Birthdays!

Until now, I have always looked forward to my birthday, adding that extra candle on my cake, hopefully not getting carded at the movies (what the hell, I'm waay over 18!) and the presents. It starts on January 3rd, the countdown leading up to March 3rd, which is the big day. I plan everything in advance, let people know to block a particular day around that day and go crazy with anticipation.

This year, I turn the magic number of 23. It's not exciting at all!!! Nothing big about turning 23. At 22, you've just graduated college, you are officially a contributing member of society, it's a fun age to be! Everyone says "Oh! I wish I were 22." Clearly good things happen. I got on Twitter, made a whole host of very nice friends, "talked" to Kate Walsh (She tweeted a couple times) and Amy Brenneman (more than a couple times), Spent New Year with Jasmin and Summer (quiet, but fun), modelled, acted and generally had a blast. There were downs like me not being able to go to NYC to see Lauren Graham on Broadway (I really really wanted to go), literally not stepping out of the city and something that is on my mind, my birthday party being a bust cause a lot of people very unkindly didn't show up, and told me they weren't coming after I called them to find out where they were. (Yeah, I'm holding a grudge cause that is just really, really mean).

This year, I am not really planning much for my birthday, just a dinner with my family and best friend. However, the 23rd year of my life seems quite promising. I have learnt to wear heels, which I will wear on Wednesday, Jasmin (my German penfriend) is coming to visit me and we are going to have SO much fun, I will be going to NYC, LA and SF this year, Parenthood (the series with LG), Matthew Gray Gubler's directorial debut on Criminal Minds (both on my birthday!!) and just chilling out. I am really looking forward to this year, except the turning 23 bit. That is a real downer.

I was going to not do anything at all and generally sulk through my birthday, but I am happy that I was born, I love the life that I live and the people in it, I adore my doggie and I must say I could do a LOOOOOOTTT worse. So, I am not going to sulk, but I'm going to be happy and celebrate the small things in life.

Now that you have gotten through my rambling, here are the funny things that happened. I was going in an auto-rickshaw (google it) with Gyp and as we were going round a big circle, the auto went real close to a cow. Yes a cow. It was flicking off flies with it's tail and essentially wagging it for lack of a better word. Gyp was leaning out, her head out of the auto's side and suddenly she got whacked on the face by the cow's tail!!! She was stunned! She froze for a Milli-second before rushing back inside the auto and then sniffing the entire auto for the smell (of the cow)! It was so funny! I feel bad for her, but I cannot stop laughing.

That's it for now. I'll be back with a birthday update.

PS: Happy Birthday Alina!!! <3

An animal life

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had adventures with animals. They are a part of my life. The first animal encounter I can remember is me and a dead rat. I do understand that this sounds quite weird and disgusting, but it's true. We, my maternal grandparents, my mum and me, lived in an old house in Shankarapuram, in south Bangalore. It had a big garden with a Litchi tree and lots of "wild"life. It was in this garden that, while playing with the neighbours, that I discovered the rat. Let's call him Rattie shall we? Now Rattie was lying in the mud waiting to decompose, as all dead creatures do, when I picked him up. I must have been about three years old, as I was physically big enough to hold him, yet young enough to not understand the concept of death. I must have thought he was asleep or something.

I could never catch a squirrel or any other small animal, so this was a major achievement for me. I took Rattie to meet my grandmother, like I would any friend I had made, and I remember her horrified shriek. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she was screaming. As far as I knew, she was pretty fond of animals herself, so I must have been confused. I don't know how, but somehow Rattie went away to a place I cannot remember, probably the dustbin down the road. My hands were washed till they were a bright red colour and I suddenly became a Red Indian in the literal sense.

Today, thinking back, knowing what I know, I shudder to think of all the diseases I may have caught, the ants, the smell of the decomposing body, the fleas and ticks that may have been on the rat and everything else that makes you run to the loo and empty the contents of your stomach.

Maybe as a child, I was forgiving of the smell and the various insects. As for the diseases, I was thankfully ignorant. I have been told that my life has revolved around animals even before the Rattie fiasco. I would apparently yell, as a baby, when I heard the jingle of the bullock cart as it went down the street, and quiet down only when I saw those majestic animals – the oxen. My first animal attack though was from chicken apparently (if you know me, you’d have guessed a cow). Those infernal birds, for some strange reason, took offense to my grandfather and me walking down the road. I was in the pram and it was my poor grandfather who had to fight off the nasty squawking, pecking birds and save me. I think that is quite heroic. If I had to choose between my legs and a baby, I sure as heck would choose my legs!

Spring at my grandmother's house was always greeted with the arrival of the monkeys. They would go straight for the Litchi tree (taking away all the yummy fruit) and this resulted in my grandmother and me yelling at them while running a stick on the veranda grill, making as much noise as possible. As you can imagine, to a child of five or six, this was good fun! Even to a young woman of 23, this is good fun, I must say. I would secretly pray that the monkeys would come, even though I knew this would upset my grandmother.

