About six, or maybe seven, years ago, Mr. Hot and I stuffed a trio of Detroit Pistons tickets into Shortman’s stocking for the New Year’s Eve game. We lived 15 minutes from The Palace of Auburn Hills, so it was a quick run up I-75 for the afternoon game and an easy-peasy escape back down the road afterward.

Little did we know we’d be starting a tradition.

Things have changed. We no longer live an easy quarter-hour drive from the arena; it’s more like two hours. The Palace restaurant no longer offers a buffet spread prior to the game, it’s concession stand food or nothing. Shortman no longer looks up to the players; he’s now taller than a good number of them.

But always, it’s the three of us. It’s always tickets stuffed in the stocking amongst the gold-foil covered chocolate coins. It’s always “Deee-troit Basketball” and Shortman’s love of Dippin’ Dots (which are, thankfully, still available at the game).

I’m not sure we’ll make it back for New Year’s Eve 2010. We’ll be living in Chicago – and although the 160 miles we’ll travel today is do-able for our little family’s tradition – 600 is a bit much. We may have to make due with the Bulls – who, coincidentally, are the Pistons’ opponents today.

It hurts a bit to think that this will be our last trip up to The Palace – and that we almost didn’t stuff those tickets in that stocking this year. We asked Shortman if he still wanted to go, if he wanted us to get tickets. He looked at us as if we’d lost our minds – “Those tickets are ALWAYS in my stocking.” – and so, they were. At least this one last time.

And this one last time is going to be AWESOME.

—- Happy New Year to all of you – thank you for sticking around in 2009, for making me laugh and cry, for offering words of encouragement and swift kicks in the pants when needed. May 2010 bring you happiness, healthiness and all of the wonderment and possibilities that it offers. —-

Continued from here

Wednesday flew by. Well, as much as any day spent sitting in too-cold conference rooms, listening to people try to explain why you should select them for a partner, can fly. Maybe I just went comatose.

Also, try as I might, the only thing I can remember about dinner was that we had assigned seats – and guess who got to sit next to Douchenoodle #3? He wanted to give me Chicago real estate advice.

Okay. In all fairness, he is from Chicago, but really – picture George H.W. Bush’s smirk-y face spouting off about the pros and cons of ‘burbs versus city living (for 3 hours)while sitting in a hotel restaurant in India, in December, surrounded by Christmas lights, while it’s 85 degrees outside. Rather surreal (or maybe it was the different wine with each course of the 7-course meal) (I guess I do remember a little more about that dinner than I thought) (But only because I’ve been sitting here for 15 minutes staring at this paragraph and TRYING to remember) (Now my brain hurts).

Annyyyyywayyyyyyyy. I made my excuses for an early-ish night.

Thursday morning, we headed back to the Bangalore airport after I snapped some more photos on the hotel grounds. These are from the Leela Palace Kempinski.

Never have I seen so many different kinds of palm trees.

Of course, I thought to myself, “I’ll remember what the name of this is”. Ha! Anyone know? Anyone? Bueller?

The only elephants I saw during this trip.

I wondered why I kept hearing running water.

We left for the airport in our Mercedes sedans (We’d been carted around in Toyotas and buses up to that point…this vendor brought out the big guns to go along with the multi-course meal.) and once again, I handed over my suitcase to the mysterious woman behind the counter.

We made our way through security, grabbed coffee and something that was supposed to pass for a croissant and waited for our flight’s boarding call. The driver had warned us that “this is pretty foggy for Bangalore”, so we weren’t horribly surprised when we were delayed for 30 minutes. Heck, it gave us time to grab another cup of swill coffee.

When we did finally get out to the plane (we had to take a shuttle out to the furthest reaches of the tarmac) and into our seats, I snapped this photo so you all would know I was NOT traveling in the lap of luxury the entire time.

At least no one had to crank the propellers to get us started.

Breakfast on the plane? Corn and cheese sandwiches.

