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.

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 :-).

A too green thumb

A couple of weeks back, the green bug bit me yet again and I went and bought a whole bunch of plants for my patio garden. Among my planting ambitions was growing coriander from seeds. According to the directions on the packet in which the seeds came, the seedlings would sprout within two weeks. So I planted the seeds in a pot along with planting the other plants (tomato, capsicum, Thai chilli, egg plant and two flowering plants - california poppy and geraniums - ambitious, ambitious, I know!).

Me being a very protective and caring plant "mother", I began every morning by watering my plants assiduously. However, after more than one and a half weeks, there was absolutely no sign of any activity in the coriander pot though the other plants seemed to be doing okay - touch wood.

Then one day last week I was discussing with a colleague at work about plants and she mentioned that it was watering day for her plants. Huh - watering day? Isn't *every* day watering day? And she said, "Oh no, though I drench the soil completely when I water my plants, I water them once a week only". I doubtfully asked her if her plants did not wilt and die due to this neglect. She replied that they were doing fine and in fact an avid gardener friend of hers had told her that once a week was plenty enough water unless it was very hot weather.

Hmm. Hardening my heart, I decided to neglect my "babies" and decided to keep the watering jug away the next morning. The next evening, my skeptical self was surprised to find that the all the plants looked fine in spite of not getting any water in the morning.

The day after that that, I once again skipped the watering. Later that day, late noon, I stepped into my patio to see how my plants were doing. Surprise, surprise, not one, not two but six seedlings had popped out of the coriander pot!
O boy, I had been drowning the poor seeds all the previous days and no wonder they could not put their heads up! What's more, my tomato plant had grown two more new branches, all the other plants had put forth lots of new leaves too.

Meanwhile I had consulted the Google God. Yup, more people kill their plants by anbu thollai* a.k.a over watering than by under-watering! And there was no need to water plants as long as the top one inch of soil had moisture in it.

Ah.

Oh well, you live and you learn. Here's to hoping my darling plants will not be the guinea pigs for too many experiments!

*anbu thollai roughly translates to trouble brought on by too much love.

Tomato Tomaato - how does it matter!

You probably need to be able to follow Tamil to fully understand this post!

Yesterday, I was browsing at the library when my cell phone rang. It was my friend V. After general pleasantries, this is how the conversation went:

V: Hey, yesterday I went to Molly.

Me (thinking it is a new night club or something): Really, where is it?

V: No yaar, I went to see Molly.

Me (puzzled - we don't have any common friend named Molly): Okaaaay - but who is Molly?

V: Aaaargh, no man - I went to watch Molly. You know that Tamil movie you mentioned, with Jyothika as heroine and all?

Me: Ooooh, you mean the movie Mozhi - haahahahahahahahhahahahahah!

V (unable to see what is so funny): Yeah, that's what I said, Molly. Anyways, what I wanted to know..... (conversation continued).

You see, V is a native Telugu speaker and does not know a lot of Tamil, much less know how to differentiate between the famous Tamil 'zh' and 'la'. Hence, his brand "new" name for the movie. Still, apparently he and his friends decided to watch the movie because the Telugu movie they had originally gone to see had "flop" written all over it. And what's more, they all had enjoyed Mozhi a lot, inspite of it having no sub-titles and thus not being able to follow the entire climax scene (to clarify which he had called me up).

Ah, good movies - don't they transcend language barriers!

The non-hanging garden of my patio.

Swish, swish. There, I just brushed off the last of the dust from the cave I had crawled into for the past few weeks. I have been super-duper busy. Before you roll eyes and go, "Yeah, right", for a change, this is not the usual self-important sounding excuse. I was actually busy. To all the readers (actually make that reader, singular) who worried about me: I am doing fine :-)! Things are now almost back to normal and I am all set to be a glittering part of your lives again. Woohoo or groan, whichever!

