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I haven’t yet abandoned this blog. For those of you still reading, fear not! I shall return. Life has just become a bit overwhelming right now. Moving, setting up house, working, baby, blah blah blah. No time for blogging right now and if there was, there’s so little in my brain that’s interesting, I’m not sure it would be worth it.
But I’m looking forward to summer…..hopefully a little more downtime and a few trips that should provide me with some material. For now, I’ll leave you with this:
June 1st, 2007
We spent our first night in the new house last night. The last two weeks have been nuts-we moved out of our house in a flash, everything got thrown into storage and we moved up to my mother-in-law’s, adding several extra miles to our commutes. Ashok wasn’t sleeping great, being in a new place, and chose to wake up between 5:00 and 5:45 every morning. Of course, that actually worked out fine since that was about how early we needed to get up in order to drop him off at daycare and get to work. I’m hoping that for Mother’s Day tomorrow my son will give me a few extra hours of sleep. That would be so nice.
I am liking the house more and more as we get settled. Sure, the fridge is in the dining room for now (the kitchen is going to get remodeled soon) and we can’t seem to get the phone to work, but the space is great, the light is beautiful and there are FOUR CLOSETS. Hooray. I certainly hope we stay here until we’re old and grey becuase moving is really a sucky process that I don’t hope to repeat anytime soon.
Oh, and then there’s this guy:
Ashok is getting cuter by the minute. Everyone told me this would be a fun age, but I had no idea. He is always smiling and laughing and his desperate attempts to crawl-oh, the flailing-are hysterical. I have been told that he is taking me out for a fancy dinner tomorrow for Mother’s Day but I have a feeling I’ll end up driving. That’s fine, as long as he pays.
May 12th, 2007
Today, I celebrate the one year Blogiversary of Run, Lucy, Run. It’s hard to believe that I have managed to hang on to this blog this long despite the many changes in my life this year. I realize that with my birthin’ a baby and all, this has become less of a running blog and more of a life/baby blog but since I was never such an impressive runner to begin with, I figure not too many folks are reading this for my training tips and stats.
I wish I could post more often but honestly, I enjoy reading all of your blogs so much that I often find myself sucked into the Bloglines vortex for hours on end and by the time I come up for air, it’s time to go to bed. Particularly these days, when I have a baby monkey hanging from my neck for the better part of the day, it’s hard to find the time or material for the ol’ blog. Unless of course, you want me to detail all the banal details of life with the aforementioned baby monkey and his many diaper changes. Hm? Maybe not.
So, in lieu of any New Year’s resolutions (aside from that one about not eating EVERYTHING in front of my face) here are my resolutions for the Blogging New Year:
- More posts (perhaps I can bump it up to twice a week-MY GOD!)
- More baby pictures (because he is cute)
- More pictures of animals in costume (because it’s fun to torture them)
- More slow running
- More whining and complaining
And please let me know if you have any requests. I’m nothing if not an entertainer.
January 20th, 2007
Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday of mine for many reasons, but primarily for the food. Now that’s not anything terribly new and exciting, I know. Ooooh! You like turkey and stuffing? How original….
But Thanksgiving dinner has a special significance for me. Growing up, I ate Indian food just about every night for dinner. My dad wanted Indian food when he came home from work and my Mom cooked it. At least until they stopped speaking to each other, but that’s an entirely different story. I loved it, I still love Indian food above any other cuisines, it just feels like home to me. The sole exceptions to this family routine were dinner at a friend’s house or the occasional pizza or McDonald’s (my mom now swears she had no idea back then how bad McNuggets were for us otherwise they never woud have passed my lips). When we went out to eat, we would end up having some sort of Asian food, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, which was great but not really that much of a stretch for those of us accustomed to spicy food. One thing is for sure, we never hung out at any greasy spoon diners and shoveled good ol’ American food into our faces.
