Birthday lessons

Be happy and be a little sad.

The sadness reminds you that you are a human being with feelings and emotions. It is a little darkness that makes you realize the importance of light in your life.

Value that light, that brightens up every nook and corner of your soul and makes every fiber of your body tingle. Hold on to that light that engulfs you in it’s warmth with the promise of ‘even better’.

Cherish the moments of the day that will weave themselves into your life. For these are the moments, that you will look back at when alone, while driving, having lunch, going to bed, and smile and giggle.

Give back that love, in any way that makes you happy and brings about a positive impact on other lives.

Spread out your birthday to a birthweek. And enjoy being a princess, with the best people around you.

Yesterday I turned a year older, and hopefully wiser.

Happy 31st to me!

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30 on 30.

1. Chocolate is my best friend and my worst enemy.
2. Financial investments and a saving plan may not seem cool, but are extremely important.
3. I definitely love to be surprised.
4. I crave, need, thrive on attention.
5. I am way cleaner than I used to be when I hit 20.
6. It is difficult to live with parents.
7. It is difficult to live away from parents.
8. My indecisiveness is going to kill me.
9. I like ambitious people better.
10. Independence is extremely important to me, be it financial or emotional.
11. I have learnt that it is ridiculous to pick a side and stick to it through thick and thin. There needs to be openness to ideas.
12. Politics is complicated and no one is clean.
13. Flexibility is the key to happiness.
14. I have accepted that ‘never say never’ should be my life motto.
15. I am a social bird who loves to actually cozy up in her nest on Fridays.
16. I am quite hypocritical and most people are anyways.
17. I am a people pleaser a la Monica Geller. I am also materialistic a la Rachel Greene.
18. Health must be a top priority and fitness and regular checkups should not be ignored.
19. Technology gives me a headache.
20. I am not into the whole iPhone vs Samsung debate, and I am firmly in the ‘Its just a phone!!’ category. But my last 2 phones have been Apples.
21. I am a hoarder and have way too much stuff for a single person.
22. I am definitely not cool.
23. I am generally cold.
24. If I could have puppies instead of babies, I would pick that option.
25. I am toeing certain lines and I really want to cross them, but I am too much of a chicken.
26. I definitely need to work on being a good host.
27. Coffee makes my tummy happy. 😉
28. Steps are not the right way to get into a pool.
29. Respect and courtesy go a long way.
30. Life is not a joke, but also shouldn’t be very serious.

Just something that I thought of worth jotting down when I hit 30. Yep, bring on the ‘over the hill’ jokes. Well, my knees actually do hurt, but I am so glad to be alive! Let’s see what the ‘dirty 30s’ have in store for me. Cheers, you guys! Have a shot(alcohol, pani puri or pink lemonade) for me!

29 it is!

Another year older, another year gone by so quickly!

Yep, it was my birthday yesterday and I had a wonderful time with some of my favorite people.

Like all princesses, my birthday isn’t limited to a single day, but spans across the weekend. The celebrations started from Friday afternoon when my buddies at work took me out for a huge birthday lunch. They ordered a shot of Fireball and beer for me and the result was 10% of efficiency for the rest of the day. I kept myself awake at work by thinking of elaborate ideas to take a nap, but without real success. I should have taken a leaf out of George Costanza’s book of ideas like the hammock under his desk.

The celebrations extended in the evening when I went out for a Japanese dinner with Shawn, Alicia and a few others form the Softball team. I love Ramen and their Ramen was no exception and I really enjoyed the vegetable sushi as well after a very long time. I am not big on sushi because of a few wasabi related incidents in the past(fire in the brain and tears from eyes, nose and ears), but this sushi was quite good! Abhi, Nish, we have another new spot to go to! After the dinner, we headed to a real divey-dive bar, in Tustin where our group became bigger as more of our friends joined in. Now, it was a Karaoke bar with an open mic. We belted out quite a few songs like Bohemian Rhapsody, Sweet Caroline, etc. But the real highlight of the evening was the thorough butchering of Summer of 69 by Alicia and yours truly! I think we were hopping like bunnies more than singing! The DJ announced out that it was my birthday party and the entire bar was upon me to wish me.  We sang almost all the songs as a chorus to whoever was singing and by the end of the night, we had lost our voices. It was all worth it!

Saturday passed by in a whirl, where I did grown up things like laundry, vacuuming, renewing my apartment lease, crying at the depleting bank balance. I was expecting Abhi and Nish in the evening, but flight related incidents with their mom and sis postponed their visit to the next day. Shib called from Kerala after fighting with terrible phone network. I spoke to Hazra over video chat for quite a bit and the poor guy tried to order a cake for me which turned out to be a fail. I was so touched by his gesture and assured him that it truly was the thought that mattered to me! I headed out to the mall in the evening to use my discount coupons and birthday vouchers from stores that I may not shop full-price from. 😛 I ended my Saturday at the grocery store where I had an unexpected ego boost when the cashier gave me student discount without even asking me if I was one! To celebrate, I treated myself with some Chinese takeout. Yep, I love Asian food!

