Tress becomes "Gary"...Or maybe it's "Gar"...

Hurricane, Shmurricane.  Earl had to die because P and I wouldn't miss Tress's bachelorette par-tay.  I mean, it was just meant to be.  Sure, the northeast has not seen a hurricane since 1991 so why wouldn't one threaten the weekend (the one weekend) my girl has her one and only bachelorette party?  I think it's the name Earl (reference: Dixie Chicks).  But, Pritty and I wouldn't be bullied by its dirty side.  It may have only been an overnight trip to Boston, but it was totally worth it.  There are some friends you just know would do anything to be a part of your big day.  Those friendships don't always survive the test of time and distance.  But the three of us are defiant.  Trust me.  The twins and I will make it through life always being a part of one another's, three engagement rings celebrated and more.

Congratulations Tress!

We celebrated in Tress style with a cooking class, wine, and the delish French cuisine we made.  It was a blast! 

And then the dessert.  Yummo!

You can find more pictures at my Picasa.  Enjoy!

Tress Bachelorette Party

Just for the kids...

A good friend of mine and I share a key interest: to give.  In this case, we are giving students knowledge.  She is helping some teachers in Kathmandu, Nepal to come up with easy-to-do science experiments for their students.  So, I have created this video of one that I do with all of my students.  It's so easy, requires hardly anything, and the students love it!

For all of the teachers in Nepal, feel free to contact me through this blog, Sabrina, or my email: mamta02@hotmail.com.  Also, the website I mention in the video is http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/, and the file about this particular experiment can be found here:  http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/science-projects/underwater-paper-magic.pdf

Enjoy!

From Nepal

It's OK and It's Not OK...

Mamta the Nomad.  Well, not exactly...but you get the point.  In my oh-so-nomad ways, I have made some observations, and I have decided that I am going to start blogging about what is okay and not okay to do in an airport or an airplane. 

It's OK...

to wait for the person in the aisle seat to get up before wriggling into your middle seat.

It's not OK...

to crawl over that person for any reason at all.  It is also not okay to expect the person in the window seat to crawl over you, the middle seat person. 

It's OK...

to ask a Southwest passenger what his/her boarding number is. 

It's not OK...

to assume his/her number is bigger than yours, and therefore, you must huff and puff your way in front of him/her.  We common LUVers make it a point to have our boarding passes in clear visibility for this very reason.  Open your eyes, Newbie.

It's OK...

to ask the Southwest gate agent for an exception in boarding order because your 8 year old granddaughter has a B boarding pass and you have a C boarding pass. 

It's not Ok...

to ask anyone else, what-so-ever, to swap boarding passes with you because they no longer check IDs at the gate.  It's illegal, and I like the fact that I am not on the no-fly list.  I plan to ensure it stays that way, thank-you-very-much.

It's OK...

to kindly and sweetly ask someone to swap seats with you so you can sit with your 8 year old granddaughter.  Even if the seat available is a middle seat in the back.  Single people have big hearts sometimes.

It's not OK...

to assume that no one will swap with you and then proceed to tell your daughter (the girl's mother) on the phone that you DID ask and NO ONE would swap.  The nerve of people...  However, I deem that it is OK for one of the nearby passengers to take the phone and tell the daughter the truth.

It's OK...

to strike up conversation with a fellow traveller. 

It's not OK...

to strike up conversation with anyone who is immersed in a book, wearing headphones, on a cell phone, or in conversation with anyone else. Period.

It's OK...

to flirt with a pretty girl while waiting to board. It's even okay to ask her if you can sit next to her.

It's not OK...

to sit next to her or to follow her if her end of the conversation sounds like this in any way :  "Yeah.  It was nice meeting you too...Oh.  Umm...I think I am just going to sit back there.  Thanks though."  She rejected you.  Face it.  Don't be THAT guy.

It's OK...

to sit down in a seat at the airport. 

It's not OK...

to stay seated if you are within the ages of 15-49 if an elderly couple would like to sit next to each other, a pregnant woman looks like her baby may fall out of her, a single parent of multiple children is frantically looking for multiple seats together, or...here's the best one...you see a guide dog sniffing for two empty seats.  When a person loses one sense, the other senses become stronger.  She knows who you are.  Shame on you.

That's it for now...Stay tuned for my next one.  I'm set for Japan in a few weeks.  That should be more than interesting.  First time international travellers are the best...

Until then, have you observed something yourself?  Please.  By all means, let's continue the discussion...

My day...

Sometimes I wonder what makes me so happy.  I mean if anyone else had my day, I am pretty sure there would have been some complaining and perhaps some pouting.  Don't get me wrong.  I pout.  And whine.  But, I amaze myself with composure when I least expect it. 

Let's start with my morning.  Well, actually, we will have to step back to 2007 for that one.  You see, that's when I decided to go long distance with my now betrothed.  Needless for me to say, it worked out for us.  However, despite my self-promises, I find myself fiance-less each and every night, minus the occasional weekend.  Thanks to my positive attitude and true belief he is the "one", long distance has not been a terrible experience.  Certainly not what friends proclaimed it would be in 2007.  But, I am pretty much done with it three years later.  For real.  I would say all I have is two-ish months left as we get married in September, but my easy-going self somehow decided that we were a strong couple and could withstand a few months of long distance marriage to preserve a job obligation.  That all leads to my morning.  Srin and I visited his parents, which turned out to be a fantastic holiday weekend. So relaxed and don't get me started on the food.  And on this particular morning, we did our ritual of goodbyes.  This was the last time we would see each other before our big day.  Man!

