One Fleeting Moment

• get a fat, lazy tabby cat from the local animal shelter and name him Tama-chan. I found the name while blog hopping and fell in love with its adipose laden, musical sound.
• learn how to move my left and right feet in sync with each other...preferably to good music. And if that works then I might even work on getting my arms to jiggle along, but given my past record that sounds mighty ambitious.
• get a drastic hair cut or even pink highlights..yes pink, not blonde. Why?? Because black hair with blonde highlights is eerily reminscent of kwashiorkor afflicted babies.
• take a cooking class.
• buy a blowtorch and use it to make creme bulee in cute-sy orange coloured ramekins.
• figure out whether I need a teapot for once and all. And then depending on the decision either buy it or give up on the idea. No more loitering in the teapot aisle of lifestyle stores, lustily eyeing that perfect red one. My Mom in-law just got me one-7/4/2006.
• drive an u-haul truck.
• bungee jump once so that I may claim it as my hobby forever and impress people. Ditto for white water rafting-9/3/2006, para sailing, para gliding and other "para" activities that involve being hurled from an aircraft.
• learn swimming as someday it might save my life.
• drop by Alaska to watch the northern lights in the company of polar bears.
• learn to speak atleast one foreign language because it might be cool.
• own a designer coffee table like this...totally ugly, uselss but undeniably hip and ooh-la-la.
• visit the cities in Bangladesh my grandparents called home before the Partition.
• paint a wall in my home a bright color and doodle on it.
• eat a whole tub of Häagen-Dazs Rum Raisin ice cream by myself.
• make the Boy eat oatmeal...he totally detests it.
• ride a roller coaster...something I totally detest.
• make myself some original art. Here it is.
• try to develop a taste for sushi and other assorted fresh seafoods. Taipei, sea vegetable...been there and done that, sushi here I come.
• learn how to tie a sari. Mission accomplished.
• learn how to parallel park like I have been doing it from day one on Planet Earth. As of August 2007, I have suddenly developed the ability to parallel park...wow! I still cannot believe that I can do it, just like that.
• dance at a wedding.
• watch 1,000 midshipmen clamber up an oily pole in May 2007. Just missed the 2006 climb.
• tile something - a kitchen backsplash, the bathroom, the inside of a closet...anything.

before I turn 40 (hopefully!) and can't stop thinking about my 401(k) plan. This list is a work in progress and shall be updated as and when I think up more to-do stuff.

After months I have been reunited with my old friend and all is well with the world again. Seems like it got lost in the clutter on our dear secretary's desk. Though I have no clue how it landed there in the first place.

We spent the weekend in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia which straddles the crest of the famous Blue Ridge Mountains. There seems to be some disagreement over the origins and meaning of the word Shenandoah, but "Daughter of the Stars" is my personal favorite. We stayed in a hiker cabin built in the early 40's – the only one of its kind that still stands on the property.


Bunk beds and a lovely view for only 27 $/night . An electric bulb suspended from the ceiling was our only connection with the 21st century. We never saw any bears but since we were in bear country we had to store our food in a bear proof storage unit.



A neat nest with tiny robin blue eggs was expertly jammed between the porch roof and a supporting beam. We did not meet the proud parent but it was nice to know we had company.

For every 1000 ft increase in altitude the boiling point of water reduces by 1 degree C....so said the high school phyiscs book. And at over 3000 feet, that means instant noodles are not really instant any more.





The positively 1800’s pot bellied cast iron stove inside was a life saver during the cold 40 F night. It was the coldest night we have experienced in this year of crazy temperatures and mild winters. Met the fairer half of a couple who had decided to camp out in the open later in the evening...the fairer half was positively rosy and flushed from the cold air and lack of a good roaring campfire.



.....And since Blogger will not let me upload a whole lot of pictures into one post this shall be the first of a series of four or so posts.

Labels: Travel

The 105 mile Skyline Drive snakes through the Park and provides many interesting overlooks and splendid views. The driving down the winding road at 35 mph itself is very relaxing.


Tunnels, waterfalls, grazing deer,scuttling racoons vie for attention alongside the avid mountain bikers who jostle for space along with the cars on the one lane roadway.










Then there was this fellow who regally ambled across and would not leave till we slowed down and clicked a propah picture of him.




Met his rather timid cousin on a trail and he
unfortunately was very camera shy and chose to dart away into the bushes.

Labels: Travel

It was still Spring in the mountains. The cooler mountain slopes were holding on to the browns and earthy reds of winter, reluctant to let the lime greens of spring in while the warmer slopes had already given up and turned a lush green .

In the early morning light, the mountains took on various shades of blue. This is the view from the top of Lewis Mountain which was a pleasant 15 minute walk from our cabin. We enjoyed the silence and our morning muffins on the ledge in the company of ants and birds.

Wildflowers were strewn across the valley floor, in hidden crevices under decaying trees, by a gurgling mountain spring....signs of life.

