Jayanthi making Chicken Pie

I asked Jayanthi to make a Chicken Pie. I got out a recipe and started explaining it when she interrupted to say that Chicken Pie is an old Whitefield recipe. She said all Indian cooks used to have to know how to make Chicken Pie for the westerners who settled here.



It was fantastic.

Random

Interesting looking man at a liquor store.


Beautiful canyon/quarry found while out on a scooter ride.
Two women were there trying to bathe their goats.

This photos was taken the morning of my accident. I went for a 2.5 hour ride that morning with some friends. My accident happened later in the day during a solo errand.

Raman's housewarming pooja

There was quite an extensive pooja

Raman was completely into the whole thing

Auggie played on someone's iPhone the whole time

While Annika enjoyed the experience...

...and showed off her saree.

Scooter accident

Jenne's scooter... ooops! Sorry Jenne!

From an e-mail to my Dad:
I was in a scooter accident yesterday but I'm OK.
In the afternoon I went to downtown Whitefield to buy some apples 'cause we went to a friend's housewarming pooja (blessing) last night and I was going to bring an apple crisp. Anyway, I was going down a narrow road, wide enough for 1 car with a few feet on each side, so I stayed to the left of the road as a car approached. Well, a motorcycle coming from the opposite direction decided to pass the car - only on the wrong side of the road so he came head-on at me. I had no where to go so I put on my brakes, which led me to lose control of the scooter and I fell and skid.

As I laid in the street, trying to piece together what had just happened, I looked up and a kind man was lifting the scooter off of me. Then others stopped and joined in helping me. I checked my injuries (except my knee - I didn't have the courage at the moment to look at it, I knew it was hurt the most). An old village woman ran back to her hut and came back with coconut oil to apply to my wounds. Another woman on a scooter asked me to get on her scooter and she'd take me to her office where she had cotton and clean water. All while this was happening another man walked my scooter to a safe place, put my helmet in the trunk, and came back and handed me the key. 7 people would not leave my side until they knew I was OK. Finally I got on the back of a man's scooter (sidesaddle 'cause I couldn't bend my knee) and he drove me to a nearby clinic.

No one in the clinic spoke English, they escorted me to an examination room, and explained through sign language that the doctor was off having lunch and should be back soon. I kept second guessing being at this clinic and felt I should go to my own doctor. Especially if the doctor didn't know english and I expected that he didn't. So I sat on the examination table of a CRAZY examination room - one that looked right out of a horror film, like bad things were about to happen to me... I watched my right knee blow up to the size of a grapefruit, it was scratched and bleeding. I also looked around the examination room and there was one shelf that had boxes and boxes of syringes. I felt this doctor would come in and start draining the fluid out of my knee so that settled it... I limped out of the clinic, walked back to the scooter (scooter was fine except for some aesthetic damage) and drove back to Ozone.

My driver Gopi has been sick since Saturday, so I drove around Ozone looking for anyone with a driver who could take me to the doctor. I finally found one, went to the doctor, they cleaned me up with some iodine solution, wanted to inject me with painkillers which I refused, x-rayed my knee, and sent me home with anti-inflamatory pain killers and antibiotics. I won't take the antibiotics - they hand them out like candy here. So I came home and rested.

Last night we went to our friends housewarming, like I said. I limped around and people asked about the bandages. I was afraid to go home and take off the bandages. Eventually I did and I think everything will be all right. My knee will take a while and I believe my left big toe is broken - it's purple, swollen, and I can't move it.

But you know what?!?! I'm thankful. It could have been a lot worse, I wasn't going very fast, I slid on sand instead of asphalt, and I was wearing my helmet.


purple, swollen knee

skinless arm

busted, purple & swollen left big toe - cut on right big toe is superficial

Annika's Birthday Party

A new mall opened near our house. When we first stepped into it this summer, Annika's first words were, "I'm going to have my birthday party here!" I thought she'd forget about it, but Annika doesn't forget...

She had it at Bliss Chocolate Lounge


BRAIN FREEZE!!!




There were chocolates as prizes, chocolate shakes and chocolate cake...






The Bliss Team, they were great.
Thanks everyone for a wonderful party!!

Groundnut (Peanut) Mela

My landlord's father told me about a peanut festival happening in Bangalore. It happened to be in an area of town I had to go to anyway, so Bree and I checked it out.

It was the 3rd day of the festival so the piles of peanuts were small (uh, but larger than I'd ever seen...)




This child was dressed as Hanuman and running amuck amongst the nuts.


This guy looked like he was enjoying himself some tasty peanuts.

Happy Birthday Annika! 7 years!

Annika woke up this morning to balloons, a few gifts, and a birthday serenade.

She was very happy about two new puppy stuffed animals.

The birthday walk to the bus on a rainy November morning.

Vim gives Annika a birthday greeting before the bus.



Bye birthday girl! Have a good day!

Annika's classroom in the afternoon to hand out chocolate cupcakes and goodie bags.



You don't have to wear your school uniform on your birthday.

Goodie bags!!

Daddy came home from work with seven red roses for his big girl.

After dinner we had a birthday cake for Annika.

Her birthday flower/candle became an enferno with lots of black, toxic, plastic smoke.

Rajasthan Day 3 - Galwar Bagh Monkey Temple, Jaipur

We happened to go to Galwar Bagh on an auspicious day, there were hundreds of devotees there to bathe in the (horribly stinky) water.

The temple has three levels of pools. Jenne had been here before so we followed her as we went through the temple. At the first pool we walked through a crowd of many, many colorful sarees until we realized that many women were in different stages of undress - we were walking through the women's bathing area and John was in front of me and the only man around. John started fearing for his life, as did I. Luckily no stones were thrown and no men tried to tear him apart. Wow.


And, of course, there were monkeys.

And lots of beautiful people.

This man got excited when I took his picture. When I showed him the image on my camera he knelt and kissed me feet! My first feet kissing in India!