Life in camera

Last year I excelled at shooting blurry pictures of Vivian. I blame the crappy camera - a Cannon point-and-shoot that used to be the state of the art for point-and-shoots about the time we were on our honeymoon. I didn't realize how much I bitched about the camera and/or how much Jo loves me, but on Christmas day, I find a nicely wrapped box with my name on it and a Cannon EOS XTi inside. Thanks, Santa Ellen.

So I turn around and point the camera at Vivian and squeeze off a few blurry ones - much more expensive blurry ones. It is too dark or the kid is moving too fast. Or is it the wind? Till I pour over the manual and try out the different modes where I get to pick the ISO and aperture and shutter speed and white balance and all other kinds of shit, I can't expect much better.

Gordon comes over on Sunday for lunch and a photo shoot. Vivian is slightly cranky, so we keep it down and Gordon only gets about four hundred shots. And he gives me a couple of pointers. Gordon's pictures are great. He's posted 23 of them in Vivian's flickr album. Click here to see them. There's one where she is looking like she's plotting something quite evil. And then there are some lovely ones with Jo. And she's trying to chew my nose off in another.

Here's one I took that came out OK. Obviously a long way to go, but I think I know which end of the camera to point where...

A New Year

Vivian - someday you will learn about a day and a year and the earth and the sun and why this one is 2008.

We went to Nicolle's. The pozole and the ham-and-bean soups were great. Slamming jager and Red Bull with the pastor was different. And my first wish for the New Year was for the dishwasher to be louder so it would drown out Greta's snores.

My worst new year's eve was in 1999/2000 - the infamous house arrest. Ugh. But the next day was the start of the new millennium - which I am happy to say has worked out quite well so far. My best new year's day memory is from 1988 (or around there). I sat on the roof of the rental car and saw the sun rise over the clouds and light up the Chisos mountains.

Happy New Year to all, and specially to you, dearest Vivian - your very first.

Christmas Gift from Delhi

Surjeet Auntie made a fabulous set of matching ghagras for Vivian and Simran and sent them over from Delhi for Christmas. This afternoon, they put on their new clothes and vogued for the cameras. Click on this link to see the slideshow.

The girls agreed to step out in style together again soon. They look so happy together - I couldn't help but smile for the rest of the day. Arjun - I know so are you...:-)

A Warm Christmas Morning

It's been a warm winter in Austin so far. But at about 930am on this fine Christmas morning, things get decidedly warmer for Vivian. We've been cooking for Christmas and our usually clean (read unused) kitchen is a mess (here is where I am setting up the excuse for what follows). Vivian is crawling around the living room and kitchen when she decides to eat about half of a bright red chile piquin - about the size of a mini M&M.

Much screaming, washing, feeding yogurt, sucking on ice, and applying olive oil. A call to the on-call nurse at the pediatrician. After about 10 minutes, she's back to normal. After another hour, Jo and I are still a bit shaky.

I eat the remaining four peppers for breakfast. I need a glass of water after that. The peppers grow on a small bush in our front yard. As peppers go, these midgets are hot - about 100,000 on the Scoville scale. Compare that with 8,000 for jalapenos, and 200,000 for the really hot habaneros. Turns out that the hottest pepper out there is the Naga Jalokia from India at about 1,000,000 Scovilles.

One day when you are older, we'll give the naga a shot, girl. Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas.