Season fever

Its raining so much these days, and if I were to use any of those comparisons... like cats and dogs and stuff like that… I would say it’s raining elephants and hippos. But rain is not the only thing, its getting cold too. I have started detesting my jacket. I am really bored of that. Now add to that I have to carry an umbrella all around. And with all this come fever and cold and cough. Luckily my cough and cold are not much. But fever is really tiring; it also comes with body pain. I wish G and me were together. That would have really helped.

When we were in Bangalore, at school/college times, anytime I got fever, 100% attention used to be on me. Even otherwise I used to gobble up 90% of it, but 100 is something different. Mom always had to have me in sight. So I wake up in the morning, and depending on the condition it would be decided if I could have a bath or no. I would be given something hot to drink (milk... yuk), then something to eat. It used to be bread since nothing else would actually go past the throat. Then all day mom would sit with me… checking temperatures, getting things to eat and drink. Then slowly I moved out and due to work, weekend were the only time I could be home, so fever on weekdays meant, take care of yourself (of course roommates helped a lot, they were the family then).

We went to Mysore after the wedding. So I fell ill again with fever. I dint take an off, but as soon as we came home I just crashed into the bed. I told G to wake me up in an hour so that I could cook dinner for us. When I actually got up, it had already been 3 hours, and when I got out of the room, it was such a delightful sight, G was cooking something for dinner. He said that I needed rest and ordered me to go back to sleep by the time he finishes his cooking. I just did as he said. He then woke me up and we had a tasty meal which I could relish completely. There were days when I told him, I wish I could fall ill and he could take care of me like this. He takes care of me the best after mom. I sometimes behave very unreasonably with him, but then again if I don’t…who else can?

Little Tea party

I just happened to see a photo of a small girl playing with a teapot and a cup. This just triggered my memory and my childhood just flashed in front of me.

As a part of our childhood, we had so many dolls but the main thing was to have a kitchen set. We had these made of steel, clay, plastic. They were replicas of what mom had in her “real” kitchen, and this was so exciting. Mom would lend grains to put in these teeny weeny containers. And yeah!!! Before we had a actual fridge at home, I already had a beautiful plastic one which was as big as my dad’s palm… But hey this was one thing mom dint have and I had… and being the nice daughter I was, I had even offered mom she could use mine… That time I dint know why she never used it (ofcourse much later when we had a real one, I knew why she had refused).

If there were no children to actually play with me, mom would volunteer. She would be my guest, me being the perfect hostess, would offer her tea, juice and lot many things to drink (all of which would be water in a thumb sized glass. Then we would have lunch in our play plates, so peanuts were to be assumed as rice and sambar. Of course we would use up the snacks and take bigger plates and eat those.

As I grew a little older, I grew out of these smaller vessels and containers and actually started making something in the kitchen (say: Tea). I was always fascinated with the whole tea sets which were shown in movies. So sometimes my parents used to play along with me. We had 2 tea sets at home, and they were to be used only on special occasions. Well, mom used to carefully take it out for me and I used to prepare the tea decoction (tea without milk – water a tea powder boiled well together) put it in the big tea pot, then hot milk in the smaller pot, then sugar in the sugar container. I used to take the whole tray in front of them. Then pour all these one by one in the cup. In the end, you are supposed to ask the quantity of sugar. Once all this is done, I used to serve them the tea with some biscuits. This whole thing used to take much more time than the usual, but the fun and the time we used to spend on this was totally awesome.

How I wish I can be that little girl again!!!

Lake Tahoe

This was a long pending trip. I always wanted to go with G, but the plan din’t seem to materialize. So I thought I would go along with friends. After much confusion, hotel rooms were booked; cars were booked for a 2 day trip for 10 people.

Day 1: The plan was to start at 8.30 AM on Saturday (31-Jan). We started only at 10 after picking up the car at airport. Initial part of the journey I was asleep as I had a terrible headache. We had stopped for lunch. It wasn’t yummy, but it did fill up our hungry stomach.We still had some 90 mi to travel and I took over the steering wheel. Initially, there was nothing interesting, so it was quite a normal drive. Then started the glimpse of snow capped mountains. This was not the first time, but ofcourse it was the first time in a new place, we were excited that we would be there anytime soon. The rest of the drive was a beauty, with snow either sides of the road.



We checked in the hotel and freshened up for the evening. At first we had no plans, and since its winter, it gets dark quickly. We thought of going to the lake first and then see what we wanted to do.



The lake was beautiful. The tip was frozen but we could still see the lake in between. I prefer it this way... Whats the point in having the whole lake frozen... We would never know the lake existed (I know thats stupid of me).We were just gazing at the people there having so much fun in the snow. They had sledges with them and were sliding with so much fun. We rushed to a nearby store and got a few sledges for rent.



