yaba daba doo

Today I decided to go in early to work and volunteer some hours for the nursing home i work for. With Halloween coming up, they like to send halloween trick or treat baskets filled with candy to the doctors affiliated with the nursing home. It’s also filled with the nursing home’s pamphlets, notepads and other accessories that help get the word out. The baskets were so much fun  to make. I wish I had a camera to take a picture..Don’t think my office would be too happy bout it if they caught me doing it. donno if that’s against corporate policy and dad’s really possessive bout his cam. oh well… hmm.. but i did meet a cool dude. he was way senior to me..like in his 50′s or 60′s but very friendly and down to earth.and happy go lucky… he was very interesting. in a short span of chatting with him i learned that he taught music. he played violin and piano. he knew that Bombay was now Mumbai and he could whistle theme tune to the Flintstones cartoon. He was very knowledgeable about Indian music. He had a folk violin from India. He knew quite a bit bout the tabla, the sitar, and many classical Indian artists. He told me he teaches a class called World music in which he introduces his students to music from Africa, India and other parts of the world. He said he mainly focuses on Indian music. It’s so refreshing to meet people who are so happy and good natured. I hope to bump into him again soon and also meet more people like him. The ironic interesting thing was.. He was whistling the theme song to the Flintstones as I mentioned before. And when I was finally done volunteering and ready to start my regular shift I signed into my computer as usual and went on to the Internet only to see Google’s main page with a Flintstone theme since it was their 50th anniversary!!! how ironic is that!!

It was a good day to say the least.. I honestly feel weird but happy bout the fact that the days seem to be going by faster now. I really can’t believe we’re going to be at Friday tomorrow. This is a good thing considering I’m waiting for december to come around so I can finally know the status of my visa. When he gets that visa I’ll be having a huge celebration.. Anywho, it’s late so better hit bed.. this light is turned off..

Rang Barse Bheege Chunar Wali, Rang Barse

Holi is here once again… Gotta love the festival of colors man… wish my gojira was here to celebrate with me… if he was his face would green and his bum blue LMAO!! =P

Gojira had celebrated Holi for the first time with me a couple years ago. Holi marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring in India. It has a lot to do with Vishnu and Hindu mythology but honestly its too complex to explain unless you’re well versed with all the characters from the Mahabharata.

On this day you’re supposed to throw colors on each other dry and wet with squirt guns and water balloons and sling it on each other’s faces. Most of the guys get dirtier by including eggs and cow dung but I’ve never played that dirty nor do I intend to ever! yuck…

You can always tell who played Holi by checking out the people the next day. They usually still have purple ears and green noses for a week till the color fades. The colors get so soaked into your skin you literally have to scrub each and every inch of your skin to get the colors out. It helps if you rub your skin with baby oil or coconut oil before going to play but it still is a big chore to get it out. On top of it you get so exhausted after playing for hours that you literally have no energy or strength to clean up!

Holi is also a day to have bhang which is a traditional saffron and almond flavored milk drink with weed in it. When Gojira and I celebrated his first Holi he managed to convince the DJ at the rain dance we went to, to get us some bhang.. He couldnt get us bhang but managed to get us the weed to make bhang. This is one day in the whole year that you can consume weed in India without getting legally in trouble for it! since we didn’t have any loving nurturing mothers around to make us that yummy saffron almond sweet chilled milk to have bhang we ended up going to a corner grocery store purchasing some Amul Kool flavored milk to have it that way…

what a bunch of hillbillies we were =D Fun times man…

But if you care to try the traditional bhang recipe here you go…

2 cups water
1 ounce marijuana (fresh leaves and flowers of a female plant preferred)
4 cups warm milk
2 tablespoons blanched and chopped almonds
1/8 teaspoon garam masala (a mixture of cloves, cinnamon, and cardamon)
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/2 to 1 teaspoon rosewater
1 cup sugar

Method
Bring the water to a rapid boil and pour into a clean teapot. Remove any seeds or twigs from the marijuana, add it to the teapot and cover. Let this brew for about 7 minutes.
Now strain the water and marijuana through a piece of muslin cloth, collect the water and save.

