The Happy Gardener

I sometimes wonder if my whole life is going by while I search for my glasses. I do this almost every single day. Most often in the morning when I'm trying to leave for work. I go round and round my apartment until I finally find them or reach the hecessary escape velocity to get out of home. It doesn't help that I have a dozen "usual places" where I leave my glasses. Come to think of it, it is amazing - the number of flat surfaces that you can find in an small apartment where one could leave one's glasses on. See, it's not that I have a bad memory. Well, it's not just that I have a bad memory. I have an incorrect memory. Like the other day. I looked and looked and looked for my glasses in the morning. I kept thinking : "I remember putting them in my jacket pocket as I left work and I remember having them around when I walked home from the car last evening and now I can't find them". So I looked. And I looked. And I looked. And I finally said...

Nasdaq and Dow Jones sat on a wall Nasdaq and Dow Jones had a great fall and all Bush's men and all Congress's clauses don't seem like they can put the economy together again. I think they should do news in little rhymes and poems. It'll be a lot more fun. For now, I'll take Frasier any day over the 10 0 clock news. Better this way, I guess. With my family's luck in shares, I shouldn't be allowed to touch stock with a bargepole. I found my soulmate when I was 12. He was wise, had a way with words, shared my values and priorities and was already published in my 6th grade English text book. Which made him fa-aaa-mous. And he had a nice solid name. William Henry Davies. I post his poem here so your life may be better for reading it. Leisure by William Henry Davies What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrel...

Having spent 5 hours yesterday being a human WallE ( I volunteered at a recycle event) and 6 hours today helping out at a friend's Kuchipudi graduation event, I am tired. Also, this being my blog, I reserve the right to post what ever I want to. So, I shall now shamelessly post a blog that is more than a couple of years old. It's a blog I'd written way before I started publishing my blog (!?!!). Here it is. BTW (which stands for By The Way, all ye uncool people), I had named it Two Cauliflowers. I have two cauliflowers in my fridge. I live alone. I have no roommates. Cauliflower is not my favorite vegetable. Yet, I have two cauliflowers in my fridge. This is a mystery and I must confess that it's mystifying to me too. What happened was this. I went to the grocery store day before yesterday and wanted to buy some squash ( Do not ask me why - when I was making the grocery list that morning, I decided that I'd buy squash. I have never cooked squash before and am not su...

Having assured people that the fact that more than two people now read my blog would not affect my blogging style or lack thereof, I began wondering if I would crack under the pressure. I mused on it for a while and figured that the only solution to a problem of performance under pressure or high expectations is to the set the bar low. Waaaaay low. Once I thought of this, I realized that I had this thing in the bag. One thing I excel at is precisely this - setting the bar low! The method that I picked to achieve the same was to delve into the details of my happening suburban life. Which brings us to today's subject. My sweatshirt. My new blue sweatshirt. It's AWESOME. I love it. To begin with, it is blue. You will recall, my dear reader, from a previous post that I favor this color. The sky is blue. Most water bodies are blue. Violets, contrary to what their name suggests, are blue. Bluebells, much as their name suggests, are blue. Copper sulphate too is blue. My new sweatshirt...

Here's the story of the globe: I saw a globe today and decided that I had to get one too. Immediately. I've always wanted to own a globe. For some reason, I've never bought one, though. Just been wanting to own one. So I decided that this is the day when I shall buy a globe. I drove to Borders and after walking around in the store for a good bit, I asked an employee there if they had any globes. He checked in a couple of places and said that they didn't. They had no globes. They were globeless. They were without globes. Globes in absentia. I am, however, with yet another Yoga DVD. I know - I can't explain it either. I checked in another store and finally decided to go to that one store - the store where I'd find my globe and the happy yellow smiley would rollback the price on it to boot. Walmart! But alas! They didn't have it either. And to think that I always believed that I could even get a copy of my birth certificate in Walmart! (only, it would say ...

Just got back from watching Rock On. I thought it was well written, well made, well edited, well shot and well acted. And the music was very good. And I am not sure if I am more in love with Farhan Akhtar or Arjun Rampal. I know - high praise. But 'tis true. Just this evening I was thinking about how, when I was younger, I would wait for some movies and watch them and come out of the theater still happy with the end result and how I would be on that high for a day or two (sometimes more). It's been a long while now that I've waited for a movie, watched it and walked out of the theater without at least a bit of disappointment. More often that not, I walk out thinking " There goes another 3 hours of my life that I could have better spent clipping my toe nails or something". I am talking about desi movies here. Anyways, it happened today. Quite unexpectedly, I ended up watching this movie and I liked it. Really liked it. The simple pleasures of life! Yes, I know - mo...

