When it rains, it pours.

Ms. Postive always accuses that I spend way too much time on meeting friends and socializing and that I should cut down and find time to improve myself and pursue my interests. Although I usually refute her allegation or make a joke out of it and tell her that my interest is meeting people and talking to them, lately I feel she may have a point.

Yesterday, Ms. Positive asked me to come over so that Sunshine and her son could play together and we could spend some time chatting. While I was about to leave for her place, DH called me to say that he is bringing over Sunshine's best friend AT in an hour as her dad was caught up with something and could not pick her from the daycare. Since the boys were already excited about their playdate and I obviously love spending time with Ms Positive, I decided not to cancel and took Sunshine to her place. When we came back home, I brought her son along so that all three kids could play together.

Sunshine and AT can be best described as little devils. On the other hand, Ms. Positive's son is a well behaved, sweet little boy. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see the little devils hugging, kissing and pacifying the little boy when he started crying because he was missing his mom. They even tried reassuring him by telling him that his mom would come soon and he need not cry. For added measure, they said the whole thing in German as well as Hindi. I couldn't help feeling a little proud about my son and AT because usually they are aces at bullying each other and other kids.

So most of yesterday evening was spent with Ms. Positive and her son, AT and her parents. On my way to work today, my friend D called me to ask if we could meet up. Since I had to be at work the whole day (I generally work from home) we decided to meet in the evening. Tomorrow, we are meeting AT and her parents again to celebrate Holi, the indian festival of colours. Ms. Positive wants to meet once again this week before she leaves on a long vacation to warmer places. Also, my friend P, the warmest German ever, wants to take the kids to the Zoo. And just as I was writing this post, in the train, on my way back from work, my phone beeped. It is another invitation from a friend. I guess Ms Positive is not entirely off the mark about me atleast this week.

Environment friendly period

A few years back, one fine morning I decided that I am going to live a more environment friendly life. DH was sceptical because I am easily influenced by a new idea when I talk to people, but very often, it is just a passing fad for me. I do not know how serious I was when I started off, I have not given up on the idea and am definitely a lot more earnest about it now than when I started off.

When Sunshine was born, my mother in law got us a huge set of basic cloth diapers - thin cotton towels which could be folded and tied like a diaper. Almost all of my friends with young kids discouraged me from using cloth diapers because they were too inconvenient with the weather here. I eventually used a mix of disposable diapers and cloth diapers. I bought some cloth diapers from a company called Popolini and my mom in law got me another set of diapers and diaper covers from India which were a lot thicker than the first set that she got me. Popolini's diaper covers completed the set and they were very effective. Of course the diapers had to be changed every time Sunshine peed and washing and drying them was some work, but it rarely leaked and I would use cloth diapers again if I have another kid.

The cloth diapers however set me thinking about my own sanitary napkins. I found a few companies which sold reusable sanitary napkins online but the stack of unused cloth diapers kept beckoning me. So, finally I decided to give it a try. Of course I had no intentions whatsoever of using them when I had to go to office or be outside for a longer period of time because I am a heavy bleeder and I did not want to be caught in wet pants. Eeeks! I just folded these diapers into a rectangular shape similar to the commercially available napkins and started using them whenever I am at home. I don't have enough words to express how comfortable they are. Once used, they have to be soaked in cold water and then washed in a high temperature cycle. Of course it is a bit more work than just chucking them into the garbage bin, but it is really not that difficult. This simple solution can be used only at home because there is no protection from leakage and who would want to carry around a soiled sanitary napkin. This month, for the first time, I relied exclusively on cloth napkins because coincidentally I did home office during my entire cycle.

I love the soft feeling of cotton on my skin, but I have to figure out some way to use cloth diapers when I have to be away from home for the entire day. Hopefully I will manage to get over my aversion of carrying a bag of used napkins and I can do away with disposable napkins altogether.

Ms. Positive and I go shopping

What is the image that props into your mind when two girls go shopping - shoes, bags, clothes, maybe jewellery? Ms. Positive and I went shopping for our weekly groceries in the Biomarket. For a few years now, I have been trying to buy as many bio products as possible. There is a lot of argument for and against bio produce. Some of my friends and DH believe that it is all a hoax - what is trotted as organic is probably not organic at all and just a way to fleece customers off more money. Till now, I have chosen to believe the EU organic certification logo that is present on the organic produce and hopefully it does carry some value.

