While the rest of the US is going nuts over the elections, yours truly has been extremly happy and stayed away from most coverage.
Bikram Yoga San Jose opened its doors for Hot Yoga classes. . . Hot being the keyword.. and I have been drenched in glorious sweat every day and my sanity is on a different track.
The little coverage that leaked through thanks to my family and walking buddies did keep me amused. Sooner or later, someone will win. Hopefully sanity will return.. The country has already gone past a point of no return in 2016 and has had a massive heart attack. It is living on borrowed time. There is only hope left.
No one in my company has gone anywhere on vacation given COVID and we have all been working pretty much round the clock since March. There was a policy change where if you exceed PTO, you take it or lose it.
So every three weeks, taking a Friday off. The last such day off saw me go up to Hunters point and get a view of the silicon valley from the south west side.
Today it was a much more ambitious plan to go up Mission peak in Fremont. Even though I average 7.5 miles of walking a day, it is mostly on flat terrain around the block. Don't like steep climbs as it makes my ankle swell.
My wife encouraged me a lot to climb this by reminding me of my glory days of climbing with a 30 lbs camera bag on my back in what seems just a year ago in truth, but a decade ago in my memory.
Off we went and thoroughly enjoyed it. Took us exactly 2 and a half hours to go up and come down from the parking lot. Some pictures..
We got a great view from the top..
The views enroute were beautiful..
For the most part San walked ahead of me.. she cannot stop on an uphill climb or she finds it difficult to start again..I cannot stop downhill or I get stuck! So we had an interesting arrangement..
we walked with her leading up and me leading down but with stops to catch up.. and take selfies! We met maybe a total of 10 people on either way.. had our masks in our hand and had to wear it only when we saw anyone in the other direction. That made things easier!
We got drenched on the way back with an unexpected downpour. That made this an adventure of sort, running down in rain watching the city lights..
It has taken me at least the last few hours to get my warmth back and get back to normal after what has defintiely been some exercise outside the yoga mat!
Still prefer walks on flat terrain compared to a non stop slope, but walking with San is something that I have missed for a long time.. Just realized that today!
Given the last 7 months, we decided to take another short ride to a place within an hour radius that has not been visited in the last 20 years.. San found just the place in Devils slide near Pacifica.
The weather was pleasant and we drove almost an hour to the parking lot there. Then there was a hike that was 3 miles back and forth from one parking lot to the other and back. This is a beautiful bike and walkway that goes around the mountainside overlooking the pacific ocean.
There were 6 whales there breaching, but we could not catch it.
We had great visibiilty while we walked one way and it started raining on our way back. For some reason we were just happy to be there and didn't care.
We met an interesting old man called "Uncle Ericson" who was an 84 year old retired plastic surgeon who walks this path every day. we got to chat with him in the drizzle on the way back and he told us some stories about the place. That made the return walk interesting! He told us about this Jeep that was rolled down the slope by theives and how it has been there since 1999 and now trees are growing through it!
Got to take some pictures with both the iPhone and the Canon this time.
It is all mixed and matched here (some of the iPhone photos adjusted in snapseed as well)
a slideshow of the rest of the pictures..
Loved the place and the walk.. we were both happy to walk together someplace after a long time!
After being in stay at home mode for six months, we (read San) really wanted to go somewhere for a drive. So two weekends ago we decided to drive towards Santa Cruz on Labor day Sunday to at least wet our feet in the beach. What we didn't know was that the beaches were open only on Saturday and they closed it for Sunday and Monday. So after a 45 minute drive towards Santa Cruz, we drove back without ever getting out of the car.
There were fires burning then but it was clear that morning. Still no chance to realize the get out of the car and walk around goal.
This weekend we decided to go visit Stow lake in Golden Gate Park as one of our friends posted some amazing pictures. We have visited this park many times in the past, mostly to go to California Academy of sciences. The first time was in 2002 when San was pregnant with Jr. It was the first place we took my MIL to visit. At that time we walked near this place and went to a Japanese tea garden.. but missed the lake and boating area!
By the time we went there the boat rental was closed, but we did go for a nice walk around the lake and enjoyed some fresh air. The lawns were extremely crowded with families sitting on blankets and kids walking the dogs, but the walking paths were relatively people free. 90% of the folks wore masks with the exception being a few runners. We stayed clear of them. We removed our masks only to take a few selfies when no one was around.
The selfie camera in iPHone is not as capable as the actual camera as you can tell from the rest of the photos..
The colors in this place are so vibrant the photos came out great..on the iPhone. Was editing the photos on snapseed and fell in love with this frame that seems to work for nature photos..
Loved this frame..and the bridge that was erected in 1893!
then the birds in the lake gave us a few more chances to take a break and take pictures..
an evening well spent.. now that we have had one visit, we plan to start going to other places on short drives where we don't have to step out anywhere, use public restrooms or come in contact with strangers..
The daily walks around the neighborhood and stay at home / Parking lot yoga is still on.. The air has also cleared up nicely so far. It almost feels like life came back closer to normal.
Faith is an interesting thing.. it makes you do things that are ingrained in you from childhood. Everytime I lose something and I have to find it in a time sensitive way, subconsciously say a prayer to Ganesha and say "will light a camphor light(karpooram) for 10 paise at the local temple"..
a. we don't get camphor lights in the US that easily
b. there is no 10 paise anymore
c. local temple can be anything but was originally intended for Vembadi Vinayagar, a little ganesha under a pipal tree that I have circled with prayers to remove obstacles real and imaginary..
