MY NOSY NOSE KNOWS!

Originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

MY NOSY NOSE KNOWS!

They say opinions are like noses. Everybody has one.
I beg to disagree.
I have seen too many blank faces with no opinions whatsoever! You can always find one or two candidates during presidential debates with that classic deer-in-the-headlight stare when asked, “How do you plan to balance the nation’s budget?” The person's nose may twitch, but he or she will never give a satisfactory answer.

You could always stump someone by asking, "So, when did you stop being nosy?"

Unlike opinions, noses are ubiquitous. I have never come across a face without a nose, or at least a semblance of one. Even if a person loses this prominent appendage on the face, say due to an accident, you will still find remnants of that missing nose. Just like a fallen branch from a tree leaves its stump behind, you will find a stub of a nose with two holes left for breathing. It may not be a pretty sight, but it should be enough for the person's respiration until expiration.

Noses come in many shapes - some you are born with, while others may be acquired through plastic surgery. Nothing punctuates a face quite like the nose, literally.
Here are a few designs to prove that there is nothing plain about the nose on one's face:
First you have the 'Comma' nose, which in my opinion is commonly found on most ordinary faces.
Then you have the 'Exclamation' nose, which is basically a long stem culminating in a large spherical object.
A 'Semi Colon' nose indicates that you may have a deviated septum. A dysfunctional septum is not easy to live with.
If you happen to be the proud owner of a 'Colon' nose, well, that is nothing to be proud of! Your face will be scary for anyone standing inches from it!
A 'Question Mark' nose begs the question, "what happened to your nose?" If one chooses to cut off this nose to spite his face, it is highly understandable.
My sympathies however lie with the owner of a "Period" nose. Apart from the sheer discomfort of not possessing two properly functioning nostrils, that lone nostril of yours is an eyesore! It is time you replaced your period nose with a more contemporary one. Plastic surgery may be your only option.

Someone once said that a large nose is the mark of a witty, courteous, affable, generous and liberal man. No one said if the same applied to a woman.

When I was a young girl, I had an ordinary nose. It was a standard snout located approximately two inches from the top of my forehead, and a centimeter above my upper lip. It was an inch and a half in length with a gradual tapering downwards. It was so uninteresting that I hardly paid attention to its existence.

I refer to my nose in the past tense, not because I lost it, but because it metamorphosed into something that became the center of many conversations.

When I turned thirteen, I first realized that the view in front of me was being obstructed by a strange protuberance. A little squinting with both eyes (one eye squint would have worked too) revealed that there was a small bulge developing smack in the middle of my nose! What used to be a straight flat stem had run into a road bump of sorts! If my nose had stopped there, I would have continued being a busy thirteen year old without further distraction. But my nose had other ideas! As if to challenge Pinocchio, it decided to go on an uncontrolled growth sprout! I tried being as truthful as a thirteen year old girl could afford to be, but Nos(e)tradamus had a prophecy to fulfill! It wasn't too long before others started noticing my nose.

I come from a family of long snouts. Mine was probably a few millimeters longer than the others and so it attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Strangely enough, they were all positive comments. A long nose, it turned out, was considered to be a powerhouse of good luck!
"She will succeed in any task she undertakes," said my grandma. "Decorate it with a nice nose-ring," she ordered my mother!
Fortunately for me, my mother turned her nose up on that proposition.

"That nose is destined to go places," said my wise aunt with the short snout.
I just hoped it would not leave me behind!

It was not too long before I discovered to my dismay that my nose was destined not to go into certain places. Take for example the time when my family went on a tour to South India where drinking a cup of coffee is as routine as inhaling. My father stopped at a small coffee shop somewhere in Tamil Nadu and purchased four cups of strong, hot coffee. With flair, the barista poured coffee from an elevation of six feet down into a seemingly invisible container that was embedded within the palm of his right hand. It turned out to be a tiny stainless steel cup, or 'glass' as they call it.  My father passed the cup into my hands with great care. His burly fingers were not able to find enough surface area to grab around the rim of the cup. Transferring this delicate steaming tumbler of coffee from his hand to my hand was perilous as he had to make room to accommodate my thin bony fingers too. The cup was approximately 2.3 inches tall with a diameter of 2.3 inches, give or take 0.1 inch...not that it would not have made any difference.

It was probably my first experience as a teenager with my newly acquired elongated schnoz. I lifted the cup to my mouth, but my nose decided to go for it first! The top part of the rim hit the tip of my nose, while the bottom part stopped at my upper lip. I looked around embarrassed hoping no one noticed my lack of hand-mouth coordination. It took me a few tries before I realized that small motor skills were not the problem here. The length of my nose was longer than the diameter of the cup. Being used to drinking from my mother's gigantic stainless steel tumbler, I felt that this cup was woefully deprived of steel. The rest of my long-nosed family did not seem to have any problems. My parents were both able to nudge their noses just enough to get the coffee down their throats. The only way for me to get the hot potion down the hatch was to place the rim on my lower lip and lift my head backwards as far as I could.  It made me look like that insatiable angry movie star sitting at a bar, chugging down tiny shots of Vodka, in sheer frustration.
Lifting the cup forced me to gulp faster than I wanted to, but it got the job done.
 
Through the years, I discovered that there were a few other disadvantages to having a nose like mine. Hiding something right under my nose was the best place to conceal ‘it’ from me! "Follow your nose" was not exactly the best piece of advice given to me. Walking right into a glass door was just as bad as walking into a wall - my nose always took the beating. At least it protected the rest of my body by acting like an advanced warning system.
Licking my favorite food off the plate was a hassle, although I always managed to clean up the sauces by turning my head sideways and extending my tongue out by a few extra inches.
A long nose also came with wide nostrils. Turning up my nose, either with pride or in disdain, was not advisable without first giving a thorough scrubbing.

My Aunt's prediction about my nose 'taking me places' came true in 1990 when I got an opportunity to travel abroad for my very first full time job! I had worked hard to acquire the necessary skills and qualifications for a couple of years in order to get the job, but all my efforts went unnoticed. When I ran into an old classmate one day and shared the good news with her, instead of congratulating me, she quipped, "With a nose like that, I always knew that you would go abroad!" It was a blow directed to my face alright! My nose was now starting to steal commendations away from me, and I was stuck with it for life!

Over time I realized that the gargantuan package on my face had a few surprises stored for me as well.