While we were shopping, Ms. Positive told me that she knows a local farmer who delivers her very good quality organic eggs every week at her home. So, I decided to try him out once in the spirit of supporting local and independent businesses. I am a little confused about buying local though. When you buy at a supermarket, there the EU logo is a reassurance that the product is actually authentic. Is there anyway to know if a local farmer's produce is really organic other than believing him?

I am going to give it a try anyway.

It is snowing

The daily temperatures were just shy of teens last week and there was plenty of sunshine, which led me to believe that winter was over and spring was already on its way. But this week, it is snowing away to glory. This morning I had to drop Sunshine at his daycare as DH had a conference in another city and he had to leave early. I slipped several times, but managed to get us both to the daycare in one piece. Now, back at my home office, with my working hours for the day clocked already, I can look out of the window and enjoy the snowfall. Watching huge flakes of snow falling down slowly and liesurely calms me down like nothing else can. I don't have to drive anywhere in this weather, so I can just enjoy its beauty and my homemade caramel sauce.

I have to share my recipe because it is heavenly. It is adapted from Ina Garten's caramel sauce recipe.

Caramel Sauce

Homemade caramel sauce - my heaven in a jar

Sugar - 11/2 cups
Cream - 11/2 cups
Vanilla - 1 tsp
Water - 1/3 cup
Butter - 1 Tbsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp

Mix sugar, salt, butter and water in a heavy bottomed pan and put it on medium heat till sugar dissolves, swirling in between. (NO STIRRING)

Once sugar dissolves, raise the heat to medium high. Swirl frequently until sugar caramelises and turns dark copper. Take off heat as soon as it starts to smoke. Take it off the heat when it reaches a dark amber colour if you do not like the intense caramel flavour.

Add cream and vanilla and stir well. Return to the stove and stir until a smooth creamy sauce is formed.

Cool to room temperature and store in fridge. Enjoy it with your homemade icecreams, cakes or just lick it off a spoon like I do when it is snowing.

Ms. Positive Influence

I had an exceptionally boring day at the office on Thursday last week. I sat in front of my monitor like a zombie churning out line after line of bad code which does not do anything much except test the performance of the code which somebody else has written. So my job is to find other's mistakes and once a colleague joked that this would be any woman's dream job. It is not like this was my childhood dream come true, but I used to enjoy my work until some time back. But today, I found myself in a state of existential crisis and self pity.

I should find an alternate career, but what? I could be a chef, because I love food and experiment a lot with it, but what I really enjoy is baking. I could be a baker then, but I am constantly transforming all my cakes and cookies and brownies and everything else I bake, into healthier dishes by using whole grains or whole grain flour. My family has largely developed a tolerance or even taste for these, but sometimes even they ask me to not butcher the dish anymore. I could be a writer, but now-a-days, it is exteremely difficult to make a living out of writing as far as I know. Plus what would I write in my resume? - I have published in school and college magazines as a teenager and in some obscure children's magazine once when I was trying to get into NUS, Singapore. That would surely get everyone excited.  I could probably turn to gardening, only if I didn't have this giant black thumb. I would love to spread awareness about leading a more environmentally friendly life, but how do I start. Hmmm.. software is just the right field for people who are not particularly creative or talented.

I had already fnished my hours for the week and had the Friday off, so I invited my friend Ms. Positive over for lunch. She is a very enterprising young lady and a mom whose son is around the same age as Sunshine. Sunshine and Ms. Positive's son are friends, but unlike other moms, she does not talk to me about children or for that matter any domestic matter except occasionally and when she does, it is brief. Infact, she is very vocal about her disapproval towards moms who get together and talk about these things. She always insists that one should spend that time exploring the world and learning new things. She practises what she preaches - in the last couple of years, she learned a new language, a new dance form, started jogging regularly, is part of various interest groups, goes to a craft class and is in the priliminary works for founding a voluntary group to help the local people lead a healthier life. Those are just her hobbies; she earns her bread and butter running a biotech company which she partly owns.

Ms. Positive was deeply concerned about my lethargy and unwillingness to explore when I told her about my career dilema. She fished out a one liner for me - 'Fake it until you make it'. She confided that she learned many a new thing this way - by pretending that you are already what you want be and working towards being as good as you pretend to be. This way you will always be faster than you will be if you expose yourself to the world only when you are convinced that you are really good. Her parting words of wisdom were - "We are already in our 30s and we have only a few more years when we will have enough speed and agility to learn and explore. So try whatever catches your fancy and with the unlimited power of internet at you fingertips, you are more likely to be a success than a failure." I think I am going to take her advice very seriously.