I spent most of my Sunday being lazy and talking to friends on the phone. Thank you Moo and Ani for the infinite wishes, and so much love to Ani’s Jonah for the cutest message ever for his PB Maasi! The xBF also called and we spoke for a long time. It truly made me happy and very satisfied that we now trying to get to a stage that we can joke and laugh and look back and look ahead without ruining our moods and dissolving into tears. It was good. Abhi, Nish showed up late afternoon with some absolutely yummy desserts and I finally cut my birthday cake/dessert and got to make a wish by blowing out the candle. Well, I think I forgot to actually make a wish! The day ended with another FaceTime chat with the folks.

Monday came bright and early and really hot with 100 F or 40 deg C and 9% humidity. More friends from work took me out for lunch and we had Thai food. Did I already mention that I am a sucker for Asian cuisine? I skipped gym yesterday and chilled at home with my friend Adriane to watch the presidential debate. We had my birthday dinner at Maggiano’s Little Italy and celebrated with the group of friends that I call the OC squad! Of course, the prime members are Shawn and Alicia. 😀

It was the culmination to a fabulous, celebratory weekend and I couldn’t be happier. I feel truly blessed to be surrounded by people who love me, care about me and keep me in their thoughts and prayers. No one can take the place of my parents, my family, but my friends come very close. I feel grateful.

I have entered the last year of my 20s. I am determined to make it worthwhile. I want to do everything so that I can look back and say that I ended up my 20s with a bang. God willing!

Birthday No. 28

So, I am a 28 year OLD lady as of Saturday, Sept the 26th.

A giant big thanks to everyone who wished me. It made me feel very special and Princess Butter appreciates every bit of that.

My parents sent me the cutest homemade card on Powerpoint which had a picture of me and Moony. We skyped a couple of times on Friday and Saturday.
My day of celebration had already begun on Friday afternoon with my birthday starting in India at that time. My R&D group took me out for a team lunch to Lucille’s which our usual watering hole. The team is so awesome that hanging out with them is always fun. After the lunch, I came back to my cell phone to a barrage of missed calls and texts from the best friends. I managed to sneak out of office for some minutes to have a nice chat with Hazra.

I had to go to the mall after work to return something and I ended up breaking my shopping ban. Once more. But I found the perfect skirt at H&M for Ani and Moo’s bday gift top and it just had to be bought!

Friday night saw more Skype sessions with parents, this old friend Sayali, calls with Shib, Ani, Moo. My last bday wish was from Ted who decided it would be perfect to tell 60 ‘lies’ on my bday to make me happy, ranging from how nice I am to how I am not weird at all. 😀

Saturday dawned bright and early, with me waking up with princess-ey stretches a la Bollywood actresses. No. It dawned sharply at 7 am with a call to Shawn that “I donttt wannnaaa get upppp!” But I did get up and I headed to the beach at 8 am with Shawn and Melissa. It was cloudy till about 10 am and got super sunny after. We were there till around 10.30 am. 11 days of sun in Turkey have not done what those 30 min did to my skin with respect to tanning. I have clear demarcation where the clothes were and a tan line and it’s so ridiculous! California sun, y u so harsh?!

Corona Del Mar and the glorious California September

I got back from the beach to an awesome surprise! I had a package from Sheri’s berries with chocolate dipped strawberries!! Shib and Hazra sent it to me and that was such a ‘awwww’ moment. 

I showered and ate a bit and I took a nap for, err, 3 hours after. I had a bday dinner with friends at 7.30 pm at an Indian restaurant. The ‘Merican friends love Indian food so that was a great choice of place. Aaand I got 2 bday cakes! Yay for that! A funny thing happened though. The waiter decided to sing Happy Birthday song in Hindi to me, ‘Baar Baar ye din aye’ and proceeded to totally mis-pronounce my name 😀 Friends who don’t know Hindi were obviously clueless but quite amused. I really, really enjoyed my dinner with people who rate quite high in my life as friends. A few drove over all the way from San Diego or LA and that made me feel so special, I can’t even explain.

After the dinner, Abhi-Nish, Madhuri, her roommate Akansha, and I drove over to LA because we were going to spend the night over there. Why were we in LA? We had tickets to Arijit Singh’s concert!! The concert was on Sunday evening and it was a total blast! To be honest I wasn’t such a huge fan and I was not expecting much. But he sang his songs, and KK-Emran Hashmi’s songs that were a rage when I was in college, and a few other hits. The orchestra mixed it up a bit to make the hit numbers peppier. We ended up standing and dancing for the last one hour to Kabira(Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani), Samjhawan(Humpty Sharma ki Dulhaniya), and a few more. It was the most fun dancing to his renditions of Gangster, Jannat, Murder 2 songs. All in all, it turned out great fun. We got home by 12-12.30 am and here I am in the morning guzzling down coffee at work. Thank God Dennis is not in today.

Arijit Singh live!!

