Max is home

There is no rush like that of being in love. And all of us are in love with the six month old  pup we brought home last Thursday. It has been a week of wide grins and 'Awwwws' and cuddles and poop cleaning. Its like having a baby again.

Reactions...
Son: I really hope he likes me.
Daughter: I cannot believe I used to be scared of dogs
Me: Men are definitely not dogs! or rather Dogs are definitely not men. Can a man love like this? Ever?
Hubby: the family expands again.

And yes, with our first pup it does feel that after a gap of ten years our family is expanded with a gooey, warm feeling of love and being loved hundred times more. This is Max unwilling to move away from my bathroom door as I take my shower. Man? Really?? :)

Drench me

A woman of divine beauty
Hair, the colour of ravens
Eyes, an ocean blue
Showering on me like a tempest
Rain - is that you?

Beloved of the mountains
Mourning of the clouds
Lullaby of a young mother
Ringing through the house
Rain - of course that is you

Bathing the villages
Gleaming through the paddy
Adorning your lover
In hues of green
Rain - in the laugh of the farmer do I see you?

In the joyous rapture of children
In the puddles on the street
In the hurried steps
Of a beguiling teen
A shared umbrella
and a cup of tea
Yes indeed Rain that is you!

Update on the pet post

We have finally decided to bring home a Labrador Retriever pup from a breeder here. The pup is one of six delivered a week back. We will have to wait another six weeks before the pup can call our home its own.

The kids have decided to call it Bolt. Shadow as suggested by my son was vetoed by my girl. My husband  probably would have been happier with an Indian name, I am okay with Bolt.

Please write in tips for training and making the pup feel at home without over doing it. This will be my first time living with any other species than a human (apart from fish who live in tanks).

At times I still feel a bit scared of living in the same house with a pet dog and not knowing what it is trying to communicate. Any suggestions are welcome. Balan please help. I have time till August.

The pet-shop story

My son loves animals. His love does not discriminate between species. Equally fond of birds, cats, fishes and dogs, he attracts the stray ones like a magnet and they follow him around till it is time for him to come home.

He always nagged me about buying a dog for him, I resisted not only because I am scared of dogs and so is my daughter, but also because so far we lived in an apartment and I did not want to share that space with a pet. I see raised eyebrows don't I? Especially Balan!

Finally when we moved to this villa and had space enough inside and outside to have the much desired dog, there was no stopping my son. Kids can be quite tenacious as we all know. So is my son...

He: "Mom, so are we buying the dog today?"
Me offhandedly: "Soon"
He comes around and stands in front of me: "How soon?"
Me: "Are you sure you can take care of a dog? I really do not know anything about dogs."
He: "Of course I can, I know everything, I have to take him for a walk twice and play with him and give him his food and clean his poop and pee. I will also teach him to do his 'business' outside the house, but that might take some time and of course you must be accepting of accidents once in a while."
Me thinking 'wow where did he get all that stuff from, and why can't he get his school project information from the same source that he got this stuff from?': "Hmm, seems you did your homework on pets. So what breed do you want?"
He: "A Golden Retriever not older than four months."
Me: "Okay so we have to find out how to go about getting a dog here, it might not be easy."
He: "I know all the pet-shops in Muscat, let us go and check them out."
Me: "We will and now please go and do your homework."
He: "I have thought of a name, I will call him Shadow"
Me: " Do you want a male dog?"
He: "Yes of course, a she-dog won't play with me. She will always sit and watch TV like didi. It has to be a male dog."
Me: "Hmm. Homework"

Conversations like this happen more than twice in my house, always initiated by my son and contradicted by my daughter. Amidst this, I started to shed my inhibition to dogs. Probably it was the mother winning over the woman. My husband who likes animals as well but has never had a pet except fishes in a tank was roped in. He looked at my daughter incredulously.

