andamu

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.
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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.
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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.

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.
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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.
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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!

"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."

Some statements for the defence: we're vegetarian, so we don't eat red meat (or white meat, or fish for that matter). This little extravaganza is in comparison to the standard omnivore's entire weekly animal fat and meat intake.

Also, this is a made-up recipe. Use this as a general guideline; it certainly is not a precise set of instructions.

Asparagus and Brie Quiche

• Heat a little oil in a skillet, and add a sliced green chilli, or a dried red chilli broken in thirds. (Chilli flakes, powder or cayenne pepper are alternatives, or omit entirely).
  
• Optionally add ground cumin and whole celery seeds.
  
• Add and sauté chopped onion.
  
• When glassy, add cooked asparagus, sliced in 1 to 1.5 inch lengths. (In a pinch tinned asparagus will do).
  
• Add Colman's Hot English Mustard powder (I use about 1/3 tsp), salt and black pepper to taste.
  
• When the onions start to take on color and the asparagus is heated through, add chunks of Brie and keep on gentle heat until it melts and is mixed in. (Purists can go home now.)
  
• Transfer to an ovenproof dish - I use Corningware.
  
• Cut hard goat cheese in 1/2 inch cubes, and place at random in the mixture (or dot the mixture with soft goat cheese, less pungent but richer).
  
• Beat whole eggs with milk or half-and-half. The ratio is about 2 parts milk to one part eggs (by volume). The amount will depend on how much you are making. The liquid should come up perhaps an inch above the surface of the veg mixture.
  
• Sprinkle chilli flakes over the top (optional) and bake in a preheated oven (350 F) until the "custard" is cooked. (I start checking after 40 minutes, but it usually takes around an hour.)
  

Best served with a green salad and warm rustic bread.

The sky was that deep night-time blue when I left the lab around 6.30 a few evenings ago.
In the distance there was a sound like the honkings of a flock of wild geese flying in low formation.
In the sky, in the direction of the sound but far far up, blinked the light of a passenger plane, creating the illusion that the plane was honking, or that the geese had a lantern bearer.
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Not that it could have been geese in the first place - I don't think. End of January should still be too early for them to return.
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Driving to work yesterday a group of maybe thirty little birds swirling in that disconcerting fashion where the entire flock suddenly banks and take off in a random direction, at times turning in on itself, and all perfectly orchestrated.
And then they disappeared only to reappear the next moment 30 feet up and right, but now a smaller flock, perhaps two-thirds of the first.
Unable to make the image work logically, I feverishly considered alternatives, including teleportation.
Then the first group rematerialized - must have turned their smallest profiles toward me, into the sun, just as the second group moved out of the sun and banked.
They joined up with a much larger flock that suddenly became visible, went through a few more random moves in perfect synchronization, and then settled on the various crossbars of a huge pylon, looking for all the world like moss on a tree.

I was surprised to realize how much of a creature of habit I have become. Even a small alteration in my daily routine can throw me off balance.

For the past couple of days I attended a workshop at a location perhaps five minutes from the lab. No computer access. And my regular sequence of tasks just collapsed.

Well, to be fair perhaps a little bit of the blame needs to be ascribe to this importune cold that I have been fighting. I haven't been dangerously ill, just thoroughly irritated by it.

These days I am trying my best not to swear at all, and certainly not in public.

At times this makes it rather tough to organize my thoughts under trying circumstances, and to write rationally. Perhaps though some might be able to read between the lines.

My week-end? Why, thanks for asking.
Well, I did not set foot outside the house from Friday evening until I left for work on Monday morning. To be precise, I hardly set foot outside the bedroom (thanks to the wonders of en suite plumbing).

Not that I got a whole lot of sleeping done - every time I would lie down and close my eyes, a little tickle in my throat would trigger spasmodic coughing. Every single time.

By Sunday morning I wasn't sure which made me feel more horrible: the symptoms or the side effects of the medications.

For the engineers and statisticians among you with some knowledge of D.O.E. an aside: I am calling this the "Full Factorial 'Flu."

Given say eight typical symptoms, start with a random selection of four. Vary these every day until every possible combination and permutation has been exhausted, and there you have this disease.

(My only hope now is that once that happens the disease has run its course!)

Too much information? Well, you did ask, didn't you?

Yes, yes, Auntie is OK. Back from the hospital Emergency Room, up on her own two feet (wobbly, but still her own) and back at work.

