How I met my first blog buddy!

Guess what I did over the weekend?? Which happened to be Friendships day coincidentally. Yay! I met the fabulous Popgoesthebiscuit, her husbadoo and the cutie pie that is Bandar.We have been looking forward to this meeting since the time they decided to move lock, stock and barrel to San Diego. I was so excited and a bit nervous about it. Well, she already knew about my crazies from my posts so I did not exactly have much to be nervous about. First impressions and all that. 

We met on Saturday evening where I drove to her apartment. The original plan was to stay overnight, but her furniture is still in shipping from New York. So a sleepover is still in the pipelines. 😀 I met her hubby and baby Bandar, who talks nineteen to the dozen but speaks the most amazing things. She showed me this magnet with a picture of the three of them in Langkawi and I managed to confuse her for 5 minutes that it’s not her but me in the picture! Pop almost killed me by telling Bandar that I am PB auntie but I convinced her to call me PB Maasi instead. Phew! Crisis averted. 

After that, Bandar, Pop and me walked down to a park close by where I was the troll running behind Bandar in this swing-maze-slide-thingie. I loved hanging out with them two there because we could have a heart to heart chat there where we discussed everything we have written about or not written about. Some old stories, and some new ones. She was curious about certain things and I had promised to fill her up whenever we would have met. So, I did just that. 

That was followed by a walk to PF Chang’s where we had dinner. We turned it into a happy girl’s night out with baby B. She was being such a good kid and I think they are amazing parents! Bichari was given totally bland food in the name of kid’s menu and yet, she was eating it with all the stories being built around broccoli and snap peas. 😀 She was really tired and wanted to go home, so P came over from their apt to walk back with us and she was so delighted to see her daddy! 

It was an incredibly fun meeting where not for once we felt like we are meeting each other for the first time. She was exactly as I had expected. It was almost like we have known each other for years and we are just meeting each other after a little gap of time. When I had told my mom that I was meeting a blogger friend, she said it sounded just like meeting a pen-pal. 😀

This is like the start of a new friendship, which doesn’t feel like new at all! The best kinds! 🙂

Flipflops in the sunshine

There are times when I curse living so far away from home, when it’s just way too hot, or way too chilly, or I can’t find good things to do or good food to be devoured.

Then there are times that this place makes me fall in love with my surroundings again. And again. Saturday was one such time.

 

Shawn and I have been hanging out with Melissa(an ex project engineer with my company, she got laid off, she is not too upset :D) since last two weeks at her place and in a beach park at Newport Beach to watch her boyfriend Sebas play Rugby. He plays for the Back Bay league team and they are pretty serious with their uniforms, and physio and waterboys. Unlike us softballers who show up in a Bazinga tshirt and hurl insults on our own teammates. Yup.

The previous to last Saturday was rather gloomy, and super cold with some drizzling rain. I was wearing two hoodies and borrowed jeans on my shorts. Even the hot chocolate in our hands wasn’t warming us up.

But last Saturday was just bliss. BJ’s yummy deep dish pizza was had, berry cider was downed, Peanut(Missy’s li’l Yorkie) was teased. We had lounging chairs at the park and later at the beach. I had my floppy wicker hat on. I realized how wonderful a 28 degree C sunlight feels on the skin mixed with a cool sea breeze. I have a crazy tan going on though where my legs look like I am wearing permanent stockings, even after religiously applying sunscreen. Sheesh. 

Someone was very tired after a nice run on the beach and a hearty poop.

 

Of Sangrias, games and small joys.

Aah, what a satisfying weekend that was!

I went to San Diego this weekend. Instead of staying with Abhi-Nish, I decided to stay with my girls K and S. K and I were throwing Abhi-Nish a combined Bachelor, Bachelorette, pre-wedding party all in one. We had to do arrangements for that and basically just wanted to hang out together. We went to Party City and picked out the mandatory hat, tiara, veil, and these huge shiny bride and groom badges. We had some sumptuous Indian chaat food after and appropriate booze was bought for the night. We reached home and went through 2 bottles of some good old Sangria. It is a sign that you are indeed turning old, when after drinking, instead of being rambunctious, you end up being drowsy and turning in for the night. Yep. I would like to blame my early office hours, thank you very much.

S said she will sleep in her guy roomies’ room and K and I could have her bed. Her boy is away on an India trip. But we insisted for her to stay and ended up sleeping horizontally on her queen bed. It was like sleeping with cousins. You don’t care how you sleep, but just want to be together.

Saturday dawned bright and early. As early as it can be at 10 am. We made some eggs and tea and had a long chat about the issues that the girls were having at home. Listening to what kind of relation they have with their parents, makes me want to go and give my parents a tight hug. I hope they eventually have the same comfort level with their parents like what I have with mine. I cant imagine it any other way.

