The Zlooksh

The Zlooksh By Dominique Demers            Pattu Rating: 4.4                                                                        Zachary looks like any other normal boy but for his wild wild imagination. He believes himself to be the captain of a rocket ship and when he tires of such responsibility, he retires to his tree house which is in the tallest branch of the tallest tree. Sometimes when he is bored, he dives down to the ocean floor to meet his marine friends.

So, when Mrs Davey, his classteacher askes the class to draw their favourite animal, Zachary gets busy. So busy that he misses lunch, play and all the other activities for the day. He is surrounded by papers and his friends can't contain their curiosity. Mrs. Davy offers to help, but then Zachary's favourite animal is the Zlooksh and Mrs Davey is certain that there's no such animal on planet earth! However, Mrs Davey sure is in for a surprise....

Pattu and Buc (another figment of her imagination), I'm sure would be more than happy in the company of Zachary and Zlooksh. No wonder Zachary struck a chord with Pattu.... and I must say that the Zlooksh looks so adorable!

A Potty Post

Pattu is peeing and I peep in (just the routine hygeine checks) and GASP!! She is peeing into the potty like a boy!!

To my, "What are you doing!!", she threw me confused look as if to say, "What else can one do at the potty"?

Amma: Whya re you peeing like that?

Pattu: Because it is easier...

Amma: Who taught you that?

Pattu: The boys in my school pee like this only and it is easy...

Amma - who is by now struggling to arrest all the thoughts from running wild, meekly says,

"But girls should not pee like that ok.. you have to always sit.." and 'gulp'-ingly adds "..and it is shame shame to look at others peeing ok...it is not good" ..and hopes she won't point out that I did exactly that just now...

Pattu: "But why amma?"

For which I scrambled a few hygiene points hoping she'll remember...

....ooofff! The kind of shocks!!

Cars, it is...

...the latest (and the longest) of Pattu's obsessions. Off she goes rattling out the names of all the cars that she sees on the road and she is almost always right! My categorisation stops with size, shape and colour, the details just elude me.

This obsession reached its feverish intensity when Pattu, running 104.5 and shivering, on the way to the doc despite the chattering teeth goes, ssa-ffa-rrri, bbo-lle-rro, ffi-ess-tta, ppu-nnt-tto and so on.

After a picnic to Guindy Children's park, I ask Pattu what she saw there and guess what she saw? She saw a Honda City, an Indica, a Xylo, and ... you get it... I had to then rephrase the question to ask, "did you see any animals" and then came a few names... rather reluctantly...

Moral of the story: You will only see what you want to see!

Our Harvest for this Harvest Festival...

.... is this... it always tastes sweeter and special when it is from your own backyard... and it ripened just in time for Pongal! Needless to say,  MIL who toils in the garden everyday had a very very happy  Pongal!

The year so far...

... has been great!

• Met up with a few friends from college after many many many years! And realised that we still are the 'gang' :D. It is nice to see that nothing has changed between us...
• Managed to meet more friends on a trip to Mumbai
• A very good friend is moving to Chennai - yay!
• Made it to the book fair - twice in fact. The first visit was short where I seemed to naturally gravitate towards the Tulika stall, salivating and buying followed - inevitably!  The second visit, armed with a huge backpack and some more bags was the one where most of the buying happened... CBT was a pleasant discovery - some really nice books there. Tara, Pratham, Young Zubaan were missing. 
• My fav pick this year - Complete volume of Ponniyin Selvan and Silappadikaram with Sujatha's notes - both in Tamizh... 
• Pattu's Fav - Tulika's Panchatantra (she goes 'valavalavala' - The talkative tortoise) and the globe from TTK. She now wants to go to Antartica and wants to know if even her susu will become ice in Antartica!! Of all things she would like to experiment!

We checked out the Sanga kala unavu at Rassa, the restaurant at Krishna Sweets. I was reluctant since the Krishna Sweets Ghee puts me off. But then, I was in for a pleasant surprise - the spread was very interesting starting with 'soma baanam' (translation: Nectar of Gods) made out of panai vellam (palm sugar) and raagi-thandu vadai to a few familiar recipes with an interesting twist. Worth a try!