life

February – 2024

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

I’m trying to wrap my brain around the concept of one of the things I read this week. It’s “Time Reversible” and it’s physics and involves a lot of mathematics and my brain hurts. The other thing I learned this week is “atmospheric rivers” which is currently wreaking or wreaked havoc in California.

Life is strange, eh ?!? Curiouser and Curiouser (crediting Lewis Carroll) So this happened a while ago (Jan 24) but I wasn’t ready to post it. Even though I’m not planning on pursuing the Stranger, I still want to sneakily see him and get to know him a bit. Is it wrong for me to hold on to someone for my sanity and happiness ? I’m so infatuated with him. Constantly thinking of him. So that day when an opportunity fell into my lap without me even trying, I just took it. I had a choice to talk to him face to face or just call him. I wanted to talk to him but of course, I royally chickened out because I thought he can read me and I’m pretty sure I would make myself a jackass anyway. So I IM’d him and chatted for a bit. He was actually very nice and polite and gave me the info I was told to get. I also made up something and asked him and my hope was I would actually get him in person but of course, he can’t help me (mistake on my part) and he introduced me to someone else who can help me. I’m now like stuck with this other person. Man, I wanted to scream !! Anyway, everyone else has Paris, I have this IM.  

The thoughts of him make me happy and at the same time I’m so split and confused. I want to continue to get to know him but I’m worried that I may end up hurting him.  What if he finds out I’m only talking to him because of my big eyed puppy love and what then if he doesn’t care about me in that way ? I should stop but I’m getting deeper into this situation.

Curiouser still, this other thing happened on Thurs (Feb. 1). As I live on social media sites when I’m home, from time to time I comment or leave sarcasm on posts other than cats and nature. In one of those instances, I don’t remember when, but I kind of wrote a positive comment about one of the NFL QB who had to leave early with an injury. So this QB messaged me asking to exchange messages with him. Like I’d fall for that crap !! but ok, I did message him for shits & giggles and I told him that. He replied something like, if you behave like this you are not worthy of being my fan. Of course, I couldn’t let that pass, and so I knocked him back into his place very politely. And my argument with him was, he is not the QB ! and he stresses that he is and of course he will be claiming that even if he is not; there are three possibilities of who he could be. 1. It’s an AI. 2. A fake guy trying to click bait young girls and take advantage of them. 3. He is really what he says.

He being the real QB is less than 0.5% probability. But I wanted to see where this thing leads and we are exchanging messages – so far nothing scandalous just exchanging basic information. I can’t tell you his name as I promised him to keep it a secret, and just in case he is the real deal, can’t break that promise. But will keep you posted.

Today (2/3) is a good day. Sun is out in his glorious brilliance. Once I got home from church, and finished our lunch, me a boiled egg, my kitties KFC which I picked up while coming back from church; after that my cats (all three, Minnou, Sonu & Bleu), and I walked around our tiny apartment opening and closing cupboards, moving the little fridge, lifting the boxes and checking under the tables for invisible mice. After that I made myself a cup of coffee and while listening to the worship songs, sat outside out in the Sun exchanging messages with the QB. So I’m happy, yes !!

cat and a cake

/ mycatisafrenchspy / 1 Comment

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 !

Dec. 22, 2023

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

Once you realize you don’t have to do a lot of things or for that matter anything at all, life becomes really simple. Every little spare moment I have, I dedicate it to frolicking with my cats or reading books or journaling. I can cook but I don’t usually. I can clean, but I don’t usually. Well, all that is necessary but I don’t usually bother.

I watched Maestro (Bradley Cooper’s) movie on Netflix while I laid down next to Sonu, as he was slightly moping. I love the way Sonu inserts his paw into my hand (see the pic)…  

I adore the little nugget ! I’m conflicted about this movie. Not because of the story, and Bradley Cooper was glorious, but because I didn’t know the personal stuff about Leonard Bernstein till this movie. I feel that we shouldn’t know about the personal crap about our heroes or those who we respect. As they were (are) also human beings, they will disappoint you tremendously. The same thing happened about Ayn Rand, who wrote Fountain Head, and Atlas Shrugged,  I was like adoring her till I read the biography and of course about Charlie Rose… Really !! I’m not comfortable to also not to acknowledge if they have any predatory patterns, but it’s so disappointing, isn’t it ? But on the other hand, I also learned great things from (auto)biographies of people like Lee Iacocca (former President of Ford), Sam Walton (Wal-Mart founder), Nick Leeson (Rogue Trader).  Best thing I learned is Sam Walton’s how to get revenge on people when they piss you off. Oh well, I dusted off my personal distaste of this movie by listening to some Handel’s Messiah !

