I hope this pain will one day be useful

Ever since I heard of the mindless violence inflicted upon Elementary School children, I have been really angry and sad.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57559261/20-children-6-adults-killed-in-conn-elementary-school-massacre/

I was wondering how to address the topic with my Elementary School daughter and how to tell her that we will be there for her and that there are horrors in the world inflicted upon the innocent (without alarming her). This article tells us to use an age appropriate mechanism, but my husband and I were still not sure how to go about it.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/12/14/connecticut-school-shooting-what-to-tell-your-kids/

Finally, when we picked her up from School, we asked her in as casual a tone as possible whether anyone told her anything at School. Her answer surprised me. She became defensive and blurted: "But it was not my fault Amma. Nylan was the one talking to me. I was only listening to him, but my teacher thought I was talking and she turned my card over as a warning. Did my teacher tell you she flipped my card over for talking?"

Inspite of the fact that I had cried in outrage while ranting about the whole shooting incident at CT just a few minutes before, I  couldn’t help smiling.
"So why did you not tell your teacher that you weren’t talking?" I asked her.

"AMMA! I can’t get him in trouble. I can’t tell-tale on him! So I just took the warning, but in the recess I told him not to talk to me when the teacher was talking." Apparently, the Code of the Elementary School Goers is quite rigid with respect to tell-tales.

As I thanked my stars for the ability to hear such a wonderful tidbit of her life in School, my heart went out to all those families and friends grieving for the loss of these children. The tale of the recess untold, the code of their friendships unraveled. May their souls rest in peace.

May their little souls also guide our misguided policy makers to make a decision that is not only right for the country, but for innocent lives everywhere. I hope this pain will one day be useful.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/newtown-and-the-madness-of-guns.html

perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim
(Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.)

Walking on Water

You know how it is when you are growing up and folks (mostly parents, aunts and uncles) are always telling you about how life in their day was stern and earnest. The ‘You-youngsters-have-it-easy’ theme was an all-time favorite. They would gas on about how education was something they loved and why we should not be complaining about how easily education is served on a platter to us. How in their day, they had to walk across the town and then catch a bus that had no seats or fuel(sometimes): all to get to a school, that did not have teachers or roofs?

I always envied their stories. Because the most I could tell my children was that I had a wonderful childhood. It was true that it rained 10 months a year, but that was not nearly as bad as it sounds. When young, splashing in the rain and singing songs while walking up and down the hills was really not tragic. (I’ve tried the martyr theme with this and it fell flat, because I could not keep the glee of the good-old-days from my voice)

Which is why I am almost jealous of this class of students. Imagine this:

Septuagenarian Great Uncle: Youngsters these days! Pah! In our day ….
Kid: Huh? Telling me something grandpa? (unplugging music from ear)
Septua. Great Uncle: Grunt! Humph! You youngsters have no idea about the kind of lives we led. The perils we had to face in order to procure an education. There we would be waiting for the bus to come to the village. There would be a bus only once every 2 hours. So, if we missed it, we had to walk to school over 1.37 miles away. How long to stand for the bus?
A sound like a whistle of steam escaping a tea-pot draws the attention to the wistful sigh that the uncle just let go.
Kid: But you told us you whiled away time playing marbles at the bus-stop.
S.G.U.: Well…yes! But only while waiting for the bus. And when the bus did come, do you think we could waltz in and sit on the seats?
Kid: Why would anyone waltz into a bus, unless you are performing the bus-boarding-scene in a Broadway show?
S.G.U: *Completely ignoring the smart observation regarding buses and waltzes* Then…we had to study really hard. The homework we had was meant to make us think. Not like you – having free time to listen to music and not studying.
Kids: Really?! So you had to play with marbles while you waited and had a bit of homework, but did you have to walk on water for your homework?
That is our assignment you know?
S.G.U: What?
Kid: Our assignment: Walk on Water.

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/weird-news/weird-news-fla-students-walk-on-water-for-class-assignment/article_bc80890c-29ed-11e2-9c5d-001a4bcf887a.html

 

walking-on-water

Ha! I could pay to capture the expression .. Sigh!

