andamu

Stereotypes

2004-12-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

I think I have fallen into the trap of stereotyping. Of my precious one. Not stereotyping him in terms of other men, but in terms of himself. I have been taking his behaviour in certain situations and respects and extrapolated it to apply to all areas.

My down-to-earth, unsentimental and somewhat undemonstrative husband is the one who always remembers our wedding anniversary. As for me, if you asked me quickly, I would be unsure whether it is the 20th or the 21st - for some reason I always get it mixed up. (It is the 20th) And while I remember in general when it is, I would miss the actual day quite easily. But mpo always remembers, and has a card or a gift.

This year it was a pot of white tulips.

This might sound lovely in general, but there is more to it, making this an extraordinarily meaningful gift. Tulips have been woven through our history in a lot of significant events and at key moments. The gift to me means a celebration of our relationship, a way of giving thanks that we met, and an affirmation of our love.

Thank you, Precious. Me too.

Quick Poll

2004-12-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

I've been slogging at the Movable Type incarnation of andamu. It is not 100% ready for prime time yet, but it is getting there.
I'm wondering whether I should put up the link to the new site now, and iron out the last bits as we go along, or whether I should wait to "unveil" it until I have everything in (almost) perfect shape.
::
Speaking of incarnations: just received a Tickle newsletter, asking "Is your karma in good shape?"
Didn't even open it before I dunked it, but I'm starting to wonder whether they knew what they were talking about, or whether it was just a catchy phrase.
::
And to answer a question: "andamu" is Telugu, from the Sanskrit, meaning "beauty"

Explosive Thunder

2004-12-17T15:41:00.000-08:00

I was a student (the first time around) in the late '80s in South Africa, before the death of apartheid during a very turbulent political period. In Pretoria where I studied, several bombs had cost many lives over the preceding years.

For a while I lived in a high-rise block atop a midtown shopping mall. This was very convenient for doing groceries or going to late night movies - just get in the elevator, and when next the doors slide open you have arrived. It had other obvious and not-so obvious drawbacks too, though.

At the height of the unrest, I would hear the police megaphones blaring, and look out my window to see an entire street block frozen in place. All pedestrian immobile on the sidewalk, all drivers and passengers out of their vehicles and standing next to them, the police conducting searches for goodness knows what.

Sometimes at night there would be a loud bang! and I would freeze, heart thumping, wondering whether it had been a bomb. It never was; instead it would be one of the famous Highveld thunderstorms, the flashes and rumbling interspersed by thunderclaps that followed showing me how paranoid I had become.

One evening, sitting up in bed, reading, I heard a whump! - really loud, and different somehow. By now my thoughts were first "Bomb!" then "bomb?" then "Naah, probably just a thunderclap."
Less than a minute later, a second whump!
"Aah, now I know it must be thunder, because there won't be two bombs so close to one another." And so I finished the chapter, turned off the light and went to sleep, anxious heart comforted.

Only to wake in the morning to headlines screaming about "Double Bomb Blast Rocks Midtown" or some such. Two blocks from me.

I don't take anything for granted anymore.

GQ

2004-12-16T20:34:00.000-08:00

Clothes are not high on my precious one's priority list. I would have to wear something spectacularly loud for him to notice and say something without prompting. With prompting, I mostly get "Yes, it's nice." The same general attitude persists with regard to his own wardrobe. He pays no attention to matching colors, occasion, or raggedness.
Which is why it is strange that he has such definite views on clothes - the same clothes about which he has no views. Contradiction? Of course. Welcome to my world!

Shirts only come in two colors, white and blue. Sky blue that is. All the movie heroes and all the Americans wore it, at the time that he grew up in India.
(Corollary: Walls only come in two colors, white and cream.)
The best shirt is made of a pale blue oxford cloth.
Shirts should mostly be worn untucked. However, only "hawaii shirts" can be untucked - meaning ones that are straight around the bottom. Shirts with tails shall never be untucked.
Shirts should have buttons. All the way down. Golf shirts are not shirts. Shirts should have pockets.
Never appear in a formal setting or with elders with more than two shirt buttons undone.
Undershirts (which is where all t-shirts are categorized) should be v-necked, never crew necked.
Only goondas (crooks, racketeers) wear leather jackets.
Once a jacket has been put on, it should be kept on while away from the house, even if the temperature soars, the rain dries up and the wind dies down, otherwise it will be lost.
Socks should only be worn inside shoes, never alone. Since we never wear shoes inside the house, it means that he has frozen toes throughout the winter.
Closed shoes should only be worn for interviews, teaching (he's a professor), formal occasions and when there is more than an inch of water or snow on the road. Temperatures below freezing without snow do not qualify.
Longjohns shall never be worn. Nor boxers.
Pyjamas shall not be made of flannel, and the tops shall have buttons all the way down. And dressing gown - what's that?
Whatever was spent on any article of clothing for him was too much, and said article is completely unnecessary.

Guess who's NOT getting any clothing this holiday period...

Apologies

2004-12-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

... to all who have been noticing weird things going on with the blog. I am in the process of exporting my past posts and comments, and playing around with it on Movable Type. I'll let you know how it goes.
In the meantime, blogger seems to know about my impending mutiny and has decided to needle me in little ways such as not forwarding comments posted here to my email address. Further apologies if I seem to be ignoring your words of wisdom - I'll get around to it (sometime).
Things left to do:

Figure out a nice template
Get a domain name
Get a DNS service
Get the local DNS server running on the intranet
Set up forwarding from blogger to andamu MK. II
Sent out address change notifications
Buy the next level up in Movable Type (after thoroughly testing out the free version) to allow multiple (5) users and unlimited blogs.

Astute readers will have noticed the fundamental problem with the list straight off. Yes, it is #1, the template. Give me free reign to decorate and customize, and you expect me to be done some time this decade??
::
It seems there was a competition, asking people to rewrite a section of the Bible that would clearly illustrate that God is a woman. The winning entry was one of the shortest:
And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light
And God said: "Can I see darkness again, just for a moment?"

(Again, apologies)

Veg

2004-12-14T10:27:00.000-08:00

Urban Oregonians (and Washingtonians) have a reputation for being sandal-wearing, Grape-Nut crunching, espresso-swilling, tree-hugging organic food fanatics. This reputation was one of the reasons I thought that if any place in the country would “get” vegetarians, surely this would be it.

Boy, was I wrong. Oh, it appears inviting, especially after living in the Midwest where frequently the only “vegetarian” options on the menu are fries and dessert. Here you find some interesting dishes: Vegetable Lasagna baked with an Alfredo sauce, Forest Mushroom Risotto, Vegetarian Omelet, Cream of Leek soup, or Cheese and Jalapeño Tamales. The problem lies in trying to get what you ordered, without the addition of some “complimentary” meat items like bacon bits or chicken stock.

Next time you walk into the cafeteria, imagine that you are a vegetarian, looking for something to eat.

The salad bar seems a safe bet, except the person next to you has just used the broccoli tongs to serve themselves some ham cubes, then some grated cheese, and then returned the tongs to the broccoli. OK, skip that.
Hmm, soup looks good, Tomato Florentine, with the V for Vegetarian proudly pre-pended. Let’s have a look to see what’s in the ingredient list: tomato, spinach……chicken stock! Keep moving.
Rice and lentils cooked with tomatoes in curry spices and cumin – sounds delicious, until you reach the counter and see that the chicken breasts are arranged on top of the bed of rice and lentils.
Surely nothing can go wrong if you order a grilled cheese sandwich or a veggie burger then? Except the same spatula is used to flip the burgers, and the turkey sandwiches are fried in the same spot, while the fries and onion rings flank the chicken strips in the same oil.

Surely it is not too much to ask that vegetable preparations have only vegetables in them? Some of us are vegetarians for health reasons, some because of ethical and moral concerns, some for religious beliefs and some just don’t like the taste of meat. Whatever the reasons that prompted our decisions, the fact remains that we are excluded.

Of Boards & Budgets

2004-12-13T16:12:00.000-08:00

I am an enthusiastic supporter of undertakings and ideas involving various societies and groups. In fact, I probably think up a goodly chunk of them.
This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me.

So why, oh why did I let myself get talked into accepting the nomination as Treasurer for one of these societies? And for one that requires a stern tightening of the belt to boot!

A serious briefing by my predecessor impressed on me the solemn duty that we as a section had to the Society of Women Engineers as a whole, the members who preceded us and whose labors harvested us the funds we do have today, the members who will follow us and who deserve to inherit a healthy section, and our current members and focus areas.

Much of our efforts are currently targeted at Professional Development and networking for women engineers, whether currently employed or re-entering the workforce, and at Career Guidance and outreach for girls of all ages, acting as mentors and role models to promote careers in Math, the Sciences and Engineering.
An additional focus this year is on fundraising for our sadly depleted scholarship fund. Already we have had to cut it down from three scholarships to one, and many young women who need assistance will go without.

We have a vibrant board this year, brimming with enthusiasm and ideas for events to fulfill our mission, and while inside I am jumping up and down with excitement, I have to turn on the brakes, sound caution, be the responsible one, the one who always have to say "No!"

Whose idea was it to appoint me Scrooge anyway?

Orkney

2004-12-12T14:43:00.000-08:00

Any post over at Briggy's is the signal for the party to start. Somewhere after the 15th comment, the conversation turned to Orkney. The real one, or actually ones: 70 islands off the north coast of Scotland.
As usual, this was enough to send me off on a tangent.
::
I lived in Orkney for three years. Starting when I was twelve.
Of course, this was Orkney in South Africa, in what was then Transvaal, and is now the North-West province, nestled on the banks of the Vaal River across from the Free State.
Vaal refers to a non-descript color, something like a mousey-brown, a taupe, a brownish-greyish-khaki, which is the color of the river. Rather more prosaic - but a lot more honest and realistic - than "the beautiful blue Danube."
(Transvaal => across the Vaal (river))
::
The lopsided triangle Orkney forms with Klerksdorp (13km away) and Stilfontein encloses the world's largest goldmines. The parents of most of the children in my class were employed by the mines, as miners, artisans, administrative staff or executives.
We became used to the earth tremors indicating that yet another dynamite blast far far beneath our feet has laid bare more of the gold vein.
Many myths sprang up around the transportation of the gold to Johannesburg; hushed tones on the playground weaved fantastic tales about decoy trucks, calling in the entire army, armored helicopters, subterfuge, and once even teleportation.
::
At that stage, car license plate numbers started with a T (for Transvaal) followed by one or two letters indicating the town of residence, and ending with a variable number of digits as a running tally. The town letters for Orkney was OY.
My father took endless gentle delight in the experience of living in a TOY town.
::
The region's hospital was in Klerksdorp, the larger of the towns, and there my mother worked as a radiographer.
The cemetary was situated halfway along the road between Orkney and Klerksdorp, with the airfield directly across on the opposite side of the road. My mother had to X-Ray many a hapless parachutist who miscalculated or was blown off course, landing in the graveyard. In the process they broke ankles on headstones, tangled in the large trees, and once even extended their descent by six feet, landing in a freshly dug hole.
My father is buried in that cemetary.
::
My father was Town Secretary, the second-in-command at the municipality. Of all the departments under him his favorite by far was the public library. He championed it, jealously guarded funds for book purchases, and spear-headed the building of the new, spacious public library. Shortly after the relocation of books started from the dingy basement of the municipal buildings that had served as library, he was killed; hit by a drunken driver as he was walking on the sidewalk.
A reading corner in the new library building has a plaque honoring his memory: to me that is a much more fitting and lasting monument than his headstone.
::
Elisabeth Eybers wrote a poem about the region, called Wes-Transvaal. It concludes with:

God het geen berge of bosse oorgehad
toe Hy die land moes maak, en kon toe net
die vrede van voleindiging hier laat

A rough translation reads:

God had no more mountains or forest
when He had to create this region, and could only
leave here the peace of completion.

It sounds better in Afrikaans.
It is a flat region, with scrub and occasional isolated thorn trees, and breath-taking sunsets. The main reason for that was the dust in the air, causing the sharply angled rays to summon forth fantastic and almost surreal colors in the sky.
When severe winds would blow up from the South, the sky would go dark with dust and no matter how tightly windows were closed, all the drapes would need to be washed afterwards.

It was said that if you had a bowl big enough you could catch an entire Free State farm on such days.
::
It is the town where I started high school, first kissed a boy, and lost my father.
I think someday I would like to go and visit the original Orkney, perhaps gather some new memories.
* The photograph of the sunset was taken in Norman, OK in 2001. The general landscape there is vaguely similar to that around Orkney.

Grrrr!

2004-12-12T07:10:00.000-08:00

This is the main reason that I want to leave blogger, why I am trying to install and configure Movable Type. Not so much because MT is more powerful, and have more features (which it does), but because blogger eats my posts.
Several times now, in the middle of composing a post, the composition window suddenly turns blank, all my text disappears, and sometimes it even reverts to the "Manage Posts" screen.
And there is no way to recapture the text over which I had been slogging.
I was in the middle of composing a marathon piece just now, and now I've lost everything. [ cue wailing and gnashing of teeth]

A Nobel Peace Laureate to Applaud

2004-12-10T15:03:00.000-08:00

"We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind. To do so effectively, the world needs a global ethic with values which give meaning to life experiences and, more than religious institutions and dogmas, sustain the non-material dimension of humanity. Mankind's universal values of love, compassion, solidarity, caring and tolerance should form the basis for this global ethic which should permeate culture, politics, trade, religion and philosophy. It should also permeate the extended family of the United Nations."

- Wangari Maathai
(Winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize)

The Inconstancy of Time

2004-12-10T14:01:00.000-08:00

It really is Friday! The possibility of a good night's sleep and recharging awaits me.
But hang on - it can't really be Friday yet. Can it? It was Monday just now, and I fleetingly recall something that was like Tuesday. But Friday? No, really?
::
Much as I love my work there are times that I live for the weekend, and this worries me. Especially now that I am getting older.
In effect I am wishing my life away, with only brief surfacings for two days of the week. Living for less than 30% of my life. Of my waking life, that is. Take into consideration the fact that we sleep (or are in a similarly vegetative state) for 33% of the day, we get to less than 18% of life in total.
That seems to say a lot for maintaining a proper work/life balance. For maintaining a proper health balance so that one does not get so run down and exhausted. For maintaining a proper balance of tasks at work so that one's interest remains engaged for a greater percentage of the time. For adjusting work schedules to maximize opportunities to enjoy life more every day.
::
In the mean time, until my fairy godmother comes to wave her wand, I just want to say:

"Woohoo!!! It's Friday!"

How to tell whether you are an Engineer: Indicator #27

2004-12-09T21:40:00.000-08:00

When I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes, I had to start testing my blood glucose levels twice a day. My glucose meter stores these results (the most recent 100 entries, I think) and then I have to transcribe them. I am supposed to bring my results along to my doctor, my diabetician and my endocrinologist, so they can track my progress (or lack thereof).

So I entered the values in a spreadsheet, and created some charts.

I plotted all the values on a bar chart, I split out the values by morning and evening, fasting and non-fasting, and drew line charts plotted against the date, with the target zone indicated.
I created trendlines to spot well, trends.
I zoomed in on the last month, and I showed the greater picture with charts running over several months.
I created pie charts to represent the ranges of readings.

In short, I visually represented absolutely every possible aspect of the data, clearly showing both progress and areas of concern.

