Bla bla bla

Finally we have gone through all the motions of applying for a passport. Includes submitting the form after going to the RPO twice, and finally giving attendance at the local police station yesterday for verification. They sure find more "polished" ways of taking bribe, but what is 75 rupees bribe for a passport with your permanent address and spouse's name eh? Nothing, pah!

Now the wait for the passport. And I am hoping this one of mine would be as colourful as the last one with myriad visa and arrival/departure stamps. Europe! That is what I'd like to see more of on my passport for sure ;) Let's see :D

Grocery shopping was done with much aplomb on Sunday and now all that food keeps me psychologically happy ;)

BTW, Amul's cheese spreads are a hit with me especially their Mexican Mirchi. Worth a try. Been meaning to write about it for a long long time now ;)

Yikes!

I had to wash some of my more delicate salwar sets. I have been putting this off for ages now. So today I decided to wash them in delicate cycle in the washing machine, with a couple of other salwar tops, plus a towel to fill in the load.

Normally the towels are the scape-goats when there is a known colouring culprit in the load. They are ok even if they take on another colour and they fill in the load perfectly. After nearly a year, Subhash's towel has regained somewhat of its original complexion while mine, which was white when we bought it now lives on in a pinkish shade.

So I decided that his towel should go in with this lot because I had another lot which was sure to give out red colours and none of the clothes in this load were known colouring agents ;)

But I think it was that blue kurta that I bought recently @ Shopper's Stop. Never washed before. Completely caught off-guard.

There was a yellow and pink dress (which went perfectly with my ruby bangles in gold) which is now a green and pink dress. This was arguably the most precious dress of the lot. And that also marks the end of the only accessorizing I ever did in my life!!!! No more bangles with this dress.

There was a cream and yellow top which is now a blue and green top.

Luckily my washing machine colours uniformly. So the green and pink is a perfect green and pink, with no trace of it original yellow colour. Ditto with the top.

Needless to say, Subhash's towel is now a mushy blue shade...albeit completely ;)

So much for my effort to preserve its colour!

But I should probably be happy though, that I have a complete new set of dresses and tops, in refreshing bluish shades ;)

Technology doesn't cease to amaze!

Thanks to Google latitude, I can see exactly where Subhash is, on his way home. Is he stuck in a jam, moving fast enough, moving slow, etc etc. It is simple, he enables Latitude on his phone. I add him to my friends list, and when he activates Latitude, I can see where he is!!

WOW!

Ho! I nearly lost my phone!

Man, that was a scary and nerves-filled evening!! I had lunch, went to one meeting, then went to another meeting (phew! what is new). Then got into the cab and lo! no phone! No desk keys too!

I asked the cab driver to stop near my building went up to my cube and checked. No phone. Asked a colleague to go up for me (we were in the same meeting earlier) and check in that meeting room while I collected my thoughts. I looked a little more and then went to join him and look for it. I wasn't sure if I left it in the cafeteria after lunch or somewhere else. I was not thinking.

So I went down, gave up all thoughts of going back home in the cab (can you believe I thought of going home without even looking for the phone?! Ugh!), told the cab guy to leave and went back to the cafeteria all the while trying to think back in time. Asked around in the cafeteria but was just not convinced that I left it there because I remembered un-docking the laptop to take it to the meeting, after unlocking it, so I had the keys with me when I came back after lunch, so I couldn't have left it in the cafeteria, where then. This colleague who went looking for the phone asked me to check with the HR a couple of times.

You see, in the middle of the meeting, I had gone to one of the HR folks to collect an address proof letter. I just didn't remember carrying the phone there though. I did remember vaguely that I did carry the phone/keys to the meeting. So what now. After a slight replay in my mind I remembered I made a stop at the copier to make copies of the letter. So I ran as fast as I could back to that building, to the first floor, to the copier, and what a relief it was! My phone and keys were both there. I did try calling my phone from the cafeteria and my desk but no response. At least it was ringing and that was a good sign. Not switched off or out of area. I later realized it was in Silent mode and that is probably what saved it ;) Plus the time span. I left it around 4.15 maybe, and went back for it around 4.45. Half an hour is still a huge time lapse, so I feel really really really really lucky to have seen my phone. The building where I left it is new and probably lesser number of people walking around. Because this is an office where I've lost my picture right from my desk, so I don't trust the WPR workers or the security staff with safe-guarding anything.

I am normally wary of carrying expensive stuff around because I tend to forget them around. Especially phones. And this one being Subhash's gift was all the more a deary. I think I would have sobbed and sobbed if I had lost it. Gosh! I should go back to some dabba phone that I dont really care about when I go outdoors at least. But then using a phone purely indoors, especially a mobile, doesn't make much sense. Subhash says I need to start using the loop to which the phone can be attached and carried around.

Adventurous evening, all in the mind, got back half an hour late in an auto, but all in all, in a much better shape now than two hours ago ;)

Warm n' fuzzy and Thunder n'lightning..

