Friend heart/fiery heart

So now, I'm back at home from the other side of the world and feeling more human, instead of one of the undead (modern technology does to one by whizzing us around!)
I had a lovely time in the US, spending time with my new grandbaby and her proud parents, spending some time with my brothers and their families, enjoying the mostly pleasant weather most enjoyable and a real bonus--meeting my blog friend Onedia.
This post will be about my meeting with O--one of my oldest blog friends I think.
O drove around 10 hours--the driving done completely by her--with Katha, O's exchange daughter from Germany. It being the Labor Day weekend, I'm sure traffic wasn't easy. They stayed in downtown Chicago.
Unfortunately the day she reached Chicago, I was still recovering from the onset of a cold and cough. So I got to spend just a morning with her. But it was a wonderful day!
Firstly, although the forecast had predicted rain, it turned out to be a glorious morning as I walked--meandered--along Wacker Drive, and the 'Magnificient Mile'. I did attract a few glances during my 2 mile walk (which took me close to an hour incidentally), because I was all togged up in 'Indian, Indian' clothes.
Finally I reached a cross roads and there across the street was a tall (to me) woman, dressed elegantly in black, who I recognised as Onedia immediately. Oh it was so exciting to travel to the other side of the world and meet up with a blog friend you have only read--like old time meeting of pen friends!!
O and I then headed to the food court in the mall where young Katha was enjoying a morning's shopping and decided to eat brunch at the restaurant there. We had the most amazing baked apple pancakes, which I can still taste! And we talked and talked!! I did wonder if O could quite understand my accent. But it was grand.
After the brunch, O called Katha, who came and took pictures of us, after which O and I caught the local train, me to get off at Jackson to go listen to a bit of the Chicago jazz festival which was on and O to head out somewhere, where Katha would meet her later.
I don't usually put up pictures of me here, so the picture of me & O will go to another blog. But here is the picture of the lovely gift O gave me, (which she made keeping in mind our 'Auras' as showed up on a fun quiz in Facebook). O said that it is a friend heart and I have noted that a pendant like this is there on her Fiery Hearts blog

Thank you for the beautiful gift and the great time O! I do hope you and Mathew will be able to make a trip to India sometime.

Thoughts from a sleepless night

I stay up and read a murder mystery to know the ending and then think I'll check my mail and realise it's early morning and it's afternoon half-way across the world at my home and that this time next week I'll be in Chennai and getting ready to leave by the night train to go back home. 
It seems so long since I left home.  And in the dark as it happens so often, I feel disembodied, detached, and wonder do I justify my existence.Do all sentient beings feel the need to justify their existence?  What use am I in the scheme of things?  And i think of the lines from the poem (never can remember which one, certainly not at this time of the night) 'They also serve who only stand and and wait', which I often use to justify to myself my existence and I think of Agatha Christie's novels and a thought that runs through many of them, that sometimes a person's whole existence maybe only for the moment when his or her presence alone can change the course of somebody else's life.  And I try to see if there was a tapestry of life on the hill or of the life of my family am I there and what colours would the silks that portray my life be.  And I know I am there--muted shades of blue and green--background shades. 
But that is for the daylight.  Now, in the early dawn darkness, I am only words.