A wonderful day... :)

Its a wonderful day... Just something that you keep it save in your memories..
And a nice one to look back on ...
Just remembering a good time and chill out on best times ahead...
Awoke to get ready to go church ... Sleepy wishes were passed..
Got the coffee ready and sipped in the wonderful morning tranquility..
Spent time draping saree..(wearing it after couple of months hence the time factor)
Just finished 5 mins before the start time of the mass.
Warm wishes from the near and dear ones ... And yea we raced to be in time for the morning mass.
Breakfast followed in 'Taj Mahal restaurant' ... a place we hadn't visited in a while..
After which went to supermarket ..You bought milk and I did not want to spoil any surprise (not that i needed to worry about it) so was attending the wishes on phone...
After which on reaching home ...came the flowers :)
Nice to receive flowers ...though I guess I first worried about the expense... :)
But sometimes should give a miss to trivial issues of cost when the thought behind it is comforting :)
Got some more calls with some more warm wishes and some thoughtful messages.. Nice to be remembered.
Black forest cake followed ...after which there was not much appetite for lunch...
So cancelled plan of going out for lunch.

Instead had a light lunch ( if you could call it light) ...phulkas, egg roast, onion tomato raita plus pickle and yesterday's mango dal..

Wore the new salwar kurta for which we searched quite a bit for matching aqua marine duppata..
Finally found that in "Fab India" when we went to shop yesterday as ur treat...

Then you humoured me by taking me to "Walden".....Checked out books and bought some..
Took part in a lucky dip..
Bought some plum cakes for taking to office tomorrow to distribute it to team..

Then we were doing time pass browsing "Home Town" wondering how to redeem the Rs 25 parking ticket..
But got the news that dad's wallet was picked in his ride on the local train to catch the passenger.
However no major harm as no debit or credit cards though caused some anxious moments both here and back home.

Then when all was fine browsed through "LOFT"... just to check out and in search of the elusive pair of shoes... However nothing worth the price.
Left for " Our Place "..but we lost or rather did not remember the turns and gave up going there for dinner..

Instead went to "Uttupura" and had parotta and kadala and chicken curry ...:) I know cheap and modest treat but what to do since we could not find "Our Place".. Maybe that will be for some other time ..

Came back.. perused the books..got a call regarding the dip and saw the new serial "Custom Made for Vir Sanghvi"....
Nothing exceptional but a wonderful day...
Thanks for humouring me to go to all the shops esp on a Sunday evening ..

Wonderful yet simple though tiring way to spend a birthday :)

P.S(8th Aug 2009) : We won the Rs 1000 gift coupon at Walden ..Splurged today on books again :)

Best Things Done..... :)

Drawing inspiration from Kiran's post here ... I too thought of penning the best things dear husband has done for me (till now )...

Dear Husband…….

The Five Best Things Dear Husband has done for me

1) Married Me :D….Taken the load of my father ‘s chest …. :)
2) He really show small gestures which bring out the greatest love he has ..though he won’t verbalize the love part… it is implied :)..Waking me up at 2.00 in the night so that I can take the fever medicine for the sudden fever I have developed. In addition rubbing my back when back is hurting on account of fever…Plus some random day night when I groggily awoke crying disoriented with a muscle pull, massaged the leg back by the time I realized what the problem was.
3) Patiently listening with a zen like calm to my ranting, grumblings and verbalizing of stuff which has caused irritation , anger etc and which has churned itself into a major melting pot of venting out. Of course sometimes I mis-understand this calm as not able to empathize with my point of view.
4) Does some of the stuff un asked. … If the maid has taken an impromptu off and there is a bucket full of clothes majorly mine which has been already soaked, then will not hesitate to wash them. Broom the cobwebs away at corners of the room where my bulk and height will never reach. Of course sometimes I have to ask to wipe the microwave..( I leave it with more stains)
5) Doesn’t mind the old hag look I take when I am at home in “maxi”…Reminds me to put cream and take medicines if any.. It is another issue that I don’t do it if I am too tired.

In addition to these , these are some other best things to be added …. :)

6) Taken me to lovely places and different places for shopping or for eating .. :) Be it finding out about where FabIndia exists (which earlier with friends was not able to go to) or trying Barbecue Nation or Yoko’s… Or searching for a CASIO battery replacement shop in ABIDs area. Although some more exists in the To Do List…like going to Golconda, visiting the main office campus along with me(before it is closed down), visiting Bawarchi, buying pearls and hyderabadi kundan work sarees, etc etc
7) Likes to humour my suggestions and whims especially like going out to a Thali place which is not that great or taking my suggestion of Dhola ri dhani which we went with friends which turned out ok..
8) Tolerates my shopping especially grocery shopping whims especially when not feeling well and accompanying me to shop random grocery…
9) Takes care of House Owner interface , Gas booking and follow up with Fridge repair where I would have seriously sucked..
10) Brings out the humane perspective especially in dealing with maid,etc. :)
11) Really gets thoughtful gifts i.e be it splurge on Crossword or a wonderful and tasteful ring.

