Guilty Pleasure

Where was I last couple of years while Ryan Gosling has been making movies!!? I think I missed the boat firstly because I'm not quite the "Notebook" watching kind and the next movie I associated with him (Blue Valentine) could not be watched with kids around! I had four loads of laundry to fold last night and that's my queue for finding a sappy movie on Netflix/TV. I found Crazy, Stupid, Love on On Demand, mainly for Steve Carell. It was a really funny and witty movie! Ryan wasn't bad on the eye either! ;-) Watch it if you haven't!

No more sad endings

I have come to the conclusion that I don't ever want to watch a romantic movie that has a sad ending! I watched "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer" last night. If you haven't watched the movie yet, stop reading here. Major spoilers ahead. Why the hell couldn't she go with him? She should have just gone off to the jungle with him and had dinner with him under the moonlight while getting bitten by the mosquitos! AND she would have been happier! Who cares that there is no running water? Who gives a damn that they are from different religions? After all, they are not real! Its only a movie! Just make the audience happy!!!!!!!!!!

Same goes for "Lust, Caution". Its only a movie people! Just let the general save the poor girl and let her wear her quail diamond ring and her nice clothes and let her lust after him. Done. everyone is happy. What's so hard to understand with this concept?

I think I am going to watch more hindi movies from now on. 100% guaratee that the guy is going to get the girl, no matter how many twists there are in the plotline. One movie gives you romance, action, suspense: what more do you want??!!

Catching up on my movies

Have you seen "Little Miss Sunshine"?? If not, I'd strongly recommend watching it! I loved that little girl. She is just sooooo adorable! I want her to win the Oscar.

Also watched "In Persuit of Happiness". I want Will Smith to win the Oscar also!! :-P

Tidbits and others

I’ve been writing my posts in my head for the past couple of weeks! I keep thinking I am going to go home and write this idea down, but once I get home, I am busy playing with the kids or cleaning or cooking etc. So I decided to just write it all out today at work!!! Hehehehe. It’s Friday and I have been working extra hard last couple of weeks! I can play hookie for a little bit! So this post is going to be random thoughts, ideas, information, thrown together at the whim of the creator!

Speaking of creator, I was listening to an interview on NPR. They were talking about going to the moon to look for early earth rocks containing signs of life! I know crazy idea, but they had some valid arguments! You can listen to it here if you are interested. Anyways, listening to this, I experienced a moment of sheer panic! I was thinking what if in my lifetime, we find some intelligent life in some distant corner (or not so distant) of the universe??!! I literally felt chills going up and down my spine! What a scary yet exciting moment would that be! I am not a trekki, but I have seen enough Star Trek to color my imagination! I think I’d rather find some sort of “dumb bugs” on some other planet than some form of intelligent life!!!!!!!!! Which in turn made me think why do I feel the need to be superior to some other species?! What gives me the right to feel so proud of being the only known form of life in this whole big universe?! We are nothing but a grain of sand compared to the vastness of the universe! Now that is a scary thought! There’s got to be someone somewhere sitting there, looking at us, laughing his/her head off at our stupidity in thinking that we are intelligent enough to create, invent, discover all there is on this earth. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. I am really freaking out thinking about this! Let me think about something else!

Lets talk about Zoya now. BIG NEWS! She is talking! She has about 4/5 distinguishable words now! She says “Hi”, “Mama”, “Papa”, “Bebe” (baby), “shee” (shoe). She definitely understands a lot more. If we say “Lets go”, she runs to the front door and stands there with her hand on the doorknob, looking at us, with a smile on her face! If I say “Pani Khabe? (Do you want a drink?), she will look at the kitchen counter and look for her sippy cup. When we say “night night Zoya”, she will run to the stairs and start climbing! I can’t tell you what a big relief that is to us that she is finally talking! She loves looking at books. She loves playing with her mega blocks too.

Raffae has become a constant source of chatter in the house!!!!!!!!!! :-D Right now he is learning that Papa and Raffae are boys and mommy and Zoya are girls! Every now and then he forgets and says “papa is a girl” or “mommy is a boy”! He has become a BIG computer hogger! He can spend literally hours on the computer! I was working from home one day last week and he wanted to sit at the table with mommy. He played for 2.5 hours straight! Is there any study out there that’s going to make me into a criminal for letting a 2.75 year old play online for that long?! :-P He says “Bess You mommy/papa/nanu/zoya” when we sneeze. He even says “Bess you Raffae” when he sneezes! Hahahaha. He passes gas and says “scuse me” with a naughty look on his face! He is becoming much better at sharing toys and stuff with Zoya.

Work is becoming more and more stressful! I’ve been feeling completely drained lately. By the time I get home, I am just sooooooo exhausted mentally that I don’t feel like doing anything. I just play with the kids for a little bit, give them dinner, get them ready for the bed and then hit the bed myself! This means, I’ve been piling up house chores! Yikes! My sister and her hubby are coming to visit us next week! I’ll be doing lots of cleaning and tidying up this weekend!

Planning to watch “Da Vinci Code” tonight. I was telling Tanveer that I wanted to read the book before watching the movie. He brought up a good point. He said the movie obviously is not going to be as great as the book. He doesn’t want all the details of the book fresh in his mind when he goes to watch the movie! Smart man!

