One Fleeting Moment

First the little stream started freezing up.



Then we got dumped on by the truckloads. Now the big man in the white house thinks we are a bunch of sissies . But really, what's not to like about a snow day?

Wake up in the morning, look out onto the soft pillows of snow that have settled on everything and then check office website.

Liberal leave....yipee! go back to bed and settle in a little more deeply under the blanket. Wake up at around noon, look outside once more and murmur at the snow (which by now has turned to ice). Proceed to plod around in pyjamas, call up friends and discuss how "snowed in" one is while chowing down hot ramen soup. Plod around some more, listen to NPR and pontificate on the economy or watch the weather people on the local TV station go bananas. The next step is the most important of all...keep annoying the Boy about shovelling sidewalk till he gives up and goes out to shovel the sidewalk and clean the cars! Plod around near the door and helpfully dispense clots of constructive criticism. Shovelling done, warm up with some coffee (for the Boy!!), watch Lord of the Rings, eat leftovers for dinner and somewhere in between go take a shower. So you tell me, what's not to like about a snow day?

No, I did not go and join the half frozen multitude on the National Mall. Instead I stood around a tiny (by current standards) TV and watched THE ceremony with my colleagues, while around us TV monitors spewed out live footage from the eerily empty area highways!

And, after all that I went and emailed my resignation letter to my boss. Nah! not much drama there. It has been in the works for quite sometime just made it official today.

After three years of tepid, lukewarm winters when I had just about declared my cold weather parapharnelia obsolete and dropped them off at the nearest thrift shop, guess what happens? We get blasted with arctic chills and now I am scrambling for woolies to protect my extremities.
Ugh!!

The other highlight of the trip were these designer jars, handcrafted by our very own S and S.
Also their lovely new home, which we who live in the land of exorbitant home prices ooh-ed and aah-ed about till out of breath.
We welcomed the New Year by waiting patiently for a clock tower full of resolutions to burn (those Texans are a funny lot) and then gate crashing the Mayor's party and finally clicking some silly pictures.

Labels: Travel

This year the Thanksgiving meetup was potponed to December due to scheduling conflicts. Gone are the graduate school days. We are all busy proffesionals now, with work life balance issues! We broke with traditions and did a lot of things differently. This was strictly R&R, so instead of four days we made it seven. There was no turkey. We had a much smaller and more manageable meal. But some things can never be changed... like the arguments that ensue when the boys meet.
All of us landed up at Singh and Sunayana's place in Austin over the Christmas weekend. After the catching up was done and the couch was no longer a very iniviting a proposition, we ventured out. First stop -The Alamo at San Antonio. Take a picture and move on. Want to read about the history, go here.
The Mexican Market was way more fun. Full of color, life and 15 dollar pitchers of maragarita.
The Texas Capitol in Austin was grand to say the least. But most curiously, there was hardly any police presence in this cavernous building. We waltzed in at 8 pm and pretty much walked up and down and this way and that. We did not even have to go through a metal detector. I have a sneaky feeling that Texas being the land of capital punishment has something to do with it.

Labels: Travel

Good cheer and wishes from Austin. With a wee bit of luck, regular programming will be commence soon.