Knitting

When I was younger, my mom used to tell me stories of her convent school education in Andhra: nuns who taught her knitting, sewing and crochet, how to set a table (at 10am, for lunch at 1pm), about how she got yelled at for taking help from her mother to finish some sewing project (handkerchief... her mom helped her with the corners), about how crazy those nuns, in general, were, and so on.

But one thing those nuns seem to have drilled into mom is a liking for knitting, sewing, embroidering, tatting, quilting, crocheting and all other activities womanly. Give mom a piece of thread or yarn and she'll start fiddling with it and then a few hours later, have produced some kind of thing from it. The usefulness of the thing is not very apparent, although it is usually quite pretty. It usually is a work in progress that stays as a work in progress for years, if not decades, because she'd have either lost interest in it, or forgotten where she put it.

Mom, being an inveterate and indefatigable teacher, decided that her daughter should learn some of these skills from her. Hence, during my early teens, I learned some bits of crocheting, some bits of embroidery (holler if you ever need a Lazy Daisy design on something!), some bits of sewing (we both went for sewing classes, where we learned to make baby clothes and mom learned how to cut and stitch that everlasting mystery, the saree blouse). What has been retained after all these years in my sieve-like brain, is knitting.

The reason I could never quite discard knitting as being too boring or repetitive was because of a book: one of those Agatha Christie novels set in Baghdad (was it"They came to Baghdad" or "They came to Mesopotamia"?), wherein the heroine, after having escaped narrow death in the desert, is rescued by a dashing young archeologist. They have tea and something in the conversation reminds our heroine about Madame Defarge. Supposedly Madame Defarge knitted the names of those killed by the other Madame (La Guillotine, simpleton!) into a scarf. Our heroine believes that she could do the same... and she says, "yes, I see how it could be done...knit knit, purl purl and there! A secret list which no one would ever know about!" Needless to say, that is the key discovery which saves her life and those of her comrades, and not just that, but saves earth from anarchy.

And for years, in fact, for more than one and a half decades, the ONLY reason why I never forgot how to knit was because I thought I too should be able to make a secret list of names (what names, but? Instead, maybe equations to help me in my exams? But what kid wears a knitted scarf in the sweltering heat of a Chennai/Bangalore/Pune examination hall?). I studied the instructions given by Christie, scrutinized every word of it and still couldn't figure out how the heck one would be able to knit in letters and names without the whole world figuring it out. Later, I examined "A Tale of Two Cities" to find any mention of Madame Defarge knitting the names into scarves, and though I found plenty of references of her knitting, I couldn't find anything that said that she knitted secret lists. So intent was I on searching for knitting references that I didn't read the rest of the book and had to make up answers, for the English exam, from the abridged comic version that my dad had bought me years ago.

Anyway, now that mom and I are spending so much time in each others' company (after a really long time, actually. Most of our time earlier was spent in a)arguing b) her cooking for me when I studied for various exams or c) my scolding her for going to the grocery shop so much), and since we have a joint project (to get house ready for baby) and since I seem to have grown up enough to not snarl and snap when my story book reading is interrupted (wow...that is a big step in the right direction), we seem to have come up with a huge variety of things to do and make. Needless to say, that involves sewing (her favorite) and knitting (my kind-of-favorite). Since she knows way more knitting than I do anyway, and has more patience, she finishes my well-begun-but-half-done projects and fixes all the mistakes I make along the way.

After attempts at baby booties (check this out: http://cyberseams.com/article/105035/all_things_knitting/knitted_baby_booties_size_newborn_to_six_months.html
They even have a video! Isn't that the greatest?!), I have moved on to scarves (http://cyberseams.com/article/105605/all_things_knitting/knitting_a_scarf_pattern_that_has_yarn_overs.html)

I feel awfully accomplished and maternal.

I wonder how mom feels.

:p

Preggo status

Today I milked my pregnant status for all it was worth.

I had my thesis committee meeting today, and I got away with:
submitting a report less than 24 hours before the meeting (it is to be submitted at least one week before the meeting),
a presentation that lasted perhaps 30 minutes (usually they last for 3 times as long)
and having no additional experiments suggested AND
the meeting ended with an undisputed consensus to let me graduate soon-perhaps even by the end of the year! (Inshallah, let it happen!)




