Happy, happy Friday from San Jose!

I got in on Wednesday night and went straight from the airport to the very last SJ Women’s Circle I will attend. 🙁 At least for a very, very, very long time.

Today is a very special day because Jen and Juanski tie the knot today. I am so ecstatic to watch one of my very best friends marry the love of her life. I’ll be back on Monday with lots of photos and stories to share and you can also follow the hashtag, #JenFoundTheJuan.

June 2015 – when he proposed in Tahoe!

The fact that Jen will become a Mrs. and Juan will become Mr. Merz is probably the funnest fact of the week, but I’m sticking to Friday tradition and including some other fun facts before I sign off. Feel free to join the fun and add in some fun facts from your week in the comments below!

1) I saw this on Instagram the other day and literally laughed out loud. Not because it’s HILARIOUSLY funny. But because it’s actually so fitting for my life at this moment. My liver and my wallet are pretty happy about my move to middle-of-nowhere, Tennessee.

2) Arjun had my birthday gift shipped to Mom and Dad’s house, but by the time it arrived, I had already left for our cross country trip so I didn’t receive it until this week! I loved it for two reasons. First, it made me feel like my birthday continued all the way through July. And second, hello? Friends reference? How could you not?

3) This isn’t really a fun fact. An interesting fact, perhaps? I saw this billboard while I was driving to the Atlanta airport. I don’t discuss politics very much. Partially because I’m not as well-read as others and I don’t feel like it’s my place to run my mouth. But I don’t even know what would happen to this world if Trump became president. It just confuses me that there are so many people who think he’s the answer to all our problems. What? That makes my brain hurt.

4) I have been living. it. up. at Starbucks. I mean, I know I had it every day when I lived here. But, there’s something magical about the taste of an iced coffee when you realize you won’t get to have them for months when you fly back to TrumpTown.

5) Bhabhi sent us this picture of Jiya in Veer’s classroom. I’m committed to adding pictures of Jiya on this blog. Even though I’m not physically there with her. This blog has documented all of Veer’s huge moments and I don’t want to miss a beat with Jiya. Or Aishu. Or anyone. So, as long as I’m allowed to and given pictures by the mamas and papas, I will be a proud Masi/Bua showing off the cutest nieces and nephews.

6) It’s been a month since I’ve gone to a Weight Watchers meeting, but I was definitely inspired to go this week (while I’m in a town that has a WW and also because of the Connect community). I got back on that scale and it said I’ve gained 2.4 pounds since mid-June. I knew it was going to happen. I’m not angry about it. I’m just so happy I went because I’m jumping right back on the wagon. No more denial. No more pretending. No more sneaking in bites of ice cream when the husband is in class. I’m committed again. I just need a few reminders.

Now, with that, I’m off to go consume all my weekly SmartPoints in champagne as we get our make-up and hair did for the MERZGARAYAR wedding!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Questions of the Day:

• Do you watch Friends? Do you understand the mugs? Do you feel jealous?  
• What are you doing this weekend?
  
• What is the funnest fact from your week? 

Good morning and happy Friday! (To me, every day is Friday. So it’s all the same in my book!)

I’m typing this post IN our apartment. We finally have wifi and I’m so appreciative. Who knew wifi was so hard to come by in this day and age?

We have somewhat reliable Internet. But, right now, I’m sitting on top of the router, and that’s probably why it’s working. (#FirstWorldProblems). (<—In all seriousness though, this ‘first world’ of ours has several problems. Wifi not being one of them. The US feels like a mess right now. And my heart goes out to the innocent people who have lost their lives over ignorance and hate. No person should have to live in fear that they or their loved ones will become the victims.)

That being said, this week has had a lot of good in it. It’s hard to remember when everything feels like it’s going to shit. So, here are a few facts from the week that brought happiness into my life.

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1) For the few days we didn’t have Internet, I was frequenting the Pineapple Tea Room for their coffee and their wifi. One great thing about this place is that you could leave your stuff out on the table while you pee or run to the post office across the street and nobody takes it. Having lived in only big cities, this concept is new to me.

If you look closely at this picture, you will notice my Google Calendar. Which consists of NOTHING.

2) I got a special flower delivery from Jen. I love flowers. And it came at such a perfect time. (When I was about to break down after making yet another trip to the dump to dispose of some boxes).

3) I found a gym! This is HUGE. I thought finding wifi was hard. Finding a gym is even harder.

