Moon River

It's a known fact at work that I love chocolates. The boss knows, the colleagues know. Since yesterday, A has been getting me chocolates. I'd forgotten what it felt like -- getting a chocolate from someone else. It's been a long time since somebody did that, even M. He usually leaves me to my devices.

A told me her grandma brought her chocolate and since she won't eat much herself, she decided to share it. That made me pretty sentimental.

I still get that child-like feeling when I get chocolates instead of buying them on my own. The boss saw the expression on my face while A passed on a piece of heaven, saying, "Look at her face!" Guess somethings never change.

Here's the theme to today ending:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOByH_iOn88&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=MLGxdCwVVULXdzZYZF2ifmdxCl2zs-nzie

Life after snow?

The weather is beautiful outside. I mean, I could kill for this weather. Still, I can't seem to get my ass outdoors, I'm just that damn lazy/tired to do so.

Today was a good day. I interviewed a NASA Jet Propulsion Lab scientist plus the co-founder of Kickstarter.com, a crowd-fundraising site for individuals with a creative idea. Genius, I say! I hope I can now produce a good Kickstarter story.

Lately, M and I have gotten so bored of eating Indian food that we didn't feel like having anything today. To keep our stomachs from growling loudly at night, we decided to have Maggi. Tomorrow looks promising. Lunch as well as dinner will be had outside. We were good kids this week. Waited all weekend for our turn to eat out, even on V Day! No, really.

The only thing that's not-so-good after all the snowpocalypse drama is the lack of motivation to exercise. Neither M nor I feel like it. At least, he's honest about it. But, that's the advantage (or the lack of on occasions) of being married. One can drag the other to do just about anything.

Also, puppy adoptions lined up for Saturday. Can't wait. Fayetteville really is my favorite town.

02.14.11

You love bubblegum pop music. I love indie music.

You love adding extra salt to everything you eat. I add a little less, every single time.

You're not a fan of reading. I can't stop.

You love fruity flavors. I prefer chocolaty ones.

You're a non-vegetarian. I'm a vegetarian. For life.

White chocolate. Dark chocolate.

You love to surround yourself with as many gadgets as possible. I like to keep it simple.

Commercial radio. NPR.

You'd rather drive than walk. I'd rather walk than drive.

Car. Scooter.

Desktops. Laptops.

You'd shut every window down and never let any light in. I'll open up every blind to let even the last ray of sunshine in.

I know there are more. But, they make life interesting and frustrating -- basically worth fighting it out for.

Happy Valentine's.

P.S. - The trash needs to be taken out :P

Writing vs. typing?

Just today hubby and me were discussing whether our children will ever write. Incidentally, a few days ago, I came across this blog post at theoatmeal.com. I'm reposting it.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/handwriting

It's reassuring to know I'm not alone.

To be or not to be...Tales of an ISD phone call, snow days and kale!

My friend D called me up today. It has been quite some time since we last spoke for this long or spoke at all, actually. And then she told me something that made me very happy, for her and for my own selfish purposes. Before I say what she told me, I will provide a little back story for those who don't know her.

D, when I worked with her, never got angry. She never criticized people and tolerated just about anyone. She also seemed to have an infinite capacity to spend time with a boring/vicious/hypocritical person and never say a word against them, even behind their back. Where we feared to tread, she rushed in. This often puzzled me. After all, there has to be a threshold but it seemed D was above all of that. She belonged to the school of "there's-some-goodness-in-everybody" and "people-will-treat-us-how-we-treat-them." Even if people mistreated her, she was just as good to them as could be. Probably, a female Ned Flanders of sorts.

Today she told me that she has let go -- of these expectations that she and others have of her and she has learnt to be what may be called "imperfect." She said trying to please and be good to everyone was tiring. She's relieved and says her life seems much simpler when she lets reactions take their natural course. She doesn't try to like anyone who intentionally annoys/gets on to her nerves. I pondered over her words and put them up as my Facebook status --

‎"You do not want some people to like you because you don't like them either so stop being nice to all of them."

Another friend, H questioned the above wisdom and asked, "Wouldn't that reflect on us?"

H, here's my two cents. First of all, who's judging us? The image that we hope to cultivate through being nice to the people who intentionally hurt or are malicious in some way, what good does it do? We internalize the hurt and the feelings, trying to process them in a way that does more harm than good.

For example, somebody is mean to me without me having to instigate anything. I hear the words and then probably the next day or two are spent in processing why it happened. I try explaining to myself why the other person might have done it, the hundred reasons behind his/her behavior. I try to put my hurt away and not acknowledge it. The next time I meet the same person, bam! He/she does it again and there I go, yet again.

D acknowledged to having done all of that. I'm sure many who read this have tried all of the above, too. But, the cycle never seems to stop. Shouldn't we just acknowledge:

• that we give some people more credit than they deserve.
• there really might some very vicious people out there.

The above don't apply to all and loved ones totally deserve all the time and effort one puts into them. The above conversation is applicable to all the so-called expendables (an acquaintance, distant relatives, etc.).

On a separate note, no office today again! I tried calling up the boss and he wouldn't answer. I needed something approved by him and wasn't sure he was in office to do that; hence, I didn't go. The roads are still covered in slick and ice. The husband and me are bored so we are still contemplating whether a trip to Starbucks would be worth the risk. The temps are as low as -17 deg Celsius.

Another disaster was me revealing my plans of cooking kale soon. Kale is like spinach, only has more nutritional worth than anything else. But, I could see why that would flip the hubby off. Until I was responsible for two people eating healthy, I pretty much did that every single time I saw a green vegetable. Now I know what my mother went through raising us.

It's funny how you slowly become your mother, even when you swore you won't.