Was feeling rather warm and fuzzy on Friday night. Good start to a perfect weekend. Came home late after a tiring n' day-long outing to Wonder La. Place was standard amusement park fare. It took us two and a half hours to drive back from the place and I got home only @ 9. To a great home and husband :) Dinner was ready, Subhash who got home before me had made everything and I just had to shower and enjoy a happy, hot meal. Considering that lunch was very very average in the Wonder La restaurnt, it was Wow! And somehow it made me feel all warm from within :) Some days are like that maybe ;)

My maid came in early this morning @ around 6, and then it started drizzling slightly. Yummy morning, cloudy weather, slight rain, perfect start. Then slept off again around 9 and woke up quite late, had idlis and got off for the day to meet up with the doc. Then had to pick up contact lenses. But not before making that much needed stop @ the sports store. Bought those hand weights which we've been putting off for so long and now I can totally move my gym routine closer home. And while @ it we bought a carrom board too!! Yay!!! Did I ever mention that I was carrom champion in college? And completely gave it up after that. Thanks to my bad fingers and the nervous weakness I'd developed due to excessive playing ;)

Went out for dinner with friends, to Barbeque Nation. As always the dessert buffet was awesome. Then came home and had a match of carroms. It was super cool playing @ home after donkey's years. There was thunder and lightning on our way home and it just kept pouring, and pouring and lashing out. And Koramangala was nothing short of a mini sea. The BBMP folks have laid roads too eagerly, and forgot to install drains, so it seems. And all that water has no where to go :( We take and take from the earth and never replenish it, how long can it sustain this abuse, I wonder :(

These days I think I've gotten sensitive to people around me. When I see someone "salaam"ing for 20 bucks, or that old woman begging @ the traffic light, I feel really really bad for having a good life. Guilty for enjoying things while people suffer for just 5-10 bucks :( What justice is that? I don't know, I never have an answer :( I jst feel awful, I feel I should give uo everything and go off somewhere to meditate. But that never helped anyone, so for now, doing my bit trying to help people within my administration at least. But it is sad, very sad :(

A wide range of emotions there eh? :)

And now is the time to apply for a new passport. Come on, I can do it this week ;)

Food and thought

Monsoon has officially started in Bangalore. Days are cloudy, pleasant, breezy and nice. I've shifted my workout closer home, walking in the morning since making it to the gym has become near impossible during work hours. But the morning walks have all been perfect. Silent colony, well laid roads, regular other walkers, music etc. Subhash joining the walk would make it complete but I've long given up trying to make him work out or get any form of exercise ;) So whenever he says he is going to play TT (or even Wii) with his friends, I am all too willing, some exercise is better than none, eh? :D

Unofficially though, we've been having rains for a full 6 weeks now, they started around the last week of April. Well, all in all, summer has been good. Mangoes and no need to even bear the heat for them ;)

Some more race attacks in Canada I heard. Well, I guess our honeymoon with a lot of countries is getting over. We have infested the world far too much now I suppose. The US was one of the most tolerant countries I saw (only as far as American people are concerned, their immigration rules treat you like dirt), and even there, during the later years of my stay I started noticing some "weirdness" in the "non-professional" gora log. I am not saying in India every one is safe, such atrocities happen here too (Marathi Manoos vs Bihari jantalog, for example) but I am glad I am here than anywhere else. Somehow in an alien country, I just don't feel comfortable "demanding" anything.

Anyways, work is going on as usual. Thanks to a popular colleague, we got to eat some Yummy Trader Joe's dark chocolates today ;) Tomorrow is an offsite to Wonder La. Looking forward to it since it is the first offsite we are having after I've moved (I think I already said that before ;) ).

Another day gone whooosh!

All in meetings. Can you believe it? 11 - 4.30 straight, not one minute to spare except the few in which I managed to hurry with my lunch. Sigh! Hopefully this ordeal will end with today. It is performance review time, you see, and so one cannot help it, or so it seems! Phew!

I managed to sneak in some time with one of my engineers to do some technical troubleshooting on some problem he was facing, and I loved those 10 minutes! My ex-boss used to say, life becomes spreadsheets and power points once you cross-over to being a manager. And boy! was he right! (Like in all other things.) For now since I am still in demand for the tech area I used to work in, till my team becomes completely independent of me and can work entirely on their own, I can snatch some precious engineering work moments like these :) It keeps me sane :D

I need to workout, need to eat more fruits and need to read !!! Read :( When will I read :( My CCIE re-certification deadline is coming hard on my heels now, what should I do! Read. Read. I keep reminding myself.

Whatay day!

All day in a meeting! Missed gym, missed tea sessions, missed all my own team's meetings. It is performance review time and I got into this meting which unexpectedly went on all day. Sometimes I wish I could just be an engineer doing my own work without having to think about assignments and status and staffing and tracking ;) Grass is green. On the other side ;)

I love the intelligence of the shuffle feature on the ExpressMusic 5800. Somehow it seems to always know how to pick the right songs. My iPod in comparison is dumb. It keeps playing songs from albums that I have previously repeatedly skipped over. Well maybe it is also the songs, I filtered and added a few hundred songs to the 5800 where the iPod has 1600 odd ones, so the probability of hitting a song I don't absolutely love is much lesser in the 5800. But I still think it is smarter than the iPod. Any opinions people?

