Author: mycatisafrenchspy

2023 part deux

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In June of this year, the northeastern US got blasted with acrid wildfire smoke. Like “don’t go outside” levels. The day before the smoke officially made a landfall in my region, I went into the office and the moment I stepped out of my house, my lungs seized up but I had to go in because of a meeting and I ended up having a severe headache and nausea. I didn’t realize it then but later on I was like “oh, that’s the smoke drifting in slowly”. In my lifetime i get to go through pandemic and for a few days hazardous air conditions. Going outside was dangerous. The air was bad and it stank of burnt rubber, the skies were orange and hazy and when I just poked my head out for a second (without mask), my throat got sore and my eyes burned. This was caused by some massive 400+ fires about 500 miles away up in Canada. The Air Quality Index was around 400. My kitty babies glared at me as I had locked them indoors for three or four days depending on the Air Quality. I’m so awed at God’s creation and at the same time we can see God’s protection even when the air we take for granted turns deadly.  Because of pandemic lesson, everyone now a days is equipped with masks and storing food.  I was thinking how God prepared us for this event ahead of time.  

The Summer was super hot and this is too cute not to share. When we started having really super hot summer days in July, I made small tent fort on my fire escape for my cats so they can enjoy the warmth but not get burned by the sun.  So now a days whenever the sun is fully out my kitty boy Sonu (black) demands that I make him a tent fort by meowing his head off !! Look at the little nugget all comfy and stretched out !! And the recent development is both boys are now demanding that I make fort in my apartment, so my bedsheets are hanging around the corners in fort style; and of course, like all the stupid cat moms, I went and bought a couple of covered cat beds which were like teepees, and guess what, no one wanted them.

  1. Cats on leashes so they don’t go wandering off with elves. 2. Minnou catching sun and trying to bloom 3 & 4: Sonu in his makeshift tent fort because he is a little drama queen and he can’t abide by the sun.

We started going back to the office in the middle of September. I felt really sad to go back as leaving my cats alone at home was gut wrenching. I kept thinking of them all the day and couldn’t wait to get back home. The first day, my cats didn’t figure this out, but the next day, Minnu realized that I am leaving again. So in the morning when I got into the car, he came down and sat on the steps crying his eyes out. I climbed down the car and gave him a hug but I had to leave so I drove off; but my heart was so sad, so I turned around came back and took him back into the apartment gave him treats. After that day onwards, I started sneaking out of the apartment so he wouldn’t see me leaving. Somehow, my cats know my coming home time and I am convinced that they know the time I come home and the sound of my car. During evening, both my boy cats wait for me downstairs and when they see me walking up the steps, they greet me with loud meowing and come running to me. It is a joy and I feel so blessed to be loved by these boys.

Today (11/17) was my husband’s birthday. I remember him fondly and I think I can forgive him. But sometimes my anger wells up and I want to scream (at him) for taking his life and wasting his life and potential. I’m trying to wrap my head around this suicide concept but I can never reconcile it in my mind. No matter how sad and how depressed one is and how painful life becomes, just close your eyes and sleep or hum or do something else which works or if you are like me sit and sulk in a bathtub. It’s almost 10 years since he has gone and I am still not over it even though the pain has numbed a bit.

Once in a while I still sometimes catch myself thinking of the old days. The life I used to live, the person I used to be… none of it seems real anymore. Some days I find myself wondering if it was all just a dream; and wondering if I can return there in my sleep if I just go to bed at a reasonable hour… ; and sometimes I think may be I am writing down my life and may be someone is reading me into existence. Sometimes I can’t help but think that maybe I’m better off this way. Maybe all we ever were, was a pleasant dream that went wrong and turned into a nightmare – I spend most nights staring at the ceiling, wondering if I’m ever going to sleep (or wake up).

Hello ? Hello ?

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

It’s 2023 !! to be precise, it’s November 16, 2023. So i’m back. And hopefully i will continue to write. It sucks not being to write but as per usual life happened as it always does to everyone of us. I had to vacate the house i was living in 2022 because my landlord wanted to sell and i had to hurriedly look for a place, but it was hard as the rents were going up and so the apartments were gone even before i went to check it out. I finally found a place but it was a tiny studio but i took it because i didn’t want to spend time looking and feared that if i dawdle, this would go away as well. I moved in with six of my kitties having lost the rest of my babies between 2022 and the time i moved. Since then, i lost three more. So now i have one senior kitty (bleu) and two young boys (minnu and sonu). i will post photos of the kids soo

My apartment is immensely small even for a studio and i am swimming in my clothes. I brought all my clothes to this tiny room hoping that i will weed out the unnecessary ones and keep the necessary ones. That didn’t quite happen. On the top of it, i am buying more clothes. i live on 4th floor and this house doesn’t have an elevator as the house was built in 1850s and it’s a beautiful house. i have a fire escape next to my alice in wonderland type window. the window opens on to the ledge of fire escape where i put some plant pots. during nice days i sat on the stairs reading books as i can’t keep going up and down due to my asthma.

