed appropriate.

The Triple Ick Factor

2006-08-29T07:24:00.000-06:00

In order to fully appreciate the ickiness of this, let me take you back a few weeks. Nothing special was going on, but I was in the middle of reading a rather absorbing book, and so quite often you could find me perched on the sofa in the living room. Now my living room just doesn't get used that often. If I don't have guests over, I'm not normally in there. Anyway, I'm in there, and I am convinced I smell something rotting...

I figure it's a piece of fruit and so I start sniffing around, but I couldn't find a thing. Shortly after, my friend Jude comes over, so we have a seat in the living room and chat, and I ask her a few times if she can smell anything, but she can't.

After Jude leaves, I seriously start sniffing everything in sight, I pull the sofa cushions off, I carefully shove my hand down the backs of the sofas, I move the sofas, and nothing!

Eventually I just give up, but over the next four or five days I keep smelling something and continue to search it out. I never find a thing. Now fast forward to yesterday. Jade came over, and we were sitting in the living room, enjoying a smell-free zone btw.

Anyway, Jade and I do what friends do best, we are mid babble, when suddenly I start talking about my room and how it's just not appealing to me. So Jade looks around and says she likes the room. Then she pops up, and goes and sits across from where she was, flops down in a chair covered in cat hair, surveys the room and says, "Hmm, needed a new perspective, and, wow everything looks different from this side of the room. I don't think I like it either!"

Panicked with this news I start to foam at the mouth. How can my home not be envied by everyone entering? How can someone actually not like it! This is disaster and a change must be made. So we discuss options for moving the furniture around and finally come to the conclusion the only way we can really tell what will look good, is to actually move the furniture. So we do. It was rather fun! Partway through the process I look at the clock and freak out, and stop mid moving, to tell Jade I have to make a phone call. I walk off to find the portable phone, and leave Jade on her own with the sofa. She decides she can probably move it if she gets the area rug a bit out of the way. It was about then I hear a screech and then Jade screaming at me, "Put down the phone, and get in here! Put down the phone and GET IN IN HERE RIGHT NOW!" Now in my description, it sounds kind of like she was ordering me around, but in reality there was a note of hysteria in her voice and it was more like she was imploring me to get over there before she died.

So I go back in there, and she says to me, "There's a dead mouse under the corner of the carpet, and it's been squished." My immediate thought was, "Gah, I didn't expect Jade to be so stupid, everyone keeps thinking those little toy mice I bought for the cats are real, but whatever. Just pick up the carpet Swapna and you will be able to calm her down."

So I lift the edge of the carpet...and, well, in retrospect, it's kinda hugely funny. There was indeed a dead mouse there, as for saying it was squished, that's a huge understatement. The poor thing had been flattened to a pancake...actually even a pancake is fluffier! Now upon seeing this squished mouse, I did feel a bit icky, so I run into the kitchen thinking, DONT PANIC, DONT PANIC...Jade is panicking, you must not panic!

I grab a roll of paper towels and a plastic bag and run back in there, pull off a wad of paper towel, bend down and assume I will just pick the flattened mouse off the floor and drop it in the plastic bag. WRONG! the damn thing is stuck, and I mean glued to the floor. I did my fingers in a bit, trying not to break through the paper towels, thinking I can pry it off the floor. It doesn't budge. I'm about to say I can't do it, when I look at Jade. She's an awful shade of white, her eyes are bugging out of her head, and I think she might faint. So I steel myself and dig my fingers into that floor! You hear a sickening crunching noise as I slowly peel the body away from the floor and then place it in the trash. Meanwhile I survey my handiwork and see that a fur outline of the dead mouse has been left behind. Kind of like a designer detective chalk outline of the murder victim.

So I get the pine sol, bleach, basically any cleaning supply that might disinfect and hose down that area, hoping I will be able to easily scrape off the leftover fur in a bit.

Through all of this I have remained rather calm. I clean it up, we relax, sit on the sofas and sip some juice reflecting on the moment, when suddenly we both realize that I obviously stepped on the creature and didn't even know it. So Jade says to me, "See this is why you shouldn't wear your shoes in the house!" (I'm a stickler for wearing something on my feet at all times...if I go barefoot my Achilles tendon hurts)

So anyway, I start thinking about the mouse and how it might have found itself in this predicament. I figure that corner of the area rug kind of curls up, so probably the cats brought the mouse in to torture, then when it was dead or unconscious, one of them batted it under that flip up corner, at which point, yours truly stomped all over it like an elephant. How could I not feel the thing!!! ICK, man bones must have been crunching...ICK ICK

A couple of seconds later, I remember the smell I had been searching for. So I realize that dead mouse has probably been lying there for a month while I happily trod over it every single day...ICK ICK ICK. That was the triple ick factor for me.

Ode to the Mouse

So sorry Mr. Mouse,
I really didn't mean to be as fat as a house.

Stepping on your little spine
I never noticed it snap
probably because of all the wine
Before I squished you,
then lay down for a nap.

So sorry Mr. Mouse,
I really do feel like a louse

Day after day, grinding you into my floor,
Okay now the ick factor is up to four!

-Swapna

Monday Morning Giggle!

2006-08-28T08:40:00.000-06:00

It's 8:30 and I just finished my workout and am gearing up for a busy day...make that week. I really don't have time to blog but this made me giggle so I thought I would pass it along.

Google 'failure' JUST DO IT!
heeheeeheeheeheeheee, I don't know why I find it so funny, but I do!
Have a good Monday :D

Swapna

Deadbeat Blogger

2006-08-27T09:29:00.000-06:00

It's Sunday, so I made my rounds of the blogs I like to read...Trying not to feel guilty about not having posted sooner. I was soon feeling rather happy as it seems all of you are experiencing deadbeat blogging syndrome as well! I should write a song called Deadbeat Blogger

I'm a deadbeat blogger and there's no doubt about it, I'm a deadbeat blogger, so let's just shout it
Deadbeat blogger, deadbeat blogger, deadbeat blogger.
Er...this sucks, screw it.

Okay enough of that rubbish, on to news, and let's flit about shall we!

First of all, I'm training for a 10 km walk/run for Breast Cancer. Go donate! I'm asking people to consider each dollar they donate as a sharp kick in my ass, pushing me along the route. Sadly, a lot of people want to kick me. I sent out about 35 emails and so far 18 people have responded in less than a week wanting to kick me many times over. If you too feel like kicking me, click here to donate.

BTW if that link doesn't work...since technology is not my friend lately, try going to www.cibcrunforthecure.com then click on donate to a participant, you will be redirected to a search window. In that window enter my name...Swapna Padmanabh, and the run location (Regina) and that should get you to my donation page :)

On the work front, something bizarre is going on. I've suddenly been inundated with work, not only that, it's all work I like. So much work that I was finally able to tell someone I couldn't do their job. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like I can't do that normally. However, normally I feel like turning down work is wrong of me, this time I had a legit reason. And thank god for that, I find that client to be a huge pain in the ass!

Mom is in Spain for my cousin's wedding, she has been joined by her five sisters and two brothers, I think they are having a good time, although I'm beginning to wonder how long it will be before someone starts a huge fight.

Oh, speaking of Spain...My tomatoes and cucumbers are doing amazingly well in my garden. Okay vegetables have nothing to do with Spain, but I need a reason to brag about them. They are surrounded by lush, thigh high weeds...And yet they thrive. I'm so proud of them.

My brother has returned from Stanford, having completed his certification in some Final Cut thingy. Don't ask me...Just be happy for him. The dog did not stay with me this time, instead my brother's friend housesat and spoiled the dog rotten.

Tinka is sick, but responding well to meds. I take some sort of perverse pleasure in making her eat her pills. You hold her on a table, point her head upwards, use your finger to open her little mouth, and then drop the pill as far back in her throat as possible. As soon as she snakes out her tongue to lick her nose, it means she's swallowed the pill. For some reason I find this so fascinating I keep wanting to drop other things down there to see her tongue pop out and lick her nose. Of course I haven't done it, but the urge is there...and by dropping other things I mean cat food....Not a gasket. Geez, I'm not a freak.

My sister strolled into town this weekend, and brought with her a car packed with goodies for my craft/writing classes, and when I say packed I mean packed. I've never seen so many crafty items at one time. Oh, she managed to stuff her husband in the car as well, so I had a nice visit with them over lunch on Saturday. Actually, my visit was nice, but thinking back on it, I don't think my brother-in-law said more than three words. He's a very fascinating person, and I always leave feeling like I didn't spend enough time picking his brain about something or another. Regarding yesterday's lunch, I really think he didn't say much because he wasn't given the opportunity. Playing it back in my head, I can see myself sitting across from them talking non-stop. GAH stop the memory! Stop the memory! It's starting to embarrass me. The saddest part of it all is that I talk much like I blog...flitting from subject to subject, talking about nothing at all. No wonder I'm single.

-Swapna
PS Oh man...I just finished this post and there's a little error mark at the bottom of the page saying: Could not connect to Blogger.com. Saving and publishing may fail. Test connection now. So far the test connection now button isn't working either :(

Five Little Girls

2006-08-16T08:48:00.000-06:00

I'm draggin my sorry butt around the house like, like, like Linus and his blanket. That's right, it's almost dragging on the floor, it's spread out just about as far, and if I could leave it behind by accident I would. Don't even ask, I'm just too tired to think. I didn't even workout this morning. Who would think five little girls could do this to me. I'm running a half day camp all week, and half a day with five little girls is 10 times the work as a whole day camp with 9 boys and girls...I have no idea why! It is boggling my mind.

They are attentive, excited, a bit hyper (non-stop giggling fits), and by the time their parents pick them up, I'm ready for bed, and it's not even 6 pm. I just can't explain this phenomenon. I think the difference is that these kids happen to be the children of people I know. This somehow makes me more like an aunt than a teacher, which leads to all sorts of problems. For instance, I normally put out a platter of cheese, crackers, grapes and then some juice for snacks. This lot put in a request for coconut, peppermint tea, colby jack cheese and cake. Coconut? They are nuts! The first day they ate so much one of the parents (my friend Anu) called to tell me they didn't eat their supper...ooops. So I rationed the snack yesterday, but somehow that didn't make the day any less tiring for me. Ahhh well, it's all good fun, it really is...

Okay, forget my fatigue, I really popped into blogger to say:
I GOT THE JOB!

Yes, I managed to beat out the even planning group, and was offered the job yesterday! They are sending me the contract to sign today. *bounce*

Uhh, I really am tired, and mom is leaving for a 45 day trip today, so I must head over there and spend some time with her before the morning is out. So I guess I'm going to drag my butt into the shower and head out. I shall try to return tomorrow with some actual blogworthy information.

Ciao
Swap

Where's My Nail Polish Remover?!?!

2006-08-07T23:22:00.000-06:00

YAY! Feedback on the tattoo/piercing issue. After carefully considering your comments, and combining that with my underlying fear of having a huge scar on my head, I'm rejecting my idea to pierce my eyebrow...For now! Seriously, I think it would look so hot, but uhhh I am 41...I am 41, I am 41. Gah, if I say it often enough I can talk myself out of anything trendy. As for the tattoo, although I like Carla's idea of a tattoo on my foot or ankle, I'm really set on an Om, and unfortunately I think it would be a bit blasphemous to have it anywhere near my feet. It's a religious symbol and the feet are considered unclean in most Hindu philosophy, for instance you never touch a book with your feet, or put your feet on a table, etc. So I shall have to pass on that as well.

I'm still considering having the Om on the back of my neck, so it would only be visible if my hair were up...or if someone lovingly swept my hair off my neck (hint hint guys), but I'll hold off for another few weeks and see if I'm still in love with the idea. Basically, with my attention span, I'm pretty sure I will forget all about it in a bit. However, I do thank all of you for your comments. BTW, Lillian, tell us your horror stories of the eyebrow embroidery! Jean, apparently Jade read your mind as she convinced me to buy this pink velour yarn and is insisting on slippers for Christmas. Buckwheat, why oh why do you insist on confusing me, I thought you would be all for the idea of marring my body with piercings or tattoos...How can I be so far off?