I remember my first encounter with my mother-in-law who decided to sit right next to me, barely inches from my nose. Her intense scrutiny was making me fidgety, but my nose helped conceal half of my facial quivering from her piercing glances. I think she was satisfied with my attributes and gave me a passing grade to advance to the higher level of examination - that given by Mr. Microprocessor (who became my future husband). The higher level exam turned out to be far easier than I had expected. Mr. MP was himself the proud owner of a bow shaped nose, and he too had been the beneficiary of its good fortune. Being a thorough gentleman, he did not have the nose to sniff down an innocent girl right in front of her parents. I was able to escape without a scratch. The next day we agreed to marry each other and consolidate our powers by keeping both our noses to the grindstone.

Since then, I have reconciled and accepted my constant companion to lead me through thick and thin. I am still talking about my nose here!

A long nose with a longer rap-sheet does not make a tiny button sized nose angelic by any measure! There is no reason why someone with a cute nose cannot have an ugly disposition just like the rest of us. It is the right of every person, no matter the size of his/her nose, to pry into other people's business without any inhibition! A nose for bad news knows no bounds!

Say you are at a party, sitting in a corner, sipping your orange juice. You are hoping not to run into your estranged nasty friend 'A'. Lucky for you, she is not in town. But in comes your old friend 'B' who decides to share your cozy nook with you. She has got the looks and a nose to go with it - a small, narrow, adorable apparatus, symmetrically placed in the middle of her face. Do not be fooled by her alluring facade. Her little nose, not wanting to be ignored, suddenly jumps into action! It forces your friend 'B' to ask a very personal question knowing about your broken relationship with 'A'.
"So when did you last visit 'A', hmm?"
'B' knows very well not to ask this question, but her nose knows not!
You are aware that 'B' is well informed and fully enlightened about your stale relationships, but her perky nosiness still catches you off guard! You can even sense that she knows the right answer, but you decide to mumble anyway, "Mmm about five years."

"Ow that is a long time dear. Hope there is no problem between the two of you!"
She's holding her breath waiting to squeeze some juicy gossip out of you, but you will not budge. Very soon you will notice her face going red! The fact is that a tiny nose is not a good reservoir of sufficient oxygen for prolonged periods of respiration. Studies have shown that nosiness takes the wind out of a person! Lucky for you, she rushes out of the suffocating room to get a breath of fresh air without even waiting for your answer. You and your big reservoir of air are happy to inhale and exhale in relief!

Yes, we humans value our noses highly. Whenever it malfunctions, we panic. Shortness of breath or last breath may be the result of a struggling lung, but the emergency treatment only comes through the nose!  The seasonal cold, however, can put most noses out of commission. A blockage of any size can cause a person to panic and blow the nose like a bellow to remove the obstacle quickly.

So when my son had a cold recently, I noticed that he continued to play his clarinet with his partially blocked nose. I asked him if he was having difficulty at all playing his instrument.

To my utter surprise, he replied in a calm voice, "Nah! I do not use my nose that much!"

What? I had never heard of anyone being so unemotional and disconnected from his nose! How could a wind instrument be played without the use of nature's own wind instrument? It turns out that most clarinetists suck air through the instrument itself and store it in their cheeks through a process called circular breathing.

In a second, my son had taken the notoriety out of this vain, puffed-up windbag called the nose! It was enough to make a plastic surgeon cry!

Copyright © 2010 Ranjini Sharma All Rights Reserved

RELEASE THAT SQUIRREL!

Originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

RELEASE THAT SQUIRREL!

As I had narrated in my previous blog – NEW HOME, OLD DWELLERS, it had been three full days since that unfortunate adolescent squirrel had fallen through an attic space of our new home, and lodged himself between two dry-walls right near our living room. It could have been a female squirrel for that matter; not that establishing gender has any extra benefit during a life or death situation. As I had also mentioned, I was planning to use a tried and proven method called ‘nagging’ to persuade my dear husband Mr. Micro Processor to drill a hole through the wall of our newly purchased home. The squirrel’s life was ebbing away, and I had to hasten the nagging process.

On the morning of the fourth day, I woke up early and started needling Mr. MP even before he got off the bed. “Here we are nice and cozy. I wonder what the temperature is between two gypsum sheets.”

Mr. MP pulled his two bed sheets a little closer to his face, staying clear from the topic. He even managed to produce a delicate audible snore, as if that was going to shut me up. Not being sure if he was really sleeping, I started making some sharp high-pitched chirpy sounds with my tongue.  Noises like “tsk-tsk” and “chee-chee” have been proven to jar awake even a rock! They have the same annoying effects of a leaky faucet. Mr. MP however did not stir.

So I gave up pestering, just as any good wife should, and proceeded downstairs to check on the squirrel’s condition. I put my ear on the wall and heard a very weak stir! This was good news because I had one more day to work on securing his freedom! I had the confidence that my badgering would have its desired effects by the end of the day.

As I was making coffee, Mr. MP took his usual seat in front of his laptop. I attempted a little early morning spirituality, hoping it would percolate along with my coffee.

“The Bhagwat Gita talks about feeding the hungry before feeding yourself,” I said, trying to use subtle guilt inducing techniques without making direct references to a certain famished squirrel.

On one of his rare moments, Mr. MP actually lifted his face away from the laptop and responded, “The Bhagawat Gita says no such thing! That reminds me, since I am the Hungry One, what’s cooking for breakfast?”

During and after breakfast, I continued my attempts to keep the lines of diplomacy open by quoting random verses from Hinduism and Buddhism to promote animism and existentialism, not that I understood what I was talking! If the squirrel had been listening to our conversation, I am sure he would have sniveled in self-pity.

Another hour of relentless lectures continued.

“Alright, let’s do it,” declared Mr. MP suddenly to my surprise! He was actually listening to my senseless jabber all along, which was in stark contrast to all of those other times in the past when some of my real nuggets of wisdom went completely unheard. He did not seem the least bit annoyed! As I have said before, he had it in his heart to help annoying critters. He just needed a gentle reminder from a thoughtful wife. I was glad to be of assistance.

Anyway, not wanting to waste precious moments, I quickly provided MP with an array of kitchen knives for carving the hole through the dry wall. However, like a true engineer, he decided to go for a plain box cutter and my favorite Dosai spatula to get the drilling going. Along with these two essential tools, he also wanted me to keep my multipurpose back-scratcher ready, just in case plan one failed.

