Tuesday, July 29, 2008

............................THE OSSIE-PLUMES

It is a balmy Sunday morning in San Francisco. The radio blares on as the Porsche Boxter S roars down Noe Valley. 106.7 ZRock FM serves and smashes Rihaana’s ‘Shut up and Drive’ raw and hot. However, Rihaana can’t shut David and Brenda up, as they sing and talk over the top, like two very raucous love-birds fawning over each other after a high- adrenaline, sizzling Saturday night.

“What a magnificent night babe,” David smiles from ear to ear, as he effortlessly screeches to a halt at the water fountain standing at the entrance of Brenda’s one-storey condominium.

There at the end of her street, David pushes that wayward strand of hair behind her ear and smiles. He wags her finger, winks and says “Baby, stay home, do you laundry and be a good girl. You need the rest after yesterday’s heavy-duty passion and action. (winks) I’ll be out of here and back in no time.” Brenda looks into his eyes, happy tears blurring her vision, “You’re my pillar of strength and support- my well of happiness, fortitude and dynamism. I hope I make the right decision. Making it overnight is shelving it as a worst case scenario, but I know I can make it anyways.”

David had never been the counter-emotional type. He altered his tone to a teasing one, “The prognosis for the day is that you’re going to have a lazy day ahead. Go warm your butt. (Smiles)”

Brenda hugs him tight and gets out of the car. She waves to him, as he zooms out of sight. She walks into her home, kicks her stilettos into the air, puts on some loud music and decides to get real lazy.

She changes into her favorite night pajamas that smelled of flowers, from the Tide Simple Pleasures Detergent. She walks to the liquor cabinet: pours herself a glass of Zinfandel and fills her plate with the Potato Stroganoff hot from the hamburger helper her maid Maria had made her.

After the relaxed self wining and dining, she moves to the attic. “Maybe, I should pull out some old stuff, and feel good about old times,” she twitters to herself.

A cardboard box hidden in a dusty corner catches her attention. She opens it, only to find a gob of golden cookbooks collected over the years. A big blue diary catches her attention.

Her breath gets stuck in her throat as she looks at the two ostrich feathers glued atop the diary. As a six year old, when she’d been to the 600 acre Rooster Cogburn’s Ostrich Ranch on the Picacho Peak, she’d taken these two feathers as a keepsake, and filled in the dairy with marginalia of specialized ostrich egg and meat recipes, and childish doodles of the huge ostrich egg and the gummy Ostrich Goulash she’d eaten.

She carries the blue diary with ostrich feathers to bed that night. She smiles and thinks of David. She had made her decision.

The door bell wakes her up in the morning. She gets the door in her night robe. David walks in, gives her a hug. “So what have you decided?”

“I’ve decided that the theme for the next month is going to be ‘ostriches’; we could call it ‘The Ossie Plumes’! We’ll have big ostrich feathers at the grand entrance and ostrich masks given to every guest who enters. Ostrich artifacts and sculptures shall be placed at every table. We’ll have a special ostrich-fan dance by the ‘Ostricia Girls’ at the special hour and an entire ‘Ostrich egg and meat’ special on the menu. To ring in some extra greens, we could also auction ostrich boas, handbags, head-gear, leather belts, bags, wallets and other fashion accessories. Media and celebrities from every walk of life shall be there for a sneak peak on the opening Saturday of the month………” “Fantabulous,” he says. “I knew you are the best Restaurant Concept-Moghul I could ever ask for. You and I, our partnership is going to ‘cook’ up more than all our head-chef could. ”

The previous night had been a just-opened- pressure-cooker: starry-eyed, hot and steamy, yet eased out and very much in-its-element.
Saturday night had been the opening night of ‘Cornucopia’, the most awaited restaurant of the year. David, the Restaurateur of the year 2007 had begun ‘Cornucopia’ with great aplomb- the theme of the restaurant was to have a new theme every month. David had hired Brenda as his Conceptualiser. The first month’s theme had been ‘Starry eyed’ with Hollywood stars and their favorite foods doing the rounds.