So my excitement for tonight stems from my impending job interview tomorrow morning. I've bid on a project to be an event coordinator for a non-profit organization. It's halftime for a year, and something I know I can do. More importantly, it would mean a steady income for a year, which is something I'm beginning to crave. Contract work is taking it's toll on me. I hate being broke one month and wallowing in cash the next. Basically, I suck at handling my own finances, when I get a big wad of cash I blow it. I can't help it, I just love shopping! Anyway, I'm off to soak in the tub, redo my nail polish and iron my clothes for tomorrow. Wish me luck, I WANT this job.

-Swapna
PS Unlike the men I keep saying I want...I REALLY WANT this job, I promise I'm not being flighty about it!

To Blog or Not To Blog

2006-08-03T13:01:00.000-06:00

That is the question. The answer, initially, was don't bother, you have nothing worth saying. After a few hours of reflection, I decided that in the past I have had nothing worthwhile to say and yet I blogged, so why the hesitation now? In fact, if I don't keep on blogging, I will slide into that no blogging for months pattern...and that is not good. Why, well because I want routine in my life dammit!

So basically you get a post about nothing. Enjoy :)

I was speaking to a friend in Denmark yesterday and he told me he was going snorkeling in one of the clearest lakes in all of Denmark. They wade in, then dive down and try to spear fish, then surface, clear their snorkels and start the process over. Sounds so mundane writing it, however, when he was telling me, I was overcome with a fit of jealousy! I want to dive into those waters with eels and other disgusting things lurking below. I even want to spear them...Well I think I want to spear them. I'm really not positive on the spearing part. But I do want to try snorkeling. At least I think I want to try the snorkeling. The more I think about it, the clearer my vision becomes. First of all, I picture a huge lake, HUGEEEEE, and sunny skies, white fluffy clouds...somehow I also envision this big cliff I dive off of, my body arching as I make a perfect entry into the water...er wait, that is not just picturing it, that's pure fantasy. Okay, I'll back up and try to be a bit more realistic. Forget the cliff, nice clear water, sunny skies, fluffy clouds, and I slow wade into the water. Er, the water is cold. REWIND. How about I lie on a beach at the edge of the lake and just watch hot Danish guys go snorkeling. AHHHH okay, I think we finally hit on my true desire. Fine, I do want to try snorkeling, but my desire to watch Henrik snorkeling is greater than me actually checking out the internet for lakes in Saskatchewan to go diving into. Do you now understand my need for trainers coming in and out of my home checking on my progress. Without them I would just spend the day daydreaming. I'm so pathetic :(

So yeah, my quest for life changes continues, and I just spent an extra 20 minutes talking to one of my trainers, trying to devise ways to ensure procrastination stops creeping into my routine. It managed to sneak in a few weeks back, and although I'm just barely holding it at bay, it is most definitely there, lurking and enticing me back towards slothfulness. BAD procrastination, BAD.

As far as the actual weight loss goes, I'm pretty happy. As far as the changing your life up part goes...I'm downright disappointed. It was going super well, then bam, real life situations popped up, and well, I didn't handle them well and all my good work went down the toilet. Ah well, pick yourself up, and try again.

Well, I do believe I've spent enough time talking about nothing. Now comes the part where I beg for your assistance. I want to pierce my eyebrow. That or get a tattoo on the back of my neck of an Om. Anyway,let's hear what you think. Should I pierce my eyebrow? Should I get a tattoo?

Eagerly awaiting opinions (but not holding my breath),
Swapna

It's the Oli and Tinka Show! With Guest stars Leslie and Jade, Special Guest Star Sita, and a cameo by Mom

2006-07-29T11:11:00.000-06:00

As per Carla's suggestion, I am moving on with an Oli and Tinka story, just to ensure my blogging reinstatement is complete.

So anyway, last weekend it was decided I would take care of my brother's dog (Sita) while he was away in Regina. So far so good. The dog loves me, I give her treats, I take her for a million walks a day, she gets a poop-free yard, and she gets to cats to play with...er at least that's how it normally was.

So anyway, on Saturday evening, Tinka (one of my two cats) and I, were flaked out on the couch snoozing while Konji Nu Wai Ashiko Matimaihima (my samurai fighting fish) watched over us. Oli (the other cat, and master of the house) was fast asleep under the hammock outside. All of a sudden we were awoken by a rude knocking on my back door. Springing up I ran over in a fog to see who was there. Turns out it was just my brother. So I saunter outside to sit in the gazebo with him. Turns out Tinka was as sleepy as I was, as we both walked outside and were surprised to see my mother sitting there, and then after a moment or two I saw that Sita was also frolicking in the backyard. I think it took Tinka a bit longer to realize the dog was there. Anyway, I sit down and start chatting, then I notice Tinka slinking around the yard with the hair on her back standing straight up. It was rather odd-looking, not unlike a flattened piece of road kill with porcupine quills standing straight up. So while I marveled at her ridiculousness, I failed to notice her purpose.

She was quietly and intently stalking poor Sita. Now, the darn cat knows Sita, has spent months with Sita, should love Sita...But I think she had a memory lapse and felt THIS dog was an intruder. So while she continued her slow crawl around the gazebo towards the dog, Oli watched on from under the hammock. Now remember, Oli is docile, lazy and declawed, but at that moment she looked a bit like some sinister tiger feigning indifference while mentally preparing for attack. So I'm sitting there like an idiot, pointing out how weird the cats are acting and giggling about it, when suddenly Tinka pounces! She comes at the dog from the side, gets up on her hind legs in a half crouch, and starts swiping at the poor dog as she hisses like some crazed lunatic. While us three idiot humans look on in disbelief, the dog begins to slowly sidle away to the right in abject horror, when the mastermind of this evil plot suddenly springs into action to close the trap. So now we have Tinka on the left hissing and spitting while she viciously claws Sita, and Oli rushing in from the right to cut off the dog's escape.

I should have been horrified but instead I started laughing as Oli took up her position. She stands up as high as she can on her hind legs and starts batting away at Sita. Basically she looked like an extremely fuzzy miniature kangaroo boxing the dog. But uhhh, Oli has no claws, so she's effectively wiping dog spittle from Sita's face, while Tinka tries to draw blood.

While I'm laughing, mom springs up and starts screeching NOOOOOOOOOOO TINKA NO OLI BAD BAD BAD NO NO NONOnononononoo and charges at the cats. The cats aren't stupid, they scatter, but the dog is now scared shitless as mom comes swooping in like some otherworldy harpy, and she runs to the corner of the yard and quivers. So I jump up and start trying to round up the cats, while Mom races for the dog and starts dragging her out of the yard. Meanwhile my brother is saying, "Geez relax, what is the matter with you guys, it will be fine." But Mom's having none of that, before I can even round the corner to head to the front yard, mom is out of the yard with the dog, and racing down the block heading back towards my brother's house. So I'm running after her screaming, "WAIT WAIT, It will be fine!" My brother is muttering about us being idiots and insane as he hurries after her, and Mom is racing down the street screaming back at me, "Your cats are Animals...THEY ARE ANIMALS I TELL YOU!"

For some reason I found that extremely funny, so I just plunked down on the grass and started giggling. My brother turned back to give me a look of utter disgust as he finally caught up to Mom. Later that evening I called Mom to see if she had calmed down and such. By that time she was calm but very angry. No longer was I going to take care of the dog, instead she would pay for a dog sitter! "This is ridiculous, you almost gave me a heart attack!" (notice she said YOU almost gave me a heart attack). "Those cats are animals. They would have killed Sita!"

Now did I mention Sita is part Collie part German Shepherd? She's a big dog, and more than capable of defending herself. She's just very docile and wasn't about to attack back unless things got out of hand. I actually think she was more frightened by Mom than the cats. Anyway, I listened to mom rant on about how bad my cats where for a few minutes and then I hung up. Later I called my brother and he was still fine with me taking care of the dog. So the next day I went and got her, brought her into the house with a wee bit of trepidation, but everything was fine. Tinka obviously recognized the dog this time, and had no problems with her.

I will admit Sita would give wide berth whenever she had to pass the cats, but all in all it was quite a quiet week. In fact, all three of them would follow me from room to room, plopping down to snooze whenever I was sitting still, then dragging themselves from their comfort to follow me when I would leave that room. I actually took, a bit of pleasure in just walking from room to room and waiting for them to fall asleep, then trying to sneak out...Turns out I'm not all that sneaky.

Anyway, we also took walks together...Yep, all four of us, and one day my two friends dropped in for drinks too. So Leslie, Jade and I head out for a walk, (Leslie was carrying the empty Breezer bottles for some odd reason), anyway, Sita is in the lead, followed by me, then Oli, then Leslie the lush with her two empties, beside her Jade, and bringing up the rear was Tinka, who would swivel her head like a maniac as though she was patrolling for snipers. It was all rather Homeward Boundish. In fact I was quite enjoying it when all of a sudden BAM lightning streaks across the sky and thunder booms. Sita, hates storms! She's afraid. So the dog starts getting a bit twitchy and begins to rush forward then sidle backwards to me while she turns her head from side to side. Leslie and Jade, rush past all of us and take the lead while they wave their hands about trying to uhhh part the rains or something. Oli begins hopping like a rabbit with her tail straight up in the air fully bristled, and Tinka goes into full commando mode, rushing from tree to tree, trying to keep from getting wet. Basically we now looked like some bizarre platoon of recruits trying to find our way through land mines as we raced for the main base camp.

All in all, I rather enjoyed my private animal unit...Let's see, one dog (the scout), Oli (the decoy), Tinka (the sniper and whatever you call that guy that runs in crazy zigzag patterns dodging bullets, one patsy (that would be Leslie who most definitely would get picked off by the enemy), one secret agent (Jade is tricky, her deceptiveness disarming), and one platoon leader (me) who would inevitably becomes a lush when the patsy dies and she is reprimanded by the General (Mom). But of course I would then turn my life around, get sober and suddenly save the world so Leslie's death would not have been in vain. Not bad for Suburban Saskatoon!

-Swapna
PS The above scenario is slightly skewed, since Leslie is not dead, and I'm already a summer lush...Go figure!
PPS The sniper brought home a gutted mouse last night and left the entrails on my pillow as a gift. *shudder*

Oh, the Shame of it All!

2006-07-29T01:08:00.000-06:00

Alright, I accept all and any reprimands regarding my blogging...er lack of blogging. I can't believe it was June when I last posted. That's just pathetic. In my defense, I've been enjoying the summer and just haven't been able to bring myself to write. Uh, that wasn't much of a defense was it?

Ah well, enough of that and on with a bit of news. Last post I believe I was drooling over some guy that is a semi celebrity. Okay, he was just irritating and stuck up. Next I had some sort of adventure regarding a scam and my condo. No more news on that subject. Hmm what else, oh who cares about what has been said, I can't be bothered to go back and read it all, on to the newer calamities in my life. Don't get me wrong, I've been having a fantastic, fun-filled, time but taking the time to write about it seems to detract from some of my fond memories, so I shall just move right along.

My latest calamity is something that looks like sunburn, feels like sunburn, but I just can't believe it's sunburn. Have any of you seen me lately? I am dark, dark, dark. Did I mention I was dark? So anyway, how do you burn one lower leg after having been out in the sun every day for the past few months and after using sunscreen faithfully. I just don't get it! I tried aloe vera on it, but that doesn't even help, so now I'm sitting here icing it. That does help, but I'm still irritated that I could burn at all.

