A teeny bit of Bangalore in Chicago

My cousin Eryn got married this past Saturday, and the four of us (well, five if you count Rosie, our dog) drove out to Chicago for the festivities. And man were they festive! Cousins, aunts, and uncles came from all over the country (and even out of the country!), and we had a little family reunion while celebrating with Eryn. I didn't take any pictures at all myself (I can be lame like that), but luckily my sister-in-law Julie did! So here's a quick picture montage :)

Here are Zion and Liel in their wedding finery before the ceremony. Don't they look so cute and grown up?? And Liel is wearing the child's saree we bought in Bangalore with Bitasta. (Zion is wearing a suit we bought on ebay. Not nearly so worldly, but he still looks cute!)

Here we have Liel and me in our sarees. It was the first time I wore this saree (also bought in Bangalore) and when I put the blouse on the right armpit hurt. At first I thought it might be because I've gained a few pounds since getting back to NY, but as I hooked the blouse up it felt jabby, so I took it off and found...a needle! It was quite surprising, as I'd tried the blouse on in Bangalore, and hadn't felt or found it then, but yeah. Needle was poking the crap out of me, and all was well once I removed it.

After the ceremony I passed by an Indian family in the hotel, and the mama did a double take when she saw me in the saree. I hope it's just because she was surprised to see a white girl in a saree, and not because I had it on all cockeyed or something! Of course it also could have been because I was wearing big Doc Marten boots with it. Mostly you couldn't see them though, and it was so cold and snowy and slushy outside I couldn't wear the shoes I'd planned.

Anyway, the ceremony took place at St. Michael's Church in old town Chicago. It was pretty ornate and fun to look around! 

The reception was at the Drake hotel (where we were staying), so after the ceremony we took the provided buses back to the hotel, and I changed because as much as I adored the saree (and I do...I wish I had more occasions to wear one!) I cannot dance in a saree. Hopefully I'll get good enough at draping and securing them to do so in the future, but I'm not there yet!

Here are some pictures from the reception.

The location! It was really quite lovely, no?

Zion and Aunt Julie (with a bit of Aunt Anne and Uncle Chris on the right, and cousin Nathan on the left)!

My mother-in-law Kathy, sister-in-law Julie, nephew Nathan, and grandmother-in-law Grace. Bouns: in the background you can see Robert and his brother Vinny discussing UT football, Anne and Zion chatting, and my brother-in-law Frank returning with a triumphal beer.

A fantastic picture of Robert and his siblings. As everyone who has seen a few pictures of Robert is quick to point out, he's actually smiling in this one! It's like the unicorn of Robert pictures!

And finally, one of me and my beloved, after many happy hours of eating, drinking and dancing. My wonderful mother-in-law left early to sit with the kids while they slept, enabling us to have this fantastic evening together! 

We're back in NY now, and looking forward to a visit from my parents in a week. Stay tuned!

Pictures!

Our niece, Hayley, came to visit us in August. She is completely fabulous, and we had a great time with her! And what's more, she took family pictures for us, something we had neglected to do for, oh, 7 years. Last night we sorted through them and came up with our top contenders for prints. But there are too many, especially of me and Robert. It was much easier to narrow down the choices for the kids and whole family ones, because Zion tends to have sleepy eyes in pictures, and Liel hasn't learned to smile naturally on command (instead she does what Robert calls her "pirate grimace"). So honestly for those categories we pretty much went with the ones where most of the subjects looked halfway decent.

But, as I said, too many of me and Robert! Help us narrow it down :) What are you top 2 from among these?

(Don't my tattoos look amazing in black and white??)

Actually I have a few too many choices for pics of Zion and Liel, too. Thoughts?

Edit: for my mom...here are the other pics (so far) that are our favorites.

Happy Valentine's Day!

When I was a kid my mom used to bake these huge (think: head sized) cookies for us for Valentine's day. They were chocolate chip, and she'd decorate them with frosting. We didn't have a lot of sweets in our house, and I loved those cookies! They were so decadent and pretty.