She: "I don't want a dog, He will bite me."
He: "It does not hurt that much, I was bitten once by a stray dog and had to take quite a few injections. A pet dog will be vaccinated so you do not have to worry about needles poking you."
She: "You gotta be kidding me! Why do we have to buy a dog, why cant we just have plants and fishes?"
He: "We have to get a dog so that you get rid of your fear, now that is a good reason, if any."
She: "Will it be a big dog? I am ok with a tiny pup, by the time he grows up he will know me and won't bite me."
He: "Lets see."
She: "I will not clean up after him, I am making it very clear right now."

Finally after a somewhat mixed consensus on the issue the research started. Research for anything is my husband's forte. He got in touch with expats leaving and wanting to re-home their dogs, with breeders, with pet-shops and pet-clinics. Responses were quick to come and as quickly discarded by him much to my son's angst.

Son: "This way we will never be able to have a dog."
Dad: "For you buying the dog is the end but for me buying the dog is the beginning."
Son: "I don't care, beginning or end or anything in between I want my dog."
Dad opens a link and shows him a site: "Read this and tell me what you feel?"

This is the link that we visited,

Take a look 

If you have trouble opening the link from here please copy paste

http://muscatconfidential.blogspot.com/2010/04/dont-buy-dog-in-oman-another-example-of.html 

on your browser to read


An eye-opener to people like me and my children, but not so to many others who own and love their dogs in this country. The pet-shop mentioned in the above link is a very reputed shop here. However, this is not just the case with this pet-shop. This seems to be true for most such outfits in Muscat. Now that the research has crossed the ornamental stage of cleaning the poop and naming the dog, my son has realised that a dog up for adoption is a much better choice than ordering a pup from a fancy pet-shop. However much scared my daughter maybe of dogs, she has also realised that if we finally own a dog, it will be very hard to see it suffer and die.

We are still looking for a young pup who wants a loving home. When matters get serious, it's funny how prejudices melt away.

Charity is funded

The right balance

I have not vanished again, just been busy and therefore away.

We moved house. There was the whole gamut of packing, sorting, discarding followed by unpacking, sorting and hmmmmphs saying, " Shit, I shudn't have thrown all those dusters aways, they could have been handy here. What was I thinking?" 

Well thats one thing that happened and then I fell ill which was the other thing that happened. Probably because the kids have never seen me lying down during the day with a grimace, my son thought I was going to die and he made a bunch of promises to me about doing his chores, homework and stuff on time everyday. he also said that he would not fight with his sister. On being told that I am just a bit ill and will be up and about in a couple of days his reaction was, " Oh,so its not cancer huh?" The C-word scare has passed on from me to him, not that I am free of it, but he has it too, the all pervasive fear of C-strike.

Then there was the job that I loved and was so happy doing for the first two years and in the last year it had become progressively hard to digest. I finally convinced myself to leave. I chose to be happy and bored over being agitated and argumentative over issues that could not be resolved. here is the low down.

My last three months working for the company I joined when it was just conceived was a whirlwind of desperation, trying in vain to get my passion back. I was and always will be passionate about writing and hence about my readers. I joined a company that focussed on readers and left the company that had turned into an advert-based catalouge churner. Every company needs money, and in publishing, advertisement brings in the dough, there is no denying that, technically I suppose the company has always been an advertising company, but for the better part of the last three years, it didn’t feel like one. It was an ad company only in the sense that a good TV show is an ad company: having great content attracts advertisers. But then the focus shifted. I could not accept editorial being sold. Fights ensued and we stopped seeing eye to eye.

In one of the bitter fights with my GM he said a line that will stay with me. The fight was actually between me and the AGM - Sales, and we had to rope in the GM as neither of us was budging. It was the usual war between a piece that I felt we needed to carry and the sales team head wanted dropped and replaced by an interview of the CEO of an advertising company. After an hour of heated words my GM said, " Sujata don't be naive, I think it is high time you realise that even charity is funded. Nothing comes free." Well, I agreed to that line but could not accept to live with that ideology and hence decided to leave.

It is more than 15 days now that I have left my job as Head - Editorial. It feels good so far and I am happy to be writing what I want rather than writing what the advertiser wants. Charity is definitely funded and I am lucky to have a husband who is paying my bills unconditionally. :):)

Please write in your comments on how far we should allow advertisers to rule publishing.