Thanks for all who emailed their concern, and apologies for not getting back to you sooner; when things got really bad I didn't even touch a computer for a few days. Haven't even managed to concentrate enough to read a book, truth be told.

In any event, service will resume a semi-normal state inbetween catching up at work.

Now go and write something insightful on your own blogs :-)

My surgery has been scheduled for Friday, April 15th.

Hopefully I would be all jolly again in time for my birthday.

Angel Face has to get her last set of immunization shots.

We have to apply for early entrance to Kindergarten for her.

I've renewed the library books, so now they're due at the end of the month.

The car needs an oil change. Probably the van too.

And we need to get to the tulip farm while all the flowers are still in bloom.

Yes, back from the hopsital. Obviously in pain, but nothing beyond what I expected. I won't be particulary mobile for a while, and bending across the abdominal area is certainly not a helpful experience. Laughing and coughing and hiccuping are not advised, nor are tickle fests with four year olds.

Thanks each and every one for your well wishes, be they posted as blog comments or as private emails. When I move a little more freely, I'll get some pictures of my flowers to share with you.
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Trivia: Every episode of Seinfeld contained a Superman somewhere

I've decided to pop in at work today for a couple of hours - just to see that the place isn't falling apart without me.
And of course it is not: in the grand scheme of things I am just as dispensable as the guy in the next cube. Which is not to say that I won't be missed, or that there will be a bit of a scramble to move my tasks across to others, or even that they fulfill it at the same level at which I did.
But they would manage.
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We have been doing some more planning for our trip to India that is coming up at the end of the year. I have been saving up my leave since I started working here to gather a big block that I can take all at once. I bemused my manager by asking him in January for leave in December, but I really did not want anything to jeopardize our plans. And spending such a long time in the travel between the two countries, I thought it foolish to try and go to India with only two weeks of leave: once you subtract the travel time, you have barely a week to spend there.

So this time it will be a solid stretch from Thanksgiving to New Year. Neither of us has done the touristy thing in India, the travel from point to point to see the sights, and so this time we decided to dedicate some time to that.

Home base would be Hyderabad of course, but we'll start in the north, in Delhi. Late November/early December should be ideal weather-wise to visit some places of interest (and to get some shopping done). We're thinking of adding trips to Jaipur and Agra while we are there, before going east to Kolkatta.

Some Bengali friends have been generous with advice on things to do and see until we descend with the Coromandel Express to Vizag to visit the family. From there the train will take us to Secunderabad about two weeks after we had landed in India.

The second excursion will most likely take us via Bangalore to Kochi, perhaps Madurai and then Chennai for a few days, Tirupatti and back home to Secunderabad.

Right now just about every available surface is covered by maps, atlases, railway timetables, guidebooks, lists and calendars. I often think that the planning is more fun than the event itself.

Traffic might be moving at a snail's pace, but life is certainly hectic.
I have been given a major assignment with a high level of urgency, and a fast approaching deadline, and I have been running into one obstacle after the other. Some of these are technical, but most are dependancies on other people's completion of tasks.

That should be enough said to create instant understanding of my frustration levels.
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At home, we mowed the lawn a couple of days ago. (I think the neighbors probably want to collaborate and send us a formal thank you note.)

The previous owners had left a lawnmower here which we were not sure worked. Nini had tried unsuccessfully a couple of times earlier to start it, and found that the weed trimmer was not a good alternative to mowing large areas.
With even the front lawn approaching jungle status, I decided that something needed to be done. The scene rather reminded me of the big bad wolf in the three little pigs: we yanked and we yanked on the string until we had no yankability left.

Our poor neighbor made the mistake of wandering outside during this period, and immediately got roped into a series of questions about gas mowers. He professed general ignorance, and was finally allowed to make his escape when I decided to try a final few times, this time, just for kicks, holding the lever at the handle.
Hey Presto! It worked.

Just a reminder: I am still recovering from surgery and am under doctor's orders not to lift anything exceeding ten pounds.

Blisters and aching muscles, a feeling of pulling stitches, and a lawn that looks mostly decent now.

I am deficient as a woman! I am missing some essential stereotypical gene that makes women want to hang out at malls. I don't set foot in a shop for weeks on end (now that the people who sit at home all or most of the day do the grocery shopping around here), and I might enter a mall on average once in three months.