But the day that is the topic of today's blog actually commences before our goodbye.  Thanks to my overzealous, type-ity fingers, I had to get up at some awful hour to make a 7:30 AM flight.  Srin peeked in my room at 5:45 with words that we were running late and I needed to get up.  After a bit of innocent "cursing", an extra two minutes, and a ton of will power, I forced myself up.  With this whole distance thing, I have travelling down.  I follow a ritual--get up, eyedrops in eyes, squeeze shut the pain of red eyes, make bed, put on clothes, grab cell phone and shut off its horrid alarm, put phone in pocket, wrap charger up and put in bag, brush teeth, and put retainers/toothbrush in bag.  Use restroom, wash hands, grab bag, and I am out the door.  Today, we'll go back to "use restroom".  When I finally changed clothes, I distinctly remember thinking "Should I bend down and put the phone in my bag or just put it in my pocket?  Oooh sore from P-90X.  Back pocket it is." After sleep walking to the restroom, I did my fresh breath thing and went to empty my extremely full bladder.  Button, zipper, pull down and PLOP!  No not number 2-GROSS!  Instead, I turned around and saw that my Palm Centro had conveniently slipped out of my back pocket and into the... Must I tell you?  Apparently, at 6AM, I am neither anal-rententive nor germaphobic.  Interesting since I am both of those for 23 hours and 59 minutes of the rest of the day.  I grabbed the phone (my hand went in the nastiness that is...bleh!) with a barely audible grunt and...well...unpaused the wait I coerced my bladder into while I mentally waded in the atrocity that was. 

So now, I am phone-free (ah liberation.  Okay not really.  I cannot plan a wedding without a PHONE!), Skype-full, and still laughing about it all.  And to top it all off, I had to say goodbye to my man.  The day continued but really, it wasn't so bad.  It just all led back to the toilet Centro.

We have finally chosen our "priest"...

Since apparently the fabulous US of A (which, for the record, I love) still has not progressed to the point where priests of the Hindu faith (which is, of course, one of the oldest religions around) can legally marry Srin and me....

Sad?  I think so.

Yet, someone-anyone-seriously-ANYONE can go online and self-ordain themselves as part of this made up online monastery (at least it is truly non-denominational) and has the legal rights to pronounce us man and wife.  An axe murderer, someone currently in jail whose family goes online for him/her, a bum on the street, or an honest & hardworking person...all the same.  Yet, someone who has given his life to a well known and worldly religion cannot marry two people...

Unless, of course, he gets ordained online...

Even sadder?  I think so.

Please-let's discuss.

Please welcome my Guest Blogger...

My baby sister, Pritty-no-middle-name Patel!!!

So, for those who don't know, I finally got my chance to jump up and down and squeal like a little girl.  My little sister is getting married!  I won't go into all of the gory details of how I (yup, that's right-I) introduced them (despite what they think-that they would have met anyway through Asha:)!).  I have never hooked anyone up because...well I refuse to get caught up in that drama.  But, this one was different.  I just knew.  Enjoy!

From P:

So, as far as the proposal, Sujay flew in Saturday as his flight was cancelled on Friday--TWICE--but he finally arrived around 11AM.  We went by the apartment so he could change into shorts (which I figured out later was so he would have a pocket for the ring.) We then went to lunch at Taqueria del Sol, which just happens to be our favorite lunch place when he's in town. He insisted that we go to Piedmont Park because there was a jazz festival going on that weekend. I thought it was a little odd since I didn't remember he was such a big jazz fan, but then I didn't think much of it. I actually figured if we couldn't find parking we could just skip it and go get tickets to Sex and the City 2, which was what I really wanted to do (BTW,we saw it the next day and it was horrible--I wouldn't recommend it).

Anyway, when we parked and finally got to the park, he started being really sweet and reminiscing about the fact that we'd met there about four years earlier.  At that point, I wondered if he was going to propose but then decided I was crazy and that there was no way he had a ring on him! We then found the lake at the park, and we sat on a park bench with a really pretty view of the lake. He just continued being really sweet and telling me how happy he was.  At that point, I thought if he's not going to propose, he should know for future reference that this would be a really good way to do it.  And that's when he did it.  He took the ring out and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes! And that was it--it was incredibly sweet and very unexpected We'd always said that we would wait until we were in the same city before we got engaged, but I'm so happy he did it!

Here are the few pictures we have. We had someone take one right after he proposed, but he accidentally deleted it [Mamta comment:  who does that?!?!?!?].  Then, we didn't bother getting another one [Mamta comment: Who does THAT?!?!??!?].  He also made dinner plans at Ray's on the River in Sandy Springs, which is the picture where we're all dressed up.

http://picasaweb.google.com/sujaysjoshi/Atl#

You're never too old...

to learn to ride a bike.



For the record, though, I still maintain that I DID ride a bike (at least a couple of times) when we were kids.  It's just been a while and I was never good at it.