Being married for twenty years has its advantages – a very understanding and cooperative wife who knows exactly what her husband intends to do with the odd assemblage of thingamajigs - no questions asked!

By now, there was no discernable noise from the squirrel. Not sure about the final outcome, we marked a spot on the wall where we assumed the squirrel had lodged himself. A few skillful strokes with his muscular arms were all it took for MP to cut open a square piece of wall. Sadly, three inches by three inches was too small to determine the animal’s exact location. “Get me your handy-dandy make-up mirror,” ordered Mr. MP with a confidence worthy of NASA’s attention. I handed him my tiny foldable cosmetics mirror, which squeezed conveniently through the hole. It was pitch dark inside, and so MP used a flashlight to reflect off the mirror into the sanctum sanctorum of the foyer wall.

A couple of feet above our hole, Mr. MP spotted a long furry tail! It was lifeless and helpless, mainly because help was being attempted at the wrong place too! As we had suspected all along, this squirrel was hell bent on forcing us to drill at least one more hole into the wall. Mr. MP marked off approximate coordinates for his second hole, which was very close to the squirrel’s current position. After removing the second sliced piece of the wall, he pushed my mirror and his flashlight inside. A few inches above us, he clearly saw the squirrel perched on a half nibbled electric wire like an acrobat from cirque du soleil! It was not moving! Mr. MP was not sure if it was dead, and so he asked me to take a closer look.

If you remember from my previous blog (you would if you took notes), I had described the photo of another dead squirrel posted on a website. It was skinny and dirty with white paint powder covering its body due to its failed excavation attempts. That was the image I had in my mind. 

I sat close to the mirror, wearing my reading glasses, to improve my chances of seeing this lost soul for whom I had spent the last several hours snarling at my dear husband.

Something did not fit the scene! Yes, the squirrel was perched on the wire motionless. But he seemed clean – a little too clean, if you ask me!

His eyes were wide open, which is not abnormal after death. I have seen a few dead humans who forgot to close their own eyes before dying. They needed someone else to close their eyes for them. This poor critter had no one to assist!

He never blinked, although I was not particularly sure if squirrels even blinked.

Strangely though, his eyes were glistening! This was unexpected of dead animals, since I had witnessed my own pet rabbit’s death a few years ago, and it had no gleam in its eyes whatsoever.

He had a cute pink button for a nose, and facial features that would make any mother proud!

Upon closer examination, I also noticed that the squirrel’s fur was well groomed - the kind of grooming that takes several hours for my cat Poppy to achieve…and God knows this squirrel had all those hours for himself!

Apart from all of the above indications of being a well-cared-for, well-groomed, twinkly-eyed squirrel, he still seemed as dead as a doornail.

No squirrel I know prepares to meet his Creator with such careful preparation, especially after going through starvation and dehydration! God never asked for a dead squirrel to present himself at St. Peter’s heavenly gate, with all of his fur neatly aligned in one direction. All reports indicate that Vaikunta also does not insist on good looks to secure entrance tickets, assuming that my proselytizing from outside the gypsum had convinced this squirrel to convert to Hinduism!

My conclusions based simply on the grooming aspect – THIS SQUIRREL WAS ALIVE! Nano Processor (my son i.e.) seconded my suspicions.

So Mr. Micro Processor decided to do one final test. He called it the ‘Tummy Scratching With Back Scratcher’ test. He pushed my back scratcher through the hole and gently teased the fur on the squirrel’s tummy.

That’s all it took!

With one giant leap for life, the squirrel jumped downwards and hopped out of the first hole instead of the second one! With huge wobbly strides, he scampered into the dining room searching for an outlet. The Processor family broke into jubilant celebration, clapping and congratulating each other, even as the poor animal was searching for the outdoors. He was definitely tired and weak from his 3-day ordeal, but the zeal to live had not escaped him.

As soon as we opened the front door, off he dashed into the woods, swearing to himself never again to fall through the attic of the Processor family! They would not let him die peacefully, and on top of that, he was forced to endure three days of nonstop philosophical gibberish from his nagging wife, Mrs. Mini Processor!

Being left with two holes right at the entrance to our home, we decided to leave them open, just in case any of his genetically challenged siblings decides to take the same plunge one of these days. In addition, we hired a critter controller, the only one in town, to come and seal all of the openings and inlets from outside the entire building - the total cost, $3000!

Not sure who was dumber here – the squirrel or the Multi Processors!

Copyright © 2010 Ranjini Sharma All Rights Reserved

New House, Old Dwellers!

Originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

New House, Old Dwellers!

The house hunters are hunting no more! 

It has been six months since we purchased our new home and settled into it with great relief. The hassles of packing and unpacking left us feeling a bit battered and bruised. Although I was compelled to stow away all of my creative ideas into an old rucksack in the garage, nothing stopped me from producing dozens of imaginary blogs during these last few months. Even as I was organizing my closets and cupboards, I conjured up several scholarly blogs on intriguing topics like – Mending Broken Teacups, Weeding the Garden, Mismatched Socks, and Burnt Food etc. During these past few months, I also received numerous notes from my friends on Sulekha asking me gently to "return back right now," or lovingly expressing "missing your blogs." I tried hard to suppress my burning desire to put aside all of my daily duties and don the hat of an amateur (or is it immature) writer.

I am happy to say that my writing cap is back on my head as of this minute, whether it fits me or not!

****************

Our new house came with all the usual accouterments and one added bonus—our own attached private forest! Nothing compares to having a jungle of our own, and waking up every morning to the sounds of numerous birds outside our bedroom window. The word 'private' sounded thrilling at first as I imagined myself wearing a large bonnet and picking blackberries all summer long. Little did we know that our secluded Garden of Tranquility was not reserved for us exclusively! It was already home to a few entrenched creatures that had utter disregard to the concept of land ownership. A closed real-estate deal on our part did not constitute a relocation agreement on their part! Our run-ins with the stubborn tree-dwellers were interesting, but expensive.

"MOM," roared my teenager (Nano Processor, as we call him) one morning, as he was sitting near the kitchen's bay window, eating his slightly overdone sourdough bread. Seventeen at the time, our boy's bass/baritone vocals made it sound like an emergency. It was only the fourth day of residing in our new home, and our muscles were still raw. We had seen umpteen squirrels romping in our backyard, and the animal lover in me knew that I was in Critter Nirvana! I had gushed over every bushy-tailed antic, and guffawed over numerous squirrel fights visible from my kitchen. That morning, I was a bit irritated by Nano's continuing insistence that I should get to his window immediately. Yet another squirrel prank was not going to surprise me.