As soon as we came back to the lake, 2 guys started and went on a bumpy ride... All of us learned from their mistake not to take the steep side and went on a less bumpy and less steep side of the slope. It was sheer fun for an hour after this. We took videos of people sliding down. D was about to go into the lake if someone had not caught her...



The view was just awesome



And the wonderful colours on the sky was great



After this we were very hungry and rushed to the Indian Restaurant near our Hotel. We had our early dinner and then folks decided to go to the casinos nearby. Nevada(famous for gambling) was just a mile away. I am not much interested in Gambling. Moreover I had a severe headache since morning, so I skipped this. I went into the cosy room, watched TV and called it a day.

Day 2(Sunday):
We woke up pretty early and after breakfast, headed out to the Heavenly Village Skiing Area.



I had already done skiing long back, so dint want to do it this time.



First we had to buy gloves (spent nearly half an hr on this). I hate it when people start shopping for stuff when we have so little time. Anyway, after this there was a discussion on who would ski. The total cost would be $120, and some were not ready to spend so much. Out of 10, only 2 people were ready. So after much discussion we left on the Gandola tour.


This is the Gandola

The tour was too good. We went in it for 3-4 miles and it was supposed to take a total of 17 mins.We were to have 2 stops.

From the Gandola


The first stop was the observation tower. We got down from the Gandola and walked around. It was a spectacular view from the top. The snow capped mountains, the lake, the tahoe valley all these looked so beautiful. It felt like heaven.











After clicking multiple pics in the place, we moved to the next stop. This was the beginners skiing area. We found our 2 friends trying to ski there.. We had a nice time making fun of them everytime they feel. I took some nice videos of them too. In the meanwhile we played in snow, throwing snow at each other, taking a lot of pics.



We even posed with the ski. After a while we went back down to the lake, spent a few hours there. All this made us very hungry and off we went to the same restaurant as the previous day. We stuffed ourselves with food, and soon it was time to say our bye to the beautiful lake.

I dint feel sad the trip was over. Infact in a way I felt nice. I was all set to go to the office next day and share our fun with all my friends there.

PS: Have been wanting to write this for a long time... Somehow there was just no motivation

Moody Mood

My mood swings are at its peak today...I am not in a very good one today.. but at office.. I am the usual happy go lucky kinda person. I am having a tough time to keep that smile on my face.. A little bit of frowning and I have most of them questioning whats wrong with me...
God!!! please set things right... Please

Weird!!!

Today Morning when I started walking to office, I started thinking… and I realized I don’t want to be the last person to leave the house. Is that the reason, I try to get up before my roomies and get ready and leave?

This thought kind of freaked me out… Why would I think like that? What’s the big deal if I leave last? I have no idea… But all I remember is I have always been like this. I am always in a hurry when I have to leave and if it so happens that I am the last person to leave, I just lose interest and take my own sweet time and more and leave really late.

Office Chit Chat

A few days back at office, we were just chit chatting (taking a break u know). Me, a friend P and another friend C. P was just saying that her husband prefers going to places where there is less crowd. Even it meant going to the grocery store, he would rather prefer to go 10-15 mins before the closing time as the crowd would be less. We were just laughing at instances which she was narrating.

One such incident, when they went to watch a movie. Movie was to start in 10 mins or so. When they entered, the hall was nearly full with places here and there, so if you wanted to sit together all you had to do was just ask someone to shift a seat. This was the conversation they had.

H (P’s husband) : See we are late. Lets come tomorrow.
P: But there is place to sit.
H: There are no seats together.
P: We can ask them… Ok… I’ll ask someone to move
H: No lets not disturb them, we’ll come tomorrow

And they went to the movie next day. Right after this conversaiton C remarked

C: ಸಧ್ಯ ಮಧುವೆ ದಿನ "ಇವತ್ತು ಇಷ್ಟೊಂದು ಜನ ಇದ್ದರೆ ಇವತ್ತು ಮಾಡುವೆ ಬೇಡ, ನಾಳೆ ಮಾಡ್ಕೊಳೋಣ" ಅಂದಿಲ್ಲ
(Thank God, on the wedding day he dint say “there are too many people today, we’ll get married tomorrow)

3 of us burst out laughing. We just couldnt imagine him saying like that.

Help has no barriers

A week back, as usual I took the bus back home. The bus was half full, so had to take a seat next to one lady. She was really sweet. After a few mins she asked me if I knew a particular address. I had no clue so I told her the same. She then said she doesn’t know much of English. I offered to ask the driver about this place. I went and asked him. He also had no clue. We thought we will look out for the street name.

