Baby shower

My charming friend Deepa and her family are moving to India by the end of this month. She is expecting her second child and we threw her a surprise baby shower a couple of days back.

My biggest take back from the party is that I need to really pull up my socks. The surprise was not completely ready when Deepa rang the bell at my place. I was still decorating and only one guest had arrived. So we had to think of some quick plan to whisk Deepa away from my place so that I could complete the decorations and the other guests could come in and hide at my place. Anyway, the day was saved because Deepa decided to go for a car wash.

I will miss Deepa and sunshine will miss her son and DH will miss her husband. But their move may be only semi permanent and they might come back to Germany. In the meantime, we are also trying to move back to India. Life seems a bit uncertain right now, but hopefully there will be some clarity soon.

A Wednesday

Sunshine and a group of his friends meet almost every Wednesday for a playdate. It was very easy to arrange these in summer when the weather was good outside. We could take the kids to a big play area and they would get busy in no time. The only difficulty was convincing them to go home afterwards.

With the onset of autumn, we are in for gloom and grey and abundant rain. This has forced our playdates indoors. Yesterday was the first of those indoor playdates. There were six kids including Sunshine who were around 3 years old, give or take a few months. I thought it might be a good idea to organize some activities for them as leaving six playschoolers to play on their own could turn out to be catastrophic. So, we started our playdate with a song, my friend and fellow mom Jenny read a couple of books for the kids and finally, they were given a huge sheet of paper and crayons and felt pens to show off their artistic skills. After this, it was time for freeplay.

I have to think about new games and ideas for our future playdates. I really enjoyed it (probably more than the kids) since I love kids and it makes me immensly happy to be surrounded by them. I hope they had half the fun that I had. The biggest success for me was that they refrained from pulling each others' hair, pushing, hitting biting etc that they sometimes resort to when they get bored.

Hopefully next time, we will be able to move forward with the idea of creating a toy repository as well. 

Please give me strong shoulders

A lot of things are going on in my life and I need to be really strong to carry on. Today, Ms Postive asked me to go with her to Heidelberg, but I had to work. Some time with Ms Positve would have been just what the doctor ordered, but I just had no time to spare.

Last week, Sunshine and I were invited to his friends's little farm. He was one little terror over there throwing things, being mean to his friend and even her mom, stubbornly refusing to do anything and everything I asked him to do. In sharp contrast, his friend was a sweet little angel, helping her mom to set the table and clean it later and she was extremely understanding towards Sunshine and tried to save his back all the time. I have been completely unable to figure out why Sunshine acts up at times. He can be really good too and can share and play with his friends. The caretakers at his daycare give me the feedback that he is a very well-adjusted kid always taking care of the younger ones and playing nicely with almost every kid. Why does he have to be little devil around me I wonder.

I do enjoy Sunshine's antics but sometimes it gets just too much for me. Especially when he is aggressive towards other kids. I feel so inadequate as a mother when he ignores numerous pleas to be nice. He is barely 3 and he already knows how to have his way when he is in that kind of mood. It usually ends up in us leaving the place and I feel bad for the other kid(s) and also for dragging him away from other kids. He really enjoys the company of other kids and always feels sad when he or they have to leave. I wonder what I can do to teach him to be a little gentler around his friends.

Integration

As an expat living in Germany, I have created my own comfort zone in the last 8 years or so just like most other immigrants do. My social circle comprises mainly of Indians, expats from other countries and a few German friends and many international as well as German colleagues.

An Indian family moved into our building recently and as they are slowly finding their way in the new environment, I was reminded of our initial days here. We had it pretty easy here. We were 'adopted' by a few friends and they helped us in every step till we knew our way around. There was a lovely German family who were our friends before we moved here. They introduced us to ikea and the spoilt Indians (us) learned for the first time how to assemble our own furniture. There was my husband's German teacher who told me about language classes. Once I went to these classes, I started meeting people and making friends and shortly thereafter, I got a job. There was an Indian friend and colleague who drove us around and helped us find places to shop, for entertainment etc. There were many others who helped in different ways, but these three were guardian angels here in Germany.

