"My own personal brand of..."

Its not new, no it isn't by a long shot

I had heard of it....often in passing...on others blogs, Facebook, it was like an epidemic...and I was on the outside..watching, listening.

The craze was...unfathomable..at times

My friends spoke about them as if...as if they knew them, you know Forks was a place they had all visited, it was oh....so accessible....so inviting...so tantalizingly...SAFE.

I was ignorant to what existed in Meyer's mind and spilled over into her books...until...

One boring Saturday, our supply of watchable DVDs were running low. You know what I mean about watchable, there are only so many DVDs you can watch over and over and over and over again and it doesn't get boring....mmm, like a good book, with the binding almost gone, the pages yellowed and bent with use...like her copy of Wuthering Heights.. the only other comparison I can make is...like my copy of the BOM

There it was, that particular DVD I had been avoiding staring up at me. "I luuuuvvvv it", my sisters high pitched voice edged on, implying that I would too. After all we share similar tastes in most kinds of things...like literature for instance. And that one small instance was perhaps where our similarities ended, movies were after all a whole other story. So I picked it up, stared at the words calling out to me "Twilight" the words rolled off my tongue

"what the heck" I thought, I could sit through this, it was time to find out what all the fuss was about. Actually technically, what i was doing went against my own personal form of logic.

what logic you ask...simple logic

If there exists a movie that came from a book...don't...never watch the movie....read the book first!

So there I sat, watching the TV screen, wondering what kind of lunacy had driven me to break my one simple logic....

Once....twice...three times maybe even four....was I really??

I should backtrack a little...just so that you know a little bit more about my "secrets", humm I laugh out loud saying that... Do you know what my major was at college? No? any guesses?

Fine Arts...because I loved the aesthetics, the why, the how, understanding not just the context of the mind that created, but the vision of those who experienced it...I wanted to become a historian, an art historian...maybe even a curator..to work in a museum was...no still would be a dream come true.

And Humanities...Anthropology to be exact, why? It fueled my former desire, the whys? the hows? The myths and legends, old and new that influences us. In my mind there is nothing greater then understanding a situation...not after its over but while you are in it...confused?? imagine the state of my mind...LOL

So what did these two things do to me?? It made me analytical of any literature,movie,story I came across...my college mates and I would compare, contrast, analyze.....just thinking about it makes me all warm and fuzzie...LOL

For instance in an effort to increase my "Hindi speaking skills" one summer I watched over 10 tapes of the dramatized epic poem MAHABHARATA with a close friend, I still needed the subtitles, my Hindi only improved....like a millimetre but that one summer of videos became topics of discussion the entire semester...and the one after that, a paper for a final, actually two papers now that I think of it...

Pride and prejudice was next in tow, almost everything that passed by my hands or eyes became a portal to understanding something else, some faint comparison, some contrast backed up by the logic of the greatest minds.....

Can you then imagine what happened when I watched "Twilight", it was like an eruption, my mind wired by this new tale, drew lines up and down the dialog, making connections, underlining, words popped out, others got circled. It was like after six years of hibernating, the embers of light were ignited in my mind....now as I write...it was like light falling on tiny little diamonds casting rainbows on everything it touched.

I felt like ....like I would self-combust, I needed to ....let it all out

My modem is not so slow you know, its fast, well moderately fast, atleast I never need to grab a snack while starting up the computer...modern age, don't you just LOVE it?

My friends a.k.a the discussion panel, are now only an email away....our discussions would go as fast as we could type and hit that SEND button....I spilled they listened okay read...they shared...I re-analyzed, it was like the old days..almost.

"No No" my friend's words coxed, "you have to read it....you just have to"

She had a copy of the first book, that she would pass along to her sister who taught my sister biology in Highschool. Connections....don't you just LOVE it?

But there was a wait, til the book arrived, I didn't get to see it until my little sister got to devour it...in a way it was her little gift for being the middle man, the messenger.

Then it was my turn, page after page, word after word, onyx to topaz the story unravelled. I have a vivid imagination I tell you, so vivid....I don't watch scary movies...don't snicker its true, one of my many mysteries my husband cannot fathom.

All too soon it ended...can you imagine how wired my mind was...is....it was my own personal brand of intrigue....under whose spell I can never grow old. And I don't mind it a bit. So a warm....VINAKA (thank you) is in order to the author...for dusting off the cobwebs in my mind and ...short fusing the circuits ....LOL...I have to say it "can you see my crooked little smile?" LOL

The Yellow Spotted Pink Dino

Have you ever seen one?

On the Flintstones perhaps?

Where do little girl people (and little boy people for that matter) come up with this kind of stuff?

Dreams....the lingering bedtime stories that Mum makes up twists and turns, swirls and swishes around the days events and the subconscious to come up with....Yellow Spotted Pink Dinosaurs?

What ever it may have been....that Yellow Spotted Pink Dinosaur kept me awake all night Tuesday night. Was it really that, or the hot sticky evening that make sleep go up in smoke? Maybe it was the five year old (sleeping) next to me, tossing and turning, pulling and kicking, mourning and groaning, another good nights sleep goes down the drain.

There goes Jars of Clay and Sixpence None the Richer at 3.30am "with every breathe" its my turn to groan, now who set the alarm for time in the morning? Have I lost my mind as well as sleep?

