What's Your Five

It’s Sunday night and my Stupid Boyfriend felt that he has been spending way too much time with me and needed to have a Guys Night with just his Guys. When I asked him what was this all about, he said that it was none of my business as I am a Girl (i never knew that.... seriously). But knowing my guy who neither drinks nor smokes I am sure he is watching his friends do that and regretting not going on a romantic dinner with me (I hope). As my BF completely deserted me and left me ragging mad, I decided to stay home. My Dad is hooked to the TV and my Mum is in gossiping with our neighbors as usual. So, here I am all alone on a Sunday evening. When i logged in, none of my friends were online and I decided to read their blogs which ofcourse I have been ignoring. When I read them I actual enjoyed them and felt like awarding them with some awards. So, I searched around and found perfect awards for them. But wait! They won’t get them so easily.... they have to do this tag before accepting these awards (hahaha! I told you, I will get back at you all the tags, you tag me and torture me to do). The rule is very simple, do this tag and take the awards.

1) 5 things that you grab before you leave home -

Money

My Car Keys

My cell phone

My I-pod

My sunglasses.

2) 5 Confessions that you wanna make –

When I was young, I wanted my mum to buy me a nail polish and she refused. So I went ahead and stole it. After I got back, my mum did give me beating of a life time.

Once, I gave a wrong number of my friend to a guy because I liked him and I dint want them to hook. Eventually they both did hook up and are now married. I am best friends with both of them now.

I am total push over… I am sucker to all emotional drama and give in easily (shit! I just revealed my weakness too).

I am proud about my cooking skills and don’t like anyone meddling with the system.

I am a cleanliness freak too… hate to see mess around.

3) 5 Things that you use every day (leaving the essentials out)-

My Apple Laptop

My Apple I-Pod (I love Apple, Fan Man!)

My Santro Car – Yeah, Hum Santro wale hai (btw got the car because it had SRK)

My Apple I-phone

My Shades (they are now like a part of my body).

4)5 Animals you wish to have as pets-

Dogs (which I already do)

Cats

Dolphin

Parrot

Horse

5)5 Things that I am scared of-

Heights

Emotional Drama’s

Spiders

Blood (that’s the only reason I chose a math stream)

Bats

6)5 songs I am hooked to right now –

Total Eclipse of my heart

The way you look tonight

Something about the way you look tonight

Beautiful in my eyes

Nothing’s gonna change my love for you.

The love bug has finally bit me I suppose: P.

7)5 Things/people that cheer me up-

My BF

Music

Driving

Shopping

Cooking

8)5 things I wanna do/learn-

Dance

Open my own restaurant

Learn directing

Open a home for street dogs

Singing

9)5 Things I would blow dollars on if I win a lottery-

Buy a brand new Tata Safari

Shop until I can’t shop any more (which includes gifts for family and friends)

Go to Paris

Buy a bigger place

Get another dog.

10)5 things you are addicted to-

My BF – I know he isn’t a thing but I am addicted to him.

Music

Cooking – my Bf says that he is the luckiest :D

Ice creams

Driving.

11)5 Super powers you wish you had –

Power to become invisible, just so that I could what the is my BF doing tonight.

Power to heal people.

Power to manipulate people’s minds and stop all the wars and get some peace into this world.

Power to fly.

Power to time travel (that would be fun, I could win so many lotteries or something more less selfish than that :P).

12)5 biggest Pet Peeves-

Being stuck behind a slow driver

Bitching about people behind their back

Smoking

Vulgar language

Untidy place.

Now, for the awards. These go out to Rini , Ash , Akki , Sonia and Shruthi.

A Saturday Evening....

Last Saturday.....

He was extremely quiet and concentrating on his driving more than he usually did. I hated this. He was being so indifferent not just that day but from past few days. He was my best friend before I felt.... what the heck he still is my best friend (atleast I consider him). Even when I used to come to here for holidays we used to spend almost everyday together talking about everything and yet today i felt so distant from him. I dint feel so distant even when i wasn't here. We used to call each other and talk way into the night and on weekends look at the sunrise and then sleep. I looked at him and he still doesn't notice. Its like i am not even there. I got really frustrated.

