Thursday, April 26, 2007

Gasoline Woes!


I just read an article on cnn.com predicting gasoline prices of $4 a gallon this summer. It took me back to the days when I first arrived in Georgia 10 years ago. Gas was under a $ and no one gave a damn about what they drove or how much they drove. I drove a corolla then but it was mainly because I’m not into SUVs or big cars. Gas expenses never crossed my mind then. 10 years later gas prices have tripled, traffic has worsened , commute has increased and the pay hasn’t kept up. But me and others around me still don’t think twice about driving 40 miles to a sale in order to (seemingly) save a few bucks. I guess old habits die hard!

Someday when I need a new car I’ll buy a Prius but I keep telling myself that until then I need to take some small steps to help my bottom line(the financial one). With that in mind, I thought about car-pooling. I even signed up for a car-pool service but soon realized that it wasn’t for me. I’m too used to coming in and leaving whenever I like. I could’nt possibly be dependent on someone else’s schedule. So I told myself that I could at least save a couple of bucks every time by filling gas at Costco since I shop there anyway. Somehow I always end up at Costco with a full tank. My car always happens to scream ‘I need gas’ when I am in the vicinity of the most expensive gas station. May be its all the BPs and Exxons conspiring against me!

I know people who keep track of where the cheapest gas is being sold and drive to those places to fill up. Whether it makes sense to spend some gas in order to save a $ or so, I know not. But I do know that there is no harm in driving to a neighbouring gas station if you realize that it has cheaper gas than the one that you are at. A colleague of mine did just that one time. She was driving home from work one day and realized that she was out of gas. She saw a gas station and pulled into it. She was about to fill up her tank, when the sign at the gas station across the street caught her attention. They were selling gas few cents cheaper. Since my colleague is a thrifty person, she decided to drive across the street in order to save some money. She got into her car, crossed the street and was at the entrance of the other gas station when her car stalled. She was only a few feet away from the pump. A man standing at the pump felt sorry for this poor girl and remarked “You almost made it” . She smiled and thought to herself “If you only knew!”.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Its Friday!

'Thank God it’s Friday!' I wake up every Friday with this thought. On Fridays, I feel good about going to work; the hour-long commute does not bother me and the sad news items on the radio fail to keep me down. As I enter my office building, everyone seems to have a smile on their face. Following is a typical Friday interaction with a stranger on the elevator:

I smile at the stranger.
Stranger (smiling back): Its Friday! Thank God.
Me: yep!

If it is a person that I know, the conversation will be more like:
Me: Good Morning A. How are you doing?
A: Great! After all it’s Friday!
Me: I know! I am glad!
A: Can't wait !(for the day to be over)

Conversations similar to these can be heard all day long, all over the office.

Fast forward to Monday and I see tired faces as I enter the building. Whether they are tired from the weekend fun or whether they are stressed out thinking of the week ahead, I know not. My face is one of them. The elevator conversation now goes something like this:

Me: Good Morning B. How are you doing?
B: (Sighs). All right I guess, its Monday :-(
Me: yep(with a sigh).

Career experts always say that you must change your job and/or profession if you do not like Mondays. However, I have come to the conclusion that we will hate Mondays no matter what work we do. Whether we like our jobs or not, we still need a break from the daily routine.

At a previous workplace, on a typical Monday, we were going through the usual 'hate Monday ' conversation, when a colleague said, " I hate Mondays, I hate Tuesdays, I hate Wednesdays. I like Thursdays in anticipation of Fridays and I like Fridays in anticipation of the weekend.” My thoughts exactly!(probably yours too!) It makes me wonder if we always enjoy the anticipation of 'what might be ' rather than enjoying the actual moment. I mean, think about it: on Fridays we have the exact same schedule, the same commute the same meetings, the same deadlines as any other weekday. And yet it is Friday, not Saturday, not Sunday that is our favorite day!

Now if you will excuse me, I've got to go enjoy the rest of my Friday thinking about how I’m going to enjoy the weekend. Have a good weekend!

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The goodness in people...

