Rollercoaster called life

The usual...

2012-02-12T22:45:00.001-05:00

And the busiest week at work passed. Kids also got through a minor viral. They didnt have to stay home though and they went to daycare. Days were full on :-) Attended a birthday party on Satday at My Gym Boston, girls were the youngest and had fun. AL hung out a bit with the group, AG wanted to explore on her own and just kept a close eye on the group. They have finally tasted juice and are having it now and then - by having I mean squeezing the juice enough to spill and then get bored with it. AG sips a little, AL just plays and dosent care for it. I am not a juice person my husband is. So I havent really made an effort at all with the juice box. I'd rather they eat the whole fruits (as the Doctor recommends) rather than the juice extracts (mostly from concentrate anyway). Although I am also not a great fruit eater, making an effort to change for the girls. AL is a bit more like me milk drinker and veggie eater. AG is more open, but enjoys a little fruit more than AL.

Its Sunday and past 10:30 way past our bedtime completed some pending tasks at work. We had a short playdate today for the girls with another set of younger girl/boy twins. Girls did ok. Didnt really seem to be fond of the younger kids though. It is the natural occurence I guess, kids always get attracted to kids older than them, some kinda admiration and basic awe that they can do somethings more than them...

Caught up with my best mate in HYD and my other friend who returned from a long trip to India. Parents got back from their 2 week trip to holy places mostly in TN so mom had a lot to share about their experience. AG surprised by asking me to call my mother so she could hear her sing Wheels on the bus. She gave me the phone and gestures bus, bus, bus, Mom was maha-thrilled ofcourse. Aani actually said Hi to Mum-amma also on the phone. Totally getting it! She responds to questions with a ' yaa' and 'yes' also. What can I say, my girls are growing up! :-)

20 months

2012-01-27T11:57:00.000-05:00

Girls are 20 months old already. It wows me how fast they grow up. Cant imagine they will be turning 2 in 4 months. Last night the 3 of us shared the same mattress and it was a delight as we all rolled into each other. My parents seem to be terribly missing them its been probably just around 6 weeks since we got back from India but feels ages. Since a week the girls have started expressing their 'possessiveness' through "my/mine" for toys and whatever it is they are playing with. They just gestured and threw a fit but never said those words until now. . 'Wheels on the bus' is still as fascinating, but I am sure it will be replaced soon. Kolaveri is out. AL particularly likes wipers going swish swish while AG enjoys showing how the baby goes 'waa' waa' waa' . Pretend play has also started, with Minnie Mouse being rocked to sleep, and non-existent Yoghurt being fed to everyone around with a fork or spoon. We now play catch - which is pretty much aimlessly running in the living room for now. Ringa Ringa Roses is also being appreciated especially the 'all fall down'. AG managed to do a front flip successfully, The way she stretches herself sometimes worries me, I have to remind myself she is a baby and more flexible than me.

Busy week ahead at work, that time of the month again, meetings, meetings, meetings

That cold again; active toddlers=an exhausted mommy! :-)

2012-01-24T16:41:00.001-05:00

Finally had to goto the Doc today and apparently I need the antibiotic. I have some sinus infection issues and a nagging cough, I get these bouts I had to actually cut my meeting short today for that and head home to get an appt with the doc. Apparently we are not exposed to all the possible cold and cough viruses yet, Thanks to A&A and the daycare germs :-)

Its strange its my 5th or 6th sore throat incident since they started daycare. Of which this is the second time I am actually having to see a doc for it to get an antibiotic. Hmm so much for my immunity?

Ladies have been acting up a lot lately what 'terrible twos' have in store I know not ;) AG wants everything done according to her whims and fancies, leg warmers, outfits, food (she wants rice with ghee and nothing else) and wants to eat on her own, then she is obsessed with kolaveri and wheels on the bus and demands it plays nonstop if not she throws a fit. And her obsession with shoes (it runs in the family, blame the genes, dad/mom/my mom/my mom's dad, we have been obsessed with shoes and I can see how well its passing on the next Gen.) she chooses everything now pretty much what she wants to wear, eat etc. AL is a picky eater and she just repeats what I say end of story, its like we are playing this game of repeat and annoy your mom game ;) lol They have mastered the art of sayin NO and saying ALL DONE, so its been used mercilessly and just about on anything and everything. AL is showing interest in errrr boys ;) she seems to be particularly liking this blond blue eyed boy named Issac and then he moved to another class for whatever reason and now its Mason. Hmmm AG is very desi ;) her food tastes, her looks, her interest, she just seems to repeat Aarav since they met him couple of weeks back. LOL

And yes AL talks a lot more and is rolling her RRRRRs - Dad said something was karam please dont eat it, and the parrot kept saying kaaram, kaaram, kaarrram. Until now it wasnt evident at all although my BFF mentioned over the phone she could hear her chatter and it seemed to have teh American accent, I refuse dto believe her how a baby talk/blabber could have an accent this was 1 month back exactly...

So this week has been tough because of my cold and cough and generally felt too exhausted. Hopefully it subsides with medication soon and I am back to my complete/real self...

Dreams...

2012-01-24T16:28:00.000-05:00

Maa still keeps coming in my dreams, it stopped briefly and started again. Heart is not willing to accept I guess? But the difference is this last dream amongst all of the previous ones was about her coming back after she is gone, all of them so far was like she never left and was there back home. Sad.

Its two months already and we miss you!

Snow et al

2012-01-20T12:20:00.000-05:00

Finally its started snowing, just a couple ofinches last night and its b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l! Absolutely stunning, I think we are expecting more this Saturday. Beauty of New England are the 4 clear seasons. I remember when driving up to Concord (pregnant) while working there, there were more trees around and it used to breathtakingly beautiful to drive to work with my 2 babies although too scary to walk down from car to the door at work and vice versa.

Its going to be 3 months already with my new employer, wow! time flies!

A nugget for today: I have learnt from some people (at work) that if you cannot show respect towards someone, you do not have to disrespect them either. A lot of times for whatever reason you cannot get along with a colleague, (sometimes there is no reason), that does not mean you have to disrespect them. You can keep your calm and silence and maintain a pleasent working environment for everyone. This applies to personal relationships also.

And since a couple of weeks my beauties have started singing. There is a song I made up based on one of those toys they have, basically extended itwith lyrics and she has picked it up. AL hums and has her own tune 'ta ta ta ta' she goes before she falls asleep. I was up this mornign working and I hear a baby talk, talk a lot in sentences, couldnt here but there was clarity like he/she was saying something, I though its that child oppsite to our hosue talking and only to realize it came from my own home, next room, AL chatting away to AG and her Dad that how Amma will come in now open the door etc etc. Precious Precious...One strange thing is I met someone at work today who has twin girls same age as mine, born a day before AL/AG did - freakish coincidence, we exchanged some notes and laughed about it.

Sankranthi weekend 2012

2012-01-16T10:16:00.000-05:00

Another weekend out of town in Stamford CT. Spent the festival time with friends and celebrated a couple of kiddos birthdays in the group. Its freezing outside. Girls did fine but had a bad cold. Did their bhogi pallu program also with the other kids. AG hogged onto the arselu and marshmellows like she would never ever get it, she has a sweet tooth and she does not hide it. AL survived ONLY on milk and learnt to talk in sentences.....almost! ;)

It was 10 F when driving back last night. Its been 6 years since I moved to the US and even though no big complaints I did have some discomfort with the cold spells on and off. This time has been the worst in terms of my health front. Having stuff nose continously since a fortnight on and off actually since we got back from India and I generally dont get it this often (maybe its due to the kids and their daycare germs) but still there is strangely some sort of silence and yet some peace I can feel around in this cold this time around since a couple of weeks.

Have I finally come to terms with Mother-in-law not being in R.KPuram ever again? At any given chance we are going out of town and heavily socializing in fact as we do not want to stop and think what actually happened in India and to us. I think somewhere silently P and I think this will just pass - just pass? so the answer is - Not really, but I guess this cold is somehow giving me some silent moments to reflect and trying to make sense of some things absolutely not in our control perhaps?

I, me, myself

2012-01-11T14:41:00.002-05:00

No offence to anyone or anything, this is just a re-realization about me :-) ;)

After a considerable amount of travels, meet/greets, experiences I have realized that I am a good cook and a good hostess. All my family values have really worked well on this 'athithi devo bhavah' front I must say, special Thanks to my mother, my Ajji and my chickamma on that front.

Seek and you shall find

2012-01-11T14:01:00.000-05:00

Amongst the many good things about parenting twins is that you do not hesitate to ask for help if overwhelmed and that is a good thing according to me.

Another new year

2012-01-05T16:39:00.001-05:00

Its 2012. As we went about with our routine ( a rather relaxed Christmas week) we did not want to be by ourselves this new years eve, like last year and other reasons and spent it at a friends' at Delaware. The drive was interesting Boston to CT, then CT ot NJ stopped for a friends baby shower and then to DE. We really stretched for the first time with the girls schedule. About 4-5 families met and we relaxed. It was good to see the kids trying to play with one another. AG was down with a fever for couple of days and recovered AL was on a cleaning spree, she would take the tissue clean and meticulously say its trash and trash it at the bin, she would even clean the carpet. She played her own games and sang herself to sleep. She was an angel. She is down with a major cold though and breathing throwugh her mouth hence not eaten a decent meal in 3 day, hopefully she feels better today. AG had major attention issues, she was a little sick and craved for more attention from Dadda which she got over the weekend. Now its back to routine for a while. Its been awfully cold past 2 days early twenties when I drive to work around 7:30 am. But somehow this cold seems ok to me. I remember being pregnant 2 years back and too scared to walk (fear of slipping) on the snow/ice when getting to work. This time there is no snow though, not yet anyway. The girls are already into their second year. Time flies!

Hoping for a better if not great 2012.

New identity

2011-12-28T11:44:00.000-05:00

When we moved to R.K Puram most people knew my mom as herself, slowly as I started knowing more people than her with more friends in the locality, some people started referring her as 'my mom'. She went to the temple yesterday and for the first time someone came to her and asked if she was 'AG/AL's grandmom'? my mom loved this new identity in the colony even more she happily said yes. It happened to be P's parents tenants from R.K. Puram. Probably the lady saw mom at their place now and then.

Since then mom cant stop bragging about this association and identity her 19 month old grand daughters have given her ;) simple pleasures I tell you :-)

19 months

2011-12-28T11:03:00.005-05:00

So the girls are 19 months old and they are into their 20th month. The last 2 months just flew past. AL is being a chatter box as I have mentioned several times before and she repeats everything and says her friends names from school (so does AG actually) :-) Both of them are identifying and inform us when they 'potty' (I know a mini miracle I tell you!)

AG is going through a tantrum phase right now (something AL went through weeks ago) she craves for attention and is being stubborn, she wakes up at nights (teething) and the usual saga :-)

They had their 18 months vaccinations and they are all set until about 4 (annual checkups are needed of course). They did so much better with the doc this time round, smiled at her, played with her stethoscope, and the cow that flashes light and says moo :-)

So doc was asking us on the feeding patterns etc of AG and AL. I inquired if I am supposed to supplement them with Pediasure. And she was against it. I was surprised I told her that these kids like all others have their ups and downs and downs are pretty bad especially since we dont force feed. More cos we realized that when you force feed them they develop an aversion to eating and then they dont ask for food on their own as they are supposed to per normal instincts, cos they are always force fed right on time, atleast that's how we feel it impacts our girls and our Pediatrician explained to us which I feel is true. So coming back to Pediasure, Doc explained its a critical age as now they learn to chew and eat on their own, the moment they dont eat and you give them Pediasure it will take them a step backwards, rely on liquid/pasty diet more, cos its an easy and tasty/SUGARY option. Yep, she totally said they did not need that kinda sugar at this age. Even though they dont have juices, they can still stay away from Pediasure. So hence we have not one through the Pediasure route.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We had friends come over and stay with us so time just flew this long weekend. Went to Wrentham outlet mall accompanying my friend also. While chatting with SC I realized that everybody does their best as a parent, with the given resources, energy, circumstances. You just cannot say one is being a better mother than another (in an average working household of this generation obviously where in abuse and other extreme things dont come to play lets assume). Saying that the approach also of every parent is different, some go by the book and follow the very 'western' way, some the 'Indian way' if you really want to typecast it and most of us a hybrid, but everyone has their own style. At the same time one has no right to comment on others parenting skills, One could rather rather focus that energy on own parenting skills, cos I am sure other mothers if the really want to could also find what you could improve on (general observation SC and I made together). But why must one even get into that? If you want to ruin or end you relationship with that person then best way is to comment on others parenting or others kids, no one ever takes those lightly ....

Whether the different feeding patterns or sleep patterns or different bath times, everyone's prioritization and approach differs. One thing I told myself right from start that I will never be feeling guilty as a mother. I will always give in my best to them. Period. I might be tired one day and just make them an omelette and serve with bread, OR I might skip their bath if we all are not up for it, they are too sleepy etc but I will not be guilty of that nor made to feel guilty about it. If I later feel I should not have done something or done something very differently I will take ownership to that and not repeat it again (and of course I confess in my personal blog to them.) Kids come first in my life, but, I dont want to be a martyr and then blow my trumpet how much I sacrificed for them and what they do for me in return will never be enough. Yes we cant repeat some of those awful situations we see and hear. But that's my take.