The art of giving a compliment

Scene 1:  We were perhaps overspeeding and got clicked. DH asks me to go over to the parked police car and ask them if we got clicked, how much over the limit we were and how much would the fine be. I walk over to the police car and ask the young cop whether our car was clicked. He asks me the details of the car, fiddles with his laptop or something that looks like it and looks at me helplessly. Then he smiles and tells me that he is not able to check and it is probably to prevent him from deleting a record if a beautiful lady asks him to. He gave me a compliment and played it safe in true German style because he didn't actually refer to me directly. I smile back, thank him, he says sorry he couldn't help and I walk away

Scene 2:  My colleagues and I are on our way to lunch. Three young Indian guys are walking ahead of us.  Suddenly one of them turns around and looks at me. Then he nudges his friends and declares - "girl behind us!" They are atleast a decade younger to me (boy I am getting old) but that doesn't deter them from making sleazy comments or giving sleazy looks. Now this is an everyday occurrance in India and every girl has faced this atleast once in her life regardless of whether she is plain or gorgeous. My colleagues gives me sympathetic looks and I want to walk up to the idiots and tell them to behave atleast for the sake of their nation's pride. But I just walk ahead pretending that I didn't notice.

Scene 3: I am at an Indian party among a group of married Indian women and one lady is looking particularly resplendent in a sari. Couple of married Indian men walk over and start chatting. One of them remarks that the lady in sari is looking beautiful. She giggles and thanks him. There are atleast a couple of disapproving faces in our group. It is apparent that according to them it is not acceptable to compliment married women on their looks.

I think many Indians are a little off the mark about giving and receiving compliments. While nobody will bat an eyelid if a man appreciated a married woman's cooking or painting or anthing of that sort, any remark about looks carries the risk of being branded immoral. And yet nobody will do anything about the harrassment that Indian girls and women face every day of their lives. I wonder if Indian men and women are encouraged to appreciate beauty in a civilized manner, would it reduce atleast some of the sleaziness in our society.

As for me, I am just an average plain Jane who runs around like a headless chicken in clothes without a personality 360 days of a year. If I put an effort to dress up 5 days in a year, please do tell me I am beautiful and I will not hold your gender against you.

A really really late apology

How late is too late? By some strange twist of fate I got in touch with a friend from my teenage years, to whom I had been a jerk, towards the end of our time together. She was always on the social media site where I found her and I would have found her if I had looked earlier. But I never did until a mutual acquaintance of ours mentioned that he had met her. It brought back memories of our friendship and all the fun we had together. We pushed boundaries in a severely restricted society and got into trouble a lot. But we had a lot of fun being constant headaches to the stuck nuns in the school where we studied together. I don't remember the exact details but I ditched her when she was in a spot. I unilaterally decided that I did not want to get into so much trouble.

Ever since my acquaintance mentioned that he had met her, I had this intense desire to contact her and apologize to her. So many years have passed and I expected her to find it silly that I would apologize now. But, when we started chatting, we were like 16 year old girls again. It was as if so many years had not passed in between. She was as warm and humorous as ever despite the fact that life had not been kind to her, atleast in her teenage. Her family situation was never stable and she was in love with a guy whom her parents did not approve. They got married when she was still a teenager and had a kid soon after. Turns out I was not the only jerk in her life. She was left to build her life on her own with a child when she was almost a child herself. But she was no weakling, she did it and today she is climbing the corporate ladder in a very sunny place. Her son is a teenager now and a blessing, according to her. Apart from having a successful career, being a single mom, she has found time to explore her inner artist and has set up a charity organization. Yes, she has been her own knight in shining armour.

When I apologized to her halway through our conversation, I expected her to laugh it off. Instead she told me that my actions hurt her a lot and that she is glad that I apologized. She forgave me quickly and we were back to our girly talks. After our conversation ended, I felt so happy that I found my friend again and I apologized although it was so many years too late. I am glad my friend is so generous that she forgave me. I had a feeling in my heart that I had been blessed with so many wonderful people in my life and I have not been good to all of them. For a change, I should be the wonderful person in somebody's life giving more than I get.

When I was in this exuberent mood which was tinged with a feeling that I should be a better person, my doorbell rang. It was my "warmest German ever" friend P. She is the kind of person who can lift your spirits when you are down in dumps. Imagine what it would be if you are feeling good already. I greeted her with a smile and tight hug which almost matched hers. P and her son could not stay long and they left a very unhappy and whining Sunshine behind. He wanted to play with them, but unfortunately, they already had other plans. But nothing could spoil my mood. Because I was feeling blessed.