Yesterday we did a marathon run, however; we caught up on some long overdue shopping, hitting one mall after the other to accomplish our task. We being Nini and I, of course.

Need I say we are knackered? When we do venture into malldom, we tackle it head-on. We keep up a blistering pace, and we are ruthlessly efficient in our selection processes.

This morning we are still paying for it - sore and stiff muscles abounding. I am starting to see why so many women do aerobics and strength training: Mall crawling is a demanding exercise.

Our pain is a side effect of our long absence from the malls. Another side effect is sticker shock; I just can't believe some of the prices. And evidently there are people willing to pay those, because most of the stores seem to be flourishing. Unbelievable.

Now, two places where I will (and do) willingly browse for hours on end is the bookstore (and library), and high tech stores. And in those vices, my precious one is a willing accomplice.

Now, if only we could wear and eat books and computers and other gadgets, we would have it made!

Just lost the entire post.

I killed the wrong window, and poof went my story.

In its place, here are some more pictures from my "gardening" this past weekend.

And if you really need to know, it was about age, and classical music...

Well, as my mother (and everyone else's) used to say: "If you can't say something good about someone, don't say anything."

I did not entirely follow that advice, but I did at least consider what I was saying before I said it.

On the up side, I was able to resist posting while in that vitriolic mood, and most of the evil thoughts have dissipated somewhat. I think I need to invest more in meditation.
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On an unrelated topic, I heard yesterday from a friend from University. He is a with a big consultancy company, and last year spent a couple of months flying between his home base and Portland on a project, which allowed us to catch up and roam around the area's beauty spots.

He is back on the same project now, but in different locations, so he will be flying back and forth to Hawaii for the next couple of months.

Grrrr. Some people have all the luck!

Usually, if you need to explain the joke, it ceases to be funny.
However, not being there, not necessarily speaking all the languages involved, not being intimately familiar with our interactions and setup, most anecdotes require setting the scene before getting to the actual story, so here we go.

My precious one does not speak Afrikaans; repeat a word a few times in conversation in his presence (which one tends to do with a four year old in the picture) and he picks up on it and asks for the translation. In fact he can make a pretty good stab at translating some of the simple common sentences we throw about the house.

Also, while Nini and I have areas of convergence, as sisters will, there are also areas of radical divergence, as will become clear later.

In the mornings, while Nini is downstairs making tea and cereal, Angel Face snuggles in our bed, and then I dress her and brush her hair before plaiting it or tying it in a pony tail. Yes, she can (and mostly does) dress herself, but this has become a ritual, a way for me to spend a little bit of special time with her because by the time I usually get home we hardly have time for dinner before she needs to go to bed.

We had a discussion this morning around the way she is growing and the fact that her jeans are getting too small. Trousers in Afrikaans is "broek," pronounced much the same as brook, or Brooke...

So, there is mpo sitting up in bed, repeating idly "broek, broek, broek..." when suddenly he breaks off and asks me "Is André Agassi still married to Brooke Shields?"

Me: "Huh?"
MPO: "Oh, I forgot." Turns to the door and calls, "Nini!"
Nini: "Yes, bhawa garu?"
MPO: "Is Agassi still married to Brooke Shields?"
Nini: "No, not for a long time. He's now married to Steffi Graf."
MPO: "Wasn't she married to Boris Becker?"
Nini: "No-o-o. I don't think they were ever an item."
Etcetera...

One thing to be said for this exchange is that my precious one is surviving in this overwhelmingly female household and have us and our interests/specialties pretty much figured out.

Talking online with a friend the other day I kept apologizing for my non sequiturs; I have a tendency to appear to jump like a grasshopper from topic to topic.
Of course inside my mind it all makes perfect sense: We're talking about A, which makes me think of B, which reminds me of C, which links to D which is related to E. The problem is that my hapless conversation partner just sees the jump from A to E.
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I've been a little pre-occupied lately, preparing material to present a seminar. The topic and material are fascinating to me, and it will be to some extent a joint exploration and learning experience.
Delving deeper into the subject matter is both exhilirating and overwhelming, and I worry that I might have bitten off more than I can chew.
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I have received a copy of The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain as a gift. And I am slowly wrestling through it. A number of people that I find interesting to talk with and generally insightful have good things to say about the work, but I find myself continuously thinking "Yes, but..." or "You can't just jump to that conclusion."
Certainly there he cites a whole lot of scientific research on topics interesting to me and he writes well, teaching me about some of the established theories along the way; I just don't see a whole lot of support for his premise. However, I will reserve my judgment until I complete the book (or at least complete more of the book).
Has anyone out there read it? Input gratefully accepted.

