Charlie Brown – Ramana's Musings

Strange Behaviour.

While getting ready to visit my dentist earlier this afternoon and without being conscious of it took all the things that I normally carry on my person when going out kept in one particular drawer of my Chest Of Drawers.

Visit over, I came back home, unloaded all the stuff that I had taken and spent the rest of the evening with other pastimes till I took my cardigan off to get ready to go to bed.

It was then that I discovered that I had worn my wrist watch without being aware of having worn it in the first place and not having seen the time on it the whole time. I had used my mobile phone to check the time a number of times and if fact, even used the alarm in the phone to good effect to remind of medication time.

I had worn the wrist watch out of old habit but had not used it due to new habit of using the mobile phone!
NUTS!

Peace.

Spelling Mistake.

Life.

“In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people’s home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!”

~ Woody Allen

Of Pumpkins, Witches, And The Whole Nine Yards

Today’s LBC topic comes courtesy Lin whose ingenuity can floor me without much effort. Here is an example of that!

That should amuse you Tammy!

Pumpkins are quite popular in India too but not quite the way they are with Charlie Brown. They are used in curries, chutneys and to make some delicious sweetmeats. My personal choice is the use of them in Sambaar. Apart from mixing it with rice, I also drink it like soup whenever it is made.

Witches and I have had nothing to do with each other ever. The only time that a witch came into my life was when Frank Sinatra introduced me to:

And that brings me to the idiom ‘the whole nine yards’. I personally don’t use it though I am familiar with it. I prefer ‘the whole jing bang lot’. But what ‘nine yards’ gets me to think of is this.

Ladies from Maharashtra, and the Southern states wear these 9 yard saris, which are longer than the normal 6 yard saris which would be worn like this:

Elegant wear aren’t they?

The Lucy Effect.

Manjiree, Ranjan, Ramesh and I had gone to see a film on Wednesday and after the film went shopping in the mall just below the multiplex where we had seen the film.

After shopping, Ranjan and Manjiree went off to get some medicines from a chemist in the mall, leaving Ramesh and me to walk at our pace to the lifts to go down to the parking level.

As we were doing just that, one matronly lady halted me in my tracks and asked me for directions to a big retailer and on learning that I was ignorant, excused herself but asked me if I was from the armed forces. I was taken aback, but responded saying no, and I was just a civilian when she responded that my bearing and attire gave the impression of a military officer and that is why she had approached me in the first place. In the meanwhile a gent strolled up and she introduced him as her husband and we exchanged names while shaking hands. That took her off into a joy as she said that her brother’s name was the same as mine and asked me how old I was!

These developments may sound corny to my readers but this is exactly what and how it all happened. I simply did not get any time to think of doing anything else but to answer her machine gun style questioning. She then asked me about which part of the country I was from and on learning that I was from the same place as she and her husband switched over to our mother tongue and for the next few minutes she told me all about her moving from Delhi to Pune, about her two daughters, about my gothra to see if I had a son of marriageable age for her younger daughter, and finally she stopped after asking why I was using a cane. Despite my trying to get the husband to participate in the discussions, he simply enjoyed the Lucy effect on me with much bemusement!

In the meanwhile Manjiree and Ranjan landed up and on being introduced to them, she took off with Manjiree in Tamil which the former cannot understand or speak and that kind of brought things to an end but, not before the lady complained to Manjiree that her husband does not wear the kind of clothes that I was wearing despite having a wardrobe full of them! While she was talking with Manjiree, I went to a nearby shop and found where the shop that was her destination and informed her. The two of them then tooted off with much waving and goodbyes, leaving us to find our way to the lift.

The story does not stop there. In the car on our way back home, Ramesh simply exploded with frustration that strange women do not approach him with such abandon and wondered what he could do to become such a magnet! I advised him to learn Tamil and to emulate a military bearing. What other advice could I have given him? His response? That lady is abnormal. If that lady is reading this I am sure that her response would be:

I had worn the wrist watch out of old habit but had not used it due to new habit of using the mobile phone! NUTS!

I had worn the wrist watch out of old habit but had not used it due to new habit of using the mobile phone!
NUTS!