One week later

- Still jet lagged, although it comes and goes. Today i was up at 5, my mom i am sure will be very happy to hear. Its strange, i am the only one in the house with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and i am up earliest and being generally useless. On the other hand, the past month was crazy busy, there were days when i wouldnt get to sit still till the day ends. And this was after i'd quit work. Guess this is how it balances out.

- Still camped at cousin's place. The plan was to move over the weekend, but that didnt happen, out of more of a feeling of general laziness than anything else, i suppose. TV and kids provide more entertainment than i have time for. The elder one came running to find me over the weekend, and i happened to be brushing my teeth. At 10 in the morning. I cannot remember the last time i got to do that. "Chitti, do you want to eat this thing for breakfast, its a kind of bread but not exactly bread, but it is like bread and it tastes really great with olive oil and salt and would you like to try it, its not bread, but..." and so on. I said sure, what is it called? "Pav", he said, sure that the name would not mean anything to me. I laughed, and felt sorry for kids in the US who dont know what Pav is.

- I saw the pav and it made me want to eat Misal very badly. Apna hi kitchen samajh ke i started making misal. Which i have made only once before, and that was as much as disaster as it could possibly be. But leaning from my mistakes has never been my thing, and i tried again. It turned out okay, although the misal was spicy and the tarri was some kind of mild south Indian chutney. No one who has even been in Maharashtra will ever call it misal. But neither of our husbands have really been in Maharashtra and my cousin kept mum, and we had "misal pav" for lunch.

- While i am camped out at my cousins's place, both our parents are in Kashi performing the last rites for our grandmother. Cant believe its been a year since she passed away. I know it makes no sense, but granny would have been very happy to see all her kids together.

- I kept whining to the dude that i have nothing useful to do and he made a list of mind numbingly boring things to do. So now i spend my days whining about the boring things i have to do. In my head thats all i do all day, but its been more than a week and i have neither an SSN nor a credit card nor a licence nor a car nor a house nor a phone connection nor solid prospects of getting any of these. I didnt have a blog post either, but i'm getting there.

-  Lessons learnt: kids can be exhausting, TV can be a life saver and flexible working hours are a necessity.

Welcome to the United States of America

I cant sleep. Its 5 in the morning and i've been lying around trying for a couple of hours at least. Finally i gave up and am now sitting at the PC at my cousin's place, eating a giant banana. Its been 3 days since we landed here, my jet lag seems to have finally caught up. If you ask me, jet lag should be more about feeling hungry at odd times, rather than feeling sleepy. I dont see how you can expect your tummy to take it lying down if you suddenly start to starve it throughout the day and feed it 3 times a night.

My entry into this country was pretty undramatic. After a 22 hour flight, where the only notable thing that happened was a failed search for vegetarian food at Hong Kong airport (i had to make do with a giant chocolate muffin and most of the dude's fruit salad), we landed at SFO. And rushed to the immigration queue, which, thanks to President's day holiday, was both long and slow. I feel like i've entered a country only after the immigration guy lets me through. This one did, after some questions about whether we were carrying pickles, at which we laughed. A part of my brain was observing which leg of mine first crosses the line. It was the left one.

After that was baggage claim, where we again answered questions about pickles and then a short distance later we ran into my cousin and her elder one. From then on (and even now) US has for me been  her and her family. About her and her husband adjusting their already crazy schedules to chauffeur us around, about her elder one and his boundless energy and TV viewing and the amazing sentences he makes up for homework ("No one will steal a dog just because they have dog food"). About the little one, who forgets my name every morning and makes do with "aunty" until she remembers. And when she does, comes up to me with a big smile and says "tannu thitti" - which i remain for the rest of the day. The dude on the other hand, is always called by his name (her distortion of it, to be precise). You cant have such a big name and expect a 2 year old to add chittapa after it. You just cant. When we landed they were both more comfortable with him, since he had stayed with them on his previous visit just a month ago. They crowded around him on the sofa, and all three of them spent the afternoon watching curious George. I was the stranger, the one they had to be shy of. A state of affairs which lasted less than 3 hours. Thats what i think i like most about kids - this almost magical ability to let people into their world within no time at all, to take them as they are and to get from them whatever they are capable of giving.

Its almost 6. Someone with a written test for learners license scheduled today is supposed to be up and studying. I suppose i better go check.  

Later!