That special month.. that special day!

November is almost over.

Three birthdays done and one more to go, in this family of all November borns.

First was the little ones birthday, which was celebrated the usual style with a small group of her school friends, sister and cousins at a local "paint your own ceramic" place. She had fun, getting two dresses for her birthday, dressing up, distributing cup cakes etc. We are going to miss this phase soon as our little girl is already eight and has a mind of her own. 

Next was Jr.'s turn. She had a deal. If we skipped a birthday party (which we were not planning to have in the first palce.. we had told her "you get a big party for 10th, then 13th and 16th.. nothing inbetween!") she will get my hand me down iPhone and I get to spend the 200+ bucks to upgrade to a new iPhone. So we ate out at a place of her choice and called it a Happy birthday. There are no birthday photos this year for Jr. ! Here she is, all grown up, at the little one's party. 

My birthday gift to her was a book "Indian Melodies for the Alto Saxophone" which had western notation for most of the entire Carnatic music series with Geethams, Varnams and some Keerthanais. The best part is that the book came with a CD where Kadri Gopalnath performs the lessons on an Alto Sax, so we know what it is supposed to sound like. Jr.' loves it compared to Daddy's hand written notations. We strongly recommend this book for other folks who are learning Saxophone in the Western style trying to do Carnatic music songs. There will be a video of her doing some songs later this week if she works on it. I call her "Nagubaby" in hopes that she will play one of my favorites "Nagumomu" and so far she is givng me the nasty look. 

It was going to be a hit or miss for my birthday as my travel plans were in flux. Last minute we found that I was going to make it back home, just before my birthday. The family was all happy with that news. There is always the plans and reality. Got a massive food poisoning event at the last meal on the trip, that pretty much wiped me out. It was a miracle that I made it back, on a long flight, all weak and throwing up. 

Got out of bed to throw up and saw it was 2AM. Wished myself a happy birthday and went back to sleep. My entire birthday was a blur. Mostly slept through it on a Gatorade and water diet. This is the first time I opened a birthday with throwing up. Well, there is a first time for everything!

The last few days has seen some improvement with bread and yogurt rice becoming part of the diet and so far they have stayed down. It is going to be a long and slow road to recovering from this one as my ability to smell or taste things is gone. 

Even with all this going on, life is not without a lighter side. A few days ago, I felt barely alive and was half asleep fighting my stomach and lying down. It felt like a dream. A small hand reached out into the comforter, pulls out my right thumb, presses it down somewhere and places my hand carefully back in position. When I woke up, realized it was the little one "opening" my iPhone using my thumb print, to play games! Reminded me of the villains in old Tamizh movies who get the dying man's thumb print on a document that wills away his farm!

We are now down to San's birthday which involves "more travel" as part of the birthday gift. Prayers are already in effect for me with family and friends so I recover fast. Someday I will write a book for folks with food allergies as a "travel guide". In the meantime, it is time to go back to sleep and get back to normal! 

Musical phone

Jr. has been encouraging me to go for the iPhone 5S since the day it was released. We even went and stood in line at the local Apple Store. There were 100 guys still in line for the 33 remaining phones in the store. We left after the "line keeper" lady gave us the scoop. Apparently she said the same thing to all the other folks in line! So they were all hoping that somehow the folks in front of them magically drop off? The takeaway from that experience was "we live in a world full of hope" and "always do the math before standing in line the next time".

We learned later that Jr.'s real motivation for daddy getting a new phone was to get my iPhone 4 as a hand me down. At every opportunity she reminded me (her mom is made of tougher stuff and they both know it!) that she is now a middle school going girl, all her classmates have their own phone, how she "needs" an iPhone, how it is going to make our life easy etc. etc. 

Finally we went to the local store which promised an exchange program of sorts where they give you money back for other Apple products. We took with us an iPhone 3GS and an iPod which my BIL had gifted San with a personal engraving. San loved the engraving so much that she decided to store the iPod and pray to it daily than play it. So the thing died without being used.. or so we thought.

The story guy powered up both devices and declared "you get 2$ for the iPod and 5$ for the iPhone"

I said "really? 2 bucks?" and he goes "you would have got $2.60 if it was not engraved!".. btw, the battery is not dead, it works fine!

The little one put the headphones on and declared "This is awesome! such good sound and it is like the entire iTunes is in this little thing! I am going to use it.. " and has been inseprable from the iPod since this discovery.

We told him to give the 3GS back. I might as well keep it at home and pray to it instead of parting with it for 5 bucks. 

The phones are all set. I now have a nice 5S and Jr. has the 4 which she has been customizing since morning. In other words, she is removing all traces of me from that phone and is succeeding rather well. 

I told the little one "You see this 5S.. that is what you are going to get in 3 years when you go to middle school". She was not impressed. 

Oh yes.. forgot all about the title.. It was not just a take on Musical chairs. The new phone and the 4 have been updated to IOS 7 and we as a family love the iRadio. The clarity is amazing and the song selection so far on the Bollywood channel is nice. For some reason it plays so well on bluetooth in our cars on the 5S compared to the 4.

I was on the fence on this purchase even after I was already eligible for an upgrade for more than a year.  

Was a good decision to wait for something after the iPhone 5.. 

Good job Apple! 

That was Jr. inaugurating the camera on the 5S. Considering the background was so bright, would have expected a washed out pic on the 4. This one practically took a High Key image.. Nice! 

Now I have higher expectations three years from now.

Mini me..

We had a quiet fireworks celebration in our backyard. Wanted to have a few pictures of this. So I set up a tripod and had the camera on self timer.

The first few round of sparklers was marked by me constantly requesting that all four of us start around the same time and look into the camera etc. Always get good shots with the black background, so I push for pictures.. 

After the third photo the little one yelled "Appa, I want to enjoy vedichiying the pattasu! So just come here and do this with us!" 

I promptly switched the camera off and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the pattasu vedichiying! (crackers bursting).

Watching the little one enjoying the fireworks with such intensity brings back so many memories of me bursting crackers as a kid.

If there is a "pattasu" gene, it has definitely been passed on to the next generation!