On that note, everyone asks me how I manage with twins. They are either sympathetic cos they think one kid is itself a lot of work or others slightly pity that they have it so much better with kids spaced out and planned. Thanks, but...... I manage pretty much like everyone else and I dont feel I am doing anything out of the ordinary or that I am just doing very less in comparison to others either, again there cannot be a direct comparison though. Women in their late 20s early 30s will find that its a busy time for us, we are mostly working mothers with young kids, who run a house, most of us cook twice a day, like to take up most of the kids responsibilities or divide with husband however it works in each household, we ALL get through it. Period. We all manage in our own way and cheers to that.

And now this very last week of this year, the clock ticks slowly, as we get into 2012.

A month since...

2011-12-28T10:58:00.026-05:00

And so just like that its been a month since mother-in-law passed away. Nothing else matters, we just feel the absence. That sums it all up. I had my melt down and got it out over the weekend, it was sort of building up past 2 weeks with constant thoughts. Just makes you realize for the nth time how short this life is. Also teaches everyone to value the present relationships, but still there are ill feelings towards one another amongst people in general, its really sad I was telling P sometimes even if one person wants to let go and move on some will still cling to it and nurture animosity and ego and to me the value of the other good things done simply fades a few good deeds at a time when the former happens. The below incident triggered me to say that.

My mother mentioned to me how the gentleman who lived with his family opposite our house in R.K.Puram (wife and sons, one of them married with a son, and married daughters regularly visting) passed away. He was highly diabetic and visited ICU couple of times over last two months including when I was in India. So with all the relatives home for the ceremonies, after the rituals there was a huge argument and their Uncle's family (wife and 2 young kids) were deeply hurt, insulted and left weeping cos they couldnt bear the insult and harsh words and actions, apparently it was cos they were not there when they needed him the most and sons were angry with them over some other things as well. Maybe the father would have been ashamed and embarassed with their sons' behavior, one would think. We think fighting over property and material posessions after someone's death is disrespectful then what about this? Core values of love, bonding, empathy, compassion, hospitality eroding. Imagine those two kids how they would have felt with their parents being insulted in front of everyone when they came to express condolences and also grieving alongside in their own way? I dont think just cos they are grieving/as in-the-heat of the moment act or their not so literate background is any excuse for such disrespectful behavior.

I am deviating a bit but not trying to preach or judge (we all makes mistakes), just noting observations for myself and re-iterating how important this "present" is.

No matter what, bottom line, we will always miss you Maa. You will always be part of our present and future although physically absent.

Think twice before you speak

2011-12-21T15:01:00.002-05:00

The girls were falling asleep, well one did and one was almost about to. I was chatting with P and ended the sentence with the words "josh main" and to my surprise my darling AL repeated like a parrot after me. AL has been faster in picking up words and language in general, since a newborn we kinda guessed it. She repeats most things she hears in our sentences. So which means now people around them (not just parents) have to watch their language, tone, body language etc. Moreover we cannot undo what we say :-)

Now a days she smacks us all and says - boo - boo and then immediately sowweee (sorry) all in one sentence and one breath, so she thinks she can getaway with it :-) My darling by now I realize that words once said will have their impact all your life, it might fade but will still have an impact how much ever you apologize unfortunately, so pick your words wisely :-)

Sad...

2011-12-21T14:50:00.000-05:00

Since I know my Hindi songs so well, and Kishore did a fab job with these lyrics, couldnt help but quote:

ज़िन्दगी  के  सफ़र  में ,गुज़र  जाते  हैं  जो  मक़ाम

वोह  फिर  नहीं  आते ,

वोह फिर नहीं आते

ज़िन्दगी के सफ़र में ,गुज़र जाते हैं जो मक़ाम

वोह फिर नहीं आते ,

वोह फिर नहीं आते

फूल  खिलते  हैं ,

लोग  मिलते  हैं

फूल खिलते हैं ,

लोग मिलते हैं मगर

पतझड़  मैं  जो फूल

मुरझा  जाते हैं

वोह  बहारों  के  आने  से  खिलते नहीं

कुछ  लोग एक  रोज़  जो  बिचड  जाते हैं

वोह  हजारों  के आने से मिलते नहीं

उम्र  भर  चाहे  कोई  पुकारा  करे  उनका  नाम

वोह फिर नहीं आते ,

वोह फिर नहीं आते

.....

Grieving...

2011-12-19T15:24:00.002-05:00

Its been over a month and I was putting off writing anything on my blog, just didnt want to get to it. The worst thing did happen. My Mother-in-law passed away due to an End stage Renal failure. So I was in Hyd trying to get done my H1B stamping at the consulate, plus by me being away with the kids, P would get to spend more time with her. Anyway my stamping did happen smoothly and was waiting for my passport so could head back to be with my Mother-in-law. In that time frame P asked me to come to B'lore rightaway and leave the kids in Hyd as Docs did not see any chances of her making through and she was resting as long as her body could pull through on basic support. I got there the day before she passed away at the hospital, the very next day after P informed me. My father-in-law, her sister, and us, direct family members were right there with her as she breathed her last. Acouple of hours before I had met my good friend in Hyderabad at Leela bang opposite Manipal Hospital and went back into the hospital after a coffee with her and in a couple of hours she was gone. After traveling all the way to see her and hoping she recovers but see her leave us for good is one thing, but being there as a family that last moment, that one last moment when she opened her eyes was another. Overwhelmed and blessed to have touched her feet, seek her blessings and forgiveness if I hurt her in anyway (which is probably strange as it may sound was 9/10 cos of my lack of fluency in Telugu). I am glad she got to see her grand daughters whom she so adored as she so yearned for girls since the time she had her children a good 3 decades back. I am certainly not happy she is not able to watch them grow along with us. But then I am reminded that I have to count my blessings, she was able to experience the basic familial comforts at her age as she saw her sons settle and watched their families grow. I am glad she enjoyed the Pongal I made for the last time and kept asking for more (she loved the food I cooked right from the start and always acknoweldged that) before I left for Hyderabad.

So after the rituals (during which I know she could see each and everyone of us) we headed back to the US. Girls had some health issues last week in Hyd, stomach upset, fever, some dairy allergy etc plus I had my own viral going on recovered just before we got to the US and its been the usual routine. Girls went to daycare as usual just like we went to work the first week. Caught a minor cold, considering the weather and their age normal to happen and our days are oacked with all such routine acitivities. My father-in-law however is back in B'lore dealing with the loss. He is certainly whom we are concerned about as of now.

Every night I close my eyes to fall asleep and I am unable to rightaway. The whole scenario of how my mother-in-law passed away, the sequence of events plays in front of my eyes, how my father-in-law and my mother-inlaw's sister and I had lunch then got to the ward, how my husband was just about to go for lunch when her pulse dropped etc, just keeps playing in front of my eyes. Yes I have not come to terms with it. I am then flooded by memories, I then go back to the first time she saw me as a bride entering the wedding hall, all dressed in jewels and a pretty wedding saree (both of us loved jewellery and sarees for sure), the look of approval and appreciation and pride, the smile on her face to see me soon as her daughter-in-law, and tears come to my eyes. Yes unable to deal with it, not ready yet. Then everyday in the morning she comes in my dreams, this past week. Either like nothing ever happened and we are back home in R.K Puram just doing the daily chores or like how she is watching every action of ours as we go about talking and discussing routine family duties. No I have not accepted the fact yet that what happened was the best thing for you, not yet, You were barely shy of turning 61 years by 4 days and you left us. I talk to my mom everyday, and she comforts me. She misses her companionship. She used to stop by at their place as they were within walking distance and she would serve some lovely filter coffee and they would chat on various topics. I still feel she is right there in R. K Puram home and like nothing ever happened. I dont even want to think what P must be going through in his mind, all those childhood memories....

....But again I truly feel blessed and special to be there, those last moments with you. It meant a lot to me. More for my personal diary so the girls can know more about you. Love you and miss you Maa.

INDIA

2011-11-16T08:33:00.001-05:00

And so taking a break from our new jobs and 2 sick kiddos we undertook the much needed trip to India. My poor babies were having a bad cold, fever, and still did very well in the flight I thought. AG didnt sleep all that well but tried to take short naps in intervals. They did have cranky moments also but overall they did really well considering they were sick. So we had to land in Bangalore since my inlaws were at my brother-in-law's. Spent a few days there and headed back to Hyderbad. Nothing like home. Missing inlaws though as they are part of this 'home' set up in HYD and my parents and inlaws lived like a couple of streets away so we functioned as a great team when I visited last year in terms of spending time with kids. The first week was pretty hard. The kids were badly jetlagged. Hungry at odd times. Fever on and off with a bad cold/stuffy/runny nose and cough and majorly congested. Not totally adjusted to the new environment. Cant blame them. P and I ourselves hadnt slept well for past few days since we started new jobs (plus I have ended up with another strep throat issue I think due to change of water/environment) and kids were down with fever and cold and teething issues then the travel fatigue, over all got on to us and cant imagine what the ladies went through as they cant even express yet. As an adult one needs to have the sense to understand these things about kids. I tried my level best to comfort them. Now that we are in Hyd and I have my support system (my parents) kids are doing a little better but suddenly on a hunger strike. AL especially has lost a lot of weight. I feel so bad but its all an experience. That's how kiddos will learn to adjust and respect and also appreciate that traveling does take toll but no matter what you have to be there for the family and friends who really matter to you and ignore the inconveniences and negativities surrounding it.

I think we have lived the text book example of parents whose kids fall sick when sent to daycare after staying home for a while plus they are twins so makes you feel sickness is so prolonged and endless in the household but its all part and parcel of parenting twins :-)

Phew!

2011-11-04T10:39:00.000-04:00

Indeed! Its been hectic past few days, not as hectic as its been exhausting. AG got a fever again since we had another set of friends visit us from NJ. The week passed ok as she recovered from her viral or whatever and the following weekend both of them had a throw-up session late on last Saturday night. They probably puked non stop almost 7-8 times lasted for an hour and then slept. I was scared. Called the doc who claimed a stomach bug is going around. But my guts tell me something they ate didnt quite suit them. Both of them woke up aroudn the same time and went on and on until they got all food out of their system and back to normalcy from next day. Plus both of them have a cold now and AL is badly congested and hardly slept last night so is home with me napping all morning while AG is in daycare. AG got mild fever early this week but it subsided. So we have been living the text book example of how sick your kids can get when you send them to daycare. Its not a problem to take care of them. But problem is seeing them suffer and all this with brand new jobs for both of us.Yes this is my second week in my job and P's first so its been busy. I have stepped in the office environment alright but weekends have been crazy. Its ok, it shall pass.

Now we have a long journey to India and back. Praying and hoping for everyone's health and well being. And for the special person we are going to see my MIL. P and I feel so zombie-like, tired and sleepy.

No I will not dress them alike

2011-10-23T12:37:00.001-04:00

As a mother of 16 (almost 17) months old twin girls I get asked why I dont dress them alike i.e. that is buy the very same dress for both of them. I sometimes say 'they are so different in personalities, I somehow cannot pick the same clothes most of the times' or just dont answer and smile depending. And that's the truth. I can definitely pick clothes based on personality after knowing them for this long ;). I wonder if its a way parents try to impart they are not showing any difference between children and treat them equally. But through buying same clothes? Hmm?

But I am not sure about other twin moms or in fact parents of more then one child. I dont agree one should dress them alike. Saying that I do find one such outfit which is very cute that both will look good in, I try to get a different color with the same pattern, but mostly they never dress alike. I completely respect parents opinion who like to dress them alike. In fact why twins?, there are parents who have kids apart and yet dress them similarly just buy outfits of different sizes like you would for twins typically. Back in the days when (parents generation and older) parents would buy cloth/dress material of the same pattern and dress all the kiddos alike (just different sizes obviously). One lady mentioned to me if you dont dress them alike they will start comparing one another's outfits soon. Well! we will just have to deal with it I guess and even the kids will have to. If they end up wanting the same outfit of the bunch I pick for their selection fine by me, if they dont that's fine too.

Back to sickies

2011-10-23T12:23:00.001-04:00

So while I hoped for a sickness free month at least cos I was starting a new job. AL had one last weekend. Friends from CT had come over for the weekend. It was fun but AL's viral again threw us off our routines. She stayed home for few days before she joined her sister at daycare. We had another set of friends visit us this weekend and AG is running a fever. They had their follow up flu shots on Friday. But this could be either effect of that or another viral. Hopefully it goes away tomorrow and its a one off due to the shots or we have to take her to the doc's. This is the world of parenting twins who goto daycare, its wild but well worth it.

So majorly sleep deprived. Sleep is so underrated I tell you :-) Ask parents of infants and toddlers. ;) I think by the time they grow up and we get our sleep routines back, our age will not let us sleep as we used to. I can see that happening already. I could stay up all night and just sleep early morning till late afternoon,or rather any time to catch up lost sleep. Now that 'anytime' thing doesnt work. I shouldnt blame the age though. Its the responsibilities undertaken by choice mostly. No complaints, the early morning giggles and hugs and nose rubs (kisses in kiwiana-like :)) more than compensate the off-schedules and sleepless nights. For a person who had good 8 hours sleep and never did housework until marriage like most of us probably, this is a 360 degree spin. Tremendous respect for self and awe for this mystical journey undertaken- parenthood!