However, i am letting my two young boy cats go and roam out as i felt sorry for the kids. I mean, we always lived in a very big house and to transition into this small studio, i myself got really claustrophobic for a couple of weeks, and i can only imagine the little ones, full of energy has no place to move or run. When we first moved in, i put them on leash and did bring them to our yard and walked them. Soon it became a problem for me, as my allergies set in and my asthma kicked in. So i let them go to wander and crossed my fingers and said a silent prayer to God to protect them. But these two kids are really good and taught themselves to watch out for the traffic and i am not sure how far they go, but they are happily wandering. I am keeping their vaccines updated just in case. The window is now open irrespective of the temps and they go out first thing in the morning around 5 am and go in and out all the times , coming in to eat and if the weather is too hot or cold, just sleep and go out again during evening. They adjusted to this life and i am happy to report they come in when i call / whistle so i know for sure they are always hanging about the house even if i can’t see them. They keep bringing me presents, baby rabbits, birds, baby birds, moles or garden mouse; and to my dismay they bring them alive with no scratches or bites. While i am happy they are not killing these critter, my problem now is, i have to hurriedly put on my pants and bring these animals / birds back into the garden to release as i don’t want to keep them and thus keep going up and down the stairs which i desperately wanted to avoid.

The year itself didn’t start off right for me; this house is multi family which means the house was divided into independent apartments and so apart from me there are 7 more apartments and most of them are single with three couples. one of the single guy who lived on the ground floor od’d on some drugs and passed away. We didn’t know this for two or three days and it was really sad because there was a dog in the house and he barked his head off. Finally he was found and for a while there, it was really hard to stay in the house. I was especially ticked off as i just moved in and i spent so much money for moving etc and i am like, i would like to move but i have no money to spend again for moving. But as it usually happens, we slowly recovered from that incident. and the apartment is now occupied again.

We started going back to the office for work and we are still getting used to it. I think i will say good night for now and will catch you up tomorrow.

Good night all you lovely internet people !!

Et Bonne Année 2022

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I have been meaning to post this blog since 2021 but then got distracted, side tracked and also not to mention it’s so hard to type with a broken keyboard.  I have now 5 laptops with broken keyboards and this is because of my cats who jump on them or deliberately walk on them with no regard to someone else’s personal property.  I so love them all the same.  Anyhoo, here I’m typing on my mobile phone.

Terrible years really make you understand the point of a new year. I don’t think nothing much will have changed between December 31 and January 1.  But there is a need to partition off everything that’s happened to us, and take a moment to say ‘that’s done, I’m done with it, it’s over’ and have a little hope that the future will be different. Take a little breath and sing, in the middle of the winter and prepare for spring. 

Personal update: we are still in Pandemic but I’ve never been happier. Mind you, in 2021 April-May time I lost a lot of my cousins to Covid and it was brutal. But as I believe in God (Christ) vehemently, He took this and helped me to become stronger and bolder. I’ve had gloom surrounding me since my husband’s death in 2014, so this came as a relief. I have to thank God and as we reflect 2020 and 2021, we must look at the ways God has been with us and blessed us.  As those years wound down and we look to the new year, and recount God’s wonderful deeds. 

Currently I’m broke financially speaking, what with my cats’ medical needs and and my expensive plant collection and other investments.  But I’m thinking, hopefully by the end of this year I should stabilize i.e. if I don’t go and buy more unicorn plants (I may have to sell my kidneys !!)

I’ve been watching a lot of shows, documentaries, as you all as well I’m sure, most of them are in French, German or Swedish. I recently watched Apple Tree Yard (British) and The Wall (German) and man, I was traumatized!! I was physically sick after watching them and this maybe because I wasn’t expecting the story to twist that way or whatever, and so it felt like someone punched me in my gut. I had to break off of watching the shows for a week or so and get well & went back to finish watching them.  

Sadly the very lovely boy Gaspard Ulliel, French actor, passed away and my heart ached a lot !! 

And keeping in with the same subject of films snd TV programs, and actors, a Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt took my breath away. There are many beautiful people but this guy is stunning. Like you serious would fall for him immediately. In general, I don’t like blonde men, or very pale skinned, or high cheekboned, etc but though he has all those, he is someone from my fantasies. Maybe he just has that fantastic combination of seductive smile, bad boy swagger and good looks !! Too bad he has a girlfriend  or a wife !! lol 

The show “the Expanse” came to an abrupt end and I scratched my head !! I’m like What the F ?! I must say that’s one perfect show where the story, the actors and the scenes just mesh !! I vented to my colleague at work as he and I share this love for sci-fi stuff and also stargazing !! We decided we may have to buy the books and read the ending. 

I’m immensely pleased that my patriots have a good future as Mac Jones joined the team !! As I predicted Buccaneers are out which makes me happy as I consider Tom Brady a traitor for leaving the team !! At this point I don’t care who wins but I think I’m rooting for Bills or San Fran 49ers.  

Warriors are doing very well and hopefully they continue to do well and not be out with injuries and they need to get the NBA championship so yours truly can smile her most seductive smile !! 
Also, honestly sometimes it’s annoying when one speaks two or three languages (like me) and when you type fast you hit that globe button accidentally and you type something which is nonsensical and you realize that after sending it !! 

