Popping bubble wrap...

...is about the only fun bit of a pack and move.

Moving usually is an exhausting process , both physically and emotionally. Pickling in your own sweat, nails chipped as you try and locate the damn end of the packing tape, you hit the great realization that the first thing to go inside the box was the pair of scissors. You think of how you could possibly manage to organize and compartmentalize life and times into little boxes? Not to mention the battles with the skeletons in the closet and monsters that lurk under the bed.

Stubbing your toe for the four hundredth time, you resist the urge to thwack someone on the head as he sneers at you. Really, how did you ever manage to have a godzillion cartons labeled "Books"?

--

Our environmentally conscious packer Gary recycles cartons. For packing "loose items", he gave us cartons which have been used by people before. Some of the labels are still stuck and it's much fun to observe how people pack. There is a chaotic packer whose labels go from Assorted-1 to Assorted-11. Two massive cartons are tagged "Daniel's wine and liquor", with FRAGILE written in red, and underlined. Then there are the rich - Third floor Second Room(a house with three floors in this country?), the secretive - "RM 1 - plecatbe", and the sublime - "Kids school bags + Oil". "Kitchen" says one in a kiddie scrawl - an 8- year old trying to help his parents perhaps. But the one that really made me smile was the little note which says, "Relax".

Unable to resist, I decided to be creative. So, if you ever encounter a carton with bits of masking tape which says "How fragile we are!", or "Blue suede shoes", you know who did it.

WTF1

One is not qualified to write about Motorsport, but one can always mention a sport we love: Calvinball.

The only consistent rule of Calvinball is that it may never be played with the same rules twice, because Calvinball is against organized sport. You can always change rules on the fly, especially after it (the game, the season) has started.

No sport, really no sport, is less organized than Calvinball.

So with all these rule changes, maybe I'll switch to watching football, learning the offside rule is much easier.

--
Title credit: shub

The first date

The evening had been fantastic. The friend who set them up had been right about how much they had in common, though to others they looked like a very odd couple. She a fair brown woman, he a tanned white man.

Coming to this Indian restaurant was his idea. A common friend had tipped him about her foodlove, and what better time to experiment with Indian food than with an Indian woman. She chose an assortment of curries, letting her fingers do the talking, while he struggled with the unpronounceable names. Soon after, he started melting into a puddle of sweat. She poked fun as she saw him through different stages of red, blushing coyly at his miserable state.

They walked back home on that quiet winter night. When he stopped at her doorstep, her heart did too. He had this look of urgency in his eyes, will she invite him in?
And she did. She was nervous. His stomach rumbled.
As soon as the lights were flicked on, with a moment of quiet hesitation, he pooped the question: "Can I use your bathroom?"

Riposte

She wishes she had listened to her mother when she told her not to believe that man.
Heartbroken now, she swears that she'll chase him down to the end of the earth and not rest till she pierces his heart with her sword. The heart, only the heart, and nothing else but the heart.

--
She stands facing him, eyes bleeding rage and bloodlust. They engage in a dramatic duel. Years of training have given her the agility which the world would be envious of. Reflexes, on the other hand, can't be acquired - one needs to be born with them.

He swings at his opponent, who barely dodges the blade before launching her own attack. She retreats a few steps before slashing forwards. Swiftly, she lunges and aims her sword at his chest. He bends backwards. She misses. The sword slices his gut instead.

Content, she skips down the winner's path. For though she has missed the bulls eye, the promise has been fulfilled.
Her mother always told her, the real way to the man's heart is through his stomach.

Reviving Romance

To cure her headache from last night
he placed on her palm a pill-
the morning-after poem.

One of a hundredth of something.

Weekend was people filled and beer filled. No movies to boast of, no reviews unwritten. No new experiments except packing plates and a hundred little things to eat a meal by the poolside. And trying out a hundred shoes, a failed attempt at shoe shopping. And making a list of things to do for a pack and move. And chewing nails as a hundred distant others scream through the exciting Liverpool-ManU match. And witnessing a very boring meeting between two very old friends.

Distracted, one runs through a diminutive list of a hundred words in their head.
A hundred words run right back, causing a bit of a collision.

One intentionally hides their intensity behind the accidental frivolity of wordplay.

The clouds form the comforter, and one hides the dark black skies behind the new monday morning blues.
Just when one is about to find their comfort zone, it raineth, it thundereth.