My life and associated trivialities.

Books...
I had a delicious three days off! For matrimonial purposes, Queen of dreams and Shopaholic & baby, what more could a girl ask for?! k has taken to giving me these really strange looks whenever I tell him that I finished a novel in a day; I bet, one of jealousy and associated evil thoughts! Just to prove a point, he finished Man, woman and child in a day, for the second time. But he doesn't know that (that it was his second time) 'coz he doesn't have the sort of memory that is needed to recollect and realize that a movie/book has already been viewed/read. In a way, that's pretty cool, I mean, delightful books will always remain delightful and surprising till the end. You can watch the same old Friends and Reba re-runs and laugh each time Chandler/Van says something funny. I laugh anyway but the fact that I already know the joke and the first laugh is over takes away some of the fun out of it.

Directions and dreams...
While I wouldn't care for that kind of selective memory loss, I suppose I suffer from one of those memory losses anyway - the inability to remember roads/directions and by extension any attributes associated with what we call, "Local Geography". I mean, I really do make an effort. I watch pretty carefully when k drives to weird places but I just can't get the map to stay put in my head! But 10, I believe, is the magic number. If I have driven to a place ten times, that'll do the trick! Gaaah, I wish I could have my own limo and driver; Ok fine, a good car and a driver, like in India (minus the traffic jams and stuff). So cool. Day dreaming is fun. Actually, I might as well wish for a nice desi canteen, actually any canteen that serves veggie food also (just anything hot) at our work place, one of the disadvantages of working in a small university town is that the office is not considered big enough to have all those sweet things other bigger offices get - on campus gym, day care, multi-cuisine canteens - like in MSFT, God! I envy them! Imagine hot samosas with tangy chutney and a hot cuppa coffee at tea time!

Cooking and cuisine...
The past long weekend, I also had a chance to ruminate on my cooking skills. I used to like to cook and experiment, especially experiment and try mixing spices and strange ingredients to known dishes just to see what it would morph into it. Umm, ok so that doesn't sound so appetizing, but it's real fun, you should try it sometime. Add cashews to cabbage curry or cinnamon to your rasam and also remember to establish the well known rule of woman empowerment - "No complaints at the dining table about fresh food that is cooked that day" - I guess, it's kind of ok to complain about left overs, somehow that's not as bad as spending a good chunk of time toiling and sweating in the kitchen (more like 30-40 mins tossing stuff while on the phone but still...) and then having the guinea...I mean person sitting in front of you tell you, "I think the coconut did not get crushed fully...". So anyway, I don't know what happened, but after the preG visit (Duh! Keep up, willya?), I have lost the fascination I used to have for cooking. As a result we have been frequenting just about any restaurant in and around the Lex area...just in case you are too, here are a few tips:

** Vindaloo is not one of the dishes you should try out at Tandoor

** Green curry used to and still rocks at Bangkok house

** Drunken noodles might have fish sauce or not, am never able to figure that out at Iching, get a different waiter each time! Lo Mein is a safer option if you are a vegetarian.

** One restaurant, I won't mention which, served us nice, juicy melted plastic with out vegetable patia (Oops! Didn't mean to give it away...) and when we pointed it out, we were served four hot gulab jamoons with a heavy dose of apologies. Oh well, I suppose all that hot jaggery sauce will melt the plastic, no harm done.

** I like dahi wada in Curry house...hmm, but I also like it everywhere else :p

** If you order carry out for less than five bucks at Masala, take cash with you! There was this one time when k and I were starving and ordered samosas and realized we didn't have cash! We could have asked that guy to make it a non-carry out but then that's just plain awkward.

** Still haven't come across anything yummier than Ravioli de portabello at Olive Garden. Their salad rocks too.

** At Joe Bolognas, the generous mayo served on their garden vegetable pizza is so sinfully delicious, you'll forget that you are eating something that's not exactly good for you :p

Chic (lit)...
I have come to the conclusion that I am the only desi woman-software-engineer that comes dressed to work like a day off at home aka bum! Everytime I catch myself in the office mirror, I tell myself I should be err...better dressed if not exactly "chic"! And reading books about Becky Brandon (Sophie Kinsella Shopaholic series) only makes me feel more ignorant and dull. Would be fun to spend loads of dough on the latest Gucci, Prada yada yada out there and turn a few heads, know what I mean? Somehow I have this sneaking suspicion that if I were a working woman in India, I would dress better... ;)

Girl friends...
I wonder if wives have this secret desire to make their husbands their girl friends, at least part-time. I guess, when we don't have access to a girl-friend, school chum, best-girl-buddy for a long time to chat, discuss guys (that was in college but you get the point)...and all that nice stuff with, we turn to our better halves to fill that void in our lives. Maybe I just made that up, that void bit, but it kind of makes sense. Of course the husbands don't take kindly to such suggestions ("Let's have a spa day together", "Let's do our eye brows together" or even, "Let's get matching new hair styles"...), but would be nice if they tuned in to our inner selves, explored their feminine sides and indulged us once in a while...ok, that was a lot of nonsense, but face it, you can dig out the little sliver of truth buried in it, cantcha?!

Such is my life. I am beginning to think the three days off and all that free time kind of messed with my head... :)

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