Tag: My Family and Other Animals

Sunsets, Asanas & Aces: A Magical June 21st

Yesterday was a beautiful summer day – it was a culmination of 3 days that are all uniquely loved in the nourish-n-cherish household. Any guesses?

Father’s Day:

This year, father’s day coincided with the summer solstice, which means the loved father in the house got to play his tennis, lounge around with the kids in the pool, and enjoy a quiet evening while the sun was still out.  

Other Father’s Day posts: Fathers

International Yoga Day:

June 21st is also International Yoga Day. So I was genuinely thrilled to start the day with an early yoga class. My muscles were just waking up- sure. The limbs not yet nimble enough – yes. The breaths not yet the even meditative quality – of course. But in spite of that, or may be because of that, the yoga class felt amazing. For all these elements had somehow been made even better by the end of the class.

Buddha in Lotus?

 

Summer Solstice:

June 21st is the summer solstice. We love the summer solstice. The son, even as a young boy, would have his friends out all day playing dawn to dusk on the longest day of the year. It was something that strangely excited him. Osmosis of energy – is that a thing? But in time, we all look forward to seeing the sunrise and sunset on summer solstice too.

When it turns out to be a pleasant day temperature-wise, breeze-wise, clouds-wise, moons-and-planets-shimmering-wise, it turns into a magical day. We went swimming, lazed around watching the sunset, moonrise, and the beautiful cosmic planets shining near the moon. Jupiter, Venus and the moon truly look beautiful in the evening skies.

Summer Solstice related posts

How did you spend the summer solstice, father’s day & yoga day?

🥬🌿 Cabbage extravaganza 🥬🌿 & 🥬🌿 Coriander dhamaka 🥬🌿

The Buy-more-save-more theory in economics

Which one do you buy?

  • The $0.50 for 1 coriander bunch OR
  • The $1 for 3 coriander bunches?

There is a theory in game theory that Mark Whatzisname wrote about. The Paradox of Choice. Give people a choice of buying 3 cokes for a dollar, or 1 coke for 50 cents, and most people would buy 3 cokes.

The pater would have bought 15 cokes for $5.

He calls it Economics (Buy-more-save-more) . The rest of us call it a variety of names – well, this is a family-friendly blog, so let’s keep away from that shall we?

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I could have bought 3 coriander bunches. I bought 1 coriander bunch for 50 cents. 

The economic upheavals of choice

In that one second interaction, in which I told the billing clerk – ‘It’s okay. I’ll just take this.”, it is astounding the number of things that went through my head.

🥬🌿 The father’s disappointed face. As mentioned, he is a big connoisseur of the buy-more-save-more theory. He is proud of it. He says that is the path to economic prosperity- so in that small act, was I rebelling against the pater? Delayed as far as rebellions go – who rebels after leaving teenage behind so long ago? The pimples a distant memory of turbulence on the face.

🥬🌿 The potential chutneys and thogayals the extra 2 bunches could have gotten me.

🥬🌿 I was already long in line. I had to leave the store in minutes – did I really need to hold up the line for 2 bunches of coriander that cost less than a dollar? Not to mention the half-rotting bunch already in the fridge. There is only so much coriander a nuclear family can consume.

Now, there are people who will come and tell you not to let things like occupy your mind for longer than its worth. I ask you. Who is to tell my brain this?

Paternal disappointment is a hard thing to swallow. I saw the pater’s face across all the decades, across the churning oceans, and across the continents on Earth crumple in disappointment. And I felt a stab of guilt. I almost gave in and went back to running across the aisles of the grocery store. Luckily I had places to be.

🥬🌿 Cabbage-o-phobia from Cabbage Extravaganzas 🥬🌿

I called the parents that evening, and was greeted with the mother’s characteristic shriek. “Your father has bought a large cabbage again! What am I do with 3 large cabbages for a family of 4?”

I shelved the coriander problem to attend to the more urgent cabbage problem, and asked the pater what he was thinking. Did he not know there were two large cabbages at home already – given that he had bought them himself the previous day?

