Author Archives
from Susan Narjala
Cleanliness Is Next To Craziness
There's plenty to update my blog about, but for now I'll just have to say that my writing bug has been squished a little by a voluminous cleaning effort. We're getting ready to put our house on the market soon, so we're cleaning and organizing, painting and planting.
In other words, we're going bonkers.
Not a state ...
22 Quirks of the Desi in America
There’s an old Indian joke that goes that when Neil Armstrong went to the moon, he ran into a Malayalee running a tea stall there.
That would have been a giant leap for mankind, if it were true. But it doesn’t discount the fact that Indians are everywhere.
Indians in America bequeath each with other half-smiles of ...
I Pledge Allegiance
Ask my five-year-old, Missy M, how one participates in their democracy, and she’ll come up with, “Join a political party.” She’s smart like that. You might see her on Ellen soon.
It's more likely that she just has good listening skills. She’s been listening to an American Civics CD in the car for a month now, thanks to ...
When You’re Not Feeling It
There are those rare occasions when I’m driving all alone in my mini-van – no one’s demanding snacks, asking if we’re “there yet,” or kicking the back of my seat. It’s just me and radio turned up louder than usual. Matthew West comes on the speakers with, “The Motions.”
I belt it out with him:
“I don’t ...
From Spring Chicken to Mama Hen
I just spent a good chunk of my morning YouTubing a how-to video (That's a verb, right? YouTubing?). It wasn't a 'How to Deal with Whining Kids' or a 'How to Bake Hot Cross Buns for Easter' video. It was somewhat less noble. It was a tutorial. On how to apply mascara.
A sweet young thing earnestly expounded the intricacies of ...
Jesus Knows…Yet Jesus Chose
Recently, I was engaged in one of those privileges of being a mom, i.e. taking out the trash from all the rooms. I was pulling out the plastic trash bag when I spied with my little eye a bunch of kiddie vitamins. Not the yummy gummy-bear kind. Nope. No kid in his right mind would sacrifice those. But the semi-yucky, hard-as-rock Flintstone vitamins. ...
15 Signs I’m Married to a Techie
It works most of the time - he's the yin to my yang, the creamer to my coffee, the salsa to my chips.
But sometimes I just look at my hubbers and go, "Really?!"
He loves his devices and would use a tablet as a pillow, if I let him. When I think of tablets, on the other ...
The Wedding Guest
Recently we were invited to a wedding. It was my cousin's Big Fat Indian Wedding - in Phuket, Thailand. I tried to lose weight, shopped for outfits for FIVE different wedding events, matched shoes to each outfit (because what would the world think if I repeated shoes, right?) and made sure I was primped, plucked and ...
From the Outside Looking In
Wow, these squirrels are as big as cats in India. That was one of my first reactions when I came to America as an eager grad student in the early 2000s. Everything was bigger, brighter and faster.
I hadn't stepped foot outside India before then. But I knew all about American culture - what was cable ...
MEET SUSAN
