lazy days ahead!

One fine day, a preteen declared "Laziness is AWEsome, amma!!!"

L'il bro shakes his head and mutters "Phew! it is so difficult to handle Amma" and adds a "chill down, amma" for good measure!

?!!!!!!!

See why i send them to school?

Since we aim to please, the next ten days will see us putting the pre-teen's theory into practice. We will let our hair down, (rayshma, behave!) will say yes to french fries and no to lettuce, and will coax our feet to walk a little more.

We will 'chill down?' in the Australian sun together and see what the fuss about the Sydney fireworks are all about!

So here's wishing everyone who visits my space a bright and pleasant year ahead!

Now back to the packing!!!!

What's on my fridge?

"What's on your fridge?" asked Preeti, who is just a mother of two. :)


'A few somethings", i wish i could have answered, few being the keyword here, but ...take a peek

My fridge surface continually changes. In Delhi it looked a whole different than it does now. Besides, the arrangement keeps varying. My boys keep moving it all over the fridge surface.

There are 15 magnets, out of which a few are of places we have visited together, the rest are put there by G. So much for this place being just my very own.



Most of them have a tale to tell. Some have been with us for ages. The Singapore one was picked up by my eldest boy on our first visit here...it brings back lovely memories of our first trip abroad with the children.





That's the family at the beach and the other was taken with two orangutans in Pattaya. I was quite happy with my resident monkeys and really didn't want these two lesser additions but of course who listens to moms any more?



The picture of the baby is a favorite one...It is of Swaraj when he was @ 4mths. I just LOVE that pic...







There are two tiny Garfield ones (in pink and blue) added here courtesy my boys. i also see a Spider man one very ingeniously taped onto a magnet making its way here. And of course two animal magnets courtesy the zoological park here.



The black magnet with a pouch, has something very important - the white paper consists of lunch and dinner menus for the whole week that G managed the boys when I was in Bangalore - It was mainly followed to the T, even to the no of cookies put in the snack box, barring a call I got from the boys on a paratha dinner day, begging for Maggi noodles. :)


The resident environmentalist (my elder boy) has added his two magnets (the ones in white at the bottom)from the NEA (national environmental agency) . One of them bears the words "Turn me on, FAN my ego' ! (i'm glad that it has a pic of the fan, otherwise we would be giving people ideas, wouldn't we...*wink)


The Santa Claus has been clipped on by my lil one...


And yes, the blue/white background is an old project chart done by Swaraj...Most apartments in Singapore come furnished with basic electrical appliances and amenities (the air con, the washing machine etc). Since the fridge is not my own, that paper is supposed to prevent the magnets from scratching the fridge surface. (That's why it ends up looking neater too)

So what's on my fridge? Mostly fun memories, the current and the old, jostling for space there!

And what story does your fridge tell?

Abha, pink dogwood, ugich, Joy, preethi, rayshma, actually everyone who wants to...its showtime :)

sweet somethings to spicy nothings

There are times i wish i could directly translate my thoughts into my laptop. There are these tidbits running in my mind, untethererd and by the time i finish my work and get to the blog, whoosh...it's no longer there, buried as it must be under the ratio and proportion sums and the spellings and a myriad other things which define my day.

Then there are times i wish i had continued with my anonymous self while blogging. I could then get away with a truly outrageous statement like '..............',

"........................"

Don't go away, i'm thinking, i'm thinking!!!

Now i know why authors wrote under pseudonyms. It allows them freedom to write what they think. That's the only reason i can't come up with something atrocious. I'm not anonymous...

I've always been fascinated by certain words in English novels. You know those paragraphs where honey, sugar, cutie pie, sweet heart are used as terms of endearment by couples. I used to wonder how would someone like being addressed thus? Sugarplum? lambikins? Ofcourse the then unimaginative mind (then = younger) would come up with situations where the guy would say "honey?" and the gal may actually pass him some honey!...

I think it makes them hungry!!! (*wink)

aha! lightbulb moment!

The thing is i find them a tad too sweet and too docile...How come noone spiced them up?

Now that i'm *ahem* grown up, just wondering :

• Maybe the future novels will have a husband saying " Pepper?!!!" or the lady may purr "You are my Godiva?!!' (that's the best i could do considering the current ratio problems floating in my mind)
• I wonder what a calorie conscious couple would use as their fat free terms of endearment.

Forgive me my nonsensical wanderings but there's only so much one can do after seeing a 11-yr-old search for the tallest and shortest arsenal player on the web, and then me drawing a huge christmas tree for the 6 yrold to color and being ditched by the hubby this weekend.

