Rites of passage

If you are from Vanatu and you go through a rite of passage odds are there is a vine tied to your feet and you are going to take a 80 foot fall..

However, if you are born to a geek the rite of passage might simply be the handing of a Scientific Calculator from your dad..

Yes! My daughter is now a fifth grader and today was her first day of school. The back to school list said "Scientific Calculator" and she insisted on buying one at target as part of the "back to school" shopping ritual last week.

"Naansense!" said daddy in his typical Tamil accent. We shall have a small ritual at home where Jr. will get the keys to geekdom!

Problem was the calculator which was dad's first (the family's first for that matter) was a 1989 vintage Casio and it has been sleeping in dad's collection of memorabilia in a shoebox for the last 12 or so years.

Today the old "Novino" batteries purchased someplace in Varanasi in early nineties was replaced with some Kirkland batteries from Costco and the thing powered up!

Hat's off to Casio for making something this good. There was no battery leak in the battery compartment either! So a big thanks to Novino also for making some amazing batteries!

Jr. was happy that she gets to use the same calculator as daddy! Daddy is so proud that Jr. is using a Scientific calculator in fifth grade when he used it for his freshman year in college!

It is a win-win!

Summer success

Jr. has been busy with a nintendo DS. In spite of our pushing her to do something else to occupy her time from a learning perspective she has been busy with the DS.

The only things she has done to make a pleading daddy happy are

Read the first Harry Potter book. She is halfway through the book and seems to enjoy it so far. How a kid who loved books till second grade suddenly became averse to books is beyond us. It is not like she reads iBooks and therefore is averse to paperbacks. She just doesn't like to pick up a book. Have been trying real hard to change that and hopefully Rowling will do the trick for us.

Play the Alto Sax with coaching!

She has improved a lot in the last month and has impressed most importantly, herself! She can see that she is improving and that keeps her going.

Hope is that she will keep going and learn the saxophone to an extent where she can play a geetham on the alto sax by Navarathri. At least that was the goal set for her by daddy.

Told her that we will play a duet with Guitar and Saxophone before the Golu season begins. The little one who is now pining to learn some instrument or other overnight has volunteered to video tape said duet.

Time will tell.. through this blog of course!

A weekend in Pictures

This weekend saw a lot of activity in spite of me being down Friday and Saturday. 

Everything that happened in and out of the house was a cheerful experience.

We did the Varalakshmi pooja dinner Friday and the whole house was full of people, standing room only at one point. It was great to see the smiling faces in huddled conversations and the kids running around gleefully (if there is such a word).

Then we attended a surprise birthday party for my friend who turned 40. Yes, this year is "no one escapes the big Four O" year for our batch. There are only 4 guys I know from our batch who are waiting to celebrate within the next few months. The cake.. Oh What a cake! We have seen a lot of unique cakes over the years but this cake takes the cake!

Came home for some rest and took my parents to Shoreline park so they could watch the geese, pelicans, etc. and get some sun. It was good to get some fresh air and sit on a park bench and get more grounded with the thought processes. Kind of like going into your hard drive and killing all those threads that are running in the background!

After a long time we skipped Yoga entirely on the weekend. The body needed a lot more water and rebalancing before being confident that there wont be any dizziness once in the room. Sometimes, got to give a break when a break is due!

This morning we went and attended a "Kalyana Utsavam" at a friends house. It is a function where they conduct a marriage ceremony for the god and goddess just like the real wedding ceremony for the bride and groom. It is kind of like the "wedding rehearsal" that people conduct in marriages here which gives a "what to expect when your kids get married" before the actual wedding. The priest did a good job of explaining what was being done in a step by step way, something that more priests need to do to set the context for today's generation so they appreciate the reasoning behind the customs.

My parents enjoyed it thoroughly because they don't get to attend outside functions during their visit here but in India they are going to some function or other on a weekly basis. For me, it was great attending a function after a long time where I was not the one doing the prayer! Sometimes it is good to be in the audience.

Then more rest after some heavy food and off we went to get haircuts, an activity that was postponed by the parents demand that it wait till all the functions were done..

Both the kids now sport short hair. A big help once school starts in a few weeks as we will be going crazy with the post swim class hair dry routine and the early morning "combing" ritual which will take an extra 5 minutes.

Now an eventful weekend comes to a close and we begin yet another busy week for everyone in the family!

Happy Monday, here we come!