Thought Train choo choo :-D

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Today is Balipadyami, so you know what that means :). 5 years ago on Balipadyami day, I met Sri, so today is our thithi-prakaara-day-we-met anniversary :-D. I still have difficult believing it happened 5 years ago and we have been through so many things. I know its a cliche`, but it really feels like it was yesterday. I still remember so clearly the first time I saw him. Touch wood, there has never been a dull moment so far and it feels like its still beginning. If you think of it, it is the beginning. After all we have only been together a small number of years compared to the rest of our lives ;-). And there's so much to see and so much more to do :). Looking forward to the rest best days of our lives :).

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We did make it to the temple on Naraka Chaturdashi day and the fireworks though late was wonderful. This time they even distributed packets of sparklers to kids (actually the thing was a cross between a sparkler and a pencil :-p) and Sri got a packet for Snugli. She really enjoyed the whole hullabaloo, though she was a bit startled by the first rocket :-D. I even made her hold a sparkler-pencil and she waved it around. They even had some flower pots and she cheered at it all :-D. It was still way too cold, but she seemed fine until midnight when I felt her burning up. She had a slight fever all day yesterday, which went high yesterday evening, but has been okay today though a bit fussy. So we are not too worried. The best part is that whenever we ask her what we saw in the temple, she says "Thaami" (for swaami, God) and when we ask, what she saw outside, she says "Palaaki" (for Pataki, crackers) and when we ask how was the pataki, she says "Shooper" (for super, ofcourse :-D). Her memory is growing stronger day by day, so its fun to see her remember things from days/weeks ago and say it :-D. More instances of that in some other post..

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Most of the times when I carry my camera with me, I feel that rather than enjoy that particular moment, I am always intent on capturing it for the future. There are many a times I have actually missed seeing the event as such just because my eyes are behind the camera. But the irony is that whenever I don't carry the camera with me, I always end up regretting it. The firework celebration was such an instance. Snugli with the sparkler would have been a deserving photo, but well, I was there, without the camera actually enjoying her expressions. Later I wished I had captured the first time she held a sparkler :-p. There always has to be one or the other complaint, otherwise life isn't fun, I guess :-D..

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Have you ever stood in total darkness? Its the few moments before your eyes get adjusted to the darkness and start "seeing" the dark outlines of all objects. I find myself closing my eyes just to find my way. Its as if the totality of the darkness is too distracting/confusing and closing my eyes helps in remembering/clearing where everything is! Closing my eyes actually helps me see :-D.

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One of the things I kinda love is feeling cold cold air on my skin after a sweaty workout. Its almost as if the sweat drops are subjected to instant freeze :-D. And its somehow refreshing. The contrast of feelings is kinda amazing - just a few moments ago, its terribly hot and you can't wait to finish the workout and suddenly you are feeling extreme opposite temperatures! Ofcourse this is just the beginning of winter, so its alright. I am still not crazy enough to subject myself to such a drastic temperature change once true winter sets in :-D.

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I have a very active imagination. When I was young I used to dream about travelling to a different planet, one with a huge-gigantic-tremendous (I mean very very very big here) crystal palace, hence named Sphatika and living there :-D. Well, even now whenever I feel bored doing something, I imagine I'm doing it in a very interesting way. For example, if I'm finding cooking tedious, then I am on the food network presenting an Indian vegetarian cooking show :-D. Or if I'm bored of driving then either I'm a spy being chased by "every" car behind me or am chasing the car in front :-D. Or when I'm exercizing sometimes, I'm suddenly in a dance competition, dancing for my life :-D. Sadly, I still haven't discovered any cure for cleaning the house :-p.

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Wanted to add just another thing before I forget. One thing I always tell people is that I was a "koopa manduka" before I left India to come live in the US. To me, "koopa manduka" implies being stuck in your comfort zone. I can't even describe the feeling you get when you see other parts of the world which have nothing to do with yours and see that there are so many different thoughts of progress be it in religion, be it in day-to-day habits, or be it in anything :-p. It like being confronted with a different set of reality. I always thought that a person learns a lot just by living in another country. But lately I have realized that a person can be a "koopa manduka" whereever she/he is. No matter how modern they are or how forward thinking they may pretend to be, some people just don't venture out of their comfort zones to take it as an opportunity to learn. One simple example - we know of a family living here in the US for about 10 years now and both the husband and the wife don't know where cities like Seattle and Boston are in the US! And they are probably 1/2 or 3/4th on the way to a US citizenship! I can't pretend I know everything, and I don't know several cities in the central US, in fact before I came to US, I have to confess that I honestly didn't know that New York and San Francisco were on opposite coasts and had thousands of miles distance between them :-D. But this is like living in India for 10 years and not knowing where Calcutta or Hyderabad is! Well, sadly they might not even know that, I haven't bothered to find out :-p.

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Finally nothing, I repeat nothing, bonds 2 women like the topic of "how their tummies never seem to lessen despite working out and how their husbands' never seem to increase despite not working out" (yeah both the women conveniently forget the part about how they gulum chocolates without counting and their hubbies don't :-D, hehehee). This is one topic that is age/caste/country no bar :-D. If you have nothing to talk about with a woman, then here is THE topic to go about making a friend :-D. Well, as you can guess, I had this conversation with one woman in my group exercize class and you can't imagine the perfect look of understanding that passed between us :-D. And yup she is a 30-odd year old Catholic from Costa Rica :).

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