A flight to catch

Amma has been with us for four months. Yesterday night she took the Singapore Airlines flight to my brother's house at US. Strange, but these four months I have taken her presence at home for granted. Today I suddenly realize that I will miss this

Non-spicy food served in steel plate
Heated discussions in Kannada TV serials
Ten minute sweaty walks in the corridor
Piles of Kannada and English books by the pillow
Squeaks of the wayward walker that she needs to keep pulling into track
Four ParleGs to Max during afternoon coffee
A daily concerned query - have you given Max his lunch?
Weekly craving for fresh-fruit-cake and motichur laddoo
Culinary updates with Star Saviruchi
Stories from the Mahabharata, life in US, air-travel, lunches...
And random reminiscences of life lived

Today she travels to US to a country she has made her home.
Today the packers will be here to transport our stuff to Bangalore.
A new life begins again for us all.

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Suppose

If we pass gently through a sieve
Now breaking into bits
and
become whole on the other side
again.
Would we be the same?

If we flutter pretty in the breeze
Like a saree in a balcony
and
get folded into a shelf
again
Would we be the same?

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On wiping the plate clean

There is a banker in Atlas Shrugged, I think his name is Midas??, who does this amazing thing. He decides to close down the bank. wind up affairs. He settles the debit and credit so perfectly that on closing day, the balance is nil. Debit = Credit !!
I have been working towards such a thing in my kitchen... The packers come in 3 days! So today we are on a rava idli and sambar diet.... that way I use up the rava idli mix, the curd, the last bit of sarina pudi and the 3 hirekais, one capsicum and the wimpy half carrot ... and the last cup of tur dal.
tada!

O ho ... I find half a cup of thuppa (ghee) and an opened packet of kadalehittu (besan)... shall I make mysore pak? what say? O for that I will have to open a new packet of sugar.... lets say I make pakodas with the besan and use the ghee??? ... oh! then I have to buy onions.... aaah
how did that guy do it?
Oh I know what I can do. I will pack all the half used packets into a large bag and give them to Moni, my maid. wah. Debit = Credit.
I did it.

Our champion ... the boxer... travels tomorrow. We don't know how lucky we are... the railways and the air travel guys do not ask us to buy the seat. No not book a seat... BUY one.
That's what we are expected to do for our boxer!!
We have actually bought this crate in which he will travel. I mean come on. There must be so many pets travelling by air. Why can't the container be reused? But no. So here we are with a crate that we have no later use for! and zillions of people who are buying it like us for single use. okay not zillions... but still...duh
a good business proposition. What say?

air travel approved crate for pet

And my 30 days of trial are almost done
Afternoon nap? weekends are not counted right? so check
Read Books? I read 2 danielle steeles, one sophie kinsella and one charles dickens and one devadutta pattanaik and one jack canfield. so check
as for 30 pencil/pen trees. Here they are. count all the tiny ones too. ok? so check.

Installation! A kindergarten tree!

The easiest person to lie to... is me-myself. They say...
The most told lies are the ones we tell ourselves
and the most dangerous too?

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Not so scary

Live your childhood dream.
Just do it.
Make it happen.

That's what they all tell us. Ya right. But hey, what if I don't like that dream life after all? What if I goof up? What if I am good at it and yet don't have the will...energy to keep at it?
What if after all that self mobilization I am left feeling more of a failure?

And then I find this video in TED talks that sets me free.
The commitment is just for a month. I can safely change my mind after that and still feel good about myself.

Yoohoo!  Do watch Matt. It hardly takes two minutes.

So here is my 'first 30day target'
no afternoon nap (o-ho)
paint/sketch/pen one tree a day (You will see them soon)
read 200 pages a day (I begin with Great Expectations)

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Learning to go from We to Me ... is tough ... but possible?