Lights Off, It's Playtime

When I go for a walk around 9PM, on some nights, I find the watchman's dog Taapi chained and fast asleep. So are the rest of the dogs in the street, i.e. either sleeping or walking around looking for food. On days when my walk is delayed to an hour when all is quiet and only the street lights are on, I've found that it's time for the dogs to play. The older ones mostly walk around or watch while the younger ones have their fun. It usually lasts for a couple of hours, for I have seen them play well past midnight.

Lucky & I stopped to muck around in the garage tonight, after our daily walk. While I sat on the stairway, she stood watching Taapi and another black dog play. They are both nearly the same age and fast friends. Chasing each other, rolling on the ground, jumping on each other, it's fun to watch them. My little one is 10 years old but I bet she wishes she could play like them. She was watching them with rapt attention, when my rude intervention broke into her trance. It wasn't intentional on my part, I did not know what she was upto and it really was time to go home.

This was one of those days I wish I had carried my mobile with me, so I could take some pictures. I don't usually carry my mobile on my walks with Lucky because I don't want to be interrupted by calls. I like that we spend time with each other with undivided attention. I like to understand her body language, watch where she wants to go and what she sniffs at. If the husband is with us, the two of us talk while she explores the various smells of the streets on her own, with an occasional interjection from me. If he isn't, I talk with her all along the walk, showing her other dogs, asking her rhetorical questions & making comments. She doesn't usually respond to my one-sided conversation but I know she is listening because she walks homeward when I ask her if she wants to go home and she crosses over to the other side of the road, if I point out puppies, etc.

She just walked into the room and stared at the wires on her bed. Then she looked at me, as I slowly moved the laptop cables off her bed onto the wooden floor. She has a bed large enough for 2 dogs her size but she won't let me put my cable in one corner! I guess I can't blame her, the adapter does get quite warm after a while. Moreover, she needs the freedom to sleep in any corner of the bed, as suits her mood. Take today, for instance, she does not want the pillow and has chosen to curl up in the centre of the bed. On some days, she will stick her head out of the bed and send me scurrying off to find her pillow, so she is not uncomfortable. Later in the night, I will find her leaning against the cupboard (yeah, I have to pick my clothes for the next morning, before she sleeps or I can't open my cupboard until she wakes up) and stretched across the length of the bed.

How did the topic switch from playful dogs on the road to my little one? She loves to play at night too. Many a nights, she has woken up the husband (all kids like playing ball with papa, yeah?) to play ball. Some nights, she has the ball in her mouth and wants to go to the roof. Funny dog! Just because she sleeps during the day, can we play with her all night? She just won't get it. Maybe it's because she knows the husband sleeps during the day too. Tonight's not one of those nights. She's already snoozing and I am about to head off too. The husband is watching The Big Bang Theory on the laptop. Lights off!

2010 Ho!

New Year's Eve always meant celebrations. As a kid, I wanted to stay up and eat a lot of chips and drink lots of coke and watch TV. As I grew older, I wanted to party and dance but only managed to continue the tradition of junk food and TV. The only thing that changed was that I didn't really try to make Jan 1st the best day of my life, so the rest of the year would go well. I guess, at some point I realized that it doesn't really work like that. Like Santa Claus. Say it but don't believe it. Something on those lines.

So, when I fell sick this NYE and had to sleep through the night as we moved from one year to another, one decade to the next, I felt no regret. In fact, I did not even feel the weird sinking sensation that I have felt almost all the previous years, on the last day of the year. 2009 hasn't exactly been what I would call the best year of my life. There have been some good things and I've met some really amazing people but overall, it hasn't been my best year. If anything, it's been a continuation of the year 2008 and a journey down darker alleys.

I woke up on the morning of 2010, feeling refreshed from a good night's sleep. I felt good about starting a new day. I've been saying that 2010 is going to be a good year for me. I am not as sick today as I was yesterday. I had an early morning bath & breakfast on a holiday. A phone conversation I'd been looking forward to.  A reading marathon planned for the weekend. Whereas I'm still in bed, watching all the episodes of season 3 of The Big Bang Theory, I don't really feel like I've started the year badly. In fact, I'm looking forward to it. So, I've gone from the sinking feeling of the year gone by on New Year's Eve to a welcome feeling of the year ahead.

When amma called me this morning, the first thing we said to each other was "Happy New Year". It reminded me of the times when, as kids, bro and I would answer the phone and say "Happy New Year" to the caller, as if  it were a replacement to "Hello". We were excited about wishing as many people as we could. Those were the days when there were no telemarketers and unknown callers calling on our home landline, so we would most definitely know whoever was calling. For the rest of the month of Jan, we said HNY the first time we met somebody. If we forgot to do that and we got a 'Happy New Year' first, it was embarassing. Shopkeepers, the milkman, friends, teachers, relatives, no matter who it was, you just couldn't forget.

Dates. Remembering to put the right year at the end of every date was another big deal. I would be so proud of myself every time I remembered to end the date correctly and not have to erase it or score it out. Every time I had to do that, it was like a failure. It was so exciting to see the new year on the dates in the newspapers. It sounds rather silly now and hard to understand but it made me happy back then. Maybe it's partly because I don't need to remember dates anymore. All I have to do is look at the bottom right corner of my monitor and I have the date. Change of month or year hold no meaning anymore.

I used to make resolutions every New Year, write them on paper and forget all about it until I had to do the same next year. Yet, making resolutions was such a fun activity. A couple of years ago, I decided that it was not worth making any resolutions because I would never remember them anyway. This year, I have one. Yeah, just one. I am going to make this year mine.