Hoarse black crabby tears

Lets start backwards. My throat is fucked. I sound like a crow. I refuse to kiss my boyfriend. And my father sent me a text saying the fastest remedy to a sore throat is to gargle with apple cider vinegar. I sent him a thank you pa in turn, ( with smiley face), added the, where on earth ( I called it office) am I going to get hold of bloody apple cider vinegar. He says, yes. that did "X" my mind. Don't know whether to cry or cough.

Meanwhile today's my mother's birthday, yesterday was my best friend's birthday, and ten days from now, it's my boyfriend's birthday. Status updates on all three presents = disaster. Got mommy a watch. I thought it was a lovely watch, but in we have to exchange it for something more "dainty" i.e one with a smaller dial. Really, so much for not being able to tell the hour without your glasses! People should just be handed cash and told to go ahead and yourself something nice.

Speaking of which, I got a thousand bucks on Sunday from daddy dearest -- "for new years lunch". Lunch be damned, my stomach was full, so bought a couple of books instead: Kingsley Amis- Lucky Jim, Nadine Gordimer- Beethoven was One Sixteenth Black, more magic realism so Ben Okri, Famished Road. It'll probably take me three years to plough through all, but like we were talking yesterday, On Beauty was such a lovely read, makes you want to pick up more such. And by reading sci fi, I believe I am reformed. Also, Muriel Spark affirms lit rebirth. The magazines will now wait, ditto television. I should hunt down Mayank Austen Soofi and swap notes.

By way of other exciting developments: I bought silver "lifestyle" shoes. Never would I have imagined. But you try resisting the sales at Nike and Reebok and Addidas -- which is where I succumbed. You'd think presents wouldn't be such an issue with these sales galore, but I've still got two pending> the girl and the boy.

The girl, who I'm not sure why I'm calling that, but she is my best friend, and she is arriving in Delhi tomorrow. I haven't seen in her in a year -- after Bombay. And from my point of view, I refuse to take antibiotics for my throat because then I won't be able to have the TGIF drink with her -- beer is the norm -- and we shan't be able to discuss in all intoxicated seriousness whose hair is looking better. Can't allow that. Can't get over her ingenuity either: coming for a work trip to Delhi, she's not staying at the hotel where the team is put up because she's staying home with me. From her people in office though, she's demanded to be upgraded to a better airline, reasoning that the company's saving money by not footing her boarding and lodging! And they've agreed because it makes sense! What can I say, I think of myself as street smart too, but this had me hugely impressed!

But back to presents, and for the spoilt but clever princess who's perfectly okay dishing out a thousand bucks for one obnoxiously fruity smelling TIGI shampoo, she makes a tough customer for a birthday present. Last time, I got her a fish bowl with a couple of fat goldfish that quickly died; of boredom or giddiness or being overfed and over looked after. Swam to their death in round round chukkers in that silly bowl that now holds a money plant. Anyway. Clothes are out, books are out, music is out, plants are out, fish is out, cosmetics she has, accessories too, in abundance.. aaargh!

And then they have to meet. They= my girl and my boy. And they have to take to each other. Like AE FISH TO WATER. They have to, they have to. I won't have it any other way. (And the both of you better be reading this and making that extra effort which seems like second nature, because I WILL BE HURT otherwise, you wretched difficult people!!)

long exhale

Next on the list is HIS birthday present. I wanted to get him a cactus year before last. I never got around to doing that because though I WANTED TO and it WAS the brief I gave my mother -- she was going to the nursery -- before I left my house his birthday morning, when I got back home that night before his party, to just pick up the porcupine, there were no ribbon wrapped cacti waiting for me at home, just some regular bloody plant. Imagine my shock at being told last minute that it apparently it's neither funny to be handing out a cactus nor does it look nice. And so I gave him the normal shrub which he promptly passed on to the maali, and I doubt he's ever seen that poor paudha again. Point is, there's a cactus pending but it's a dead-end sort of pending.

I don't suppose you have a wise ass suggestion for a temperamental musician, who at 24 -- I have to grudgingly give him -- happens to be more man than anyone in that age bracket, and very likely, beyond it. Again, discount music, discount clothes, forget erotic cufflinks, no lifetime "pone" subscriptions, no pen-shen rubbish, I refuse to venture into video game accessory area, and I can't cook. So there. Hand made card? Bleahhh. Cologne bleah, watch bleah, zilch kaput blank!! All I can really give him is a cold and bad throat, but that's probably getting off too cheap.