Me and my "breasties".....haha those are the ladies that took me out on my birthday to see the Third Eye Blind concert at the Hard Rock Cafe here in Bangalore.  How awesome was that? A cool band that we actually dig, playing on a Tuesday night in Bangalore that just happens to be on my birthday?  Jennifer, the madam in pink and Erika , madam in black,  knew that John was traveling that day and before I knew it they planned a very fun, special evening for my cough, cough, I almost can't admit it, 46th bday!!!!

The day started out beautifully and just kept on getting better and better.  I woke up to Happy Birthday messages on my phone and facebook page.  Thank you Jma for the first to wish me a Happy Birthday! That morning John and I volunteered to help out with arts and crafts at Bruce's school. They are doing a multicultural presentation next week and his class is representing Kenya!  I got to help the kiddos make tribal head gear while John got to help them make rhinos using rolls from toilet paper, heehee. It was a wonderful way to start to my day.

After we left TISB, we headed to the Phoenix Mall where John had my gift picked out and we went to retrieve:), we then had a comfort food lunch at Chilli's that I was going to regret later.....

Too soon after, we headed home so that John could pack and leave for the airport. To my huge surprise my whole staff was waiting for us to arrive so they could give me gifts!  Shankar gave me two silver elephants, Gayathri gave me 5 dupattas and 5 head scarfs, Yogandre gave me a box to hold make up brushes, Lakshimi a wooden vase with silver studs from her village!  I couldn't believe how many gifts they bestowed on me, I was and am truly touched.   Shortly after John's taxi arrived and we said goodbye and he wished me a fun night out with the ladies. Bruce got home a little later and announced that he and Gayathri and Lakshimi were going to bake me some cakes and I headed out to get a wash and blow out so that I could look sassy for my bday night shennanigans!

It was later afternoon and I decided to try my luck at getting in at Bounce which is right around the corner from HRC.  I didn't have an appointment but called as I was headed that way and crossed my fingers and toes that Tanya would be available.  She always makes my hair look amazing!  Not only did she take my appointment but when I walked in and was being led to my chair, the "Happy Birthday" song started to blast from the stereo and the owner presented me with a bouquet of flowers and best wishes etc were bestowed upon me throughout my whole visit.  Thanks to Erika who had "beautified" there earlier, they knew it was my birthday so when I called for a last minute appointment they were ready.  I was giggling and blushing, haha, I felt so special! The very next song after the Happy Birthday song started playing "I gotta feeling...that tonight's gonna be a good night"....I knew that it would be of course, how could it not? The day had been wonderful, all day long I was made to feel so special and loved.  Finally, my salon visit was over and I headed out to meet my friends at Hard Rock Cafe...below are my favorite pics from our fun night. I have to add that Suman and Kemal came out to celebrate with us too, it was a good, good night!

The cutie with the blue tank top is the lead guitarist for Third Eye Blind.  Heehee okay, so he might not have liked me too much because I was very vocal about how disappointed I was that they didn't play my favorite song "how's it gonna be".  I was bummed about it, but regardless they put on a great live performance. A true test I think of the talent of bands, playing a small venue and sounding as good and even better than they do on the radio.

Happy Birthday to me!  My first birthday in Bangalore I have to say will go down as one of my favorites. Truly.  Thank you Jennifer, Erika, Elizabeth, Katie, Suman and Kemal for a great night! I'm so lucky to have such good friends.

Love to all!

