escapade

Yes, ‘escapade’ reminds me of Janet Jackson. I still love that song – brings me back to when I’d put the tape in my yellow Sony walkman and rollerskate around my backyard.

Anyway, I digress.

Wanted to share a couple of vacations I’ve been on this holiday season. It’s funny, because even though I love New York, a vacation was definitely needed. As Janet would say, ‘come on baby, let’s get away — let’s save our troubles for another date. let me take you on an escapade.’ Some people find meaning in Dylan or Wilco, clearly that is not me…at least not today.

Each vacation was completely different from the other, in spite of both being family visits.

The first was to New Orleans and Mamou (read: extremely rural), Louisiana. New Orleans is beautiful, there is incredible architecture and, okay, I can’t lie: I just drank and ate a lot. What else are you supposed to do on Thanksgiving?

Something that was neat, beyond Bourbon Street, bands and beignets, were the graveyards. In Louisiana, since it’s a swamp ground, buried graves surface after a good rain and so, to remedy this problem, all graves are built up in mausoleum structures. I found this fascinating and took about a million photographs; clearly, I felt like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and took full advantage. Check out the photos for more on the graveyards.

Another thing that was fruitful about visiting Louisiana was reconnecting with family. My nuclear family is very close-knit and, truth be told, I don’t make an effort to stay in touch with my extended family. We are all very spread out, I have family in Texas, Louisiana, Maine, Illinois, Southern California and, of course, India. Whenever I think about my American cousins, it’s generally a lot of memories of when we would spend time playing cards or carrom in India talking about what we missed eating in the US. Or, alternatively, when my parents would leave my sister and me in the South while they went traveling. But, now we’re all adults — it’s very strange. That said, I like these people. I would like to think I’d be friends with them even if I wasn’t related to them, after seeing them in a long while. My parents always discuss how in India, everyone is very closeknit and it’s so odd to them that I don’t have a tighter connection to family. It’s not that I don’t appreciate having family, it’s just that I don’t know them. In that sense, this trip helped a bit in that area — at least I know who I can grab a drink with in Louisiana. That’s good enough for now. (Feel free to check out pictures of me and my cousins at a bar in Mamou, Louisiana as well as the three acres of land inclusive of catfish pond.)

On the complete other side of the family-bonding spectrum, I spent Christmas in Denver with my sister and her family. My nephew is four and my niece is one. As my sister pointed out, every time I go there I always say, “That was fun, but I’m ready to take a break from kids!” I think this is the beauty of being a mawashi (Marathi for maternal auntie). I can come in, sneak cookies to my nephew and niece, play games, pretend to be a spaceman/paleontologist/discoverer/scientist, read children’s books and just be silly for a few days. It’s such a great break. To read about our pierogi making experience, check out my sister’s blog about creating traditions here.

What’s great about going to my sister’s home on Christmas is that my nephew is a huge Santa fan. During the ’08 election, when you’d ask my nephew who he wanted to win for president he would say, “Obama…or…Santa!” I mean, who wouldn’t want Santa for president? He would check the NORAD Web site to track Santa’s journey and then he would make us all hush when “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” came on Pandora. And, yes, he is wearing a three-piece suit in the pictures. It’s his new favorite outfit; he’s quite like the Fonzworth Bentley of Denver.

Another thing I’ve learned is that I clearly need to bone up on my lyrics skills. First, I learned that I don’t know the lyrics to Twinkle, Twinkle. And then, at one point, my niece was crying really hard, so I picked her up and rocked her back and forth. At which point, I couldn’t think of any songs and was stuck singing Beatles tunes. Apparently, Beatles songs are my go-to panic songs. It’s fine. It worked. Phew. Check out my little gallery of pictures of them, also below.

It’s been a really great holiday season this year; I honestly couldn’t have asked for better. Hope you had a wonderful holiday, too.

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