I always knew he was clever but I never realized just how much. I had no clue that he was capable of such devious plotting. I concede that I wrote a few articles here at his expense. Okay, so I pulled his leg a few times publicly and enjoyed it too but for a spouse of 16 years, couldn’t he just take it in his stride? Was this action really necessary? Could you, in all honesty, justify it?
Let me be frank here. I didn’t see it coming at all. Not until it fell into my lap. I never once heard him say anything like ‘If I go down, I am taking you down with me.’ No such hints were dropped in my presence. He kept it under tight wraps till that day just so he could catch me off guard. According to him, it was a ‘surprise’ for me! Yeah, right…..like I am buying it. It wasn’t enough that he ended up an addict. He had to now go and make me one too.
Guess what my husband got me for my birthday last month? A Droid phone with 24/7 internet access, that’s what. How LOW can he get? Has he no shame?
Before this gift, I was having such a splendid time looking down my nose at the Droid phone addiction of the world at large, feeling superior about my self-control and strutting around with a smug smile plastered on my face. Riding high on a moral high horse was my specialty then. These days I can’t even crawl on the back of a moral pig.
Upon accepting his gift, I first gave him a look that was sure to wither a healthy young plant, then pulled up a chair and got busy. Obviously, there was no time to waste with a whole new world to explore at my fingertips. Several You Tube videos were beckoning me with the promise of entertainment, a built-in voice recorder was begging me to play with it and a digital camera was tempting me to click the ‘Kodak moments’ of life away. With these, also came a plethora of free applications that offered to keep track of my grocery lists, calorie intake, frequency of burping, pulse rate, dry cleaning schedule and cooking recipes. Oh, get this. I even found a free app to download a special pink calendar to keep track of my menstrual cycle with all its lovely details. Can’t believe it? Well, if I didn’t see it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it either. It is a miracle indeed.
If God had ever marked both this phone and the fruit from the tree of knowledge as forbidden in the Garden of Eden, guess what Adam and Eve would have chosen? Could you really blame them? Even Satan would bow low in submission to such devilry.
So now I have officially joined the ranks of the many whose lives are inexplicably tied to their phones. Do the phone companies realize that they are creating monsters around the world?
Yesterday evening, I looked up for a minute from my Droid phone only to find my husband and daughter sprawled over the couch across from me with their eyes locked onto their respective phones. Just weeks ago, stumbling upon a scene like this would have led me to launch one of my well-rehearsed lectures on the ill effects of technology addiction and ways to develop self-control. Now, all I can do is heave a sigh of resignation and get back to my game.
You have got to hand it to my husband. He really did kill 2 birds with one stone here. He got me (my friends insist) a great gift while at the same time, silencing my protests and lectures about his phone addiction effectively. Obviously the man is devious!
If you are sitting there mentally congratulating my husband on his clever mind, hear this too. Now that he has taken care of his problem (me)once and for all, guess what he got me for our anniversary last week? A pillow from Costco!
Makes me think that my Droid phone isn't so bad after all.
-Meena Sankaran
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Chardonnay, Merlot or Zinfandel?
I am always amused at the way people react when I tell them that I had, at one point, worked for a winery. While one person wants to pull up a chair next to me with the intent of discussing the merits of Pinot Noir and Port into the next decade, another takes a few steps back in aversion.
When it comes to wine, people invariably fall under one of the two following categories. Those that
1. Love wine
2. are ignorant about the beverage but predisposed to hate it on principle
Wine connoisseurs, who lead this list, are an intimidating bunch. Trust me for I worked with a whole nest of them at one point in my life. If you can’t look fashionably drunk and be able to engage in an hour-long animated discussion of wine, food and cheese pairings in their company, you better pray for the ground to open up under your feet and spare you the embarrassment.
Don’t know whether Cheddar or Provolone cheese goes down well with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc? Unsure of the year the grapes were harvested after the first sip from a bottle of Chardonnay? Unable to decide if a chunk of Swiss dark chocolate or a box of sweet raspberries compliments a white Zinfandel better? Well, I am no magician but try this. Hold out your hand and introduce yourself - ‘Just arrived from the next Galaxy, name is Idiot.’ It might just get you out of a tight corner or two.
