Oops I did it again...

This adds to the if I see it happening twice...

Few months ago, when my friend and I stopped to get out of the bus to go to a mall.. it was a little early.. we had the intersection wrong and we had to walk more.. while walking we tried putting the blame on the other about who was behind the happening..
Day before yesterday, I thought I had the intersection name correct ... boy, I still had to do that extra walk again...
Today I made sure that I got the correct intersection name and was telling my friend that we have to get down at the stop after Dobson and so we have to watch out.. So during the talk she was asking me if the bus went only till McClintock.. I said, "no it goes all the way down to Dobson and beyond" .. I remember many stops.. she said that she read the sign saying Price road.. so I said "may be the Price road is after Dobson". And in 2 min, we were at Price road. And the mall still at one stop after Dobson.. The bus driver made his usual announcements of last stop. News is- we have to walk to Dobson.. the driver was showing it the sign language way of walking his fingers in air..
Only then did it strike me that today is Sunday and Mesa does not support bus service on Sunday. Now when was I told this before? Again some months ago, just before winter, when I had to buy a comforter.. my roommate and I had to walk 2 miles to the mall for the same reason which Mesa can avoid by just adding a 0.4% sales tax just like normal cities like Tempe....

No sunday service

Imagine there was no sunday service. If this was the divine service- some would rejoice, some would not care and the rest would feel bad.
But todays service in question is a bus ride, a very informative one. Not only did it make me recall that Mesa does not have a sunday bus service but also that there is a mall other than Walmart in Mesa, that I have a special inclination to use only on Sundays.

Is this your best friend?

May be 'Diamonds are a girls best friend', but if you are alone and are grappling with how to wear that diamond bracelet or more precious charms bracelet and cannot find a person with habile( ok, dont call me a word nerd, I am happy that this word that came out of my head really suited the occasion.. so now I know what 365 day planner to buy for more of those moments of having enough words in your head to come up with an apt one.. ) hands.. Can you believe that you actually can tame the clasp solo?
Notice I am ignoring the kinds of clasp that can be.. In my life, I have owned or been gifted bracelets with just spring ring clasp .. but there are so many more kinds... lobster claw, hook and eye, toggle... ok thats enough...

My friends coins- My cash or not?

I have 9$, none mine. They just accumulated as pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters ( these I have already used up for laundry and coffee) and rejected coins( these went into the trash) from friends leaving for other places. The first friend to leave, gave me a plastic cover with many coins. Second friend to leave gave another such cover with a ' Can you convert these into cash? I would do it myself to see the interesting machine at Safeway which does that but I gotta leave'. Third friend to leave realised that there was no use asking me, so she entrusted me with the job of asking another friend to do it. That friend left too. With some time on hand and a post lunch body yearning to walk, I made the visit to the 'CoinMaster'- the Magician of the day. Now I am in the 'whose money is it?' pose.
From what I could make out of the inner workings of the machine- the coins had to go on a conveyor belt which had some turns when and then, I think they went into a tunnel...I could not see...And also the tunnel charges 8% tax...

What are these?

I saw a friend of mine wearing these. I was very fascinated with how you could flap the mitten over and still be able to work on a key board without feeling dextrously challenged.

Whats on your purse?

Going by the 'If I see it twice, I have to write on it..'
Today I saw a Portable Size Hand Sanitizer with Carrier clasped to a purse. The one I saw was not colorful. It was of 'pure water is colorless' color. People have toys with limbs as clasps, hair clasps onto their handbags but a hand sanitizer... What a statement to make with just this thing sticking onto your handbag while she could have as well had it in her bag. How often must she be using it that she feels the need for it being right not even on the top of the contents of the bag but on it... Only, atleast this clasp will never give way unlike the 1 litre water bottles which are never handy to carry... So is the only way to carry waterbottles.. that too a gallon one with a handle and hop on to a skateboard ..

Sorry, I ignored you...

Dear Sheet music Publishing,
When I first saw you on the Amazon ad,you caught my eye, cause I cannot recall the other ads. I should have tried to know you then itself. I sort of got an idea what you might be.
When you came up in an article although not in a good light.. I had to stop to know you..I had to stop and say ok.. sheet music publishing.. sorry I ignored you...

