Google's Children's Day Doodle

The winning Doodle 4 Google ''My India" Doodle by Puru Pratap Singh:

Love You To Death (The Mediator Series, Book #1)

Meg Cabot does a neat portrayal of teen heroines. They are spunky…have some of the most interesting and weird conversations in their heads and more often than not come up with ear-bending dialogue like: “Lay one hand on my brother and I’ll stuff you right back into that grave from which you crawled out.” Yep, real heart-warming stuff…

Suzanne (Suze) Simon is no different. Her widowed mother has remarried and the mother-daughter duo shift from bleary New York to California, sunny-side up. Her step-father (who breaks the cliché and is a real sweetheart) comes armed with three sons. Snatched from familiar surroundings and plonked into a place that’s too pastel for a native New Yorker, Suze has quite a lot on her plate.

Add to that her one dark secret. Suze is a mediator….she talks to the dead and handles their unfinished business on earth. She encounters nice, snotty and downright nasty ghosts. Not all want to move on to the great big Pizza Parlour in the sky. So Suze has to kick (surprisingly solid) ghost butt at regular intervals. Things heat up as she shifts into her new home. There is a seriously good looking Spanish ghost in her room called Jesse. And Suze also has to deal with the ghost of a snotty, preppy high-schooler called Heather. Heather is as mean as your average poltergeist and is set to wreck hell in Suze’s new school, seeking revenge on the boyfriend who dumped her. The result is plenty of Buffy-style action and hi-jinx.

The first in the Mediator series is a quick one-hour read…witty and quintessentially Cabot.

G*R*E*A*S*E

...watched GREASE (for the zillionth time) with my ladies. Danny Zucko still has the best moves this side of pelvic-town...Sandra Dee's petal-fresh act is still in place...and Rizzo still makes you ache with her hard-as-nails act. Love the movie...worship the soundtrack...and all I have to say is...shoobap sha wadda wadda yippity boom de boom!!!

'Legend of Spyro' Wallpaper

November Rain

It’s November…and we’re being treated to an unseasonal rainy spell. The weather’s chilly, deliciously dark and the air has a spankin’ new feel to it. I like to live out clichés whenever I can…so I snuggled up in bed, scrunched up my toes and continued with the mighty ‘LOTR’. A box of chocs were placed, strategically within reach. A pear (to ease my guilt) sat primly next to the devil’s tool. I read, nibbled and read some more.

Not satisfied with that, I made a hefty pair of grilled sandwiches…and wiggled my nose in anticipation as the cheese melted and rose up in delightful fumes.

A reluctant winter with a dash of rain…*utter bliss*

Cute Ganesha Figurines

Lucy Sullivan is getting married

I liked this book…I really did. 740-pages strong, it had a right blend of eccentricities, romance, predictability and enough icky-moments to keep me hooked.

Lucy Sullivan is a typical Londoner. Twenty-six years old, she is burdened with a dysfunctional family, a dead-end job, an anal-retentive boss, a medley of demented colleagues, flat mates who totter on the thin line between heaven and hell AND a love-life that’s riddled with enough potholes to make you dizzy.

And then a tarot-reader proclaims that Lucy will be getting married within a year. When she sees the fortunes of her colleagues coming true in varying degrees, the cynical Lucy is intrigued (and a tad hopeful). Suddenly, men are popping out of the woodwork. Who will be the one who will walk down the aisle with Lucy? Gus, the penniless freeloader? Daniel, the incorrigible flirt ? Chuck, the beefy blind-date? …or perhaps Jed, the new office colleague?

So it’s a typical book with the typical drama and hi-jinx that litter your usual estrogen-infused chick-lit. What ups-the-ante is Marian Keyes’ flair for story-telling. Her words flow along with Lucy’s misadventures. A good splash of sarcasm, ooodles of witty repartee and the ability to transform whiny stop-gaps into pages of quirky dialogue make this book a real winner.

Lucy is a character you can associate with. She is confidently sassy but prone to bouts of depression too. The supporting line-up is brilliant , especially the flat mates: Charlotte (the dumb blonde who is just smart enough to know that people think she is a dumb blonde) and Karen (the seriously, scary frenemy with an ability to kill all the house-plants with a single deathly stare).

A fun read that helps you escape and yet.....keeps you tethered with it’s take on realistic situations.

Today, I am just thankful....I can't say for what, because it's a mite personal and am not big on the whole spilling-my-guts-out bit. Let me just say that the ol'adage : If God brings you to it, he will bring you through it is true...

One of the Family

I have an olde-worlde soul...and this painting ('One of the Family' by Frederick Cotman) captures my idea of a perfectly rustic, domestic household.

Google's Sesame Street tribute

To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of 'Sesame Street', Google came up with some real cute logos. Here goes: