Every Monday when I walk into work I bump into these people in the lift, kitchen with whom you can only have small talks. A topic covered in these small talks at work are always weather and weekend. And each time someone asks how was your weekend, I struggle to answer because my weekends are always cooking, dish washing, laundry and grocery shopping and its always that. I try hard to sound excited but most times I have nothing to report and hence no enthusiasm. People would think I am a nerd.But this Monday, I walked with my head held high ( how high can I get with my 5 feet..) everytime someone asked how was ur weekend ? I said fantastic. I went to the city with my friends, about 15 of us, we had lunch, watched movie, sat around Yarra. By now I am sure half the building has heard my story, oh ! wait the lady in Legal hasn’t heard, should follow her the next time she goes for a coffee to the pantry so I can tell her the story..hehe
Anyway it was an eventful weekend. I have never driven to the city. The farthest is Chappel street. So driving to city itself was fun. To my surprise not just the new bees but most of the moms agreed to join. My car had Anitha, Aruna, Divya and Vidya. The trip started with dramatic crying by junior, who came and sat on aruna’s lap refusing to get off the car. Had to pack bread for feeding ducks and her baby bag in a record time of 2 minutes, handed over to her dad and Arun who offered to take her to see the ducks…well they did not have any choice.
When I drove away with a pinch of guilt, exactly 3 minutes later Arun called to confirm baby had forgotten all about me leaving and was just excited about the ducks now..Duh !
Next picks up was Anitha and then Divya. Drive was rather quite until we picked Divya. Needless to say the car was already like a high school field trip bus, the last one to be picked up was Vidya. We did have another drama, this time it wasn’t the junior. It was Prem J, who was in tears while junior stood there checking if her daddy was leaving or not. She did not even notice her mommy leaving.
The fun ride started then – the endless updates were provided by Divya/Vidya and Anitha. Obviously we discussed important issues like who is the key ‘uncle’ of Kollywood, what was actress mantra’s strategic plans for future, what was namitha upto these days, Nityadanda and his accessories ( correctly identified by Anitha) and even mimicry of ‘singa muthu’ by Aruna.
We hadn’t stopped laughing and I hadn’t had such a fun filled ride ever – considering driving with hubi who doesn’t even yell at other drivers ! Duh !
Oh ! offcourse we got yelled by another driver, coz I waited in a yellow light, while he thought I should have gone. We found parking and had no idea where we were. Once we got inside Crown, we met well dressed Kavz , ever so pretty Aarti and junior Jai who helped us find the way. When we finally got into santé – met rest of the gang – Jaya, Sharmi and Praba. It was actually fantastic just being there with so many women. Haven’t done that in like 10 years I think.
There was free face painting for kids – obviously desi mentality settled in – we all got one for ourselves. ( Free ya kudutha phenoyl kooda kudipom)
Anyway Food was good, dessert was awesome. We ate for more than an hour and decided to finish only when it was time for the movie. By now Mitch who was counting the time, was already in front of Crown to pick up An. After An left we went straight to the movies - Alice in Wonderland. Walked in with absolutely no expectations, but the movie was quite good. I hadn’t watched a 3D movie in like 20 years – ‘My dear kuti chathan’ was the last and no need to guess my age..grrr
Anyway it was fun, especially sitting next to Divya and Aruna. Divya was trying to catch the butterflies and Aruna was trying to push Alice into the rabbit hole. We took 3 D quite seriously.hehe
End of it, even though we wanted to go to Lydnt café for coffee, we were too full from the lunch. This was probably the first time I have watched a movie without popcorn. So we settled for a cold coffee with the view of Yarra, spoke of all the psychic views of the couples, marriage/love stories etc.
Unbelievable but it was 7 pm and Vidya was becoming a bit concerned for the sake of Harshini – not for Prem J. hehe . Sangee was still on her way and none of us were even ready to talk about possible dinner – whatever little spot left was now filled by the thick cold coffee with lots of cream - sorry sangee !
We did have a lovely speech by Divya thanking all the ‘seniors’ duh !!! but it was really cute. I felt like I was in uni.
Finished the drop offs and came home with Aruna at about 8:00 and the boys ( hubi and Arun) had decided on dinner – Pizza offcourse. Invited Ferni and Divya to join and we all ate the Pizza and we lived happily ever after…too many fairy tales.sorry.
I realised the secret was keeping it simple. All we needed was bunch of open minds ready to be part of game, peace of mind – which again depends on partners who can handle home/kids while we are away and the little sunshine was like the icing on top.
It was a well deserved break for all us and perfect weekend for me.