Winter is full on and though not snowing that much, it’s bitterly cold. I wake up on these mornings, watching blades of sun light on my indoor plants, sipping orange juice  while I wait for the bread to pop out of the toaster and coffee to brew. I read somewhere a while ago that we waste most of our time while waiting, in expectation, in not-doing something. Like at a checkout line or at a traffic stop. I have my buttered toast and sunlight; kitties & me in my warm flannel nightie, look out of the French doors (windows ??) with content and in silence watching the birds fly in to eat their breakfast. The rats also come to eat the bird seed I put out for the birds and I swear they plumped up !!  I haven’t figured out how to leave water to these creatures as the water keeps freezing. For now I’ll cherish all these memories lest they fade.

“Le silence est le lieu privilégié de l’émotion. Avant de parler, pendant les quelques secondes où on réfléchit à ce qu’on va dire, c’est peut-être là qu’on montre une partie de son âme. 
Silence is the privileged place of emotion. Before speaking, during the few seconds when we think about what we are going to say, it is perhaps there that we show a part of our soul.” – Gaspard Ulliel, French actor (1984 – 2022)

french immersion

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

oh well, better late than never so happy new year. i really don’t like to wish happy new year because, well what the fuck do we know what this year is going to bring ?!  instead i think we should wish, i’m glad you survived another year or something similar. i tried to write something for the end of the year and then got busy and then i tried to write in the first week of january and things happened.

in spite of the bleakness of living during the times of pandemic, where the end to the “stay at home” is no where in sight, year 2020 is good to me. i have accomplished so many personal goals, learned a lot and i grew a lot.

to be honest, i don’t want to venture going out into the world anytime soon except to the grocery store, etc. not planning to take vaccine either as honestly i don’t think corona virus can have an effective vaccine as it is a single stranded rna virus which can mutate from person to person. not to mention once you are infected, it can hibernate & come back when your immunity is low. so i get massive panic attacks whenever i have to go food shopping.

my baby cuttings which i bought by selling a kidney and other vital organs, are thriving. i have become very philosophical in case they don’t make it and waited with bated breath, till they showed some activity as these little guys are very very slow growers. they are still not out of the woods, but showing significant signs that they are waking up; and happily resting on nice live sphagnum moss beds, in humidity chambers and on heat mats. oh, they only take bottled water.  i still have a few more unicorn plants i want to own, i need to wait for a bit to let my organs to grow back.

recently i have been watching a bunch of french shows in an effort to improve my french. i shamelessly admit that i understood nothing. it’s not the same way with reading french as i can read and probably write better in french. native french speakers don’t speak french the way i learned and so i have to watch these shows with english subtitles on as not having subtitles found myself yelling at the tv screen, “plus lentement” (more slowly – wanting them to speak slowly).  and when i understood a few phrases and sentences i was elated. i wish they also give french subtitles so i can read in french as well. here is a review of few shows.

i subscribed to a channel with lots of french shows (mhz). watching foreign language shows from various countries taught me a lot. like people are shit and behave the same way no matter where they hail from. parents do the same guilt trip on the children which i thought was unique to indian parents and boy was i wrong. most people think that other countries like sweden, norway don’t have crime and no poor people, with better national health insurance and to those people i would say go watch some of the tv shows from those countries.

i particularly got addicted to some french dramas and of course, murder mysteries. there is this one great drama show called spiral and alas, i found out that they are on the final season. another show to watch is “murder in……. ”, where the stories in the episodes are a bit weak, but as these episodes feature various awesome french countryside towns, sleepy, fishing little villages, and i think some bordering spain. i love the landscape and the tiny towns and i keep asking myself would i be bored if i live in these tiny villages. sometimes i want quit my job and move across the world and live in these little villages. (i originally wrote “the perfect murder” but that’s another french murder mystery which i have started to watch. also liked “magellan”).

and another drama show is “a french village”. i didn’t watch it a long time because it is about a village in france during german occupation and the politics, the life, the french resistance, etc. i am very much done with all these nazi stories because honestly it makes me depressed to realize that such evil exists in people. but i started watching because a couple of actors from “spiral” were in this show and i am really glad that i watched it. it made me realize how fortunate i am to live in relatively war free zone, with lots of hot chocolate to drink and with good food / water and don’t have to make hard decisions. and i learnt a lot about the nazi occupation, french resistance, communism, hated a character in one episode and i loved that character in another episode and even the nazi people because we tend to forget that they were people as well. i was a hot mess while watching this show and i kept forgetting that i live \in 2021 and not in 1940s. if you get a chance, you must watch it. also, i drew parallels to the show ’allo, ’allo which is in fact very light hearted britcom.

i started penning my dreams because i don’t usually dream a lot but when i do, it is the weirdest shit. freud said that dreams are about subconcious’ unresolved issues and i don’t think it’s true in my case, and so i think my subconscious is really fucking clever in making up these stories and if i could, i would ship a typewriter to it.

another storm is about to visit us and i’m preparing for it stocking up with the necessities. planning to grab a few meals from outback steak house, like some soups, and appetizers (blooming onions yumm) so i can ride out the snow/rain storm. also i have bought some bird see to feed the birds outside as it is cold and not sure if they get any food. for tonight’s dinner i’m thinking of oatmeal or french fries.

it’s the end of january…. we turn another page on winter and let minds wander towards spring… whoa, whoa, whoa… what am i saying ?  we still have february to get through and yea, there’s valentine’s day but all the chocolate in the world or me dancing to the rite of spring won’t make it spring till april. so let’s dream a few more months. listen to the birds sing songs and enjoy the sun… we know spring is around the corner all we have to do is wait.

