R-Rated

Done with chores for the week. Much earlier than past weekends. Kirti comes home next week and stays till monday morning. Thats a small bonus from the last time she was here. Weekdays at work were uneventful to say the least. Tanaya came to town and had dinner with her at Loring's (Italian place) at U of M. U of M is huge, similar to the other big names in the education business . Strangely enough, met her for the first time since 26th Aug, 2001. 6 and a half years later she hasn't changed much from how she was back then. Same cannot be said about me though. Sprained my back real bad last wednesday and had help from Mukesh and Sameer. The back pain is gone for now and I feel good. Went to Mithil's place on saturday and had stomach full of dosas, sambhar and chutney. Saw Deev go through a whole range of emotions that a child could possess. In no particular order he was cranky, sleepy, crying, yelling, laughing, playing, talking to himself, feeding grapes to us and favoring

Nothing much happened this weekend (or the weekday). -- Cleaned the house on saturday morning and in the process, tweaked my lower back. Its been hurting since. -- Watched "Apocalypto" and "Ratatouille" back-to-back on saturday night. -- Went to the temple on sunday morning and cooked in the evening. What a bore!!

Mithil and Pallavi had their shaadi ka party at their house on saturday. The guest list included the "usual suspects". Pallavi made some tasty food (assisted by Mithil, of course) that included Tandoori Chicken, Bihari Chicken, Malai Kofta, Fried Shrimp, Basundi, Samosas, Pakoras etc. I did eat the chicken dishes and they were deeelliiiccciiioouuss. After 10 million photographs, lots of food, cake cutting, a series of dumbcharades and antakshari, and one-fourth of a movie (Mukesh picked up a black comedy, Why did I get married? ), it was time to go home at 1 AM. Samrat had planned for this Auto Show since the past week and we decided to check it out. $9 entry fee (ouch!!) for this show was not worth it. It was a disappointment in the fact that we were expecting to see concept cars from the biggies and it turned out to be regular showroom models. Some of the showroom models were sweet, nevertheless. Wanted to check out the Hyundai Santa Fe. The SUV has good features and com

Got back yesterday from a fantastic Seattle trip. Kirti and I were there to celebrate Sidhya's 2nd birthday with Manni and Ganesh. The "Little Princess" has come a long way since we first saw her when she was 10 days old. We last saw her when she was 4 months old and it was at Newark Airport. This time around, all of 2 years, in the Pacific Northwest, we saw her again at Seattle-Tacoma Airport. She is the prettiest baby I have seen and one of the naughtiest too!!! She got the scare of her life when she saw me for the first time and to make matters worse I jumped onto the backseat of the car to sit near her. All along the way from the airport to home (30 minutes), she did not leave Manni's hand clutching it as tightly as possible with her tiny little hands so that " the stranger " doesn't take her away from her " Amma and Dada ". It was painful to hear her scream. Once we were home, it took her a good hour to come to me and start getting familia

I got done with my exam yesterday and it was good. I hope the person checking the papers thinks the same way too. My preparation on friday got "bugged" because of a nasty issue. Apparently, there are Bed Bugs in my house and I will have to "fumigate" my belongings at my own cost, which would be about $1500-$2000. Need help on that and lets see how the Minnesota State Helpline bails me out on this one. Allstate, my renter's insurance carrier could not do anything as bed bugs are considered "Animals" and damage to property by Animals is not covered by the policy. Only damages due to fire, theft, lightning, wind, flood etc. are included. My landlord is a nasty old prick who doesn't know how to talk to tenants and handle their issues on a case-by-case basis. He surely has lost a customer. The worst thing about this is, I just extended my lease till the end of October. That hurts. P Chidambaram announced the budget for the current year and made almost e