Bollywood is alive and well

This song will definitely be a classic. Ashwariya's dancing, both Amitabh and Abhishek Bacchan and there extra long legs... Amitabh acting like a sharabi...

Summer Reviews

Best Hike: Half Moon Mountain
This hike rocked. The temperature was not too bad despite it being 95 or so in Richmond. It took us the entire day to drive there, hike, and come back. Guddu had 4 ticks, and I saw a deer. Guddu also had mysterious red welts the day after, but we don't think it is lyme disease. The summit was VERY impressive and would be a good place to camp overnite. This hike is just inside the West Virginia border. We drove back on state roads instead of the highway-- we took 340 and 33. We stopped for really good and cheap Chinese food in Elkton. They practically made our dishes to order ("Can I have tofu with lots of vegetables, but no celery, and make it spicy?" and "Do you have Hunan chicken? Can I have that, spicy, and make sure there is no beef or pork in it!")

Best Swanky Bar: Bank
Sorry, I have no link for bank. It is extremely hard to google it, and I don't think they have a website. But this bar/restaurant makes you feel cultured. The interior is beautiful... It might be the future site for a fundraiser we plan to throw for our new nonprofit.

Best Lunch: Ipanema
Lucy and I went here for lunch today. I had a super tasty portabello mushroom salad with feta and pine nuts. lucy had a grilled gouda sandwich and sweet potato fries. 'nuff said.

Best Happy Hour Special: margarita on the rocks-- $3 at Bandito's

Best new nonprofit: The Deoki Nandan Education Trust

Title 9 in Bihar

BBC and Deepak have delightfully informed me that girls DO play sports in Bihar. I only have one niece who played a sport in highschool-- but Ruchi lives in Jharkand, the former part of Bihar that separated a few years ago taking all the industry and wealth, so she doesn't count as living in Bihar.

I know that playing sports during school made me who I am today. Field hockey in high school was part of my identity and provided me with a sorority of support that is still intact today. Even though I do not play any organized now, I still run and occasionally hike. I start going mental without regular exercise-- but that is a whole 'nother post!

Sports programs will do wonders for India-- especially the "backwards" areas. And just to let you know-- overweightedness, premarital sex, anorexia, and casteism are alive and well in rural India.

• It will help remove caste stigmas as girls from different castes play together.
• Girls will get real exercise-- not just hauling firewood and grinding masala and sweeping. Hopefully they will develop a habit for exercise and will exercise in adulthood to fight weight-related problems like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
• Girls will build confidence as they develop athletic skills. Their confidence will spread to the school setting and remain with them throughout life.
  
• Girls will be healthier-- no more starving to remain thin or to appear like a martyr. In the US, girls who play sports are also less likely to engage in drug use and premarital sex.
• Athletes are more disciplined and better time managers. Also, exercise is a good form of stress release and sharpens the mind.
  

The sad truth is that poor girls and low caste and untouchables will still be left out of these sports clubs. But it is a sign that if football can take hold in Barauni, then the future is bright for female athletes in India.

east coast it will be

after over one month of waiting, guddu and i found out we will NOT be moving to somewhere-in-middle-america. it is a shame because i would have really enjoyed the job, had 3 weeks of paid vacation, and guddu and i would have had massive salaries.

but instead we will hopefully shift up to DC. maybe we will be able to keep more of our furniture, and guddu can pursue his dreams of starting both a nonprofit and a car dealership. and we'll be close to friends and family. who needs money when you have dreams and relationships?

speechless frozen like a deer

lucy and i took a late walk this evening. i was bummed about how screwed up people are, and she was making me feel better by telling me how screwed up others are-- her example was a bar fight where someone kicked the other so hard his leg was broken and he had to have surgery... this story, by the way, definitely helped me put things in perspective and remember how greatful i should be that no one kicked me or anyone i know so hard that we required surgery.

so, during this story, we're walking down the street and a naked man appears. we freeze, speechless, like deer in headlights. i then said to myself, "oh-- it's just a naked man." then i remembered naked men should not be on the street. he sheepishly called out "sorry! it's a $50 bet." oh...

so, we continue walking down the street. we get to the bar where the boy's leg was kicked-s0-hard-it-broke, and this girl tries to stop this dude from driving off by JUMPING ON THE CAR'S HOOD. lucy and i again freeze, speechless, like deer in headlights. dude calls out to the girl "don't ever do that again" or something to that effect, backs up, and speeds forward. AGAIN, girl tries to stop fast car with her body, and we see her fall and hear a loud crack. thinking it was her legs or skull being crushed, we stand speechless-- like deer in headlights. guy speeds off and we see girl laying in parking lot, trying to collect her broken wooden shoes. "uh-- it's ok" she says.

like mom says "god works in mysterious ways." he showed me that i have good friends who listen to my problems instead of kicking me to the hospital and i have a good husband who doesn't try to run me over when we have an argument.

photo project

i feel very lucky to be part of the generation that grew up using conventional cameras and typewriters. in anticipation of the move to somewhere-in-middle-america and the eventual sale of my mother's house, my mom and i have been cleaning out the attic. i've been playing two straight weeks of "keep or toss." gone are fuzzy pictures, incriminating photos, dirty stuffed animals (i'll miss you, st. bernard and pound puppies!), trophies, and school notebooks. i threw out over 1,000 photos today and thought, people won't need to do this in the future bc evertyhing will be on the computer-- even all of my class notes from this last year of grad school are on the computer.

i've also created a pile of stuff that I do not want to keep, but others will enjoy-- pictures and notes passed during highschool. i figure it will be good to get together with those high school friends and pass on those memories before the move.

my dad said this week to guddu that "kate's mom really knows how to take care of things." Guddu was amazed that we still have 20+-year-old baby dresses, halloween costumes, ultrasound pics, and hospital bracelets saved. my mother had packed most of the items from my childhood in one box. i had forgotten about most of the items-- but all the memories came back when we went through the old clothes and toys. my childhood in a box.

i'm keeping some good photos, creatively placing them in acid-free albums so in 40 years my grandkids can ooh and awe. i'm also keeping a few choice stuffed animals and trophies-- again, my adolescence will be reduced to one box.

decluttering is very emotional. there are some bad memories that also arise. and it is hard to toss old possessions for fear of losing the good memories. but decluttering allows you to make new space to operate and create new memories.

Barat Video

Here is some of the video that Guddu took of Santosh's Wedding. Santosh is exiting his house in Dewdhi, Bihar. We're all following him down to the pathani (the barn) where they will do some rituals. We then all rode to Patna-- a 3 hour journey. There, they completed the wedding-- that's where you see the bride and her father sitting with Santosh.

chocolate covered ant ice cream

This (picture it about 3/4 inch long, head to tail) was in my Healthy Choice Caramel Brownie ice cream. No more packaged foods for me-- or at least no ice cream for a while!

Healthy Choice will reimburse me with coupons, so I can buy more of their products. And Kroger gave me my money back.

I want to add that a similar incident happened to me in the early 1990s. A stinkbug fell in my ice cream and I bit into it, releasing its juices (which I thought was "black forest" flavour at first), and then causing me to obstain from ice cream for quite a long time (probably 2 weeks-- a long time for a pre-teen!).

This large, prehistoric-looking flying ant, I believe, did not fall in my ice cream. I think it was embedded in the air pocket surrounding an unusually large chunck of brownie mass and ice crystals. The extra-iciness caused me to slow down and study the ice cream, helping me to notice the fudge ripple that did not melt but was actually part of the wing of the ant. Normally I would've inhaled the ant along with the ice cream-- i shudder to think of its crunchy texture in my mouth...