Posts from March 2010

For some complicated reasons that I cannot control, my passport will be in NYC and I will be here in Buffalo for a whole of 20 days. This is creeping the wits out of me right now. Remember that island poll where your flat burns down and you are allowed to take just one thing? @tinypliny #49243 Well... I am revising my answer big time. I think I will be glad with just my passport.

Mainly, because of this lot...


And so, I need to get my non-driver state ID before my passport goes away on its AWOL tour. I think I have all the documents now - I checked the DMV site.

Has anyone here ever applied for it? How long does it take? Any pearls of wisdom for getting this thing with the least amount of disruption to a particularly busy workday?

So how does one hunt for a cheap flat in NYC without having to share it with a gazillion others??

And no. I am not moving but my brother is. We are looking to find something in the range of $1000 to $1500/month. We have been told to stick to areas around Harlem or Brooklyn and ignore the rest of the boroughs.

If you know of anyone renting out a flat - you cannot find a better tenant than my brother (Yes. I know. I could be saying that just because I am related but it's true).

Thoughts or tips, anyone? Former/current NYC dwellers or Buffalo denizens with NYC contacts?

This came in the mail today...



I am looking at this envelope with such weird emotions. It feels crazy that I am being counted as a part of the population here, in a completely foreign country.

I know it's not like I am getting electoral franchise or anything, but it seems like a momentous thing to be doing. In some small way, I am going to be part of this massive census - a detailed stock-taking of human resources in a country that is half-way across the planet from where I was born.

I reckon, it's a routine government-initiated statistical exercise to many, but to me, today, it's a source of wonder - in black and white.

I am a tea fanatic.


And I don't even write about it so much. How did they know?!

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Caught @ladycroft's wordle - @ladycroft #50987 and I think it did a pretty good job there. :-)

Via 't-you-tell

I made bread today for the first time in my life. And it is probably the best bread I have ever had. I can't believe this - it is seriously blowing my mind.



The recipe is extremely simple and it's shocking just how wonderful it tastes with butter. And of course, no recipe is worth following so I went ahead and completely messed it up with abandon.



I don't have any measuring cups or implements or scales. Worse, I don't really have a concept of what a cup is, so I did a very rough volumetric-ratio-eyeballing (which actually means, I just dumped in whatever seemed okay). @heidi, you can sigh now. ;-)

That's not all. I didn't let it rise for 20 hours because I was impatient, threw in an obscene amount of walnuts and dates, and then added a whole chopped jalapeno because I didn't want it to be sweet. Then I thought, what the heck, why not be crazier and added a whole fistful of flaxseed and a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil just because it happened to be near the flaxseed.



Even with this terrible approach to baking, I got splendid results. And of course, I went the extra health freak mile and used 100% high-fibre hard winter spelt flour and no bread flour. I have heard of recipes being described as "forgiving" but this one HAS TO BE the SUPER-GIGANTOID-GODMUM of ALL the forgiving recipes in the history of cooking on this planet.



Go ahead, mess it up. You will get edible results. :)

Pricerite now has Blue Diamond Almond milk (Original, Unsweetened and Vanilla) at $1.99/0.5 Gallon.

I am swimming in a Sunday bliss induced by mango tea in almond milk, reading several engrossing articles on mitochondrial mysteries and writing my IRB protocol while broad beams of sunlight from my flat windows caress my bald head. And that is a run-on sentence with very poor form that I am trying to avoid in my technical writing.

Ah. Perfection. (Or will be perfection, if I finish this IRB protocol and a good part of my background and specific aims for the analysis I want to carry out.)

But, Pricerite, I do love you. And that justifies the terrible grammar and deplorable lack of structure in this entry.

I went bald today and it is a liberating feeling. I can feel little streams of air wafting across my head. A young lymphoma patient snipped my curls off. She is still on a regimen of five different kinds of chemotherapy. A cancer survivor told me about the time when she lost her hair - all of it, including the hair from her nostrils. She said she felt as if she were breathing the world in every time she inhaled.

I am more convinced than ever that we need to keep going, work harder and think out of the box in our battle against this wretched disease. We don't have any time or space for cynicism. My department's reaction amazes me. All of them, without an exception, went out of their way to make my bald nutty head feel appreciated and warm. They are a unique family.

I ran into the charming @enknot in the cafeteria when I went searching for @libertad. Tony, who on earth is Andrew Reed and how do you know him? More importantly, what is he doing on the tables of our cafeteria? He is not even a first-page hit on Google Images: He is clearly not one of these: Or is he? Do you have a deep dark obsession with the British church, state, police and sport, that no one had an inkling about... till right this moment!??

@libertad, I am now so curious about your office! I am going to gatecrash someday. You work in a mysterious building that is just marked by a direction - not even a name! And no guests are allowed?! Why, my office is always crawling with guests and other random people!