What Book to read?

Today my sister said that she was reading 'Women in Love' by DHL, my favourite author. Funnily, I cannot recall his name just when I have to name him as answer. I was glad that she picked that book by herself. I also thought how I never gave her pointers on what to read. Sometimes when friends ask of good books to read.. I am at loss to name their kind of books.. there are 3 such pending requests..
Anyways, after the initial.. oh this book.. I read this one. I was a spectator for.. 'wow, this is so well written'.. and this after every few minutes.. thats exactly what I felt years ago, only I dont think there was anyone around to tell this to...

Whats a Taro?

On my 15th or 16th New year, my Maths teacher asked me to stand up and tell her what my new year resolutions were? I had a face. I have no name for that, partly because I could not see my face and mostly because I neither had an answer nor was my head working at looking for one. She had a name for it. She thought it was a Colacasia face. Thats my first introduction to the C word. Might sound weird, I have noted a pattern in all my Maths teachers- they have a good vocabulary. There's another pattern in my teachers that I have seen - My English teachers all love me just till a little before the end.
So word 'Dasheen' comes up in 'Smile Please' by Jean Rhys. Dictionary says its the 'taro' plant. Whats a Taro? I dont know what a taro plant is. The words were not enough. I thought a picture will help. What they say about picture being more than 1000 words. Bingo! Looked familiar. Turns out that stranger Taro is familiar colacasia. Now Indians are supposed to know it as href="http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/vegetables/root/taro.htm">katchu but I have my doubts.. if we know it as anything other than 'arbi'..
I should try asking someone.. its too late to ask anyone .. and the post cant wait any longer to see the day light..

cassata

While reading 'Smile Please' by Jean Rhys, I came across 'mocha bombe'. I looked up bombe and found that it had something to do with some turing machine , cryptography.. that didnt interest me.. WatermelonBombe sounded interesting.. It looks better...It led me to believe that the cassata icecream I had in my undergrad would have been part of one such watermelon bombe.. This link is your key to knowing a way to make a more wonderful thing without having to make the less wonderful things its made from. Contrast how marble cake delights you more than a simple cake..
Spumoni will feel bad that its not the first Ialian icecream I have had but the wikipedia's cassata is so different from what I know..

Anyways, Mocha bombe in question is your 'Death by Icecream'....

mise en place

In French means "setting in place." When cooking, the term is used to describe preparation done before starting the actual cooking process. I love watching cooking shows although I might never get to cooking unless someone puts all ingredients mise en place

Lately, even though tedious, making your own pasta right from the scratch, seems to be every chef worth his salt's favourite. The light is so on the Pasta making machines.

Opposites

"Bravery stands midway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a deficiency, the other an excess of courage." - Plutarch.


Even in a controlled environment, I have proved myself to be a coward. On an ordinary park swing, I am scared to go higher, I cant take the chemical reactions happening and theres another fear of what if I fall down or still worse, what if I fall down with the swing.

Few years ago, I went on a trip to Kulu Manali with my friends and colleagues. The trekking incident could be turned into a case study. We just started climbing some untrekked path. We were all excited to begin with. People in groups had their paces.
When we reached like quarter way, I thought I had this moment where I just avoided what could have been a slip down into the water. After which, I started having my little doubts about how wise is it to move on? My friend who was still a little behind, was scared and said she couldnt go any further and had to retreat. At this point, although reaching the top had its allure, it seemed it was better to just give up and go back. What if I went further, and changed my mind about climbing. What is that fear where we just freeze? There was a tricky spot on Stone Mountain,Atlanta too, where I thought the best thing to do was just stay put. It took a lot of coaxing from others and absolute unfounded trust that I could get out of that spot. Two of our party, reached the top, one of them lost her chappal. Now, in climbing, all strategical thinking is spent in making atleast one person reach the top for the teams merit. But in our case, although the call was just one persons, even the climb down had to be planned properly. It was not as easy as it seemed. We got some of the stones rolling down with a fisherman shouting at us. Even quarter treks are not easy, but they are fun.

All play and no work

" If all the years were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work."
- Shakespeare.

