Twenty- five Seven

July : The Good, the Bad and the Ugly #GratitudeCircle

July 26, 2018

July isn’t exactly my favourite month of the year simply because it has 31 days.

Somehow, this one extra day makes the month interminable for me . Yet this July , like all months had its good days and bad. In fact the month reminded me of the spaghetti Western starring Clint Eastwood ‘The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’.

The Good

July began with a visit to my parents’ place in Pune. The wonderful weather and my father’s messy garden had a reinvigorating effect on my spirit that was feeling grey and gloomy after the celebrity suicides that brought back memories of my friend Yasmin.

Sitting in my father’s balcony I got inspired for my best blogging yet. I came up with a serial story for the Bar-A-Thon hosted by Blog-A-Rhythm. While the traffic didn’t improve, this got me many compliments which was gratifying. Sadly, I lost all these posts in a major blog transfer glitch.

While in Pune, I visited cousins who were part of my childhood – a time that always brings back happy memories.

Grandchildren : Many of my friends grumble about my lack of time spent with them but honestly, nothing can be more rewarding than having little children running around, dodgy knee and all.

Returning home, I was busy with Little Po’s third birthday. Unfortunately, Little Po always celebrates his birthday with ill health and this year was no different. But thanks to the magic of modern medicine, he was able to enjoy his party without many sniffles.

Since Wow Dinga was on holiday, Anna Shetty organised an Art worskhop at home and for 4 mornings my house was transformed into a day care. The highlight of the session was the enthusiastic pillow fight that ensued amongst the participants who were more than delighted to destroy my living room.

The end of July also brought back Daughter No. 1 and the delightful Ms Papaya for a two month holiday. I’m grateful to have my grandchildren in my life. Children are truly a joy, dodgy knee notwithstanding.

Food: Being a passionate foodie, I am grateful that I could grab a bite at two restaurants that I’ve been longing to visit . ‘All Day at the Quarter ‘ is a tiny balcony restaurant at the renovated Opera House. Two of my cousins joined me for lunch – part of my year long celebration of turning 60.

I also had a quick meal at ‘ Gajalee‘ where I wolfed down prawn curry with neer dosa. Even though Hubby Dear was the non-participating partner at this meal, I am grateful for his company. Eating alone is definitely not fun.

But the highlight of my food experience was undoubtedly the chocolate cake that Wow Dinga and Ms Papaya helped decorate. Mistakenly, I followed the recipe for a chocolate mousse instead of the one for the ganache but that was a happy mistake that we quickly polished off.

Greening my life : My visit to Pune was relaxing and rewarding. I came back with happy memories of visits with cousins and plenty of plants for my balcony. After years of barrenness, I am slowly bringing back the green to my life.

Books: Finally I did manage to read two books this month .’Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand’ was a somewhat lukewarm read. I’m not really a fan of romance in Old Age and was a bit disturbed by this book. However, my personal prejudice aside, this was a well written book replete with British humour.

Another book that had me hooked was ‘Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine’. I would strongly recommend this book to everyone for its subtle humour and well told narrative.

Volunteering : I’ve been volunteering my time at St.Jude India ChildCare Centres for over 10 years now. The past few years my participation has been sketchy but I’m grateful that this organisation still welcomes me . This month , after years of trying to find a solution to our long standing problem of how to document the stories of the children we’ve helped, we finally managed a break through.

The Bad :

Home front : All hasn’t been quiet on the home front this month with the household staff getting in each other’s hair as well as mine. While I am grateful to have them for doing the grunt work, it is quite a task getting people to work in peace and harmony. Sometimes I wonder if it is really worth having help at all because the time and energy I’ve spent getting their egos sorted out is quite something.

The Ugly :

Since I had to renew my blog hosting, I thought I’d change over to SiteGround. But this turned out quite ugly as I lost almost a whole month of blogging! I still have to sort out this mess but I’m grateful that my previous hosts Webhostinghub.com were co-operative enough to transfer my back up files that were on their server.

SiteGround was quite co-operative with their endless chats with me, but finally I’ve realised that this problem is mine to solve eventually.

So, I’m grateful that this month has come to an end !

August will be another 5 week month of 31 days but tomorrow is another day!

Cheers then from a wet an gloomy Mumbai. Here’s hoping it is less grey.

Sharing this post with Vidya Sury on #GratitudeCircle and Shantala on #ChattyBlogs

Ciao
#Wordless Wednesday

July 25, 2018

I don’t mean to make fun of any one and my apologies to those who get offended by this photograph but honestly, I held back posting this picture lfor 2 years. Finally, I can’t help sharing this photograph that left me in giggles.

So here goes :

Once again, no offence !

Sharing this one with #WordlessWednesdays hosted by Natasha & Esha.

Ciao
Memories of music past

July 24, 2018

I woke up this morning too excited to sleep. And while catching up with my reading, came across this delightful interview of David Marchese in conversation with Billy Joel. Billy Joel is probably on the play list of my readers’ moms’. But for me, it brought back memories of a time when there was music in my life. Whenever I sit back and reminisce about the days gone by, memories of Uptown Girl, Stayin’ Alive ( BeeGees) and numerous hits of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s come to mind.

Perhaps my last musical update was of the early 2000’s when I heard the music of Michael Learns to Rock ( MLTR) and Gypsy Kings that my daughters discovered in their last years of school. After that they moved on to Trance which I didn’t like . The only Hip Hop that I could listen to was Eminem largely because of the fascination with the name that conjured up images of jewel coloured chocolate bits.

So what happened to make my life quiet and without song ?

Partly the empty nest and partly technology.

While I am a great lover of gizmos, and love updating the gadgets in my house, I still have to find the perfect music player.

In the beginning we had radio. Then we had the record player or turn table with vinyl discs. The 70’s were the days when our lives were entangled in thin tapes played on the cassette player. In the 80’s we shifted to Boom Boxes and the Walkman. I never could manage the iPod but I did take to the Bose Wave system.

It all started when my Bose Wave went bust. I thought Bose was unbeatable in both value and quality but it seemed that I was the one to get the rotten egg. Within a year or two of its purchase, it developed a problem with its lens . So replacing that cost me Rs.5000 or so. Two more years later, it developed the same problem and this time I didn’t want to repair it because the cost of repair went up and it would mean that my Wave would cost me Rs. 10,000 more than what I paid for it. Within a few years, the cost of repairs would equal the cost of the initial outlay. In my twisted logic, it made better sense not to repair it.

And, therein lies the problem – the lack of equipment to play the music I love.

Gradually I find that even my CDs are getting frayed around the edges. Cassettes, old fashioned tapes and vinyl records are all in the past. And the good old fashioned transistor radio ? What is that ask the salesmen when you ask for one.

So how do people listen to music?

Apparently they stream it. Through their iPhones or Smartphones or computers or whatever. Which means playing music is not for me anymore.

How do you listen to your favourite music? And do you keep up to date with the latest trends? Do let me know in the comments below.

In the meanwhile, do listen in to Uptown Girl, my favourite number from Billy Joel

Cheerio then,