Alas, this tiny spurt of writing has tuckered me out! I'm completely out of practice and I fear that if I push myself too hard, I will withdraw once again. I think it safest if I put an end to this post and try again tomorrow. We wouldn't want me to actually strain myself and be interesting now would we?

:P
Swapna
PS You know you're just bored and not really hungry when you grab a fudgsicle, your laptop, a glass of water and settle in for a nice blogging session. Ten minutes of vacant staring later, you give up on the blog and slowly return to reality. It's about then you realize that the ice pack on your leg isn't melting...it's the forgotten fudgesicle that you somehow managed to wedge under your thigh. Go figure.

Almost Forgot!

2006-06-21T09:44:00.000-06:00

There's a guy on set that I want...No, he's a guy I need...No, he's someone I desire...No, he's someone I am meant to be with. Yes, that's it, he is my DESTINY.

Okay, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic, but let's see how much of a fool I make of myself today as I am hellbent on getting his attention. Followup to come tomorrow!

I'm Okay - I Really Am! I'm Just, Uhh.........Lazy?

2006-06-21T09:05:00.000-06:00

Yes, I apologize, a million times over if necessary. I don't know what came over me. In my last post I mentioned that I predicted something exciting would happen and shortly thereafter it did! I even started to blog about it, and then I just became totally disinterested in blogging. I really have no excuse or explanation, but I'm back.

So let's do a quick recap. First of all the exciting thing that happened was some moron tried to scam me. I have my condo listed, and he called and told me he was the Chief of a reserve near Fort McMurray and he has two kids going to university in the fall (both in law of course) Anyway, he told me how they were going to buy this house, but then it turned out there were problems with the house, so now he had this federal housing grant for 255K that he MUST spend by Thursday (it was Tuesday afternoon when he called me), so he was even willing to pay more than my asking price and to toss me 10K bonus if I would furnish the place since he had that 255 available to him. Basically, it sounded too good to be true.

After rambling on and on about how he would charter a flight to Fort McMurray and then fly out to Saskatoon on Wednesday to sign the papers, he said he would have the reserve secretary call me with his flight info later that day. I waited around for a bit then headed out. Upon return home, no flight info, no message, no nothing! I figured oh well, it did sound too good to be true.

Then later that evening he calls! Colour me surprised! Anyway, he apologized for not getting back to me, said he had a bank draft for $255K made out to me, had chartered a Cessna to get him to Fort McMurray and then was taking a flight from there to Saskatoon and would arrive in at 11:14. So we decided we would meet at the lawyers office at noon. Now I have to mention a few really weird things. First of all, he never asked many questions about the condo, condo fees, reserve fund, etc. I kept offering the information. Secondly, during the first conversation, I was sure he told me his name was Rodney, then in this second convo, he said his name was Ronald, then when I asked him again, he said it was Robert. He stuck to Robert for the rest of the conversation, and I thought it was time to get my ear candelling done.

Anyway, partway through our convo, he mentions his nephew in Saskatoon, then acts like OH MY GOD I JUST REMEMBERED SOMETHING HUGELY IMPORTANT, and asked if he could call me back. I said sure...and five minutes later he calls me back and tells me this story:

He has a nephew who lives in Saskatoon. The nephew has a son who is being taken care of by the family back on the reserve. The son's kindergarten graduation is coming up on Thursday or Friday, and the nephew wants some money so he can get back to the reserve for the graduation ceremony. Then Ronald/Rodney/Robert/Retard says, "Man, I was supposed to put money in his account when I got your bank draft drawn up and I forgot, now I have to drive over an hour to Fort McMurray to get some cash and put it in his account." (Remember it is now well into the evening hours, probably around 8 pm) Then he says, "Hey, you wouldn't be able to help my nephew out would you? Just until I get there tomorrow morning."

So I ask what he means by 'help him out', and he says oh give him a couple hundred dollars so he can start journeying back to the reserve and then when Roland/Rodney/Robert/Retard and I meet at the lawyer's office he will repay me.

I was a little taken aback by this request, so I wasn't in fine lying form. This was me, "Uh, well...no, no I can't help you out, I'm sorry, it's just...well, well it's just that I don't have 200 dollars. "

Then he asks how I can own a 200K condo and not have any money, to which I reply that it's not my condo it's my mom's condo and why don't I call her and see if she can help his nephew out? He thinks this is a grand idea, so I ask for his phone number... MUWAHHHAAAA now I have a number for him! Then I tell him I'll call mom and call him right back. I hang up, and I call mom as I proceed to laugh my ass off while I tell her about this pathetic scam. We are both laughing and trying to figure out what I'm going to say next, when I get a beep and it says long distance and unknown caller. So I tell her I think he's calling me and I'll call her back.

Sure enough, it was him. He asks if I just tried to call, and I said I hadn't but I was going to call him right away anyway, since I couldn't get a hold of my mother. Then he asks if I can even help his nephew out with say 80 or 90 dollars. At that point I just decided honesty was the best policy. I told him that I'm sorry if this sounds offensive, but the whole condo deal sounded too good to be true, and now him asking me to give cash to someone I don't know just made me uncomfortable and I'm a cautious person. He quickly jumped in to say, "Okay I understand, I'll see you tomorrow" and BAM hung up.

Of course I never did see or hear from him again. However, I started replaying our conversations trying to remember how much personal information I divulged. Then I went to the web and found the reserve he said he was Chief of. The Chief has the same last name that the scammer gave me, but the chief is no Rodney/Ronald/Robert/Retard.

Then I found a site that listed a few different tribes as part of a Tribal Council. They had an office and newsletter blah blah. So I do a search on their newsletter for Ronald or Rodney or Robert Janvier....DING DING DING the search comes up with an article about the FBI searching the reserves in that area for 3 fugitives. They only found one guy and the other two escaped. One of the escapees was named Robert Blackfoot AKA Robert, Ronald or Rodney Janvier!!!! Coincidence? I think not!

So then I call the Tribal Council to see if they are interested in my little story and the phone number of this guy's cell. The secretary sounded interested but no one else was available to talk to me, so she left a message for the two supervisors. No one ever called back, guess I'm too easily excited. I should call the FBI I really should!

Anyway, that's the end of my scam story, it was all rather fun for me.

Okay after that a lot of stuff happened, but nothing too important. Right now I'm in Regina acting as an extra on a pilot episode for a sitcom. It's rather fun being an extra and it pays pretty well for doing nothing, and I got to visit my sister!

I'm here till Thursday, then returning home for the weekend, then mom and I are coming back Monday and Tuesday. Mom wants to visit my sister and Andrea, and I'm being an extra again on both days. WHEEEEEEEE, life is fun.

Er okay, I feel fatigued after all this typing. One should really ease back into blogging, I'm sure my fingers and wrists will be aching from all this exertion tomorrow.

Ciao
Swapna

From Sunscreen to Sunblock to Sundried...

2006-06-04T23:21:00.000-06:00

Slather on sunblock with UV protection 40...Then go out in 34 degree weather and sweat. You begin by dripping little rivulets of milky white, coconuty smelling liquid down the sides of your face and into the crack between your boobs. You end up with your shirt stuck to you, your panties feeling like you just sat in a puddle of water, and your face as dark as Starbucks regular roast. So what exactly was blocked by that UV 40? Oh right, I didn't turn all crispy and have my face fall off.

Seriously I need something that stops the sun from doing anything to me. Yes, I did wear a hat, but ummm when the top of your head starts to steam, you gotta wonder if it's really doing you any good.

Anyway, it was a great weekend, even if I did fry. Spent most of the time in the yard planting flowers, weeding, mowing and setting up the gazebo! I happened to take some backyard photos a few days back, so I will do some before and after pictures later in the week. I still have some serious yard work to do before you will gasp with amazement at the difference, besides it's 11:25 pm, and I have no backyard lighting way at the back.

The birthday was a lot of fun, nothing too exciting but good. Presents were varied and good, alcohol was handled with a certain amount of restraint, meaning the next day was productive with no hangover, and the company was excellent.

You know, now that I'm getting on top of being productive and happy, I don't seem to have any more bizarre stories to tell. Does this mean I've become complacent and boring...I think not. It just means I'm too weak from working so hard to get myself into any trouble. But do not worry, I feel a second wind coming on! I'm getting kind of used to this be productive type of lifestyle. Within a week or so I predict I will have the time to get into some whacked situation, so stay tuned!

Oooo I do have to mention one gift in particular though! Jade made me a beautiful frame. She was going to put a mirror in it, but I talked her out of that, I think I will put the last sketch dad was doing for me in it. Anyway, she made it out of tile grout, mdf and cut tiles. It's absolutely stunning and she assures me quite easy to do. As a result we spent hours discussing how we are going to mosaic the side of my back steps and the risers on my front steps. Carla had suggested tiling them but then Jade's present made me tweak that idea a bit more.

Between Anita, Carla and Jade, I've now got an entire plan for my yard and house that should keep me busy till I find a house in Nashville. Yeah I know I haven't been talking about it, but that doesn't mean I'm not planning!

Augh, I have to go, tomorrow is a really early morning with a 5 am wakeup, so I shall babble more about the yard, and post some pics tomorrow.

Ciao
Swap

Someone Get Me a Hip Replacement!

2006-05-31T23:09:00.000-06:00

One hour till I turn 41...

Age has never really bothered me before, in fact I welcomed each birthday with open arms. Somehow I'm not feeling the warm and fuzzies for 41. In my little brain I could still feel young and fresh at 30, at 40 I kind of felt hot and sexy. Now at 41 I'm feeling like life passed me by and I've wasted far too much time! As a result, I'm not really in the mood to celebrate and feel like I should be find the cure for cancer or bottling my cold remedy and mass marketing it or something. Oh well, the good thing about turning 41, is that by tomorrow afternoon it will be old news and just another day:P

Today also brought some bad news, one of my parents best friends, and the man who is the closest thing to a father figure in my life right now, had chest pains yesterday. He had an emergency angiogram today and will be going for either triple or quadruple bypass surgery on Friday morning. It's an odd thing, but since Dad died, I find that most illnesses don't really bother me anymore, it's like I'm a bit impervious to them. (Erm, I mean serious illnesses like cancer and heart surgery...My cold was a whole other story I tell ya!) Mom seems to be even more impervious than I am, and can't understand why her best friend (wife of the man with the scheduled surgery)is so worried. I think neither one of us is prepared to think of anything bad happening, so we blithely go on as if nothing is happening. It's weird and although I recognize the seriousness of the situation, I still feel kind of dead inside about it all.

Okay enough of illness, surgery and creaking bones. I watched another idiotic movie today, The Grudge. Although it was kind of creepy, it was just stupid and didn't really make any sense at all. Okay, it made enough sense for me to get it, but not enough sense for me to do anything but mock the entire film. Okay, even as I write that I'm thinking to myself...Err don't mock it, it was a bad film but it was creepy...I don't wanna hear that creepy sound tonight when I'm alone in bed. Actually, I do think they did a decent job of weird sound effects to freak you out. However, I hate movies where people insist on going to investigate attics all alone when they are already obviously scared out of their wits, or people entering a home where you know three people were just murdered in suspicious circumstances. Even better, you are threatened by some supernatural and freaky monster so you flee your office and run home and cower. Then, the doorbell rings and you just nochalantly walk over and throw open the door...Who in their right mind does that! Er nm, none of this is important. What is important is this: I didn't have to pay for this movie, it was a freebie, and it still wasn't worth what I paid.

-Swapna

High on Vicks VapoRub

2006-05-31T00:23:00.000-06:00

My surefire remedies for a cold seem to be working but at a slower pace than normal...

