These are eventful days surely! Eleanor and Frank are married. Definitely the story of the season, but there’s someone else who’s going through a change. Love actually! Read on…

Rachael is happy these days! She’s blissfully happy these days with Charlie. Charlie comes across as someone with a mature head over very young shoulders. He understands that Rachael is different from an average teenager. There’s more to her life than boys and head-banging numbers. Charlie makes her feel very comfortable with whatever she wants to do. He’s an equally great buddy in the library as in the bowling alley. Rachael feels at ease with him around. As a result, our little scientist is slowly shedding the plumes of inhibition. She’s taking on new colors.

Liz tells me that these days Rachael goes around the pad in a state of activity. She does her room a number of times a day! This is really remarkable because Rachael hated doing that. She’s put up some beautiful posters in her room. It’s just not constructive activity that she’s doing. She’s been messing things up in her attempt to help Liz. Suddenly she’s finding a lot of interest in household chores. She’s pestering Liz to let her do stuff. With inexperienced hands she’s making a cute goof up of stuff. Liz isn’t complaining though. She’s ecstatic that suddenly her daughter is all life and less books! Things love does to you!

The office is a cauldron. We have all types of people over here. They have come from different backgrounds, upbringings and habits. And when pooled together. they make for excellent behavioral study material. You have read about Kate’s coworker. Now let me tell you about a coworker that we have in our office. Let’s call him Ryan here. Now, Ryan claims that he has worked on in a number of distinguished offices in his career. This claim seems a little fictionalized, because he’s too young to have the experience that he claims he has. But that doesn’t stop him from boasting around that he’s a misfit around here and deserves much better!

Being a techie, Ryan keeps dropping names of systems that he has worked in the past. He crawls up to other techies who, unlike him, are quiet and more focussed on their work than their gab. Ryan lectures them on how they should “upgrade” their career. He has a word of advice for anyone who has ears to listen. You can’t argue with Ryan if you value your time. He says, “I can never be wrong!” Yes, we have the same reaction to it that you have now on reading this! But he’s great fun to be with. He’s a sort of a live wire and on his best mood, can brighten up a damp work atmosphere. Here’s to you, Ryan!

Lovers get back after a tiff in the same way as a water droplet split by a sharp object. They coalesce and join forces again to be together, to fight it out together. Kate and Henry saw off their crisis and now they are happily back together. Megan and Kate came over to our pad over the weekend. We were talking about our lives. What I noted was that each one of us had an unfinished tale to tell. It’s as if we were all incomplete to a large extent. We were all looking for something, and none of us knew what it is that we are missing. So we kept looking for answers.

Kate got candid after downing a couple of pegs. She said, “You know what guys, I really thought I can’t sort it out with Henry! It was going downhill with both of us refusing to see sense. Then he just gave up his point and agreed to mine. In a way, he let go of the argument to keep the relationship alive. I really liked that.” Megan bowed her head with a wide smile. It was obvious she agreed with her. Adrian looked happy. I was glad that sensible people like Henry still exist!

Eleanor and Frank are married. The first thing that they have decided to do together is do up their house. Frank has decided to come and stay over with Eleanor. He’s busy moving stuff over to Eleanor’s pad. I met him by the stoop with a box balanced precariously on two others. “Hey there, Bob,” he tossed to me on his way up, “how have you been doing?” Before I could reply, Eleanor could be heard upstairs. “Join us in the evening, Bob” she told me, “and get Kong along!” Kong, that means she’s got cookies!

Sure as heck, when Kong and me turned up, both of us could smell freshly-baked cookies. Kong turned his nose up and headed towards the kitchen he knows so well. I chatted with Frank while Eleanor got us snacks and stuff. I was in the perfect home. This newly-married couple was so comfortable in each other’s presence, as if they have been living in this house for ages. The evening was really special, something that I’m not going to forget in a hurry. And neither will Kong! He’s lost count of how many goodies he’s gobbled up.

This week’s Zen quote comes from Germaine Greer: “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” Witty, what say?