Cynthia

 I love Thanksgiving. My earliest memories of thanksgiving involve waking up super early in the morning to watch Mom set the turkey to thawing and her "letting me help cook" by setting me up for major chopping of veggies for the chicken stuffing. I remember cousins and fallen leaves that we used to pile up all together and take turns jumping into. I remember cold fun days, turkey, wish bones, mashed potatoes, pumpkin and pecan pies. As I got older and had children of my own, the tradition of family, Mom's homemade chicken stuffing along with some new favorite dishes and of course watching football all day became our Thanksgiving tradition.  For me, this has been my favorite holiday to celebrate and give thanks for our blessings as well as enjoy our little family being together, a food frenzy and of course a full day of football.  Yes, Thanksgiving always meant crazy crowded grocery stores, a full day before to prep and bake and try and get as many items done before the whole next day of turkey roasting. Time consuming? Yes. Exhausting yes? Hard to do? Not really as I think those who really enjoy putting on a Thanksgiving feast really enjoy it. All worth it in the end?  Absolutely.


Jump to here and now. Our first Thanksgiving in Bangalore!  Right from the get go when we first started making friends and as the holidays grew nearer whenever the talk became of Thanksgiving  I would immediately pipe up and boldly stake out that holiday as "mine" and claimed  "I do a great Thanksgiving and it's going to be at my house and all are invited!  Traditional turkey menu and no worries, no worries, it will be fantastic!"  Yes, yes, we all know I have the tendency to jump right into things but I had already proven my Thanksgiving prowess in Malaysia where ingredients were expensive, (frozen turkeys started at about $45)  and I ended up making everything by scratch so what could be so hard about doing the same in India, right?

Oh so very wrong....lol.  In a country where you most definitely won't see a frozen Butterball or Jennie-O turkeys at your neighborhood grocery stores, where celery, a must have ingredient for my chicken stuffing is so hard to source, where any kind of pumpkin in a can is IMPOSSIBLE to find......how in the H E double hockey sticks was I going to accomplish this amazing feast that I promised?  No problemo I would figure it out.  And I can look back at Thursday and laugh now....but here is how my road to Thanksgiving began.

About three months ago I asked the owner of where I buy my meats if he was going to have frozen turkeys. "Yes, we will have the best frozen turkeys!". Yay! Love the meats there so knew the turkey would be great.  As for everything else, I figured I would just figure out as we got closer to the day.  So put in my order for two turkeys and thought that was the hardest part and everything else well, would just be easy peasy mac and cheezy!

Happily and luckily for me, my in laws were visiting and my mother in law bought me boxes and boxes of cornbread mix for my stuffing. In Malaysia I could not find mix but was able to find cornmeal, buttermilk, etc so was able to make fantastic homemade cornbread.  Here if they had cornmeal, I would never have known because I couldn't read the labels, and the people working at the stores didn't understand English, I don't speak Hindi....so if they had it, I just didn't know. Problem to communicate is common here. All week long I was out sourcing ingredients for the Turkey day feast, I had picked up the frozen turkeys on Monday, I had fresh green beans, potatoes, we found yams!!!!!  Everything was coming together the only thing I could not find was pumpkin and yes I did consider using fresh pumpkin but the pumpkins around were just not pie material. No worries, I found a restaurant that made yummy pumpkin pies so though it would be "store bought", it was still pumpkin pie.  I woke up on Thursday with my only concern being that I hoped the turkeys were fully thawed. I sent John and his parents, Marta and Jim out to buy last minutes table linens, candles, etc. and I thought ha! I had made my chicken stuffing the night before, I had planned to do the pies, yams, green bean casseroles,etc all before the turkey went into the oven.  After my family took off, I sat around for about thirty minutes relaxing, thinking what a piece of cake, things were hard to source during the week, but the hard part was over and all we needed to do now was cook.