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'Tis the season to garden. This year I have gotten super ambitious. Yesterday's trip to OSH saw me return with a tomato plant, a yolo pepper plant, mint plants, two different varieties of flowering plants and a big bag of Supersoil. It was only while I was planting that I realized that I did not have enough soil for all the plants. Also, I had two empty pots left even after all the plants had found a home. Some googling also informed me that the pot in which I planted the pepper was too small for it. So much for claiming to be a seasoned gardener.

This morning I remedied the situation by repairing back to OSH and buying additional soil, a bigger pot and some more flowering plants for the empty pots. This is how my patio looks currently.


I solicit all unoccupied fingers you may have to cross them on my garden's behalf and wish for the healthy growth of my plants. Thank you!

Yesterday was also the day when, after a long period of not seeing any water except for the excess water draining from the plant pots, the patio was washed and cleaned. My poor back stands (or rather curves) testimony to that. Groan.

Oh well, anything for my garden.

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!

Miracle

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

Miracle on Flight 160

Last week early noon on Friday, I set off to the airport from work. This time, the destination was Miami, Florida. My colleague N dropped me off at the airport. As a part of my usual preparation for long flights, I bought food at the airport - a nice plain bagel sandwich filled with sun-dried tomato spread and veggies. I decided to eat it on the flight (to while away an extra fifteen minutes on my pretty long flight to Houston where the layover was).

Reading my book and observing other passengers helped me easily while away time till boarding. Soon after taking off and reaching cruising altitude, I pulled out my sandwich and smugly ate it even as they announced something about the complimentary beverage service on the flight. All satiated, I settled back into my economy-class seat while the beverage cart trundled past my row.

Then, up ahead, I could hear the stewardess say to a passenger "Would you like pizza?". Huh? Pizza? Oh, maybe we had to pay for it. But then, before my disbelieving eyes, the airhostess handed out hot pizza, a box of salad and a chocolate bar to all passengers!

Yes, they were serving actual food on the plane. My jaws dropped open. This is the first time this event is happening to me on a US-domestic flight since the meal I got on a flight in the summer of 2002. Miracles will never cease. In a daze, I took the pizza and salad my neighbor passed to me.

Of course at that point, I was already stuffed with my bagel sandwich. But then, you don't say no to miracles. So I dutifully finished half of the mini-pizza and most of the salad.

In case you are wondering which airlines performed this miracle, it is Continental Airlines. A word of caution though, it is quite possible that this miraculous event happens around Christmas time only. So don't blame me if your next Continental flight kindly offers you "a beverage of your choice" (and only a beverage of your choice) for your 4+ hour flight!

Anyways, my stop-over was in Houston. I continued my reading/observing activities at the Houston airport while waiting for D to turn up. D was flying in from Seattle and by happy coincidence we had got the same connecting flight from Houston to Fort Lauderdale (FLL).

D arrived and within the first few minutes of our meeting excitedly told me about how she had got an actual "meal" on her flight (she had flown on Continental too) - LOL - so I wasn't the only heathen disbeliever :-))! Anyways, we then had dinner (just to clarify, I might be a glutton but in this case, a significant amount of time had elapsed since the lunch miracle) and boarded our flight to FLL.

We had, of course, been chattering non-stop all the while till then. Boarding the flight changed nothing and we kept up a constant flow of conversation without wasting a single minute on the 2 hour flight :-)) - it was super fun catching up!

Our arrival at FLL happened past midnight. The first thing which struck me when we got off the flight was the blast of warm air which hit us. Warm air at midnight in winter? Uh-huh, maybe I should not have packed quite as many full-hand shirts as I had. Oh well, it was too late to start having those reflections.

We picked up D's checked-in baggage and then proceeded to pick up our rental car. From there to the hotel in Miami was a not bad 25 minute trip. Our hotel was bang in the middle of downtown Miami and we got a room right on the 22nd floor where the view of the downtown was super awesome :-D!

The beautifully lit up Bank of America (BoA) building. Note the golden snow flakes - the flakes alone were no longer lit-up after Christmas!

Another view of nighttime downtown Miami.

The same view in day time.

And, two of the three travelling musketeers had arrived :-).