I wake up with my hair flying off in the wind and to a screeching sound of brakes before we hit a wall. Two of my friends and I are driving around my college campus and we are flirting with all the 20 somethings we come across. “Oui, we are cougars and that’s not good”, I am lecturing my friends but they are laughing. One of them is driving and I ask her to slow down, but she is her exuberant self as usual. We all seem to be drunk too. Thank heavens, but that was a bad dream.

After drinking tea together, I tell my husband while looking at myself in the full length mirror, “I look fat in these PJs don’t I”? And he says “You can’t say that. Only I can call you fat.”

At the Principal’s round table conference in Moksh’s school, they show us a presentation that 3.5 new students join every week, recess is called supervised unstructured time and 273 out of 650 students speak at least 2 languages. “That’s nothing, my Grandmother from Korea (when there was no North or South) speaks Russian, Mandarin, Korean, English and Japanese.” says the school cultural coordinator laughing. I raise my hand to suggest that kids have to be taught empathy so they don’t soil the bathrooms for the rest of their friends who follow. The principal says, “Let’s discuss this offline.”

Back home at my computer, I send “Pine-straw costs over the years” via email to my husband because he asked for it during tea. He is upstairs recovering from allergies or whatever it is, for the 2nd day in a row.

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On a Tech newsletter, titled “Tech Salaries Outpace the Rest of the U.S.”, I read:
Graduates earning computer science degrees will be substantially paid with an overall average salary projection of $65,540. This is almost a 7% jump from last year, much greater than their engineering classmates’ 2% gain. In addition, all of the individual computer science disciplines have overall average salary projections near or greater than $65,000.

I figure out the latest corporate trends from a “Come work with us says Blinkist.com” email:
We’re looking for great people to join our team. At our Berlin HQ we offer a fantastic workplace including all the benefits you’d expect – from a personalized perk system and epic events, to free drinks, snacks, and furious foosball fights. But what’s most important: an awesome, smart bunch of coworkers and a great company culture. One part of that is self-empowerment. We got rid of management hierarchy and are operating under our own version of Holacracy, a system that distributes authority among all colleagues. From a dedicated beer-and-softdrinks-only fridge to milestone parties, we make room to celebrate and unwind. Apply and hear all about it in your interview!

In keeping with my philosophy of passive aggressive rearing of my boys, I send Ky an email, “Based on the full candies I found on your bed, your teeth in the next 2 years” with a picture I found after searching for “Mountain dew mouth”

*

To which he responds from school via his iPad, “WTF!!!!”
I send this to my mom and sister, from the New York Times, “The Secret to Sibling Success” and when I receive a Whatsapp message from a relative: “Please tell aunty that Leelavathi’s husband is serious.” I get up to tell nanamma that one of her friend’s husband is not doing so well and is in the hospital.

I read the book, Talk like Ted by Carmine Galto. “This country is very different today than it was 40 years ago. In 1972, there were 300,000 people in jails and prisons. Today, there are 2.3 million. The US now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. – Bryan Stevenson.”

I suddenly realize I forgot to note down that I have to Google “needlepoint pillow” that I heard on Big bang theory last night. I subscribe to some more newsletters, “To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.” Rad Reads and Wake the F up, where I read, “Mindfulness is not the elimination of thoughts, but a way to cultivate an appreciation for the fullness of each moment we are alive.”

I read this in an Indian American magazine titled: H-1Bs—The Best And The Brightest?
“What is this notion of the best and brightest? For one, it is the most conflicted banality of the moment. The term is generously used by liberal politicians and business leaders to make the case for H-1B immigrants, but the phrase has a long history of ideological righteousness much reviled by conservative politicians. The Wall Street Journal reported that IITs(Indian Institutes of Technology) were ranked fourth behind Stanford, Harvard, and University of California for incubating the most number of students who formed billion dollar startups in America. Many folks I talk to tend to provide anecdotal evidence of at least one H-1B engineer they know, or they’ve heard of, who performed sub-par at his/her job—who had poor communication skills, did not speak up at meetings, was behind schedule, delivered an inadequately thought-through product, required more training, or had deplorable personal hygiene habits.”

Nanamma tells Moksh in the afternoon that she never sees him do his homework and that she will start monitoring him starting tomorrow at 3:30pm everyday. Moksh replies, “That’s what you always tell nanamma, but you are always sleeping in the afternoon.” I am cleaning the kitchen as they talk and I am careful with my poker face, although I am dying with laughter.

I am invited to a Meet and Greet US Congress Candidate, [redacted] who is competing in the special Georgia elections for the seat now vacated by Tom Price who is the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Trump cabinet. I forward this to my 86-year-old friend and she sends a reply from her iPad, “I would love to come and meet him. I would give anything to capture that congressional seat..”

As Ky comes back from school and is getting ready to leave for tennis after eating a snack, life’s a frenzy around the kitchen island. Moksh just bit into his lower lip while eating snack and is crying at the kitchen sink. Ky tells me about a city called “Shanipur or is it Shantipur or Shani Shanipur or something” in India that his Social studies teacher had showed them this morning, where no homes have doors or locks ever. Nanamma wants to know where the gasket, a rubber ring that’s used to seal the lid of a pressure cooker, is, and she is at once asking and searching for it in every single shelf while also telling Ky she knows about Shanipur and “might have visited it, or maybe she isn’t so sure. Oh, hold on, it’s Shani Shingnapur”. Ky exclaims, “I think you are right nanamma.”

After Ky comes back, we head to the temple for the discourse. As we are driving off from our home, my neighbor John, says “Bye, Roseanne Barr!!” and I laugh. He and his wife think I am wickedly funny and should try out the local stand-up circuit. While driving, I show Ky “Mohammed Anas thanks ‘wife and girlfriend’ (full interview) by SuperSport” and he shows me “Positively Pregnant by Studio C”. The video has this description: Am I pregnant? Are you?? Huh? I’m confused. Are you?? Well get ready for MORE confusion as we talk the possible reality of new babies!!!

As I am about to hit the sack, an uncle in India sends me this picture of Hanuman, the Indian Monkey God who is a symbol of physical strength, perseverance, and devotion, with a caption “Good morning!” My local time is 9:45pm but to his defense its 6:15am in India.

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Continued on Thursday