Whose Line Is It Anyways ? - #24

The Hogwarts Candidate

Of late, my son is obsessed with Harry Potter phenomenon. He finished reading the first 6 books in no time - the first 3 or 4 books took only 2 days each that too non-holidays. I was so skeptic of his speed that I even quizzed him to see if he actually read it fully. Clean as a whistle ! From then, started his non-stop HP acts at home - make-do wands with straws and pencil, disarming spells and sometimes even "unforgivable" curse flying around in the living room, he even registered himself in the pottermore website, got sorted to Ravenclaw house, earned points for his house, made online friends, won duels with them, won the house cup etc etc. To cap it all, he also did a pretend-sort of his baby sister into "Slytherin" house which gave him immense satisfaction. The toddler girl though, who bothers him often, seemed to be happy with the sorting by running around the house babbling "Slytherin House".

When I thought this Potter mania was tapering off a bit, this past weekend I was down with cold and the elder one couldn't relish that. He wanted to make a "potion" to cure cold. He was asking me what all to add. I just played along to keep up his cheer - suggesting hot water, Halls, turmeric etc. He wanted to literally make it. I wasn't paying much attention to him when I suddenly found a piece of paper lying in the kitchen. It was his potion recipe. I was stunned to notice the level of thought and detail that had gone into that. See the attached pic. It even mentions what to do, when to do, how much to do etc. Dumbledore would sure be proud ! My bad, .. make that Severus Snape not Dumbledore :-) 100 points to Ravenclaw !

Whose Line Is It Anyway ? - #23

Amidst the struggle to balance life with two kids, there will arise an occasional instance which will make parenting worth all the trouble. Today was my turn to experience such an instance with my eldest one.

I was with my iPad trying to open a college savings account for my son. The 8 year old peeped into what I was doing. I made a casual mention to him "I am opening an account to save money for your college". Not expecting a reply anyways, I continued. A few moments later, he shot back - "Does that mean you will not be buying me any more toys ?".  I smiled at the curious mind and said no, he can still have his toys.  Relieved by my answer, he started showing more interest in the account opening process. He even entered his own name, birth date in the application. The next screen was bank fund information. I was entering the bank details and the amount. Out of nowhere, he volunteered - "I will also give the money the I am saving for putting into this". A home run ! I was stunned and speechless and I just let the moment to sink in.  Later on when I was sharing this with my wife, this young man was actually busy opening his wallet and taking out the bills - two $10 bills and some Indian currency. Apparently he had meant what he said. I told him it was okay he can keep all his money to himself. He retorted back - "I have $20. But I was anyways planning to give you only $10".  Another swing for the fence !

Picture of my kids taken using my cellphone camera at a Mall in the night. (Awesome low light performance from Nokia Lumia !)

Pixel Poems #12

Finally got the chance to visit Sri Swaminarayan Temple in Chino Hills. Beautiful creation. The inside of the temple was just fine craftsmanship on marble but no photography allowed. Also met some old college days  friends there by chance which made the occasion even better. The picture with the California palms in front of ancient Indian style wood work carvings on the front wall of the visitor center  provided an interesting juxtaposition of the cultures.

Whose Line Is It Anyway ? - #22

Innocence is a precious thing. From the time we are born, there is only one thing we can afford to do with innocence - Loose It. But the days of childhood innocence is very precious and memorable - particularly when the child is your kid. My elder one is a believer ! Though 7 years old, he still hampers hope for Santa. Even though his mystic tooth fairy turned out to be his dad, and even though, most of his friends have told him no uncertain terms that Santa is nothing but your parents, he is still not fully buying it. While this belief borne out of innocence is adorable, his reasoning for believing is personally troublesome to me. Last year, he asked for a "Ladder" from Santa. So the Santa in me got one from HD and placed near the fire place. He was so moved by this gesture and to this day firmly believes, it has to be SANTA as he does not think his DAD can afford a $40 ladder from HomeDepot !! So this year's letter to Santa is here. Well written. This year Santa has options to choose from. My son also claims he will be contend if he gets just one of them. 

