There Ought To Be A Law...

....against husbands who have a sleepless night and embrace the philosophy of misery loves company by waking you up at 4:10 AM by repeated heavy sighing and flopping around like a fish caught in a net. 

The Prisoner Pear

I just finished reading this incredible book of short stories.  I highly recommend it.  The author is a friend of mine, which makes it especially cool.  Check it out at Amazon or Powell's. 

Happy New Year!

I am a creature of habit.  Possibly too much so.  I like my days to have a certain amount of routine and consistency.  Do you know what the polar opposite of that is?  Winter Break.  Given the trip to India and our slow recovery, I purposefully left the two weeks of break wide open.  I quickly realized my mistake:  I'd left the two weeks of break wide open!  What was I thinking??  Actually, the kids did well.  We scheduled playdates, visited the science center, went to the movies.  For the first time in my 8 1/2 years of being a parent, the children both slept in on a regular basis.  When school is in session, I get up at 6:15 and start my day.  I exercise, shower, and by the time the kids get up, the coffee maker is gurgling and I have a load of laundry churning in the washer.  The sound of appliances hard at work fills me with efficient satisfaction.  While sleeping in is glorious, no doubt, it leaves me anchorless and  I spend the rest of the day playing catch-up.  I could've continued to set my alarm, but it was hard to grasp that this late sleeping was for real.  Every night I assumed it was a fluke and I'd go to bed expecting to be awakened around 7 AM.  One morning we didn't wake up until 9:00.  That's like, noon in parent time!

On New Year's Eve, we went to a hockey game.  (Ritu and I are big hockey fans.  In fact, our first offical date was a Michigan basketball game followed by a Michigan hockey game.)  Every New Year's Eve, our local hockey team, the Winterhawks, plays a 5 PM game.  Afterwards, there are player autographs and games for the kids out on the stadium concourse.  At 9 PM, they show the ball dropping in Times Square on the jumbo-tron scoreboard and have a balloon drop there in the stadium.  We went with another family who have children the same ages as ours.  The Winterhawks played their biggest rival, the Seattle Thunderbirds.  The Winterhawks scored three quick goals during the second period.  With each goal, the crowd would erupt.  Each time, Juliana would shove her plate of pizza at me to hold, jump up, cheer and dance, THEN turn to me and ask "What happened?"  I fear she may be a candidate for a cult later in life. 

During the third period, there was a brawl.  An excellent brawl.  Even our goalie skated the length of the ice to fight with the Seattle goalie.  I'll admit, there I was, a few months shy of 40, on my feet cheering and singing along with the Beastie Boys song being blasted over the loudspeakers.  You know, you DO have to fight for your right to party.  All in all, it was a fun night and we were home by 9:45 PM.  That's like, midnight in parent time!

A HinJew Christmas

My sister and I have a holiday tradition.  On Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (or often both) we'll call each other and have the following conversation:  "Aren't you so bored?"  "Oh my God, I am SO bored!"  As non-Christians on Christmas, we don't feel left out, but we do love to wallow in how there's nothing for us to do.  As we both live in large cities now, there are of course, many things for us to do, but this tradition hearkens back to our upbringing in Oil City, Pennsylvania where the population was scant and we were two of maybe four Jewish kids in our entire school system.  There was NOTHING for us to do on Christmas.  One year, our local Pizza Hut held a Christmas Eve buffet and we decided to go.  We figured we'd be the only people there, so imagine our surprise when there was a line out the door.  My mother was outraged.  "What is wrong with these people?  Why aren't they home with their families celebrating?  Who the hell comes to Pizza Hut for Christmas?"  We continued that ritual for many years afterwards: the pizza, the salad bar, the righteous indignation. 

While I know many more Jewish people these days, most of them are in mixed families and generally Christmas is celebrated on some level.  I still have conversations with people who can't grasp the fact that we don't celebrate Christmas at all.  "But you still do Santa, right?"    Uh, no.  Their gaze lingers on me for an extra second and I know they are debating whether Social Services needs to be informed.  I know many people see Christmas as a mostly secular holiday.  Call me a stickler, but if it's got Christ's name right in the title, I think it's best reserved for Christians.  I'm sure not long ago there were similar debates: "Take back that candy...he was SAINT Valentine, for God's sake."   Oh well, turns out eggnog is a tougher sell than chocolate. 

As we don't celebrate Christmas, Ritu always volunteers to work.  This generally guarantees him time off at Thanksgiving and New Year's.  And sure, there are things the kids and I could go out and do, but I like having the excuse of Christmas to stay in and relax.  I blame the last minute crowds or tell the kids that everythingis closed and we hole up at home.  Tonight after dinner, we all sat happily in the kitchen with Christmas music playing on the radio. (I have a great fondness for Christmas music.  I blame my mother who can both harmonize Oh Come All Ye Faithful AND sing it in Latin.)  I was knitting and the children were working quietly at various art projects.  It was just like a Norman Rockwell scene.  You know, had he painted HinJews not celebrating Christmas. 

Nothing Says Stay-At-Home Mom Like....