The Story behind the Menu

 

I am going to go out on a limb and say that things could be better. On the other hand er.. leg, it could be a lot worse. So, on the whole, I have decided to not put my foot down and complain about the state of things.

I could not resist the above paragraph folks. So, thanks for letting me get away with that. The truth is that I have a hairline fracture on my ankle and am hoisted up on one foot for weeks. At first, the daughter remained in denial. She kept telling me that she can barely notice the limp in my stride, about how the foot would not pain if I don’t think about the pain etc. It was only later I found that her hidden agenda was making me believe I was perfectly fine. Fine enough to go to Disneyland for the Thanksgiving break. Well, we put a stopper to her Disneyland dreams when she saw me hobbling into the house on crutches. Even she knew that no amount of psychological counseling can get me to Disneyland at this point. So, she buckled down to a week-end at home and teamed up with the husband to "take care" of me.

The pair of them made a sufficient noise about getting me to rest over the week-end and said I was to remain upstairs while they cooked up a Thanksgiving lunch for me.
Very gallant of them of course, but I have to say, I have whipped up many a meal in my life, but rarely have I made such a noise about it. I mean neighbours heard pans clanging and music blaring. Not to mention questionable noises and smells. After about an hour of this cacophony, I asked them what the menu was, and I got the following:

Pan-seared vegetables:
What that means is that the duo had cut up vegetables in haphazard shapes and let them burn. My longish nose picked up a smell like burning rubber and I asked them in a slightly alarmed voice whether everything was under control.
"Oh no….!" moaned the chef
"APPA! You said not to cover it. If we had covered it, amma would not have smelled the vegetables burning!" the sous chef’s accusatory tone rang out. I must say I would have preferred it if she did not burn it at all in the first place.

Potatoes with a hint of Cumin:
I distinctly heard the husband say "OOOPS! The lid just fell inside and it plopped all over."
The daughter rang out, "What is that appa? You said chilli powder, but isn’t chilli powder red? This one is brown or is it green?" I decided I did not want to let my imagination explore what the powder might be, but a few seconds is all it took for me to realise that the "Oops" was the Cumin bottle.
I heard them splashing water on the pan. They must have washed the cumin off because by the time I ate it, they were boiled potatoes.

Lentils with the freshness of roma tomatoes:
The dal was fine – only in the last moment, the sous chef decided that she did not like tomatoes and the Roma t’s retained their freshness.

Thanksgiving

I groaned as I hopped into the kitchen. Every single spice bottle was on the counter and every inch of counter space was full. I must’ve looked a sight because the husband said he was going to clean up and that I had come too early. The daughter said that if they had aprons, things might have been better

And so it goes … never a dull moment in the nourishncherish world.

PS: My friends and neighbours have been wonderful they’ve sent food across, so the kitchen is holding up after the last bout of cleaning. Thanks all 🙂

Some Precious Spittle for Diwali?!

Our family loves Diwali. The light seeps into our hearts and our inner self glows with all the mellow happiness of good food and excess sweets. President Obama makes sure that he wishes folks a happy diwali too and I loved his message urging us all to remember our less fortunate brethen as we celebrate this wonderful festival. I tried to beat the greeters, but by the time I went online and blogged about a Diwali, folks were already losing the mellow looks that ghee and sweets bring on.

In fact, they seem to have gone a step further and are vying with each other to act nasty. Like this open challenge and I quote:
"A local religious leader has announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh for anyone, who spits on lawyer and BJP MP Ram Jethmalani’s face for describing Lord Ram as a bad husband."

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-11-13/india/35087443_1_bjp-mp-ram-jethmalani-lord-ram-seer

Hardly the spirit of a wonderful holiday to pay good money for spitting at folks. Yet there it is: religious leaders are the ones apparently loaded with money enough to squander Rs 5 lakhs for some precious spittle. Ugh.

