D for drama: January 2014

Sunday, January 26, 2014

30 things I can do in my 30s

I can

1. Talk about my weaknesses without being ashamed of them

2. Call myself a mother

3. Quit a job I love to spend more time with my family

4. Make sleep the #1 priority for my family in 2014 and feel good about it

5. Love to bits two little people who never existed two years ago

6. Kiss my husband in public and not feel self-conscious

7. Embrace my wavy-curly-messy hair and feel perfectly fine that it's not poker straight

8. Love my skin for the flawed, imperfect little bumps and bruises it is

9. Feel amazingly proud that I had two drug-free, pain-filled intense births that I joyfully experienced

10. Analyse people I meet into MBTI and Keirsey temperament and personality types

11. Savor drinking my chai for a full ten minutes without multitasking

12. Wonder how the heck my parents sailed through and are sailing through parenthood so easily

13. Listen to people without judgement

14. Listen to people without interrupting them

15. Listen to people without needing to add my opinion

16. Talk softly (ok, compared to before)

17. Drive a big fat black car in the US

18. Drive with a screaming toddler behind me and stay calm

19. Cook an authentic Mangalorian meal

20. Cook an authentic Tam Brahmin meal

21. Bake bread

22. Bake a veggie dish

23. Thank my parents instead of taking them for granted
24. Say 'I love you' to the ones I love instead of feeling all awkward about saying them and thinking "Isn't this implied? Why should I say these words aloud?"
25. Be my own boss
26. Make big eyes at myself in the mirror because I found my first grey hair
27. Accept that my husband prefers playing a world conquest game to sharing his thoughts, feelings and emotions with me on a Sunday evening
28. Realize that I kind of knew nothing in my twenties
29. Accept that I still kind of know nothing HAHAHHA
30. Maintain a blog and feverishly update it right after returning home from giving birth as though it is the most important thing in the world

Monday, January 6, 2014

Frozen in Chiberia

If there was ANY reason you ever envied me (admit that you want my Hollywood hair and Roman nose), you can erase all of that envy this week.

I am currently living in the hellhole of a city fondly nicknamed Chiberia by news stations.

I've experienced the snowmageddon, snowpocalypse or snowzilla of 2010 but Chiberia? That's a whole new level of brrrr.

YES! You got it right, Watson. Named after Siberia. That very place that has somehow never been on your '100 must-see-places-before-I-die' list. Because once you go there, you WILL die of the cold and then you won't be able to successfully complete your list. HA!

Good news is that since everybody who is even partially sane is staying home today, I asked a bunch of my Chi-town friends to send me phonecam pictures of what they are seeing right now outside their windows.

Here's a snapshot of what they most obligingly shared. Mind you, this is deceptively beautiful snow but horrifyingly, mind-numbingly dangerous minus 15F ie minus 26C weather.

Sort of like how drop dead gorgeous women are all evil witches in reality. Look but don't you dare touch. Something like that...

Thank you so much, my dear friends, for sending me pictures so promptly!

Pictures:

Andersonville

Roscoe Village-1

Roscoe village-2

Bucktown

Logan Square

Lakeview

Streeterville (view from 23rd floor, can you spot Lake Michigan?)

Lake Michigan frozen and iced over this early morning, my friend said it looked like it was 'smoking'

Old Town -view from 19th floor

The Loop - view from 27th floor

Lincoln Park-1

Lincoln Park-2

Lincoln Park-3

Bronzeville

Montgomery, IL

Just to boast that 'my snow is bigger than your snow', I requested a few special guest pics from my cousin in neighboring Michigan. Things are just as bad there, looks like.

Royal Oak (suburbs of Detroit)

And a few pics from a friend in Canada, who has thigh-high snow in her backyard. Yikes

Oakville, near Toronto

And none of this is half as bad as Grand Forks, North Dakota, where another cousin lives. The temperature is just as bad and wind chill plus driving conditions are even more challenging than in Chicago.

They can even boast of unique atmospheric occurrences out there. It was so cold, a rare sighting of a sun dog appeared. Wikipedia says that a sun- dog (or sundog), mock sun or phantom sun,scientific name parhelion (plural parhelia), is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun.

Can you see the twin rainbows on either side of the sun?

This is a far cry from my hometown, namma Madras where the temperature is currently a sunny 25C or 77F and folks are donning their monkey caps because they feel cold. Ah well. I was once exactly like them!