Life is normal?

It sure was nice to have a regular weekend at home. I am starting to say home when I mean Bangalore now, I guess that means I am really getting accustomed to being here.
Friday night Anna had a school dance, and she looked very grown up--EEKS!! She came home with three of her friends who spent the night. They stayed up late, baked cup cakes, ate chips and watched movies. Fortunately they were considerate and didn't keep us up.
Saturday was a day spent mostly on household and personal things. I went and got a haircut for a whopping Rs40. For that 40 Rupees, I got a haircut, beard trim, shave, and a head massage. The estabilshment, Super Gents Beauty Parlor, is just around the corner from our house. I could have walked there, but I asked Manju to drive for a couple of reasons, I wanted to make a quick trip as Cindy needed me back at the house, and I wanted an estimate of what the haircut should cost. Remember that I got a haircut at the mall shortly after we arrived, I paid RS450 then. I guess I'll skip the mall from now on. After I got back, Cindy went to pick up her new outfit for the wedding we were invited to on Monday. I stayed home, waited for the UPS (Uninteruptable Power Supply) to be installed, and for Anna and her friends to wake up, have breakfast etc.
After Cindy got back and Anna's friends were gone, we went shopping for Flowers to bring to the wedding, and for an outfit for Anna to wear. Anna was a bit tired and it wasn't the most fun outing, but we saw some wonderful art at the "mall" where we went-- It is called Raintree. Then we went home and watched some movie on TV.
Sunday we let the driver have the day off, and we just stayed home. Cindy was knitting, I connected the printer to the computer and updated sw, finally I cooked pasta for dinner. All in all, just a nice relaxing day at home.
Monday we went to the wedding reception. I had asked what kind of a gift we should bring, and 2 different co-workers suggested that flowers were very appropriate, so we brought a nice large bouquet. Cindy had a beautiful red outfit with gold and sequins on it. Anna was in a very nice black skirt with white top. I didn't get pictures, but Cindy did. I hope she posts a couple of them for you all to see. We were advised to arrive around 1 hour after the invitation stated. We did and it seems we arrived just at the right time. Things were just getting rolling. The Bride and Groom came in, followed by the videographer, then they got up on stage and stood waiting for people to come greet them and get pictures. As I am the bride's superior at work, I was apparently a guest of honor and got to go up in the second group, after all of the men in the family went up for greetings and pictures. Then we were ushered down to a large room downstairs. There were about 15 people ahead of us. We sat down at long narrow tables with cups and bananna leaves on them. We were instructed to wash the leaf off (actually it was done for us). Then a parade of men with buckets of various vegetable dishes, rice, desserts and bread came by the other side of the table and filled the leaf with food, and then they came back and served seconds, and then thirds. We all managed to eat with our right hand only, and left the table totally stuffed. While we were eating the room had filled up pretty well, and they were already cleaning off the table ahead of us, and the other end of ours before we were done eating.
We were ushered up stairs again to the reception hall. People were still standing in line to talk to the bride and groom. We were told they might be there till 11pm or later, we had arrived at 7. After they met the bride and groom, they went down to eat. We met several relatives of the bride and groom, and spent a long time talking with one gentleman who lives 6 months of the year in Banglore and 6 months of the year in the USA. He got his US citizenship, and worked there for many years. He and his wife are both retired now. Anyways after another hour or so, we decided it was time to leave so that Anna could complete some of her homework. We got home just in time for Manju to dash off to catch the last bus home. What a day!! But we survived our first Indian wedding reception.

Of Grammys and Appliances

Sitting here watching the Grammys, yes we get them on delay in prime time here, I was reminded of our Fridge. I know, most appliances make some sort of noise, but most of them not musical. So why does watching the Grammys make me think of the fridge? Because ours sings to us. No really it does. When the door is left open too long it plays an electronic version of It's a Small Small World. Really pretty amusing when you think about it. It is a small world and we should take care of it by not wasting energy. The best part is that if you even leave the door open for just a few extra seconds more than it takes to reach in and grab the milk, when the door is closed it kind of whimpers the first 2 notes.

