August 25, 2010, Velachery, Chennai
9:31 a.m. India Time
The Internet is still down, but this time, it may just be the modem needs to be switched on and off or perhaps I need to reconfigure. I am a little stressed out as I really should have paid all my bills on Saturday.
I woke up late (I dunno, 9?) after a series of weird dreams. Part of it involved the MC and my asthma inhaler. I woke up coughing, and with a sore throat (which I’ve had on and off for a while now.) I gave myself an asthma treatment, and I feel better. I think the air quality here is finally getting to me.
I’m not sure what the plan is for today, but since it’s raining it probably means another arcade. I’m digging out my earplugs, for sure. Also, Raja left me with some money, so I may go buy something.
Last night I stayed up late researching restaurants in T.Nagar, the central Chennai shopping district, where we could take Sharanya for dinner on Thursday. I found a few places that look good. I was looking for places that have above average food and average prices. Granted, even a really spendy restaurant here is affordable: around $25-$30 per person is about the top range at a fancy hotel; however, you can usually get a really amazing dinner here for $2-$5 per person, and that includes dessert.
Speaking of dessert, I ate some laddoo this morning. I found it in my bag from the other day. It was still good and had not gone rancid. At least it didn’t taste rancid. We’ll see if I get violently ill later from rancid ghee. Laddoo and coffee has to be the perfect breakfast.
I had to go break up another session of “brotherly love” wherein the Monkey jumped on the Man Cub and got kicked in the head. Ah, brothers.
I’m still tired, and feel the need to be lazy for a short while longer. I’ll write more later, and make another attempt to get online.
12:47 p.m.
It was raining this morning, but it has cleared up, and is simply hot and overcast (what’s new?) I had another cup of coffee, chapattis (sort of like soft, fried tortillas), and chicken curry for “second breakfast,” and played a couple of games of “I Did It” with the Monkey while Aunty took MC to the eye doctor. His eyes were a little swollen today. He has allergies and asthma like I do, so it’s probably just that, but everyone is overcautious here, and for good reason. I think I have a cough drop in my first aid kit, and I could use one, so I’ll grab one before I go. Oh, and earplugs.
In fact, I could use some now, as the boys are bickering again. Time to go back to my room soon. I’m going to try one more time to connect to the Internet, though. Hmm…didn’t work. This is really making me upset. I would use bad words, but I know some of you reading this would be shocked, so I won’t. I’ll just think them.
I just checked this post for spelling and grammar, and was amused at the spelling suggestions for “Velachery” They were (in order): flasher, teacher, belcher, Flaherty, debauchery, Delahey, peachey, Melcher, and feathery. Then, after I made this list, “peachey” (which is exactly how they spelled it) came up as a spelling error! It should, of course, be spelled “peachy.”
After I moved to my room, guess who followed me in here, and are fighting over their games in here now? I guess that’s what it’s like when you have kids around. Really, it’s fine by me.
The other day when I was at Pothys, we were on the top floor where all the jewelry, purses and cosmetics are. A lady handed me an ad for a cosmetics line, which advertised “double whitening action.” I find it terribly sad that all of these beautiful dark skinned people, all the gorgeous shades of coffee, cinnamon, mocha, chocolate, topaz, earth…are being encouraged to (and that some want to) be vanilla. I mean, vanilla is very nice, but it has to be the most boring flavor. Not to say we pale skinned people are not cute. We are! All colors of people are beautiful, and that’s what I’m saying. I hate that there is racism even among brown people in countries where nearly everyone is brown, especially since light-skinned people in the U.S. and Europe routinely kill themselves with skin cancer, tanning themselves in order to be more brown! Last but not least, if anyone does NOT need “double whitening action” it has got to be me. Seriously, what were they thinking?
My throat still really hurts and I am double moody. The thought of another arcade is disheartening, but you know, anything for the kids, and I really need to be there to keep the kids in line. I had to get on the Monkey at lunch (rice, chicken curry, amazing shrimp, rasam, and raita) to put down his darn DSi, and I spilled water all over myself. That really helped my mood.
Right now, astrologically, Mercury is in “retrograde.” That is, it seems to be moving backwards in the sky. Some people think that when Mercury is in retrograde, communication goes haywire. Computers stop working properly, people get in more arguments or have more misunderstandings. Things get lost, deals fall through. I’m not sure it’s completely true, and I think people like to have something to blame, but whether or not I blame Mercury Retrograde, a lot of that stuff seems to be happening right now. I guess I should spend some more time thinking, contemplating, reading and praying, and less time worrying about whether I will be able to post today or why Raja didn’t talk to me the last time he called the house.
He’s coming home tonight, and he’s been so busy since we’ve been here that I’ve only seen him in little bursts anyway. He’s too busy today to miss me, and that’s okay, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss him. I miss my mom, too. I’ve tried to call her several times and she hasn’t answered. I can only call her within a short window of time because of the time difference, so that makes it harder to reach her. She also doesn’t have her voice mail set up and that is extremely annoying. I’m going to get that dealt with when I get home. Seriously, Mom!
Went to a different mall and spent a couple excruciatingly long hours in a different arcade. After a break for chaat and ice cream, the boys returned to the arcade with Uncle and Aunty and I begged for respite and went shopping instead. This mall is very modern and filled with Western-style shops and such (Levi’s, Converse, Esprit) and so I didn’t buy much. I bought some Indian games to share with some kids I know and a couple toe rings and a gift for my man (smelly stuff, of course.) The M.C. has a loose tooth, and it’s really annoying him. The Monkey is a master at all ticket games, and earned 1,565 tickets tonight, enough to buy two laser guns, a remote control car, and two swords. M.C. is a motorcycle maniac. He got 5 1st place winnings today, and 7 second place wins. I also took footage of the bumper cars, which I have entitled: “Chennai Driving School.”
Dinner was fabulous fast food (not.) I had chicken strips at KFC, which were ok, but were served with salsa (WTH?) and the coleslaw was sadly disgusting. I was sooooo disappointed. Still, I had three Virginia Mojitos today (I confused the guy when I accidentally asked for it by that name the first time. Ooops.) I also got a funny look when I tried to pay w/ a 10-rupee note instead of a 100. I’m an idiot. (Better than when I tried to give a sales guy 1000 rather than 100!) Oh well, I’ll learn.
The drive back wasn’t quite as bad tonight, although traffic still sucked rocks. In the car I called Raja and he told me he was at the airport. That’s all the love I get. LOL. Once we got home I got ready for bed and called my mom. She’s in Pullman visiting my brother, so I got to talk to him, too, and wish him happy birthday. (37… OMG, he’s old!) While I was talking to my mom, I accidentally hit one of the switches with my elbow and blew a fuse. I had to have Aunty hit the breaker for me afterwards.
Afterwards, the kids finally stopped shooting one another, and the M.C. came in here and we had a nice long talk about “Man Cub” stuff. I’ll let you guess what Man Cubs might want to talk about. He’s awesome. (“Obviously,” he says, looking over my shoulder.)
I can’t wait until Raja comes home. I want to kiss him all over his face.
I’ll try again tomorrow with Internet. I really miss your questions and being in contact with you all. I promise I’ll do my best to upload soon.
Until then, be good.
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