My friend Advay, when he was here in Pittsburgh last week, told me that I wasn't taking full advantage of my condition. He told me that I should get people to do WHATever I wanted. Advay, my buddy, see how good things happen to people who wait? *smirk*

Last Leg of the Journey!

4 weeks to go (plus or minus 10 days) for the big day! Too many things going on in my head to pen down, but I shall attempt it so that when the kiddo's 20 years old, I shall reveal this blog to him and say, this was me and this was about you.
When the kid's 20 years old, I shall be 48, and Ram 49. Yikes!

The big thing in my head is my thesis committee meeting coming up on the 16th of March. My lab mates are SICK of me going on and on about this meeting. But I can't help it. I feel mentally so unprepared for this meeting and also, slightly worried about what my committee will comment about the baby.... regardless of what anybody says outside, I wonder if they will think that I have timed this baby all wrong, that I ought to have waited till I had the degree in hand before starting this new venture. Then again, how is it anybody else's business but mine and Ram's? I shall tell myself this every time I start feeling self- conscious.

Next big thing: my visa expires! I20 expires at around the same time that the kid will make his appearance, which means that I will be illegal to hang around in this country after that. And F1 expires in June. Have merely scratched the surface in attempts to renew I20, but I need to do this quickly. Arrrggghhhh I hate these bureaucratic procedures.

Third on the list: Taxes! My tax form comes to me only by the 3rd week of March, which gives 3 weeks to complete the forms and send them out by April 16th. Big disadvantage of being an international student on a fellowship. Usually I rather like preparing the joint taxes for Ram and me... it makes me feel like I'm unraveling one of the great mysteries of the universe. This year, it just makes me feel stressed out. And it's not just one set of income taxes to file. There's state and local too. I heartily dislike local taxes... especially because I filed them incorrectly one year and didn't receive the 200-odd dollars that I was supposed to. Regardless, in case the whole microbiology research thing doesn't work out, I might think about accountancy... I'd be pretty good at it.

Other things on list:
Baby crib- check. My friend Advay will assemble it for me.
Baby clothes- we have plenty of cloth and my mom and I shall make some things once she returns from N.Jersey.
Infant car seat- uncle will send it. In case it doesn't reach here on time, I have an infant to toddler converter car seat.
Infant car seat inspection- Will have to see.
Packing of my suitcase- I am reminded of one of those women in TV and books who always go into labor while shopping or traveling in a car or something, but have their suitcase stashed away at arms length. I, unfortunately, am not so well prepared.

Have a list of things to keep, but really don't feel like packing anything yet. That could be because of the kinds of things the list says I ought to keep- a focal point to stare at while laboring (I am thinking of keeping Obama's picture saying "Yes We Can!", but even I realize how ridiculous that may seem), CDs to relax me (I hate listening to music when stressed.... maybe I ought to pack a few books instead... or perhaps audio books?), cameras (but why? Newborn babies look kind of ugly, don't they? I would much rather wait a couple of months, while the kid puts on some weight and looks chubby and cute, than take a picture of it all bruised, blotchy and cone-headed), cell phone numbers to call (hey, I am NOT calling ANYone. I hate having to speak on a cell phone on a normal basis. The last thing I'm going to do is keep a list of people to inform. Ram can take care of this.... or perhaps he can send out an email).

So see, this list doesn't give me a quick guide to stuff a few things in a bag and be done with it. It stresses me out. What the heck should my focal point be? What music ought I play to bring the kid into the world? I did NOT think that these were the essentials of child birth preparation.

Way down the list: lab work. Should I start a bunch of new experiments so that I will be forced to come to lab after the baby is born, just to keep me in the spirit of doing work? Should I set up my electron micrograph samples since they take 3 weeks to get ready anyway? Same thing with the microarray- if I set it up before I leave, then the genomics lab will do the experiment when I am absent from work and send me the results to analyze, which I could do from home and save time after I return to work. Decisions decisions...

Anyway, now that I've typed up all this, I can feel happier and less burdened and forget (more or less) all about the issues I have thought about.

Awfully self obsessed post, no? But then, which one is not?

Satisfaction

South Indian vegetarian food three times a day- the BEST way of avoiding weight gain, while not feeling hungry at all.

I love my mom's cooking!