I look over at Miss Five, looks like she is still at Hogwarts playing Quidditch or wait looks like she is riding a dragon. I wrap my morning glory yellow sulu tighter around my waist, slap an invisible mosquito on my shin, "okay Yellow Spotted Pink Dinosaur, here I come"

The morning dragged on as I cut, adjusted, shaped, prepared frosting and frosted the cake. I have enough cake, but do I really want to put the legs on? I decide against it, attributing that decision to "morning-i-tis", you know that sickness that affects the "I'm not a morning person" people.

To my left the sun rose over the Suva Harbour...mmmm pretty pink. On my right the streets got busy, buses rambling by and in the house, all in quiet slumber. Except for Mom, who waddles into the kitchen in her hot pink long flowing night-dress to check on me. She grunts something about "the kids can take sausage, we buy lunch" , stands at the sink to watch the Suva Harbour for a min then disappears into her room again.

Is it? No? It is? Finally, its done!!! Whoo-hoo!

Noesheen wakes up and peers at the Yellow Spotted Pink Dinosaur resting on the dining table, a slow sleepy smile spreads on her face. You know that smile, each child has it, and only Moms understand it. The one that says, "That's the one", that smile that makes getting up before the birds and the sun worth it, that smile that makes you regret your moment of "morning-i-tis" weakness that made you leave the legs off.

So off she went to school with her Yellow Spotted Pink Dinosaur cake, thank goodness that episode is over.

Oh wait...my nephew turns two on the 24th of this month, guess what his mom wants to do for his birthday? Well you are half right, A BIG BLUE Dinosaur!!!!!! hmm I hear its a distant cousin of the yellow Spotted Pink Dinosaur.

Here are glimpses of the Yellow Spotted Pink Dinosaur, Noesheen tells me it rested in peace much to the joy of the Twinkle Stars Preschoolers.

Hopefully, I get a good nights sleep before I meet the BIG BLUE DINOSAUR....wouldn't want to leave his legs off now would I? Atleast it doesn't have any spots yet...well with about 10 days left...it may grow stripes..

Fevers, birthdays and butterflies

On the 9th of August, Noesheen turned five, but that isn't where my story begins. It begins earlier, in-fact a few months earlier, where sitting on my lap as I combed her shoulder length hair Noesheen chatted about everything under the sun in her usual manner, then came the "Muuuummm?"

My well-trained mother ears are knows that tone, the way my title gets dragged out longer than is needed, a request was sure to follow. So I answered, "Yes Sheen".

Just incase I missed the subtle message the first time, she checked again, "Muuuummmmm?" Patience has its virtues you know.

"Yes Sheeeenn".

" I want two cakes for my birthday, a butterfly cake at home and a dinosaur cake for school and the dinosaur has to be a pink dinosaur. Muuummmmm, you can make it?"

"Of course", why not right, after-all after one Sponge-bob Squarepants episode last year, I am a pro at these kind of theme cakes, NOT!

So almost every other day after that day, Noesheen never forgot about the two cakes she was going to have for her birthday.

But this was going to be a damper of all birthdays so far I suppose, since it was going to be the second birthday daddy would miss and her first birthday where she would be sick (hopefully the last as well)

Friday night, we have been counting down the days to the 9th. The icing sugar in bags brought home from the store, the food colours checked and checked again, the eggs bought in trays, the design of the butterfly and the dinosaur cakes carefully etched and re-etched in my minds eye....SHOWTIME?

Apparently not, because that's when things got heated up, literally. Noesheen goes down with a fever, that won't break. There is nothing more tormenting then when my child is ill. There goes the sweet tickle of medicine down her throat, still nothing, not a sign of a sweat bead forming on her body.....this means sleepless nights for both of us.

Saturday....I could see how she fought to be "I am better mum", but her eyes gave it away...there goes more medicine...still nothing...Saturday night comes. Noesheen spends her evening curled up on the sofa under blankets watching George swing through the trees..."watch out for that..." while I bake. Still no sign of the fever breaking....instead we get a lot of throwing up and more medicine.

9th of August...the birthday girl is fast asleep, the fever has subsided for a while. Church?? well only if we could go in our pre-school tee-shirt, I don't think the Lord would mind. So off we go to church and sit through sacrament meeting once again covered in blankets listening to the speaker talk about a kind and loving heavenly father who gives us more than we can imagine. I look at my daughter curled in my arms and say a little prayer. And slowly her eyes pick up its former spark, I smile knowingly..."there comes the sunshine" There is an old Indian saying, "Bhagwan ke ghar mein derr hoti hai undherr nahi" rough translation "In God's house there may be delay but never darkness"

Her grand-aunt has a gift for her after church, a brand new pink umbrella! Prefect gift for an umbrella fetish just turned five-year-old little girl, and so she finds the strength to walk along the streets of Berry Road holding her precious umbrella shielding her self from the beautiful Suva sunshine.

At home she manages a morsel of fried chicken and grandma mashed potatoes and sausages..."my cake???"

Well I have told the story so far, let the link tell you the rest

here you will find pictures of her special turn five day

Oh and that fever....it broke...finally. Is all well? I have hope, we will see. The Dinosaur cake you ask? well I will finish that story tomorrow....or the next day..