show images

the bride's mendhi - it came out very dark for the wedding, extremely good quality mendhi...



putting lemon juice on the dye to keep it from cracking




finishing touches-we made it with 2 minutes to spare. indian standard time my ass!



me and sonal looking pretty



no one parties like desis! the irish catholic side had no idea what they were in for... it was funny



me in my pretty green sari



all bundled up at the beach

text only

as soon as i upload pics from this weekend, you will get the illustrated version. or, if i am lazy (which will very well be the case) just another post of all pictures.

last week was boring yet busy at the same time. work dragged on while tuesday night held a VERY hard salsa lesson, wednesday night filled up with book club (thank you for not smoking - SO good, go read it) and thursday with the mendhi ceremony for pal's wedding on saturday.

i was looking forward to catching up with Laura, Bess and Michaela on Friday at Croma with some fancy cocktails and good gossip, but Bess' flight from DC was way delayed and plans were squashed, much to my dismay. i had taken a nap and everything! so i stayed up watching my new lover in A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Ah, Hugh. I am seriously considering Hugh as a name now. Lot's of sexy Hugh's - Laurie, Jackman, Grant... I fell in love with British sketch comedy all over again. I had forgotten how funny this all was. It is not really Josh's cup of tea, which is bad bc my Netflix queue is chock full of them, but ff you like that quick cerebral humor at all, I would def recommend it. Stephen Fry (huge in British comedy - played the title character in Wilde) is also quite funny. sigh - i wish i were british. my sister and i used to yell at our parents. why couldn’t that have just moved to england like all the other good indians? then we would have had kickass accents - and probably would have wanted to be american. hey, is that really green grass over there?

saturday was spent cleaning in the morning (or watching josh cleaning, really) and then off to the copley fairmount for pal's wedding. my mom was going there early to do the bridesmaid's saris so i played the part of the extra pair of hands. it was fun fussing over over people and doing hair and make-up and watching the whole wedding drama unfold again. there was a slight pang of jealousy, especially since there were so many things i would have done differently if i had the chance. by the time the party started, i was exhausted. i WAS feeling oh so pretty in the lovely green sari i wore. i got compliments all over the place, even in the elevator with the bride right next to me(which made me feel a bit bad). josh made it through another indian function and we danced to the selfsame band from our wedding (they remembered me!)

sunday was a early wake up call and a drive to ipswich for breakfast and a nap on the beach. beach? you say. yes. in jeans, sweatshirts and wrapped in towels, we napped. the breeze was quite nice actually. we saw a woman go in the water and marveled at her gumption. she looked like a swimmer though. but still.. brrr.

then back to watertown for manis and pedis and watching girly movies while our nails dried. i lazed the rest of the day away, bbqed dinner for me and the boy, and watched james bond for like 5 hours. why? i have no idea. i really don't. i should have been sleeping.

this week is more of the same - salsa, booked club outing, and then dropping josh off at the airport thursday! i am a single girl once more. if any boston people want to hang out, let me know.

oh yes - this weekend i was also going to tackle my stale pepto bismo pink bathroom. the more and more i think about it, the more of a job i think it is going to be. the vanity is like superglued onto the wall, and i am not quite sure how much damage will be done if i remove it. it also has an electrical chord running into the back, and i am REALLY not sure how to deal with that. a fresh coat of while paint may do wonders, but will it really offset the horribleness of the pink tile and dingy floors? i don't know. i DO know that i want to get rid of the rust shelf and put a cabinet in there. that i can handle. it is not that i don't want to do the work, it is just that i am not sure that, at the end of the day, it will look that much different. i will post some pics and you guys give me your advice.

werewolf

so apparently, bushy eyebrows are the new rage on the runway. after only 10 years of threading and tweezing and trying to prune the hairy catipillars that live above my eyes, they are suddenly "fashionable".

its funny. as much as i toot my own horn, and i know you all HATE it, i really don't like many of my features. sure i tan quickly and was lucky enough to get my dad's eye color, but everything else had been a bit of a curse. too short, gain weight around the middle VERY quickly, thin hair, HUGE toes, big nose, suitcases under my eyes. the bane of my beauty existence, however, HAS to be my persian-esque facial hair. eyebrows, no wait, eyeBROW, so long and thick it looks like the mcdonald's logo. in 6th grade, i was told i had werewolf eyebrows to a chorus of laughing 11 year olds, in 10th grade i was told they were the reason i didn't have a boyfriend. i hate them with all my heart. (you all may think i am overreacting. just look at pics from sophomore year of HS. post glasses but pre threading. it ain't pretty)

for the last 10 years i have been threading them. for the past 8 months i have been trying to find a decent threader who doesn't live in providence, but to no avail. the persian lady on comm ave made them spider web thin, the indian lady in union square was good but i got a weird vibe, the young lady on newbury street did a fantasic job - for $35.

