recs, hacks, and saves

A couple of recs: 

This NYT quiz on dreams--I'm what they classified as "a big dreamer" but there's plenty I learned about how we dream in the process of taking the quiz. 

This list of most recommended books in The Atlantic. I'm horrified I've read so few. 

A couple of hacks:

If you hit a paywall and don't want to pay or don't feel like supporting Islamophobic/Transphobic outlets like The New York Times or The Atlantic, you could use archive.is. Paste the URL of the piece you want to read into the second box (the one that says: "I want to search the archive for saved snapshots"). Usually, that should do the trick. 

I figured out this next hack myself! When I came back from last week's health nightmare, I found I wasn't able to leave comments on some (WordPress?) blogs like Nicole's, J's, and Jenny's. "Mod_Security" kept telling me that my server was "Not Acceptable!" (Threatening exclamation point and all.) But if I toggle my computer WiFi to my phone's hotspot, I can!

Pic: I saved this meme to my desktop years ago... Good save. And I guess those little things did save me and keep me mostly sane.

trying to be strong

Gaza Poets Society has shared many beautiful poems over the years. Yesterday their message was a stark and anguished plea:

"Save our children"

What else is left to say? How can we go on in a world where children are willfully being sniped at and starved to death. I hope we can let the food waiting outside the Israeli blockade get through before it is too late. Everything else can wait.

*

Big A is so much better (fingers firmly crossed) and a good thing too, because he's back at work tonight. I think he could do with at least a couple more days off work, but he's on the schedule. "I exist to make a profit for the hospital's shareholders," is how he explained it to me.

Pic: I took Nance's advice and took A to spend some time with trees... Things have been so nerve-racking, we've barely been outside together. 

sometimes, and in some places, I can see the long journey old men are making

we're not even thinking of marriage... just

looking for the best biriyani in Queens-- 
we're still in New York but it feels like 

we're in India and A is a bit too white

for this place and so I take his hand 

right then, the old man sitting 

outside the mosque
looks up and then 

strides up to us
to tell us 

love is always precious to Allah
as he lifts his hands in blessing

*

we're making on our way back 

from our Mexican honeymoon

driving through Texas 

and stopping 

at a one-traffic-light town 

thinking it would be an adventure 

to sit at the diner where there are very

few women and every man wears a hat

bow-legged, an old man walks down the aisle 

as if he's in a Western... I don't think he's looked 

at me even once, but gazing earnestly into A's eyes 

he says, I think your woman has a very nice skin color

separate but not equal

Nice: Big A felt well enough to take Nu to pick up their computer for college. Big day in every way!

At had an annual physical scheduled in Alma (Nice). Her final one under my insurance before she ages out (Not nice.) And we had long conversations on the way there and back (Nice). At returned a novel I'd lent her (Nice) in... I don't know... 2018 (Not nice) Saying with a smirk as she handed it to me that she "didn't want to read it"--just to see my face fall (Not nice). She had read it and loved it and cried at the predictable part (Nice). (When the train pulls out the station with Estha saying "Ammu, feeling vomitty...")

At the end of the day, the whole fam went to a restaurant we usually like a lot (nice). At the end of our okay meal, our white server looked at our table and decided to ask if we wanted two checks (Not nice). It's just one of those "mistakes" that happens to interracial families a lot. I found I couldn't finish my dessert after that... 

Pic: Queen Anne's Lace along the Red Cedar. On a walk to clear my head.

not normal

Now that my mom is a bit more stable, I'm beginning to worry about Big A. It's not normal to have a fever for so many days. As Jenny correctly said, my attitude has been that my mom's "probably a bit more fragile than Big A." But as Jeanie said, "not knowing" is scary. 

It's good I suppose that his labs aren't growing any scary bacteria (apparently, they'll keep looking at it every day or two to check). His best guess for now is that it's an unrelated virus that'll work its way out in time.

At some point in the evening yesterday, I looked up from my book to see tears running down his face and thought he was feeling really down. He was. He'd just read about the cardiologist and his family who were killed by an Israeli airstrike. This isn't normal either. There's so much happening on our watch and we're expected to carry on as though it shouldn't matter.

Pic: Max snuggled up to Big A and fast asleep. I need some good sleep sprawled out in abandon like this!

