I wish my accent was cooler than it is. Mine's an American accent, me thinks...and when I speak with husband around it has an Indian tinge to it. I just got back home taking the metro and I couldn't stop myself staring at this young teenage girl who had the thickest accent speaking in English... a French. I was staring along just as the teenage boy sitting next to me as she rolled her r's and zzz her s's! lol... And then I realised, I do hear a lot of foreign languages around me frequently. What I don't often hear is foreign accents speaking in English. I think the last accent (non-American I mean) I heard that caught my ears was British!

There are a whole bunch of recipes for salad ideas online. Finding just vegetarian salads doesn't help narrow it down that much either! I generally follow them and make my own depending on what we have in the fridge and pantry.



Today, I got some - Lettuce, red onions (less than a quarter - just to get some flavour), carrot, red, yellow, orange bell peppers, tomatoes, radish, strawberries, pepper jack cheese, walnuts & pine nuts, a teaspoon of olive oil.

Toss them in a mixing bowl, stir add some lemon juice, black pepper and voila the salad is ready! How much really depends on you. This will take me through three meals. I have toast with a bit of butter and a small cup of plain yogurt on the side and that's my lunch.

I went to a doctor this morning for a checkup and I just loved the assistant who takes your weight and blood pressure. Alice was her name. She was awesome. Okay, she complimented me that I don't look a day over 20 and remarked how little I am as I weighed in their old-fashioned scale where she had to shift the weight (what is this type of machine called, anyone know?)! In a world obsessed with image and weight I do forget that I am little albeit out of shape (literally). But I am little. :D I like reminders like that...

I watched Bride Wars yesterday. A movie I know N won't like and I just wanted to watch a mindless movie. Well, it was excellent for a mindless movie alright. I guess I am not a big fan of extravagant weddings and so didn't really get attached to the characters much and just thought the whole thing was silly. Did laugh here and there but yeah. The friend who suggested this also suggested the Confessions of a Shopaholic - I think I will pass on that too. RedBox is just so cool. Of course, that comes in after the public library that has all the recent releases... you just have to wait in a virtual queue for quite some time if the movie was a huge hit!

I have been making yummy salads for lunches the last two days. Hubby has been rather amusing. Before his trip, I warned him to stay away from salads as one can't be too sure of the water. His answer, "why would I have salads outside when you make the best ones?!" cute and smart.

I used to get so much spam from my own friends and family under the guise of interesting forwards. Often they were urban legends, or a few years old news, you know the annoying forwards. Well, I guess that craze of forwarding everything has slowly fazed out over time or they stopped including me because I would reply to all sharing the updated news and that's no fun! So, finally I thought I was in the clear. After getting married my in-laws have been ever so sweet to include me into everything including the same forward list. Once in a while I would respond directly to the person who sent the forward. But usually the response I would get is, "yeah but the gist of the email still stands true." sigh. So now I mostly delete them right away, except the ones MIL sends. Some of them are nice and are poems and life stories.

This morning I got a forward which shares information about safe way to fwd emails! lol... I guess it takes a forward to enlighten one about fwds.

So, now do I forward this to the other few who still send forwards to me like don't take the pill/IUD or you will die from clots and bleed to death, etc. hmmm....

And for your own entertainment the fwd is behind the cut... huge font and oh so colourful!

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We nearly are on the way to killing the one plant we have in our apartment that we took over from a friend who was packing his bags and heading back to India. It's one of those that is just submerged in a vase of water and all we need to really do is refill the water every now and then and clean the whole thing once a month or something...well, either I get lazy or I forget.... so that should answer aliki's question of if we would ever have pets! Although the plant has managed to survive for over a year and half now..so we are not that bad no? And here I am dreaming of having a garden and have figured out what I want to plant in it too!!

We (sis & I) never had pets. My parents never believed in owning another living creature and taking up the many responsibilities that come with it. Mom always grumbled about the pets being eternal children - that never grow up. Plus, with the travels and moving about having a pet wouldn't make a thing that is already hard a bit easier. But most of all the attachment that we would form would be too strong. We have though taken care of friends/neighbours' pets when they would be away on holiday, or walk them just for fun even if they are right by us. I guess we became the foster pet owners.

