some things feel sacred

like making rice the way my grandmother taught me. Rice, just barely more water, pressure cooker, bring to the point of pressure release, simmer on impossibly low heat five minutes, turn off the heat, two minutes, release the steam, the lid, the rice. Today I mix old and new: pressure-cooker rice and prepackaged cream sauce originally intended for chicken. It's going to be egg curry, now. Dadi would flinch but she knows cooking as all-day practice. Discipline. I mostly learned it as hunger-avoidance, as party trick, as survival skill. I do not eat chickpea flour and water and spices, mixed and balled up in my hand; that would be true survival cooking. Rickshaw-wallahs eat that day in, day out. Their calves are ropy muscle tied to bone; their faces are gaunt--it is cheap, cheaper than the eggs you can buy from the next wallah over, with his charcoal fire-in-a-pot for roasting them. It doesn't taste bad, if you don't mind chalky, and it's high in protein. They eat a lot. Then they barter: extra for a fat American, they say. It's a lot of weight.

every layer has a pocket

Ever notice that it gets harder to find your keys the colder it gets? It's not because you're frozen to your chair (although this might be the case) or because you lose your motivation to go out (also possibly the case). No, it's because of the pocket multiplication factor. Take today for instance. I was wearing jeans (four pockets plus a watch pocket--which, by the way, Levi's has seen fit to make big enough for credit cards in their men's models, which I think is brilliant)...anyway, four pockets plus a watch pocket, a t-shirt (no pockets) a 100-weight fleece (no pockets), a 300-weight fleece (two pockets), and a winter parka (three outside pockets, two inside pockets). Total pocket count: 11 and a watch pocket. This up from summer's usual four on the jeans, no fleeces or jackets.

Okay, not every layer has a pocket. But close.

ice skates

I have a shiny pair of ice skates. They are not new--I have had them since my first or second year of university. I got them in a little sports store on the main street of the little town in Minnesota where I went to school. I was not willing to buy the cheapest skates, but I was, after all, on a budget. Last night I put them on my feet for the first time in two years, possibly more. Pleased to see they still appear to fit. Sorry to see the leather has gotten stiff from neglect. Need to find out what one does to loosen old but untrammeled leather...if anything.

Motivation: the canal is frozen. Yesterday I was walking over the canal on a bridge and saw people skating along the canal, which has been ploughed and will be maintained as long as the weather sees fit to keep it solid. People were right, there's a sense of, "what century is this, anyway?" People skating on the canal. Skating to work, even. Skating with baby carriages. Toto, we're not in Kansas. Not even close. I think it's great. :-)

disappointing

I've been awake for an hour. This is actually pretty good--there was a time in my life when I was always awake at 6:30. I get a lot done in the morning. However.
However. In this place and time, being awake at 6:30 looks just like being awake at 4:30 (AM), which is to say that it is well before sunrise...which means that I have been awake through sunrise this morning. I like sunrise. It opens my heart and makes me breathe in so that my lungs are full. When I can see it. Which I couldn't. I didn't notice at the time, but I have just realised that the sun is up, as up as it will get today, and there was no orange glow, no pink wash, no golden light. Some days things just don't work out the way you might hope. Ah well.