My mom got me a few shirts and pants to wear for this years occasions on my last India trip in December. This year we were not exactly in celebratory mood for Tamil New Year two weeks ago.
We had just finished 30 days under lockdown and were at the stage where everyone was ready to kill each other within the house. The good news is we are all doing okay and are all healthy.
I have been pushing the family to come for a photoshoot to get a family picture and tonight they obliged.. it was not possible to make everyone dress up as some folks expect me to be happy for them even showing up for the picture.
We did have some good eats on April 14th to celebrate but we were in stay-at-home clothing.
Here is last years photo..
and this years photo..
and another photo to remember this time and this year..
Next year Jr. will be in college and given Tamil New Year falls on April 14th, chances are she will not be visiting.. it might be a good 8 years before we see the family in one place for this. . . which is why I was pushing for these pictures in the first place!
This year started in quarantine and has set the bar very low for any year in our lifetime. We sincerely hope that things will get better and we get back to at least 50% of our routines.
Given my grumpiness and the actual day being spent in back to back zoom meetings and calls...
It was with extreme pleading that I managed to get the kids to co-operate for a photo recreation effort..
This was a photo taken in late 2006 or early 2007.. Used it as my Facebook Profile when joining in 2007. It has remained my profile photo since..
Today after many many years, the kids agreed to a retake. My photographer did her best but sometimes they are slightly out of focus. She was going to beg the kids for another take, but it is what it is..
if it was meant to be, it would have come out as intended..
Maybe in another 10 years we can try this again and that time I will have a better shot at this..
Proud of my dollies for agreeing to this.. they were sportive enough!
Not sure how many Star Wars references I have managed to cram into that blog post title...
This is the dairy entry of a hot yoga junkie:
Day 5 of stay in place : In what was yet another attempt to sweat and sweat a lot, progress was made. Ditched the crammed bathroom and restricted movements. Went back to guest room and set up the space heater to "max". It was still luke warm to say the least. Saw my friend Sid's post on the BYSJ group where he was in his bathroom but had a lot more sweat than me.. that got me thinking.. was it because he was still wearing a shirt? So I decide to wear a fleece jacket to force the sweat.
I did sweat a lot more .. but in the jacket. Finally at the end of class two drops of sweat landed on my mat... normally I have two buckets of sweat after class.. calm down I tell myself. Every deluge has to start with a few drops.. I look at those precious two drops and cry.. make that four drops..
My teachers are posting their dialogues as youtube videos. Only problem is the unreliable internet connection at prime time where things start buffering in the middle of the class. I have started recording these in the middle of the night to save them as audio files only. This way the class can go on uniterrupted. Only problem is that there is a loud pinging noise in the middle of holding poses.. Found out that this is the outlook incoming mail notification going through the internal microphone. Matt Newman will have to recite the dialogue to an empty room at midnight for me to record this again.. Last night I actually fell asleep while this was recording.. had set an alarm just in case to wake up after 90 minutes to turn off the recording. Who knew Bikram Yoga dialogues make for good lullabies?!
Had no idea that last Sunday's class would be my last group class. Given everything we know about the virus, we would probably have quarantined ourselves a lot earlier. Good thing is all my friends seem to be doing okay and posting their own solo yoga experiences from crammed bathrooms and other spaces.
Tomorrow will be two years since I stopped drinking water during class. That Mary Jarvis class that changed the water habbit seems ages ago. Last Sunday's yoga class seems ages ago!
I am a social animal of the huggy type. It is not easy to isolate myself, but it is being done. Have been working on a yoga mat all week. It is surreal to be cooped up in a room all day. I see my kids for maybe 5-10 minutes a day. They are on a different time zone within the house. My MIL is still in her own room and watching TV and chatting with friends. We all go for walks one at a time twice a day around the block. The kids have shown no signs of exercising. Perpetually in their beds. I am thinking of going for a family bike ride tomorrow, weather permitting. Things are changing rapidly.. I am the designated shopper for the family. On Monday I made a Costco run at lunch break and this was the situation..
that was one person out one person in with a limit to how many folks who could be inside costco.. but we were all pretty close to each other.. would not call it social distancing... most of the stuff we needed were out of stock.. we do have a lot of cuties.. eating them on a regular basis to get more vitamin C.. which works for colds but not sure if it helps with the new virus..
There are lessons learned in self control, trying to set up the right environments and most importantly hydrating myself. At work we would all walk around between meetings, take a water break, restroom break. At home the meetings just keep coming one after the other.. you cannot just see who is at their desk to go grab the team for an impromptu meeting.. everything has to be scheduled and that means no breaks.
The last two days, I took one hour breaks in the middle of the day to drink water and walk around the block.
The yoga journey continues. Hope we get over the virus soon and get to be in a hot room.. something tells me that this is not going to happen anytime soon... but the community is there and everyone is working on cheering up the others.
