I'm Kiran, I'm a dreamer. A writer. A singer. A mother. An ugly crier. An Indian-American. Who loves Gandhi. My stories are full of truth that is sometimes hard for me to say out loud. This blog is where I overcome my fears and live (and love) out loud.
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Last Mornings
“The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.”
- Khalil Gibran, “The Prophet”
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“Last morning, I peed my pants.”
“Last morning, I got a boo boo, Mommy.”
“Remember? Last morning, Shaila hit me.”
These are all things my three year old son, Nico, can say on a given morning. You would think that “last morning” might mean yesterday, or the day before yesterday morning. But no. Last morning can really be any morning that happened in the past. Heck, it might even be an afternoon or an evening.
We have a lot of stories about “last morning” going on in this house. “Last morning” basically is a sum of all our yesterdays; it’s where the accidents of our past took place and where we lay our mistakes to rest.
My Husband, the Teeth Model
Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. I wished him “Happy Birthday” on Facebook, because this is the way you are supposed to profess your love to a spouse in the world of social media. You have to do things like this to let your Twitter crushes (Shout out to @Cali_Kid_Mike and @TheMichaelRock! No worries. I just stalk them platonically) and your ex-boyfriends on Facebook know that someone really did end up marrying you.
Now, I know that most everyone looks forward to his or her birthday on Facebook. Unless you are one of those people who doesn’t want anyone to know your birthday and you mark that shit as private. Or one of those people who doesn’t have a Facebook account because of privacy or because you are too good for it.
I know some of you guys. Some of you are even friends. I will not judge you except to say that I think you’re really weird.
Minnie Mouse: “I’ve Looked Better”
I was sitting on the couch, ignoring the kids while they ran around, jumping on top of John. John is not feeling 100% after traveling for business this week, so I looked up to ask him if he was alright. I don’t know how he responded, but he wasn’t puking or anything, so I’m guessing he said, “Couldn’t be Better!” with a thumbs or something.
Nico stuck something on my head and I told him, “That’s nice,” because that’s usually what I do when he asks me something and I am too busy doing something SUPER important (i.e. anything other THAN something super important) to respond.
Plus I think teaching him about positive reinforcement is really healthy. Of course, this backfired the time he was holding the knife and I was on my iPhone and said “That’s nice!” and now he thinks that playing with knives is a good thing.
You Don’t Have to Eat My Samosas
I often ask myself questions that have no easy answers. This week, one of those questions was, “Why do people keep googling “spicy kabob” and ending up on my website?”
Now, I get that the word “Masala” is in my blog name. Masala means “spice” in Hindi, so I totally get why people might say, “Hey I am going to go to this Indian cooking site and learn how to make samosas!”
Samosas. My mother’s are the best. EVER.
But those people must be disappointed when they come here and find no recipes for chicken tikka or palak paneer. I am sorry. And I can’t help that the top search queries to get to this site include “aloo tikki” and “gulab jamuns.”
This ain’t no cooking blog, yo.
Moving on Up? Or Laterally?
Oh – you don’t think I can? Oh because I never have matching socks? hmm. You are right. But can i STILL have a cape? I would really like a cape? Bueller? Mmmm, Bueller?
Not quite sure yet. What I do know is that if you “follow” Masala Chica through the wordpress.com “Follow” functionality, the nifty button that I used to look at with nary a glance and you still want to follow? Well – if you want to continue to follow the blog – can you manually add http://masalachica.com to your reader or subscribe through the feeds.
They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Hells, yeah. I miss you guys. Come back! I got this snazzy new site – seriously pimped it out hardcore – and nobody is showing up. It’s like having a party and sitting around and eating all the cake by yourself because nobody came. Then you go home and drink more because you feel fat which makes you feel fatter.
Family Songs
The other day, my daughter wrote me this note.
All those xos mean she loves me to the sky.
I don’t know what it means, EXACTLY, but knowing her, I think it’s supposed to be about how much fun we have when we sing together. The feeling she has in her heart when her family is happy. Now I don’t want to put words in her mouth, so I will just leave it at that. I can’t be 100% certain of what goes through her cute little head, what she sees with her serious brown eyes, all the expressions that she sometimes hides from me under the mop of her curly brown hair.
Sometimes I can guess. But I will never truly know.
Crossroads
If you came to this post thinking it is a review for the Britney Spears movie which goes by the same name as this post, you probably shouldn’t read this. And you should get Netflix or something.
Anyhoo.
When you are married or with a person for a long time, it’s possible to ignore certain faults. Certain weaknesses. We tiptoe around them initially, maybe laugh at them together when the time is right, roll our eyes later.
Ok – maybe we don’t ignore them.
We tolerate them.
For example, John tries not to notice when I wear my pajamas all day. This doesn’t happen every day. Just the majority of days. I work from home a lot and it’s just convenient. Sometimes, before he comes home from work, I will run up and take my shower and change into jeans and a new shirt. But I think he knows.
Try. Try Again.
Look at that picture. What a happy family, right? All smiling and dressed in coordinated denim for this little photo shoot. Might even want to make you gag a little.
But the picture is one dimensional and it doesn’t tell you our story. So let me tell you just a teeny part of ours.
Before we had kids, John and I had a lot of time for each other. We both had challenging careers. Confession: I think I always say I have a challenging career, even at times when it isn’t all that bad for the simple reason that it makes me feel important. We would go to the gym together, we’d be current on episodes of our favorite shows, we’d watch movies and go on dinner dates with friends.
Fun stuff.
Lean on Me
On Sunday night I had dinner with some of my closest friends. They are the kind of friends I don’t talk to everyday or see all the time but when we do see each other, we can talk about anything and everything. I think for the most part, we do a really good job of being there for each other. Not being too “judgey.” And when you have been friends for as long as we have and know as much as we do about each other, it’s easy to be “judgey.” But to our credit, we work on focusing on each other, giving of ourselves what we can.
Minimal judgement. Refreshing, right?
And I love them a lot, not because of how amazing they each individually are, but also because of the way they love me, forgiving me for my many faults. One of which is that I am really, really bad about returning their calls.
Strum This
I have a problem. I like to call it a quirk or one of the unique things I do which make me, well.
ME.
Me - the one on the Left. But if you don't like this post, I am the one on the Right.
However, my husband thinks I have a “problem” and for that reason, I guess I need to honor that he is allowed to have an opinion. I mean, of course he is allowed to – Lord knows he always has one to give me.
He likes to call it constructive feedback.
I like to call it being a pain in my ass. NOT constructive.
So my problem is something I know many of my readers will understand, if not empathize with.
I like to spend money. Like, according to hubby (nag, nag, nag) more than we have.
I'm Kiran, I'm a dreamer. A writer. A singer. A mother. An ugly crier. An Indian-American. Who loves Gandhi. My stories are full of truth that is sometimes hard for me to say out loud. This blog is where I overcome my fears and live (and love) out loud.
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