  
I had a great birthday full of happiness, a lot of laughter, happy tears, and all in all, a lot of joy. I spent the weekend with my people, and with gifts from my people back in Pune that made me feel closer. I feel that I have finally stepped out of the fog and in general, I am in a better mood now. I find myself smiling more often, laughing more freely, and feeling sad a lot less. Now if only someone tells the skin and hair to stop ageing, it will all be perfect. I am NOT ready to start anti-ageing regime mentally. I anyways got told that my mental and physical age doesn’t seem to match, and I am perfectly happy with that, thank you very much.

Happy birthday, Scube….

Many many happy returns of the day….. I hope you have an awesome time… May God give you better than the best, and fill your life with all the happiness in the world….

Love always……

Leaving you with the song you used to ALWAYS listen to, at home, in car, everywhere, before we started dating, and continued after, to annoy me….. Even when there was no sadness anywhere at all! You, silly, you…..

Turning 27…

…is hard!

You start getting asked if you are married or not more than a national average of 3 times a day. People assume if you are not a marriage material or why else you can’t even snag a husband. It gets worse when people start wondering why do you not even have a boyfriend!

You go to a store and anti-ageing is pushed onto you like no tomorrow. There was a time when taking care of wrinkles began after you turned 35. Now, mid-late twenties is already so damn late that you are on your way to looking like a pug.

You are still stuck in a limbo because clothes at Macy’s and Nordstrom look too aunty-like and you still fall for the pretty teeny bopper clothes at Forever 21.

Going out and partying induces a major calculation drive that involves what time do you need to wake up the next day and how many hours of sleep you shall get.

Beginning of the month brings about a ‘Woohoo’ for the start of a new month budget and a ‘Waaaan’ when all the mortgages and rents and EMIs leave your bank accounts

You can no longer wolf down those 3 slices of pizza without freaking out about that belly bulge. ‘A moment on the lips, forever on the hips’ is here to stay, baby!

Binge drinking brings about a worse hangover than ever. Your stomach also refuses to co-operate anymore and say hello to way too many restroom visits the next day.

Teenage acne has given way to adult acne. Hmmpphh.

If your skin was dry all your life, it starts turning oilier. The reverse is also true. In short, your skin hates you now.

Say hello to being called ‘Aunty’ by your friends’ babies.

So, it happened on the 26th of September for me and I am dealing with it with a mixture of trepidation and happiness. I thank God for his little mercies and for making me see another year of life. The ball is in His court now to start turning up the ‘good’ about my days.

PS : I got my driving license card on Saturday and it is here to stay till 2019, babay!

Test for A

I have a BFF who I am close to. She says she has read this blog once after I gave her the name of my blog. And then she asked me the name again yesterday. She does it for pictures, mails, etc as well. “I forgot/I did not see. Please tell/send again.”
So this is a test for you A. I had sent you this poem last year on your birthday. If you read this space, leave a comment. I am going to note when you read and comment. That will decide what I get for you when I come to India.

I met a silly girl,
she was really silly.
For the complete lack of imagination,
lets call her Silly.

Silly girl is such a nut,
to the point of being a prat,
when it comes to sweet animals,
she’s such a scaredy cat.

Silly girl loves talking to everyone,
made us almost miss our trains.
But I am the only one
whom she causes max hurt and pain ;’-)

Silly girl loves her Copper chocs,
and stole my idea of going to Chinese room.
That makes me want so badly
to hit her with a broom.

Always dressed in blacks,
or browns and muddy greens.
Whenever in salwar kurtas
its a sight to watch her preen.

Silly girl wouldnt wear some floaters
cuz they had a yellow mark.
She wouldnt be caught dead,
in colors bright and happy as a lark.

Silly girl loves texting,
clickety clickety click,
even in the middle of conversations,
she’s that big a prick!

Silly girl has a scarf,
super dirty and smelly.
Whenever asked to trash it,
all she does is dilly-dally.

Silly girl was born on 1st march,
the weirdest of all dates.
Just to rhyme something with that,
she should change her name to Kate.

Anyways, I love that silly girl,
even with her stupidities willy-nilly.
So why did I write so much for you?
Just to say Happy B’day, Silly!

P.S. This silly girl wears bright stuff now and is happily married since November’13. But she will still call normal function types sarees ‘zhaang pang’. I do not understand her dictionary.

Happy Birthday Moony!

It was my sweetie pie’s b’day  on 19th July 2012. He is a big old guy now.

My dad celebrated in style and got him a bouquet! Haha… He sniffed at it, and just as dad was taking a solo pic of him on the sofa with the flowers, he dropped it on the floor…. Such a sweet nut he is! Mom made a basic cake for him, which unfortunately did not rise… Mum still has not gotten a feel of the temperature settings of our new microwave…. But Moony and we love her food nevertheless… 🙂

I remember his b’day in 2009, just a couple of weeks before I left for USA…. We had put streamers and stuff for him…. 🙂 Oh, how I miss him…. My <3…..

 

Flowers and cake for the b’day boy!