song of the road

I am having okay-ish sort of day so far. Missed gym. Generally I go to gym in the morning. But changed my massage appointment to an evening one today. Had to go to the post office and a couple more places with mom in the morning. Then I received a call from them telling that the masseur is not well and can’t make it today. So I dropped the plan of going at all. Not a good plan, I agree. Maybe I will try going tomorrow morning. That way I can at least get the steam bath which should help in losing some weight - maybe 5 gm.

Oh! That is S in the gym terrace yesterday. I carried my cell phone to the floor yesterday which I normally don’t do. So I clicked a couple of snaps of him. They didn’t come particularly well. Except that the resolution-wise they seem okay. I need to press the shutter lightly for a few seconds till it focuses and then click it. I discovered that yesterday at lunch. Meanwhile S looks very serious in the photo - almost like mafia. I need to catch him unaware or make him smile. He has a thousand watt beautiful smile.

S was just checking out the cell and he said - “wow your phone has 8 GB of internal memory - that’s cool”. And I was like - “oh! you understand about GB!”. He gave me an eyebrows raised look and said - “and what do you think of me?” I covered up by jumping to another topic but that was bad of me. I think we here tend to look down a bit on people who are more athletic than intellectual. It is so bad. Or maybe it was my defence mechanism of being a bit of a geek. or is it nerd? I used to be good (nothing very good - just moderately good) in my studies and very very very bad in all kind of sports. This is the first time I am doing somewhat okay in anything physical.

Planning again to cook tonight. I am planning to make a spicy dip which will be very low fat. So I can dip and eat a few home made thin crackers - again low fat but not whole wheat. I should make a fresh batch next week maybe - more spices and still less fat while making the dough. I would be able to experiment more once the oven gets going. Meanwhile I make these my way on a very very low flame. Also planning a curry with cottage cheese. The gravy would be mainly tomato, with onion and other spices. Will try to keep it mild and see how that goes.

Thinking of spicy food, reminded me of the visitors to our office this week. Scott is one of our high level managers, working out of Houston. He is an australian. He is youngish compared to our other managers and has become somewhat of a hit with us here. Poor guy doesn’t like spicy food at all. and at times the restaurants tend to make food spicy enough for many of us too. In fact many Indians do not like spicy food. Though what is non-spicy or bland to us, could still perhaps be very spicy to many non-Indians. I am addicted to spicy food. Anyway, going back to Scott, there were a couple more folks from Houston who likes Indian food and have been to Indian restaurants in Houston a few times. They fooled Scott in to trying a few spicier dishes which were not red in color. Anyway, I got him a bowl of rice pudding - sort of, not exactly rice pudding - and he became okay. This is his tenth visit here. He says he is slowly growing into Indian food. I think he is slowly learning the pitfalls. :) At least one good thing is that the places we go are very hygienic. I haven’t seen anyone falling sick so far.

That reminds me that I have been to two buffet lunches in last two days. That is bad news for my weight loss. I don’t know how I am going to control my eating. I am trying to figure out how to make low fat deliecious things. Lets see how good I can be. Meanwhile need to exercise more. But for that I should be far more regular. If I miss even one session, it takes me another to come back to the rhythm. I think I must try to make it to gym tomorrow.

Well, that is all for today, I think. I might login later to see how others are doing. Meanwhile my good vibes to all of you. Have a great day!

I have been struggling long to post a few pictures together here as thumbnails. Well, I give up.

I need to run now to help making lunch. We are going to have a simple dish made of rice and lentils - something what the British calls kedegree, I think. It’s my favorite. So gotta run.

 I think I will be back after lunch to post a little more. Meanwhile that is my brother in the photo above. It was taken last year, I think.

 Everyone have a great weekend!

End of another work day is almost here. And tomorrow the week ends. Lots and lots and lots of work on my plate. However so far things are getting done in a nice pace. Just need to approve a few more things and can be on my drive home. We had a few clients and our folks here over from Houston. Went out on lunch with them. It was good food and better conversation.

First of all, thank you all so so so much for so many comments. I just checked my personal email after a few weeks today and saw all your comments. You made my day!

So many things happened. I took a 5 day long break on the occasion of my brother’s visit. About 4 days were planned and I added 1 extra day. It was one long blissful weekend. I cooked loads of food and ate without any caution. I don’t know why – maybe because I was happy or maybe because I sort of cooked healthy stuff (no, I did not) or maybe because I had a quite bad cold again, I did not gain any weight!!!!!! Wish whole life could be like this! Well, this could also mean that my blood sugar is shooting up and causing the weight loss. However staying put for now. Let’s see what happens.

