Last night we gave dinner to family (my husband's siblings &families) as a farewell to my son & wife before they go abroad. Well, after last night, I decided 'That's it, I am totally retiring from cooking for parties' 'cos to me, whatever I made was maybe not total disaster, but absolutely 'blah'. My confidence about my food has been steadily dropping and I can tell you in this town food is very, very important. Earlier, being a good cook was tied up with being a woman. Thank God that has changed though(that is now it's ok to have men who are good cooks too!) Anyway, next time I cater.

Today was really bright and sunny. The moon is waxing. So I guess we'll get a few more days of sunshine--or at least lighter rain. Just now--at 9p.m. as I sit at the comp with the windows open beside my desk, I'm being serenaded by a full-throated frog chorus and I can see the occasional firefly. They usually start appearing during lulls in the monsoon. Very peaceful.

We have been having truly torrential rain for the last week almost accompanied by really strong winds. So the power situation was seriously in trouble with all the trees we have around. So yesterday there was no getting on the computer. Today power--with the correct voltage--was finally restored around 2p.m, but after that too there were breaks. So it's only now, when I feel pretty sure the power isn't going to go off again, that I have got computer time. Anyway today there was a welcome lull in the rain with a watery sun shining through for about 4 hours. Very, very welcome.

Isn't it fun to do house work to your favourite music? Was busy yesterday with my earphone plugged in jigging around the chores to my fav jazz.

From yesterday afternoon, there has been an amazing amount of birdsong in the trees around our house. This morning, the repertoire was truly amazing--whistling, singing, calls like a mynah. I couldn't resist the whistling and ran out to see. It turned out to be racket-tailed drongos. It's been raining most of the day. So I couldn't stand outside to see them too clearly. But during a lull in the rain a particularly lengthy song pulled me out. Then I spied a pair mating & I realised that all the singing was amorous! Even during a heavy downpour at noon(when I went out to feed my dog) the singing was going on. Later I watched one of them perched on top of a coconut tree--during another lull--making the most amazing variety of sounds. He was presumably a younger one, because he didn't have such a splendid tail though he had his head crest. It's only now--at about 5 pm--that the singing has stopped. Here is a picture of one from Answers.com. By the way, the bird is fairly small, only about the size of a swallow I guess; much smaller than a crow.

I'm sitting at my computer with the windows wide open. It's a lovely during-the-monsoon afternoon. The rain has let up for a bit, it's cloudy, but not monsoon dark and there is the strong south-westerly breeze. But as I type (and search for a monsoon picture online) the sky's getting darker and the breeze stronger. It's raining heavily now.
This time though, the beginning of the monsoon has been really bad because of this.
We have just bought homeopathic preventives for everyone. Apparently in the more rural areas of our town, the government dispensaries are handing out these preventives. I do hope we manage to get away with no problem, more so as my son and daughter-in-law have to leave in a month!

Found this on the Net

Love is as critical for your mind and body as oxygen. It's not negotiable. The more connected you are, the healthier you will be both physically and emotionally. The less connected you are, the more you are at risk.
Love is the best antidepressant—but many of our ideas about it are wrong. The less love you have, the more depressed you are likely to feel.
# Know that love is a learned skill, not something that comes from hormones or emotion particularly. Erich Fromm called it "an act of will." If you don't learn the skills of love you virtually guarantee that you will be depressed, not only because you will not be connected enough but because you will have many failure experiences.

This was clipped from this Psychology Today article. Worth a read!

Here are 2 more photographs I took with my phone which I feel quite pleased with!




The sunset on the left was taken from my mother's flat, when I was over there recently. the only thing is the sky was a much deeper red and somehow the phone's camera made it more orangy! I tried with the Irfan view software I had to turn it to the more red colour I saw, but it wasn't working.
The other picture is of my gulmohar in bloom.

Just a random post.

I’ve been feeling low off and on now, which I’ve been doing my best to fight off because my son & his wife are leaving for the US soon. My son is going to study there and they will probably stay on there, for the next 5 years at least. I think the regular readers of this blog probably know all about it? It’s true that this is a terrific opportunity for them and I am certainly proud of my son’s score in his GMAT and sort of excited for them, but that just does not prevent my feeling low as the day for their departure nears.
When your children first leave home to go to University, it’s tough and I used to feel miserable every time they went back to colleges far away from here. But when they each found someone special and got married, I was really happy for them. So that way this time when he leaves, it’s much better because he’s leaving with his wife & I feel relieved that they are there for each other. But that cannot completely take away the fact that they are going so far away.
My son has been married for 41/2 years and has been living in this town for 6 years. Even though I don’t see them everyday or anything (sometimes not even once in a week), it was a warm feeling to know that they were just a 10min drive away if necessary. Now they are going to a continent on the other side of the world and I can’t pretend it isn’t bringing me down.
But I know it’s best for them and I know they are going to do great there. But I just had to put my feelings down, to share it with my blog friends, because trying to just bury the feelings by reading hasn’t helped much. Well, maybe I should jut keep listening to music a lot more, which seems to help the best. Still another month to go though.

I've been re-reading the Harry Potter books, in preparation for the latest one and have been so immersed I haven't even felt like blogging!!! I have been so enjoying myself. Have the 5th & 6th to finish.
I have been wanting to put up some pictures I took with my phone, for a while anyway. So here are the pictures.

A lovely red carpet from my gulmohar tree in bloom.

gulmohars on the car.



This is some kind of a lily I think, which blooms just for a day. When you actually see it, it seems more purplish. On the left is the picture taken with my phone & on the right is a picture taken with a good camera (shows doesn't it?)