“Yes kondhai (child) – but they were on sale. Yesterday, it was a buy-one-get-one cabbage sale. Today was a cabbage extravaganza.” He said looking befuddled as to how his sound economics was landing him in trouble again.

“There are so many cabbage dishes – you can make cabbage curry, cabbage kootu.” Then, he looked lost again – his cabbage repertoire seems to have given out at this point, and he looked to me for help. I laughed, and gave the mother ways to hide a cabbage in cooking – “You can boil it, and mash it for pav bhaji, sneak some into soup, without everyone developing a cabbage-o-phobia.”

Note to reader: There  is a phobia of cabbages that falls under the Lachanophobia bucket, also known as  Brassicaphobia.

“Do you know what I sent him to buy? Ladies finger (okra). The child has been asking for vendakkai (okra in Tamil)  curry – so I sent him to buy just that since he already went grocery shopping yesterday. He came back without vendakkai and a large cabbage the size of his head instead!” She said.

Cabbage extravaganza & Coriander dhamaka indeed!

I laughed, and felt this was a good point in the story to lord my superior decision making skills with the coriander bunches.

Really, after all these decades on this planet as a daughter to these two, I have learnt nothing I tell you.

The moment I said it, the father moaned. “You left free coriander on the table? Have I taught you nothing?”

The mother who was shrieking about cabbages not even half a minute ago, turned on me with equal disappointment, “You could have made coriander pickle and stored them for over a month! “

“Yes – why don’t you call me after you are done pickling the cabbages?!” I said smartly, and put the phone down. Grocery stores really don’t realize their social responsibilities, the time and effort their deals cost us. Indo-US relations

Cabbage extravaganza & Coriander dhamaka indeed!

🫐 It’s a 🫐 Plum 🫐 Life! 🫐

🫐 It’s Plum Season 🫐

I’ve written about the Joys of Jam Making.  I do love the fruitful camaraderie from plum season.

I waved at the Fed Ex truck driver as he turned into our street. The son said, urgency dripping in his voice, “Quick ma! Now you’ve established contact – you can give him some plums!”

I stared at him.

A beat.

Then. I started laughing.

The wag!

I have been accosting all those who come home with delicious plums, but this felt a bit much. Plum season in our neighborhood arrives with a splash. Suddenly, there are dozens of plums plopping all over the backyard. Ripe, tasty, beautiful plums.

🫐 Plums in a Splash 🫐

I cannot help missing the mater. If she were here, she would be making plum jams, plum chutneys, plum pickles, plum juice, plum rasam till we all heartily felt sick of plums. I myself have been going in and picking up plums by the dozen and bringing them in to share with friends. I can barely understand how quickly the bare tree, bloomed into the prettiest blossoms, and gave in to the light green beautiful leaves before sagging with fruits at every point.

It is a miracle, and yet, every year, I am mesmerized.

One day, I felt three plums hit me from the topmost branch. I was picking those that had fallen, and then realized that these three could have been the handiwork of squirrels. I looked up at them beseechingly. What was the point of all that exciting running around and chasing each other on fences if they weren’t helping out with the plums? As if responding to me, one cheekily stopped and held my stare, as if to say, “I have had my fill. A fella has got to jump and run!”

🫐 Did You Know? 🫐

Fruits arriving in bounty are a blessing. The children, despite my best retreats, continue to resist the lure of fruits. Every year I start it up – each time with a different taste-bud related tip. “Did you know? Your taste buds change over time?”

“Did you know having a fiber-rich helping of fruits helps your gut bacteria?”

“Did you know fruits help make you happier because the gut bacteria love digesting them?”

“Did you know this?”

Or

“Did you know that?”

To which, I also receive a plummy reply, “Did you know we don’t like plums?”

What I did not know until recently, is that not all plums dried become prunes. Of course I had a gooey rotting mess before I learnt that particular fact, but apparently, only a certain variety of European plums can be dried to be preserved as prunes. Oh well.