I even made myself a little bouquet of wildflowers while hiking. On this particular occasion we had decided to hike to an old cemetery only we could not find it. The trail however led us to a charming Ranger's cabin with a nearly 180 degree view of the ranges.

Labels: Travel

Cell phone service was erratic throughhout the Park Area. This gave the Boy who was suffering from a mild amount of separation anxiety in the absence of his 24/7 internet connection something to worry about.

This ominous looking cabin is actually a Verizon equipment room. We found it sitting prettily in the middle of the forest...very puzzling.

Labels: Travel

I am at home today with an awful eye infection which has left the right eye distended and looking like an evil twin of the left one. Not pretty but I have managed to enjoy myself so far. I have been reading "And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts -a book that makes me really angry at times...."stupid, stupid humans, when will we learn" .

The Boy has been working from home so he has been around. Being the ever considerate, lovely lad that he is, he even got me his Warcraft and Diablo CD's... so that I may amuse myself. I decided to vaccum and clean up the house instead. He really wants me to play Half Life 2, which is totally cool and has awesome graphics. But that is the problem...the graphics are too real and land up being scary. Then there is the whole role play business. In Diablo I can be a Xena like warrior princess or an elf in Warcraft. But in Half Life 2 there is no choice....the only character you can play is of this bespectacled Mr. Gordon Freeman. Why would I want to play as a man and have a female character bat her eyes at me...stupid, stupid game developers. Besides I hate the controls, though I have to admit that picking up things and generally chucking them can be a lot of fun.

Last night as soon as we walked into the shop, this little bit of pink fluff and three of her other friends looked up from their place on the counter, batted their eyelashes, made wimpy faces and begged to be taken home. Being the nice, sweet people that we are, we quickly agreed. Back home, the collective weeping, cajoling, moaning started once again....this time they all wanted to be eaten rightaway!! Believe me it took a lot of self restraint to turn a deaf ear to their pleas and randomly pick two and put the other two (by now unconsolable) cupcakes into the refrigerator. Even the Boy was teary eyed and wanted to put the other two out of their misery. But a woman has to do what a woman has to do-preach moderation and good economics (at 3 bucks a pop they had better last more than one dinner). Anways lets get done with the grisly part, we ate the strawberry and orange flavored ones. They were awesome (just like they said they would be). The buttery topping with just the right hint of sweetness and a cake that is dense and moist....heavenly!! My strawberry frosting even had specks of real strawberries in it.


Bottomline, if you are in the DC area stop by Cake Love or its other outlet in Silver Spring. Its totally worth it. Here's a cake shop that loves its fat, flour and sugar and is not ashamed to flaunt it...infact a cake shop that is certainly not for the namby pamby. The moment you enter the store, the warm smells of baking, the gleaming Kitchen Aid stand mixers on the countertop and the rows of cupcakes waiting to be decorated take you back to a time when baked goods did not have an ingredient list that only a chemist could decipher!! Now off I go, the howls from the fridge are getting a little unbearable. Cupcakes for breakfast cannnot be all that bad...can they?


PS: After devouring those cupcakes we sat and watched The Chronicles of Narnia. Please note that this was not intentional or premeditated in any way and in the aftermath the two of us found the incident terribly funny.

Labels: Food

Yesterday I tried out my Hindi writing skills after ages, on a lark. I am not as fast as I used to be and I am sure I misspelled a dozen or so words. But that's to be expected as the last time I actually expressed myself in the language was during the ICSE Hindi exam, which was more than ten years ago. I have never felt the need to scribble in Hindi after that, except may be to show my Chinese lab mate his name in the Devnagri script. After the first few stiff lines I picked up speed, the letters started looking plump as the jagged edges disappeared and the words flowed. I am impressed with myself. And what did I write... Mera Kuch Saaman by Gulzar. Apart from being a favourite of mine, this is also one of the few romantic lyrics written in a language which is usually very male centric in matters of the heart. You may have songs of love lost, poems of jilted love or melodramatic angst ridden odes to a heart less society, but all written from the point of view of men*. Mera Kuch Saaman is about all the little tit bits a dead relationship leaves behind. The woman in this case wants these remnants back, some tangible, some intangible but mostly stuff that romantic moments are made up of and hence non returnable. In that respect it reads like a list, very matter of fact. And like most Gulzar lyrics, the slightly off beat details (kaandhe ka til ) that make it so alluring also make a literal translation sound silly.

Now that we are done with the literary stuff we move on to some profound philosophy. When one buys plastic cutlery, why does the bag have an equal number of forks, spoons and knives when everyone knows that the knives hardly ever get used? Recently at the workplace all we had left were about 100 knives from the 360 piece set of spoons, knives and forks also called the communal plastic "silverware" dump. As a result at lunch time there were atleast two people practicing their chopstick skills with plastic knives. Someone got a replacement 360 piece set and guess what we probably have 220+pieces of knives sitting pretty in the shelf and they will just keep accumulating. Someone, somewhere should do a fair bit of research into this problem, follow it up with some tedious number crunching and come up with a fairly representative ratio for number of spoons to forks to knives in a set. There I said it, now will some enterprising soul please take up the challenge.