Today (12/21)I had to post something to my family in india, and also to get some chicken for my boy, so I actually put on my pants and went out. Apparently, a truck with untucked equipment went under a low bridge of a major highway near my house and damaged the bridge and thus two highways were cordoned off and all the bloody traffic flowed into a highway, near my house which is usually very traffic-less. So I had to find alternate routes to get this couriered off via fedex and then went wading in the traffic to a KFC to get chicken for my boy Sonu as he has been moping that I’m not getting him chicken. Got home and found that the Chewy box came with my kitties nourishment, so went down to bring the heavy box up and I had to rest, half way on the stairs. One of the girls’ boyfriend in the apartment across mine, helped to bring the box up.  Update: Yesterday the police dept. posted this note saying the routes are now open: i admire the person who wrote this note. lol

After finishing up chores like feeding the kitties, clearing some stuff and cooking (yes, I do cook), I finished watching the Swedish series on Netflix, A Nearly Normal Family. It is really well done and I may even read the book to explore some emotions, a little bit triggering if you have anxiety like I do, and also trigger warning as it has rape, but gosh, while shattering and defining what it means to be a family and the dynamics of family in crisis are depicted really marvelously. I also learnt that Swedish justice system works differently than American justice system.

The fact that 2023 is nearly over is actually causing me a bit of anxiety and made me face how much I dissociated mentally and how alienated I was from my own self. I feel like I’m still asleep and just walking through life dazed. The flicker of life which got ignited by the Stranger and is warming me up slowly and helping me from going into full zombie mode. I just need to live in the moment like the animals do. I clustered the forgiving silence in my chest and let it set and fester deep down, causing a certain rot; which I let to grow enough to reach deep through my ribs to where my heart longed to be touched, even if by rot. Now that my heart is lifeless, aged but softened. Perfectly decayed enough to be tender. I just simply need to break off the mold.  I don’t know what I’m waiting for.

Just need to wake up and reap the rewards ! Darling, it’s time to live !

Bazaar

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

I want to tenderly smooch everyone ! I’m planning to work on tenderness towards myself and try and be a vegan in 2024. It has been in the works for ever and not sure if this would work even now. But I figured, making plans aren’t going to do any harm.

As I previously acknowledged, meeting this Stranger changed me, which is really surprising to me.  Even though, sometimes I burst into tears because of the uncertainty and absurdity of it all, I’m filling my life with colors and smiles. If I were a cartoon, a butterfly or two would be fluttering around my beaming face. I’m breaking into smiles for no apparent reason and freely exchanging them with others and I’m immensely happy. Should I feel guilty about this ?!

Or is this what you might call an OCD dream ? It’s like he’s my ultimate escape from reality. I don’t know what attracts me to him. I’m so drawn to him, and unless I’m completely mistaken, he is also attracted to me. It’s like two souls unconsciously recognize each other and are drawn to each other for their survival. I’ve had crushes before, even with a guy at my work but you know, this time it’s different. While my other crushes were fleeting, this Stranger is a goddamn knight on a white horse !

The other day (12/5) while driving to work, the traffic was terrible, so my car & I weren’t making much progress speedwise. My car navigator which I leave on even though I know the route, kept repeating “the traffic is heavy for some reason, but this is the fastest route”. It cracks me up to no end. Anyway, I was crawling along and I looked at this car in the next lane and there was a teenage boy in the backseat, and the boy and I both looked at each other and we burst into laughter ! it was so strange but also so featherweight and so fresh and so innocent ! and this filled me with sheer joy like you can’t put a price on it. the boy looked more like the aborigines or maori –