Yesterday

Yesterday needs to be blogged about. 9th of May 2012 has one more importance in my life apart from it being 'yesterday', but will come to that bit later in the post.

I was scheduled to attend a Defensive driving course yesterday. This is a full day course. the first half is theory followed by practical sessions in the afternoon. I expected to be back home not earlier than 4 pm. It needs to be said here that I was doing this course after a lot of prodding by my husband. There were numerous arguments that began innocently and ended in one of us walking out of the room. This was promptly followed by another argument the next day till finally he booked the course for 09/05/2012.

01.05.2012 sample argument

He: "You should do this course. It makes a lot of sense. the roads here are unsafe you know"
Me: "I don't think so. It is going to be a waste of time. What will they tell me that I do not already know."
He: "You have a lot to know. You drive fast, you do not check for blind spots while changing lanes, you get angry all the time and in the process lose concentration on the road..."
Me: "Wow, you are on a roll are you not? So what happens if I flunk the test after the course?"
He (A wide smile, likes of which I have not seen in a while): "I passed mine and was given a defensive driver's license for two years. Many failed, some got the license for six months, some for a year and so on. We will see how you fare."
Me: "HAH! Now you are talking. We will see won't we."

And so the day dawned.

I woke up at 5am, made the school lunch packs, took my shower, woke the kids, gave them their breakfast. Husband woke promptly without a nudge from me. His first utterance of the day, "If you do not report at the centre by 7am sharp, they will consider it a no show." He has told me this every day since he booked the test, so I mimic him as he says it again. He smiles which reads 'You are so gonna get your ass whipped today.' I get angry with the sheets and the laundry. The kids leave for school. My boy says, "Mom you gotta pass this one." My girls says, "Huh?" shrugs and leaves.

It is 6:20 am now and Hubby is having his breakfast and I am checking my hand bag.

HE: "License there?"
ME:"Why wouldn't it be, isn't it always there?"
HE: "Just checking, don't want them to send you back for not carrying your license."
ME: "Hey listen I have a few things for you to keep in mind as well. Get home before the kids arrive. They reach home at 2:30 pm. If you are not home by then, they will be locked outside."  I have been telling him this ever since he booked the date. I check to see if he is mimicking, he is not.
HE: "I will try."
ME: wishing that looks could really kill, or at least burn, or punch or do something physical. Because I am LOOKING my furious best and he is not looking at all.

The washing machine is whirring and he says as he puts on his shoes, "Hope you are not going to put the clothes on the line before you leave, as you should already be in your car now." I tell him very clearly and loudly that I am not making any such domestic plans at the moment. He does not wish me luck, just gives me a smile that reiterates the fact that he got this damn license for two years and today is my day. That actually works better than any mushy 'All the best darling, do well.' line. I get all the adrenaline required, gushing through my system. He leaves, so do I.

My day goes quite well actually. They kept saying things I knew but had most of the times over looked. I realised again how simple things like being conscious on road can save my innocent kids who are buckled up in the back seat and have trusted me with their innocent lives. If you think the last line was sarcastic, well it was! Why would I be anything but conscious on road. But at moments like this, I conjured up the image of my hubby's winning grin and concentrated harder. I sat through theory, remembered every little detail the instructor said and sailed through the practical session. It was not difficult, as the GSM was turned off and mom could not reach me with one of her lectures. The kids were not occupying the back seat and fighting over what music they preferred. I was obviously not speeding or taking sharp turns or cursing fellow roadies. Why would I? I had my assessor sitting next to me. So I kept safe following and stopping distance, I ignored honks, I smiled when I saw the frustrated driver behind my car show me his finger. Heck man, of course I know the usual speed at which we take this road is 100kmh, but the limit here says 80kmh and today I am going by the book dear. So I cruised along the highways and by-lanes with even tailgaters giving up on me.

By 3:00 pm I reach the centre and the trainer says,"Hmm, not bad. But I hope what you did today is not a one of thing, but something you will practice every time you are behind the wheel." I smile and say, "How many years did I get it for?" The trainer laughs out loud and says, "Go back to your class room and wait with others."

