Growing Pains

Chotu’s list of complaints (with a frowny look) to his dad yesterday at the dinner table

1) Why do we have so many rules in this house?
2) Why do we have to eat dinner everyday?
3) How come we have to go to bed everyday early?
4) Why do we have to listen to you everyday?
5) This is no fun!
6) I want to have fun everyday.
7) Why can’t we watch TV for long time?
8) Why can’t we play X-box?

Painting Blues

Due to snowy weather we are stuck at home since last Wednesday. We have tried our best to keep us active. All of us did at least one painting each, which was updated in their respective blogs. Hopefully we will go back to our normal lives this week. We had a nice warm Christmas in CA with Friends and Family of course with Mickey, who would miss him. We are paying back for having warm Christmas:(

Candle light day and nights

The greater Puget Sound area lost power due to a severe storm for the past few days, which includes us. We were freezing, practically camping conditions. We had running hot water and cooking gas range with no power. Awesome combination for family get together. We did not have telephone, cell phone, no schools, and no work. Just get dressed like penguins with double layers, socks, sweaters and gather around the candle. We never prepare for emergencies like this unless we are in one. We do have flash lights, candles and match boxes- all in a secure place that even we could not find. We need to push up the garage door instead of switching the button, and drove to the nearest grocery store. It was a scary scene, most of the pine trees uprooted across the streets and branches all over the place. Finally got to QFC, the store was running on generators. Most of the gas stations were closed; the few that were opened had hundreds of cars in lines. There was no bread loaf left or the non-scented candles. We quickly picked what we could and back to home. We did manage to find a 9v battery and a radio to listen to what’s going on around. We don’t realize how much we depend on electricity. We spent a day and two nights with candles while we heard stories from my MIL and my MOM. We thank all those who put their lives on line to get our normal life back.

Hola!

Trying to kill sometime and peeked into all my blog links and felt like I owe one post. It’s high time to dust this place and cleanup for the holiday season. The boys are growing up with Seattle showers. I am hooked onto Zee TV soaps. I am punctual and very attentive, would not get distracted or diverted from 9:00PM to 10:30 PM watching all the family drama. After that I have to switch to Bollywood channel or Teja for fresh dose of Hindi/Telugu movie. I have spent last three years in pursuing my second masters, where I spent my whole nights doing home works. I was deprived of my entertainment time, so getting the most of it now:) Vin and Chotu are editing the Christmas wish lists everyday, guessing if Santa would really give them Nintendo DS this year, because Vin thinks he was average mean (not the math mean) this year. Moved by his introspection Mom decided to get him the latest and hottest Xbox 360. I can use this as my emotional weapon for another couple of months:)

Getting to know me

Souj send me this a while ago. I am behind on blogging so thought you might enjoy. Also updated Vins and Chotus blogs too:)(don't miss out on his third painting- I think that is our retirement source;)

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7:30 am

2. Diamonds or pearls? Of Course Diamonds

3. What was the last film you saw in the cinema? Departed – Must Watch

4. What is you favorite TV show? Friends

5. What did you have for breakfast this morning? Protein bar (addicted to it)

6. What is your middle name? Ratna

7. What is your favorite cuisine? Thai

8. What food do you dislike? Chinese

9. What is your favorite chip flavor? Jalapeno

10.What is your favorite CD/song at the moment?

11. Favorite sandwich? Sub-Factory SW

12. What personal characteristic do you admire? Enthusiasm

13. What would you not be caught dead out of the house
without... on? Deodorant

14.If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation,
where would you go? Tibet

15. When you look back on your life, what nano-moment brought you the
most joy?
Carrying Vin in my arms the first time

16. Coke or Pepsi ? Coke

17. Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Night owl

18. What is your shoe size? 8 Wide

19. What would you do for a living if you knew that
not only would you not fail, but you would also become
a phenomenal success?
Management

20. Which of your friend's dreams do you wish would come true for
them?
Souj’s and Raja’s

21. If you could change one thing about the world we live in what
would it be?
Poverty – leading cause to many problems

22. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with family or
friends?
We will be moving into our new home in two weeks

23. What did you want to be when you were little?
Judge, Lawyer, Doctor, CA, …..

24. Most likely to send this back? Whoever is interested

25. Least likely to send this back? To Souj again

Back to School

It is a pleasure to drive Vin and Chotu to school and listen to them talk about things.

