The broken house- 2

The appliances. They break one by one. Almost all the devices are repaired and welded together. 

The microwave stopped heating. The motherboard (why not fatherboard?) got invaded by ants or roaches and moisture. A universal board was plastered on top of the panel because of the unavailability of original parts. You should see the universal microwave button panel! God!!

The fridge stopped cooling one hot day. The gas got over. Wow. We learned to live without it. And took the opportunity to scrub the machine thoroughly.

The wastewater pipe got clogged, and water rushed to the nearby outlet, the unused bathroom, and the whole house got flooded. Almost.

The TV plug melted. But, by the grace of the Supreme power, stopped there. The TV is still intact.

One night with the advice of Google Maps, a giant monster container truck took a detour along our lane and pulled and took our electricity connection cable in its wake, leaving us with no electricity for 2 days.

The washing machine suddenly developed an aversion to water and started pausing every 10 minutes and could care less to finish washing! Some tiny mischievous motor died. That was it!

The motor that magnanimously pulled and pumped water from the well to the water tanks needs water! For what? So ironic. On one terrible morning, the water inside the motor evaporated, and I didn't get any notification about that, mind you. The dutiful me switched on the motor, and the dry motor refused to suck water; therefore tank didn't overflow, and I totally forgot about switching off the motor for a long time, thereby causing a partial melting down of a few parts of the motor! Yeah.

Lightning and thunder. And excessive energy visited the inverter, and the m****board got electrocuted. So, when the electricity goes off, the house will be in complete darkness.

Haven't I covered almost all the gadgets? The all-time dripping taps? The many jointed, still leaking hose? The switchboards filled with mud deposited by ants? The doors that won't close? The outhouse waiting to collapse?

So, what's going on?

mother knows best

Why do grown-up children find it extremely challenging to talk to their mothers politely?

I can't stand my mother. I hate her advice. I dislike teaching her to operate her mobile. Her food choices are exasperating. She's snail-paced and takes loo breaks every 10 minutes. She wants me to color my hair which I won't.

I'm being incredibly patient with my mother. I suppress the urge to scream at her. I play her favorite old film songs for her whenever possible. I try to cook the way she wants whenever she visits. I help her cross the road. On top of that, I would never ever even think of straightening my curly hair again because it gives her indescribable pain. 

Sometimes, I forget she knows me better than I know myself. I can never really surprise her, can I? I see that she's very proud of me, not always, but most of the time. I know she counts on me as her firstborn. And I am the nicest. Then, why do I need to make a huge effort to be sweet to her?

My children bark and howl at me. They laugh at my choices. Pepper thinks I have had a boring life and still have one. Mirchi hates to help me figure out how this darned laptop works.

Vicious circle? I know!

green (ugly) fingers

If anything, gardening teaches one to be patient. It demands eternal perseverance and humility. No amount of staring, caring, and loving won't make anything grow and flower within a week. And here, the foolish me planted tiny plantlings, wanting them to grow and be potful before my eyes within a month! They need daily watering, manure, and trimming. More importantly, TIME.

Some classy plants refuse to grow from stem cutting. They are supposedly deep-rooted and propagate via roots only. That calls for nursery visits. Bloody plants can be expensive! 

Plantlings

Pots

Fertilizer

Pesticides

Growth enhancers

Flower enhancers

Tools

No free seeds, darling!

The broken house

How to keep an almost 40-year-old house in one piece and running? Something or the other breaks every other day. What's the point of having your own house if you need to spend endless hours repairing and fixing things. How to keep a tab on the insects, bugs, and snakes who seem to be the real owners of this place!

Beware of snakes; it's their mating season.

Beware of bug infestation; it's raining.

Beware of dogs; they're in heat and also rabid.

Beware of itchy caterpillar invasion; they love wet moss.

Beware of centipede-millipede-endemic; they breed in dampness.

Beware of all kinds of creatures homeless because of heavy rain.

Bats. Cats. Ants. Beetles. Worms. Earth-worms. Crickets. Roaches. Lizards.

Houseful. 

Home less.

Serial-killing-time

Watch what you watch!

What am I watching these days?

Netflix: Gypsy. It's about the pretty shrink who crosses lines and gets involved in patients' lives dangerously close. Messy. Cringy. Loved the concept. Simply hate it. But still watching...

Amazon Prime: The Mentalist. CBI. FBI. The psychic and his team solve a murder in about 30 minutes. Actually, it's a one-man show. Loved it before the inevitable coupling of the psychic and the chief. Yet still enjoying..

Hotstar: Industry. It's about money and power. I greatly appreciate the no discrimination/equal opportunity cast. I don't understand most of the things happening. And still relishing..

What are you watching?

Ode to an old friend

Our friendship goes way back to when cell phones were a luxury. We parted ways but remained connected. Because of me. Solely on my efforts. I kept meeting her. I kept calling her. She never once rang me up in the last 16 years. She even forgets to save my number!

She is busy.

She is sick.

She has martial problems.

She is onto a new business.

She's building a new house.

Kids. Flood. Corona.

Fine. I'm calling it quits. The End. No more calls.

What if she invites me for her daughter's wedding? Of course, I'll go, silly. No, I won't be wearing a saree.

Until then, no calls. she's dead to me.

Welcome to the inside

Ignore the titles. It can be something anything  I pick up on the way. So, I'm back and challenging myself to write every day. November Challenge. 

It's been 5 years since I wrote here. How to begin again? They say journaling fires up creativity and is therapeutic. How so? Anyways, tiny steps, I'll start with recording daily events.

• The smart woman. I love my cute little domestic help. A no-nonsense hard worker who sighs every ten minutes. What makes her sigh so much? I wanted to ask. Better sigh than fart. Will she ever be happy?
• Tomorrow being All Soul's Day, I dutifully buy a bouquet and go to the cemetery infested with like-minded middle-aged couples decorating the sleeping place of their dead loved ones. Phew! Obligation or being dutiful? The place is heavenly clean. No weeds, dead garlands, or melted candles. Nope, I'm not going to attend the service tomorrow.
• Apart from sending numerous applications, I completed an editing test, attended a Google interview, and even signed an NDA! I understood every word the talent acquisition manager said- UK English!
• Why did I purchase- one-time payment- Hemingway Editor for Windows? It's not suggesting or editing the way I want. And it is not part of the Word. It works as a separate entity. I hate cutting and pasting content. I detest Doc's suggestion mode as well.
• No gardening today. Hope it rains today, too; no signs so far. Who wears gloves while planting? My hands are ugly now. And I'm doubtful about my plant choices. Why won't they grow fast? Growth potion, anybody? I was horribly tempted to buy more plants but didn't.
• I killed a baby centipede. Inside. In the dining room. And the beetles are back. More killings. What's next?

Umm.. I shall start reading again. Tomorrow. Let's see.