Ha! Gayathri and I took the plastic covering off the first turkey and to my horror and panic what did we find? A frozen turkey? No. It was perfectly thawed and in good condition. Too good condition, it still had feathers! Well not a whole lot of feathers, but there were some and alot of what looked like razor stubble sticking out of it....like the turkey forgot to get a good plucking and shave before it was frozen.  Ok, city girl that I am....I was mortified. The only turkeys I have had to deal with were Butterballs and Jennie-O's. Which were beautiful and clean and hairless.....these turkeys had stubble and some feathers  all over...and these were 12 lb turkeys. What did I do? Flew into a rage and panic of course.  Called the guy who charged me over 1000 rupees per kilo for "imported frozen turkeys" and asked him how in the world he could've have sold me turkeys with feathers in them at that price? And from exactly where were they imported? Demanded my money back upon the return of the turkeys (which he agreed to) and then started calling around and trying to figure out where I could get "clean turkeys" last minute, on Thanksgiving Thursday.  It was about 10 a.m. at this time, so I had a few hours to figure this out.  But panic, plead and grovel I did to restaurants all over town to be sold turkeys that were hairless, thawed and within an area that I could reach, get back, marinate and roast.


Hubby's errands went from table linen to helping out in the search in the area he was at...we were in full "problem solver" mode and we were committed to finding clean turkeys.

I must regress and go back to when we first opened the turkeys and Gayathri looking at me and saying "Madam, go upstairs, bring me your tweezers, Lakshimi and I will handle, please don't worry, it'll be ok".


I did not listen.  I spent an hour on the phone, calling around and finally finding a restaurant who would have two beautifully cleaned turkeys for me......at 2000 rs per kg (that's approx $200 USD?).  In my panic I agreed.  Angry that I was getting so ripped off but relieved that I had found what I wanted. I needed to clear my head and jumped in the shower.  While in the shower I realized how ridiculous I was being.  I already had two perfectly thawed turkeys, nice sized but they needed to be plucked.  Plain and simple. Pluck it.  I cancelled the ridiculous order of the two new turkeys, went down with two pairs of tweezers and Gayathri and I got to plucking. And pluck we did!

Two hours later...turkeys were completely plucked and beautifully cleaned. I made the lemongrass rub, Gaytari coated them and they were ready to go!  Literally. One of them "left" shortly after as our good friend Elizabeth came at the designated time to pick up one of the turkeys to roast at her home. We were cool as cucumbers. Did not want my panic mode to rub off on anyone else. 

The minute she left we were in full crazy cooking mode.  Yams were boiled, ready to be caramelized, green beans needing cleaning and boiling, potatoes to mash, pies to be made!!!!

Yikes I don't know how we did it.

Bruce got home from school (doesn't it sound weird, going to school on Thanksgiving?), we kept him busy till he could help with the fun stuff (candle placement, etc), John and family returned and he did an amazing job picking out fabric and having beautiful, custom made table linens made for our tables, everything was, indeedy, coming together.

Final result, a beautiful Thanksgiving feast with family, and all new friends we have made here in Bangalore.  Katie bought fresh baked rolls, Elizabeth  had perfectly roasted one of the turkeys, Jennifer brought amazing cosmos, Erika brought pies, Mai brought the most beautiful roses....Gaelan and Bert brought veggies, Matt (our Aussie friend) brought his hilarious sense of humor, everything was just perfect.  Both turkeys turned out well,  we had  traditional sides, the best mashed potatoes ever made by Gayathri, and best of all........ no one coughed up a turkey feather.


Next year, I'll do things a little different. No more expensive "imported" turkeys.  I'll just get local ones (everyone told me after that I had been ripped off as most likely those turkeys were local, lol) and I will be prepared to pluck.

All in all, it was a wonderful, beautiful, FUN Thanksgiving, I hope yours was too:)

Happy Diwali y'all!  Diwali, also known as the festival of lights is upon us.

