Ezekiel 47:9

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I know, I know...

I said I would tell you all about my flight and my little airport miracle (well, my big and God's little, rather...) Or did I not mention the miracle factor? Tsk tsk, should you not always allow for it anyway? So (pilgrim said conveniently, letting herself off the hook), it is not as if I let some fat, skulking cat out of a dark, tied-up bag - the miracle factor with my God must always be reckoned with ;)

But I'm not here to blog about that really. I think I have said it to so many people and many of them had been praying it in, that I am now considering resorting to the lowest, scummiest act of all un-bloggerly acts... (drum roll as suspense builds, a crash of drums, a flash of light...) COPY and PASTE... and the fact that I am telling you of it bears witness to the kind of blogger I am. I am a blab, a blab-blogger, a blablogger... Sigh. Groan. Sigh. Giggle. Before I start shooting off with even more absurdities, perhaps I should inform you that I am writing at an unearthly hour of the morning, with the prospect of an early wake-up call to church, and the final shred of the remnants of the jet-lag excuse already dragged away from my unwilling fingers. I see it's retreating back with sorrow - now my only reason is that I have the hours of an owl (I do try to be wise, I promise).

I shall now shut up with the ridiculousness and progress to matters of more serious import - mainly, isn't God just brilliant?? I mean, ain't He simply fantastic!!! Don't you let anyone tell you any different either :D

And also this blablog is most probably my reaction to this blog I found (nominated for best design etc :O) by "lemonade" called withnowheretogo.blogspot She was spieling (in a very interesting and engaging sort of way, of course, being the great blogger she is) about how she was thinking about whether she would ever get to live a 'full' life... Hmmm, now that is just waiting there and asking to be challenged :D I sort of empathised with the rest of her statement... Yes, if I ever do have a husband, I want a 'drool-worthy' husband too - and I don't just want twin boys, I have a whole list! And yeah, he'd better be the fleshed-out Darcy and Gilbert Blythe and ... well, no. He can be him so long as he's nearly perfect (perfectly imperfect too) and just exactly the guy God wants for me... And no, I'm not hunting down Colin Firth look-alikes, I'm thinking more God-chasing, intelligent, listening, focussed, and in-love-enough-to-ask-twice-or-wait (like my fictional heroes, as I am being very PC here) kinda guy! nah, my needs are simple ;) And yes, I want kids that ask interesting questions maybe... The kind that'll enjoy my mum's make-believe series... They might even play cricket with my dad and enjoy his gadgets, without the interests being mutually exclusive. Yes, they will also throw tantrums so that suddenly I can be the hard-put-upon 'mother person'... Lol, actually maybe I won't do that deal, I might end up giggling! Oh, throw a career in too - and with the adorable kids and husband and already-lovable family, I will not look haggard and baggy-eyed, I will look like front-page material. LOL. Seriously though I do not walk around all moony-eyed and saying 'Wherefore art thou, Romeo?' or any such sap! It annoys me when people assume one must be looking, if you are single; or that you must be looking for a husband sooner or even eventually. I don't actually pine at all. LOL. And I'm up in arms in a trice if anyone is on about being dependent! But I am not being sarcastic at all here - I am dreaming and no, any dream will not do!

The trouble is I don't want any dream. I don't even want mine (above included) if they are misguided. I want the vision...

So do I not have a full life? I do. Absolutely. The fullest of full lives you could possibly expect to live. And it's because fullness of life doesn't come from a husband, gorgeous or otherwise, or a fast-paced career, or a perfect family... I haven't got any of those. The first I just don't see in sight. The second I suppose I have weighed in the balance. The third we are simply not. We are not perfect, but we are a family and that is certain. And I love us. I have also found 'us' in other parts of this little globe and I still love 'us'. But I have fullness of life in Christ like the Bible speaks of... and this is probably why I have never actively desired the money or the 'success' by the yardsticks of the world today or the husband or the ideal height-weight-ness (;O) or the general picture-perfectness (you get my drift)... because I already have and have had for some time and find it hard to replicate or add on to this abundance of life that I have been given. It's an Ezekiel 47:9 kind of life and it's definitely here!