When I was in college my grandmother used to send me chocolates from a local chocolatier called Trufflehounds. She sent them to me when I was in grad school too, right up until she moved to a different part of the state and wasn't local to them anymore. One day when we were visiting my parents Robert and I stopped into the shop and bought a few things. They recognized my name from our credit card, and all the years they'd spent shipping chocolates to me all over the US. It was a really sweet (hahah) lesson in dealing with small businesses! And every year since then Robert has had chocolates from there shipped to me (us) for Valentine's Day.

Well, every year but this one. I don't think the chocolates would survive the trip to India in good condition, if you're even allowed to ship chocolates to India. I miss them though! Trufflehounds makes some damn fine chocolate. But I digress.

Last night Robert and I made Valentines for the kids.

Yes, yes. I know. You're overwhelmed by our amazing artistic abilities and fine photo-taking skills! It's normal. We get that reaction all the time.

Actually, we do. From the kids. They loved their Valentines. And since I couldn't bake them gigantic, head sized cookies, we taped a little bar of Cadbury's chocolate into their cards. Again: total delight. They've been slowly eating them, square by square. And they offered to share with us. There are only 8 squares per bar (these are really pretty small chocolate bars)! I feel overwhelmed by the generosity of my children, and also a bit sorry that I've deprived them of chocolate for so long. This is literally the first chocolate either of them have had in 3 months. Did I mention total delight??

Of course the kids made Valentines for each other and for us too. Liel drew herself and Zion as owls on his card.

And drew him a picture besides. That's a bat and a phoenix having cake together.

Zion drew Liel as a unicorn, and himself as a phoenix.

He made one card for me and Robert. It's truly romantic, as you can see- it has a mummy! And a monkey with a sword!

And here are the cards Liel made for us. She and Robert as dragons, she and I as bats.

So, there's my beautiful Valentine's Day! I feel so incredibly blessed (even without Trufflehounds). I hope yours is gorgeous and love filled as well. Know that I'm sending you love!

Irish-ness

Rather inexplicably, my post that includes the recipe for rice cooker colcannon is the most popular blog post I've written in months, or possibly ever. While that still makes it supremely un-popular by any big blog standards, it has has more than four times the page views of my other posts! Either there are (were?) a lot of people out there wanting to make colcannon in their rice cookers or, um, well, honestly I can't imagine why anyone would read that post otherwise! I mean, really.

Anyway, a few days ago I made colcannon for dinner for the entire family. And while Robert didn't love it, he didn't hate it either (yes, I'm totally overlooking the fact that Robert will eat just about anything with little to no complaint. Shhhhh). After dinner I teased him about being the only part-Irish guy who hates potatoes, and the kids wanted to know why that was funny. So we explained about the Irish and potatoes, and one of the kids asked how that applied to Robert.

"Well", said Robert, "My grandfather was Irish. So I'm part Irish, and so are you guys".

"Oh", said Zion, and then he went back to whatever he was doing.

But Liel?

"So what?!?!", she said crossly. "Why does it matter that we're part Irish? I don't care."

"Um, OK", I said. "But you don't have to be angry about it! It's just a fact."

"Besides, some people think that it is important", Robert said. "Some people are very proud of being Irish."

"Well I don't!", said Liel, scowling. "To me that's as important as skin color is to a bat!"


The mind of a child. Who can fathom it?

A few surprises

Two unusual things happened to us today. First of all, as we were walking to lunch, a young couple ahead of us glanced at us, and then slowed their pace so that we caught up with them. As we were passing them by the man said, "Excuse me, sir?" Robert turned around and the man said, "Picture?"

"Sure!" said Robert, reaching for the camera the guy was holding.

"No, no", said the man, and his girlfriend came and stood next to Robert and Zion, then motioned me and Liel over to stand by her. They wanted a picture of her with us. Two pictures, actually, as the guy took one with each of their phones. Then they said thank you, gave us big smiles and we went on our way.