My good friend Nammie tried to explain the meaning of Diwali to me (she also gave me my first Diwali gift ever) and what I came away with was this.  It is a time of great joy and giving. Lights and oil lamps are lit during the five days of celebration welcoming the Goddess Lakshimi into homes in hopes of blessings of prosperity leading up to the Diwali which is in celebration of the return of King Rama the rightful king to Ayodhya. During this time there are beautiful lamps,gift giving, poojas done and of course fireworks! We experienced Diwali in Malaysia, but it was no where near this level of celebration of course as it is here in India.  We have joined in quite happily with our neighbors in having our house decorated by professional "Diwali light guys" who came to the house and put up "Christmas lights" on the outside of the house. It has been fun to walk around our neighborhood and enjoy the homes lighted up....it feels like Christmas to us. We will pay the guys 15 rupees for each strand of lights they put up times the number of days we leave the lights up.  I hope we are able to settle up before we leave for our trip tomorrow!  When you hire Hindus on your staff, it is common understanding that if they are with you during Diwali, you will give them a Diwali bonus.  For most the bonus is a month's salary.  We additionally gave our staff a big box of fireworks along with candy,(lots of candy) dried fruits and nuts and each a personal gift. You can imagine the excitement in our home that afternoon when we passed out the bonuses and gifts!  What was really sweet was our good friend Elizabeth coming over and giving each of my staff gifts as well to thank them for their help when she and her children visit.  They were touched by her kindness as were we. On Tuesday (it is Wednesday now) the actual holiday of Diwali was celebrated with an "official" day off, woo hoo!   We spent most our day on the roof enjoying the beautiful weather, good music and of course our jacuzzi.  The doorbell rang quite a few times today and we received visitors who came bearing gifts! I wish now I would have gotten pics of the families who stopped by. They were all dressed in traditional festive wear and it was so wonderful to be included in their special day. I am thinking now that I should have also taken pics of the vendors on the streets with all the various paper lamps etc...I will do that today as I believe the this celebration will last (I think) this whole week. The sweetest visitors we had today was when our cook Gayathri stopped by with her family to give us a gift.  We feel so blessed to have such lovely people in our lives.

The best part of Diwali so far for Bruce has been the lighting of the fireworks.   We lit some on Monday night and again on Tuesday night.  Can I just admit I am terrified that there will be a serious malfunction?  Especially when the directions basically read "light and run"........well sort of.  I wish I were a better photographer and had gotten better shots because the fireworks that have been lighting up the sky have been truly cool.

Here are a couple of pics of the box that we purchased with the things that go boom!  As well as a few pics of the fireworks and the lights on the house.

The pics above are mostly of Bruce and John lighting the sparklers, we joined our neighbors in lighting the "bigger ones" and that was when we really did light the fuses and run!  Some were really cool, others were just really loud. No one lost limbs or hair etc, so in all it was good fun and we have an idea of what kind of fireworks we liked best and which ones to purchase for next time.

All of the excitement was "last night". It is now 5:13 a.m. and after counting down many, many sleeps...John's parents are now on their way from their airport to visit us!  We hope they will enjoy their stay and leave with a better understanding of our lives here in India. Bruce is beyond excited about their visit.  The pic below was taken right after he fell asleep right after he said "two more sleeps".  Just think when he wakes up this morning his Grandma and Grandpa will be here.  Happy Diwali y'all!  It sure has been a happy one for us so far!

p.s. If you would like a better "description of Diwali"  I found this info on the internet that closely tells the tale of how it was described to me. Enjoy:)

Victory of Rama - The Legend
The stories and glorious deeds of Lord Rama are renowned throughout the world. Here we will discuss the story of victory of Rama over Ravana, the demon. According to Ramayana, Diwali celebrates the return of Ram, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu and the eldest son of King Dasharath of Ayodhya, from his 14-year exile with Sita and Lakshman after killing the Ravan, a demon king. The people of Ayodhya lighted the kingdom with earthen diyas (oil lamps) and fireworks to celebrate the return of their king. The legend of Rama says, Lord Rama was the seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu. He was a great warrior King. His father Dashratha, the King of Ayodhya sent him to exile along with his wife Sita and his younger brother Lakshman, on his wife's (Kaikeyi) insistence. After 14 years of exile, in which he puts an end to the demon Ravana, Lord Rama returned to his Kingdom Ayodhya.

