My Musings

So, another year comes to an end. WOW! that one went by pretty fast - seems like just yesterday that it started. And it is already that time when all those "top 10" lists are popping up. I also have one such "list" to make - thanks to Preethi's Tag. I will come to that shortly - maybe tomorrow - starting a fresh year with the "what I want to dos and bes". Now is the time for thanks and reminiscing all that went by in 2007. It was a very nice year for me and my family. Loads of happenings - all good ones, with out major loss - which was anticipated but left a vacuum like none. The Year began with us moving to this apartment where we are - a smaller one in comparison to where we lived before, but one that definitely made us more happy. Who ever said "Size Matters"! The Late winter and early Spring months saw us enthusiastically planning for our upcoming India trip. The summer months just fled by - April and May - partly spent in India - with on...

It is snowing or rather blowing snow very hard outside. For probably the first time this winter, we have had this much accumulation (about 5-8 inches of snow, says the weather channel) - I beleive them - don't want to confirm it by testing. Seeing this - no Kohls, no Meijer, no Namaste Plaza - the Mr. said with a stern face. So, we let out creative juices flow and the result ... Mine The Mr's Master Strokes I took a couple of pics from the balcony, braving the strong winds .. What was once our "Hara bhara" garden. Am I glad to be on this side of the "Post" and not the other. Who ever said "Grass is always Greener on the other side" Want to come home? Have a Seat?

Sorry Preethi , for the huuuuuuuuuuuge delay in getting to this. I am sure you understand and forgive me .... after all isn't XMAS the season for forgiveness :) hee hee .... Okay now moving on to my Tag. This probably will be the most quirkiest thing I have ever written on my blog . LOL. 1. How do you feel after a one night stand? Oh! I would looove it if it was anyone in the list .. Yesudas, Asha Bhonsle, Shreya Ghoshal, KK, Sonu Nigam, SPB ... the list goes on..... Wait - hold your horses, before you get me all Judged up - according to Wikipedia .... one night stand means ... A one-night stand is originally a single night theatre performance (usually a guest group on tour) ........ and i did not bother to read beyond that ;). 2. Do you ever get used to wearing a thong? Nope ... would not want to try one too :) 3. Does it hurt? Would not know .. 4. Do you know when you are acting crazy? What do mean by "Act" ... ain't I crazy all the time ?? 5. Does size really matt...

It is ages since I have been wanting to scribble here and have not got time. I wanted to write about our Thanksgiving holiday in Miami and Key West, wanted to complete the Tag Preethi gave me and many more ... but have been so very busy at work and quite ill with the temperature change (miami was 85F , Detroit is 25F) ... Anyway, this excuse of busy is always there in everybody's live. I think despite being caught in domestic and official affairs , you should take out some little time for yourself - that time where nothing else but you and you alone matter. Since a very long time, I wanted to write about this - Photo Sharing. There was a time, say about 5-6 years ago, when the only photographs that people every had of themselves or trips or families were the printed ones - and it was a pain scanning these photos to share with friends or relatives. But with the advent of the digital cameras - sizes ranging from ones as big as a watermelon to ones as small as lemon - sharing photos h...

Yahooo! Finally I got tagged. I never thought this day would come. For more than 2 years I have been blogging but nobody has every tagged me..... I am so happy.... Thanks a tonnnnnne Preethi . Rules of the game : Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. Okay now for the Tag. Well, it certainly is a tough one - 7 weird/random things about me. Hmm... I really don't know what to write. They may not be weird things - in the sense that maybe everybody does or have these things, but then here goes. Okay the first thing that comes to my mind is my weird obsession to "note" every single happening in my life. I always have this insatiably desire to write down almost every single thing that happens in my life. Right from when I woke up, to what I ate...

