Fidgety Foots

I used to read a lot. I’m talking about an average of a book every two days, and not tiny books either. Reading was great - my mind expanded, my horizons boomed, my imagination flexed.

Then I grew up, made money and got cable. Now movies have ousted book and bookshelf. True, there’s not as much left to imagination when watching a movie, but it’s not always a bad thing.

For instance, we watched ‘In the Valley of Elah’ this week. Had I read it as a book, I would have skipped distasteful portions, or simply refused to picture graphic detail in my mind (an art I have perfected). Watching the movie I had no choice but to feel everything that was beamed at me.

My 2 mins is almost up, but I guess I’m trying to say that movies are a different type of stimulus than books. Books exercise the mind, that exercise touches the heart. Movies assault the heart, and then pierce the mind.

Angry fight clouds sleep.
Clear bodies forgive the dark,
wake us, intertwined.

Haiku - a three line, 5-7-5 syllabled composition. Here’s a lovely Nat Geo article on the life and works of Matsuo Basho, poet, student, traveler and creator of haiku.

Former poet laureate Robert Hass paraphrases Basho this way: “Avoid adjectives of scale, you will love the world more and desire it less.”

Our travelogues have been long neglected. Here’s a quick update.

Hawaii:

We went to Kauai in February (14th-18th). Too short - if you’re ever going to Hawaii, go for at least a week, otherwise you’ll come away dissatisfied.

Kauai was known to the Polynesians as the healing island, and so it is. There’s something about the place that makes normally harried people stop, breathe and say hello.

It was a great trip - here are the highlights for me.

1. The land: Sunil dubbed Kauai “keralafornia”…a combo of Kerala and California. It had palm and deciduous trees with broad leaves as well as coastal pines (coastal pines were confused by the lack of snow and grew branches that pointed to the sky). The island was born of volcanic activity, so was created in isolation. The soil is bright red in sharp contrast to the green that carpets the island. Kauai’s volcanic crater is deep and lush with waterfalls striping its walls.
2. The Pacific: I know what you’re going to say - we have the pacific right by us in California. Not like this, temperamental, intolerant and scary. When we were there, the surf was unseasonably high, and we got to see 20 foot waves smack into each other from 3 different directions. Check out the sunset on Ke’e beach where the waves obfuscate the sun at points. We got to see the sunrise almost every morning, and that was breathtaking.
3. Connecting with random strangers: We ended up meeting and chatting with really interesting people, from a book store clerk (who gave us reading suggestions and 10% off), to a whale lover (who taught us about humpback whales and agreed about the unworthiness of humans in general), to vacationing retirees.

The pics of our trip are here - http://picasaweb.google.com/sunilsc/Kauai2008/

Tahoe trip:

Went to Tahoe last weekend for a mini ski vacation. There was fresh powder on the ground and sunshine in the air….lovely combination. We snowshoed one day, skied another.

Pics are at http://picasaweb.google.com/sunilsc/TahoeTripMarch2008

Ok - fell off the blogwagon, rolled back on. I stopped writing, didn’t stop thinking and now I’m stuffed with backed up posts.

I had a flip-thought-moment yesterday. You know…when you’re following a train of reasoning, and in the space of a single thought find that a long-held stance has loosened, flexed or (in this case) dissolved. The stance, and flip was on the subject of pets.

I’ve long held that pets in this country are ridiculously pampered, overweight, happy creatures who have a life much better than mine. Eat, sleep, be petted, roll over and get a massage…what’s not to like or envy?

Anyway, I was listening to a vet talk about the travails and joys of his profession serving pet owners and servicing pets. He also talked about plastic surgeries for pets, one of which is testicular implants where a pet who has been neutered gets false balls to make him look normal. I recoiled, and that was my flip moment.

Current opinion: I would not like a pet’s life. I won’t offer unconditional love to someone who guts my reproductive system, dictates my meals, exercise and friends, expects me to ‘heel’ and keeps me around so I can add value to their lives. No thank you.

As always, laizzes-faire is the only thing that makes sense of my muddle.

Indian chefs aim for record with 13-tonne biryani. 

After the biriyani was weighed, it went to city orphanages.

Gypsy sent me a message in a bottle yesterday.

Rules:
You are about to send a virtual message In a Bottle across the Blog Ocean. Leave a message on the sand or in the bottle. Write anything you wish. Be a pirate or a poet. Serious or silly. Anonymous or not. What message would you like to send out to the universe?

1. Compose a message to place in your virtual bottle.
2. Click the image below to open it in another window. Right-click & save the image to your local drive.

3. Use a graphics application of your choice to place the message on the picture.
4. Post the Message In a Bottle entry and your edited image on your blog along with these rules.
5. Tag a minimum of 5 bloggers - or your entire blogroll - to do the same. Notify them of the tag.

So now it’s my turn. I stare long and hard at the pic, but nothing wise, witty or funny comes (GB’s standing at my elbow dropping gems meanwhile). Anyway, I essay, and here’s my essay.

Now I tag GB, Meeta, Vindo, Sarita and Sunil. Avast!