And how did they respond? Every single one of them looked at the charts (some incomprehendingly) for a few moments and said: "Oh. No, but where is the list of numbers?"
::
In hospitals there are "pain scales" posted on the walls - a bar gradually changing from green at level 0 through yellow, amber to red at level 10.

I have tried multiple times in the ER to answer a doctor's request to describe the pain with a verbal representation of an xy chart with the pain scale on the y axis, and time on the x. Somehow they just don't seem to understand "a mostly constant 5 with intermittent spikes to 6, 7 and occasionally 8, until the constant level is elevated to 7 and the spikes reach 9......"
::
I guess not all pictures are worth the same to everyone.

Accurate Search?

2004-12-09T14:41:00.000-08:00

My goodness! I've received my fair share of search engine referrals in the past, some more unusual than others.

This one from yahoo search takes the cake, though:
how to figure a quote for a chainlink fence estimate

Now admittedly I showed up only on page 3 of the listed results, but the fact that the person doing the search actually ended up on my page shows you that the results on the previous two pages were not of any more help to them than mine was.

And I thought search engines were supposed to be getting more accurate and intuitive...

(I hope the poor guy found what he was looking for, eventually)

Ultimatum

2004-12-09T13:37:00.000-08:00

To Engineering Managers everywhere:

Abolish either meetings or deadlines.

Productivity = 1/(Meetings)

A hole in the wall in Calcutta

2004-12-08T08:54:00.000-08:00

Nancy Gandhi again has prompted memories, with her photograph of a pipal tree in Calcutta with roots growing through a ruined wall.
Now I admit you have to be rather skilled in free-flow association to get from that to the memories I am talking about, but that's the way my head works.
::
I first set foot on Indian soil in Calcutta. In the latter part of May. In the middle of a heatwave that killed thousands along the eastern part of India.
We were staying in the Fairlawn Hotel, a decent, (mostly) clean hotel with window air conditioners, and a million miles removed from the five star opulence available to moneyed tourists. This was just the sort of hotel a Westerner want to stay in who doesn't exactly want to rough it, but who doesn't want to have a fishbowl isolated experience either.

We tried venturing outside a couple of times during our three day stay in the city - that after all was the reason we didn't catch the connecting train/plane immediately upon arrival - but the heat was an experience unimaginable to me before.
When we went to a museum, for instance, the journey there held interest, and the first few exhibits captivated me, but the heat insidiously intruded, pressing down on me, sending rivulets (oh, who am I kidding - gushing rivers) of perspiration down the backs of my legs, down my spine, streaming from my hair across my forehead, diverted by my eyebrows and trickling down my throat.
Eventually we joined the other visitors to the museum in clustering (at first surreptiously, later without any pretense or apology) in front of the air movers (large, powerful fans) placed in a few of the exhibition halls. And these weren't whimpy westerners either, which is what signaled to us that it was time to retreat to the hotel. We weren't absorbing anything from the museum displays, and even other Indians were finding it too hot to do much else.
::
We tried other short trips outside, taking it easy, and returning when we felt enervated - just enough for me to build up a few unforgettable, essentially Calcuttan images, without getting to see all the touristy highlights like the Victoria Memorial (glimpsed only from a taxi window).

One such image is the ticket collector, hanging by one arm from the pole outside an overcrowded bus, with banknotes folded lengthwise tucked between each two fingers in his fist, sort of a cross between a paper fan and knuckle-dusters, while clicking his clippers. Apparently he dare not ask anyone outright to buy a ticket, because it would be a mortal insult should that person already have one (and many conductors have been badly beaten to prove the fact). All he can do is click his ticket clipper, prompting purchase where appropriate.

Another is that of some small vendors, their stores literally holes-in-the-wall. (Aha, says the astute reader - if those haven't all given up by now - so this is where she was going with it.)

On the outside of some buildings there are niches, about five feet wide, about three feet deep and three feet high, the whole thing set a little below hip-height into the wall. The bottom (floor) would be covered with cloth, on which would be arrayed the vendor's stock, mainly cigarettes, matches, paan, some candy, a few soda bottles. Some of the smaller items might be suspended in strips from the top (ceiling) of the shoplet. There might be a radio tucked in somewhere playing some filmi music, and perhaps a few images of gods with garlands.

Apart from the size and the unusual location, this might not sound too remarkable, but now add the sight of the shopkeeper actually sitting inside, cross-legged in the middle of his wares, king of his realm: a 45 cubic feet hole in the wall.

invisible to the naked eye

2004-12-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

When I break something
- my mirror, my cup, my heart -
the practical, capable me
takes charge:

gingerly picks up
the large pieces
digs around to find the tools,
- the dustpan and brush -
to sweep up the smaller slivers

for a while at least
I take care
when walking or working
near that danger spot

But always it is

the tiny shards,
the razor sharps,

that find the unprotected limb
dig under the skin
and draw blood

What's in a name?

2004-12-05T20:35:00.000-08:00

When I first came to the U.S. we lived in Fargo, North Dakota.
It seems everyone had seen the movie (except me - I've still only seen snippets) so they affect what they believe to be the accent and the expressions. It is a let down when they discover that first, the movie used caricature to some extent, (as all movies do, but especially those dealing with "foreign" subjects) and second, that the movie was not filmed in Fargo. In fact, the majority of it was not even shot in North Dakota, but in Minnesota.

Next we lived for a brief period in San Jose, California. In the heart of Silicon Valley right at the end of the boom and when the bubble burst. The area was almost like South Africa - no clearly defined seasons really, except that in winter it was a little colder and a little duller, less green than in summer.

Urbana, Illinois took us back to the midwest, with very definite seasons, each time of year clearly defined with storybook attributes. Hot and humid green summers, flamboyant flames of color on the autumn trees, drifts of snow and crisp clear skies in winter, and riots of blossoms and bright green shoots in spring. Of course, nobody outside of academia knew where it was, stuck in the middle of farmlands with the majority of the area's population connected in some way to the University.

Now, I live in a state where I have to add "State" to the name to avoid confusion; even so, when people hear I am in Washington state, they frequently start talking about DC. I think they stop listening after they catch something they think they know.
Then to really confuse the issue, I live in a town with a much more famous (and bigger) namesake, Vancouver. People who've known us for years, and to whom we have clearly explained the difference, still sometimes ask questions that reveal they think we live in Canada.
No, we live in Vancouver, Washington, that's Vancouver USA. And that's Washington state, not D.C. We're 300 miles south of the one, and 2,800 miles (mainly) west of the other.

But then again, who cares. Unless of course you are actually planning to visit us. In which case, let me draw you a map :-)

attar

2004-12-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

Late February, 1999

The streets are almost deserted on Mohammed Ali Road; deserted by usual standards, that is. It is a Sunday morning, and Nini had flown in to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in the wee hours of the morning. It is her first time in India - her first time outside of South Africa in fact. It also happens to be my first time in an Indian city without my precious one by my side.
::
Breakfast had not gone that well. I had let her sleep in a bit, but knowing the need for sunshine to counteract jet lag (even with such slight a time difference) I chased her up around 10 o'clock. Having checked out the menu the day before when I flew up from Chennai (Madras), I knew there weren't much that she would recognize as breakfast food, so I tried to remain fairly innocuous. I ordered among other things aloo chat.
"Cold spicy potatoes?!! For breakfast?!"
It turns out not to have been the best choice after all.
::
We venture out (having made sure that I have a card with the hotel's name and address in both English and Marathi on me - my smattering of Telugu and five words of Tamil is unlikely to help me here).
We wander down Mohammed Ali Road, astonished whenever we lift our eyes above street level at the tall buildings with intricate wrought-iron embellishments, painted various shades of ice cream colors, but now definitely in need of revival, nay resuscitation. Chennai is a much lower, more sprawling city, while Mumbai is squeezed until the population extrudes upward as in Manhattan, by the fact that it is located on a peninsula.
We dart in and out all the fabric stores, most of which turn out to sell salwar suit fabric - three different but matching rolls of fabric from which precisely pre-determined lengths of fabric will be cut: a length of plainer fabric for the salwar (the trousers), a length of more patterned fabric for the kameez (knee-length dress-like shirt) and a last length, probably with border and end detail for the dupatta, the long scarf draped across the shoulders, and in some parts and cultures, across the head. It is rare to find a stall selling saris, again the opposite of Chennai, denoting that not only are we basically in the north of India now, but also in a mostly Muslim neighborhood.
::
As we continue down the street, I realize all is not well with Nini. My enquiry is met with: "All the people! I feel claustrophobic."
I really don't mean to laugh. But it is around Sunday noon, and we have lots of personal space around us. There are at least three feet between us and the next group of people. If this is her reaction now, I can't imagine what she will say when it is actually busy!
::
We reach the end of the block and cross the road, right into the attar district. Shop after shop with little cut crystal bottles arrayed on mirrored podia with little white paper labels edged with a double red line - the type you buy in any stationery store. Each bottle contains essential oils, from rose and chamomile through the entire floral kingdom to sandalwood and spicy, earthy aromas. Not a drop of alcohol forbidden in Islam to be found here.
Each attar wallah has an array of blended perfumes for sale, mixed according to jealously-guarded secret recipes. Some are "interpretations" of popular perfumes, some are entirely original. You can also describe your needs, and have him mix you a special fragrance on the spot. Or best of all, you can try and create your own scent.
::
This taught me to value the olfactory acuity of the attar wallahs as a wonderful, unique gift that I could never hope to emulate.
Somewhere, around three or four moves ago, I lost the ornamental little stoppered bottle containing the scent I mixed. After all, there really was no incentive to me to ensure its safe passage, except perhaps as a reminder to myself that things might not always be as easy as they seem.

2004-12-03T20:23:00.000-08:00

[ everyone's a critic ]
*sigh*
So Nini tells me that the last few paragraphs in my previous post do not "flow" - that it seems disjointed from the rest, with only a tenuous link in the theme. In fact, I had barely made it through the front door, and had just been shepherded to the stove by mpo to have a taste of his concoction in the saucepan, when she pounced with a "Hello, I liked your blogging, except the last bit doesn't make sense. It doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the piece."

Apologies, little sister. Next time I will either have a proper segue, or make it a separate post. Will that do?

whippersnapper

(thanks anan)

2004-12-03T15:08:00.000-08:00

Sue's reactions (over at A Kitchen in Brabant) to perfume shopping sent me off on a tangent.

I've found that quite a lot of perfumes (along with perfumed household sprays) give me a rather nasty headache.
To add insult to injury, most perfumes react badly to my skin chemistry; usually they either stink outright on me, or they turn sickly, cloyingly sweet. And this is not a subjective opinion - even the most desperate commission-based sales person recoils with a glazed look in the eyes and tries to suggest: "Well, perhaps madam would like to try XYZ instead..."
The third issue is that they almost immediately disappear - I can douse myself in a bottle and five minutes later no-one can tell that I had been near an atomizer. Except of course if it is one that really turns foul - then the malodorous stench will of course cling to me for a couple of weeks.
(Yes, and good day to you too, Mr. Murphy.)

I have been fortunate in finding a few that do agree with me, and that I happen to like: Christian Dior's Dune, for the spicy, sophisticated, mysterious times. (Well, who am I kidding, there aren't really any of those times in my life, but a girl can dream, can't she?) And Esteé Lauder's Pleasures - clean and fresh and pretty, and ready for the day.
::
Now when Christmas came around last year, mpo realized on the 24th that he still hadn't bought me a gift, so off he went, braving the mobs on Christmas Eve.
Let me say straigt off, he is not the flowery, chocolatey, demonstrative sort, and special occasions mostly go by without cards or gifts. (Don't start feeling sorry for me, though. There are a myriad other ways in which he is incredibly good to me, far better than the standard romantic gestures.)
Anyway, he must have recalled the incredibly enthusiastic reception when he presented me with Pleasures for our wedding anniversary the year before - what a big surprise given that I had been hinting blatantly that it would be the perfect Christmas or birthday gift for four years straight! My Dune bottle was starting to get low, but he was unable to find some (probably forgot the name, and couldn't adequately describe the bottle's shape ;-) )

So he picked up a bottle of Celine Dion, with the matching body lotion to make a nice set.
It really wasn't his fault. How is he supposed to understand about scents?
I use it periodically, extremely lightly, so as not to hurt his feelings. But I've realized recently that he has no idea how it smells - in fact he can't even really tell the three perfumes I have apart!

I think I should find a worthy cause who wants an almost full bottle, and its matching, unopened body lotion, and donate it this holiday season. After all, I'm sure there must be somebody out there who likes it.
(I've tried passing it off onto my little sister, but she's not having it.)
::
More than twelve years ago I rented - at a vastly reduced rate - a beach house belonging to a friend's parents. They had the requisite collection of eclectic paperbacks in the bookcase above the almost-complete sets of Monopoly and chess and decks of cards, next to the bowl with sea-worn pebbles and faded sea shells.

Perfume by Patrick Suskind is set in Paris in the 18th century. Amid a hodge-podge of (mostly bad) smells, a boy is born with no personal odour and, as if to compensate, an extremely sensitive sense of smell.
He becomes involved in the perfume trade and obsessed with a particular fragrance, and lacking conscience and concern to the same extent as personal odour, sets about capturing it.

The book is remarkable for its vivid evocation of aroma through words - fragrances become almost tangible through the descriptions. And what is astonishing that this is done in the translation (from the original German). It is the kind of thing that makes me wish I had more German, so that I could read it in the author's voice.

2004-12-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

I've always looked older than I am. I was tall for my age (though not the tallest in the class) and a bookworm, so I had random bits of knowledge and vocabulary beyond my years which contributed to the image.
My mother was what would be called an X-Ray technician in the States; on the nights and weekends that she was on stand-by after my father died she would take us along when the call came. I would do the admin. work (entering the patient's name in the record book, creating the envelope marked with details to hold the plates, making the entries in the patient folder) and then do the darkroom work (by then mostly automated) once she has taken the shots.
This usually didn't take too long, and I would be left twiddling my thumbs if there were a number of patients to be seen. I figured early on that for children especially this was a tough time: they are lying waiting in the hallway, it is often their first exposure to Emergency Rooms, never mind X-Rays, they have no idea what is going to happen, they are in pain and scared and bored. So I would go up and start talking - anything to keep their minds occupied: "What grade are you in now? What school do you go to? Who's your favorite teacher?" Innocuous stuff, but it made a big difference.
One day I was standing speaking to a twelve year-old boy, having just turned fifteen myself, when a man walking down the corridor wanted to know what had happened to "my son." He wouldn't believe me when I told him I was only three years older than the kid, and certainly not his mother.
::
In seventh grade I once offered to watch a teacher's toddlers at a school function in return for a ride to and from said function, as he lived just at the end of our street. When I rang the doorbell, his wife (who had never met me before) came out and greeted me like an equal and started a conversation, before the teacher came out and dismissed me with "No, no, this is one of my students!"
::
Once I reached University and the big city, I was still considered much older: instead of seventeen, most would likely have put my age just around thirty.
I was working as casual waitstaff for a catering company at a function set up in tents in a fancy country restaurant's grounds, where a household name in entertainment would be performing. I was the youngest of all the waitstaff, and the most inexperienced, this being only my second assignment.
Right in the middle of the celebrity's performance the power went off. She came storming back stage, looked around wildly and fixed her eyes on me, then proceeded to charge me with responsibility for the entire thing, as if I was the catering organizer. She did not want to know about the facts, wasn't interested that I was the junior with no control or even knowledge: she just kept on screaming at me, punching her hands in the air and stamping her feet.
::
My age was also a real downer in company. If I were to meet any group of people socially, they would accept me as part of them and involve me in conversations and subsequent get-togethers. Then at some stage the topic of age would come up in a conversation, and when it became clear that I was just either side of twenty to their 30/35/40, everything would change. It was almost as if they were starting to dumb-down the conversation for my benefit, and suddenly I would no longer know about get-togethers even though they were still perfectly nice (if patronizing) at larger meetings.
Strange how one fact can change people's perception so radically, even when they've had plenty of opportunity to see the contrary.
::
Makes me think of the story of the 90 year-old woman sitting in her rocker on the front porch with her two daughters, 65 and 68 respectively.
"It's so lonely out here," the woman sighed. "We haven't had company in a week. I wish I had someone to talk to."
"But Mother, we're right here," said her daughters.
"I'm talking real company," scorned the mother. "Who wants to sit around talking to children all day?"
::
On the up side, my sister and my husband (both of whom are totally unbiased, of course) tell me that I now look younger than my age. Sort of got stuck looking around 30, and haven't changed much since that. It would be nice to believe them, but I'm the one who sees the increasing number of grey hairs in the mirror every day.
::
A strange thing about growing up is how family relationships change - or doesn't change. Some of my aunts and uncles still treat me (when they see me) as a child, or if as an adult, definitely one much younger, on a different level. This seems somewhat artificial, and at times a little demeaning.
On the other hand, some of them started treating me as a full adult probably much too early, and would disclose private things that I would have much preferred not knowing.

