It's day-3.

Three days ago I was supremely depressed. What I thought was an act of indulgence in nostalgia turned out to be a wake-up-call and a trigger for at least 6 hours of solid anxiety.

I was going through my hard disk and started looking at old pictures. Pictures which had images of a much slimmer and younger me. The sad part is that I didn't know how good I looked then and so never really got the chance to feel good about myself. As I'm growing older, I am certainly getting more and more comfortable in my skin. So much so that when I actually started putting on weight (which I later realized was also owing to a hyper-thyroid condition I have), I didn't quite realize it. I was so busy and happy being me that I didn't quite notice; and even if I noticed, didn't quite care!

It started hitting me of course when clothes started getting tighter and photographs started looking worse. I was also in denial for sometime. But come-day-before-yesterday I panicked. My research on my thyroid condition told me that it wouldn't be easy losing weight. I had read several depressing stories about people with thyroid making an effort, but failing to lose weight. Added to that my general propensity to be lazy and my gluttonous nature scared me big time!

The panic button had been pressed and I called my sister for help. She had recently lost quite a bit of weight and I knew it was a diet regime that she was following. What she shared was not new for me - it was re-visiting Rujuta Diwekar (her claim to fame being Kareena Kapoor's dietician), but her theory of weight loss is definitely one that will go well with most over-weight people who love food: Eat something healthy every two hours.

Voila! As simple as that! So here I am on my third day of a diet plan which doesn't require me to give up on any food. Just make amendments to my lifestyle and tell my body that I care. Seems to be going pretty well so far. Last night I caught up with a friend for dinner and happily ordered grilled fish. It's the little things that make the difference. Let's see where this gets me as I battle thyroid and weight!

Here's a link to Rujuta Diwekar's website: http://www.rujutadiwekar.com/

                                                        A recent picture of both my girls.

Dog-Watching

So the other day M and I were joking about how Lexie (the Beagle) and Kiki (the Lhasa Apso) actually epitomize the philosophic traditions of their places of origin (Britain and Tibet respectively). So while Lexie is quite an aggressive little girl, who barks her head off when she wants something, Kiki knows how to let go. It's almost as if all her ancestors guarding the Tibetan monasteries had imbibed the zen-like patience and calm of the Dalai Lama and it has genetically passed on to this particular Lhasa too!

I have had moments of pure bliss, watching Kiki being fascinated by a curtain blowing in the wind.Or she gazing into nothingness, looking anything but bored. Lexie on the other hand is a girl of action! She needs to be jumping or running or biting something to feel she is doing something in life.If there's nothing to do, she'll sleep. But the peace that Kiki knows in just being, ever since she was a pup that too, is something I doubt Lexie is capable of!

Ramblings on dreams fulfilled and more...

It still hasn't sunk in. Probably won't till I am actually air-borne. And even after, how will I react when I land - when I take the shuttle to none-other-than Stanford University. It was something I wouldn't ever have dared to dream of. But sometimes the too-good-to-dream dreams also come true! This is the BIGGEST of them all.

I'm a believer; and I credit most of all the good stuff that's happened to me to God. (And no, I don't have a problem with using that epithet for the power of the universe. My idea of God is similar to what the Romantics belief in pantheism was like. But I find it convenient to use that name - God. It's short and cute!) So yeah, my childhood fantasy of visitng and studying in the U.S. of A is finally going to happen. And what better? - It's the U.S. government facilitating this. Yes, I'm going on a Fulbright!

And as I type these words, it again is overwhelmingly joyful. All I can say is Thank you thank you thank you God!!! :-)

But the prospect of going abroad (and this is to be my first time) has already made me greedier. I was looking at pictures of Greece and thinking just how amazing it would be to visit the place. All the Greek tragedies and comedies that I have read - I am sure would come alive even today when I visit the country. Plus, the fact that it is surrounded by gorgeous water all around makes it an even more tempting destination.

Well, not that Greece is the only other item on my travel check-list. The whole bloody world is on it! And I hope this is just the beginning...

Sibling Rivalry?!

It's quite amazing how the ordinal position dynamic is replicated in house pets. At least that is the case with my dogs and a couple of other people, have also reported noticing how the elder-younger sibling dynamic is found in the relationship between their two dogs.

A number of websites offer great advice on how to introduce your dog to the new puppy viz. http://asnpr.rescuegroups.org/info/display?PageID=1804 They tell you how your older dog shouldn't feel insecure or threatened by the new one's entry. Few websites give you information on how competitive your new puppy can be. So Lexie wants the exact same toy that Kiki is playing with. Both are given bones, but Lexie wants the one Kiki is chewing on! It is really amusing and fun to watch the two of them wrestle and chase each other. I hope to shoot a video of the action and sharing it here soon!

The one thing that helped me train Kiki and will hopefully also help Lexie become a 'good doggie' is researching dog behaviour and dog-related stuff online. I have googled questions like 'My dog vomited bile' or 'My dog is sleeping a lot' or 'How do I make my dog play with the new puppy?' - all such inane questions have a long list of responses to them. And it is so comforting to hear others go through what you are and subsequently read the variety of responses.

I have also signed up for a newsletter by Sharda Baker which provides some very useful content. I believe reading stuff on dogs regularly is really important. It acts as a great refresher that helps one deal with one's babies better on a day-to-day basis.

Here is the link to Sharda Baker's site. You can even sign up for her newsletter.
http://www.easy-dog-obedience-training.com/newsletter/principles-for-house-dog-training.php 

Here is a picture of me holding Lexie. The naughtiest little Beagle in town. She has the most perfect puppy dog eyes as you can well make out, and a perpetual 'butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth' expression. First timers always get fooled by her innocent expression, albeit for 5 minutes only. Post that Lexie reveals her true colours, which are far more intriguing than the staple Beagle tri-colour of brown-black-white!

For all the amazing quotes you have on puppies, the reality of actually having a puppy in your home is quite different. I won't say it's not amazing, in all fairness, puppies are absolutely amazing and delightful. But the not so delightful parts, like cleaning their pee and poop and getting them to stop making your house look like a perpetual disaster zone does take away from the amazing-ness of it all. I guess it's how motherhood is romanticized. It's not that motherhood isn't wonderful, but moms know just how difficult life is on a dat-to-day basis.

It's much more difficult if your first dog has been a relatively good pup. In my case, my elder one - Kiki, has been an angel. She's almost an ideal dog now and as a pup indulged in minimal destruction of property and minimal biting of parents. Au contraire, my little one - Lexie - really feels like she is the devil incarnate. Well to throw more light, Kiki is a 2 year old Lhasa Apso who looks like a cross between a teddy bear and a dog; while Lexie is a 3 month old Beagle who cocks her head to either side at every seemingly strange/new sound.

This is my second attempt at blogging. The first blog still exists, but I'm guessing it will remain dormant simply because it has an awfully lame blog name! After the struggle of blogspot confirming the unavailability of several names, this one got accepted. And I like it. I wanted a blog name to encompass the range of things I want to write about - the peripheral, the superfluous, the marginal - the emotional - the paraphernalia that comes with living life. While the 'etc.' looks after all that remains if you take away the paraphernalia.

This is also a particularly good time to take up blogging, given that I am serving notice and have exactly 3 days remaining for my last day at work. I look forward to using this time as productively as I can. Probably I won't make money, but I sure am looking forward to a restful few months when I engage in pursuits that please the soul. Amen to that thought; and a good note to end this first post on.