Z-ara soch samajkar bath kijiye…

…or experience a unique foot in the mouth scenario.

I have tried mostly to live by the principle of formulating thoughts in my head before delivering them to save myself a whole lot of embarassment. I have succeeded mostly but I have had occassions when I have failed miserably and they have come back to bite me in the ass err rear.

Well, I experienced the crowning moment of foot in the mouth recently. Some of you probably know that I recently started my new job. It has been mostly uneventful and a learning experience the past couple of weeks. People have been genuinely nice and the culture has been pretty friendly and welcoming.

Manager is pretty busy one and is constantly pulled in a hundred different directions. It is extremely difficult to grab and time in her day for a tete-a-tete. Finally was able to grab an hour of her time recently to get her input on a few things that I have been wanting to get her input.  I also had to give her an update on a few projects that she currently has me assigned to. In my minimal intercations with her, I have found her extremely friendly and easy to converse with.

Mid-way through our conversation regarding communication issues amongst team members, I commented to her that I felt it would be an easier path to for me to appear “dumb and blonde” to be successful in what I was trying to accomplish. As the words slipped out my mouth, I realized in horror that my manager was a blonde (as it hair color blonde) I was ready for the walls to wrap around me and swallow me into the very depts. By the time I realized what I had uttered it was obviously to late to take it back. To give her due credit she took it nicely (I hope!! Atleast she looked pretty calm and cool to me) I spluttered my way through after that fiasco and quickly made my exit to deal with my giant faux pas in private.

That folks, is my blooper of the week. If I still have a job in a few months from now, I will consider myself lucky to have escaped unscathed.

This of course ends my series of alphabetical posts. It got tough on some letters along the way but am glad I pulled through. Whew!

Have a great weeekend and A Happy Halloween. Try not to binge too much on candy. A local dentist is collecting all extra candy from the kids for a nomical price. The money goes into the kids piggy bank effectively avoiding cavities to their teeth with all that candy. The collected candy will be shipped out to the armed forces fighting for the homeland in some far away land. Neat idea huh?

Y-ay!

My very first tag since I started blogging early this year And Rads does the honors. Given that I am not half as creative as her in coming up with amazing romantic fables, I have here one of my all time favorite songs by Depeche Mode. The lyrics are amazing and I can hear this song on repeat forever.

Here are the rules of the tag. All it requires is:

• 5 sentences from your own post, or better yet write the next post out instead of typing.
• Link that post, if digging it up like I did.
• A pen, a pencil/paper
• Scanner/camera
• 20 minutes of your time.

And for those of you who would like to hear the song, here is the link to it on youtube.

And I would like to invite Mad Momma, phoenixritu, CeeKay & Lekhni to display their handwriting please. Anyone else who would like to volunteer, please be my guest and I thank you all in advance.

X-enial

Xenial according to the dictionary refers to “Pertaining to hospitality or relations with friendly visitors“

What the heck does that have to do with this post you wonder? I have had this post written in my head since Dussera but haven’t had the opportunity to publish it. Then reading the Mad Momma & Mumbaigirl on the topic of minorities, faith and fairness prompted me to go ahead with this post.

Everytime I read about religious tension or strife, I have always found it such a wasted effort only because to me, as humans I believe we should be able to look beyond these petty classifications. My belief is that people from many different religions believe in God in a slightly different way. Our customs, culture and form may differ but in it’s highest form, we all believe that there is a power above us that we believe controls our lives in some shape or form. Some of us may believe in idol worship and some of us may not but I honestly believe that there is no religion in this world that justifies us being mean to fellow human beings or treat them any different than how we would like to be treated by others. The most important thing to me is compassion and that goes far beyond religion, caste etc.

This past Dussera, I was enlightened to an incident that has made me cringe and lose respect for an individual that I am now ashamed to claim was an aquaintance. My mom & I decided to have a group of my friends and acquaintances come over to our house for haldi kumkum during navarathri. Plans were made, invites were sent out and menus were planned. The morning of the function dawned and mom & I spent a lot of time getting the meal cooked and getting the home organized for the pooja. Among the many invitees was the wife of the local priest (let’s call her P.) 

