wandering mind

The spirit of small town really comes alive during the mother's day festival. Mom and pop shops and small restaurants line up the main street in our town. It is the day before mother's day - a perfect time for last minute mother's day gifts. I don't exactly remember which year it was, but kids were still young enough to be excited about this festival. I do remember that I was training for a marathon and Saturdays used to be the long run days. So this particular year I didn't make it to the festival. But kids went with their dad. They picked this for me among other things. I have always loved this. It used to sit in my office at work when I used to have a regular 9-5. Now it graces my desk in my home office.  

The year was 1990 - I had been married for a few months. I had taken a break from college. When I got married my aunt said that I should take a few months off and spend it doing nothing. She said it would be the best time of my life. I didn't really believe her. But I did it anyways. My college used to have quarters - and I took off two quarters and spent it traveling around India.  My husband had just finished his Masters in Civil Engineering - Offshore Engineering to be exact. So he was looking for a job. And I was about a year away from completing my Bachelors in Electronics Engineering. There were about a 1000 people at my wedding. I knew maybe about a 100 of them. We got a lot of cash. Enough to fund our travels and food and shelter for next several months. So that's what we did. I distinctly remember this evening in New Delhi. We had gone to Sector 8 market to pick up some groceries. As we were walking back, it was dark, maybe around 8pm. I saw this old women sitt...

Conference had ended and it was four chaotic and hectic days that started at 8 am and ended way after midnight.  It was the last day and I wanted to explore some more of San Francisco. I have been coming for several years, and I still love this city. My coworker and I couldn't agree on what we wanted to do. He suggested that we could see a movie, but we couldn't agree on a movie. And honestly, I didn't want to be inside of a movie theater - I would rather walk aimlessly in the city. We decided to part ways, he was going to a bar to watch football. And I decided  to see the Japanese Tea Garden. I was mapping out my route from union square to the gardens. I could change a couple of buses and get there for about $5. But it would take two hours. I called my husband and told him it was probably not worth it. He asked me why I am making it so complicated, why can't I just take a cab. What!! Why didn't I think of that. $27 uber ride got me to the gardens. It was hug...

Those were some very happy years. I had developed a sister like friend at work. We worked so well with each other, maybe extreme programming was designed after us. Any programming problem thrown at us, we could solve in no time - if left alone. We were inseparable. People used to joke that we are married. We used to go on walks at lunch time. Sometimes we will pick up hummus and olive tapenade and crusty bread from Trader Joes and have a picnic lunch at our desk. Sometimes we would sneak a glass of wine at lunch and come back all giggly and trying to be serious. Thursday in summers were Farmers market days - and you had to plan to be there early if you wanted the fougasse bread from the baker. He used to always run out by noon. Happy times. One day she walked in with a small segment of a plant - she put it in a paper cup with water on my desk. This was taken from her grand mother's plant. She loved her grandma more than life itself. Unfortunately, grandma had passed aw...

In this age of depleting resources and overflowing landfills, any idea of reuse is so welcome and needed. Making new from the old. This time while in India, my mother in law gave me this table runner that is made with old Saris. This is made at the vocational training center for Women, empowering women with skills to make them self sufficient. Old saris are cut into strips, twisted into a yarn, and then  woven using a loom. They are made into table covers, runners, placemats. I found this article that describes it in detail. I love how it looks on my dining table. Its a little rough, a little imperfect, and so charming. Looking forward to weaving more memories with the family this holiday season, centered around this table.

It was a hot summer day when  +Meghana Singh  and I stepped into the pottery class. The building was very old, with narrow staircases. The narrow hallway was lined with the pots and mugs of all sorts and in various stages of existence. The room where we were to take our class had no air conditioning. There were fans running and windows open. It was a BYOB class, we forgot to bring our B - oh well. There were six students. The teacher was a young college student with a nose ring that was oh so pretty. She was majoring in ceramics. In an alternate life I might have done that. The feel of the clay on the hand felt like coming home to something. Like kneading dough for bread, but not quite. We shaped and messed up and reshaped out bowls many times. A slight press of the hand would thin out the wall of the bowl. A little harder press would create an unsightly lip. It was over soon. I wanted to do this all day. This was a multiple day process. The bowls will dry for t...

For next several days -leading up to Christmas, I will pick some random object around the house and write about how I got it and something that happened around that time. I am trying to keep up with  Magma Chronicles  and trying to write more often. I just came back from a trip around the globe. We went to India via London. I have been collecting ornaments from all the places I travel to. They are such happy things to collect. I picked this one from a gift shop under the Tower of London. I had a whole day of roaming around London with my husband. We hadn't done anything like this since before we had kids. It was a cold day so we decided that we will stop every so often to have a drink somewhere. The first place we stopped was the Pub on Thames - a big ship docked on Thames which served as a bar and a restaurant. I was so cold that I ordered two shots of whiskey. Of course my wise husband thought it was too soon, too fast. It was only 11 am. So we settled on one and a half...