Ah!..... Got it - Got reminded of one of the tasks. It was given to probably the laziest person in our group - my dear friend R . He was asked to go to each and every body's desk, early in the morning, ask respectfully if they wanted tea or coffee and bring them their choice and serve it on their desk. We all derived great fun pulling R's legs and had great rollicking fun seeing him do this. Each one of us ordered werid things - horlicks, boost, bournvita - of course none of our wishes were satisfied :P ..... Powered by ScribeFire .

The Christmas season has already begun here. All the streets in downtown detroit are getting dressed up with the finest of wares - trees, wreath, lights, bells and what not. In the Mr's office lobby - they have cleared up the entire area and set up about 20 christmas trees each one decorated uniquely and brilliantly. As I walked past the fine exhibits, I got reminded of "Chrisma" - the game I played only once in my entire life - the christmas of 2004. I got to know of the existence of this game about 10 years ago, when I noticed and very beautiful statue in my cousin's room and she mentioned that her "Chris child" had given it to you. In the December of 2004, our team members decided that we would 'play' this game for a week. There are various variations of the game and you can create your own rules. This is what we had decided. One morning the names of all the team members would be written down in chits and each one would pick a 'chit' - tha...

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous diwali. May this festival bring joy, light and happiness into your lives.

For the first time in the nearly-2 years that we have been in this city; we went out for a night event in downtown. Detroit downtown is very notorious for the unsavory crowd that it hosts. There are dark tales out there of numerous shootings, muggings and what not. Till about 6 months ago, the Mr. would not even venture to step into the downtown, even during daytime, even if he was paid a million dollars. Of late, the air that comes from that part seems to be nice. We keep hearing of how "good" things are getting, how friendly the surroundings are being made, how the burnt out buildings are being replaced by something that is close to normal. It was when my parents came here and we had no choice but to tour them the city we lived in - that we visited the downtown for the 1st time. It was not that bad - but then it was mid afternoon on a warm summer day too. A month or so later, my company arranged for a tour-de-detroit one warm fall evening - it was this tour that gave us a b...

Gosh! I cannot believe that it is a year since last Halloween. I got reminded of it when we visited S's house two weekends ago and saw a teeny-weeny pumpkin waited to be painted , in their balcony. S's daugther ran to us saying - I am going to paint my "punkin" red. I am going to paint a black "punkin". Oh! kids are so adorable... The Mr. dutifully got out the trinkets that he had purchased at the $ store last year and so cutely arranged them. He even 'created' cobwebs. See this! These are some of the 'rich' houses who celeberate Halloween in a really big way! We captured these while we were attempting to do some "fall" photography in a really "posh" neighborhood nearby. Happy Halloween to you all!

The Mr. and I are supposedly photo freaks - it is almost mid October and we have not got a single "Fall" photo - can you believe that? I guess "Fall" is falling behind time this year. Well with temperatures still in late 60s and early 70s what do you expect. For two days it was in the 50s and a couple of over-eager Maple's started to change color - but that is it! No forests of "flaming" trees or lawns covered with mounds of red, maroon and yellow colored leaves.... Every day when I drive to work, I see these 3 single trees proudly displaying their colors - each one alone admist all other lush green ones. It reminded me of a story that I read in Tinkle as a little kid - how the Cashew nut came to be outside the fruit! One of the many blessings that my lovely parents gave me as a kid - was my reading habit. There was no dearth for books as a kid. Amma would ensure I got one of my most favorite book as one of my birthday presents. And every fortnight I w...

Often I wonder how is it that god has made boys and girls as unique and separate in nature as they are. When we are born we are just two human beings - then how does that distinct "boyishness" or "girlishness" come into us on its own. I don't think parents teach the toddler of a year how to "behave" like a boy or a girl. Couple of weeks ago we had a couple over for dinner. They brought along their 1 year old son. Within seconds it became evident that all of the Mr's precious plants and our beautiful decorations that were within his reach were in grave danger. Despite taking all sorts of precautions we ended up with two broken souvenir glasses. The kid would not stay still for a single minute - needed constant monitoring and would lay hands on anything that was within his reach. Couple of days ago Mrs and Mr C dropped in for a little chat - and brought along their cute 3 year old daughter. All the 3 hours that they were at home, this doll just ran a...