Chotu seldom speaks, he is usually lost in his thoughts. In spite of my enquiries he would look out the window into his own world. Sometimes it is my luck.
On one of those lucky days while I was driving to his school last week through a very hilly area covered with pine trees. We could hardly see the sunlight.

Chotu: Mom, drive carefully, you missed the speed limint.

Mom: Yeah kanna I will. (Wow, it is so beautiful to drive at this hour and watch the smog still at the tip of the pine trees as if the veil is being lifted)

Chotu:What is that sound?

Mom: It is the blinker kanna, we need to go left to your school.

Chotu: Oh! What happenes if we go right?

Mom: Nothing, we will miss your school.

Chotu:Oh! Can we do that? Mom plsss

Mom:I will get late to work kanna, some other day ok?

Chotu: No Mom lets go today, it is ok to miss school.

Mom: I promise I will take you that way some other day.


Chotu: huh! Okkkk.

He love the goats in his school and his class work alot. His school is at the foot hill in a valley. The class rooms are small hut shaped buildings that gives you a feeling of you are nothing in this huge lanscape. The first day I saw his school, I thought this is perfect for him. His friends now are Keshav, Neel, etc.

Vin is not yet familiar with these names and was surprised and asked him "are you sure those are real names"? Yessss! Those are my friends names.

Dear Virgos

Happy Birthday!

Don't call me names now. I happen to know of so many birthdays this month (this sun sign), worth a post by itself. More than 50% of my readers and my friends happen to be Virgos. You will see. Whats so special about them? I am one of them:) Here is the list:

Vin, Bhavani, Bhavani Atta, Chitru and her hubby, Swathy, Kiran, Buchi mavayya, Uma S, SKU, M, Sunil, Sivani, Vivek and many more (including myself). Please let me know if I forgot to add your name in the list.

Wondering, which sign, rest of the 50% comprise? Mostly Sagittarians, Leo, Aquarius and the list goes... Virgos do flock together.

Face the music

Finally I set the date to take kids for Music lessons. We have a wonderful music teacher who teaches keyboard along with Hindi and Marati songs. She lives in the same building as we do (how cool is that?) for those of you who chauffeur your kids around will know about it.

First Day:

Vin: It is awesome we are here:) (with his big eyes and ears smiling away)

Me: (Finally I am able to do this)

Chotu: I am hungry, will she have anything to eat (He just finished his dinner)


Me: No Chotu! We will not eat anything here, we are just here for music lessons.

Door bell rings! Greetings, Introductions etc.,

Chotu: ummm something smells what is that smell?

Teacher: Grandma is cooking something. OK Lets begin.

Chotu: Why are they so many buttons on this.

Teacher: I will tell you everything one by one.


Me: Teacher already warned me , that Chotu have to wait until he is five. Me very proudly said, lets give it a try, because he always hums 24X7. Teacher must have seen tons of parents like me, she glady agreed to give it a try.

Me: Decided in the first five minutes, Chotu will not attend any music lessons until he can sit and listen to someone for five minutes.

Ok the lesson continues...

Teacher: Chotu, you are not listening, which hand do you want to use, make up your mind

Chotu: Left, ....umm no no Right....um Left.

Vin put up with this for thirty minutes with lot of patience.

Finally Chotu decided, to go home, I jumped out of the sofa, took leave from the teacher and asked Vin to come home after his class.

Social Science

What is this ? I heard this on the TV the other day and was shocked. I am just speechless. Our social system has no experience of two breadwinners, so now they blame it on the career women? "After all, your typical career girl is well-educated, ambitious, informed and engaged" since when this is bad?

