Friday, May 18, 2007

Archana's fables - 1

Who said only Aesop could come up with moral-worthy fables? I can too! At any rate, I claim I can :-P.

Haste makes waste.

Two days ago, I was in a rush to get out of the house and on to work. In case you are wondering, no, I am not one of those "Wheee, I LOVE going to work" types - just that I prefer to get going as soon as I am ready. Before leaving, as per my usual routine, I picked up my cup of turmeric milk*, all warm and ready, from the microwave. Impatiently, I started to drink it. Or at least, that's what I wanted to do. Instead, in my haste, I managed to spill some of the contents onto my shirt.

Now, my most favoritest white shirt in the world had two smudges of bright yellow right on the front. Oh CRAP! There was no way I could let this wait for later. The stain would set in - besides, turmeric is well known for its limpet-like properties when it comes to staining. So I had to rush to the restroom, find the stain remover, spray it on, wait for it to work, then wash off the stain with warm water and then use the hair dryer to dry my shirt - yeah, I was still wearing it. And THEN head to work. In the process of trying to save myself 10 seconds, I had managed to add an additonal 10 minutes :-((!

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Think before you buy

After my good experience with "gardening" last year, I decided to buy some plants this year too. So the past weekend, I went plant shopping and chose my usual zinnias. Then I noticed that organic tomato plants were on sale too. Immediately, my head filled with visions of plump, ripe, red tomatoes growing in my patio. And visions me making tomato rasam, tomato kurma, tomato sandwiches.... all with tomatoes from my own "garden". Ah, nice!

So I decided to make an impulse buy and put a tomato plant in my shopping cart. And then added additional soil and a big pot to grow my tomatoes. Once I got back home at noon, I got busy potting all my plants. In the evening, I spoke to two different friends on the phone and I excitedly told them about my new tomato plant. The first question I got from both was: "Really? Tomatoes can be grown in pots? Isn't it supposed to be a vine?"

Uh-huh! Good question! I was so super confident of my gardening abilities that I had not even bothered to find out the requirements for growing a tomato plant :-(. Now, I have decided to see how well the plant thrives on my patio. Else I am planning to donate it to a friend who has a proper backyard. Of course, I plan to make sure that I get at least half the harvest tomatoes.

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p.s. 1: I just read that blogger has started auto-saving drafts. Woohoo! No more lost posts. Yaaay :-D!

p.s. 2: This post title is numbered. After all, Aesop too did tell more than two fables :-P!

* In case you didn't know, turmeric milk is very good at warding off colds. Recipe: Mix one cup milk + 1/4 tsp turmeric + 1/2 tsp black pepper + sugar to taste and heat for a minute and a half in microwave oven. Tip: Put it as much pepper and turmeric as you can stand.

12 comments:

Vishesh said...

don't worry tomatoes grow in pots.....we used to have it...you won't get as many as if you do it in the ground..but you will get them...so give it a go :)


as for the drink...they make it worst here...put all kinds of stuff and call it some kinda tea...phew...

ACE !! said...

Tomatoes are vines?? Hmm.. news to me.. we had tomato plants in our garden in india..

Good luck... Err.. i m wishing the tomato plants.. :D :D

rads said...

Very good girl :-p

One more on tomato - pots do fine, just buy a tomato cage that holds the plant up. or the plant will grow on the ground with the sheer weight of your juicy red fat tomatoes ;-))

Archana Bahuguna said...

Turmeric milk? You have guts to drink that. :-) Hope your shirt stain is all gone! Otherwise the whites are really difficult.

And good luck with your tomato plant. If it does grow up well, post a pic! :-)

Sajith said...

Three things to learn from this post...
1. no haste no waste
2. think before u buy
and the most imp
3. recipe - turmeric milk...
;)

Ginkgo said...

here is a new fable for you..
Let someone else do the honors first..

as in drinking your recipe first...:-)

Jeez...black pepper...u want to sneeze me to death or wat

Anonymous said...

Haha nice ones! :--) Waiting for more.

Archana said...

Thanks for all the tips about growing tomatoes, folks :-)! I bought a bigger pot as well as a cage for the plant. Now am watering it daily and encouraging it to grow :-))!

Vishesh - thanks for the info :-))! LOL, I thought they called it kashayam!

Ace - hmm, everyone seems to have grown tomatoes! I know, they need all the luck they can get :-)!

Rads - thanks for the tip :-))!

Archana - Yup, stain went off (yaay) - I sure hope I have sth picture-worthy!

Sajith - lol :-)!

Ginkgo - I asked you to drink it, not sniff it :-P!

Saranya - heheh :-))!

Vishesh said...

kashayam! is the yuckier version...usually given to very small kids i think....thank fully now days we all are spared...my father used to joke i was my grand moms' and moms' specimen to test new stuff on...argh!

Prabhu said...

kadasila antha tomato chedi ennaachu?

Archana said...

Vishesh - lol :-) - so you were the guinea pig, huh?

Prabhu - photo pottutein, paathuko :-)!

Anonymous said...

Archana ...." Do What Others Won't Do is the secret of success in life.." is my favorite idiom...