From childhood, I never remember feeling that another holiday is a waste. May be because, end of each holiday meant beginning of school which was 'Monday Blues' at its height. Life could have been different if there was something other than holiday and school to make that transition not seem so abrupt.

That one holiday I will never forget in my life is the one I took at age 10 with my sister who was 9 years old then. I do not remember why we had those holidays. Oh even before we go into why, I should mention that I just read about change in the Child accompaniment policy of Valley Metro - Children under the age of eight must be accompanied by a responsible person. Earlier this limit was age 6. The note also had the definition of a responsible person as someone who had control over the child. In our case, I was the responsible person, but I dont think I had the real control. I cannot recall why we had the holiday, but early in the morning when it was still dark, we were at a railway station , where still our hostel warden was inclined to stop us from going home as we were kids. There were many other students on the trip, but their stop was earlier than ours. By some lapse of getting caught in myriad of things that a person has to think, the point of objection slipped from the warden's head and the next thing we know, we are on a train to go home. The only thing I remember about the train trip is that we passed some mountains on the way. They must have just seemed so because the track tunneled through that land. Once we got down the train, the route to our house was straight. Only thing was that , while the train station was at one end, our house was at the other. As my sister and I kept walking, halfway we saw our neighbor and we knew we were in the right town. This neighbor owned lots of Readers Digest. Unfortunately, I was only at an age to pass them off as incomprehensible.

I cannot remember if I then had the fear of missing the stop.

Once I forewent a holiday for work, but that project got scrapped after I came back from another holiday. I did enjoy the work.

All the way from home to bus-stop to school, one thing that would constantly worry me was, have I forgotten some homework. In grad school, one doesnt have to worry about this. Homeworks rule. Another big fear was not being able to answer when asked to stand up to answer a question. I lost this fear only when I came to undergrad, when professors stopped asking questions that way.

If it was holiday and school then, it is work and vacation now. Where does leisure fit in? I once read that at one point in time, some people didnt mind what they had to do for work as long as they could do as they wish in leisure. Goethe's novel 'Wilhelm Meister' stresses on the importance of choosing ones vocation. But if one choses what they wish for vocation, is there a chance left for another as leisure. If Wish, is seen as just one to be able to focus properly, then for those who work in their interest field, if leisure is occupied with the same, is that when tey turn workaholics? And for all those, whose wish is pending for leisure, do work and leisure seem mutually exclusive. When exactly are we equipped to delineate these?
To merge or not to merge...

I dont want to live a 100

My friend told me of her far relative celebrating her 100th birthday. They had a tough time finding a birthday card. When I think of it, I think I will just live till 50. I dont know why I am so sure of it. I would die, if I had to live more than that.

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

Oh today I had been given a chance to play an Angel in my friends life. I noticed that their dishwasher was on this 'low water' alert mode. I reported this beep to them. whatever they did to this piece of info, eventually they have a bigger cleaning problem than they started with before they put the dishwasher to use.

I just got an idea for a tag 'Instances you played an Angel'.
Maverick

Eight things about me.....

Tagged, I speak...

1. I had a hair cut again.
When you go for a hair cut, stick to what you want.
Dont let the stylist distract you .
2. I might stop hating decoction.
I tried Orange pekoe tea with just hot water. It was good.
3. I felt very glad yesterday.
4. In my morning blindness, I had to hunt for my toothbrush. This is the first time it happened in 2 decades...
5. I get into the unbreakable loop of eating if there hot and sweet snacks involved.
6. I am an incorrigible squirrel, with an unaffordable appetite for nuts.
7. I am back to reading. The pile of books in my room will soon find their way to library.
8. There's surely more than this about me. We havent even scratched the surface.

Doll House

This is a very patient photographee.
Humble without hands to fold.

1.20.11
Reading Ray Gonzalez's poem Tiny clay doll with no arms, I was reminded of a doll I once had.

11.2.12
similar to Kokeshi. came across it while reading of Oshin

Rainbow corn

I just loved how this beautiful colored corn looked. It was part of halloween decoration for some snacks at a information session. While the organiser asked us to feel free in taking the snacks.. my eyes were more on these...

