I realized how very difficult it is to get medical care in the US yesterday. Lots of people have told me that but i came about first hand information yesterday. Dont get e wrong.. if u r in a trauma condition or if you are grieviously injured iam sure that the EC reacts differently. Let me tell you what happened. A door slammed into my foot yestreday and ripped my toe nail off. At least nearly off.. it was hanging off my Great Toe with the help of a piece of skin. Sound euuuugghhhh.??? Looked verrry euuuuughhhhh... So there i was... Great toe bleeding...quite a lot and in pain... I thought i would pluck the nail off ...put on some anti septic and i would be done. Of course it will hurt but it will be done, see? I was getting around to doing it too... clipping off the toe a bit by bit and bracing myself, reassuring myself that it is not going to hurt when my husband browbeat me into going to the emergency and getting done by a doctor. We were there...teh registration took a while and then we were in th waiting room for around 45 minutes with our daughter running all around and being herself.....being a child at two... a pain:)We stuck a lollipop in her mouth hoping that it would at least reduce the noise if not the whirlwind activity. All the while my toe nail is swinging dolefully by the side of my toe and bleeding AND hurting like nobody's business. The nurse then called us in ... BP checked , temperature taken a 100 questions asked before she looked at my toe and then she went..oooohhhh That must hurt. I smiled and said ...yes it does. She then went around to asking me to rate my pain on a scale of 0-10. Iam like okie....lets c ... a 6 ??? What is a 10 ...rolling around with eyes up in your socket hollering??? I dont know... So iam taken to the room where i am aksed to wait for the doctor and then the nurse leaves. The nail has started to look more doleful by the minute and the blood is congealing. So i know that they would have to rub off the congealed blood before they can do something about the wound. Inspiring thought?? We wait for another 45 mts and then we decided that my husband would go home with the baby , feed her and come back. So they left. I was in the room with another family whose son had twisted his ankle and they kept giving my toe sidelong glances and they kept goinbg"EUUUUUGGGGHJHHHHH" I smiled , nodded my head and said ..I know.... An hour later the doctor came in checked my nail and said she would have to decide whether she should sew the nail back on or pull it off and for that they would have to numb my toe . Before i could say OK,... she was gone. She came back after half an hour.. i got two numbing injections at the foot of my Great Toe... oh yes... it was very very very painful and then she said that it is going to take a while for the toe to get numb and she was gone again!!!! Another 45 mts , my husband returned having left the baby with our friend who lives in the same house and another round of "Euuuuughhh"ing and "That must hurt"ing and half hour later the doctor came back. She cleaned the wound again , and pulled the nail off and cut the loose skin off and said that someone will come along to dress the wound and almost flew. They had a busy day . The nurse came along after 15 minutes to dress up the wound and after all the after care instructions we finally left for home. After 4 hours. OOOOOHHHH BOY!!!!!!!

I see my little girl playing by herself
She comes running to me
To show me what she has found
Her little face is so bright in the joy of discovering
A little leaf that has turned red with the passing of summer
She smiles and happiness radiates through her eyes
Making me warm and cozy in the cold
The wind carries the sounds of her laughter
As she runs after the sparrows, in the lawn
She comes hopping back to me to show me what she can see
Just for a moment, I see what she can see
I see huge trees with leaves of different colours
I see small squirrels chasing each other with abandon
I see small berries that fall from the tree
I see sparrows trying to fly with these berries in their beaks
I see flowers ,tiny flowers, yellow, blue and red
Nestled among the grass, the grass so green
I walk in the grass and can feel the dew tickling my shin
Then I am back to my grown self
I realize how little it takes to keep a child happy
Just a smile and a romp in the park
And my girl is all smiles and her little heart is at peace.

