Silly Saturdays – The Revenge of the birds !!

After posting my opening post to start the Silly Saturdays feature, I was little uncertain if I would have enough ludicrous stories to publish every week about myself. I am back yet again with another post and this time it is all about my love-hate relationship with the Angry Birds! So it’s no secret that Sangry Words originated at a time when I became conscious of my addiction to the game.  

Coming back to the incident, this weekend my nieces from Muscat are visiting us to celebrate their Eid break with Smera. To make everyone comfortable I decided to take the couch at night while the rest were tucked away. A few hours into my sleep I suddenly woke up to some noise. The first thing I see upon opening my eyes is photographed below.

It’s the scariest thing to be seen in a pitch dark room in the middle of your sleep! After I recovered from the initial shock, I consoled myself it could have been worse.  At last, Angry Birds have their revenge… 

Yogathon 2012 - My update !!

I am ecstatic as I write this post updating about my big day – Yogathon 2012. This is officially my first attempt at anything that involves a long-drawn-out training.

The task was 108 surya namaskar or sun salutations in an event organized by Fitness First Middle East to raise funds for Dubai Autism Centre. My guess was that I could comfortably do 50 sun salutations, but I was determined to give it my all.

As it turns out I managed 95.5 of those successfully and 0.5% of the routine I skipped in tying up my hair. Just 5 months of irregular yoga training have helped me supersede my expectations and that too for a good cause! 

 Even more pleasing was how little my inflexible husband managed to do and that towards the end he resorted to something that he always does when I am winning – running away! I meant literally around the park.

I am signing out with some pictures from today’s event.

The venue - Burj Park behind Dubai mall fountains

The team leading the Yogathon

The organiser and founder of Yogathon - Peewee Sanchez and my instructor too!! 

The very-kind and my favourite - Marcellene!

And toughest my toughest instructor - Bhama 

A bug's life

It only happens to me. All the weirdest things have to happen to me. For the last few weeks, I would get up in the morning with a terrible rash from an insect bite. A rash from insect bite is weird and to get it 4 times in 3 weeks is even weirder. To add to my annoyance I am the only with this at home and I didn't even know what that insect was. 

So last night it again attacked me and I am carefully choosing the word attack. What else would explain biting someone in the middle of night, 2 am to be precise and causing severe itching and rash? So I switched on the lights to hunt for that nasty creature, with no luck, I woke up my husband to join in.

In deep sleep he says “go off to sleep, its ok that must have gone by now” and that made me more furious. “If I can’t sleep then nobody can sleep I threatened”. He suggested to change sides if that would help and then I asked him what if it still comes to bite me on the other side.  

In his most reassuring voice he says, “nokatte eaid patti kadikkyan varum?” – That in English can be translated to – “let me see which dog will come to bite you?”. We were back to square one I thought myself. “It’s not a dog that is biting me! And think about it if was the dog biting me I would have thrown your Ipad on it and not bother you”. This remark finally got the sleepy husband to get up but only to express his amusement at my tribulations in the middle of the night.

At last seeing me suffer with the rash he offered to get me an antihistamine pill and some water only to realize that the medicine had expired a year back.

Whilst I survived an attempt on my life, poor bug wasn't so lucky.

As soon as I found it, I smacked it hard using my footwear and gave it another squish and turn to make sure it had its day - due to apologies to PETA. 

Yoga anyone ?

It’s done and now there is no looking. In a moment of enthusiasm I went ahead and registered myself for the Yogathon happening next week here in Dubai. For the last three months I have been thoroughly enjoying the yoga classes at the gym. So when I learned about the yogathon I was extremely excited to put my months of hard work to test.

Now here is the catch – 108 sun salutations are what I have registered for and any money raised from this would be donated to the Dubai Autism Centre. Now my trouble is I am not even sure if I can even reach the half-way mark in the challenge.

However I landed myself with yet another brilliant idea. If I am going to pass away doing this, then I am going to take my husband down too. I wonder if my very athletic hubby and his non-existent flexibility might not even get him 10 rounds.

Just as I was registering his name for the yogathon, I was reminded of our wedding vows, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, in bakasana and in surya namaskar.

In case if your in Dubai and have a little spare time for a good cause, do join us at on 12 October 2012. 

Funny money

I have to confess I do not understand currency conversion business. I’ve never understood how to profitably exchange currency nor do I intend to do anytime in future.  Well who needs to know all that if you have a personal financial analyst at home for all that purpose. 

Last week, I was assigned the very important task of transferring money back to India for some urgent work. I received a detailed instruction along with the price at which I was supposed to convert and transfer the money.

Until this point everything looked under straightforward, or maybe I was wishing it to be. Just as I got out, I get a call from the husband, “have you transferred money?” he asked. I was not sure if my no was going to get me into trouble, however hesitantly I said “I am just on my way”. “Hold on let me call you back, think the prices have gone up”.

Upon reaching my destination I get another call, this time hubby says forget all the instructions I gave you earlier. Really? Forget all that and head back home I wondered. Ha Ha !! It wasn’t going to be that easy for me. His next instructions were to get rates anything better than 69.50. Very naively I asked “69.55 or 69.60?”. Technically 55 is bigger than 50 isn’t it? “Sangi no 69.45 is better”, “really?” I asked, surely somebody got his numbers wrong.

“45, are you sure?” I re-checked, “yes” was his prompt reply, thinking to myself that I shouldn’t doubt his knowledge and I got into the exchange. I ask the first person what is the best rate I could get and the smiling lady tells 69.50. I asked if I could get better rate than 69.50 and then I was directed to another gentleman. So he first tells me 69.80 and that confused me once again “is that the best you can give?” I asked. So he then decided to put in plain words for me, which definitely didn’t help.

Panicking I quickly call my husband, while I was dialing I explained to him how didn’t understand any of this. Jokingly I told him, if you don’t give me a good rate, my husband would pack me off to India without the money. The two had some conversation and then decided on 69.45. That made some sense for me now. Happily I then gave him the bank details and got the receipt from to handover the cash to the cashier.

And while I was counting the money, he interrupts to ask, “now I am sure he will not send you to India, right?”. To which I replied, “No he won’t be sending me, while he said is going to strave me for 3 days for not getting 69.40”, and everyone on the floor started laughing. With the jokes exchanged on numeric capabilities I headed for the cashier’s desk and handed over the money I said “here you go doctor”. Everyone laughed again.

Feeling embarrassed on my silliness I got out, thanking the god lord for almost teaching me something new.  

Image credit: Corbis.com