To moms everywhere

When one gets to see one's mom face to face once every two years and on video calls once in 3 months, an official  "mother's day" is warranted. 

Being at home for Mother's day is also a nice thing. Was supposed to come back Saturday, but came in a day early thanks to another food poisoning scare. At this point, I need a quick test to check the food before eating it to find out if it will make me throw up. Someone should come up with a field test equipment to check foods for allergens. 

This morning the mother hen got a lot of gifts and we have all been on our best behaviour, although the day is far from over and it is too early to call. Given that previous sentence, you get the general picture that the average day for San is a disappointing one. 

Over the last year and a half, given my travel schedule, the dynamic in the house has changed a lot. Have seen too many traveling men lose their families (out of sight, out of mind, right?!) and the ones that still have their families being reduced to the same treatment as an ATM machine. 

Do not want to end up like that. So my own insecurities have led me to be the good cop more often than in years before. That makes San the bad cop all the time and the kids really take it out on her. She has gone and cried her eyes out on multiple occasions last year because the kids saw her as "some kind of enemy" and I did not step in enough to take sides.  Again, these are perceptions and perceptions are a precursor to reality.

There is another issue with taking sides when three girls are fighting. One minute they are fighting. Next minute they are best friends and the one guy in the house, who took sides is the bad guy, simply because he took sides! So it is a lose-lose situation for me if I take sides. Having learned that the hard way, I sit outside the ring and watch. 

All I wanted to do was wish everyone a happy mothers day and this post is meandering out of control. So getting back on topic, today has been a good and peaceful day so far. 

Called my mother and wish her a Happy Mother's day. Her remote controlling abilities on me are waning and it is noticeable. These days there is no guilt tripping, no lecturing, etc. There is just a quiet resignation to the fact that her son is not going to do a desk job and is unlikely to stop traveling in the near future in spite of all her pleas and all she can do is to pray for my health.

The fact that my grandma is not doing well, is more on her mind than anything. Have made a resolution that before this year ends, will go spend a few days or at least a weekend with my parents.

Then I went to yoga class this morning. The owner of the studio, was on the adjacent mat. For those readers who do not know her, think of the Mother Superior in the Convent schools we see in our Tamil and Malayalam movies, and square it. Two weeks ago, she had planned to do back to back classes and for some reason got pulled back to attend to urgent business before the second class. So her empty mat was there next to mine. The thought that she might show up suddenly on that mat anytime, scared me enough to give 120% for the first 20 mintues of class. The Virtual teacher was scarier than the real one.  

There are only two scenarios that are more serious than having the Yoga Matriarch on that next mat, real or virtual.

a. My MIL on the next mat. 

b. My mom on the next mat

Two women who are capable of pushing me with that "mom sentiment". 

a. has happened and has been verified, while b. is highly unlikely to happen in this lifetime.

All that said, my Yoga teachers are my "in-loco-moms" now. They make sure I don't get away with any slacking. They also care in a way only a mom cares for you. Push you a little bit over the edge knowing that falling is part of learning to walk. 

I type this with the realization that one has to be really fortunate and have good Karma, to be surrounded by women who make your world worth living.

Here's to moms!

Happy mothers day everyone. 

Now, have to go and make sure the rest of the day is peaceful ! 

ps. Was searching for a good photo of my dad for him to use on his cell phone ID in India and found these ones from 4 years ago. The first one is "mom, the by the book south Indian wife" and the second one is "mom, the school teacher who taught for 42 years and retired"

Daddy gets a trophy.. among other things!

The blog has seen a long break. It has been a rollercoaster ride for the Traveling Narayanan's if we can say that.

First we had a nice Saturday evening last week with dressing up and going to a temple. Even clicked a gorgeous snap of the little one as she was shy and blushing when I complimented her on her paavaadai (frock).

Then like San says "Don't cast your admiring eyes on her.. bad things happen!" (what she says in Tamil is "kuzhandhaikku un kanne pattudum") and who knows maybe that is true.

San left on a business trip to China the very next morning and she pretty much took the family luck with her. The house has been seeing things like never before to the point where we look like the Indian village after the Sankara stones were stolen from it in the Indiana Jones movie! We need our Sangeetha stone back.. We demand it!

