Our Newest Addition to the Family

Did you know that we have a dog?

I broadcast it so much that I am assuming everyone knows but this fall we added to our family! I had been wanting a dog for a long time, but obviously didn't have the time or lifestyle to commit to one...until now! When our friends adopted 2 poodle puppies, that pretty much sent me over the edge.

My mom used to raise dachshunds when I was young-too young to remember in fact. I do have my picture taken with Gretchen, her red female doxie, but I must have been only 2 years old in the photo. Having to put Gretchen down was so hard for my mom she didn't have the heart to get another dog-even to this day. We were always doxie fans though-we even had a ceramic life-size one in our living room! (At that point...we should have just gotten a live one!) So dachshunds were a natural choice for me...one that I made for Pratik, who suggested getting a Pomeranian, which he had when he was young. However, they are a high strung dog, and after seeing how much work 2 poodle puppies are, I again asked to adopt a docile dachshund.

I knew a puppy was out of the question...I was not about to toilet train another being. Plus, we both were set on adopting from a rescue organization instead of purchasing a dog. This is thanks to the many animal lovers in my life who always keep me informed on animal issues. There are just too many unwanted animals out there. So, I began perusing petfinder.com. Which isn't new to me, I've done this since my undergrad years!

And then I saw her...my little Molly. I forwarded her photo to my mom, who immediately called and said "go get that dog!" There was a photo of her in a little blue lawn chair just gazing at the camera with her gentle eyes. Molly was described as "a lap dog, very gentle, and housebroken-" all key words in our search. I couldn't believe I had found the right dog so soon-she was everything we wanted. A red miniature dachshund who is house trained, at a rescue organization, and is not a puppy. I called for a phone interview, scheduled a meeting, and brought her home thanks to the wonderful folks at the South Bay Purebred Rescue.

I haven't had many pets in my life, so I always wondered how people get SO attached to their pets. I know so many of you who have cats and dogs and who just live and die for them like children, and I always wondered how that was until now.

Molly is the perfect addition to our family, and just may be the best dog EVER. (She is. Really. Sorry everyone with dogs but she is.) Not only is she everything they described, she is the sweetest, most obedient, and loving animal I've ever seen. She wants nothing more than to be with you and sit on your lap. She loves people...she's a little afraid of her own K-9 kind and takes some time to warm up to them (though Lola and Kiko, our poodle buddies, are her new forever friends.) She's true to her breed-a hunter, a sniffer, a digger, a burrower. (All she has to dig and burrow in the house are blankets, so she has her own bedding and towels!)

I am not only a proud doxie parent, I am a crazed, soft-hearted, probably overbearing mother. She's brought out a nurturing side in me I swore I never had. I hate leaving her when I go to work, my day revolves around her, and when she makes mistakes-which isn't often-I'm OK with it and I move on. Perhaps I won't be a bad parent to humans, after all! (That is still many years off, people, don't get your hopes up. Talk to Pratik about that one--when we get the letters PhD after his name and a little thing called home ownership, I'll be open to negotiations!)

I will stop blathering on so much and just get to the picture already! Molly even has her own blog so that you can keep up with her little happenings as well. You can check that out here:

Visit my family

Join the Dogster community

Well, I hear the jingle jingle of Molly's collar...she's up and wanting to cuddle! Perhaps she'll leave her own new post on her blog today. I'll have to ask her! (Told you I'm a crazed dog parent.)

I have many pictures of her up on my PicasaWeb photos, where our honeymoon photos are. Here are a couple previews of her adorable-ness for you to enjoy.



Her Jackie-O Pearls





And her hot dog costume...

Our First EARTHQUAKE!

About an hour ago we had our first earthquake since moving to California. At first the walls/ceiling started to shake. I was really mad because I thought it was the 3 little disrespectful rug rats upstairs making noise...but then the rattling started to become more intense and our blinds and light fixtures started swinging! It only rattled for about 15 seconds but it was enough to make me wonder what I should be doing. Admittedly I have no knowledge of earthquake procedures!

The news has reported that it was about a 5.6 on the Richter scale. I thought it may be less, but perhaps it was where we are in Palo Alto. Our bookshelves didn't even move, nor did our wind chimes. No car alarms. Perhaps we lucked out here in Palo Alto but I can safely say we'll be calling State Farm to add earthquake coverage on our insurance...now that we have things worth insuring!!