For future references, watch the space :D…

Warm regards,
Wife :)

Wonderful Thought on Togetherness

I was checking a wonderful post here.
Here’s wishing Art and Navy more wonderful years ahead.

But wanted to post the thought mentioned in this post.

The thing with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character.
Having quoted that ,
Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness ( sometimes delayed) blow the rest away

I especially liked the one below.
And hope someday we will never measure nor weigh the thoughts or words instead pour them out.

Domestic Musings

Dear wife
I have forgotten my mobile at home :).
Please pay electricity bill, the amount is Rs.XXX/-
Take care,
========================================

From a wife who eventually figured out :)

Dear Husband,
Thought so.. :) Good luck with being cell less :)
The electricity bill is not reflecting online. Will pay the same next week.
Regards,

Thinking about tiffins

From: Tina

Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 5:04 PM

Subject: Thinking about tiffins

My latest past time is to read blogs (as you must have come to know by the mails I sent)… and notable among them being Food blogs :)

It generally helps to whip up an appetite for the cafeteria lunch..:)

Of course the downside is that it makes me feel the dishes shown there are easy to whip up.
So in order to surprise V, plan some different stuff to cook so that at least it is different from my usual routine khana.

Unfortunately, V ends up being shocked.

So after a few days of disasters, I mentioned that maybe over the weekend , I lost my special cooking skills.
As a result we were having disasters for the past week.

I knew the level of my skills, when V replied “Oh is it, were they not disasters before last weekend” :)

Just today when one of my colleagues was miffed about his mom not packing his lunch right, we all ended up discussing about Moms/Dads packing out tiffins.
I was thinking our moms(could be parents too ) were generally a class apart.

Dunno when they found time to whip up all the good stuff.
Not just breakfast but include a lunch and snack also for the evening apart from morning milk/tea.

Generally all I have time to whip up a safe breakfast of bread and omelets in the mornings.

But when we were in school, our mums used to send us to school with a tiffin bag. Tiffin bag containing a water bottle, short break tiffin , lunch break tiffin and Napkin.

And we people had enough nakharas like…

Short break tiffin will have something different from long break tiffin.
Short break tiffin will have something exceptional so that friends in the group share and say “WoW”.
Lunch break tiffin should have roti’s, Rice in rare scenarios permissible.
If Rice present then spoon also should be present.
If Rice present , curry should not drip out.
If Papad there then that should be in separate polythene.

Dunno how my mom found the time to give us such tiffin bags for all siblings, with rules directly proportional to number of siblings.

But I guess it is true that you start appreciating all this when you are trying to achieve one-tenth of what they used to do..:)

So long see ya.
Tina :)

Weekend Thrills :)

From: Tina

Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 4:31 PM

Subject: Weekend Thrills :)

It has been quite a few days since I rambled :) or weeks rather…

After a well deserved though unexpected break home, it is back to the old grind..
Last weekend(Independence weekend) we were at home .
Though it was a long weekend it was not exactly planned with V struggling to book us tickets to get back and finally getting something via Tatkal.
Remembered one of my friends comments saying that before even before we embark on a journey, we worry about the tickets to get back.

:) Yup with no extended holidays ..I guess that’s how it is …
Regrets though in not being able to meet any of you.

Gud to see amche P after quite a while …With the temperatures dipped and rains around the corner.

It is nice to romanticize the weather when you are visiting only for the weekend, as compared to living it out there.
Especially since rains had disrupted the general routine in P just the weekend prior to this one.

For us it was a different ball game as both our Sasar(in-laws place) and Maher(parents place) is the same.
So whatever time we had seemed real short.

I miss P mornings with the slight chill and dip in temperature irrespective of the season it is…

I guess for both of us it was gud to eat food not cooked by me :).. Some authentic variants cooked up in the traditional style.
Attended a couple of functions including an impromptu birthday celebrations. For once V and I managed to be home for at least someone’s birthday…
Generally we used to end up wishing via phone.

And before we knew it , it was time to come back.
The train reached early morning and going back to office was seriously a pain …especially with me feeling extra sleep deprived.

Why is it when you want to leave office early especially after a journey, that you end up staying in office for long?
Neways it took a couple of days for us to orient back to Hyd tehzeeb.

And for V it was back to my short cut cooking after a few days of authentic stuff..

It seemed like over the weekend I lost touch of how to cook. So it was getting myself reacquainted with the vessels. :)

Ciao,
Tina :)

Disasters with cooking :)

From: Tina
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 7:36 PM
Subject: Disasters with cooking :)

They say ‘The way to a man’s heart goes through his stomach’ but if that’s the case then I guess I will never reach my hubby’s heart…
The type and edibility of the food I prepare is something which is highly debatable.

