April is our month. A most important one in the household. Everything happens in April. Most of us are born, for starters. Even if you set aside the birthdays (which are not so much celebrated as endured), we have school closing, semester ending, holiday planning (or not), and so on. This year there was the Pinkathon, in addition. More than half-way through the month, everything is a garbled mess in my head and I just want to put things down in chronological order here to sort through later.
* The first week of April went by in a busy haze of classes and reports and these Women Only training runs we started putting together to drum up enthusiasm for Pinkathon (mainly that. But also that we are masochists that way). Here enjoy our pink (!) posters anyhow (made by the ever-creative Chow):
* The birthday rolled around and after thinking that I want to hide under my desk, I did the opposite. I had meetings all morning and snuck away for a husband-wife lunch-date. A handful of close friends for dinner completed the day. Food was most amazing as we used recipes from a new cook-book (Plus, I didn't cook, my cook did, that must have helped too). In the end, the dreaded 40th birthday made me feel just grateful to be alive and me and very content!
* Pinkathon is a women-only run for breast cancer awareness. There are way too many runs for awareness and causes and so forth of late. But it was exciting to use this opportunity to jump-start women's running in a big huge way in Chennai. Something I wanted to do a lot. It was amazing - and I was some ambassador along with my friends - which was ok - it gave us a platform to work from. 6000+ women came ran, danced, smiled that day.
* The first week of April went by in a busy haze of classes and reports and these Women Only training runs we started putting together to drum up enthusiasm for Pinkathon (mainly that. But also that we are masochists that way). Here enjoy our pink (!) posters anyhow (made by the ever-creative Chow):
* The birthday rolled around and after thinking that I want to hide under my desk, I did the opposite. I had meetings all morning and snuck away for a husband-wife lunch-date. A handful of close friends for dinner completed the day. Food was most amazing as we used recipes from a new cook-book (Plus, I didn't cook, my cook did, that must have helped too). In the end, the dreaded 40th birthday made me feel just grateful to be alive and me and very content!
* Pinkathon is a women-only run for breast cancer awareness. There are way too many runs for awareness and causes and so forth of late. But it was exciting to use this opportunity to jump-start women's running in a big huge way in Chennai. Something I wanted to do a lot. It was amazing - and I was some ambassador along with my friends - which was ok - it gave us a platform to work from. 6000+ women came ran, danced, smiled that day.
(Thanks Flashbulbzz Photography for capturing this moment)
It was really like nothing I have seen before. I have run in some of the big races of the country. And stood with goosebumps at the start line of The Wipro Chennai Marathon, our baby. But this was really amazing because it was all women.
I ran the 10km run (didn't run it well, I was stressed and out of it), on my way to the finish line, I saw the child (who was running the 3k with her friend and her mum), which meant a sweaty hug! After I hit the finish line I drank some water and then some more and went back on the streets. It was really great to see hordes and hordes of girls and women and aunties and maamis bond over this. And a huge big thanks to our guys who stood up to help us out.
* And then it was the Child's turning double digits birthday. She wanted:
>> No Cake
>> No Return Gifts
>> No Gifts
>> No New clothes
So anyway we cobbled together something. And after many discussions had a small list of children who came over. They brought gifts anyway. I bought some mini-muffins but no candles. We had a treasure hunt which was a huge success except for the fact that the treasure sucked (pens I bought at the last minute in Gurunath Stores in IIT rushing out of my morning meetings). The kids played in the car park area for a while. We called jugs of Tang as magic potion and somehow everyone loved it. Before we knew it my eyes were drooping and the day was done.
* School has now fully officially ended and summer is upon us with a vengeance. I have tons of piled up work as always and the weather is getting worse by the day. I want to go soak in a (clean) pool that is maybe covered? To avoid the sun? And I want to just... be...
But that perhaps is something I can do in May. Not April. No. 'Cause this it the biggest month of the year as far as this household is concerned. Please note.