My cat, Minnou, will only drink from faucets, and that too from the faucet which I’m currently using. Some mornings it’s extremely irritating and disruptive especially the mornings when I’m rushing to go to work. I have to personally accommodate and pander to this little furry rogue’s hydration needs when there are perfectly good drinking water all over my place; a water fountain, two bowls of water (on the floor next to the fountain and dry food bowls), a bowl in the sink in the kitchenette (I use the term loosely) and another in the bathroom. (I’ve this irrational fear that if I get into an accident or die, at least my cats won’t die of hunger or thirst). If I’m using a sink either in kitchenette or bathroom, I remove the respective bowl, but there he will be, his royal highness, demanding water.  I tried to entice him to using other multitude bowls by buying various bowls of metal, ceramic; not even remotely close and a cigar wasn’t on the cards.  Sonu, on the other hand, is a kitty, who gets his hydration exclusively by eating wet food and he has no need for water. And the days when he demands to drink water, I know it’s time to make a trip to the vet because he will be running a low grade fever. And he would only drink water at the kitchenette sink, where I’ve to present him the bowl of water, with the kitchen faucet open slightly and then, he will proceed to drink his water while staring at the steady stream of water out of the faucet. Weirdo !

As I’m on vacay, I was clearing out junk while eating junk and singing to my cats, old hindi songs which I grew up with and now and then breaking out into little dances and thus confusing my cats but they are polite, civilized and gentlemanly and put up with their mama !

I’ve been observing this phenomenon and am not quite sure if I’m remembering things wrong or have completely lost it. Like I remember watching some movies and I could swear I watched them with my husband but when I look at the release date, it’s released after his passing. So I’m like, this is not possible. I can understand one movie, but a lot of movies are like that and I’m baffled. I know sometimes, I would be watching some stuff and if it is interesting, I’m like, I should tell Jace (my husband) about this. So, may be that’s how I’m remembering that I watched it with J, who the fuck knows ?

 Anyways, today (12/20) I watched a hindi movie called “Bazaar”, the cultural theme is truth based even though the story of the movie is a fiction, and cried my little eyes out; Ugh, it’s such a sad movie and I watched it when I was a child and this movie is basically set in my city Hyderabad and it is quite sad where barely legal girls (especially muslim) from poor background were sold by the parents as commodities because they need the money; obviously it’s not called “selling” because we live in a hypocritic society and so we observe basic social norms and cultural values. So while it’s not okay to call it “selling” and this is unacceptable term, but it becomes acceptable and respectable even if you call it “marriage”. But the truth of it all is, it’s more like “marrying” these girls to men who can be their fathers or grand fathers because they have money, and they can buy the girls. It is a terrible thing and I don’t understand why poor people think of tethering themselves to social norms, when society doesn’t save them. False pretenses, fake respect is all they live for.

I’ve been thinking a lot about storytelling, or penning them down in some space like this, so I can share a late night with the Stranger, may be while eating cakes and having coffee; like they do in the stories while sitting in the kitchen (I got no kitchen in this tiny apartment, so we probably will sit on the metal stairs); I’ve been thinking about penning memories as a way of preservation of myself, as a way to remember a moment in another way, taking up root and growing into a legacy.

We all have stories to tell and sometimes we find nice ways to frame our stories. The moral of this story sharing with Stranger or any tale is whatever we tell ourselves. Lies also can fit as perfectly as shards of broken glass when we take clues and glue back each jagged edge back to the original shape with a cracked view.

holidays 2023

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

Thankfully it’s Christmas season, I’m off for two weeks, come tomorrow. This should give me enough time to calibrate my emotions and bring them to neutral. Though I’m mortified to admit, I’m not that surprised to find I’ve feelings for this Stranger at work.

Some mornings there is a thick mist or fog and it feels like the entire planet is covered up by soft cotton. After feeding my cats, I sit on the metal stairs with a hot mug of coffee and contemplate my life. I can feel emotions happening to me and no, no, no, I don’t like it. I’m feeling like my old self again now a days. And I should really thank this stranger !

The tall, dark, handsome stranger and I keep dancing around each other in circles. I feel like I’m having a déjà vu, you know, that feeling that you’re going through something new, but it feels strangely familiar. It’s as if you’ve been in this situation before because you’ve been there with (or as) someone else who faced something similar. Now that it’s happening to you, it’s like revisiting and rereading an old story, but this time, you’re the main character in a play you once watched from the sidelines. Pretty strange, right ? I don’t know about him, but I’m thinking I’m being very idiotic about this because i don’t know if he is married or has a girl friend ! I don’t want to lust after someone who is married or otherwise engaged and thus break a commandment, but as I don’t know who I should ask at work, I’m sorely tempted to march up to him and demand that he show me his hands ! But as that’s not going to happen, I’m carrying around the fragile pieces of my broken heart clumsily put together. I’ve been writing him letters which I have no intention of sending them to him or posting them online. As much as I love this feeling of being in love, I’m so afraid of getting hurt so I’m keeping them boxed in and writing letters is so cathartic. And I’m also hoping that these feelings would neutralize themselves with the said exercise.

