The heat is back. The highs this week were 98-100 degrees every day and the lows were 75-77 each night. Hmmm…and they are telling us May is much worse. It could be an interesting last couple of months for us.

This weekend was nice, most of the same old thing, Walden on Friday night, ICRISAT on Saturday. We went to a great new Italian restaurant Saturday night, called “Little Italy” in Jubilee Hills. Claire was a little turd during dinner, so we headed straight home afterwards, mom and I ended the evening by watching the move “Capote.” Sunday we attended a party at the house of a new friend. Last night we started watching an old Hindi film made in the 70’s that everyone talks about. It’s called Sholay, very interesting we are excited to finish it this weekend.

Clay was approached this week by some young men (20 somethings) that were dressed in drag, out in the street in the middle of the day. He did not know what the deal was so when they approached they got a quick and stern “NO” and then Clay ran off. He asked what the deal was, and one friend said “Get away from them, they are bunches of trouble”. We were retelling to a different friend a few days later and we learned “They are really good luck, people have them come over and bless new babies and new marriages, it is very auspicious.” Clay decided he is going to keep avoiding them, but it was cool to learn about/see one more layer to this complex society.

Mom has had a horrible cold/fever this week, so it’s been pretty low key. Not a lot going on other than day dreaming about our trip to Goa in 3 weeks.

Thursday was a holiday for the office, the holiday is called Ugadi (the first day of the new year for the Telugu culture in Andra Pradesh). On this holiday you eat a special sweet that tastes sweet then bitter, they say that this is a replica of how life is, bitter and sweet. I also heard some people say that based on how it first tastes when you bite into it, that’s how your life will be for the next year (it tasted sweet to me at first, thank goodness). Clay, Claire, and I went swimming yesterday on the day off, we had a blast and Claire even went in the “big pool” this time. We did lots of “ring the rosey” (that’s Claire speak for ring around the rosey) in the pool. It really wore the little one down so she had a good nights sleep last night.


Sincerely,
Julianna Ehlers