How I gatecrashed a wedding

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Hmmm S & P's wedding on Saturday was glorious. It was such a great witness to all the people that had come. S's family were all Hindu, and of course, Indian. Most of them were, at least, except for VP, MP and her mum and brother (and all of them Indian origin except for MP!). I shall write about God's full circle in my life soon. But for now let's focus on how gorgeous S was, and her little bridesmaid, R! Let's, of course, also focus on the whole wedding, my role in it (as I'm so erm important and it was flippin' hilarious, after the initial embarrassment!) and the little stories that go with a wedding.

Let me say the service was sufficiently weepy (lol) but more importantly, the presence of God was definitely tangible. They made it very clear it was a Christian wedding so that everyone who came was exposed to worship and the Christian basis for marriage. Pastor Chris also gave them an insight into why a relationship with Jesus is fundamental for any relationship, especially the most sacred on earth, to work:) One thing that has always struck me is the fact that in India we never sang 'In Christ alone'. I love that song. Tis beautiful ;) Another thing I appreciate about pentecostal weddings (I am not being denominational, it's just something missing in some other denominations) is that the bride and groom have communion together. That's something so essential as one of our Christian covenant symbols. It is a symbol - I'll agree before you hit me with that - but it is the symbol of a covenant.

Well, after that lovely worship and he kissed the bride (studio audience: siiiiigghhhhh, awwwwwwww), I was asked by MP if I wasn't coming to the hotel and that he would see me there. Now... let's get serious. You are all dying to hear (I hope ambitiously!) about my mortal embarrassment. Tis a good laugh, so you shall hear it. Because I'm soooo nice, I don't mind being a complete idiot! Which I most certainly was that day! Ah well, like V said, God knew what He was doing. But then again, like I said, yes but S didn't!

So I said of course I was to MP. Now S had told me the previous week to make sure I got a lift to the hotel in the evening. And I assumed they were fantastically generous even if I had only known them for three months max. Since I'd definitely been invited to the hen night, I thought it was normal for the British too to invite you to their wedding parties. In India, you are just invited to it all, on the wedding day usually. I knew there was a big do at the hotel and had heard all the details of it and it had been planned for months! So to make space for one was, I knew, quite a big thing. I also knew I was only invited for the evening. What I didn't know was that between the evening and the afternoon, there was something for a select few normally, both at the hotel! I might have guessed had it not led so naturally to my gate-crashing that it caught me completely without suspicion! LOL

So I went up to D as asked and requested a lift. A sari is not very bussable! Not at all, with a thick winter coat on! She then told me that she was not, in fact, going to the hotel. She was just going to an afternoon tea and cakes at the bay with a friend. But she knew just who might be able to help and she sorted it all out and left me with a lovely couple and their very plush Jaguar. In fact, it just might have been this year's. If it was last year, it was a later one in last year's models. I know from M & VP ;O They were so kind and we had fun. They then told me that they were going to P & J's for tea before the hotel (ah, the elusive hotel!) and they wouldn't hear of my not coming. Neither would P. I apologised properly for inviting myself (well, at least I wasn't invited directly by the hostess!) and then on the way there, tentatively asked R & J, the couple who were giving me a ride, what time the reception was. They said "Oh... you mean the food... Oh that won't happen till at least a quarter to six! We've got plenty of time. But she did say there was a surprise so we shouldn't be too late".

Now in my limited vocabulary as an English teacher six-ish constitutes evening. As it turned out, it was even later than six. But THAT is how I gatecrashed a wedding. I didn't realise. I even sat at a place meant for someone else! How fantastic was that! There was just one person who couldn't make it, and he was even at M & VP's table! I mean I was at M&VP's table, LOL. I thought they had decided that he wasn't going to come so they could invite me!