If I could send some plummy goodness via the internet, I would. But as it is, somethings still require physical proximity. But if you are in the vicinity, please stop by. We’ll have a plum time!

Moon, plum blossoms, this, that, and the day goes

Kobayashi Issa

Up to my neck!

The Giraffologist 

I sat with a set of children’s books in my arms. I looked down fondly at the one in my hands. The first one was about a giraffologist – the title pulling my attention almost immediately. What a delightful sounding profession?

The Giraffologist – Anne and her Tower of Giraffes – by Karlin Gray and Aparna Varma

The book is based on Dr Annie Innis Dagg who was the world’s first giraffologist. The world’s first primatologist, Dr Jane Goodall, is of course well-known. But Dr Annie, who went to Africa to study her favorite animals, giraffes, just 4 years later is practically unheard of. That is the weird nature of public attention.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/new-heritage-minute-anne-innis-dagg-giraffes-1.7648146

Dr Annie’s life and work was made into a documentary in Canada honoring her work towards preserving these tall creatures.

The daughter’s drawing of a giraffe:

Bill Bryson’s book, The Body – A Guide for Occupants

I was thinking of giraffes and their beautiful necks one day after reading Bill Bryson’s book, The Body – A Guide for Occupants. One section of the book dealt with how prone we are to choke. One particularly sad anecdote about a person who had a gold coin lodged in his throat was especially excruciating. If nothing else, I am glad we now live in a time and age when surgical techniques have come so far from the ones outlined in the book. (The coin only fell out when he was hoisted by his foot and swung like a pendulum. )

Beautiful Necks Everywhere!

Our evolution into bipedalism means that necks took on a truly unique structure to support the head, and provide a forward looking face for navigation. I stopped and chuckled at that. I was on a walk, and just like that, I started noticing necks everywhere. The crane, the gray heron, the hummingbird, the dog, squirrel and the cat.

I got home to look up the giraffe’s neck again.

Did you know that both giraffes and humans have the exact same number of bones in our necks : 7

Yet, the giraffe’s neck supports its long neck, and its heart supports pumping blood all the way up there. All those jokes about tall folks( How’s-the-weather-up-there?) suddenly feels biologically profound.

In any case, the understanding of our biology, our evolution, and our unique places in the planet is shaped by so many factors –  How many giraffes with weird ears and longer tails evolved before the long necked ones that we know and love?

I craned my neck to look at a white egret crook its neck and plunge into the waters with precision and force for its breakfast, and gently massaged my own neck. ‘Up to my neck with worries’ took on a new meaning too, and I hoped giraffes and herons never had to use that phrase, when worried.

21 Years of Blogging – My Blog is now an Adult!

21 years of blogging

Just like that, my blog has become a proper functioning adult. 

21 years of selectively writing about what matters to an ordinary person. Somehow, reflecting on the writing makes it seem like our lives were more adventurous, humorous, and fun-filled. 

Now, isn’t that a lovely gift? 

I was reading Bill Bryson’s book, The Body, and in it, he says something incredible about memories – that we can predominantly choose what we want to remember. That often our most colorful memories aren’t the original ones at all – but rather deepened by the feeling and retelling of it. We’ve seen it in the stories we love to tell each other all the time. Every time we laugh about our own foibles, it makes the memory a more endearing one, doesn’t it? 

Where am I going with all this?

Curating the blog’s theme

I realize that I am probably tending to what gets on my blog. I tend to actively gravitate towards what I want to cherish in life – beautiful moments, humorous moments, peaceful moments, intellectual moments: in short, moments of awe, curiosity, love, levity, and transformation. The negative rooted out like weeds (which is not to say that I don’t have them. I do, of course. Just in measured quantities on the blog.) 

Anyway.

There are no awards given for 21 years of writing 1-2 blog posts a week, every week for 1092 weeks. 5-9 posts a month for 252 months. The award is the writing, and the wholly generous readers who stop by to wave, hopefully feel a moment of peace, get a laugh or two, and encourage me endlessly. 

So, go ahead – this is a party! 