Work From Home

2011-10-14T14:36:00.007-04:00

So officially work-from-home days are being numbered. Its almost a year that I have worked from home (10-11 months) and I am looking forward to transition into an office environment soon, although a little nervous. Undoubtedly this has been one of the best things to happen ever. I started working since girls were 7 months old and they now 16 months and have been working from home with my twin girls with a nanny full time initially to help me during the day. Then parents came over to spend time and help us out for 6 months. And finally we transitioned the girls to daycare and I am transitioning back to 'the office'.

If you ask me I do not enjoy work-from-home in general. I love the hustle-bustle of the office environment. It helps you focus and seperate the work and family life which I prefer. I also enjoy interacting with people etc. But having young babies WFH was a huge blessing and in some sense a miracle for me. Simply cos for my kind of job profile WFH is not an easy option. I was able to watch my babies so closely grow and witness them reach various milestones while having a career that I am really grateful for. Mom always says how she wished she had this option back in the days. She has been a working mother, neither her nor I regret her NOT staying at home (more on that later). But an occasional work from home option would have been nice :-)

But personally for me it helps me have a better routine when I 'go' to work. An occasional day here and there is fine, sometimes it helps you get more work done if your bogged down by meetings at work. But overall having exposure to office environment feels more healthy some how for me. And especially at this point of time when kids also are into daycare. ...It will definitely take me a few days to fall into a proper routine though :-).

My two cents, but its rather banal: Key to WFH is sticking to routine and timings. Overlap between personal and work life to some extent is unavoidable (we have to be realistic), but WFH teaches you to really 'prioritize' in your life. There might be an occasional setback of either work or family life (children's sickness or important deadline at work perhaps?) but of course if either really slips or ends up impacting another part of your life, you are not doing something right?

I dont take a 'lunch' break at work, I eat at my desk and take a short walk or some such break. So taking the whole lunch hour at home does not work for me. But I guess for someone who is used to it, they should definitely take the time out. I used it for running errands like bank or quick grocery or pharma purchases or cook dinner, but rarely. Plus since some of my colleagues were on EST and most of them on PST I could start and finish early or start late and finish late. So luckily I could adjust the day based on how it progressed with kids. Of course meetings are meetings no escaping there. I usually logged in late after kids slept for 2 hours at night (8 to 10 typically) so I could get some time for myself and finish any pending tasks at work plus the feeling of sleeping babies is itself very soothing. So over all I made it work and I completed all my tasks. I was also lucky in the sense that the brand I was working for was relatively a 'low hanging fruit' so results of my performance were evident.

I was also very careful the kids should not be heard in any meetings or chats. I was very conscious of that and made the best use of the mute button. I feel it can rub some people in the wrong way. Every one has different mentalities and when you hear some one is working from home, some can over-analyze the positives rather than the challenges. I was wary that it could be interpreted as me enjoying time with kids along with work while others are putting in those long hours in an office. Yes I dont undermine use of some basic Psycology at work. :-)

A good find

2011-10-14T14:03:00.001-04:00

So I discovered that BJs sells fresh, organic pasta in their ready to eat section. I got it for the first time last week. I believe they have spinach and cheese ravioli and Squash ravioli varieties in vegetarian section anyway. I quite liked it. It also motivated me to make some homemade marinara/pasta sauce. For the first time I made it and turned out yum. I just made very little as a trial run. I need to get basil when I make it next. Its such a simple recipe. AL and AG both showed interest as sometimes they are bored of the usual daal-chawal- veges combo and they like to eat themselves these days anyway.

AG and AL are fond of ParleG since a few months now. Thanks to my parents who are used to biscuits with morning tea. It used to be a pleasent site in the morning to watch Grandparents and Granddaughters relishing ParleG sitting quietly on the couch at 7am. Well it was mostly AG. (AL was a late latif, she tends to sleep much after AG and wake up much later).

Life's simple pleasures....

A great weekend and some brags!

2011-10-12T14:35:00.006-04:00

After a few weeks we finally had a pretty good weekend. Girls like most kids have got adjusted to day care, they cried a little when I dropped them last week and when I turned my back and watched them on the camera they did fine. This week they have even stopped shedding those tears and are happy to be with people their own age for a few hours. I want to almost brag that this is a miracle ;) but its not miraculous, most kids get adjusted and they adjust much better than older people :-) If they dont well we always have some alternative or the other? Initially I thought that this was not going to work out, I could not see them shed tears. We started them part time from 14 months but they barely went in for a few days and didnt do very well. Everyone told me it will get fine and I knew it would but I was so disturbed to see them cry initially. I hate it that they cant fully express themselves and cry, but its part of growing up. They had a bout of viral end of August, then a teething session, then a bad cold but in the mean time those intermittent visits to day care did familiarize them with the surroundings in the mean time. Come 16 months they are off full time and are doing ok. They will adjust much better after a month or so and I wont be surprised if in between we end up with a cold or some such sickness yet again :-(

So I meant to brag about past weekend. Perfect weather and we made it finally to 'Day out with Thomas' AG is the one who is head over heels in love with the tank engine. She was awestruck and expressions were priceless. While we waited for our turn to ride on the train, we had like a waiting period of 1 hour, we spent it in an indoor play area. What we realized was AL simply adjusted very well in new surroundings. She walked straight to those lego toys amid some older kids already playing there, not afraid or overwhelmed and started playing, even smiled and said hi yes my 16 month old can say Hi and Bye very well since she was 13-14 months old. AG is a bit shy, she will tip toe, look at us then slowly blend in. She can get a bit scared of some personalities and run back to us but go back and play again, that's what she did. One such instance AL was playing with a toy crane and some boy stood in between her crane and her, she got mad and she 'almost' yanked that crane at him. Dear God! I ran to her and asked her not to hit, took her to the side and explained, she was too excited and went back and started playing again. AL is our official 'hitter' her instincts tell her to hit if she doesnt approve of something, she hits you with whatever she has in her hand or her hand itself. No one ahs taught her nor has she seen it, she just does it! I know many people might think oh she is a kid, so cute. And mind you her expressions when she hits you are very mature and funny and that cracks me up, but I dont approve of such behavior. I always stop her and try to discipline her right away, she will get it someday and its hopefully soon, but I am being consistent with disciplin-ing her. AG has more tolerance and patience some how she doesnt hit back if her sis ever attacks her, she looks at us with sad eyes, but of course that's cos we are around, if we arent they am sure she would hit back or push or some such force will be used. On that note she was the 'biter' she would bite AL when she was mad or didnt have her way. But I like to think my consistent 'no -no -no ing' and time outs have helped her fight the habit. But I am yet to apply timeouts for hitting on AL.

Anyway I digress, so Day out with Thomas was fun, we got a whistle for them and a balloon and they had F-U-N! It was a 40 mile drive from Waltham but was worth it. Also it was their first train ride and it happened to be on Thomas, how cool is that ;) Today's generation has taken a big leap forward that way. My twins actually came home from the hospital for the first time in a Black BMW, could you beat that ;)Sunday we took them to Parlee farms, apple picking, hay rides, pumpkin patch, farm animals - was fabulous. A little too hot but yet fun. AG walked like a daada eating an apple amid the apple trees refusing to pick any fruits. AL follows instructions pretty well (so far anyway ;)). She plucked them (she tried to but couldnt put enough pressure so I plucked them for her) and would neatly and carefully put in the bag. The trees had low hanging fruits, so great for toddlers. Unfortunately some people had thrown half eaten apples here and there and hence there were a lot of bees that got a bit annoying to walk around with toddlers. Our freinds from our condos who also have 8 month old twins joined us. Got some fab pictures. On the way back we even managed to take a quick darshan at Durga pandal in Billerica (Marshall Middle School) and on the way back AL pointed to the full moon and said mooooon, 2 weeks back I had shown her the moon from the balcony during a good night session (saying good night to every object around) and told her its the MOON and there you go, what can I say :-)

October 8th exactly 2 years since I found out we were expecting our first child (got to know its children much later :-)) ah! still remember the feeling of the onset of motherhood :-)

..and yet again...

2011-10-04T20:55:00.003-04:00

So I had to disappear again cos my first born got another viral, her third fever in a month and congestion which has been continuing for over a week now (first being another viral and second due to teething). She recovered and are off to daycare today. But it really got me worried. Not to mention Annie the second one has been suffering from congestion for a while now. Runny nose and little bit of cough and the mucous, eeks! Their sickness throws us so out of schedule (still trying to get into one with day care having just started), lack of sleep, hence low energy levels etc which is all part of parenting and it can get hard with twins, or more than one child in general, but no complaints. The biggest issue being undoubtedly to watch them suffer and go through it. I have to keep reminding myself that this is only helping them get stronger and build immunity and strengthen it. Phew! I have been very critical this past month of the day care somehow. Nothing is good enough for my girls. I was talking to my aunt who has twins and she was mentioning how she was on the same boat as I am not many years ago. Even having a Nanny dosent help as you end up doing main things cos you want it that ‘certain’ way. Learning to let-go is hard but we have to do it. For starters I have slowly decreased carrying and lifting the girls as before. First one year somehow my parents and P & I would love to carry them around, somehow it was irresistible and I still don’t know how some people claim they never carried their babies around as much they just played by themselves. Plus mine were not overly chubby kids so that made it easy. Now that they are older and getting more independent we are letting them get through their tantrums on their own. They have to cry it out if that makes them feel better and come back to reality on some occasions.

So managed to watch Delhi Belly finally. It’s a pretty gross comedy. Over all I found the plot funny. Last weekend we had our luncheon at Wasabi, Sushi place that serves food on the conveyer at Natick Mall. We liked the food, of course as a vege there are some basic options available and it was decent. The vegetarian/vegetable sushi was overdone, too many things going on. I preferred the cucumber and avocado sushi roll and so did the kids. Kids savored it, maybe more for the open ambience too that made a picky eater like Aanie eat a few grains. Aadu nibbled on the PBJ rolls served with rice on the side (I know I thought it was odd, but I guess a Sushi place is willing to serve sesame and cucumber flavored rice on the side with kids meals is ok?). I hadn’t shopped in advance for the winter for the girls. I am cutting down on a lot of stuff, clothes, books etc so until then I don’t want to hoard anything in advance, so we have been shopping for jackets and clothes for kids as and when we happen to stop at the mall. My favorite spots for the girls are Gymboree and Gap Kids as of now. This weekend didn’t find anything interesting though. Picked up winter head gear at Macy’s, where we had stopped to buy a toaster there, since ours is not working any more. It gave a pretty good service for 5 years and it just died few weeks back, so it’s been a pain to toast in the pan on the stove.

Fall has set in officially I guess, its already early sixties today. A busy week at work….yawn!!!

Its been so long...

2011-09-23T15:33:00.001-04:00

Gosh! Its been a while since I have posted. Where was I? Lot happened. With start of day care for the girls, we experienced our very first viral fever, cold, congestion and fever. Plus P and I managed to catch it from them too. So it was one germy household. Luckily they caught it one after another. We learnt a lot of do's as first timers, a lot of phone calls to the Doc and visits. Just a week after they got another cold. Since I am still working from home, we pretty much made them bunk school and we had them with the Nanny and me with the previous setup before parents came. Its a tough call but like everyone we make the decision as we feel best for our kiddos, so we let them fully recover from sickness and regain their appetite before sending them back in.

After they recovered my parents also returned back home. I know perfect timing, they are a blessing that way, they are always by my seide just when you need them, extra bonus for being an only child, missing them terribly. So its just us. Actually it was just us when the second round of cold started. Its still lingering mildly now but they are teething with their first molars too. So it kept us nice and busy. In the mean time we got done with their 15 months vaccinations and gave them their first flu shot since they will be going to day care.

So lets just say their 15th-16th month was spent for the first time in trying to build immunity. In the mean time I have been trying to get into a routine. Basically yours truly didnt enter the kitchen for past 6 months, well that's an exaggeration (I dont deny I am a spoilt brat ;)). I did enter the kitchen to cook for the girls and all their needs, rest of the household needs mom took care off (besides spoiling the girls thoroughly ;)).

In the mean time fall has kinda set in, well it did past week, and now since a couple of days its back to being warm again. Looking back it was one fun summer having parents over and taking the girls out and watch them experience a lot of firsts - first trip to the zoo, the beach, carousel rides, museum etc etc

"The Good Enough Mother"

2011-08-24T16:57:00.000-04:00

A refreshing post on Mommyhood - Courtesy HDYDI

You are a good enough mother.

There is a psychological concept actually called “The Good Enough Mother.” This was developed from Donald Winnicott, a British physician later turned psychiatrist whose prime was in the days of psychoanalysis (Think Freud, the lie on the couch and tell me all your dreams guy).

Winnicott wrote that the good enough mother adapts and responds to the child’s needs, thus teaching the child that he/she has some sense of control over their caregiver, which eventually builds comfort and trust of the mother.

He also noted that the interactions between parent and child really do matter, because they teach us how to respond and what to expect of the world around us.

It turns out that if you actually are perfect that you might be modeling irrational and impossible behaviors that could confuse kids into thinking that their imperfections make them not good enough, or even unlovable. Oh, Hello, my old friend shame….

In other words, your failure to perfectly meet and adapt to every single need of your child actually builds a realistic expectations in your child’s mind. His or her acceptance of and adaptation to the reality that the world is a harsh place that isn’t always perfect, convenient or fair is REALLY important to successful adulthood. Put even more simply, some amounts of Mom Failure = Good.