"Look over there," he said pointing to an area between the 'private' forest and our backyard lawn. About five feet from our window stood a full-grown enchanting stag! He had decent sized antlers and was over four feet tall. The handsome deer was posing majestically and pausing for us to take pictures of him.

Of course, we did NOT! We could not budge an inch in sheer amazement! We live smack in the middle of a city surrounded by freeways and highways that are typically found near residential areas. Our forest is actually open to our neighbors, who in turn have a secluded garden of their own. A lone deer finding its way into an urban setting is a big mystery!

I yelled out to my husband, Mr. Micro Processor, to get the camera and start capturing all the glory. He was upstairs and had a better vantage point than we had. He promptly responded, "YES," which sounded a bit suspicious to me, as seconds became minutes, because I did not hear any follow-up questions, such as, "where is the camera again," or "is the battery charged?"

I imagined a series of lovely pictures of the handsome deer munching on our lawn, as he strolled down our front driveway and calmly crossed the street. A surprised car driver halted his vehicle abruptly to allow the deer to walk past him, and to gain his own composure.
Mr. MP came down grinning.

"So did you take the photos," I asked him eagerly, as I could imagine myself blogging one day with all those attached deer jpegs.
"Nope," he said, "the memory was out!"
"Be careful when you are outside though," Mr. MP added, "Stags are dumb animals. They can come dangerously close when they are searching for partners.”
I turned to see if he was joking! Was he saying that this Jane Doe could be easily confused for Miss Doe the deer? If my ‘walking encyclopedia’ said so, I was going to believe him!

Hardly a week had gone by when a little commotion broke out near our living room within the house. Poppy, our cat, was staring at a blank wall with great focus. From behind the wall came a frantic scratching noise. The sound was coming from a space between two drywalls (which makes for a hollow wall). We wondered if a squirrel had somehow fallen down from the rooftop into what was distinctly its death trap. It would have fallen at least 20 feet from an open dormer. "Aw don't worry," said Mr. MP-Know-All. If it is a squirrel, it always knows how to go back the way it came."
A few hours later, it was clear that this critter was clueless about its own return journey.

It was a Friday morning, and we realized that if we did not resolve the problem before evening, we would not be able to find repair people over the weekend. We had not even established that it was indeed a squirrel. Nearly six hours into the ordeal, the mystery animal behind the wall gave a melancholic chirp. It seemed to be scratching desperately for a few minutes, and then resting for extended periods to regain energy. I tried to memorize the chirpy squeal and went on YouTube immediately. In the search box, I typed 'Squirrel Noises.' Sure enough, a few thousand videos popped up with all sorts of squirrel shenanigans, from surfboarding squirrels to flying squirrels! I also learned that squirrels came in many varieties, and their chirps were as varying as the hair on their bushy tails! Luckily, I was able to locate one YouTube squirrel that produced the exact chirp I was looking for. That was good enough for me.

Having resolved the identity of the animal, I went back on the Internet to read about their intelligence! If Mr. MP was to be believed, squirrels came with onboard GPS systems lodged between their tiny ears! Not so, said one Internet article. Falling through the attic was actually a well-established tradition among adolescent squirrels, and even among some elderly ones! One website also had a photo of an unfortunate dead squirrel, which had lodged itself behind a drywall, just like ours. Its skin had wrinkled due to dehydration and starvation. The pathetic looking soul had white paint dust all over the body, which was the result of its desperate excavations. 

After seeing the depressing photo, Mr. MP instructed me to call wild life rescuers immediately. Even though it sounded a little extreme, I consented and called one such organization. "Ma'am," said the person, "we only rescue trapped Bald Eagles!" A bit embarrassed for making a mountain of a rodent issue, I decided to call a not-so-fancy drywall repairman. 

It was still surprising to me that people specialized in such narrow areas like ‘Bald Eagle rescue,’ and nothing else! Don't they get a crash course in squirrel entrapment too? It is not such a big deal!

It was already Saturday morning by now, and the poor squirrel had been without food or water for 24 hours. So I called a local drywall repairman.

"Ma'am, it is very easy. Just cut open your drywall with a sharp tool, and remove the animal yourself. Most likely, it is an adolescent squirrel. They usually like to investigate their boundaries and fall down from attic spaces," said the helpful guy. 

It meant only one thing - there was an entire family of troublesome squirrels living within our attic area!

A cursory examination of the squirrel’s exact movements indicated that it was canvassing the entire length of the wall, which meant that we had to make several holes in the wall by trial and error. If we did nothing, a dehydrated dead squirrel would make our house stinky for months. Either way, it was going to be a mess.

"Surgery on our brand new home! No way," exclaimed Mr. MP that evening. "Our expensive property is no match for a freeloading squirrel’s worthless life! Who told the rascal to share our home with us?"

Deep under his tough exterior, I knew that Mr. MP loved animals as much as I did. We bought the house knowing that we would enjoy the furry creatures around us. Mr. MP and I even pledged not to use pesticides or chemicals to kill our weeds. We were planning to grow an organic garden too.

Tearing up the foyer wall just a week after moving into the house, was tough for us, but not for the squirrel! By now, it was nibbling on electric cables for breakfast, wooden posts for lunch, and frosty gypsum for dessert. My own three square meals were not so easy to consume. Every morsel filled me with gnawing guilt. Somewhere deep down within the barrels of our house was an adolescent squirrel that was remorseful for being a disobedient child, and was preparing for impending death. How could I bite into my highly nutritious 7-grain bread laced with cilantro chutney, knowing well that insulated electric cables were not as tasty to a starving squirrel as its regular diet of those unidentified green berries atop our new backyard tree? I had watched many squirrels feeding nonstop during these last 30 hours. They all looked adorable, and I was sure that our prisoner was no different.

Sunday morning arrived, and Mr. MP was still hoping that the critter would leave on its own. Sadly, by then we could only hear faint noises from the wall. It was still alive, but barely.
That evening, our son was playing his Clarinet for a benefit concert. The recital hall was packed. As we sat through Francis Poulenc's Clarinet Sonata - the First Movement, I was thinking about our immobile critter who was hearing his own heart's last Sonata.

I glanced at Mr. MP who also appeared somber and unfocused on the concerto in front of him. Clearly, our thoughts were with our squirrel back home, as it was undergoing torture during its last hours.
It was too much to bear!