People take breaks.

People blog for several reasons but one of the most compelling reasons, according to me, was cited by another blogger. This blogger was a cancer patient. She wanted to blog for posterity, for her children who might never know what their mother was like. It’s a very dramatic reason but still makes a lot of sense. For me, blogging will also mean practicing writing. Ever since I finished my graduate thesis, I haven’t felt like it which I feel has led to a deterioration of my creative writing skills. Plus, it’s a good way to keep in touch with friends who are in a different continent and talking about the little things doesn’t really make sense on an expensive long-distance call.

So I’ve started writing again to just document everything that goes on when I feel like blogging. Just to indicate the timeline of the blog — the Egyptian revolution is on, I’m currently devouring a food blog on Slate called The Clean Plate by Ellen Tarlin and today was what was touted as the “biggest snowstorm” of 2011. I might have an opinion on the Egyptian revolution but that’s not on my mind right now. The food blog constantly is. Tarlin manically measures her portions/tries to meditate while eating/calculates the price of each meal/tries normal ‘new’ food and I like that. It helps me be aware of what I’m consuming too. After reading the blog, I realized that there wasn’t much fruit nor veggies in our diet. So, I try. Every single day I open the fridge and think what I can make today that will incorporate more veggies or fruit in it. I often run after the husband with a banana in my hand, coercing him into eating it. It’s not a pretty sight, ever. Tarlin has inspired me to try kale, celery and other veggies that I wouldn’t have thought of simply because they have never been a part of my diet.

The snowstorm I loved mostly because the power remained intact. We were well stocked with veggies, fruit, snacks, milk, etc. The husband and I were home all day. I watched probably a hundred episodes of X-files and the husband was firmly in his chair playing WoW. The X-files finally gave me a headache, a warning that if I don’t stop watching, I’ll be blind in no time.

That brings me to something else — finding a hobby that does not require staring at a screen or strains eyes at the very least. I’m thinking knitting mainly because I remember doing some with mum when I was younger and it was fun, didn’t require much effort and yielded results quickly. Or else, more volunteering is a good option.

I had to start somewhere. I’ll gain momentum in time.

P.S.- Thanks, Preeti for encouraging me to write again.

You Go, Girl!

My years in the United States have been thrilling for a mixed bag of reasons, except one - the lack of mobility. My time in Lafayette was spent as the typical graduate student: living on-campus, spending most of my time in the university, eating junk or free food, walking everywhere and hitching a ride with a friend when mall-visits seemed the only cure for bouts of graduate life-related depression. On rare occasions, the city buses came in handy. On all such bus or car rides, I missed my Kinetic Honda. I have never been a car person, even more so in India because it meant driving a manual-transmission car. Call it my lack of coordination skills but I'd prefer walking to a destination (no matter how far) instead of managing the accelerator, brakes and clutch, along with changing gears and keeping an eye on the road in front of and behind me in the Great-Indian-Traffic, all at the same time. I loved the wind (and the soot from all the gas-guzzlers!) in my hair and enjoyed smirking at the car-drivers while weaseling my way out during a traffic jam on a scooter.

But, it is not just about me. In India, two-wheelers or scooters have changed lives, especially women's. As a developing country, the fact remains that not every Indian household can afford buying cars for both husband and wife (even though it is a rising trend in young urban Indian couples). In the Indian patriarchal society, men remain the privileged ones and almost always retain the right to drive the only car in the family. Scooters are cheap to buy and maintain, and yield higher mileage. More households can afford two or three two-wheelers than two cars. The choices of scooters available, some of them targeted especially at women, do not hurt either. Hence, girls and women alike, happily wear helmets or tie scarves around their faces, beating dust and grime, and dependence.

The current situation of public transportation in India helps the case of two-wheelers. Largely dysfunctional and mismanaged, modes of public transport such as buses, three-wheelers or taxi-vans are usually unsafe for women and take ages to get from point A to point B. Hence, from the very ugly, yet very sensible Bajaj scooter to the current favorites Honda Activa and Scooty Pep, scooters are everywhere in India. With easy personal loans and financing, they're easier to buy and pay off. Women in sarees, salwar-suits, skirts, pair of jeans or pants scoot past you every second. With fashionable handbags, jazzy shopping bags or modest-looking grocery bags, these women make a statement: a statement about leaving their dependent pasts behind, moving forward, literally and metaphorically, and taking charge of their own lives. The scooter, so invisible in its commonness, has let Indian women taste freedom, and work and play according to their own free will. This is a privilege not many female counterparts in other nations have been able to enjoy even in this century.

Cars will be next. They are already becoming the new scooter. Whereas the latter represented freedom, cars represent the prosperity of the educated new-age Indian woman. Young and hip urban women in high-paying jobs are more and more inclined towards buying cars, a natural progression. Yet, I believe the future belongs to scooters. Green, fuel efficient, compact and convenient, they suit the needs of a growing Indian and world population just fine. During the rising-fuel prices fiasco in 2008, Americans focused their attention on the small but the very effective two-wheelers. Even though the American roads and motor-driving system were (and still are) centered more around the needs of car-drivers than scooter-riders, the number of trucks and vans lessened, and more Honda and Piaggio scooters were seen on the road. The trend has yet to catch on but there is now an unprecedented awareness about this neglected mode of transportation.

As for me, I'm still a hundred percent, diehard scooter fan. On my wishlist: a capri-blue Vespa LX 150. Give me a Vespa over a Lamborghini any given day. Any given day!

P.S.- The photo has been downloaded from http://arajan.org/lambretta.JPG. It is not being used for commercial purposes and I will take it down if required. It is a Lambretta, an old Indian favorite.