Friday, June 29, 2007

Happy as a lark :)

I'm happy as a clam :)

Ever had a day when all forces of nature (including that indispensable, precious person in your life) come together to create a perfect day for you??? Yesterday was one of those days :)

A quiet evening by the beach, followed by rains that make my heart sing...coupled with calls from friends and family who are now scattered across the world but remembered to make the day special for moi.......It was a beautiful day. And thanks to all of you who dropped by to extend your wishes. Have a great weekend, all :)

Thursday, June 28, 2007

To an older (and wiser) moi ;)

A little self-indulgence :)

A little self-indulgence on one's own b'day is acceptable, I guess!!! :)

Monday, June 25, 2007

Happy Couple

Happy Couple

From Detroit, it was go Columbus! The wedding was yet another highlight of the trip. For long, I have been looking forward to meet this absolutely fine family from my husband's side. And being a total sucker for beautiful love stories, I would not have missed this wedding at any cost.

Here's the happy couple for you. Their delicious smiles touched every heart, I am sure and as I keep reiterating, I love inter-racial marriages for they speak of love amidst the prejudices that mangle the world :)

And here's Daddy's not-so-little girl with the first man in her life:)

Daddy's pride

Saturday, June 23, 2007

A Message in a Window.

A Home with a message

From Key West we left for Detroit. This was my first time in the Motown but the names of the roads, cafes, buildings seemed so familiar. My husband who's an automobile buff has stayed and studied in Detroit for some time before he decided to make a move to Florida. I wish I had more time on hands to explore the city he loves to talk about so often but we had to move on to Ohio for a cousin's wedding. We did get a chance to catch a brief glimpse of the Wayne State University Campus and Oakland County though, as we met up with a few friends. We intend to be in Detroit sometime next year for the International Auto Show. Hope to see more of it then.

The building on top caught my attention as it was sporting the famous blue-and-white "No War" placard (towards the bottom right, if you look close enough). The sign created by local resident Jean Wilson created quite a furore in south-eastern Michigan, I'm told. For more, read here.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

From Ernest Hemingway's House

Hemingway's House

One of the highlights of my trip to Key West had to be Ernest Hemingway's house. I have been in love with "Papa" ever since I laid my hands upon "The Old man and the Sea". And the love only deepened with "A Farewell to Arms". As a kid growing up oceans away from here, I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams that I'll get to visit one of my favorite authors' abode. Life's been kind, is all I have to say.

The Spanish Colonial style home was built in 1851, acquired by Hemingway in 1931 and is now turned into a museum and National Historic Landmark. It is replete with beautiful personal touches of the writer and his wife, Pauline. All rooms have unique chandeliers which replaced the old ceiling fans the house had before its famous residents moved in. The pictures from his personal collection made the $11 ticket worth it.

The shot above is that of his bathroom, one of the very few in town to have had running water at the time. Perfect color for the summer solstice today, eh!!!! ;)

The shot below is for Paul . Meet the lazy Archibald MacLeisch, one of the 60 cats that live in the house. They are all descendants of Hemingway's cats. If you look carefully at the front paws, you'll notice the cat has 6 toes. The story goes that Hemingway made the acquaintance of a sea captain who owned an unusual six-toed tomcat. Upon his departure from Key West, the captain presented the cat to Hemingway. About half of the cats at the museum are polydactyl, which means they have extra toes. Most cats have extra toes on their front feet and sometimes on their back feet as well.And by the way, all 60 of them respond to the names they have been christened with , names like Emily Dickinson, Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Charlie Chaplin and Pablo Picaaso :)

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Vibrant Tropical Key West

Key West : Tropicana

I am back!!! Back with truckloads of photos (as always) and tons of beautiful memories that will last a lifetime :) It's been a beautiful one week full of laughter, joy, friends, family I never got a chance to meet and know before, some "us" time for me and my husband and we even managed to include a wedding in our itinerary.

We started out with Key West with my husband's childhood friends from across the ocean. The temperatures were crazy but the drive to the Southernmost point of the continental United States is a beautiful, scenic drive. And the place ..well, things down there are a little more slow-paced and a lot more like the way life sounds in Jimmy Buffet's songs. The place has a unique tropical charm and I'm not sure if it was the summer heat but everything there just seemed so much more alive with colors. The scene above is from the restaurant where we went noshing to sample the local fare. Vibrant's the word, eh!!! :)

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Hello, Summer Vacations!!!