Now to get back to those study books WITH the kiddos this time....

Aside 1...Guess, this falls under "One of those times, i wish i was anonymous" list.

Aside 2: You think you can do better than that? Fine!!!!
Come on now, let's see that imagination at work....

Aside 3: Just in case you needed more words...of the sweet kind to say to someone (*wink )

Snippets...of this and that

I met a Singaporean in the play area yesterday. I was playing Badminton with my 6 yrold who was at home during school hours, supposedly taking rest after a very nasty cut on his lip... Conversation veered around to the mumbai terror, and she said 'Very unsafe country, India' and shuddered...i protested that noone is safe anywhere, and pointed out the recent bangkok situtation at the airport...but deep inside, my heart sank, because she was true wasn't she? So many questions, and no answers....

Was talking to someone who talked about the rich and poor victims...If you are talking about official apathy or general ineptitude, go ahead. In the end, grief is universal, be it for the two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg who will never remember his parents, or the 13 yrold boy in hospital who is waiting for a family which will never turn up or the GM who lost his family in the Taj or the parents who lost their brave sons to the terrorists or the mother who lost her child at the station. :(


They all started their day as any other...and paid with their lives. Living a normal life is dangerous. Perhaps the politicians should try it...

*********************************************************
The hospital recognizes my 6 yrold now, which is not good news......this must be the nth time i'm getting him there invariably for cuts, deep ones at that..that boy has springs on his feet...

Graciousness is much in demand in Singapore. While filling in the form at the hospital, i took quite some time to locate a number which they needed . The receptionist was helpful and tried various futile combinations to access his previous records. I apologised for the delay and also thanked them while leaving. The receptionist looked at me gratefully and said, "You are a gracious lady, Thank you for appreciating us. Not many realise that we are here to help you." (totally his words). This is not the first time that someone is telling me this here...but it made my day...

While on the 6 yrold, he looked totally like hanuman, courtesy that swollen lip...minus the tail , of course...:)

Leading to the big picture

In addition to my post below...

(Click on the highlighted words to read the linked articles)

• I think that the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus is as much an icon as the Taj hotel...

• Does anyone out there know what's happening to the victims of the CST tragedy? I hope the Government is doing something for their families. (Note: This was what i initially meant. I'm not belittling any of the tragedies, every family which lost one of its own is grieving, its true that a live hostage drama needed to be covered... )

• @ 40 people were killed in VT..., I read this sad story here. There were also the poor taxi drivers who lost their lives.

• Death ultimately is a great leveller... :(

• I'm upset that parents could not mourn their dead son in peace, without political parties attempting damage control::

• I'm disappointed by the attitude of the media when covering the live drama...

• I'm scared that this tragedy will soon be reduced to just another significant date - 26/11...as comparable to 9/11....

• It was reported that the family of slain ATS chief Hemant Karkare has declined the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's offer of monetary help of @ Rs. 1 crore. The lives lost were truly priceless...I hope that the money reaches a few needy bereaved families.

• I'm amazed that people have directed their energies into creating a controversy out of a filmmaker visiting the site. I'm sure there are more important things to worry about right now than someone's lack of sensitivity...but Ziah has a valid point when she told me "It is hyped to show how casual, politicians take this event...if damage survey is turned into a morbid terror tourism package, i have NO words to say"

• I hope those brave, definitely underpaid, brave commandos get the applause, adulation and compensation they deserve. I like what this post had to say about it, esp the last line... If sports persons can be rewarded by the government for their achievements, i believe that these brave heroes who have committed their lives to our country deserve some kind of appreciation. They were the ones battling it out there, without a break. It is thanks to them the crisis was controlled.... The problems lie elsewhere, for clues look towards the seats of power...

Of course, most of what i know is due to the same media. Hopefully Mumbai is not taking it lying down. I'm glad to read that the citizens have taken positive steps forward. Even the biggest of pictures is eventually made of tiny squares. Every little action counts. Go do your bit, however little. It really does matter. If you don't know what to do by your own, recognize the catalysts of change and follow them.

Is this the calm before the next storm? If so, let the storm be one of change!

Update::

For those who want to do something, but don't know what, here's a few steps taken by others...

http://www.mumbaihelps.blogspot.com/ by kiran

http://stopterrorism.in/ and http://mammamiameamamma.blogspot.com/2008/11/lets-do-something.html from Parul's blog

http://smallchange.in/ from prats' emotional ecology