As for other things electrical, I called about our UPS today and our water filter. Both will be taken care of soon, ie nothing has been done yet. So more waiting and unfortunately another day for Cindy to stay home for the installers. Also I called about our couch which was supposed to be re-upholstered. In the afternoon I got a call from someone who said something like "mumble MG Road mumble Glass Samples mumble mumble office." I guessed he was coming to show me some samples of something and wanted to know where my office was. Sure enough he had fabric samples for the couch--which we ordered over 3 weeks ago and would be ready in a few days.... They hadn't even started. Worst yet, the sample wasn't really very nice, so now we need to figure out how to get something better. This means even more waiting. Oh well, welcome to Indian Stretchable Time.

Other than that, my trip to Finland was short but necessary. Unfortunately I didn't get to go back by Giselle on the way home, but I had been away from home for almost 2 weeks straight and needed to be back with people here. I hope to stay in India through March now (wish me luck).

Dodging Storms

I'm just back from China. It was a quick trip. I spent 2 days traveling and 2 days there. Fortunately I got out just in time. I got an sms from a co-worker as I was returning which described Gridlock in Hangzhou from all of the snow. My flight out was at 8:50 (we left at 9:30 due to de-icing), but I was really worried when I got to the airport. I had heard that they had closed down the airport due to snow earlier in the week, and the flight before mine to Hong Kong was cancelled due to weather at the airport. Since I was also outbound for Hong Kong, I thought I was in trouble. Fortunately China Eastern Air was willing/able to still leave.

I also heard horror stories from co-workers who had come into Shanghai the day before me. It took one of them 5 hours of sitting on the road for a 2 hour trip. Fortunately I had no trouble, other than a driver who was 1/2 hour late picking me up. Not much really, considering. The road was all clear.

I didn't get any pictures this time, too cold to wander around much and the trip was too short to do much anyways. The skys were grey and the weather was COLD--especially after coming from Bangalore where it is between 25-30C every day now--just nice. I felt strange carrying my wool coat and rain-overcoat to the airport, but I was very glad to have it with me in China. Worse yet was carrying the heavy coat, along with my permitted 2 bottles of wine, back and having to wait for Manju to get to the airport to pick me up. Traffic was heavy in Bangalore around the airport when I returned. But being back was really nice, it was feeling like home...

On the way home I saw an auto-rickshaw with an interesting handpainted sign on the back. This was one of those-darn, where is my camera moments. Oh well, I'll just have to describe it. It was in small nice letters, and it said "Don't Pullet". I think it is supposed to say "don't pollute" which is a bit of a laugh on a diesel belching auto-rickshaw, but the sentiment is nice. On the other hand he could be admonishing traffic not to play chicken--which seems to be another Indian traffic management technique. I guess it could be described as making the most use of all possible pavement surfaces. If the oncoming traffic is not as heavy as your direction, just pull out and claim more of the road's width to accommodate traffic in your direction--as long as there isn't a bus coming in the other direction.

Anyways we had a fairly relaxing weekend, complete with a nap in the shade behind the house where there was an already installed set of rings for a hammock.

We also got our shipment in from the states finally. It took me about an hour at customs. Most of the time was spent in a warehouse where the receiving shipper was looking for our crates. Customs went through most of the boxes, but didn't seem too interested to dig too deeply, which was nice. It could have taken a lot longer. Now we have some real cooking utensils, etc...

Earlier last week, we had someone in to install curtain rods. Take a look at how his extension cord was plugged in. This is typical in India. On the same day I saw the guy who was installing shower curtain rods sitting on the floor with a metal pipe across his foot, to create some space between the rod and the floor. He was cutting with a hacksaw, about 1/4 inch from the end of his big toe. Later I saw the curtain rod guy with a similar setup, but he had the other end of the rod in between his big and pointer toe on the other foot to hold it still...

That's all for now, I'm getting on a plane for Helsinki in a little bit.