Month: January 2024

into the mists

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Driving to work on Wednesday (Jan 24) and Thursday was just a glorious experience for me as the mornings were layered in thick fog and dense mists (slightly drizzly) and the mornings were just enough cool and with low clouds enveloping everything and making the visibility quite low. But I loved it !! I love the mist; I could get lost in the mists and it covers up the ugliness; making everything look just right, fresh, naive, innocent, mysterious, unknown and strange and gives an illusion as if we are looking back at a former memory.  While driving in the mornings I listen to worship songs and on these mornings I have messianic jewish alliance group’s worship songs (which are in hebrew). And that made the experience more profound. I could be the only person on the road. I have recently came upon this group on youtube, and I just fell in love with the songs which I don’t understand by themselves as I don’t know hebrew, but they kindly provided translation on the screen so I can follow and these are such powerful words and right for my soul. And the whole experience was truly transcendental. (for eg: Praise to Our God 5 Concert Ashuv Eleicha; Praises of Israel – Halev Poretz; Hebrew worship from Israel – Father of all mercies)

I haven’t gone in on Tues as our building had an inspection and I stayed home to make sure my babies won’t freak out when strangers come in.

I was at the church for the sabbath (Jan 27) services and I went a bit late, I ended up sitting on the last pew. There were three people in the pew in front of me. A white guy flanked by two women (indian ? or some other country with similar skin tones).  Anyway, both girls literally sandwiched him and I was confused. Time to time, we get visitors of all kinds and of course it is a sanctuary, and it is open to everyone because obviously savior is designed for sinners. One woman is pregnant. The other woman was clinging to this guy so much so I thought may be she is the girl friend but then again the other pregnant woman was also showing similar show of affection and I’m ashamed and embarrassed to admit that these people took up all my attention more than the church service. Anyway, as I said God is for sinners. After the church service, I stood up and was putting on my coat when the guy stood up turned around and shook my hands and greeted me with “happy sabbath”. So at least, the guy is familiar with my church and I am further ashamed for thinking negative thoughts about these people without knowing for certain what their relationship is.  If I find out more, I will let you know.

It was a rainy Sunday and what else is new ! For a few days now, I’ve been picking up a leaf here and a leaf there (dried of course) which were seen in my little apartment and I thought, I was bringing them in from outside as they were stuck to the bottom of my shoes when walking in. But the leaves are always nice and unbroken. So I was mildly curious and I have finally cracked the mystery today (Sunday). It’s my baby Sonu who apparently is on a quest to find the best leaf or something like that. He is bringing them in once a while (he brought two today) and is bringing one leaf per trip.  He brought in a leaf today while drenching from his head to the tip of his tail. I have to take a photo of his new found fascination.

On Sunday (Jan 28) afternoon I had to go to the fedex shop to get some brochures printed for next week’s church services and also pickup my weekly provisions. Before I left I called the fedex to find out if I can get it printed right away as I need one of the associates to do this for me and the guy assured me that it woud be done right away. But when I went there, apparently right after my phone call, he got a big job so now I have to wait. I was furious. I mean, I bothered to call and find out and stuff and I organized my chores around this. But I was in a pickle and had to wait. So I was in a corner fuming and was waiting, needless to say, somewhat impatiently for my stuff.  Another chap walked in and obviously he also needed to get something printed and the associate goes “sorry I have a big job to finish first and then, do you see that young lady with the cloud on her head, she is next in line”.  I ask you !! if I were literally have a cloud on my head I would probably send a lightening or two in his direction !

Here are a few of the mist photos.

