Apparel replacements

Lately I bought a red shirt in spirit of an older one or should I say two of them. One is a red muir woods shirt and another grey shirt with arizona on it from a defunct T-shirt shop(they always seem to be lifting shops from there, if last year it was the T-shirt shop, now its the Gloria Jeans coffee shop). The marriage of those two shirts should result in what I have now: a red shirt with Arizona on it.

I used to have nice green half pants from wet seal. They went for a toss with little wear and more tear(blame it on the wash). That was aplain one. But now I have a new green one with 6 pockets. So now our wardrobe is predictable?

Is it cloth-bound comfort zone or just a corollary of our colour preferences? An interesting thing about the color choices , popularity of green and red increases with advanced age. An academic way of sayng, I am getting to the top of the hill faster than it.

Habit and Brains

Say what you want about habit, its been taken to heights where a person is willing to do extra work for the same effect. Like say dictionary.com will very well bring up the page I want, no, I have to type dictionary.reference.com to no added good.On the other end, a smart IIT engineer's laziness led to his unix expertise.

Noncausal effect

Today after a very small hike, I have worse effects than after a moderate one. The whole day went into the black hole of sleep.

Relative noise

I am a big anti noise person. I realised this when I had to work in a lab, with constant noise in it. Now even an event of dragging something on the floor upsets me when its something that can be lifted for the intended dsplacement. For such a person a coffee grinder does make a perceptible sound right. Not really, if one is busy creating a racquet of their own playing memory and losing with a 6 yr old.

Looking up

How many times should you go to the South Mountains to get to the Rock Castle?
Its possible the first time.
How many times should you go to the foot of the South Mts to see the Rock Castle?
For me it took more or less 8.

Until the last time, I didnt think that it was possible to see the Castle from the start itself. This time we were going at a leisurely place. All the other times, subconsciously there's a thing that theres so much distance ahead, that we dont let the relaxing mood to creep in.

10.27.12
How many times should you travel on I17  that you can see Sedona from there and Humphrey's too.

Blue 1 Lake

It was interesting to see this and Yellow 5 Lake as colors on a Chewing gum. It takes me back to the time I acquired Fevicryl paints - not in crayons, not watercolors but small glass bottles of it.
Those bottles looked magical in themselves with just one color. Perfect like a doctor's glass vial. What about the fun of having full length brushes instead of the small brush that comes with the watercolors. I am a big fan of miniature bar this exception. Owning these colors should have changed my life in a big way, like a camera had to have a big impact in my life, as much as flight on the world. Somehow all the fancies just get lost, moving onto other children or novices.

My favorite plant

I love the soft touch of these leaves

On and Up

Once place that I saw rocks held vertically in mesh cuboids was at North Tempe Multi-Generational Center . That sunday was a not very peaceful day with too many cop cars around Tempe streets.

Land Grant university

Sometimes new words just pass by our ears. Recurring reference for 4-H in her book, led me to this. Smiley uttered this many times in her reading, now what else did I miss like this?

Written off

One pen jot too long on a nice jeans can mean its last appearance in public. I was warned not to put that jeans into the laundry machine.

Bad Travel Partner

I had a pen and paper go with me to a book reading. I wanted to write succotash in blue ink on the paper from 'A thousand acres' by Jane Smiley. But I should have known this was impossible given that the whole ink of the refill set quarters at the ceiling of the pen, against gravity and that I couldnt cajole it to meet the paper. I did carry it with the writing side up.. still...

Something everyday

It all began on Friday, at 'Gingerroot', a Philippine restaurant, the classification of Milkfish as non meat as the introduction to its existence in two parts.
Saturday brings with it the knowledge of Milksnake and Sunday of Milkweed.

Its

caterpillar time in South Mountains.

Done

I take the book I read everyday
I know I have almost reached the end
I read a couple of paras already read
This book was over yesterday.

Imagine

A neighbor passenger on the plane head bent down, busy knitting.. Apart from sounding Macbethy, think of what it would mean for the needles to poke at you with each wrist movement. Luckily, there is something which looks like a half needle and is called a circular knitting needle, which does not take up so much neighbor space. Well, the girl helped me find my seat belt which went under her seat. All that dexterity in unknotting the yarn is sure helping her tackle complex situations and come across friendly...

