I am in two minds about blogging this day, because it means writing a lot about V and E is of the opinion that he resents my writing about him and that is what creates problems between us. She could be right. Or very wrong. I really don't know because today I can tell you, I don't know this man at all.
But the day was so wtf I can't get over it. Got up at 7.30, dusted, swept, tidied, got breakfast for The Bhablet. Went through his morning routine, juice, potty, yadda yadda, settled him in his pool and went into the kitchen. Took me longer than I'd thought because the kitchen needed serious cleaning (I'd ignored it all week. Stress got to me, so I'd focused my mind outside the house for a couple of days.) Cleaned, cooked, cleaned. Set curd, made lunch, got on the phone with Ma, tried out a new recipe, found out about Madhavi's pregnancy (wife of one of my oldest friends and I really like her. She's having a hard time so please keep her in your prayers.) Declined an invitation to lunch. V gave The Bhablet his bath and lunch and I then took him off for his nap.
He took a while to settle down. Anupam arrived for a visit, and I left on a series of errands. Drop off dungarees at Southern Avenue, pick up shirt, drop off shirt at Panditiya, drop off cheque and pick up passes from Sunny Park. At Sunny Park I discovered that I'd left my wallet at home so had no money and more importantly, no license. Drove home warily, and the horn stopped working midway.
Came home, found V smoking, even though he knows well that I will not have anybody smoking in the house, not even in our tiny balcony, save during parties. Lost my temper, smacked him, kicked Anupam out. I'm not the slightest bit upset now, nine hours later, but he's not coming back to my home. I trusted him. Words with V afterwards.
Cleaned up kitchen. Put the laundry out to dry. Washed dishes used by the two men, fell asleep next to The Bhablet in his cot. V woke me up to ask me what I'd meant. I felt distinctly unobliging. Things were starting to get out of hand when The Bhablet stirred and ended the conversation. I went back to sleep. The wtfness of the day had left me pretty uninterested in trying to make sense of any of it.
I napped, actually, and kept waking to hear bangs and remember V stalking away. Woke up sometime later to find he'd left home, having finished the vodka I'd locked away. His decision, I told myself, and busied myself with The Bhablet who had just woken up. Bell downstairs. V collapsed outside. He refused to get back home so I gave up, bundled The Bhablet into Ally and took them both to Jodhpur Park, i.e. where V's parents live. The horn still wasn't working.
Things reached a impasse there because V insisted on being taken back home (total wtf moment here) so I left R with the grandparents. Drove back home, V went upstairs on his own steam but couldn't get much beyond the living room. I somehow took him into the bathroom and opened the shower on him. It was only 5 p.m. Cleaned up the puke in the car. Cheese omlette and vanilla Smirnoff.
Tip of the day: when someone's drunk and passing out on you, a shower or several mugfuls of water is a good thing.
Passing over unnecessary details, I finally convinced him to get into bed and sleep it off. Anjita arrived, with her mother, to borrow The Bhablet's pram. Polite conversation. I may have been slightly manic by now but they didn't seem to notice. They left, I checked mails. Storm outside so the flat was thoroughly dusty by the time it got over. Which means more cleaning tomorrow. I sorted out and folded laundry.
The Bhablet came home quite late, at 8, and with nail polish on his fingernails, which I found really upsetting. He was tired and cranky and uncharacteristically, refused his dinner. I decided not to force the issue and carted him off to bed, only to discover a diaper full of potty. This totally messes up tomorrow morning's schedule, btw. Jus' sayin'.
He took AN HOUR to fall asleep. I had to drop off some money at the ATM, so I counted it out and did the one thing I'd sworn never to do -- leave home, locking a sleeping V and R inside. (Our flat has an old fashioned latch and lock system.) I thought I would be away for 15 min max, there's an ATM on Prince Anwar Shah, after all. The horn continued to stay silent so I signalled with lights the best I could. Which meant a lot of unintended signalling when I was trying to figure out how to flash headlights. The ATM didn't have cash envelopes. Which meant heading to Jadavpur thana, which I'd hoped to avoid, busy main roads and all.
Just yards away from the petrol pump which has the ATM, Ally stalled and wouldn't start up again. In the middle of the road. With lorries on both sides. Frantic calls to V yielded no returns, since he was fast asleep at home.
Ran to the pump stn, begged for men to come help me push her off the road. They couldn't figure out what the problem was and didn't want to, not being trained. So I made arrangements to have her stay the night there, and I'd come by the next morning, to transfer her to the Maruti Service Centre next door. (The location was the only thing that went right in this one.) And then I discovered that when the men had lifted the bonnet to take a look at the engine, they hadn't been able to close it again. The spring lock was either either jammed or broken. I called up Kaku (Baba's younger brother) in despair and he told me to leave things as they were, esp since the bonnet
looked shut.
Went into the ATM, since I was there anyway, only to find no envelopes. No security gaurd to be seen. Man in mufti turned up, smiled sheepishly and said he hadn't received the key so he couldn't get at his uniform, but he did produce
an envelope. Deposited as much as I could, started on the walk home.
Turning off the main road I saw a fat Bengali moronic-looking lout acting weird. Walking past the Jodhpur Park park, I saw the moron was following me. Because, you know, all my day lacked thus far was a stalker. I took his photo in my phone camera, called up Dana and told her tersely to call the police if she didn't get a call from me in 20 min saying that I was safely home. She called back in seconds to ask me where I was. Because the police might need to know that. We decided the safest thing to do was to stay on the phone until I reached home so I spent the next fifteen minutes telling her about my day. Got home and told her the rest of the story, bless her non-judgmental soul. That was at 11.30 p.m.
Now I'm done recording this and am off to bed. Just struck me, all I've had today has been two salt crackers and lots of water.
And that's the second time The Bhablet's woken up in 30 min, howling and refusing to settle down. I don't know what it is and I'm going to bed right now before the day can throw anything more at me.
Got this far and cannot post. No internet. If you do see this post, you'll know Somebody somewhere decided to show a little of that mercy He's so famous for.
5th May 2008
UPDATE: Ally's battery has failed; Spent the morning at the garage setting her up for servicing, the works. Will cost plenty. On the other hand, the folks at the garage were very nice and explained lots of things.