(Yes, I know I am contradicting myself.)

2004-12-01T09:50:00.000-08:00

Angel Face, the equestrienne.

I had to go digging for these images, and after I've found them and edited them, whenever I remembered to upload them I was at a different computer, and when I was at the right computer, I forgot. (Age it seems is less kind to some than others.)
Anyway, they are meant to illustrate an earlier entry on her obsession with all things horsey.
::
I have all these high-falutin' ideas of making sure that an original of every image I take is saved on a central hard drive, which is periodically backed up to CD or DVD. Wonderful idea! It would help if I were to actually implement it consistently though, wouldn't it?
Come to think of it, I downloaded images at work on Monday, and I still haven't transferred them to home... Rather reminds me of Mr. Knightly who praised Emma's reading list as the best he has seen, if only she would get around to actually reading the books on it.

2004-11-30T15:07:00.000-08:00

fidgerator - Not the fridge, nor the refrigerator; fidgerator!
And it is amazing how frequently the word comes up in a four year old's conversation. Or maybe it is just that we very recently bought the appliance in question for our new house, and it is (seems at least) twice the size of the one in the apartment.
::
Angel Face frequently seems to be playing to a script in her head, to some stage director that only she can hear. She would frequently direct us to cast us as actors in her play.
"Nooo, you have to say this:..."
We need to be acting out her ideal of how the situation should progress.
::
Typical of her age she keeps repeating things, perhaps in some search for verification or reassurance.
"Will you and me, no you and you and me - will mama and doddamma and peddanana and me and mama - all go to the shops/in the car/wherever?"
This repeatedly enumerating a member is evident even in her counting. Despite the fact that she's known her numbers almost since she has been able to talk, when asked to count her fingers for instance she will start with an arbitrary finger somewhere in the middle, and count them all, and at least one a second time to get to six. Sometimes seven or eight.
Now she does that in three languages, since they are being taught Spanish in pre-school.
Perhaps she is just so enthusiastic about all the things, and about counting in general, that she can't bring herself to stop when she gets to the end. Kind of the 4yo application of the Law of Inertia.

2004-11-29T13:50:00.000-08:00

Friday evening, as I was preparing to get into bed, we were startled by a loud crash! Scuttling across to the walk-in closet, we found that the shelves have come down. Again. This time it was much more catastrophic, however.
My longer term plans (say six months from now) included outfitting the closet with fresh hardware to maximize the space, create order and increase stability. This event moved everything up. We took the decision there and then to drive the three hours to Seattle in the (Saturday) morning to get the closet organizing hardware from IKEA. Not the way that I had planned to spend Saturday. Nor was the process of installing and building the closet hardware my preferred way of spending Sunday (not the least because the house is still jammed with boxes waiting to be unpacked).

::
On the up-side, I asked mpo to drive on the way back from Seattle, which allowed me to do some camera-waving, grabbing mostly sky shots as the sun set amid fluffy clouds.
The weather lately has been really strange. We've had a whole lot of rain very early in the season, then an unusual frequency of foggy mornings, and now a high incidence of sunny days in what would normally be the soggy grey part of the year.
Not that I am complaining, mind you. Give me rain twice a week and I am extremely happy with sunshine for the rest of the days :-)

2004-11-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

This was Nini and Angel Face's second Thanksgiving in the US. The first was the day after they flew in on their first visit, we were stuck in a hotel room in Minneapolis and Angel Face was six weeks old. We went to an Old Country Buffet to get a "traditional" meal.
This year, as their first T-day since they started living here (and that Angel Face can remember), I thought we'd have a traditional meal. Which meant going and grabbing the last Tofurkey Thanksgiving meal box from the freezer at the store.
Now let me start off by saying that even before I became a vegetarian I thought that turkey was loathsome. It is bland and boring and I believe the only reason it is used over the holidays is that it is the only bird large enough (and cheap enough per pound) to feed the masses.
The Tofurkey, even though they managed to get a decent texture, is distinguished only by the fact that it is almost as bland and boring as real turkey. The fresh vegetables I roasted with it, despite their dull appearance, was just about the best thing in the meal, competing with the orange-ginger-soy-chili basting sauce I made. The gravy (part of the box) was ok with a nice consistency, the dumplings were weird, stuffed with some fruity sour things - nice idea but lacking in execution.
My summary of the experience? Probably the cardinal thing most families are thankful for at Thanksgiving dinner is that they only need to eat this kind of food once (maybe twice) a year.

2004-11-24T22:13:00.000-08:00

Managed to grab a few minutes in the end, and have updated the blogallery. Next on the short term to-do list is to add a few more pictures to the blog itself - I've been postponing that for a while now.
Maybe later I can get to the longer term to-do list...

2004-11-24T11:29:00.000-08:00

Aargh!!
Please, won't someone give me just a couple of hours in the day where I can do what I want?
At least there is a long weekend ahead - maybe I can scrape together a few minutes a day over the next four days.

2004-11-22T21:35:00.000-08:00

Yippee! The webserver is up, so images are back. My precious one found the network card after some diligent digging among the boxes. I have refrained from going in there to see in what state he left the stuff - for the moment I am too happy that everything is set up to worry about things like that.
::
At child care, Angel Face's class was about to go on a "field trip." They were to go and find the kinds of food that dinosaurs ate, because "although dinosaurs are no longer around, the stuff they ate are still here."
The kids were asked what they thought these prehistoric animals ate, and some suggested birds and small animals. Angel Face became quite upset, insisting that dinosaurs must have been vegetarian, and so off went the entire class to the garden outside to find some leaves that they might have eaten.
Life seems so much simpler when you are four, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, reality will hold a few nasty surprises for her. Not that she won't have a few surprises of her own: where have you heard of a four year-old convincing an entire class, with most of the kids at least a year older?

2004-11-22T15:20:00.000-08:00

The move went... as well as could be expected. I'm thankful that I didn't have to be involved in the organized packing and moving, and relieved that it is all done, and upset that they went so far over the estimate (which was shocking to start).
Nevertheless it is done with only a few things like empty suitcases left at the apartment. We need to go and clean the old place, but we have a week for that. I guess sooner rather than later would be best, but I really want a breather first. In fact, I don't really want to unpack anything at this stage - one more thing that I have to look at and make a decision of where it should go, and I might just explode!
::
The griha pravesham went well. Apart from a few missing items, we hit most of the keynotes, and despite a couple of skips, the CD had all the right stuff. The highlight for Angel Face was when the burning camphor sent up thick black smoke and set off a whole series of smoke alarms; fanning fresh air on one stops it, but not the next, and vice versa. Their high-pitched whine formed an interesting counterpoint to the solemn Sanskrit chants. At least we know that the smoke alarms work properly - we were starting to wonder since they don't go off the moment we turn on the stove, like in the apartment :-)
::
My precious one's son & his wife, along with darling Anamika arrived during the last ten minutes of the ceremony, and lunched with us at our hastily cobbled-together first real meal in the house. Anamika is just more than five months old now and absolutely gorgeous. Her hair is becoming thicker now, and thus appears darker; coupled with her huge black eyes she is striking, and she was exceptionally happy and placid through-out their lovely long visit.
The new open space with kitchen, dining nook and family room (so no isolation for the cook/s), the new layout and rug, the fire burning in the fireplace, family gathered around just lazing the afternoon away, all seemed just perfect, making the entire process feel worthwhile.
::
The router is up, the main computer along with the laptop and Nini's computer are up, but unfortunately we haven't been able to find the box where the network card for the linux (webserver) machine was packed - which means a little while longer without pictures I'm afraid.

2004-11-19T13:44:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I got a little stuffed animal at the Credit Union for opening an account. It is a little albino cheetah, with pale fur and a little pink nose. When I presented it to Angel Face at the time she was rather unimpressed with it. Well, she was a lot younger (barely three) and had just moved halfway across the world. She was much more interested in hanging on to the stuffed puppy that made the trip with her.
At some stage the cheetah got stuck under our bed, just about right in the middle where the perfunctory sweeps and vacuumings never reached it. It was unearthed during the preparations for the move, and she pounced on it like it was the most wonderful thing in the world and they have been inseparable since.
Last night she wandered into our room, cheetah tucked into the crook of her arm: "So what do cheetahs actually like to eat?"
Vegetarian like us, she was most distressed to learn that cheetahs eat little antelope like Bambi. Took her a while to digest that fact (no pun intended - well, not much).
This morning I overheard her in her mother's room asking: "Mama, are cheetahs very strong swimmers?"
What amuses me most is not the current obsession or the curiosity, but the turns of phrase, which seems beyond her four years, and comic due to juxtaposition.
But basically, I just love her to bits :-)

2004-11-19T13:32:00.000-08:00

Most of the contents of the apartment was packed when I got home last night. The exceptions were mostly the stuff we asked them not to pack - the closets, the bathrooms, the kitchen. Those things we will (and have to some extent already) move ourselves.
I got the call a little while ago that they were done loading the stuff onto the truck. Now just the offloading to be done on the other side.
Next will come the great furniture shuffle as we realize that real life and paper plans are not the same, and what we thought would work well is either an aesthetic or practical disaster. Then the unpacking - let's just hope the shuffle is entirely completed before the unpacking, for heavy as a bookcase might be, it is a lot worse once it is filled!
::
We had a little celebration (pizza and pop, and some funny slideshows with insider jokes) to mark the new (fiscal) year, and were told we could have the afternoon off. The problem of course is that my direct boss had scheduled a 1 o'clock phone meeting with engineers in another city, and this is one that I cannot miss.
There are some silver linings to this: first the free afternoon is transferrable, and second, I would be wasting the free time while waiting for the truck to arrive and the stuff to be offloaded. Rather get there when they're all gone, and feel all overwhelmed by the mammoth task ahead.
::
I hope the phone transfer went well. They disconnected the phone at the apartment this morning - let's hope they connected it at the house.

2004-11-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

A quick note on images.
Today all our stuff is being packed up, and tomorrow it will be moved to the new house.
We won't actually be moving in until Sunday, but that's another (long) story.
What this means though is the server from which I serve my images will be offline for a little bit. The moment I get it set up at the new house it will be back - when that might be I'm not entirely sure though. At least the cable internet is already installed there, so it shouldn't be too painful a process :-)

Thanks for your understanding.

2004-11-18T11:12:00.000-08:00

Angel Face (turned 4 in October) has been infatuated with horses for a very long time now, probably at least a year. And that means mostly the idea of horses. Apart from a petting zoo before she was three, her only encounter with a real horse was during our spring trip to a tulip farm for the requisite photos among the blooms, where for $4 she was taken on four circuits on a pony named Betsy tethered with three others to a central post with arms that rotate (which I am sure has a proper name if only I knew it).
::
She still talks about Betsy, who is now "her" horse. Whenever we get to the carousel (every mall here seems to have one) she spends a long time picking out the right horse to get on, and always settles for one that looks either like Betsy (chestnut) or like Spirit (from the animated movie).
When we pass any horses in fields she gets terribly excited, and is liable to sulk if any of us spot a horse somewhere that she missed. At one stage on a recent trip I had to clamber around and use the full extent of the 8x optical zoom on my camera to grab the shapes of a few horses in a paddock way over yonder.
::
The area we live in is growing, and has engulfed some small holdings, marooning them in the middle of spreading suburbia. We drive through one of these pastoral areas to get to the house, and I have noticed some horse boarders. Now we DEFINITELY will NOT get her a pony, but who knows, there might be a place nearby where she can get to ride...

2004-11-16T07:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a nightmare at work - busy busy busy and hardly anything done at the end. I hate those kind of days, and today promises to have similar results, but mostly because there are meetings on top of meetings - I even have three meetings scheduled at the exact same time! What a mess.
::
At least this weekend saw good progress in the house. The master bedroom required only one coat of paint, and a few faint touch-ups. The family room needs a few minor touch-ups where some of the white color of the spray-on texture that I put over the third coat of paint is coming through.
The master bathroom and closet are done (and almost two-thirds of our clothes have already been transferred to the new house.) Still need to change the shower head (nice one with different spray settings and a separate handheld head) and the toilet seat; the current one is padded, covered in plastic with a country-style check with ducks and fish nets and shotguns on it, split at the seams and smelling horribly.
We sprayed the fireplace surround with "fleckstone" texture in a slate/charcoal grey mixture, and it looks quite amazing. Not like real granite obviously, but a lovely interesting texture.
We've hung some blinds and curtains (lost more to come) and moved all the dry foods and canisters, with the exception of all the spices.
There are times when I wonder what I was thinking when I committed to moving the kitchen and all the closets ourselves, because it is such a lot of work. But then I think of the money we would be saving because the packers and movers charge per hour, and I remember that once the closets and the kitchen stuff are set up, we've basically "moved in. After making the beds and hooking up the computers (and the television for Angel Face) there would be nothing pressing that absolutely had to be unpacked for us to function comfortably for a while.
And so we soldier on, with the occasional complaint and grumble, especially when we break yet another nail!

2004-11-12T09:17:00.000-08:00

Ugh! Suffering from the Conference bug. Stick more than 200 people from all over the world together for three days, let them all breathe the same recycled air, and no wonder you have a strain of cold or the 'flu running through the ranks.
::
I scraped together enough energy to edit a few pictures of the conference venue - in all a lovely site that capitalizes on its views, with lovely Arts & Crafts touches throughout.
After the foggy start of the first morning the rest of the day had beautiful - if unseasonal - sunshine. The next two days had more typically overcast weather and some spectacular low clouds on the ridges of the surrounding gorge, although the rain stayed away.
::

Last night after dinner we went on a shopping expedition for the blinds (only found one) and an impromptu purchase of washer, dryer and refrigerator. To clarify, we had been looking around for those three items for a while, comparing prices and features across brands and dealers, and had pretty much narrowed it down to what we wanted. Then last night we went to compare it with a last local option, but found that what seemed a good deal was in fact not. So on the way home from blind shopping, we stopped at Best Buy, and because they were open until 10 p.m. we decided that we might as well buy now, delivery to arrive this Saturday.
The carpet cleaners will come on Wednesday, the packers on Thursday, the move will be on Friday which is also when the phone will be transferred to the house, Saturday will be some more frantic preparation and bringing across straggling items we decided to move ourselves, and Sunday will be the house warming ceremony (gruha pravesham) after which we can finally move in!
I think I'm about to suffer a panic attack!