Team sport

You can wonder like me when I saw a frisbee and ten people around it and going.. what are these many people doing over one thing? Given, that people could stand in a circle and it is passed around each expecting their turn. But that aint team right?
Now the next surprise is when 10 adults are getting competitive about the game what is a toddler doing getting into the turf?

The Clouds

racing over Lake Michigan
against our plane
were new whales under

From behind

A plane at the tunnel
connecting the gate
looks like its being
breast fed.

Todays dream

I was a long train driver tailgating another train just hoping that I rightly got onto the tracks until a phone call bought me back to this world. Was an imminent crash saved?

Where Passers by may be

A wooden door
should never
open to the outside
world
It can open
into the inside
if no one else lives there

Metal wall Art

A closer look at
What remains after
a metal
bird cut out

Auto Expo

Mobile displays on road:
some transparent
some lookers
some blockers

Spectator Privileges

Recently at the Canyon Lake, we -three women in no boat, were just looking as if at sour grapes, at two women each on their jet skis.. I dont think they knew that they were splashing rainbows.

Nun

A dime size butterfly. Its underwings showing gray. Before I could dismiss this, I saw the lavender inside open and close.

Birds of Paradise

Two green birds
appear
as they
vanish.
My eyes still look
for the golden goose.

--Superstition Mountains

Unable

to perch on the
hanging Ocotillo
flowers
the bird slid
and slinked away.

--Phoenix Mountains

In the month of humming birds

one guards eggs
in a small nest
Another lies on its side
under a Baha Ruby Fairy Duster bush.

Heterodoxy

sounds so much better than unorthodoxy. Whats with the same new word appearing in any book I open this day? Hetero sounds so much more accomodating.

Dr Who?

I saw a kid feeding herself from Dr Brown's bottle. Then Dr.Scholl came to my mind. It went into my memory stack as another bottle brand until I saw the shoes ad later in the evening.

Enfilade to Diorama

Came across this word in Pork Chop Hill.
The 2b definition of "an axial arrangement of mirrors on opposite sides of a room so as to give an effect of an infinitely long vista" took me back to high school.
In Class IX or so, in a science exhibition my project was Diorama. I was very up about it that I made it from the instructions at the end of a lesson.
I love museums for the miniature models - the modern diorama.

PS: There is a book slide in my life. I have 48 books on history now. War is something I try to stay away from even in reading, but I am trying to convince myself that it will do me good in knowing history.

Favorite color

My friends all have quick answers for this. Me, I dont give any. I think I like light colors. But, not true. Today, I was asked to pick one flower from a bucket full of light pink, light orange and bright pink flowers. I surprised myself when the lady asked , "Now dear! Pick one flower".

PS: No flower in istory has been subject to such horrible horrible behavior. When I got it, it was a long stem. I was trying to hold it with few grocery bags, so it bent/broke into two. It still looked decent. By the time we were home, it took another split. Now thats OK too, still a bright flower. Now what follows is worse, I am trying to look for it and cant find it. I want to know its name. But, it has gone into oblivion. All my fault!

Covers

I am reading a book on the computer. The page number is different from the documents. Each time I open the book new, I use the page number and find that I am wrongly book marked. Each time I am about to look for the page number, I pat myself that I wrote down the number, but without fail there is this confusion.

My roomate recently used google's utility which puts your name on the page. Now as soon as I ope any page, I dash away typing google.. but hell!! I am on that page!!

The other Anne Hathaway

Nocturnal activities

Last night I saw sculling in Tempe summer activity page.. I had to utter whats sculling?? REM and NREM later, I had made some connection between cloth brands Scullers and Old Navy.

Bed of nails

I saw a medium nail in the parking lt outside my apartment, a big one at the grocery store. How did they get there? Ever since I heard that a friend of mine has a nail in her tyre in the 'nonrepairable' zone.. hmm complicated tyres... nails fail to escape my sight....

Who moved the big Cauliflower???

I found a recipe for a cauliflower curry on Feb 15. Since then planning to make it some day.. and today Apr 27 happens to be that day. It goes with 2 small sized cauliflowers (whole) in the beginning.. Now folks. apologies.. the name's lost... hmm.. orphaned recipe... I am like.. whats the big deal about 2 small cauliflowers, why not 1 of both put together.. I made up mind to go against the recipe right from the first ingredient.. I went to the grocery store... when it was time to pick the cauliflower at the grocery store for the last 4 years dedicatedly serving big cauliflowers had only... can you believe.. small cauliflowers...
hmm... somene's involved..???