It only dawned on me with horrible, slow inevitability when people started coming in later for the barn dance and sandwiches! And since V and I were then engaged in an involved discussion of the hilarious-excruciating (depending on perspective - V's or mine:O) circumstances, the photographer thought it was a Kodak moment. I was even photographed in my most embarrassing moment! LOL

LOL LOL LOL

But the wedding was spectacular. The bride and the groom landed in a helicopter! The view of Cardiff was breathtaking from the hotel. The meal was sumptuous and the cake deserves a mention - a white chocolate, strawberry cream-filled profiterole mountain that the happy couple slashed at with a large fencing-style sword! MMMmmmmm. It was a roast dinner and a five course meal. VP looked lovely too. R had her natural curls and tints, in a half-up, half-down do. She looked stunning. S of course topped the day. It was a two-piece sequinned lavender-white bridal ghagra choli, that looked sufficiently combined enough for S. And the marquee was fantastically detailed. I was too tired to dance but thankfully the embarrassment was late enough and not mortal enough to prevent an enjoyment of the wonderful Saturday.

S&P went off to Cornwall and are enjoying their brief stint there. Their real honeymoon's in May when they're going on a cruise - it's Alaska or bust!

Pas Chris told the church of their courtship. Some of it I know. But CD, when she prayed for S, mentioned their faithfulness to each other. P has been asking her every year to marry him. They started together SIXTEEN years ago! And every year, when P asked, S always said she did not see why as she was perfectly content as she was and wanted nothing more. Poor P did, of course :). But how absolutely gorgeous of them! But last year, when S went to Barcelona she sent P a card that made him keel over in shock. The card read 'To my fiance'. A phone call later ('Really, S?') and the rest is history. She is so blessed to have found and waited for that kind of love and faithfulness. They had very interesting toasts about their childhood too. They are indeed a special couple.

Way to go, S&P.

Yellow brick road................................................. OR A Rant

It's funny - I've had a most awful day and yet I don't really want to write about it now. I was wallowing in pity on my bed (it's a huge, lovely one btw and great for wallowing/messing/shelving/losing things in/dreaming happy dreams in/painting ceiling murals in/talking to God in... you get the picture...;O) and I thought I would write one of those depressed blogs a friend has been spieling out lately.

Something along the lines of

Cold
lost time...
cold
tired
aches
missed opportunities
cold....

LOL - you get this picture too? Well, she's been on at it for sometime and in my haze between sleep and waking I imagined writing something like this as a surrealist-ish record of my emotions. But I'm not going to.

If you're up for it, I'd be glad for us to take another delighful ramble without a map. Just follow the yellow brick road and you will get to Oz ;) It will be an easy ramble with picnic stops on the way. No stylistic endeavours, no poetry except the fluidity of mood-swings and all of those on the lighter end you may be assured. It is spring. The ramble will probably start with guys, their greatness and their foibles... uh oh, too feminine a word... fallibility?... But I want a plural noun... ummm follies. Now give me another word instead of 'greatness'.

No, not grandeur! My word, you've got bad taste... But I really want a word starting with 'f'... to niiicely match with follies, you see? Am I clever or am I clever!
Fantasticity - shall we settle for a coinage?
Ok done.

Now we will probably ruminate on the fantasticity and follies of men (well, I just had to be positive and put in both in the title... that will probably be the only time you hear it from now on, girlfriends ;O - just kidding... I do think people are fantastic anyway!) Then we will move on to this entire business of onlineness, orkut specifically, facebook and msn and gtalk generally, and tagged furiously! We may stop to taste the goodness of chocolate and all things chocolate on the way. We will then maybe discuss girls too, but WE will not be objective as we erm happen to be rather inevitably subjective on that topic... We reserve the right to be wholly subjective on any other topic as well and reserve the right to change the terms and conditions of our ramble at any point :). Note the timely smile :D. If you are still reading, you are wonderful!

