Life's little pleasures...

There are certain days when everything that happens makes you grin...well I had one such saturday !

I was woken up by a phone call from a friend I hadn't talked to in 5 years and although I was still in the half-dazed zombie mode (I am not at all a morning person!), it was so great to catch up that we ended up talking for an hour. I was meeting another friend for lunch.

It was such a beautiful day, 12 deg C, bright and sunny (After 3 months of snow, 12 deg C is barbeque weather !) and I walked along the Isar river to reach the restaurant. My friend had invited another friend of his along with the family and although I had met them only once before, we got along as if we had known each other for years. I think befriending someone after a certain age is not really easy unless it happens on its own and it did.

During lunch I spent some time with their 5 year old daughter. Afterwards, we all decided to take a walk to the city centre and the first thing she does is run up to me and hold my hand. I was touched although I did not say anything (made me feel too girly :D)

While we were walking she decided to play catch-catch and started running and I ran after her...initially it was just to make sure she does not go out of sight but then I got into the game and we played it for quite a while much to the amusement of other pedestrians (and probably irritation of a few others...)...it was a lot of fun, reminded me of all the lock-and-key I used to play in the mottamadi when I was in school.

Then we went shopping and the store was cluttered and that made her decide that it was the perfect place for hide-and-seek. She would make me close my eyes, check if I really did and then hide. I had bought her a chocolate bunny with a bell around its neck and she dutifully carried it with her without realizing that the jingle of the bell always gave away her hiding place :)...we went on for a while and stopped when I decided that we had tested the patience of the storekeeper enough !

Her father referred to me as ''sowmya aunty'' and I corrected him saying ''sowmya akka'', he chuckled and said ''lets ask her'' and she rolled her eyes and said brightly ''sowmya akka''....and I smiled politely while I was dancing for ''uppu karuvadu'' in my head :D !

And finally it was time to say goodbye and she held on to my hand and said ''pogadhe'' and when I said I had to, she wanted to know when I was going to come to her house and she gave me a list of incentives to do so (in her words ''enga veetula dress, shoe ellam irukku''...ROFL) and I gave her a pretty cliched (but appropriate) response that if she was a good girl I would visit her soon (I wonder if knows the Santa story !)

I came home and I had a sms from her mother saying that she misses me and what completely blew me away was a phone call today saying that she insisted on talking to me....truly a heart-warming moment ! To me, it sort of made up for the time I miss away from my nieces and nephews all the while hoping that my cousins show them photos of me often enough for me to be recognised when I do see them....once a year is simply not enough...!

Gold fish translator:

Mottamadi - terrace

Akka - Sister

Pogadhe - ''Don't go''

Uppu karuvadu - (here) refers to a peppy number from a tamil movie (one of all my time favorites)