Welcome to Cornucopia. Fall in love with David, Brenda and their ostriches.

*******************************************************************************

Last week's Wordzzle Challenge by Raven:
Cardboard box, liquor cabinet, ostrich feathers, longitudinal, hamburger helper, partnership, laundry detergent, magnificent, San Francisco, prognosis
And for the Mini Challenge: worst case scenario, marginalia, water fountain, specialized, fortitude.

45 comments:

Cяystal said...

Hey!!!
Glad to see ya back,babe!


And *ahem ahem*
*Looks at her in awe*

*starts laughing hysterically*
I'm so damn jealous of you! :O
That was awesome.

rantravereflect/ jane said...

whoaaaaaaa**looks back in awe**

i mean ya read it sooooo darn fast????
i jus posted..
Thanks a tonnnnnnn womannnn :):)
mwuahhhhhhhh :*

Scribblers Inc said...

woho...thats brilliant!!

Scribblers Inc.

--xh-- said...

Porsche Boxter S and Zinfandel... i didnt read rest ;-)
hm.. never i got a clue abt the restaurant angle. sooper da :)

rantravereflect/ jane said...

--scribblers inc-->
hey jock, I'm glad ya likey it :)
geeeeee..
i'm waityn for ya next episode... ya humor is way beyond splitting my guts.. geee :)

--xh-->
i knowwww man.. zinfandel n teh porsche.. i loveeeeeeee penning my stories, because only in them, i live luxury par excellence ;);)
n yehh, the restaurant angle was something i was dying to put in some story :D

Mysterious Mia said...

fantastic babes.....

Vishesh said...

you are good at this girl ;) lol ostrich ? how about chennai kaka ?

Cinderella said...

YOu are evil !!

They were talkin about a theme ?!!!

I thought...aarrgh...anyway...you know what I thought, cz it was you who got me thining there, didnt you ?!!

Loved the twist, and babe, seriously I admire the way you can conjure up stuff like this from some inspiration you know. I cant do that...no matter how much I try...

And btw hell yeah you are gonna ping me when you coming down here !!

rantravereflect/ jane said...

--princess mia-->
heen thank-tastic babe!

--vishesh-->
chennai kaka n kaka biriyani!! buahahhahahaha..
remember vivek in run??!! buahahhaha.. imagine if vivek n you were to do a kaka theme for a restaurant ;);)

--cinderella-->
i'm wayyyy too evil..
n i'm soooo glad i got ya thinking alll that..
n well, the way ya think in ya poems, i couldn't ever put togetehr lines liek them :(
a restaurant theme has always been on ma mind: it's cumin up big tyme in india as well.. loveeee barbeque nation:D
heeee, ya have 2 at b'lore ryteeee??

and i'm cuminnnnnnnnnnn the next tyme i'm there- ryet there at ya doorstep, luggage et all :D

Sameera Ansari said...

Girl!What a great imagination you have!!!

Fantastic story telling there Babes!Keep it rolling :)

Muaaaaaaaaaah

Anindita said...

Fucking brilliant!

*applauds*

maverick said...

hmm...so wasup...and nice piece of writing...fiction or real?

gypsy said...

hey...this one was good...

but i had a hard time reading it, if u can darken the text color grl...

Heart'n'Soul said...

Yayeeee
Cuppa's back in action :)

You are rockin in this one girl...how do u do it ya? does it like come in ur dreams or wat...very well woven web of words if i may say so :)

*bows down with both hands*

Beauty and the BEast said...

very innovative!!

Nice way to go about it

keep writing

Anonymous said...

Hi ,

I was reading ur blog posts and found some of them to be wow.. u write well.. Why don't you popularize it more.. ur posts on ur blog ‘CUPPA’ took my particular attention as some of them are interesting topics of mine too;

BTW I help out some ex-IIMA guys who with another batch mate run www.rambhai.com where you can post links to your most loved blog-posts. Rambhai was the chaiwala at IIMA and it is a site where users can themselves share links to blog posts etc and other can find and vote on them. The best make it to the homepage!