I think the creativity in me, if there was any, is slowly dying. I just can’t seem to think of anything to write about. The moment a small idea strikes my tiny brain, some big wave crashes it off dismissing it as something non-essential. Ah! Well just because it pains me to see the blog I so lovingly nourished until now empty for more than a fortnight – I thought I would write about the nice movie that we saw over the weekend – Dhamaal. I cannot recall the last time we saw a hindi movie and truly enjoyed it. I stopped reading reviews of movies on Rediff – because almost every movie that is being churned out these days seems to be getting only a 1 star or max 2 stars. I could not bring myself to see ‘Chak De’ for the fright of having to bear him for 2 and half hours; though colleagues gave excellent reviews of the movie. This one, we bought (yes – these days the concept of renting seems to be lost in our grocery store – because there was only a 50 cent difference in renting an...

Wish you all a wonderful, happy and prosperous Vinayaka Chaturthi. Some Prasadam for Puliyaar(i love this name of vinayaka a lot) at our home. Oh! I miss home so much today. Called up home with tears in my eyes, missing amma's kozhakattai (why can't mine come as nice as hers ! ), appa's poojai, the whole atmosphere at home.. I would help appa make the poonal and dress for the mann puliyar that appa would rush to buy first thing in the morning. Amma would hurry through making neividyam, while continously prodding appa to get ready and do the pooja. After giving one final "bark", he would go to bath, come out fresh - viboothi, veshti and all and settle down for a full one hour pooja. In the evenings, we would visit one or two pandals where they kept huge huge vinayaka statues, end the day by visiting a couple of relatives and exchanging kozhakattai.... Oh! I miss home.

In conversation with my in-laws today morning, Amma gave us the ‘Disgusting’ piece of news – that J’s (J is the son of their family friend) wife is 2 months pregnant. Well, I am not the hard-hearted kind of person to hate kids and such “good” news – but why do I call this disgusting? Listen to J’s tale. J came for vacation from the eternal mallu paradise “Gelf” (one of those Middle Eastern countries – any place in the Middle East is called “Gelf” in Mallu land) for about 45 days. Our wedding happened to fall in those 45 days. Exactly 20 days after our wedding, we got the news that J’s wedding was to be held in 2 days time – we were pleasantly surprised! Chat mangni Pat byah – we were not even aware that J was looking out for a bride. Ah! Well – all’s well that end’s well. He got married, stayed with his wife for what – 2 weeks and then flew back to his land of freedom! Another 2 weeks later comes the news – she is Pregnant! Oh! Well – the boy ‘did his job’ right! Now there wo...

Never ever try to cut this nasty piece of thing and remove the seeds inside with your hand. I don't even think i would have touched a couple of seeds yesterday while trying to make the "Mirchi ka Salan", but the damn thing burned my entire hand - the whole night! Uff so much for trying new recipes ... !

When I first started blogging, I had to ping the Mr. everytime I posted a new article, asking him to go and read it. Then I sent the link of my blog to a couple of close friends - who would often mention something about what I had written in their emails. It gave me a lot of happiness - to know that there was somebody who regularly visited my page. In fact, they would "bug" me to write if I did not write for a week or so - I love you girls for sticking by and inspiring me to write more ... Slowly I started to visit other blogs, dared to leave my comments on a couple and was so elated when she regularly visited my blog and dropped a comment or two. Then came Jihva food events and the few times that I would shrug off my lazy shroud and cook up something to participate in it, I would have a few visitors dropping by and leaving sweet notes on my blog. That is how I got to know this lovely lady , whose food pictures and unique recipes are just out of the world. And today, she gave...

