Fruit of labor

The first ripe tomato...

...with promise of lot more to come:
I don't know how much of it was imagination. But I sure thought that the tiny ripe tomato packed quite a punch and tasted absolutely delicious :-)!

Each time someone totally unexpected asks me how my tomatoes are doing, I realize all over again as to just how many people I have told about my "gardening" and my tomato plant. Almost as bad as a grandmother telling about her grand-kids to one and all without being asked :-).

In spite of all the interest shown in the status of the plant as well as in tasting future tomato fruits, no one has yet shown any interest in my suggestion of supplying tomatoes in return for being invited to meals consisting of tomato-based dishes. I wonder why :-P! However, many people did suggest that I could make that meal and invite them over. Tsk, tsk, no respect for the gardener!

And yup, the joy of seeing my plants every morning and evening has not yet begin to pall :-).

Miracle

I had to share! Here are the first tomatoes (yes, yes, there is more than one :-D) on my tomato plant peeking out:

Snippets

My garden
Yeah, yeah, my flowers are doing good :-D. My patio has a lovely splash of color to it now. It is awesome to get up sleepily in the morning and see all that brightness. Touch wood!


And, surprise, surprise. My tomato plant is now blooming flowers. Yes, it really is. Hopefully I will also get to see tomatoes. I am keeping my fingers crossed (besides watering the plant regularly and trying to make sure it gets enough sunlight, which I suppose, will help the plant a lot more).



p.s. The pictures were taken during night. It looks a whole lot better in daylight :-)!

Hiking
I went on another hike this past weekend. Around eight miles or so round trip (yaay, I am improving :-D). Guess what, right at the very beginning of the trail, we saw a snake. About 3-4 feet long with a rather enthralling diamond hatch pattern on its skin. It lazily slithered across the trail, about a feet away from where we stood. To my credit, I did not run screaming back to the car. Nevertheless, from that point, I exclusively focused my eyes on the ground. The last thing I wanted to happen was a snake to wrap itself around my ankles while I busily admired some vista! Fortunately, after that, though we saw a lot of chameleons and a few deers, we did not run into any more snakes. Phew!

Exemplary planning
Yesterday, we had a farewell lunch for my colleague N who is returning to her home country. About a dozen of us were going for it in three different cars besides N herself who was planning to come from her home. The venue was popular Indian restaurant ABC. The car in which I went left work a bit behind the others. When we finally reached ABC, it was strangely deserted but for the other two cars filled with my colleagues. Apparently restaurant ABC is closed on Mondays! Darn.

So we decided to go to Indian restaurant XYZ instead as it was close by. After calling N to inform her of the change in venue, the procession set off again. When we arrived at XYZ, I had a feeling of deja-vu: deserted parking lot with only two cars filled with my colleagues. Apparently restaurant XYZ is also closed on Mondays!

At this point, my stomach was already beginning to digest itself in hunger. Everyone was no longer finding this knocking on various restaurant doors funny. So Indian restaurants were dumped as food choices and we finally wound up at a Chinese vegan place (of course, after calling them and making sure they were open). Who would have thought finding a place for lunch would turn out to be such a non-trivial task.

p.s. I was supposed to be the coordinator for that event :-D! Thankfully, I was not beaten up by anybody in a hungered craze. Note to self: Even if you know that a restaurant does not take reservations, at least call to find out if it is open on the said date.

Gotcha :-P!
Nopes, I have not forgotten about the Utah trip. I finally got the pictures yesterday - yaaay :-D! I will write my story soon. If not for anything else, the pictures look so awesome, I simply HAVE to show them off :-D!

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.