The little one came home Monday with a 103 fever and missed school for most of last week. She also passed on a cold and sore throat to daddy and grandma. Fortunately Jr. avoided her little sister for as much as she could and that saved her.  

To top things off, daddy went to the dentist with pain for the black tooth and ended with a double root canal and a bad prognosis for both front tooth. Apparently the last root canal was not sealed off properly and the black tooth was not black because it was dead. When my local dentist removed the plug, everyone pretty much reeled back from the rotten smell that came out of the tooth, except for me as I was in the chair and could not move my nose away from my open mouth! It was a small logistics problem that no yoga pose can accomplish. There is a 50/50 chance that I will lose both my front teeth in six months or so I am told. If things work out, the tooth will survive and hang in there.

Dentures at 40?! Not so looking forward to that. Again, we need our Lucky girl to come back from China..

Every morning the scene in the bedroom looks like this..

That and a big pile of blankets and comforters that need to be laundered, if the little one decided to throw up her dinner in the middle of the night. I figured that it was better to leave them in a balled up pile and do laundry in the morning than do 3AM laundry. Just got tired of it.. and believe me when I say this.. we do a lot of laundry in this house. Every week we wash 35 towels just for Yoga!

Finally we got to the weekend after making it on a one day at a time mode during the week and there was one bright spot. Yesterday, it was time for Daddy to go get his 60 day Challenge trophy! That was for doing 60 yoga classes in 60 days in Jan, Feb and early March. 

Daddy did make it to almost 73+ classes in 73 days and then it stopped early this week. Well, it will start again.

Jr. took this photo after the little one suggested "Appa, you got a tropy. But you should put a picture of you doing yoga now and show people how well you are doing, before putting the trophy picture". Well, have definitely redistributed weight around, a lot of fat is gone and new muscle is there. I am reasonably sure that if it were not for the Yoga marathon, would have fallen ill a lot more what with all the sickness going around in the house and everywhere in the bay area in general. At one point 8 kids were out sick in the little one's class including her.

Definitely recommend the 60 day challenge to all Bikram Yoga practitioners. We spent Saturday evening listening to the stories of all the folks who finished the challenge and it was truly inspiring. Daddy got to say his story also and he pretty much stopped short of doing a demo, throwing the little one in the air and catching her. There is still a lot to improve if you look at the picture above. Yes, the hamstrings and core are strong enough to lift the body off the ankle, but if you see the symmetry in the shoulders and the legs, it is clear that there is a lot of compensation going on to keep the balance. Well there is a lifetime of yoga left to correct these things. . .

 After we listened to everyone tell their story, there was a raffle and guess what? The kids won the raffle. I say the kids because at one point my MIL was worried about the kids going to bed late and the little one falling sick again.  They both insisted they stay for the raffle and I quote the little one "I think today my luck is going to change. I am sick but we are going to win!" and Jr.'s ticket was the winning ticket! We got a bunch of Yoga goodies as part of the raffle. The shirt which two years earlier would have been two sizes too small.. fits daddy perfectly! 

We really missed Sangeetha at this Challenge party. There was no trophy, if she had not pushed me to go. Three days into the challenge she even said "are you just going there and sitting down for a lot of poses or are you doing your very best?". While she was only kidding, that gave me the idea to track down how many poses I actually miss in the Challenge and was planning on doing one extra class for every 26 missed.  She also took a lot of the pick up drop off duty on days where my resolve was wearing down a bit so I could switch to evening classes instead of morning for a full week.  So technically she gets a tropy for supporting it.

We are just a couple of days away from Mommy's return trip back home.

On a funny note one of her co-workers asked her "I heard you are a vegetable. Is that true?" and she knew the co-worker meant "vegetarian" but was not sure how to answer.

Later in the week when she found out that the little one was sick, she went to some local Lama temple as part of sightseeing and prayed to the local god..

I am reasonably sure that her prayer went something like this "Dear Lama god, please make sure my little one stops throwing up fast. she has been throwing up too long" and the Lama god went "okay.. I got this one. Let me stop. You want the little one to throw up long and fast.. Done!"

It might have done us some good if she had a translator before she went into the temple.

Well, we are counting days and that is all there is to it. Our luck will change when she is back. We know it!