i guess this post doesn't really have a point. thick eyebrows on the runway are not going to stop me trying to find someone who can tame them. it's just funny what we do to ourselves to get what we believe is the ideal. who dictates the ideal - us? them? the boys we like? the cover of cosmo? i don't know. it's just funny that today my thick eyebrows are considered brooke sheilds beautiful and next year the trend will be huge nostrils or small hands or albino white skin. who knows. and really, who cares?

flashback

you know that scene from that episode of SATC where carrie goes to aidan's house and throws rocks at his window and tells him that she misses him. and he stands there and looks at her and yells "you broke my heart!"

his tone, the saddness, the frustration, the anger. that is exactly how i felt this weekend.

stupid baseball.

playing around with the new camera!

so here are some test shots i took today on the walk home from harvard (and one of my dad at his 60th bday dinner:)!

i am still working out all the kinks (like i had it on vivid color, but then the picture is blurry... etc etc)

trading up

bought my sophomore year of high school, my little elph was the height of cuteness and functionality. small enough to fit in my purse, little elph came with me everywhere: chorus/band awards dinners, school plays, the beach, india, dan's house, my house, holiday parties, lunches outside, the cape, borderland, the last days of high school, graduation parties, 2 weeks in italy and greece (10 rolls of film) freshman year of college, sophomore parties in the dorm, india again, london, madrid, amsterdam, our three week jaunt from praha to positano (only 8 rolls this time), senior year, senior week, india again, weddings, three years in nyc, birthday dinners, the gates, the view from my hoboken office, ann arbor, baseball games, football games, soccer games, the honeymoon (yes, in india), revisits to nyc, and last weekend.

while the world was buying digital cameras and emailing everyone their kodak and snapfish links, i plugged away with little elph, driving down route one to get them developed (only the best for my little elph). people booed, the jeered, they complained. "turn it around!" they would say, in anticipation of seeing the picture i just took. "you want to see how many pictures i have left?" it was almost a matter of pride.

this morning, however, i took little elph out of my bag and tossed it onto the sofa. my new even littler elph, with 6.0 megapixels and a shiny new case, was carefully placed in, thoughts of where the best open shutter pictures could be taken milling around in my head.

oh right

did i mention i will be redoing the bathroom - solo. hopefully that will get done in the next few weeks...

oh, and bc i took a sick day last monday AND a personal day on friday, i am not eligible for the summer friday at the end of the week! i might take the day off anyway, i have 11.5 vacation days left and am not planning on going anywhere. we WERE thinking of paris for new years/anniversary, but josh is not too keen and it will be cold. a boston new years it is:)

whirlwind

august is turning out to be quite the month. after a lazy july i am certainly ending the summer with a bang. here is a quick recap and then i will let you know what is in store for me and the boy. keep in mind that june and july were spent the follwing ways: come home from work, go to the gym, bbq dinner, eat on couch, sleep. the weekends were fairly the same... relaxing but uneventful...

first week
monday: i skipped book club bc of sheer exhaustion. i dont know why i was so tried but i was. and i read the book and everything (lovely bones - quietly sad) oh i know wny, i had the world's worst cold. ever.
thursday: off to DC to visit bess! of course i had was still sick and probably shouldnt't have gone, but we did anyway. we packed carrots, yogurts, apples and cantaloupe and still managed to dine on Burger King that night for dinner.
Friday: arrive in DC midday and go look at old planes (and china!) and out to tapas in a very fancy tapas place. i was heavily medicated and was fighting off a fainting spell at dinner
saturday: slept in and then went to see will ferral and ali G. HIGHLY reccomend and then out to dinner with the DC gang
sunday: brunch and walking around georgetown and then i drove for 8 whole hours. unmedicated mind you:) somewhere in CT josh took over, which i was upset about since i wanted to hold it over his head that i drove the whole way home. safety first, apprently...

