DRUMS, GIRLS & DANGEROUS PIE

Young Adult Fiction about Jordan Sonnenblick

He has done wonderful job by describing mindset of 13 years old teenager, Steven Alper. Told in sarcastic manner, it’s about how Steven’s hatred towards his brother Jeffrey (5) is transformed into love after Jeffrey diagnosed with Leukemia.

Suffering from teen-age adolescent and turbulence, he grows up to a ‘matured man’ who is a great support, not only to Jeffrey but to his parents as well. He plays all the time with Jeffrey and gives him courage that everything will be alright. He shares tension with parents about family’s financial problems as well. Steven is an excellent drum-player, which does not remain just a hobby but also an activity, passion to soothe his agony. But just to save money, he is ready to give up practice.

Because of family problems, he is not able to concentrate on study, during is bad time his teachers, counselor and friends support him like anything. Renee Albert is the most beautiful girl whom he has crush on and Annett who is his best friend, and an excellent piano player become his tutors. They come up with an idea to make band concert a charity function to help Alper family. Starting with Steven, all friends cut their hair to look bald to save Jeffrey from feeling of dismay and embarrassment.

Some punch-lines really penetrated me are,
“Renee was beautiful and now she is friend. Annette is friend but now she beautiful also.”
Counselor advises him “Instead of agonizing about things we cannot change, try to concentrate on things we can change”

How wonderful! Such an eternal fact has been explained in nice and easy language. During the concert, Jeffrey and parents are in hall to cheer up Steven. During interval, Jeffrey becomes sick and all of them have to rush to hospital. Steven’s coach replaces him for rest of the concert.

But all is well that ends well. Concert turns out to be a great success; Alper family gets some $23,000.00+ fund. Jeffery has started recovered from cancer. Renee and Annette are Steven’s best friends and last but not the least, bond in Alper family is stronger than ever!

Aarti Thali decoration

Navratri is just approaching and though it’s a festival time, the fact of not in India, not being with parents brings dismay and sadness. Emotions override joy and enthusiasm.
But it’s getting better as years pass by. Now I have a few friends who can accompany me in Garba and probably I might have started loving US!

In India, every Navratri we will do something different and unique. Sometimes it is patch and mirror-work on chaniya-choli, sometimes decorating pooja-thali, sometimes trying different variety on ‘prasad’. 3-4 days ago when I was thinking about making Navratri more special than previous years, suddenly thought popped-up why not decorate pooja-thali? In a way, it will be small tribute to mom also. She always taught me to utilize time in constructive manner. We always participated in such competition either during Navratri or ganesh-chaturthi and won the prize.

As the blog title says, ‘Originality and Imagination’, I would not say it is completely justifiable as far as this task is concerned but I can say I have transformed it into American Scrap-booking look and feel J. I bought satin lace, different color stones (These are for stitching and not for scrap-booking though) and stickers. Next job was to find a thali since I do not have any stainless-steal thali. I finally used oval-shaped serving tray.



PHOTO


I used lace, stones and stickers in outer-border and grain and pulses for inside border. Got a nice photo of “Ambe-Ma” and padded it with papers. The best creativity shot was to use crayola tubes to draw swastik and flowers (credit goes to Kunal). Hope it stays good so I can use it for all 9 days. This will be my 3rd Navratri in US and I am hoping at least it should be better than previous two.

We never touch people so lightly that we do not leave a trace!

I heard this on Oprah's show. Not like I am a big fan of her and listen to her very carefully but this one did touch me and could not resist myself to express my feelings about it

Life is a journey and not a destination – we meet so many people during this odyssey and we leave our trace, our impression on them.
Who am I?
I am lying between two ends of birth and death.
I am a soul – a feeling that touches you.
I am and I am not - Mirage
I am everywhere – a precious gift of God and one of many human beings.
I am God’s messenger – I have emotions that stroke you
I am sensation and sensitivity – waves of feelings
A short-term existence with certain responsibilities
An ultimate truth like the sun and the moon and the stars
My core’s voice like waves of ocean

How cannot I touch you?