2004-11-10T19:15:00.000-08:00

Back at home. Or more accurately, the apartment. Actually, I guess "home" is still apt, since we are still living here; the house will only become home once we move in, in just more than ten days.
::
Speaking of the house, we might be running into deadline issues. Obviously I have not been able to work on the house at all these past three days that I have been at the conference, and it turned out that Nini's foot that we thought she had only sprained this weekend is actually broken. The end of the fifth metatarsal in fact. So my poor baby sister has been limping along all across campus, and obviously have not been able to do anything at the house in my absence either.
Needless to say our to-do lists (and our expectations) have undergone drastic changes. The kitchen is finally sparkling, top to bottom. From the mold and sticky goo behind and beneath where the refrigerator used to be, inside and outside the stove (where not even an attempt to wipe out the loose pieces of gunk had been made), behind and beneath the stove, scrubbing the grunge out of every nook and cranny, removing all the kitchen shelves and scrubbing them top and bottom, picking at the ick stuck in the drawer sides, cleaning the grease and filth off the kitchen doors before feeding the wood, and scraping layers of sticky black dust and fly carcasses off the tops of cabinets. We've scrubbed and disinfected the floor, and have finished painting. This monumental job we broke into sections, and completed over the course of several work sessions at the house. Inbetween we've managed to remove wallpaper from the kitchen and Nini's room, and cleaned, patched, texturized and painted the kitchen, family room and Nini's room.
::
So, what are the items left on the list of must-do things before we can move in? Touching up the paint in Angel Face's room, cleaning and texturizing the walls in the master suite, installing a few extra brackets and braces missing in the closet, and then paint the master. This would be the biggest paint job we've tackled yet, and I doubt that we'd be able to get away with a single coat of paint there. So figure an entire session for cleaning, taping off and laying drop cloth, ending with texturizing, and then two more sessions to apply a coat of paint in each.
I also still have to measure all the windows currently without window treatments, and buy and install blinds before we can move in.
::
We've found the entire experience to be incredibly hard work, but also fulfilling, leaving us with a sense of accomplishment after completing each task. I just wish that we had access to someone who could provide us with advice. We figured out a lot of things the hard way, having made the mistake and had to redo it. I'm also sure that we are still making a lot of errors that we haven't realized yet, and I am scared that they may come back to haunt us later. But we have to do the best we can, given what we have to work with and draw upon.
I promise the next blog will be less like a handy man's diary :-)

2004-11-09T07:21:00.000-08:00

I am away for three days at a conference, all hush-hush, industry secrets and all that. Luckily it is within driving distance of my town, so I brought my precious one along - the room is free for him but the meal prices constrict my throat.
::
For me, the planning and anticipation frequently are almost more enjoyable than the actual experience. I daydream about the destination of an upcoming trip, about little details, the look and the feel of the place, often informed by books, from fiction through fact and specifically travel guides.
The end result is usually somewhat akin to seeing a screen adaptation of a favorite book: the people look (and act) completely different from one's mental image, the places and buildings seem somehow wrong and the interactions and dynamics have a totally different character.
Just so, actual destinations frequently seem, at most, pale shadows of their imaginged selves.
But stepping out of the car in front of the Lodge at around 9.30 a.m. felt like stepping inta an image of the stereotypical mountain lodge in autumn. The air was crisp, the sky a clear blue, the angle of the sun still sharp, causing dappled shadows on the bright sunny slopes colored in pine green and bright golden flecks, with tufts of woodsmoke spiraling lazily from the chimneys.

2004-11-05T09:22:00.000-08:00

[ progress report ]
The second coat of paint in the living room did indeed do the trick. When I look at the walls I am still somewhat overwhelmed by my audacity at choosing such a bold color, so much so that I cannot really appreciate the beauty of it yet.
The kitchen on the other hand, using the same paint, just a different color, required only one coat, with nary a mark to be seen. Thoroughly confusing.
Touching up the ceiling in the family room (where we had started the painting experience, and hadn't realized the need to tape off the ceiling as well) went fairly well. The line where Nini stopped painting can't be seen, although some of the spots are still showing through, and would need a second coat. All of which tells me that if ever we wanted to change this wall color, we would have to use about two coats of primer before we can start putting on a different color. So, I sincerely hope that we are going to absolutely love this color. We'd better!

2004-11-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

[ progress report ]
We put on the first coat in the family room on Saturday. We made a lot of mistakes along the way, which we hope not to repeat in the rest of the house. Something we will definitely start doing from now is taping the ceiling, because at this stage we'll have to do a lot of touching up to get rid of the blobs of color stuck on the white ceiling.
On Sunday we had a shock: the paint job looked awful! Very uneven color and coverage despite the promise on the paint can of one coat coverage, and the areas where I had patched holes with spackling looked very weird on the orange peel surface. (By the way, have I mentioned yet that I hate hate hate hate textured walls?)
Very dejectedly we painted a second coat (after spraying texture on the patches), this time trying extra hard to maintain thick and even coverage. Another wall that was to be painted the same color turned out the same after the first coat there, despite our improved process. It seems that we will have to do two coats everywhere.
The good news, looking at the dried second coat on Monday (admittedly under artificial light) is that it looks very good, with even coverage. Now I have courage to continue painting the rest of the rooms we decided to paint, although our estimate of the time required has drastically increased.
::
[ trick or treat ]
This was Angel Face's first Halloween. Yes, she is four, but she has spent her first three Octobers in South Africa.
On Friday she got dressed in her princess outfit (nothing else would do) and came trick-or-treating here in the lab. We went all out here, with more than 30 candy stations in our building alone, and probably close to a hundred across the site. We had games in the kids activity room, loads of decorations, and quite a few people in costume.
She had a blast!
Then on Sunday evening she was dressed up in ghagra choli, with a fancy bindi and the dupatta jauntily knotted behind her back for a quick, shivering round of trick-or-treating around the apartment complex.
All in all, a rousing success for her first time :-)

And now there is some incentive to take naps: only one candy a day, and that only after a nap!

2004-10-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

I have been exceedingly remiss in posting.
First there was the impending news that I didn't want to talk about because I was scared of jinxing it. (And no, of course I am not superstitious!) Everytime I wanted to blog, I just kept thinking of the excitement, anticipation, and the dread that it would all fall through.
Then it actually happened, and even though I could talk about it, my spare time has been absolutely consumed by it.
I know, I know: Enough beating around the bush already! We bought a house. The sale closed on Tuesday, and until the last moment I was afraid that something would happen and we wouldn't actually get the place.
Now in the morning I get up, reach work just after 7 a.m, leave work around 5.30 p.m., go straight to the new house, and start working on cleaning up, tearing down wallpaper, filling in nail holes and dents, scrubbing ovens and floors and showers and loos and preparing walls for painting. I don't get back to the apartment until around 10 p.m. at which time I grab a shower and tumble into bed.
We have a big To-Do list before we can move in. And we plan on doing most of it ourselves. It seems that I'm going to be frantically busy for a while. But I promise I'll try to steal a few moments to post now and again :-)
Really, I'll try.

2004-10-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

It has been a frantic week and a half. Starting off with Angel Face's birthday, then a trip to Seattle on Saturday, two major shopping trips on Sunday, Board meeting on the other side of the Metro on Monday, full day class on Tuesday and Wednesday with evening trips, desperately chasing people for results within a deadline period, catching up (or trying to) to a mountain of work on Thursday, and Nini's birthday today.
::
Mt. St. Helens still hasn't blown her top; is in fact building a new top with rising lava and magma. We can see the mountain, but we can't really see any smoke, except on a very clear day. We're far enough away to be safe, and close enough to feel connected.
As soon as I dig out my pictures of the trip we took to see her on a hazy day in August, I'll put them up. That might have to wait until I get home though, because today promises to be hectic.
::
Still can't tell the news (by my own non-superstitious superstition), because it is not 100% final yet. Wish the last guy would hurry up! He's done his job, he just needs to submit his report for things to go forward. Aargh!! Soon I might take up biting my nails... Haven't done that since primary school.

2004-10-07T22:40:00.001-07:00

Quick! What was the most fun you ever had on your birthday when you were a kid? That is, apart from the gifts and the party.
For Angel Face it was definitely getting to lick out the batter bowl for her chocolate birthday cake.
She turned four on Wednesday. It is the milestones that make me stop and evaluate the differences. Obviously growth is a continuous, gradual process, and being close to the subject the changes are frequently so small that one can easily miss them. Taking stock at a specific time, comparing to another fixed moment, allows one to mark the growth.
And my goodness, how she has grown. Not only physically (where she has really shot up), but also intellectually, emotionally and in terms of capabilities. It has been a big year for our little one with lots of changes in her environment, lots of new things asked of her, lots of challenges and lots of rewards. And she has handled all of it like a champion, and emerged stronger.
Happy Birthday, Miss Muffet!
::
It is turning into proper Fall around here. The morning fog lingers four or five days a week, and many trees have fully turned color.
It is starting to get cooler too, although the temperatures still yo-yos, up one day, down the next. At least they are pulling back from 80 a bit. The combination of sun and 80F is enough to turn the entire (South & West facing) apartment into an oven. Can't wait to move into a better place!
::
Needless to say I love Fall, and especially Winter. I like the seasons in general, but Summer is really my least fun time. An unpopular position, but there it is. At least we should be in a better place shortly...

2004-10-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

[ change ]
Everything is falling behind right now. We are in the middle of something big, something exciting, but something that might still fall through. I am trying my best to prepare myself for disappointment, but I cannot help getting all excited, planning and anticipating.
Of course I am not superstitious in the least but I can't shake the feeling that speaking too much about it too soon would jinx the whole thing (knock on wood).
I promise I'll tell after we know for sure, one way or the other.
::
At work I've been busy, with some things becoming more urgent in our research, and I am desperately trying to put in enough time to manage the work and offset any time I might require for the aforementioned big thing.
I've been having way too much fun reading other people's blogs to get seriously updating here.
::

[ sunday ]
We spent some time with mpo's son and his family. Anamika is the world's most amazing 3.5 month-old! She focuses on people, really interacts with her parents, giggling and gurgling, making well-defined sounds, and of course loves playing with her fingers and toes.
Before going to Curry Leaf for their North Indian Chaat buffet we spent some time in the morning sun in their garden. I love this time of year where the sun is kind and gentle, not a ferocious bully that sends you scuttling toward the nearest shady area.
::
[ tuesday ]
No fog on the drive to work, but once I enter the campus there is a low blanket, maybe hip-height, laying on the ground. The cows in the pasture on the other side of the chainlink fence appears to be floating, their legs invisible, for once strangely graceful as they glide along.
Sorry, didn't have time to grab the camera - I was driving.

2004-10-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

[ Parry's Corner ]
In an archived post, Nancy mentioned Parry's Corner. What an intriguing mix Chennai/Madras is of the exotic and mundane, speckled through with English (British) place names and buildings.
::
Parry's Corner. Hmm, we lived in Adyar and seldom ventured there, except for this one place - some Gujarat Bhavan. Kind of daylight basement level entry, one room off to the side with long narrow wooden benches along a narrow table, and then the counter in the room in the far back corner. We have to weave our way through the scooters and motorcycles parked under the building behind the ornamental bars to get to it.
We bring our tiffin carrier along, and they fill it: usually some channa masala (whole chickpeas in a thick spicy gravy), a liquidy aloo preparation (potatoes with tomatoes and a surprising bite of chilli), some dhal (lentils, usually urad and mostly whole, not split), and a khadi - all of course with some measure of jaggery. Ten rotis if you order for two, more at a surcharge. One pint container of wonderful, must-have-gone-to-heaven srikhand, the gentle golden color of the real saffron so different from the artificial orange of the store-bought variety, and then my absolute favorite. From the old blue refrigerator outside the door (godrej?) a 1.5 litre PET bottle filled with the smoothest mango pulp. It would last for a week in the freezer section ofour red godrej, so thick and rich you could have even less of it at a time than the srikhand.
::
Now mpo points out (and Nancy confirms in her reply to my comment) that this is not strictly speaking in Parry's Corner, but more generally in Georgetown, about a quarter of a mile away.
Still, not bad for a faulty memory. I think the only other thing that really took us that far north was when we had to go and see an advocate to prepare all my papers to extend my residence permit.
::
Nancy, in a Gujarati household, casually mentions that "Shrikhand is very easy to make at home." My opinion? All things are relative. For me in a Telugu household, it is not that easy. First there is the fact that mpo dislikes sweet stuff (with the exception of his coffee and tea of course!) Perhaps I should rephrase: It is not difficult to make srikhand at home. It is difficult to make good srikhand at home. I've made srikhand, a few times in fact. The results are so-so - it looks like srikhand, it mostly tastes like srikhand, but pretty blah srikhand. Probably better than the Amul pseudo-srikhand sold in tubs in grocery stores, but not much. Which is why it is always wise to have either a good Gujarati restaurant nearby, or some really good Gujarati friends - preferrably both!

2004-10-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

[ Eden ]
Nancy speaks of "Bakes."

"It consisted primarily of boiled vegetables in white sauce, with a dusting of grated cheese on top, the whole thing put in the oven for the cheese to brown. it was the westernised housewife’s gesture to western food."

Which reminded me of the many times I encountered the dish in restaurants across Chennai, and across the country. There was only one place where the experience was enjoyable...
::
In Besant Nagar, up narrow stairs, (somewhere on the street something says - or said - Panama?) there is a little restaurant called Eden.
Even though we always visited at night, I have the impression that it had an airy feel. I do recall large framed cross stitched pictures of vegetables around the wall, one at each table.
It is a vegetarian "western" restaurant, specializing in various types of bakes, some using "English" vegetables. (Speaking of which, I remember finding one greengrocer who carried some courgettes/baby marrows/zucchini and celery along with a few other odds and ends close to Pondy Bazaar and Nalli's.)
There were other items on the menu as well, but right now I can't recall them, crowded out by too many memories of the various bakes I had come across.
Beyond Spencer's Plaza, further north on Anna Salai, is Mathura (which I think is part of the Woodlands restaurants.) In the Tarapore building, mpo confirms. They had an interesting bake as well, along with the "Cream of Vegetable soup," the standard bland white concoction with a few peas, diced carrots and corn(?) floating in it, and the ubiquitous Cream of Tomato soup.
I don't know whether the latter still counts as "western," since just about every place in Chennai that offers a North Indian thali starts you off with this "tamater ka shorba," never mind that it came from the Maggi packet moments before.
And on the topic of soups, I remember how we giggled when in the more up market mughlai restaurants like the formal one in GRT Grand Days, the menu offered Sambar and Rasam under the Soups heading.
::
Nancy replies with the name of the green grocer - Kennedy Vegetable Stall in Panagal Park, and the news that English vegies are now more freely available. This sets me off on another meandering.
::
That's the place!
After a weekly trip there I'd slice the zucchini thinly, saute it with onion and then use milk and maggi mushroom soup to make it into a creamy sauce. Serve it with whatever pasta I could scrounge at that stage in Food World (NOT the Ramen noodle kind) and amaze the people at work with the "western" tastes. (Oh, did I mention adding the obligatory karam?)
We never bought an oven, but we selected the stove with the "grill" between the two burners. It had a little glass window and a doll-size tray that would fit two slices of bread - if they're really cozy. Since the heat came from the top it would broil the dish - got some nice (but minute) gratins. Unfortunately that was the first part of the stove that broke - the two gas burners are still working.
::
These past few days since I have found Nancy's blog has been an amazing walk down memory lane for me. I am getting so homesick for India that I can cry. It has been three years since I have been there, and I am finding that I miss it more and more every day, and yet I have spent only a couple of years there. By contrast it is only some of the people that I miss of the country I was born and raised. India has a way of settling very firmly in one's heart.