This was my first earthquake ever. I *think* that while I lived in Taipei one occurred while I was sleeping and woke me up. I awoke to my light fixture swinging and car alarms outside, and I'm sure it woke me up but I never felt it happen in a conscious state so it doesn't count! I've yakked for years that I've never felt an earthquake despite living in Taipei for a year and California for 2...but that has ended. Now I can check that off the list and move on. I don't need to feel more!! Pratik has been through one or two, so he's a seasoned vet! I'm not sure where he was when they happened, but tonight he's at work. It gets me to thinking with all of those chemicals and glass tubes in the lab....what happens when there's a big earthquake in a chem lab? I can imagine it's quite expensive and dangerous. We'll all have to remind him to get out of dodge if he's at work during a quake!

The news said there should be aftershocks but nothing so far. *Cross my fingers.*

I did find it interesting that the news felt it important enough to not only interrupt regular programing to report on it, which is fine, but then have callers call in and tell their stories of where they were five minutes ago! My house shook! Wow, you live in California. Duh. It's like when you live in the Midwest and the news blows a snowstorm out of proportion. It comes with the territory, people, get over it.

Anyway, we're OK. It didn't even move anything in our home so we're all good here!

We've Moved!

After many cardboard boxes, car trips, U-Hauls, and rolls of packing tape later, Pratik and I have finally settled into our new apartment in Palo Alto. And by settled, I do mean that we're still climbing over boxes...but one by one they're being unpacked and we're settling in.

We have a 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment in Palo Alto. We're only 4 miles from Pratik's lab at Stanford, so he will be able to come and go from home as needed now without much hassle. A friend of his is graciously giving him a bike which is being fixed up this week. Our former roommate Kevin bikes from here to work every day, so it is do-able. An 8 mile round-trip bike ride will do him good! It will be better than trying to figure out a 1 hour train trip home every day. Although, he's not the best with directions...perhaps we should get his bike a navigation system! (He's already gotten lost here once on the way home.)

In any case, we live across the street from Greer Park in a nice, residential neighborhood. It's much quieter than our last apartment, despite the fact that it's just off Highway 101, so here's hoping Pratik will sleep better at night. I'm looking forward to setting up a guest bedroom/sewing room soon when we get the boxes cleared out. We even have a nice big patio with a rose bush and a eucalyptus tree.

Moving is of course not without it's share of problems. We're both very sick and tired of dealing with rental office management. Our last 2 moves have been horrible. We're always having to make lists of details that need to be taken care of...you know, like connecting the water line in the bathroom sink or installing bars in our closets. Our apartment last year was like that...only no matter how many lists we made for 2 months hardly anything was ever accomplished. I knew we were only going to be there a year, but this time we're here until Pratik is finished with school, so I'm not backing down on what needs to be done. They put the time and effort to add eye-catching light fixtures and faucets and all those small details, so they can also patch paint where it needs to be done and not leave WIRES just hanging every where in our closets.

This makes me miss home. I'm very spoiled in the sense that I have family members who were very talented at construction and home improvement and they NEVER do a half-ass job. We're nothing if not detail-oriented! They really know how to make a house a home in old Elkton! Plus, houses are houses there, not shoe boxes that cost a quick half million. Good old Huron County may be too small for me permanently, but it's always home.

I told Pratik that I'm so sick of renting and dealing with management that our next move better be into a house! At least I can fix things to my own standards there. (Although I'm not above getting out a drill and just doing things myself around here. For the next three years, this is my home!)

Ah, the day when we'll have our own home. The roof may spring a leak and it may be my responsibility, but at least I can paint my walls shades of red, wine, and burgundy!

We'll post pictures of the new place once everything falls into place!

Shub Ganesh Chaturthi

Happy Ganesh Chathurthi!

For those who do not know, Ganesh Chathurthi is a Hindu holiday celebrating Ganesh, the God of new beginnings. On the first day of Ganesh Chaturthi, Hindus perform the "sthapana", Sitting ceremony, of a clay statue of Ganesh Ji in their homes. Then for the following five days, we perform the "aarti", offerings ceremony. The purpose of this holiday is to invite Ganesh Ji into your homes and bless the new beginings in your life - be it a marriage, new job, new business venture, or a birth in the family. The newly married couples perform the ceremony together in their home the year they get married. Then they continue to celebrate Ganesh Charturthi together every year.