Get drunk – I mean on the posts in the blog. I don’t actually offer alcohol. Please head on over and randomly click on any month, read a few, and let me know what you think, or you know, just have fun. 

“I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted, or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored.”

― Bill Bryson, Lost Continent: Travels In Small-Town America

Is there more to life?

Is there more to life? Our lives? Most lives? I don’t know. But I know that ‘this one precious life’, as Mary Oliver puts it demands our attention. What you value, and what you remember over the moments of your life, becomes you, doesn’t it?

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work. – Mary Oliver

P.S: WordPress tells me I have a significant achievement: World Domination – for receiving visitors from over 150 countries – with the sweet caption: The United Nations has nothing on you.

Imaginating Nothing

 

Nothing Good!

“How was your day?”

“Good!”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing!” 

For years, this was the standard response I got. It takes grit and determination to get past that answer every day for years. My school’s motto was Never Give In for a reason. I plunge on. “So when is Dr Seuss week? Should we buy a Dr Seuss hat?” (We still have the hat somewhere I think.) “It’s read-across-America week right? What should we read for our read-a-thon?”

You see? The thing is, I cannot imagine their school to be a place where nothing happens. It can’t be when they are making diasporas of dinosaur habitats, writing book reports of The Magic Tree House, learning about exotic animals – supposedly in preparation for their field trip to the zoo, and making art so their little fingers look like they dipped their hands into a rainbow. 

Yet. Nothing and Good. Good for Nothing answers both.

Then, something wonderful happened. 

Literature Lives

I started volunteering in elementary school classrooms. Sometimes, as a volunteer teaching experimental science, other times as a connoisseur introducing fine books of literature. 

“Oh! You’re a Booklegger lady now? Cool Amma! I used to love when they came to school.” said the son one day when I told him that I had signed up to become a Booklegger volunteer at the local library. 

“You knew about this program?” I said, stunned.

“Yeah, of course! It was always fun when the Booklegger people came.” He said.

“All those years I asked you, how was your day? And you never said a thing!” I said, somewhat stung at this omission. The children knew I would have loved to hear about volunteers from the library coming to introduce new books to them. Especially when I had to beg them to read books other than Captain Underpants and Dog Man all the time. He shrugged, and said “Eh!”, good-naturedly and moved on.

Nothing – by Michael Molinet

One day, I read the book, NOTHING – By Michael Molinet

“You have to read this. “ I said pressing the book to the son as he pranced into the house after biking with his friends one evening. 

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Michael-Molinet/dp/1733354840/ – NOTHING by Michael Molliner Book 

You see? The book even starts off with the exact sequence I wrote about earlier. How was your day? Fine! What did you do? Nothing.

The book captures the spirit behind the word ‘Nothing’ the way the son says it so perfectly, it is like the author has been around watching the son imaginate.

Imaginating Nothing

He loves to imaginate. A verb he coined himself and a word that has become a household word in the nourish-n-cherish home. It means actively imagining scenarios and living them. I know he fights off pirates and takes on armies when he leaps off the bed to the carpeted floor. The fake swords may not survive an actual duel on the battlefield, but the cushions in the house don’t stand a chance! 

So many times, the only thing that has stopped me from running out of the house fearing an earthquake, is the fact that earthquakes are felt from the earth, not from the bedroom upstairs. When his friends are over to play, the Richter scale shivers and stutters. 

Please head on over to the book to see what Nothing means when your child says they did ‘Nothing’ all day. I assure you it is more exciting than anything any of us do.

If only the Good days on which we do Nothing are half as exciting!

Bosco Ramos: The Dog Who Became a Mayor

The Stress & Strife of Political Life

Political life has never held much sway for me. Too many pitfalls, crests and troughs. I think there are far too many people wanting their own agendas taken care of, that makes it hard to sail straight. If everything someone does for you has an ulterior motive, it must endlessly exhausting for one wanting to live a quiet and straight sort of life.