2004-10-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

I've found Nancy Gandhi's blog under the fire star in a circuitous way through a link on another blog through which I was browsing. Utterly absorbing and engaging, I am starting to read through her archives, and can't stop myself from posting long comments in reply on archived material.
In most cases I wander off in the yonder, triggered by something in a post that vividly recalls something of my life in India. A bit like that free association word game. A says "red," B says "rose," C says "Shakespeare," D says "Hamlet," A says "danish," B says "breakfast" ...
So I've decided to start blogging here about disjointed reminiscences. Now, the anal part of me wants to start at the beginning, and do this in strict chronological fashion. But I sat myself down and gave myself a stern talking to, and will blog as I read Nancy and memories arise.
::
Note to self: One of the tweaks needed in the template is to widen the text area. Css is great because you can precisely define placement, but here two nice sentences end up looking as if you've written a saga. Which can be intimidating to the reader, and deadly to someone as chronically verbose as me.

2004-09-30T23:22:00.000-07:00

[ lists ]
Blog To-Do List:

Put up a blog roll
Put up my list of recently-read books
Put up my reading list
Put up a music list
Tweak the template
Create categories for stories
Install and use Trackback
Consider moving to a different blog host.

Rationalized To-Do List:

Put up a blog roll (but how do I select who to put up there? I'm still new, finding things that interest me, but frequently it turns out not to be what I thought it was after about a week of regular reading. And I don't want to just put up a huge list...)
Put up my list of recently-read books (hmm, but everything I read? Or only the ones that could be considered literature? And do I review them?)
Put up my reading list (Oh great! Now have a public record of my resolutions and a demonstration of how I break them and/or procrastinate.)
Put up a music list (Well, at least that would be static, if truly eclectic. I haven't bought any new music for years (barring birthday/christmas gifts.) I haven't been keeping track of new music developments, nor of new performers and performances of classical music.)
Tweak the template (Yeah, but coding for a living for a fair chunk of my work day hardly leaves me energized to come home and figure out how to twiddle the knobs on css.)
Create categories for stories (You mean like "My Life in India" and such? Shades of Lionel Hardcastle... I would have to manually maintain them if I stay with Blogspot)
Install and use Trackback (I would have to get a third party Trackback if I stay with Blogspot)
Consider moving to a different blog host (Well, it would address the above two issues. But it would mean all my links need to change and all my hordes of loyal fans have to be informed of the new address, and now I would have to shell out money for the blog and I am not even sure whether this is just a passing fad on my part. And I kinda like the general look of my current template - minus a few tweaks.)

Sheesh! Now you know why nothing ever gets done around here - or almost. I think I need help.

2004-09-29T22:18:00.000-07:00

I keep forgetting to mention that I have added another link to the side bar. "Past Pictures" is, suprise surprise, a link to pictures that have appeared previously in this blog. A blogallery if you will. (Yes, having come up with something pseudo-funny and clever, I have to milk it for every last drop. Or did I perhaps see it during one of my journeys through the blogosphere, and did it mull around for a while before popping back up?)
Anyway, the link is up. Now if traffic were to suddenly pick up I would be in trouble, but at current levels the server should hold up quite nicely.
I expect that it would be updated sporadically, if at all. For the moment though it is a nice look back at images from earliers posts, non-chronologically arranged.
::
One of my favorite admonishments to tourists in cities (and often to city dwellers themselves) is: "Look up!" So much care and attention to fine detail has gone into creating the intricate facades of buildings, all beyond eye-level. Just about everyone who has visited London extensively could spend another equal amount of time, this time raising their eyes to the higher levels, and see a completely different city.
Looking through pictures of our recent Californian trip, I noticed some pictures that brought to mind a different piece of advice: "Look underfoot! There's a whole new world hiding there."
I grabbed these few pictures taken over the course of the past year to illustrate the point.

2004-09-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

[ EGBDF ]
Mnemonics are frequently used to teach kids (and adults, I suppose) various aspects of music theory. EGBDF are the notes on the lines in the treble clef in the music stave. The rhyme in Afrikaans had something to do with dew drops glistening on every green leaf.
I can't remember exactly how it goes, and the F at the end does not seem to fit, and it doesn't help that the incomplete and incorrect thing has been running over and over in my head the entire day. The picture tells you why.
::

I was chauffeured to work this morning. Normally I take the van to work since I am closer, and Nini takes the (more fuel economical) car to college. Today my precious one had a check up with the interventional radiologist who performed his procedure, so he needed a vehicle. Which is why I could rubberneck and click the camera to heart's content from the passenger seat.
There were not a lot of clouds about, which meant that the sun tinted the fog to the East a glowing red and pink. Just a little visual variation in case we were getting blasé with the morning scenery layered in the misty veils.

::
Since I already had the camera out, I just ducked inside the lab to drop my bags and grab a cardigan before heading back out into the parking lot to capture more of the amazing morning. As I wandered compulsively snapping around the parking lot, I almost literally stumbled across a section of weeds and wild flowers. They were heavily bedewed, and I was getting really annoyed with the chain link fences ruining my foggy shots.
So, I squatted down at the side of the road despite my creaky, complaining knees and attempted to get in close. I have no idea what the guys driving past me must have thought when confronted by the low moving hump looming through the mist, resolving into the sight of a woman crouching among the weeds by the side of the road outside the lab.
The macros themselves we'll save for another day.
::
Oh, I almost forgot. The check up went well - the doctor was happy with mpo's progress. Pain has gone, movement is much improved, and generally he feels far better than before. It must be a great feeling for that doctor to see the direct improvement he had on the quality of life of someone else. And what a great difference it has meant for us.

2004-09-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

"Some princes don't cut their princesses' nails."
Angel Face (oops, Princess Angel Face) makes this pronouncement as she sits cross-legged on our bed, the Barbie-pink cardboard crown with the Disney princesses all around it perched on her head with her ears sticking through her shoulder-length hair to prevent it from slipping down to her neck.
My precious one is facing her, his legs also crossed, as he gently wields the nail clippers on her little fingers. She has been tickling him, and the sharp little nails have left their mark.
She has been having a total princess-streak lately. She is the princess, mpo is her prince, I'm the queen, and who knows what her mommy is. They live in their castle (the sofa) and he has to go everywhere with her or, as is more likely when he is too lazy to get up, she tells him in a posh voice, "Prince, stay right there. I'll be ri-i-i-ight back!" before running off (No running in the house!) to grab some essential element of royal life from her room.
::
The princess fad is a refinement of the lady fad. She has been clamoring since she was two to wear dresses every day, and since Spring she has been putting on her Easter hat and carrying its matching purse all around the house. She wants to be called "Lady," but NOT "Lady Angel Face" - it has to be "Angel Face Lady." (The purse holds aristocratic essentials like Kleenex, a little plastic figurine, the top of a perfumed body spray bottle, a bobby pin and a couple of beads.)
::
I wonder from where the stereotypes come. When she sees certain types of toys or clothes, she will ask whether "those are for boys or for girls?" We have never knowingly tried to draw a distinction between boys and girls, between what they like, play with or can do.
She attends child care, but it is at the college with all the early childhood education faculty and students, so it is ultra-politically correct. True, she watches television, but we monitor what she gets to watch, and the majority are educational shows.
We read to her a lot, and we try to answer most of her questions seriously, at a level that she can understand. She has not picked up any ethnic prejudices, but from where oh where does she get her gender identity ideas?

2004-09-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

[ fog ]
Mornings have been foggy here lately. Not particularly dense, and there's enough visibility to get safely to work, but beautiful. Part of the fascination is that it is strange; I don't recall ever seeing fog in my hometown while growing up.
The first time I consciously remember fog was in Estcourt, Natal, while we were driving to the coast for our annual seaside vacation. We usually left at 3 a.m. to make the long drive, and would hit Estcourt around dawn.
::
[ beauty ]
I hate driving in dense fog. I've had to do it a few times and still get rattled when I think about it, and besides, you don't get to see anything.
The lighter fog, the one where you can still see to the end of the street, is the type that enchants me. It seems to turn the entire landscape into layers printed on gauzy chiffon, built up into visible forms in front, and evermore ghostly apparitions toward the back. It brings a new perspective on and new appreciation of the surrounding landscape.
I suppose it is the proximity of the river and the cooler mornings that combine to create my magical morning mysteryland. It is yet another reason I love living here: It is wonderful to have beauty and change and a few surprises all around you.
::
Hmmmph! I must be getting old. I thought to throw in an Oscar Wilde quotation, but wanted to get it right, so first I searched the web and then went to dig out my Ellman biography of Wilde.
I thought I recalled his message on the importance of beauty to everyday life as something along the lines of "there is nothing as precious/beautiful in the world as my blue lilies."
Turns out the actual quote is "I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china," referring to his two large Sèvres lily vases.
::
Love Oscar Wilde. Dorothy Parker quipped (and I am no doubt making minor mistakes in the quoting):

"If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram
I never seek to take the credit
We all assume that Oscar said it."

2004-09-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

[ flora ]
I wish I knew more about plants. Or more specifically, I wish I knew the names of more plants (shrubs, flowers, trees). I wish there were a website where you could go and start looking by leaf shape: rounds, ovals, pear, serrated, thin, holey, then you could delve down deeper by category until you find the thing you are looking for.
Not that I am particularly interested in botany per se, but it would be nice to call the things I photograph by their name, rather than "the small tree with the red fruit vaguely reminiscent of lychees."
Maybe such a site exists, and I am just searching for the wrong thing.
::
[ searching ]
I love search engines. I used to drive AltaVista like an old Cadillac - huge, and you have to keep watching the corners, but it rides like a boat. Took me a while to be convinced of Google, perhaps just because I was so tied to AltaVista before. When I took the jump however, I took it with both feet!
If you can adequately describe that for which you are searching, you can get great results. I'm normally pretty good at this - not world-class or anything, but I find what I want within the first five pages usually. Sometimes it takes two or three tries, but I still call that pretty good.
But sometimes I just can't get anywhere with a search. I have found that this is mostly the case where the topic has a specific nomenclature around it.
Take yesterday - I was looking for the official reference of all the java classes and packages, with the definitions, inputs and outputs. Took me more than half an hour of fruitless searching. I finally went back to my old university website, because I know the Java courses there had a link to it. "Class Index!" Well, I did know that it was called that, but for a little bit yesterday the phrase slipped my mind. And no matter how much I tried to search around it, I just couldn't get it. With the phrase, I found what I needed immediately.
::
[ Autumn ]
Leaves are turning everywhere now, and we have passed the equinox. Since the "actual" date of equinox depends on the geographic location, our days are still about ten minutes longer than our nights, but not for long. Soon I will be driving to work before sunrise. After the clocks are set back, I would be driving home after sunset. And at some stage, both!
It does make for wonderful views with the steeply slanting rays of the sun very early or very late - perfect for setting off the Fall colors.
The rain has cleared away and we're back up in the high 70s, sometimes even going beyond 80. It is almost as if the weather is playing optometrist with us, putting on her red and copper and golden coat, showing us the wintry rain and temperatures, and then summer shine and warmth, saying, "Which is better: this or that? Look again, this one, or that one?"

2004-09-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

It was 94F when we landed in Sacramento - coming off a week of mid to upper 70s in the Portland region. The full impact of the heat hit us once we clambered inside the dark blue rental minivan; it took several minutes for the air conditioner to cool us down to comfort level.
During our stay, the evenings were nippy, as were the mid-mornings, except in the San José and Sunnyvale area, and on the Fisherman's Wharf and beach front park in Monterey, especially with the ferocious wind and once the clouds moved in closer and started to spit stray drops at us.
But even San Francisco was mostly warm. We all wore light sweater-shirts, and never needed our jackets that we dragged along all across the city. Never, that is, except whenever Angel Face wanted to take a nap - her thing is that she has to be covered head to toe (well, chin to toe) if she is in an unfamiliar place, and she gets very cranky indeed if her knees or ankles are open. So that is where her jacket (and occasionally even some of ours) came in handy.
Poor creature - twice she fell asleep on public transport, and was rudely awakened when we scrambled to get off. It did not make for a happy little camper at all.
Anyway, when we flew back out from Sacramento, the heat smacked us in the face when we got down at the gas station just before reaching the airport. My memory whispers something along the lines of 97F at me, but it might be faulty.
On Saturday evening we flew straight back into my kind of weather - 60s with cloudy skies and several rain showers for a week straight! It seemed as if Winter had come early - or at least an unusually wet Fall.
Angel Face was not about to concede the (apparent) end of Summer so quickly, however. Sunday morning's run to the grocery store saw her dressed in a polka-dotted keyhole neck and puff sleeved t-shirt and a basque and box pleat denim mini skirt over shorst, with hawaiian flipflops in bright blue with pink hisbiscuses, despite the gloomy skies outside. As they started down the stairs, a few drops found them, and Nini put her foot down and sent her back inside, where she grabbed her (short) rainjacket, and with a jaunty swing of her pigtails, out she rushed and downstairs she clattered, determined for a little while longer to cling to the idea of Summer.

2004-09-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

In the packet of papers containing instructions (when to take which dose of laxative, when to stop eating high fiber foods, when to drink only clear liquids with no red or purple dye, when to stop drinking all together) and information, it is mentioned that I can take along a "clearly marked" CD of music that they will play during my procedure.
And while I immediately decide that I will NOT be taking along any of my own music, it turns into an interesting question - kind of a twist on Desert Island Disks. What would YOU take along to listen to during an upper endoscopy and colonoscopy?

Elgar's Cello Concerto with Jaqueline DuPré and Sir John Barbirolli
Chopin Nocturnes, with Krystian Zimerman
Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, with Marshall and Terrani
Ramirez's Misa Criolla, with José Carreras
Haydn's Theresienmesse...

Strange that I have no jazz in there. Nor any contemporary music. But there wasn't anything that jumped to the fore as something I would want to listen to during an otherwise stressful and unpleasant experience.
::
What made me decide against taking music along was the thought of the average person's reaction to my taste in music. Dislike and agitation is something that I would strongly wish to avoid on the part of medical personnel performing complicated procedures on my helpless body.
So I decided to make do with whatever generic muzak would be on offer.
In the end it did not matter at all. Thinking back on the experience, I was mostly only aware of what happened during the colonoscopy, and then only when I was hurt, presumably when they made the turns.
I remember the prep for the endoscopy, but then the next clear memory is being back in the partition where my clothes were left, and wondering when the endoscopy will take place. To some extent I am still wondering, because my throat is not even sore in the least. Last time it had been such an ordeal - no IV sedation, with my hair-trigger gag reflex working overtime and the doctor getting more and more agitated, telling me to "Just relax, it is making it very difficult for us, the more you gag the longer it will take," and me helpless to stop the retching. I was raw and sore for a week, both inside my throat and the rib and abdominal muscles that ache after immoderate bouts of laughter or coughing.
::
The good news: No signs of the big C. I'm good to go for another five years. And here in the States it means no Barium Enema like in South Africa, but rather full-fledged colonoscopies each time.
The bad news: We still have no resolution on the origin of the pain which periodically lands me in the E.R. So more tests, more procedures, more waiting and hoping that THIS time the pain would be more manageable, could be controlled by medication, wouldn't last for a week.