4:00 pm I get my license for two years. I punch the mobile keys with vindicated joy. Hubby replies,"I knew it." Huh!! He still wants the bloody last word.

Anyways I decide that anything that happens for the rest of today, is too less for me to fight over. So saying some Buddhist chants I go to my parked car and drive like I don't have a clue what defensive driving means. I flout speed limits, text my boss and a friend giving them the news. Reach home without a single honk and a big smile. Only thing on my mind is food. I am hungry and need to eat.

I ring the bell, kids rush and I can hear them both scuffling at the door, fighting over who will open it. I am hungry (tick tock tick tock), I just want some hot food and a bed to lie down. Excited kids can wait, I did the whole exercise for them didn't I? Finally I am inside and telling them that yeah I got the license for exactly the same number of years as their dad. There are yippies and whooping sounds. But my mind is getting distracted as I see strewn school clothes, bags, shoes, and the table so clean that there is no way the children have had their lunch here. Mind has taken in the scene, not seen the adult, who should have been visible by now, and the fuse blows. I march to the bedroom to see hubby snoring inside the comforter. My anger is not getting its outlet. Where is a course for this? Who teaches how to fight with snoring husbands? I march to the kitchen where the kids are fighting over whose lunch plate to heat first. I cannot imagine the kids have not had their lunch till this late. I march again to my bedroom and yank away the comforter. He stirs, purrs, blinks and smiles. Obviously my look is not registering in his sleep induced brain. But my roar will. "Why did you not feed the kids till now? What are you sleeping for in the middle of the day when the children are unfed? Do you have no parenting skills at all?" He rubs his eyes and says,"You asked me to be home so that the kids are not locked out, I did that. So whats this about?" I cannot react to this. This is obviously how a man thinks. He adds,"They are not infants, one is 12 the other 9. They can feed themselves you know, or have you not taught them how to?" I know he is doing this deliberately, and yet I take the bait and yell like a woman possessed and he laughs, goes to the kitchen and fixes me a meal. "When hungry your brain along with your tummy needs food, else this is how you behave, kids take a mental picture of mom when she is hungry.", says the man.

The kids are eating in peace and so am I. He puts on music and everything seems normal again. I am told that kids can remain hungry for a couple of hours, they do not wither or perish. But fatality, on the contrary, can be caused when their mom is driving hungry and so raving angry. Moral of the story, the kids are told, is that mom should eat on time always. I feel a bit like a fool, but I don't mind. I got the license for two years did I not!!

After lunch I go to the washing machine to put the washed clothes on the line. Not only the kids but also their dad have topped the washed load with their soiled clothes of the day. Now that is reason for ANGER if there is any. Does the man have no memory of a whirring machine today morning and the conversation that ensued? Do the kids point and shoot their clothes in the washer?Defensive driving indeed! Gotta be careful on road, these guys wont survive a day without me.

Oh and the other thing that was yesterday, 15 years ago I got married on this day. Well the man still makes me roar, need I say more!!

Scribbles from 'Away Land'

Heal

Blows are defeated on weathered shoulders
Yet a look can kill;
When you have always roughed the sea
Does sighting of a shore heal?

Plight and penury often go unnoticed
It is fortitude that steals-
My heart that is wounded so often
Just takes a moment to heal.

Broken

Some bonds break with the lash of a whip
Some with clangs of  metallic chains
Some, on the other hand, give away
like silken threads
But what of the pain..
Isn't it always the same?

Hey all,

A long break, a sudden return, two 'definitely not-happy-poems'.. Can I predict where your mind is going?

Nothing drastic has happened this side of the world dear friends, apart from the once-in-a-while-kicks from Aparna. I am still the same woman married to the same guy and mothering the same two kids. No additions and no deletions in the family side of things, apart from those 'kicks', that is.

The mind... well that has always been another ball game!

In case any of you wondered, the header image is from a beautiful island in Oman called Musandam. The birds go by the name of Cormorants.