Creepy Helicopters

I woke up at 5:00 this morning and couldn’t sleep anymore. So I thought I’d get to work early and maybe put a dent on my to-do list. Well, traffic was worse than usual which is saying a lot as you might or might not know that DC area has the second worst traffic in US!! Heard on the radio that there was an accident ahead of me, which explained the traffic jam. As I neared the accident scene, I saw two news channel helicopters hovering over the accident area. That just creeps me out. Does it bother anyone else!? They make me think of vultures somehow! I see those helicopters a lot during my rush hour commute since all the news channels are now into "bringing you real-time traffic news". I just can’t get used to them somehow! I think because when I see them, I know there is something bad going on, and that translates to my dislike of them. Needless to say, despite my efforts, I still got to work late and now I am dragging since I woke up so early today! I just can’t win!

Raffae

Raffae wrote his name and Zoya's name without any help or guidance the other day!!!!!! Keep in mind he is only three and a half years old!!!! Couple of weeks ago, I noticed he is trying to spell anything and everything. We got him some books and things where he could trace the letters. As you can see he has been practicing diligently!! I am sooooooo proud of him! My baby is growing up so fast!

Rebirth of ZeeNotes??

I have been thinking about ending my blog stint for a while now. The problems are multi-fold:

• I have no time to update it regularly
  
• If I want to update it, I don’t have anything to write about!
  
• If I write up a post, it’s just BLAH!
  
• No one leaves a comment on my BLAH post, so I don’t really know if anyone is out there reading my blog.
  

Vain, I know! But I don’t want to write posts for myself only! That’s what diaries are for! I thought I’d post a “The End” on my blog and let it rest in peace. Two things happened today to change my mind:

• Simika left a comment on my last post asking why I am not updating anymore?
  
• I found a link to ZeeNotes on Friends and Daily Reads list on Tasnuva’s blog. Tasnuva, you are brilliant by the way!
  

Now I can’t let down TWO avid readers of ZeeNotes, can I?! :-P Guys, I'll be back with an amazing picture and a story to go with it very soon. Till then, hang on!

Love to you two for saving ZeeNotes!

About time!!!

Tintin in the news

Daniel Craig doubles?!

Just found this on the web. There are two other people that look like Daniel Craig??!!! Oh the joy!!!!!!!! :-D Who are these people?? Where do they live?

Facing my fears one at a time

I faced one of my fears yesterday – water; more specifically, swimming pool. I registered for a swimming class and yesterday was the first class. I was really scared thinking I wasn’t going to be able to take my feet off of the floor! But I did and I had fun! Man, swimming is hard! I was sooooooo tired by the time I came back home. I have to find some time to go back to the swimming pool and practice before next week’s class.

With swimming lessons in progress, next I guess I’ll have to get myself a bike! Yes I can’t bike either!!!!!!!! I was a bookworm growing up! I could probably name the capital of all the countries of the world. Almost all of them at least. So there….

Be careful what you wish for

Tanveer has always been a generous gift giver. Every birthday, anniversary, mother’s day, I get something really nice. Over the years, I’ve received jewelry, watches, purses etc. While I appreciate them very much, it became predictable over time! I have suggested to him in the past that maybe he could get me lots of little things that would show that he actually spent time thinking about what to get me. With our tenth anniversary approaching, he decided to do just that for me!

Off he went to Barnes and Noble and got me “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter”. He went to Bath and Body Shop and got me a body lotion, a hand lotion, a bubble bath foam, a body scrub, and a nice bright red tote bag. He then decided to go to Target to get a cover for my iPod which has been getting scratched since I toss it is my purse, my laptop bag etc. He got that and also picked up Grey’s Anatomy Season 1 DVD. He was on his way down on the escalators when he heard a noise behind him. He turned to find a shopping cart scrambling down towards him on the escalator. He said he realized he had about 4/5 seconds before the cart would hit him. Realizing he won’t be able to stop the cart with his hands, he braced himself for the impact. The cart hit him on his back, right in the middle! There were things flying out of the cart that started hitting him even before the cart hit him. This stupid lady was trying to bring her shopping cart down with her on the escalator and lost control!!!!!!!! Can you believe that?!!! My poor baby was in pain for three days!!!!!! Being the gentleman he is he didn’t say a single bad thing to the woman. (I probably would have scratched her eyes out if I were there!) Thank God that he didn’t fall down from the escalator or sustain severe injury! I told him for Mother’s Day, he can go back to the Coach store and get me another purse. ;-)

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

What does love mean to you??

To me love is postponing all plans for our tenth anniversary without a moments hesitation because Zoya has a fever.

Love is giving Raffae Oreo cookies for lunch cause he is sick also and is not eating at all.

Love is my mom making special dishes for our anniversary.

Love is all the calls/text messages/emails we received today.

