photoblog

From point to hill to peak to mountain

There is a progression of heights..

We start with a point like Hunter’s point which we can see from our street corner. Then a little taller is a hill, like Nob hill close to our house. Then it goes up to Peak. Maisie's peak is the tallest point in our local preserve at close to 1200 feet. Then there are mountains…

Black mountain which we frequent here but is called a mountain because it is close to 3000 feet but a radio tower makes it cross that limit (or so I heard).. then bay area grand slam for hikers.. Mt. Tamalpais, Diablo, Hamilton and Umunhum.. which were all done at some point..

It has been 4 months almost since there was a walk in the clouds with a view.

Given the holiday today, we had decided to try Hunter’s point or Maisies peak with the group. Everyone cheered me on as I made my way up one step at a time. On the way down I was 5 mintues behind and my buddy Prasad was Mr. Patience and gave me company. He was walking zig zag the entire time to keep his feet moving while I was stepping through it.

Have missed this for so long! Made my way to Yoga later in the afternoon and enjoyed that as well. The good news is my knee is still holding up after all the activity today.

Pinching myself !

Here are a few photos and a video highlight reel..

it is going to be slow progress but today was motivational enough to keep taking the slow and steady approach!

Next I need to see some beaches and waterfalls and all will be well!

Navarathri 2026

This year we celebrated Navarathri by visiting friends and family across the bay area.

San was happy and that made me happy.

She did all the driving and logistics. All I did was match her Sari to the best of my ability and go sing in a lot of places where she was happy to sit back and listen. She also had to do most of the eating as I am allergic to lot of things. Felt bad that she had to pull this off solo..

Here are the pictures..

First the matching matching..

Once your head has stopped spinning.. you can take a look at this.. (except today, where I was not invited, made it all the other days).. The picture below is definitely prettier than the one above, without me being a “repeater drishti pottu”. This one needed the floor pose to cover up some gaps.. not all pictures were the same.. San was not happy that I kept using same backdrop in same location every day.. hope she sees this and understands why!

A gallery of all the Kolu’s and any dolls that were unique or caught my eye…(in portrait format)

Photos in landscape format..

There was a lot of enthusiasm, creativity from adults and kids in the doll displays this year! Hoe this gives you a good glimpse of our bay area navarthri visits..

We are at an age where the number of folks who don’t celebrate every year is increasing. We are all in fifties. That means previous generation is in their 80’s and 90’s. A lot of missing folks and kolus this year as well. Then again, time keeps going and they will come back the following year.

Got to learn 12 new songs and got to sing a few of them.. A separate post on that tomorrow. Have finally learned to admire Dikshidhar after all these years!

Indian festivals are amazing!

A renewed festival season

Last year there were no celebrations or festivities in our house. It was a year of “remembering dad”.

This year we started celebrating again with the Varalakshmi, then Krishna Jayanthi, Aavaniavittam, Ganesha Chathurthi and finally we are ending with the Navarathri festivities. Life has thrown a few curveballs in the last few months and every event ended up with memories that made it not blog worthy.

Finally getting to share some photos from those events in the blog, before we get to the kolu padis..

Let’s go one step at a time..and I made them all collages..

Food that completely covers the carb, fat, sugar ternary phase diagram..

Then there is photos I send to my mom after completing each poojai or prayer… you can see the improvement in my knee from the smile on my face after sitting down cross legged for an hour at least for each of these prayers.. This morning I managed a smile and drove to work without any additional swelling!

A few other photos (the Onam spread would have required a wide angle lens that is yet to be developed)..

Now that brings us to the Navarathri festival that needs a special post or two..