As part of my recovery I'm forced to sit in my chair and watch movies...Okay I wasn't actually forced, but it sounds much better than saying I'm sitting around doing nothing. Anyway, as part of my moviefest I decided to watch Grizzly Man, a movie documenting Timothy Treadwell's life and death. The movie includes footage taken by Treadwell himself, and narration from many, many others. Now, I had never heard of Timothy Treadwell before and only decided to watch because it was billed as a moving docudrama about a man and his girlfriend who lived among the brown bears of Alaska and were eventually killed by them. Okay, now who wouldn't be intrigued by that!

It's hard to explain why I found this movie so fascinating, particularly since I couldn't sit still through it and was bouncing back and forth getting drinks, washing a dish or two, feeding the cats, returning phone calls, etc. Then I would hear something in the background that caught my attention, I would return to the tv and rewind to watch what I had missed. While the movie replayed, I would search the net for references to Timothy Treadwell...So why was I still drawn to it when I could barely watch it? Well, because Timothy Treadwell was so disturbed I found myself compelled to watch.

First, a quick synopsis of Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog

Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard visit the Katmai National Park and set up camp to study the brown bears as they make their last attempts at a salmon run as they ready themselves for hibernation. I don't know how long they are there, but on October 6th, just hours before they are to be picked up both Amie and Timothy are killed in a bear attack.

Herzog intersperses interviews with many different people regarding their views of Timothy with Timothy's own footage documenting his works with the bears. Through Timothy's footage you see a broken and troubled man, or at least I did. He talks to the bears sometimes like a mother talking to a baby and other times as though he is in love with the bears. In the interviews you find two types of people; those in love with Timothy and those who felt his death was just.

Timothy's life and his thoughts are intermittently revealed in his own footage. Turns out Timothy was once up for the role of Woody on Cheers. According to Timothy, he was the second choice, and losing that role to Woody Harrelson started his downward spiral into booze and drugs. From there, Treadwell says he tried many methods and programs to kick the addictions, but it wasn't until he found bears that he found a way out. He decided someone should protect the bears and that someone had to be himself. But, in order to be a proper protectorate he needed to clean himself up, and so he gave up his addictions.

As for Herzog, well he seems just as fascinated and lost as I am in understanding Timothy Treadwell, perhaps that's why he made this bizarre docudrama.

Okay so that's the movie in nutshell, but here's a few interesting tidbits:
1) When Herzog interviews people about Timothy's death, many of them say he got what he deserved. How a nutcase who thinks he should live with the bears and learn more about them could ever DESERVE to be eaten alive by a bear is beyond me, but apparently some people think he did. The emotionless way they say that he got what he deserved is unreal. Sam Egli, a helicopter pilot, assists after the Treadwell tragedy. Just one of his comments for your reading pleasure, "To me he was acting like he was working with people wearing bear costumes out there,instead of wild animals...He got what he was asking for, he got what he deserved, in my opinion. The tragedy of it was taking the girl along with him. I think the only reason Treadwell lasted as long as he did in the game was that the bears probably thought there was something wrong with him, like he was mentally retarded or something."

2) Timothy calls himself a protector of the bears, and yet he spends the majority of his time at the Katmai National Park, which is a national preserve. Okay, maybe I don't understand the word preserve, or I'm missing something, but shouldn't there be a rather minimal need for protecting bears in an area set up to protect wildlife? Treadwell claims there were poachers in the area, but those reports have been unsubstantiated.

3) Okay this has nothing to do with the story of Timothy Treadwell, but I find it bizarre. Many of the people in the movie sound exactly like well known actors and actresses. Some of them even have weird resemblances to famous actors. It's as though Timothy surrounded himself with stand-ins for movies.

There were comments that the movie was created in such a way as to make him look like a nutcase, but honestly, he looks like a nut because of his own footage, not because of anything else that is documented in the show. Granted, there are a lot of weirdos in the film. I don't know how else to describe them. Even the guy who performed his autopsy turns all theatrical and starts talking of how he envisions the last moments of Timothy and his girlfriend's lives.

Apparently, when Timothy was being mauled, a camera was turned on. However, the lens cap was on the camera so there is only an audiotape of their final moments. In the audiotape it is said that you can hear Amie yelling to Timothy to play dead, then yelling at him later to fight back. During the encounter, which lasts about 6 minutes, Timothy also shouts for Amie to hit the bear with a frying pan, and then for her to run because he's being killed. You never get to hear any of the tape, and Werner Herzog advises Jewel (Timothy's ex girlfriend and business partner) to destroy the tape and never listen to it. There are excerpts of it out on the net, and probably a whole transcript, although I didn't find one, but I didn't look too hard.

I'm bopping all over, but this movie really had my mind racing. I guess what I saw was a man who was so lost that he needed to find a purpose to his life. He decided his purpose would be about caring and protecting bears, and yet I felt his underlying desire was to create a film where he was the star.

Even his friends remind me of wannabe actors. Jewel, who also co-produced the film, comes across as a Cameron Manheim clone, not in looks but in voice and demeanor. There's also an Alan Arkin clone and various others. Like I said before, even the guy who performs his autopsy manages to get in a theatrical soliloquy.

Then there was another weird moment in the movie, where he was talking to the camera and I found myself thinking..."Is this guy gay, he seems so effeminate?" No sooner had the thought penetrated my mind when the movie suddenly shifts to Timothy talking about his sexuality and how he loved being straight and loving women. And how it would be so much easier if he had been gay. It freaked me out I tell ya! Not because he seemed gay, but it was like someone was reading my mind and decided to answer me. Obviously even Werner Herzog felt there was something about the preceeding shot that made one wonder about his sexual orientation. But honestly, isn't it weird that during a movie about bears I'm suddenly wondering if a guy is gay or not? Anyway, that's just one of the moments that show Treadwell as lost.

If you bypass the odd things then off and on you see some amazing footage. I particularly loved watching nutball Timothy and his friends the foxes. He plays with them, talks to them, chases them, swears at them, it's hilarious and yet beautiful. Actually, if Timothy had lived, I would have advised him to air his footage with no sound. It's his ramblings that make everything seem less important. Not only does he come across as a freak but paranoid as well.

Okay I don't think I can actually add anything else of worth to this post, you just have to watch it for yourself. Someone out there go watch it and come back and tell me what you thought!

Hugs,
Swapna
PS Gruesome footnote: Although there has been controversy surrounding whether or not the bear they killed is actually the one that killed Timothy, it remains a fact that the bear did at least eat part of Timothy and his girlfriend. At least 4 large bags of body parts and clothing were removed from the 1000+ lb bear.

The Excitement that is My Life

2006-05-29T17:37:00.000-06:00

Hi

I'm still sick.

If I could sleep till tomorrow I would.

I'll go try that.

Bye

Laws of the Weekend

2006-05-28T18:40:00.000-06:00

Law #1 - Anything you have planned will go off without a hitch if you are not looking forward to it, if you are looking forward to it, expect delays, cancellations or some general mishap

Law #2 - If good weather is required for your weekend, rain is sure to fall.

Law #3 - Turning off your ringers, closing all the blinds and even drugging yourself with Starnoc is sure to ensure you will be wide awake by 5 am on both Saturday and Sunday.

Yeah, that's right, I woke up Friday morning feeling great, by Friday at 4pm I had a bit of a sore throat and a sore neck, and by 8 pm I had a temp of 103 and was ready to cry. Basically, I'm a walking snot factory at the moment. One would think so much mucus would not be able to be manufactured by one body, but mine is going for the world record. The only time I ventured out of the house this weekend was to go buy more kleenex and Vicks cough drops. So, basically I should feel great by tomorrow morning at 6:30 am, just in time for my morning workout. That's a given...No way I could get out of torture due to illness!

My sister was in town, and she and my mom and brother had a good weekend, or so they tell me. It was odd though, even though I felt like crap, I couldn't sleep at all, so Saturday morning was rather productive for me. I got up at 5, vacuumed the upstairs, washed the floors, did laundry and cleaned the downstairs bathroom. Then the clock chimed 7 and I sat there wondering what I could possibly do for the rest of the day. But no worries, the laws of the weekend ensured there was no end of coughing, fevers and general malaise to contend with. Do I sound whiny enough yet?

Okay I'll stop sniffling and get on with the more important tasks of the day. First of all let's get the basics out of the way. So here they are, my sure fire ways to get over a cold in 48 hours.

1. Slather your feet, chest, nose and temples with Vick VapoRub, then put on a pair of socks, get under as many covers as you can and sweat out the bad stuff.

2. Crush some aspirin and mix it with hot water and sea salt, then gargle till you think you are gonna choke. If you happen to drink some of the mixture, no worries, it's all good.

3. Plan ahead and make sure you have some sort of flu medication that will knock you out for the night.

4. Make sure you have a fresh set of sheets on your bed that smell like some pretty flowers and pile as many pillows on there as you can. Then make a kind of tower so when you do attempt to sleep you are elevated to the point where you are almost sitting upright. Why is this important? Well, because if you don't do this, and you lie down like normal, you will wake up every 10 minutes or so when you stop breathing because your nose is plugged and your chest congested. See, I didn't do this Saturday night, and I'm paying the price.

5. Make sure you have a fridge full of varying cold drinks, at least one icecream bar, and a huge stash of Vicks cough drops.

6. Keep a plastic bag by your bed. This bag serves two purposes, the first is so you have something to throw your dirty kleenexes in. Otherwise you will be finding slimy kleenex everywhere. Secondly, it works in a pinch if you have a coughing fit and find yourself about to upchuck but without the energy or the time to make it to the bathroom. Now remember, if this happens, as soon as you stop retching, grab that bag and make a beeline for the bathroom cuz you need to wash your face, brush your teeth and dispose of that bag before it starts leaking.

7. Make sure you take frequent trips to the bathroom. Even if you don't think you have to go, try. See, if you don't, and you have a fever, and then you have a horrible coughing fit, you might end up peeing yourself. Although this didn't happen to me this weekend...I'm positive it's only because I took precautions.

8. Make sure you have something horrible planned for early Monday morning, preferably something you really don't want to do. This pretty much means you will be well enough by then to do it.

Okay, I have lots of other important information for you, but I'm fatigued from all this strenuous activity...So perhaps I shall return tomorrow when my cold is cured.

-Swapna

Big Mac

2006-05-23T01:26:00.000-06:00

Basically the title of my post says it all. I'm craving a Big Mac. We aren't talking craving where you think, man I don't feel like cooking let's just pick up something from McDonalds. Nor am I talking the craving where you think, hmmm grease would be nice tonight, I think I'll swing through the drive thru. Nor am I referring to the...ACK! I'm so late and I haven't eaten all day, what the hell, I'll have a Big Mac. I'm talking, Ronald McDonald and I making out in my dream, where I interrupt our lovemaking to ask if I can have a Big Mac in exchange for.... well you figure it out.

The dream started out innocently enough, I was driving around looking for a belt for the motor on a garden tractor...Okay I don't have a tractor and if I did have a tractor I wouldn't know what to do with a belt, but in my dream I seemed quite knowledgeable about the mechanical ailments my tractor was having. And it was imperative I fix the tractor as I was finishing the landscaping of my yard. Anyway, I was driving around the city searching for the missing/broken belt, when the Hamburgler stopped me and asked if I knew how to get to Dundurn. Seeing as I do know how to get there, I gave him directions. He was really thankful and handed me a cheeseburger for my trouble.

I told him the hamburger wasn't necessary as it really was no trouble at all, but thanks anyway. Then he told me I should take it, because he had a whole stash of them and they were getting cold. At that point he kind of surreptitiously glanced around, then leaned in and well, flashed me, like some old lech in rain coat. However, instead of being faced with the naked truth about the Hamburgler, I was confronted with the inside of his amazing cape. It was lined with hundreds of little pockets, and each one held a cheeseburger. He told me the ones down the left side had no pickles, as he wasn't particularly fond of them.