For every winatic (wine+lunatic, if you must know) that is out there, there is another one like me. We are the self-righteous moralists who consider any little human indulgence a step up in the path paved to Hell. So what if doctors insist that a glass of red wine a day keeps the heart pumping away? Who cares if wine has only one third of the alcohol content as a bottle of Bud? Big deal! To a conservative, logic is the first cousin to ignorance which is why the word ‘wine’ is only slightly below ‘blasphemy’ and ‘Tiger Woods’ on my no-no vocabulary list.
So why did I take up a job in a winery? Two reasons really! 1) The way I figured, how much sin can one commit crunching numbers, even in a winery? 2) How else can I see Lucy goofing around in a wooden vat stomping grapes?
Imagine my shock upon entering the first wine-making facility only to find big, giant stainless steel Vats with long winding tubes leading to rows of oak barrels as far as eyes could see! Where was the big wide wooden Vat in which women in bare feet were busily stomping the grapes? What kind of a set-up was this anyway and where the heck was Lucille Ball? Boo to industrialization! I was a heartbeat away from resigning that day.
But having decided to stay, I had no choice but to accept the benevolence of my employer 3 times a year - six bottles of prime wine each year at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't think my co-workers appreciated my sobbing hysterically each time a HR person walked into my cubicle with my seasonal gift. Obviously bursting out in tears while accepting a gift was not a common custom amongst them. But as the years rolled by, I did learn to show some appreciation. If my effort at peeling my lips wide enough to show at least six teeth as a show of appreciation was misconstrued as an allergic reaction to a Botox injection, I really couldn’t help it.
There is a bright side to this story. Staring at the rows of Chardonnay, Merlot and Zinfandel stacked in my garage one day, I realized that I didn’t have to buy a housewarming gift for at least another decade. An even curious observation was our new and improved relationship with our neighbors who apparently realized that Asians weren’t such bad neighbors after all.
-Meena Sankaran
When it comes to wine, people invariably fall under one of the two following categories. Those that
1. Love wine
2. are ignorant about the beverage but predisposed to hate it on principle
Wine connoisseurs, who lead this list, are an intimidating bunch. Trust me for I worked with a whole nest of them at one point in my life. If you can’t look fashionably drunk and be able to engage in an hour-long animated discussion of wine, food and cheese pairings in their company, you better pray for the ground to open up under your feet and spare you the embarrassment.
Don’t know whether Cheddar or Provolone cheese goes down well with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc? Unsure of the year the grapes were harvested after the first sip from a bottle of Chardonnay? Unable to decide if a chunk of Swiss dark chocolate or a box of sweet raspberries compliments a white Zinfandel better? Well, I am no magician but try this. Hold out your hand and introduce yourself - ‘Just arrived from the next Galaxy, name is Idiot.’ It might just get you out of a tight corner or two.
For every winatic (wine+lunatic, if you must know) that is out there, there is another one like me. We are the self-righteous moralists who consider any little human indulgence a step up in the path paved to Hell. So what if doctors insist that a glass of red wine a day keeps the heart pumping away? Who cares if wine has only one third of the alcohol content as a bottle of Bud? Big deal! To a conservative, logic is the first cousin to ignorance which is why the word ‘wine’ is only slightly below ‘blasphemy’ and ‘Tiger Woods’ on my no-no vocabulary list.
So why did I take up a job in a winery? Two reasons really! 1) The way I figured, how much sin can one commit crunching numbers, even in a winery? 2) How else can I see Lucy goofing around in a wooden vat stomping grapes?
Imagine my shock upon entering the first wine-making facility only to find big, giant stainless steel Vats with long winding tubes leading to rows of oak barrels as far as eyes could see! Where was the big wide wooden Vat in which women in bare feet were busily stomping the grapes? What kind of a set-up was this anyway and where the heck was Lucille Ball? Boo to industrialization! I was a heartbeat away from resigning that day.
But having decided to stay, I had no choice but to accept the benevolence of my employer 3 times a year - six bottles of prime wine each year at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't think my co-workers appreciated my sobbing hysterically each time a HR person walked into my cubicle with my seasonal gift. Obviously bursting out in tears while accepting a gift was not a common custom amongst them. But as the years rolled by, I did learn to show some appreciation. If my effort at peeling my lips wide enough to show at least six teeth as a show of appreciation was misconstrued as an allergic reaction to a Botox injection, I really couldn’t help it.
There is a bright side to this story. Staring at the rows of Chardonnay, Merlot and Zinfandel stacked in my garage one day, I realized that I didn’t have to buy a housewarming gift for at least another decade. An even curious observation was our new and improved relationship with our neighbors who apparently realized that Asians weren’t such bad neighbors after all.