action de grâce 2020

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so autumn came speaking in the language of colors and i have been away for a while lost in the wonderful world of plants. and with the winter comes loss to make the way for new beginnings. the necessary seemingly never endless grey haze before you fall asleep. where dream and wake is knitted together with fine wool. to keep you warm. to keep you unsure.

days have been consumed with lots of good things, great things and sad things. but here i am, to report on my wee life.

it’s almost end of november, thanksgiving is around the corner and the smell of burning wood in fire places is in the air. mornings are wonderfully fog filled and what can i say, i’m content and blissful.

i’ve lost another kitty sadly and at the same time i ‘m happy to say he had a long and carefree life and he didn’t give any indication that anything was wrong at all. alas, this is the truth about animals as they mask their sickness.  i named this kitty after my human child. we carry little burdens in our hearts. a small funeral procession is carried out with every loss. a funeral that ignites on its own. a sadness that rises like the embers of winter firewood. a past self, the size of our fist. a heart swollen up inside our rib cage. a word so heavy it has no name. something so full that it feels empty. a hollow carcass that beats with our name. and a taste so fickle it fades before the feelings are swallowed. a smell so sublime, it vanishes before sleep arrives. a death so vivid, it blurs all the innocence left behind. a price so huge it takes all goodness to recover. and sooner or later these little flying flickers of daily routine, turn into huge weights over our shoulders. we look down and walk more humbly. we smile quietly and pick words with care. we say goodbyes with a delicate caress and hello with warm embrace. we live life all the time wondering what if ? and price of life that doesn’t exist.

couple of weeks prior to his passing, i took another kitty to the vet on an emergency visit. here i have to say that i really like my new vets even though they are super busy for my liking and it’s hard to get a regular appointment. i observed that snuggles was breathing funny and so off i took him to the vet. what i didn’t realize was that emergency appointment means the vet would take a look at him between the regularly scheduled appointments and so the kid was sitting by himself in an examination room while i was sitting outside in the car and i think he totally freaked out. and i finally got him home around 4:30 pm on a saturday and i returned to him to give him some food when i saw him flopping on the floor turning blue and trying to catch his breath. i called the vet and after realizing i was unable to help him and i am not going to bring him to a vet in that condition, i said a little prayer and waited on him to die. as he was trying to throw up, i opened his mouth and removed the sticky mucous from his mouth and throat and i think it helped him a bit as he was no longer blue but still lying on the floor. i kept stroking him a bit and read to him psalm 121.  after a few hours he seemed to recover but only the second episode started around 10 pm and i was pretty sure he would die. i mean, to see this kitty in so much pain and my inability to help, is too much for me. at one point i actually wanted to break his neck so as to give him a quick death but i didn’t have balls. so i secluded the kid in another room, in all honesty thinking that he will die, said another prayer, chanted psalm 121 and left him in the room. an hour later i went back to see if he died, and to my surprise the kid was sitting up and i bawled. i quickly gave him his medications and shoved some food into him as i thought if he died at least i did my best. i was up all night and went back every couple of hours to see how he was faring and also to feed him couple of mouthfuls of food. i left him some water, some food and also a litter box. and on sunday at around 8 am i went to give him his pills and also some food but when i opened the door, the kid dashed out of the room made a bee line to the litter box they usually use and had a good pee. he was a bit unsteady on his feet but he surprised me a lot. by sunday evening, he was behaving as if nothing happened while i was dozing in and out of sleep with an eye on him. my kids surprise me to bits. now a days i am bit worried that they are super comfortable with me being home a lot and so i think they may get separation anxiety when i go back to office.

speaking of office, i am thinking of asking my boss that i want to make my job work from home and i kinda hinted at it. i seriously have almost couple of hours of commute each way and as i have no intention of taking public transportation due to covid in any foreseeable future. i probably have to look for another job in case my job doesn’t become work from home deal.

as i reported previously, i have started gathering plants in an effort to duplicate my mother’s garden…  i have a few more plants to go to complete the list. i have other plants like orchids, as well and i am steadily collecting them. but most recently i started collecting rare (and thus expensive) plants and when i say plants, they are cuttings and seedlings. all these cutting and seedlings are costing me a lot of dollars to be honest and i have been eagerly waiting for tax refund so i can splurge on a rare plant cutting which is costing me an arm and half a leg ! i think i will also buy some more orchids to add to my orchid collection.  i have watering schedules for all my plants as i get exhausted watering them all in a day, and i have different day schedules for them.

so i can safely say my portfolio now involves some equity in goddamn expensive plants. and also as these plants are toxic to animals i have make shift terrariums and mini glass greenhouses.  i have joined rare plant groups and learning a lot on these projects. people are so knowledgeable and kind. the most expensive cutting which i purchased so far was $2500 and yes there are plants much more expensive than these…

i have been incredibly happy with my projects and how i’m diversifying my mental portfolio.

read a lot less books than i wanted to as now a days i have less time and also as i started to watch a lot more television episodes so i can polish my french and spanish languages. the important french phrase i learned was “je m’en bats les couilles” which literally means ‘i beat my nuts about it’ which is obviously a bit vulgar and so “i don’t give a flying fuck or no fucks given” would serve the same purpose.