Our new neighbours seem to be finding it difficult to cope. There are many more Indians in our village now and almost everybody has their own closed social circles. It is very difficult to break into these. The lady and her little son stays at home and unless she finds a daycare for him, she cannot start her language classes or start looking for a job. Language school is a great place to meet people and have someone to share your challenges as you master a new language. She does not have any venue to meet the local people either. It is very easy to slip into despair in such a situation.

Today, we went to a daycare center together to see if she can find a place for her son. She will most probably get one by October. But that is also quite some time away. I hope she will find some other activities for herself and her son until then. He is such a sweet and intelligent little boy and she is also warm and friendly. It will be a shame if they had to just sit at home till the daycare seat is available.

Crazy weather

Last week, we had some kind of a heatwave. Every day, we hear and read news about natural calamities all over the world. Just a couple of weeks back, it was raining cats and dogs and there were floods all over Germany. Last week was smouldering with temperatures going into late 30s. Today, it is back to normal German weather - overcast.

In the meantime, it is flooding all over India and unofficial estimates are that several thousand people may have lost their lives. It is humbling how the most underdeveloped regions as well as the most developed parts of the world have to bear the brunt of nature's fury. I think we cannot turn our back to the reality that we need to make drastic changes in our lifestyle and we need to do it now.

I am constantly looking at ways to lead a more environment friendly life, but it is sometimes too easy to succumb to the 'modern' way of living. This selfish way of living has to change! I hope to get more help from people who are more aware than me and hope to help people who have not started yet. After all, our children has to have a good place to live.

The Deadly Disease

I had a very long hiatus from my blog. There were lot of things happening in my life and I felt I need to spend time energy and focus on making sense of what is happening.

I was mopping a little bit about a certain health situation when I heard that my roommate during college days was suffering from cancer. Her condition was detected very late because she was pregnant and had just given birth to her second child. Most of her symptoms were attributed pregnancy or postpartum complications. She hardly lived for a couple weeks after the diagnosis. This has left me in a state which I cannot comprehend. She was one of the most pleasant, warmest and friendliest person I have ever come across. She always had a beautiful smile on her face. Now, barely two months after her second child was born, she is gone forever.

My heart bleeds when I think about her husband and sons especially her new born. To lose a loved is bad enough, but to lose someone who is so positive that she is the reason for your very existence - I wish no one had to ever go through what her husband is going through now.

It reminds me how important it is to spend time with people who mean something to you. We often put off spending time together for later. But sometimes that later might just not exist for us for the people with whom we want to spend time. I am trying to take a positive lesson (as my friend would have wanted me to) and manage my time better. I need to weed out a lot of unnecessary time killers and concentrate on enjoying, appreciating and expressing my gratitude for the very special people in my life.

Travel bug

The weather is suddenly so glorious in this part of the world. The temperatures are near 20s and the sun is shining so bright that it is difficult to believe that till a couple of weeks back it was freezing and snowing. I just  finished reading Around the World in Eighty Days and as easily influenced as I am, want to go somewhere again. Since I have a husband, a small child, a job and a hundred other things to take care of, I obviously can't  travel around the world in one go. Besides, I don't think it would be any fun to just travel the circumference of the earth without really seeing anything much, like the protagonist, Phileas Fogg does in the story.

There is a holiday coming up, the 1st May which falls on a Wednesday. So, we are planning to take the Thursday and Friday off and drive to Cote D'Azure for a short vacation. As usual, we haven't booked yet, but I hope everything will be in place by this weekend.

I have a busy week ahead at work and at home. There is an Indian festival Navratri going on at the moment and on the 8th day of this festival, little girls are worshipped, are treated to a meal of poori, chickpeas and semolina halwa and are given small gifts. In India, this tradition which happens twice a year is a worthy practise since there are many poor children and a sumptuous meal, gifts and money will mean a lot to them. They go from house to house collecting their treats and gifts. Out here in Germany, I am inviting some of my friends and their little daughters and obviously they will feel special, but they are all privileged pampered children from well off families. Anyway, I am going to enjoy the day as I really love girls (and hope to have one of my own some day).