2004-09-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot.
We reached the airport in Sacramento well in advance of the flight. No matter where we sat down to wait - the seating area, the restaurant - we were surrounded by flies: Big, black, tenacious and extremely annoying.
At the restaurant there was a sign advertising that it was a Wi-Fi hotspot. So, out came my Wi-Fi adapter. It turned out that it was not free, and we did not think we'd be using it long enough to justify the $ 6.95 or whatever.
What made me laugh - almost helplessly - was the name of the network that popped up while I am desperately waving away the clouds of flies: "flysacramento"
::
We had rented a minivan, a blue Chevy as it turned out. Miss Muppet was seriously concerned throughout the trip however, endlessly asking, "What happened to our white van?"
Our explanations that it is waiting for us in the parking lot would appease her for a little while, but the next time we get in the van, the questions would start up again.
It must be tough to be around four years old, when you have very little control over what happens in your world; when the only thing you can do is keep a very clear picture of where everything is in your world, and what everything and everyone's role is in it.

2004-09-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

Great news! My precious one had been walking up and down all across San Francisco, and had no pain. Well, he was tired, and had some aching muscles, but none of the pain in the calves or the buttocks that was a result of the occluded arteries prior to his angioplasties and the stents. This is the first real proof we've had that the procedures had been worth it.
::
We decided to take El Camino Real instead of the highway down the Bay, so that Nini could see all the different communities and the way their characters change as we move southwards. Of all the sights we saw, the most unexpected and delightful was a very orthodox looking church with multiple onion domes, the main entire gold-leafed, and the smaller ones painted an azure blue with gold stars sprinkled all over.

Some fast turns and crossed fingers brought us back to the spot so that we could snap some pictures - however we could not see any indication of the name or denomination of the church. The image of the incongruous domes glistening in the morning sun among the mundane houses and apartments will remain with us for a long time.
::
Our El Camino trip ended at Mayuri and the Sabzi Masala by New India Bazar next door. The lunch buffet was the perfect way to say good bye to the desi milieu of the Bay, and we stocked up on a last few pieces of Indian and British/South African groceries. The best part was finding the beautifully fresh vegetables, and at bargain prices too. This meant a week back at home with fresh authentic food!
::
It makes perfect sense of course to put up the maps of where we'd been and what we've done at the END of our trip. Actually it is because I haven't had the time to create them before now, but hey, better late than never, right?
It is not possible to put the maps up large enough here to see the detail, but clicking on them should open them nice and big in a new window.

2004-09-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

It seemed as if the entire Bay area was covered in bold murals. From the window in our hotel room we could catch a glimpse of a brightly colored one, mostly obscured by fencing and intervening structures. Once we reached the CalTrain station we could see it in its full glory, painted under an overpass in the car park where the shelters are to wait for the train, a shaft of light at a random diagonal angle illuminating the image.
::
The CalTrain took us in to San Francisco where we bought day passes for public transport. And then our expedition started. Catching the Muni (light rail) N Judah outbound, we went until 8th Avenue, where we caught the No. 44 Bus, thinking it would drop us close to the Japanese Tea Garden. It did not, instead stopping on the North side of the Golden Gate Park, so we decided to hike back into the park to the garden, where we promptly ran into a major construction project, with only vague indications of which way to get around it.
In the mean time it was getting close to noon, and our breakfast, though much better at this hotel, was still very light and I had had no snack in between. My blood sugar plummeted and I started to feel all the signs of an impending crash: the shaking, clamminess, disorientation. Digging for my emergency glucose tablets, I manage to ward off immediate danger, but it told us clearly that we should look for a place to have lunch.

Regretfully giving up the Japanese Tea Garden as out of our reach, we stopped for a few minutes to let the poppet work off some excess energy at the massive blue playground structure, before returning to the bus stand. At first we thought we would try to catch a bus going east, back to downtown, but ended up on the same No. 44, going back South of the Park.
We trooped into an Indian restaurant advertising a lunch buffet, only to turn around again, since the meager choices were uninspiring. With several others to choose from, we ended inside Park Chow, a trendy restaurant with an interesting menu - all in all a good choice.
::
Then back on the Muni, continuing westwards to 19th Avenue, where we went on a proper safari - even ended up going in circles - to find a bus stop for the No. 29. This bus route goes on Lincoln Boulevard along the West coast through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, where we hoped to get some brilliant views of the bridge.
And they were breath-taking! The bus made two unscheduled stops to let off other sightseers, and at the second of these, we decided to get down as well. Amazing views, but since it was an unscheduled stop, we were unsure of whether we would be able to get a bus again. We waited almost an hour for a bus that is supposed to run every 30 mins. and were getting truly desperate when one finally appeared. It turned out that the proper vista point and entrance to the bridge was less than 15 minutes' walk further along - if only we had known!
This allowed us views of the bridge from the other angle as well, Alcatraz and all the touristy things like the section of the massive cable that is used in the bridge, and a close up of some of the >27,500 wires that make up that cable!

::
Bus No. 28 took us eastwards, back toward town, No. 22 took us South a bit, and No. 1 took us into the heart of China Town. After browsing around a while, and gaping at the intricate details you only notice when looking up at the top levels of the buildings, we came to the conclusion that we were all knackered. We found a completely vegetarian Chinese restaurant for dinner, and then climbed the steps back up to California Avenue to grab the cable car. After all, no visit to San Francisco would be complete without a ride in one of these, right? We ended up going in the wrong direction, but fortunately since we had the daily passes, we just waited it out and rode it all the way back again to the Embarcadero where we wanted to be in the first place.
::
The conductor was a jovial fellow who encouraged us to sit on the open benches after the majority of passengers had disembarked, and I clung to Angel Face for dear life after snaking my leg around one of the supports, so scared that she would impulsively lean forward and fall into the road. When we reached the terminus, the conductor invited her to ring the bell, and that absolutely made that little girl's day.
At the Embarcadero we had to wait a while for the right Muni, and by the time we reach the Cal Train station, we had missed it by 4 minutes. So, nothing could be done but settle in for an hour's wait for the next one.
::
All in all a long, exhausting day, but a thoroughly satisfying one. We had missed out on two of our main agenda items: the Japanese Tea Gardens (due to the building projects in the park) and the crooked bit of Lombard Street (time constraints given the long waits for buses), but what we did see and experience more than made up for it. It had been my first visit to the Golden Gate bridge despite the fact that we had had visited there before and had even lived in the Bay area for a while, and for Nini the bridge was a particularly powerful and moving sight.

2004-09-09T23:37:00.000-07:00

[ Thursday, continued ]
Leaving Fisherman's Wharf we got lost in town trying to find the scenic route and little park that mpo and I had visited with friends a few years ago. To my surprise, we did manage to stumble across it again, but by then the clouds had moved in much closer, and a few droplets spiked the wind. The few pictures I managed to grab has a moody quality to them.
Our previous visit had been in spring, and had made for much prettier views, including the dayglo magenta of the succulent flowers covering the entire cliff around the bay.

::
We returned to the Bay via California SR 1, which winds all along the coast for a slow drive but breath taking scenery, all the way up to Half Moon Bay, and then went to I280 to get to South San Francisco where we were to stay the next two nights.
Because the drive was slow and it was getting late, we did not stop anywhere along the way for pictures. Nini managed to snap a couple from the back seat.

::
Our hotel was far better than the one in which we had spent the previous night! The only drawback (there has to be one, of course) was that it had only one bed, a king, and a sleeper couch. Those things are medieval instruments of torture. Our best way around it seemed that Nini would sleep on the couch as a couch, without opening the bed - it was certainly long and comfortable enough for that, which would mean that Angel Face would end up in bed with me and mpo.
My usual complaint about king-size beds is that they are so big that we end up sleeping totally isolated on opposite ends, instead of cuddling frequently but with enough space to call our own on a queen. Add a little one to the bed, however, and even a king becomes too small; she seem to sleep spread-eagled and at odd angles.
At least we all got a decent night's sleep in clean, working surroundings, and the high-speed internet actually worked.
For dinner we drove to San Mateo to Bombay Garden. The food was quite nice for the standard mughlai-type place, even if the "South Indian Coffee" was made with instant powder.

2004-09-09T21:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am indeed messing with the dates. It seems to make more sense to let Friday's activities have Friday's date on their post. In general we had way too much fun, and reached the hotel way too late and tired to give me much time to fine tune a blog.
::
We were so happy to leave the icky motel in Sunnyvale. The bed had been so uncomfortable that I got up in pain around midnight, threw the bed spread over the smelly chair and dozed fitfully in that the rest of the night.
The "continental" breakfast turned out to be plastic coffee and long-life plastic-wrapped "danish." Dragging our suitcases down the stairs reeking of stale urine, across the cigar stubs littering the lawn and the green pool, we could not get out of there fast enough!
::
We tried for a real breakfast at Komala Vilas. As always, the tiffin was great, and the attitude towards customers seemed greatly improved. It was the first time I had green upma - i.e. with a whole lot of cilantro chopped into it, but the result was very fresh and tasty. The sambar was true tiffin sambar, not meals sambar, and the coconut chutney was excellent. Angel Face wolfed down two entire (giant-sized) idli, and drank half of Nini's coffee.
Then we did some shopping in India Cash and Carry, and bemoaned the fact that we couldn't take more of the fresh and frozen stuff back with us. And the little one was highly impressed with the fact that we managed to find "koei," her Marmite, or in this case, Vegemite!
::
Then we headed South toward Monterey, with a quick detour to see our old duplex in Blossom Hill. We stopped at the Garlic Shop in Gilroy ("The Garlic Capital of the World") so that Nini could have a look at all things garlic, including garlic ice cream, and garlic and honey roasted peanuts.
Strange how we change. Where before she would have been raring to try and buy, now she had only a kind of amused interest. I guess garlic really does get out of your system after a while - and she had been with us in our mostly garlic-free home for about ten months now. Not that we are fanatically anti-garlic, but I like it only as subtle flavoring, and all of us strongly dislike the after-effects.
There were some horses in a camp on the hill at the exit, and the little one was over the moon, and insisted on some pictures. They were pretty far away, and while she did get her picture, I ended up snapping more of the hill, the gnarled trees, the texture and blue sky.
::
Just before the Tourist Information building we pulled off at a little park with a fountain playing over a sculpture, and lots of ducks, geese and gulls. I ended up with tree gum all over my blouse after leaning across a low branch to get closer to some preening ducks. Fortunately the rental van had tinted windows, and since we had checked out of the first motel we had our suitcases with us, so I could do a quick change.
Then it was on to Fisherman's Wharf where we played rubber-necking tourists, gaping at everything from the beautiful seaviews to the garden of succulents around the historic buildings. Angel Face had a marvelous time; running up and down, trying out the various benches, getting up close to fountains, climbing on every coin-operated ride, gaping at the displays and just generally reveling in the wonder of being a kid at the seaside.
Lunch was at Abelonetti's which seemed to have the most options for vegetarians on offer - mpo was a little disappointed that they did not offer the mango margarita that he had for some reason set his heart on. The food was, well, variable. The pizzas were fine, but the antipasto was regrettable.

2004-09-08T20:28:00.000-07:00

[ flight ]
Flying from Portland always present the possibility of stunning views, provided of course that (a) it is reasonably clear (as it is in summer) and (b) it is daytime. We had a few discrete wispy clouds floating across our field of vision, but not obscuring the image of the sequence of bridges across the Willamette.
And we needed a sweetener after the hour delay in our flight. Alaska handed out "Air Care Kits," little folders with $5 food vouchers, 10 min. calling cards and $25/1,000 mile flight coupons. Fortunately we had the foresight not to mention that we were delayed to the little one, so we avoided the endless toddler nagging, and we found enough of whimsical interest to keep her occupied until the flight boarded.
The clouds became more dense later, so we did not get any spectacular views of the mountains, with the exception of Mt. Hood, my favorite.

::
[ Sacramento ]
Landing in Sacramento was reminiscent to Fargo in some ways - the patchwork of agricultural land, flat as far as the eye can see. The difference lay in the colors and the shiny straight ruler of the canal, and the irrigation ditches running across the fields.
The fields were a softer version of a lime green with a dayglo quality to it. As we descended further, we could see the tiny yellow flowers through the darker green of the leaves, the combination giving the illusion of the unreal color from a distance.
::
[ accident ]
Despite arriving at the start of rush hour, the traffic was not too bad. There was the usual "jam-packed but moving freely, if well below the limit" stretches and a couple of miles of the "stop-and-start grind your teeth in frustration" type.
Ironically, the accident happened after the road cleared up: each vehicle had space enough to maintain a legal following distance (if they were so inclined), and there were even clear stretches randomly interspersed in each of the three ordinary lanes, with larger empty spaces in the HOV lane where we four were traveling.
On the whole the traffic was moving along somewhere between the speed limit and about ten miles over, when a car roared past at startling speed, weaving within the three ordinary lanes, stealing following distances, until his progress was blocked ahead. He was followed a moment later by another car, this one even faster, flicking between lanes and forcing spaces where none existed by changing lanes almost blindly, causing cars to swerve and brake to avoid running into him.
When both of the vehicles landed in the third lane with no immediate way forward except through the HOV lane (which they both avoided) the first car suddenly slammed on his brakes, causing the second almost to rear-end him; apparently there was a direct engagement between the two, and had been for some distance. When a gap opened up again, off they both were, ducking and crocheting back and forth until the first car was in the third lane, the second in the first lane, and both aimed for the same gap in the center lane and broadsided one another.
The second vehicle, damaged, spun out across the road to the right shoulder, and ended up facing the traffic. The first vehicled spun to his left, across the third lane, across the HOV lane, into the concrete barrier, bounced off, spun back, hit the barrier again, and finally came to a rest partly inside the HOV lane. Amazingly, not a single other vehicle was hit (that we could see) in the incident, and Nini saw both drivers grab their cell phones, so they were both alive.
I was the next driver in the HOV lane, and had it not been for my relatively sedate pace and the great distance to the driver ahead of me, I might have slammed into that first car that bounced off the barrier.
::
[ Sunnyvale/San Jose ]
The motel for the first night was a total disappointment. It was poorly maintained and most features worked poorly. The air-conditioner was a window unit that was mounted in a hole in the wall, at the ceiling, and could not manage to make a dent in the hot, dense, stale air that hung inside the room. The bath was blackened in areas where the grime from thousands of dirty feet had been indifferently scrubbed, and the louvre window had a thick layer of dust with clumps stuck in the corners. The armchair smelled like a dirty woolly dog that had been caught in the rain.
Their "high speed internet" was a secure wireless connection that had a whole instruction sheet on how to configure the laptop. After 1.5 hours both the Computer Engineer and the Electrical Engineer in our family gave up, and none of the staff knew anything about it: they just pointed helplessly to the instruction sheet.
::
The highlight of the evening was seeing the quintessential San Jose sunset - looking east and seeing the hills tinted a dusky pink - to the west all you see is a watery non-descript amber glow. And of course the dinner at Mayuri on El Camino Real with Manas. It was wonderful to catch up again, even though he met us alone, and the food was as good as we remembered. I ended up going back three times for more charu (rasam), the best I have had in a very long time.