Love is knowing a guy for eighteen years, being married to him for ten years and still falling head over heels in love with him every day. :-)

Ok, maybe not every day, but today for sure :-P

My life

My social life has seen quite a drastic change in the last couple of weeks. Couple of weeks ago, I went to have lunch with two of my friends. We went to a really cozy place called "Cafe Hon"!! The food was really really good. We then ended up in an open call for a movie audition! One of my friends knew the people in charge and we watched people auditioning for parts in the movie. It was hilarious to watch people say their lines. Almost like American Idol where people really believe that they can sing, but really don't have any talents.

Then last night, Tanveer and I went to watch a Violin Concert at the Library of Congress which was really awsome. We them met up with couple of friends and went to a lounge to hang out. I had the most decadent chocolate cake there!

Tonight my brother in law and his fiance are coming over and we might go out to watch a movie. My social life has not seen these many events in a month in a long, long, long time! Could I really be getting my life back??? We are trying to make some changes to our lives and this was one of the things we wanted back desparately: to be able to go out and have some time to ourselves without the kids, enjoy adult company without feeling guilty about it! Lets hope we can keep it up.

Zoya on American Idol

If there was no age limit, I’d have taken Zoya to audition for American Idol this year. You want to know what she would have sung??

Twa, twa
How I
Up up up
Da da da
Twa twa
How I

cap, cap, cap
Job!!!!!!!

Translation:

Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are

Clap, clap, clap
Good job!!!!!!!!!!!

Simon would not have said “I couldn’t understand a word of that song!!” cause she looks absolutely adorable singing it! She does hand gestures too. :-D

Bored and brain dead at work

Katie literally read my mind when she wrote up this post. I don’t know what the reason is behind my blog anymore. I read back some of my old posts and it all reads like mindless ramblings, hence the new description on the blog! I haven’t seen much comments from readers recently either. What an attention craving blogger to do??!! Come on guys! I need some support, even if it is not 100% honest! Alright, how about if I make my blog sort of interactive? Ok here we go:

So here are the main themes of some of the things I am thinking about writing in the next couple of posts. Tanveer attacked by a shopping cart in Target. Zoya on American Idol. Making changes to our lives. Which one do you want to know about?? Leave a comment and I’ll oblige accordingly in my later posts.

Can't wait for July!!!!!!!!!!!

The fifth movie of the Harry Potter series is coming out on the 13th and the last book is coming out on the 21st!!!! Yipeeeeeeeeee!!! Speaking of Harry Potter, anyone seen the pictures of Daniel for his upcoming theatre role? The boy has grown up for sure!!!!! Anyway, going back to July, I think for Raffae's bday this year (which happens to be July 22nd), the theme HAS to be Harry Potter. Hopefully, I'll be done reading the book by then. Otherwise, I'll have to cancel it at the last moment!!!!! I'm sure guests wouldn't like their hostess to be reading during the party!

Stressed out

I’m so so restless. Things are up in the air - both at work and in our personal lives. We are trying to make some big changes to our personal lives. Can’t make a lot of decisions until work situations sort themselves out. And then there’s potty training! I am about to give up hope on Rafffae ever being potty trained! I think he has decided to go to elementary school in diapers! Nothing is working. We have tried anything and everything we can think of and people told us to do. As a last resort, I took away his diapers yesterday. I declared that he will only wear diaper when he goes to pre-school twice a week. I had a long conversation with him about what to do. Then, later in the evening …… well, lets just say I am thankful that I have hardwood floors and not carpet in my house. Any other suggestions from moms out there?

Goose Frava....

Sometimes I am really mean to people. This morning, someone called our home phone. When I answered the phone, the person on the other side of the line just hung up without a word. I figured he/she realized that it was not the correct number. Before I could turn away from the phone, it rang again. I saw from the caller ID that it was the same person calling back. Again I answered the phone and promptly I heard a click. That just pissed me off so much that I called the number back. A guy answered with an awkward “Hi”. I asked him if he had called my number. He said “Yes, but I think I got the number wrong.” I was so annoyed that I told him, not in a pleasant tone I assure you, that next time he calls a wrong number early in the morning; he should at least have the decency to apologize before hanging up. With that, I hung up the phone on him. Do I have anger management issues?? Or was my reaction justifiable?

Happy New Year

Wow! It’s been a month since I last posted on ZeeNotes. Things were crazy at work last month. The first phase of the project I am working on went live on Dec 13th, so everyone at work was literally camping out at the office. We had some long nights, lots of hard work, consumed gallons of coffee and soda, ate tons of Pizza and got this damn project up and running!!!!!! It was a great feeling. Fannie was the best thing that happened to me in 2006. Before Fannie Mae, I was stuck in a job that I hated and I was working with people that I didn’t quite like. I came to Fannie to do something different and ended up in a totally awesome project, working with a great bunch of intelligent people. I worked my butt off on this project and am very satisfied with the way my professional life is heading.