We had movie plans before the party. The three of us went to see Interstellar. It was a brilliant movie, but the last 30-40 minutes went on a tangent. I got so confused by the end that I had to read up the story on Wikipedia. Although I already knew the story because of this jerk who posted the entire story on his FB status under the guise of a review. It was the damn whole story and not a dot of review! And I ended up reading the whole thing. I am also a total tool.

Anyhoo, I loved the movie. The graphics, were so insanely real. Nolan’s movies are magical that ways. We came out of the theater and we felt so woozy. It was like the world seemed different. I call that an impact, which I haven’t experienced since quite some time with movies.

After that we reached Dave & Buster’s where we had all gathered for the bride and groom to arrive. I had mentioned the time on the e-vite a gazillion times, and most people made it on time more or less. A few people were sorta busy but they did drop in even if it was for a short while which was pretty amazing. Some food was had, drinks were downed and we proceeded to enjoy some game time. At the cost of sounding immodest, you are looking at the champ of dropping coins in the coin-pushing-ticket-winning-game-thingy. Like this picture I googled, below.

We collected our tickets and Abhi-Nish got us all shot glasses to remember the fun night we had. We dropped by into the photobooth for some awkward and confused picture taking. 😀 But the end result was quite good! Although it picked out a ‘Welcome to Las Vegas’ template for our pictures. Well, pretending to be in Vegas is as good as being there.

Since they both will be in India till the day I leave for India, and we will not meet each other till Feb, we met up for lunch again on Sunday. I had Dosa after such a long time! It was so yummy. If you are in San Diego, do go to Chennai Tiffins some time. Their filter coffee is very good and so are their chutneys.

I really really hope they have an amazing wedding and everything goes by smoothly(#kalatikka). Such happiness is hard to come by and I wish they have every bit of it and are buried in sugar coated pink marshmallows of happiness.

I left for home after that. On a total whim, I decided to stop by at an outlet mall just a li’l north of SD and ended up beginning my holiday shopping. For me. Yay for that. I was supposed to look for stuff for parents for my upcoming India trip. The only thing I have bought is a jacket for Dad. Mom’s shopping is trickier. The woman is as fickle minded as-well, me. So, I walked into Banana Republic and saw that they had 50% off on tops, pants and some dresses were on a 70% off. I don’t usually glance there because even with that discount the dresses are $100 upwards. But somehow I snagged one at a decent price. Plus, I got sucked into signing up for their credit card which gave me another 10 bucks off. Such joy.

So, all in all, it was a great weekend. The holiday season is coming up, and hoping to have many more similar ones. 😀

P.S. I shall be in India from 26th Dec to 23rd Jan. I will be unavailable on a few days in between, but do give a shout out if in Pune around that time.

Last few days of summer…

Last weekend I went to San Diego and had a fabulous time!

I joined a couple of friends to go for the La Jolla seven cave tour by kayaking. It was a very hot day and I have tanned almost 4 shades darker even with a gallon of sunscreen on me. But it was all worth it.

The tour guide took us into the sea where Amru and I were on a kayak and her husband and brother were on another. Our arms were absolutely in pain by the end of it. But you know what the cherry on top of the cake was? I along with Amru’s husband, jumped off the kayak into the sea!

After the tour was done, the guides took us to a nice spot faaaaaaaar from the beach. We could see leopard sharks and sea turtles swimming in the ocean and we could see some dolphins and sea lions a li’l further away. They told us that we could swim there if we wanted. Everyone was really hesitant. I could see Ninad wanted to do it, so I egged him on! 😀 I mean, we had our life jackets as well. And he jumped! I looked at him, and slipped off my kayak too, although carefully, because I did not want to get my contacts wet.

I have done snorkeling before, which was a mindblowing experience as well, but this time, I was much more further into the ocean. The hard part was getting back into the kayak. It took all my core strength and mad, furious kicking into the water to hoist myself up. I managed that and was sprawled b*tt up, in the kayak, while Amru balanced the boat, for a good 10 exhausted minutes. At some point, a great white shark did cross my mind. They often have a sighting of one and have to close the beach down. Anyhoo, thank God there were none while I was dangling from the kayak.

The water was just the right temperature. So amazing and a beautiful blue. Usually, the Pacific is very cold, saving for July to September.

Swimming in the deep blue sea is one point checked off from my bucket list.

After the kayaking session, I had plans of going for Dandiya with Abhi and Nisha and their few friends. But we ended up canning it in favor of going to watch Haider. The movie is like an onion. It has so many layers to it. A fabulous example of oedipal complex, the movie has quite a bit of shock factor. A lot of people are pissed off that the censor board released a movie showing the Army in a bad light. I don’t think it was necessarily trying to show the army in a bad light. Now, it is what it is. There have been many cases where AFSPA has been mis-used. We have heard of plenty of cases from Kashmir, North-East, and the tribal areas. Also, those ^#%$&@% terrorists and militants have brought out the animal in everyone. Anyways, in short, I saw a movie that had some substance.

Now I just need to watch Bang Bang in the coming week. 😛