we are heading into another lockdown / quarantine. i started to think of good days and social interactions as to food- for example the other day i said that the last good day before lockdown has last me for three weeks (mentally and emotionally) and the social reunion with my friends on thursday will last me another three i think. you know what i mean ? it’s like okay i had something very good that i can think of for the next few weeks and be happy. taking care of yourself is very important and i will go get my flu shot this week as i’m off work. i probably will cook an elaborate meal and stuff myself while watching some favorite shows. (i have been lazy and wasn’t cooking and have been living on nothing but coffee, brioche, cheetos and diet soda)

the choice is always ours. the pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. ~ william arthur ward

happy thanks giving !!

week 16 – shelter in place

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sitting on the kitchen counter, eating salted caramel ice cream (vegan of course) and listening to bach. i call that self-care

it’s been a while since i got to blog. my brain was taking notes but i didn’t get a chance to actually put them somewhere tangible. so life is going by with no ripples of any kind and i settled into a new pattern and enjoying life in its full glory.

of course life as such isn’t devoid of unpleasant stuff or anxieties but i have overcome them. i had to take care of two sick kitties, and one of them was zz, who was severely dehydrated. i wasn’t paying attention to his condition as i was told by my other vet that he has a chronic prob (or so i was told) where he regularly has coughing fits which ends up in him throwing up and nothing to worry about. oh well, i thought, as he was eating well and so apart from having to see him coughing so violently and feeling sorry that i couldn’t help him, i wasn’t paying attention. i give some milk to another one of my kitties for reasons and z boy helped himself to some of the milk as well. on top of this, i recently got my kids another variety of fancy feast dry food as their regular food isn’t available. all these ended up with him having diarrhea and as he already has his usual vomiting probs, the wee kid ended up with dehydration by the time i noticed. so i took him to the vet and got him some fluids but as he was severely dehydrated, i had to take him to get fluids every day for a whole week. and in the meantime, his appetite wasn’t great and so i had to feed him every couple of hours, a few bites each time so he wouldn’t throw up. and this whole thing got me so exhausted. my current vet told me that she would like to come back as kitty in my house in her next life lol.

and now z boy is a happy kitty, and after he got better, wouldn’t leave my side which makes me tear-up.

every day, early morning and evening hours my two boys (minnu and sonu) and i go out into our backyard, and while they contemplate on life and stuff in the great outdoors, i read books or garden.

i have become nostalgic for my home back in india and so i am recreating the garden of my parents home or i should say my mother’s garden. so i bought all these plants which we had and i am brimming with joy with anticipation of seeing my plants bloom as these are still seedlings. as these are tropical plants, i have to plant them in pots so i can move them indoors when it’s winter.

the other great endeavor i have taken upon is ‘orchids’ !! i want to have a green house at some point in my life and i thought of waiting till i buy my dream house which is currently eluding me, but i realized that time is going by so fast and i should do things i love now rather than wait. so i got myself some orchids, no greenhouse yet, and my time is now consumed in taking care of these guys along with my cats. but man, tho i love all plants, i am partial to orchids.

my garden is growing and my wild flowers started blooming and attracting the butterflies and i am pleased. i want more flowers but as i planted them late i shouldn’t blame them. on the whole my plants and my cats are making me incredibly happy.

alas the boy and i called it quits (or a pause) as it is pointless for me to drag him along as i have no intention of settling down with him. we are still friends (and may be with benefits) but i am cooling it a bit as not having sex doesn’t kill anyone.

i started re-reading adventures of tintin. and just for kicks, i also started rewatching movies my husband and i watched the cube movies, the english patient, session 9, etc. speaking of movies, i finally watched “sophie’s choice” as i always heard people use that phrase and they explained to me what it meant and now that i actually watched it,  i think people use “it’s like sophie’s choice” incorrectly. it actually means:

your children have died and your only choice left is death / suicide because you have no way out from your past, your pain, or the future. 

it doesn’t mean:

making a difficult choice or being unable to choose;  or going along blindly with the crowd or signing up for something you were reluctant about

on a side note, i know human race is evil and i just can’t grasp how anyone can harm someone else on purpose much less kill them and appalls me when little boys kill insects in particularly torturous ways. and so i can never understand how someone can kill small kids no matter what they thought like genocide, or wiping out a line so they don’t comeback for revenge. i keep thinking that such people, when they stand before god, how are they going to justify their actions and if anyone so much as say something like “god in the old testament was a very wrathful god and they did the same things”, i will slap you for your ignorance because god doesn’t change and he is full of love and merciful.

it also made me think about the #metoo movement which is a farce in itself because it was more about hating men than about being a woman which is sad. i keep thinking of the pivotal scene in sophie’s choice where she picks her son to keep over her daughter when forced to choose between them. i’ve noticed that a lot of women will often side with men and boys over their own gender. not always, but many times they will; far more often, it seems, than men will side with women over other men. i don’t think it’s an american thing, or a western thing, but i think it’s a human thing. even in children, boys are favored than girls. and a woman would go through the pains of pregnancy a hundred times to conceive a boy, like he will save her ! i don’t know if it’s cultural conditioning, or some kind of mass stockholm syndrome, or hormones, or something woven into our dna, or what; but it just seems when the chips are down and they have to choose, many women are more likely to side with men to the exclusion of other women, while men are more likely to stick together at the exclusion of women. hopefully this is less common than it seems, and if not, i sure hope it is fading away from our species.