Why I came in to write after having vowed to give this space a break was because I was looking into profiles on Orkut from a university community to see if there was anyone I'd missed out or forgotten. I am now curious to see personal profiles not for any vested interest but because I now know better how to choose invites even from friends of friends! And it has been interesting of late to find many of my acquaintances - and one friend - falling heavily (;O) in love in these online communities! And I do not mean shaadi.com or match.com or eharmony.com or any of those other crazy adverts on large-sized signage in India and un-closable pop-ups worldwide! Please don't throw the arranged marriage out, we have loved it too long and hard to give it up! Co-existence is possible and healthy.
Anyway I have a few simple rules - anyone 'here for/looking for' 'dating/whatever he can get(cf facebook)/games/relationships' is crossed out. 'Relationships' in some limited vocabularies means 'can i go out with you please? all you need to do is say hello back to me'.
- anyone who says 'Ideal match: You' gets lobbed in the bin too.
- anyone who says 'you are looking very nice/u r very spiritual girl i likes spiritual girls, i be liking your profile, can i make friendships with you' needs to be immediately alerted to the fact that marine engineering was never my forte.
- if my friends choose to go on this insane rampage of decorum ;) they are allowed but shall be informed of my extreme scepticism. If they are friends, they are ISA approved ;) Certain friends' friends - like BO's friends or DP's friends - are also automatically ISA approved. The judge's decision is final.
Those are my rules - I suggest you adopt them, she said imperiously.

Do not worry, I have not turned the final bend. I have just had a long day and am now in a rather silly mood :)

But what makes me rather sad is that most guys seem to have a pride problem... I suppose girls have it too but one of my guy friends says that is very often a guy thing. The sad thing about that is not simply the existence of the problem. It's the non-recognition of it. Guys reading this, if you disagree you are welcome to say so. In all probability, you don't. Right, which woman worth her salt would actually like a guy who is all about himself? Men often do not like women who don't listen, so my English lesson Unit 3 reading and listening components tell me. Lol - here's the funniest bit! This is from linguistic research - Allwood, Coates, Cameron, Thomas and me... Women make minimal responses and backchannel often as part of their supportive 'scaffolding' in a way in conversation... But men often follow the backchannelling with a turn of their own thus taking over speaker position and the place of power in a conversation. However, - and this is not backed up with research - with the feedback mechanisms and minimal responses, some women can easily possess the appearance of listening but whether they really are is anyone's guess. My prof once told me that I was a good listener. I was amused, and he laughed and said 'Well, at least you nod your head at all the right places and smile and look interested throughout the lecture. In fact, that's one of the things in language and gender'. EW is an absolute darling, btw, as anyone who's met him will agree but he doesn't teach language and gender. I didn't attend sociolinguistics either. Now if you let me go on, I shall be quoting my dissertation and everyone else's! Tsk tsk... you should really let me see that glazed-over look in your eyes. I'm usually good at that - I stop quite soon.

Anyway perhaps he is attracted to a woman because she gives much! But he sure looks proper loser-material when he says 'I want, I want, she must love me, she must feed me, she must love my family, she must understand my needs, she must respect my community'. Well, erm, WHAT about HER? And it's not women's rights I'm campaigning for at all - it's just bad CV style I'm lamenting, LOL. If you don't let her know (I assume you hope this she is looking!) what you like about her, let alone what you can give... you just don't get the job. ESPECIALLY if you're from the Indian sub-continent, and that desperately seeking, surely you are used to writing 'bio-datas' instead of proposals?? Lol, and a CV or cover letter that does not say what interests you in the company you're seeking and why they should choose you and what you can give, just does not make it - or so my careers advisor always said. It is also very intriguing and laughable that most men like flirting and do too! :( Sad too :(. But why am I telling you this? My blog has only a few readers as I know it, and you are probably very discerning. But hear me rant, will you? It may amuse you and it does amuse me :D