Working mom

What constitutes a fun two hours for me in the afternoon when I am not working and DH is away at work? Talking to people. It can be friends, aquaintances, colleagues, strangers - doesn't matter who it is. I love to talk and to listen to people. Which is what I did yesterday afternoon - like many other afternoons.

Sunshine's erstwhile daycare group decided to have an impromptu get together at a neighbourhood playground as the weather was good yesterday. Most of the group turned up and after some fussing by the moms, the kids settled down leaving us moms to chat endlessly about something or the other. My favourite mom from is group is P who is one of the warmest and friendliest people I have met. I am pretty sure she is the most cheerful German I have ever come across. (I have nothing against Germans. I like most things about them, but they could smile a little bit more, methinks). A mom had brought coffee and cookies for all of us and some others brought fruits, crackers etc. P baked some Quarkstüdel for us which left me with the only one who turned up empty handed. I do have a knack of getting things wrong whether big or small.

Since most of the kids in the group were turning 3 sooner than later - kindergarten age in Germany, the major part of conversation was about getting back to work. I had gone back to work part time when Sunshine was 15 months. Another mom was also back at work since her kid was 1. But the rest of the group had been out of work for a long time - many of them as long as 6 years. In Germany, you are allowed to take parenting time of 3 years per kid. So those with 2 kids have been on parenting time for several years. They were discussing the difficulties of getting back to work after such a long time, the prejudices that women have to face, the scarcity of part time jobs etc. Which set me thinking about my own job.

 It was not all that difficult for me to get back to work as I was away only for 16 months or so. Everything came back within a short time and I didn't find it difficult to learn new things. The only impediment was that Sunshine used to fall sick very often in the beginning and he had only a 3 day place at the daycare. But I managed somehow as I was working only 45% and my manager was very accomodating and DH supported me beyond belief. Now, sunshine has a 5 day place at the daycare and it is a lot more relaxed for me. Still ever since I started working again after Sunshine was born, I have wondered several times if it is worth the effort at all. My salary was never something to brag about to begin with, I am taxed at the highest rate since I am the second earning member of the family and after Sunshine's daycare expenses, my travel and food expenses etc, I really was not left with anything much. Like most places in the world, working part time, your career is not going anywhere. You can pretty much expect to stagnate in terms of salary, bonuses and position as long as you are working part time. The worst part of it all is guilt - many mornings Sunshine wails because he doesn't want to get dressed or doesn't want to go to his daycare or he doesn't want me to go to office. He would rather be with me at home all day. Yet, when I listened to my friends and their travails yesterday, I realized that I had it good despite all the apparent disadvantages. I atleast had a job which is hopefully helping me build up skills to accelerate my career at some point in the future when Sunshine is more independent and doesn't require so much of my time.

Lanzarote

Every year since Sunshine was born, we had a winter getaway to one of the Canary Islands. This year we went to Lanzarote on a trip that was planned barely before we embarked on it.

The Canary Islands are thronged almost exclusively by west european tourists looking to escape the grim winter conditions back home. Most of the tourists are from Germany or UK and most islands have a 'German area' and a 'Brit area'. On our previous two visits - once to Fuerteventura and once to Gran Canaria, our hotels were in areas preferred by German tourists as we had booked through our local travel agents. This year, however, we booked the hotel ourselves and it was a place frequented by British tourists. I do not know if it was just a coincidence, but this year, the beaches near the hotel, the views etc were not as good as our previous two years.

Lanzarote is of volcanic origin like all other Canary Islands. We set aside one day to visit the Timanfaya National Park where one can see the effects of past volcanic activty and a dormant volcano. The scenery is depressing and awe inspiring at the same time. The landscape was marred with several craters and there was a restaurant where they had set up a barbecue which worked on heat from the dormant volcano.

The rest of our trip was dedicated to sun and sand the beach we liked best was Playa Blanca. The island of Fuerteventura can be seen on the horizon from this beach and it is an amazing sight. The beach itself was sandy and not crowded at all. The water was clear and turqoise coloured. When it is windy, it is possible to take shelter behind a bush and you can still enjoy the sun and the ocean.

The island has plenty of good places to eat and there are pubs and bars all over. On almost all the beaches there are windsurfacing facilities and instructors. If you are tormented by winter and your eyes are yearning for sun, this is just the right place to be.