Anecdotes!

Some times, little converstations with our kids can change the entire mood setting of a family. I am sure every parent has this experience.  I am trying to recollect such instances:

• This happened one busy morning. Maanasi loves to sit on the counter top and watch me cooking and I like to talk to her when I cook.  So I had something to do in the kitchen and I helped her sit on the counter top. Meanwhile I felt like cuddling her and I said "nee thaan yenoda kozhakataiya?" She gave a very adorable smile and immediately said" illa, vadaa". All of us broke into laughter immediately.

Keep trying, Keep on trying!

The latest in my husbands never ending list of interests is learning to play a musical instrument. So couple of days back, he got himself a guitar.  Both my kids look at it as if its a new toy.

Maanasi gets really excited when her dad tries to practice on it.  So dad taught her to fold three fingers and to hold the pick with the thumb and the pointer. From then on whenever she sees the guitar she starts working with her fingers.  

Today something really funny happened. Maanasi saw the guitar lying on the couch and immediately with utmost sincerity started positioning her fingers.  Then she tried tuo use the pick as directed by dad. But the pick unexpectedly fell into the string hole.  Now all her attention went in getting the pick out,that she lost control of the carefully positioned fingers.  She was not able to get the pick, so she started playing with some toys. A minute after, her attention went back to the guitar . She now looked at her hand and to her dismay realized that her fingers were all out of position! She gave a look of shock,said 'uh oh' and vehemently started working on her hands all over again:-)

 

So, like the title says," Keep trying, keep on trying" is the lesson I learnt from her!

The Food Industry

The very mention of this blog post's title makes me cringe but couldn't find a better one for this post.

Today I contributed to the campaign fund for ballot measure I-522 in Washington state - a measure to make labeling of genetically engineered food and produce mandatory. I missed following such a ballot measure taken up and defeated in California last fall. This time, though I could not vote, I contributed to the fund fighting for the measure.

The NO campaign is backed by the usual suspects lead by - drums roll - Monsanto. These are the people "running" the food "industry". I feel the very sanctity of the word 'food' is lost by adding the term "industry" to it.

I do not buy any of the arguments from the industry against labeling GMOs. One particular thing caught my attention.  Quoting here verbatim from the No-on-I522 site - "For decades, agricultural biotechnology has helped improve food crops so they resist disease, require fewer pesticides or are more nutritious. Today, 70-80% of grocery products include genetically engineered (GE) ingredients, and they’re deemed safe by the USDA, the FDA and major scientific and medical organizations."

I have to hand it to them for using the euphemistic term "agricultural biotech" in place of  its more honest but gross equivalent "genertically engineered". The "70-80%" fact literally makes me puke my dinner out. But  wait, their best shot is yet to come. Here they are -
"deemed safe by the USDA, FDA blah blah" - the very same toothless powerless regulatory body where the people running the show are "ex-industry insiders" and fueled by the lobbying power of the very same industry that it is trying to regulate. The sad state of affairs is that the cream of the technologists who can potentially expose the ill-effects of such reckless "biotech" sadly end up working for the same industry.
- "requires fewer pesticides" - after a generation of singing the praise of pesticides we have realized their long term effects and we are deliberately trying to pedal back. The very same USDA, FDA etc that are now backing GE/GMO foods as "safe", were the ones advocating pesticides usage a few decades ago. How on earth can we be sure that a generation from today this sad bunch wont come back and say "Oh Sorry ! we just found out GMO/GE can screw us up too"

Want to add some "goodness" to this post. Hence adding a picture of the carrot cake - home made from scratch - by my wife for my birthday. Given the "food industry's" might, I would never know for certain if the carrot or the flour is "artificial" or "genetically engineered" or has GMO, but I know for sure that in the affection of my wife who made that cake, there is not an iota of anything that is artificial or engineered. Thats enough to make the cake tastier, in spite of GMO/GE contents it might have.