I watched the entire first season of ‘24’. It was so good. We sat glued in front of the tv. Though we agreed that kind of tension is more suitable for a whole season rather than 4 days.  Have some more DVDs of M*A*S*H and Seinfeld and 2^nd season Desperate Housewives lined up. Have some good time ahead. :) Brother took away rest of 24 DVDs. I hear that DH is very popular. But I think because I watch generally season DVDs at a stretch, I kind of find it a little too much.

So the vacation went like – either I cooked or I ate or I watched tv or I talked or I ate or I talked or I ate… yeah, get the picture.

Ruby, my company is gifting us a microwave each. That reminded me strongly of you.  They are giving us a model with grill but no convection. So I can’t bake much in that. I am trying to negotiate to pay and exchange it for a convection one. Indian cooking is more suitable to the open flame of a gas burner. I can’t make much cakes etc. Even though I am open to trying out recipes needing eggs, my mom would be lukewarm at best and R won’t touch it. I will try some with egg substitutes – I am sure they will be good rock substitutes.  Anyway I am looking forward greatly to trying out lots of bread recipes. Meanwhile let’s hope I can change mine for a convection one.

My bro made me (well, I was willing but was balking at the price) a proud owner of a Nokia N95 8GB cell phone. It had a 5 mega pixel camera and GPS and office. I am having fun.  But it’s too expensive. So I am all the time scared carrying it around. I used to forget my previous cell phone everywhere with the great confidence that any thief worth his salt would spend money to give it back to me.

R has gone home. He would be back after the thanksgiving weekend. He has already drawn flak from the relatives he visited so far on the marriage issue. It is such a stupid big deal here. Let’s see what his parents say. I don’t think there would be any surprise there.  I manage to be okay about it most of the time but I get really worried some times. I think that’s the reason, I am just not staying well. Anyway, I just have to deal with it. This issue is causing so many side issues that’s another issue.  My mom is freaking out with the idea of my bro getting married before me and my bro’s fiancée is not so keen on waiting. I wish I could just get married to someone (even for a short while) and solve all this. I know that won’t be any solution and I definitely do not want to get married to just anyone. But society (here like Monica, I should say – by society, I mean Mom), especially Indian society rules and expectations are crap.

Anyway forget that.

I missed gym for all 5 days and been back this Tuesday. S came back from Mysore on time and I wasn’t there. He said that is why he lingers on there, we don’t appreciate him here.  Have been very tired due to the chronic cold but overall workout was good. I did one new side twisting workout with S using a heavy soccer sized ball. The exercise gives me such an instant rush of well being. I lose it over the day. 

They have arranged a weight loss challenge thingy in gym. I signed up to lose 3 kgs from 16^th Nov to 31^st Dec.  I am feeling a bit gung ho about that. Let’s see how that goes. I have a good chance of failing with so many stressors coming up but then it may keep me floating. I am planning to give it a good try. I will have to try to eat well and do much more cardio.

On that note, let me finish my super-long jottings here. I will try to blog regularly again. I did log on a few times and read entries but somehow just couldn’t get myself to write anything. I was feeling low and numb and also happy. When my bro was here, I was happy but somehow unhappy too with R and mom in background. Then when he left, the loneliness struck hard. Now I am getting back to my groove or rut  again and settling down to habit.

I love you all so much. That’s the truth.

No gym today. No office today either. We are celebrating the state foundation day here. Weight yesterday was 69.6 kg. No fall but no gain either. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow.

I had a big bowl of noodle soup with lots of pepper thrown into it. I have got a cold yet again. So felt like eating something hot every way. Have plans to eat good food through out the day. Will try to keep it healthy. Mom is planning to make stuffed paratha for lunch. Most probably R would be coming in the evening. Planning to make a couple of nice snacks. One would be a fluffy steamed spicy cake.. kind of :). Still thinking what would be the other one. Will make a curry for night to go with a bowl of fragrant rice. It is making me feel full of anticipation and excitement to plan the cooking. Cooking is one of my best stress-busters. Though nowadays 3FC is doing a great job too. Was planning to try making hummus too today, but forgot to soak the chickpeas yesterday night. So hummus this weekend.

Have not yet planned anything for the festival day when bro will be here. Need to start looking up recipes to plan something nice. This is one of my favorite festivals. Well.. almost the favorite. This is our version of brother’s day where we pray for the health, long life, happiness, prosperity kind of goodies for our brothers. And I am lucky enough to have a brother so totally worth it.

Gym was okay yesterday. I did about an hour of workout with S and then 30 mins of cardio. Because of the long break in regular exercising in between, it was a little bit harder. S taught me a new set of lunges where I kept on losing balance and almost toppled over a few times. In the end, managed to complete the set with S holding my hands and keeping me steady. With all the help I need at times, it’s difficult to make out often who’s working harder - the trainer or the trainee! Apart from quite a good amount of pain in all my muscles, it was good to work out again.

