Drying clothes on a rainy day...

...is one of the most physically and mentally challenging tasks. First, the clothes accumulate, thanks to the kid running to the water and the parents running behind and all three getting wet, or to the fact that the amma ignores the unpredictable weather and leaves the umbrella behind, or to the previous days clothes that smell and feel wet like they are just out of the washing machine. Then, all of a sudden one realizes that the open space available is big enough to dry a few handkerchiefs and piles all the clothes into a bucket and carries them to the terrace on the fourth floor.

Living on the first floor despite the presence of an elevator does n't help as one still has to climb a flight of stairs, some of the steps of which are slippery thanks to the overflowing or dripping water from the terrace. After that one has to constantly look at the sky, put the clothes on the line, squint at the clouds to check if the black ones are really floating towards the said terrace or if it is only an illusion. Just as one finishes putting all the clothes on the line and comes down, again gingerly stepping on the steps, the black clouds close in and it has suddenly become dark. At this, one dashes out to the terrace again, this time with the kid coming along since he had found out that he was left behind the previous time.

One checks the clothes and tells herself that the clothes seemed to have become a little dry and carries the heavy bucket and the crying kid, huffs and puffs all the way down only to find that it is indeed drizzling outside. After a small pat on the shoulder to self, one begins to dry the clothes in the balcony and irons the half dried ones. Just then the sun comes out all scorching and one puts one's big foot in the mouth, removes all the clothes, takes them out to the terrace again, does a small jig at the sun and son, dries the clothes, comes down, and after the exhausting work, amma and child take a nap. Only to wake up and find that it is pouring outside. One looks out expressionlessly and goes back to sleep again.

It is another story that all the clothes were soggy and wet and dirty because the loose sand on the terrace had stuck to them, what with the wind blowing hard,  and all the clothes had to be washed again, and the process of drying...repeated as above!

Morning and on the road musings...

Well...one really can't 'muse' in the mornings, what with the husband and kid to be rushed off to school and office ...err...the opposite respectively. Also, one can't think when one  is accelerating the scooter, braking at vantage points, holding the standing kid tightly between one's legs, enduring the child's constant 'amma athu enna?', followed by a harried amma's don't stick your hand out, staring at brainless motorists, checking the elusive expletive just in time before it reaches the brat's ear, desperately honking and indicating before reaching the school and depositing the child. After all that, further endurance and heart-break at the little one not even attempting to say 'Ta-Ta'.

The real fun starts when one rides back home. The BP suddenly touches normal, the air seems fresh, motorists less annoying and one actually waits until a horde of buses, vans, cars, scooters, bikes, pedestrians, stray dogs pass by. Suddenly there is so much time!
                                    
On an aside...

When I scoured the city in my scooter on work, when I was all young and bursting with excessive enthusiasm - eons ago- I used to look amusedly at mothers who rode their children to school or otherwise. I remember seeing perennial frowns on those faces. I used to brazenly chuckle to myself, thinking aloud, under the protection of my helmet, "Poor women, they probably began riding only after marriage", or "Poor women, what monsters their husbands must be to let their hapless wives endure the city's noisy, polluted and risky roads" AND "Lucky me... I have mastered the art of riding...I would n't have a problem many years down the line"...

Little did I know!

You are addicted to blogging when...

...You log into your blogger account at least ten times a day pretending to write a post

...Edit posts at least ten times before clicking the publish button

...View your blog at least seven times whether or not you publish anything

...Visit a minimum of ten different blogs a day

...Visit each of those ten blogs twice

...Sneak in to blog whenever there is time, whether it is early in the morning or late in the night, or when the husband is eating

...You pretend to browse but blog all the time

...Claim that you are getting more information out of blogs than news sites

...You think of all that you need to blog so much that you sleep with the same thoughts, dream of them and wake up with the same thoughts. As soon as you get up you log in to check whether you've really created a new post

...You keep thinking of it so much that you log in to see how complete your blog is

...You are disappointed to find only ten posts. The rest are still in the head

...Looking at the number of bloggers already out there, you feel so left out that you are so charged up and spend at least ten hours a day doing nothing but blink at the screen

...You read someone else's blog, read the comments, click on to the commenter's link, read his/her blog, click their commenter's link and go link after link after link that you forget what you were actually reading first

...You want to put down a recipe, but think a cookery blog will be a better idea so create one; then you write a post about your son and want to make a collection of all those posts, so you create a mommy blog, you write a film review, think you are such a big movie buff that you create your own film blog...this goes on and on and you have blogs on sports, career, management, gardening, health and festivals. One fine day you read them all to find that each has only one post and end up collating and get back to square one - your general blog

...Change the template once in two days

...You get so paranoid upon not having written a new post today that you end up writing this.

...You leave some blank space to add if you act crazier in future

P.S: I don't know if there are similar posts on blogging addiction. Even if there are, I have n't read them. This is my own.... Oh yes...but I really want to know what others have written about their addictions...No...there can't be many jobless persons like me...or what if there are...I think I'll browse and check...no..there is the milk on the stove...it'll take another five minutes to boil..

I browse for posts, go mad as usual and after half an hour remember the milk. I kick myself thinking of all the excuses that I could give, visualize the empty almost destroyed vessel, smell for gas leaks and the stench and when I enter the kitchen the milk is not there. When did the husband come in? V is too small to do such things. I look up and down, inside the fridge, on the table and conclude that I did not put the milk on the stove at all. An hour later when I open the microwave oven to re-heat something, I find the milk there...