Mar 15, 2012

'ello, 'ello, Gecko speaking...

I've always wondered about geckos. I mean, how do they move into a new house? I imagine they watch out from the nearby houses as a new house comes up and go, "Hey, that's a new 3000 sq.ft double story going up, it's time the kids move out!" 

"D'ya think they'll have lots of built-in cupboards?" 

"Oh yeah, I saw the carpenters bringing in lots of MDF boards, so it's likely there will be a lot!" 

And then a few of them come to check out the new home in the dead of the night and call dibs on the coziest and darkest corners. Some might go, "Hey, don't pick a spot in the southwest corner, it'll be very hot!" and another would reply, "It's cool man, there's a jack-fruit tree just outside, so that won't be a bother!" And even if the lights have not been put in, they call dibs on the best eating places too.

By the time the house is ready for occupation, the poor humans think that they are the first ones to live there when all the while the geckos and other creepy-crawlies are already in residence, though not visible at first. Then life's all jolly for the geckos. They live rent-free on the premises, occasionally ingesting a fly and then having the time of their lives. 

Their idea of fun is to hide on the inside of cupboard door so that they can jump on the first person to open it and hear the ear-splitting scream. Then they scuttle away unconcernedly while the hapless victim clutches her heart to slow down its frantic beating. Some geckos make sure that they land exactly on top of their victims' head.


 pic courtesy wildmadagascar.org

Geckos are very kind to children. They often give them the tip of their tails to keep the little kiddies amused for several minutes. Don't kids just love the bizarre dance of the gecko tail! Some geckos make it a point to fall into the shiny kitchen sink at night. Then they pretend that they can't get out so that they will get the harried homemaker to leave a ladle as a ladder to the outside and then have her frantically washing the ladle and the sink with soap and hot water.

But they have the greatest fun on the nights the lady of the house decides that she would like to read a ghost story or a thriller without interruption while all the others are asleep. Then the geckos move around stealthily knocking down and bumping into things until the poor scared reader has to fold up her book and creep back to the bedroom!

Just today morning I was skulking around the kitchen with a camera in my hand when I heard them cackling away near the ceiling of the pantry, hidden behind some old storage boxes. "Ka, ka, ka," went they, "The lady wants pics of us to put on her silly little blog!" And not even a baby one peeped out!

This post was written by someone who can stare straight into a gecko's beady eyeballs and say "Boo" to them!

Mar 6, 2012

Not a question of sour grapes... :-)

I missed watching the Oscars this year and anyway I would have missed the red carpet appearances. Today I saw the news about "the Jolie leg" that supposedly has its own Twitter account now. I was just going through the pictures when I came across this...pic courtesy Reuters


Leave the infamous leg alone, take a look at the right arm that is swinging backward... I didn't see any comment on that arm. The paparazzi are ready to jump on anything that has even a faint scent of anorexia and they didn't see the skeletal arm???? For heaven's sake, it's like looking at an X-ray picture!

Years ago I read Naomi Wolf's "The Beauty Myth". Two decades later, I think no one in Hollywood has read it as yet. Keeping fit and healthy is one thing, I think Ms. Jolie has serious body-image issues here!

And come to think of it, I don't like that knobbly-kneed leg either - however well it has been buffed, polished and made up! Yuck!

Thus I retire from my writing assignment of the week - write about something you normally would refrain from writing because it might offend public sensibility. Living dangerously here!!! :-)

Mar 5, 2012

A Busy Sunday Morning

The Karthas were very busy this Sunday morning:


A hundred and eighteen coconuts dehusked. Hats off to the unknown inventor of the easy coconut dehusker... he has made this job infinitely less dangerous to our lives and limbs!


A lot of vigorous cracking later...some whole copras and a lot of halves were basking in the sun. While I broke them open, I remembered one of the store clerks in an HEB store in Houston questioning me. He had just scanned 5 individually shrink-wrapped coconuts for me when his curiosity got the better of him and he asked, "Would you mind telling me how you manage to open one of these?" "I use the blunt edge of a cleaver," was my answer. "You just knock the coconut with it and get two exact halves?" "With a little practice and a lot of luck!"

After all these years of practice, I still consider myself lucky if I can get two perfect halves!!!

All of us were pretty tired out after the unusual exercise. The youngest member of the family helped by keeping out of mischief and the hot sun in the company of his grandparents. But I guess he was the most tired of us all ...


Here he is stretched out with his dinner on his chest while we were watching a movie. Ah well, I guess refraining from mischief is rather tiring too! Not long after, we went his way too, though not on the living room floor :-)

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