Ahimsa crossed my mind several times.

There was only one nonviolent way out of this pain - Nag!
Yes! I said NAG!

Some of its gentler versions include - pestering, bugging, grating, irritating, needling, vexing, picking on, or my favorite – driving up the wall.

Nagging rarely causes any physical pain or damage, and it always gets the job done! 

No, I was not talking about nagging the poor squirrel...although a good long nag, if delivered effectively, should be able to kick-start even the most emaciated squirrel out of its hole. I could almost imagine the animal clawing its way back up the steep 20-foot wall, grumbling and cursing all females for their uncontrollable tongues, and saying, “Can’t a squirrel die peacefully these days without being bullied to back life!”

Obviously, language barrier prevented me from nagging this squirrel out of death successfully.

I was only talking about nagging Mr. MP until he agreed to punch holes into our brand new home!

I nagged him all right for the next thirteen and a half hours…with rests in between for nourishments, just to replenish my energy. Any wife worthy of her esteemed title should be able to badger her way through her husband's tough exterior and reach his inner core, wherein dwells that soft corner for rescuing trapped squirrels by damaging his own home! I was going to drill my way to that core and tug at his heartstrings, even if it took me three days! I just hoped that I would be able to save the furry soul before it was too late!

You would have to wait for my next blog - RELEASE THAT SQUIRREL!, to find out if the squirrel lived to tell its harrowing tale to other dimwitted family members. Until then, please do not hold your breath!

Copyright © 2010 Ranjini Sharma All Rights Reserved

CAN I HAVE A GLASS OF WATER PLEASE?

Originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm 

CAN I HAVE A GLASS OF WATER PLEASE?

"Can I have a glass of water please?"

Who hasn't asked this question?

"Can you get me a glass of water" is a bit more demanding.

"May I please have a glass of water" is a gentler version. Permutations aside, the need for water to be supplied by someone else is the common theme in all these questions.

Most human beings with access to drinking water would have made this humble request at one time or another. Those without access to water generally have other pressing needs. In addition, they probably do not find it necessary to own cups or glasses. Such deprived souls do not mind sipping water directly out of a cactus or an oasis whenever available.

Serving a glass of water remains one of the most challenging tasks to fulfill. So much responsibility lies on the quivering arms of the water suppliers that grown men…and women….are known drop water hither and thither for no explicable reason at all!

This tendency to depend on someone else to quench one's thirst is based on any of the following critical factors (if we can ignore boring reasons such as heat, parched throat, green chilies etc.):

1. How far the thirsty person is from the faucet.

2. How lethargic one is feeling at that moment.

3. An urgent curiosity to test a certain family member’s attentiveness, dedication, or balancing abilities.

In my opinion, the third factor is the most contentious one! It is routinely used by married couples to prove a point or to pass judgment on a spouse's motives. To clarify the last sentence without passing any judgment on the genders, men and women may have very different reasons to request that lifesaving glass of water. They may have different styles while placing that order too.

Some husbands quietly raise their bulky arms up in the air, without removing their eyeballs off their television sets, to signal to their wives for a goblet of water. Notice how the husband here assumes that the wife is devoutly staring at him for hours on end without blinking. If the wife happens to be busy, he tries to make grunting noises to get her attention. This method typically works, unless the wife is concurrently being harassed by four whimpering kids, in which case she might just retort, "Get off that couch, and get your own glass!"

A diplomatic husband would have learned the hard way that it is easier to grab his wife's attention with a sweet audible observation/request such as, "Is that a new dress? By the way, can you please pass a glass of water as you are sashaying out of the kitchen?" This has a 50 percent chance of working, hoping that the husband is not appreciating a twenty-year-old faded or frayed dress! 

A disciplined husband has a better chance of getting his glass water, if he asks for it as soon as his plate of food is served. It will be considered a part of the meal and the wife will not feel misused. Generally, a wife understands her husband's need for water very well. When she serves water, the glass is usually full. The liquid's temperature always ranges from normal to cool, which makes for a satiating glass of water. She carefully chooses the height, weight and the shape of the glass or cup before serving.

I am a wife of twenty years, and I try very hard to fulfill that request from my husband to the best of my abilities.

However, when the wife asks for the very same glass of water from her husband, the entire exercise suddenly takes on a completely new dimension! Her order or request (depending on the tone of her voice) is likely to be messed up due to minor communication errors. Therefore, when she places her request, she tries to clarify it with as many details as possible to ensure that her water supply is perfect.

If she says, "Please pass me a TALL, CLEAN glass of COLD water SOON," she is trying to correct several glitches her husband made during his previous water delivery. The liquid measure of ‘tall glass’ is commonly used by the wife to test her husband's allegiance to herself, even if she never drinks it completely. It is highly possible that last time her husband, with all the best intentions, had probably searched through the kitchen cabinets for twenty minutes before finding a suitable cup.  He loves his wife and does not want to disappoint her. However, he failed to notice a row of freshly cleaned tall glasses right in front of his nose. He must have accidentally located the tiniest cup on the topmost shelf, which was stashed away by his wife as a keepsake ornament, soon after their infant son had become a toddler!  He probably held the 5-ounce cup under the faucet… without washing… filled it half with tepid water, and carried it over to his wife, but not before stopping to munch on a handful of potato chips.

She was probably blistering by then, either in extreme thirst or anger, since the entire operation had taken 25 minutes! It is also possible that she noticed unidentified objects floating in her measly supply of water, when she innocently held it against light.

Let us ignore the fireworks that would have definitely ensued!

So the next time her throat is parched, she tries a different approach; one that has served clever wives for ages — tugging at heartstrings while simultaneously nagging.

All peace-loving husbands please remember this golden nugget of advice — a wife's throat is never too parched for nagging!

She is comfortably perched on her soft sofa and does not want to budge. She has worked all day, served him a hot meal, and now she feels entitled to that glass of refreshing drink.

She starts by throwing this innocent comment in her husband's general direction, "I just choked on a twig of cilantro! I wonder if a glass of water is too much to ask!"

Surprisingly, her voice is quite strong for someone who just choked on a twig of cilantro, which is notoriously high in fiber!

Her husband is clueless!

She thinks he doesn't care.

In reality, he hasn't heard!

His brain only responds to direct sentences with subjects and predicates. He needs to hear his full name (which includes middle and last names).

