Dog Day afternoon

Don't have too much to post here. Yesterday R and Gautam joined Vijay at Tie Con and i hung out at Nimmu C's place. Today we dropped Gautam off at San Jose airport for his 9am flight and then R and I got hopelessly lost getting out of the airport and wandered all over San Jose trying to get back to the freeway. Finally after a half hour or so, we did. Then we found out G had left his keys and ipod here so we had to come back and take it to the Post office to mail to him. Fortunatley his friend has a spare set of keys he can use. So all in all our plans to go to SF got cancelled, we'll go Monday instead.
We took Cyber - the cutest dog in the world - for a walk. He was so excited. Chilled the rest of the afternoon....still chilling now. Plan to go to Ranjit's place for dinner tonite.

Leg 2 - Eugene to San Jose via Crater Lake

Whew! Today was a long day! We left Eugene at about 9 am and headed out to Crater Lake. A friend had told us to go the scenic route through the lava beds and into the north entrance to the lake, but unfortunately due to a late spring, the north entrance was still closed. So we had to backtrack and enter the park thru the south entrance. For those who don't know, at a maximum depth of 1932 ft, the lake is the deepest in the US, the second deepest in the Western Hemisphere and the seventh deepest in the world. It was spectacular, and we were glad we took the extra 3 hours to go check it out.
By the time we left the park it was past 1pm and stopped at Pixie's diner for lunch. Raga swears that the egg salad sandwich he ate was the best ever! After lunch we headed on south to SFO via route 97 south which literally hugs the base of Mt.Shasta. Gorgeous views from the highway. Pic attached. By about 5.30pm we were desperate for a good cup of coffee. (I want to digress here - most of you know i worked at Starbucks the last 2 years. I have always wondered at the amazing success of Starbucks throughout the world and what a phenomenon it has become and could never quite figure out why people would pay close to $5 for a cup of coffee! I KNOW NOW WHY!!!! Ever since we packed up our high tech coffee machine - which brewed amazing coffee - in the container, we have been drinking instant coffee and it just doesn't cut it. Every day the caffeine craving hits us and only a Starbucks cup of coffee satifies that craving!!! I totally get it now! As long as i had my Starbucks discount card, i never used it, maybe once....but since i quit and lost my 30% discount perk, i've had a cup every day...crazy!)Anyway, we exited the freeway twice in search of one but no luck, then all of a sudden when we were back on the freeway we saw a sign for one ahead...yay! So we got our caffeine fix after all - the usual double tall caramel macchiato!
OK enough of digressing.....then we headed south to Los Altos where my cousin Vijay, lives. We got in around 10.30pm or so and were greeted vociferously by their golden, Cyber - the cutest dog ever! I thought Snoopy, the beagle we had, was the most chilled out dog, but Cyber takes the cake! The most gentle, good natured dog i've seen. We stayed up late chatting and since Gautam was also there, most of the discussions were political in nature. Crashed at 12.45am.....!!!

Leg 1 - Seattle to Eugene

So this is it, there's no turning back now. We have left Seattle behind us for some time to come. We are homeless and jobless with no bills to pay, all we have is 4 suitcases and a rental car and each other!!! Feels liberating!
I picked Raga up from work after his co-workers had thrown him yet another farewell party with some cake cutting. Again it was very apparent to me that they will really feel his absence. They all had such neat things to say about him and wished us well in our new adventure. R will miss them too!
We left Seattle at about 6pm, and got into Portland about 8.30pm or so. I knew all along what a great city Portland was, but i had no idea really how beautiful it is. The Columbia river snakes thru the city and when we drove by late in the evening, it looked spectacular with the downtown lights in the background! These guys have also got their public transportation system all figured out with a superb metro and a streetcar that runs throughout the city. We had a quick bite for dinner and got into Eugene at 11pm.Tomorrow we plan to head to Crater Lake on our way down to San Jose.

Island getaway

Today we went and visited some good friends of ours, Rachel and Zach and their 2 cute kids, Olivia, 5 yrs old, and Ella, 3 1/2 yrs old. Rachel and Zach are "islanders", they live on Bainbridge Island. They are building this beautiful house on the island which should be done in a month or so. Raga and i took the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge island and for the first time saw our condo from the water side. Its the smaller of the two buildings you see in the picture.
The kids were so excited to have a picnic in the unfinished dining room and had popcorn and juice for us. Rachel and I went to the nursery on the island and left Zach and Raga in charge of the kids. We came back a half hour later to find Ella stripped down to her underwear and running around with Zach behind her. Turns out she had been playing with paint and by the time Zach realized it she had ingested a fair amount...it was kids paint, non toxic stuff!

We took some shots of downtown Seattle while returning on the ferry, made me realize once again what a beautiful place this is!

A trip down memory lane

Today we finally did something we had been planning on for some time. We visited all the neighborhoods we stayed in and took pictures of all the houses we have lived in starting with our tiny 2 BR apt in 1985 to our condo on Alki in 2006. We also took pics of all the schools Gautam went to, all the parks and favorite places we took him to when he was a kid. We ended with Flow and Starbucks, our respective workplaces. Raga was video taping it all simultaneously, so years from now we can watch the video and feel like we're driving thru this area again.
So travel thru the past 21 years with us.....click on each link below

Raghavan accomodations over the years

The educating of Gautam

Favorite haunts

what paid for it all

Arundati sounds

Sound file of Arundati - P2's two year old daughter - singing...she was brushing her teeth and looking at herself in the mirror and singing, and then i asked her to sing some more...