Mangoes..yumm

In order to bring back my blog hits per day back to 100+ I've decided to bore the average reader by mentioning all nitty gritties of my daily life here every evening ;)

One of my colleagues recently bought a Toyota Corolla Altis (in India the Toyota Corollas and the Honda Civics are "D" segment cars and very very very expensive!!) and she got it to work today. We all decided to take a ride in it to (nearby?) HSR layout to have the yummy Mango Kulfi (actually a hollowed out Mango, done so by removing its gutli, filled with Kulfi and frozen, served by cutting to slices like regular mango). Last time we went to that place, they weren't selling this stuff yet so we drove back disappointed. But today, thanks to my sister's (she is my sister by a decently close relation) amazing luck, they were selling the kulfi and so all of us devoured it in style and got back to work. A goood gourmet day it was ;)

Our tenant's sister got married yesterday. We couldn't make it, although it would have been a good road trip to Jog Falls and back. Need to save all that PTO for that elusive vacation which never seems to materialize, every time I plan it, it goes for a toss for some silly reason or another :(( Anyways, so the tenant left his small fish bowl with us and it is one of my duties now to clean the water out every alternate day and give them food every day. Subhash's dad was doing it when he was here and now that they've left, it has been delegated to me. Its fun to see the fishes wriggling about when you pour fresh water in ;) It is one of the first things I did after coming home today :D

Next I need to figure out how to manage a team offsite and a colleague's engagement on the same day. Which do I choose? This is the first offsite after I've moved to the India team, which is a shame since its been more than a year now. But then, blame the recession. So anyways, should I go to the offsite and bond with the team or should I go with the gang to the engagement and create a lot of guffaw? Tough choice!

(Picture courtesy KK, a colleague :) )

Routine

-Husband's parents have gone back. They are having a tough time dealing with the Hyd heat. And for me it is back to my single days, finding some way of passing time till Subhash is back home.

-Since his parents have left, it is up to me to make some evening tiffin, no ready stuff made hot by the time I come home. Today I made something nice though: Sprouts plus onions plus tomatoes plus Kurkure masala plus nimbu juice makes for a yummy and "mostly" healthy evening snack (minus Kurkure, it is 100% healthy) ;)

-Changed the cab timing to 10 AM. Getting up at 5.30 in the morning is getting increasingly difficult. So wanted to try this out. Let's see. I need to re-schedule some meetings around it.

-Hyd trip is set. Tickets booked. A lot of people suggested Kerala for vacationing, and we were planning this weekend, but yet to decide on a few things and make bookings. Let's see how that goes. I have not had vacation in a year and a half! (Did I say that already? ;) )

The old boy Palio..

I was thinking about our car last night. I've thought along these lines once before. I am the type of person who treats all her possessions as having a life and mind of their own ;)

Couple of weeks ago on our way to the doc, we yet again got the front tyre into a ditch. The old boy seems to be running into some tough luck ever so often. We finally got it out with the help of a few passers-by (it's amazing how much help you get out here on the streets;) ) and the boy was back home safe, but yeah we have been running him down quite a bit of late.

Anyways, what was I thinking about this car. I've owned two cars in my life. One was very dear to me since it was my first car and although it was a used oldie, it was a deadly black Honda Accord and I loved it just because it was my first. Then was the more chanchal Merc C-Class which I loved because it fulfilled my one long dream of owning a Merc. So much so that I don't care for cars anymore. Been there, done that :) The Honda was the sturdy, stable, reliable lambe race ka ghoda, and the Merc was the flirty, nakhrewali.

But neither of these cars have seen any significant life events of mine. Which makes them moot. (And the fact that I no longer own them ;) ).

The old boy Palio on the other hand is special. It is Subhash's first car. And its seen so many life-events of ours, that it makes me emotional sometimes. Whenever Subhash says he wants to buy another car, I completely put my foot down and refuse. We can't simply sell this car.

The car saw us meeting after three long years in Bangalore back in '04 when we were officially still not "a couple". (I admit I hated its colour back then, the TDP orange ;), but then I am beyond its physical appearance now :D ) Then he moved it to Hyd and there it saw us getting engaged, then getting married. Then we brought it back to Bangalore when we moved to India, and here it saw us in our first home which we call ours. The meeting, the engagement, the marriage, the house-warming. The car has simply been with us through it all! And it seems to be an amazing coincidence to me since they were not all in the same city :) And now its going to stay with us through some more significant events of our lives and I cannot help but feel emotional about that guy :)

And so whenever it gets a hit, I feel really sad...its borne it all very well so far and doesn't show much on the exterior. So here is wishing it a lot more mileage and healthy life..