Bruce, Jake and Zoey and the Snow Man

Last weekend we found out that Bruce Campbell was in town for the premier of his latest movie, "My Name is Bruce." We checked for tickets on Saturday morning and the only showing with seats left was the midnight one. So we decided to be young and hip and we went to the movie. In Uptown. Yep, we're that hip. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Bruce did a Q&A before the movie. He was hilarious! And the crowd was great. For a movie genre that I don't really care for, I thought the movie was pretty good. For a B movie, anyway.

Last night Jake came home! My dad was going to pick him up. My mom and I tagged along to surprise him. It was so good to see my little brother again. Dad took us out for dinner for us to start catching up. Jake picked GC. I was very happy with his choice. :) We have some scheduled time to go Christmas shopping together and he also warned me that he will be over a lot to play Guitar Hero and whatnot. I'm so looking forward to it.

This morning on our walk, Zoey was a very brave dog. As we were walking past a house, she growled and let out a deep, menacing bark. At a snow man. She's such a good protector. Sometimes I wish I could be her for one day. There is this one spot on our walk that fascinates her. I can't even drag her away until she is ready to leave. She sticks her snout in the snow and just sniffs for a few minutes. And everyday she goes straight to the spot. What's there that is so interesting? This morning she took so long sniffing that I think her paws were getting cold - she started lifting up on leg at a time off the ground. Silly girl.

This weekend is going to be busy. I am hoping to only work a half day today so I can run some errands. Then tonight I have a girl's night. Tomorrow night we have an Ugly Sweater party. Then finally on Sunday I have a bridal shower to go to.

Escape

I think I mentioned a while back that we had moved Zoey to the mud room for while we were gone from home. That turned out to not be the brightest idea we ever had. She went to work on shredding her blankets (this was expected). Then one day she shredded my sweater. Granted it was my fault to leave it where she could get it, but she has NEVER destroyed something that wasn't hers before. Also, she would jump up against the door and started to scratch the paint on the door and the walls. But the breaking point for Ben was last week.

I got home one day after Ben. He came out the front door and told me to use that door instead of the garage door. Turns out that Zoey wanted a Mountain Dew. She tore open the box and managed to puncture a can. Turns out she didn't care for MD and there was pop everywhere on the floor. The next day she was back in her kennel.

Rick is staying with us this weekend and I told him of the new Zoey arrangement. He was so surprised when he came home yesterday to find her out of her kennel. (Luckily I had closed the mud room door). He looked at the kennel and saw that the door was still locked. She somehow managed to turn her kennel so the hole was facing out, and climb through the hole that she had made months ago. I guess we will be buying a new kennel soon.

Yesterday it finally snowed enough and is cold enough that we have a slight covering on the ground. Zoey eats the snow every chance that she gets. I just hope she doesn't lick the door frame and get her tongue stuck. :)

Thankful

When I first heard about the tragedy that was unfolding in Mumbai last week my first thought was of my new friends there. Due to the time of the attacks everyone was either already home, or at work. And the attacks happened "far" away from where they typically are. I was so relieved and thankful when I found out that everyone was safe. I won't lie that my second thought was how glad I was that I was safe and sound at home. I would have been "far" away from it too, but too close for comfort, especially for my family here.

It was a really eerie and surreal feeling to watch images of the Taj Hotel in flames show up on the news. I had visited there on my first day there. The hotel was beautiful. And now, it was a place of sorrow.

It saddens me how cruel people can be. It has been repeated again and again across the pages of history. It just happens to be the Muslims this time. But not that long ago it was the crusaders. And even more recently it was the Nazis. Countless examples of how sinful we are.

All Night Long

My last day in India was great. Neetha met me at the hotel and then Baba took us around. The first stop was a church. It is said that when you enter you should make three wishes and then climb the stairs on your knees and your wishes will come true. The church was beautiful. Across the street was a statue of Mary overlooking the ocean. The statue was amazing. It was hand carved out of marble with so many tiny details. From there we drove down the street where a lot of actors and cricket players live. Certainly not Hollywood! The buildings didn't look all that spectacular. And they all live in flats - no mansions here! Then we had a traditional lunch. Yum! Then we went to some area with a lot of street vendors. I bought a pair of beaded shoes. Vaishali met up with us there and we looked around some more. Being white I was the target for everyone that was trying to sell something and for all the begging children. Neetha and Vaishali did a great job of protecting me. We stopped at an ice cream place to cool off.

From there Neetha left us (still helping a friend with her wedding sari) and Vaishali and I headed to the beach! The beach was... interesting. The beach itself was dirty with broken glass in the sand. I hear the water is dirty too, but didn't get close enough to actually see that. But the breeze was nice and we wandered around looking at the vendors. We even saw a few boys walking around with monkeys.