Take the leaves and flowers and squeeze between your hands to extract any liquid that remains. Add this to the water.
Place the leaves and flowers in a mortar and add 2 teaspoons warm milk. Slowly but firmly grind the milk and leaves together. Gather up the marijuana and squeeze out as much milk as you can. Repeat this process until you have used about 1/2 cup of milk (about 4 to 5 times). Collect all the milk that has been extracted and place in a bowl. By this time the marijuana will have turned into a pulpy mass.

Add the chopped almonds and some more warm milk. Grind this in the mortar until a fine paste is formed. Squeeze this paste and collect the extract as before. Repeat a few more times until all that is left are some fibers and nut meal. Discard the residue.

Combine all the liquids that have been collected, including the water the marijuana was brewed in. Add to this the garam masala, dried ginger and rosewater. Add the sugar and remaining milk.

Chill, serve, and enjoy.

This is a picture of us on that day.. Gojira’s not in the picture cuz he took it and I’m not disclosing which one I am… its kind of obvious actually.. haha oh well its blurry enough to still make me kind of anonymous :P I’m the one suppppper stoned. haha…

I was hoping Holi this year would fall during his trip to India but its exactly 19 days too early =(  Happy Holi everybodyyyy

And here is my respect to the “Holi” man himself… get it? Holi.. haha… he aint holy but he’s the only godfather of Bollywood and Holi is just not complete without listening to his hit song Rangggggg Barrrrrrseeeeeeeee…. here’s a clip for all you Bachchan fans… I’d watch more Hindi movies if they preserved their old school class. For all those people who have never heard of the holiday Holi watch this so you can see what happens on this day all over India… sooo much funnn!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/v/rm17BPGvZSc&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f

Y’all celebrate safe and play nice now ;) Do you or did you ever celebrate Holi? Do you have a favorite Holi memory? Are you celebrating this year?? This light is turned off..

Edit: Even Google decided to celebrate with us… Check out the Google India Home page!! =)

Currently listening to
Holi Aayi Ude Re Gulal
By Bhushan Dua

chase away the blues…

Hmmm…. so my blog post was chosen to be featured on Dollarish which brightened my mood yesterday but then it went down again because for some reason my author profile is listed but it won’t give me access to view the post itself or view the comments people have written in response to reading it. I wrote to dollarish so let’s hope they’ll reply soon and tell me why I can’t view it. I’ve been chasing away the blues…. but yesterday I felt pretty good after browsing through some cartoon images on Google. I thought maybe others could do with a bit of humor so I decided to show my favorite cartoon characters on here…

Bill and Opus are just so cute in their oversized tightey whiteys and their slobby natures always trying so hard to make it in this world inspite of their bulky, lanky awkwardness and their cute insecurities.. They never fail to make me smile..

I will never get tired of Spongebob and his optimism. His hunger to please everyone around him, his ignorance to how dumb Patrick is and how morbid Squidward is. He is annoyingly dorky and I can’t help but flip through Nickelodeon hoping to catch an episode of Spongebob! “Who lives in a pineapple under the seaaaaa…..SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!” =)

Mutts is so adorably cute with their slurred speech and their innocence about the simplest of things.. reminds me of the pets i grew up with and how much fun they were to have around… so cute… just wish i could pick up the both of them and hug them in my arms… lol

My childhood wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t have this to watch after coming home from school. My favorite characters were Tommy and Chucky. Angelica was a bitch lol… but I just loved their adventures and how much fun they had together. The theme song is so catchy… hehe… =P

The Wild Thornberrys reminded me a lot of the Rugrats. Maybe its the way they’re drawn. I loved watching this show. The traveling was the best part of the show and it made me wish I had such a versatile RV like they did. The way the two sisters fight is exactly how my sister and I used to fight with each other. Both of them completely different in nature… but come together at the end of each episode to love and respect one another…

I saved the best for last!! No cartoon will ever match up to the humor, intelligence or the imagination of Calvin and Hobbes.

So what are your favorite cartoon characters/shows? This light is turned off…

Currently watching
Zombieland