Have to schedule in my blood tests sometime this week or the next. Aiming for next Tuesday. Hope I get it done. Need to get mom with me too.

Our company used to be a branch office. Now that we have bought another company, the whole thing is being set up as a separate profit center. So we have all kinds of freaky closure and integration activities going on. Fortunately except for our country head and HR manager, no heads have rolled yet and mostly won’t. I guess I should feel sorry for them, but they are so far away from my world, I am unable to imagine what they are feeling. Anyway, hope they do well where they go. Coming back to my petty concerns, I need to wrap up and provide documentation for my taxes by next weekend. Very short notice indeed. I think this year again I will end up paying more tax than needed. Though it is partly my laziness/stupidity, I am going to write it off saying - heck, my country needs the money.

Sipping the hot tea my mom made while typing this. the tea is heaven for my sore throat and aching body. Hope the cold goes soon. and takes the teeth ache away with it too. Can’t see how I can schedule in the dentist appointment before middle of the month.

Oh! plenty drama happened on the appraisal front. Out of 3, 2 were moderately happy and 1 was very unhappy with my ratings. Yes, R was very very upset with the ratings I gave him. It became complicated. It’s like.. I rated him 4.5 out 5. My boss made me change it to 4, as apparently mid-year appraisals should be stricter. R got 5 last time. He was incredulous of the fall to 4. Meanwhile only yesterday I found out, his parents are giving him HELL (truly and fully) over his visit to discuss marriage with me. Let me write about that drama a lil later. So R was already tense and this rating made him flare up bad. He was not ready to listen to me at all. Did not let me hold the discussion also. Eventually things had to go to my boss. And will you believe it, he has agreed to bring up his ratings to 4.5 again? WTH? R is very good and very critical to the team success and I am not so angry any more. Though I was feverish with anger all of last two days. Looks like I am getting managed from both ends. Anyways, to be fair, my manager is a nice guy too and he is feeling embarrassed to override me. May be I should have been a little more assertive. Anyways lesson for next time. But I was very very angry with R for refusing to even discuss. It is completely okay for him to disagree with me but it killed me to have to tell my manager that my team members not only disagree with me, they refuse to discuss it with me. Very good manager I am!!! But still I think I am doing okay and maybe I need not take this so personally. I will do better next time and the team seems to be quite well. Not perfect but very good. Hell, I am not perfect.

Now R! The stupid idiot did not tell me about things happening at home. So I had no clue what was going on there. I was very irritated with him last few days and we hardly talked. Then he writes to me in the messenger yesterday “I cannot go on with you under these circumstances. I am upset. My parents are causing lots of trouble.” There has been lots of trouble from quite some time now because of his parents’ complete refusal of me and so I thought that was that. Over! It’s surprising how all the time I prepare myself that things won’t work out between us and I would be okay. But it made me feel sick yesterday. And would you believe it, he actually said “I cannot go on without you under these circumstances. I am upset. My parents are causing lots of trouble.” Because I was not talking much and he wanted us to be normal so he can talk and feel better. Either he typed “with” while meaning “without” or I read it wrong! So much pain for one piece of typo! Well, we talked till late yesterday. I did my part of yelling and he apologized. Astonishingly he even owned up that he is insecure and starts fighting easily because he had always lived with relatives from a very young age and felt that he must fend for himself all the time (even when people make innocent remarks or try to help him). 

So what I was trying to avoid owning up for quite some time, I had to face yesterday. I get along very well with R and we have a very good chemistry going on. We are different in many ways and he doesn’t share most of my interests, but we have fun when we hang out. So, if things don’t work out, I am in for a very long period of intense pain and depression. And there is a very good chance of things not working out still. On one hand, there is the fact that it will hurt R as much to lose me and I think he will be able to cope even less. So maybe he will work out something, everyone does when they are in pain themselves. I need to hang on to my sanity and be as supportive and as fun as I can, so to make his loss as great as possible. J God! I sound so manipulative. But still I think that’s the only sane option left. There is nothing else that I can do as there is no problem to solve at my end yet. If things work out, then my problems will start. J Well on the other hand, if things don’t work out, it will not help one bit that we work together. My work will suffer and that will make me more unhappy and even less confident. I will have to look for another job. It’s such an uphill task when you are low and lost. I think I will have to hang on here till I get past the first wave of grief. Meanwhile all I will have is S and my exercise routine. Maybe that and my books will save me. 

I feel so tired. I think I will take a nap now. 

Everyone have a great day! Be well!