Hello....Again

Every once in a while, during the week, I compose an "idea" for a post for this blog. I tell myself that over the weekend I will copy the pictures from my camera, write up a grand story related to the "idea," and then finally break out of the blogging doldrums that I've found myself in. As is typical of me, the weekend comes and goes without a post, and I'm left wondering whether whatever "idea" I had would still work for a later post.

It turns out that it doesn't really matter because I've forgotten all the ideas. I think they were good, and if they were I'm sorry that I didn't follow up on them.

The irony is that I'm posting something now, and I don't have a grand idea. Instead, I spent an hour catching up on my Uncle Bill's blog and thinking about all the things that have happened to the people I care about and how easy it is to fall out of touch. So, I've decided that I'd post something even if it's not interesting. Maybe I'll come up with something....The last two months have been busy, so I should come up with something...

Ok - first of all, we had two Indian guests visit us for a month and a half. They were of course Vivek's parents, and they were here for a reason that I'll get to in a bit. Initially enthralled by the WWF (World Wrestling Federation for those who don't watch the CW) and Deal or No Deal (that was my father-in-law, and I think the models helped with that), my in-laws quickly became big fans of the Wii, particularly the bowling. By the time they left, they were both pros, and were able to bowl strikes and spares at a rate that I didn't think was possible. Even though I was worried about having two people stay with us in our one bedroom apartment for so long, I enjoyed their visit and was sad when they left. I was surprised at how adaptive they both were and often found myself floored by some of the wise-cracks I heard come out of my mother-in-law's mouth. It was nice having someone other than Fritz to talk to and interact with during the week (Vivek still works out of state during the week). Fritz misses them too, since I don't treat him as well as they did (at most he gets 1 treat from me a day...poor guy). He might be happy to have the extra space though. The apartment was so crowded that Fritz could often be found making a bed out of the toilet seat (closed) in order to get away from all the commotion.

The other thing is that the four of us went on a long road trip to Salt Lake City. This was my in-law's second trip to the United States so we wanted to make sure they got to see the Rocky Mountains and the northern parts of the Midwest. Our trip took us through South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho before we got to Utah. Here's one of my favorite pictures from Yellowstone. I've posted more pictures here.

Once in Utah, Vivek and I got married again. Really. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of that. We had a great time though, and it was great to see our friends from places other than Minneapolis and everyone in my family again (most of my family made it - pretty cool). Sadly, even though we were not in Minneapolis we did not manage to escape the snow...Believe it or not, it snowed during our Memorial Day wedding. I'll grant that we were in the mountains. But still, it shouldn't snow in late May. Not even in Minneapolis. And we were in Utah. Damn snow. Thanks to A though I did have a hat for the weather! Actually, lots of us had hats, thanks to her.

Other things have happened as well. I am now an Aunt ("Aunt Khena", how weird is that?) because my sister-in-law Vidya had a little baby girl, Vaidehi, in May. It's pretty exciting, and I look forward to the time that I'll finally be able to meet my new niece.

I am also now wisdom toothless. During our drive to Utah I started getting horrible toothaches. These were so bad that while we were there and getting ready for the wedding, I often had to stop what I was doing and instead do what I could to not cry and make a scene. Thankfully I was able to get an emergency dentist appointment the day before the wedding. Apparently one of my wisdom teeth was so badly decayed that the root was infected. I was given drugs and I kept my wisdom teeth until after I got back to Minneapolis.

I'm fine now. And even then there was so little pain that I never took painkillers. I think the swelling was never worse than it was here in this picture (and I can't tell if my face was swollen in the picture, though I'd like to think it was). So, a couple days after my surgery, things started to get quiet again. Vivek's parents went back to India and I tried to settle back down into work.