The Little Bird and me

Distracting the distracted

New work has the most chilling air-conditioning.
New work also has a very good espresso machine. The 2 go well together. When the cold takes over me, I just go and get myself some nice, hot coffee.
Of course, normally this is not an issue.

who made these chocolates!!!

But I am allergic to coffee. As I am allergic to many random things, I go on a sneeze fest.
Plus among the variety of liquids that go inside my system over the day, milk, tea, water, juice, also this ----------------------------->
I thought an intervention will do me some good.
As if the stars were waiting for me to think about this, I came across this (through a friend's tweet).

I use stairs everyday and don't really need any sugar reduction (because guess what I DONT like sweets much!), so I picked a combination of these two:
1. No liquids other than water (in my case milk, juices) for a month
2. 100 stairs everyday (that's just climbing up) for a month

So starting March 1st, I am going on a month long abstinence from coffee, alcohol, carbonated liquids (of any kind, in any form) and will be taking only stairs wherever possible. The second one comes naturally to me. The first errmm. It will need some restraint. Considering there will be a lot of outings happening this month, I can see my prospects at the parties, as being the not-fun one. Also, the Espresso machine! I know it is going to miss me.
But hey, guess what, I HAVE to start somewhere to be more healthy!

In conjunction with these, I am going to practice Katakana everyday (I havent practiced for more than a month now!). And also not going to skip breakfast. Even if it means eating alone.

A very big step for an already distracted girl. I am telling you.

~nightflier

P.S. I have skipped tea because, when I catch an allergic cold, it is the *only* sane option.

getting rid of the pests..

November was always good.
You had lost your voice. No drama. You just took time to find it all over again. Santa did visit. Like magic, a little early.

You opened your heart in December.
Always good. You sang, you danced, you wrote. A lot of people made home inside your heart. Wonderful.

Along came the pests. Little, crawling, not taking any of your attention.
It suddenly started feeling like July.
Rain everywhere. Lots of voices.
You felt like drowning.

Feeling July-esque in February is not a good thing. You decided.
You are now getting rid of them. Those voices.
One at a time.
Making sure that fragile voice of yours remains where it belongs.
So that you could bloom again.

~nightflier

Home

What is home to you?
For me it is a feeling. Of years of wandering around (of course I am not a nomad, even though I talk like one) I have felt home-like at very unrelated places. In reality or in my memory. Hence the feeling is rather difficult to describe.

Lately, triggered by a discussion with Upasna, I have been thinking about 'this idea of home' in my head more and more. More triggers followed last week.
I happened to watch Disney's* Jungle Book with the 8 year old cousin, where she kept asking me some dialog because the accent was too fast for her. While explaining her stuff, I wondered how Mowgli had it different. He was raised in the Jungle and tried to belong to the elephants, bears, monkeys and vultures. He got really good at being a bear. But everyone wanted him to be more human. To un-belong. To get the jungle out of him. His looked a reverse journey from my perspective. Because I belonged so much at home while growing up that I did not know how to belong outside that comfort zone :D It did take time, but I learnt to claim my nooks and make myself at home, with people and surroundings.
I also watched aai doing her gardening. How she carefully changed the pots for some plants and how soil for some, making sure they felt accustomed. At home. Some people do that to you. They give you a home like feeling. Because of their warmth and care.
[Aai also has this habit of sitting with our shirts/tops and making sure the stitches for buttons are not loose, at night, every time we visit. Otherwise also. I find this very home-like.]

So you must have realized, I visited home last week. My parents stay there. Sounds strange writing it like this. Aai will be annoyed if I tell her how I phrased the sentence. But then I will tell her I have so many homes. Now. Some acquired. Some permanent in my thoughts. And some real spaces. Like the one I am typing in.

-nightflier

* Disney's Jungle book movies are pretty different than our very own hindi cartoons :)

out-ing the day with an 8 month old..

We stopped in front of a kirana store (run by a baniya*, people who have moved from Rajasthan to the Marathi-ness of Pune), and inquired about the Sabudana rate. Why ? Because pregnant friend who is now the mother of a 8 month old Avani, thought all the big shops (the marts and all) were making her pay more. Of course there was a difference. Not drastic, but then we could rationalize the extra charges by the marts for packaging and cleanliness etc. The baby got her first grocery lesson.

We moved on to a bigger 'more now' mall. We roamed around, going crazy over all the cutesy baby stuff (we had a baby with us!!). We felt good about a pair of friends having fun with the baby. At the checkout, when asked to fill in a membership form, I promptly showed them the 'now' (then?) distressed and hungry baby and asked if we could skip. We were allowed to. Saved by a 8 month old!

retro baby!!

During a pit stop we also decided that sometimes not-so-educated people are wiser and simpler. About life. You can call this 'randomness in conversation' among friends.

When the outing was about to end, we bought plants from a nursery. We tried haggling and then bargaining. We sucked. But may be he saw it too and to make us feel good, gave away one tulsi plant for free :D

All this while Avani was fast asleep in her kangaroo bag! And we garnered all the smiles from passing by parents,ladies (not the creepy kind) for her cuteness!

Day outs are fun. Specially with toddlers :)

-nightflier

*Brother asked the boy (I seriously dont know his name :() from the kirana store about school during a home delivery, and thus we got to know about the Rajasthan connections.