That's Life

I have always had a knack for making good juices. Now I quite realize that I'm not being very modest, so it might make you feel better when I say that Daddy Boy thinks to the contrary.

I'll just defend myself there by saying that I have a good excuse. Fixing juices for him is rather different from doing it for anyone else, rather more difficult too. Daddy Boy is partial to narang juice the way cats go for milk. You are probably thinking that I must a rather lazy girl to say that making a narang juice is a difficult task.

Ah, but you haven't heard my story yet. First of all there is the leeetle problem of acquiring the fruit to be juiced. This is not a simple matter of grabbing a few off the fruit bowl. This is the matter of plucking a few off the tree with a kekka. And even this is not easy as it should be.

There are all sorts of nasty looking ants inhabiting the tree and the thorns are not much of a help either. Daddy Boy will gleefully stand a few feet away and every time you put down the kekka he'll inform that oh, look there is another one, see? Just there on top of the tree.

The remedy for this is a withering look, but when you do find the object of his desires you mouth will water too and both of you will scramble halfway up the tree to see who can reach it first.

The second stage is going into the kitchen and extracting the juice from the fruits, now of extreme labor). But this is not so easy either.

Daddy Boy will appear at various times behind your shoulder to ask whether you put any salt in it because he really would like it with some salt, and only just a bit of it you see, don't want it tasting like a drink of salt with a bit of narang added to improve the taste do we? Now this is the type of situation when it crosses my mind that the males of our species seem to have this common idea that women should cook.

Kitchen is her terrain and all that, but when doing so must do so with the instructions of any male in the vicinity. To be confined to the kitchen is nothing to jump around in joy for.

How nice of them to think that we would wouldn't like anything better than gutting fish and peeling innala, and by choice too. Oh and dear Daddy Boy who believes that small innala have a better flavour and always spends ages choosing the smallest in the lot.

If you ever happen to see a lady trying to pull a gentleman away from an innala display and upon failing she takes to hitting him with her purse, do go up and ask them how their daughter is doing.

Daddy Boy will also go green when he sees Mother Dear gutting the fish, but I have yet to see him gallantly take over the task. But the added insult of being thought that Daddy Boy should seat himself on the little bankuwa to offer helpful guidelines is rather too much.

So you ask him, very sweetly, whether he would like to make it himself. He will never say yes and next you will shoo him out of the kitchen. But even then he will deliver his parting shot of how he hopes you'll remember the ice.

The next stage is presenting the finished product to Daddy Boy, and it is best to do so with a mutinous look on your face because he will inevitably want to know whether you put enough sugar, salt and ice.

The initial sip will be rather tentative and his face will go green. He'll declare it to be too sour and when you remedy it bring it back to him he'll want more sugar.

With a martyred look he'll finish his drink and then he'll elaborate on who he thinks makes the best narang drink at home, you or Mother Dear.

He will coyly say that it is Mother Dear and she'll smile coyly back. I now believe that I should have liked to delete all that about the hardships Mother Dear goes through to gut the fish, but it would have made this article rather very small. Settling of scores will take place another day.

Dilini Algama