One Fleeting Moment

A few years back I ran over a squirrel on the way to work. And it was my birthday. I am yet to get over the the soft crunching noise of my wheels crushing the poor thing. I was miserable for weeks and at some point in the middle of moping I had the most illuminating thought - I could never be a mass murderer. If the death of a random squirrel upset me so much then think what.....so went the runaway train of my logic.

Fast forward to 2012. In our inept attempts to hide chocolate from the Gherkin we landed up forgetting a box in the closet under the staircase. Our lost chocolate was found by a rat and you know what they say about finders being keepers and all that.  When we finally found our chocolate or rather the leftovers, we cleaned up
(after the rat) and then argued. The Boy advocated a policy of peaceful coexistence (with said rat) while I insisted on squashing the living daylights out of the invading pest. Finally good sense prevailed and we laid out some rat traps. The Boy even baited the baits with some awesome Parrano cheese and we waited with bated breath.  Never mind that last bit, in reality we forgot about the bait till we heard a loud snap late one evening. The Boy went in and discovered a small, grey rat dead in the bait.  He was actually sort of cute looking, even though he ate all our chocolate. And now he was dead.

And then, after disposing off his remains in the trash the Boy declared that the rat looked like the one from the movie Ratatouille. It had the same blue grey eyes. Now, I was no ordinary rat killer, I was responsible for murdering Remy . I was miserable and just about to embark on a week of official moping when I realized that now there were the two of us. So what if we killed Remy, at least we are no danger to humanity at large and that my friends, is a wonderfully uplifting thought.

An early morning show of Mouse on the Move at the Imagination Stage, followed by a long drive through rural Montgomery County (the Gherkin went to sleep in the car and when the Gherkin sleeps, she sleeps...kapisch!) and then lunch at Mandalay in Silver Spring. And it's not over yet...there was another walk around downtown in the freezing cold with an excited Gherkin afterwards.

Through all this, the Gherkin behaved impeccably. It would have been great if she ate something other than white rice at the restaurant, but once you have locked horns with an eighteen month old you know better than to complain. You count your blessings and hope for another wonderful day.

Incidentally, the Gherkin is watching Curious George with her dad downstairs while I write this...that bit of good luck is continuing!

The semester is done with and my mother has gone to visit the younger sister. In between taking care of a snotty nosed, cantankerous Gherkin, I find myself obsessing about grades like I have never done before. And now that the year is drawing to an end, I might as well shift focus and ruminate on the year that went by.

The year began on a cold and dreary note with record amounts of snowfall (once again) and Pepco stood us up (once again) and people in this area forgot to drive and get off the roads on time (yes, once again!). As soon as we shoveled our way out of the snow and slush, the Gherkin and I set out to make new friends. We joined a mommy-baby yoga class and did we make friends or what? 2011 will be the year that we met all the other Silver Spring yoga moms and their babies and bonded over play dates. Hopefully in 2012 we will see more of that.

The summer was spent doing summer like things- a trip to North Carolina followed by a visit to Niagara Falls. At some point we decided to be responsible home owners and get our windows fixed and the front yard spruced up. We are yet to invest in a drill though.  A drill is what stands between us and that great deluge of tools that scream suburban homeowner. If we buy the drill today what is next... a lawnmower? a tile cutter? or may be even a chain saw? Luckily for us, we managed to get through another year without any of the above. (Pssst!..I have issues, in case you had not heard).  

This was an year of momentous growth - from sitting up, to crawling, to cruising and finally taking the first few unassisted steps. We sat back and watched awestruck as our little Gherkin accomplished all her milestones, while we coo-ed and encouraged from the stands. She is now discovering the amazing world of words (both spoken and written). Thanks to her, I can now recite the contents of these two books, backwards if need be.

I started grad school in September and my mother came to visit.  Sometime in between, the Gherkin, Grandma and I took a quick trip up to Boston to meet my uncle.  The rest of the months just dissolved in a haze of classes, mid terms and term projects.  And now I am writing about 2011 as the year that was. It was a good year, a healthy year and a happy one too.  As I contemplate the passage of time (of late, the years seem to pass by in a blink of an eye), my life and the people in my life...I feel extremely lucky and fervently hope that this streak of good luck continues into the new year.

