Dishwasher Insight

I've never tried a dishwasher. We have one sitting idle in our kitchen that we currently use as additional storage. Finally, last week I got curious enough to figure it out and started searching for an instruction manual. I turned to google for help after completing my offline search (that's the kitchen and cupboards). As I was typing the words "instruction manual for..", Google gave me some auto complete options - ipad, ipad2 and life. "Very interesting" I told myself "people actually search for an instruction manual for life?"

Assuming you wanted an instruction manual for life, where would you logically go ? Google ? How about your Grandmother? - They have lived long enough to reflect on life and figure things out. Again assuming they are alive and you are still in talking terms with them you get some tips from there. Both my Grans passed many years back, so I decided to settle for the second best option, the good old Google.

As usual, she didn't disappoint me. The search fetched me an impressive 23,500,000 results in 0.16 seconds. Without going in to too much detail, let us take a moment to marvel at the enormity of this information. If this were to be printed out as a book it would be twice the height of burj khalifa which is currently tallest tower in the world. If you were attempting to read only the highlights, say a million pages, it would take you about 192 years assuming you find time (not to mention live that long) to cover 100 pages a week.

At this stage I am tempted to give up and live a life without instruction manual – intense reading hasn’t killed anyone that I know, but why take a chance…

I feel half-Canadian this evening!

We are just back from dinner at newly opened Tom Hortons in Dubai.  The spread included an over-indulgent dose of Cheese Bagel, Tuscan Chicken Panini (must try!), Timbits and Coffee (AED 7, can you believe!).

We have lived all these years listening to our Canadian friends raving about Tim Hortons. The queues that extend around the block, freshly ground fair-priced coffee and Timbits (miniature balls of doughnut dough) are stuff of Canadian legend.

After reading the newspaper story about the Dubai store mobbed by Canadian expats, we set out to try it out this evening. We planned a dinner stop at Sheikh Zayed Road on our way back from Karama . Being the culinary hub of Indian food, I do not normally come back hungry from Karama, today was an exception.

We pulled into the service lane at Sheikh Zayed Road after Fairmont hotel, went past Crown Plaza and over-bridge to the Financial Centre  Metro station to find the store. If you are looking for landmark, this is just opposite Rolex Tower and next to the Starbucks Coffee!

We quickly queued up (thankfully not as long as I had feared), placed the order and enjoyed the sandwich, bagel, timbits and washed it down with some great coffee.

Hmm.. there is something about this place that works – here is my verdict

1. Love the price of the coffee (Did I say it is AED7?)
2. Super selection of comfort foods
3. Soups and fresh fruit smoothies for the healthy lot
4. Enthusiastic and helpful crew
5. You’ll never be late with a store timing of 6am to 3am

I hate to admit but I need to say to all my Canadian friends that I sort of now understand their love for Tim Hortons. I feel half-Canadian this evening! 


Contact no: 04-3861193

Packaging 101 – My Experiments with Smera – Part 3

Some days Smera just refuses to eat. You can dance, sing, or let her play with a tap of running water but none of this make her open her mouth. So today was just one of those days when I was struggling since morning to make her eat.

By 4 pm I had given up all hope and was thinking of giving her milk. As the last trick in the book, I pulled out an old used jar of her favourite Hipp Organic Fruit Puree from the cupboard. I re-filled the jar with home-made apple n banana puree. I took it her and pretended as if I was opening a new bottle for her and offered her a spoonful of the puree.

Voilà!  Smera finally opened her mouth. She quickly finished what was offered to her and was asking for more. Hmm, this is interesting – surely rose by any name should smell like a rose, especially to an unadulterated mind of a 9 month old. Clearly not!

The other day I was watching a Ted talk about perceived value. The speaker told a story about repositioning a breakfast cereal by changing the ‘viewing angle’. I wasn’t entirely convinced then, but after seeing what I saw today, I stand corrected.  

Shopping Stalemate

I wanted to shop until I drop but it ended up me dropping trying to do some shopping.

It feels like it always happens to me – the day I decide that I want to go and splurge, I can’t find a single thing that would fit me or my budget.

It is as if the stores know that I am coming and they hide everything out of my sight. Could that be right? This entire week, I have walked in and out of so many stores, and yet I couldn’t a find a single thing that would excite me.