stick together ladies. many of my fellow males will do whatever they can to keep women second class citizens with less wealth, less power, less say, than men have. if you divide yourselves for their favor, they will always have an unfair upper hand. and of course, as always there are exceptions to the rule and there are a few good men and my husband & my lovers included in that roll call and the rest of them are bastards.

now it’s quiet as we hush through glaring summer days as tho it’s winter and full of broken mirrors. silence is numbing down our brains. as i blink, looking into your tired eyes it’s all white around here, like it’s all snow and fairy dust, all collar bones and angles and angels and cotton

in the subtle changes over time, of a love that ebbs and flows, with wild flowers intertwined. i am trying to capture natures beauty through lens, or with cathartic writing. a kaleidoscope of alluring hues reflecting in droplets of morning dew. i can’t keep my eyes open in the glare of the summer light. remember how it used to be when it was warm enough for rain ? the rain washed away today’s scorching summer, to introduce a fragranced cool air in a delicate way. i am nostalgic for mangoes and lychees. but there’s not a soul in this lonely maze of void and emptiness – quiet, dear, for this must be the end of the world again but as someone said (campbell ?) the goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.

week 11 – shelter in place

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

encouraged by the new app i got, as i wanted to do a sugar detox (kill me now please), i tried some new recipes and i quickly found myself hopelessly lost in a wonderland of bad decisions.

i got this app to track my macro-nutrients as i always consume less than what i need in a day not because i was dieting but because i am by nature lazy to eat and so i end up eating nutritionally imbalanced food. as we are staying home i thought i would improve my eating habits by tracking my food intake and believe it or not i was not only undereating calorically speaking, but am horribly imbalanced in my consumption of macros, over consuming carbs (well i eat a lot of rice), less protein and just the right amount of fats. my caloric intake is still less but the nutrient balance has improved considerably and also my water intake.

the bitch app always gives me a blue :/ (speechless emoji) as i am either under caloric or not enough balance, nutritionally speaking. interestingly, i find that getting up to the required 600 calories for lunch or dinner is very hard and i mean, i eat the same amount which i used to (now kind of balanced) and it’s like 200 calories. what the actual fuck ! and to top it, the protein content is no where near and i can only eat so many eggs in a day. so i started making protein jellies (20 cals / jelly) still less but i can either eat as snack or put them in breakfast bowls.

on sunday my neighborhood did an organized protest regarding the death of george floyd and i, as usual, missed it (i later saw the note my neighbors stuck in my screen door informing me of the protest and to come by). actually i also missed the whole thing about his death on account i stopped watching news a while ago, as now a days the news were about covid19 and how everyone is dealing with it in their own stupid way, and yours truly gets really bored with cheesy emotions humans portray… i am not sorry about missing out on the news of his death but i am sorry that he had to die unnecessarily and how stupid this whole racism is and people have no sense and mind you, i won’t take sides on this shit because americans (and probably the whole goddamn world) are goddamn racists, whites and blacks and the others (indians, chinese, etc). what irritates me the most is that they pretend that they are not racists and that they are ok but their actions speak the loudest. i think racism stems from selfishness and it is based on not being cultured or educated enough. i am not talking about degrees, i am talking about reading and obtaining knowledge and expanding ones horizons and not having the same amoeba brain one is born with. anyway, for some reason, i went by my window and i saw a police car and i thought it was weird and may be it was by mistake  (because the other day there was a fire episode and the fire engines came into my neighborhood with all the sounds and bells and whistles, disturbing our precious naps, and it was a mistake and our neighbors have to reroute them to the correct location). and lo, i saw my a few of my neighbors taking a knee and some standing with posters and i wondered, ‘couldn’t you have gone on to the road (route 100) is just a few yards away’ and my kitty boy pepper, who was lounging on the sill looked at me with questioning eyes as if to say “what the hell is this and who disturbs my nap’ and i answered ‘i got no clue’.

and then this happened. the other day the temps went up to 80ish and all the young girls in the neighborhood stripped down to their undies and played with water. i watched them interestingly and considered our cultural differences and how my parents would have beaten us to a pulp if we went outdoors in our petticoats.  the nextdoor neighbor (a divorced woman with a girl) had some people come by (are we done with quarantine now ?) and the girls were playing with water and i was upstairs and looked into their yard and then i noticed that the girls had something like a dildo in their hands, which they fill with water and squirt (?). i was horrified and my brain said no this can’t be true and i observed closely and almost got my binoculars out, when i realized that they were actually toy crayons – large, dildo look alike crayons. i cracked myself up and told myself that i have a dirty mind.

it’s late and i have to prepare the ingredients for tomorrows meals; thinking of making green protein smoothie for brekkie, mixed vegetable omelette for lunch, stuffed tomatoes for dinner and very importantly mixed berry compote for dessert.  it’s going to be a good day !!

week 10 – shelter in place

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

summer is here and with it comes delicious fruit and exciting reads straight from my book collections. my cats and i love afternoons in the sunshade, full of cool cherries and a nice glass of cold lemonades for me.

