That special month.. that special day!

November is almost over.

Three birthdays done and one more to go, in this family of all November borns.

First was the little ones birthday, which was celebrated the usual style with a small group of her school friends, sister and cousins at a local "paint your own ceramic" place. She had fun, getting two dresses for her birthday, dressing up, distributing cup cakes etc. We are going to miss this phase soon as our little girl is already eight and has a mind of her own. 

Next was Jr.'s turn. She had a deal. If we skipped a birthday party (which we were not planning to have in the first palce.. we had told her "you get a big party for 10th, then 13th and 16th.. nothing inbetween!") she will get my hand me down iPhone and I get to spend the 200+ bucks to upgrade to a new iPhone. So we ate out at a place of her choice and called it a Happy birthday. There are no birthday photos this year for Jr. ! Here she is, all grown up, at the little one's party. 

My birthday gift to her was a book "Indian Melodies for the Alto Saxophone" which had western notation for most of the entire Carnatic music series with Geethams, Varnams and some Keerthanais. The best part is that the book came with a CD where Kadri Gopalnath performs the lessons on an Alto Sax, so we know what it is supposed to sound like. Jr.' loves it compared to Daddy's hand written notations. We strongly recommend this book for other folks who are learning Saxophone in the Western style trying to do Carnatic music songs. There will be a video of her doing some songs later this week if she works on it. I call her "Nagubaby" in hopes that she will play one of my favorites "Nagumomu" and so far she is givng me the nasty look. 

It was going to be a hit or miss for my birthday as my travel plans were in flux. Last minute we found that I was going to make it back home, just before my birthday. The family was all happy with that news. There is always the plans and reality. Got a massive food poisoning event at the last meal on the trip, that pretty much wiped me out. It was a miracle that I made it back, on a long flight, all weak and throwing up. 

Got out of bed to throw up and saw it was 2AM. Wished myself a happy birthday and went back to sleep. My entire birthday was a blur. Mostly slept through it on a Gatorade and water diet. This is the first time I opened a birthday with throwing up. Well, there is a first time for everything!

The last few days has seen some improvement with bread and yogurt rice becoming part of the diet and so far they have stayed down. It is going to be a long and slow road to recovering from this one as my ability to smell or taste things is gone. 

Even with all this going on, life is not without a lighter side. A few days ago, I felt barely alive and was half asleep fighting my stomach and lying down. It felt like a dream. A small hand reached out into the comforter, pulls out my right thumb, presses it down somewhere and places my hand carefully back in position. When I woke up, realized it was the little one "opening" my iPhone using my thumb print, to play games! Reminded me of the villains in old Tamizh movies who get the dying man's thumb print on a document that wills away his farm!

We are now down to San's birthday which involves "more travel" as part of the birthday gift. Prayers are already in effect for me with family and friends so I recover fast. Someday I will write a book for folks with food allergies as a "travel guide". In the meantime, it is time to go back to sleep and get back to normal!