From the bartender’s corner – Zaranes
Unique ice design
You may remember how Josh had taught me how to make unique ice cubes for Old Fashioned cocktails. That was Hooked Beaver Creek in Colorado.
This is Whitley hotel in Buckhead. Robb and I had settled down at the bar when I asked for my usual evening opener drink. The ice was fascinating. It had air bubbles streaking out as thin rays from one vertex of the cube!! Unfortunately, the folks at the bar were too busy and too excited about Atlanta being on the verge of winning the World Series for me to find out how they did it.
It looked fantastic, nonetheless!

Great evening with Robb
Robb has always been a voice on the phone or a face on Zoom windows. Got to meet him first time since he was in Atlanta for work.
It was a great evening talking about how he convinced his mom not to make him eat tomato (by throwing up all over 🙂 ), his journey thru multiple industries, his adventures in mountain biking and the larger perspectives of life!!

What is the English word for this tool?
After the “last” post of the cobbler from India, this is yet another tool that I remembered from early childhood in India. Before winter, these folks would come with this tool that can be best described to look somewhat like a big safety pin – made mostly of wood except it had a thick string on one side. And the guy would have a wooden thing in his other hand that looked like a dumbbell that he would hit the string with. This whole contraption was used to fluff up the cotton that would have invariably flattened out in the mattresses and quilts after many years of use.
People who grew up in India will definitely remember this. Did any other country use a similar looking tool?
In any case, do you know what is the English word for it? After a lot of research, I am still struggling. I have found at least what the guys who are in this profession are called. Want to take a guess?

That was an interesting experience
Regarding posting….
A beautiful poem
I had not read this one before. But it touched a chord in me as I find myself more and more absorbed in thoughts of my own mortality, impending empty nesting and a minimalism impulse to shed off things and break free…
“The Moment”
by Margaret Atwood
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.