Shadow of a Soft toy

Last night, for the first time, I saw my favourite soft toy of a penguin magnified as a shadow, its beak seeming sharper and body huge like a 'Gulliver lying'.
In a book on puppetry I saw picture of people working on this huge 32 feet puppet. Size can be awe-inspiring.
I was looking at the pictures my friend took at the San Diego Sea world and the little penguins looked more like ugly birds and they all seemed to have a tag.
PS: A Good movie on Penguins: March of the Penguins.

Stay at home

Buses and their arrival times.
Well, I used to go by the 7.55 bus and soon I found it convenient to go by the 8.05, just giving myself extra time to come to terms with the morning and the work that ensues after. I dont know when but the schedule has very conveniently adjusted itself to 8.30 too.
Today morning I was just few seconds away from the 7.55 and just then my roomate too was ready. I told her, I will take it easy and 'stay at home' for a while and go by the 8.05 and she said she would try for the 7.55 bus.
Filled with the pride of precision timing of starting from house at 8.03, I stood at the bus stop , trying to bear the heat while reading a book on Bernini's art , telling myself that the bus will be here any moment and that I dont have to go stand in the shade of the parking lot which requires me to be more attentive and equipped with superhuman vision to know if the bus is coming, to filter out of all the white looking vehicles which is the prized valley metro with '72 Chandler' on it.
And when the sun got too bright, I just went and stood in the shade. The bus came after 8.30.
So there we were, both of us ready to leave at the same time but caprices of the drivers and the traffic made me reach office late by more than half an hour.

Response to extreme stimulus

Today I felt a tingle in the centre of my left palm. The back of my hand was facing me. I just turned to see what was happening. I could see a nerve/vein/artery actually pulse. And then it occured to me, this must be due to the hot rice that touched my palm when I was trying to taste what my friend had made just then. I wondered how long it would last. I gave athought if I could skillfully carry a box with just one hand and maximize the pulse time. I forgot about it for a while. And when I checke dit later after 15 min, it was till in motion but not as much as before. eventually it died.
But it was different watching something in you go like the lub dub.........

Molecule Man

Today morning, when I was brushing my teeth, I was glad to see that I didnt have small holes in my face which I had dreamt of. I know, it sounds very yuckish.. but such are nightmares...
I was going through the art of Jonathan Borofsky , whom I read of in 'Rackstraw Downes'. He is the maker of 'Molecule Man'.
My nightmare could also have come from constant exposure to the sight of 'rava dosa' which has a perforated appearance.

Eight below

I saw this movie last night.
There were some beautiful scenes. There was a scene where the ridgy ice looked like Grand Canyon in ice.
There were some colorful reflections, which I am sure has something to do with the physics of diffraction and whatever.

Memory Intact

This morning, I was thinking in the bus, that on Saturday I did not once think about the existence of Hindi songs as I was totally lost in a long Telugu movie and another english one.

And today in the evening while making tea, unconnected songs from ages ago... came running to me..

The upside

Many months ago, I had noticed that lots of plants and trees here are not as they would be elsewhere. They have grey numerous stick bouquets underneath. I thought may be this is one of the deserts adaptation mechanism. Today morning, when I saw such a tree, it almost struck to me that birds here dont have to struggle much to make nests. But I have hardly seen any nests here.

Art as is..

Lately I have been watching movies on artists .. 'Selena','Frida','Pollock'.
while picking them up and before watching them, I was just wondering how just a name is enough to identify them. No business of 'NoLastName' or any such mishaps.

Anyways, after watching these movies, what caught my attention is how sometimes the movies on artists use actual props. In Selena, towards the end when they show the condolences part and show the actual Selena, the efforts put in keeping the looks and style of Selena in Lopez is so true.

In Frida, all the paintings, now I wont wonder if the originals were shown, but atleast all of them, were her paintings. Talking about the originality of paintings, in 'Pollock', the artist is actually shown doing the painting from the scratch. They had to show it, cause his painting does not use a brush.

