Rain … Now and Then

Growing up, we never relied on weather report to see if we needed a jacket or raincoat when we headed out to school. In Chennai the weather is predominantly hot or warm with a few occasional showers of rain. The best part of rainy days was in riding our bikes back home from school sans raincoat with friends.

We would come home to savor hot rasam and rice with cilantro chutney. This remained my comfort food until middle school when Chennai saw the influx of North Indian Cuisine and my loyalties shifted. I started reaching out for Chaat and Chai for those days.

Ri and Ro do not know what it is to get drenched in rain, as it is accompanied by thunder and lightning or the temperature drops making it unsuited to be outdoors. The closest they come to is playing in water when the sprinklers are turned on.

My umbrella was inside the car and it was raining when I left from work last evening. It was nostalgic to get wet in the rain. The walk was short and I did not get enough of the rain. After my drive back home I continued to enjoy it from my favorite spot with a steaming cup of chai

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Next Food Network Star

The Food Network has finally decided to tap on to the third largest growing ethnic population in the USofA. Thanks to all those who filled out their Census 2010 form. Aarti Sequeira is one of the contestants on the ‘Next Food Network Star’ and she incorporates Indian cooking into the American classics.

I wish her the very best and hope to see some good Indian cooking on the network post Padma Laxmi era.

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Boil the Ocean

Work place would not be half as much fun, if not for these buzz words. Company meetings or leadership training (preferably offsite) happen to be the breeding grounds for such new words.

Back in the days, we would kill time on those special meetings by playing a game of bingo. We would each makes a list of buzz words and strike it, if the word was used in the meeting by the speaker. It is fun way to observe new words come into play and the gradual retirement of the old ones.

Here are some wacky ones I found on Buzzwhack –

OT-mail: An unnecessary email sent after hours to supervisor with the sole purpose of letting them know how late you worked.

Relanguage: A 300$/hr consultant’s equivalent of rework, rephrase or rewrite

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Weekend Journal

M and I saw Ravan in Tamil. Beautiful locales, slim to none story line and a couple of scenes inspired from Ramayana.

Banana Republic and Limited had a mid year sale this weekend and found Thursday or Friday works the best to get great deals.

The grapes are not ready for harvest yet. 

Happy Father's day !!! The M household finally gets a waffle maker. Is this the equivalent of gifting the lady of the house a vacuum cleaner for say, anniversary?

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Aquatics

Ro attended swimming classes last summer. The first week of his class, he did really well. The other parents (who were watching him) and I saw a little champ in the making and then “Dunking Donuts” happened. The teacher swayed him in water this way and that …. And boom they dunked him in water for a few seconds and took him out.

There was no going back to swimming that year and he stuck to playing in the kid’s pool all summer.

He is back to class this summer and last evening when he was playing in the kids’ pool before his class; he asked me to watch his little trick. He counted 1,2,3, closed his nose and went inside water and came back out. At times parenting is simply about waiting patiently for our kids to do things at their own pace.

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The Newbery Challenge

This summer Ri started reading books that received Newbery medal. The Newbery Medal is awarded to children’s book to encourage creative work and has been around since 1922. Some of the more popular books that won the title are The Tale of Despereaux, Shiloh, Bridge to Terabithia, etc.

At the end of each book, we discuss the reason why the book was chosen for the award. My only academic expectation is that she learns five words from each book, not necessarily new or jazzy or complex words, but simple words she could use in her school writing assignments.

The award winning books are unique in their own ways with respect to the author’s style of writing, subject and era. The book that received the award for 2010, titled When You Reach Me, weaves the science of time travel and relativity into the story line and the backdrop is New York in the late 1970s.

While the one that won the award in 1936, titled Caddie Woodlawn is about a pioneer girl who befriends the Native Indians during the 1860’s.

Ri’s favorite is Number the Stars, an gripping story, set in the Nazi occupied Copenhagen, Denmark in September 1943.

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Of Scrap Books and Memories

One of Ri’s friend’s mom volunteers every opportunity she can, at the school and is a chaperone on most field trips. Last Friday, she hosted a scrap booking party for the girls and let them use photos of the kids she clicked throughout the year at various trips and school events. The girls had a blast making the pages all afternoon. What a beautiful way to remember a whole grade year!!! Yet another story of how moms in sneakers come to the rescue of the moms in pumps.

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Kid Country

Last week we celebrated Ro’s 5th birthday, again, with his sister and friends. We headed to Cici’s pizza and as the sun went down, drove to Kid Country Park in Coppell.

This is one of my favorite parks for younger kids. The wooden structure is spectacular, the older trees provide abundant shade and a short fence surrounds the entire park. The boys loved the sand box and before the end of the day there was sand all over them. Well, it was only a shower away and was all worth it.

My 9 year old darling girl was bored and made a deal with me to bring one of her friends along, for all future activities that relate to Ro and his buddies.

I heard a few “You are not my friend any more”. I didn’t care to get into the details as the following minute they were all playing together. One burst out into tears and did not want to go home until he saw the goody bag and realized what a wonderful decision it was to go home and play with it. Friendship at its best @ 5.

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Damned If She Does, Damned If She Dosen't

A husband and wife started off their careers at the same time with similar qualifications. During their initial years, their titles, pay and bonus were almost the same. A few years down the lane, things changed. The husband got way ahead of his career than the wife. I am sure numerous working couples can relate to this. The authors Lynn Cronin and Howard Fine married couple and management consultants explain this phenomenon and many more real life situations.

There are no short term fixes or n-steps to the “Corner Office with Windows Facing Hudson River” suggested in the book. Instead the authors walk you through scenarios closer to real life where disparity between the genders exists in its subtlety. They interpret these scenarios that potentially impact a women’s career by drawing valuable insight from their own experiences.

The paradoxes mentioned in the book are true to the title and a must read for aspiring women.

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Sabyasachi

I absolutely love this designer’s work. He’s dressed up Aishwarya Rai, Vidya Balan and the likes. No offense, this is my attempt at finding something close to his style in my price range.

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One Night @ the Call Center

Many moons ago, a buddy at work and I happen to have a real lousy boss. We would humor around saying, if we ever got fired; we had enough substance to write a book on bad management or outsource it to the television series “Office”. Interestingly, Chetan Bhagat raced us on this one. If I say, I have heard every single statement made by the ‘so called’ bad boss in the book that would be an understatement.

Later, I googled the author and found that he worked for the same firm I am referring to here. Its amazing, how many miles, a corporate would cross to ensure the work culture is consistent across the oceans.

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