And then there are my allergies. sigh. Today we have much more choices in medications but back then it was a bit harder to get and the ones I did take had some bad side effects. So, it just became a norm to take care of other people's pets. In college many of my roommates had pets either dogs or cats. Oh what joy they bring and how I fell in love! And I think I liked that more. Occasionally I did feed them when my roommate would be traveling; I would play with them, walk them. I think I liked that much more than taking on the full responsibility of having a pet of my own. Funnily, I wasn't allergic to the pets my roommates had. My only thinking is that the two roommates who had cats, bathed them and the dogs were not furry ones. I don't know. It was when I went to other people's home to cat-sit for example that my allergies were severe. But I didn't care. They were just so cute!

The only pets I ever had were my fish! A friend was shocked to hear I never had pets and went and got me some fish and bought me a small aquarium. The first batch died. They were too small for the aquarium and got stuck in pump. I still cringe and cry about it and scolded the friend who is a veteran in knowing about fish and aquariums. Instead of giving up, he went and bought some more, but this time bigger fish and they survived for a long time! I only gave them away as I left Hawai'i. I don't think I am a fish person though. I am more the cat or dog person if I ever were to consider getting a pet.

N as well has never had pets. MIL shares that he had asked for one when he was very young. MIL then shared all the things he would need to do to take care of the pet, the responsibilities, also that their home was not big enough for one to really run about, so if he still thought he could take care of the pet and be okay that the pet wouldn't have much space to move about, then they would consider it. N thought about it seems and slowly let the topic go.

So, now neither of us have the idea of getting one. But every time I see someone walking a dog outside I feel like a little kid again and wanting one! It's just amazing how much joy they bring and yet I think with my luck I would end up with a dog like we saw in Marley & Me! ;)

I should go and clean up the vase now....

Dad had the record - Thriller when we were in India. The record cover just looked so cool. We would hear his music ever so often! But it was at 13 that reminds me of Michael Jackson much more.

We were 13 years old. Our school in Rome participates in Earth Day every year. For that year we put on a show. We had multiple information booths plus a show! Each class had a performance to put on showcasing issues facing the world. Our class wanted to be cool and we picked Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror song as the music during our performance. We all were dressed in tight pants, jackets, hair down (more looking like the Jets in West Side Story..but yeah...). The story we told of was one of our classmates acting out all the things bad for the environment and the rest of us came out snapping our fingers like Michael, walking around convincing him to make the change! And miraculously of course, the classmate does! ;)

Anytime I hear Michael Jackson's name, I remember that song. It introduced me to the world of MJ! What a trajic story his turned out to be. May he now finally rest in peace!

Here's the before....



and ( after )

oh I am so happy! After one more cancellation I finally got to my appointment with the hairstylist today. I am eagerly awaiting my husband's arrival so that he can tell me how fabulous I look! It will be a surprise! So till then you just get what was chopped off!! At the longest was 14 inches and the shortest layer about 4 inches.



So, to whom should I donate it to? I was thinking to send it to go towards hair mats to clean oil spills but since it's such a small contribution it might be more of an impact towards making of a wig.

After dinner, I was the computer (which sits on our dining table) passing time and N was on the couch (that's to the right of the dining table, maybe three feet away) reading a book. As he turns his head to say something to me he notices a bug flying around our lamp post that's right by the couch. He gasps and shouts, "arrhghh! wasp!" I laugh and confidently say, "it's not a wasp!"N as he moves quickly away comments, "how can you be sure?"

As I go closer to get a better look and the bug lands on the Mardi-Gras beads that hang off the side of our lamp, I shout in glee, "it's a ladybug!!!!" wow... haven't seen one in decades!! I was surprised at N that he never saw one before! We got it to get on an envelope so we could go and set it free somewhere outside. But it seemed so happy on those green beads. I wonder what was on it that was so appealing to it?! hmmmm...

Anyhow, we watched it for sometime in utter happiness and then let it go out on the stairwell away from the freezing AC.

On my way home on the metro, I overheard, along with other passengers that there were some delays on the Red line due to a train stuck on the tracks at Fort Totten station. Most of the regular riders ignored this message as it's become a daily occurrence of a train being stuck somewhere, or the doors not working or something like that causing delays. And that area has been busy with some work being done in the recent past.