—- You think I’m kidding? Go look. Ours, however, weren’t toasted, dammit. —-

In bullet form:

• It’s snowing sideways.
• Shortman is out snowboarding.
• He took my car to go snowboarding.
• The hill is 40 miles away.
• His phone is dead or turned off.
• My fingernails may not survive until he gets back.
• I’d like to go finish reading my book.
• I’m about 1/2 way through.
• I am reading a new policies and procedures manual instead.
• I know you’re envious.
• I did get to stay in Michigan this week though.
• Santa brought the cats a new toy mouse.
• The dog killed and ate it.
• Yes, even the plastic bits.
• I’m wondering if the stuffing will reappear.
• Y’know. Sometime.
• We’re supposed to go see these girls tonight.
• If my car makes it home.
• I just wrote a big freakin’ check to the University for the winter semester.
• If I kill him for not charging his phone and letting me know he’s okay in this BLIZZARD, can I get a refund?
• No, really. It’s snowing harder now.
• Shit. Seriously. White-out conditions.
• Okay, it’s stopped now.
• I’m making progress on my knitting project.
• If it’s wearable, I’ll show you when it’s done.
• If I can figure out how to end it.
• Kind of like this post.

—- Here, say hi to the cutest nephew in the world. He loves his Aunt Ree Ree. —-

Edited to say: Shortman made it home. In one piece. We made it to the basketball game. They lost.

• Walking the dog in fresh snowy powder under a blue sky.
• My new Stephen King book.
• Leftover lamb and rice from yesterday’s dinner.
• Navel oranges.
• My new 500 GB portable hard drive.

—- House, Season 1 on DVD. —-

Continued from here.

I tried to sleep on the flight from Hyderabad to Bangalore. The plane was nice and big and there was no one in the middle seat. Marvin Gaye was whispering sweet nothings into my ear(bud)s.

I was bone tired, but the flight was only an hour long and the flight attendants were scurrying about serving dinner, even though it was well after 10 p.m, so Marvin and I gave up and watched an un-subtitled Indian sitcom. I think it was funny.

Once we got to the hotel, though, I was greeted with this –

- and as hard as the previous hotel’s bed had been, this was soft. Soft and crisp and clean and…

I laid down and didn’t move until the next morning. It was the first full night’s sleep I’d had in 4 days.

*****lalalalala*****

Our hosts for the day picked us up in a bus to take us to their site.

(Aside: When I texted Mr. Hot that we were in the bus, he immediately asked if it was a ‘bus-bus’ or a ‘coach-bus’. I think he was concerned that we were taking this ‘act like the locals’ a bit too far. I assured him that I had an actual seat and was not sharing it with chickens or goats.)

These are some of the sights from the 3 hours we spent on that bus that day. Please forgive the quality – the roads were none-too-smooth.

One of the signs on this building says, “Opening Shortly – Hotel Anugraha”.

I took this one because I liked the apartment in the top center. What a view, eh? Also shown – the popular 3-wheeled motorized rickshaw (it’s yellow and green) – we once counted 12 people in one.

A construction site – and wouldn’t OSHA just have a conniption? No hard hats. No orange tape or warning signs. Hell, no shoes! The arrow at the top is pointing to the roof of a temple – intricately carved and painted.

Yes, Virginia, there really are cows wandering the streets. Although Hyderabad had far less than Bangalore, Bangalore had nothing on Chennai.

During my 2004 trip to India, we spent a day in Bangalore. This scene did not exist. There were no high-rise apartment buildings. The influx of I.T. jobs and western money has completely changed the landscape in this city.

And yet, not all of the city is ready or able to grow. Muddy streets and outrageous traffic is normal.

*****lalalalala*****

At dinner that night, once again under the starrs, we sampled more local cuisine. Lizards scurried around on the patio; desserts and cigars were passed around. (Note: For the record, I abstained from the cigars.) We laughed and joked – these were “our kind of people” – laid back; not so worried about gaining our business that they forgot about showing us just who they were. And we liked who they were.

Just as we were getting ready to call it a night, one of the guys stopped us.

Wait! You have to try this traditional Indian delicacy. It’s a Areca nut wrapped in a Betel leaf. It’ll help your digestion after all of this food.

He handed out what looked like a greasy green leaf wrapped around something with a triangular shape.

We all took one – stuck them in our mouths – and proceeded to chew. And chew. And chew. And chew.

The more you chewed, the more it grew. The more it grew, the harder it was to chew.

Imagine – eight Americans – standing around after too much food and too much beer – trying to masticate these things into submission. Someone made a noise that sounded like, “HELP ME” and we all started choking with uncontrolled laughter.

Spewing green slimey saliva was probably not the most formal way to end an evening, but it ranks right up there with one of my favorite memories. Laughter followed us into the hotel as we said goodnight to our hosts.

—- Unfortunately, I was wearing a light blue sleeveless sweater when I slobbered all over my own chest. That stain will NEVER, EVER come out. —-