2004-09-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

[ update ]
I caught an actual glimpse of the Phantom Ice Cream Truck! Pretty bland, a white box with a few little stickers on the back window. When I grew up ice cream trucks were brightly painted with pictures, for maximum kid-attraction. I did manage to identify the tinkly tune this time, though: "Music Box Dancer."
::
[ vacation ]
Angel Face is SO excited. For the past few days she repeatedly interrupts whatever she's doing to tell us: "Doddamma and Mamma and Peddananna and me and Mamma and Doddamma are going to fly in the plane. We're going to fly to China! (Don't know where she got that bit.) It's big big big plane and we have to sit still and fasten our belts and all my friends are going to come with me (sorry, kid) and we're going to fly fly fly and you and me and Peddananna and Mamma and you - and me - are going to go in the plane!"
I showed her her little finger on the left hand is Monday. The ringfinger is Tuesday, and the middle finger is Wednesday. Made a cross on that finger so that she can remember which one. So when she would come and yet again want to know when we are flying, we can play the finger game - seems to work well and helps her to manage this weird concept of time to which grown-ups seem shackled.
She was afraid to go to sleep last night - scared she might miss the flight. We had to assure her that (a) we cannot go in the plane if she doesn't sleep, and (b) that she would still need another nap in the morning before we can fly. The flight only leaves around 2 p.m., which is why I am at work this morning. Means I only need to take a half-day today (and saves some hours for emergencies), plus I've finished packing and now don't need to get tense by the last minute scurrying at home.
::
[ bugs ]
Nini has a sore, scratchy throat and only about 25% voice. She assures me she is feeling fine otherwise - no body aches, no coughing, sneezing and the like. I feel so bad for her, and am trying to care of some of her responsibilities unobtrusively, while keeping at least ten feet away. I don't know why, but I have become a germ magnet all of a sudden. And once a bug gets me, it keeps me down as long as possible.
The strangest thing though seems to be the timing. I might start feeling grotty around Wednesday or Thursday, be getting really bad on Friday yet just well enough to scrape through the day, and then sharply deteriorate once I get home. Spend the entire weekend seemingly at death's door until Sunday late afternoon when a slight improvement appears, and by Monday morning I can move around just well enough to go back to work. I am starting to suspect that all viruses and bacteria have signed contracts with my company to be allowed to operate in this area!
::
We're taking the laptop along with us to the Bay, and of course the camera. My precious one, as usual, spent at least 5 days shopping around for the best hotel deals, and made sure that they had complimentary high-speed internet...

2004-09-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

[ update ]
I spent most of the weekend creating "CAST"-pages, little who's who entries for those who would feature most frequently in my blogs. This way, I wouldn't have to repeat necessary context information every time, but rather point to the CAST entries.
I found it a tough exercise: I wanted to convey a true sense of who these people are and what they mean to me, without exposing them or infringing on their right to privacy.
But, here they are: mpo, Nini, Angel Face and Anamika.
::
[ blogging ]
While doing this, I was reminded of a friend I had known for some time before learning that she had been keeping a candid online journal long before it became "blogging." She went through the normal ups and downs, suffered an immense tragedy, and then after several years became involved with someone that many of her readers were directly familiar with through a different forum. She continued writing candidly about her experiences, thoughts and feelings, but now they directly included her significant other.
And when some major issues arose between them that they were working through, the journalling became a vehicle for the intrusion into their personal life of every person they knew in common.
At which stage her significant other pointed out the responsibility she had toward people in her real life, while remaining true to herself and her compulsion to journal.
::
[ life ]
Today saw The Return of the Phantom Ice-cream Truck.
Our apartment is a corner unit on the corner of the street, with a four way stop. On many late afternoons we would hear the Dopler effect of the tinkly music-box "Pop goes the weasel," but no matter how quicly we rushed to the windows or out onto the balcony, and despite the fact that we could still hear the music, we would never be able to catch a glimpse of the truck. (And remember, there's an excited 3.5 yo driving this activity!)
We haven't heard it for a while now, then suddenly we started hearing the music box sounds compressed as the truck approaches the intersection. This time it is a different melody, I can't quite place it, but the truck is still as determinedly invisible as before. And our Angel Face is just as desperately disappointed.

2004-09-04T21:44:00.000-07:00

	[ trivia ] I am older than the Internet! "Well, duh," I would have been inclined to think. But that's only because I thought the Internet was much younger, much more recent. While I know all about DARPA net (well, some at least)
I never paid too much attention to the dates, and I had the impression that the late seventies were the key years. But no, the first experiments into the unconventional networks that brought us the Internet was done in late August of 1969. So yes, I am older than the Internet, but by barely four months.

::
[ meandering ]
In some way I will never be the quintessentially American female, for I suffer a major character flaw: I dislike malls. Now, I don't hate shopping, or even window shopping - far from it. Malls just doesn't do anything for me. I think I get to a mall fewer than six times a year. And of those, three are probably around Christmas time. Most of my shopping is done in strip malls or stand-alone stores.
I can't understand the sub-culture that has grown up around malls. And I'm not talking about the teenagers who use the mall as a social hang out - that I get. But I don't get the people who get perfectly dressed, coiffed and made up to go to the mall to buy the clothes and make up to allow them to go to the mall perfectly dressed and made up...
::

[ grind ]
We get to the mall, park right at the store we need, get inside, find the items in question, get to the cashier, and when I want to pay, I can't find my wallet. I have my check book with me, but obviously no ID.

Luckily Nini has a credit card on my account, so she can push the plastic.
I call home, a little worried, and ask mpo to check for my wallet. After some misunderstanding, he starts checking for the right thing in the right places, and can't find it. The only other option is that I left it at work, for I know I used it there on Friday. But I am 25 miles from home (and 26 from work) so we decide to finish up here first, and then check at work once we go home.
Nini, in her wisdom, (1) wore new shoes to the mall, and (2) did not pack any plaster. So, having found the second set of items for which we came, we decide to head home. And can't believe that it is almost 7 p.m. when we leave

	Obviously I can't drive without my license on me, so I get to wave my camera around in the passenger seat again, especially as we cross the river.
Everything is bathed in that wondrous light when the sun is at an acute angle and most of the sky is covered in heavy almost-black clouds.

::

Fortunately my wallet is at my desk. And the sky is amazing. And we decide to circle the campus counter-clockwise when we leave, and get some astounding sunset views.
So in the end, all in all a successful afternoon, not the least part of it the fact that my precious one now has two brand new, very smart shirts, just in time for our "vacation" down to San Francisco.

2004-09-03T19:41:00.000-07:00

[ remembering ]
Twenty-two years.
On the evening of September 3, 1982, my father was walking off the pavement toward his parked car, when a drunk driver came racing down the street, scooped him from the curb and caused him such severe injuries that Pappa died a few hours later in hospital, before the driver sped away from the scene.
Usually the emergency personnel who work accident scenes tell distraught relatives, "He died on impact, he would not have suffered." In this case, I have to live with the thought that he was alive for five hours. I am sure that once the ambulance arrived they must have started some sedation, but ambulances take time to arrive...
::
No doubt any loss of a parent is tough. I was daddy's little girl. He taught me his love for books, and shared his views with me. He did not talk down to me, and took an interest in what I had to say, debated issues and shaped a philosophy, and all this before I was 13 years old.
In the few months immediately before he was killed, our conversations seem to have gained a new dimension. I would like to think he was able to communicate with me on a more adult level - or at least a less childish one.
It hit me hardest in the months following when I would find a passage of interest in a book, glance up at the sunlight on the wall and think: "It's getting close to five o'clock. I must remember to tell this to Pappa when he gets home."
The realization at that time that he is not coming home, will never come home, was shattering.
::
[ meandering ]
Part of the problem I suspect is the lack of ritual in the West. Of course there is a certain almost involuntary rhythm to the events following a death: Shocked relatives and friends coming to the house, staying a while, everyone crying. Then the food starts arriving: Casseroles and soups, masking tape with block printed names on the bottom of the dishes ensuring that each is returned to its rightful owner, and serving as aide-memoire when writing thank you notes. Over the next few days the house empties, with mostly only the food ladies dropping by. On the day of the funeral, again the house is overwhelmed with people, but through the couple of days immediately after, everything returns to normal - or what masquerades as normality.
And that is it. All "ritual" done.
If we had been in India, we would have had a ritual of remembrance every month for the first year. And thereafter every year. Acknowledging what a part they had played in our lives. That we miss them. That we remember them. That we are continuing with our lives.
Now, some years I remember the date some weeks in advance, and/or some weeks later. Mostly I remember the day, but a few times it has passed without my noticing it. I can however never hear the date, no matter what the context, without immediately thinking of him.
::
[ grind ]
Feeling very out of sorts. Part of it no doubt is emotional, but some of it is physical. My body seems hot all over and apart from a headache I have some general feeling of malaise.
Put together some bread dough and punched away some of the ickies. Still snapping at whomever comes within ten feet of me, though. Which only makes me feel worse, of course, and they are naturally feeling horrible after that too, which is worse still and then the emotional issues grow and.... As vicious a circle as any.
I wish I would hurry up and become human again!

2004-09-01T17:55:00.000-07:00

[ meandering ]
The days suddenly seem to have become so short. Then, this morning while checking the day's forecast, I noticed that sunrise was at 6.31 a.m. and sunset at 7.48 p.m. That's 13 hours and 17 minutes of daylight! Some checking around the internet revealed that in all my first 27 years I had never had more than 13:45 of daylight (the length of the day at summer solstice where I grew up). Thus, objectively these days should have seemed very long to me.
And yet, when looking at it more subjectively, I notice that at the summer solstice here it is just a few minutes shy of 16 hours of daylight, and thus in the past couple of months I have lost almost three hours in the day.
Yes I know, I am being far too analytical, but it seems to restore some appearance of control to my life when I can prove that my experience is grounded in reality.
::
[ life ]
When the alarm turns on the radio these days it is still dark outside, although by the time I leave for the lab around 7 a.m. the sun is up properly; Monday's early morning drive to work from the hospital through fog and pre-dawn gloom heralds that which lies in wait for me as winter approaches.
Today was cooler, and started out cloudy, but the promised rain did not materialize (as far as I could see). The wind is blowing quite strongly though, and now the sky is a beautifully crisp blue.
Despite my five years in the States I have not yet acquired the habit of thinking in terms of Memorial Day and Labor Day bracketing summer. I suppose part of the reason is that I have never taken a summer off, even while studying. Also summer is in some ways the season I like least.
I dislike heat, especially when coupled with humidity. Our apartment is a corner unit facing South and West, and in summer it is a heat trap, with the large windows of the bedrooms exposed to the full afternoon sun. So, while I am a little sad to see some of the daylight going, I am welcoming any cooler days with open arms.
::

[ vistas ]

And with Labor Day just around the corner, I can see definite signs of approaching Fall. The trees lining the picture windows all along the lab are fully laden with berries - still green at this stage - and the trees out in the parking lot are starting to get tinged with red, like maidenly blushes, on one side.
At lunch I grabbed the camera and headed outside. It was still overcast, but quite bright, and I snapped a few pictures. As I walked back, I noticed the big old tree on the little rise had some large pale flowers. I don't normally pass it on my way in to work, and hadn't noticed the flowers before. I went clambering around and up to get a closer shot at it, and John told me it was a dogwood. He mentioned that they don't normally flower this late in the season, speculating that it was a sign of distress.
::
[ grind ]
I am still having difficulty shaking this sluggish feeling. At first I thought it was just the anxiety over mpo's procedure. Then I wondered if I could be coming down with something, especially with the touch of sore throat and earache I've experienced. Now I am considering other options. When I am interacting with someone, at work or at home, I can feel quite normal and even animated. As soon as the interaction is complete, it feels as if a weight is pulling down at my shoulders, making it tough to move or even think.
I hope the break in routine with the long weekend and our trip afterwards will help me snap out of it. It might help also if I could get some decent sleep!

2004-08-31T21:10:00.000-07:00

[ work ]
Functioned on auto pilot most of the day. Most things felt as if they were happening to someone else, and I was just the observer. A couple of times I was surprised to find myself speaking up in the meetings I had, as if my conscious self was lagging a few seconds. At one stage my boss was impressing the importance of something on the meeting, and I felt my face move into a smile as I recalled something else, and found him speaking to me, the way you do when you find a seemingly responsive member of the audience.
Actually did get some useful work done, but also banged my head against a brick wall on something. I'll try again tomorrow to find someone who might have a solution for me.
The highlight of the work day was a quick visit by a colleague's wife and their five month old daughter. The sweetie has the most amazing curly light hair and a very definite structure to her face. She is about ten weeks older than our family's little one, so she provides an interesting indication of where we are heading next.
::
[ home ]
I actually left the office today 8.5 hours after arriving. Usually I arrive between 7 and 7.30 a.m. and leave somewhere around 5 p.m. Which is silly, of course, because the reason I go so early is that I can leave earlier.
My precious one was discharged from hospital this morning, and Nini brought him home. Again, while I knew at some rational level that he was fine, I could not relax until I reached home, and saw him, so normal and natural in his usual surroundings, back in his regular flannel pants and comfy shirt.
Spent what was left of the afternoon just being with him, reading companionably, cuddling gingerly.

2004-08-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

[ family ]
There are certain times when an ache in some muscles might surprise you, cause you to wonder "Now where could I have..." only to interrupt yourself with an "Oh yeah..." of dawning understanding and a smile of quiet reminiscence. For the rest of the day, every time the muscle(s) complain, the pleasant memories flood back of the activity that required such unusual exertion.
This Monday morning, the ache was mostly in my biceps, and the "Aha" was the recollection of the little one eventually falling asleep, face down, straddling my arm. She slept for almost two hours, through the latter part of our meal and our subsequent browsing in the magical educational toystore, and through the occasional shifting from arm to arm to evenly distribute the strain.
::
[ grind ]
And I truly needed these momentary smiles this morning. There was the vague feeling of unease, the subtle coiling of tension in the pit of my stomach. Whenever someone would greet me with a cheery "How are you?" I would be tempted to answer sincerely, letting it all spill out but instead replying with the expected "Fine, and you?"
I even started fooling myself, and ignored my own clock watching, until my sister called to hear if there had been any news. I could barely speak to her, did not want to speak to her. Didn't have any news, was terrified that she had had some news, and did not want to sit through her bumbling attempts to make me (and herself) feel better. Did not, in fact, want to be responsible for anyone else's feeling better. And despite the fact that the call waiting results in a loud, insistent external ring, was irrationally afraid that a vital call from the hospital would find my line engaged and I would miss it. Both of us would scoff at superstition, yet both of us carefully skirted around words, choosing our language hesitantly, clumsily, until she slipped and said "if anything happened" and desperately tried to make it better and just made it worse and the anxiety until now coiled quietly reared up and shoved its head against my heart, pushing it up into my throat and choking off my breath while hearing my heartbeat reverberate in my head.
We are too close, and we have survived tragedies and devastation such as no child should experience. I learnt the hard way that and not even the fact that we were both there for one another could stop the unthinkable from happening to us.
::
[ the wait ]
Propped myself up on one elbow to squint through the darkness over mpo's form at the glowing digits of the clock radio. With a start, I sat upright and woke him. It's 5.30 already! He had set the alarm for 5.00 p.m. by mistake.
We reached the hospital just after 6 a.m. and went through the admission process. I was being torn apart inside when I left, but going to work in the morning while he would be busy and taking the afternoon to be with him until he is released and then get him settled at home made much more sense.
The way to work took me through the store-lined street, a different route than I normally take. The early morning gloom with all the disembodied lights, and a light fog that did not hinder driving, but gave interesting depth and layers to the trees beyond the road.
Waiting for the phone to ring from the hospital, watching the clock tick over on the computer, checking my watch, checking the clock on the phone's display, wondering why it is getting so late and no word yet.
When it did ring it was almost eleven. The number of the incoming call was one I did not know. My throat so tight, I don't know how I managed to squeeze out the words. It's my precious one. He is not getting discharged this afternoon; they had to go ahead and perform an angioplasty and place some stents. He needs to be in hospital over night. He says all is well, he feels fine.
I am trembling, relieved, worried, anxious. Tried to make myself stay at work until 11.30 (which would be 5 hours) but couldn't manage it. Anyway I was doing the same piece of work over and over again, forgetting where I got last time, like reading the same paragraph three times and still not knowing what it said.
::
[ hospital ]
He is smiling. He has no pain. He is hooked up to an IV and an automatic blood pressure monitor. He is not allowed to lift his head until four hours after the procedure, nor to cross his ankles.
He looks so ... tiny, so frail amid the white of the sheets and the white of the covers and the pale of the walls and the white of the gown.
He says he is feeling fine, but the lines on his face seems deeper and his eyelids somehow heavier.
They are giving him diuretics to flush the iodine out of his system and an intravenous solution to keep blood clots from forming at the stents they have placed inside his arteries. As before, the first thing any of the nursing staff asks when they enter the room is about the level of his pain. As before they appear continually astounded when he assures them that he has no pain at all.