.....realizing belatedly that the whole time I was meeting with the nice man about refinishing our wood floors I had two large Winnie The Pooh stickers affixed to the front of my sweatshirt.  <sigh> 

Snow Day

Here in the Willamette Valley, we have two basic seasons.  Sunny and dry (which lasts from July through September) and rainy (which spans the other 9 months).  The rainy season comes with a variety of temperature ranging from hot and steamy to cold and clammy.  Usually in the winter months, the temperature hovers in the low 40s.  This makes true winter weather a huge event here.  For days, there has been talk of an ice storm.  General consensus was a slight chance of freezing rain around 6 PM with a definite chance closer to midnight.  The children had plans to go downtown for a 5 PM performance of The Nutcracker with my uncle.  I considered waiting til they left to run to the grocery store, but ultimately decided to go at 9 AM before Ritu left for work.  The triple whammy of Sunday morning, pre-Christmas week, and storm anticipation left the grocery store grid-locked.  As I was sailing through sans-children, I found it amusing, particularly the men standing around looking dazed, clutching grocery lists.  A quick check of my cart confirmed my plan to snack the children through the bad weather.  Popcorn?  Check.  Four boxes of orange jello?  Check.  (Some people make holiday sugar cookies.  We made jello jigglers and cut them out with Chanukah cookie cutters.  My holiday spirit is waning just a tad this year.)  I stared long and hard at the Poptarts, but ultimately resisted.

At 1:00 David was up the street at a friend's house and Juliana was in the shower.  I'd made arrangements for my uncle to pick them up at 4.  Just then I heard a light clattering on the window.  Sure enough, the freezing rain had started.  Only it wasn't freezing rain at all.  After a few minutes, it turned to snow.  So, the small amount of freezing rain slated to start at 6 PM evolved into snow at 1 PM that lasted for about three straight hours.  I don't think it's snowed here in 2 years.  Personally, I love the snow.  I especially love that it only happens every 2 years.  But while it's here, I am absolutely delighted by it.  I love how it looks swirling through the air and I love the soft scratchy sound it makes when it lands on the hydrangea.

Juliana and I immediately went outside.  She ran around playing while I filled all the birdfeeders and moved the hummingbird feeder to the Inclement Weather Hummingbird Feeder Spot. (You have no idea the stress I am under to preserve the local hummingbird population when it snows.) 

But now, do you see the problem? After a slew of back and forth phone calls, the plans for the Nutcracker were dashed.  My few precious hours of peace, quiet and alone-time had evaporated.  The only conclusion was that Mother Nature had personally conspired against me.  (As my friend Donyal said, "You'd think a Mother would understand!")

The good news was that Ritu got to leave work early.  The roads here were awful, despite the fact that only about a scant 1/2 inch of snow had accumulated.  Here in the land of tree-huggers, they won't salt the roads as it gets into the runoff water and affects the salmon population.  Instead we have like, 3 guys and a bucket of sand working to make the roads passable.  What normally takes 15 minutes to drive took him  over an hour and he was forced to ditch his car at the bottom of the neighborhood and walk the last half mile home. 

Last night there were more dire warnings of the second wave of freezing rain headed our way.  We woke this morning to temperatures above freezing and regular ol' rain falling.  A bit anti-climactic for sure.  But the jello jigglers turned out well.  Just wish I'd had some vodka.

The Taj Mahal

Wednesday morning we left the hotel at 7:30 to see the Taj Mahal.  (Here's a super quick history of the Taj Mahal.)  We wanted to beat both the crowds and the heat.  We arrived at the south entrance and met up with Papu so he could talk to somebody he knew and get us in free.  (Now, I don't want to say that Indians are cheap, but the admission was only $5 per person and kids under 15 were free.  Indian nationals only pay 10 rupees which is like 25 cents.)  The Taj Mahal is right in the middle of things.  Maybe someplace else is a large entrance that accommodates tour buses and things like that, but I didn't see it.  To get to this entrance we drove down a narrow,  regular street and just stopped at the gate. Here's a pic of the way we came down.  The red archway in the distance is the entrance.

There is a security line before you can enter.  Men go through one line and there is a separate one for women where a female attendant searches your bag and pats you down.  You can take very little in with you, both for security reasons and to cut down on littering.  Once you proceed through the gate, you are in a an area of grounds that are intersected by walkways and bordered by red sandstone buildings which used to serve as guest houses for visiting dignitaties.   At this point, the Taj Mahal is not yet in view.  There is still one more gate through which to travel.  Here is the view from the entrance looking towards the final gate.

As you approach the gate, suddenly, there through the archway, completely centered in the distance is the Taj Mahal.  There air is hazy and the effect is that the Taj floats before you like a dream or a mirage.  The contrast of the gleaming white marble and the red stone buildings is stunning.  It's almost surreal to see it hovering in the distance.  No matter how many pictures you've seen of it, they don't do it justice. 

The Taj is surrounded by expansive grounds.  Everything is symmetrical:  a gate to the west and a matching one to the east.  Lawns, fountains, and red sandstone walkways are laid out in perfect precision.  To me, (not surprisingly) the effect of all the symmetry is a sense of extreme peacefulness. 

On the building itself, the designs are made with inlaid stones and gems.  Our guide showd us how, when the sun glints off the edge, the stones sparkle like glass.  Apparently the sight under a full moon is something to behold.  You can go inside the building and see the top of the tomb.  The sun only filters in there, but the guide took a penlight and held it flush against the marble.  He slowly slid it down across the wall and when the light hit the inlaid designs, they glowed like fire.  I think I could've stood there all day watching that.

Here's a family portrait.  (Yes, we're all wearing Michigan clothes.  Wanna make something of it?  We're hoping to submit the pic to the alumni magazine.)

The Taj Mahal is only a few blocks away from where my mother-in-law grew up and she told of walking through the grounds on her way to school.  Often in the evenings, her family would come and picnic on the lawns.  Now, her family home has been leased to the government and the military guards who staff the Taj use it as living quarters.  We walked the few blocks to her house and were able to go inside.  It's three stories, built around a courtyard.  When it was first built, it was the tallest building in the area.  Ritu said that when he was little and came to India, he knew that if he got lost, all he had to do was say his Grandfather's name and someone would bring him straight home.  Although many building have been built in the area since then, you can still see the Taj in the distance from the rooftop.