And then I got sick! Both Tanveer and I were sick like dogs for the last half of December. We ushered in 2007 amongst tissues, Nyquil, comforters and pillows!!! Some of us even went to sleep before the ball dropped!!! I am back to work now and knee deep into Phase 2 already!

So how is 2007 going for you so far? Are you still keeping your resolutions?? I broke my rule and made couple of resolutions this year! I know I’ll break half of them before January ends, but at least if I don’t try, it’s not going to happen at all! One of my resolutions is to get in touch with friends and family this year. I’ve written about this before also. I have lost touch with friends in the last couple of years and it is mostly my fault. I am just too busy with kids, commute and work. But I am determined to get back on track this year. I was always known for remembering everyone’s and their neighbor’s birthdays and I don’t think I even called all my close friends last year to wish them a happy birthday!!!!!!!!!! I am surprised that they still reply to my emails every once in a while! ;-) So there! It’s out in the open. If I miss your birthday again this year, I’ll completely understand if you don’t send me an email ever.

Which ones do you remember?

I am sure you all have seen this already. I don’t think I’ll ever forget this story. It got me thinking. What are the news events that I remember very vividly from my past? Here are some of them:

• The Uruguayan rugby team plane crash in Andes – I read about this when I was about 7/8 years old. There were lots of old Reader’s Digests in my grandfather’s house and I somehow stumbled upon an issue that had this story. I remember the pictures from that issue still quite vividly. I wish I had saved that magazine. Needless to say, I watch “Alive” every time it is on TV.

• The Challenger crash – Anyone my age should probably remember this. I always tell people that I’d love to go to the orbit and see the earth from above. I think the Challenger incident is the inspiration behind this. I was excited about the mission cause it involved the first ever civilian going to space. Before, I guess I knew I would never be an astronaut, but with a civilian in the crew, I think all of a sudden I realized that there still might be a way for me to go to space!!!! Now if I only had about $20 million handy and I was couple of inches taller, my dream wouldn’t have been that far from reality!

• Charles and Diana Wedding – Which little girl wouldn’t like the fairytale wedding they had?! I remember I went to the mall with my mom and a lot of the stores were closing early so they could go home and watch the wedding. We hurried back home too.

• Idi Amin – I was scared of Idi Amin! I must have heard someone talk about him. I don’t think I even knew who he was. I just knew that he was into “cannibalism” and that was enough to make me scared of him at that early age.

• 9/11 – enough said.

Proud Mommy

Raffae was watching Shrek 2 over the weekend. He used to watch it a lot when he was lot younger. I guess he forgot the story or was just too young to follow the storyline earlier. At the end, when Shrek takes the potion and turns into a human, he kept saying “Mommy, where is Shrek?”, “Oh no! Shrek is gone”, “Mommy, we need to find Shrek”. I was doing other stuff and wasn’t really looking at him when I was trying to explain to him that Shrek just looks different, but he is still very much there. The last thing he said to me was “Mommy, we have to fix it!!!!!” and then … I heard a sob!!! I looked at him and he had tears in his eyes. I asked him ofcourse why he was crying and that just opened the floodgate!!!!!!!!!! He was soooooo very upset. He was crying uncontrollably! My mom came downstairs thinking he got hurt. Both my mom and my mother-in-law always say that Raffae is very kind hearted (“Or mon ta khub norom”). I know he gets attached to people very quickly. But this was still so unexpected. I was proud of him that he cares so much for others. At the same time I was worried thinking life would be cruel to him. He will get hurt a lot by being so sensitive.

Different faces of grief

My mom has been depressed for the past two weeks. She misses Bangladesh, she misses my dad, she misses being able to pick up the phone and calling up her friends, she misses taking a rickshaw and going over to visit her family and friends. I've been trying everything I can think of to cheer her up. It's just not working. I am now getting depressed seeing her sad all the time. I miss my dad too, but I feel like I can’t really express my feelings to her because then it will make her even sadder than she already is. How do you make the pain of losing someway go away? It’s been a year and a half almost and I still feel the pain as raw and violently as I did the day he passed away. I can't even imagine what she feels like. I find myself trying to work longer hours so that I don’t have to go home and see my mom’s sad face. I feel horrible.

I miss you Abbu

I miss hearing your voice. I miss talking to you. I miss the smell of your cologne, mixed with soap. I miss your smile. I miss our conversations. I miss how you never used to finish a sentence. I miss eating from your plate. I miss holding your hand. I miss your honesty. I miss your simplicity. I miss your naivety. I miss your child like curiosity. I miss picking out your gray hair. I miss your delight in simple things. I miss your love.