Most people we invited graced the occasion and a fairly good time was had by one and all. As the pooja came to an end, the OH, mom & I got busy setting the food out for the guests. As mom was scrambling to get things setup, she came to me with a request. She mentioned that the P had requested a cuppa coffee. She found this strange only ‘coz when food was being served but neither one of us gave it much thought. We made her the cup of coffee and all else went hunky dory for the rest of the day.

The following day, a close friend, S came over to spend some time with us. Over tea, the discussions included the function we had the previous day. S happened to mention that she had invited P to her house as well. After accepting the invitation, she ended up being a no-show for the function at her house. When S talked to her the next day, she stammered an apology that didn’t fit quite right. S decided to let it slide till another friend, K who drove the P to our house decided to enlighten us.

It would probably help to know that S is Hindu as well but from a different sub caste. She is a wonderful cook and one of the most helpful people I have had the opportunity to hang out with. She has always been willing to help me out when I have had to cook for a large number of friends on many different occasions. Given that she is a good friend of ours, P made the assumption that S had helped us in the morning with the cooking. Since P felt it was beneath her to eat in a house where S had helped with the cooking, she decided to skip lunch and request my mom for a cup of coffee instead. As S narrated all this to us, the pieces started falling in place.

To say that I was fuming would be a gross understatement. As mom, S & I talked about it, I was upset and annoyed that I had made the mistake of inviting P to our house for this special occasion. I honestly believe my house would be a lot more blessed in the absence of such people. For a brief moment, I was ashamed to me part of a community that held such a narrow and petty perspective to life. I rationalized to myself later that it woudn’t be fair to be upset with a community as a whole for the views held by some of the individuals in the said community. Afterall, we all know that acts of violence by a certain group of people cannot be faulted on the entire community. Isn’t that what we end up doing every time there is any kind of religious/terrorist activity that happens?

This incident left a bitter taste in my mouth. I had a good mind to call P and give her a piece of my mind but that would mean ratting out K in the bargain. Resolution was soon made that P will never again be part of any special occassion that occurred in our home. We are much better off without these people. It only makes me hope that there will come a day when people can truly look past these petty differences and leanr to respect one another for who they are versus their religious affiliation.

W-ish you a very Happy Deepavali

In talking to friends, and meeting people from various religions, I have come to realize that hinduism has the most festivals to celebrate. Most Hindu festivals have a lot of work associated aka elaborate cooking, hours of pooja and prep time. Deepavali has always been one of my favorites given that most of the time is spent bursting fireworks, meeting people and have a good time. This is one time of the year when waking up at 4 a.m. was exciting and something to look forward to.

Memories of Deepavali growing up brings to mind mom waking us three girls up early in the morning to apply warm oil to our hair followed by a nice bath and screaming for mom to bring over the new clothes that have been dabbed at a inconspicuous spot with a dab of kumkum. My siblings liked to try their new clothes on right after it was purchased but I was always to one to wait till the specific day to wear my new clothes. Shopping for clothes back in the days was restricted to a few special occassions and diwali was one such occassion. There was so much excitement planning and fighting over the fireworks that had to be ordered months ahead of time. I can vividly remember dad bringing over the little order form from work that lets us fill out the list of crackers/fireworks we wished to purchase. It was always a combination of flower pots, ground chakkras, sparklers, snakes tablets, atom bombs, sara vedi, rockets etc etc.

The fact, I think that made this festival extra special to us was that we have bitter sweet memories associated with this festival. Many many years ago my patenal grandmother had died on this very day and thus it signified a lot of sadness to my dad. Being born many years after her death, we could only imagine dad’s feelings. To this day he & mom refuse to wear any new clothes on this special day. I still owe it to my parents for never once letting their thoughts and feelings dampen our spirit. Being a parent today, I can truly appreciate what they did to give us these wonderful memories of a childhood filled with happiness on this day.

Ironically, given that grandma died on this day, her anniversary would fall every other year on this very day. The years when they had to perform the rites, mom & dad would ship us kids off to our aunts house, where we would spend the day oblivious to what mom and dad were busy with. As we grew older and these days held special siginificance following the year of our marriages, mom always claimed that grandma loved us enough to not let her anniversary conflict with our special day. Such was her faith and today as I think of my parents, my eyes get moist with the sacrifice they had to go through to give us these happy memories.