Ravana caged Sita and enforced her to marry him but she didn't agree to this. Lord Rama with the help of Hanuman, Sugreev and Bali and their "Vaanar Sena" attacked Lanka and after a severe battle, got Sitaji released from the control of Ravana. After this victory of Good over Evil, Rama returned to Ayodhya.

According to the legend, people welcomed them by lighting rows of clay lamps in Ayodhya. Great celebrations were held and everyone was happy for Rama to be the King of Ayodhya. This celebration took place on the night of the new moon of Ashwin (October-November). From that day onwards; people celebrate this occasion as the most delightful festival of India and of the Hindu Religion. Even today Diwali celebration means -happiness, fireworks and sweets.

Thus the festival of diwali is an honour of Rama's victory over Ravana.

One of the things that I truly enjoy about India is all the beautiful  clothes that the women wear.  Sarees, kurtis, cholis, dupattas, beautiful colors, amazing accessories, exotic jewels in the hair, on the face, intense make-up, the Indian women is indeed a fashionista.  When she walks with her scarves flowing about her in dazzling colors with confidence and grace it is truly a sight to behold.  Many times since I have been here in Bangalore I have envied the fabulous fabrics and prints and shiny blingity bling bling that these ladies wear and wished I had an excuse to dress like that just for one day!  Well last Saturday night, my wish came true as the OWC hosted one of it's biggest fund raisers of the year, "India night".  It is the one night that us expats get to dress in any one of the traditional outfits that Indians wear all in the name of good fun and charity.  Anything Indian was a go and I couldn't have been happier to have an excuse to play extreme dress up and get my "Bollywood" on. I think it was about two weeks ago that a group of us decided to attend this affair and when we decided to do this we decided to go big and hooked up with the designer that was running the fashion show. Namrata G and her design crew are amazingly talented and because of them, India night was even more exciting than I thought it could be. I felt like I could be walking the red carpet in the outfit that was made especially for me. John also decided to get his night's outfit there too.  I think they even had more fun designing for John than me, lol.  He's such a sexy beast anything and everything looks good on him.

The end result was an outfit of my dreams, and as for John....what can I say but wow!  For this special night we were all glamorous, all beautiful in our Indian garments and beautiful haird do's and makeup.  The men looked liked royalty and got into the theme night as well and as you will see from the pictures, the male Indian garments looked extremely good on them too.  For me, I'm hooked.  John can wear one of those jackets anytime, anywhere. No, my outfit wasn't a saree or anything traditional in the Indian wardrobe....but it was long and flowy and had India embroidery in the belt and was designed by an Indian designer. 

Who is the hottest girl in the world? My Desi girl, my desi girl....lol, I'm still not sure what that means, some have said it's the "hot Indian chicks", others have told me it's Indian girls from a certain part of India, I just know that we were all Desi girls Saturday night and it was soooooooooooooooooo fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKrRT--8s1M&feature=related

You can't tell by the pics but the dance floor was extremely crowded, we found a corner in the back with some dancing room and made it our our own dance party. One of our friends told us that there were three "dance moves" that would make Bollywood proud, they were the "helicopter", "changing the  light bulbs" and "driving a rik shaw"...if you look closely you'll see we all tried three. I don't know what it was about dressing so glamorously that made us lose all inhibitions and go on to feel almost like we were in a Bollywood movie.  One of the best moments for me was when "Desi girl" song was played.  I hear that song always when I am in the car being driven somewhere and I always start dancing around in my seat...FINALLY got to dance to it properly!  The DJ was excellent playing all my favorites and I couldn't get enough of dancing...unfortunately my poor feet could only go so many rounds in those high, high heels.  They ended up finding a dancing partner in John, who knew he could dance so well with women's shoes?  Great night for charity and crazy fun night for us expats!  Looking forward to next year!

Thursday Nov 1

Two tickets to Paradise....

