The Happy Gardener

Adventure - yes, I used the right word in my last post. I just needed to add a mis in front - at least, that's how LB (which is how I will be referring to this offspring of mine heretofore) sees it I'm sure. When LB was still baking, everyone would repeat that oft-heard cliche - how having a baby changes everything and how you learn to appreciate the small things in life again. I used to think of these as poetic, philosophic moments - like appreciating a sunset, a warm, sweet-smelling breeze or the morning birdsong. Turns out that's not it at all - it is fantasizing about clipping your toe nails, or being in a clean shower or having enough time to wash all the shampoo off your hair. I realize now that having a baby is a little like having a cold : you know how when your nose is super stuffed up and you are having a tough time drawing a breath from that mountaintop of pillows you made, you want to kick yourself for every non-cold day when you didn't appreciate your n...

And so it is time - to dust off this old blog and start on a new set of adventures. The thing about being in love and in a committed relationship ( at least in the initial stages) is that it opens you up to a lot of weighty emotions - love, concern, anxiety, joy, doubt, etc. These emotions , though wonderful to go through make for a heavy post. Also, relationships are big time-sucks. I know that sounds awful but you know I mean it in a matter-of-fact way, not a complaining/whining way. When I was young and single and foolish  (ok, not so young), I seemed to have the time to do a bunch of random things and more time to talk about all of them. Now, I do some random things, some routine things and some things of more consequence but I'm too busy doing them and am already sharing them with someone along the way so they very rarely make it to the blog. I know, I know - not a big loss for the blogging world.  Anyways, that brings us to this post. Well, L tumbled into our w...

You guys better brace up for this. I am going to speak about something serious for a change. Over the last couple of weeks, an article about Indra Nooyi (the Pepsi CEO) has been doing the rounds on Facebook and other sites. In it, she is quoted as saying : "  I don't think women can have it all. I just don't think so. We pretend we  have  it all. We pretend we  can  have it all." I agree with this statement. I don't think women can have it all. I also don't think men can have it all. In fact, I don't think anyone can have it all. There are just too many things in this world and our minds and desires are not limited by trivialities like time,  distance, energy levels, capabilities, talents, opportunities, etc.  But wait, before you think I'm just pointing out technicalities, let me explain myself further. In the article, Indra talks about an incident when she came home around 10 PM (earlier than her usual time of midnight) and was instructed by he...

It's not everyday that you get a generous amount of paint in you hair. This Sudoku fixation has to stop - it's eating away into my valuable reading time. I think I'm destined to be a permanent amateur. Professional dabbler. One should be paid for that. And that's all I have to say about that. And so to bed.

Today was what folks would call a mixed bag. On the one hand it was a gorgeous sunny day but on the other I worked through lunch and spent most of the day wearing a sweatshirt in my cube because even though we make some of the smartest & highest performing chips in the world, we apparently cannot get the hang of our thermostat settings.  On another hand I broke my resolution to leave work by 5:30 PM (max 6:00 PM) but on yet another hand, I managed to get a 3 miler in after work -  in fact, my fastest since I started running again recently. On the fifth hand I was very excited to finally see buds on my day lilies and Stargazer lilies this morning but on the sixth hand, I spent many anxious moments after I read online that these two kinds of lilies are very toxic for cats. Tangent - you would think that even with intellectual limitations (which I don't believe is true for cats - they know and understand EVERYTHING. They just play dumb), evolution would have taught cats to n...

1. After not having "found the time" to dig up my old resume over my two month sabbatical, I managed to locate it in my Yahoo mail in the last 5 mins before I left work. Says something about motivation, doesn't it? 2. When I stepped out from work in my running clothes, it started drizzling very lightly and I ran scared to the gym to run on the treadmill. 4 miles and 40 mins later, I was sweaty as hell and nursing a blister as I walked out to a breezy, cool, still-very-slightly-drizzling evening. Bad decision all around. 3. For various reasons that we will not get into here I decided to install an IDE that will help me write/build/debug/run C programs efficiently. After abt 30 mins of googling and reading forums,  I decided to install the free Visual Studio Express trial version. After installation, it asked me to register it at Microsoft using a link which I dutifully clicked on. It asked me to log in. I wasn't sure if I had an account so I decided to sign up any...

The sabbatical is over and C & I are back at work. (Well, we've been back for a week now - this is just a much delayed post). It was such a wonderful break. We got to travel across the globe, to the other hemisphere and see wonderful and wondrous sights. Beautiful, sublime, breathtaking, heart-aching, jaw-dropping, eye-filling, sigh-generating, smile-bringing, head-shaking and heart-stopping sights.  Over this time, I did a lot of things that I wanted and many that I didn't expect. I got to experience that happy state where you are glad you traveled and saw/did all the things you saw/did and yet, are happy to be heading back home. I got to be barefoot for 5 days on a remote island in the Pacific. I got to jump from a cable car with a rope tied to my feet and my heart in my mouth. I got to snorkel with dolphins. I spent an inordinate amount of time on my garden (and a corresponding amount of money). I never did paint, unless you count the coat of primer I painted on some of...