-Meena Sankaran
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Do you ti-ting, chi-ching or di-ding?
Ti-ting, Ti-ting, Ti-ting.............
That was my husband playing with his Droid again. These days if it is not ‘Ti-ting’, then it is either ‘chi-ching’ or ‘di-ding’ around our house. Just between you and me, I like ‘chi-ching’ better than the others.
He had downloaded yet another application for his phone earlier today. And was every bit as enthralled as when he downloaded the other gazillion ones like the leveler app, the compass app and many more. How do I know? He was not being subtle by any calculation. His dimples had deepened considerably for you to miss it and I had to threaten ‘Quinoa’ for dinner before he would clip his phone to his shirt and go in for a shave.
This brand new app is nothing short of a miracle, I am told. With its help, you can use your phone to scan the bar code of any item and find out 1) where they are sold and 2) where you can go to buy it cheap. A tool that facilitates and encourages cheapness? What was the developer thinking? Dangling this in front of Asians is like dunking in a honey tub and standing in front of a bee-hive. Do they realize the serious repercussions this could have on this nation’s business landscape? I am willing to bet my gallbladder that Wal-Mart is, even as I write, planning a class action suit against Asians for loss of business and is naming this app developer as a co-defendant. Who could blame them? Really!
Coming back to ‘Ti-ting’, this morning I watched my husband walk around the house looking for items with a bar code to test his new, ingenious application. Seeing him step into the powder room, my curiosity was piqued. I followed just in time to see him frantically grab the tooth paste, mouthwash, lipstick, soap scum remover, scrub pads and a doormat to scan. Ti-ting, ti-ting, ti-ting, ti-ting, ti-ting and ti-ting. While I stood there watching him with my mouth hanging open in disbelief, he proudly declared the names of all the stores that carry them and their selling price.
I find myself in a dilemma. Should I sue the pants off these Droid application developers or would it be more prudent to have my husband checked into a reputed Droid rehab program? Heard of any decent programs for Droid addiction lately?
In the meantime, I concede that there is one advantage to owning a Droid. Ever since my husband brought this phone home, I have had to dim the lights around the house thereby saving huge on the electricity bill. Who needs lights when he is glowing bright enough to light up 10 Christmas trees like the one in front of Macy’s store in Union Square?
-Meena Sankaran
That was my husband playing with his Droid again. These days if it is not ‘Ti-ting’, then it is either ‘chi-ching’ or ‘di-ding’ around our house. Just between you and me, I like ‘chi-ching’ better than the others.
He had downloaded yet another application for his phone earlier today. And was every bit as enthralled as when he downloaded the other gazillion ones like the leveler app, the compass app and many more. How do I know? He was not being subtle by any calculation. His dimples had deepened considerably for you to miss it and I had to threaten ‘Quinoa’ for dinner before he would clip his phone to his shirt and go in for a shave.
This brand new app is nothing short of a miracle, I am told. With its help, you can use your phone to scan the bar code of any item and find out 1) where they are sold and 2) where you can go to buy it cheap. A tool that facilitates and encourages cheapness? What was the developer thinking? Dangling this in front of Asians is like dunking in a honey tub and standing in front of a bee-hive. Do they realize the serious repercussions this could have on this nation’s business landscape? I am willing to bet my gallbladder that Wal-Mart is, even as I write, planning a class action suit against Asians for loss of business and is naming this app developer as a co-defendant. Who could blame them? Really!
Coming back to ‘Ti-ting’, this morning I watched my husband walk around the house looking for items with a bar code to test his new, ingenious application. Seeing him step into the powder room, my curiosity was piqued. I followed just in time to see him frantically grab the tooth paste, mouthwash, lipstick, soap scum remover, scrub pads and a doormat to scan. Ti-ting, ti-ting, ti-ting, ti-ting, ti-ting and ti-ting. While I stood there watching him with my mouth hanging open in disbelief, he proudly declared the names of all the stores that carry them and their selling price.
I find myself in a dilemma. Should I sue the pants off these Droid application developers or would it be more prudent to have my husband checked into a reputed Droid rehab program? Heard of any decent programs for Droid addiction lately?
In the meantime, I concede that there is one advantage to owning a Droid. Ever since my husband brought this phone home, I have had to dim the lights around the house thereby saving huge on the electricity bill. Who needs lights when he is glowing bright enough to light up 10 Christmas trees like the one in front of Macy’s store in Union Square?
-Meena Sankaran
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