Had a couple of indifferent 4 mile runs over this week. My shin splints are back. It is becoming increasingly clear that I won't be able to do the half marathon in mid October. What is my plan? Do exactly what I've been doing and my shin issues will go away and everything will fall into place. Denial is the key to happiness. After watching some ads for upcoming movies and new seasons of some TV shows, I have decided that the future of TV programming is bleak.

I recently read in the news that the book that won the oddest book title of the past 30 years is "Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers". So now, as I chug sparkling apple cranberry juice straight from the bottle, I am contemplating my hitherto unconsidered (by me) publishing career. Think of all the non-fiction I could publish : "All the Gas Stations that I have filled up at over the past 7 years", "The pop culture references that I didn't get in the first 3 years in the US", my blog (though one wonders if it strictly non fiction). Heck, I could even publish "Nepali Zoo Keepers and Their Preferences in Tooth Paste". The end.

Since it is so late that it is the next day, I have decided to post a picture instead of my usual banter. Maybe this is what I'll do from now on - on days that there isn't much to say, there shall be pictures.

An alert reader reminded me that I hadn't used this word as the title (I'd said that I would and then forgot). Congratulations Alert Reader! You just won yourself a fully paid three day, two night vacation in Macchu Picchu .... NOT! :-) Spent two blissful hours in the arboretum today. I ambled about the lawns and gardens, looked at trees and shrubs, vines and flower, took a few pictures, went hither and thither and napped for a short while under a tree. A perfect summer day activity. It was one of those blue-blue sky days with a slight breeze once in a while. I had forgotten how it is to walk from bright, hot sunlight into the shade of woods - dense and deep, cool and dark. It is truly amazing. I had to drive about an hour to reach this place but I was glad I didn't live close to this park. Then, I'd feel compelled to run along the trails in the park. And then, I'd hate it. You see, I am not a natural runner, not a born runner. One can safely say that I am not to ru...

Spent the early part of the afternoon reading and eventually finishing Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. It is a good book. It didn't change my life though as some folks had suggested to me earlier. This could be because I have already been exposed to some ideas that were in the book or because everything else, I pretty much did not understand. That is the problem with Nirvana - it needs some serious thinking ability. Albeit, nice book - short too, which adds to its charm :-) Having spent most of the afternoon in understanding the quest for the universal soul within the self, I moved on to the more urgent matters of lunch and idling away a few weekend hours. It started raining sometime this afternoon and kept on raining. I had already decided that today would be my long run so for a change, I was rational and decided to run on the treadmill at the gym. I ran 11.85 miles, with a short water break after 6 miles, at various paces from a 9 min mile to a 15.7 min mile walk during the last mil...

There was murder at 10 am at my apartment. I spent an hour and a half this morning cleaning up my balcony garden. I pulled out a bunch of plants by the roots (okay, some of them were weeds but still). I pruned, I killed and I cleaned. Finally, after summer's almost over, I finally have a neatly organized garden. Job done. It's a nice garden if I say so myself. Colorful and busy. So I ran ~4.5 miles today in around 38 minutes. But I walked in between and was really not in any shape to run further. This bodes ill for my half marathon attempt. Oh well, it'll be a learning experience. I really need to learn to plan well and pace myself - instead I just run (pun sorta intended) headlong into all challenges. OK - considering that I have decided to lead a super efficient life from tomorrow, I should now retire with my Herman Hesse. It's Friday tomorrow! And I got a Batman greeting card and a Bumblebee transformer for my belated birthday. Today is awesome! ;-)

This certainly was the word of the weekend so I had to use it as my title. I apologize to all my dear readers for leaving you hanging on the cliff hanger that is my life, but I had to enjoy my long weekend vacation. It certainly was a vacation of the highest quality. Came back rested, relaxed, well-laughed and a little drunk on the sunshine. Some day folks will study me and figure out I was a vine all along which is why I am all about sunshine. My blog has often been accused of having little entertainment and no information. As a rebuttal, here is some information. Dante's Divine Comedy is not a comedy. It has some amount of divinity involved but no comedy. Either that or this dude's sense of humor sucks. I started reading it a few days ago and I am not too pleased with it. I will, however, continue to read this for a while because I am a masochist. I saw the most glorious scene this evening. I just got off my flight and was getting out of the airport feeling bad about having t...