My precious one, after reading the preceding post, casually asked: "So is this going to become entirely a book blog?"

The answer is that no, it will remain the same random hodge-podge, cobbled together from bits and pieces that occupy me at any one moment.

I am currently having tremendous fun with the book group, and I would encourage anyone who might have an interest in reading and discussing works shortlisted for and receiving the The Man Booker Prize to join in. The current discussion deals with The Nice and The Good and Iris Murdoch in general; August's book will be DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little.
What I like about the group is that you are never put on a spot: you do not have to say something if you just wish to follow the discussion. And if you want to actively participate, you do not have to say something profound and learned, if you want you could ask a simple question for clarity.

But this seems to be turning into yet another book post, so I will move along to other news.

Angel Face will turn five in October. The cut off date in the school system here is August 31st. This means that she cannot start Kindergarten this year.

And then we heard of the Early Entrance program, a trial this year. An application is made, recommendation letters and assessment letters have to be submitted, and a group is selected from the applicants to undergo testing.

The four year-olds are taken and tested by a panel of teachers in sequence, round robin fashion, for two-and-a-half hours. After the week of tests are concluded, the teachers meet and evaluate the children and select the ones that will be allowed to start Kindergarten in Fall.

The children are tested in Conceptual Development, Language Development, Auditory Memory, Auditory Perception, Visual Memory, Visual Perception and Visual Motor Performance, and rated in terms of Age Equivalent Range of "Less than 5", "5-5.5", "5.5-6" and "Over 6."
In four of the seven categories, our little 4 year and 9 month-old girl was evaluated in the "Over 6" category, and in every case she was evaluated to be beyond her age level.

Which means that come Fall, we will have a Kindergartener in the house. She must have inherited her Doddamma's genes, don't you think?

Sometimes life just overwhelms you. The way that, when playing in the shallow surf, your attention gets distracted by something on the shore, and a breaker from behind catches you unaware, knocks you off your feet and turns you over and over and over before finally receding, leaving you feeling dazed and wondering "what happened?"

This week was like that. It is Friday, and I can't comprehend even what happened to Monday, never mind the other days inbetween. It is almost as if I had tuned out for large parts of the days.

On a positive note, I did complete a couple of books this week and watched two movies related to books - more on that later. And it is almost weekend. Time to come up for air!

What I did not do is easy: I barely touched a computer this weekend. And this after I had big plans for taking the Murdoch and really tearing it apart (figuratively speaking), linking themes and coming up with profound insights.
Oh, and I also did NOT buy the new Harry Potter. When we go to India in December I'll pick up the hardcover copies of both the fifth and sixth books, to match the first four that I already have. I much prefer the British editions. I think the books are great fun, and it is wonderful to see kids so engaged in reading, but I am certainly not jumping up and down in impatience to read them right away.

I did go to Powell's; bought a copy of The Nice and The Good, since I cannot write in the library copy, and I think I will want to go back to this book again. And I picked up a copy of DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little, the next book we'll tackle in the Reading Group.
We spent some time with the family on one of our hottest days so far this year, with Anamika and Angel Face splashing in and around a little inflatable pool and picking blueberries to squash. I spent a fair amount of time reading (sit down those of you who are tender-hearted) The Da Vinci Code; it has entered the social vocabulary to such an extent that at times you have difficulty keeping up with some conversations if you don't know the book.
And then the real addiction - one that I have not indulged in for many years: we hauled out and built a jigsaw puzzle! It took us all weekend, but we finished around eleven o' clock last night.
Now the question is what will we do with it? Break it up or frame it? Most likely, after taking a few pictures of it and letting it sit around in everyone's way for a month or so, we will break it up and get a new one to build. But shhh! Not everyone is quite ready to see it that way yet; let them hang on to their illusions for a wee while longer.

All of a sudden my social calendar has filled up, my dance card is full.
There are the usual family and step-family events of course; these go through periods of intense activity, followed by more leisurely spaced happenings before the cycle repeats.