Seldom

This is one word that I always have to think of its equivalent to get it.

Too Early or Too Late

I am the most recent expert at something.

I interested my friendleagues in trying creations by Chef Chang. In looking just at the name of the restaurant from a seated position, I missed the ' Coming Soon' way below my eye level.

Once and for all I wont have to remember or get the 'na zdrowie' name wrong. Having seen this name for more than half a year still didnt excite the neurons ( Ah! I never get to use the word - nephron)- Thank God for vowels - Anyways.. one day with my friend you could have found me looking for this no longer existing place and get as successful in finding a never existing platform.

Ferrero Rocher - Chocolate In and Out

Kitkat: chocolate around wafer
Pirouette: wafer whirled around chocolate

Lars Eighner

When I saw Azusa on the news footer, for the love of AZ, I would jump right at it and mistake it for AZ & USA, if not for Lars Eighner's mention of this place.
I like his block statements in the blog.

Up the branch, to the root

Volksgarten is People's garden
and so Volkswagen is People's.
An Aficionado follows his aficion

On seeing a school bus

A school bus in the evening losing itself into the apartments. Not a glamorous sight for a front seat rider, as much as seeing huge cars in silver. Away from the world of geeks in cubicles, there coexist kids going home. Away from me nature.

Snow on Cactus

It takes the next day
for a new feeling.
Overnight some thing happens.

******

Snow Angel- Grumpy old men.

Lee's sandwiches

has a baguette factory with a sign flashing moving baguettes.

Obituaries

Had illy coffee yesterday. Just two days before that, the founder was alive. Was surprised to see Late Liz Claiborne with big glasses so clash with the image I had of a live woman as a clothes designer.
Seattle Espresso that served coffee, had a tip holder in the form of a fish with opened mouth. The overall shape was more of a paperweight. Very unlike the expected spindle shape(No good to hold any tips). Takes me back to a question I have: what is an elephant? The question arose from a proposed answer as to how to sculpt an elephant. Questions in Queue: Why an elephant? How do people make things? How do skill and design interact?

On the Other hand

Day 1:

Instructor: Work with your left hand on the inside of the cylinder in 3o'clock position.

Student: Not possible (in thought and action)

Day 2:

Student: 9o'clock works best for me with the right hand at the centre (Is something wrong?). Now this is progress.

Instructor: Uh ha! wrong direction for a rightie.

He turns the wheel around sending me back to Day 1.

Just when I was thinking, I was getting the hang of things, I have two choices:
new route to Day 2 or become a leftie.

My first pottery class

This monday I found myself with hands thick in clay and the wooden bat over the wheel all soiled and no cylinder in sight.I cant help wishing the moist clone 10 clay would become a chocolate slab somehow. It must be the dessert effect.Chocolate cake at Pita Jungle. Chocolate in soft, sauce and hardened triangle forms.
It didnt bother me that while a lawyer was churning out perfect cylinders, I was making disposable waffle bowls, sometimes with no base(This one cannot hold any icecream. Reminds me of a greeting card which had the picture of a spoon with a giant hole in it to prevent a person from eating too much. I thought it was too offensive and crass, lets just look at it as the outcome of a poorly skilled smith). The target is getting a thing into the damp room.
In the cleaning up time of mess created by one wheel, 10 babies could be washed.

I am not a farmer..

but I know that this is the havest season of citrus fruits. Today a friend of mine walked home with two bags of grapefruit grown in his colleague's backyard. Last week, I had an orange from pro hiker's backyard.

Eyes on the Loft

At an Ann Taylor loft store, waiting for a friend who's trying out black pants that will be discarded for their baggy look, my eyes caught a huge frame on the top. It could have been a picture if it showed what was. The distance between the eyes showed signs of tinkering. The right eye had life in it with just the upper eyelash in dark and the eye white. The left eye was pale in life but black bright forced by both the eyelashes.
This frame broke the rules of symmetry for beauty. Dawns on me the difference between reporting and making(substitute?)

Imagine

the thunder
when veggies at fry's
are sprinkled.