It was a busy and festive weekend!!
We had our favorite canines with us for a long visit. Chunk, Moti and Walter made a special guest appearance and helped entertain the entire neighborhood. Other than the photos, what can I say... they havent gotten any smarter, but I do think their snoring has gotten louder and they are smellier. We had 6+ walks a day and all the neighbor kids had to come over to "visit" the dogs. The kids were in heaven. The highlight of the weekend? When Chunk got off his lease and "visited" 2 of our neighbors INSIDE their houses with muddy paws. Catching a determined bulldog is like trying to catch a greased pig. Not Fun. I am sure these specific neighbors were glad to see the dogs go. It has also underscored that we will NEVER own 3 dogs at once. NEVER.
In typical Gopalan administration form, they informed us last week that since the kids had Mon-Wed off this week for Diwali, why not give them Thurs & Fri off as well. Why not? I mean the kids were only off school Sept 26-Oct 12 and back in school Oct 13-24. Why not give them another full week off at home? I mean, as parents I am sure we had no plans during that time...(Can you tell I am a bit irritated by the whole thing?)
The good news in this whole thing? The weather FINALLY broke. After days on days of torrential down pours 2-3 times per day, the sun came out and it warmed up. The weather is perfect and we spent all day yesterday at the pool (1st time we've done a pool day since early August). It was gorgeous, but I digress.
The dogs left us on Sunday, just in time for all our Diwali celebrations. We had a birthday party and 2 Diwali parties to attend Sunday and Monday. Diwali is a mix of the 4th of July and Christmas. Everyone cooks sweets, buys fancy new clothes and lights off amazing amounts of fireworks. You travel to all your neighbors giving sweets and then the minute the sun goes down you start lighting fireworks. Note I said fireworks, not firecrackers. These are not the lame sparklers and stink bombs and bottle rockets of our youth (and our over regulated government). These are full fledged fireworks. Anyone can buy anything on the street and they do. We had full airshow quality fireworks being lit off over the neighbors house. The houses are all decorated with lights and everyone starts lighting fireworks in the middle of the street. I went for a run this morning and the streets all looked like a ticker tap parade went through. The kids loved it!
Other fun comments of the weekend (mostly by Kay):
Kay and I were talking about numbers. She had a sheet of paper of with the numbers 1-10 written on it (she wrote them out). She asked me, which one is the biggest, I said 10 "NO, she said, its 1) (and it was, size wize, she had written that one larger than the others). So, I tried another tactic, which number is the highest? Her response "google". I was in shock. She's right, go check it out. Google it.
Her next famous quote of the day? I am trying to read to them once a day at breakfast. Since they arent in school today, I forgot. On the way out, I said, "I forgot to read to you this morning, pick out a book and I'll read it to you at dinner". Her response? "Oh Damn it!" followed by "I'll find a book Mommy, no worries".
Nice.
Happy Diwali!!!