When I moved to New York for college, I became good friends with another violinist in my teacher’s studio. J was Chinese (actually, I’m pretty sure she still is) and like me, grew up mostly eating the food of her culture. As we got to know the city better, on the nights we weren’t drunk, we would spend a lot of time at Tom’s Restaurant. If you’ve ever watched Seinfeld, you probably recognize this place. Tom’s wasn’t anything fancy but we loved it. This is where J and I would go for what we called our “exotic” American meals. We would order strange and fascinating things like Salisbury Steak, Reuben sandwiches and split pea soup. For us this was the most foreign food we could dream of. We had heard our American friends talk about it growing up and occasionally tried a few of these delicacies at their houses, but this was an opportunity to immerse ourselves in one of the few aspects of American culture that we had never fully experienced growing up in Asian households. Up until this time, Thanksgiving had been the only time we had tasted traditional American food and even then there were usually a few good curries on the table surrounding the turkey my mother had cooked. I have vivid memories to this day of watching my father carve our Thanksgiving bird, surrounded by ladies in saris. But the turkey had no cumin or cardamom, just plain bird, which I think, quite frankly, confused many of the sari-clad ladies. But now, I could order turkey dinner any day of the week, complete with mashed potatoes and gravy.
So, as our friends at school who had moved to New York from the midwest discovered sushi and tried eating Ethiopian food with their hands, J and I explored American diner food with great zeal. For years, I ate at diners all over New York and ALWAYS had an extra side of mashed potatoes and gravy. Eventually, I came to find my true love in stuffing, which is unfortunately hard to find at restaurants so I just poured what little spare money I had into my Stove Top habit (ah, the days of fast metabolism). Later, I would move on to study the finer points of Hamburger Helper and perfect the art of making Rice-a-Roni. I had watched ads for these things on TV for years, and never been allowed to try them. But now, free from the shackles of my parent’s house, I could go hog wild, running down the middle of Broadway with a bag full of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.
I’ve moved on from the days of dinner in a box for the most part, but I still find turkey dinner irresistible. I have yet to actually cook one myself, but if I walk down the prepared food aisle in Whole Foods and see turkey, gravy and stuffing, I know that it’s all coming home with me. I have a feeling that once our son is a little older, I will probably take the plunge and cook the whole Thanksgiving meal, just so I can say I did it. And maybe I’ll throw a curry in on the side, just for nostalgia.
November 29th, 2006
I know these meme things are a little silly, but I find the process of answering these questions oddly comforting right now, so bear with me. Here goes….
48 things you probably never wanted to know in the first place
1. FIRST NAME? Shalini
2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Not that I’m aware of. I think my mom just liked the name.
3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? Oh, come on! I just had a baby…it had to be at least 5 minutes ago.
4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? When I was a kid, I actually had pretty neat handwriting but at some point in high school decided that it wasn’t “cool” enough so I tried to change it. It has been all screwed up ever since.
5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT? Roast/Smoked Turkey
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I think so, although all the emotional outbursts can be a bit much, really.
7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? This is as good as it gets. I used to keep one on an old computer and forgot to delete the file before I sold it. Woops.
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes.
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? I think I might, especially if I have been watching The Amazing Race.
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Currently, it is Trader Joe’s Trek Trail Mix Granola-Antioxidant Nut and Berry Blend. It sounds overwhelming, but it’s really tasty.
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Yes, but my husband does not.
12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? I gave birth without drugs, so yes, I’m pretty sure I am.
13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? This is a hot topic at our house. At the height of my pregnancy related ice cream dementia, it was probably either Ben & Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie or Fosselman’s Cookie Dough.
14. SHOE SIZE? 9
15. RED OR PINK? Red.
16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? Physically, right now it would have to be my deflated abdomen. Mentally, my inability to relax when I have time off.
17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? I miss my family in India, especially now that we have this cute baby.
18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? Only if they want to. Actually, Charlie, if you’re reading this, you have to!
19. WHAT COLOR PANTS, SHIRT AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Grey pants, purple shirt, no shoes.
20. LAST THING YOU ATE? Pasta with pesto made by my husband.
21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Ashok snoring on the baby monitor.
22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? It’s sad, but I always really liked black. Even as a kid. I swear I wasn’t a goth and I never listened to The Cure.
23. FAVORITE SMELL? Garlic and onions being fried together. Smells like the beginning stage of every Indian dish my mom makes.
24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? My sister.
25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? Eyes.
26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON you stole THIS from? She’s totally awesome. My way maje fave.
27. FAVORITE DRINK? Champagne.
28. FAVORITE SPORT? I’m subjected to quite a bit of basketball in our house, so by default that may be it. Although I got really into the U.S. Open this year and even thought about playing tennis again sometime, so maybe that’s my answer.
29. EYE COLOR? Brown.
30. HAT SIZE? No clue, although my sister says I’m a pinhead.
31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No.
32. FAVORITE FOOD? I grew up eating Indian food almost every day so that will probably always be my favorite.
33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? eh…..are there any other choices?