2024 Reading List

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As mentioned, here is my reading list – started off on Birnam Wood and kindle informs me that i have five more hours of reading material 🙂

2024 Reading ListAuthor
1Birnam WoodEleanor Catton
2The Unwomanly Face of WarSvtlana Alexeievich
3The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a HatOliver Sacks
4Psycho CyberneticsMaxwell Maltz
5Who Built the MoonAlan Butler
6The Alchemist (Reread)Paulo Coehlo
7Laws of Human NatureRobert Greene
880 / 20 PrincipleRichard Koch
9Empire IncorporatedPhillip J. Stern
10NehruTripurdaman Singh, Adeel Hussain
11Unaccustomed EarthJhumpa Lahiri
12CompanionsChristina Hesselholdt
13A portrait of the artist as a young manJames Joyce
14AntarcticaClaire Keegan
15Station ElevenEmily St. John Mandel
16At the Existentialist CaféSarah Bakewell
17Say NothingPatrick Radden Keefe
18In Praise of Good BookstoresJeff Deutsch
19The Hatred of PoetryBen Lerner
20IgnoranceMilan Kundera
21The TribeCarlos Manuel Alvarez
22LimberlostRobbie Arnott
23Thinking Fast and SlowDaniel Kanherman
24OutliersMalcolm Gladwell
25SapiensYuval Noah Harari
26The Power of HabitCharles Duhigg
27Crooked Letter, Crooked LetterTom Franklin
28Summer SonsLee Mandelo
29To ParadiseEllen Sandberg
30Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrowGabrielle Zevin
31Two Years’ VacationJules Verne
32Night (Trilogy)Elie Wiesel
33Under a Zambian TreeJoseph Schmitt
34On SuccessCharles T Munger
35The FuryAlex Michaelides
36Project Hail MaryAndy Weir
37BelovedToni Morrison
38Invitation to a BeheadingNabokov
39The God of Small ThingsArundhati Roy
40The StrangerCamus
41Men without WomenErnest Hemingway
42Can’t Hurt MeDavid Goggins
43First Person SingularHaruki Murakami
44The Secret HoursMick Herron
45Vengeance is MineMarie Ndiaye
46All the Sinners BleedS. A. Cosby
47Big SwissJen Beagin
48I’m Still with YouEmmanuel Iduma
49IliadHomer
50The VeganAndrew Lipstein

Ahem, also books from 2023 which i haven’t read

Winter – January Edition

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So we had our full taste of winter, with proper snow and ice and slush. Snow arrived a day earlier than it was predicted, late Monday night (Jan 15) and by Tuesday morning we had snow and later in the day sleet followed. We didn’t particularly have a lot of snow per se, I forget now, but I think it was about 2 to 3 inches but later that day, it turned into sleet / a little bit of freezing rain, so it totally became sheet of ice and as the temps dipped by Tuesday night it was a bit miserable by Wednesday morning.  I worked from home on Tuesday and worked on removing the layers of snow as I know I have to get into work on Wed.

So come Wed morning (Jan 18), I was in my car a half hour earlier than usual to warm up the car because the morning temps were at 9 F and the windchill is probably in -ve something F. There was a big message on my car dash saying “pressure dropped. Add air”. I never added air in my tires and it was like 6:30 a.m. and no one would be open, even if they were to open on time but with the weather we had the previous day, I wasn’t too sure if they would even open on time. So I parked myself in front of a car mechanic place and after an hour later they arrived so I could get air in my tires so I get to work.  The mechanic explained why the air pressure went down and that I could probably have been fine driving but I didn’t particularly want to take a chance as it was bloody cold out with winds. The roads were well maintained thankfully so had no further issues.

As if to have a repetitious theme, we had another round of snow on Friday, so we again went through the motions of dusting off the car, warming it up, etc.

In the meantime, my kids were very miserable, because I won’t let them out, and I kid you not, if I let them, they will go out in the chilly wind, and also low temps. I don’t mind them going out but for the fact that there is snow and the temps are way into single digits even without windchill factoring in and I don’t want the snow thing sticking to their paws and may be between their toes and I don’t want them getting frost bite. But of course, they don’t understand no matter how much I explained.

I let Sonu out on 1/17 and it was the quickest walk he did. He took a couple of steps and backed out. But he ventured a bit more on Friday’s snow but I was scared that he may go down, so I got hold of him and brought him back inside.