"Firsts" in life are so special and will always remain a dear memory. Suddenly today I got reminded of many of the Firsts in my life. The earliest "First" I can remember now is my first cycle - which I got when I was about 8 years old. I can recall very clearly appa teaching me how to ride it, how i would take the bike out when we moved to a new place in order to "impress" people and make friends with them. The first "thing" that I made - of course with appa's help - was a kaleidoscope for my S.U.P.W(don't ask me the expansion - it was just a "timepass" class we had in school) class, when I was 10. Strangely I don't recall a bit of my first flight alone when I was about 8 or so. Those days it was cheaper to take a half ticket for my flight, than appa or amma coming to drop me at Chennai (for vacation) - take a week off and then come back later to pick me up. I remember my first trip alone in the public bus - when I was in Cl...

I am just so tired of feeling blue since about two weeks. Just nothing seems to be giving constant happiness (guess there is nothing of that sort). The Mr. has started saying amma's dialogue "Why do you have to overanalyze things so much? Why do you think that things have to be so special for you? People lead lives just like this . Wake up, eat , get ready , go to work, come back, cook, spend time with family and sleep. Why does this have to be so difficult for you?" I don't know .... Sometimes I feel it is my own self who makes myself feel so miserable. I always have this "something missing" sort of feeling. What is it - I can never put my finger on it! Grr.... I am beginning to dislike my own self... I am missing folks at home, missing my childhood, missing andhra , missing telugu, missing college.... just practically everything. Amma and appa who have gone back to india - don't exactly give me a comfort feeling of wanting to go there and 'settle...

Quite some months ago, the Mr. got a forward about “The Secret of Mallu Christian Names” . We laughed and laughed and even today it is a standing joke at home. You can read it here . Over the weekend, we were browsing some sites and came across a Mohanalal program being organized in many parts of the US . As we scrolled down the site, we came upon the names of the Contact persons and broke into a riot of laughter. Why? See this: Why in the world would any set of parents name his or her child this way? People who know the meaning would not. People who don’t – well I don’t think it is such a fanciful name that anybody would yearn to name their baby. One evening as the Mr. was signing out at the security gate, the guard asked him how he would pronounce the name of the person who had signed out just before him. The Mr. read it – “Ishith”. The Guard said – Yeah I wondered why would somebody call their kid “I” “Shit” ! Americans generally don’t care for the extra “h”. So, I be...

It is long since I participated in a “JIHVA” event. When I saw that the ingredient for September was Rice – I knew it would be too bad to let the chance to participate go by. Rice is the staple food in most of the South Indian homes. Personally I feel that there is nothing to beat the smell of freshly cooked rice – the whiff from the white pearly steam that comes out when you open the lid of the vessel containing rice that you put in the cooker or from the vessel that you cook directly on the Gas. Ummmmmm heavenly. When it is hot, just plain rice with a dollop of Ghee mixed in it also taste like the best food on earth. Rice that has been stored for a day, eaten with thin curds is considered one of the best ‘cooling foods’. Then there is my all-time favourite – Thair Chadam (curd rice). There would probably be no Tam-Bram who does not like this ‘symbolic-recognition-of-tamilians’ curd rice! Rice is also considered as an auspicious food item. In Kerala, it is the first solid food that i...

Disclaimer - This article in no way is aimed at throwing opinions about a particular race of humans. It is solely based on my experiences and my version of the events. I always thought i did not like Italian food. But during our endeavours to get amma-appa to sample different cuisines I found that I did like the Salad , breadsticks and Eggplant Parmiggiano - a bit too much - and even started to have a craving for it. So, I dragged the 3 of them to Olive Gardens yesterday evening to satisfy my palate, when this incident happened. We had often heard of excellent customer service in most American restaurants - we got our chance to experience one yesterday. We had ordered , amongst other things , a veggie pizza. This was the last item that the waitress was due to get. When she first brought it, I saw some wierd moulds of things on it and got a slight suspicion and asked her - She apologized and took it back and came back immediately. Kneeling down in front of our table, she apologized prof...