Lunch arrives: Canned tomato soup, and a greasy toasted cheese sandwich made with processed cheese. He still is not allowed to lift his head, so I help. He can take the sandwich cut in smaller triangles in his hand. The soup I have to spoon feed, to someone completely horizontal. The soup is so thick it stays on the spoon until he has to lick it off. Fed him an entire bowl of pinkish-reddish orange tomato soup and not a speck of it on the sheets. Wonder what that would do to your insides.
The guy in the other bed is discharged sometime during the afternoon. During their joint stay in the room, the curtain between the beds had been drawn. When general conversations are taking place on either side, both sides of the curtain keep the volume relatively low. When something important is going on, the other side respectfully keeps quiet; pretending that every word cannot be heard and that no-one is listening anyway.
::
The afternoon slips into that curious hospital rhythm. Lazy conversation, punctuated by someone entering either to do something to the room, or do something to the patient. While he has to lie flat, and with the IV needle in his hand, he can't read his book. So I start reading aloud, a pleasure we frequently enjoy when we have the time. A mystery novel, British police procedural actually, it has some racy bits in the beginning as one of the characters fantasize about another.
Soon after this passage, the nurse appears to note his blood pressure. The systolic pressure is up by 32 over his earlier reading. I'm starting to doubt the wisdom of reading to him in his condition. As the afternoon progresses, my theory is debunked, however. His blood pressure keeps going up and down with no relation to the reading of the book.
::
Dinner has problems. He can sit up and eat by himself now, only to lift the lid and discover: Meatloaf!
The lunch card had VEGETARIAN stamped on it in blue. I check the dinner card - no such indication. I take the plate to the nursing station, make sure they change the entry to "Vegetarian, no meat, no eggs. Dairy OK." Then we wait for the replacement to arrive. Actually, the fact that he had to wait is not too bad. They brought dinner around 5.15 p.m. - much too early for him in general. The garden burger arrived around 6 p.m. If I remember correctly, that's the same thing they fed him for dinner last time he stayed in hospital. Either coincidence, or they just don't know what to feed vegetarians.
::

The room faces West. The sun is setting when the nursing shift changes. When the new CNA comes in to introduce herself and record his vital signs, I am contorting myself at the window frame trying to capture the way the light reflected off the black metal window frames of the wing to our South.
::

[ meandering ]
The full moon was yellow tonight. Or rather the color of well-aged manuscript. It hung, improbably suspended and huge, seemingly just outside arm's reach above the road. The road keeps twisting back and forth, so at one moment the orb is framed by the dark forms of the trees lining the street,

and the next it is darting teasingly out of the way to hide among their branches, coyly staying beyond the traveler's grasp.
I drive, mesmerized by the sight, keeping track of the tail lights ahead only peripherally. On nights like this I can understand the power the moon have exerted on the imagination and lives of people, before we had filled the night with artificial lights and started holding people's minds captive with television.

I'm exhausted, drained, relieved that my precious one is doing well, and feeling utterly guilty for not staying beyond 9 p.m. And no matter how much I rationalize it, listing the reasons for leaving, like the necessity of going to work in the morning, the frowning of the hospital staff, the torture of the chair in the room, the fact that he really is fine - I just can't stop feeling bad about leaving him there, lost in the white.

2004-08-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

[ meandering ]
I wonder whether there is an actual biological basis for the visceral reaction many people have to babies. Now, I admit that the theory breaks down when you consider the number of people that profess to be impervious to kids, or even to dislike them. But many of us go all coochie-coo when there is a baby around. And I have been noticing (with a special interest as an oldest child myself) how people gravitate toward the youngest infant around. If there's a six year-old in the company, it is sure to be doted on, until a four year-old shows up and grabs the attention, who in turn can't hold a candle to a year-old starting to toddle around, but who has to play second fiddle when there's a three month-old baby around.
I guess it is related to our protective instincts in some way; we react to those who need us most.

[ family ] But that seems a rather mundane explanation for the deep, quiet joy I experience when I feel the soft warm weight of a little one
	sleeping on me, or smell a little head at the crown. It is a feeling complete in and of itself. Which is my circumlocutious way to say that I enjoyed the lunch with the little one beyond measure, as I did the extended tag-team hide-and-seek and olympic tickle-wresting match with my 3.5 yo niece later in the afternoon.

2004-08-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

What is it about city weddings?
[ meandering ]
The feeling you get when you stumble unexpectedly across a wedding party amid the mundane self-centredness of the city? Like this one I grabbed while waiting at the light, six p.m. on this late summer Saturday outside a boutique hotel.
Of course, part of it is easily explained: it is unusual and therefore weird. But the feeling goes beyond that - at least it does for me. It is almost as if the wedding party exists within their own time, their own world. For while they are in the city, for this period at least they are focused on something beyond, or perhaps within. And they are set apart, not only by the anachronistic yet splendid attire, but also by their purpose, their occasion, their emotion.

So for me, the passing moments of witnessing a wedding

in the midst of a big city is like a fleeting glimpse through a peephole into a parallel universe; one that looks very much like our own, but where people and their concerns are different. And that momentary intersection of the two leaves me feeling nostalgic with a kernel of unexpected joy, a little sad and envious to be part of something wonderful, and slightly disoriented.
::

[ vistas ]
Last night I did not drive to the restaurant; a change, which allowed me the opportunity to wave the camera around in the back seat. I love the views from the many bridges, but it is tough to get decent shots. For one thing, you are always moving too fast, (except of course when you are doing the driving, when you are sure to be stuck in a traffic jam), and for another the bridge superstructure (almost) always gets in the shot.
But last night "almost" was my friend, and I got a clear shot of the mountain, with the red beams of the next bridge over grounding it. After five years here the evening sunlight still amazes me. Growing up we would never have dreamt of light much beyond six p.m.

2004-08-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

After a very inauspicious beginning, the day did not turn out too badly.
[ the society ]
Despite the fact that we started half-an-hour late, we got a tremendous amount of work done. Most of the key officers were present, and the entire E-Board were there; all of us seem committed and full of ideas.
On a personal note, most of my suggestions were well received, and seemed to spark fresh perspectives. As expected, raising diversity issues were rather more cautiously received, although a lot of constructive suggestions were made, including undergoing diversity training as a Board so that none of us inadvertently blunder and worsen matters in sincere attempts at outreach and inclusion.
The budget was surprisingly well received, with an appreciation for the reasons changes were made, and only one piece of "lively discussion" ensued toward the end, which we managed to resolve in an adult fashion.
Drawing up the budget and fielding requests for funds will remain tough; where I can see merit I would be inclined to grant reasonable requests for funds, had it not been for my predecessor's eloquent and impassioned exhortations to see the money as something entrusted to the future of the society, raised by extremely hard work by our predecessors for that purpose, and impressing on me that we have a duty to ensure that we have funds to continue operations ahead.
It was heartening to see the sincerity with which everyone tackled the issue of fund raising - without a concerted effort our Scholarship Fund would be in severe trouble, unable to fund a full set in three years.
::
[ grind ]
But back to the start - or almost non-start. Previous trips to that part of town had demonstrated that I could make the twenty-odd mile journey in around half-an-hour; so allowing roughly forty minutes for the journey seemed fair enough. Until of course I hit the summer roadworks.
Crossing the second river, the Interstate was cut down to a crawling single lane, to join another choking single lane spurring off I-84, and forced to an utter standstill by a final reduction to (you guessed it) a single lane where there would normally be four - everyone of which would be well-used. This continued until the exit three miles before mine, when finally the road opened up, too late to do anything about the time.
Sitting on the bridge, with no idea what was going on ahead, but seeing the lanes move by inches per minute, I started getting more and more distressed as my carefully timed scheduled was choked off by traffic jams. Until I finally made peace with the fact that there was nothing that I could do, I was going to be solidly late no matter what I try, and that at this stage there were no alternatives.
::
[ meandering ]
I guess part of the reason I get so tense about punctuality goes back to primary school days. Pappa used to drop me at school, but as school started at 7.40 a.m. and he did not have to be at work (fewer than five minutes drive from there), before 8 a.m. he had no incentive to make it on time for me; in his eyes getting there within the general vicinity of 7.40 was good enough.
Unfortunately the same was not true for the little jobsworths at school. Give 30 7th graders each a title (school prefect) and some authority to ensure the compliance of the student body with the rules, and you will have created at least a handful of tyrannical monsters. It seemed to me that the majority of my school days started with my frantic running, school case bouncing in my hand, the skirt of my uniform jumper flapping around my pumping legs, praying desperately that the shrill bell would still be trilling when I joined my class ranks at Assembly on the Quad.
If it had stopped, I would be pulled out of the ranks, given a stern talking-to for being late (generally in a humiliating fashion) or even, if I was late enough, be made to wait anxiously with other tardy students to see the teacher in charge of these kind of disciplinary matters.
And what could I say when asked why I was late? "My father dropped me off a little late." Which would get the reply that I should ask/tell him to be sure to drop me off sooner. Which at home would result basic incomprehension and head-shaking at the pettiness of little school officials - which was quite correct, but was hardly the kind of response I could carry back to school! And how could I make them understand that I would be ready well in advance, would try to complete little chores my father usually performed to help him get done earlier, would get into the car and wait - and wait and wait - or stand hopping on one leg, school case banging against my leg, begging and whining at my dad to get going.
It is not that he was cruel or uncaring; it was just something he had never experienced, and could not conceive of the anxiety and desperation brought on by a situation outside of my control met by continuous negative reinforcement.
::
[ restaurant ]
We went to India House for dinner, even made reservations! I was starving after the meeting, despite the sandwich lunch. (Nice try at being "gourmet deli" but ended up just being weird and unusual.)
We were surprised by the fact that while they were busy, they were not as absolutely jam-packed with several parties waiting as they had been that Monday evening that SR and RK had just arrived in the States, and TK was about to leave. So the table with the little "Reserved" sign was one of maybe four empty tables, where last time we had to wait more than half an hour to get seated.
The service tonight had also been much improved and the food arrived quite timeously. And it was still excellent, although a little short on salt tonight (easily enough rectifiable). The thalis were very mild, and would be the only real criticism that I would have of the meal. All in all this place serves the nicest North Indian meals I have encountered here; none of the overpowering cloves-cinnamon-bay leaf combination that so dominates the standard Indian-for-Western-palates here in America.
::
[ family ]
Tomorrow we'll lunch with mpo's son & co. I am so looking forward to seeing my granddaughter again. She'll be 2.5 months tomorrow, and I'm still getting a kick out of people's reactions when I mention her. The double-take and drastic reassessment of my age is classic, before I explain that she is actually "step," and that her father is closer to my age!
And of course, she is gorgeous, and has the most wonderful parents in the world (and the universe's sexiest Thathayya (grampa))

2004-08-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

[ grind ]
End of a long work week. I still haven't made time to grab my camera and catch the (for me) unusual mushrooms/toadstools next to the stairs just outside our lab. I've noticed some progressive curling - which makes it more interesting visually - but likely also heralds the passage of time and deterioration of the fungi.
I'll head out there as soon as I finish this! (Well, at least I think I shall.)
::
[ the society ]
Tomorrow will be busy with the Board's Planning Retreat. I have completed the "standard" Proposed Budget, and I have "my" version at least half done - there will probably be some ruffled feathers out there, but we have to make a concerted effort to let the society become more dynamic, and this should steer us toward that goal. Of course, as one of the new Board members I will have to tread softly at first, and see how things work, rather than try to impose my will. But I feel strongly that we have a function to fulfil and members and a community who need us to be proactive.
::
[ family ]
Monday is my precious one's angiogram. While he would not go under general anesthesia, and while the previous procedure had had no problems, I am always tense when he has to undergo any invasive procedure. A call from the Interventional Radiologists' office this morning surprised us with the news that the procedure will be at 8 a.m. with check in at 6 a.m. We were initially made to understand that check in itself would only be at 8 a.m. Well, in some respects it is good news, because it will allow me to see him to hospital and get him settled, then get to work until noon. I've arranged for the afternoon off to spend with him - the period when boredom sets in after all the fussing around him is done.
::
[ work/friends ]
D. came in today to pick up a few of her things. Unfortunately her health situation is such that it it seems unlikely she would ever return full time. The volunteer service team to which we belong would like to arrange a lunch or dinner with her, but I needed to ensure that it would be within her physical and emotional capabilities. She seemed pleased as punch, highly enthusiastic. She is such a vibrant person that the enforced slowing down must be difficult for her. She also seemed very keen on the idea of a scrapbooking evening at her place. Saves her having to pack up all her stuff and schlepp it somewhere, and we can clean up after ourselves and make the evening a pleasant experience for her.
::
[ friends ]
The guys are off to Seattle this weekend. It is RK's last weekend in the US, so he wanted to squeeze this trip in. After this it will be only SR - he is more quiet and less outgoing than his roommate, so we would have to make sure he doesn't get too isolated. Being stuck without a car in America is truly no fun.
::
[ life ]
I verified today that I can take the three days off from Sept. 8-10. Our tickets to Sacramento are booked, and now it is just a case of finding reasonable hotels around San Francisco, digging for our maps of the same, making some prioritized lists of things to do, and then letting some of our friends in the Bay know that we are on our way :-) Taking the whole family along there is no way that we can scrounge a bed/couch/floor from someone - not with three adults and a three year-old.
Bad news is that we have to fly on "that" day - already we come in for extra scrutiny, mpo especially; I can't imagine what it would be like then. But Alaska has the special for Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday flights only; we need a special if all four of us is to fly, and my vacation time is still so limited that I can't afford to take any more time off. Especially since we are required to use three days of our own vacation for the forced December holidays closure.

Aah well, enough griping for now - a-mushroom-hunting we shall go!
::

And DID go in fact. So after all, I'm not a total procrastinator. I think...