A good enough mother meets her child’s needs but BALANCES her response to the child (in age appropriate ways of course!). She does not run herself ragged trying to perform well enough for love and acceptance from her kids or spouse. She makes mistakes, she apologizes. She has emotions, she works hard. She is real. So when the going gets tough and you wonder if you are good enough. Give yourself a break. You are.

Teaching our kids that we are real and not just apron wearing robots is what is really important because after all, we’re not raising kids, we’re actually raising adults.

Shammi Kapoor

2011-08-16T13:05:00.001-04:00

I grew up watching and listening to Shammi Kapoor movies/songs (Thanks to my Dad). I have a lot of fond memories of watching his movies, very energetic and exuberant actor. I know some people thought he 'overacted' and could not appreciate his acting/dancing as much, but everyone's tastes differ. I loved it. His 'joie de vivre' roles were pleasing to watch and contagious that I enjoyed watching. I have easily watched and enjoyed over a dozen movies or so of his as I dont think has done as many movies as some other actors and he mostlyhad hits in the 60's. One of my favorite songs of his is 'Ehsaan tera hoga mujh par.." and 'Chand sa Roshan Chehra.." in the fast paced action songs of his.

The week

2011-08-15T12:08:00.000-04:00

And so the girls and my mom and I have been taking the girls to visit the day care past week to settle them in. Annie has been quite upset with this new change while Aadu is a bit ok. She is getting distracted but Annie reminds her of how unacceptable this whole change is :-) I was totally expecting this and yes this has got me exhausted a bit to watch them be 'not-so-comfortable'. But its part of thegame eh? As of now I am hopeful that like all other kids they will get used to it,... soon in the next fortnight or so. I know some parents claim their kids didnt create much scenes and settled in well, but my offsprings arent those indifferent kinds, they are attached and expressive, which I am glad. So we have to see how they will do this week. Its raining and Aadu is running a low grade fever so didnt take them there today. Over the weekend they had too much fun at Wingaersheek Beach and I think they got a bit exhausted playing in the water and sand although they loved it. It was amazing to see them happy not being disciplined and being allowed to play in the water and sand and get messy, priceless :-) The beach was recommended by a friend and is a kid friendly beach, with shallow waters and soft sand. I would definitely recommend this for parents with young kids. Also this was the first time I was taking the kids to a beach and I heard some kids dont do well with sand and water the first few times. I am glad my girls did well. I think they will turn out to be outdoorsy as they love to go out. That totally means I have to have a solid winter acitivity plan for them:-)

Happy Birthday to me :-)

2011-08-09T16:40:00.000-04:00

Red roses, a lovely dinner at Margarita's with the most important people in my life, and especially 2 young ladies in the high chairs at our table completely made my day :-)

And so I am out of my lovely 20's and hoping the journey to an even better decade starts. Lots of exciting , and some unhappy incidents, including some miracles even have occurred past decade or so. I will not blow my trumpet to show off my achievements, nor will I dwell on some unhappy ones.

To keep it short and sweet at this point of time, I count my blessings and hope for a less bumpy ride ahead.

Day care search and Reviews: Waltham

2011-08-08T16:28:00.002-04:00

Written on 08/04/2011 Posted on 08/08/2011

So I have been reading up and shortlisted 6 day care centers for my girls. I have read about day cares and specially about twins in general at day cares. I wanted to choose something close to home, so either P or I could pick them or drop them up and wouldnt be out of any one's way as such. The following are the shortlisted ones:

1. Waltham Family Day care (Family/Home Day care)

2. Erica's Family Day care - 360 Weston St Waltham (She does not have a website currently) -(Family/Home Day care)

3. Learning Zone Waltham

4. Bright Horizons Waltham

5. Childrens' Workshop, Waltham

6. Learning zone, Weston

Anyway the 1st and 6th one did not happen. First one I wasnt impressed with the phone call. The lady who seemed to be the one incharge was talking to me over the phone while I was making an appointment and minding the children at the same time talking to them. I was unfortunately not able to make it to the appointment anyway as something else came up. The last one I havent been able to make an appointment. Its a little further down from where we are compared to the Waltham branch.

Erica's Day care: This was the very first day care I entered in my life to (potentially) send my daughters. The lady in charge was sweet and cordial. The set up was in the basement, but their house is in a good spot so the basement is very bright and in fact unlike a basement. I saw about 4 girls sit with her assistant looking vacantly and trying to use scissors to cut. The assistant was cutting very queitly and kids seemed a bit quiet. It was 9:30am so wasnt their nap time or anything. It was right after breakfast. Two infants were sleeping in the crib. One of them started crying amid my conversation with her. She continued I advised her if she wants attent to the child she could, she brought him out, she said, he cried cos he heard her voice he dosent want to nap. He was a cute 7 month old chubby kid. He sat on the bouncer watching us after that. We also met a friend's son there, he was too surprised to see us there. This being my first experience, I was not able to control my tears. I was talking to that lady and tears were flowing down my eyes. I am not sure what it is. The feeling of girls being away from me, away from sheltered home? or the vacant look in the kids eyes, made me sad! Its not really guilty though that's for sure. If I was guilty I woudnt have been there. I would be home with my children. I got into the car, got over my feelings, wiped my tears. I guess since my kids are toddlers and already active and learning stage I did not find this an appropriate place to send my children. Maybe if there were infants and I was going back to office environment when they are 3 months I would have considered it, due to personal attention, less number of kids and hence the sickness. But anyway next in line was Learning zone. In terms of pricing she was ok. Equal to how much I'd pay for a Nanny if kids stayed home. She would provide lunch and snacks but even we could do so. She was charging 600 dollars a week.

Learning zone, Waltham: We entered Learning Zone and the lady at the reception was on the phone, we waited and then she spoke to us and we went in for a tour. Infant rooms, Toddler rooms, Pre-K, etc The environment was very lively and there were lot of kids. Teachers looked engaged, they were all busy either going out to play in their play area or reciting ABCs etc. Kids looked happy, waving saying Hi. Great atmosphere. The best part is they have a camera so parents can watch the kids any point of time during the day based on their schedule of course if they are out playing or next room having lunch etc we cannot. They serve snacks. So we could either provide lunch or buy lunch for 2 dollars from them. They have the usual complete menu like every where else. The only initial concern we had was in case of emergency will number of teachers be able to handle all kids and escape. Its only after being to the other 2 day cares we realized yes they probably can and I should think of such things. Ratio is 2 teachers to 9, which they have to follow leagally and any more in the group they have a third person. Toddlers are now mobile so they are assissted to run down (its on the first floor) and then other teachers would take care of infants I suppose. They are the only occupants on top in that building so that's great, less tresspassing etc. Over all it was a neat place, just couple of hundreds more than Erica's day care in terms of pricing for twins it works out to be $2600 ish. So definitely 4 stars for this one.

Bright Horizons, Waltham: As soon as we entered we realized we were entering the 'private schooling' kinds. Staff was very cordial and warm when they received us, we hadnt booked a tour. The place was pretty neat. We visited their infant, toddler rooms downstairs, and indoor play and pre-K etc on top floor. Quick round of the outdoor play area. It was pretty, neat and well maintained. The kids were not as many (versus the size of the place) so it was not as noisy. Kids seemed to be enjoying though. They apparently maintain a scrap book, click kids pictures every day (the fancy, nice-to-have stuff for extra dollars kinds), over all for full time toddlers they charged $2000 per month per child. So definitely pricey for this age. Four stars for this one too.

Children's workshop, Waltham: We entered a strip mall and one of the entrance was Children's workshop, it shared the entrance with some other salon/spa or something, so it wasnt totally secured in that sense. They have sort of combined stores all into one and divide dinto classrooms, they are pretty small, but are expanding, their play area was pretty good and big. The location was such that it seemed a bit scatterd and unorganized. Staff looked a bit stressed, could be cos it was almost lunch time past 11am. Rooms were smaller than previous ones, so kind of felt conjusted. Again maybe after they expand and construction is complete its a better place. They charged about 400 dollars per toddler per week full time. So its not like its that low. Curriculum for Toddlers this age (15 months -2 years) is not very strict or different either. Above 2 I certainly feel could make a difference.

So the clear winner for us Learning zone. Lets see how this new experience goes. I am only concerned about me missing them terribly and the pain I would have to go through to see them as they gain their immunity and fall 'sick' now and then. But other than that I think they should do ok. I dont know. My girls are social at this stage but they are also not indifferent. I believe some kids go to day care and just adjust and hardly shed any tears. Both my girls are affectionate that way and express it, so I think intially there will be tears. But I also know that is what is best for them. They need more activities at this age and have friends. I hope it goes well. Crossing my fingers. Learning zone did say they cannot put the kids in the same room initially but later they said they could accomodate them. I have been going through this same class or different debate in my mind. At this stage I believe I would like them to be in the same class. The girls do bond quite a bit, they dont express it that's all. It will be a lot of changes at once if we seperate them now.

Overall I was keen to send the girls to an established day care which has reviews and references. I would be apprehensive to send them to a place which has kids not so active like at Family day care I visited, where its unorganized, or they are too new (inexperience and no credentials) or expanding like Workshop or where the teachers or not young and dynamic. A place which has energy :-) The rest of the skills learnt are individual and depends on parents too :-)

Daily Musings

2011-08-01T19:05:00.002-04:00

One very good thing about FB is that it reminds you about everyone's birthdays. So if you are able to log in every other day, you get to wish most of your friends, aquaintances, family, et al. Other sad thing is that it makes people who could just call and wish you lazy as they choose to wish you on FB instead. I have made it a point that as much as possible if I have someone's personal phone number with me, I will make it a point to call and wish them. Even if its brief, it is personal.

So I speak, with my own birthday being a week away from today :-) ;)

Oh and BTW I watched Khatta Meetha (Akshay Kumar, Trisha starrer) was pretty lousy, didnt do any justice to a serious issue nor was it a successful comedy attempt. Still due to watch all the big ones, DB Singham etc

Addie and Annie (and I must say the Mommy cos I feel their pain deep inside and it hurts) managed to fall from the couch on the floor. Addie's was worse, but both did ok. Phew! Yes my heart almost stopped twice past weekend. And while I thought I could wait till the terrible twos to start, at 14 months my girls attempt to do what they are not 'supposed/allowed' to and immediately look at me and wave their index finger and say 'NO NO NO'. They also seem to be minding one another at times. And I know what's coming next, 'minding Mommy's business' times ahead. :-) Girls I tell you ;)

When Motherhood is a choice and is misused...

2011-07-29T12:28:00.001-04:00

Last Monday our Nanny came in as usual, but a bit tired. She had a story to tell, she was tired as she ended up taking care of a bunch of kids on short notice. Her sisters, sisterinlaw (if I am not mistaken) is a drug addict and an alcoholic and has 5 children and is currently pregnant with the sixth, the kids have now come to stay with her sister as social services was concerned that their own home wasnt safe for the kids anymore. The oldest one is 11 years or so apparently and behaves and dresses like an older girl, yes going astray and she is a pretty little darling. One of the girls has cross eyes and is in a cocoon of her own due to poor self esteem (she has been shunned at home by her mother for her cross eyed face). The youngest one has blisters all over and is blue due to a strep throat infection that was not treated since 6 months (which is what triggered social services to interfere as the doc called them). As she kept describing tears flowed in my eyes - why? some people have a choice - apparently this lady chose to have kids because she would get some extra amount from the Government for having so many kids, and the money is being spent on her own addictions. Sad. On one end I know people are starving and begging for a living and have more kids, so they can help them financially and be their souce of income? On one end people who are slightly better off as they have basic necessities 'provided to them' choose to abuse their children and use them just as a source of income so they can pursue their self-destructive addictions. Shame. And then on the other end there are people who are patiently waiting and craving for Motherhood to happen. Such is the imbalance. Appalling. Life.

I am back

2011-07-20T18:54:00.003-04:00

After a pretty long hiatus - I am back to writing in public. Its been a while. Where was I? I was off enjoying every moment being pregnant the initial 9 months. I blogged a lot, a lot about pregnancy and as a to-be mother of twins.Then I was finally a proud mother of two of the most beautiful girls ever :-) and I continued blogging everything and anything. Girls are 14 months old, (so a good 9+14 months I was MIA, man! that's almost 2 years) I finally did the whole 'import-export' and split my blogs into two - one continues to be the master copy of my past 23 months and henceforth the 'personal blog' and the other this general rollercoaster blog. I did leave a very few posts in between to bridge the gap so to speak :-)

So to bring this blog up-to-speed. Lady Aadie graced our lives some 14 months back and 13 minutes after Lady Annie followed. Needless to say our lives have changed from being great to greater :-) A lot has happend since then, a 3 month India trip, meeting a lot of family members and friends there, a new job etc

I will try my best not to keep bragging about the Ladies as much as possible, (its extremely hard but I will try :-)) So I am currently a working Mommy. I got back into the workforce when girls were about 7 months old. Loving every moment and no regret whatsoever. So far no complaints. It must be so difficult with twins? No its is not. It is some additional effort in comparison to bringing up one child (rewards are also doubled mind you)- yes but not difficult. I will have it no other way. :-) How did I manage so far? With a wonderful husband, parents, and myself doing a great job + Nanny :-) .