Speaking of déjà vu, I was reading up on déjà vu and about the Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his philosophy about how we are spiritual beings having human experiences which is complete bullshit. While I feel psychology is helpful in some matters, it has some weird philosophies and theories and it has a lot to answer for the degradation of humanity and civilization !

For a few years now, I’ve taken up my mum’s Christmas tradition. Every Christmas (and other holidays to be honest), even though we distributed eatables, and cakes to our friends and neighbors on boxing day (Dec 26), my mum also invited poor people from slums for dinner. Well, I don’t know any slums which exist near me, but I have taken up on buying and bringing dinners for homeless people I meet on the street. I also give gifts to my mail room people and my office building’s security people. I’m pretty sure I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart but because my parents did it and I want that tradition to continue in their memory. My parents raised me right. In India we have beggars who come round going from home to home and begging. And I remember this incident very well. My mother always cooks the correct amount of food so we won’t have any leftovers as we don’t really have a concept of leftovers. And she always prepares a bit more for beggars during the days she goes to work. But one day during summer holidays, I think there was a visitor and my mother ended up having some left over rice and curry, so when this beggar came around in the morning, my mother wanted to give them to him. My father was so angry and I remember this very vividly, he said “I don’t even feed my dog the leftovers and I can’t believe you are offering this to him”. So my poor mother ended up preparing fresh meal while the beggar and my dad chatted over a cup of coffee !

 Also, I feel guilty because I spoil my cats rotten and my cats have much better life than most of the poor people. I figured I won’t need that much money as I can’t take it with me when I die and of course, God will provide me with what I need !!

It rained a lot for the past two days and most of the creeks, small rivers, flooded the streets. As it is Monday, I stayed home and worked while listening to J.S. Bach’s partitas (played by Glenn Gould) and Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Ahhh !! yes, this is my favorite combination. Coffee, research and existential dread !

Reflections

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

It snowed a little today (12/7). It didn’t stick but I still think we should have gotten an impromptu off day. I think we could get rid of some the holidays and install a few new holidays like, first snow day of the season; we will greet each other, “happy first snow” and we would all celebrate by making hot chocolate and eating cookies and snuggle up with pets and warm blankets and this should be mandatory. And for autumn, we will get a holiday as the first golden (or red) leaf comes floating down; and we would greet each other “happy golden (red) leaf day”; let’s go home and kiss our pets on their moist noses; and feed your little kitties. Kitties are always starving even if they were just fed. Aren’t they a joy ? I love cats so much !!

I love  Autumn / Winter. And I like snow in theory, and when it falls fresh and covering up like a new blanket; something soft and rare and cold. I like being cold but with warm feet. I have a electric blanket and somedays I have AC on and with my feet wrapped with the soft warmth of the blanket as it tenderly caressing my feet. And this time around especially Christmas, people somehow remember about other people like something suddenly popped in their mind or an alarm going off, jogging a memory, which seems to say, “oh right, you are also human”. And they become benevolent and generous.

It is the first snow, and Winter season; and something small in my heart is finally warm again. I have vague memories of how I spent the past few years just going through the motions. It felt and feels blank and urgent, and I’m thinking I would never actually feel again. It may sound very trite and extremely stupid – but that is the boring and familiar experience of absence or loneliness. You watch your life just washing up against the panes of your glass windows, and you watch it happening. you see things that should be lovely and warming but it just feels too thin, too flimsy and too unoriginal. I am desperately uninterested in my hobbies, in life and unimpressed by my life. I told myself and often, I don’t know how to find interest in life again. Interestingly when I look back, I always told myself I am ok.

And almost flimsily and shyly, something strange, something ethereal and lovely is burning in my chest, I avoid looking, worried that it will run back into the shadows like a frightened animal, and that I would lose it. Do I dare looking at it ? Could I dare to sink my hands into its fur and feel it’s warmth and feel the slight rise and fall of it’s breathing ? I’m afraid that if it’s real it has the power to hurt me by leaving.

Et Bonne Année 2022

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

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)

week 16 – shelter in place

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

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 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.