"Women's work hours consistently increase divorce, whereas increases in men's work hours often have no statistical effect." and the BS goes on and final conclusion is to stay single. Please read for yourself if you don't believe the new meaning of marriage in this piece of junk.




Saturday morning, Chotu snuggles into my bed and asks me a serious question.

Chotu: Mom, Why are grals (girls) brats?

Mom: (sleepy head) With a slight smile, Are they kanna?

Chotu: Yes! Mom. They are very boring of me. (He meant I am bored of them)

Mom: (Chotu is getting enough summer training from Vin)

Mom: I am a gral. Am I a brat too?

Chotu: Nope, but you a mommy.

Mom: (he he he He does not know the truth)

Khabi Alvida Nah Kehna...

Nice to be back after a while. I miss blogging (boring you all). So many things to write, so will just blurt not in any chronological order. So, we are officially in Redmond, WA now. That means, more Indian Restaurants, Desi Movies (my fav) and lots of desis (hate to use this word). It feels like HYD. Last Saturday went to this boring, forever never ending movie. I waited all long (last two months) for this movie for its hot caste and in the intermission, felt like the movie has to run for another 1.5 hours bored me to death. Any ways, if you have not seen it, sorry to spill the beans.

Vin and Chotu are excited about the move and with all the pine trees in Seattle. They think we moved into a Jungle/Forest. It is very green and heavy terrain in few areas contrasting scenery to the Tri-cities flat occasional greenery. Yet to make new friends, for now Ammumma (my mom) is their best friend who takes them to the garage for playing, and plays caroms with them.

We have a Dosa party in our house today evening and a baby shower for my sister this weekend. So, you can see why Moi is very busy. The schools begin on Sept 5th, so (@Kumari) still time for back to school stuff. I am up to date with Zee soaps and whose who on Zee. My semester ends today and hoping not to take classes in the near future.

Short Break

With so much going on in my life, my blog does not get my attention. I have to take a short break from blogging. With the new job, moving, my mom visiting etc., so many verbs in my life at this point. I should be back in September or Late August when things settle. Until then you all take care and have a wonderful summer. A quick quotes from my kids.

Vin: " All along, I have been this, with out knowing the meaning of the word - 'curious'"

Chotu:"Daddy! How come I see everyone except myself?"

Last Day

Today is the last day of school for Vin. The three month summer vacation starts from Monday (June 12th). He is very emotional about it and he is almost into tears that he will miss his work, friends and teacher. I thought he took on me, but looks like not in this case. I always waited for summer vacation and did not miss my school much. We went to my moms village and played with all the cousins, swam in the river, scared of the ghost stories etc., I need to work hard in the summer to keep him entertained /occupied /challenged.

Today is my last day too in this job where I served for ~ seven years. I was little emotional too (I guess Virgo's get emotional - Linda Goodmanism). I am also more excited about my new job :)

Choice of words

I got a puzzle book for Vin from the $ store. They give you a list of words and filled out crossword puzzle and we need to identify the word from the puzzle.

Vin: Mom, this is too hard for me.
Mom: No, you did not even look at it.

Vin: I love these, but this is volume 10. why didn't you buy me volume one?
Mom:Volume one is for babies, this is for you. (Did not tell him that, I grabbed the first book I saw in a hurry)

Vin: I got one already.
Mom: Yay! Cool.

Vin: Grrr!This is impossible!
Mom: Nothing is impossible (very confident)

Vin: No! Talking to god is impossible.
Mom: No! Sometimes that is possible

Vin: OK! Moving Mount Fuji is not possible.
Mom: :-|


While driving in the car to a friends house:

Vin: Chotu, when you grow up will you marry a girl and move out ? or will you stay with me?
Chotu: Marry a girl.

Vin: What!!
Chotu: Yeah! I'll marry girl.

Vin: I will give you lots of candy.
Chotu: Oh! I'll stay with you.