it’s been full three weeks since i blogged, if i were not mistaken as i became a bit bored and super busy. the highlights included one of my friends emailing me out of the blue. apparently his son asked him who is your oldest friend and he remembered me ! mallick was my neighbor and a very dear childhood friend. he motivated me to excel in studies and come to the us. during our summer holidays, while all the kids were playing outside, he and i would be preparing to the next year as he was one year senior to me and he would give me his notes, text books, and so by the time school reopened for the next year, i am done with homeworks in all subjects and i know everything which needs to know. good goddamn times !

i have kind of slacked off blogging as i was otherwise occupied. i’m friends with my colleagues in it (info tech)  and we were chatting about what shows to watch and one guy convinced me i should watch a couple of shows on hbo, so i subscribed to that channel as well. i think once my cable service contract is up, i am going to downgrade to internet only. anyway, hbo came with full series of game of thrones and i never got into that show as i wanted to first read the books. but as the shows are there, i started reading the books and started watching the shows. i thought the first four seasons are great as they closely followed the books and the later seasons were quite stupid. i also realized why the show was popular as there is so much of fucking and tits and cunts galore. the boy and i thought we would rather have the books made into video games as it could be like a strategy game with lots of killing.

the other important thing which happened and kept me busy was, i have taken up working on a research project for nasa as my friend recruited me. so now i’m working on two projects apart from my regular work. here i must pause and thank god, that i get paid a lot, i mean a lot, at my current full time position for doing nothing. and i don’t feel badly about this as i used to beg for more projects at work. so here i’m getting paid a lot, for doing almost a couple of hours of work per week. and this is perfect opportunity for me for diversifying my portfolio during these times.

i have worked on my garden and planted all my darling bulbs. my babies are increasingly clingy to me to the point if i am leave the room they follow me around. i, on the other hand, became quite comfortable ordering things online and wearing masks when going out. the one thing which i have to take care of and i haven’t found a good solution yet is taking my cars for inspection as that would involve me staying there during the inspection which could last hours. i used to drop the car off and get a ride back home but with our current situation i am not planning to get into someone else’s car.

i’ve been watching “the adulterer”, a dutch show (walter presents) and this lady who returns home from prison says, “it’s the smell that i missed” which got me thinking.  it is true isn’t it ? how do i say “the smell of the people you love is something you know innately & is deeply comforting & while i’ll never know my own smell (and i am quite positive, i smell like cats) i hope that it’s nice & learning someone’s smell means that you just … know it for like, ever, even if you can’t clearly articulate what it is actually like” without sounding like a huge creep, like jean-baptiste grenouille (peter suskind’s book the perfume)

but i think when you love somebody you learn to recognize their smell, and this smell makes you happy. because you relate to them. it reminds me how i’d give my cats my clothes when they are to spend a night or two at the vet hospital so that they can hold onto because they learned to love that smell. i think there’s nothing creepy about the visceral sense of known and safe and loved that comes from the smell of home.

like i loved my parents and the time we would spend together in our home in india. with the iron gate which made the teensy squeak when opened or the slight catch of my front door that much more appealing, the comfort of familiarity wafting out to greet me, and i realized i recognized it.

yes, but at the same time, it can be tragic too. when they finally decide to leave you behind, their smell lingers behind them along with your memories of them, only making you miss them more. you smell someone similar and turn around hoping its them, but its not. the place you know that they used to be, their smell slowly dissipates from there and when it’s finally gone, you know they are too. a scent can be like a ghost.

i am a work in progress and i am ok with it. my sciatic nerve started calming down and the pain is bearable. i will soon start some heavy duty workout challenges to control the ever expanding tummy.

evenings now a days are blissful and my twin boys and i go out to enjoy the evening fresh air and watch the world go by. the more i let nature in, the more i indulge it, give it time, sit amongst the nature, be the silent observer, the more i connect with it, almost at a spiritual level. like i could sit here on the grass floor of my backyard and it would grow over me, the brambles intertwining between my legs, the birds nestling in my hair. it all just feels incredibly peaceful, to be one with everything, feel everything, not to think, not to worry or question, just to nurture the life around me.

i strive so much for happiness, tranquility, for paradise in my life, but what if i were already there ? what if i have already walked far beyond the pearly gates and have just forgotten what came before. and would that change everything ? if god stood in front of me and said ‘hey there, you’re here, you made it, have fun !’ would i do things a little differently ? so as i lie on the grass in the cool part of the evening here, with nothing more than my cats, the sun and the birds and the greenfly walking over my skin, i ask myself, is hell just a place that i create because i feel like i don’t belong ?

i feel like a preacher and this feels like a sermon. i feel guided by higher presence, and right now, in this moment, i feel a little peace.

week 7- shelter in place

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

schrodinger virus

this cartoon just about sums up our existence ! another blissful week of solitude, sex and lots of cursing.

this week’s accomplishments included in actually finding a carton of toilet paper, yay me ! i didn’t actually needed it but while i was doing my biweekly supply run and stocking up on coffee and as it was there, it was perfect.

oh i had to bring my kitty to a nearby vet (my actual vet is about an hour away) for an ear infection and this was so weird as we are doing our social distancing; when i arrived at the hospital i called them, and the tech came out and took the baby in (and poor kid he was crying) and the doctor, called me on phone and put me on speaker while examining him, and i was explaining the symptoms etc and we ended the call with “hopefully we will see each other soon”. i paid for the services with a credit card from the parking lot. so much fun ! they may become my primary vet for my kids.