Spring Cleaning

I am trying to spring clean my life. I see too much clutter and too many distractions. So, as a first step, I decided to take a hiatus from Facebook. I am addicted to Facebook like many people are these days. Very often, I find it extremely useful to send messages to friends and family, to organize an outing or a date with my friends etc. But I also found myself spending increasing amounts of time just browsing through the news feed. Since I already spend a lot of 'real' time with my friends, I decided to cut back on the virtual time with friends and acquaintances.

There are only 24 hours in everybody's lives and since I find myself rushing always to be on time, be it at work, be it something planned for Sunshine, be it personal appointments, I decided it is time I took a good hard look at my schedule and cut down on the unnecessary activities.

On a totally different note, I won a book giveaway on Marias Book Blog. It is 'The Last Doctor She Should Ever Date' by Louisa George. I just casually checked the blog to see if there are any new updates and suprise - I had won the giveaway. I have added her blog to my blogroll. She writes some amazing reviews about novels especially romance novels. I love reading especially romance novels and it is my secret (not any more) desire to write one on my own some day.

In the evening my very talented friend Vij is dropping by with her son who is the same age as Sunshine. Vij makes the most scrumptious the most detailed and perfect fondant cakes ever. She has taught herself how to do it and she does it better than even the bakers who appear on TV shows. It was her birthday last week and I couldn't meet her. But, I have a surprise gift for her today and I baked a batch of cupcakes yesterday. I am going to frost one of them today so that she can have a late birthday celebration.

I spent a lot of time with Ms Positive yesterday and she tried a lot to inspire me to chase my dreams and also create new dreams and goals in my life. She might drop in today when Vij is here, if she is free by then. Who needs Facebook when your life is full of such wonderful people.  

To be or not to be - a vegetarian

On Friday, Sunshine and I were invited to my friend Rumi's place. She bought her own house and moved there recently and she invited her girlfriends and their kids to celebrate. The main attractions for the evening were her scrumptious chicken biriyani and mutton curry. There was a small problem though - I am an on again off again vegetarian and I am in 'on mode' at the moment. The last time we met, I still ate chicken and seafood and I forgot to mention that I had turned vegetarian again, when Rumi invited me.

I have a difficult relationship with non-vegetarian food. I love seafood and like to indulge in indian preparations of chicken once in a while. On rare occasions, I have eaten lamb and enjoyed it too. But it troubles my conscience to eat non-vegetarian food. There is the obvious problem that you have to kill a living thing to eat meat or seafood. I grew up in a coastal region and seafood was part of our diet almost every day. So, though having to kill an animal does not exactly make me happy, it doesn't trouble me enough to turn vegetarian. What really troubles me is the hunger that is so widespread all over the world. Every time I eat meat, the images of hungry children's faces haunt me and makes me think of all the resources that had to go into getting that piece of meat on my plate. A small percentage of the people in the world gets to consume such a large percentage of the resources. I know that this is true for almost everything in life, but when it comes to something so basic as food, it seems all the more unfair. It sometimes makes me loathe myself that I would willingly cause more environmental degradation and consume more resources while so many people starve, just to satisfy my palate. However, I am a foodie and the glutton inside me wins many times. Since I am too weak to become a vegetarian permanently, I try it for a few months at a time.

Rumi was mortified that I didn't inform her about my food preference. But I enjoyed her vegetarian starter dahi bhalla (lentil fritters) and I even had some gravy from the mutton curry and ate some rice sans chicken from the chicken biriyani. Rumi and her other friends were curious about my on again off again vegetarianism and asked me about the reason for it. I actually felt very embarrassed while explaining my reasons. For one, I sounded like an environmental nutcase to myself. The other reason was, I did not want to sound preachy or superior or worse still condemning about other people's choices.

Sunshine loved the mutton curry that Rumi made and asked for several helpings. He loves chicken and his caretakers at the daycare have told me that he eats eagerly when there is fish on the menu. I wonder if it is because these are things which he does not get to eat at home. In any case, for the next few months atleast I do not plan to eat or cook meat or fish.

When it rains, it pours.

Ms. Postive always accuses that I spend way too much time on meeting friends and socializing and that I should cut down and find time to improve myself and pursue my interests. Although I usually refute her allegation or make a joke out of it and tell her that my interest is meeting people and talking to them, lately I feel she may have a point.

