Fire paper

My cook, Angel, was asking if she could use some fire paper. I said, "fire paper? I don't have any" and I was SUPER curious to know what she was talking about and why she would need it. But then Jennifer pepped up and said "yes, M'dam, you have fire paper" and she opened my kitchen drawer and pulled out aluminum foil. Angel said "ah, yes, fire paper."
Want to know why it's called fire paper?
'Cause if you put it in the Microwave, it causes a fire!

Example from YouTube:

KFC

I ate lunch at KFC today. I haven't been to a KFC in well over a year but today a little taste of home sounded really good. And I was in a part of town that has mostly street food that I cannot eat.
I walked into KFC and it looked and felt like a real American fast food place. I was really feeling it until the lack of air conditioning/circulating air brought me back to being in India.
I ordered a chicken sandwich and a Pepsi. The breaded chicken was much spicier than at home, but the excess mayo proved that some things remain the same.
I got a tiny table for 1 near the window and watched some Eunuchs bother a young adult male on the street below. The male ducked into the restaurant to avoid his agitators. The security guard at the front door (there is always a security guard at any and all front doors) did not allow them to enter so they loitered outside the big glass window for a while. It was entertaining watching while I ate my lunch. Taste of home... taste of India... ahhhhh.... who could ask for anything more?

I did a handstand!

This morning in yoga, I did a handstand against a wall, with no assistance from the instructor! And held it for a minute!
Whooo-hooo!

August vs. scissors

We've been parents for 6 years and we just experienced our first self-inflicted haircut.
I say that's not too shabby a track-record.

Mom :-)

My Cousin Sarah scanned an old photo of my Mom and e-mailed it to me.
Ahhhh...


Holidays just aren't the same without Mommy. :-(
India would definitely be one of those places she would say "I could live here".
And if she did, she'd have a much better tan than I do. Hahahahaha.

Auggie clowning around

He was doing this for about 15 minutes before I ran and got the camera.

Indian airports on high alert after new warning

MUMBAI, India – Airports in India went on high alert Thursday following fresh attack warnings as officials said India suspects two senior leaders of a banned Pakistani militant group orchestrated the deadly Mumbai attacks.
The new alert that warned of possible airborne attacks focused on three major airports — New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai — but security was stepped up across the country. No details about the threat were released.
Click here for the AP article

BBC News
Indian airport alert after threat

People are starting to travel for the holiday season... let's hope intelligence and security are strong.

Fun on the internet

I showed Jennifer and Angel my posting on the mustaches. Jennifer was not happy with her photo. I told her there is a whole ad campaign in the US designed around white mustaches so I went to Google Images and typed in "Got Milk".

We looked at a bunch of photos of beautiful people with milk mustaches. One thing led to another and we came across a photo of an adult movie actress with huge breasts and a milk mustache. Both Angel and Jennifer were shocked to see someone that big. So I told them the breasts weren't real. "Weren't real??"

Next I type "breast implants" into Google Images and we see a lot of before/after photos, photos of the actual silicon implants and diagrams of a breast and where the implants go. This leads us to a bunch of interesting photos of adult entertainers and eventually a transsexual.

We look at the photo of the transsexual and Jennifer and Angel won't believe that it's a man who now looks like a woman. So I type in "transsexual" into Google Images and we see a lot of photos of Thai beauty pagents and the like.

They are blown away. They've never even heard of breast implants before and now they're seeing them on men. Their eyes are wide, wide open and want to see EVERYTHING.

So, as we look at photos of transsexuals, a photo of "The Pregnant Man" comes up. They see his pregnant belly, scars on his chest from where his breasts were removed, and the hair on his face... So now I type in "pregnant man" and we watch some clips from Oprah.

All the time they were asking "do you know people like this M'dam?" "why do people do this M'dam?" I responded that it's just something that person feels he/she needs to do to be happy. It was a lot for two Christian Indian girls to digest in a period of 20 minutes.

Thanksgiving, American style!

On Saturday we had around 45 people at the house for Thanksgiving. It turned out great. The sun was shining like a beautiful California Thanksgiving day.

People started arriving around 2:00p and brought appetizers and various beverages. Erik downloaded a Lakers game and we had that playing in the background.




We mingled and snacked until 3:30p when the whole group went to the park for a Volleyball tournament.
(yes, there is something on the lens)





When the crowd came back to the house at 4:30 there were big smiles on their faces, sweat on their brows, aches in their muscles, and hunger in their tummies.



Food was served and it was All-American fare: 3 5kg+ turkeys, mashed potatoes, candied yams, stuffing, gravy, CRANBERRY SAUCE, peas, mixed zucchini cauliflower and broccoli, greenbeans and carrots, veg lasagna, my cousin Anna's creamed onions, chicken quiche, garlic bread, green salad, and PUMPKIN PIE!! w/ ICE CREAM!!!... oh there is even more that I've forgotten.

The quiche and creamed onions were devoured before I could even get a photo.






Most of the Indian and French people who came had never attended a Thanksgiving before and were very happy to have been part of the experience.

It was a wonderful day. And I am thankful. :-)

The next night we had a small group of friends over for Turkey soup. It rocked, if I do say so myself.
TIP: As I've been eating Turkey soup leftovers for lunch this week, I've been adding a scoop of Chana Masala. A little Masala flavouring and the garbanzo beans makes it even better. :-)

Fun with $1.00 of fake mustashes

I was trying to find ribbon today (with no luck) but came across a package of fake, hairy mustaches. I thought they were hilarious and cheap, so I bought some...






Consensus: well worth the investment. Lots of fun and giggles.

Our Christmas Tree

This is what Christmas trees look like in our area of India.
It's potted so we can take it back outside after the season and bring it in again next year.
We're going to make most of our own ornaments. The paper you see hanging off the tree is a drawing of a fairy that Annika put on the tree as our first ornament.


Our livingroom



Some handmade ornaments of Indian women in traditional costumes.


Some handmade ornaments of indigenous animals.

Trip to Delhi - Day 3 - Delhi Fashion, Sparkly Fuzzy Sweaters

As we were walking around Delhi it came to our attention that there was a high instance of men walking around in fuzzy, sparkly, sweater-vests. We found it curiouser and curiouser until we decided to document our discovery.


John did an awesome job with a cameo in each photo.
And Jenne did an awesome job with the PhotoShop sparkles (only added because the REAL sparkles were not captured on film).



I love the yellow vest, yellow dress shirt and yellow under shirt... the dude is stylin'!!










This was a whole family of fuzzy, sparkly sweaters.



The dude in the foreground is taking John's photo too! Hahahaha, we didn't see that until going back through the pictures.


Poor kid, they start 'em young.








As we were playing around and taking the photos we remarked how funny it would be if one of these men in a sparkly, fuzzy sweater-vest actually approached US to have his photo taken with us...

Ask and you shall receive. :-)

All photos were taken over the period of 1 hour at The Red Fort.