The difference in approach

2011-05-05T09:43:00.005-04:00

Annie comes across as meticulous. She will wait for the right moment try to avoid 'falls' as much as possible and finally she will gauge when she is ready and that's how she decided to walk by taking baby steps at 11 months. Lady Addie pushes herself to the limit. She perseveres, does not care if she falls, stands up and tries again and until she was able to walk at 10 months itself (baby steps started at 9 months). we learn so much from kids I tell ya!

A guilt-free working Mommy

2011-02-16T17:03:00.005-05:00

I know I am supposed to feel guilty. I work full time from home. I have 2 kids, I dont "dedicate" myself completely to them, instead share the work load of the house with P and hire a full time Nanny. Guess what I dont feel guilty a tiny bit for doing this. My girls are my priority. I love them. My family of course COMES FIRST. But that does not mean I have to give up my career. Hey my attitude is if I should be able to manage, and more than able to manage, manage WELL. If not its not worth it. And we have no complaints so far. I always told P that I want to try managing both career and kids and home. If I cant well I know what my priorities are and I will gladly choose family over career. But without trying I will never decide it. I know many people even today give up their career for kids. I respect that. That is their choice. I dont think they are being better mothers just by staying home and I dont think working mothers are being bad mothers just cos they also choose to work. Yes I agree its hard, a lot of juggling and super busy lifestyle. But its a personal choice. Even some mothers who stay home not necessarily are able to devote quality time due to exhaustion and routine-boredom. In my case if and if I ever feel its getting too much and I am missing my girls I will quit that very moment.

6 week postpartum check up

2010-07-08T21:52:00.005-04:00

I had the physical check up at my OB's office today - the 6 weeks check up. It went well! Result: Pass Everything had healed. She said cant even make out I delivered, leave alone had twins ;)

I drove (first time after delivery) and went alone by myself as I didn't want to take the girls with me and disturb their routine and besides its best to have 3 people home in case both cry at the same time, one extra person can organize milk or diapers for them if needed ;) Honestly even one person can manage with the girls, but since we have a chance of 3 people staying home so why not utilize it (P has the week off for July 4th - forced company shut down, so he has to use his vacation days).

My mother - a wonderful grandmother!

2010-07-08T21:42:00.004-04:00

I always knew it and that's how it has turned, my mother is very good with kids even though she has minimum experience, basically after me she didnt have other kids around to watch them grow. Even then she loves kids in general. She has some how gathered a lot of energy to help us so much, from day one, she has taken care of all the cooking, house, kids and providing me with nourishment so I could recover. She has been very patient with me as I am so particular in the way things are done for the babies, like washing bottles, sanitization, their bath etc. And sometimes there are some slight differences to what Doctor's advise here and what is followed in India, that is inevitable as these differences can occur even in India between two generations. I have to admit I haven't blindly followed the Doctor every time, some of our old practices make sense like giving babies gripe water, oil massages etc. But some of them dont make sense. My mom has co-operated and done how I wish instead of forcing her opinions and wishes on us or hurting us as after all we are the parents. She is realistic and does not have those typical expectations.

I would not have coped so well thru my postpartum time if not for my mother. I will forever be grateful for that and hopefully I can return the same favor when my girls are grown up and have their kids, thats how it works I suppose? And hopefully I have the ability and the means to take care of parents from now on.

30 years!

2010-04-11T19:54:00.002-04:00

April 10th marked my parents 30th Anniversary, we didnt do much, temple visit, lunch at Chipotle which they liked and BRU visit and home after some shopping!

Brussel Sprouts and Kali Daal

2010-03-18T20:21:00.000-04:00

Since forever now wanted to try Brussel sprouts, they have good nutritional value, look exactly like cabbages or rather mini cabbages. Finally got them last week and made a curry exactly like cabbage curry (the basic one without masalas) and it tasted very good. P also liked it! Yay!

Made Kaali Dal today, not a complete rich Daal Makhni with the fancy cream and all. Just a basic 'Maa ki Daal', it tastes pretty ok. Made Jeera Rice and hopefully P approves it :-)

Concord

2010-02-24T09:45:00.003-05:00

Concord is a seperate city in itself indeed. Work is only 10 miles from home/Waltham and there is a drastic change in temperatures and even weather as soon as I take the exit. Its been pouring since last night there was no snow though. Enter Concord and a fresh layer of snow is being washed away with the rain. Ah! nature I tell you!

जीवन की बगिया....

2009-12-16T16:35:00.003-05:00

जीवन की बगिया महकेगी, लहकेगी हम्म......
जीवन की बगिया महकेगी, लहकेगी, चहकेगी खुशियों की कलियाँ झूमेंगी, झूलेंगी, फूलेंगी जीवन की बगिया …
वो मेरा होगा, वो सपना तेरा होगा
मिल्झुल के माँगा, वो तेरा मेरा होगा, जब जब वो मुस्कुराएगा, अपना सवेरा होगा …वो मेरा होगा, वो सपना तेरा होगा, मिल्झुल्के माँगा, वो तेरा मेरा होगा...
जब जब वो मुस्कुराएगा, अपना सवेरा होगा …थोड़ा हमारा थोड़ा तुम्हारा, आयेगा फिर से बचपन हमारा
जीवन की बगिया महकेगी, लहकेगी, चहकेगी खुशियों की कलियाँ झूमेंगी, झूलेंगी, फूलेंगी, जीवन की बगिया ॥

हम और बंधेंगे, हम तुम कुछ और भंदेंगे होगा कोई बीच, तो हम तुम और बन्देंगे बांदेगा धागा कच्चा, हम तुम तब और बंधेंगे …कुछ और बंधेंगे , हम तुम कुछ और बंधेंगे होगा कोई बीच, तो हम तुम और बंधेंगे, बांधेगा धागा कच्चा, हम तुम तब और बंधेंगे …थोड़ा हमारा थोड़ा तुम्हारा आयेगा फिर से बचपन हमारा जीवन की बगिया महकेगी, लहकेगी, चहकेगी खुशियों की कलियाँ झूमेंगी, झूलेंगी, फूलेंगी , जीवन की बगिया …

मेरा राजदुलारा, वो जीवन प्राण हमारा, फूलेगा एक फूल, खिलेगा प्यार हमारा दिन का वो सूरज होगा, रातों का चाँद सितारा मेरा राज दुलारा वो जीवन प्राण हमारा हूलेगा एक फूल, खिलेगा प्यार हमारा दिन का वो सूरज होगा, रातों का चाँद सितारा…थोड़ा हमारा थोड़ा तुम्हारा आयेगा फिर से बचपन हमारा जीवन की बगिया महकेगी, लहकेगी, चहकेगी खुशियों की कलियाँ झूमेंगी, झूलेंगी, फूलेंगिजीवान की बगिया ।

Hmmm..

2009-10-07T17:50:00.002-04:00

My parents finally went for that check up probably the first since they have moved back to India. And as expected results were skewed. Dad has been diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and mom has cholesterol. I guess with age some such things is expected. Hopefully they stick to the diet and take care.

Me being here certainly not helping!

blah!

2009-10-05T20:24:00.005-04:00

Give, but don't expect returns is not a practical philosophy. I'd much rather believe in giving but not necessarily expecting returns from the same recipient. It will come from some least expected quarters at the time least expected.

Sulky Monday after a slow weekend. My previous week's weeknights were occupied by some negativity not personal or mine but in the neighborhood which I invited home, as I thought of doing a good deed by giving it time to heal. It healed alright but finally got bugged for lack of respect shown to me. P thinks I have a way of doing and meaning really well for others and then somehow say something or do something really stupid towards the end and ruin all the goodness I do; yes that's my very honest and overly-frank opinions. Bah! dont think I did it this time for once even though I was bugged. Anyway looking forward for - tomorrow, they are much better than Mondays :)

Go -live is so close now, long days ahead

Dushera 2009

2009-09-28T11:51:00.002-04:00

This time made it to the Bengali Durga Pujo pandal in Sudbury middle school to pay respects to the Goddess. We got there at Arthi time and it was very good. It was a rather small crowd at least when we went and than what I had expected and the Goddess was beautiful. Some of the ladies were blowing the conch and others chanting and it gave a great effect to the whole setting. First time I was so up close to the Durga idol, flanked by Lakshmi and Saraswathi on the side and Ganesh and Kartikeya. Lord Kartikeya (I guessed by the peacock vahanam) was very different to what I have seen. I mean I have only seen the South Indian Tamil version of him actually. Probably Ganesh is the only god who consistently looks the same all across India?

Weekend movies:
- ‘Dil bole hadippa’ – it was ok but will not own or watch this DVD. Over doze of Punjabi culture for me and Rani in Sardar’s role was better than SRK in Rab ne but also kind of annoying at the same time.
- ‘Wanted’ – remake of Pokiri – was ok, but then I just saw quarter of this movie, not used to Salman in action roles…
- ‘Vinayakudu’ – a Telugu low budget movie was total time pass.
- ‘Who Lamhe’ – bored with Kangana’s demented-suicidal roles
- ‘Rahna hai tere dil main’ – I am not fond of Madhavan as an actor as such for some reason, Saif’s presence in the movie was a surprise for me.

OMG! I watched almost 5 movies this weekend! Something’s wrong?

Haven’t cooked properly for the last week, it’s not going to be easy to get back to my everyday cooking schedule again. When there is a gap or break in the everyday ‘cooking schedule’, it’s hard for me to get back to it, its basically trying to get over laziness.

A new title

2009-09-28T11:51:00.001-04:00

I am officially an aunt - ‘pedamma’ like they say on my husband’s side. I wish I was there personally to greet my nephew. Just admiring the pictures as of now, hopefully I can be in India soon to hold him in my arms.

Stuff!

2009-09-18T16:26:00.005-04:00

As we are getting nearer to the Go-live date at work its betting busier and busier, which is great! UPK is something I am not familiar with so need to understand it, and see how long it might take to get done with training documents. I feel it will be very time consuming at this stage and might take longer than I had anticipated. Attended on how the successful the company has been so far in implementing lean principles. Wasn't as informative as I thought it would be. Lean techniques and principles are almost kind of boring now to hear or read about it.

Had lunch at Pongal in Billerica with the IS boys at work, didnt particularly like the food.

Fall has set in, not sure why I am taken by surprise as it usually does set in after Labor day. But summer was so short I guess hence it feels sudden.

Weekend just flew, with P's friend visiting us with his parents, although evening/dinner time was the only time we spent with them.

Had that 'team dinner' at Macaroni & Grill in Burlington. It went well I thought of the 25 people invited, 17 turned up.

I don't know why I always feel I can get easily misunderstood. Just cos I am different in certain aspects per society norms. I don't know if I should keep trying and explaining myself? Or silence is the best. Again that will turn into indifference perhaps? Grrr! whatever!

Not in a mood to blog some how.

tittle-tattle

2009-09-15T09:16:00.000-04:00

Weekend just flew by. Tried to catch up with my sleep quota which I had lost the previous weekend while in DE. At work the Friday summer timings of 12:30 pm are over. Its back to winter/ROY timing and Fridays typically end at 3pm. I got home and slept for 3 hours, P came home had dinner and slept again. Saturday lazed at home and took a nap in the afternoon and headed to a friend’s place for get together, they had bought a new home in Sharon, MA and it was a very nice home near to the Massapoag lake, my friend was also expecting a baby boy so it was a good celebration. Apparently they wanted a girl and were disappointed especially the husband. Its been happening in all our gatherings now. All of our other friends have boys and we keep talking how there will be a shortage of girls and the mothers/fathers yearn for a girl. But amongst the MA friends it’s the other way round, mostly girls and they will be first to have a boy in their circle. So God is always balancing it some how some where we just don’t know about it J But baby girls are more popular than baby boys that’s my general observation J

Sunday afternoon decided to take a stroll in Natick mall and blew over 100 bucks just like that. I don’t know how I do it. It’s very rarely I find something in Banana Republic within my price range and I found it this time. Shopped at 3 of my top brand stores, Zara, Banana Republic and A&F. I have decided to stop my weekend strolls now (like that is going to happen but I have to try). Been working for a while and I barely have any savings. Its scary at times I wonder if we are living way to much in the ‘present’?

Monday was an extremely busy day at work. Just the way it should be. Its going to be a long week………

Alice in wonderland

2009-09-11T09:43:00.001-04:00

I see myself out in the open, feeling the drops of rain on my skin and smelling the parched earth. The clouds turn dark grey and I hear the rumble and see the lightening. I stand there soaking-wet, I close my eyes and turn towards the sky, my hands spread out as if embracing the rain. I want the rain to cleanse me and everything around me. I see that the boundaries and the apprehension inside me and outside & around me are being washed away. I then see the rain slowly stopping, the grey disappearing and the rays of the sun penetrating through. I sit down dripping on the wet grass and look at the rainbow, carefree and happy like never before.

Mundane....

2009-09-10T14:49:00.001-04:00

Mushrooms: I tried eating it today (again) for lunch, but simply couldn’t; I don’t like the shape, the color, or the texture. But if it’s mushroom ravioli which does not reveal what’s inside I have no problem eating it. That’s the only form in which I eat it. But the moment I see its real form, it’s simply yuck and unappetizing for me. Then why can’t my brain flash a picture of a mushroom when I am eating ravioli? – don’t know!

