Caution: Use with care. Highly addictive!!!

There should be a statutory warning printed on every pack! Pack of what? Of paper plates, of course! No, no I've not lost it!! I shall explain the logic with a little story.....

Once upon a time there where three lil bears who lived in a condo. There was papa bear who was busy all the time, mama bear who did not want to be busy all the time and baby bear who kept mama bear busy all the time. Due to a lousy heating system and ENORMOUS heating bills, they decided to move to a cozy apartment for the winter. So come fall, they moved out...and woohoo was that a super difficult feat or wht. Bad movers, crazy apartment rules and a lot of other factors wore them out. So papa bear got take out and a whole bunch of paper plates and cups so mama bear could do other chores like lifting huge boxes and keep baby bear from getting squashed!! Then they moved, partially set up house and even got out their regular plates...but mama bear still uses the paper ones...:D And she plans to do so until papa bear notices!!!

There you go!!! Now you know the grim tale of how I...ahem, I mean mama bear got addicted!! So Beware!!

Do you sometimes a song was a person? Someone who is like that first gulp of air after you forget to breathe, lost in intense, confused thought. Someone like fresh, cold water on the dry, parched soles of your feet. Like a comforting warmth in your palm.

Whats up with the universe and Vista?

Yup...you guessed it!! This is going to be another rant! I am annoyed....very annoyed. I wake up this morning to find out that people take joy in interfering with my travel plans, my son thinks biting me is a game and Vista is the most painful OS!!!

Autocad 2006 is not compatible with dear ol' Vista and neither is 2007!!! And trial versions of 2010 may choose to work on one system and not the other!!!! Micro-morons!!!!

Truth? Whose?

Erica Jong, in her website, writes "Tell your truth not the world's" as advice for aspiring writers. It strikes a chord....actually a concatenation of sounds that could be a song!!! My song!!!

Whats up?

Long time....yes, I know. But something happened. A small little course at UW. Class once a week. Two essays to submit over the weekend, every week. Nice! Wait....on what? Philosophy!!!! Yikes....philosophy of architecture!! What was I thinking? Like most things in my life I din't know what I was getting into.

Now I have just one more class to go and I feel life will never be the same again....there I go again..all melodramatic!!! What was so special is that I learnt something so very important. That there is a link between Language, metalanguage and architecture. Yay!!! Now I can put it all together, shake it all up and gulp it down like a milkshake!!! Then I realized how much of reading I have to do, want to do. I kinda lost track of things I wanted to explore after I came to the US...but now I can see an open window.

The class was good....but I need to make use of it for anything effective to germinate. Germinate...You know, try as I might, I'm not a gardening person. Nor am I a handicraft person. I wish I could be....taking, absorbing joy in a detail, a blossom! I digress. So I want to travel. Yeah right! I do but its not going to happen in the near future. But i can dream. Travelling with a backpack, walking through a city, absorbing it, reading in transit, learning to say hello in local languages. The life of a nomad!!

Spice route, Bellevue

The first thing that stands out about this restaurant is that there are no cheap pictures of the Taj Mahal, paintings of village women or any other such monstrosity. Now you know I'm talking about a rarity!!!
We find ourselves visiting often as it is next door to the Indian store and its perfect for an after-grocery shopping-weekend lunch or dinner. I prefer dinner since lunch is buffet and buffet doesn't suit me except for breakfast at the Hilton :) Anyway as I was saying, the decor doesn't jarr your senses. And the food is pretty decent. The only restaurant around that serves Halal meat and South Indian cuisine together. The menu has a little of everything...there's chettinad, tandoori and Tiramisu!!
Service is fairly quick and the people are courteous! But...there's always a but...but the tables are so close to each other that you're bound to feel like a bunch of sardines packed together. Yeah...but as Meatlof said...Two out of three ain't bad!!

Perfect holiday

I know...I hate those long monologues of someone's boring (boring to me) vacation. This is not a recollection but a dream of how a holiday should be. I love nature and trekking and ultimately I would want to walk and explore a city. Carrying a backpack, map in hand I would love to stroll through a magnificent city, eat in little corner cafes, photograph the graffiti, browse through little bookshops and taste the sweetness of doing things at my pace. Yeah...I want to do this alone.

Not that I'm reclusive or anything. Anyone who would like to do things my way without getting on my nerves is welcome! But no hurrying me or "Could you keep this in your bag too?" And ofcourse "Lets look for the nearest Saravana Bhavan" is absolutely not allowed!!!

I find it so annoying to do all the touristy things and hurry through it all so you can squeeze in the maximum for your moneys worth!

We're all bad...or so we are told!!!

I got this forward that set me thinking....it said something like "we have forgotten religion, the goodness...we only talk about it during special occasions and forget to apply it to our life...yada yada yada"

Its not just this forward...we find this kind of message everywhere. We're not good Indians, muslims, hindus, citizens of the world, parents, children, healthy eaters...you name it. People are just out to up the guilt factor. Whats with this attitude? There is so much good out there...are we just blind? We have so much....but all we talk about is bad the world is. How wonderful yesterday was, how pathetic today is and how bleak tomorrow is!

Well, as Gandhi said " Be the change you want to see in the world." So see you see people eating unhealthy snacks all the time and it bothers you? Munch on carrots, keep fit and inspire people to stay healthy!! Stop sending forwards to make us lousy people feel guilty.

I'm sure all of us have something commendable. And the best of us may have a tinsy flaw somewhere. So shut it!!!

Baby rants!!!

Grown ups are confused souls, really. They just can't seem to make up their minds as to what they want. Like mama is trying to feed me somethings...good things, goey things, yucky things. When I purse my lips she says,"Just give it a taste...you'll like it!" Then when I actually taste something she comes rushing and pulls it out. "Baby, you can't eat daddy's slipper!!" See, I told you... she can't make up her mind!!!

And then there is daddy...always asking me to say "mama" or "dada" when I'm minding my own business, nibbling on his buttons. Then when I do tell him my problems, he doesn't listen. He just calls out to mama "Baby's crying...maybe he's hungry(?)" Yeah sure, why would I be hungry when I just ate half the notebook you left on the side table?

Sometimes they wont pick me up "You can't be carried about all the time!!" and then other times they won't put me down "Sweety, You can't crawl on the sidewalk" What is a baby to do? Grown ups...You can't live with them or without them!!!!

Baby A

I'm feeling.....Orange!!!

Have you ever had an orange feeling? I mean its a feeling that doesn't have a descriptive word in the English language. A warm feeling...not entirely good but not bad either. Kind of hanging, kind of missing something. Maybe a little restless and a little lazy. You go about doing your job somewhat enjoying it. But your mind flits about. You want to here...but there as well. Its like you haven't made up your mind. A little surreal.

Or am I just crazy?

I wonder....I wonder if its better to have a hundred unfulfilled dreams or to have none at all? I used to feel sorry for people who never wanted....never let there hearts yearn. But now I'm not sure....for isn't ignorance bliss!! The pain of having loved and lost...or never knowing love at all???

Tears on a thursday

Its horrible horrible horrible when all we do is sit and watch. Where is the brotherhood? Where are all those holier than thou people now? Why is there just silence as the blood flows?

There are hundreds who will preach about the 'right'; about how to eat and walk and sleep. They will argue for hours on the correct way to tie a knot or perhaps cook your veggies!!! But when it comes to life or death who cares a damn??? As long as we have our shawarmas, soap operas and Armani suits who the hell cares a damn????