Learning to Exhale

Christmas Eve! I picked up some things I need for my salad tomorrow – beets, pea shoots, extra virgin olive oil, Tuscan bread. The stores today were busy but not crazy, impatient busy. Or maybe it felt that way to me because I was more focused in my purchases this time and was not dashing about madly. While I’m not an overly last-minute kind of person, I have felt that my gift-purchasing technique leaves much to be desired. I make a list and then add things to it as I'm browsing the stores. I always wonder if I have enough for such-and-such person and then I buy another thing or two. Not only is this technique guaranteed to raise your anxiety levels sky-high, it also means that you will end up with bags of gifts in your closet from years past that were not given to the intended recipient, as it seemed like overkill when the time came to wrap it all up (pun intended). Some of the toys that I had bought for my kids are now past their age-appropriateness and will have to be given away as birthday presents.

To combat this unfortunate tendency, I made a list this year. And, although it was very hard, I stuck to it. It meant that I had to force myself to leave cosmetics stores having bought exactly one perfume and without the added brush and hair accessories that I would have thrown into my basket in previous years. When it came to buying a gift for X, I bought the sweater that I had noted down and regretfully left behind the cute little leather wristlet that I spied in the corner and that I thought went so well with it. When I had the Sticky Mosaics wrapped up, (the one that M. loves and the one that is not out till April but that my local toy store owner had managed to order), I stopped with that. No little dolls or stuffed candy cane shaped toys. Sticking to this strategy means that, for the first time in years, I have time to relax and read a book on Christmas Eve. The presents are ready, the cookies for Santa are baked (done by K. and the kids), the outstation gifts have been sent. So, this year it’s just me and my book – and my computer. And I can actually go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. Merry Christmas!

Shubho Noboborsho and Happy Baisakhi

In honor of the Bengali New Year and the Punjabi Baisakhi, we went to eat at the Indian restaurant Bangalore in Fairfield. I was looking forward to this as I felt that finally M. was big enough to sit through a meal at a restaurant and so we could all enjoy our dinner at leisure. The restaurant is a pleasant place, the food is very good, but the service was very disappointingly hit-or-miss. Now this is not a hole-in-the-wall place so one is definitely expecting better than for one's dinner to arrive in fits and starts with long gaps between dishes. The waiters were quite sweet and very polite and you knew it wasn't their fault that the cooks were not producing the dishes in a timely way. But we all ate in a staggered way and needless to say, by the time my Rava Masala Dosa arrived, the kids were quite done and then it was all over for me. It was back to the bad old snarfing-down-my food ritual to the chorus of "can we go home now?" "are you done?" "I'm full" "I'm tired." Hmmm....maybe we will try this going out to eat business in two more years.

Happy Holi

It's a gray, wet, cold day here in Fairfield County, Connecticut. It's Holi and I am dry and not dyed in a rainbow hue. People in India have had a lot of fun today, celebrating Holi, the festival of colors, while here I hide under layers of woolies and carry an umbrella when I go out on errands. Holi was the one holiday that I found both enjoyable and very disconcerting when I lived in India. It was a world turned upside down where grown-ups behaved like children, running around throwing water balloons at each other and at us. There was lunch at the club and as many cokes as your little mouth could gulp down, before you had to go home to be hosed down.

When I moved to Delhi as a college student, I found Holi far less attractive as the rowdies on the streets - testoterone-charged young men looking for women to grope under the excuse of Holi revelry - were out in strength at this time. The best way to enjoy Holi is in a small circle of friends and family - known faces - with whom you can spend a fun and sometimes, er...a pleasantly-buzzed morning and afternoon.