Tag Archives: apple

Branch

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My Dracaena Plant

I missed my plants which I gave away to a friend while leaving Houston in last November. With no one to look after them, they wouldn’t have survived. I wanted some indoor plants, so bought a few after reaching here. Above is my lovely Dracaena plant. The good thing is, it can be easily propagated by cutting a branch, and planting it in soil. The remaining plant will grow new shoots.

I have two others: one is a spiral bamboo, and the other one is a money plant. They are my babies at the moment. Son laughs when I talk to them. My chief worry is who is going to look after them when I have to leave for a two months period in September? Son would not be able to care for them as I do.

I plopped an apple seed in the same pot as the bamboo. Wonders of wonder! It has grown a tiny green shoot. I’m looking forward to its growth. I have to buy some spare pots, and keep them handy for planting to whatever my mind wanders to.

Branch

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt

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Corn and Bean Salad

Alphabet Soup
by Ben Huberman
Write down the letters of the ABC. For each one, choose a word that begins with that letter. Now, write a post about anything — using all the words you’ve selected.

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A for Apple
B for Beans
C for Corn

All this indicates a salad.

I didn’t have all the ingredients for the salad I had in mind. I went and looked in the fridge. Took out a bean’s can from the pantry (I was in luck that I found one), and opened it with the can opener.

Next took a big tomato, a bunch of spring onions (4 in number), one apple, and a Banana Pepper. I actually wanted a Bell Pepper, which wasn’t there. I took out one corn on a cob from the freezer. Boiled it for a few minutes. I removed the corn with the help of a spoon.

I deseeded the tomato, and cut it into small chunks. Did the same with the pepper, onions, and the apple. Sprinkled lemon juice on the apple so that it won’t discolor.

I added 1/3 of tea spoon of tamarind to the beans, a little bit of vinegar, and heated it. I let it cool, and then added it to the other ingredients. In the end I seasoned the salad with salt, black pepper, and ranch dressing.

My salad is ready. Please come, and have it.

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My Own Ghost Story

My husband was posted to Quetta. We were living in a nice, spacious house. It was probably built in 1935, after the Great Earthquake, in which many people died. It had huge lawns in front, and towards the back were an orchard and a vegetable garden. The orchard had trees full of almonds, walnuts, white cherries ( white cherries, I am told, are very rare) and apples.

Both my children at that time were, nine and eleven. At one end of the house was their bedroom. One wall, facing towards a side of the front of the house, had large windows. My elder brother (an Army officer) came on a short course to Quetta. My children, sort off, looked to him grownup, so he suggested to us, to give them separate rooms. My son got shifted to a smaller room, towards the entrance of the house. My daughter, however remained in the existing room.

I woke up at night to see in the dark, Nola peering at me. I had a fright. “Why are you here?” I asked her. “Mama, I can’t sleep. There is someone in my room. I am frightened.” To which I replied, “How can there be someone? Go back to sleep in your own bed.” She wouldn’t budge and insisted she would sleep with me rather than sleeping in her room alone. So I let her sleep with us. Every night I would sit with her, till she went to sleep. When I was sure she was asleep, I would tip toe to our room. Twenty minutes later, she would be in our room, standing besides my side of the bed, begging to sleep with me. This went on for three days. In the end, my husband decided, that I should sleep with her for a week or so, till she adjusted to being alone in her room, and got over her fright.

The first night, both of us laid in our beds, (my bed was towards the window’s side) Nola was fast asleep within seconds. She probably felt secure in the knowledge, that with her mother beside her no harm could touch her. I had trouble sleeping. This always happens to me when I am sleeping in another bed than my own. Moonlight was streaming inside the bedroom. The minute I closed my eyes, I felt someone sitting beside me, staring at my face. It was such an eerie feeling, I opened my eyes, frightened. There was no one. After a few moments, I closed my eyes again. There was again that person staring at my face. I opened my eyes, there was no one. This went on and in the end, I couldn’t close my eyes. I would dread the moment, that person would sit beside me. Sleep eluded me.

In the morning I told my husband, but he didn’t believe me. I stuck out in that room, along with my child, for a week. I would try to delude myself, that there was no one there, it was a figment of my imagination. The apparition was real. It was there beside me, every night. I couldn’t close my eyes the whole night, and I would remain awake. Finally, we shifted Nola’s bed to our bedroom. I closed the door to that bedroom, till the remaining of our stay there.

Years later, a lady visited me. She had stayed in the same house as ourselves. I mentioned what happened to us. She told me that we were lucky people, as nothing happened to us. She and her family only lasted a month in that house. They were frightened to death, and same was the case with other people.

All of us, said our five prayers regularly. We were spared any frightening experience. We were under the protection of God, that’s why nothing could touch us during our stay of over three years there.