Seeing as he had a cape full, I took my cheeseburger and thanked him and was on my way cruising down 8th street again, only this time I was actually driving my tractor. I remember wondering how my tractor was able to drive without the belt, but it was just a momentary thought and then I was parking and heading into another store. The store I chose to enter happened to be a pawn shop and lo and behold, the pawnbroker was non other than Ronald McDonald. Imagine my surprise! So I ask Ronald whether he has a belt for my tractor, and while he is rummaging around in some boxes, I mention that I just ran into the Hamburgler and he gave me a cheeseburger. At the mention of the Hamburgler, Ronald visibly perked up, and looked rather excited. He wanted to know where exactly I saw the Hamburgler and if I knew where he was headed.

Seeing as it was Ronald, I figured it couldn't hurt to tell him that Hamburgler was headed to Dundurn. Then Ronald explained that the Hamburgler throws the best May long weekend parties, and he had misplaced his invitation and couldn't remember where the Hamburgler's cabin was. Now that he knew, he was going to close up shop and hitch a ride out there. Then he asked if I was interested in tagging along for the party. Well who in their right mind would say no to crashing the Hamburgler's party with Ronald McDonald...certainly not I.

So Ronald finds a belt for me, we fix my tractor and then the two of us jump on and head out towards Dundurn. Ronald basically clung to me for the entire drive, and I could feel bugs getting caught in my teeth every time I tried to say something to , so I didn't say much on the ride there, although Ronald did keep me entertained with information on the caloric counts of all McDonald's food items on their menu. Imagine my surprise, and skepticism when he told me that reports of a Big Mac being 800+ calories was all wrong, and the real calorie count was only 325.

Although I didn't really believe him, I did find the thought of a Big Mac being only 325 calories quite comforting. In fact I found the thought so comforting that I began to wish outloud for a Big Mac. Ronald rubbed my shoulders and apologized for not having any on him, but assured me there would probably be lots at the party. So onwards we went.

About 5 kilometers from Dundurn, Ronald told me to take a left and very soon we were approaching a large barn painted black with white stripes. There was a big bonfire out front, and tons of people were already gathered there. Sadly, almost everyone was fat. Anyway, we get off the tractor and make our way to the fire, where Hamburgler is whooping it up with these gremlin like creatures who were stuffing their faces with fries.

Turns out he was pretty happy to see me, and called for a round of Burgler Burpies. Once they arrived he asked if I had ever tried one, naturally I said no. Hamburgler got really excited about this news and told me to watch carefully. He then downed the shot as fast as he could and then guzzled a huge glass of water as a chaser. Once he was done, he turned to me and let out the hugest burp one could imagine. Then everyone laughed uproariously and started chanting for me to try one.

What can I say, I gave in to the peer pressure, grabbed my shot glass and downed the vile liquid. Actually, it was quite similar to Jagermeister. Anyway, I chased it with the water and then let out a fairly satisfactory belch. The crowd went wild and I immediately felt like one of the gang. About 10 Burgler Burpies later, I realized I was leaning up against Ronald who was standing behind me kissing my neck as I happily continued to belch away.

Turns out belching isn't always a turn off! So anyway, a few more burpies and I was feeling rather happy about Ronald possessively encircling me with his arms and pulling me up against him. Then the unthinkable happened, Hamburgler broke out this huge platter of french fries, cheeseburgers, filet o fish, and milk shakes. Honestly, the smell of those fries was so enticing I almost wet my pants. But Ronald was into full blown romantic mode by that time, and not even my need for fries was enough to deter him.

Next thing I know I'm making out with Ronald in some camper trailer while thoughts of Big Macs and french fries are streaming through my head. That's when I figured I might be able to get a Big Mac after all, and I propositioned Ronald.

Suffice it to say that that I did get my Big Mac. However, as for that old saying about a man's foot size...Well, Ronald did not live up to those big old red shoes of his.

- Swapna
PS Before I go to bed tonight, I'm saying a short prayer since I've been craving a Wendy's burger today, and the thought of finding myself in bed with Dave Thomas has me too scared to sleep.

Well, Jean Did Ask

2006-05-21T01:41:00.000-06:00

Dear Jean tried to leave a meaningless comment, unfortunately, she always has something worthwhile to say, so she failed. She mentioned a BBC production of Bleak House, and while I'm pretty sure I COULD find Bleak House on DVD, I think I shall actually read the darned thing when I have more time. There is something so satisfying about turning pages, smelling paper, and seeing the words dissolve before your very eyes into vibrant images, or, in the case of Bleak House, foggy images, but that's neither here nor there.

I can't help it, I don't find anything quite as satisfying as print or music. And the more dog-eared a book is, the more I love it. Of course, if I find greasy food stains and it smells like old cheese, some of my pleasure does disappear. But those old books, the ones that smell kind of musty, and the pages creak...God I love those. And music, I don't even know where to start when trying to describe what certain music does to me. It is as though nothing else matters in those moments of listening but the music itself. All my other emotions give way until I feel as though the music gives birth to something new within me, emotions driven by what I am hearing, not dependent upon how I was feeling that day, or what anyone around me is saying, just what the music is saying to me. And I don't mean the lyrics, although they often touch me, it's the actual sound of the music that usually sets me on a new path.

I guess I love music and books because they set my imagination free. The originating thoughts aren't my own, they are seedlings from someone else's art. I dig that. Now movies or TV, well too often the images guide you so strongly, your imagination isn't allowed free rein :(

Er, where was I going with this...I have no idea, I actually meant to respond to Jean's question about Fugitive Pieces. Turns out I did finally settle on that, rather than good old Catcher in the Rye. I can't help it, I'm a Gemini, it's normal for me to change my mind. Anyway, I decided on Fugitive Pieces because I happened to have two copies of it and because I thought Ms. L (the praying to graduate daughter of my neighbor mentioned in the previous post)would enjoy it more than Holden Caufield's screwed up angst.

So far, Ms. L. seems to be enamored with the book and I don't blame her. Jean asked whether it was worth reading, and that's what got me started thinking about it. First of all, pretty much anything is worth reading in my opinion...Okay, there are a few books I could have done without, but in general, I find something to enjoy in everything I read. However, if I were to be a bit more discerning in my book tastes, I would still have to recommend Fugitive Pieces.

There is something reminiscent of older books in it. I think it's her choice of words; They flow, they beat, they tattoo on your ears, and yet there is something very modern about her style. Okay, I know I'm being contradictory here, but I guess I'm trying to say, although she has a more modern style of writing, her descriptions and the way her characters think, seems so, so.....so proper to me. Most of the books I read by first time authors have a newness about them that makes me feel as though they don't think their story is enough. So they pretty it up with in your face stylized writing, or shocking events tossed about as nonchalantly as I would toss a salad. And when a book is a battle between style and plot competing for your attention, I grow weary, and find the reading becomes painful, but with Anne Michaels Fugitive Pieces, something different happens.

Her style, which is quite poetic, enveloped me in its lyrical chant from page one, while her plot intensified my need to read on. They two worked together to weave a tapestry of images and sounds. Perhaps it's because she uses sound symbolically throughout that I felt this way. If you take her characters, and remove them from the book and ask them to stand alone, they might seem too over the top, too eccentric, but when you put them back into the book, they fit perfectly, balancing each other. The characters thoughts, actions, and fears all made sense to me. I think it's because she is so rich in her descriptions, that you begin to see how each person was molded by their surroundings. Whatever it is, I loved it, so yes, I do think it's worth reading. I could go on and on, but hey, I'm not the one that needs to write an essay on the darned thing!

Er oops, I got a bit carried away there, so I shall have to tell you about my Saturday adventures another time.

-Swapna

Barf, Neighborly Love and Holden Caufield

2006-05-19T00:02:00.000-06:00

So Wednesday was not a good day. It started out fine, but quickly deteriorated when I returned home around 11 am and started feeling really sick. At first it was just a little dizziness, headache and a bit of nausea. Then I called Carla. (No, the phone call did not increase my feeling of sickness!) Anyway, we were gabbbing away when I suddenly realized I had to puke. I was far from the bathroom, really far, considering I was out in the backyard. I suppose I could have just upchucked in the bushes, but no, I would have none of that. So instead I puked into the glass I had been drinking out of. Yeah, I know...gross.

Anyway, shortly after that mom called to see what I was up to and how I was feeling. I told her I was washing the glass I puked in. She sounded puzzled so I explained how I felt nauseated and then I just had to puke. My description was enough to make her gag, which in turn made me puke in the dishwater again. Lemme tell you, cleaning up that dishwater was not fun at all.

Then Kendra showed up for our workout. Three dry heaves and one trip to the bathroom later, and Kendra decided all workout sessions were cancelled and she was getting the heck away from me before she caught what I had. Good call Kendra!

So after that I was pretty much lying around moaning and softly weeping. It was rather pathetic. Around 4 my neighbor's daughter came by to show me her graduation gown. Well, that was her excuse for coming over here. The real reason she showed up, was to confide in me that she was failing her English classes and needed to complete four essays by next Friday or she will fail. One short essay on Margaret Atwood and her specific writing style, one on Billy Bishop (who I later found out is supposed to be the person who shot the Red Baron down, or something like that...I still haven't had time to look it up), one on The Grapes of Wrath (1250 words) and the last one on Dicken's Bleak House (1250 words). So basically my neighbor's daughter was at my home pouring out her heart in the hopes that I would save her butt, which was beautifully attired in a gorgeous maroon silk gown.

And, well, I'm going to try. I don't intend to write anything for her, since she's a bright kid, but I will help her and guide her. Couple of problems though, I don't really know who Billy Bishop is (butI think I can handle that one) and problem number 2, I've never read Bleak House, which happens to be around 900 pages of dry reading, and she hasn't read the book either. Am I doing this because I wish to be heralded as her saviour...nope. Because I like torturing myself...Nope. Then why? Well because I happen to really like her mom and dad, and I can't imagine them paying for the dress, her manicure, pedicure, facial, tanning sessions, shoes, corsage, photographer, graduation ceremony/dinner tickets, and then show up only to find out their daughter isn't really graduating, she's just attending all the parties and will be returning to school next year and then go through the whole graduation thing again.

Man, that would be brutal. So I tried to convince the daughter she needs to come clean with her parents, and we set up a schedule to help get her through this little 10 day crisis period. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the essays are all due next Friday and she graduates on June 2nd.

Anyway, after trying to talk some sense into her, and assuring her that I wouldn't tell her parents, I caved. Her mom came by in the evening to drop of an inspirational calendar to help with my life changing undertaking, and well I blurted out the whole thing. Along with delivering this bombshell, I also suggested a few other steps, since their daughter will be graduating based on two criteria. One, she has to hand in the four remaining essays, and two, she has to repeat these two English classes next year. So basically, if she doesn't hand them in, who cares since she's taking the classes again next year.

I know she will feel horrible about not actually being called up to receive her diploma but honestly, if she's still gonna look hot and go out partying, I figure there should be some sort of consequence. My suggestion for consequences...No tanning, no hairstylist, no gel toes, no gel nails, no photographer. Her mom even looked at me like I was going overboard, but that's what I really thought was fitting! Remember, this is coming from the 40 year old woman who just hired a crew of trainers to babysit her because she procrastinates too much:P

Hey, do a I say not as I do!

After that I started reading Bleak House. The outlook...BLEAK. I'm not a big Dickens fan, what can I say. Actually, now that I'm into the book, it's quite intriguing...But it's still 900 pages of hard slogging! I picked it up again this morning and settled in for some more speed reading, met with the daughter and reminded her to tell her parents, then insisted she show up at my place at 10pm to give me the first draft of her Grapes of Wrath paper.