Sambhar: Extremely bored of Sambhar, not going to make it for the next 1 month at least. P has no issues eating it and loves it but I am bored. This past weekend in DE with a group of Reddy friends I started loving their Telengana version of pappu chaaru. It was so busy I forgot to ask their recipe. I looked up online and the only thing different seems to be adding onions, methi powder, dhaniya powder and green chilli-garlic paste. I’ve got to try it.

And it’s ‘fall’ already. There is that chill in the air since we got back from the long weekend. I am wearing a sweater at home and outside and cant take the air conditioning any more. Temperatures are varying in 60’s but mornings its barely even 50.

----

2009-09-09T12:11:00.002-04:00

People around you make a lot of difference, if you choose to. At least I feel re-charged and energetic when I am with a group of people I gel with. On the contrary if you interact with that one wrong person, just one person who you cannot gel with, it can drain and suck out the good and bring out the worst. Everything (supposedly) happens for a reason. No reason to feel bad if some relationships are not working out as they ought to (whatever maybe the reason or whoever maybe at fault). Just have to learn to move on, understand and respect the differences, maybe it was not meant-to-be.

For me one of the things I used to miss mainly about India was the presence of some such lovely people. It’s not just about having a large group of friends/acquaintances. All of us tend to have them in India, but it’s about hanging out every other day with the people you love: Parents- everyday, Extended family - at least 2-3 times a month, and friends - every other day. But fact is I don’t think Hyd is what it used to be. At least I should not visit or go back if I plan to return that is, with that expectation. Friends have dispersed, people’s attitudes and lifestyles have changed, I have changed and there will be a lot of new relationships to make which might be very different from what I have ever experienced and existing ones we have to re-kindle etc. etc. This past weekend with friends was so much fun and very refreshing hence made me think of the importance of having the right people around you! At the same time not having them always around also makes it all the more important.

Labor day weekend

2009-09-08T17:07:00.001-04:00

Had a hectic, crazy and fun long weekend. We went to DE Friday night for a surprise baby shower for a friend. It was a big group and we did the usual merry making. Returned Monday night as opposed to Sunday night as planned. Like anyone was going to let us leave a day early on a long weekend. Moreover it ended up being 2 showers as there was another last minute shower we had to plan. Today totally sleep deprived and every minute at work was an extra effort to stay focused.

this & that

2009-09-04T09:06:00.000-04:00

Yay! Our LED finally arrived yesterday. But we don’t have cable yet and DH is working on getting the new connection, ended up checking a few CDs in the new TV. I don’t know why or how (I may have forgotten choosing it) but I got the movie ‘Tango Charlie’ through Netflix. We watched that blah movie in FFWD mode and the colors are so vibrant in this TV. It’s simply wow! And it’s slim as ever! I did not imagine I will enjoy it so much.

My parents experienced a mini flooding in the living room again sigh! It wasn’t as bad and they were better prepared this time round.

I had a huge melt down on Tuesday. I think I almost scared DH. But he was very understanding and we both knew what triggered it and somehow it was and yet it wasn’t in my control. Kannadiga Aunty had come to say a final ‘Bye’ that night and thanks to her my mood really improved and I was back to my own self. She made me watch ‘tere mere beach mein’ a talk show that Farha Khan’s hosting with Salman Khan as the first guest. It was time pass.

Now for the labor day - long weekend- to go or not to go to DE?

AP

2009-09-03T08:36:00.001-04:00

R.I.P YSR – I don’t know much about the current political situation and people in AP/HYD, but it’s sad that the CM passed away in a helicopter crash. I saw some messages with people mocking in FB on his disappearance yesterday and that’s how I found out about it initially. And in all fairness he is a state leader (however horrible a leader he maybe to the very ‘successful intelligent literate class’ – (sarcasm intended!)) obviously there will be more effort to find him and keep him safe as he has (supposed to have) a big responsibility.

Then this morning read an email from my mom and took a peek in TV9 and Deccan and there it was, it was all about YSR’s death. And the fact that Rosiah will most likely be the acting PM. Good God! Isn’t he like one of those really corrupt guys, with the word CORRUPTION written in caps all over his face clearly visible? It’s just an uncomfortable feeling over all.

Our Vinayaka must have felt left out by media during Nimarjan, but maybe it helped and it went smoothly to some extent due to lack of media coverage?

Are we?

2009-09-02T16:27:00.001-04:00

Are we Indians one of the most sensitive people? Especially towards fellow Indians? Or am I referring to only the Indians settled outside India here?

Impromptu Relationships

2009-09-01T08:55:00.000-04:00

When DH’s parents were visiting 2 years back I happened to meet this Kannadiga lady from Bhadravati, Karnataka in the elevator taking a walk with her granddaughter. We exchanged a quick hello and she asked my apartment number. Surprise, she dropped by at our place subsequently, very India style and made friends with us and specially with me (since I am Kannadiga too and she is fluent in that language). She is a very talkative, lively woman and very friendly who was visiting her daughter and their family (husband and mother of a young girl about 4 years old). Since then this is her third visit to US in 3 years and all 3 times she has made it a point to stop by and talk to me. Sometimes I used to be not in a mood to talk to her, sometimes I would be, but it wouldn’t matter. It isnt so much of a dialogue, it’s a monologue, this Aunty is talkative and can go on and on for a long time. Once I was sick and sleeping and she came looking for me, my husband apologetically said I was sleeping as I was a bit under the weather and she started conversing with my husband in Kannada about cricket etc. and my husband does not understand or speak the language– that is her spirit J I was in Toronto last year and she came home and my husband called me and she made it a point to talk to me before she left. I was touched. Tomorrow this family is moving to Lebanon, NH. I wasn’t very close to them as such yet I will miss them somewhat. There was this unspoken comfort that they are always there in the building. It so happens 2 more Indian families (at last 2 that we know of) who recently moved were also introduced to us by this Aunty. And Thanks to her I know someone in the apartments. Otherwise I would have led the same indifferent life as most of the people in our building other than a casual “Hello” when we happen to make eye contact with some one.

Its been so long since I have been engaged in such ‘impromptu relationships’. Used to happen so much back home…

Vela talk

2009-08-31T12:37:00.001-04:00

Another weekend has gone by. It took us a year to finally get our big TV. Time sure flies! DH’s continuous research and my contribution to delay the decision as much as possible worked and we got a decent deal on the Samsung LED which we have been eyeing ever since it has been released. I wasn’t too keen on a big TV cos if we decide to leave the US sooner than we think, it will be an additional pile-on to sell… maybe I am thinking way too much in advance, there is always a chance that we may not leave this place?

We watched Kaminey finally. I did not like it as much as Love Aaj Kal /LAK maybe cos we were expecting more from it because of the reviews. Shahid’s new look certainly worked for him. Songs were also not as striking as LAK or at least did not like it instantly. I watched Nana Patekar’s Ab tak Chappan as well; I hadn’t seen it before and had read about it somewhere that it is based on a true story. It was a well made movie I thought. Have not read much about Daya Nayak the character whose life it is based on other than a few general details that he hails from Udupi (where my family also originates from) and other such minor details.

Made a few pending calls, just work and home is taking so much of my time. I am really very good in staying touch with my friends and family, whatever has happened to all that? DH pitched in and we managed to clean the house. The highlight of this weekend was my 7.5 liter Prestige rice cooker had a makeover. I am so happy with it. It is the most overused part of the kitchenware and most neglected. All the oil from tadkas etc settled on it and it turned out to be this ugly-sticky piece, like a scarecrow for my kitchen. SOS really saved it. I scrubbed it for an hour non stop and voila! It was clean and shiny and got its original look back. Now I have to attack my kadhai, the kadhai which takes all the oil and heat from all the frying I do, all the odiyalu, pooris, pappads and its used every other day. I am not very hopeful about getting its original color back, but I am sure I can do it some good, and it will look better than what it is now.

....And what do they say ‘a stitch in time saves nine’…

Mix-up

2009-08-27T12:57:00.001-04:00

I keep saying “Saturday” for “Friday” and everybody is getting freaked out with the thought of having to work on a Saturday.

It’s been a week and I keep saying it, not sure why.

T-D-H Managers

2009-08-26T17:03:00.004-04:00

Looks like every Tom, Dick and Harry is becoming a Manager these days. Dealing with one such PM in close quarters. Sigh! and then that attitude! Good Lord! Some people are just not ready yet for that tag and theys should know it deep down. One would think?

Rakhi and her Swayamwar

2009-08-25T17:34:00.004-04:00

I or rather ‘we’ have started watching Rakhi ka Swayamvar, almost reached the end and there is going to be just one last elimination (I am a little behind with this). It was entertaining and time pass. Youtube has it all, which is pretty cool. I used to abhor Rakhi but somehow it changed and now I just ignore her. I know Eelesh has won the swayamvar and yet I am watching it. Last few episodes that I have been watching, kind of got stupidly interesting and then to hear Manmohan Tiwari speak. If one has watched it you know what I mean - the Hindi! I am sure he will pick up some Bhojpuri movies or some telvision serial roles. I hope he does. DH hated it, but since the living room is without any television I was watching it on my laptop and he also kind of started following it.

I think she is the first one India to do this Swayamwar thing? Curious if it was an eligible bachelor looking for a wife, how the response would be? well India is not that conservative after all? (cannot generalize it, anyway). I think over all it was a decent production and didn't seem that cheap an imitation of the spouse search programs in America. Not that I have really followed such programs here.

MW

2009-08-25T17:33:00.000-04:00

At work today I was going to warm my lunch in the microwave and as soon as I opened the microwave it smelled of some meat dish. It really upset me. Somehow the smell of cooked meat (not just sea food) is something I cannot take. In New Zealand I had quit warming my food in the microwave because of this but the advantage was my mom cooked fresh lunch in the morning to take it to work. And it wasn’t that cold to have it in matter of 3-4 hours (8am – 12pm). But I am not like my mother in that aspect. I prefer finishing all my cooking at night if it’s a working day the following day, heck I even have to have my breakfast ready. Anyway that means I have to pack lunch after dinner and keep it in the refrigerator all ready and packed for next day morning (only then can I sleep peacefully). That also means my food is really cold and I have to use a microwave next day to consume it for lunch. But today the ‘stink’ if I may say, was really bad, and the thought of that smelly ‘meat’ fumes settling on my vegetarian home made food is simply yuck and unappetizing. I am not saying nobody should eat meat just cos I don’t, to each his own, but I just don’t want it interfering with my food.

Wish I could have a separate microwave for vegetarians only……..

Maybe I should carry my own MW cover?

Weekend

2009-08-24T16:53:00.003-04:00

Weekend just flew past, didnt do anything productive, other than Ganesh pooja on Sunday and the temple visit. Pampered myself at Pyara salon/spa and I felt guilty about it. Then I was bugged that I was feeling guilty about it and it went on - a vicious circle! (Did I even say I "pampered" myself?)

More over unplanned weekends simply suck. Especially when you have some vague plans to begin with (I cannot and do not turn off my 'planning switch' completely) and your forced to change it - third time in a row it definitely irritated me! Result: Grumpy Monday morning

RGV

2009-08-20T17:59:00.003-04:00

Was very interesting to read some posts on Ram Gopal Varma's blog

http://rgvzoomin.com/2009/08/17/programme-fuck-ups/

Courtesy SS who put it up on Twitter

This & That

2009-08-20T10:03:00.000-04:00

Watched a couple of movies this week. First one was Pukar, starring, Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Namarata Shirodkar. The first half of the movie seemed pretty ok was wondering why it didn’t run and then we exactly knew why. Namarata Shirodkar was a surprise. I thought she will be pretty lousy with dialogues and expressions, but she was ok, not great, not bad. Songs were good.

Then Netflix decided to send me a second movie I had not ordered for, Will Smith’s “Seven Pounds”. The movie was fine but it was depressing and sad. Something I am keeping away from. Will Smith eventually commits suicide as he is taken over by guilt of having killed his wife and seven others in a car accident when he was driving and was distracted by his phone. He hence decides to make a difference in the lives of 7 different people before he ends his life, only to realize he is falling in love with one of those 7 people he had chosen to help.

We have given ourselves some time off from Comcast. Right now our RCA dabba TV is in the guest room and the really small TV is in our room, so no television to distract when trying to fall asleep. The living room has no TV, our furniture does not point towards anything (as Joey puts it in Friends) currently, just a blank wall. It’s been a week and it’s peaceful. I am requesting DH to take a break from Comcast for rest of the year and he is busy looking for those big screen TVs I am just not interested in. It’s not like I don’t like them. We temporarily had our friend’s 50 inch TV; who moved to West coast and sold it off. He didn’t have the time to sell it, so we had it for few days and sold it for him. It was good having a 50 inch undoubtedly.

The heavy downpour in Hyderabad and the episode at my home where in the water had flooded the living room ended. Everything was cleaned and back in shape. Turns out the neighbors were in a bad state. All their clothes were ruined, their refrigerator, TV, sofas, mattresses, basically all their belongings just plain ruined. My mom discovered few of her good saris were ruined too. Hoping the dry cleaning can fix it to some extent.

FB!

2009-08-19T16:28:00.007-04:00

People are unfolding their whole life in FB. Even I have, to some extent. One thing I have realized I am very uncomfortable doing is, putting pictures of my family and personal events (functions). I just cant' do it. I did it initially in Orkut just a couple of wedding pics (I was newly married and jobless at home) and then eventually deleted it all cos we end up adding so many aquaintances not just friends. I did the same thing on FB. Now in FB I am just trying to maintain pictures from my travels and trips. Wherever life has/is taking me. But I am too posessive to put up my family's pics. Maybe its not about being posessive actually its just tooooo private! I dont know why, just cannot get myself to put up my parents or DH's parents. Friends is fine because over half of them are already on FB, I mean come on! :) I am not criticizing the people who have it up there. But just wondering why I just cant do it! hmmm!