4) A few people who read yesterday’s post offered me some suggestions on how to make more space in an itty-bitty kitchen. Everyone’s advice hit on the same theme: Be Creative. This is my idea of being creative.

5) I’m becoming quite the shopper. I love finding all these deals on fresh veggies. (In other news, it’s just me and a group of 80-year olds that go grocery shopping mid-afternoon on a weekday).

And other random tidbits from the week….

I’ve clearly been in a dry county for too long. When Bhabi sent this picture of Veer to the family’s Whatsapp chat, all I could see on his shirt was a glass of red wine.

I broke yet another wine glass yesterday when organizing the kitchen. Again, there was no anger. Just relief that I had one less thing to find a space for. (It’s probably the doing of the ‘Dry County’ gods. They are shaming me for bringing wine into their county.)

That’s it for today.

Have a great weekend <3

Last week, on Christmas morning, a few of us woke up early and gathered downstairs together. Papa was in the kitchen making his chai. Sister was on the couch listening to a podcast. [She is the podcast queen]. Nanima was sitting next to the fireplace. And I was laying on the couch, deciding between making chai or trekking to Starbucks to get my system up and running.

Out of nowhere, Nanima asked Sister a question about text messaging. Nani has a cell phone, but it’s one of those old-school flip phones, and because she is unable to see the keys clearly enough, text messaging is still a little unfamiliar to her.

She asked Sister, “How do you make a semi-colon if the keys are assigned to letters? Like if #1 is A, B, and C, how do you make the other things like punctuation marks?” 

Now, since Sister and I were both former Razr owners, we knew exactly what she meant. T9. And, since Nani had an old flip phone, it made sense. If she used her phone to text, she’d have to use T9. So it was a legitimate question.

We explained that the keyboard/keypad looks a bit different on these “smart” phones. I pulled mine up and showed her how it looked similar to a computer’s keyboard. This eventually led to a conversation about keyboards and typewriters. At that point, Masi had joined us in the living room and was telling us stories about how they used to have to use a telegraph to send messages to family in Canada.

This led Nanima to talk about how much has changed in our world since she was a young girl.

She recalled the time when she was walking through Connaught Place on the way back from her singing class and saw a TV for the first time. She said, “I had no idea what I was seeing. What were all these moving pictures?” Eventually her family purchased a TV set of their own. She remembered how she’d feel so cool and sophisticated when her family had people over to watch TV. At the time, there was only one station, but they showed everything from national news to current songs.

Then she talked about about how they had a gramophone at her house as well. Her Master’s Voice was the name of the company that made the machines. She told me of the time she wound up the gramophone and, as the music started playing, she peeked into the horn and told her Papa, “I want to be in there. Where the people are singing.” 

She stayed silent for a while, but her eyes told me that she was remembering stories of her past.

I got up off the couch and sat down next to her at the fireplace.

She told me more stories about the gramophone. How she was gifted with one on the day she got married. That she probably still had it somewhere at Masi’s house. That it was a more advanced version than the one she grew up with – when the disc was done playing, it would drop down and lift up another disc to be played automatically.

But, my favorite story she told that day was when she veered away from the technology talk.

Out of nowhere, Nani started talking about how she took a beginning economics class and was learning all about supply and demand. She recalled having to draw a graph explaining the concept. She said she spent a lot of time making the graph look beautiful and informative. She remembered the teacher picking her graph up off her desk and showing it off to the rest of the class. The teacher used her graph as exemplar work. She remembered that memory so vividly and was still so proud of that moment.

I continued asking her questions about the class and the teacher. She remembered everything. The teacher’s name (Mrs. Roy). That Mrs. Roy was from South India. What Mrs. Roy wore. What Mrs. Roy taught her.

And I just sat there listening to my Nani remembering every detail and every lesson she learned in a class she took over 60 years ago.

It made me wonder if I will be able to have the same effect on my students that Mrs. Roy had on my Nani. There was something about her particular class that made my Nani invested in it enough to remember the content and the work. Maybe the small gesture of showing off her work, giving her that positive reinforcement, was just a little glimpse into Mrs. Roy’s teaching style.

It’s something to strive for. Something to keep me moving forward. The hope that, some day, long into the future, when I’m not around anymore, my students will remember the things I taught them. But, even more importantly, I hope they will remember how I made them feel – special, unique, and loved. Just the way Mrs. Roy made my Nani feel.