"If you were planning on keeping so quiet why the hell did you ask me for dinner"?

"You can talk, you know".

I wasn't interested. I started looking out of car window again.

"Where are we going"? The restaurant I thought he was taking me to was long gone behind us.

"To my friends house".

"Why? I am not coming. Who is this friend anyway?"

"We are just picking him up. Want to listen to music?" It was his way of ending a conversation.

"Fine". I pick a Kaminey Cd and put it into the deck. If he wants to be a jerk... let him be. I don't care.

After a while we are in front of one of our friends home and he opens the door for me. Whats the point of being chivalrous when he is being a jerk.

"I am not coming", I said crossing my hands.

"Come on... it wont be long. I promise". He starts to pull me out.

"Ouch! Don't hurt me, I will come".

"Oops, Sorry. Did i hurt you"?

"Yes". But he hurt my feelings more than that.

We get into the building and he opens the door of the flat with the keys.

"Isn't he home"? I can smell something fishy now. Its not my birthday for a surprise party... no, it cant be a surprise party.

After I enter, I am speechless. The room is decorated with roses, candles and the whole setting is so beautiful. He then smiles at me. I looked at him but I am shocked.

He turns to me and opens his mouth.

"No, don't say it".

"But I do...".

"I know you do. I need some time".

With that I got out of there. I just looked back once and I could see he was hurt.

He dint call and neither did I. We work in the same office (different buildings) but still we were successful of not running into each other. I wasn't ready. I was sure it would be a rejection.

Today -

I was driving back from office. I made a decision and I had to tell him. I knew he was home, I checked so I started to drive towards his home. His parents were out of town.... perfect.

I knocked on the door and he opened. He was wearing 3/4ths and a T- shirt. I smiled at him and he gave me a weak smile.

"Can I come in"?

"Yes ofcourse..... you don't have to ask". I could sense that he was still hurt. That would make it even more difficult for me to say what I want to say.

"About last Saturday....."

"Forget it. I was stupid. I thought you liked me but i guess I was wrong". He wasn't even looking at me.

"I do, I do like you but"

"But you don't love me. I know you came here to say we can be friends and all that. What ever you like".

I was getting irritated. He was cutting me every time I tried to say something. Finally I yelled and said -

"I Love You. I came here to say yes but I guess your not ready to listen. So when were you are ready give me a call".

I started to turn and walk away and pulled me into his arms and whispered the 3 magical words "I love you".

Ps - He gifted me a diamond ring which is shining on my finger.

PPS - I thought I was the 1st to know this but it turns out he spoke to my parents and even his (we have blessing of both) before doing anything and all of ours friends were involved. I am disappointed with this though.

Four of a Kind

I have flu and I am stuck at home. My mom forced me to take a sick leave and even to get a check up done for Swine Flu and thankfully doctors said I don't have it. As i have nothing else to do I have decided to do the tag that has been pending.

Four Places I want to visit -

New york

Paris

Sydney

Cape Town

Four books that I love -

Gone with the Wind

Angels and Demons

Wuthering Heights

Harry Potter series.

Four comic strips that I read -

Calvin and Hobbes

Garfield

Peanuts

Tin tin

Four Movies I love -

Philadelphia

Blood Diamond

Omkara

Pirates of Caribbean series - love Johnny

Four things I rather be doing right now -

Shopping

Making chocolates

Redecorating my room

Watching a movie

Four Tv Shows I Love watching -

Friends

Full House

Seinfeld

Will and Grace

Four things I want to do before dying -

Go bungee jumping with Rini

Start an animal shelter

Decorate atleast 50 houses :)

Director a documentary

Four dishes that I love -

Aloo Paratha

Rajma Chawal

Pizza

Noodles

Four Favorite sports stars -

Nadal

Kaka

Michael Owen

Agassi.

Four people I tag -

Akki

Stuti

Aditi

Kunal

Introduction...

I really have no idea what should be my 1st post. So decided to share one my favorite stories of all time. I hope you like it :)

This is one of the best stories by O. Henry according to me. I think its very interesting and worth a read...

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad. In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young." The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling-- something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its colour within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade. "Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value-- the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice--what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.