Yesterday, Ms. Positive asked me to come over so that Sunshine and her son could play together and we could spend some time chatting. While I was about to leave for her place, DH called me to say that he is bringing over Sunshine's best friend AT in an hour as her dad was caught up with something and could not pick her from the daycare. Since the boys were already excited about their playdate and I obviously love spending time with Ms Positive, I decided not to cancel and took Sunshine to her place. When we came back home, I brought her son along so that all three kids could play together.

Sunshine and AT can be best described as little devils. On the other hand, Ms. Positive's son is a well behaved, sweet little boy. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see the little devils hugging, kissing and pacifying the little boy when he started crying because he was missing his mom. They even tried reassuring him by telling him that his mom would come soon and he need not cry. For added measure, they said the whole thing in German as well as Hindi. I couldn't help feeling a little proud about my son and AT because usually they are aces at bullying each other and other kids.

So most of yesterday evening was spent with Ms. Positive and her son, AT and her parents. On my way to work today, my friend D called me to ask if we could meet up. Since I had to be at work the whole day (I generally work from home) we decided to meet in the evening. Tomorrow, we are meeting AT and her parents again to celebrate Holi, the indian festival of colours. Ms. Positive wants to meet once again this week before she leaves on a long vacation to warmer places. Also, my friend P, the warmest German ever, wants to take the kids to the Zoo. And just as I was writing this post, in the train, on my way back from work, my phone beeped. It is another invitation from a friend. I guess Ms Positive is not entirely off the mark about me atleast this week.

Environment friendly period

A few years back, one fine morning I decided that I am going to live a more environment friendly life. DH was sceptical because I am easily influenced by a new idea when I talk to people, but very often, it is just a passing fad for me. I do not know how serious I was when I started off, I have not given up on the idea and am definitely a lot more earnest about it now than when I started off.

When Sunshine was born, my mother in law got us a huge set of basic cloth diapers - thin cotton towels which could be folded and tied like a diaper. Almost all of my friends with young kids discouraged me from using cloth diapers because they were too inconvenient with the weather here. I eventually used a mix of disposable diapers and cloth diapers. I bought some cloth diapers from a company called Popolini and my mom in law got me another set of diapers and diaper covers from India which were a lot thicker than the first set that she got me. Popolini's diaper covers completed the set and they were very effective. Of course the diapers had to be changed every time Sunshine peed and washing and drying them was some work, but it rarely leaked and I would use cloth diapers again if I have another kid.

The cloth diapers however set me thinking about my own sanitary napkins. I found a few companies which sold reusable sanitary napkins online but the stack of unused cloth diapers kept beckoning me. So, finally I decided to give it a try. Of course I had no intentions whatsoever of using them when I had to go to office or be outside for a longer period of time because I am a heavy bleeder and I did not want to be caught in wet pants. Eeeks! I just folded these diapers into a rectangular shape similar to the commercially available napkins and started using them whenever I am at home. I don't have enough words to express how comfortable they are. Once used, they have to be soaked in cold water and then washed in a high temperature cycle. Of course it is a bit more work than just chucking them into the garbage bin, but it is really not that difficult. This simple solution can be used only at home because there is no protection from leakage and who would want to carry around a soiled sanitary napkin. This month, for the first time, I relied exclusively on cloth napkins because coincidentally I did home office during my entire cycle.

I love the soft feeling of cotton on my skin, but I have to figure out some way to use cloth diapers when I have to be away from home for the entire day. Hopefully I will manage to get over my aversion of carrying a bag of used napkins and I can do away with disposable napkins altogether.

Ms. Positive and I go shopping

What is the image that props into your mind when two girls go shopping - shoes, bags, clothes, maybe jewellery? Ms. Positive and I went shopping for our weekly groceries in the Biomarket. For a few years now, I have been trying to buy as many bio products as possible. There is a lot of argument for and against bio produce. Some of my friends and DH believe that it is all a hoax - what is trotted as organic is probably not organic at all and just a way to fleece customers off more money. Till now, I have chosen to believe the EU organic certification logo that is present on the organic produce and hopefully it does carry some value.