Because our house was an old one, it retained the charm of having many lofts. These lofts were often next to windows, which could only mean squirrels. I would do my best to not alert anyone of the squirrels nesting, until it was too late. This would upset my family, I knew not why, but they would not move the nest if there were already babies in it. Today, looking back, I get where my family was coming from, because a nest meant things like cockroaches and all kinds of other insects, not to mention the fleas and ticks.

When I was about seven, I think my mother realised, that no matter what she did or how hard she tried to keep me away from all the stray animals, she would fail. She then got me my first pets. I had a pair of love birds. I cannot for the life of me remember what they were called, so for now, let us name them what I would call them if I had them now - Addison and Kevin. This was a great source of joy and entertainment to me. They were green and blue.

Unfortunately, the neighbourhood cat learned of these birds and decided to try to make a meal out of them. If you've seen old houses in Bangalore, you will know that there isn't really a peephole at the door, but a sort of slit in the wall next to the door. This slit was big enough for the cat to jump in and out. After catching the cat near the screeching birds a few times, my mum came up with a solution. We put an empty tin can in the slit, so that the cat would knock it over when it came in. This worked for a while, until I came home to find one of the birds dead. We released the other bird into the wild and I said bye-bye to pets for a few years.

Some more things that make me..... me.

So the other day, I decided to eat a bon-bon sweet. Well, at least that's what I call them . It's hard candy, it's round and kinda big. This was cola flavoured and since I was craving Coke, it worked out very well. You will never, ever, not in your wildest dreams guess what happened. Did you guess that I eventually finished the sweet without any mishap? HA! Are you wrong! I choked on the thing! It lodged in my throat and I couldn't swallow! You can still breathe painfully when you're choking, but you cannot see on account of all the tears. Anyway, this has happened to me as a child (it was a strawberry bon-bon then), so I knew what to do. I went to the microwave, heat up water and very, very painfully swallowed, so that it would melt the sweet and I could swallow it. It took forty-freaking-five minutes. Anyway, that was finally done. You'd think one choking incident would be enough for months together wouldn't you? Yeah so would I. But I don't have that kind of luck.

I was running late for work one day (as usual) you see, and I live on the fifth floor of an apartment. I usually take the stairs up and down, as exercise, but I decided to take the elevator that day. When the elevator came up, I remembered that I had forgotten my phone(which I cannot live without. I'm a total phone addict) at home, so I rushed back to my door, opened it, grabbed my phone and ran back, thinking that the elevator door would still be open. No such luck. I figured this out by running into the elevator and scaring the crap out of my neighbour who had gotten in, in the meantime. Ah! I now AVOID him. I need to pretend that I have some dignity left, though I don't see that happening since I'm sharing this with you guys, but oh well.

Oh oh oh!!! I got my ears pierced again!!! It doesn't hurt now which is a total WIN! And no pigeons have come home! Though my nails seem to be a permanent shade of blue, which is not polish! I really do not like the AC. I cannot wait for summer to get here! Anyway, hope I've given y'all some laughs!

The ramblings of an idle child

So, I know some people who are like me in this aspect, and then there are some who frankly think I'm weird. The thing I'm talking about is to become obsessed with something. For me, it's authors, poets, TV shows and some people. Those who know me, know that I love Oscar Wilde (absolute genius!), W. H. Auden (a brilliant writer), Gilmore Girls (my life on TV, except my mum and I alternate roles), Private Practice - well Addison (strong and yet insane character), Matthew Perry (again a comical genius - cannot wait for his new show) and off late - Matthew Gray Gubler who is awesome. I love his work on Criminal Minds and his site - http://www.matthewgraygubler.com/ is super cool! Who draws their entire site? Anyway, I thought you'd like to know these things about me. I look up to all these people and they in some way or the other influence my life.

Lauren Graham - I really admire her ethics and morals. I like that she doesn't let Hollywood get into her head.

Kate Walsh - One day I hope I can have her guts and determination to pursue her dream. She never gave up and that is the hardest thing to do.

In other news, I am inviting friends over, in order to make myself clean my room, which can give any bachelor pad a run for it's money. This is my motivation. And pizza is a cool reward. I'm jazzed cause I've gotten nice feedback for my work so far, which is cool. I'm looking forward to Parenthood (March 2nd, 10pm on NBC if you're American or streaming live for the rest of us.) and the new PP episode which airs on Thursday. Addisam!

I need something that will motivate me to write HotCop. Maybe Season 2 needs a re-watch. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, watch Private Practice now. I wrote my first song the other day. It needs a LOT of tweaking before I put it up here. I have not set it to any music because I'm musically challenged, but I'm hoping someone I know will offer (HINT!) to write music for it.

Gyp is still being a bum and refusing to get up in the mornings, but I don't blame her cause it's bloody cold for Feb here. Hate that biting wind. Oh well. Okay, this was basically a real rambling post, not my usual style at all, but I have nothing to say! my life has been surprisingly eventless, which is not good!!! Gah!