This reminds me of a painting competition I took part in with my friend. Trick is no brushes allowed. We were sitting in the lawns. So we used the dried leaves and what not. The topic was Man's invention. Some fundoo thought process led us to draw a wheel in motion and split . This wheel is on a road which splits the background diagonally into two. On one side is green forests and on the other deforestation effects. Well, too class booky I guess. It worked. My Friend and I went home with 500Rs.

That day we were excited about being called on stage to pick the prize. Sadly our name was not called. Reason: That competition of 'no brush' was held for the first time then and the person who made the list didnt seem to know about it.

Still saving the screen

This photo is here for 2 reasons:

1. I realised I havent changed my screen saver for really long time and I tried to recall what the picture was, and this happens to be longest retained.

2. If you look at the sides, it seems dense, but the whole columns are equally seperated. Its fun watching the spacious seeming central part move with you,as you ride in the car.

Whne my boss looked at this picture, he asked me if this was strawberry gardens and I promptly said 'No!' without any knowldege of how such gardens look.

Paduka

Colors Appeal speaks for itself and if its miniature, then we go..'Oh, so cute..'. This is at a temple ,some cutesy girl's...
Recently,I was reminded of a story I read as a kid 'The paper Palace' by Paul Biegel. I got to read 3 pages of it from print.google.com but I didnt get to the last page. What I wanted to know was if the last piece about the paper dolls coming to life has an illustration or its imagination.

Grow a Tree in a Day

Yesterday, I bared the heat to walk down to a corner where lay huge palm trees. Whats to be noted about them was that they were in a thick slab of mud. When I was introduced to this concept of trees grown at one place and planted elsewhere, it was new to me. I told this to my new friend from Texas and now every tree she looks at brings out a question "so you think, this is not grown insitu?" I look at the tree, and if it looks too manicured, then I say "No".
The night before when I saw these palm trees lying out like that, waiting to be planted, I wanted to take a picture of those and show it to my friend, but ah well, things happen so on time, that by the next evening they were planted.

PS: After an year, I am listening to the current affairs over the radio. As the world is getting high-tech, I am going retro. The 'any news' I heard this last year was all through word-of-mouth and now I am using a radio.

Whats in store

Ok. So you think putting thin fine samiya in a cup of milk and some sugar just a little around the allowed calorie from a teaspoon of it and 5 minutes in the microwave will have the delicious,craved sweet ready. Well, no and no.

Why cant I have tea this way in a cup with still both tea and powder intatc in the cup while my friend can mix coffee powder and have her coffee ready in like 2 minutes?

I thought my double disappointmnet days are over with the transfer of this big secret from a senior of 'making tea in the microwave' in a wide-mouthed bowl.

Initially when I was a novice at making 'tea in a microwave' I had to do it the traditional way of .. oh well, there's a twist here too..While the traditional way is to boil the powder in water and then add milk.. laziness gets better of me each time.. and I just mix all the contents.. and wait till its done.. This takes time,effort,talent and what else ... The current situation is.. my friend scrapped my tea recipe as there is no water in it..

So with the know-how from the divulged secret,it now takes me 5 min in a microwave to make tea, so still savings there...

Anyways.. adding to the list of what women ( the lady in 'The Umbrella Man' by Roald Dahl thinks so) should be suspicious of is strange men, boiled eggs and a beeping microwave.

Havent you heard of 'Irrigation'?

As I write this, the tide has ebbed down and the floor is no longer sky or its reflection.
Two years ago, if such a thing happened, I would run to the place I detect as the source of problem and start turning some huge valve in this and that direction till I made sure that the water flow has stopped. I had done this twice. Infelt good and great, a little less heroic than Hans Brinker, the Dutch kid who stopped the water flow through the hole of a dyke with his finger.

The third time this happened, I couldnt stop the valve from cutting off the supply, so I just called the apartment office and the old lady there says 'havent you heard of irrigation?' This took a while to get through due to the accent and I hate the smell in her office, I am told its some Gardenia scent. Now I stay away from this. Last year when I got to see a Gardenia plant, I just appreciated it from a distance. Well, you cant do that much if you dont smell a flower close, but still.. and so even if Bath and Body goes to the extent of selling a Gardenia splash for $3, no I will not buy it.