second week
monday: we both called in sick and lounged around ALL DAY. the awesomity cannot be described (and yes, that is a word... now)
wednesday: straight from work to harvard square to border cafe for sara's 25th dinner. had a great dinner and then promptly passed out after leaving the restaurant. a nice looking nurse man helped and then we all went to finale and i drank water and it was good.
friday: took a personal day. the morning was cleaning the doing errands around the house. then left at 11:30 to meet up with sara for her goodbye to boston. we went to fanuiel hall, beacon hill (where she shook john kerry's tree - literally, they didnt have sex - ew) the north end for some people watching and then back to my place to for much needed sitting. then we went to her place for her slumber party, where the guest of honor promptly fell asleep. then becca came and then fun really started:)
saturday - woke up at 7 to go to the beach, which was all kinds of fun. albeit a bit cold, we still managed to get some sun and eat some ice cream at a farm. got back to my place and showered and then off to the goodbye/birthday party! i had a blast and lasted til 3, but by then i had been up for 20 hours and was getting cranky.
(not doing anything on) sunday: up at 11 to make waffles for my darling becca and the off to sara's (AGAIN!) to say out last goodbyes before she left for good. then we went home and as soon as becca left with drew, i fell alseep.

week 3
tuesday: salsa class (which i missed last week due to the plague)
wedneday: dinner at the hungry I for restaraunt week! yay!
friday: lunch at OM for restaurant week and then dinner at tangeirino for my dad's 60th bday! (also restaurant week...)
saturday: beach
sunday: dad's actual bday, so i am sure i will be heading over there at some point

week 4
tuesday: salsa and House season 2 comes out on DVD (already in my brand new netflix queque)
wednesday: book club
thursday: pal's mendhi party in stoughton - yay!
friday: bess in town, not sure what the plans are. dare we say it - dinner for restaruant week?
saturda: pal's wedding! yay!
sunday: tentative plans for a BBQ, not sure what is going on though

week 5:
tuesday: salsa AND my mom's bday - not sure what the plans are...

september will be the month of the couch. i restarted my bridal workout so hopefully that will get me back into shape and ready for that silk dress for allie's wedding.

this all reminds me of my senior year. except i was taking five classes and volunteering and looking for a job. where did all my energy go? why does this seem like so much? am i really THAT married... gah.

see you later

we all left for college it was the end of the world. every time someone was due to ship off to orientation, all 30 of us assembled the night before at someone's house to say our last goodbyes. as august crept into september, the goodbye parties dwindled and leaving seemed so much more somber. it was as if we were never to see each other again.

tears, yearbooks, swapping of new dorm addresses. we were going to college, not mars. but yet, the sense of finality prevailed and the tears flowed.

but 9 months later it was back to the old routine. simpsons marathons, weekends at the cape, hanging out at the lake, moose hill, long drives to no where, barnes and noble and too many cameras. see you at thanksgiving we said. see you at fall break. i'll come up for your birthday. i need to come to sharon for a bat mitzvah, i will swing by your dorm that weekend.

summers went by, some lived at home, some on campus, some people we saw every day, some where in china. there were no goodbye parties that summer.

after college some of us stayed in boston, others moved to nyc or dc or just disappeared. we all still managed to see each other. weekend trips and vacations. phone calls and emailing during work. bachelorette parties and holidays - our own lives had taken over but we knew we would always be there in some way shape or from.

now one more goodbye, but it didnt feel sad. see you in november was what we all said. a phone call away to hear her voice and group emails to keep the gossip going. things change but some things will always remain the same. twenty years, 15 years or even just a mere 7 or 3 or 2 - perhaps this is what these friendships mean.

hello hello!

so there is not much to report, but i get scolded when i don't blog and as i am going to DC for the weekend, it would have been a while.

my life has been fairly tame - went out last weekend to jake ivory's, one of my favorite places to go with a group - and then woke up 4 hours after i went to bed to hit the beach. saturday was incredibly relaxing. after napping in the wonderful AC, we went to toro and ate our weight in tapas and sangria. even splurged on valet parking - i felt so important:)

sunday was a lazy day, lounged around, watched legends of the fall (AGAIN!). i dont even really like that movie - but every time, i just get sucked in. went on a badly needed grocery run and had my parents over for dinner. all in all a good weekend. productive, fun, relaxing. i am going to miss summer so much.. sigh.

tonight is the last salsa lesson, so all the classes are being joined into one big party class. i am good at dancing with the people in my class - i know how good/bad they are - know what to expect. but now new people... ugh. luckily the girls have it pretty easy; i just need to remember my footwork. we made jason's olive dip recipe for the party, it came out really good - my dad was practically licking the bowl on sunday:)