As I exited the train the announcement changed a bit. An announcement went out to the train station managers to put up their signs for major delays on the Red line. I haven't heard that one before.

I got home and had my customary evening snack and was watching Wolfowitz's situation room. I think though it was CNN's sister channel, HLN that showed a news clip that there was a metro collision in Washington DC at Fort Totten area. That was so weird I thought. I changed to a local news channel and sure enough. This has to be the biggest accident I have seen since being here. Looks like a head-on/rear-ended (not sure yet) collision between two trains. I immediately thought of a friend who commutes that way from work and am afraid to give her a call. People are still getting out of the train and some are still trapped. D.C. Metro Trains Colliding Killing 1

My hands are shaking and it's so very sad. Maybe I should pay more attention to the emergency exit rules on my next trip.

edit: my friend is okay. Luckily she was tired and she left work early and went shopping for somethings for her trip tomorrow! Her shopping addiction saver her! (her own words!)

I have been wanting to write something the last few days.. this urge to write something but my mind draws a blank on what to write about...

Any ideas?

N and I pack our lunches everyday in plastic Tupperware. We heat up our food in the microwave at work before consuming lunch. One day when N was about to do that at his office pantry microwave one of his colleagues came running across the room saying, "don't do that!" She stopped him from putting the Tupperware into the microwave, showed that the office pantry also has ceramic plates in which he can heat up food. "Don't you know that heating up food in plastic causes some leakage of toxic materials that are cancerous?!" Husband was just a bit shocked at the sudden outrage in an otherwise quiet colleague and went along with her advice.

Later on in the afternoon when he stepped out of the building for something he sees the same colleague out with others smoking! He wanted to run and say, "stop! don't do that! Don't you know smoking causes cancer?!" But refrained and went on to whatever he was going to do!

One is still under investigation on the claims and the other is proven fact. Go figure!

28th May 2009

N had a horrible night with throwing up and all the yucky stuff. No fun. But the morning he was feeling bit better. We checked out and headed back to Miami as planned. It was a beautiful drive back. I filled up gas for the first time in the US!! hehehe



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27th May 2009

After a late start in the morning we headed out to see some sights in Key West. We went up the lighthouse. We saw the Ernest Hemingway's house - from the outside.



We watched an old WWII ship being sunk far off into the ocean that will create an artificial reef. How quickly a ship blown with holes sinks!! It went down within a few minutes!!

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26th May 2009

And then we hit the road on a 150 mile road trip to Key West, Florida!



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24th May 2009
I remembered what we did on the 24th night! Oh how could I forget! It rained! But we had reservations at a Haitian restaurant - Tap Tap restaurant (the website has some pics of the place)! It was a beautifully done up place - the artwork is just fabulous (we went there also because they had more than one vegetarian option!!) and the food was delicious!! yum yum! We had some aged rum straight up and in some cocktails. The service was fantastic! Great find! A bit away from the beach, but worth a trip!!

25th May 2009

The second day we were to spend "sightseeing" with a change... Me driving and husband navigating. Funny. really. But first we went to the Holocaust Memorial in Miami beach - we got there easy enough. It was though a very moving place to be. The artists who sculpted the statue did an amazing job. From the outside you see the arm rising up and as you walk through the walls, you get an opportunity to see it closer and the horror in their faces sent me off in tears. I couldn't stand there long. What added to it was also a reminder that for every horror that has been recognized with a memorial there are thousands of voices that go unheard. It's a sad world we live in.



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I slacked off on exercise all this past week. It was always, "tomorrow, I will go tomorrow". And that tomorrow finally arrived this morning. Finally the rains stopped and I decided to go out on the 3.5 miles trail. Beautiful weather for it! And I jogged almost all the way through!!!! I was so schocked! I remember having the need to stop every few minutes of jogging! Only the last half mile I walked it off as cooling off. But it was impressive and it felt so invigorating! I should take my watch to see how long I actually jogged. But I noticed at a nice pace I didn't have to stop to walk as much as before and I even cut the time down by 10 minutes.   Very happy! And I am also not feeling like I am going to fall over and die!

Now I have been also procrastinating on cleaning the bathroom and better go face the music and clean it up. Usually hubby does it but he wants a break and he is cleaning the kitchen instead of me. sigh. Did I say, I hate cleaning bathrooms?! sigh....