Her first draft was almost 3 pages long, and two of those pages were okay, however the first page was a truckload of horse manure. But I think she's going to pull that one off. Then it suddenly struck me that perhaps there is a different book choice for her second essay, rather than Bleak House. She pulled out her curriculum notes, and there it was...a list of 50 books, from which I have read at least 40. WOOOO, forget Bleak House, it's now time to pick something I've already read. Unfortunately the girl hasn't read any of them. I narrowed it down to Fugitive Pieces and Catcher in the Rye, and am opting for Salinger. What can I say, it's a shorter book and I think I remember enough of it to help her out without having to reread the whole thing in great detail, skimming will work!

So basically, I will be spending my entire long weekend coaching my neighbor's daughter through English 30A and English 30B. WOOO lucky me! Actually, I shouldn't be so sarcastic, I'm kind of looking forward to it. Oh and by the way, she did finally break down and tell her parents, at which point I confessed to having told them yesterday. All is well, her mother promised to keep loving her whether she passes or not. As far as I know, there are no cancellations of manicure/pedicure etc, but who knows what the weekend will bring.

This means my trainers will be checking up on me to see if I meet all of my goals this weekend, while I check up on my neighbor's daughter to make sure she meets all of her goals, while she just makes plans for checking out the guys at grad. Seems like a worthwhile cause to me!

Hmm, you know I really wanted to rant about the Dixie Chicks, President Bush, and changing weather patterns...I really did, but instead I'm heading to bed with J.D. Salinger and praying I don't turn to the other JD before the weekend is over!

Hugs,
Swapna
PS I was going to defend the Dixie Chicks, SO THERE!

Laying Down The Law

2006-05-15T21:33:00.000-06:00

On Friday I had an appointment to teach the Grade 7's. I arrived, I started the class, I gave them warnings, I told them to settle down...and well, nothing happened. They didn't listen, they were talking, they basically irritated the hell outta me. So I did what I do best, I gave them a tongue lashing. Even by my standards, it was rather harsh. After said tongue lashing, I apologized to their homeroom teacher and asked her to give them some homework since I refused to teach this unruly bunch and then I left. So much for their creative writing class.

Fast forward to 6 am this morning. I get up, look at my calendar and realize...uh oh, I have that same grade 7 class this morning. All of a sudden remorse and embarrassment come hurtling around the corner to smack me upside the head and toss me out of bed. Had I been too harsh on them? Was I rude to just walk out like that. What did their teacher think? Could I possibly show my face there again. Auuuuuuuuugh, was it too late to turn off the alarm, move the car, hide under the covers and try and fake the trainers into thinking I wasn't home? Then I could call the school and say I was sick. Wait, that won't work, my team will be looking for me. The trainers are persistent, and well, pretending I wasn't home wouldn't deter them. Okay rethink this Swapna. How about this, you call the school and say you are sick, then get ready, let the trainers in, do your workout, pretend you are getting ready for school, walk partway there and hide in a bush till it's safe to go home!

Ugh, that may not work either, there are a lot of kids who walk the same route to school, what if I'm found hiding in the bushes, not really enhancing my already tarnished reputation. Okay one last go around at a plan to get out of this situation. First, I pretend as though nothing is wrong, then I erase the school appointment off the whiteboard in the kitchen and re-write my daily schedule sheet so it doesn't reflect I ever had a 9 am class. Then I just pretend that I somehow screwed up the scheduling and never knew I had a 9 am grade 7 class. YES! That will work. Okay, let's go over it again while you shower and get ready.

In the shower I run through the scenario once again, I even practice my regretful tone for when I'm informed I missed a class. I decide a little more emphasis is needed so I get out of the shower and practice looking confused, then shocked, then dismayed...These looks will be important when I'm informed that I have missed that darn class. Okay, I think I've perfected it, time to get dressed and get upstairs to erase that whiteboard and redo the daily schedule.

I throw on my sweats, head upstairs, and am about to head to the whiteboard but the cats are hungry. Ohhhh, my poor sweet widdle kitties....c'mere babies, mommy will feed you. Feed the cats, then let them out. Now where was I? Oh right the whiteboard, oh wait, I need to gulp down a dratted smoothie before the workout. Grab the pineapple and milk from the fridge and blend it up. Whew, okay drink/gulp while you erase GO GO GO! I head for the whiteboard, grab the eraser and oh my god, I was soooooo close, so close to freedom. My hand moved towards the whiteboard in a graceful sweep, when I catch a motion out of the corner of my eye. My hand freezes in midair as I turn my head towards the door. There, looking rather sweet, is Trainer #1 smiling at me through the screen door.

Note to self: When you finally hit upon a plan, execute IMMEDIATELY, do not get sidetracked you dumbass!

So 9 o'clock found me trudging up the stairs of the school and sulking all the way to the Grade 7 classroom. My hopes of slipping in unnoticed was foiled when I entered to a chorus of "Good Morning Ms. Swapna." This was followed by a short speech by one of the students informing me that the class was very sorry for their behavior the other day, and would I accept these letters of apology. See, now that's the moment when the real stunned expression crossed my face, probably not quite as good as the one I practiced, but hey it was genuine. Then the student representative handed me a stack of letters.

I didn't read them then, I was too busy running the class with efficiency and happiness. For the first time I experienced teaching the way I had always dreamed it would be. The students paid complete attention, they all participated, they offered up suggestions and we all had fun. It was great.

Walking home I read over the letters, and couldn't help but think, "Wow, for once my procrastination and getting sidetracked finally paid off!" Not only that but the letters were rather amusing and sweet all at the same time. I'm guessing I had a little grin on my face all the way up to my third rep of afternoon squats, at which time any expression of joy was lost beneath the expression of sheer agony.

For your reading pleasure:

Dear Miss Swapna,
I am sorry for arguing with you I will try to be more machure on monday Thank you for giving up your time to be with us. I enjoy having you hear.
Sincerely XXX

Dear Miss Swapna,
On Friday May 12th you cam to do some creative writing with our class. WE did not cooperate or pertisipate properly. I hope that you will exept my apology and come back on Monday the 15th and teach us again it's lots of fun!
Sincerely,
XXX

Dear Swapna,
I think you are a great teacher! I am so glad you are teaching our class! I can't wait till you come back again. I am sorry for complaining against everything you said/told us to do. I hope yo can for give me. I alike all the activities you gave us! PS. I am the girl in the back corner on the right wall to you left.
Sincerly,
XXX
PS again SORRY for the people that didn't listen!

Dear Miss Swapna,
I'm sorry for being imature and I'll be more mature for the future and cooperate and listen.
P.S I'm sorry for not listening and foolling around and not cooperating and I'll be more respectful and I think I can do better in the future.
Sincerely, XXX

There's so much more, but I think you get the idea. And, yeah, I know...sweet, but atrocious spelling! Oh well, I aim for creativity not spelling, let Ms. Hynes worry about that!

-Swapna

Why I'm Swearing Off Chapstick

2006-05-13T19:11:00.000-06:00

I approached yesterday evening with much anticipation. Besides being able to ditch my trainers/coaches, I was heading out for a tall glass of JD and coke press with a twist of lime. Now it may not sound like much to you, but I was ready for that baby. And as I've mentioned before, I'm not a huge drinker, so when I'm craving my JD you know it's been a tough week.

The plan was for my friends to meet me at the bar around 7:30. Anyway, I put on my pretty tshirt with the sequined butterfly (couldn't find a dragonfly one), my funky jeans and my oh so fabulous new espadrilles with the fancy wrap around ankle laces and sequined toes. Sequins from head to toe...I definitely hit Diva mode. With a fresh slick of lip gloss, a dab of perfume, and one final hair toss I was on my way.

On the way into the bar, Fate tried to intervene on my behalf. My wrap-around lace on my fancy espadrille slipped from its fancy bow, slid silently to the ground, and then attempted to foil my evening by sending me face forward on the pavement. With some unforeseen strength and panache, I windmilled wildly, felt my world begin to spin as the concrete drew closer and then, with superhuman strength that can only be a result of my squats and now well-toned hamstrings, managed to pull myself upright. Glancing around, I seem to have escaped notice, and proceeded to re-tie my shoe, and continue on with my grand entrance.

Bouncing into the bar a huge grin on my face, I was met with a blast of raucous laughter. Not just any laughter, but my friends' laughter. I winced. Not because I am an evil bitch who takes great pleasure in ensuring everyone remains in a state of unhappiness due to my malicious planning, although that is certainly plausible...But because it was pretty loud. The kind of loud you hear only when said friends have been imbibing for more than a little while.

My jauntiness dropped a notch but I shrugged it off and headed for the loud corner. As foreseen, my friends were a little uhh, tanked. At that point, I should have left. Being the only sober one in a crowd is never fun. But hey, one look at me and there was a chorus of voices telling me how good I looked. Maybe the torture is paying off! Anyway, the compliments flowed enough for me to stay for a little while before I was ready to leave. My diva-ness had been seen, and well, I had decided not to drink and just didn't find anything funny, so I might as well make my exit.

On my way out some guy suddenly grabbed my arm. Turns out it was a guy I used to see around the office building where I worked. He was so nice. Super nice in fact. Saying how great it was to see me, asking after my mother's health, telling me how happy and good I looked. So, I stood around talking to him for a few minutes. Then his niceness took on a new tone.

He started to say how pretty I was, and how my eyes sparkled...How my eyes were gorgeous, dreamy and exotic...How my lips were so kissable. Errr, for about 2 seconds I was feeling a little embarrassed and happy, then I was just embarrassed, then I was just starting to feel icky. He ended his little compliment session asking what his chances were of getting a kiss, since it was always something he had dreamed of doing. Chances? Percent-wise? "ZERO"

Then he started in with his lame reasoning, "Aww come on, it's just a kiss, why won't you let me taste those lips of yours? I've always wanted to you know. What can one little kiss hurt? One kiss and I will leave you alone. You can't leave me like this, those lips are just too kissable."

Oh yeah, I can and I will. So I rolled my eyes and asked why on earth he would ask me for a kiss when it was obvious I was not interested in him in the least, and he was making me totally uncomfortable, and I was getting creeped out. One would think such openness would deter him, but it didn't. So I started edging back into the bar in the hopes of finding my drunk friends for protection. At that point he grabbed for me again, saying okay, if I wasn't going to give him a kiss I should take him home since I wasn't drunk and his wife had to work at 5 am, so he didn't want to call her.

Are you catching this bizarreness?

Anyway, before I could even let my mouth gape open while I pondered such audacity and stupidity all rolled in one, Dana, the waitress, decided to intervene on my behalf. She stepped in, grabbed my arm and said,"Swampy (yes she called me Swampy), your babysitter called and she needs you to come home right away!"

Errrr, okay so I go to the bar often enough for the waitress to kind of know my name, but not often enough for her to know anything at all about me. Making up a babysitter for a fictitious child might have worked with someone else, but Greg knows that I do not have a kid.

So, in a split second I decided if I don't have a kid, the next best thing is to say my sister has a kid and I'm taking care of her kid. But if I'm babysitting why would I hire a babysitter...Well because I'm caring for him for a minimum of one month, of course. Why would my sister need someone to babysit her son for a month? Well because she and her husband are off in Europe filming a CBC special! And well, it's still school time, so they couldn't take Junior with them, and who better than to leave their most precious child with, but me! And hey, although I was putting my life on hold to care for my darling nephew, every now and then I needed a break too, so I hired a sitter for the night so I could go out and have a little break.

It seemed perfectly plausible to me in that split second.

So I mumbled my stupid lie about babysitting my nephew while my brother in law and sister were off filming the CBC special in Europe. And although I love Junior I just needed a little time off. (At this point Greg interrupts me to ask a question.) As soon as he opened his mouth, I began to wince, anticipating him calling me on my blatant lying! Instead he says to me,"You gave your sitter the bar's phone number in case of emergencies?" By now the few other guys sitting within earshot of our conversation are all turning to look at the dumbass woman who ditches her sister's precious child for a few hours of whooping it up in a bar, and also manages to find a babysitter who will accept the phone number of a bar as an emergency number. I kind of wanted to die, but instead I thanked Dana and mumbled that I have to go NOW and made a dash for the door. As I fled I heard Dana yelling after me about how she hoped she got the message right, and if she didn't it's not really her fault since she's not a secretary after all. I think Dana has theatrical aspirations...