Of course, there are those who enjoy navigating those very waters and are good at them too. More power to them. Then, there are those who do none of this and enjoy the arm-twisting and the power-trips. The more unscrupulous the better: for those this pursuit would probably be invigorating rather than draining.

What I am saying is this, and it is profound – the kind of thing that when given up as a truth from a crowd-wooing politician gets standing ovations: It takes all sorts to make up the world.

So, imagine my surprise, when I really wanted to meet the mayor, but could only take a picture with his statue.

Meet Bosco Ramos.

He served as the Mayor of Sunol for 13 years – from 1981 – 1994.

He won by a landslide raking in over 62% of the votes.

https://localnewsmatters.org/2020/12/14/how-a-dog-bosco-ramos-became-the-most-loved-mayor-of-sunol-in-the-80s/

If you had a bone to pick with him, he was there mingling among the residents in local pubs and restaurants almost every evening. For a political career to be scandal-free, it takes an enormous strength of character, which Bosco Ramos obviously had.

It is too bad that he died 13 years into his career.

Bosco Ramos in Calafia

I might’ve thought this was an article worthy of The Onion, but it’s true. One serendipitous day, we found ourselves meandering in the small town of Sunol, and there, right outside the Sunol Post Office is a statue of Mayor Bosco Ramos. He was a black labrador-rottweiler mix, and defeated two human-beings in the race for Mayor. 

You should’ve seen the son’s face when he found out more about this dog-mayor. His penchant for History is unsatiable: He is forever coming up to Yours Truly with fun-facts, and trivia such as: “Amma, did you know? California was named after a character called Calafia from the book written by <some long name>” (Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo) 

He transformed into an enthusiastic puppy himself, yipping and yapping to have his photograph taken with the former mayor.

Image Courtesy: By Pedro Xing – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24008072

An Ode to Roger

I’d like to read more about Bosco Ramos. Was he a good companion when one was out on a nature walk? Did he hurry things along when the conversation started to get belligerent, or was he quite ready to bark an order or two?

I was reminded of Gerald Durrell’s companion, Roger:

In those early days of exploration Roger was my constant companion. He was the perfect companion for an adventure, affectionate without exuberance, brave without being belligerent, intelligent and full of good humored tolerance for my eccentricities.

family_other_animals

He goes on to say about Roger – who sounds like the ideal companion anyone could wish for, that:
If I slipped when climbing a dew shiny bank, Roger appeared suddenly, gave a snort that sounded like suppressed laughter, a quick look over, a rapid lick of commiseration, shook herself, sneezed and gave me his lopsided grin. If I found something that interested me – an ant’s nest, a caterpillar on a leaf, a spider wrapping up a fly in swaddling clothes of silk – Roger sat down and waited until I had finished examining it.

Now – what is preventing similar miracles from happening on a larger scale? Why can we not aspire to having more loyal, loving, patient leaders in all the important places?

Dramatic Rainy Day Imagery

Not Dramatic?

“I did not like going for a walk in the rain the other day.” I said. The children clutched their hearts. The husband looked up from his chess game, which if you know the husband, is huge. I rolled my eyes.

“Oh come on! It’s not that dramatic!”

“Not dramatic?! Baboons battling elephants isn’t dramatic. You not enjoying on a rainy day walk?”

“Let’s pull up your posts, shall we?”

Rainy Day Adventures

“Okay….I get the point! Nothing unifies you lot more than this, huh?!”

Slithering Serpents, Morphing Worms, Shuddering Breaths

The husband kept his chess aside, and came to me looking concerned, as I fiddled about in the kitchen. “So what happened?”

“Nothing! It really was nothing. Usually I quite like…”

I gallantly ignored the snickering “Quite like indeed!”, and proceeded, “Just .. maybe I should’ve gone when it had just started to rain, and there was still light outside. As it was, by the time I went most of the sidewalks had flooded over, the darkness and cold had made things difficult everywhere. The street lights illuminated things I’d rather not have seen: there were such large earthworms everywhere! When did they get so huge? I mean, at that point are they earthworms anymore?”

