June in Bangalore

Paper is coming along fine, though slow. Sent out the first draft to coauthors, am now revising it.

We might get the keys to an apartment today, which means the slow process of moving should start soon, cutting into my writing time (2-3hrs/day at the moment). Today we went to the bank to set up a joint account, and we had to bring my husband’s mother, as she was “introducing” us, which is actually a technical term since the banks here are much more picky than in the US about who they give accounts to.

By the way, the new apartment is about 45min from here, and TM who is 2yrs old only lasts 30min with any ease. After that it’s a fight. And we’ll have to get our stuff shipped from storage to the apt, and unpack it. But we can’t live there yet ‘cause there’s no fridge, no clothes washer, no beds, and we can’t sleep on the floor ‘cause tile is dang hard. So we have to have beds, or at least mattresses, buy fridge etc, get it set up, all with a cranky (teething and often diarrhea-ish) toddler. ? And who knows how long it'll take to get phone and internet there.

Here’s how the trip to the bank went:

We left 11am (ick) but Vivek was up 'till 1am working so of course couldn't leave early...but that's too close to lunch for comfort, for Maya. Bank busy, and this is India I'll remind you... and I'd forgotten to bring proof of address. Angels slipped a phone bill into my mother-in-law's purse, though, so we were saved. You have no idea how mad my husband would have been if we would've had to go back home. Still took, what, 45min at bank, 30min to get there, 30 min back, 2hrs tot, 1:30pm when got back. At bank TM started getting diarrhea.

Public toilet -- no toilet paper, no soap, a hole in the ground and a bucket of water. Toddler with diarrhea. Okay? Was I happy? There are no words I can think of to describe how I felt. But happy is not one of them.

Changed her in the car on the way home. She fell asleep on the way home. Stayed asleep for another 30min after we got home, then puked herself awake and pooped at the same time poor kid so had to endure a full-body soap-up. In the bathroom without a tub. No tub. You just turn on a tap and do your best with the floor and a bucket and then try to swish the leftover water & goo into the drain as best as you can afterwards. 'Cause you'll have to climb over the wet floor to get to the toilet later. (modern toilets here thank goodness).

I didn't wash her hair 'cause there was no hot water 'cause you have to turn on the hot water heater (small, 1 per bathroom), and the poor kid was freezing, so her hair still stinks a little of puke. Fed her some fried-up rice chip sort of things (food is good here, thank goodness) and managed to convince her to sleep again after giving tylenol and threats and almost completely going crazy and chanting in my head in time to the fan "I wish I could die I wish I could die I wish I could die" while knowing that dying would only make things worse.

Isn't that a rotten thing? That there's absolutely no way out! And of course that's when you're supposed to realize the way out and I know that I really need to give up control but when you're surrounded so often by things that you really really don't like it's hard to remember that God can handle it and you don't have to…