He looks around the room wondering if the wife is speaking to someone other than him, even if there are only two humans present in the room at that moment!

His clueless face only makes her more belligerent.

"Does anyone care? No!" She pretends to talk to herself.

Her husband is certain that she is talking to herself!

Remember, he still does not understand the purpose of all this self-talk. Out of his own goodwill, he finally asks very gently, "Who are you talking to?"

"To the TV, my foot! Who do you think I am talking to?" She explodes to his surprise!

He turns to the TV.

He is surprised because she seems to be talking to a bottle of shampoo/conditioner that has remained static after a lengthy commercial.

"Yes, my Dear! Shampoo manufacturers can be heartless," he says, hoping to make sense of the meaningless conversation.

This time she looks him straight in the eye and says, "How long are you going to wait? I am dying here after choking! Can you get me a TALL, CLEAN glass of COLD water SOON?"

"Then why didn't you say so," he wonders aloud. He is truly processing the command for the first time. He is reminded of the fireworks from the last episode of 'Operation Fetch Water'.

Without further delay, he races to the kitchen. This time he aims not for a glass but for a jug! He fills it to the brim with half a gallon of icy-cold, crystal-clear water and rushes it to her eager hands. He evens spills a couple of ounces on her dress just to prove his promptness and obedience to her. After the generous offer, he mysteriously escapes into the computer room to install or delete files, unnecessarily.

Now she is sitting on the couch alone. She is balancing this massive pitcher in one hand, and a plate of that half-eaten yellow rice garnished with cilantro on the other. First, she drinks to her heart's content, which amounts to less than one-fourth of the water in the jug. She then searches for a stable place to set her heavy jug down with the rest of the water. She realizes that while rearranging furniture that morning, she had moved the end table at least eight feet away from her sofa! She had also redecorated her coffee table with so many vases, photos, and displays that there was not much room to keep even the tiniest of cups.

By now, she feels it is unfair to expect her to get off the comfortable seat just to put away the water. Her arms start to ache as she searches for any form of human activity in her vicinity. The only other human in her house is not hard of hearing, even though his actions may seriously raise that doubt. This time she decides to call out his full name in a voice that could use some reduction of volume through the process of dehydration.

She yells out, "Can you come and take this HEAVY, UNWIELDY BUCKET of SUPERCOOLED liquid from my hand! I am drowning!" When simple unadulterated nagging does not work, a bit of exaggeration always works like magic!

He rushes to aid her. Contrary to her dire cries for help, he is surprised to find her still able-bodied and completely dry! He takes the jug from her hand unable to understand how to serve water to her satisfaction.

She is unable to understand why he finds simple tasks so challenging.

He pledges to remain stone-deaf and save his wife from death, either due to water depletion or due to excessive water intoxication.

She pledges never to ask him for a glass of water ever again! 

Peace reigns once more!

Copyright © 2009 Ranjini Sharma All Rights Reserved 

THE HOUSE HUNTERS - Mrs. Hummingbird and Family

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm




THE HOUSE HUNTERS - Mrs. Hummingbird and Family

The house hunters have finally found their perfect cottage to dwell! The acquisition is final. This might be my last blog for this season! Starting next week, we will be packing and moving! I hope to get back to reading and writing as soon as possible.

The process however has revealed how fussy we humans are when it comes to choosing the ideal residential abode - Does the house have a shower on every level? Is it too close to that 60 ft Douglas Fir? Does it have windows directly facing the neighbors? What about the neighbors themselves? Are they the type that will tolerate occasional whirring noises from my Dosai grinder and my Chutney blender… in unison? All right, cacophony! How about the stove? Is it the wonderful gas stove that I crave? Or is it that fancy shiny flat glass-top hot plate which comes with a computerized brain of its own...you know, the type that turns off before my Upma water reaches boiling point! That’s a topic for another blog by itself!!

All the nail-biting heebie-jeebies made me wonder if other species are just as fastidious as humans are in their home-searching ventures. Why should they? They do not have to pay a worn out wood chip for their real estate! The human race, on the other hand, is required to ‘purchase’ its place of dwelling, since homesteading is outdated! All other animals simply crash into any available space or cranny to call it their own. Birds build their own bristly pads for free, while certain carnivorous mammals just snarl their way into the domains of those that are less intimidating. I have not heard of a lioness nagging her male counterpart about the ceiling height of their newly acquired cave being less than 9 ft. I guess oppressors cannot be choosers.Birds, however, get finicky before zeroing in on the perfect location. They are also very meticulous with their choice of building materials. If they miscalculate, chances are that their family would end up becoming mincemeat for a variety of cunning stalkers.

Let me tell you the story of a young hummingbird mother who, a few years ago, decided to build her little nest on my jasmine creeper. This was in our very first home in California. I had fallen in love with that house because of the jasmine creeper, which was in full bloom when we walked in for the first time. It was smack in front of the entrance and was so inviting that I did not bother scrutinizing the home for any of its follies. That house turned out to be very good for my family. Little did I know that, years later, another bird-brained female would also fall for that same jasmine plant!

Hummingbirds are native to the Americas. They are among the smallest of birds, the smallest being the Bee Hummingbirds. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings 12-90 times per second (depending on the species). They can also fly backwards, and are the only group of birds able to do so. Their English name derives from the characteristic hum made by their rapid wing beats. They can fly at speeds exceeding 15 m/s (54 km/h; 34 mph). (Source Wikipedia)

It was around 8:30 AM one morning when I was leaving for work. I stepped out of my house and walked straight into a neat little semi-sphere which hit me right on my nose. In her enthusiasm to build her nest, Mrs. Bird forgot that her locale was just 5 feet from the ground! It was right in front of our main door and clearly visible to any passing non-vegetarian predator! She was lucky that the first one to spot her clandestinely built nest was this vegetarian non-predator! I am all of 5 ft 3 inches tall. A little subtraction proves that my nose is 3 inches below the top of my head, or thereabouts (just thought you might want to know). It also proves how dimwitted that mother-to-be birdie was! No one in my family had observed the actual nest construction in progress. It seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. Over the next few days, we observed the female hummingbird hauling in a treasure-trove of strings, strands, and hair from blonde-haired women and brunettes. Her husband or boyfriend, assuming we do not know much about the matrimonial practices of hummingbirds, was not much help in the nest-building process. He probably was not smarter than her either because he never raised any objection about her choice for their family's perch. 

