Home office

Little One : Daddy can you make our garage into your office?

Me : What can we do in that office?

LO : We can turn our garage into a nail salon and you can do nails at home!

Me : But I don't know how to do nails and you cannot just change your garage into a nail salon. You need to go to nail school and get a certificate before you do nails or the government will stop you.

LO : What certificate?

Me : When you go for hair cut do you see the certificate in front of every mirror? That is the certificate from hair school. Same thing for nail school.

LO : What about make the garage a photo studio or a yoga place?

Me : What ?!

LO : We can change our living room carpet to hardwood and then take this carpet and put it in the garage and then make it a studio!

Me : Why do you want me to work in the garage so badly?

LO : So I don't want you to go to work in office.. if Amma and Paati (mom and grandma) can help you we can all work from the garage and no one has to go to office. Also if you are a car salesman, people will give you 100 dollars a day!

Me : Car salesman are not rich and no one gives you 100 dollars a day. You need to stop watching silly programs on Youtube from now on.

Later did tell San that we have a budding entrepreneur in our house! Such conviction that we can make a living out of our garage and multiple ideas within a few minutes including how to get the garage carpeted.

Very proud of this little girl and her enthusiasm. Wish I could turn the garage into a nail salon and do nails for her!

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Check List

Thanks for all your comments!

A follow up to Wish List...

A day with my dad where he gets to talk and I get to keep quiet for once

Check

Although it was a very emotional and tired dad who mostly gave me the "life is short, make sure you do this after my time... blah .. blah.." bit and I listened and then gave him a retaliatory lecture on why life is what happens when you play with grandkids at this age.. Yep Sujatha Ramesh was right on the previous comment. I do not stay quiet for long.

A day with my grandpa and grandma, put my head on her lap and sleep for a minute, even if only a minute, just like when I was a small kid, put my ear to grandpas tummy and listen to rumbling noises and giggle
Check

I could not say bye to my grandparents this time. It was too difficult. My grandpa keeps falling down into his imaginary chair and hurts himself one too many times a week. He has good days and bad days. Happened to catch this on one of his good days!

a trip to kapalishwar temple in mylapore with grandparents, share a goli soda with my brother, a paalgoa for each of us with a transluscent paper with the kapali temple on the paper in bright red, some kaara sevai from the ambika appalam depot, a stop at RUBY stores to buy a chandamama or champak, watch grandma bargain with the vegetable vendors

Check check check check .. . hmm lets see.. went with my mum and aunts, uncle , different people, different days and times (10AM, 4AM, 8 AM, 9AM) to see the "utsavam" where they carried the gods on various vahanams. You will get the complete Kabali Kovil Utsavam series over the weekend! here is a sample ..

a trip to the marina with my brother and sister and some soan papdi from the cute bell jar

No beach trip. Did buy some Soan Papdi from grand sweets for Jr. and the little one though

a jackie chan movie at alankar with my brother

Right now the only thing my brother is watching is angio scans on a CD. this has to wait for better times or just wait for time...

So do the next three things. Mom walks and stands enough in hospital waiting rooms. She was sooo tired after the trip to the utsavam on the "ther" day, it was hard to watch.

walking around the srigery mutt temple behind my mom

perform topaz blade surgery on my sisters dolls with my brother as assistant surgeon

watch my dad bargain with an autorickshaw driver for 15 minutes for a trip that might take him only ten

Dad does not have his bargaining voice back yet. He also cannot pull off that brick walk away from the auto with the "if you dont come down to my price, I am walking.." dialogue. My dad almost tangos with the auto driver.. it is a dance and the drivers do the sequence of negotiating in this weird way almost to humor themselves. This time every auto driver in the stand told me "enna saar.. appa-vukku attack vandhudche..avara romba miss pannarom saar!" and I went WTF? he is my appa, you guys talk as though he is yours! Guess the man touches peoples lives in ways I cannot understand.

fold clothes from the clothesline on the terrace and watch the kites

Check . No kites in April. fold clothes I did!

eat pori kadalai from Kapali kadalai Nilayam and savor it one rice grain at a time, and marvel at how some pori tastes a little bland, some a little salty and once in a while that single grain of arisi pori just tastes perfect!

Check. A full post on that later..

etc.

etc.

etc.

Some of these might come true soon in some form or other. The rest will be retreived from permanent memory, savored in otherwise sad times, and be neatly tucked back in, for the sights, sounds and smells of a time long gone are still in the head, with definition better than any blue ray disk can offer, better than any photo or video ever stored.

Life takes you places, but sometimes when it takes you to the same place, there is a certain magic to it!