Then with broken English we had a conversation. She asked me if I was a student (I am super happy everytime anybody asks this question). I promptly refused and said, no working. Then she asked if I am married and even said I looked so young (again super happy). Now it was my turn to ask her questions. I got to know that she was from Korea and has come here with husband and 2 kids. They go to Korean school in US (I never knew they had these).

In the meanwhile the driver called out that he was taking a turn, and if the lady wanted to get down. Later he just asked people in the bus knew about the particular street. Luckily one guy seemed to know which stop would be nearer and so she got down at the stop thanking me.

I felt relieved that she got the right place… at the same time I thought how would I handle these situations if I landed up in a place where they dint speak the languages I knew and I wouldn’t understand a word of what anybody would say.

Happy Sankranti - 2009!!

Happy Sankranti. G woke me up in the morning. I had slept late after making some preparations for the festival. I love festivals in which we give gifts to other people. The whole excitement of shopping for them and letting out your creative juices to flow in the process is just too good.

Flashback:
Tuesday evening I went shopping. We don’t have a car, so I had to keep in mind that things I buy don’t weigh too much and should be easy to carry. First I went to a shop where I could find some plates on which I could decorate the stuff. I was looking around and found some cute little cards (for personalized messages) and some small bags. I picked up these, some mixed nuts and a few chocolates. The next destination was for fruits. I had thought of 5 fruits, but then I was giving these for 10 ppl, so getting 5 fruits and 10 each would be heavy. A little bit of searching and I found mini apples, mini pear, strawberries, raspberries and bananas. So except banana everything else was light weight… Hurray!!! Mission accomplished. Now the last thing left was to go home and pack.

Me and G conferenced and called both the homes and wished everybody. By the time the calls got over it was 8.30 PM. I still had to start the packing. This went on till 11.00 PM, had dinner and then continued with the personalized notes. By the time I had everything packed for the next morning, it was 12.30 AM

Sankranti Bagana


Another one


A sample bag


Another one


Close up of all the bags


All the bags finally

Rolling back to Sankranti day:
All of us had to come ethnic that day. Out of which 5 of us even agreed on a saree. So off I went in the bus wearing a saree, with a bag full of goodies. It was a fun day. So many of them had got Pongal (Sweet/Non sweet). I had decided to take it the next day. Later I gave the gifts to all my friends here and they were extremely happy with this. After lunch we people even had a photo session. My mom said doesn’t look like you were not in India.
It was so much fun. Finally for dinner we had rice, sambar and sweet pongal.

Christmas weekend 2008!!!

Once I reached Houston, it took us nearly an hour to reach G’s home. “Houston is big”, G always said and I had just got the glimpse. By the time we reached home had dinner and slept, it was 3.00 AM. Oh yes!!! Dinner was yummy rice and sambar which G had prepared. He is a pretty good cook, though he knows just 3-4 dishes but very good at these. The next day (Christmas Day) we got up pretty late. We dint have any plans to go out, since everything would be closed. G had got some dosa batter from the Indian store. We had some yummy dosas, lazed around, had lunch after some time and slept. This was an ideal lazy day and we were just happy that we both were together. In the evening we went around Houston, went to one of the Indian chat houses. We had yummy chat there. After this drove around and came back and watched some movie on the laptop.

The next day after lunch, we started for San Antonio. The plan was to go to Sea World the next day. That day we drove for 3 hrs reached the hotel (Omni – 4 Star Hotel). We were on the 11th floor and view was pretty good from there.



In the evening after some snack we went to the RiverWalk in San Antonio. After initial hiccup of getting lost, we reached the place. And what a place that was. The roads were full. They were beautifully lit up.



And once we parked and went down to the river, it was a beautiful sight. The River was nothing to speak about, it was more of a canal, but the walk was something we enjoyed the whole evening. There were so many restaurants on the walk.



There was also an amphitheatre, and as we kept on walking we came to a mall and they had some live music playing on the river side. They had a huge beautiful Christmas tree. This was called the River center.



The cool breeze and the river walk, made this walk so romantic. As usual G forgot where our car was parked and we had a discussion on which way to go, and as usual I won. If we were hungry we had the option of taking a boat ride along with dinner there. One Mexican restaurant had this dinner on the boat option. I would have loved that, but by then we too tired walking along the river. They had boat tours, with a guide, but the queue was so long that we dropped this idea, and decided we would come the next day for the same. After a very long walk and talk, we came back to the hotel tired, had some pizza and rested for day. It would be a long day next.

Saturday : We were near Sea World by 10.30 AM. This is the third time I was visiting Sea World and I still find it so amazing. Ofcourse it was a different one this time, last 2 times it was the Orlando Sea World. It was a bright sunny day perfect for a outing like this. As soon as we entered I gave the camera to G so that he could start taking pics. There was this beautifully decorated Christmas tree as soon as we entered. Then we scanned through the map and decided which shows to attend.
The first one was Sealion and Walrus show. This was about the Christmas spirit. How the sealions responded to the humans was just amazing. They were so cute too. And all of sudden comes out a huge Walrus. It was fun to watch these wonderful creatures.