34. IF YOU COULD LIVE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, WHERE WOULD THAT BE? I always dreamed of living in San Francisco. There or Italy.
35. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer.
36. HUGS OR KISSES? Some of both.
37. FAVORITE DESSERT? Ice cream.
38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Charlie, because I called him out.
39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Everyone else.
40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? A slew of baby-rearing books. So much for my post-partum reading list!
41. WHAT’S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Don’t have one.
42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? The Amazing Race-and it was the episode my sister worked on!
43. FAVORITE SOUNDS? Lucy howling when she hears sirens.
44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES? Beatles.
45. THE FURTHEST YOU’VE BEEN FROM HOME? India. Long flight.
46. WHAT’S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? Eating. A lot. In fact, I’m feeling a bit hungry right now….
47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Sacramento, CA.
48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? No one. I stole it from Courtney.
October 23rd, 2006
Today I am dedicating this post to wishing my husband Brian a very happy birthday! His big day was actually yesterday but my blog was down almost the whole day and I couldn’t get this post up. grrrr…..
Yesterday morning started out in grand style, with us realizing at 7:30 in the morning that we had NO WATER in our house, ANYWHERE. Disaster. There is nothing better than a plumbing problem to start your day. Luckily, we got our plumber over here and he had it figured out by about 1:00 (I love you, Vic the plumber!) but by that time Brian had decided to work from home and he spent most of the day on conference calls with the folks at his office. Fun. Then we went to our 2 1/2 hour childbirth class at night. More fun. More hee-hee-hoo-hoo than you could ever ask for. Happy birthday, indeed! So, I’m hoping tonight will end up feeling like more of a birthday for him. We’re going to our favorite local bar, The Wild Hare with some friends to celebrate. They have great fries so I won’t be too bored while everyone else is getting drunk.
Other than that, the summer has been progressing sweatily. It has been over 90 degrees here very day since we got back into town with a couple of days at 100. The worst part is that becasue it has been muggy and humid (don’t we live in the desert?) it hasn’t been cooling off at night which is no fun for this pregnant lady. This weekend, we filled up the kiddie pool for Lucy and some friends of hers: 
They seemed to enjoy it. If the water hadn’t turned muddy brown within ten seconds of them leaping in and out of it, I might have considered getting in myself. Dirty dogs.
July 19th, 2006
It’s exactly 5:30 in the morning in soon to be sweltering Los Angeles and for the third night/morning in a row I am awake at this hour for no good reason. No reason, of course, other than the constant need to pee and the kid in my body kicking the crap out of me. As of this week I am officially in the third trimester of my pregnancy. This week also marks the first week that I have had more than two days in a row off since I got pregnant in January. It has been amazing. Yesterday, I took Lucy to the dog park, watched almost the entire first season of Project Runway, had lunch with a friend, had dinner with another friend and then collapsed at 10:30. Unfortunately, my body seems to equate not working with not deserving to sleep through the night so here I am at 5:30 for the third day in a row. I’m hoping this doesn’t become a habit.
This summer hasn’t been so bad so far. We made it through Sequoia relatively unscathed-I only had one meltdown in two weeks of 10-13 hour days and that once again had to do with sleeping through the night. But really, one breakdown in 2 hideously busy weeks? It must have been all the late night pizza.
In a sort of unspoken pact, Brian and I have been trying to do a few things now that we probably won’t be able to do once we have the baby. It ranges from the mundane (hiring a new gardener, looking into daycare) to the ridiculous (Brian and Charlie’s 13 hour trip to Disneyland). Probably the best thing we did since coming back from Sequoia was go to the Dodger game on the 4th of July. 
I insisted on getting better seats than our usual nosebleeders and they were well worth the extra cash. We sat at field level and had a couple of foul balls come awfully close to us (the guys stood up and tried to catch them while I quietly cowered in my seat with my ice cream). After the game, we were all allowed to spill onto the field and sit to watch the fireworks. It was pretty great, even though I was occasionally perturbed by the possibility that I was sitting in a pile of some outfielder’s spit. Aside from that, a very pleasant evening.
I’m starting to look at this summer as my last blast before parenthood. Not that I’m going to mourn my independent life (or maybe I will), but I figure I should do as much as I can in these last few months before my life changes forever. Since I can’t climb Mt. Everest or run a marathon, I may have to settle for lots of shopping, pedicures and a weekend away here and there. I can probably handle that.