Our next stop was a Hare Krishna temple. It didn't open until 4, so we sat on the marble steps waiting for it to open (after being yelled at to take our shoes off). The outside was beautiful! Again, hand carved marble everywhere. When it opened everyone followed a rope path around the perimeter of the temple. There were shadow boxes of various gods and their stories on the walls. I was a little confused when everyone sat down. When in Rome... so I sat too. I'm still not clear as to if it was a service (it only lasted like 10 minutes) or if it was just an informational talk that I was a part of. But it was interesting.

After leaving that area, we went to Powai to find some tea. With that done, we walked to a park and watched the sun set. When we got back in the car Vaishali had a good talk with Baba about driving. It was amusing! Since we didn't have much remaining time, I offered to talk Vaishali home. She said yes, that she wanted to show me her place and make me some tea. So that's what we did. She makes her tea with milk and a little water, so it was quite different than what I am used to. But it was good. And then it was time to say good-bye. :(

I was so touched... When Baba dropped me off at the hotel, he gave me a gift. It is a cute little elephant with mirrors and beads covering it. It was a very sweet gesture.

The trip home was uneventful. When I got home Ben and I went to see the new Bond movie (figured that would help keep me awake). Finally around 8:30 I couldn't stay awake any longer. I woke up at 3:30 and could not get back to sleep! But then last night, I slept all night long. Ahhh!

Last Days

Thursday I slept in as long as I could, which was about 10. I put on my suit (swim that is) and headed to the pool. Linda was already there. We had a very relaxing couple of hours out there. It is very warm here so every 20 minutes or so I took a swim to cool off. And I cheated... for lunch I had a grilled pita sandwich and fries. This was my first non-Indian meal here. Felt a little guilty, but the fries were so good!

And then it was off to work! It was another busy day. I had a meeting with my team. Followed by a meeting with the leadership team. Followed up by a meeting with the manager there. Then we headed to dinner.

Dinner was fabulous! We went to the same place as Monday (still can't remember the name). I was at the non-veg table and they kept ordering dish after dish, drink (non-alcoholic) after drink. I was so stuffed! I literally was having trouble swallowing I was so full. The team was very animated and we had a wonderful time. But it took us forever, so we didn't get to take team pictures before we had to head back so everyone could work.

Linda and I packed up our stuff and headed over to the GMI offices. There we met some of the people that used to work for Intelenet and now work for us (after time passed as we have a non-compete). They were excited to see us and to show us around. It was one of the guy's birthdays so Linda had brought a card for him and said that I didn't know what birthday bumps were, so he should show us. Boy, was that interesting! One guy picked up his arms, another his legs to suspend him above the ground. Then the rest of the guys kicked his behind! Did not look fun at all! Finally close to 3 am we finally headed back to the hotel.

After what seemed like a short night (wonder why) we were on the way back to the office. There we spent some time with the team answering any final questions or in my case, talking with my new friends. Then we did an award ceremony where everyone got a bag of Dove chocolates (yes, Linda carried 50 pounds of chocolate from the US for this occasion). They love our chocolates and it was a special treat for them. After the ceremony, most people immediately took their bags and locked them up so no one would steal them. Hasina didn't. When she stepped away from her desk Nikunj took them and put them in an empty drawer of a different desk. When she got back she asked who took her chocolates. Everyone was giggling. It took only seconds for Sangita to point the blame on Nikunj. I told him he best be careful... he is the only guy in that area. Everyone had a good laugh.

In between shifts, Sunita (my team lead) and Darshana took me shopping at the mall. I wanted to buy a few traditional Indian outfits. This might come as a complete shock to everyone, but I guess I am a different size and shape than Indian women! I did find some that fit. Everything was so pretty that it was hard to decide what to buy. So I bought too much. Oh, well. It was pretty cheap. Oh, and one dress was a little loose around the middle so it was altered at the store in less than 20 minutes!

Then it was back to work. But really it was just another award ceremony. Once again everyone was pleased with the chocolates.

Since we didn't have a chance to take pictures the night before, we wanted to take them before we left. Intelenet is very strict about cameras. They are not allowed in the building (my camera was with Baba, the driver). We thought we could just take them outside the building, but were quickly told by security that we couldn't do that either. After trying to get approval (and failing) we finally decided to just walk to the parking lot of the mall to take them. That worked well and we took a bunch of pictures.

Then it was time to say good-bye. It was very sad as now having met the team I feel even closer to them than I did before. They also gave us presents. I got a beautiful fresh water pearl set (earrings, necklace and bracelet). And some postcards of old Bombay. Shilpa also had given me a very nice silver bracelet.

When I got to the hotel I started to pack. And amazingly, everything fit!