At one point when the plane was half way across the pacific ocean, it felt like a "trishanku sorgam", neither here nor there, halfway from parents, halfway from kids.. too many words, too many emotions, tears that came from nowhere while sitting in the middle of a sea of people at 35000 feet, tears that could not be put in words or in the right context, because every thought as a parent came with an instant contradiction as a child and it all stopped after letting go of the whole thought process and just giving into the fact that not all questions have good answers. Not everything is right, or wrong.

Some decisions take you far physically, others take you far mentally. Have known people staying in the same house without as much as saying a word to each other for decades and people who care for each other very much living on opposite sides of the globe. All of us make choices and live with them and find brilliant ways to justify our day to day actions, from brushing or not brushing our teeth to deciding to have children to relocating to far off places.. and to everyone and nobodys bewilderment, life does go on.

All said and done, felt the magic. Still feeling it inside.

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A year that was, a year that hopefully will be....

As a family, we do not write those one page recaps of last year with the family photo or even send out a card with wishes. We have debated this over the years and finally figured out that the blog will be as good a place as any to wish everyone. It is almost our family multimedia newsletter!

For a change, you get my picture on the beach instead of the whole family. Last night San graciously agreed to put one photo which includes her, as a new year present! That alone was pushing it...

2007 was intense for us on many fronts. We had just entered into a serious remodelling project that almost ended up being a rebuild of the house. I put the family (especially the MIL) through a lot of trouble, yet again, by going for this home building project. We ended up living in one room for almost three months with a single electric stove on a dining table for a makeshift kitchen!

We did plan it so that the main demolition phase was done while we visited India. The trip which spanned most of Jan and the beginning of February, was an eye opener on many fronts. We were there for San's grandparents "Sadhabishegam", the in-law's wedding day celebration on a crocodile safari in the Goa swamps, saw Goa beaches, the litte one's ear piercing ceremony (Aayushhomam), not to mention seeing my mom after her jinxed knee surgery, visitng my constantly on the move sister, meeting my nephews again, one of them for the first time, crocodile park, dizzee world,...... so much in less than a month!

I took on additional work responsibility and became a manager, in a division that spun off as a startup! The new job has been a humbling learning experience on many levels. In between all that was unfolding, did get to attend a conference in San Francisco and a chance to reflect on the world today! The year flew by till Memorial day, when we went on an unforgettable trip to Yellowstone National park.

It was around the same time that we woke up and realized that Jr., while being extremely happy playing around in the Montessori school was going to have to learn to read and write a little faster. Thanks to "Learn to Read", "hooked on Phonics", Kumon, mommy's perseverence and daddy's special training sessions, Jr. was more than ready for school!

June saw Jr. graduate from the old school, our wedding anniversary celebrated on what has definitely become our favorite place (Route 1 and its national preserves) and a new addition to our family. I am of course, talking about the Digital Rebel XTi!

The rest of the summer was spent playing with the new camera, visiting zoos, more national parks, our first trip to Mono Lake, an almost finished house that never really finished, researching public school education, school parties, local sightseeing, and preparing for a trip to Philadelphia. A trip that brought back so many memories for a decade ago.

The last few months were extremly hectic, working harder than ever, both at work and at home, celebrating Halloween, Navrathri, Kaarthigai deepam, Deepavali, four birthday's on four weekends in November, not to mention a trip to Disneyland and Legoland, Christmas parties and a grand finale, a nice trip to Santa Barbara!

It definitely is easier to recap the year when you have a few posts to jog your memory! 2007 came and went, with us more than happy to have a status quo on many fronts. A silent highlight was the kids not coming down with any major illness and daddy scraping by with a countable number of colds or sore throats!

Another silent highlight was this blog, the people we get to know, friends we made, continue to make, and even get to meet on occasion. A big thanks to all those who give us the world, through different eyes!

Finally, the hope for next year?

My first wish is for my mother to get back on her feet. When one blotched surgery in Madras ends up becoming three surgeries in Bombay and you constantly know that the woman has been suffering for more than a year, you cannot help but pray. My mom, a school teacher of 40+ years, is a fighter. She has promised me that when she actually walks again, she will write a blog about her entire experience. She told me something very profound. "Sometimes, our purpose in life is to be a lesson to others!". I really hope she gets well soon!

My next wish is for another uneventful year, as far as our health goes!

The third wish is for my Brother in law to find his future wife. May all the stars align in the right places, all those black cats stay put and the temple bells ring at the right times when the families meet so that the whole thing gets arranged without a glitch! The same wish also goes for my cousin who is going to enter the bride search arena in 2008!

A wishlist from any dude in the silion valley without a high tech gadget in it, does not qualify as a wish list.

Finally, I wish the Camera would find its future lens!

Hope all of you have your wishes come true this year.....

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