Weekly sustenance

Weekend highlights for sustenance through the week -
Visiting the Images of Nature gallery (Thomas D Mangelsen) to find some very  beautiful pictures since my last visit there four years ago. Then finding the ermine picture in his online store. Reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves in a dark cozy corner of a coffee shop and feeling deep sense of empathy and familiarity. Hitting that a-ha moment about after a couch discussion and through the pages of this book much like the magic book concept from Richard Bach’s Illusions – “..hold some problem in your mind, then open any book handy and see what it tells you?”
Cooking snake gourd in coconut curry on Saturday followed by baingan bartha on Sunday. Taking up the challenge for a movie marathon. Cuddling on the sofa and watching Metro (wow!) and losing the challenge falling asleep halfway through 2nd movie Schultze gets the Blues. Listening to a fast paced guest lecturer at the Vedanta society. Stumbling upon a shelf full of old Snoopy books and The Little Prince at a used book store. Staying focused and leaving with 1 Snoopy, 1 little prince and 1 calculus demystified. Waiting all weekend for the sun and missing it because I feel asleep in the hammock with book in lap when it finally broke through! Bah sun! Goodbye summer -welcome fall.

Things that go thud in the night

After a particularly hard week at work, I was at my desk by the window at home @ 2 a.m. last night. I was cautiously watching the dark yard through peripheral vision for the neighborhoood cat with piercing glow-int-the-dark eyes that can make me jump out of my chair.. No cat – but I heard a steady thud thud sound. At first I thought it was the cat trying to be sneaky. Then I thought it was probably in my head as I was working myself up into a spook with the darkness, night silence, and my chat with a friend about her schizophrenia related dissertation.
Finally, I turned my head slowly to the window to the direction of the sound, and discovered a gigantic brown moth with beady eyes, slimy torso and large wings hitting the window trying to get to the light. I am not an insect person and it was not a pretty sight. But I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the guy. In all fairness, even with my insomnia and cat-spook, I was probably better off than him. Anyway I shut the blinds with a thud -and turned in for the night with a renewed resolution to be computer free for the rest of the weekend. Oops!

Simple act of friendship

Two women in their mid-fifties were shopping at the store during my volunteer shift last weekend. It was a typical scene – girlfriends browsing, shopping and gushing over the beautiful handicrafts. Eventually one of them came up to the counter with her items. As I was ringing her up, she whispered to me and asked me to ring up a candle holder from Bangladesh that her friend had picked. She said that it was a gift and that she got her friend to pick something she liked so that she can buy it for her. When the friend came up to the counter she gave it to her in a matter of fact way saying “Here’s a gift for you.. thought I would get it for you since you liked it”. The friend was completely surprised and started to protest, but the woman insisted saying that she wanted to provide support through the rough time the friend was going through. The woman was moved to tears by this and embraced her friend right there by the cash register. We beat that day’s sales target by 30%,  but that one sale was the highlight of the day!