Okay two tickets plus one! But I'm sure you get the picture.  Sitting here at my computer I cannot believe that our seven nights and 8 days in the Maldives have come and gone.  I have gone on so many vacations over the years and seen truly beautiful beaches, spectacular beaches even, but for some reason the Maldives just blew everything away.  From the moment we landed till the moment we took off....it was paradise.  I don't even know what to say about it, anyone who googles the Maldives will see it's beautiful, the beaches are pristine, the weather glorious.....I don't think there is anything that I can add to that except to say that it took me absolutely no time at all to get into relaxation mode.  I really believe that every bit of stress and illness (we were batting some kind of cold bug) in my body disappeared the moment we saw the boat that was taking us to our resort.  Not even kidding. I climbed aboard,sat in my yoga position for one minute and that was it!  I know I should write about all that we experienced but I am still pretty exhausted from all that we have been up to since the vacation.  Guests, parties, hosting and running around town collecting donations for a fundraiser I'm helping out with. All of this is going on and though I should feel stressed and wrecked, I have been able to maintain my "vacation state of mind" from the Maldives.  I think that trip did us an enormous amount of good as we all came back, happy, healthy and refreshed.

So much to catch you up on.  The Maldives trip, meeting up with our wonderful friends from KL (they changed their holiday plans to join up with us! We are so happy they did!) catching up with our visitors from Doha who we became best buds with while we lived in KL who were waiting on us at our house when upon our return from the Maldives! Our good friends Erika and Matt threw the most awesome Halloween party, and of course then on to experiencing our first Halloween here in Bangalore! Friends at WOYM threw a really nice party at their community for the little ones and it was so cool to have a taste of home on this super fun day of the year.  We then were pleasantly surprised to return home to many trick or treaters in our neighborhood of Indian residents. All with costumes too!!!! Did not expect that and we almost ran out of candy. It was such a smile in my heart to have Bruce experience a proper Halloween over here as last year's wasn't anything like this.

Too, too much going on...but I will leave you with my favorite pics from the last two weeks and this advice.

 If you ever, EVER even think about going to the Maldives.  Do it. It is worth the flight time and expense.  For us it is only an hour and half away and you can bet I will be begging John to pack our bags and leave tonight....

Happy belated Halloween from your Texans in India!!!

I will return tomorrow with pics and post regarding "India night"!  Truly a fabulous OWC event....so much fun:)

Hugs and big wet smooches!

Cynthia

This first set of pics from the Maldives were taken on the way to and at the Deserted Island excursion.  It was a wild and windy day and a fantastic time was had by all!

This next set of pics while in Maldives were all taken at our resort.....

Below are pics from our romantic anniversary dinner.  John makes me feel like a princess.  I am amazed and touched by the love he showers on me on a daily basis but he outdoes himself on our anniversaries too. As you can see the romantic dinner on the beach channeled my inner Stevie Nicks and a night of the kareoke bar all to ourselves was icing on the cake.  Thank you my beautiful husband for such an amazing seven married years together. I truly am the lucky one.

We took over 1500 pics in the Maldives....all the above were just a very few. I'm realizing that I really need to take a course on how to use my really cool cameras. The water was always an amazing green and the sky was always a beautiful blue and I don't think my pics captured the beauty that truly is the Maldives, but hopefully it captured how much fun we had.  The water was always, ALWAYS the perfect temperature even at night.  We went during rainy season and I would go again during their rain season in a heartbeat as the rain only lasted about five minutes and was never more than a drizzle, we wouldn't even get out of the water as it made no difference at all. 

Below are pics with our friends Nick and Dave from Doha and my new very dear friend Elizabeth and our Bangalore peeps Katie and Derek! There are more pics, but I cannot find them! Ughhhhhhhh,  anyway, I will try to write in a more timely manner, next post "India night"!

Already missing the Maldives and our friends Sharon, Andre, Nadira and Shakira, what a great month October was.....the greatest so far...let's see what November brings, till next time.

Much love everyone!