And ‘Amche Aaho’ comments that I cook in auto pilot…
Yea which is true I guess when Television is on but otherwise I do not think so...

Well missing putting sugar in coffee or putting too much sugar in tea is by default I guess…
But some curries turn out in such a way that he is forced to ask…exactly what this was before you demolished it.

Once it happened that I went ahead to cook cabbage by the time I turned on the gas and went ahead with putting all ingredients I realized I had missed out something and that ingredient was not available at home too. So went ahead with cooking just put some pepper. Got distracted while cooking and ended up with semi burnt sabji. :) That day at dinner convinced ‘Amche Aaho’ that I put extra pepper and that’s the reason for cabbage looking black…

Another day thought of making some dessert so tried Gulab Jamun. The ad in the ready to mix pack and the actual product were two different stuff.
If you know how rock is then you should have some idea as to how the Gulab Jamun was ….
Though putting it in sugar syrup did have some what better effect at least you could break the small rocks :)

Of course how difficult will making rice be…
Well I can make a mess of that too..
With putting in more water that I guess we had rice soup one day :)

The icing on all this cake is Cake itself.
Thought of whipping up a cake as a surprise.
Got all ingredients, mixed it and put it to bake …
Set the timer and went ahead to kitchen to cook sum other stuff.
After a while thought will check it out , but could not make out how the cake baking dish size reduced so much.
Quickly opened the oven and cake is crisp and burnt and cake dish is partially melted…
I by mistake se set it on conventional bake time instead of normal bake time.
That month our electricity bill was also a packet: D

Of course ‘Aamche aaho’ had a good time clicking photos of the cake in Top view, Side view, on plate, with white background (to emphasize on the burnt color and texture ) etc.
He just wanted that ppl back home should not miss the wonderful top part like vanilla(i.e white) and bottom part like chocolate (i.e burnt black)

For the life of him, he cannot understand what I do so much in the kitchen with the final product sometimes questionable.
So best and healthy suggestion is just cut all veggies and brings it to the table so we can have a healthy non –burnt food…
Yea got to try that too :D

Well these are some of the disasters I could remember while penning this …will update more if I remember..

Till then will inflict such a pain to ‘Amche Aaho’ only
In case any one wants to try at your own risk, you are always welcome :D

Warm Regards,
Tina :)

Kismis.. :)

From: Tina
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 7:37 PM
Subject: Kismis.. :)
Bleary eyed was eying at the tasks to be done before leaving for wrk....
Maid had just made an entry and told something in telegu....
Normal conversation with maid goes something like this...

Maid : Telegu ...telegu ........bhabhi .....telegu....
Me : Ok ...Telegu radu (dunnot know telegu )
Maid : Phenyl telegu...telegu
Me : Phenyl khatam ho gaya ? Will be able to get only on weekend...Saturday....chalega
Maid : nods.
So after such attempts at communicating generally i am quiet thinking why to unnecessarily trouble her and myself....

Another day her conversation went...
Maid : Bhabhi ...hindi...
Me : Haan Hindi aatee
Maid : Telegu ?
Me : Little little..Koncham Koncham .(Actually know only Telegu Radu..)
Maid : Bhaiya telegu...
Me : Bhaiya telegu radu...(Now how to tell i knw atleast telegu radu , bhaiya does not know that too )
Maid : Kya bhabhi telegu telegu ( in a gist i guess...god knows how we will communicate)
So after a week of such conversation or rather no conversation

I braved and just attempted some more small talk...
Me : So baachee kaise? (thoda actions ke saath)
Maid : Telegu baache school etc etc telegu telegu
Me : Ohh Ok... (smiled sweetly)

Me gave up on small talk and went about with something in kitchen.

Maid : Bhabhi kismis hai ...
Me : (thinking - Gas connection bhi nahi hai ....She want to cook or what...No dry fruits also...Then dry fruits mein kismis se some cleaning. ohh maybe for kids) Kismis....Kismis kyun chahiye?
Maid : Nahi bhabhi....kismis telegu .telegu
Me : Kismis khane waala ...Pakane ke liye chahiye ?
Maid : Radu bhabhi ..kismis kismis....telegu telegu telegu..
Me : (Totally clueless)....kismis par weekend ko hii laa payenge ,....
Maid : radu bhabhi..

Both of us are looking at each other for communication gap...Almost at verge of giving up then realization dawned upon me...
Ekdum cartoon character zaise bulb jala siir ke uppar :)
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Me : CHRISTMAS .......Ohh ...Aap Christmas ke baarein mein pooch rahein ho ...
Maid : (thousand watt smile) haaa bhabhi
Poor thing was trying some conversation at her level too...
Me : Haa hain naa....(gave a brief description of x'mas)

Then we slipped back to oblivion ..i.e back to silence....
I guess we will take some more time to discuss abt "new year" or for that matter any other festival....but that will be another story...
Till then see ya and keep mailing

Take care
Tina :)