the boy finally got his steaks (both beef and salmon); i prepared and cooked him a steak on stove top in a pan as i don’t usually use oven a lot. usually i marinate the steak at least a day in indian spices and the boy loved it ! this week, i also gave in and had a tuna salad sandwich which was quite strange for me to eat but i was sick of eating the same veggies all the time and also sick of eggs and also the tuna salad has more mayo than tuna i think. i make extremely good and tasty tuna salad sandwiches, truly the ideal quarantine food packed with protein and pickles and a bunch of secret spices, and my boy will never know what he’s missing because he is an insane person who refuses to eat anything that is even remotely mayonnaise adjacent.

also i am thinking probably by the end of the quarantine i would be approx. 400 lbs and round because of all the prednisone and it is all my cunning plan to save money on transit expenses as the rounder i get, all i need to do is roll myself to the office !

i also watched “into the night” (belgian tv series) and i thought it was really a well thought sci-fi show. while we have our own problems with the sars -cov2, the earth is benefiting the most what with the air pollution decreasing and ozone layer is actually resealing ! in a way this virus helped humans but what with humans are the stupidest species on the planet, this gain is short lived.

boy and i are planning to watch eta aquariids meteor showers in the coming days and hopefully the skygods will be benevolent and we will have clear skies. for this we have to get up around 3 a.m. and i think it is going to be fun as now a days my circadian rhythm is fucked, and i am sleeping around 2 a.m. and getting up around 7 a.m.

they say love is shared oranges, like fingers stained with nectarine juice and sticky kisses. they say love is laughter and sunshine and the summer sun caressing your face and gentle breeze blowing your hair.

but my love has never been quite that pure. my love is a little bit more like bloody lips and feral smiles and love bites. like if someone who can finally match my darkness. my love is a wild thing, like thunder and tornadoes, like drenching in the rain, soaked to the bone. love is kisses that taste like lightning.

there are divine things more beautiful than we can even imagine.

week 6 – shelter in place

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

i used to start an email with “hello” or “hi” but now a days it’s “i hope your family and you are well” and clearly i feel a bit hypocritical as obviously i don’t give that many fucks if they are well or not and also obviously i would have heard about it if they aren’t. yours truly is slowly turning into a lazy, slow bean with crusted crankiness and i have feeling that i may also be morphing into a cat.

speaking of cats, you know how parents buy same thing for all their kids as they think that the kids would fight ? i have realized that i’m doing the same but not one each for my kitties but one for them and one for me as my kids emulate me in every thing. like seriously every thing ! if i get myself a bowl of cereal, they want the same, so i am a bit hesitant to give them almond milk, so i get them a bowl of cereal (a few flakes) with half & half; and they want my ipad when i want to read, so then can play, and now i have two ipads (don’t ask)… a pillow for me and a pillow for them as they would like to sleep on the pillow ! well you get the picture.

i’ve been observing my kitties a lot, and the way they eat their meal; so much class ! they take delicate, tiny mouthfuls, eyes half closed in savoring the pleasure of the moment, and pausing to make sure their faces and mouths are clean between the mouthfuls, and cleaning around their mouths with a little toss of their heads, and then once finished, they try to bury the food….. they are kind to each other and grooming each other with such tenderness. obviously, they also have moments, when they try and swipe at each other.

i’m seriously running out of projects to do as it’s still cold to put my plants out and plant the bulbs. i have been cooking and experimenting with various stuff for example, i made tortilla española, the other day and as i have no cheddar cheese i put brie and not a good combination i assure you. the boy ordered some steaks online (omaha steaks) thinking he will get them immediately and his face, lmao, was so funny when he found out that the delivery date is may 1. serves him right for eating the flesh of an animal.

i recently started watching “the expanse” after trying to not watch it for a long time as it’s more political than i would like in sci-fi stories as i would like shows which explore alien worlds and come in contact with aliens instead of trying to not wage wars with your species who colonized in other worlds. but i must say, it is gripping to an extent and didn’t bore me a lot. i especially liked the usage of “donkey balls” as one of the code words for martian black ops. lol also crushing on the outfits of chrisjen avesarala though, gosh, hate her grating voice.

and the boy has been watching i, claudius and despite my best efforts not to educate myself or enrich my life in any way, i find the show hard to ignore, and i’ve even been accidentally enjoying it sometimes, mostly because it has brian blessed featured extremely prominently, acting the way brian blessed always acts, and i mean, one cannot simply look away from brian blessed

we all like to complain about this quarantine but for some people, these times are much more difficult to manage. tonight, we think of them.

there are so many small things to be grateful for – aliveness, safety, people we love -our days are being spent reading, sitting on the threshold of the french doors in the sun, drinking coffee and playing as much music as we can. we sing and dance and go for walks and open our windows and lie in bed listening to the birds.

in the evenings we sometimes call our friends and families to say hello. boy kept some of the notes which i gave him, and he kept the note “see you friday, love you !” tucked in the bathroom mirror.

i’ve taken on new projects hoping they will fill my time enough to not worry. i sorted through all the books. i am reading the things i was putting off. our tiny home is a happy place but growing small; i’m trying to see new corners all the time.