After our marriage, when the OH & I moved here, this festival took a backseat. Afterall what was so special about a day when you had no holiday, had to follow the routine and then rush to work/school. Soon we lost the childhood charm of this holiday. This was only till the kids made their way into our lives. With them they brought the grandparents to our homes. Grandma can still make this day special to us. She brought back to us and more importantly the kids, the excitement of this festival. A couple of years back I had the opportunity to take the kids home during this time of the year to experience the true joy of this festival. Since then they have been excited about this day as now they can relate to it and imagine what it is & have seen how it is celebrated.

Now, in our own little world, we celebrate this day with our extended family (our circle of friends) and spread the joy of this festival. Hope this day brings to each one of you similar memories and joy. Wishing you all a very happy deepavali.

V-oting, V-anity update

Do they have a 2008 version of this?><

With elections just a couple of weeks away in my side of the world, it is not surprising to hear much talk/debate about the candidates & debates in general. As I sit hammering away at my keyboard, I hear colleagues discussing the upcoming elections in whispers that still make their way over these soft cubicle walls. While one has everything nice to say about Obama, the other is all for McCain. In all the conversations I have been privy to, the one common thread is that I am yet to meet a person who has to contribute positively to Palin and her policital abilities.

The late night shows have been giving us everything and more of these candidates and their debates. The news is filled with details of people waiting the long lines to cast their votes in some states. I hear all this with a certain amount of excitement, given the fact that for the first time in my life, I get to exercise my right of citizenship instead of just spending the hours listening to all these promises and not having a say in the final outcome. Finally, my opinion will contribute in a small way to the big decision. I would have loved to be able to do this first in the country I was born, but as it turns out, I get to experience it in a country that has been home for a sizeable chunk of my life.

All that said and done, there is one challenge. That is actually being able to intelligently fill out the ballot. I received the early voting ballot in the mail last week. The decision to pick the President is a no brainer, given all the time I have spent watching these candidates and the fact that (me being me,) I have my own strong opinions about my choice. The challenging part is to pick all the additional candidates running for various other positions at the state level. To make matters more complicated are the various propositions and what they represent. Prop 100, 102, 105, 200 and the list goes on. My attempt at understanding keeping track of these numbers has my head swimming in numbers. The Accounting class I endured in Business school now feels like a breeze. I wonder if it is just me feeling that way or there are others who share my confusion. I would greatly appreciate any feedback folks out there have on this.

I guess I will continue cramming my head with all these numbers. It is definitely to my advantage that the test is open book I can sit in the comfort of my study to understand all these propositions and make my choice instead of spending all day at the polling booth. I hope to have it all done this weekend. Wish me luck

Makes me wonder??? <

******

Vanity update – Those of you that remember my search for a fitness center, know all about how I picked Butterfly Life to get back in shape. Three months (two of which I was too depressed to work out) into the membership, the place has now shutdown. Now I am convinced, even the powers above are working against me. Not one to give up, will soon be knocking on other doors willing to accept my $$$ and promising to make me look & feel like a million $$$.

U-nusual, U-nlike anything from the past…

There was time in our lives, pre-kids when the OH & I had a lot of time to spend with one another. Tuesday night movies at the dollar theater or Saturday morning movies at the mall for half the price were some of the luxuries we indulged in given that he was a student and there was not much money in the wallet for anything else. Grocery shopping happened once or twice a month depending on the bank account. No potatoes/onions indicated the need to buy vegetables. Those were the early days when I learnt that a lot of meals can be concocted with just these two vegetables and other handy dandy spices.

This was soon followed by the OH joining the workforce and me joining the university. Given that I worked on campus in the evenings, the OH took it upon himself to cook the evening meal. He would either cook the meal or a dear friend cooked up some food for both of us (bless her soul) every evening that I had to work. Shortly before graduation, I started work at the same company as the OH. We started carpooling and most of the time was spent in each other’s company. It was during this time that we were expecting Meg and little did we realize how much the life as we knew it was going to change.