FB maybe even bringing out the narcissism in people, that thing called 'self love'. Maybe its good some people really need it, to open up - to the world and show case their achievements and talents!! But what about people who already posessed plenty of it, they may have landed in heaven eh?

:(

2009-08-19T12:07:00.003-04:00

Back to one type of mood that I hate - disconcerted, antsy, restless......!

Anyone and everyone, anything and everything seems to be triggering it today!

Bla, bla,…

2009-08-17T17:07:00.004-04:00

Shah Rukh Khan was apparently interrogated at Newark. I found it hilarious. One the silly media gimmicks (Oh! that media again!) and then two the fact that he was here to promote "My name is Khan". But I am nevertheless always entertained when American immigration officers or the USCIS are mocked at. As much as we claim that its a good lesson for SRK that he has to learn and he is like anyone else and get down from that pedestal bla bla bla!. Fact is he is a celebrity, he is not like you and me, cant deny it. And its equivalent of Brad Pitt or some Clooney being interrogated for US in India; so it will attract media attention, so what?- It only shows how ridiculous the immigration check system at the airport can be at times. I understand why and how they need to be strict, and coldnt agree more with it, but they cannot just stop people with a Khan or a Mohammed in their name that will be half the world or more, no? And then dont we remember that Neil Nitin Mukesh episode he was also given grief cos they didnt believe he looked Indian. Yes! he had to prove he was actually Indian! lol Just makes good time pass news

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Malhotra (especially Raj Malhotra) and Saxena are such over-used last names in Hindi movies especially in the 80’s and 90’s; somehow the Singh’s, Khan’s, Patel’s because they are common perhaps do not stand out. But then maybe because I have always lived in South India I find these name a bit too fictitious. My husband happened to mention someone he knew with last name ‘Saxena’ and hence the drivel……

Cape Cod trip!

2009-08-17T17:06:00.001-04:00

We were planning to go to Quebec, Canada for the weekend for our anniversary which is this mid-week. Or rather “I” was imagining we were. And as it turns out “we” didn’t. Thursday night DH & I realized we had however applied to take Friday August 14th off and we could actually take an off if we wanted to even though Canada didn’t work out. Hence began this last minute planning which we are simply great at now. The net result of such last minute short or long trips is a. lots of fun 2. a dent in DH’s bank account due to lack of planning and advance preparation and then like it keeps clicking in my mind: the biggest irony in life I do “planning” (demand planning) for a living for organizations and do not apply it in my personal life.

Thursday night we booked a B&B in Eastham about 20-30 miles from Provincetown (as that was the only one available last minute) for 200 odd bucks at The Inn at the Oaks. I wasn’t comfortable with B&B (I feel they are haunted if they are over 50 years old and most of them typically are more than 50 years old, so much for getting wise with age!)

We started around 10am Friday morning and took our own sweet time driving and got to P-town by about 12pm. We grabbed a quick bite and DH wanted to go whale watching. Quick bite wasn’t that quick cos the sandwiches we ordered at this place near the main square on Commercial street where massive. Both of us ate half and threw the other half. Now I had this (mis) conception that whale watching might be boring. Someone had once told me that they take you into the ocean show you the whales and all you can see is their tail-end and you will get disappointed. So I was prepared for that. It was 36 bucks per person. There goes 75 bucks down the drain I thought. The next tour was at 1:30pm so we were just in time. We took the ‘Portuguese Princess”. It was extremely hot by now, by hot I mean temperature touch about 85+ I didn’t have any problem with the sun on my skin but my head couldn’t take the heat. I had a scarf/duppata with me luckily and I wrapped it. After a good 1 ½ hour to 2 hour into the ocean there we saw the most splendid of creatures – whales! It was a beautiful sight I must say. Thank God somebody downplayed it for me that I enjoyed this tour. We saw about 12-14 whales in all. Some of them babies some of them a bit grown up. Two of the baby whales where also being nursed by the mothers apparently as per the guide who was a research scholar on marine life in New England area. They were a little below the water surface to see that part anyway. They somersaulted, inhaled/exhaled, twisted and turned, went under our ferry, made their whale-like noises and they were fabulous. It was totally worth it! By the time we got back it was 4:30pm at least to the main part of the Commercial Street.

By this time my headache set in and I was tired, we headed towards our accommodation we had booked. I called them that we were running late only to be informed we were double booked and they had booked us at another place in Orleans further away from Eastham and hence P-town. In the mean time DH pointed out there were a few cottages and hotels with vacancies why don’t we check them out. We found this ‘White village’ cottage. Very old cottage with no air conditioning and fan or microwave – included 1 bedroom and a small kitchen and it was not water front for about 135 bucks. I called the B&B and they agreed to cancel it, so we took this up, it was in P-town and so close to the water we didn’t have to bother driving back too far the next day. So much for last minute planning! The lady from B&B called back again that we had to call Hotels dot com for the refund through whom we had booked. I did that immediately and it was settled.

We relaxed for an hour and drove into the city again. Parked and strolled down Commercial Street. It was very lively and colorful due to some summer Jazz fest. Loved the antique stores, galleries and curious stores! Perfect short vacation I must say. One main street, so don’t have to walk too much and since I get tired so fast, don’t have to feel bad I may have missed too much as there weren’t too many stores nor was there too few. I totally loved these Tibetan & Nepal stores. A lot of them had Indian stuff too. I loved this Antiques store called “Forbidden Fruit” I was so tempted to buy so many things but clenched my fist! There was this statue of a maiden, riding the dragon playing an instrument like the sitar, it was just wow! We decided to eat Thai and stopped at this restaurant that served Thai and Sushi. It was called something else on my Urban spoon App and hence we weren’t sure if we landed at the right one, but we did as they changed their name. The food was fab. Slightly priced above average but great! Well it’s a touristy place, active for just the summer months, what can you expect. We sat down on the benches and obviously it being a Gay friendly town saw a lot of couples, more males than female couples. It wasn’t anything different because of that. I mean it was comfortable to hang out considering we were the only Indians out there. Yes! Surprisingly didn’t see any Indian. Well maybe if we had gone to a lounge/pub, club at night we would have seen or felt different? But we were too tired and hit the sack, (that age thing I tell you!)

Next day checked out of that place. Had breakfast and went to see the pilgrim’s monument. It was ok. It was a bit of a walk up stairs not too much but just a bit. We were informed it had great views. But hey after Sears tower and Empire state building this is not impressive obviously. Its just 7 bucks entry per person so no biggie. Picked up some souvenir there anyway and strolled back into town, walked and walked. Oh and also this tower like monument had stones engraved with names of cities around Boston, showed the city name and the year when it was established. Turns out all those cities were established in early to mid 1600s. Waltham, Boston, Cambridge for example are all established1630. Hmm! Cool! We got back onto the street again. By now there were more guys – more guy couples. Strolled a bit more. We had seen the light houses previous day on the ferry and we decided to take the motor boat ride to go see it up close. We took the ‘flyer’ service and got there its just a 10 minute ride. And it was unimpressive. Too many pebbles and open sea shells on the bank and dangerous to walk and light house was ok! Well there were 3-4 of them don’t remember which one we saw. We headed back and spotted another Thai place for lunch – Monkey bar! Yeah don’t know why we attacked Thai so much, but anyway. Meal was ok, good, not bad not too great as the previous night’s. Cant get over DH’s Vegetarian fried rice slurp! The waiter was a very friendly person. Ah! This place seemed to have the best customer service ever. Obviously cause it’s a touristy place so they thrive on summer tourists so they are very courteous and other big reason is because so many of them are gay! I think they must take over customer service completely in America if it’s the latter. They seem to enjoy and seem so naturally good at interacting with people. Or not sure if I am judging too quickly? San Francisco is a very big city so didn’t really see such huge concentration like here. Well! There was this gay parade when we visited SFO though. Anyway after that we started to drive back home it was about 4:30 pm. DH decided to deviate and we took a peek at another beach near by. It was beautiful, calm water and sandy (no pebbles and shells to prick your feet) we regretted we should have come here instead. I forget the name of the beach its not at the top of my head cos I was almost tired by then. We got back home at about 7:30pm and settled down. Only to head to an Indian club for August 15th and got back at about 3am. Yes! I wasn’t too happy about it but I gave in cos DH took me to Cape Cod as requested and he wanted to go clubbing (plus I may have to trick him and use this as a barter for some place he is suppose to take me which he is not interested in at all, typical guy thing!) J. I had a good time anyway so why complain.

Athivrishti-Anavrishti

2009-08-17T17:05:00.000-04:00

Parents have been complaining about heat and lack of rains in Hyderabad like everyone else. And today it poured so much that there was flooding in our living room. We have our living room back home at a lower level than rest of the house, it has a couple of steps to get down and relax. Mom gave me a missed call. I called them and they were upset and bugged as the water had flowed in from this open field beside our house used for military training (house is in Cantonment area) it had all the possible dirt and grime. So annoying! Waiting for tomorrow for the maid to clean it up! Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!

Sigh!

2009-08-17T17:04:00.000-04:00

Heard another sad news, an acquaintance’s sister’s son expired in a car accident. Apparently they were traveling from Chennai to Bangalore and some damn truck took a wrong turn. The sister had an injured arm and her husband managed to escape with bruises. And their son a little over 1 year, this really cute and chubby kid did not make it. I didn’t know them personally, but was very shocked to hear as I had seen pictures of the baby on Facebook and commented how cute her nephew is etc. Sad! Sad! Sad! Is this not one of the worst forms of grief? To lose your child or live to see them suffer and you are unable to do anything about it? Or so they say!

B&P

2009-08-17T11:32:00.001-04:00

Isn't Martin Henderson of Bride & Prejudice a handsome bloke?

Breakfast ideas!

2009-08-13T14:23:00.005-04:00

Have started making (or more like assembling) Yogurt parfait for breakfast since one week. Its healthy, fresh and a hit. More importantly hard-to-please DH has given his sign-off, it can be added to the 'regular breakfast menu'. Its been very hard to settle on what to eat for breakfast, cereal is fine once in a while but not everyday. And then DH does not prefer South Indian breakfast of Idly and dosas once in a while is okay but not everyday it just gets boring - he dosent feel as healthy to eat it on a daily basis apparently and he much rather eat it on weekends. He thinks there is a bit too much of oil and ghee in South Indian tiffins than required to have it first thing in the morning. I can avoid adding Ghee and Oil but then taste is definitely compromised when there is no ghee ;) (Maybe its just me obsessing that you rather make it properly and have it or don't have it at all, that's my attitude towards any Indian dish probably thats rubbed off on him?)

Then I also recently tried breakfast tortilla wraps in the morning. Its working out fine too. Planning to extend it and make the Indian wraps or Frankies as we call them, which we used to eat while in school, also hopefully it turns out well.

Looking out for more healthy breakfast recipes and options!

iPhone Apps

2009-08-13T11:17:00.001-04:00

My addiction to 'Scramble' and 'Word Warp' is slowly coming down. It took me a few months/weeks to even get hooked on to it as I wasnt too much into phones to begin with.

Love Aaj Kal

2009-08-12T10:24:00.009-04:00

I quite liked the movie, it was a fresh and modern approach for Hindi cinema on commitment and general indecisiveness on relationships due to priorities that get mixed up etc etc Also reflects on how our Hindi movies have come a long way. From sati-savitri sacrificing heroines - i.e. perfect, goody-goody bahu/daughter material to modern dating women with a mind and voice of their own types. Not to mention the enactment of impromptu kisses (Oh come on, we are all observing it, the comfort level has increased althought they are not quite there!). I thought Saif performed the Sardarji role well. Especially the dance towards the end when he comes home with the girl. Great songs! Not a great fan of Deepika's voice, it can get irritatingly childish at times, but well... I kinda like the old fashioned touch her characters' names have - Shanti (OSO), Gayatri (Bachna ae Haseeno) and Meera (LAK)...

Most Hindi movies have not-so-pleasent parts here and there, so did LAK, I chose to ignore it, even Kambaqt Ishq, though former is much better the latter. I don't want movies to be realistic and practical. I watch for entertainment and its fiction for God's sake! :) Soup for my soul! :)

.....

2009-08-12T09:41:00.001-04:00

...maybe in search of some mental peace or maybe it should be just phrased as inner peace...

Another year older!

2009-08-09T13:58:00.003-04:00

Getting closer to the big "30" yuck! yuck! yuck!

Had a quiet and relaxed day.

Places visited: Lakshmi Temple, Ashland, DH's Company's annual get-together, Chipotle, a short nap, Newbury Street, Margaritas'.

DH claimed to make breakfast for me which was toast and jam! :)

Dhadkan

2009-08-06T16:42:00.005-04:00

Watched Dhadkan yesterday. Was kinda silly movie. Sunil Shetty is as usual bad at dialogue delivery. It was a 90's setup with same old 'sacrifice' crap - ditch the lover and uphold the parents choice as they threaten to kill themselves otherwise,.... I remember the music being a hit when it released, it was ok anyway to listen to it once. Shilpa Shetty is really tall and fully clothed for a change - it was an era when her body was not much talked about ; since Big Brother her midriff has never ever been covered.