This seer went on to proclaim that "A threat presupposes violence and spitting is a harmless non-violent act." I doubt whether his stance would be the same if he were at the receiving end for some reason.

PS: I am not going into the the whole Ram-is-a-bad-husband argument for obvious reasons.

Will Macedonian Job Listing Interest Korean Elephant?

I’ve read through a fair share of job listings. I remember looking in the Indian newspapers as a girl, hoping to find some hidden gems of novelty, and was almost always rewarded. If nothing else came up, there was at least the seedy lawyer asking for someone to be employed in some capacity and almost always had a combination of the words: prosecuting, witness, clerk, short-hand, typing etc. in legalese. (Lawyer offices are incapable, by design, of simple sentences and take pride in complicating things.)

However, I must say this Macedonian minister takes the cake. He wants to employ certified genii as assistants. He would not settle for any IQ scores below a 140 it seems. Apparently, the intelligent minister has not stopped to ponder about why a person endowed with an IQ of more than 140 would want to work as his assistant.

http://www.modbee.com/2012/11/08/2447578/macedonian-minister-looking-for.html

Maybe, somebody would be kind enough to send him Koshik’s resume for the position if Koshik is interested.

 

macedonian minister

Who is Koshik? Well, he is an elephant in a Korean zoo.

http://news.yahoo.com/elephant-south-korean-zoo-imitates-human-speech-080222456.html

Koshik is astounding scientists there with his intelligence. Koshik can utter more than a few words in Korean, and is evidently picking up human speech patterns.

The question, of course, is whether the Macedonian Minister will he have the IQ enough to understand what the elephant is telling him?

Curious George Dances Gangnam Style with Tinker Bell

For those who haven’t read Curious George and his adventures, I suggest you do so. I love the little monkey and his wonderful adventures.

Man-in-the-Yellow-Hat

This time, Curious George was in an adventure of sorts with The Man with the Yellow Hat, Professor Wiseman and Tinker Bell the naughty fairy.

When Curious George the monkey heard that Tinker Bell, that amazing fairy, was going be at large, he was excited. He was a curious monkey and fairies, especially plucky ones like Tinker Bell, always interested him. He climbed on to the Man with the Yellow Hat and said, "Oooh oohh aaa aa! Awwww! ooh ooh aaa aaa!" The Man understood him as usual and arranged for little Curious George to go to the party where Tinker Bell was going to hang out with her friends.

It was a wonderful party and the Man-with-the-Yellow-Hat was a big hit. He could barely fit into the pictures with his tall hat. Even Captain Hook forgot about being evil and relaxed in the radiating yellow of the Man. Passing cars slowed down mistaking the Man-with-the-yellow-hat to be a yellow traffic light. But Tinker Bell the fairy swooped in with her sparkling green wings and set them going again. All in all, it was a wonderful party even though Professor Wiseman acted out of character on occasion. You see Professor Wiseman had come for the party and was talking to the Queen when a wonderful witch decided to kick the party up a notch by getting folks to dance to “Gangnam Style”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

Curious George and the Man-with-the-Yellow-hat loved Gangnam style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangnam_Style) and really wanted Professor Wiseman to dance. Professor Wiseman rose to the challenge and tried to dance. But she chose her steps poorly and landed up twisting her ankle. Tinker Bell tried to heal Professor Wiseman’s ankle, but she was tired and there wasn’t enough magic left for an ankle to heal.

Curious George is now Professor Wiseman’s helper and plays with her whenever he can to make sure he distracts her mind from the twisted ankle. Tinker Bell is spreading her magical love about the place and making Professor Wiseman feel comfortable.

DSC_0036

The End

The Power of a Sorry

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was visiting her grandmother in the village. The village was a beautiful place and she had many friends. There was only problem that reared its head every so often: she hated to apologize. Having to admit she was sorry for what she had done was so dour to her existence that her grandmother decided on out-of-the-box techniques to make things easier for her. When she stalked off with her nose in the clouds and a pout big enough to scare the cat, her grandmother told her, “You don’t have to say ‘Sorry’, just tell me what your mother is wearing.”