And now I am going off with Neetha and Vaishali again to see some sights and do some shopping. I probably won't buy much more... :)

Pool Side

Wednesday I slept in since I was going to be working until 1 am with the night shift (so glad I don't have to do that on a regular basis!). I got up and ready because we were going to go visit a school (the old manager of our team, his wife is a teacher and invited us to visit). I got to the lobby in plenty of time, but didn't see Linda or Baba, our driver. So I waited for a bit before deciding that they had left without me. So I wandered to the pool where I found Heather. She is OK. As well as can be imagined, I guess. She is in work mode where she has pushed her emotions aside so she can focus on getting home without falling apart. She left last night and should be back to Minneapolis by 10 am Thursday (CST).

I changed into my suit and hung out with her until it was time to shower and get ready for work. It was nice to be out in the hot sun. I think a few freckles appeared. :)

Last night was my first night with the IRA team (Issue Resolution Analyst). They are the team that I work with mostly. And they work at night to be able to work similar hours to the people in the states. Once again everyone was super friendly.

Around 8 pm we left during break to visit with Darshana's family. Darshana is one of our team leads and she really wanted us to come to her place. Her family is considered middle-class here. I could not believe how small the apartment is! It is a three room apartment. When you walk in there is a room that is the living and dining room. Off of the short hallway there was a very small bathroom and a kitchen. The final room was the bedroom where Darshana and her parents sleep (she has a trundle bed). This type of living arrangement is very common. But they were some of the happiest people that I have met! Her mother insisted on serving us a "snack." But there was so much that it was more like a meal. Again, can't remember what I ate, but I liked everything. Her mother made sure to keep everything mild so we would enjoy it. I asked Darshana to send the recipes to me.

Then it was back to work. I swear, the time here is just flying by! At one point Linda came up and asked me if it was ok if we stayed 10 more minutes. I looked at my watch and realized that it was already 1 am!

There was very little traffic, so we were back to the hotel in no time.

Horn OK Please

Yesterday (Monday) I worked the day shift. I quickly found out that my guesses on how to pronounce names were off... not too much, but enough that I had to look at the printed name to figure out exactly who I was talking to. (I guess the accent probably didn't help me either). The morning passed very quickly answering questions, observing my team work and getting to know them. We took the team out for lunch. I had butter chicken. It was so good! We had some other stuff that was good too, but don't ask me what it was. We took team pictures then headed back to work. I felt bad because we left shortly after but the teams stayed and worked late to get the rest of their work in.



Shortly after I got to work, I found out that our system was down for a portion of my process. We weren't able to use our laptops (darn secure firewalls wouldn't let us through) so when we got back to the hotel, I jumped into the pool for a quick swim then logged on and fired off some frantic emails to IS to try and find and fix the problem. When my laptop battery was just about dead (I had left the power converter at work) I called it good. I cuddled into bed and tried to watch cricket (the sport). I was so confused! So I switched channels and watched an episode of "The Nanny" instead. Stupid snooze guy is still roomed next to me. But this morning the alarm first went off at 7, so at least it was better than 5:45!



Today was my team's busy day. The weekend mail volume is very heavy, so the team in Minneapolis is busy on Mondays so when my team comes in on Tuesday they have a lot of work to do. Add that to the issues that we had on Monday (fixed!) they had ~1500 items today! Yikes! But my team is so awesome - by the end of the day they were helping out other teams with their work load.



Again the day went by very fast. Yesterday I had mentioned to Hasina that I am almost always hungry. This afternoon around 4:30 she asked me if I was hungry. I was. She asked if I wanted to go to the cafeteria. I have been warned to stay away, so I declined the offer. Later I was in the hallway and she walked by with Swati on their way for a coffee break. She invited me to come, so I decided it was a safe option. We had a small cup of coffee and some cookies in the stairwell it was nice to be able to chat with them.

Traffic was bad on the way back to the hotel. Our driver taught us some Hindi. I told him I noticed that many vehicles had "Horn OK Please" on their back bumper. He said it is required for all trucks and large vehicles to have this. We laughed about that.

When we got back to the hotel the driver went to go get his family to meet us. In the meantime, I was hungry (surprise) so I ordered room service - tandoori chicken pizza. It was so good! We had a nice visit with his family. His wife is gorgeous! And his two kids are adorable. I'm sure we are the whitest people they have seen in person.

When they left to go home, I came back up to my room to finish my pizza and this post. Linda and Heather stayed in the restaurant for a late dinner. I no sooner got back to my computer when I got several IM's from my team in Minneapolis. They needed to get a hold of Heather. I went down to tell her to call her parents. Linda and I went to her room after Linda finished her meal to see what was going on and if she was ok... She found out that her brother committed suicide. She is currently making arrangements to leave India early. But she is not sure if she is emotionally ok to make the 24 hour journey alone. Please pray for her and her parents as they deal with this sadness.