RIP MJ

Oh my god ! Oh my god ! Michael Jackson really died... nooooo.... I am still not able to come with terms to this.

Sometimes you don't realize how a person touches your life until after they are gone. I am really surprised by how sad I am by his death. I mean I didn't even think once about buying tickets for his concert, so why am I so sad now ?

But if I think hard about it, it makes sense. He was the first pop-star or rock-star that made an impression on me as a kid. I used to dance on his songs and in fact I think his songs were the only English songs that I ever knew as a kid. I even remember that for one of my cousins birthday party (I must be around 12-13 years old) they had a quiz game.. and it was about music and movies from the US. Out of some 25 questions I knew the answer to just one question... who sang "I am bad". I remember staying up late at night when Michael Jackson married that Lisa female and they were interviewed... I was not interested in the marriage.. I was just mesmerized by him.

Then when he came to India for his tour in the 90's I followed him over the news and magazines and just admired him from far. When I came to US and had access to internet at home... I remember searching for his music videos ( as till then I had mostly just heard his music and seen him on TV), and this is when I was 21 years old and I still loved most of his songs.

So in many ways he had been a part of my life for more than a decade.. so if I am sad it makes sense. I will miss him in a way.

Rest in peace Michael Jackson.

Man push cart

I am a movie lover.. which means I am not afraid to experiment, even when sometimes I feel like hitting my head against a wall.. at that time i resolve not to ever watch a random movie again but like new year resolutions I break this resolution every time.

It's partly Paul's (my husband's) fault. I let him get these movies that he thinks are good as at some film festival they were raved about. One such movie we watched today is called "Man Push Cart". Does anyone remember those really slow boring artsy movies that used to have actors like Shabana Azmi and Nassurudin Shah ? Yeah this one beats those.

This is a movie about a Pakistani guy who used to be this rockstar in Pakistan and left all his dreams for the love of his life.. came to US and started out as a bagel stand in NYC... They never explain this drastic transition... I mean he could have either got the love of his life to live with him in Pakistan or he could have used his talent in US.. or atleast tried.. Now the story starts with how his wife is now dead and he is still selling bagels trying to save money so that his kid can live with him... It never brings tears to my eyes... it was downright boring... even when the kitten died.

Had some good acting... but not worth it for 2 hours of pulling my hair out. Time to watch some good old "Friends" to make my mood better.

Yard Work - Part 1

We bought our first house, also the one we are living in right now, about 2 years ago. In fact we marked our 2 year anniversary a couple of weeks ago. Ever since we got the house we have been doing something or the other starting with painting the rooms first year, then fixing the kitchen, renovating the bathroom, staining the deck and now finally this year doing some landscaping.

For once I can take almost all the credit for the work I have done so far. Dear husband helped on occasions where real manpower was needed. I started out with the tiny garden on the side of the house. Every year in spring it blooms tulips, daffodils and then we have roses and strawberries. The garden also housed a LOT of weeds. One would be tempted to use a weed killer solution like Round-up but beware, it can easily kill your daffodils and tulips. So I had to do some hard work - pull out all the weeds one by one by hand. An hour and a few rose thorn scrapes, the garden was almost weed free. Now to keep it weed free.. I decided to mulch. You can do a lot more than just mulching, like covering the area with some kind of special perforated sheet that doesn't allow weed growth.. but that was too much effort for me. So I decided to settle with just mulching.

These days they have rubber mulch - made out of recycled rubber. Looks just like regular mulch but apparently lasts 10 times longer and doesn't lose color. So I got this dark brown colored mulch, which I think goes well with the house, and mulched the tiny garden. It looked beautiful, but just a week or two later I noticed that the mulch is getting dirty and so doesn't look dark brown anymore and the weeds are starting to come back. I went online and realized my mistake. When you mulch make sure you have atleast an inch thick layer of mulch. Just a thin spread is not enough - duh! So I did that and vola - it looks great and has not shown rigorous weed growth since.
Pic 1, 2: In spring right after finishing mulching
Pic 3: In June