Happy Divali yesterday... (think Christmas, New Year's, and Easter rolled into one... but no drinking... or football... or meat... ok so it's not really like any of the above. suffice it to say it's a big to us.)
I had 2 weddings and an Indian function to attend, besides the cooking, cleaning, and pooja at mom's (she was set for 4) a wedding was 7/ the function was 7 (figuered I'd wear a lengha and just look like the foreign girl at both weddings) and other wedding, I was just going to pop in for the reception as it was for DK's friend and I was only supposed to go to play with David's Bunny.
Guess where this girl went yesterday?... pooja at mom's and 2 trips to the Super Target (because you only realize that you need 5lbs of potatoes and a glue gun when you need both at the same time).
Mouse decided to pull rank on us... seriously. She got huffed up and teary eyed and told us how in India, Divali is being celebrated properly in the house and it's a blessing of the house, and everybody goes home and enjoys each other's company AT HOME, and they aren't worried about the hustle and bustle of a 'social life' etc. etc. Guess where she is going with this? You know where she's going with this... Mom and I were officially on lock down. It was wrong.
Mom's is stomping around the kitchen mumbling like a gremlin... "She has nothing to do but come up with this sh*t... You would think she would could just watch her little movies, talk on the phone and just stay out of the way. She was not up at 4 this morning prepping to cook for 6 hours.." blah blah blah. You know me... I thought the whole thing was funny. There is no arguing at this point... my grams could have expressed herself better but her REAL gripe was that this was supposed to be special because she is here. and it is quite painful that the closed you will be to most of your kin on special days is across fiber-optics. Our family has been shaken up this year and it is quite the warm and squishy occassion that we could celebrate together because there have been lots of years when we've been busy and not had the time to sit down for a meal together.
So we make the requisite calls and snuggle down for some down time. My mom is still pissy. My grandma is doing cartwheels (OBVIOUSLY not literally). I am 1/2 into my book. My grams decides to teach me how to make kajar... it's like Indian eye-liner. You only make it on Divali (at least the homemade stuff) and it steeps all night over a flame. It's actually pretty cool.
Right. so the other way that I am 6 years old is that mom made a big deal out of the very white table cloth. It was WHITE. We were not allowed (Ok, only I was not allowed) to sit at the table until dinner because curry and masala will find the whitest surface possible and do a happy dance. Everybody ate at the table on the little mats with their hands. NOBODY dropped even the slightest speck on the table cloth... until I moved my plate...
... the way I figure it, mom was in a bad mood anyway and this would only have made it worse... so I pulled my place mat over it and waited for them to do to bed. I washed it and put detergent, oxy-clean, and enough bleach to kill a goat in there. We'll see what happens.
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