On National Holidays and Traditions When You Aren’t Geographically Present

Listening to: Suraj Ki Baahon Mein - Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara 

Mood: Reminiscent

It is smack dab in the middle of the summer in the USA. In fact, it’s July 4^th day (on my side of the world anyhow). For the first time in, oh, ever, I am not in the US for the 4^th. There will be no barbecues, no fireworks, and no excessive alcohol intake with friends. In fact, the only extraordinary thing happening today is that I am launching piano lessons. With an actual student.  There’s a huge part of me that wonders what this girl’s parents were thinking agreeing to let me teach their daughter. After all, I’m the one your mother warned you about, even if I am qualified to teach piano lessons. I’m pretty thankful to that girl’s parents for giving me the chance to pass on my passion to someone else though. I’m terrified and thrilled at the same time. But hey, the take a chance and move around the world thing worked out well, so why not give this a go too? Wish me luck people. Better yet, wish that student luck.

I am so far off topic here I probably couldn’t find my way back with a compass.  Not that I know how to use one anyhow. Speaking of which: Camping. I have been seeing lots and lots o posts about camping, and I must say that I am green with envy. Our current geographical location doesn’t really cater to camping. Seriously, there is no such thing as campers in India that I’ve seen. The bigger problem with our family is that Daddy G is categorically opposed to anything that doesn’t involve actual beds and wifi. When I was little, my parents (bless their nomadic hearts) loved camping. We lived out in L.A. and had a tiny trailer hookup camper that my dad towed behind their silver Subaru. No, I’m not quite sure how the physics of that work out either – so don’t ask.  We made good use of the Arizona/New Mexico mountains. My favorite destination of all time was Ghost Town AZ. Seriously amazing place It was cramped and not always comfortable, but people, I’m about to break out into song here about the memories. It was glorious.

It looked like this:

I seriously don't know the physics of shoving 4 people in this camper.

When I got a bit older, my folks moved to IL and we bought a bigger RV camper and stowed it at a campground in Morris IL. If you’re from Morris, you’ll know that there’s absolutely nothing out there. Or there didn’t use to be. I haven’t been out there in at least 20 years. Again, some very magical times. I’m not sure how we didn’t out right die from catching snakes, making forts, throwing milk-weed pods, throwing things in campfires, and generally roaming the entire campground by ourselves.  So enjoy your camping people. I’m still campaigning over here to get Daddy G to even try it.

Holidays are a bit funny when you’re off somewhere else. I don’t think I really sat and thought too much about holidays abroad apart from Christmas. Aside from that one freakish year we moved to Key West and were there over Christmas, I wondered how different it would be. Obviously, no one celebrates the 4^th of July here. They have absolutely no reason to. Indian Independence Day is at a completely different time. This is another instance of things that make me feel completely disconnected with life before we moved here. I’m not even quite sure what to do with this though. I think it’s a bit ridiculous to celebrate by myself. The kids don’t ask about it. I never thought about how easy it would be to absorb the local holidays/festivals – we are all over Diwali in our house – and be completely removed from events that actually mean more to me than I knew.  Actually, everything American just seems so far away, both from a physical and emotional distance point of view. This is most likely a defense mechanism on my part – after all, I can’t sit and mope around all the time missing things. It also shows you how your own reality takes over your brain space. I can’t live 2 places at once.  I guess I’m greedy. I want ALL the holidays. I wasn’t my past reality and my present reality to mesh seamlessly, which is absolutely, completely unrealistic.

I hope you all enjoy your summer vacations and your 4^th of July holiday. To those of you who choose to indulge in the adult beverage of your choice, enjoy one for me and give an extra cheer for the fireworks for me. Have your kids jump in the pool one last time for me. I’m pretty sure my tenure in  India will end much sooner than I would like and I’ll find myself bemoaning the fact that I can’t find good byriani in the states.

Becky

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things, Which I Don't Happen to Have Access to Right Now

So. Lots of people ask me what I miss since moving to India. Since I've spent ample time whining about how much I miss my friends (But Mooooommm, I miss my friieends. That was an Eric Cartman reference. Kind of hard to translate that tone of voice into text), let's move on to less metaphysical things, shall we? Anyhow. One of the things that I really miss is bacon. Yep, you read right, bacon. Now, before you accuse me of being one of those trendy foody freaks (which would be right in almost any other context than this one), I'm not a huge fan of bacon. I like it every once in a while for breakfast. I'm definitely not one of those folks who think that bacon is the holy grail of food and should be combined with everything. I'm looking at you bacon chocolate chip cookies. That is just wrong. 

Just Wrong.  

There aren't many Indians who view pigs as an acceptable food source. This is due to a combination of religious and traditional ideals, combined with the fact that pigs are dirty, dirty animals. So as you can imagine, bacon (or any other porcine product) is not a food that is readily available. I have a theory that I could possibly find it at a trendy, expensive import store, but I've never bothered to try. However, I just don't shop at those places because, well, they're just trendy and expensive. I'm all about the authentic.Unfortunately, bacon is one of those foods that once you get a yen in your head for it, there really aren't any other acceptable substitutes. I have yet to find anything related to turkeys either, so turkey bacon is out. And yes, the irony of a craving for one of the symbols of American overindulgence and gluttony does not escape me here. 

