Life is always interesting

The last four days I have been getting sicker by the day and still managing work till it got to a breaking point on Friday morning. Simply could not get out of bed. Busy work days and no Yoga for four days did not help either.

Called in sick and slept through most of Friday. At bedtime, told wife and kids that come what may, yours truly is going to wake up at 5AM and do yoga. The alarm was set and off we went to bed.

Was still spitting out phlegm and as I walk to the bathroom, hear a car screech at high speed followed by a loud bang, a bright flash that lit up the entire house. Immediately power was out and all our emergency night lamps went on.

I ran out thinking someone may have crashed into our house itself and if there were going to be falling electric poles, the family had to run. It was also occuring to me that the folks in the vehicle might need help. 

Ran out and saw a car had missed our garage but crashed into the electric pole. I yelled out to the guy in the car and he managed to open the door and stumble outside. Kept yelling to him to move away from the car, but he was not listening. There was transformer oil leaking from the top and his car was fuming from the airbags. 

Meanwhile I keep trying to call 911 from my home phone and nothing happens. Then it strikes me that no power, no internet and it is a Vonage VOIP phone! Run back to the bedroom to grab my cell and wife says "dont go out.. sounded like a gun shot".. Told her a guy has crashed his car and ran out again and this time reached 911. They promptly send a few cops, fire trucks, PG&E and there was lot of action. 

Turned out the guy was not sober and there were live wires that almost reached the ground! Good thing the cop told me to stay back and took the guy back. After watching the person go through a sobriety test and being taken away in handcuffs, then came the tow trucks, the spill cleanup crew, and more cops. Finally went to bed at 3AM knowing power was not going to be restored anytime soon. 

Went to one of the guys and asked him "can I take my car out of the driveway in a few hours?" and he gives me the look! 

They had put some absorbent stuff all outside our driveway to get all the stuff that leaked from the blown transformer. 

So yoga in the morning was out. Yoga in the afternoon was also out. Finally got out of the house for an evening class and came back feeling good. We still did not have power and the wife wisely adviced me to shower at BYSJ before coming home. 

After 18 plus hours of non stop work, the guys got power back to us 20 mintues ago! 

Thanked the guys for their service. These guys are our true heroes!

Life is always interesting in the Narayanan household...

Dreading that day..

Jr. is part of a student exchange program and is spending the spring break in Asia. Given dads struggles in Asia over the last three years to get around, get the right food etc. and realizing learning Mandarin in your forties is not easy no matter how many languages you already have a grasp of, asked her to take Mandarin in school as the language.

She thought it was a good idea and went with it. Her Chinese is already way way better than mine, given she spends an hour at least on it every day and I spend 20 mintues in the night on days I get a chance. Also that brain is more moldable!  

We dropped her off on a rainy evening to go be part of a 9 day trip to put her Mandarin to test, be with a host family, make new friends and have an experience that she will remember for a long time..

We are going through a partially empty nest syndrome this week. The house feels empty because the mom daughter or sibling fight noises have reduced to nothing! 

I know that I did this to my parents and left the house and have not gone back, but my brother stays with my parents. Not sure if either kid will stay with us the way things are going.

The little one does come and sleep on my hand every now and then. So this morning I told her

"do you want to go to 

Daddys arm college of engineering,

Daddys arm college of Medicine,

Daddys arm college of arts and sciences or

just stay with daddy?"

She gave me a shy smile and said "Daddy, you know I will have to go to College somewhere right? Don't worry, I will come back!"

Know she means it, but things will change. Made that same promise to my mom and went back on it because things changed, I changed. 

Later in the day there was a discussion about that conversation and daddy was being psychoanalyzed and the conclusion was "maybe I am scared of being alone with my wife and worried about getting her undivided attention".. 

Now that day, I dread! Right now anyone she turns her attention to, is under pressure and the three of us take turns. Imagine all the power of that glare concentrated on one person.. I will be like those ants burnt by sunlight being focused by a water drop in one of those National Geographic programs!

It is going to be an interesting time when the kids are off.. 

Technology challenges..

It has been an interesting two days. 

The last few days, there has been a problem at work where a duct spews out bursts of cold air directly above my head. My office has been trying to figure out the root cause and come up with fixes for it by blocking the vent with cardboard, building paper dampers to direct it away from my head etc.. In the meantime, I got a nice cold, thanks to that and the highly changing bay area weather. 

As most of you know, my solution to all ailments is to try doing Yoga in the hot room first before going to the doctor or resorting to any pills. So after scheduling a bunch of late night calls post 11PM, I decided to go do Yoga at 8:30 in the night. It was mildly drizzing when I went into the class and things were, lets say "pleasant".

When the class ended and we came out, there was cold winds and water coming down in intervals in sheets! I am guessing these were more than the 20 mph gusts. This was way stronger. At several points on the way home thought the Leaf was going to fly off the road. There was also a lot of palm leaves falling off the trees and flying around. 

In all of this I did not realize that there was no power in the neighborhood. I drive to the garage and the thing is not opening. I called my wife and she goes "there is no power in the house and the entire area". 

So there I am in my yoga shorts, all sweaty, with cold rain and winds trying to manually open the garage door and park my car inside.. and a gust of wind litterally sends a wave of water into the garage! 

Finally I parked the car and closed the garage door. By now any residual body heat from the yoga class is gone and I am shivering. Then I tell my dear wife "I will go take a quick shower and eat what you have made. good thing we have the flashlights". 

A few minutes later, I realize that the flashlights are the least of the problems. Turns out that the water heater we have installed as part of the new construction which is tankless, energy efficient, reduces our gas bills etc. etc. doesn't work when there is no electricity! It didn't matter anyway. It was not going to be worse than the rain. So that was the shortest coldest shower I have taken after a hot yoga class. 

Then came the dinner part. Wife says "I made stuff for you, but it is all cold. Maybe you can reheat it on the stove because you cannot microwave?"

By now I am conditioned to try everything manual have a low expectation for any gadget. So I know the pilot lamp won't work (it didn't) and use a matchstick to try and light this stove. Turns out that only the back burner turns on without a pilot. These guys have some interlock on the other stoves! 

Finally managed to reheat some stuff and eat with the flashlight and look at my phone... it has <20% charge! 

Went to the battery pack that was given as a company souvenier which is always in my travel bag and that had no charge! 

We both drive a Nissan Leaf. That means if you don't have power all night, we have to fight for the car with the most charge left.. It is a new interesting dynamic in our house.

It was a hard lesson on how dependent we are and how much we take for granted! I managed to muddle through the day and keep my thoughts going. Deifnitely feel better now, thanks to another yoga class, no manual door openings, a nice hot shower, hot tea.. and more importantly a house that is back to 68F instead of 56F!

This afternoon I was thinking about the folks in war zones. People in first world countries have no clue what those folks are going through. We are making it all worse for them by our every day thoughts and actions and what we support knowingly or unknowingly. We also take a lot for granted. The biggest rights we seem to cherish are our rights to stupidity and our right to be irresponsible when it comes to the rest of the world and the planet. At least that is my feeling right now.

A bad vent, a storm for a few hours and an all night power cut are able to make a dent in my life. That is just sad.

Time to spend more time with nature and improve my immunity to cold weather. Also time to do something about all this guilt for everything that is happening in the world!