Minnou didn’t gave me a lot of trouble as he just tries to open the door to escape. But I learned to lock the doors. Sonu is a first class passive aggressive kitty and eloquently grumpy. See his royal highness in all his glory of being eloquently grumpy. He plants himself in front of me and stares me down and sometimes making his eyes half closed as if he is squinting and if looks could kill !!

I also exchange slow blinks with him when he is in good mood and he loves to give soft bites when he is feeling lovey dovey !!

Temps are supposed to improve this week and we would go into balmy 30s and may even hit 60 come Friday.

Here are a few photos of snow and Sonu.

snow squall sunday

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Super lazy Sunday (1/14) and it’s so cold today, on account there were blustering cold winds. Sunday is usually my ‘go grab the necessary provisions for the week’ day and ‘fill up my car with gas even though it still has half a tank of gas’ day. I’m super paranoid about not having full tank of gas, since I watched the movie “Spoorloos” (The Vanishing) (1988) (Dutch / French). That movie literally gave me nightmares, I kid you not. I would also insist on stopping by every rest stop to top up the gas in the car, on the way to my destination, if I were on a road trip.  

Anyways, I was getting ready to go out to pick up my grocery order and get gas, when I received the emergency notification about the snow squall. It was literally sunny up to that point, but quite windy with gusts up to 30 miles / hour making the temps feel like in their 20s. I ventured out anyway because I know where my car’s AWD button is !! Here are some photos of the fast and furious snow squall.

cat and a cake

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It’s been a while since I got into the mood to write as it has been raining, and raining and raining and apparently been raining. To top it, we had a lot of winds (gusting at apprx 50 miles / hour) so it was not fun at all. Mainly ’cause I park my suv on the street and sure enough, there was a big fat branch which broke off a few meters from my car (1/9 – 1/10). Not fun  !! as I’m writing this (Saturday night 1/13) I can hear the winds again, and also our temps are  tumbling down to below zero for the next few days and they are calling it for snow. Our forecast about snow now-a-days is like we think it’s gonna snow but may be not. So for Monday night / Tuesday they are calling for pretty white cold flakes to fall from sky. Will they ? Won’t they ? Will we get an inch ? may be six inches ? What we know for a fact is we once again have another “it may. It may not” day coming.

 I don’t know if aging is a good thing or a bad thing or it’s just a thing, which we can’t avoid, but I feel like aging really suits me on the inside. Especially now, since the day I met the stranger, who inadvertantly caused a chain reaction in me, and shook me out my cocoon, so to speak. I feel more independent and important, constantly pushing myself and discovering things I wasn’t aware of before. I’m growing into my skin once again, and unfolding my wings, gaining strength, and ready to take flight.

I decided to not pursue the stranger. I’m, however, grateful to him and I do entertain this fictional romantic life with him. It’s like my secret, to have a recurring fantasy about him; with him and probably if I have a mind, I could make it into a soft porn. I figured this too shall pass. Especially if I don’t know him. And I don’t want to know about him for sure, purely because, I don’t want to get crushed.  I’m afraid to find out if he has someone or that he is not all that I made out to be. So this is safe in my opinion. Also he is an american and their idea of romance is, huh, non-existent. And I need thorough romance; like I need to be serenaded, write me poems, and give me fresh flowers every day and tell me sweet nothings. Also he is in accounting and they work with numbers. So basically very emotionless. I have been praying about him though for his health and well being in general.

Here’s my darling sleeping Minnou tucked in a bread basket which was a part of Christmas gift my boss sent. Any shipping containers which I receive, are repurposed for a while, as sleeping boxes for my cats. I throw them out after they get soiled or if someone decides to throw up a hairball on them. Somedays I have multitude of boxes which drive me insane. Minnou recovered a lot from his adventure of getting lost.