Another thing I miss is pre-cleaned, pre-packaged anything. Well, more specifically spinach. The rest of the veggies I can deal with. You do have to give them a good soak in salt water to remove bugs/pesticides/dirt, but spinach is one of those veggies that never gets truly clean in that way. Every single thing that I've made with spinach has been gritty, and I hate it. I love spinach. I long for a day when I can walk into a freezer section and grab a buttload of spinach and just use it for cooking, instead of buying about 8 bundles of spinach (that stuff shrinks when you cook it yo!), failing at cleaning it, and then not wanting to eat the gritty results of whatever I cooked. 

Looks Nutritious, is Actually just Dirty

                                     Looks Nutritious, is Actually Clean AND nutritious.

Another travesty is the lack of dried cranberries here. We have just about every other dried fruit I can think of, but not my favorites. My oatmeal will never be the same.

So all in all, it turns out I just miss a few selected processed foods. We don't have a lot of processed anything here besides Indian snacks, which I'm sure is a pretty positive thing. I still want me some bacon though!

Becky

Merry Christmas...I Think

Listening to: Ooh La La from The Dirty Picture

Mood: Matches the beautiful Bangalore sunshine outside

So. Tis the season. Or rather was the season, I’m a bit late in writing this. This year’s Christmas for our family has been a very odd disconnect from Christmas all together. Our stuff wasn’t readily available to us yet, not to mention our not having our own place to live in, so there wasn’t any decorations to put up. Our Christmas tree found a new home with some good friends before we left the states. Halloween passed without much to-do, as did Thanksgiving, so there hasn’t been any build up to the holidays. No strolls through crowded, fully lit, stores begging us to buy anything and everything we could ever want. No slow cooling of the weather into a delightfully crisp cold December, and no planning for family events and parties leading up to the holidays. It’s been rather un-Christmassy if you ask me.

The year I turned 13, my family moved down to the Florida Keys. We didn’t really know many people yet, and obviously the cold weather was notably absent. For one born and brought up mostly in the mid-west, this is considered sacrilege. You just can’t have Christmas without cold weather. This is rather reminiscent of that year, only more removed.  There are days when I feel like my life in the US wasn’t 3 months ago, it was a lifetime ago and all seems rather insignificant now because my experiences in India have been nothing if not very, very different from my life in the US. Now more than ever, I am feeling the almost physical sensation of having one chapter of my life close as I struggle to keep up with a new one. While I am enjoying my time in India immensely and do my best to avoid being maudlin over the US, I do still occasionally feel a bit of wistfulness for the way things are there. I’m pretty sure this is not too uncommon.

I hope I’m not giving the impression that my Christmas was terrible. It definitely was not. We spent Christmas Eve day cleaning and sorting our new apartment like rabbits on meth. After 4 straight days of nonstop unpacking, I was exhausted and SO ready to be done with that. Ahem. Back on track. My sister in law and crew picked us up around 8 and we headed back to her house for some quality family time with them. I have missed them terribly the past year while they were in India, so it’s been absolutely wonderful to see them so often. We broke open some coconut rum, Black dog whiskey, and Indian wine. It was a pleasant evening. I finally met my match for spicy byriani. It was the kind that you curse and swear never to eat again because it was so damn spicy while shoving more in your mouth because it’s just that damn good. Yep. Once I’m in my kitchen, my family is totally turning into guinea pigs. I am getting byriani down if it kills me. Anyhow.

We woke up slowly at 9 and lazed around for a while until hubby’s brother in law’s niece came over to share the day. Now if you know anything at all about the G family, it’s that the adults are night owls and are very jealous over their sleep. We love us some sleep. This has all changed since the husband started work and the oldest girl in the family started school. We now sleep at 11:30 or so (seriously.) and wake up no later than 8 (yep, still not kidding), although we’re usually up much earlier because of my husband’s propensity to turn the alarm on much earlier than he plans to get up.  It was very nice to sleep in for that extra hour.  My daughters and nieces had tons of fun playing together as usual. The other niece came over and we had a wonderfully lazy day that involved some Bollywood movies, lots of chatting, and lots of alcohol. It’s been three months since I had anything at all alcoholic to drink. I know, I know, but try not to fall over about this. So that, combined with the fact that I’ve lost a bit of weight, and that it was Christmas and I missed my family, didn’t bode well for me. I won’t go into it much because the husband issued a gag order along with a threat of dismemberment if I ever get that drunk during the day again. In that respect, this was a first, I never drink during the day. Let’s just say I had lots of fun with some Indian wine, Black dog whiskey (yep, I still love me some wine and whiskey, just not together) and coconut rum. After much silliness, and then worshipping the porcelain god, I have decided once again that I really don’t like being that drunk. There are only 2 other occasions in my life where I have been that smashed. They both involved a friend of mine who can only be described as epic. As much as I love him, it’s probably good that we’re not around each other too much. He’s a crazy bastard and I would probably turn into a drunk. Again with the verbal meandering, pull it together here. 

So that was our Christmas. I miss the other half of my family an awful lot, but I don’t think Christmas has much to do with that, I miss them anyhow. I’m looking forward to the next disconnect that will be New Year’s. I think I’ll take it a little slower though. My sister in law is having a party (and not that kind of party) and I don’t want to be dancing on the tables. J

Becky