While we were shopping, Ms. Positive told me that she knows a local farmer who delivers her very good quality organic eggs every week at her home. So, I decided to try him out once in the spirit of supporting local and independent businesses. I am a little confused about buying local though. When you buy at a supermarket, there the EU logo is a reassurance that the product is actually authentic. Is there anyway to know if a local farmer's produce is really organic other than believing him?

I am going to give it a try anyway.

It is snowing

The daily temperatures were just shy of teens last week and there was plenty of sunshine, which led me to believe that winter was over and spring was already on its way. But this week, it is snowing away to glory. This morning I had to drop Sunshine at his daycare as DH had a conference in another city and he had to leave early. I slipped several times, but managed to get us both to the daycare in one piece. Now, back at my home office, with my working hours for the day clocked already, I can look out of the window and enjoy the snowfall. Watching huge flakes of snow falling down slowly and liesurely calms me down like nothing else can. I don't have to drive anywhere in this weather, so I can just enjoy its beauty and my homemade caramel sauce.

I have to share my recipe because it is heavenly. It is adapted from Ina Garten's caramel sauce recipe.

Caramel Sauce

Homemade caramel sauce - my heaven in a jar

Sugar - 11/2 cups
Cream - 11/2 cups
Vanilla - 1 tsp
Water - 1/3 cup
Butter - 1 Tbsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp

Mix sugar, salt, butter and water in a heavy bottomed pan and put it on medium heat till sugar dissolves, swirling in between. (NO STIRRING)

Once sugar dissolves, raise the heat to medium high. Swirl frequently until sugar caramelises and turns dark copper. Take off heat as soon as it starts to smoke. Take it off the heat when it reaches a dark amber colour if you do not like the intense caramel flavour.

Add cream and vanilla and stir well. Return to the stove and stir until a smooth creamy sauce is formed.

Cool to room temperature and store in fridge. Enjoy it with your homemade icecreams, cakes or just lick it off a spoon like I do when it is snowing.

Ms. Positive Influence

I had an exceptionally boring day at the office on Thursday last week. I sat in front of my monitor like a zombie churning out line after line of bad code which does not do anything much except test the performance of the code which somebody else has written. So my job is to find other's mistakes and once a colleague joked that this would be any woman's dream job. It is not like this was my childhood dream come true, but I used to enjoy my work until some time back. But today, I found myself in a state of existential crisis and self pity.

I should find an alternate career, but what? I could be a chef, because I love food and experiment a lot with it, but what I really enjoy is baking. I could be a baker then, but I am constantly transforming all my cakes and cookies and brownies and everything else I bake, into healthier dishes by using whole grains or whole grain flour. My family has largely developed a tolerance or even taste for these, but sometimes even they ask me to not butcher the dish anymore. I could be a writer, but now-a-days, it is exteremely difficult to make a living out of writing as far as I know. Plus what would I write in my resume? - I have published in school and college magazines as a teenager and in some obscure children's magazine once when I was trying to get into NUS, Singapore. That would surely get everyone excited.  I could probably turn to gardening, only if I didn't have this giant black thumb. I would love to spread awareness about leading a more environmentally friendly life, but how do I start. Hmmm.. software is just the right field for people who are not particularly creative or talented.

I had already fnished my hours for the week and had the Friday off, so I invited my friend Ms. Positive over for lunch. She is a very enterprising young lady and a mom whose son is around the same age as Sunshine. Sunshine and Ms. Positive's son are friends, but unlike other moms, she does not talk to me about children or for that matter any domestic matter except occasionally and when she does, it is brief. Infact, she is very vocal about her disapproval towards moms who get together and talk about these things. She always insists that one should spend that time exploring the world and learning new things. She practises what she preaches - in the last couple of years, she learned a new language, a new dance form, started jogging regularly, is part of various interest groups, goes to a craft class and is in the priliminary works for founding a voluntary group to help the local people lead a healthier life. Those are just her hobbies; she earns her bread and butter running a biotech company which she partly owns.

Ms. Positive was deeply concerned about my lethargy and unwillingness to explore when I told her about my career dilema. She fished out a one liner for me - 'Fake it until you make it'. She confided that she learned many a new thing this way - by pretending that you are already what you want be and working towards being as good as you pretend to be. This way you will always be faster than you will be if you expose yourself to the world only when you are convinced that you are really good. Her parting words of wisdom were - "We are already in our 30s and we have only a few more years when we will have enough speed and agility to learn and explore. So try whatever catches your fancy and with the unlimited power of internet at you fingertips, you are more likely to be a success than a failure." I think I am going to take her advice very seriously.