Post party depression :-(

Raga had a great farewell party. About 15 of his coworkers showed up, quite a merry bunch! Clearly they are very sorry to see him leave, but very happy for him too. It was nice to hear all the great things they had to say about him and i saw a totally different side of him today....he was really "one of the guys"....they gifted him with a mechanical man sort of thing made from all the different machine components he has worked on over the years...very cool, and just a wee bit risque..I have over the past few months heard him talk about many of them and so it was nice for me to meet them all personally. Really great group and i can see why he enjoyed working with them.
The plan to get him drunk didn't work at all, just as i suspected. They have all threatened to charter an airplane and descend on us en masse in Hyderabad! They are most welcome to do so. Now that we are on our final round of goodbyes, its starting to feel a bit sad...

Here are the pics....at least some of them.

There's a party going on right here....

This was my first attempt at recording an audio blog. I thought the party would be a good place to start, but there were so many people and in addition a guy in a Hawaiin shirt was playing the guitar and singing on stage, so its really hard to understand what people are saying. As soon as i asked R's friends to say something about him, they all froze when all evening they had been saying great stuff!!! But anyway, Adrian repeated some of it and then it was a discussion between Shawn and Adrian and Raga about Indian weddings...you may understand some at the end.But it definitely sounds like a party going on

Chicken with its head cut off

I've been running around the past 2 days like the above mentioned
chicken.....yesterday i put about 150 miles on the car and spent
almost 6 hours in it, not at a stretch but from about 7.30 am to 5.30
pm. To the spa, then to R's workplace, then back home, then to pick up
Tara (a friend of mine had surgery last week and is on bedrest, so i
am in charge of picking her kid up from school every day this week, we
chat all the way home to her place, its fun to have conversations with
a 10 year old.....), then back to pick up R from work, then to the
park to meet with friends, then pick up dinner and then back home.
Today promises to be another headless chicken day the way its
going.....my car has pretty much become home, have all my CD's, water
bottle, juice bottle and snacks to keep me busy on the wretched bumper
to bumper traffic clogged Seattle highways!!!! (On a side note -
people always complain about traffic in India, but I tell you, if
Seattle is anything to go by, lots of US cities are similarly traffic
congested. And Bellevue is the worst city! People here drive soooooo
slowly, i am convinced that there is a law that states that if you
live in Bellevue, you must refrain from driving over 20 miles an
hour!)
Anyway, today is Raga's big day - his co workers are throwing him a
big farewell bash at Bahama Breeze, and have promised to get him
suitably sloshed! THAT i'd like to see!!! In all of 25 years of
marriage, i have yet to see him completely sozzled!!!! He came
dangerously close to it one time at P2's house and started singing
Kerala boat songs...... Anyway, I will be there taking candid camera
pics....shall post them in tomorrow's blog!

Thursday funnies....

No big news again other than the fact that R finally sold his Audi TT. He's depressed today...and so am I. That was one cute car! I spent all day running around but part of that was an incredible 4 hour session at the spa...i am all scrubbed, and moisturized and detoxified and renewed and ready for my road trip!

Here's some more funny stuff thanks to Bhavna...

Wednesday funnies...

Nothing really newsworthy happening so this should keep you all entertained for a couple of days.....

enjoy it.....

yay!

yay it did...cool! Now i don't have to fire up my blog each time..

testing testing....

Just trying out this new feature where i can send an e mail to an
address i create and it automatically downloads to the blog....wonder
if it is going to work...?

Down time.....

Its been a couple of days since my last posting but nothing really that eventful happened. We are finally catching our breath after the craziness of last week. P2 and Jaisri threw an awesome party for us on Saturday and invited some of the “gang”. R and I got an absolutely gorgeous photo holder from Bombay Co. Vinod and Sujatha were the last to arrive and the last to leave…we stayed up till past midnight with Vinod and P2 recalling the pranks they played while in IIT. Then off to bed only to be woken up at 1 am by 2 fire engines that screamed onto our street to put out a chimney fire in the house across the street…I actually watched the whole thing till 2am from the window. I found it all incredibly fascinating!
Spent Sunday sort of tottering around with lack of sleep and the after effects of the previous week. In the evening we moved to another friend’s place in Bellevue, a beautiful house on the hill overlooking Lake Sammamish where we will be till Saturday. Its right next to restaurants and theaters and a perfect place to totally chill and do nothing. All you see around you are mountains and the lake – see attached pics. I am finally getting back to my daily yoga sessions after almost a 2 week hiatus and it feels great. Pottered around Bellevue Square for a while this morning. Cool place! The only reason I didn’t end up buying all kinds of stuff is because I’ll have to lug it all back with me. Then finalized our return trip home from JFK. Still have to work on US road trip accommodations. R got back at about 5.30 and like a good wife I had hot tea and pakoras waiting for him….i told him if he hadn’t made me work all these years I could have done that every day!!! But then he said if I hadn’t worked all these years we couldn’t afford to retire like we are now…Hmmm…good point! I guess I’d rather have it this way 

Speaking of pranks, check this out....