November 5, 2010 | Awake & Dreaming

While discussing some old tv series from the 1980s with my sister, she reminded me of a series that I hadn’t thought of in a long time. John Stamos & Jack Klugman played an estranged father & son duo who have just started to rebuild their relationship again in the situation comedy You Again?

The series came out in 1986 and ran for two seasons and got canceled in 1987 but I think it was a damn good and funny sit com. Henry Willows’ (Klugman) life is turned upside down when his estranged son Matt (Stamos) comes to live with him. Henry had become fairly comfortable with his life as a supermarket manager and was not really looking to make major changes to it as he is still bitter about the divorce from his wife. 7 year old Matt at the time of the divorced announced in court that he wanted to live with his mom and her new boyfriend and hence Henry never even made an attempt to see his son in 10 years.

Matt comes to live with his father after his rebellious ways gets him in trouble with his mom & step-dad. Henry is always suspicious about his son and feels like he can’t become a father again after the long gap of 10 years. Aiding him in his attempt is his British housekeeper Enid, portrayed by Elizabeth Bennett. It’s a good look at the single father who suddenly has a teenaged son on his hands. The episodes are filled with funny scenes as a grumpy Henry battles his well meaning but not always wise son!

As stated earlier, I had planned to go along with my team for a day long trip where we could get to spend most of the day having fun and forget all about work. But that plan got shafted due to the inefficiencies of others and it was a wasted opportunity and I feel so bad about it. I’m sure that my team members are also upset about it but they haven’t said a word yet. Still I know them, so I thought that I’d take them out for lunch atleast; I was using my own money and hence I could do whatever I wanted. So I smsed all the team and told them that not to bring their own lunches and that we would go out instead.

I left a little later than usual and reached the office. Our section of the office, in the ground level, looked a lot deserted being a public holiday on the occasion of Diwali. Only small groups of employees sat in sections and chatted while they did their work. 3 of my team members had arrived in the morning and the remaining 3 were to arrive around 2pm. I spent my time checking on a few things and then by 1:45 pm got my team into a cab and we headed over to Hotel Sea Park for lunch. One of my team members was reaching there directly. Joining us was a new member; he is a shared resource between my department and another and I thought it was a great opportunity for him to be completely comfortable with the group. He is somewhat but is finding the job tough.

So by 2pm we were all seated in the reserved table (oohh, fancy) and the waiter brought us the menus. After soup, we handed over a big list of the food that we wanted – 2 chicken fried rice, 2 Hyderabadi chicken biriyanis, 1 mixed noodles, 2 mixed fried rice, 1veggie fried rice, 1 hot pepper chicken, 1 fried beef, 1 chicken 65, 1 chilly beef, 1 chilli gobi, some other chicken stuff and a big fish fry. I had the fish fry and a Hyderabadi chicken biriyani which happens to be my usual order whenever I go to this hotel. We had some fun, we had a few laughs as we waited for the grub to come and once it did, all of us were busy in chewing & swallowing. Once the food was gone it was time for ice cream – casatta, fruit salads with ice cream, chocolate & vanilla ice cream. Always a good idea to have an ice cream at the end of a meal like that.

Well they had fun and so did I. Mission accomplished. I’m happy to do this for them as much as I can. Cause they deserve more.