A Trip Down Nostalgia Lane

love stationery shops. I always have. I remember that when I was in school , I used to love going to the stationery shops in Diba Fujeirah. That’s where I lived then. My father was a civil engineer working for the Sultanate of Oman. We were there for nearly ..hmmm… 8 years..so that’s like a second home to me .
As a civil engineer , my father’s assignments were more to do with the development of the community so it was always in a developing community that he was posted in. We were in a place called Bayah. I remember when I first first went there , I was 7 years old, and the roads were not laid yet …well not completely and Appa was given a Mazda “pick-up” van at work. When we were picked up at the airport by one of Appa’s friends, I asked him, why were going home in a “lorry” a common name for trucks. How my parents laughed!! I don’t remember too much about those first few months but that memory kind of stuck.
We had to travel to Diba Fujeirah for all our needs back then..groceries, vegetables..anything even STD phone calls. And I loved going there. My sister and I would sit in the back of the car…listening to my parents’ talk about what they need to do that day ,news about relatives back home , friends and I remember feeling really really secure and happy . We used to doze off on our way back home and Appa used to half carry ,half drag me(I was a very healthy 7 year old) into the house.
These trips have always held a certain amount of fascination for me..I don’t know why.. even as I grew up. My father would always take us to the stationery shop. The proprietor was a friend and used to spend around 20 minutes there. My sister would find something to read or she was content to listening to my father talk to Moosa Uncle. I can still see her.. holding Appa’s hand ,leaning on him and listening to them talk. Me…. I loved the shop.m I would spend the entire 20 minutes pottering around the shop trying all the pens and deciding which ones I liked the best . I loved…still do..the love of new paper .I used to touch all the notebooks and feel them and the people at the shop were really kind and they would just let me be.
In my 7th standard, I remember a friend of mine had a pencil case filled with pens. I used to love sitting with her and just look at all the pens and boy!!! Was there a collection. There was every kind of pen imaginable from the humble Reynolds to the Ubre Cool Pierre Cardin. I used to go gaga over these pens. She was a really nice person ,this friend of mine. Every time she got a new pen she would show it to me and let me try it. I used to have a lot of fun. She had pens with regular covers, pens that you would have to twist to open, slide to open , pens with different coloured tips …. I was totally fascinated. My parents were pretty much of a one pen at a time kind and we always got pretty regular pens you know. No complaints now....knowing my track record for losing stuff..i would have done the same thing in their place. However the first thing that I got for myself when I got my first salary was a Pierre Cardin pen.

Life changes overnite as soon as there is a baby in the family. After the birth of my daughter , and the excitement of bringing her home there was an anticlimax in the air which would have been comical if it had not been soo depressing. There I was ..bloated like a balloon... (some VERY lucky ones lose all their excess fat as soon as they have the baby and iam excluded from the list ) tired and aching after a difficult C birth. My body apparently took exception to the epidural I was given and tried its hardest best to shut down! I had high blood pressure before the baby was born so i was on a diet with NO salt for 3 weeks. Obviously I didnt have anything to eat before the delivery and until 2 days after . No water either and it was end of April-- the hottest month of the year in Chennai. OOOh Boy!!! And as Iam athmatic I had a severe chest congestion because of the epidural which didnt go too well with my wheezing lungs.Why wasnt I surprised? Back home with the little bundle of joy(!!) and there i was changing nappies every 2nd minute ....it was poop and pee ...and pee and poop...back and forth ,back and forth!! OMG! Let us not forget the sleepless night. I dont know HOW a baby who is 5 days ols catches up with the fact that it is time for her to start driving Mommy crazy. My daughter slept thruout the day ...when you have half a dozen chores what with nursing the baby, washing her dirty nappies, and lets not forget pee and poop !!!! As soon as it was time for bed there she was wide awake ...the whole household slept and there I was with burning eyes looking despodently at my daughter while she cooed he way through the night! groaaaan!!!!To top it all I developed an audibility problem which apparently can happen to 20% of new mothers and OF COURSE i had to be one among the chosen 20%.I was exhausted ,depressed and angry with everyone .I kept bursting into tears at the slightest thing . The near permanent look on my poor husband's face was this desperate panicky expression as i could become quite voluble when in tears . Looking back now... it is kind of funny but back then .... I just wanted everything to be desperately the same again. It also did not help that I resist any kind of change vigorously. Now, 2 and a half years later , I cannot even remember what it was like before my baby girl came in to my life and i wouldnt change it for anything in the world.