My family however was mesmerized by the tiny mother's indomitable spirit and determination to create a fine settlement for her babies. A week later, they arrived, the eggs i.e.! It wasn't too hard to tell; all we had to do was walk out of our door, and there they were - two tiny eggs neatly stacked inside the tight fibrous nursery.

Hummingbirds are new to some of us from India. I managed to take several pictures and videos of their activities. I have posted a few photos below. The videos sadly are buried in my boxes somewhere.

The sight of the eggs in plain view converted me into an overprotective mama bird too! As soon as I heard someone or something approaching our home, I was on guard. I successfully shooed off anyone who showed the slightest interest in the new family's business, which turned out to be my son, most of the time! The proud parents did not seem to mind our daily human activities around their nest, but my cat Poppy's mere appearance sent them into a vibrating frenzy! Their wings used to create quite a windstorm when agitated. They made peculiar pecking noises with their slender long beaks and managed to intimidate Poppy, who had not bothered to hone his skills as a hunter-gatherer. He was not exactly craving avian meat either. Besides, the tiny birds would not have been a mouthful anyway. They were not worthy of a salmon eater's attention.

Below on another birthing event, Poppy can be seen testing a couple of sparrow parents who ended up scaring him successfully with their puffed up chests and loud chirps! Our cat can be seen in the bushes being held back with a blue leash by who else but me!

The other cats in our neighborhood were unable to reach the nest because the jasmine creeper was not sturdy enough for a catwalk. I was happy that the dangling creeper provided some form of protection. A few days later, the two baby hummingbirds hatched out of their shells. Their oily bodies glistened in the bright sunshine and increased the stress levels of all the caregivers, including myself. I commanded all members of my family, the remaining two i.e. - Mr. Microprocessor and Nano (my husband and son, for first time visitors to my blog), to take a longer trip around the house using our backdoor for commuting purposes. They obliged. I set a guard-stool by the nearest window and kept watch during the day, whenever I was home. The male hummingbird was lackadaisical about all the commotion around his nest. But the mother made numerous trips to all the local flowering plants to gather nectar. Her tiny wings fluttered thousands of times per day, making frequent trips to feed her young ones. She even brought home tiny insects. The entire feeding experience was amazing to watch. Nano decided to name the babies Rikki and Tikki. Their mother seemed to approve. The dad was nonchalant.

One day I noticed a flock of Blue Jays in our area. Blue Jays are very aggressive birds that measure 9 to 12 inches in length. They are extremely noisy and fast like fighter aircrafts. Just their presence during the week had frightened many smaller birds away. I began cursing our stupid hummingbird mother's choice of real estate. She was obviously a first-time mother. I was a first time mother too when I decided to make my hearth where the jasmine blossomed. In my case, Mr. MP had used all of his processors to make a wise choice before finalizing the purchase. 

In an attempt to protect, I decided to camouflage the vulnerable nest myself with a few twigs and leaves. It seemed to work. Our little hummingbird family managed to escape the blue jays' menace. My constant vigil near the window may have helped. By now, the babies were able to sit upright for their feeding sessions. 

It was a weekend. We humans have a life too - shopping, leaving for work, chauffeuring our own little one back and forth from school etc. It was becoming impossible to protect the babies from the elements. We had gone out shopping for an hour or so. When we returned, something was amiss on our driveway. I was shocked to find the neat little nest lying tattered on the ground along with a few branches. Rikki and Tikki were gone! Their parents were missing in action! It was heart wrenching when we realized that the brash blue jays had snacked on our hummingbird family leaving nothing to recover, not even the nest for a momento! We hoped that the parents had escaped, but we could not confirm since they never returned. 

Nano constructed two crosses in memory of the two baby birds and stuck them under the jasmine creeper. Sadly, our offspring had used plain printer paper to build the crosses. They did not even last through the next morning's dew!

If the mother hummingbird had survived, I am sure she would have learned from the experience. Firstly, she would have ditched her useless spouse (or cohort). Assuming that not all males are that incompetent, she would have paired up with a humdinger of a hummingbird who would have given his bird-brained advice before she began her shoddy substandard construction. 

Did we learn a lesson from all this?

Yes, two brains, however tiny, are better than one!

HOUSE HUNTERS GO UNDERGROUND

 This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm
Jul 9 2009

HOUSE HUNTERS GO UNDERGROUND

*My previous blog “The House Hunters” chronicles our house buying experience.*

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It was the second month of our home hunting project.

“What curb-appeal!” Mr. Micro Processor (hubby, i.e.) exclaimed looking at a house, as we were driving around town during one of our expeditions.

“What curb and where is the house?” I wondered. For a house to appeal to any of my vital senses, it needs to be visible first.

“There,” he said, pointing next to the roadside. Barely visible from the ground was a large triangular façade of a Ranch style house.

MP and I were already having our first difference of opinion. I was not keen on a ranch this time around after having lived in one for 14 years. MP had agreed with me and promised never to consider them again.

So where was the difference of opinion you ask? Well, he was still admiring a ranch!

A Ranch style in the US is a sprawling single level house with a wrap-around garden. There is nothing bad about it since our first home was a ranch. We bought it when Nano was a toddler and we remained there for a decade and a half. This time we are planning to buy a traditional style, which is a 2 level house. We are renting one such home right now, and I have come to love the upstairs very much. Keeping windows open all day and viewing nature from a perch twenty feet above ground level is such a joy!

“You promised not to consider a ranch again,” I complained.

“But I was only admiring,” MP remarked, “What’s wrong in admiring something beautiful? It is only a house, not a girl!”

“Well, I refuse to look!” I stood my ground. In my opinion, looking leads to admiring, this in turn leads to acquiring. MP was breaking the first rule of how to avoid such temptations.

******************************************************

Many homes in this economy are going through foreclosure, which makes them problematic to buy until the legal wrangling is settled. To be safe, MP and I were only considering homes directly listed for sale by owners. We each created a list of desirable neighborhoods and homes. MP emailed one realtor for a personal showing of a home of his choice. The realtor agreed and we set out one evening for a visit. As always, I drove while MP did his superb navigation. We entered a wonderful lush green community of slightly older homes. The homes had unique styles and well kept gardens. Our house in question was once again invisible to my eyes, raising suspicion in my head that it was…maybe….a…Ranch!

Just then, MP started talking incessantly like a seasoned time-share salesman. “You will like this one. It is a custom-built house, 4500 Sq Ft, and the lot size is 20,000 Sq Ft! It has three levels and two wooden decks.”