I was relaying this story to everyone I know of how he got lost and somehow found his way back. The title I gave to this journal entry is cat and a cake which is quite suitable because of the short story which wrote itself. I previously mentioned that I bought a big fat chocolate mousse cake on 12/30 and lo and behold, on 12/31 the kid returned. So I made a dent into the cake on 12/30 and I didn’t have the necessary sadness to finish the cake because my boy returned and now I have a big fat chocolate mousse cake in my fridge. I tried to bring it to work but no one showed interest and now I’m sure it’s stale and I have yet to throw it out. May be I should freeze it like people do with their wedding cakes as a souvenir of the lost and found cat !!

I haven’t made any resolutions per se, but I did think of living a stress free life. So remove all stress out of my life or as much as possible. I’m trying to make small changes in my lifestyle as I need to shed some pounds which I gained as I was on some steroids (prednisone) which I was stupid enough to take as they are pills and so they are systemic.  But I guess when you are struggling to breathe, things like I will put on weight goes out of the window. Now that I weaned myself off of them, I should be able to shed the weight (fingers and toes crossed) easily enough. To that end, increased water consumption and carving out a regimen. Also having completely destroyed my hair with blow drying, spent a small fortune investing in hair oils, hair masks, bloody expensive shampoos and treatments to nurture my hair to grow back and get the necessary hydration.

And oh ! oh ! oh !! Laboriously made a list of books I want to read this year. I must admit, last year my goal was way way waylaid. It was quite embarrasing really. I listed out about 30 books so far but I want to read at least 50 books. I’ll post the list once I get it done.

I wanna spend more time in the sun and smile more at strangers and stretch my limbs and focus on the details of everyday life and eat more vegetables (work towards becoming a vegan) and nourish my body in every aspect and do things for others just cause i can and  save bugs from being obliterated.

I have been listing out small joys: waking up to the sound of rain, endless hugs from cats, buying myself fresh flowers, discovering new music, pretty sunsets, laughing until my tummy hurts, slow mornings, long showers, random acts of kindness, crawling into bed after a long day, driving with the windows down and singing at the top of my lungs, discovering words for feeling you never knew existed.

I essentially live on tumblr when I’m home; scrolling and looking at videos and photos of cats, or baby animals or any animals really. I need help !

First Snow 2024

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2024 started slowly for me. I’m mentally exhausted the first few days as I’ve been tightly wound-up because of my missing boy Minnou and now that he is back, I’m trying to relax my sadness away and it is quite exhausting. It’s a feeling between relaxation and exhaustion. And on the top of it, I have to get back to work, and I was a bit tense to leave the kitty boy home because he is still not yet fully recovered and not eating a lot. But cats are resilient and they have this zest to live and survive, so I’m kind of ok.

There was much talk about the impending snowstorm forecasted for today (1/6) like the skies are gonna fall off. Whenever there is talk of snow, even like a itty bitty nano-inches worth, the grocery stores are out of everything. I’m pretty sure everything was cleared off the shelves but I haven’t been to the store. Why do people panic so much whenever there is news about snow or heavy rain, and behave like it’s end of times ? Like, please, unless you have small children, you can survive a few days without food. I was slated to go to church today as per usual and I debated if I should or not, but I did go as it’s the first Sabbath of the year and didn’t want to start the year without gratitude, as you know, I have much and many reasons to give thanks, at the top of the list would be for bringing my kitty boy back home.

When I started out it was slightly flurrying which melted before we could say “hey it’s snowing” and after church, I checked the weather and it was like “heavy snow”. I was like, oh I need to be careful when I drive and then I walk out of the sanctuary and NOTHING. I knew that we probably won’t see much, if any, accumulation but I was expecting a “heavy snowfall” to make an appearance. I got home and took photos as an evidence. See what I mean !!  

And it wasn’t even a proper snow. It was snow-sleet, where it starts off as snow but then partially melts and freezes into ice when they enter the warm air like the current circumstances. No self-respecting snow would call all the white stuff on the ground as snow. After sundown, I went out with a broom to clear off the icy slush from the stairs as we use the stairs (my kitty boys and me) and I didn’t want to slip and break something, as I’m sure come morning, my boys want to get out.