This year we performed the "sthapana" in our home in San Jose. We also created rangolis on our patio. Rangoli is a design made from different colored powders dropped on the ground to create patterns. It is sort of like making a chalk drawing on the sidewalk but instead of chalk crayons you use free flowing powders. Check out our photos. A side note for those who are unaware--the symbols we used are not swastikas, but rather a swastik. The swastik is used as a symbol of purity in Hinduism and was around long before it was defiled during World War II by the Nazi party, who used its mirror image to represent less-than-pure intentions. The swastik is clockwise, the swastika, counter-clockwise. In addition, the Hindu swastik also has dots.

Photo Frenzy!

(What on earth are we doing? You'll have to look at our honeymoon photos to find out!)

OUR WEDDING AND HONEYMOON PHOTOS ARE UP!
Our very talented photographers, Bob and Krista Ashmun, of Brass Shutter Studio took almost 1,000 photos during the course of our wedding weekend. They edited this down to about half to post online. The photos are not in sequential order, but we certainly don't mind! Lucky for us, they're making a DVD of all of the photos for us to keep.

Bob and Krista are a talented husband and wife team. They don't usually do weddings anymore, but I've known them for years and warned them in 1999 when they did my senior photos that they would have to make an exception. I really didn't think they'd do it, but to my surprise not only did they agree to it when I asked, but they were completely ecstatic about it.

Their photos are always outstanding and artistic. I love the touches they add--the soft glows and black and white shots.

TO VIEW OUR PHOTOS CLICK ON:

http://www.brassshutter.com/htmlver/proofing.php

The password is wedding because, in their words, this is the only wedding they'll ever do!


HONEYMOON PHOTOS:
My dear husband took just as many photos on our honeymoon as our professional photographer did at our wedding! I painstakingly posted almost all of them online and captioned as many as I could to guide you all through Prague and Salzburg. Please make comments on them and above all--enjoy! We certainly did!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mrsverma


These photos are a reminder of what wonderful friends we have. Thanks everyone for traveling so far to be with us, for your love, support and friendship, for making our wedding day fun, and for helping us have our dream wedding AND honeymoon! Without all of you, it just wouldn't have been possible.

I'm officially the Mrs...

I am officially Mrs. Lindsie Brown-Verma. Even though I decided to use the hyphenated version legally, I will go by Lindsie Verma.

Does this mean I can get my Louis Vuitton bag now? My name is all over it!

The Honeymoon

When we first started planning our honeymoon, Lindsie had visions of the beach and tropical sunsets in Bora Bora. Pratik didn't seem all too excited with these plans, but ever the gentleman he let his bride continue to plan her dream vacation. Lindsie caught on to what was yet another selfless act on his part and began researching Pratik's dream destination, Prague, a place he's talked about going to as long as we've known each other. When she mentioned it to him and saw his eyes light up she knew, and thus our honeymoon plans were born!

We spent 10 days total in Europe-July 17-23 in Prague and July 24-27 in Salzburg. We had planned to go to Karlovy Vary while in the Czech Republic, but we had so much fun in Prague we didn't want to leave and thus cancelled that excursion. A person could spend a month in Prague seeing all there is to see. An entire day of our honeymoon was spent exploring Prague Castle and we still missed parts of it! When they say Prague is the “city of a thousand spires,” they aren’t kidding! We saw six churches and still didn’t even see every one.

Among the cool things we did see and do: walked across the Charles Bridge dozens of times, horse-drawn carriage ride, the Jewish quarters of Prague, ate Indian food from Indians who spoke Czech, Old Town Square, the Astronomical Clock, rode in a classic car that had to be started by winding it in the front, received massages in our hotel’s spa, bought 24 crystal glasses (which was hand carried on multiple flights by Pratik,) spent a Sunday afternoon in Kutná Hora outside of Prague, eating 2 dozen pralines from our hotel’s café, climbed hundreds of steps to get to Prague Castle (Lindsie was not a happy camper,) drank tons of orange Fanta (it’s better in Europe,believe us,) took a boat ride on the Vltava river, saw a concert put on by a Swedish choir, and the list goes on and on!

Our hotel was amazing! The Alchymist is a five star establishment that lives up to it’s rating! We slept in a gold canopy beds with cherubs at the foot and beautiful tapestry rugs, curtains, and bedding adorned our room. They left us a bottle of Czech champagne and fruit the first night, and a bottle of Cabernet the next with a birthday card for me! (How thoughtful that they noticed!) Though our hotel was small (it used to be a residence and has since been converted into 45 suites) it even had a swimming pool in the basement. We asked our cabana boy (yes, there was one) if he could turn on the jets. It was like being in a giant hot tub. The Poseidon on the wall next to the pool spouted water into the center. After swimming we strolled over to the spa’s juice bar and read Spanish Vogue…or at least one of us did! By the way, our hotel neighbors the American and Irish embassies in Prague. In order to drive past the embassies, you need to stop at a police check point at the street and let them do a quick search of your vehicle. Our driver told us that this check point is paid for by the American embassy for extra security! It just so happens that Franz Kafka used to live in the American embassy when it was an apartment building. Ironically, this is where he wrote his book “Amerika.”