Vin: That's my brother :)

The World is Flat

This has nothing to do with Tom Friedman's book, if still interested go on. My world is starting to get flatter. My dad recently relocated to Kenya for a short assignment and my mom will join him soon. Now we have a place in Africa to visit. How cool is that? After I heard about his acceptance, googled for info about the country and freaked out by its crime rate. I sent an email about my concerns to a friend who is from the same continent but a different country. I did not know whatI was thinking at that time. It is like asking me how is Beijing, if I lived in India. Any ways, my friend was so nice in giving me enough information to keep me calm even though she has never visited the country except for flight transition.

Now that he is there, we will get first hand information to report (just like - our correspondent from Kenya ..). While my brother is concerned more about mosquitoes and malarias, me and Vin are already planning African safaris :) I am dreaming that chotu and vin are playing with the cubs in my mom's backyard. I spoke to my dad yesterday after figuring out how to call him on his cell number that was given to me prefixed by bunch of zeros. Thanks to google for info about calling his cell with out zeros, although I might be shifting my loyalties to MSN from now on that deserves a separate post by itself.

I started this post before the long weekend, and we had our friends Souj and Raja visit us from CA for the long weekend. Guess what they got us? "The world is Flat" :) Maybe I can write about the real book later once I get a chance to read it. It was exciting to talk to them about the future. Raja travels globally on account of his job and is a licensed pilot. After getting a quick cliff's notes on 'how to get a flying license' from him, my next goal in life after my graduation in August is to take flying lessons. Learning to fly is one of my undergrad dreams.

Updates

Sorry for the long break, appreciate the patience of my regular readers who has peeked in at least once to get the updates - mostly my friends and my extended family get updates about us from my blog (information age).

Busy or I should say pretending to be busy as usual. Spring adds things to your to do lists. Since my last post regarding fuel efficiency ...we started car pooling and squished into one car, leaving the van at home. It is working out great - many advantages and not one disadvantage till now. Save money (first one that attracts many), being a part of fuel efficiency and cleaner environment effort, lots of family time:)


DH and Chotu had their birthdays. Chotu had a blast birthday party at BounceArena. This is the first kids party, where the parents also had fun literally. Even the supervisors were surprised seeing parents jump on the bouncers. Stay tuned for more updates..

Shopping for a new car?

This post is in response to Vivek's comment in the below post. I did not know which Hybrid to buy until Vivek questioned (I am in no hurry or NSF). So I googled for "Hybrid Cars and Fuel Efficiency" wallah I found my answers to many questions regarding hybrid cars at this site .

This site is wonderful, if you would give it a second thought about global warning, energy crisis etc., etc., before you purchase your new vehicle.

I compared our current two vehicles and future one that I would buy and the results are here. The first in the row is my future car and the next two are our current means of transportation. Our vehicles use twice as much fuel , for double the amount and emit twice or thrice the amount of greenhouse gas depending on the vehicle.

You do your math now! After the math, we at least for now are planning to leave the van at home and drive in the car, that might cut our house hold fuel consumption to half or less than half.

Energy

We (all four of us) were watching the CNN's Energy crisis show on Earth day. Other than food channel, we do not have much choice to watch TV, with everyone in the room. This energy crisis show got our undivided attention (including Chotu). Cars stalling on highways with no gas, gas price going up to $8 a gallon, energy wars, alternate solutions etc., We as a family took a decision to buy a Hybrid as our next car (when on of our current car dies). The next day Vin wakes up and says he had a dream.

Vin: Mom! I had this dream.
M: What is it kanna?
Vin: I was a teenager and was driving a car and went to the gas station to fill up my car.
Vin: They had a sign board saying "No GAS!" comeback in 24 days.
M: um.
Vin: When I went back on the 24th day they still did not have any GAS.
M: Oh! what did you do?
Vin: I bought a new Hybrid car!
M: Oh :)

(this will be his reality whe he is a teenager)

After little awareness about world energy resources over the weekend we went back to work on Monday in two cars (btw we both work in the same building). We give many reasons for not car pooling (flexible schedules, errands etc.,). Any ways from CNN's show I learned Brazil is almost an energy independent country.

New Wine in Old Bottle!

