Hangover Part III. And a book.

The Hangover Part III releases today and I have prepared myself for it by watching the other two parts in the last two days. I have hence watched two of the craziest nights that a trio could possibly have! When the ending is happy, we mostly tend to want ourselves to go through such incidents. But the adventures I have seen in these movies? Oh! I'd never EVER want to be a part of that!

To add sanity to my day, I am back to reading. It's been a while since I got my hands on a novel. My genre has not changed. I still stick to fiction. Ever since I read 'Coma' by Robin Cook, I've been wanting to read all other his medical mysteries too. The reading flow has begun. I have started with reading Robin Cook's 'Foreign Body'. Unlike before when I barely notied, I have now started appreciating the research that the author has put in, to write this book. A large part of the story is based in India and to explain the culture, practices and geography here, is surely not a piece of cake for someone who has spent all his life in various parts the United States of America.

In case anyone's wondering, I quit my brain-gnawing, nerve-racking job a while ago and I feel like a normal human being again, not having to smile at faces of men that add terror to my day or women who love to act that they wish me well. I feel safe and secure out of that place.

Cats and Dobes

I became an animal lover when I was in the 7th standard. It was almost sudden.

A cat walked into my house and got instantly adopted. It walked in with not just lady luck but also with loads of confidence. So it not only got adopted but also instantly inherited the throne and became the head of the family. Isn't that what happens when you become the centre of attention of the head of the family? He was our first pet and mom named him the most obvious name - Puss.

Luckily for Puss, I was the only one in the family who was scared of cats. So he stayed. But my fright was mere lack of experience. I too relished the fantasy of cuddling a soft ball of fur that had life!

Only a week had to pass before I had myself gleefully running around the house with Puss around my neck.

In case you're wondering, yes, Puss DID get into dad's boots!

After Puss got stolen after a year and a half (that's the reason for his disappearance that we'd like to believe), we were cat-less till dad surprised the rest of us one day with a quarter sized white kitten. I thought it was a male that got fatter by the day, till one day she gave birth. Only then did I realize that it wasn't obesity. Just pregnancy. That was the first time. And then, several deliveries later, my house had almost a cricket team of cats.

Aah! It was a cute, furry world with cats of 3 generations running in and around the house. While mommy cat licked herself clean in her bed, her older kids would be out in the balcony sunbathing after a heavy lunch and her younger children and grandchildren would be busy finding their way up to my thighs while I struggled to complete my drawing sheet. True story this! Cute story. I have lots of permanent cat-scratch and bite marks. But, who's complaining?

No more cats now at home (reason at the end of the post).
What my family now has is a black Doberman. A she-doberman (doberwoman would be easier to say).
Maggi is not the perfect replacement for all those cats, in the physical sense. I can't pick her up and put her at the back of my neck. I might crack my spine. I can't have the fun of feeling a prickly tongue cleaning the curd off my palms. Mag's lick is smooth, silent. And she doesn't fit in my lap.

Maggi loves to be petted, just like my cats did. She is a great mood enhancer too. Isn't that what we all need our pets for? Oh, we youngest-in-the-house people have another reason too. When we get scolded by all the elders, we can scold the pet.

Now here are the other differences between Mag and my cats. Mag treats us like Gods. I'd like her to be more respectful about herself but she just acts like... like a dog!

And the other difference? Mag won't elope.

Julie and Julia - yet another prospective inspiration

Watched this movie called "Julie and Julia" starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. It is based on the lives of two people- Julie and Julia. They never met. They lived in almost separate eras.

Julie wasn't too fond of her job; and just so she could do something that she liked to, she decided to cook. To motivate herself, she created a blog and published about giving herself a deadline of 365 days to complete all 524 recipes in Julia's book. Julie posted about her daily cooking fun and fiasco. The movie shows how she started getting readers slowly and then started getting comments till the point where she got interviewed and published in the newspaper. Julie then went on to publishing a book on cooking.

It's not the cooking in the movie that caught my interest, with less than a minute of camera time for every recipe shown to us, after all, its part of a published book; what caught my interest was the blogging part of it. And now I am inspired to set a deadline for myself and get into serious, fun regular blogging. The difference being that Julie used her blog to keep up her deadline for completing the 524 recipes and I am using one blog post to make myself blog. Ha!

I miss being the spontaneous writer I used to be. I won't force myself into the blog marathon's a-post-a-day rule because overdoing that for two consecutive months in 2009 is what killed my spirit and passion for writing. Till before that, blogging was fun. Then, it became like a job. It was a challenge and I didn't want to lose and look like a fool. I want fun again. I am going to set a very easy target for myself so that I don't end up getting pressurized by my own blog. 2 posts in two weeks, it's going to be. That way, I won't have to take obvious efforts to make time to write a post during a possible family vacation.

The rule is that I can make 3 posts in two weeks but that doesn't let me write only 1 post in the next two weeks. So, it's more like- "At least 2 posts in 2 weeks"
Yay! Deadline! Been a while since I knew the terror of having one.