Currying favor

Me: a2, do you know what currying favor is?
a2: eating curry while doing someone a favor?

Some funny tidbits from our California trip in Nov 2015

As we were driving to Mount Soledad, A2, G and I were singing "Down by the bay" and were getting singing the "Have you even seen a ..." part in turns.

A2 came up with: "Have you ever seen a bush scratching its tush?"


Next morning, I'm sitting by the fireplace and working on my laptop. A2 comes around, looks at the fireplace where there's a "Best Dad" trophy and asks: "How come all the trophies are naked?"

I did not have an answer, but that's so true :)

Steggy and Gorilla Boy: The sunken Treasure

One day both Steggy and Gorilla Boy were alerted by their townspeople that the Tortoise Gang was attacking the town bank. The tortoise gang was a gang of tortoises who had magical speed (unlike regular tortoises) and they could defeat anyone. There was one gang in each town and they were robbing the famed stones that were kept there - one Redstone and one Bluestone.

The heroes rushed to the banks in each of their towns and started thulping the tortoises one by one. They had captured almost everyone, but the leaders of each gang escaped with the stone. Each hero rushed after the leader, but both the leaders were able to escape and jump into the ocean and even though the heroes followed them in, they escaped.

So Steggy and GB thought: "There must be something about these stones. We should find out more about them and that will give us a clue". So they went to the library and tried to find something about the stones, but found nothing. So they went to the oldest librarian and asked him "Do you know anything about the red stone and blue stone?". He replied very rudely "What stones? I know nothing about the stones! Go away". They were very taken aback, but started leaving. Then the librarian whispered to them "Psst...people are watching. Dont talk about the stones. Meet me behind the library and I'll talk to you". So they went behind the library and waited. Soon the librarian came and told them "Sorry I was rude to you, but you shouldnt talk about the stones in public. People are listening". "Ok. How can we find them?" asked GB. "You have to ask the wizard who lives in the middle of the ocean" said the librarian "But you cannot find it unless you fly straight into the ocean and hold each other's hands when you meet and you'll find it when you're right above it". "Thanks" said steggy and GB and went to the center of their towns and flew straight into the ocean. When they both met, right under them was an island. They moved a little away and the island disappeared. So they came back together and then landed on the island. There was a really old wizard with a beard that touched the ground.

"Ah! steggy and gorilla boy!" he said "What took you so long? I've been waiting for you!Come". "How do we get back the stones?" asked GB. "Well,  they belong to the tortoises, you know" said the wizard, "and they're not robbers. The stones are very important to them and that's why they took it back. In fact, the stones are part of a really large sunken treasure. Would you like to see it?" "Sure" said steggy and gorilla boy. "Follow me then" said the wizard, and took them to a well on the island. It was a really deep well. "You have to dive straight into this well and at the bottom is the city of the tortoises. They'll show you. My magic will allow you to breathe underwater". So steggy and gorilla boy jumped into the well and sure enough it was really deep. They magically sunk to the bottom where a tortoise was waiting for them. They followed the tortoise and arrived at the city of tortoises and at the center of the city was a very bright light. As they came around the corner they saw the two leaders of the gangs that had escaped them placing the red stone and blue stones down. When they looked where they were placing the stones, they were almost blinded - it was a very huge collection of stones that were 1000 times brighter than the two stones and it was very beautiful. The tortoises used the stones for energy and they needed all the stones. So now Steggy and GB understood how the stones were important and they promised the tortoises that they would keep the secret of the sunken treasure safe. After spending some more time with the tortoises, they went back to the well and came up magically. In fact, they were shot up like a cannon into the air before landing back with the wizard. They thanked the wizard and went back to their towns. The End

Steggy and Gorilla Boy: In the land of short and sweet

Note1 : This is the first Steggy and Gorilla Boy story posted, but its the 7th or 8th that I told the kids.
Note2: This was a short and sweet story because G asked me to keep the story short and sweet. So I took the "short" to be about short people - with a twist :)


Steggy and Gorilla Boy were walking in the jungle one day when they tripped over a pipe lying on the ground. They said: "Hey, what's this pipe on the ground?"

Steggy being closer to the ground since he's a stegosaurus looked at the pipe and sputterred "Bu..Bu..But.." and jumped back 2 feet. "Bu..Bu..Bu..what?" said GB.

"Bu..Bu..But there's a small.." sputtered Steggy. "Small what?" asked GB as he looked closely too.
There was a really small creature with 6 arms and 4 legs standing in the pipe. "Small creature" said Steggy.

Suddenly they heard a booming voice say "Steggy and Gorilla Boy, hello". They both sputtered "Wh..Who's that?". The voice said: "Its me, the creature in the pipe". "How are you able to speak so loud?" asked the heroes. "I have an incredible machine that makes my voice boom" said the creature, and continued "I'm Krekon, from the planet myxplytx. This pipe is a portal to my planet. Would you like to come to my planet?" "Sure" said Steggy and Gorilla Boy "we're always ready for adventure. But how do we come with you. The pipe's really small". "No worries" said Krekon "I have another incredible machine for that too. Just stand still where you are". So the heroes stood still and suddenly they became tiny and standing next to the pipe. "Come" said Krekon "into the pipe. You have to run as fast as you can and you'll be teleported to my planet". "But how?" asked Steggy; "I can see the other end of the pipe and all I see is the jungle". "Dont worry", said Krekon "that's an illusion. Trust me and run fast". Of course, being superheroes, they both just flew as fast as they could in the pipe and just when they thought they were going to come out the other end of the pipe, they were teleported to myxplytx.

