It's been 3 months since I posted.  In the early days of blogging, I would have decorated my blog for Christmas and put up New Year greetings.  But what with Facebook and Google reader, I ended up doing none of those things.

I feel old.  I remember seeing a bit of an interview of Julia Child by Larry King and she said that, even at 80, she felt only 18 inside!.  How wonderful to feel that way.  But unfortunately, I feel maybe only a couple of years younger than my age.  

Last night I dreamt of my parents so clearly and my mother talking to me (telling me to check whether all the doors were locked actually).  In the dream I felt young, even as a grandmother, because my mother was there. As long as she was there, even at 55, I felt young.  In a couple of weeks it will be five years since she passed away.

Happy Diwali

Wishing all a Happy Diwali.

It was my 60th birthday last week and my children sent us (my husband & me) to the island of Langkawi, off the coast of Malaysia, as a birthday gift. It was a lovely gift and we had a relaxed extended weekend holiday.  Here are some pictures.

View from the hotel room verandah

From the cable car

My Bali Hai 

Breakfast fruit platter

Today, while visiting Facebook & Google +,  I missed my mother so.  I knew that if she'd been around, I would have pushed her into one or both, although she would have protested that she was too old and she couldn't possibly.. But I know she would have enjoyed interacting with nieces, nephews, grand children, etc.  Just as she was a little reluctant to begin blogging, but enjoyed herself after the initial reluctance.  She was a pretty tech savvy person for someone her age.  When she first wanted to get a computer--at around age 79 or 80, her sons couldn't believe she would really use it.  I told them 'Just get one for her and see what she'll do'; and sure enough, she first got some youngster to come in and help her, then located a book to learn and used to call me once in a while, when she had doubts.  By the time she moved next door to me, around 5 years later, she was quite a pro.  She also loved playing the card games and chess.  I know she so wanted to be gone from this life, especially after my dad passed away.  But I still miss her, especially when I come across something I know she would have loved.

Among the songs on my 'For walking' list is the Beach Boys 'Surfin' USA'  This reminded me of our trip to LA this year.  We were there mid May, and the day before we left, my nephew, both ardent surfers, said that it was a perfect day to surf and they wanted to drive to San Onofre State Beach, which was around 30 miles from where we were staying.  My husband and I had never really seen any surfing and didn't know what to expect.  Anyway, we bundled into the car with nephews, their dad, their dogs, wetsuits & of course the surfboards.
When we got to San Onofre, we almost didn't get place to park on the beach and what we saw was a bit like in this video


There were like hundreds of surfers in the cold water, surfing, falling in the water and clambering up on their boards again. It was a revelation to us from across the world. I stood with the two dogs, off the beach and watched the surfers. Didn't get any pictures. Hence the use of this video.

An evening entertainment

Last night, my husband was having dinner out.  So I was listening to these songs of my youth -----
,
'Sunshine of your love', and 'Born to be wild' and a couple of sundry other songs, moving along to the music and................................................
scrubbing the bathroom!
So I now have a  sparkling, rocking, bathroom :-D

Weekend reading

We get the Business Standard at home and I enjoy their Weekend magazine.  This time I read quite a number of the articles.  Two articles kind of got to me.  One  was an interview with the current channel head of MTV and the other was titled 'Pleasure is Good'. 

Now, in the first article, what caught my attention was the sentence  “We live in the age of sinnocence where virtues are out and vices are in.”  I wondered whether that was true and if it was true, then why all this anti-corruption brouhaha, after all, if vices were in, why would young people want to be anti-corruption, or was this supposed to mean that 'I, me can have all the vices, do what I want, but the people in office should not be like me'?  That sentence hurt me somewhere deep and made me wonder whether those of us, who still try to teach young people ethical ways of thinking and living are a dying breed, going the way of the dodos and whether such teaching is now irrelevant.

Regarding the 'Pleasure is Good' article, it was discussing the dynamics of interpersonal relationships today and to quote "More relevant are the modern-day gradations and variations in what was the traditional man-woman coupling. One of the newer entrants to the lexicon of the way people relate to each other is the term “friend with benefits”, which the writer goes on to define as given in the Urban dictionary.  Further--

"A relationship website that passes by the name of Mr Ethical Slut has a more empirical explanation. “For the most part, these two people are friends. The big difference between their other friendships is sex. Friends with benefits have the ability to go out on date-like activities. However, real dates are not initiated because there is no romantic interest between the partners. They hang out because they enjoy similar activities and each other’s company. Sex is an optional part of the relationship. If one partner has sex outside of the relationship, it does not end their friendship. Instead, the sex element is taken out of the relationship and they continue to be friends. Sex can also come back into the friendship when both parties are ready for it.”   The writer goes on to say that "Friend with benefits, perhaps, is just what the doctor ordered for the fast-paced, demanding, ephemeral lifestyles in Indian cities."   

What I would like to know is, if what the writer says (along with what articles in Cosmopolitan or Femina imply) is really what is happening out there; have our young people really changed their mindset so much and do both women and men accept this without negative connotations. I am also intrigued, because, again as per information from various magazines, our age-old system, of arranged marriages, is still thriving.  Somehow, I just cannot reconcile the two.  Can some youngsters enlighten me on these issues?