But yes, that does annoy me about some men - DP once said about another guy we know that he was so full of himself! Maybe it's the Indians in this place... but they are so confident that they have a corner on you just because you are Indian. I mean I'm sorry, I was never in love with every one of my fellow-people even when I was there! Why would moving make it imperative to be friends with every countryman or -woman? And why would moving change my parameters of making friends? One called at 3 am two weeks into my moving into a new place and all I could think was zzzz who gave him my number zzzzz! LOL Another sat in my room till all hours talking! And the same one once told AP and JR and me that if the story wasn't about him he was not interested. I do plead guilty to minimal responses from the depths of sleep to this one!

And girls... why be so naive?? Please SP - although you may never read this - do NOT try to change one of those seekers, especially the non-romantic, hard-core ones, by showing him that you care for the greater good of his soul... Honestly, he will only assume it's a different pick-up line and delight himself in it! Yes, you know exactly what I'm on about, lol. People, it was just plain stupid. However, I'm a nice one to be talking! BO will bear testimony to one sunny London morning! (Different blog, different place).

Ah the delightful lightness of my ramble has lost its flavour ever so slightly in this impassioned plea... has it not? And I did mean to mention the fantasticity of men too...

There are some lovely ones who will always tell you when you need to be told that you look great. The kind of guys that will pay you a compliment in the nicest way and you are sure they are not flattering you, or flirting necessarily, or even saying it because they look for positive things to say (like dutch comfort ;O). There are very few of these guys around but they are lovelly ;) My old pastor back home was one of them. Actually my pastor back home in Bangor was too. Awww, how I miss them! My dad, of course, knows how to pay me compliments... But he makes my mum grin and go 'Yeah, right!' so I guess he might have that effect on her ;OO LOL. And then there are the kind of men who can make you talk and make jokes. And they will listen and not be bored. There are very few who will actually get it too! And then there's the wonderful kind - they are usually random unknowns - who will laugh and call you an endearment on the bus or at church and pay you a lovely compliment just because you've smiled at them and they're older people. Bless them!

Compliments are dicey - they need to be just right for the person you're talking to. I, personally, don't take them very well, I'm afraid. I remember agreeing with a classmate when I was in middle-school on this subject and I'm taking a LONG time to grow up on that one - as on many others, lol. I am quite convinced it's flattery or flirtatiousness usually. I'm getting better however. But I've always remembered this bit in 'The Von Trapp Family Singers' where Maria describes their manager as a man who always knew just the right thing to say. He met this nun for the first time and they really needed to make contacts and get themselves into a niche - and he picked her diction! Telling her she had perfect diction secured her favour for life, apparently:)

I don't know if I pay compliments right - I am quite particular about them. They have to be true. They have to be very positive. They have to be needed. They may circumvent some parts of the truth depending on the enormity of the need! I do keep positively reinforcing my students, like a good teacher! I keep going 'brilliant', 'fantastic', and on the rare occasion, 'oh, you've made me so happy, thank you!'

But I definitely have the gift of the gab... I may not really gas all that much in person. Look at the size of this blog? I am online far too much these days. I am restricting my orkutting and was restricting my facebooking - but now with the new pub church venture, we are going to have to use facebook. And I must get on my mother's nerves and she must get on my father's nerves while I keep her at the computer for hours! And MAY I please rant about this Tagged.com? The website just had me give it my name and picture because a couple of friends kept asking, and immediately it sent an email to every flippin person on my list! MY grinning mug and a cheesy line or two to my profs even - have spent the better portion of the week apologising! Ah well... Some of them were so adorable they actually signed up! EW didn't but EW got my apology almost immediately.

As for chocolate, which doesn't really enter in here but must be on the yellow brick road... God bless all chocolate makers:)! What's your favourite kind?