"Daddy", Zion said in a loud stage whisper when we were about 5 feet from the couple, "What was that all about??"

"Well...", said Robert, "I guess maybe they wanted a picture of us because we're a non-Indian family on campus?"

It was without a doubt one of the more unusual experiences I've had so far! And it surprised me, because Bangalore is a big, cosmopolitan city. There are a fair number of foreigners here, even in our old, out of the way neighborhood. OK, there aren't a lot in our area, but there are a few...and the IISc campus hosts scholars from around the world. We see another white person ever day or two.

I've been asked a few times whether I/we get (or would get) stared at much here. The answer is generally no. Again, white folks aren't unusual enough to cause most Bangaloreans to look twice! But there are a few things about us that do cause some stares: Robert's and my tattoos, Robert's beard (he's even had a guy passing by on a motorcycle shout, "Nice beard!" at him), and the kids. While white adults aren't particularly unusual, we've seen white kids (other than our own of course) only once since being here. I'm sure this is a product of our area, and that if we lived closer to the more downtown parts of Bangalore, or close to the ex-pat colonies, we'd see more of them. But out here they're pretty thin on the ground.

So while we'll probably never know why that couple wanted a picture of us, my guess is that it had to do with the kids, and the fact that we're here as a family. I'm only ruling out our unusual looks because my tattoos were covered, and they still wanted me and Liel in the picture!

Anyway, after that we went on to lunch. While Liel and I were waiting for Robert and Zion to bring over the food, I saw one of the bus ladies feed a stray dog a partially eaten partoa from a plate she'd cleared. The dog must not have been very hungry, because she ignored it. Two other men were watching the lady as she tried to feed the dog, and when she noticed this she said something to them and all three of them laughed. Then a fourth man got up from his table, came over and patted the dog, who wagged her tail and wiggled with delight. The man started to leave the cafe, and the dog followed. He stopped, spoke to her, and then returned to the cafe. A minute later he sat down with a newly purchased packet of butter cookies, which he proceeded to feed to the dog. She seemed to like these better than the parota, because she ate the entire packet. Then the man got up and left, and the dog picked up the abandoned partoa and trotted off with it in her mouth.

There are loads of stray dogs on campus (and in Bangalore in general) but I've never seen anyone feed them before. But what was particularly charming was the way the man spoke to the dog. I like to think he told her that she couldn't come with him, but he'd buy her some cookies before he left.

Our Apartment

OK kids, I have some iphone pics of our thrilling Bangalore apartment!

Our front door, posing here with a pile of shoes. The rags in the corner are to shove in the gap under the door at night, so as to (hopefully) lessen the number of mosquitoes that get in.

Our dining room table, kitchen in the background (front door is at my back as I take this picture)

Our kitchen. It now has a single burner cook top as well, and may someday have pots and dishes and an electric kettle.

Living room

TV with children. Note that although when we moved in the apartment had no working internet, no fridge, no cooktop, and no dishes (not even a single, solitary cup) it DID have a functional flat screen TV.  Two guesses which I'd rather have had!

Desk in kid's room.

Bed in kid's room. Yes, bed. And kids. They don't both fit on it, so currently we put couch cushions on the floor each night and Zion sleeps on those. We're hoping to get him a mattress soon though, maybe even tomorrow!

Bed in our room.

Bathroom.

More bathroom- note the little hot water heater. Both showers have the same model. Oddly, the shower in our bathroom runs out of hot water within 2 minutes, while the one in the kids' bathroom has hot water for nearly 10 minutes. Now we all shower in the kids' bathroom!

And finally, the view from my back windows.

As you can see, the apartment is basically serviceable, but pretty bare bones. Now that I have scotch tape I'm planning to hang as much of the kids' art as possible on the walls, so that they'll be a little less stark. Interior decorating at its finest!