*Having said that I will also admit that my knowledge of Hindi language/poetry is rather limited to whatever was included in the 10th grade syllabus (not a lot of love there), old Hindi films and Doordarshan. So if you happen to disagree, please let us know.

Labels: Nostalgia

It started of as an experiment where a bunch of us could share the exploits of our geographically separated kitchens. Test results, taste results, lab notes and pictures were posted occasionally. Worked well till real world experiments and labs caught up with the others and I was left alone with my pots and pans. It seems the clarion call of graduation has to be answered to keep the future kitchen fires going. Since this situation will last till a few dozen papers and theses are dispensed with and in one extreme situation a digital camera purchased, I shall post some of the more interesting concoctions of the 8003 kitchen here. It will be a temporary, foster home for my food related posts...can't really send them to an empty, cold home can I?

For my latest adventure I mashed up two boiled potatoes, a can of tuna, some minced scallions, minced cilantro, a teaspoon of this, a teaspoon of hot salsa, a dash of salt and half a cup of bread crumbs. As the Boy and I are apartment dwellers with a temperamental oven, I got the oven going at 350 F before I started smushing the above in a nice glass bowl. The nice glass bowl is totally optional but I use it for a professional Food TV like touch. The ingredients were mashed and shaped into smallish (read 1" dia) balls. Then as an after thought, some raisins were fished out from the pantry and a raisin was stuffed inside each tuna ball. Plain tuna balls...boring. Raisin stuffed mystery tuna balls...now that's creative. The mixture yielded 15 balls which were then baked on a greased, aluminium foil lined cookie tray lined for 15-20 minues. The Boy and I enjoyed two of these as a snack with a dollop of ketchup and the rest were dunked in an all purpose tomato, onion gravy. Unfortunately like most radical ideas this brainwave of mine turned to be theoretically sound and practically...well let's say a little on the tasteless side.

Labels: Food

We went on a "Meet the New Neighbours" trip on Sunday morning, to the Greenbelt lake. As usual we walked through the woods and by this cute tree house. Instead of oohing and aahing for the nth time and visualising myself enjoying my morning tea perched on a tree for the (n+1)th time, a picture was clicked. Though I have not worked out the slight technicality of how I would get the tea up there every morning, I am sure when push comes to shove (that is when I actually own a house with a tree house in the garden) I will come up with some mind blowing, out of the box solution. And if I can't, I will ask Google for one.
Heard the birds go about their business in the trees above. I have been trying to recognise the local birds and their calls, so far I can distinctly differentiate the cries of the oriole from that of the cardinal. There is a rather stupid woodpecker in these parts who insists on pecking at utility poles instead of the trees!!
Hollered our hola's to Mr. and Mrs. Beaver who were not really in the mood for socialising with over friendly humans. Totally understandable; after a night of hectic dam building, cuddling and snoozing would be the only things on my agenda too. The Boy nods in agreement, he feels that way (about snoozing not cuddling!) every morning and all he does at night is obssess about his flies, work on silly problems or a play a game or two of some dude-that's-so-totally-cool game. I was under the impression that Mrs. Beaver was in the family way, but wikipedia informs me that female beavers are just naturally larger than the males.



Luckily not everyone is nocturnal. The turtle family was enjoying their spot in the sun with their newest member of the family who looks like a pebble. By the way, the muck you see in the water is the out-of-control algal blooms caused by the runoff from our pristine lawns which need tons of fertilisers to look radiant (kind of like Cher and her make-up)...totally toxic. So if you own a home with a patch of green, plant native grasses and let it grow wild. Native grassses will need less fertilizers and less mowing means less air pollution and less work too. Besides its good for you, for the environment and the Greenbelt Lake's baby turtles. Now, you wouldn't want your babies swimming in this filth, would you?

Labels: Greenbelt, Lake

There, she has done it again, and by that I mean tried acting and spoiled what could have been a half way decent movie in the process. The woman is a beautiful prop, period. A universal truth if ever there was. How come these fancy-shmancy directors don't get it? I am sure the director of this particular assault on our senses would have had better luck if he tried to make the side-lit garlic (mentioned in the Telegraph article) act. Can't really blame the chappie when even dear old Ebert fell for it. Oh!I feel so betrayed.

As a little side note:
I have not watched this movie or that other monstrosity and refuse to do so. So don't even think of giving me the "but this is not fair" spiel. I know it is not fair and you better get used to it. Another piece of advice, before you leave a comment professing your love for Ms. Goo-Goo Eyes or your admiration for her acting skills read the profile. What to do? I am like that only.