Mind of an orchid

I read about the search for a missing person on her blog. I echo her feelings and thoughts on this issue. There is more information on Kiran who went missing in the Yosmite National Park on May 19 at this site. The search is still on but as one can imagine with each passing day the hope fades just a little bit. My heart goes out to his family who must be going through what can only be imagined as hell. Those of you who have previously visited the Yosemite will be familiar with how difficult the terrain is and for the unprepared, surviving an accident can be rather difficult. I pray for a miracle and sincerely hope that Kiran is found safe.

Update: Unfortunately the miracle did not happen and on the 31st, Kiran's body was positively id'd on the banks of the Merced River according to the information here May his soul rest in peace and may God give his family the strength to get through this tough time.

....now don't read too much into the title because I am mostly who I appear to be on this blog (barring the occasional lie, of course!). Anyhoo, the title is because I have been asked to reveal myself yet again and this time by the lovely SM, Accidental Diva and Kiran. So, for those of you who want to know me more(do u really??) here's 9 things you don't know about me. Of course I will borrow the idea of writing one untrue fact from my esteemed blogmates and write 9 little known facts about the Orchid.

1) I am Ailurophobic. Yes, cats distress me and that is an understatement. I have once jumped on someone's dining table when I realized they had a cat in their house. Normally, if I know before I will simply not visit them.

2) We do this at least a couple of times a week. Actually, I do it more than he does and he will if I force him to. O.k stop! Give your wild imagination a break! I am talking about dance. Uj and I love dancing and no we are not formally trained but we did fall in love at a dance party and occasionally we jive or swing to some good music, let off some steam and rope Li'l A into the fun as well.

3) I have atleast one medical implant in me.

4) I cannot for the life of me sing. Nope, I don't dare to even in the shower. And it's not just singing, there is not one musical bone in my body. So, if you ever invite me to a karaoke party, I will have to politely refuse and now you know why.

5) I am extremely adventurous! Hiking, biking, kayaking, bungee jumping are all second nature to me. I could've very well been an extreme stunt junkie in my other life!

6) I will (almost) always get Uj to say yes (to anything I want)...now I don't know if that speaks for my confrontational/manipulative skills or to his peace-keeping skills!

7) I am very unexperimental with food.My taste in food is very conservative and I am not open to trying new cuisines/new dishes/new snacks or even new fruits! I hate stepping out of my comfort zone when it comes to food. I always go back to the same Italian, Indian, thai, chinese or american deli and order the exact same dish which I know I like. (Asha...don't worry, I don't mind cooking and trying out new recipes at home, mostly Indian recipes ofcourse!)

8) I once interviewed for a job which involved distributing condoms on campus and no I did not get it!!!!

9) If there was one relationship that I could change in my life that would be the one with my MIL, actually if I could change my MIL that would be even better!!

Anyone want to take up the tag?? and one was a lie and that is.....

Alright! Alright! I hear you and by popular demand the Dinchak- Moulin rouge - Geisha house of Red Umbrellas template(your terminology not mine!) has been abandoned (rather sadly). Sorry Boo, I am back to the old one!Hold on now, before you all relax, let me warn you that I definitely intend to experiment with a few more makeovers till we find one that all (??)of us like. So, you can expect some variety in the coming days and don't say you weren't warned.
On a different note, the Memorial day long weekend is just around the corner and we are starting ours with a dinner at Li'l A's school tomorrow. It's international night and I signed up to wear a saree and I need your help choosing one. Yes, I know I am suffering from an absolute case of Abulia this week. Go on, will it be the the teal chiffon, the mauve zardosi or the yellow binny silk?? The last time I checked (a year ago) I could still fit into all three blouses.
We also have out of town friends staying with us over the weekend and both me and Li'l A are thrilled about P, N & K's visit.I first met P during my Master's and have been good friends with her since then. We share many things in common and in many ways it is the similar ironies in our lives that bonds us. I value being friends with her because I believe it is really hard to make and keep good friendships as an adult. Primarily because you become extremely picky and secondarily because the prejudices and complexes that were nonexistent in childhood now surface every time there is a possibility of making a new friend, don't you think so? Wasn't it much easier to make friends when you were younger? But P is a friend and I know that!
Anyway, hope you all have a fun weekend too and gosh!, I just realized how much of my own life I am revealing on this blog!

the template, people!! I am hoping the burst of red will make up for the lack of excitement in the writing and I am also pretty sure there is some chromatic theory which says "Red boosts readership and stimulates the readers to comment" and the umbrellas??...well, that just explains my utter incompetence in being able to customize my own template!
We are sticking with this till either there is a mass uprising of all you readers or till I can get Uj to design something better and yeah, I've already begged, pleaded and promised to do anything (!?!?!) and he is not biting it. So, looks like it is going to be "THE RED UMBRELLAS" for now!...and yeah I did share my old template with BOO, so, if I miss that I will just stop by hers!