But it gets done.. and we are not even talking about if we actually found the thing on time or not.
In 2014 my MIL was going for a bone marrow test and in pure panic mode I prayed to my family deity (Gunaseelam perumal) that if the test came negative for cancer, will go shave my head in the temple. That was more of an extreme case of the camphor lighting thing..
Have made at least 6 trips to India since that time but never got the opportunity to go visit Gunaseelam. Faith is interesting.. seeing your family deity is not up to you, it is up to your deity.. or so the saying goes! Guess on this short trip to see my dad, there was no agenda.
Three weeks ago, was lying in a hospital bed myself, dreading some worse case scenarios, which fortunately turned out to be something a lot less threatening. While there, the thought of unfinished business with god somehow bubbled up to the top of the already buffering thought process. What if I died and did not do the "mottai"? After all the bone marrow test for MIL had come out negative!
The original plan was to just go alone with a driver and get things done and get back. Then my parents said the words "Can we come with you?".. In case you didn't get the reason Faith got mentioned three times in the title, "you cannot say no to someone when they ask to come to a temple with you".. My dad was bedridden two weeks ago and he barely started walking again. An adult in diapers who just started walking, coming on a day trip where we spend 11 hours in the car and 3 hours in a temple is no joke.
Somehow, we told ourselves, if it was meant to be, we will make it. I did a risk mitigation plan that would make any project manager proud and we left at 3AM. It was still raininig in Chennai but we were off to a flying start.. We had one stop for 25 minutes and were back on the road.
Given this is my n'th mottai at Gunaseelam, the whole thing was done in 7 minutes.. then came the best part. There was water in the river that flows to the temple! Had a great time taking a dip in the river and have the fishes nibble at me. We were on a deadline and I had to pull myself out of the water to go in and finish the rest of the prayer.
Our driver and some total strangers helped me navigate a wheel chair through the temple. The priest knows our family and was extremely nice and made sure my dad got to see the deity up close.
On our way out a puppy came up and lay down under our vehicle. This one knew how to put on a sad face like a pro..
It was time to drive back. My dad is like a kid who just got his tonsils out and knows that his parents won't say "no" to anything... we just got out of the temple and he mumbles "elaneer.. I want elaneer". He wanted coconut water. Was not even sure if this is coconut water season and we were watching the road for it and sure enough we found a vendor selling fresh coconut water. It is not a good idea for a person of his age to drink that instead of lunch. We stopped at an A2B for lunch and it was really delicious. Had a full course meal. As an added bonus this place had a wheelchair ramp!
Then came the bombshell from my dad "I want to use the restroom". That was not part of the plan. It was going to be diapers all the way. But a kid without his tonsils... is a kid without his tonsils. The restrooms here are not typically wheelchair accessible. They are simply not for anyone who is not fit and can manoeuvre around a potty, a door that swishes past the potty with millimeter tolerance and a bunch of taps and buckets on the floor that are trip hazards. In what can only be described as a houdini move, managed to get my kid to go potty and get him diapy changed. That coconut water was a bad idea. Our driver concurred.
The rest of the drive back was calm and serene. There were cops every 100 feet. So I started counting cops. After 270, I stopped counting. That was only on one side of the road from Dindivanam to Melmaruvaththur. My mind boggled at the efficiency of this whole security apparatus with so many cops just standing on the roadside doing nothing.. then again, maybe this system works, who knows! We actually slowed down to ask one of the cops to find out what the big deal was. He proudly answered "The Chief minister of Tamil Nadu is making his way back to Chennai on the same route!"
We made a dash for it to avoid his motorcade and made it back in exactly 14 hours. For a few minutes after reaching could not find my legs.. had let my dad doze off on me. . . which reminded me of my kids dozing off on me on another recent trip.
It has been another interesting day.
A picture that says it all..
and a short video of the days experience..
It is always a great feeling taking a dip in the river.. mottai or not. Was glad to see my parents smiling again, even if for one day!
Now the only thought in my head is "the mosquitoes are going to get me good tonight with this exposed scalp.. they will suck my brains dry and I might actually wake up smarter!"
My head feels lighter already, both literally and figuratively...
2017 is done and we are moving on. The last 8 days saw us visit local places with the BIL's family. My two nieces made photography fun again for me!
They would randomly come ask me to take pictures in the studio and make funny face poses!
Our plan was to go to the Golden Gate Bridge vista point. However we were not allowed to enter. It was buses only. So we decided to see the bridge from the other side. There also parking was impossible. So we ended up getting flagged to go further and further away from the bridge and next thing we know, we are at a visitor center and there is a beautiful lagoon and a beach with was within eye sight. It said 0.8 miles one way and a mild hike, so off we went. There was a distinct possibility that the little ones might ask to be "lifted" and carried on the way back, but that did not happen. They walked the entire trail and back.
We spent a good 2 hours there and took pictures!
I should have dressed better though. Caught some virus. The rest of 30th and 31st has been spent drinking cough syrup and sleeping. Finally managed to edit the pictures now..
We also had the studio set up in the house.. that meant pictures and pictures and more pictures anytime the kids wanted..
we even switched to a black background to test out some shots..
2018 is going to be a busy year for us. My hope is that we all be in better health next year.
I had the best year health wise for 2017 but managed to mess it up in the last two days! While it is easy to bias an entire year based on the last few days, I did thoroughly enjoy 2017.
Thankful to my BIL and family for visiting us over the break. When you have little kids running around the house, it lights up the place!
Friday, November 6, 2020 at 8:00PM ;)
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