 

"hungry heart"

First things first: My mom is out of the ICU! She was even up for a FaceTime this morning. I'm not sure what her recovery looks like, but I'm so glad we can begin it. 

Big A is still not OK. I'm beginning to feel a bit worried because we're no closer to answers than we were when it started. He's scheduled for a few days off, and I hope he manages to shake it off.

Okay. Confession time: I used to come here to jabber journal-style to myself, but now I know so many lovely people here--I didn't want to keep posting bad news day and after day and stressing people out. So I wrote my little notes to myself, but didn't hit publish until today. I hope that's ok. Also, I'm so behind on reading everyone's posts and responding to comments... I'll get on that... tomorrow...

As it is, so many of you reached out to check in on me. Thank you. Even Engie who's had such a shitty stressful month and is finally on vacation with her bestie! I straight out refused to give her any sad updates.

Pic: If you squint, one of my strawberries looks heart-shaped!

not out of the woods or hospitals yet...

Big A's fever finally broke late last night, but this evening we were back in Urgent Care because he had extreme nausea. 

My mom is doing better but not so well that they're ready to release her from the ICU.

Someone I was talking to said it sounded like the universe was pranking me. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to yell "I give up!" or "Cut it out!"

Pic: The beautiful Monarch I saw on the milkweed out by the mailbox last week.

"unbecoming"

Stuck in a holding pattern today... Amma is stuck in the ICU (she hates it there because she loves company and is currently only allowed one visitor at a time twice a day); Big A is still holed up in the guest room with his road rash and his high fever.

I had to get out of the the house today. 

I said a fond and proud goodbye to TP, who's leaving Lansing to take up a tenure-track position at Bradley University.* I've known TP since they were a baby scholar and now they have a book out with Rutgers! (*I kept thinking Bradley sounded awfully familiar and only later did I realize it's because that's Sarah's [and Ben's?] alma mater!)

I had to attend a screening of my colleague SS's film Did You Guys Eat at the Broad Museum.

I had to take Max to a vet appointment. (Big A was supposed to, but clearly couldn't).

And then EM picked me up to take me to a "mental-health dinner" at Brody Cafeteria where I ate for the first time today, so I ate three plates of food and three desserts.

Pic: While at The Broad, I checked out Diana Al-Hadid's exhibit "Unbecoming" which plays on the concept of "unbecoming" as unraveling and also (when applied to women) as inappropriate. This particular piece was titled "Medusa." 

telling everyone I know

I usually don't post very much on FaceBook... But I needed everyone I knew to pull for my mom...

and they really came through.

That's the thing I have to love about Facebook, when you need people, everyone from your fifth-grade best friend to the newly-appointed president of your college shows up for you. 

I'm so grateful for everyone's well wishes, I hope they work for my Amma. 

Pic: Screen-grab from my FB post today

unpredictable

 For a few hours today, things seemed to be okay and I did normal things.

Then Amma got sent back to the ICU.

And... Big A who seemed to be recovering nicely from last week's bicycle crash developed a high fever, tested negative for flu and Covid, and had to make a trip to the E.R. for possible sepsis.

I guess the silver lining is that I fall asleep the minute I lie down because I can't wait to escape this plane. 

Wonder Women

Thank you for the well wishes. Mom is doing better. If she continues to be stable, they'll move her out of the ICU tomorrow. My seventy-nine-year-old mom has chronic heart and lung problems, but as Big A said, she's living to fight another day. 

I nearly died every time the phone rang today, imagining the worst. One branch in my brain's flowchart was already making arrangements to travel to Bangalore. Simultaneously, another branch was completely certain that everything would be alright, how could the world go on without Amma?

I know the day is coming for me, for all of us, and especially people my age. Just this week, I've had friends describe parents as "actively dying" and witnessed (on Facebook) friends whose last parent died describe how it's never old to feel like an orphan. They were not ready. I know I'm not ready. I doubt anyone ever is. 

Anyway, because my sister and I were constantly texting yesterday, I took some strength in thinking of ourselves as Wonder Women. Our group chat name plays with this theme--it's called "Wanda Women" since one of our family names is Wandawasi. 

Pic: Top--our "Wanda Women" Profile photo; Bottom--the photo Big A took the morning they left. Nu is a bonus presence in both.