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First day of school tomorrow, and for middle school the timings change to early morning. This means the kid and us have to be up before 6am so she can get to her buy by 6.45am. The next two years of this are going to be super hard on me specifically coz i am not an early riser, at all.

Meeting up with friends after what feels like forever. Thanks to every family’s summer trips happening at different times we haven’t met since June which is the longest we have gone.

Yesterday was 1 year anniversary of us moving into our new home. I can’t say it was the smoothest or most pleasurable move, but also the amount of things we’ve gotten done in this house over the last year makes me happy that I am not just man of words & whine, but I also have taken action to to make our house better. In the last year, we completely revamped our jungle backyard that we inherited into a nice beautiful lawn with new fences, got rid of a tree that was dangerously close to our house and cutting out sunlight, moved our powder room to a different location in the house, revamped our guest bathroom that was straight out of 80s, and also installed net new windows in our living room to bring outside (& light) in. We also put in a contract for kitchen renovation that will commence next month. Of course, goes without saying I am lucky and privileged to be in this situation. Why didnt we just buy a house then with all of these things in there you ask? The money we are spending/spent all of these renovations would still be less than buying a house with everything we wanted. Northern Virginia market is pretty crazy and I am pretty confident that recouping our investment (& more) will not be a problem in this market at all. Ultimately it boils down to location, location, location! And just like the first time, this time too our house is in an incredible location.

I went through a phase of depression right after buying this house, and went through a lot of buyers remorse and guilt. But I am also glad I’ve not sat around wallowing in pity and did something. The result of all these renos in the past year has made a big difference to my psyche and has made enjoy the house way more than I did last year. Some might say if you gave it time you would’ve just liked it anyway, but i differ, because I know me. Anyway, post this last reno, we are done with anything in the house for a while, and i am looking forward to that!

What a productive fucking Saturday this has been. Got 8 hrs sleep, the doggo got a nice grooming session, I got a haircut, got my car serviced, returned books at library, picked up items from library, vacuumed the house, all before 1.30pm! This is the greatest day ever!

This whole trans bathroom in schools is so ridiculous. Trans kids have so many insecurities already they need a safe space and if majority of them feel girls bathroom is where it is, then so be it. Parents who are worried about boys being perverts and using trans as an excuse to use girls bathrooms should be more worried about fucking pervert boys and schools should simply throw them out. Why do parents feel that if pervert boys are not allowed in girls bathroom they won’t find other ways to snoop? As usual brainless conservatives have found a new issue to harp on and I can bet the white suburban moms have found their new issue to justify their upcoming vote.

10/10 wearher today and showing early glimpses of magnificent Septembers and Octobers here. Time for a good afternoon soak in sun!

I love our summer electric bills which come out super low. The big reason being of course, we love warm weather. Our AC in the day is usually set to 77-79, windows/deck doors are usually open and fans on. The AC barely fires during the day for us unless its really really hot and muggy outside. At night, we turn down house to a balmy but nice 74, windows down and fans still on. This is the best phase for my electric bills all year. Of course winters are different story all together, but i guess it evens out through the year.

Apparently Biden wants all federal employees back to office, and by definition that means that his government and a lot of local governments want people back in offices so they can stimulate the office economy. Thats all you need to know about how serious America is about climate crisis. As a leading producer of pollutants in the world, the post pandemic world gave an opportunity to reshape our working culture, rely less on driving inane distances in our cars and improve the environment. Instead what do we do? We want everyone to go back to pre-pandemic days of sitting and idling in our cars in a traffic jam because its somehow local economy. Even the big companies that do so much drama and news about their climate pledges have no qualms asking their employees to be back, because, tax cuts. Its such a shame really.

I can’t believe that *Oppenheimer* is going to be a bigger box office hit than Interstellar or Inception stateside. Like the movie was good, but jee it comes nowhere close to the incredible scope and expanse of either Interstellar or Inception. I guess folks have really gotten sucked into that Barbie+Oppenheimer marketing. For the record, even *Barbie* is not such a great movie – enjoyable yes, but I can’t imagine the movie has any repeat value to be such big blockbuster.

A couple of months ago my dad sold several properties, pooled the money together and bought a *new* home for my brother & his family in India, so they could move to a bigger house and put up their current house on rent as additional stream of income. Since then, we’ve been constantly asked by our well meaning relatives and extended family, *What did you get?*. Well, we got nothing. It upsets them more than it upsets *us*. I did not ask for inheritance of any kind from my dad, and I strictly believe its his money to do as he wishes. If he had decided to spend it all on a 5 star luxury cruise around the world for 3 years, I still wouldn’t have said anything. Its his money, he gets to decide what to do with it.

However, what has bothered and upset us is my dad assuming that I still need to finance all his (& my brother’s) trips here. I’ve never had a problem with financing him in particular (though we have financed my brother & his wife when they just started out their careers), but it has never once occurred to him or my brother that hey we’ve had a nice windfall, maybe we keep some of this to finance our own trips and not still expect the older brother to do it all. Things came to a point this trip where I flatly refused to gift a long laundry list of very expensive items that they wanted; I was told I should *gift* them, and when I just outright refused, they bought it anyway with their own money, leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I am disappointed that my dad is trying to get me to do what he *did* in his life with his brothers & sisters. I get *why* he had to be the load bearer of his family in the circumstances he grew up in (& i respect that), but I dont think he realizes that this is a different world now and very different life situations.

Anyway, I am glad I took the first step this year to finally start pushing back on my family. I guess it makes me look selfish & my openness has caught them off guard a bit, but I’ve also realized that I need to be stronger and draw boundaries around myself and my immediate family. I love them, but at the same time I am not a tool. And if that means someone’s gonna be upset about it, so be it.