Our honeymoon wasn’t just spent doing romantic things, it was spent seeing weird things that you would expect from the two of us, like the Franz Kafka Museum, the Museum of Communism (which is located above McDonald’s-oh the irony,) and the Ossuary (which is decorated with human bones from the Hussite Wars and the Plague.) Can we say “oh l’amour!”?

And can you believe that after all of that, we still had 3 more days to spend in Salzburg?? Our train ride to Austria was, shall we say, interesting. We arrive at Prague’s main station in a Mercedes. Considering that Prague’s train station is pretty run down, this must have been quite a sight. Our driver informed us that the train station is soon going to be renovated, and proceeded to help us carry our 5 pieces of luggage down the stairs and back up the stairs to the correct platform. How nice of him! Pratik started to observe the trains and their run-down condition. “Don’t worry,” Lindsie assures him, “I’ve been on many trains in Europe. Wait until ours gets here! Plus, I bought us first class tickets.” Then our train rolls up…in the same condition as the other trains. No air conditioning. For seven hours. To Salzburg. Even Pratik was not enjoying this “adventure” on our sweltering hot, vintage, smelly, supposed to be non-smoking train. It quickly put an end to our first-class getaway!

Our hotel in Salzburg wasn’t as fancy as the Alchymist, but it wasn’t bad! We had the Mozart room (which meant that there was a mural of Mozart on the wall) and Nutella at breakfast each morning—who can complain about that? In Salzburg, we went to Mozart’s house, the salt mines, on a boat tour on the River Salz, to the mountains in Bavaria, Koenigsee and Berchtesgaden (both in Bavaria,) the Eagle’s Nest (again with the “romance,”) ate Viennese “Sacher Torte” at the Sacher Hotel, the Salzburg Fortress (the most well preserved medieval fortress in Europe,) the trick fountains at Schloss Hellbrunn, and of course on the SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR! Though it wasn’t Pratik’s idea of a great afternoon, he did enjoy watching Lindsie sing along with the rest of the Sound of Music enthusiasts. Plus, it allowed us to have some time in Mondsee just outside of Austria at the Basilika Mondsee. This church was where the wedding took place in the Sound of Music. Today, they hand out complimentary bottles of holy water…in recycled Jaegermeister bottles. (No kidding…) We think that’s what they’re contributing to the going green campaign.

The weather in Europe was hot, hot, hot! Record temperatures scorched cities across the continent. Prague was the hottest part of our trip. Rain came down on our first day in Salzburg, but we were grateful for anything cool at that point. The weather in Salzburg, though warm, was mild in comparison to Prague. We even saw on CNN that people in Budapest were dying of heat exhaustion. Since we had toyed with the idea of going to Hungary, we were pretty happy we decided to stick with just a couple of destinations. While Salzburg was beautiful, we LOVED Prague and can’t wait to go back. It was just too good to be true! We’re happy Pratik got to realize a dream in going to Prague and that Lindsie just got to use her passport again! (And we’re happy to report that almost all of her old pages are full, just in time for its expiration next year.)

A lot of you gave us “honey money” to use specifically on our honeymoon, and we just want to express our gratitude for that! You know that we both live to see the world and because of your gifts we didn’t have to spare any expense-we got to see everything, do everything, and buy everything that we wanted on this trip. It was truly a relaxed and luxurious experience for the both of us and we’ll forever cherish the memory!

During one of our many strolls on the Charles Bridge, we both touched the relief under the statue of Saint John of Nepomuk. According to the legend, touching this relief will ensure your return to the city of Prague. Needless to say we did this more than once! We look forward to the day we return to Prague.

The Newlywed Game

After sending wedding invitations to -literally-all over the world, we realized just how far away some of our friends and family members are. Therefore, we are starting this blog to stay in touch with all of you and keep you informed about our lives as newlyweds! So far, so good! Stay tuned for more information to come on Lindsie's job search, our new apartment in Palo Alto, and lots of wedding and honeymoon photos to come!