I have often wondered...i do that a lot....whether it is just me or if everyone tortures themselves over what others would think.. I mean when iam walking on the street and i have a piece of paper in hand..i have this mortal fear that people will see me if i drop it anywhere other than in a bin and what will i do then..probably die of embarrasment ... it has never occured to me that people on the roads have a lot more to do than looking around to see who is dropping what on the road.Oh no!!! i mean what else can all these people who are hurring on the road think about other than where iam disposing off that tiny piece of paper in my hand...never mind that it is soooo small as to be obscure ...i mean ...i have my fist clenched don't I ? so obviously I have something in my hand. I am waiting at the lights and i cringe looking at my nails ...bitten half off...omg....look at that girl on the scooter beside me...i mean LOOK at her nails...they are awesome .They are nicely shaped , a pretty pink AND they are whole, not bitten bits hanging for dear life to my finger. Whatever should I do ...I just KNOW that she is going to turn around and smirk at my nails. Never mind that she is probably busy thinking whether she needs to turn left or right at the signal....she will definitely find time to smirk.I just know it! At the supermarket i get to see this really trendy looking couple and they happened to look at me and smile ...woah!!! smile?? why did they do that ?? I look into my shpping basket oh no!!! I ve got Charmin's Ultra Strong toilet rolls... Can you believe this? Of course !! Thats why that couple back there smiled....no iam sure they didnt smile...that was definitely a sneer. Dont you know that there are some people who can school their sneers into a pleasant smile? You didnt??!! Boy!!! Are you an innocent!!! Iam sure their baskets must have been filled with real heppy stuff...like i dont know.... sixth sense stuff.... u know .....pot pourri and stuff... or maybe ...Ultra Sensitive tissue..but i can recognise a sneer anywhere !!!! and then...ok...maybe its time to stop...i can just FEEL y'all thinking...oh yes i can.... WHAT a klutz!!!!:))))

Some random thoughts......

Last evening i just happened to sit and think....u know just think...ok so maybe "think"is a powerful word for what i actually did...so shall we say ..i let my mind wander??? yes...i think that would be a better description...thats just what i did...i was wandering among the mental ..what can u call them....debris maybe? of memories and i was amazed at how much i remember of some things and how little of others...its like flashes of a movie...its like this loong chain or something linked together by something invisible ....like i remembered how i failed Math in school and then conversely how much i enjoyed Statistics in High school..how i broke my ankle while playing basket ball and the tiem i sprained my ankle on the first day of my honey moon (ya i know)..i fell down...how gauche is that ???? how many accidents i have had...how much my knee hurt when i fell on some rocks when i was in the eighth standard.....how much fun we always used to have at all family gatherings in Arni ...how much i used hate going to the loo out there ....i was young...what can i say???? about my dad scolding me .....fighting with my dad...seeing my father die..my whole world turning upside down in just one day...my first promotion at work.....the day i met Sriram...the days before my wedding...my wedding ..the event in itself..i dont remember much...i remember all the fights,the conversations that came with it tho..go figure!!!!Snigdha's birth and the sleepless nights that followed...no idont think that i want to repeat that again .....well.....i can go on and on........

I am currently reading a book by Eco ....i cannot say that i really like his style... too very non comittal for my taste.... but the story by in itself is very fascinating . Its about this chap who has an accident and loses his memory...whats so great u ask?? well the catch is he remembers everything thjat he has ever read ...but he cannot remember any thing about his own personal life!!! Yup...i was pretty hooked... I tried to imagine what it would be like not to remember anything unpleasant...wow!!! i thinkl... i mean i dont have to keep rewinding my father's death in my head... the fight that i had with him before he died... the really awful feedback that i got from the first ever publisher that i sent my verses to.... the godawful fight that i ve had with my husband...the really embarassing moments that make u want to die...i mean really die when u think of them.... the pain of childbirth.But then i think again ...will it really be that great ?? How horrible will it be not to remember the loads of fun that i had at school with my friends...college...the rush and thrill of exams, cutting classes.... singing on stage .... my first job...my first salary...how proud my mom and dad were then!!! The first time i saw my baby ..all pink and shrivelled up...but sooooooo mine!!! There was this really poignant moment in the book where this guy asks his wife if they make love and whether they liked it still.... It was then that it struck me how awful it would be not to know anything about your partner ...and your relationship with each other ....brrrrrr....gave me the chills... no thank you...iam very very happy with my memories good and bad!!!