I zip up my jacket and pull up the Gherkin's jacket hood over her ears. Usually she protests (way too much!) but the nip in the air makes her decide otherwise. Once we are bundled up and warm, the two of us set off, me on foot and she in her bright green stroller- the one with brown leaves. It is the season of brown leaves, and gold ones and rust colored ones. The late afternoon sun filters through the few remaining leaves that still cling to the trees and washes the neighborhood in golden light.

The Gherkin babbles and gurgles about the Bo-Bo's (read dogs that go bow-bow) and Me-Me's (read cats that go meow-meow) that she thinks she will meet. This time of the afternoon is particularly quite. The driveways are empty, the children are in the school and the family pets are sound asleep in some cozy corner.  Once in a while, the sound of a chainsaw ripples through the air, erasing out the gentle swish-swishing of a garden rake as it traces out a leafless path somewhere. The chainsaw manages to arouse a sleepy dog who lets out a series of barks in retort. The Gherkin is pleased and squeals in delight. And then it is all quiet again.

We stop to say hello to Samantha, the grey cat with the bell. She recognizes the Gherkin and shows off some of her tricks. She stands on her hind legs, then circles the stroller and nuzzles the Gherkin's shoes and finally settles down for a belly rub. A few belly rubs and gentle purrs later, we are on our way again. Samantha follows us for a while, but gives up when she realizes we are going a little too far, way outside her comfort zone, her quiet street.

Our next stop is the house that caught on fire, we always stop for a while here. The men renovating the house pause for a minute to smile and wave at the Gherkin. We wave back. And then it is back to the roof, the noisy drill, the insistent hammer and that jarring chainsaw. By now the sun has warmed us up and we ignore the nip in the air and keep walking. Today we will go beyond our usual route.

Today we will meet some new people, all of whom are busy cleaning their houses and yards in preparation for the holiday season. Today we will see the last of the Halloween pumpkins, their carved features slowing decomposing into morbid shapes on doorsteps. Today we will wonder what the impending winter will bring - snow, cups of peppermint hot chocolate, crackly fireplaces, walks through slushy snow in warm, fuzzy boots, woolen caps and woolen mittens. Now, where are those woolen mittens?

We hasten our pace. "We are going home now", I declare with purpose. Yes, we have a new purpose. Fall is pretty but it will soon be gone.  And I have to find those woolen mittens and that favorite pair of socks before winter comes knocking on our door.

And just like that, my resolution for the year (the one where I solemnly resolved to cook a vat of soup every week) died a solemn death. No one noticed, no one cried. It was all very discreet.

Life goes on, with or without a weekly tureen of soup. I am back in graduate school,this time it is a for a PhD. I love the course work, but am hating the term projects. I am yet to start on any research work but I am sure I will find a lot to complain on that front too.

And one more thing, our front yard isn't the most dreadful on the block. Thanks largely, to the efforts of our neighbor Barbara who is starting her own landscaping business and decided to take on a few yards in the neighborhood as her first clients. She has done a great job working with all the existing features and foliage. There are daffodil bulbs in the little trenches by our walkway and now I cannot wait for Spring to see them pop up.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks at this end. Will post about the reason later. In  the meanwhile, I never even noticed the pile of asparagus sitting by itself in the fridge.  By the time I noticed, it was a mere step away from becoming a pile of twigs. Since I don't like throwing things away (even piles of twigs) and seeing that my soup-a-week resolution had been quietly forgotten, I turned my woody pile of asparagus into soup. The mother and the Boy approved and for once they both agreed on something.

We are off to Boston tomorrow to meet the Gherkin's grand uncles and uncles. We will be back on Monday. And before we forget, the Gherkin is now capable of biped locomotion, though all her current attempts remind us of drunk zombies.

Labels: Soups

We made this soup, with dried rosemary instead of fresh. The Mother said, it tasted like musur daal and insisted on adding cilantro and sliced green chilly to her bowl. Unfortunately, she was right and the additional garnishes did brighten what would have otherwise been a bowl of lowly gruel. I have a sneaky feeling that I have the wrong kind of bean. The last white bean soup was also a dud. No pictures this week.

Labels: Soups