Happy Tamizh New Year

Wishing you all a very happy Tamizh new year!

இனிய புத்தாண்டு நல் வாழ்த்துக்கள் !!

Thanks to the Natesan's for giving them "matching" dresses for their Birthday!

Today's dressing session brought back memories of me and my brother, when we were the same age!

Wait, if you are thinking.. "oh so cute. Sundar and his brother must have worn matching outfits as kids!", you are way off base. There is only some truth to it!

When we were kids, our family went through tough times because my dad who worked in the insurance business was going through a labor strike. He did not have many choices. It was either sit at the picket line and forego pay or be ostracized. He chose picket lines, and that meant no pay! So we moved out of our big rental house to a small asbestos roofed shed the entire year of my 3rd grade(3rd standard!).

Naturally, there were no new clothes and we would end up getting new school uniforms stiched for diwali and no new clothes on our birthday. Somehow our parents made us understand what we were going through. For the next two three years, they were making a slow comeback, and that meant identical clothes for the two boys!

They would take us to Bombay Dyeing shop in Luz Corner and buy the same cloth by the meter and invariably ask the question "how much for him and how much for the little guy?". My brother and me would protest, take my parents to opposite ends of the shop to pick different patterns but invariably economics would take over. For a long time I used to see those books on my dad's shelf which said "Macro Economics - by Taylor" and would think that the guy at Art Land Tailors in Luz corner wrote those books!

Same pattern, same clothes and worse for my brother, he would get my hand me downs, which meant he would end up wearing the same pattern for another year or two. The horror! For some reason the parents, the relatives and even family friends would think this was "cute". Hopefully we were really cute, and they weren't laughing behind our backs. The phase finally came to an end, when I went to high school and my brother was as tall as me and eventually became taller than me. He was probably praying every day for some miracle by which the matching outfit, hand me down horror would end and was glad that it did.

Today it was so different watching the two girls, so happy to be wearing the same dress. Guess that is one of those things where, girls are different from boys!

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Beach heaven!

As most of you must know by now, Daddy's favorite spots are beaches. There is something to be said about the sand, the water, the waves, the vast expanse of sky, the people, the sundal(substitute with cheese sandwich, soda, home made mullu murukku or what have you) and the experience is usually a great one!

Last week a friend told us that he took his kids to this beach in San Mateo with the backwater or creek and the kids had lots of fun! We had been to this place once before, five years ago to show MIL california beaches on her first visit to the US of A. Unfortunately we did it in January when it was really cold and there was no one at the beach.

This time, different story. We went there(San Gregorio State Beach) and the cousin family joined us within an hour after we settled down. It was a lot of fun. The San Gregorio Creek joins the sea after making a couple of bends. The water is only a few inches deep and the flow is minimal. The water in the estuary is also warmer than the sea water.

The San Gregorio beach is right at the intersection of route 84 and route 1. I always take 84 to hit route 1 instead of the 92 because it is less windy and more scenic and today for the first time we stopped at Alice's restaurant (a very popular place with a lot of history) and had coffee, ice cream and snacks. It was wonderful!

Once the little one got in the water, there was no stopping her!

The original plan was to go to the Santa Cruz boardwalk and that said, we were definitely not packed for a beach trip. We winged it anyways, thanks to a few towels and the Sun shining brightly on us.

Our fun filled afternoon came to an abrupt end when the Beach Patrol came and asked us to leave. A helicopter was to land on the beach to do an emergency medical transport.

So we rushed out of the beach. All said and done, a day well spent!

On a side note, Wishing all of you a wonderful "Tamizh New year" (yep, starts tomorrow!).

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Fantastic Book

Jr. brings home three books a week.

Two are part of the "Red Bag" homework where she reads the book with me and does a one page activity based on the book. The third one is her weekly pick from the school Library for weekend reading.

So far we must have done close to two dozen red bag books and only two or three stick to my mind, or to her mind for that matter. (The original Curious George, The very busy spider, Chica Chica boom boom, a favorite from her preschool days, Chrysanthemum , Sylvester and the magic pebble, and the dandelion seed to name a few..)

Some books were highly touted, but failed to impress me or in my opinion gave the wrong message like "The giving tree" , but Jr. liked the book.

She usually gets better books on her friday pick like "The rainbow fish", "Cleo and Leo",

This friday's book was "Is your mama a Llama?" by Deborah Guarino with drawings by Steven Kellogg. Wow!! Amazing. Jr. loved it and so did I. It is going to be one of my favorite books. I am a sucker for rhymes and the words of this book would make Bob Dylan proud.

This book is about a Llama called Lloyd who keeps asking baby animals if their mama is a Llama? and finds out what their mama is based on a description of the animal.

Here is a sample..

"Is your mama a Llama?" I asked my friend Jane.
"No, she is not," Jane politely explained.
"She grazes on grass, and she likes to say, 'Moo!'
I don't think that is what a Llama would do."

"Oh," I said. "I understand, now.
I think that your mama must be a....

and of course Jr. finishes off by saying "COW!"

Really great book!

Here's to many more such good finds...

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