Hello, Summer Vacations :)

To begin with, I'd like to thank all of you for sharing your thoughts on the tribute to Anne Frank. She has and will continue to inspire this world with her optimism and wisdom. There's this line in the Czech movie, "Divided we fall" (Set in Czech during WWII times and Czech's 2000 contender for best foreign film at Oscars) that lingers long after the movie is done with "You wouldn't believe what abnormal times do to normal people". Guess, if extra-ordinary circumstances bring out the worst in some, they bring out the best in most unlikely of us. That's humankind for you :)

On an upbeat note, I am off for a mini summer vacation. Have a friend down from across the Atlantic so we get to show him the southern most point of United States...yes, we are off to Key West via Miami. Hoping to bring some Cuban flavor to the blog from the trip. Thereafter, we leave for an Indo-Irish wedding in Mid-west and from there up to the Mackinac Islands in Upper Peninsula, Michigan. That's a lot of flavors that I intend to capture while on vacation, eh!!! But then that's the beauty of living in a nation as diverse as America. As TS Eliot once remarked, "Through my travels I have grown tremendously". I wish to learn all that textbooks could not teach moi, by following my wanderlust. And partly helping the dream is that my tax returns for the last year are safely in my checking account now. Have Money, Will Travel ;)

Will miss out on being your blogs for a short while but will catch up the minute I get back....such is the addiction to blogging ;)

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Anne Frank - (1929-1945)

Anne Frank

If she were alive, she'd be celebrating her 78th birthday today. Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (born : 12 June 1929) died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen Concentration camp at age 15 in March 1945.

We were in Amsterdam last winter and the hiding place of Franks, now recognized by a sign that reads simply "Anne Frank Huis", was one of the places we could not stop ourselves from visiting though we were "officially" on honeymoon in Holland. Being there was like re-living the pages from her diary again. The secret attic, the bookcase that covered the door to it, her life in hiding all came alive and so did the questions. All through, I kept wondering what my life was like at 15. And all I could remember was a cocooned childhood, still nursing the first crush of teenage, petty jealousies amongst girlfriends, sibling rivalries.................Guess, so would have been hers, had the world let it be.

The pages of her diary are replete with such girlie delights:

and a wisdom that belies her age:

"It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet, I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.....I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out." - Anne Frank

Shot at Amsterdam

Friday, June 08, 2007

Arms Wide Open

Arms Wide Open!!!

Gulf of Mexico as seen from the top floor at St. Petersburg Pier in Florida. Sea can be overwhelming as it stretches from here to eternity. Was in St Pete's for this weekend, and the shot from high above at Pier somehow makes you wonder how small we are in the grander picture of things, eh????

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Best Foot Forward!!! ;)

Best Foot Forward!!! :)

It was hilarious how I waited anxiously for her to change her posture to be able to get a different version of the similar shot!!!

Geeky Feet!!! :)

Geeky Feet!!! :)

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Here comes the hurricane season!

Raindrops - II

Rains came and how they did on the first official day of the hurricane season yesterday. Thank you, Mark , my rain angel, for sending them across Atlantic :) I sound obsessed about rains but trust me we needed them here in these parts and desperately so. South-west Florida is currently in the midst of a severe dry spell and water levels here are nearing critical levels. Hope these rains allay the significant water crisis we have on hands. The bush fires too needed these rains. As for moi, I love them anyday, everyday. My husband says, I should look for a job in Seattle after graduation.....I really won't mind if I get one !!!:)

Watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid last night....love the movie, love Paul Newman and love the song though it does not seem very happy about rains...I can make some concessions for lyrics as cute as those.........Have a great Sunday, all :)

"Raindrops keep fallin' on my head

And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed

Nothin' seems to fit

Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'

So I just did me some talkin' to the sun

And I said I didn't like the way he got things done

Sleepin' on the job

Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'

But there's one thing I know

The blues they send to meet me won't defeat me

It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head

But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red

Cryin's not for me

'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'

Because I'm free

Nothin's worryin' me"