I am on a short trip to Seattle. The flight from Pasco to Seattle as expected is not full. After the routine enthusiastic safety announcements, the air hostess severed beverages. More often, than occasionally, they serve wine on this flight. We have tons of vineries in and around our area. Halfway through the aisle of serving, AH (Air Hostess ) got a call on her line and she spoke for few minutes. I am sure everyone had their own thoughts about this gesture. The usual protocol on this 40 minutes flight is, you board, buckle, safety announcements, beverages, garbage collection and un-buckle. After serving couple of more seats, she announces we have a brithday girl in row #e, please sing a happy birthday song. I am sure the birthday girl was as embarassed as us, as we sang. This is also very usual in such small flights. The more unusual interesting part is yet to come. Finally she comes to my seat:

AH: Would you like something to drink?
Moi: Sure. Some wine please.
AH: (one minute stare and) Can I see your ID?
Moi: Whatt?
AH: I need to see your ID.
Moi: (my internal conversations are more like 'Timon' in Lion King series. Excuse me! She serves it to every bald, fat, old, long necked, gray haired, round bellied species on the flight and now she wants to see my ID. This is not an another 'Random my ### check' is it?)
Moi: Was trying to reach the hand luggage cabin.
AH: Hands me my bag.
Moi: I pull out my driver's license and flash it before her like some official and embarrassingly, "I am too old you know".
AH: That's ok.
Moi: But! you made my day, Thank you with a one mile smile from cheek to cheek.
AH: Laughs!

All yesterday I was on cloud #9 and am slowly descending to reality. But she did slash off 15+ years of me. That felt good, thanks to my kids who keep me on my toes and in shape, thanks to DH (Dear Husband) for his healthy recipes and thanks to my gym. Does this effect have on men? Not the wine effect- the under estimation of age. Or is it just a Women's privilege?

OT-VCT

One of Those Violin Class Trips..

Vin: Are any of your relatives from 'Gang'?
Mom: What?
Vin: You know 'Gang'.
Mom: You mean 'Gang'.
Vin: umhu
Mom: Where did you hear that word?
Vin: From Mrs. T.
Mom: Whats the context?, I mean what sentence did she use?
Vin: She was readin Jackie Robinson's Biography.
Mom: (felt stupid but had to ask) Who is Jackie Robinson?
Vin: Baseball player,...
Mom: Ok what about him and 'Gang'.
Vin: Oh! Mrs T said, being in a 'Gang' makes life pretty bad.
Mom: Oh! there are different meaning of 'Gang' like many things.
Mom: One is a group of people (friends) are called 'Gang' and the other one is the one you mentioned.
Vin: Oh! like many words that have two meaning one bag and good.
Mom: Yeah. To answer your question, NO- no one in my family is part of a 'Gang'.
Vin: Oh. Which kind of people join the 'Gang'?
Mom: Kids who are not good at school and who don't have parents etc.,
Vin: How are they born, if they don't have parents?
Mom: Sometimes, parents leave and also when they don't have money, they might join the bad company.
Vin: Oh.


Mom:(This kid is scaring the shit out of me)

During my spring break , I visited my Uncle in Seattle, who has two grown up boys. He consoled me "it is better to be aware of such things than being ignorant. He will be exposed no matter how hard you try. Just keep the communication open, it will always help".

Choti Moo Badi Baath

Chotu: (Blowing the birthday horn loud) booooo..
Mom: Chotu , Pls use indoor voice.
Chotu:Sees a glass of water and blows the horn in there making bubbles.
Mom: (The control freak in me) Chotu, pls don't spill water kanna.
Chotu: Keeps blowing bubbles with his horn.
Mom: (gives up, it will take me 5 seconds to clean up the mess)
Chotu: Mom, do you want to try it?
Mom: Without a second thought tries hard into the water and feels good about it.
Chotu: Smiles with a sparkle in his eyes and says "See you spilled the water and made a mess".
Mom: :-|
Mom: Ok guys cleaning time, please get the paper towel and clean it up.
Chotu: Mom, that's your mess pls clean it up.
Mom: :-|