The art of giving a compliment

Scene 1:  We were perhaps overspeeding and got clicked. DH asks me to go over to the parked police car and ask them if we got clicked, how much over the limit we were and how much would the fine be. I walk over to the police car and ask the young cop whether our car was clicked. He asks me the details of the car, fiddles with his laptop or something that looks like it and looks at me helplessly. Then he smiles and tells me that he is not able to check and it is probably to prevent him from deleting a record if a beautiful lady asks him to. He gave me a compliment and played it safe in true German style because he didn't actually refer to me directly. I smile back, thank him, he says sorry he couldn't help and I walk away

Scene 2:  My colleagues and I are on our way to lunch. Three young Indian guys are walking ahead of us.  Suddenly one of them turns around and looks at me. Then he nudges his friends and declares - "girl behind us!" They are atleast a decade younger to me (boy I am getting old) but that doesn't deter them from making sleazy comments or giving sleazy looks. Now this is an everyday occurrance in India and every girl has faced this atleast once in her life regardless of whether she is plain or gorgeous. My colleagues gives me sympathetic looks and I want to walk up to the idiots and tell them to behave atleast for the sake of their nation's pride. But I just walk ahead pretending that I didn't notice.

Scene 3: I am at an Indian party among a group of married Indian women and one lady is looking particularly resplendent in a sari. Couple of married Indian men walk over and start chatting. One of them remarks that the lady in sari is looking beautiful. She giggles and thanks him. There are atleast a couple of disapproving faces in our group. It is apparent that according to them it is not acceptable to compliment married women on their looks.

I think many Indians are a little off the mark about giving and receiving compliments. While nobody will bat an eyelid if a man appreciated a married woman's cooking or painting or anthing of that sort, any remark about looks carries the risk of being branded immoral. And yet nobody will do anything about the harrassment that Indian girls and women face every day of their lives. I wonder if Indian men and women are encouraged to appreciate beauty in a civilized manner, would it reduce atleast some of the sleaziness in our society.

As for me, I am just an average plain Jane who runs around like a headless chicken in clothes without a personality 360 days of a year. If I put an effort to dress up 5 days in a year, please do tell me I am beautiful and I will not hold your gender against you.

A really really late apology

How late is too late? By some strange twist of fate I got in touch with a friend from my teenage years, to whom I had been a jerk, towards the end of our time together. She was always on the social media site where I found her and I would have found her if I had looked earlier. But I never did until a mutual acquaintance of ours mentioned that he had met her. It brought back memories of our friendship and all the fun we had together. We pushed boundaries in a severely restricted society and got into trouble a lot. But we had a lot of fun being constant headaches to the stuck nuns in the school where we studied together. I don't remember the exact details but I ditched her when she was in a spot. I unilaterally decided that I did not want to get into so much trouble.

Ever since my acquaintance mentioned that he had met her, I had this intense desire to contact her and apologize to her. So many years have passed and I expected her to find it silly that I would apologize now. But, when we started chatting, we were like 16 year old girls again. It was as if so many years had not passed in between. She was as warm and humorous as ever despite the fact that life had not been kind to her, atleast in her teenage. Her family situation was never stable and she was in love with a guy whom her parents did not approve. They got married when she was still a teenager and had a kid soon after. Turns out I was not the only jerk in her life. She was left to build her life on her own with a child when she was almost a child herself. But she was no weakling, she did it and today she is climbing the corporate ladder in a very sunny place. Her son is a teenager now and a blessing, according to her. Apart from having a successful career, being a single mom, she has found time to explore her inner artist and has set up a charity organization. Yes, she has been her own knight in shining armour.

When I apologized to her halway through our conversation, I expected her to laugh it off. Instead she told me that my actions hurt her a lot and that she is glad that I apologized. She forgave me quickly and we were back to our girly talks. After our conversation ended, I felt so happy that I found my friend again and I apologized although it was so many years too late. I am glad my friend is so generous that she forgave me. I had a feeling in my heart that I had been blessed with so many wonderful people in my life and I have not been good to all of them. For a change, I should be the wonderful person in somebody's life giving more than I get.