PTO

2009-08-05T17:34:00.001-04:00

After about a decade I think I was taking notes in a meeting and suddenly used a PTO/Please turn over. Used it so much in school and just forgot about its existence until today.

Banter

2009-08-05T17:28:00.003-04:00

DH and SS (his friend) spent time discussing is broadmindedness equivalent of making a compromise? Hmmm... If one is not happy with a decision taken off the usual (read society) norm and indecisive its not really being broadminded is it? For me its based on your instincts - you are broadminded or not (or pretend to be and not)! bla bla bla!

Time management

2009-08-05T08:12:00.003-04:00

I am all over the place since last 2 weeks. Getting up very late, rushing in the morning to work, compromising breakfast and my whole morning routine, really worn out in the evenings when I get back home, disturbed sleep...

I need to buck up!

Canada!

2009-08-04T10:26:00.005-04:00

Officially my 'Canadian connection' has come to an end. Closed my TD bank account - snif! snif!

It was simply great working in Toronto, Canada and I met some wonderful people at work. I really miss my colleagues and boss. Oh the best boss I have worked for ever! bla! bla! bla! :)

I hope P & I have the stamina to take up another adventure before we head home and thus complete a full circle.....

Ah!

2009-08-04T07:50:00.002-04:00

Why do people get into discussions and even casual arguments if you are emotional and sensitive. You are hurting yourself!

Hmmm!

2009-08-04T07:45:00.004-04:00

Tierd! Tierrrrdddd! My entire weekend wasted!

Had a last minute dinner planned at my place on Saturday night as a friend of ours left for west coast for now. A bunch of friends visited and no one wanted to sleep till 5am. And by then it was so bright outside I couldnt sleep. Everyone else slept except husband and I. I am not a late night person anymore. Gone are the days. I am not 18! Sunday morning cooked breakfast everyone ate and we finally slept at 3pm and I had a massive headache by that time. sigh!

I am left with pending errands and chores and I hate it cos cant complete them till the next weekend.

When did I turn into such a foodie?

2009-07-30T18:10:00.004-04:00

Had the best Vegetarian Quesadillas ever for lunch, topped with Guacamole, Salsa and Sour cream yummm! Either this cafeteria at W serves very good food, or my standards have fallen. I am sure its the former, the food critique in me is very much alive.

H1N1/Swine flu

2009-07-29T16:42:00.004-04:00

Last week the first Swine flu /H1N1 case was lodged at work. We got this email about a colleague (whose details will not be revealed) who caught the flu and is expected to fully recover. Hand santizers, wipes etc have been increased everywhere. As if my addiction to Purell wasn't enough its now become an obsession. I hate touching surfaces and especially door knobs and restroom doors. Pouring that Purell all over my palms every couple of hours. I think they should reveal who it is my colleagues spent time wondering who was missing work. And my department happens to be in a seperate room so that was some solace, maybe? Media here is definitely supressing it here. I still see regular reports in NZ and Indian newspapers online, that its getting pretty bad and scary!

Food!

2009-07-28T18:09:00.003-04:00

These days I am obsessed with Mexican food. I have always loved it, but for some reason never tried Chipotle all this while. DH took me there last weekend and I had had the Vegetarian bowl and I loved it. I love beans. I love avacados. I just love the freshness it has. I don't know how authentic Mexican it is (pretty sure its very Americanized) - but I love it! At work at the cafeteria the day its Mexican I make sure I don't carry lunch.

As a side note I am totally in love with Zucchini as well. It started in NZ on the form of courgettes and the sauted/ roasted/ grilled zucchini has found a special place in my stomach ever since.

this & that

2009-07-27T16:39:00.003-04:00

Was a busy weekend. Attended a kid's first birthday party in the apartments. Attended a Shashtipoorti in CT. And Shravan Maasam has started. Time for Poojas and festivals, its going to be very busy month ahead for me :) Its also the busy birthday period. Most people I know have their birthdays in July and August - including me (plus our anniversary! phew!). Need to hold on to those purse strings real tight!

Its been a week...

2009-07-20T17:25:00.003-04:00

Its been a week since folks left for India. I was extremely lonely for the first half of the week. Time just flew and Friday night went to meet friends at NH. Had the tastiest home made pizza made right from scratch even the base and all - Thanks to our friend HN :)

Then our favorite people who we love hanging out with visited us Friday night from their trip to Maine on their way back home to NJ. They stayed over the weekend and I truly felt lucky to have them over especially cos it was the first weekend without my parents.

Weather was perfect. Made a quick trip to Revere beach and caught a glimpse of a small scale sand castle competition sculptures made.

Back to work!

Palak/Spinach rice

2009-07-16T10:07:00.003-04:00

Recently a distant relative of mine had invited us for dinner and served Palak rice in the main course. I made it last night for the first time for taking it for lunch today at work. And it tastes really good and it was very quick and easy to make.

Story of my life!

2009-07-16T09:23:00.000-04:00

Antsy and majorly sleep deprived!

Lady luck! are you listening?

2009-07-13T16:59:00.003-04:00

My parents left for India yesterday. Saturday was a busy day did some last minute shopping, visit to the temple, and we managed to squeeze in to go to downtown and see a couple of sailing boats, as it was the Sailing event 2009 at Boston harbor – it was great weather and crowd.

Sunday was pretty much breakfast/lunch and then airport. It really sunk in after getting home and I was very depressed entire Sunday evening. Did some chores to keep myself occupied but didn’t help. What is that bugs me? The unconditional love parents have for you with no expectations, fact that no other relationship can replace this…And then the guilt, totally took out every bit of frustration on my mom and upset her on many occasions (my mom being my mom is even more sensitive than I am! Sigh!) Every time I do this, miss them and then when they are around totally take them for granted. This has to stop now I am a grown woman, ready to have my own kid/s! Somewhere I also have this fear all this will come back to bite me later…
Ok, just spoke to my parents and they have reached home safely! Apparently they had to wait in a line and the airport authority checked everyone's body temperature and gave flyers on the Swine fly health care as to how /whom, the passengers are suppose to contact if they develop fever and flu like symptoms in the next 10 days. Very impressive arrangement from what I hear.

On another very sad note my BFF’s mother expired after having suffered from Cancer. So the weekend started of on a sad note. I just spoke to her/SJ last week inquiring about her mom’s health etc. I am just so upset listening to one bad news after another. This seriously has to stop. I thought I said in my earlier post after a couple of bad news in a row I was expecting good news to be knocking on my front door. But looks like she is held up!

DH and I had a discussion about something yesterday. I had to confess this feeling thats becoming stronger inside me. I knew we were on the same page with it. But now having expressed it so strongly to one another, it has only become stronger.

Thinking cap on!

2009-07-09T17:39:00.006-04:00

I am checking to ensure my priorities are what they should really be.....should I really be?

Thats' always a challenge isnt it? For some, things may exactly work out the way you wanted and they can claim they had their priorities correct to begin with. While others may have to constantly re-visit them as things are working unfavorably.

You can be a confident person because you have either not experienced the lows (read: life is a bed of roses, even if the lows are buried way in the past you will conveniently forget them) or because you have really experienced the lows (read: you are constantly seeing highs and the lows)

Time is just flying!

2009-07-06T16:24:00.004-04:00

Almost time for parents to leave for India. Not quite the right time for them to extend their stay as my Ajja / Ajji are not well on and off!

It's almost a month since I joined to work at W - Phew! Really?

Glad to have finally spoken to my pal SJ - been soooo long. Actually I was hibernating last 3 months at home - blame the parents ;)

!

2009-07-05T12:42:00.003-04:00

Some things will always remain a mystery in life...right?

Will break through the barrier the next time round - GL - MKS :)

Hmmm...

2009-07-01T15:09:00.001-04:00

It's so hard not to browse and stay away from the internet - 07/02!

Ah! about that vege thing again!

2009-06-30T13:08:00.005-04:00

Whenever I dont carry lunch I eat at the Company's cafeteria. The reason I specially mention 'cafeteria' is because the location of the office is in a isolated part of the town. Well kind of. Waltham, where I live is much more busier, here in Concord its right next to Minuteman Park and the Air force and civil airport and then there are small farms around, so no fast food joints are that close by, to buy lunch outside, which is of course a blessing in disguise. That is the reason the cafeteria is well established and stocked with food, I dont see anyone going out for lunch. The main thing I wanted to focus on was the cook, Steve. He is one sweetheart. I told him I am a vegetarian. And he curiously asked all the details. I was honest with him, that when I was young it was a religious thing that my family followed, but once I grew up it was by choice and I do not eat or desire to eat it. And it took him by surprise a little, but he quickly promised me to cook anything vege if I give him few hours notice, like around breakfast time. How sweet is that. I havent made use of that offer so far in these 3-4 weeks and I enjoy his veggie sub which I have had once, every week for the past 3 weeks. Today the person in front of me had ordered some meat sub, every possible slice of meat went into it. I couldnt somehow imagine eating if my veggie sub were made on that same wooden platform in front of me. But Steve being Steve, offered to wipe it with sanitizer, changed his gloves, used a new knife to make me my sub. He was so sweet and thorough.

Sometimes strangers are more considerate than so called aquaintances. We have been invited for dinners once or twice and people did not bother cooking anything vegetarian despite knowing that we are vegetarians. Like my other vege friend D puts it. They make meat curries and one dal - and the vegetarian person is just suppose to eat dal with rice alone is it? its insulting! :)

Pressure cooker!

2009-06-29T19:51:00.002-04:00

Rice was not being cooked properly few days back in my pressure cooker. I changed the gasket and still didnt work, then realized safety valve needs replacement. I didnt think Patel Brothers would stock it. But he actually did! I was so surprised and happy and costs $3.99. Its fixed and now I can get back to cooking Dal and Rice in one go. What a relief. Pressure cooker is an important component of my kitchen; realized it today! Phew!

R.I.P MJ

2009-06-26T11:19:00.004-04:00

And Michael Jackson is dead. He was probably one of the first singers I listened to when I was growing up and had started listening to International music. Hence Dangerous and History are the two albums I am thorough with and other singles that were hits. I suppose he saw both success and downfall equally. And I personally really regret when people who have lived a great life with so much fame and pomp and glamour or even if its just a simple content life, like we know in real life, eventually have to die with some allegations, some sort of shame, and debt, whatever may be the circumstances. It is very sad.

I didn't care very much for MJ to be very honest. I liked his music, but his looks and dressing and behavior were turn offs. Not to mention the people who would immitate him and his dancing which just made him that much more 'ok! whatever' types! But isn't thats how that's suppose to be? Recognize someone and their contribution only after they are dead.

Even though its directly not related to this, as much as I enjoy and am fascinated listening to 'rags-to-riches' stories, the 'riches-to-rags' is much more heart-wrenching to me. Like I have known, a very distant relative of mine recently experience.

Ok that is 3 sad news in a row (whether I knew them personally or not) but sad. So the next one is going to be a good one! Life has to go on!

What have I been upto past 2 weeks?

2009-06-24T17:30:00.005-04:00

Where do I begin? Its been crazy past 2 weeks. I have not started job hunting yet, for a lot of reasons, including my parents visit I was taking time out from my previous travel/home office job. I happened to however interview only at this one company in April, they were apprehensive about my whole 'H1B thing'. They got back to me that they wanted to hire me for 2 months for the project. I went with the flow and took it up. Its a great place to work. Summer timings are long weekdays with Friday half a day. Amid all this my folks left for sightseeing CA. I was kind of guilty was not accompanying them. Again this job thing happened last minute and was not the main reason though, it just piled up with list of other reasons. I am glad as they seem to be having a great time. I booked the tour company buses for them both to North and South California and they are happily, independently, with full freedom, without inconveniencing anyone enjoying it - just the way we prefer. My Chickappa lives in Riverside, So Cal., and I am glad they are able to spend time with my cousins who are fast growing up!

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2009-06-11T19:04:00.006-04:00

Watched 'Raincoat' yesterday. Was different and nice considering it was based on Ruskin Bond's novel.

DH had a quiet birthday due to allergies etc etc.

A classmate of mine passed away. It was a real shock - a cheerful, intelligent and witty girl, she joined our batch in 11th and 12th and did BCom in Francis as well and we were in the same class. I was in touch only through Orkut and FB with her after college and remember seeing her in a club once after our wedding in Hyderabad. Apparently she was visiting the rest room at lunch at her work place in Mumbai and she never got out and they found her dead. And apparently its been ruled that her death was due to natural causes. Dont know what to say. Reminds you how transient life is. Nothing matters - the bucks you make, the promotion you get, the bunglow you own - Nothing! Her parents were in Hyderabad and are I am sure too shocked to even grieve.

Long days ahead.

Pricks in the morning and night continue. Been ok so far.

Come to the conclusion that there will be no real summer perhaps - a couple of days of sunshine and a week of rains. No complaints.

Parents CA trip is coming closer

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2009-06-02T11:58:00.005-04:00

Why do some people live so much for 'others'? They constantly seek approval and go lengths to be in the limelight and be appreciated. It's actually quite sad. I can only imagine how empty they are on the inside!

Ahem!

2009-06-01T10:10:00.003-04:00

A little success and one is content, a little more and the intoxication begins- one expects the world to dance to their tunes. And spice it with a 'holier than thou' attitude and you have the complete package!