Disclaimer: Red is also known to elevate the blood pressure. So, visit this blog at your own expense!

It's been one of those weeks when everything else took precedence over blogging. International week at Li'l A's school, an ear infection, very labile emotions, social obligations and more kept me away from the blog this past week.

It was international sharing week at A's school and every day the kids learnt about different countries and cultures for a span of 2 weeks through presentations done by the parents with their children helping them. Every morning, as I dropped A off at school I would see parents scuttling up the stairs dressed in their national attire carrying bags full of stuff- toys, flags, coins, books, art and more all from their country of origin. Again this was a simple reminder of how much we all care about our children- despite the urgency that weekday mornings bring, the parents took pains to dress up in what were sometimes rather elaborate costumes just so they could oblige their children. Wednesday was our turn and Tuesday night the Orchid household was a scene of utter chaos. Uj and I almost panicked because we had no clue how we were going to go about making an interesting presentation for a class of 3-6 yr olds. Li'l A was so excited that his parents would be doing a "SHOW and TELL" in school the next day and that made it all the more difficult for us because we didn't want to let him down. He kept saying "Suke's mom wore a kimono, Zach's dad made paper elephants for all of us-he is from Japan!" O.k so not only did we have to talk about our country, we had to make it fun for the kids and meet Li'l A's approval as well!
Fortunately, I had a friend traveling back from India last week who very graciously obliged to bring a few things for our presentation and my mom had more than willingly shopped for us. But again, presenting them in a way that made toddler-sense was the hard part. Finally, the Indian flag, the rupee, the bride and groom doll set depicting Indian costumes, the 10 Dashavathara wooden figurines, pictures of the bengal tiger, a cd with children's songs and banana chips made the cut. I decided on a salwar kameez instead of the saree (which I plan to wear for the international dinner this Friday) and the boys wore kurtas. However, on Wednesday morning Uj continued to be clueless and Li'l A was too excited to be of any help. And when 15 eager faces greeted us with a "Good morning Mrs O and Mr. Uj" and wide eyed enthusiasm, I knew that the show had to go on. They looked at the wooden figurines in amazement, danced to the cd merrily, munched on the banana chips and were thoroughly amused to see Li'l A dressed in something so different. When we finally said goodbye to the class that morning we saw Li'l A beaming- perhaps with pride for his parents and we walked away feeling satisfied!

....if only every thing else were that easy.

Then...


Now...

no, no.....i don't mean one like I had y'day where I was Angelina Jolie's invitee to her couture boutique opening in Sitamy, Italy which I attended wearing shoes that felt like I was climbing a couple of steps!!!!! I mean a dream which is more like a vision. Right now mine includes iron bannisters, Carmen Red granite counter tops, handscraped distressed hardwood floors, butler's pantry and more! So, what are you dreaming of?

YOU are the "go-to" person
YOU are the friend
YOU are the mentor
YOU are the critic
YOU are the motivation
You are the encyclopedia
You are the sanity
YOU are the strength
YOU are the comfort
YOU are the reassurance
YOU are the laughter
YOU are the reality check
YOU are the values
YOU are the hero

YOU are the ASPIRATION
(i aspire to be you)

But ofcourse, YOU are the MOTHER
mine and everyone else's!

A very Happy Mother's Day to all mothers (I know it'scoming a li'l early but since you all are sure to get an overdose on the 13th....thought I'd send my wishes out a little early and I am not the only one doing so, for more on Mothers stop by DesiMoms 's

And here's a few favorite pictures of my mom with Li'l A.

Just before A's first b'day


Li'l A loved to brush her hair!