“No mother – they are slithering serpents!” I glared at the brother-sister duo. They were having too much fun, and reveling in building on each other’s point to notice. I suppose points were to be given for quickness of repartee or whatever it is these debating champs award.

A Grouchy Day Walk

“You know that’s why most people don’t walk in the rain? They don’t come prancing in all wet, and shining with an inner light and all that. They huddle indoors. “

“They sip tea. They light candles.”

“They listen to music, watch TV.”

“You can try any of these things next time, and let us know how you feel!”

“Well – thank you all for telling me how you really feel! I am not going to be inviting any of you idiots on a rainy day adventure with me next time!” I said, making sure to point my nose in the air, and huffing impressively.

“Promise?” they said. 

The glee, I tell you! I couldn’t help laughing. 

This is not to say that I shall not go on other rainy day walks. I am too much of a pluviophile for that. Just that I didn’t enjoy that one. It was the earthworms mainly. The cold too. My aches and pains may have contributed. I sound like a proper grouch, don’t I? Everyone is entitled to a grouchy day walk aren’t they?

If Earthworms could fly

The day after though, I stepped out, and felt like a caterpillar who’s itching to burst into wings and flutter about. It was beautiful. I loved the clean Earth. The Earth was bursting with promise. The bare trees were looking stark in their beauty of abscission. The footpaths were cleaned of debris – all washed away, and all of the Earth’s songs were bright and beautiful.

I don’t know what the earthworms were doing, but couldn’t help thinking that they must envy the caterpillars right about now – imagine bursting wings to fly a day after the rains? I sent a wave to the butterflies on my walk. I wonder what they do when it rains – it must hamper their flight, isn’t it? I think I detected a humph from an earthworm buried deep in the mud. 

When Engineers Attempt Roofs

The Kind of Engineer Who

“I shall put up some tarpaulin on the roof, and this will stem the water flow from the rains till we find someone to fix it.” the husband declared. 

We had a leaking roof.

You know – how in the novels they tell you that you must show what happened, not tell you? I’ll just tell you and you will see. I slipped on the water pooled by the bucket by my feet. The rains were in and out of the house. Literally. There was a steady drip that was meant to drip into the bucket, but had managed to splatter outside the bucket. When the man announced his intentions of putting up the tarpaulin on the roof, I was attempting to clean the mess on the floor, and slipped. I barely managed to take hold of the stairs, thus saving myself from breaking my own neck. I might possibly have also saved my teeth from shattering. I count them all as wins.

Marriage makes you robust. 

Now. We have many talents in the house, but fixing leaking roofs, plumbing, electrical wiring, aren’t even remotely in the vicinity of talents we boast about. In fact, we barely manage to put up an assortment of holiday lights every year. But still, the husband has this undeniable faith in his capabilities on all these fronts. With a smile, he embarks – a few dashes to the hardware store, a few YouTube videos, and a hearty dose of laughter infused with optimism, and you will find the man attempting to do everything. 

One of our neighbors is retired and likes tinkering. He asked us what the husband was doing on the roof with a mild look of concern on his face. “Is he an engineer?” 

“Err…Software Engineer.” I said. To which the husband piped up from the roof, “Though many years ago, I also studied Electronics and Communications Engineering!” 

The neighbor still looked concerned. “So, not a mechanical or civil engineer then!” he asked. Sometimes, society is too polite. What he meant to say is, “So you are the kind of engineer who calls a mechanic or electrician to actually fix things, right?” 

Several neighbors came through the course of the day with concerned looks on their faces. Some laced it with humor, others with alarm. It was an illuminating experience.

The Benevolent Roofer

The man in question, though was undeterred by public opinion – he sat there on the roof, polished off a whole thermos of steaming noodles like he was on a picnic, and waved to the people below. ‘Benevolent Roofer’ is the phrase that comes to mind. Folks on walks waved back. Dogs woofed. Cats meowed. Squirrels scampered. Butterflies flitted. 