Ha! But the little girl was too smart for that, she answered resolutely in Tamil, “PODAVAI! You think I will say ‘SAREE’? ”

Looks like my grandmother’s trick would not have worked on Scott Forstall either. He was ousted from Apple after refusing to sign a apology or taking responsibility for the poor quality of the maps on iOS.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57542297-37/apples-scott-forstall-ousted-over-maps-apology-wsj/

It looks like Mr Forstall learned from his company though:

http://www.examiner.com/article/uk-court-rejects-apple-s-apology-to-samsung-orders-apple-to-do-it-over

The UK court rejected Apple’s apology to Samsung as ‘not an apology’. Ha!

PS: For all those smart people out there, who think they know the little girl; I am not the little girl in the story above (Just saying)

GPS: A Mother?

We now have a new car. The husband has been found lurking in the garage with this new beauty on Saturday afternoons looking peaceful and happy. Link from the husband detailing the wonderful features it has:

http://myproductview.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/chevy-volt-is-it-right-for-me/

An energy efficient marvel that ferries me to and fro. This thing also has an in-built GPS. Every now and then, I test the limits of its patience like I did this morning. I know these Global Posi. Systems should not have tones when they direct users, but I swear mine does. She directs most of the time, moans sometimes, sounds exasperated sometimes and orders you around sometimes – she could be a mother. All she wants is obedience, why can’t people give it to her? She knows what she is doing doesn’t she?

So, there I was driving along as per usual fiddling around with the radio stations every now and then, when I hear of a traffic jam in my usual route. Now, that can’t do, I tell myself and immediately take off in another route that I know is slower, but should get me moving. The GPS is alarmed.

“Please take U-turn at nearest intersection”
Ignore
“Please turn left and immediate right turn”
Ignore
This goes on for a while before I cannot ignore it anymore. She has acquired a tone.
“PLEASE JUST TURN LEFT HERE!”
Ignore
We are made of sterner stuff than GPS-es think.

Prior to this, the GPS was just recalculating the route without telling me, but she decides that playing the sympathy card may drive some sense into me and starts telling me
“Recalculating route. Please take right turn in 0.25 miles.” *See all the things that I am doing for you? I am re-cal-cul-at-ing the route!*
Ignore
How many times have I had to recalculate things – poof! I wave a negligent hand at her and continue on my fantasy ride.

 

GPS

After 4 such attempts, I am now genuinely lost, because I turned where I thought I should, and I thought wrong. I look to the GPS, but she seems to have had it with me. She stopped directing me! It was almost as if she said, if you don’t listen to me anyway, why bother?

I mean the complete cold shoulder.

I turned right just to get her to start recalculating again and she just sat there. I made another left turn and luckily, it turned out to be the right one. I went on. Finally, one signal before my destination, she sits up and pleads,

“TAKE LEFT TURN. TAKE LEFT TURN AND BEAR RIGHT”

She must think I am a complete imbecile because she beeps and says again
“TAKE LEFT TURN. TAKE LEFT TURN AND BEAR RIGHT NOW”

I do and she lets out an audible sigh of relief as she says, “Your destination has now arrived. Your route guidance will now stop” and she retires for the day. Oh! What a long day!

I try to smile at her but she has taken the day off. Maybe she isn’t a mother after all. What do you think?

Technorati Tags: ,,,,

The Mosquito Waltz

Visit my parents in the evenings, and you will find them waltzing to the rhythm of the evening sitcoms, with a spring in their step, either smiles or scowls on their faces and dancing to a tune that unites them against their enemy of the evening. Their dance is not all romance, though it makes for a wonderful scene. They are fighting mosquitoes. They hold something similar to badminton rackets and they sway them through the air. These rackets send minute shocks to the mosquitoes and squelches them.  I told them to choreograph their performance to some catchy tunes, but they don’t listen.

 

Mosquito Dance

Now imagine if I walked into their home one fine evening and found them with big, yellow sten guns and shooting with some nimble footwork , jumping behind sofas, putting James Bond to shame? I have to admit watching them waltz with badminton rackets conjures better images in my mind.

