Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Of cloudy skies and silver linings ...

I rush through the day, fast enough to acquire one of those special aches in the shoulder.

But everything gets done as planned. At work and outside work.

The day is packed with meetings when I view my calendar at the start of the day. My flight's at 10 pm, my last meeting ends at 7 (which accounting for the usual delays implies 7.30).

Yet, magically through the day, most meetings get shifted to earlier, and I'm done with meetings at an unprecedented 4.30 pm!

There's still plenty to be done, and after it has been achieved, I run out of work pretty darned sure I'll miss my flight this time. It's raining and the queue at the taxi stand is LONG. I have 3.5 hours to my flight and I still haven't started to pack. For a wedding!

Which is when I notice a friend standing at the head of the queue. My house falls en route to hers. And she's happy to drop me off.

Our taxi, bless its soul, decides to go "gasp, gulp, stutter... THUD!!!" and as I'm praying desperately that this be literally just a little hiccup, cabbie uncle looks back and with the solemness of a doctor announcing bad news states "I'm sorry".

Thankfully we're still only 2 feet ahead of the taxi stand and we get into the one right behind, hoping this one doesn't decide to follow suit. It doesn't.

Once home, I'm completely disoriented by how much I have left to pack. I rush around in a daze, change 3 suitcases, throw in and pull out clothes, almost forget my toothbrush and finally resort to calling a friend to calm me down and remind me of the must haves.

He does. (Disoriented, or not, I'm a bloody ace at packing, I tell you! I got everything on his list, and MORE!!!).

Taxi called for, luggage hauled down, and 1 enormous Jigsaw puzzle in tow, I'm convinced I've just manage to escape the doom of a missed flight by pretty much the skin of my teeth.

And then I land at the airport to find my flight delayed by 3.5 hours.

They're not checking us in yet, I have no earphones (I planned on buying them at the duty free place BEYOND the check in counter, you see) so I can't use the ipod, no power cord (my host and I decided he has a Dell lappie as well, so I could use his, yeah we're super bloody smart!) so my lappie will run out of charge in about an hour (all of my U.S. time zone friend base is currently in Madras, so who would I chat with anyway?) and the only book I'm carrying is close to over.

LOL!!! And considering this has been a day of cloudy skies and silver linings in turn, I'm waiting for the next silver whatever to happen.

Ummm ... God? You there?

11 comments:

Peppermint Patty said...

seems like an exciting, fast-paced life! except for the last screw-up. But mobile blogging and mobile browsing might be a good option.

Nice post

Anonymous said...

Ayyo! There's a Times Newslink outside alongwith the checkin counters - you should've sooo bought a book! Even my embargo would allow buying one in such a situation - gah!

Or... .you could go eat dosas upstairs :-) Joy!

Have a good time di, and plis to dole out requisite hugs and shake-hands and ummas!

Shoonyata said...

r u in chennai?

nutty said...

LOL!

Sounds like it was quite a day! Hope you made it to Chennai without any more hiccups :)

Have fun!! And kindly to pls convey lou to the bride and groom :)

~nm said...

What a day!! So where did you post this from? Airport lounge?

Monsieur K said...

:)

CandidConfessions said...

Exciting and dynamic. As much as it could get! Your article is so fresh and candidly written about all your looming dooms and the silver linings!

unpredictable said...

Gowri: My hand's too screwed up to be typing too much from small keypads, so i avoid it as far as possible .. but yeah that really wouldve been awesome no!

Penguin: Eh i didn't know that ya .. i managed to keep busy somehow .. and not call u out of desperation, even for that reco on red wine .. im nice that way!
Hugs, muah all passed on!

Shoonyata: I was. Alas, I'm not any longer. ALAS and SIGH.

Nutty: :) Thanks!

NM: Place outside the check in counters where i sat with all my baggage (lolz pun!) :) until charge ran out on laptop .. alas ..

KEtan: :) I know!

CC: :) Thanks! That's super nice of you to say! :)

Anonymous said...

you have my sympathies... delayed flights are such a pain...
i like the way you concluded this piece.. if you do finally hear from God,lemme know please.. :D
mandira

KP said...

if i were a director
i would characterize you,
your episodes, your life in my next movie

but sadly i am not

till then we stick to blogs until someone comes up with something better.

At first there were discussion forums and online chat rooms and they are still there.
But then came blogs which killed the discussion forums which existed on some long, easily forgotten url of some random stumbled upon by chance while searching in google, yahoo, etc (alta vista if u wanna rewind)

So here is the question:

What is the future of blogs?

unpredictable said...

churning the wordmill: I think I just heard from him ... someday Ill write about it too :)

Kappa: considering evolution is all cyclical anyway, the future of blogs is just the present in another time, no?