Yesterday on my drive home, I heard Craig Newmark’s essay for the ‘This I believe’ segment on NPR. This essay struck a special chord in me mainly because I hold similar beliefs.
Just the other day I was talking to a friend who said that she thought that people were mainly selfish and malicious. When she meets a new person she starts with that very assumption unless the person proves her wrong. That is her way of protecting herself from getting hurt. I on the other hand, like to start out believing that the person is basically good unless that person proves otherwise. That is not to say that I have never had any bad experiences, but I’d like to believe that those are a few isolated cases that fall under the ‘proven otherwise’ category.
I come from a family of people that strongly believe in the goodness in people. We believe in this almost to the point of being gullible at times. And we believe in this in spite of the fact that quite a few people have taken advantage of my Dad’s good and trusting nature. In fact my mom always jokes that if we totaled the value of the money/belongings that my dad unwittingly gave away, we could buy a flat with that money. My generation is more guarded than that. Me, my brother and my sister don’t let people take advantage of us but we do give people the benefit of doubt. A lot of times when one gets upset about something someone did or said, one may be inclined to label that person as bad/manipulative/ selfish etc. But if we look a little deeper we will see that lot of times there is an explanation to the person’s behavior. A misunderstanding or some unique personal situation may have lead that person to behave in a particular way.

I’d like to pass on my belief to my daughter but the few bad apples make it very difficult. When you hear stories of pedophiles walking the neighborhood streets it is only wise to teach your kids to be skeptical. How do I teach her to be cautious and yet believe in the goodness in this world? And then there are those extreme incidents like yesterday’s shooting at Virginia Tech….things that cannot be explained by any logic or reason. How can our kids trust anyone when they don’t even know if the person sitting next to them in class is a killer?
Craig’s essay could not have come at a better time. In times like this everyone needs an assurance that the world is ok and that most people are ok.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

A night at the movies...



Reading all the wonderful movie reviews on some of my favorite blogs has made me nostalgic for the days when movie going was as easy as thinking about it. Well not quite, but it was fairly simple and required no advance planning. In the post child world it requires a full fledged project plan. Here’s a brief description of my movie watching ventures before and after the birth of my daughter.


Before Kids:
Its evening time…
1. Think about watching a movie.
2. Is it a weekday or weekend? …don’t care!
3. Convince husband to go with you.
4. Argue about which movie to watch the chick flick /drama or action movie?
5. Win argument. Grab a quick bite and head to the movies.
6. Watch previews and decide which ones you want to see next.
7. Movie starts… watch movie.
8. Wake up husband after the movie ends.
9. If husband does not want to go, call up girlfriends and plan a girls movie night for Friday. On Friday, watch a total girly movie and discuss it later.

After Kids:
1.Think about watching a movie… keep thinking for a long time
2. Hear about a really good movie. Keep wanting to see it.
3. Think about options…
a. Hire a baby sitter? Little angel(not quite) will not stay with a baby sitter!
b. Take little angel with you? Might get kicked out of the theatre because of a screaming toddler!
c. Convince girlfriends to do a girls night out(and their husbands to watch the kids).
Though difficult, 'c' is the only real option for you and also for your girlfriends.
4. Husbands agree? Finalize a date…. someone cancels, plan again and so on..
5. The day arrives, either yours or someone’s kid falls sick.. cancel plan.
6. Start the planning cycle again.
7. On the planned day, assuming that everything else goes smoothly, everyone meets at someone’s place.
8. Argue about what to feed adults and kids for dinner. Arrange for food for adults and kids.
9. Try to feed kids who have no interest in eating.
10. Try to make kids go to bed.
11. Once they are in bed, give instructions to husband about handling them if they should wake up.

12. Head to the movies.
13. Watch previews and wonder when in the world will you ever be able to see all these cool movies(somehow they seem more interesting now that you know you can’t watch them all)
14. Movie starts… struggle to keep your eyes open.
15. Think about going straight to bed after movie ends.
16. After the movie ends, talk about how much fun this was.
17. Say “We should do this again sometime soon”