I knew how much MP loved the word ‘custom-built’. In his opinion, a smart homeowner takes the initiative during the planning and construction of his home, making it long lasting and ‘custom-built’.

4500 Sq Ft on three levels seemed a bit large for any decent vacuum-wielding housekeeper, but at least this was not a Ranch. However, all the craning and wringing of my neck failed to reveal the house’s frontage. For a house with three levels, not even one stood out from the street. So we got down and approached the address. There slowly emerging from the curbside was the very same triangular façade we had seen earlier that week!

“But this is the same Ranch again!” I protested. MP assured me that it was unique, and I should give it a try. “Yes, it is a Ranch from the front, but a three-level from the backside,” he meekly revealed the secret. After seeing a child-like gleam in his eyes, I relented and we walked in. I have to admit, the neat garden in front and a Japanese style deck surprised me. The realtor of the house walked up to us and said subtly, “I have to warn you guys. The inside is a bit out-dated and decrepit.”

Mr. MP is a compassionate person. He is broad-minded and considerate too.

Why all the unnecessary praise at this juncture? Well, I have a point. The words, “out-dated and decrepit” should have been enough of a warning to any ordinary homebuyer! But MP was determined to give this old house a chance to prove itself innocent. So we proceeded inside. The house was built in the early 1970s and had a single owner who was also a mechanical engineer. The elderly man had since moved out of the residence and donated it to a local university, which was now the seller. According to the agent, the owner had built all of the additions during years of interior remodeling. We walked into an odd shaped living room, which immediately led to the kitchen and dining area at a raised level. Every piece of woodwork or framework had a personal touch.

Mr. MP was all starry eyed by now. In his mind, a house built by an engineer with his own two callused hands was an exceptional one. The realtor perceived MP’s intensifying interest by now and revealed one of many hidden secrets about the house. Right next to the kitchen was a hollow pillar through which the previous owner had assembled a mini motorized elevator to haul firewood or any other supplies up from the basement below. With the flip of a switch, one could haul heavy stuff up three stories!

“Interesting contraption, but what use is it for me?” I thought to myself. One look out the window confirmed our doubts that the house actually stood on top of a ravine. There were two large rickety decks in the precipitous backyard. We were on the main floor which was the top floor of this 4500 sq ft house, and we had barely seen 1200 of it. Realtor then took us to the second level of what was turning out to be an upside down design. We treaded downstairs through an eerie tunnel-like staircase. It was dark because the house had not been maintained for six months, and there were no light bulbs in place. The whole house smelled musty and distinctly 1970-ish.

“Don’t worry,” said a soothing voice in the dark. “It has not been cleaned recently, that’s all.”

It was not the realtor speaking! It was actually Mr. MP, who I could sense was in an increasingly benevolent mood. We had descended to the second floor which had a series of windowless corridors leading to the different bedrooms and bathrooms. The corridors were already having a claustrophobic effect on me. The dark, dingy, featureless tunnel was not helpful in distinguishing one room from the other.

After 10 minutes, we had still not covered even half the house! A simple subtraction in my mind told me that 2000 sq ft of the house was still waiting to be discovered…somewhere down in the basement! That was larger than many condos by size! As soon as we set foot in the basement, we noticed that the entire floor was unfinished with exposed wooden beams and pipes crisscrossing the ceiling. There were so many pipes and wires that we wondered what else the eccentric engineer had built down there. To our utter shock and surprise, the man had single-handedly constructed a solar water heater tank under two floors of his house! He had somehow even managed to lift an entire floor up by a couple of inches! The covered water tank was the size of a swimming pool and it supplied heating and cooling to the entire house through a series of pipes. It looked less than 10 years old, which meant that the man had built it in his late 60s or early 70s! He was a gutsy man!

The smell was intense and one look at the tank brought images of a dead cat floating! My curious kitty Poppy did not deserve a house like this! I decided then to walk out of the dungeon and looked around to beckon MP. He however was already bending over the machinery and pumping station in sheer awe and delight! “This is simply amazing! The guy’s a genius!” He was gushing profusely.

It seemed like MP’s benevolence had only increased with every floor’s descent. The basement had plenty of interconnected rooms, each dingier than the previous one. In the darkness, I located the staircase and started climbing back up. Being all alone in the eerie windowless musty corridor, I truly felt lost. There were 6 closed doors in front of me, and I was not able to locate the second staircase to return upstairs! After opening and shutting a few doors, I finally found it and raced back up. I could hear the two men talking from down below for another 10 minutes after which I heard one of them say, “Wait, I think my wife is lost! Ranjini? Ranjini!”

“I AM UP HERE!” I shouted through the firewood elevator shaft, which was the only plausible way for my voice to travel to netherworld.

I knew that this was not the house for us, and convincing MP was going to be a piece of cake; it would not require nagging, coaxing, or bullying tactics!

MP and the realtor came back. MP knew I was not at all pleased.

“Did you see, they even have a wine cellar?” He was trying to lift my spirits. Being a teetotaler, I did not succumb.

The realtor assured me that my reaction was actually similar to what other buyers had expressed.

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Back in the van, MP began lecturing about how an enterprising homeowner could convert it into a palace. Fortunately for me, we were not the enterprising type. We may be engineers, but our handiwork is limited to using screwdrivers and hammers only. This house needed a sane mind and some heavy machinery, preferably the bulldozer type!

“But what about my kitchen pantry,” I asked. A walk-in pantry is one of my basic requirements. It was distinctly absent from this anomalous house.

MP was not willing to accept that an engineer’s house could be that impractical.

“You could always use the elevator shaft as your pantry,” was his brilliant solution.

I could not imagine how a hollow pillar with the motorized lift could solve my pantry issue. He was quick to clarify, “store your spices etcetera in the basement, and haul them up when you want. You do not even have to lift a finger!”

“Really,” I asked, “so when I want some cumin, I walk all the way downstairs three stories, load my cumin packet into the elevator bucket, and then come back up to haul it?” A little sarcasm always helps.

“Don’t worry,” cajoled MP, “I was only suggesting the elevator for rice bags and such other heavier groceries. This home is not for me either. I was just curious, that’s all!”

Phew! Our opinions may be like noses, since we each have one. At least we were finally seeing eye to eye (I to I, that is).

Copyright © 2009 Ranjini Sharma All Rights Reserved