On Saturday not one but two friends flew in from abroad; one will be around for three months, but the other is leaving this weekend.
Then on Tuesday a college classmate flew in on the way from Hawaii to California, before going home to Chicago; the poor guy drew two terrible locations for his current projects, don't you think?
He will be flying out tomorrow, just before two blogging friends arrive for the weekend.
And have I mentioned the upcoming lunch with a colleague yet?

I am all a-flutter (in a good way) and I feel I should put on a pretty party dress and stilettos.
And I don't do dresses (unless you count saris) and I definitely don't do heels.

PS: May I write about books again yet? Pretty please?

Now, I was going to post this morning. Lots of wonderful stuff. About The Spell (which I'm not sure I liked, but I'm not sure anymore that I disliked) and about unusual themes surfacing in both Vernon God Little and Oryx and Crake - both shortlisted in the same year; really disturbing if a coincidence.

There was going to be a funny story and a bit about life. I was going to point you to some wonderful photos from Prahalathan's South Indian trip (the trip stuff starts right after the party pics, so keep scrolling down).

And instead I have to sit in an all-day meeting, interrupted only by two other (shorter) meetings that take precedence. So, I am very much afraid that you will just have to amuse yourselves for today. We'll try again tomorrow.

Angel Face's cold kept her home on Thursday, and Friday was a school holiday (Veteran's Day), so she has had a fair bit of rest (when we could get her to sit still for long enough). She seems much better though still coughing, so she went to school today.

Of course she passed it on to me, and I spent the weekend with a miserably stuffy head. Today my head seems clearer, but a nasty cough has moved in, knocking out my vocal chords in the process; I sound like the migrating Canada Geese honking overhead.

I got my photoblog partially linked so you can play around there for a bit. It is optimized for 1024x768 displays which sitemeter tells me is what 70% of you use. The 9% of you who use 800x600 will see a somewhat cramped version, but you should still be able to see the entire image without scrolling.

The rest of you with higher resolutions will see images that might look a little lost on the screen - resizing your browser window will let you know how the majority is seeing it.

All in all, I am pretty satisfied - it is not broken on any display (as far as I know), just a little different.

I also had the opportunity to meet a fellow blogger (and frequent commenter) this past weekend. What a wonderful person, and such an exceptionally bright son. He is six, and got on with Angel Face like a house on fire. I had prepared some cookie dough earlier in the day, and when our guests arrived started creating the shapes on the baking trays, and letting the kids loose on the decorating sprinkles and chocolate chips. They were so creative, and the best part was eating the results after :-)

Add to that some shopping for our trip, and you have a pretty complete picture of my weekend. What did you get up to?

Any entries over the past week would have had to be filed under "DIY Diary." Or at least, Preparing for DIY. And since we are ten-thumbed bumblers, it would not make for particularly enlightening reading.

I brought back a lot of textiles and handicrafts from India, with the idea to decorate some of the rooms in the house, including the formal living and dining areas that are currently furniture-less shells. The process includes looking for furniture and accessories, finding more fabric, and deciding on paint colors, all before the real work is to start. (See, I told you it is boring stuff.)
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While my precious one is still in India, we have had to become creative in our scheduling as well: Angel Face switched schools so at least now it is close to home and she buses to school. We've had to arrange for Day Care to pick her up though -- three days a week Nini can only get there about 40 minutes after school lets out (since her class ends 30 minutes after Angel Face's and she is at the other side of the city) and the other two she has lab until about 4 p.m.

The woman running the Day Care picks her up at school, and keeps her safe and entertained until Nini can get to her. Once mpo returns however, Angel Face will just get on the bus at the school when class lets out, and come home.

We can't wait, especially Angel Face!

They fixed the door!

Now, that statement probably needs a little background.

The restroom closest to my desk (which is still much too far away, if you ask me) has six cubicles.

The fourth door from the entrance tended to stick a little - not enough to require force to open, but just enough to swing shut and stay shut after you leave the stall; all the rest swing open about a quarter of the way when they are not latched.

This meant that most people walking into the restroom would think that stall was occupied, even when it was free (and with five others available, it seldom was an issue).
Which in turn meant that it used to be the least frequently used stall, so the most likely to be fresh and absolutely spotless, used only by a select few like me who stumbled across the secret.
(In fairness I have to add that the restrooms in general are excellent here, cleaned every hour throughout the day, although scrubbed only at night).

Alas, no more. Henceforth, stall number four will be used in even distribution with the rest.
I guess the upside is the throne will be less likely to be chilly to my tush...