Carried stopped by at my desk today morning and gave me a cute little “Thank You” card. All the ladies in the office – which was quite a number , about 20 or so, got together and arranged for a ‘Baby Shower’ for her Last Thursday. It was lunch in this place called “Country Buffet” – where you can “eat-all-you-can” for just 9$. Unfortunately, as usual, the choice for Veggies is limited – though the dessert table pretty much compensated this deficit. All of us were quite generous and had given her really good gifts – a Stroller, a rocking and musical swing and couple of dresses. What I loved about the whole thing was – how eagerly she opened all her gifts and how she did not hesitate to show her real feelings. She had tears of happiness and gratitude in her eyes and she looked at each one of us when she said her thanks. Often I have noticed this about Americans – they do not feel ashamed to show out their feelings in public – especially the good ones. If you are wearing a nic...

It was Amma-Appa’s last weekend in the US . The depression has already started to sink into me slowly – a week from today there would be so much emptiness in the house. I guess this was a hidden reason why none of us wanted to do ‘Something’ over the weekend. I took them around for a round of last window-shopping and we all sat and watched a couple of movies, while munching some tasty and crispy vadas that amma made. Ulundhu vadais are my fav orite. This time for a change we added crisp cabbage into the dough and it was so tasty. It was pr obably for the first time that all 4 of us were sitting at home and watching a movie end to end. Just shows how busy we had been the past 3 months, ha ha, because before amma-appa came to the US – watching a movie at home was almost like a daily ritual. The first one we saw was ‘Prestige’. I have been wanting to see this movie since a long time. Of late I have become a huge fan of “Hugh Jackman”, so have wanted to see this movie for that pre...

It has been ages since I wrote anything here. I somehow am facing a huge block in getting a topic to write about here. Just about anything I think of does not seem inspiring enough to write about – or may I am not even thinking of anything … Everytime I visit those wonderful bloggers who regularly update their sites, I feel so ashamed of myself – for letting those friends down who open my blog atleast once in couple of days to see if I have written something there…. But it just is not happening… Anyway I decided to shake myself up and atleast write about what’s been happening in the recent past to me.. I finally did it! I changed jobs – got rid of all the murk that had got over me in my previous work… remember these “Queen Crib” posts? I quit my last job on Jul 27 2007 – a very significant and remarkable day in the calendar of my life’s events. I bid farewell to the place – not physically – that I was working in for the last 6 and half years. Though I had been wanting that for ...

The last weekend was a very memorable one. We had a very unique experience, which I was unaware of for the past one and half years. We had been to a place called Blake’s Farms. It is a family owned farmland where visitors are allowed all year round to visit and pick any of the seasonal fruit/vegetable(s) that is (are) growing there at that time. These are available for purchase at a reasonable price. Thanks to the Mr.’s friend – P – we came to know of this and went to experience it last Sunday. The Strawberries were almost at the end of their tenure, the cherries were starting to catch the attention and the raspberries and sweet peas were in their “mid 30s”! What a ball of time we had. It was the first time any of us were seeing a strawberry or a raspberry plant – so that itself was more than half of the excitement. And the other half was the sheer joy of plucking those wonderful fruits from the small shrub like plants – and occasionally popping ...

This year's summer has been strange. June is only the beginning of summer, but it was hotter than July (which is supposed to be the peak summer month). There is hardly any rain on a day when there is prediction for severe thunderstorms. 60% precipitation looks like 6%. In all this mish-mash of the weather, we had a spectacle yesterday - the most unexpected pleasure - a Rainbow - not 1 but 2!!! I don't understand why - but sometimes just seeing a very very beautiful natural thing gives so much pleasure that one just keeps smiling for a long long time. Maybe this is why people ask us to go for a long walk when upset over something. It certainly cheers you and lifts the mood up so well. For a long time we four stood there, grinning and just watching the miracle of colors spread over the bright sky.