“What’s going on?”  I asked myself.  Should I get a personal shopper? Is it inflation? Maybe I missed the sale season?  I slept over this last night thinking I might wake up with an answer. Eureka moment arrived late this afternoon – I have an expensive taste! Suddenly the whole world was making sense again – that explained why overpriced accessories were finding me.

Whilst this flash of brilliance helped me feel better for about couple of minutes, that chic yet pocket-friendly top remained elusive.  I was about to give up hope, but we ended up at Lamcy this evening. An hour of window shopping and trials at Lamcy proved fruitful – not one, not two but three tops from Matalan! What’s more I didn’t have to pay a single penny for it – we redeemed some of our Airmiles.

Then a thought occurred to me as I was wrapping up our evening with a Haji Ali sandwich – Maybe I was looking at the wrong place? Maybe. 

All That Glitters ………

I don’t know what it is with me and gold, it keeps trailing me wherever I go. My association with gold started very early on in life with Gold- spot. For those who don’t know, Gold-spot is Fanta’s predecessor. I can still vividly remember, the outings with my dad, where having Gold-spot was a regular feature.

So here goes the list

1. Gold spot at India Gate
2. Gold medal at school (lemon and spoon race)
3. Golden Temple – a trip worth taking again
4. Gold facial - part of my bridal package
5. Gold jewellery at my wedding (in my bank locker ever since)
6. Gold watch from Kenneth Cole
7. Gold and Diamond Park – My previous office location
8. Gold frame aviator Ray-ban
9. Gold prices – tracking them as a hobby

Speech is silver, silence is Golden – being the chatterbox I am, I always break that rule.  

Quirky Collections

Sharp, Sticky and Slim. That sums up the collection our family's some of the most treasured collections. Okay before your imagination go wild, let me clarify - they are Lapel Pins, Rough Magnets and Hotel Room Cards.

We started collecting them some 5 years back. Pin collection is my personal favourite and I started it during 2006 Asian Games - I have vivid memories of walking upto the famous athletes asking for lapel pins. Some were nice who would gift them at the first instance, some others needed a bit of persuasion and a third group would be willing to trade. Saju manages the Magnet and Hotel Key Card collection, the later I think is quite unique ( I will save the details of that for another day).

Amazing thing about these collections are that each of them have a story to tell. We have walked for miles in search of some, others have been gifted to us by some of our dear friends.  The latest addition t our pin collection is a hard rock cafe pin from Tokyo that Bambie gifted us.

As per my last count the size of our pins collection is about 200 - what this means is that i have the luxury of grouping them by themes. Here is the list

1. Hard Rock Cafe collection
2. Sports
3. Brands 4. Fighter jets

I am hopeful of taking my collection to a thousand pins. Saju is not allowed to come back home without a pin whenever he travels - he is not complaining though as he considers lucky to have a wife who demands pins rather than diamonds. 

ABC – a new perspective

Soon I will be teaching Smera A-Z. In an on-your-face world of branding that we live in I wouldn’t be surprised if her ABC’s sound something like this:

A - Aptamil – my formula milk

B - Babycenter.com – Mamma’s online baby bible

C - Carters – Daddy got my first chic yellow dress from there

D - Del Monte – I love banana

E - Early Learning Centre – The truck, tortoise and the other toys are so much fun

F - Fenistil – My medicine

G - Google - gmail.com gtalk – Lets me connect with my grandparents

H - Hipp – My favourite food (mamma says it’s organic so its got to be good)

I - IKEA – I’m confused – IKEA feels like my home or my home feels like IKEA

J - Johnson & Johnson – No more tears, need I say more

K - Kelloggs – My mealtime munchies

L - Lulu – It’s a win-win I get my fruits and mamma gets her veggies

M - Medala – My cocktail glass aka feeding bottle

N - Nestle Cerelac – My comfort food and mamma knows

O - Oasis Water – Helps me beat the heat

P - Pampers – Mamma’s life saver

Q - Quaker Oats – It’s an acquired taste I guess

R - RSA – Daddy’s Office

S - Sebamed – My night cream

T - Talking Tomcat – My BFF on IPad 2 (he can’t help talking back)

U – Umbro - I love spoiling Daddy’s sports T-shirts (usually with mango puree)

V - Vache qui rit – yummy cheese triangles – lucky me !

W - Welcare Ibn Battuta – Doctor who sits in a shopping mall

X -  X-box kinect – I will inherit this one day

Y - Youtube.com – they do good nursery rhymes

Z - Zara – I have my eyes set on this store!