Yet that is what they would be doing if they got themselves a Bug-A-Salt.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444657804578048483443945820.html

 

Inventor demo bug-a-salt

(Inventor demo for the Bug-a-salt gun)

This wonder supposedly takes pests down by shooting salt tablets at them. I can’t imagine what would happen to the salt plastered walls of houses where humidity is high.

Just another product?

Who knows?

Technorati Tags: ,,,

Otter Pop Lessons

I came to the United States as an adult, but that did not stop me from soaking in the wondrous world around me with the enthusiasm of a 5 year old. Since I did not grow up in the US, every so often, something comes up that every kindergartner knows and has me stumped. The Case of the Otter Pops is one such time. When the call to volunteer at the School Sports’ Day at the daughter’s Elementary School came up, I jumped at the opportunity and I was assigned the Otter Pop station. I signed on a bit apprehensively. See my problem was I did not know what an ‘Otter Pop’ was.

I knew I would be distinctly uncomfortable handling otters. Having them pop out at me for a whole day seemed like a less than fun thing to do. Also, why Otters on a school sports day?

Maybe they are the mascot’s friends or something. But the daughter assured me with great enthusiasm that it is a ‘cool’ thing to do.
‘Cool’ – get it? Cool. And she winked in that exaggerated manner that someone just taught her.
She has taken to explaining her jokes to me which makes me wonder whether I am losing touch with my lighter side, or that she thinks that I am getting dimmer. Either way, I did not get it and asked her what the otters would do. I shall retain my shreds of dignity and gather them about me and suffice it to say that otter pops are some sort of frozen fruit juice treats. Why call them Otter Pops? You could ask the rhino’s grandfather, but I doubt he will have an answer either.

This famous Otter Pop Station was at the fag end of all the action. The children come up to the Otter Pop Station only after they have finished running and cheering around the track. That said, we otter pop volunteers got very little action to see. I kept running up between the races to see the runners and cheer them on, but I got to admit that the children were happier to see me when they came up for the otter pops than when I was cheering them on to run faster.

The daughter during her run

Self and co-volunteers at the Otter Pop Station started off being very accomodative. As the children came up, we offered them otter pops of their choice. We had cut and laid out enough otter pops of every colour available for the first batch of runners. The noisy bunch came and stood on their toes to peer at the table and they all went for the blue otter pops or the orange ones. The red ones and the green ones were slow-moving, but the pink ones languished. Frozen treats don’t languish solidly, and within minutes we had a soggy mess on our hands, while cutting out more blue and orange pops for the incoming folks. We had what one calls a ‘Sticky situation’. ‘Sticky’ because the otter pops melted – get it? Sticky.

Some children came asking for another otter pop after they were done (Of these, I distinctly remembered cheering some of them to start running since they seemed to think the run could also be a stroll and were merrily chatting around the track) We started giving out second helpings when a strict-ish teacher came up and shooed them away and glared at us through her spectacles and said ‘No more than 1 otter pop per child’.

So we gulped and shooed the second-helping-kids ourselves after that. Since the no-second-helping-rule was in place, we had folks exploring corner conditions with gusto. One came up and said he’d dropped his otter pop. We relented and gave him another one. This went on for a bit before we saw that while some of them were legitimate cases of dropping the otter pops, some others were being dropped after wading through 9/10th of an otter pop. (In case, one has apprehensions about the future lawyer population or the future QA test engineer population, one needn’t worry. This just shows you that our country will always a rich repertoire of lawyers and QA engineers)

Soon, we had a no-choice-in-the-matter rule in place because of the skewed preference for otter pop colours.

In summary, in every place, there are good jobs and bad jobs and sometimes, the bad jobs are the ones that bring most joy to the customers. I cannot tell you how much those children beamed when given otter pops. I tasted one to see what it was that was bringing them so much joy, but I could not get through a whole one. It was sugar based flavored syrup that was frozen, and it tasted as bad as it sounds.