Grandma came over to be part of my graduation and then hung around to help with the birth of Meg. And we have since been blessed with the constant presence of grandparents in the lives of the kids. As is the norm the advent of Meg ended our romantic outings to the grocery stores and life revolved around catering to and savoring every moment of our time with Meg. We were still driving to work together and so were fortunate enough to spend 30 minutes of our day sharing a conversation that was uninterrupted by babies/parents.

Following our move to a new city and the birth of Raul, life took a different turn. We were now for the first time in our life working for two different companies and didn’t share our drive to work. Life got too hectic with two kids and grandparents. The OH started working longer hours at the new company and unfortunately for us, he has continued to work the same long hours for over eight years now. Between my work, the kids and going to school, I had my plate full to think about it. And in all this time, I have assumed a major chunk of responsibilities when it comes to picking the kids from school & carting them to their various activities, be it swimming, soccer et al. Given the nature of his work, the OH was always delegated to all activities prior to the start of his work day. Unfortunately, we had no control of his time once he entered his workspace. And such has been our life the past eight years, until the beginning of this week.

I started my new job this week and was obviously not in a position to plan my day until I had the opportunity to get my feet wet at the new organization. Grandparents left last week and so we were on our own for a change. We sat Sunday night to draw out our plan of action for the work week. Babysitter was arranged to watch the kids for an hour each evening with the exception of Wednesday. This worked fine since Raul has to be picked up from chess class after school on Wednesdays. Life never is that simple with kids around. To add to the chaos Meg had her “Battle of the Books” session on Monday and Media Club on Tuesday. So dad, for the first time in eight years has had to shift his priorities and be home early for the kids three days in a row.

Dad, of course has been praiseworthy. He has been on time picking up the kids or being there for them each day. He has taken the baton of driving them to their various activities this week. Mom has enjoyed the luxury of returning from work and focusing just on cooking and placing a meal for dinner in lieu of being pulled in a hundred different directions. Life has been blissful!! (anti jinx here)

The icing on the cake is coming home to see the OH at home and not having to call him late into the evening, over & over again, wondering when he planned to be home for dinner. All good things eventually come to an end and this will too but it has been nothing but a pure pleasure while it has lasted. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another eight years before we can enjoy such days again.

 

 

T-rust

Yet another incident amongst the many that life throws your way. Was reminded yet again that it hurts just as much to be the recipient as it is to be the one to inadvertently cause the breach of trust placed in you.

I now hope that both these folks find it in their heart to forgive the one that caused them pain & give them the strength to place their trust yet again in future…

S-ilence, S-cramble, S-keptical

Words that explain what life today is to me.

It’s been more than a month since I have blogged. That’s the first time since I started this blog. Life in general has been chaotic and my home for verbal thoughts got thrown into the back burner. Hopefully with this post my regular blogging will resume.

Grandma & grandpa returned home mid last week and the house feels empty and exceptionally quiet without them. All the quietness makes me think that they were the ones contributing to all the noise All of us miss grandma reminding us of the gazillion things she wants us to do each day. Z (our lab) is a lost soul and is still looking for her favorite grandma. No one in the household seems to be inclined to fight for the TV since grandpa left. Raul has complete control and no more grandpa grandson face offs. We miss grandma & grandpa dearly. In a month we will all meet again but the month cannot come by soon enough.

The scramble to get life back to normal is back in full swing. Having got back full kitchen responsibilities from grandma, I have a daunting task. I know for a fact that I cannot even be a tenth of the person grandma is in the kitchen. For the kids, it is back to reality till the next grandma shows up early next year. But scary as it sounds, the kids are used to what I cook up for them. I remember a friend once telling that for each person their mom is the best cook. I am starting to believe that.

The skepticism comes from the job search. A couple of interviews have set a few wheels in motion and after much deliberation, I have decided to go one way. Fortunately I have the choice to try this one out but as is mostly the case, it has it own pros and cons. The decision has been made for now to be revisited once I return from my vacation ed of the year. I am hoping that things will work out the way i want them to. Atleast for now, I am celebrating the fact that I have a job once again. Incidentally, the company’s name starts with “S” as well.

On that note, here is what the kids commented as I got ready for work this morning…

Meg had this to say: “Mom, you look pretty today. We missed seeing you get ready and going to work these past couple of months!”

Raul as expected had this to say: “Mom, now that you have a job, you can buy me the fusion.”