I feel like taking up knitting. I know the basics. My mom is a knitting wiz. I remember seeing the needles dancing away effortlessly in her hands as she would be watching tv or reading a book! She made sweaters, shawls, caps, gloves, scarves for everyone in the extended family every winter! I think I need to have a chat with her.

Speaking of mom, we had a wonderful Mother’s Day Brunch with all the moms and daughters in the family. Here’s a picture of Zoya and her cousin Priya at the brunch. My brother-in-law commented seeing this picture that he can just picture these two sitting like this and talking about boys in less than 12 years! Yikes!

Go Patriots!!!!

Let me first say that I am not a big sports follower, but something my brother-in-law said yesterday stuck with me. He was saying that we know GMU cause we live in Maryland, but to someone from Wisconsin or Minnesota, it's as foreign to them as whatever their smaller universities are to us! Then this morning, I was listening to a piece on NPR about GMU. Seems like they have achieved the unthinkable! I went to George Mason for two years before I transfered over to the terps territory. I loved that quaint, little campus and I was always finding faults with the UMD campus at the beginning. Then slowly, GMU slipped out of my mind. I got used to the Maryland campus. It was everying GMU was not! I think it's time I re-activate my affiliation with George Mason University! :-)

On a different note, go watch "Inside Man" if you haven't already! Insanely entertaining and clever! We were specially thrilled with the song that was played at the beginning and at the end of the movie! :-D I'm not going to spoil it for you! Go watch the movie. It's worth it! Clive Owen is HOT!!! ( Ofcourse not as hot as you baby!! :-P)

Syriana, a wounded chin and motherhood

When Batman came out, George Clooney's mother said he has the sexiest chin in hollywood. From then on, I always look at GC's chin first whenever I see him. However when we went to watch Syriana the other night, there was another chin on my mind - Raffae's.

He ran into the couch right when we were about to leave for the movie. Got a big cut on his chin and was crying. He is such a strong kid that usually when he gets hurt, he just gets up, says "oh sorry" and runs off. So when we hear him crying, we know he got really hurt and its bad!

We had already gotten the tickets, so we left him in my mother in laws capable hands and left for the movie. I was feeling really guilty about it. Then came Syriana. Heart wrenching, disturbing, thought provoking, tear jerking Syriana. Made me feel even more guilty about leaving Raffae behind after he got hurt. Also made me think what kind of a future is ahead for him, for his generation.

Some random updates

• My sister is reaching Toronto on Feb 9th! Yayyyyy!!!


• I've become addicted to food blogs!! Doesn't bode well for my resolution of "eating well/healthier and finally loosing the pregnancy weight"


• Raffae is just becoming too cute now that we can really communicate with him. He doesn't throw as much tantrums. Becoming very managable(!!). Those of you that know him know it is still a lot of work!


• I don't have anything definite, but recently I just feel like Zoya is making a lot of progress. She babbles lot more (probably because she doen't have the pacifier in her mouth! She strictly gets it at night), she is becoming more and more active. No new dance moves recently though.


• I so want that job I interviewed for!!! They are going to interview an internal applicant and then decide! I hate inernal applicants! I'm just trying to get my foot in the door, but this guy is alreay in! That is just not fair!


• Next month, we will be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary!!!! 9th!!!!


• I don't think I can finish reading "Shalimar the Clown". Too slow!


• I got a new laptop! I'll be downloading all the hindi/bangla songs I want on my iPod this weekend from questionable sites. I'm sure I'll be downloading some spyware too which would be driving Tanveer crazy! ;-)


• I am very hungry! Arthur (our intern) better be here with the lunch soon! ;-)

Second Chances

I am glad that there’s one such thing called second chance! I would have missed out on some good shit if I hadn’t given them a second chance!! Here are a few:

• The English Patient - God knows why I couldn’t watch it the first time!! I think I was very sleepy and it was going too slow for me. I turned it off after the first half an hour and returned it to Blockbuster without watching the rest. I discovered Ralph Fiennes when I did get around watching it the second time! What an eye candy! After you ofcourse, Tanveer! ;-)
• Mukul – Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Lets just say first impressions could be quite misleading. The first time I met him, he was quite drunk and told me a really dirty joke!! Now, you have to understand the background a little. Tanveer has been telling me for the longest time about this friend Mukul who is supposedly an awsome guy, very smart. My expectations were quite high. So I just couldn't understand why Tanveer thought the world of him!!! In his defense, this guy can hold down liquor like its no one's business. If he is drunk, that means he has been drinking quite hard and for quite some time!! I caught him on a very very bad day. Things were just not going his way and he was trying to drown his sorrows in booze!!! Mukul, you are an awsome guy! Without a doubt the smartest guy I know. I’m glad you are in our lives!!!!!
• Tanveer - The first time he asked me out, I was completely taken by surprise. We were very good friends and I had no idea he felt that way about me!! I mumbled something like "I don't think of you that way" and ran away!!!! We were out of touch for couple of months after that!! I thought about him though all that time and decided to say yes if he asked me again. Thank God he did!!!!!!!
  
• Misti Doi - This is a special type of sweet yogart made in Bangladesh. My first couple of encounters with yogart had been tart!! I refused to eat yogart for the next 5/6 years. Then, one of my aunts made me eat a bowl of yogart and I've been a fan ever since!! Anyone coming to visit me from NY, please bring me some misti doi from Alauddin's.