This way you can reach out to rambhai readers some of whom could become your ardent fans.. who knows.. :)

Cheers,

Vishesh said...

ha ah ah ah ah a ah...well Vivek might make them laugh...and i will kill them with my PJs :) lol thats onething in the blogosphere i don't do...;)

Anonymous said...

wow!!!!!!!!! Jane.. this was gooood

u got me there :P

that was so bl***y creative and brilliant :)

Keshi said...

Jane ur too good at this!

Keshi.

Saim said...

another twist in d tale...bloody brilliant how u attain them
nicely done*claps*

rantravereflect/ jane said...

sameera-->
pretty fukd up imagination ;);) geeeee
thanks a ton!

--anindita->
*bows-head-in-style*
geeeeeee

--maverick-->
fiction man, but yehhh that'd be my dream job.. estaurant conceptualiser :)


--d sinner-->
heyyya gurl..thanks.. well the text, is the page loading completely? it's supposed be black lettering against a pink white template ;)

rantravereflect/ jane said...

--div-->
hey sweetheart, yehhh when i'm awake n dreaming ;) storylines turn me on, heeee- like twists in the tales.. i was watching great expectations yesterday- simple, yet brilliant twist.. :)


--b&theb->
geee, thanks a tonnnn..
ii really wanna keep reading ya stories as well.. keep 'em cumin in :)


--ray-->
sure thanig man.. sooo much for free publicity.. i'll definitely join in :)
geeeee

--vishesh-->
our pj's rock man.. liek totally!
sooo lets' jus keep slaughtering peopel on blogsville :)
buhahahhaahah

--veens-->
i'm soooo glad i gotcha!!!


--keshi-->
yuppppppppers! thanksss!

--comf.numb-->
yayayyyy.. thanks man..
i do a lotta bloody things ;)

Lena said...

you are too good at that, using all these words and weaving a story, not just an average one but really a good one :)

Cяystal said...

I re-read it :)

I still am jealous :D
*applauds* ms to-be JK rowling =P

Sriram said...

whoa! Awesome!

Gunjan Aylawadi said...

u did it again!!
applause from me!!
:D

Anonymous said...

mmmm. sorester.. and i missed loads of post...

Raz said...

wow machan! u rock! going to come here more often.

Raz said...

i blogrolled u :)

humbl devil said...

this was good...
you have one nys talent there...spinning stories from words...
so when's the enxt one coming up???

Think Tank said...

u got me ..i was so totally not expecting dat ...
bliogrolled u :)

Unknown said...

That was well constructed. :)

Anonymous said...

cunningly simple, but with an after-effect.

lukkydivz said...

I was wondering y some of the words have been highlighted :D
*bows in awe*
few days back sameera gave me a pic of a cat and asked me to write a story out of it :O
I started with…

Once upon a time there lived a cat :P :P

Vadapoche said...

Wow!!! That was cool!

Anonymous said...

Creative consultant.. PR.. hmmm Hanmer and partners !!!! jump there...

man in painting said...

WOW!
Genius always know what to overlook..
wonderful...
I can predict a spring season..
or is it already here?
MIP

g-man said...

woa, that was fucking incredible. neat connections. hilarious too :D

Sriram said...

blog updated :)

Crimson Feet said...

lol.. brilliant!!

simply brilliant

:)

Unknown said...

its fukn awesome the way you weave your creativity

gr8 show keep rocking..........

crasiezt said...

Holy shit! You got me there..completely unawares!! *Salutes*

Chaggoholic.... said...

Well some fascination Brenda has for ostrich feathers;)Good story though....

Anonymous said...

Great story gurl and unusual end...U kept me guessing...keep 'em coming :)

HP said...

wow ! nice! :))

UPDATES ON MY OTHER BLOG :)

1. Read my latest post 'wear and tear' ON MY BLOG here:PJ4u-----