When I was in this exuberent mood which was tinged with a feeling that I should be a better person, my doorbell rang. It was my "warmest German ever" friend P. She is the kind of person who can lift your spirits when you are down in dumps. Imagine what it would be if you are feeling good already. I greeted her with a smile and tight hug which almost matched hers. P and her son could not stay long and they left a very unhappy and whining Sunshine behind. He wanted to play with them, but unfortunately, they already had other plans. But nothing could spoil my mood. Because I was feeling blessed.

Working mom

What constitutes a fun two hours for me in the afternoon when I am not working and DH is away at work? Talking to people. It can be friends, aquaintances, colleagues, strangers - doesn't matter who it is. I love to talk and to listen to people. Which is what I did yesterday afternoon - like many other afternoons.

Sunshine's erstwhile daycare group decided to have an impromptu get together at a neighbourhood playground as the weather was good yesterday. Most of the group turned up and after some fussing by the moms, the kids settled down leaving us moms to chat endlessly about something or the other. My favourite mom from is group is P who is one of the warmest and friendliest people I have met. I am pretty sure she is the most cheerful German I have ever come across. (I have nothing against Germans. I like most things about them, but they could smile a little bit more, methinks). A mom had brought coffee and cookies for all of us and some others brought fruits, crackers etc. P baked some Quarkstüdel for us which left me with the only one who turned up empty handed. I do have a knack of getting things wrong whether big or small.

Since most of the kids in the group were turning 3 sooner than later - kindergarten age in Germany, the major part of conversation was about getting back to work. I had gone back to work part time when Sunshine was 15 months. Another mom was also back at work since her kid was 1. But the rest of the group had been out of work for a long time - many of them as long as 6 years. In Germany, you are allowed to take parenting time of 3 years per kid. So those with 2 kids have been on parenting time for several years. They were discussing the difficulties of getting back to work after such a long time, the prejudices that women have to face, the scarcity of part time jobs etc. Which set me thinking about my own job.

 It was not all that difficult for me to get back to work as I was away only for 16 months or so. Everything came back within a short time and I didn't find it difficult to learn new things. The only impediment was that Sunshine used to fall sick very often in the beginning and he had only a 3 day place at the daycare. But I managed somehow as I was working only 45% and my manager was very accomodating and DH supported me beyond belief. Now, sunshine has a 5 day place at the daycare and it is a lot more relaxed for me. Still ever since I started working again after Sunshine was born, I have wondered several times if it is worth the effort at all. My salary was never something to brag about to begin with, I am taxed at the highest rate since I am the second earning member of the family and after Sunshine's daycare expenses, my travel and food expenses etc, I really was not left with anything much. Like most places in the world, working part time, your career is not going anywhere. You can pretty much expect to stagnate in terms of salary, bonuses and position as long as you are working part time. The worst part of it all is guilt - many mornings Sunshine wails because he doesn't want to get dressed or doesn't want to go to his daycare or he doesn't want me to go to office. He would rather be with me at home all day. Yet, when I listened to my friends and their travails yesterday, I realized that I had it good despite all the apparent disadvantages. I atleast had a job which is hopefully helping me build up skills to accelerate my career at some point in the future when Sunshine is more independent and doesn't require so much of my time.

Lanzarote

Every year since Sunshine was born, we had a winter getaway to one of the Canary Islands. This year we went to Lanzarote on a trip that was planned barely before we embarked on it.

The Canary Islands are thronged almost exclusively by west european tourists looking to escape the grim winter conditions back home. Most of the tourists are from Germany or UK and most islands have a 'German area' and a 'Brit area'. On our previous two visits - once to Fuerteventura and once to Gran Canaria, our hotels were in areas preferred by German tourists as we had booked through our local travel agents. This year, however, we booked the hotel ourselves and it was a place frequented by British tourists. I do not know if it was just a coincidence, but this year, the beaches near the hotel, the views etc were not as good as our previous two years.

