The big weekend

Mid June brings us two events within a few days or sometimes on the same day.. Our Wedding Anniversary and Father's day.

This year we had a anniversary lunch instead of dinner as the little one had a party to go to. Their calendars are sometimes busier than ours. We skipped the trip to Ghirardeli's for ice cream this year. 

Apparently there is a plan for a suprise 25th anniversary party from the kids.. IF we last that long together (overheard that in a conversation between the kids)

I get to go do Yoga for Father's day. They let me have what I need. So far so good..

It is amazing that this girl managed to live with me for 19 years. I am not easy to live with..even I have a tough time living with myself. So definitely deserves all the credit for what we have going..

Message to my kids. Don't bet against your mother, ever! If she says we will make it to our 25th anniversary, we WILL! 

This year, there was some gardening work on Father's day. Many a tree, shrub has been planted in this house "in the name of the father" and few survived.. the pomogranate tree that gave our front yard its beauty died after we did the room extension that came too close to it. Cleared it out and planted something else in its place in hopes that this will be the new star of the front yard. Counting on Yamagami nursery plants being better than Home Depot ones! 

Happy father's day to all the dads and kids who celebrate father's day! We are now past the age where the kids bring trinkets as gifts. They don't even try to be nice to me on father's day.  Maybe this new trend will change again after a few years.

Apparently there is a facebook forward that shows a kid's message to his mom saying "Happy mothers day. Your mothers day would not be possible without me. I am in the front room waiting for a gift" or some such thing. My kids tried to point that out to me.. My response "I will celebrate fathers day to thank my dad and I am not even expecting anything from him!".

They do still love my "sambar flavor" Maggi and for that I am eternally grateful..

Yet another attempt at sitting still

The weekend was spent in painting the little one's room. When she got her own room, she opted for a pink accent wall with light pink walls. I told her that the whole room will reflect pink off of everything but she was like "this is my room. can we please go with what I want?!". Having been through this exercise with all the women in the house, I just didn't bother to argue.

The room did turn out to be pink everywhere and she kept silent for almost a year and a half. Then she slowly started "termiting" me (she keeps asking till I have to give in even if I act like her request is not reaching my ears). Her room is "too pink" and there is not enough light to study (that was hitting me below the belt). So we need to keep the accent wall but take the three other walls and make them white. 

The project was a success, with a lot of sincere and hard work from the girl herself, moving ladders, handing me the brush dipped in paint etc.. etc. We were both proud of the effort this morning when everything was done and we peeled off all the masking tape. The best part of painting rooms is when you peel off the masking tape and you get sharp edges on the walls!

My shoulders were sore. Also I didn't stop to drink water while painting which was a mistake. After the whole thing was finished, decided to drink water and sit down for some time. Then I thought instead of sitting down, why not try to meditate in lotus pose again and see if my focus has improved over last three months..

Turns out, it has!

Managed to sit still was close to 75 minutes. Will see in a few months if I can do this for 90 minutes. Sitting still for 90 minutes is equally difficult for me as doing a 90 minute yoga class where we alternate between asanas and shavasana. I always stuggle with Shavasana. Even in this attempt it was probably 15-20 minutes before I was in white space (or gold space) and around 50 minutes (the usual place where I give up because my legs desperately want to come out) there is some blues and greens. Don't know what the color trasitions mean but maybe someday I will understand. 

When I came out my kids said "so you successfully wasted an hour?!". They should try this someday to know how hard this is. 

The practice continues...

Unintended consequences

As a person working very hard to bring a new better memory to market.. lower power, higher density at lower cost etc. just to name a few attributes, I delude myself into thinking that this memory will make the world a better place. 

You can go directly alter bytes in this memory so there is not a lot of copying back and forth happening.. People will save power and if you take every pico joule saved and multiply it by a jillion copies, those things add up to Giga Watts in no time.  Used to think that all those twitter retweets and facebook shares are melting icebergs that this memory is going to change.

Then again, Enrico Fermi or Einstein did not think Hiroshima when they did the work on nuclear fission. Hiroshima happened anyways.

Why bring all this up?

A little more than a month ago saw this mami (aunty) on the flight from India to US. She was looking for a charger desperately.. think "Eastwood as Blondie crawling on the desert floor looking for a drop of water" desperate! Finally she found one.. 

Turns out you can download old Tamil serial episodes on an iPad and binge watch them at airports. Not sure what service they use or if Netflix now has megaserials like Chitti and all 1890 episodes of Metti oli! (not kidding.. that serial actually had 1890 episodes and my wife and MIL probably watched every episode). 

There was a time when Jr. would not eat her dinner unless she heard the title song of Metti oli. It was so pavlovian that I actually recorded that song on a VHS tape and took it to Australia with us when she was 20 months old. We had to play it there to be able to feed her! (these were pre-Youtube days.. now you can enjoy it by clicking this link... I am sure when Jr. watches this after almost 13-14 years, she will turn into the Winter Soldier)

To think that all my hard work bringing in a new memory for the people is going to enable replays of Delhi Kumar walking down the street to his house, while pausing a few times to try and remember what he forgot for a full 30 minute episode is heartbreaking to say the least. 

Delhi Kumar alone is responsible for a few glaciers disappearing, leave alone those poor polar bears desperately trying to find that next floating piece of ice to survive. 

By that token Radhika Sarathkumar has single handedly raised ocean levels by a centimeter over just a decade!

Apparently there is an age you cross, when these Tamil mega serials (Soap operas) start appealing to you, per mom, MIL, and dad. My FIL seems to have skipped this age. 

Hoping that someone euthanises me if I succumb to watching Tamil serials.. at any age!