Where the First Violinist sits

A friend of mine once mailed me saying that he plays 'first violin' . This did not strike anything different to me until I saw the positions of various instrumentalists in an orchestra in 'The Creating Brain' by Nancy. C. Andreasen

Closing time

What is the word for something that you see happening that you have just learnt of..
I had read a line 'you don't have to go home but you can't stay here' in a blog I had bookmarked a year ago and an hour later, when my roomate wnated some music to go along with cleaning, this line from this song 'Closing time' stood out, fresh in my memory. The last time such a thing happened was then

Not a fighter, not a luxury hotel

A Mirage

The mystery of an unattended fish

Yesterday when we were taking a walk on the beach park, my friends eyes fell on a fish lying dead. We wondered how this happened? Also fishing is not allowed here.But I have seen people fish couple of times at this lake.
The park is closed after 12.00. But we were ofcourse solving the mystery of this fish, and now the case is oficially closed cause we now know how the fish landed up there.
More about rules. I have walked by the lake a little less than zillion times, until I found the 'gymhouse' more lucrative with all its indicators of burnt calories. There's an interesting essay 'Against Exercise' by Mark Greif in 'The Best American Essays 2005'. It touches on our current attitude to exercise. Interestingly, a reviewer thought this was the most dull and unreadable essay, while its the only essay I remember from that lot due to its relevance and context.

Back to rules. In the last almost two years, I never noticed this board with the park timings. And in the recent past, this 'timing' thing got too much attention. We were like anyway whats 'closed' for an all-out-in-the-open park?

This reminds me how all these instructions in different places just keep your mind busy, with 'dont do this' or 'this not allowed'.. I wonder how much of it is processed seriously.

PS: My friend felt that the lake was still like a mirror. I thought that was a great way to put it.

Eating carrots...

'steam the carrots till tender, then bake till dry and puree it with honey..'
This is a recipe from a poem 'eating carrots with Charlie' from 'Weighing Light' by Geoffrey Brock.
My roomate was more than enthued when she herad the recipe, came up with alternate ways of making this happen.....

Egg Drop activity

At the orientation, we were divided into 12 groups each of 9.
We were given 10 straws, 11 toothpicks and a little tape to make the egg holder.
Only towards the end did we realise that the holder will be thrown with the egg. so we soon tried to convert out basket design into an encloser. The egg cracked from the fall. Sorry Humty Dumpty!!!

Keep the Change

Today when my friend and I were waiting for a bus, she was telling me the story of 'terminal' and how Tom hanks limited vocabulary ha d'Keep the Change' nd how he used it each time he read out the address he intended to visit in US and as a reply to the cab driver.
As we were entering the MVD office, a guy out there handed a brochure of VISA which says 'Keep the Change'.

Infinite queue

Yesterday, after dinner, when we started out for a walk, as we approached a junction, we spotted a chair in a shoop on the left. As we kept getting closer, another chair revealed itself and then another and then another till we were in front of the shop and the chairs reached the other end of the wall. this was in a barber's shop. To all those who have studied queuing theory, you would have read of the server, queue terms. Well, this seemed like an infinite queue..

The Other side of the Favourite

There is a song that I like a lot. My friend offers her ear-phone when her ipod is about to play this song. I could hear this song for the proverbial 'any number of times'.
Recently, I kept waking every hour of the night to realise that a song was playing, it had irritating on-off beats, it is the same favorite song. All this sudden change in affections was due to the fact that the song was played whole night in repeat mode but at such a feeble volume that the only discernible strains were the on/off sort of cacophonic distortion of what was once music.

connectedworld

monopsony
quintile
world development report
2004 - making services work for the poor
2006- equity and development

On the other side

Today is a very dull day. Usually I hate these days with no sun. Not to want coffee on a day like this is abnormal. Which explains why my profesor was trying to gulp his coffee just before the class started.

From the slightly open blinds I could see afternoon was beginning to rear its head just about to ruin my coffee plan on the said weather day.

By the end of the class, nothing had changed. I had coffee and was lookign for a nice place to sit and study, preferably a lawn sort of a thing.

And as I kept walking looking for a place, I just kept walking and now I wanted to go on a walk.. HW calls ... more later