Lanzarote is of volcanic origin like all other Canary Islands. We set aside one day to visit the Timanfaya National Park where one can see the effects of past volcanic activty and a dormant volcano. The scenery is depressing and awe inspiring at the same time. The landscape was marred with several craters and there was a restaurant where they had set up a barbecue which worked on heat from the dormant volcano.

The rest of our trip was dedicated to sun and sand the beach we liked best was Playa Blanca. The island of Fuerteventura can be seen on the horizon from this beach and it is an amazing sight. The beach itself was sandy and not crowded at all. The water was clear and turqoise coloured. When it is windy, it is possible to take shelter behind a bush and you can still enjoy the sun and the ocean.

The island has plenty of good places to eat and there are pubs and bars all over. On almost all the beaches there are windsurfacing facilities and instructors. If you are tormented by winter and your eyes are yearning for sun, this is just the right place to be.

Mummelsee

In the last weekend of April, we decided to make a day trip to Mummelsee to watch the autumn colours before we left for our annual India vacation. Mummelsee is a small but beautiful lake in Schwarzwald or Black Forest in Germany. Well, winter started early in Germany and we got to see winter wonderland instead of fall colours. Mummelsee is only an hour and a half drive from our place and is beautiful in all seasons. The drive to Mummelsee through Scwarzwalderhochstrasse is scenic. The lake is in the middle of a pine forest. It is better to carry warm clothes even in summer as it can be a bit chilly.

Schwarzwaldhochstrasse - On the way to Mummelsee

There is a restaurant right next to the lake and couple of take away places. The restaurant serves authentic German food, which I do not particularly like because it consists mostly of meat preparations. But they serve really good cakes and we indulge ourselves in the rich cakes every time we go there. This time, we ordered some käse spätzle as well, in the hope that Sunshine would eat it. But I ended up eating it. It is just a kind of pasta with melted cheese, but was quite tasty.

There is also a souvenir shop right next to Mummelsee which has a decent collection of cuckoo clocks, dolls that are typical of this region and even German cheese and sausages.

It is possible to walk around the lake or up the adjoining hill and we usually do when the weather is better.

This is just the right place to get the 'Black Forest experience' especially when short on time

Thekkady

We visited my parents in Kerala in November during our annual India vacation. They took us all on a trip to Thekkady - a reserved forest area with a beautiful lake in the middle. The drive there was rather long and tedious with winding roads and unruly traffic, but the destination was worth the pain.

Thekkady Lake

Our accomodation was the best part of the trip -Lake Palace, Thekkady -  it was in an old palace which belonged to the Travancore royal family on an island in the middle of the lake. A short boat ride through the lake brought us to the island and our accomodation. The lake is one of a kind; it has old tree stumps all over the place, making it look a little eerie, but charming. The island was so serene and since we were the only guests there, we had the place to ourselves. Sunshine and my sister's son ran all over the manicured lawns and well kept gardens while we sipped on tropical juices and relaxed.

We went on a boat trip later, in the hope of spotting wildlife, especially tigers since it is a tiger reserve, but had to return disappointed since we spotted only a few deer and bisons. The next morning, the forest officer promised to take us on a hike through the forest. We all got ready in the morning and set out. The forest officials took us on a path which was on the edge of the forest. Again, we did not have much luck and we didn't spot any tigers. A part of me was happy about it as I am scared of wild animals and the fact that there were two toddlers with us only added to my fear. I did get attacked by some wildlife however - leeches. When I discovered a couple of them latched to my feet, I created quite a scene screaming and jumping all over the place. The forest guards reassured me by saying that they were not dangerous at this time of the year and that I discovered them very fast. Later, everyone discovered atleast a leech or two clinging on to their feet and we all applied generous doses of odomos before proceeding. Others hardly reacted when they found their leeches and I felt a little silly, but they were truly disgusting.

The Lake Palace

I was happy to be back at the palace for a sumptous breakfast. I don't think I am going for a wildlife advanture anytime soon, but I did enjoy the lake and the island and its palace. Back on mainland, we took an elephant ride which everone enjoyed except me and my two year old nephew. We were both terrified and while my nephew was wailing openly, I would have done it too but for the mocking I would have to face from everyone if I threw another tantrum. Sunshine enjoyed it the most; I guess he felt like a true maharaja riding his elephant.