So let's recap. I looked divine, my shoes were fabulous, I don't have a kid, my sister doesn't have kids, my name is Swapna not Swampy, Dana deserves a big tip despite butchering my name, and having someone talk about my kissable lips just wasn't as desirable as I once thought it would be.

-Swapna
PS If I ever stumble while walking into a place again, I'm going to fall straight to the ground, bash my shins, knees, palms, whatever, and head home to nurse my wounds while saying a thankful prayer to Fate.

Dreams of Jellyfish Dresses

2006-05-11T20:43:00.000-06:00

The odd thing about living alone and working from home is that you kinda forget what day it is. Fridays don't really mean a thing as you probably answer your business phone 24/7 and seeing as you are always at work, it isn't much of a stretch to find yourself working on the weekends.

No matter how often I tell myself that the weekends are for catching up with stuff around the house and relaxing, I never really do it. Probably because I never really feel as though I have accomplished enough during the week.

This week is no different in some aspects but very different in others. This week was my full first week of the better Swapna's life project. Although I didn't feel as though I accomplished a whole lot workwise, I certainly made up for it in getting house stuff done. I also managed to accept having people in and out of my house all the time.

I honestly thought I would end up imagining kicking the crap out of someone and then resort to some rather cutting and brutal comments. Truth is, I've been in a grand mood all week, and haven't had the urge to punch anyone in the nose. This is all good! The other upside of all this is that I am anticipating tomorrow with that "Thank God It's Friday" anticipation. The idea that I won't physically see my trainers or coaches this weekend has me salivating at the very notion of solitude.

So, for the first time in a long time, I am truly looking forward to the weekend, and fully intend to spend it enjoying myself(ack if I keep talking this way I'm gonna be totally disappointed when I wake up tomorrow and realize I have another day to get through before the weekend). Besides, even after making it through Friday, I still have tasks I have to accomplish over the weekend, and lesson planning to do on Sunday night. But that aside, visions of wine, a bonfire and yard work are dancing through my head. I might even do some moonlit dance to pagan gods in some sort of a flowing robe just to reassure my neighbors I haven't gone completely normal.

Besides, a little heathen worship is good for the soul. Particularly when anyone watching will think I'm trying to invoke some all powerful being to infuse my very soul with its spirit. And then I will take that new found power and plague the lives of all those who cross my path. When in fact all I will be really thinking is, "woooo, if you spin really fast in a flowy gown, you can almost make it balloon out like a huge jelly fish! Ack, is that old dried dog poo I just stepped in? NEVER MIND, ignore the crunchy dog poo, gaze at the moon and concentrate on the billowing dress...ballooning's gonna happen anytime now, I can feel it."

Er, back to the better Swapna Program. Don't think it's been all smooth sailing though. This morning was kinda funny. Yesterday I butt heads with one of my trainers over (surprise suprise) food. She recommended making fruit smoothies and I just am not sold on them. The idea of cutting up a kiwi and some strawberries, then eating them, then drinking a glass of milk seems to be so much more satisfying to me than mushing them all in a blender and gulping the concoction down. Okay, calorie counts and nutrition show no difference, but psychologically, there's a difference to me!

Anyway, after butting heads on it and saying I won't do it, I found myself running behind schedule today. I had to be at the school and didn't think I was gonna get all my fruits and milk in before I had to leave, so I did what anyone would have done. I threw them all in the blender with some milk, made a stupid smoothie and drank it on my walk to the school.

Once there I found out I screwed up and I'm not teaching today. So basically I lost the smoothie battle for nothing! The trainer has no idea how much this bugs me...I'm sure she doesn't even consider it a victory. In fact, I bet she doesn't even care that I had the stupid smoothie. But me, I CARE. It's eating away at me. Okay, perhaps I'm exaggerating, but I'm still planning to balk at some other suggestion and win, just to get back that feeling that I'm running the show! And to think I say I'm not a control freak.

-Swapna
PS Lizzie if you are reading this, please send me your email addy, it was eaten when I had to reinstall my email program!

The Quest for Butterment Continues

2006-05-10T23:19:00.000-06:00

While I'm enjoying my new torturous routine of having someone monitor my every moment to ensure I'm accomplishing all my goals, I seem to have found a few glitches in the system.

Most noticeably is my constant craving for food and drink. While many may not catsup the fat that I seem fixated on foods, there are those who have commented that I seem preoccupied. I vehemently deny this, and think it's all just pie in the sky talk. I spend my days as I always did, focusing on the person I ham with and pondering the baking of life. Earlier today, one of my friends was inexplicably irritated with me. She was discussing the situation between her and her currant boyfriend(they seem to be in a bit of a jam), when she asked for my advice. She wanted to know if I felt he was tacoing advantage of her. Being the honeyest person that I am, I told her I donut think he's necessarily taking advantage of her, it's more like he treats her like a piece of meat.

Why people butter asking you a question when they obviously don't want your onion, and just want you to tell them what they want to beer, is beyond me. Anyway, she left soon after my comment, and frankfurtly, I wasn't all that upset. Butter she left than making me listen to her wine for another petit four hours.

Other than that, all seems chunky chip dory.
-Swapna

Dad

2006-05-08T22:27:00.000-06:00

Dr. S. Padmanabh
March 11, 1938 - May 9, 2004

It's been two years since Dad passed away, and yet I feel like it was just yesterday that we were matching wits playing scrabble. The memory of caring for him has somehow faded just a bit since I finished writing the first draft of his story. For that, I am actually grateful. Sometimes raw emotion is just too much to deal with on a daily basis.

If he were here today, I know he would be his usual self, making funny remarks and silly jokes all the while encouraging each of us to pursue our dreams and better ourselves. Most of all, he would have been so proud of mom, and happy to see her looking so healthy.

It's an odd thing, but right now, this very moment, I don't feel like I miss him, because I feel like he's right here next to me. On that happy note I'm heading off to bed early with the hopes that tomorrow is not too difficult on the family. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and supporting me. Friendship and family has certainly made the past few years worth living through.

Lots of love
Swapna

Killer Toxins in Sushi

2006-05-08T00:48:00.000-06:00

I decided a break from Saskatoon was necessary, so mom and I hopped in the car and drove to Regina to bother my sister and her husband. All was going splendidly right up until we went for dinner. Of course we were all in agreement that Sushi should be the choice for the night. The sushi was fantastic, the sake seemed to come in a bottomless decanter and a good time was being had by all.

Suddenly, my hand started itching. Like on fire itching! Then my arm, then my other arm. Then my face started itching. By the time my face started itching, I was attempting to hypnotize myself into believing that it was all psychological, and if I just focused elsewhere, everything would be fine.

Sadly, my theory wasn't working, and while everyone was a little concerned, we weren't panicking or anything. Anyway, we head out of there, and I notice I can barely slip my sandals back on, since my feet have now started to swell. Now I've had allergic reactions before, and when your lips start tingling and puffing up, you have to panic, but when it's just your feet swelling, and your arms that are itchy, you kinda wonder what the heck is going on, and then you figure you are a being a baby, and you should just suck it up.

After dinner we decided to head to Blockbuster and pick up a movie. We were there for about 20 mins, and I had to head outside as I started having what I can only describe as a hotflash. While outside cooling off, I look down at my hands, since my one finger was starting to throb, and realized my hand had started to swell and my ring was cutting off the circulation to that finger. So I used copious amounts of spit and my teeth, and finally got the darned thing off. By then, I really wasn't feeling all that good, but I still felt like I was being a baby.

So off we go from there to stop at a bank so mom can get some cash. About 10 feet from the bank, and just in front of a liquor board store, I yell at my sister to stop the car, then stagger out and puke all over this little bush (sorry bush!). My sister said I was rather polite in my upchucking, and picking a spot in front of the liquor store was fortuitous since people probably expect vomit in that area.

About then I start thinking I'm not being a baby and just wanted to go home. No arguments from Mom or my sister! (Remember, I just puked up my sushi and then got back in the car with them. I think they were both praying I wouldn't talk or breathe since we all knew my breath couldn't have been the fragrant, caressing, gentle whisper of wind it normally is:P

Once home I headed straight for the bathroom and jumped into an ice cold shower. The itching almost immediately subsided and so I stayed in there as long as was humanly possible. After that, the evening was a blur of ice packs, antihistamines and wheezing. Sleep was welcome, although my mother said she spent half the night trying to make sure I was still alive since I would stop breathing every now and then. (We had to share a room since the second guest room is not complete). Anyway, I woke up feeling fine and still can't figure out what could have triggered the reaction. Other than that, it was a relaxing and enjoyable weekend :)

Tomorrow brings the start of a week I'm not looking forward to. Tuesday is the 2 year anniversary of Dad's death and while I'm trying not to think about it, I seem to be failing miserably. Everywhere I look, something reminds me of dad. Actually, before the allergic misery, my sister spent some time going through dad's water color paints with me, and I came home with a set of colors to try my own hand at painting. I'm not expecting anything fabulous, and have somehow convinced myself that dad's artistic talents must be hidden somewhere within me, and I will find them even if it kills me. I realize that it's entirely possible that only my sister inherited his painting prowess, but let's face it, I refuse to accept that, and fully intend to post pictures of my masterpieces in the near future.

-Swapna

Introspection

2006-05-04T09:19:00.000-06:00

For anyone taking a run at examining their life in detail, I highly recommend having copious quantities of some mind numbing substance on hand. I've always considered myself a lucky girl, and that hasn't changed, however my views on pretty much everything else in my life have.

When I was 20, I don't think I even noticed what the passing of the years brought, I was too caught up in the angst of living. Then, turning 30, I paused and reflected, and decided the 30's were the best years of all. Now, having passed 40, and fast approaching 41, I find my life lacking in only a few areas, but the void in those areas is tricky, it's just big enough to leave me wanting, but not huge enough to be completely debilitating. So I'm left with this feeling of restlessness, which is something I hate. So I decided to examine my life...What a moron I am.

While I'm happy in general, I wasn't finding the satisfaction in my life that I thought I so ardently sought out. Turns out, I wasn't seeking very hard. While I have attempted many things in life, I think I'm actually a wee bit lazy. I do well at something and it bores me, I find something new, and the fascination lasts about as long as it takes me to snarf down some Hagen Daaz. So my question to myself was and is...What do I really want out of this life of mine.

While I can make the standard observations about love and happiness, peace on earth, blah blah, I decided to take a closer look and break it down into my immediate needs. Right now, what I want and need more than anything else is some structure. To wake up knowing how I am basically going to spend my day. As much as I love being a free bird, the notion of setting daily goals and meeting them is something that has piqued my fancy.

Perhaps, years of working on my own, and being easily sidetracked, as well as having very few responsibilities, has lead me down the road of laziness. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking my life, in fact I'll shout a huge thank you from the rooftops, I'm just saying I don't think I have been really appreciating what I have been given.

I feel as though I have taken my freedom forgranted, and in the process began to look at it as though it were a trap. Why I would do that is beyond me, but I did it. And being an all or nothing type of person doesn't help. I want it all, I hate it all, I love it completely, I despise it hugely. Augh, the dramas I create!

So, in my usual fashion of all or nothing, I've gone overboard in adding structure to my life. I have hired a battery of people, life coaches I shall call them, to torture me daily. The idea behind this is that I'm a procrastinator and I want to change that. By having people coming into my home, disrupting my day, questioning my accomplishments, ordering me around, and basically making my life a living hell, I will somehow rid myself of procrastination. The more likely outcome is that I will end up in jail after having killed the next person who tries to motivate me.

