almost diwali!

Phet's been out of town for ages and ages now. Something like 3, 4 weeks. Yechh. Even Iaimon's wishing he were back. We had the kids out at the school's Halloween fiesta on Saturday and Iaimon was saying, "You know, it is much easier when Sir is here. He makes breakfast, he comes home early, he takes care of the children." Too true. I've got the play coming up in just under three weeks, so it has been bananas for me lately, and on top of that we've had the usual events to attend to. Parent-Teacher conferences for three days last week, FOUR Halloween parties and FOUR corresponding costumes for me, and then other dumb things like eating and groceries-buying. Oh, and then last week I got sick. It was a weird one, I had the semi achey sore throat, kind of maybe feverish, and then a massive attack of allergies-slash-cold. I took Tuesday off after finding myself angrily glaring at a student because I was unable to do any pleasant or polite or funny cajoling. That's always a bad sign. So I spent Tuesday asleep for the morning, then did a huge load of work for the play - posters, banners, tickets, etc - and relaxed in the evening.

Last weekend I had to go to the school dance on Friday - lovely set-up, I was just knackered. Saturday was rehearsals and kids off at swimming, and then on Sunday Ji and Patricia and Elena and I went to the lovely Dastkar Nature Bazaar, ate some spectacular kathi rolls (so yummy - fresh fried roti bread stuffed with spicy chicken, fried egg and onions) and wonderful kulfi. I didn't spend too much money, but it was a nice thing to do on a Sunday. Went home and the allergies kicked in and I just lay down snuffling for a few hours.

On Friday, Phet rolled into town for a one night only gig. He'd spent a couple of weeks in Ha Long and Ha Noi, and came back with a HUUUUGE duffle bag full of goodies. I won't tell you all of them, because they included many christmas gifts, but my special present was a series of six awesome government-issued posters (some may say propaganda...I say government-issued posters) that I will have framed shortly. (We just got up all the other things I'd had framed - Phet spent an entire day before going to Vietnam drilling holes in the walls. It all looks so good now!). I stayed at school all day long after morning conferences to do work and then to get ready for the Halloween party. I had wanted to try making a fake nose, so I chose to go as Lady Gaga. It was pretty funny - I got the nose mostly ok, and then I just failed at getting the texture smooth enough so after an hour of work I had to take it off! It was a fun project, though. Started with spirit gum till tacky, popped on nose wax, spread that out, topped off with latex, tried makeup on top and it just didn't quite work. Maybe the trick is to use spirit gum all over the nose - the package just said 'on the hard parts of the nose' but then the problem seemed to be that it didn't stick on my non-cartilgegy-bits. On Saturday we went to the school's fall fiesta and Ji won first prize AGAIN for his costume (I won first for my Lady Gaga the night before) and Patricia and I went as narsty pirates. On Sunday, I tested out an Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction costume.

Check out the Dusshera and Halloween pictures!

But wait! There's more! Check out this special bonus feature: a video of our usual morning trip to school.

[Delhi-1-November-2010]