He then went on to spend 3 painstaking hours placing tarpaulin on the leaking section in hopes to stem the steady leak from the rains. We clambered up and down the ladder giving him a tile or two at a time to place on the tarp. ‘They are heavy!’ he panted, and I sweetly refrained from mentioning that they were actually only as heavy as the weights in our living room – the weights he’d bought to do weight training 5 years ago. I picked the weights up everyday to clean under them, but he never did. 

The rains came that night. The tarpaulin held on the roof – meaning it did not fly away. But it somehow managed to find a way to pool more water into the weak spots. The next day, we found that where we had 1 leak before, now we had 3. 

But like the children said to me when I said it will all make for a hilarious blog post, “Amma! Now remember! He is allowed to say he made it worse, you are not!” 

Fascinating

We caved in with the leaking roof, and had a pair of competent roofers come and fix the roof. 

It was fascinating to watch them. It had taken the whole afternoon for the husband and his support crew to place the tarp on the roof. He called several friends who all gave varying levels of moral support, advice and company via cellphone throughout the day. The man had the look of an astronaut in touch with his NASA team in Houston the whole time. 

The roofers, on the other hand. They came. No fuss, no jibber-jabber: the pair of them removed all the offending tiles, replaced the leaking area and put new tiles on them in far less time. 

What’s worse? 

One stood in our garden and threw 7 tiles at a time, and they were all deftly caught by the man on the roof. 

It took us a few minutes to stop gaping at the scene. 

Never mind

That evening we stepped out. The sun was shining. The leaking roof had no husbands on it. The house inside had no buckets to catch the leak from the leaking roofs. The birds were chirping, the leaves were all showing off that they were as good as their east-coast-fall-color relatives. It was all marvelous.  

“You know? I still liked that I tried to put the tarp on the roof!” he said looking far too pleased with himself. 

“I quite like having my husband firmly rooted on the earth instead of on rooftops.” I said diplomatically.

The husband went back to his code, and the roofers went to their van. 

All was well.

Social Media Cringe Scales

Going… Going …

“What do you think I should put up today?” the son asked us one evening. The daughter was home for the Thanksgiving break too, and we were making more noise than was necessary while snacking and exchanging the news of the day. 

“How about this? Going …. Going …. “ I held up my phone, showing him some of my pictures of fall colors on the phone. When had he become this much taller than me? The beautiful fall colors glistened and sparkled, and I could feel my nerves dancing with the rays of the sun shining through them. 

“Amma! That’s – there’s no need to be all poetic and cringe.”

“What’s cringe about that? The fall colors are going…going… but not yet gone. Huh?! Get it? Not yet gone!” 

Scales of Cringe

He rolled his eyes. I swear his eyes roll more when his sister is around. I have statistical evidence. 

There are categories of social media posts apparently. They fall in scales of cringe, try-hards, to meh. One child who wished her father a happy birthday was in the try-hard category. I found that unfair. “Come on! So sweet of the child to wish her father. You know? That reminds me – where’s my post wishing me on my birthday huh?”

The pair of them exchanged looks that suggested I’d lost it, and giggled some more.

“So what if you have a few posts on the scale of 6-7?” I said, looking as smug as it was possible for me to look, while attempting the cool, nonchalant look.

“On my goodness! Did you just? I can’t – okay! That’s going to be my post. My mom just made a 6-7 joke!” he said clutching his stomach and laughing. 

My Mom!

I narrowed my eyes at the fellow. “There’s no need to say ‘my mom!’ in that tone of voice.”

He laughed some more, and the daughter ruffled his hair, looking proud.

“I am not sure I appreciate this your-mom thing being used as an insult.”

“I know your mom wouldn’t either!” the daughter said, cackling some more, and joining in.

I huffed and I puffed and drew myself to new heights. 

The daughter patted me patronizingly on the head, and said, “Now now Mother! There is no need to be all small and mighty!” 

I gave up. Newly minted high-schoolers and newly minted adults having ice creams with chocolate chips and melted brownies crushed up in them, cannot be expected to be sane. My mom would agree.