And here they were greeted by other creatures who looked like Krekon. There was one tiny difference, though. They were really small compared to the people from the planet. Even Krekon looked like a giant. All the other creatures started treating them like they were pets. "Oh how chweet they are" they said. "How is this?" asked Gorilla Boy, who was annoyed at being treated like a pet. Krekon said "Oh right, I forgot. That's the one problem with the machine that runs the portal. Every time you go from your planet to another, it makes you really small. I'm a scientist here and we scientists have made a machine that can see everything that's happening in your planet and we're huge fans of you. I'd like to take you to see all the scientists". You see, that's how Krekon knew their names.

So Steggy and Gorialla boy met the scientists who were very happy to see them and told them all the adventures they'd seen on the machine and how much they admired them. Then Krekon asked "Would you like to see the portal machine?" "Of course". said Steggy and Gorilla Boy, so Krekon took them to his lab where there were all kinds of amazing machines. Steggy was so engrossed in looking at an interesting machine that he accidentally knocked over another machine. It fell down and a piece fell off it. "Oh OH," said Krekon "You've knocked over the portal machine!". "Oh no, " said both Steggy and GB "How will we get back home now?". "Dont worry", said Krekon, "I've fixed it before" and he fixed it up again; except that he forgot to put the piece back. "Right, there's only one way to test it of course - we have to go back to your planet. And I'll come with you to make sure everything is ok" he said. So they three got back into the pipe and ran/flew quickly into it.

Like before, just when they were about to reach the end, they were teleported back to earth. Now Steggy and GB were their normal size, but Krekon was still a giant! "Wow", said Krekon "Looks like whatever you did fixed the machine, Steggy! I'm still in my regular size! Thank!". The pipe was now not a small pipe like before, but a huge pipe across half the forest. Krekon stepped back into the pipe and ran into it to go back to his planet after saying goodbye.

Steggy and GB had a great adventure and went home. The end.

A2 asked "where's the sweet part daddy?". I told him that it was sweet because there were no bad people in the story, but actually I'd meant to make the myxplytx planet sweet somehow but forgot as the story got told to add that in :)

A Mother's Day special

Yesterday was Mother's day. I knew the kids were planning to give me some gifts they made in school. They are getting good at keeping secrets and I did not get a clue about what they were.
A1 woke me up with a bag of cards and box wrapped in some red tissue paper. I read the cards and they were all very nice. Then I opened out the tissue paper and took out the box. My little girl had saved my favorite flavor of macaroon from when we got dessert a couple of days back, and she gave it to me for Mother's day. She had got the smallest dessert, three macaroons while everyone else got huge pieces of pastries. On our ride back home, she had very casually asked what my favorite among the three was. When I said "Caramel", I hadn't in my wildest dreams thought she asked so that she could give it to me. I was so very touched. A1, A2 and I shared it. Never has a macaroon tasted sweeter.
A2 gave me a plant that he grew from seed. He gave it to me in a tiny pot, the handle of which he had made. What an innovative gift!!!

My kids made this mother feel truly special

A2's joke

A2: Why did the bubble gum cross the street?
Me: Why?
A2: Because it was stuck to the chicken's foot, silly!

Momma's boy

A2 needs to touch and cuddle up with his mother every hour or so. Especially at night. He usually sneaks in to our bed only to cuddle up and twirl his mom's hair - which is like his security blanket.

So when the wife came down with an illness that required her to restrict contact so as to avoid infection, he was not happy at all.

"But if you touch mummy, you'll fall ill, kuttappa..." we reasoned with him.

His response: "If I fall ill, then I'm ill too. Then I can touch mummy all I want!"

aliens and winmer

Was feeding a2 some ravioli today and since we were watching pk, i got an idea. With every piece of ravioli I would ask him: "Are you an alien who eats through his <<body part>>?".

He found this really funny and the feeding was quick. When we reached the knee I said:

I once met an alien who ate with his knees. Both the knees would compete for food so he had to feed them sausages at the same time. And since his tummy was in his feet, he couldnt use them to walk. So he bounced up and down on his head to get around. And because of that his head was flat like a chapati.

We also coined a new word: winmer. The snow had thawed outside in the last two days because of some particularly warm and sunny days, so A2 observed that its already summer. I said no its more like summer in winter. So maybe we can called winmer or sumter. We decided to go with winmer cos that was easier to say.

A1 came down a little while later and was all fired up with the winmer idea. She said that now there'd be 5 seasons, and that we should start some winmer traditions :)

Just some things we did on an idle MLK day....

Early morning gyaan

A1: The second part of waking up is staring at the light...
<<goes back to sleep>>
A1: Step 3: do some exercises (does pushups in bed, then goes back flat on her face)
A1: Step 4: keep on doing more exercises (now she just lay and swishes her feet around)
A1: Step 5,6: Wriggle your face against the pillow if you're still sleepy..