July 13th, 2006
Greetings from Arcata, CA! We have been up here for a mere 4 days and I am already exhausted. The first few days are always the busiest though, and at least this weekend we get about 24 hours in a row off. I think the plan is to go out to one of the local breweries in Eureka (no beer for me, naturally only french fries!) and the go see Nacho Libre. The silly weekend movie is sort of a tradition of ours up here.
Yesterday as we were enjoying some time off in the music library, where the coaches congregate between rehearsals, I decided to listen to an NPR story online that Brian had told me about. It’s all about Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and the kids who love them. There are some pretty priceless interviews with some fifth graders at the beginning and end of the story-check it out here. Be sure to listen to the end, I promise it’s worth it.
June 22nd, 2006
First of all, congratulations to Susan on an awesome San Diego Marathon and even better pictures of drinking Tequila in Tijuana! That girl knows how to run a race.
Work is finally winding down a bit around here. My orchestra’s season ends this week (hooray!)-last concert this afternoon and although I still have other bits of work here and there, the remainder of the summer should be nice and mellow.
EXCEPT, for Sequoia.
Yes, Sequoia. Sequoia is a two week chamber music workshop for kids in Arcata, CA that Brian and I have taught at for the past few summers. It is run by one of our very best friends, Dave , and co-run by his wife Courtney (who married into the life of Sequoia and thus has no true escape). The toughest part of Sequoia is that our hours are usually from about 8:30 in the morning to about 10:30 at night, with small breaks to eat at the nasty, nasty cafeteria. The best part of Sequoia is that we get to see Dave, Courtney and another very close friend Charlie, a great bear of a man who lives in Sweden so we appreciate any time we get with him. This madness will begin in about a week which means we have to live it up until then.
That’s why we’re having a party this weekend! We try to have one big bash a year, I think mostly because it forces us to clean up the house and take care of things we have been putting off since after last year’s shindig. Unfortunately, most of that cleaning has to happen today. We’re starting with the outside-I am in charge of picking up dog poop (lovely) and puling weeds and Brian is in charge of collecting leaves, a big job considering all the trees on our lot. Then we’ll move indoors and deal with the mountain of animal hair that carpets our lives and I will sneeze until the sun sets.
I will try and remember to take some pictures tomorrow and post them here, including some of my incresaingly pregnant appearance. It should be easier to stay organized this year dring the party since I won’t be able to get drunk. Wait, why are we having this party again?
June 10th, 2006
aaaaaaahhh…….
That’s how I’ve been feeling lately. Since my duo recital ended last Sunday, things have FINALLY calmed down. Although I still have quite a bit of work going on, I have no major solo or chamber music concerts to get ready for which is a huge relief. Now, I can spend hours on end on the internet trying to figure out what kind of stroller to buy and weighing in on the disposable vs. cloth diaper debate. Fascinating, isn’ t it?
The weather has finally warmed up here in Southern California. I know that sounds ridiculous, but for the past month we have had gray skies every single morning. After a crazy rainstorm the other day (rain?? in May?? in L.A.???), the skies have cleared and as expected, we have skipped right over spring and gone head first into summer. I’m glad though, I like the summers here. Summer means I work less, spend a lot of time in our backyard and go to (and host) lots of barbeques. Over the next couple of weeks, we have a couple of our best friends coming to visit which I’m really looking forward to. They may be our last house guests for a while as our guest room is going to have to eventually transistion into a baby room. At about the same time I will make my transition into a 1950’s domestic goddess who can whip up casseroles and take care of screaming child all at once. Oh my God, I am terrified.
So, life is rolling on. Lucy and I have been going on lots of walks which I think has been the only thing preventing me from really blowing up like a whale. I’m 4 and a half months pregnant now, but not nearly as enormous as I thought I would be. I guess I have that to look forward to.
One new and exciting development this month has been the acquisition of my new MacBook. It is black and sexy, and I love it. As Susan might say, it is my precious ( but I hope my precious won’t die a horrible death like hers did ). Here’s one example of fun with the MacBook:
With the computer comes a program called Photo Booth that lets you take pictures of your self with the built in camera and then add effects to them. The above is the comic book version of our cat Chewie with Brian in the background (wearing his LA Marathon sweatshirt!). The large brownish-black blur to the left of Chewie is actually me. I guess I need to work with it some more. I know there have been requests for pictures of my pregnant self and I’m thinking this might be the way to do it. Maybe there’s an effect on there that will make me look like a big-bellied superhero. One can hope.
May 25th, 2006
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