Actually, as irritating as it is, I'm also excited about the whole thing. Just think, it's like having your own reality show. Someone comes to your home early in the morning, you have a meditation/yoga session, then you go for a walk. After that you make a healthy breakfast and finally sit down to do some work. A few hours later someone else arrives to see what you have accomplished and to make plans for the rest of your day. I'm not talking plans like, oh work for the afternoon then make supper, go for another walk then go to bed. I'm talking detailed plans, where my every goal for the day is written down and it's my challenge to meet each of those goals. Including things like laundry, paying bills, yardwork, work work, creative writing, teaching, spending time with family, etc. So after an afternoon of scrambling to meet those goals, someone else walks in to see how I've done, maybe go do some errands with me, then plan my dinner and some outdoor activity.

After all of that, I get about 2 hours to myself and then someone comes over to check up on me again. Er, it almost sounds like I have hired babysitters for myself and I guess I have. It just so happens that they are from the University of Saskatchewan and are all professional kineseologists, nutritionists, etc., and I'm not getting away with 5 bucks an hour and a ride home.

Still, I think this will work. In the past I've found that I have no problems going to a retreat or workshop and reaching goals. However, once I am returned to my own home environment, all the good habits disappear and I'm back to procrastinating. I believe this is because I don't handle my day to day stresses very well. So hopefully, finding ways to cope while in my own environment, will change all that. A successful outcome will be a happier healthier me. In the hopes of achieving that goal, I'm committing to a one year program. Now, they won't be in and out of my house like this forever, just for the first 8 weeks or so, then I gradually wean myself off of them.

So, if one year from now, I've finally finished writing my father's book and looking for a publisher, I've lost some weight, I've quit smoking, I stop wasting money, I have a pretty yard, I keep my house clean, I pay all my bills on time, I don't start projects and leave them unfinished, I would say we have a success story on our hands.

Writing it here seems so simplistic, and yet it's those simple things that I think keep me from realizing my ultimate dreams and goals. By not taking care of the little every day things that hound me, I end up hating myself. And well, when you hate yourself, it is hard to imagine anyone else loving you. Even when I do find people who love me as I am, I question their mental stability and begin to think there must be something seriously wrong with them. It's a self defeating little circle I have created. One that has kept me occupied for much of my life. Let's hope this home based bootcamp I've created manages to break me free of my debilitating self hatred.

Please note, I haven't agreed to giving up shoes, jewelry or alcohol. After all, a gal's gotta have some motivation.

-Swapna

The Thrill of the Chase

2006-05-02T11:11:00.000-06:00

Last night, while reading some of the most hilarious short stories ever written, I was rudely interrupted by Tinka. She bounded into the room with a huge, dark grey mouse in her mouth. Now, in the near past, the other mice, taking refuge in my warm and cozy abode, have all been cute little creatures that are pale grey in color with bright pink noses. This one, although not quite a rat, was bordering on being called one.

Oli, having caught sight of what Tinka had brought in, immediately pounced on Tinka as she wanted to play too. This resulted in a momentary skirmish and Tinka dropping the mouse. After that I feel apart. I became some hysterical screaming nitwit. The mouse kept racing around the room and then suddenly freezing. Tinka and Oli, who would never make it as a tag team, would then freak out racing about the room and looking up at me as though I had hidden the damn mouse. Apparently when the mouse stops moving, they just can't find it anymore. So I would throw myself in the direction of the mouse, forcing it to move, so that Oli and Tinka had a moving target again.

As this little game progressed, I found myself attempting to pick up every piece of furniture in the room and balance them atop one another to create a wider open space for the cats to catch the damn thing. Sadly, I think I was still making these high pitched squealing noises. The cats would catch the mouse every so often, but then they would let it go. After all, it was a bloody game right?

Anyway, realizing the cats might actually let the mouse roam into another room in order to continue their game, I decided I must take immediate action, and so I resorted to my time honored method of grabbing fistfuls of paper towels and attempting to catch the little critter myself. I managed to scoop it up twice. Both times I had it in my hand in a huge wad of Bounty, and both times I got so freaked out I would stand there screaming and then drop it. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS! I am not normally a sissy! After freaking out the second time, I realized I needed help.

So I run out my backdoor, all the while shouting at the cats, "GET it! Get IT! don't let it out of that room!"...like they have a clue or even care. Anyway, I run outside, and yell over the fence at Leslie that I have a problem, there's a mouse in my house. She yells back asking if it's alive, about then I saw it attempting to escape the room it was in and head for the kitchen so I squealed again. Leslie took this to be an affirmation of the live mouse and yelled back that she was sending Sig over.

So I head back to the room and try to guard the exit to the kitchen. That mouse-rat was not going in my kitchen even if I had to injure myself in the process. Fortunately it never came to that. A few moments later Sig was at the door. He came striding in looking all purposeful, armed with a high tech mouse catching device called "an empty yogurt container".

Two seconds later, he bent down and scooped up the rat bastard and popped the lid back on the container. It was then I understood the true meaning of shame. Honestly, I felt like the biggest loser in the world. All that screaming and squealing, and he just walks in and scoops it up. Then came the most horrible part. I asked him what he was going to do with it. "Well, I'm going to throw it out."

So he's walking back to the door, while I'm running after him, thanking him profusely, and then he started it....Oh god, I can barely handle even thinking of it. He started shaking that yogurt container...so I could hear the mouse-rat going THUNK THUNK THUNK. You know, it was one of those moments when you go, "What is he doi....oooooooh, oh my god....oh my god he's gonnna shake that mouse to death. There's gonna be little mouse brains all over the inside of that container. He's bashing its brains out and then he's just gonna dump it in the trash!"

After that I could only stare at his receding back as he walked away shaking that container vigorously. I can still hear the hollow thunks...*shudder*

Now all I have to do is find a way to stop Tinka from bringing mice into the house. I don't think I could handle another episode of hysteria and thunks.

Epiphany

2006-04-30T23:03:00.000-06:00

Ever had one of those moments, when everything seems suddenly clear, where your problems dissolve away and everything that has ever plagued you seems explicable. It's a moment that makes you feel both relieved and horrified at the same time. Where in an instant, you find the answer to the problems that have dogged you for years, and in that same instant you are almost brought to your knees with this sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as you go "OMG, I've been suffering this long and that was the solution? THAT, that simple little idea explains everything?"

So while I had one of these remarkable epiphanies, which I am really grateful for, I find myself dogged with these images of what could have been had I not been such a fool. I'll probably have another moment of clarity later, when I realize that looking back at my life and thinking how things could have been is really just another way of defeating the answer I found...But for the moment, I'd rather wallow in my stupidity.

I'm actually very tempted to tell you what this epiphany was, however, I'm starting to wonder whether revealing so much of myself here is really the way to go. Shouldn't there be some mystery left to me? And to anyone who says honesty is never punished, please read back a couple posts to my shoplifting experience. Honesty certainly didn't pay there. Nor did I feel any benefits from being honest when I told a friend that I thought it was time she sought professional help for her obviously declining mental health. Mark that friend off the Christmas card list, I'll be lucky if she doesn't tp my house this Halloween.

How do you know when being truthful is just too much. How do we decide where to draw that line? How much insight do you give the world into your thought processes, or, for that matter, does it really matter what anyone else thinks of you anyway, if they can't handle your honesty, then doesn't that mean they can't handle you? These are the types of questions I don't have the answers to. I'm thinking the answer lies in a subterfuge of sorts. Where one finds a way to subtly hint at the truth, hoping that whomever you are speaking to will read between the lines and figure it out themselves. For wouldn't that be the ultimate goal, having someone think they figured you out and feel rather clever and pleased that they can now make you happy, or give you what you want, when really all you did was lead them right to the spot where you wanted them to be?

Egad, just thinking about this as I type is starting to make me feel like the queen of manipulation and deception. I mean look at my blogs, at what point do these blogs become more about molding people's perception of me, rather than just an outlet to vent and have my voice be heard. Do I really write for purely enjoyment, or am I hoping to gain something. I really don't have the answer to why I blog, let alone why anyone else would.

If I think long and hard enough about this particular question, I'm pretty sure I will cease blogging. But there is a bright spot to all of this, as I don't seem to be obsessing about the epiphany and what could have been anymore. And I guess as far as honesty goes, I'm probably better off taking my chances with being honest and outspoken, than hoping I have forced someone to read between the lines, only to walk away and find out they never got it. I think that happens to me a lot. I ask someone if they understand what I'm saying, they say yes. I then walk away very happy that we have finally come to an understanding. Only later do I find out that although they understood what I was saying they either a) Understand but don't agree - so we really haven't solved anything or b) They say they understand, but their understanding is so far off from mine, that we really haven't agreed on anything. Can you feel the pain oozing from my pores?

Wow, I think I've hit an all time new high in boring, however I'm not about to erase everything, so suck it up. (Read whatever you want into that!)

-Swapna

Storming Aveda

2006-04-29T02:21:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow, or actually today, shall be a day of fun for us ladies in the family. We have massages, facials, manicures and shopping planned. My sister has come in town, and my brother has even offered to make us all dinner at his place. Who could ask for anything more?

Well, obviously I can. Not that I deserve any more pampering, but it never hurts to ask. I did manage to watch Narnia, though the plugins downstairs are still refusing to cooperate. The soundtrack entranced me, the movie itself left me wanting more. I read the Chronicles of Narnia and whatever else there was by C.S. Lewis, back when I was a child, but I didn't remember much of those stories. The movie didn't bring the memories flooding back either, so I was a little disappointed.

I remember reading the Secret Garden when I was very young. I loved that book. Then the years passed and I forgot all about it. When the movie came out, I had an inkling that it seemed familiar, but then that feeling was gone. So, when I found myself in a dark theatre watching the movie, it was an incredible experience. Almost as soon as the movie began I had that sense of deja vu, and then BAM, it was like I was dropped right onto the pages of that old book and the story came flooding back. Watching the movie was like having my childhood memories brought to life right before my very eyes. I was completely entranced. And that experience was what I was hoping for with Narnia.

Now don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but I wasn't entirely lost in it. The soundtrack did transport me though, to a place I wish I could escape to more often than not. That place where women wear velvet gowns and corsets, when some man grazing his lips across the pulse of your wrist is considered both scandalous and dangerous, and where elves, druids, dragons and the phoenix are to be found.

I don't believe I was made for this world. Although aptly named, as Swapna means dream, I belong some place else. In a land where my imagination could not possibly compete with reality. Where the colors of the world take on a vibrancy that almost blinds you, where sound echoes with the tinkling laughter of other worldly creatures, and where the smells of the earth are just that.

If you ask me what I want for a pet, I will tell you I want a hippogriff, and if you want to know why I spend hours sitting quietly in the dark, it's probably because I'm still convinced if I sit still enough I will catch those pixies flitting about my house. And when someone wonders why I never finish anything, it's simply because I'm lost in another world most of the time. To most sane adults I'm one of those adults who refuse to grow up, and to others I'm a perpetual dreamer, but to those handful of creative thinkers who happen upon me, I'm a kindred spirit.

You see, tomorrow when I'm meeting my sister for shopping, I won't be in downtown Saskatoon, I shall be in some crowded bazaar in Egypt, and when we meet mom for sushi at noon, I will be in Japan, seeking out the samurai. And then later on, when I'm having my nails done, I shall be the Queen of Nayar Al A'dan, tended by my maid servants as I contemplate the fate of the neighboring ruler who has dared to encroach upon our lands.

And in just a few moments, when my head finally touches my pillow, I will fly upon the back of a Pegasus, through the stars, touching down only long enough to fill my vial with a bit of fairy dust before I seek out the secrets of Shangri La, where my missing sister was last rumored to have been seen...

Nite Nite
-Swapna