Could it be ?

I usually remember what Phileas Fogg says in "Around the World in 80 days" to his assistant Passportout ..

Don't jump to conclusions or conclusions will jump on you!!

Based on some recent events at home, I have come to the conclusion that both my wife and mother in law have actually come to the US of A to secretly train our President, George W. Bush on a range of subjects. Some of you who are reading this are prone to speculate along the following lines :

a. I am nuts. I just need some sleep.
b. I have become a conspiracy theorist.
c. maybe, maybe it is possible (after all you dont know these two people really well!)

I am counting on c, and I proceed to elaborate on my hypothesis..

Recent Conversation at home :

Me: You claim that you are the only one feeding Jr. How come every time you feed her, she is crying and making life hell. The one time I fed her over the weekend she was okay ?

MIL : Give the plate to him. From today he and only he will feed Jr.

Wife : That is right. Changing diapers and putting the kid to sleep are easy. This is the most difficult job. Lets see you do this for a long time..

Me: So, anything you do is important, anything I do is not ?

Wife and MIL : That is not what we are saying. What we do impacts the well being of the family directly. If you really care about our family, you wont say what you are saying !!!

Recent conversation in Washington :

People : You claim that the war in Iraq has something to do with Al-Qaida. How come Iraq became more dangerous after you went in ?

Cheney et. al. : Raise the alert level in every airport to Orange over the labor day weekend. Lets see how safe Americans feel. Ask these guys to catch Bin Laden if they can !

President : That is right. The world is a much safer place because we went into Iraq. Going to War is easy. Anyone can do it. Pulling out without losing face, that is difficult. Lets see you do this for a long time..

People : So if we say anything against your war strategy, it is unpatriotic ? but anything you do is patriotic ?

President : That is not what we are saying. What we do impacts national security. If you really care about national security, you wont say what you are saying !!!

Please note that some sentences are downright the same. It is always possible that the President has been teaching these two and not the other way around. But I have known these two longer than our President became President and therefore I am pretty sure they are the instructors here.

Innocent me, I was always thinking that every alternate weekend or so, they were going to watch movies at IMC6. Maybe they are holding secret coaching classes for the President, behind my back.. Could it be ?

Mood swings on demand.

Happy.................Mad..............Silly............Sad !!



All above photos were taken within a span of a few minutes during the "I ate the laptop trackball" episode !! I loved these so much that I made a button on the sidebar using these pictures...

Shows how kids can change moods so fast ...

Honeysuckle

We have a few hummingbirds going for this flower every morning. A friend mentioned that this was honeysuckle !

The Powershot is not able to capture the hummingbirds but did get a macro of the flowers.

Baby sitting

While the wife and mother-in-law have gone to watch "Sillunu Oru Kadhal" at the local movies(notice, I swore not to go there again), I was doing the standard baby sitting duty. A piece of cake considering Jr. went to sleep in the afternoon. But baby was her troublesome best !

Lets put the scenario in perspective. Lets say you are 10 months old, you have been having a diarrhea that has defied analysis by all the local pediatricians and your stool sample results for worms and parasites is yet to be back.. to top things off you are being watched by your absent minded daddy who is not his sharpest these days.

What would you do ?

a. give your daddy a break and play with the gazillion toys his hard earned money has gone into.
b. go lick the slippers and shoes from the shoe rack as usual so you can challenge bay area pediatricians and make them feel like they have to go back and repeat their sophomore year
c. pick up something from the floor and eat it ?

All the above options were expected !!

Daddy goes to warm up some milk. Total time daddy was away : 25 seconds. Daddy comes back after the microwave finishes and notices she is sitting in a corner. He can tell that she has done something, but dont know what! So he acts as though he is looking the other way and immediately she starts moving her jaws.

He jumps up and say "got you!" and put my finger inside her mouth. She cries like crazy because he removed something from her mouth..



She finally stopped when I flashed the camera !
What I found just shocked me !! Can you even guess what she was eating ?

see below :

Still cant find out? Look between the G, H and B on the keyboard ! The red trackball in the keyboard was inside her mouth !

I had left her near the computer, thinking that all she is going to do is hit the keys at random and the computer was in the login screen. While I was thinking about the laptops safety, I had not even thought that she could dig out the trackball and eat it ! I didnt even know that the trackball could be removed that easily!

Sure, I will go down in history as a bad babysitter, but this is just too much. How much can a person watch a kid ?

Note to all babysitting daddy's :

Never ever underestimate the little devil! and always check her mouth every 30 seconds!

ps. If any of you know where I can purchase a kid version of "that thing" Anthony Hopkins has over his face in Silence of the Lambs, please let me know. Plan to put it over baby's face and relax!

Older and Wiser ?

Went to the Toyota service center to fix a problem with the hatch door. Had a rude shock when the Girl at the counter(probably 20-22 years old) said

"It will be 120 dollars to diagnose the problem and then fixing will have separate charges".
Me : It is just a little door opener like the ones in the patio in my house. Why dont you just replace it ?
Girl : But what if it is just some sub component which can be changed for 3-4$ ?
Me : It is still going to cost me 120$ and an extra 3-4 $?
Girl : You are right. Let me see what I can do ..
Me : Isnt this covered under warranty ? please help me. give me a discount if there is one.
Girl : We normally dont do this. Okay, here is what I will do. The part is free because of warranty. The extra stuff we will do and I will subtract the 120$ towards the work we do! Anything to make you customers happy! (and she kind of smiled - it was not a condescending smile or a giggly smile.. just an all knowing smile)
Me : Fine, do it.

While she is filling out the paperwork, I get curious..

Me: Normally you guys dont do this type of thing. How come you are doing this ?
Girl : Actually you remind me of my dad !!!!! That is why I talked to the manager and got this for you !
Me: Do I look like your dad ?
Girl : (big laugh, her co-worker on the next terminal also starts laughing) NO! you talk like him !

For a second I was in shock. I am in my mid-thirties and I am already reminding a 20 year old girl of her Dad !! Do I really look that old ? Granted the only exercise I get is when my fingers type on a keyboard and I have long gotten used to my belly and the receeding hairline or the grey hairs ! But still ??

I was kind of relieved that it was my bargaining attempt that reminded the girl of her dad ! There is no shame in bargaining. I am not just getting older, I should be getting wiser too...