After this we rushed to the most famous show in Sea World. The Shamu Adventures. Shamu is the Killer Whale. It’s very huge, and they had number of Shamus with them all of them equally adorable.



We were awestruck by the acrobatics performed by all the Shamus and their instructors. They seemed one with each other. It seemed like they were inseperables. The funniest moment is when these whales wave at u with their tail. The best is when from underwater, they just rise high with the instructor on their top.



I could go on and on, on this 20 min show, but the experience of watching it can never be justified. Out of all three times this was when I enjoyed.
First time we went, Shamu had given birth to junior Shamu just the previous day, hence show was cancelled and we could just watch the bonding where junior and senior swam together. Second time, we went to the last show, and probably the whales were tired too, so not too impressive. But this time they bowled me over.



Once this got over, our stomach started grumbling and we rushed to eat something.



After this we went to ride, which was called steel eel. This was a long roller coaster ride which would go up an down. We first thought its not good to go right after food, but still went ahead looking at the long queue. So we knew we would have enough time. And it was a great ride, not too scary but quite thrilling and too much fun.

Our next destination was another show, Viva as it was called. This involved dolphins and humans and belogua whales (white cute ones). This show was spectacular too.





We enjoyed this as good as we enjoyed Shamu. Once this was done, we wanted to go a ride Atlantis and then we wanted to just roam around and look at the dolphin feeding area and sharks and corals.







Off we went to Atlantis, This is a water ride, but the trick is to sit in the right place so that you don’t get wet. I dint want to spoil my pretty dress so sat right in the middle. The ship in which we sat went up, we could see the whole of sea world, then gave us a 360 degree horizontal view, then we zooped backwards to the next point. Again we turned around, so that we could have a fall a few foot from the ground. It was amazing. I wanted to do this again, but then me and G were just talking and dint realize when we came out.

We went towards the next thing in our agenda, but came across few huge horses. I don’t really remember their names, but when you look at that and talk about horse power, I sure can imagine how damaging it could be. Awesome horses, I must say.



Once we crossed these, there were dolphins in this area, and we could buy fish and feed them too.



I was too excited and bought it so that when they come near to eat we could touch them. But due to some problems, I could touch nor feed them… G could do both and I was really angry coz of this.



Anyway a small tiff is always a sign of a good trip. Then off to the shark viewing and other types of fish in the large aquarium.





Somehow this dint interest me, possibly coz I dint have the mood, since I couldn’t touch the dolphins. But they are so adorable. By now the day was coming to an end. And so we ended this splendid day by going out to an Indian restaurant. We had some nice food. We were too exhausted and dint have the energy to go back to the river walk so ditched that idea, just went to the hotel and saw TV. It was fun. It was really long time when we both saw TV together.

Then came the last day of the trip and we had to go back to Houston. We decided on visiting Natural Bridge Caverns and Safari nearby. These were on the way to Houston. Within an hour we reached the Caverns. It was a cold day, and we rushed in to get the tickets. As our trip started, we were briefed on why it was called the Natural Bridge Caverns.


This is the natural bridge which broke down due to some natural calamity

We then got to hear stories of several Stalactites (ones hanging on the ceiling), Stalagmites (growing up from the ground) and Columns (are those where stalactites and stalagmites meet). I am very much fascinated by caverns.





They grow for hundreds of years and growing only probably just a cubic cm per year. We had big halls filled with these, along with the tallest of 50ft.



There were ones shaped like a jelly fish, and a hall filled with these as if there was a gathering about some discussion.





Our imaginations could run wild and far. Once we were done with this, we came out to bright sunlight. It was fun.

We then headed towards the Safari. At the entrance, we were given the feeding food for animals. We could take our cars and go into this safari.



There were no carnivores animals. As we went on, there were so many deer, antelopes, bisons, zebra. All of these running free in the wild. Ok… ok they all were not running, but they were surely engrossed in their own worlds.





As soon as they saw some one from the car with food, they would come near, gobble up the food which was provided.












That's my hair... we were this close

There were even a ostrich, and it was fun when it came running towards our car and started pecking on G’s window. The speed at which he rolled up the windows was awesome.



If we dint have power windows, I am sure G would have holes on his face.







Well it was fun to be with these animals. As it neared the end of the day, we left to Houston.



We reached home by 8. I cooked after a while. And we called it a day hoping for a beautiful week ahead.

I wasn’t sad that the weekend was over. I still got to be with G for the whole week.