I still don't have the patience to dress A up like this, she did and still does :)

At the Dallas Hindu Temple

...if you can't go to work... have your work come home to you! Marcia Cross of Desperate Housewives was pregnant not so long ago with twins and for the last part of her pregnancy, was under bed rest. When she could no longer go to work, the writers changed the storyline to accomodate her pregnancy, the crew moved to her home, her bedroom was converted into a hospital set and the filming continued without her having to get out of bed!!......wouldn't that be a dream job now!!
Apparently, it's done all the time here. When actresses get pregnant, the brilliant writers simply include the belly as well in their roles! Remember Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) from Friends when she was carrying the triplets on the show??.....well, she was pregnant with her own son at the time and the sequences were shot right through her pregnancy and she didn't have to worry about taking a break at all till the very end and we the viewers, didn't mind it at all.
So, I may be jumping the gun a bit here, but do you think someone will step up and script a role that will accomodate the Bachchan Bahu as a heroine if she were to get pregnant? Ofcourse, if she decides to quit acting by then, the question won't even come up but really it will be such a travesty(no, no..I am not overly fond of her, I am talking about all Indian actresses in general)...who give up their professional life entirely once they get married and decide to have kids.
P.S: if you are wondering if I watch the Desperate Housewives, I don't but I do watch The View (I know,I know...I am hopeless) and Marica Cross was on it :)

I spent most of today thinking about my family back home in India. I think about them often, especially since I come from a close-knit family where aunts, uncles and cousins were a huge part of everyday life. I miss the people as well as the comfort of knowing they are close-by in happiness and in sorrow, on weekdays and weekends, whether you need them or you don't. I have been thinking about my family and this time it is mostly for Li'l A's sake. It saddens me that his childhood is so entirely different from mine. It is not wrong in anyway but so completely different. I grew up surrounded by an army of people who were all family and well, to him family mostly implies Mom and Dad (me and Uj) and that scares and saddens me equally. Ofcourse, he knows and loves his grandparents even though he doesn't really understand that "another continent" is a really long distance away. Yet, I made sure that he would feel attached to them in blood and in emotion when I took him home (my home) for 5 months last year and a few weeks the previous year. He loved it. And in his own little way he made such an attempt to belong. By the end of our stay he had actually made that his home too. He could (yes, unfortunately I say that in the past tense because he doesn't anymore) speak fluent Kannada and had so completley accepted the cultural norms that he wasn't used to. Our holiday ended, we came back to the U.S, picked up life where we had left off and he missed India and I knew it. Wonder if this is one of those intangible yet unbearbly heavy price that we all pay when we decide to leave family back home for better opportunities. Even now he knows he left behind people that loved him, cared about him and the fact that he remembers the tiniest details about India amazes me. Now, I tell him stories from my childhood (of how my grand mom/his great-grandmom took care of us when my mom went to work), we look at pictures and we call home all the time. Yet, I wonder if it is enough? One day, when he is old enough, I hope he will write to them - his grandparents and make trips on his own to see them. In the meanwhile, he will have both sets of grandparents visiting him here. This is when I realize what I took so much for granted all these years, he cannot. I mean, it is family we are talking about here, they are always supposed to be around, aren't they? Not for him. He will have to make constant and endless efforts to reach out to his family and nurture those relations. The same is true for my parents as well. Day after day, my mom waits eagerly to hear about her only grand child who is so far away from her yet so close to her. She makes a sincere and persistent attempt at being a part of his life and in fact being the kind of person she is, she will even remember when I have a parent-teacher meeting at A's school while I have to look at my calendar! Truly, we are in an age of long-distance grand parenting and it sucks for people at both ends. Anyway, for now Li'l A will continue to turn to Ms. Lily and Ms. Gaby, Isaac, Zach, Allison, Anish, Ellina, Suke, Sadhana and Andre at his montessori to fill the family void and for that, I thank them!

I know many of you are raising your kids in a country other than your own. How are you providing your children with the family interaction that is such a necessary part of growing up?

Ever know what it feels like to be dumped by a man, worse still a 3/12 yr old?? I do...and it sucks!! Li'l A decided he'd rather go watch Vijay Singh and Phil Mickleson tee off at the greens than go out for lunch with Mommy on Sunday. He was so excited the whole morning Dad would take him to see golf that I did not have the heart to force him to go out with me. MEN!!....so, yeah! it was a lonely Sunday afternoon. I borrowed Casablanca from the library and everytime Bogart said, "Here's looking at you, kid"....I could only sigh, there aren't any men like Bogart anymore, are there?? And those of you who are mothering a daughter, just know I am really jealous :(