Amber & What Dreams Are Made Of

So, I am still sickie and was sort of feverish last night and had this dream where I was with a group of friends and we were traveling on some islands off the coast of India in long boats and a lion (my subconscious is not geographically accurate) came out of the jungle and we were trying to hold still and then the lion came up from behind and stood up on his back legs and started taking small bites out of my neck but I was trying to hold super still so he would leave.

I wonder where that came from.

 

Amber & Inspiration

People with whom I am planning to form a professional dance troupe (and you know who you are), I'm thinking this number has to added to our repertoire.



But with less facial expressions and more fancy dance moves.  Maybe more like this version?  (P.S.  He's a con artist.  Get it?  Bluffmaster.)

Amber & One yummy snack food et while traveling India, especially good when received as prasad from Tibetan monks in nice hats:

In response to this, Diana sends this.

The post title was the subject header of her email.

Amber & Authentic Indian Cuisine

Jimmy sends this photo of a delightful and authentic Indian treat.

I can only assume he is bringing these with him when he comes out for a River visit.  I bet Diana will be excited.  I bet she ate lots of Dough Boy paratha on her trip to India.

Amber & Some Things New, A New Thing Old

I feel like I am constantly in a struggle with the Entropy of Clutter in my home.  It's hard to carry out myself and the trash and the recycling--especially since the refuse area is down five flights of stairs, around the corner, and in an alley out behind the building frequented by what I like to think of as sleek-tailed squirrels.  And, I seem to accumulate stuff: direct mail samples, Fresh Direct boxes, books of to-do lists, cat fur, etc.  It's crucial to do a weekly Junk Round Up to make room for new, magical space-occupiers.  For example, I'd much rather have this weird sushi wind up robot that Nick gave me than a stack of Con Ed billson my desk.

(Seen here with Big Nose Felted Guy, another keeper from Nick.)

That's two pieces of inari on the left (my fave) and two pieces of tuna on the right.  And I can't show you because I got my phone before they invented video for iPhones (drat to early adapting), but the two sushis sort of bicycle up and down and round and round when you wind it.  Why?  Because it's amazing.

Gifts are not always keepers, but this new Ganesh statue that Diana brought back for me from India sure is.

(Like the mechanical sushi, Ganesh is not as blurry in real life.)

And that reminds me that my blurry-making phone is actually another place to collect wonderful, and muladhara chakra comforting, things.  Like this Ganesh application.

 (See how the bell is all lit up? You can pick it up and ring it. That is mostly what the app does.)

And, Jimmi referred me to this absolutely essential app where you can gong a mokugyo or the metal gong on the left and induce nagomi ("harmony").

(I won't spoil what "With Cat Mode" is.)

And, speaking of cats, this guy came to live with us a few weeks back.

(He's actually laying on a pile of books to return to other people, on the theme of getting rid of old stuff to make room for the new.)

This new buddy is actually an old artifact from the Boxing Day Heritage Booty.   I molded him from greenware, painted his eyes, paw pads and nose, and then glazed the heck out of him in ceramics class.  Proof?

Every great artist signs her work.  In 1981, I was apparently trying something new with my R's.

Amber & Gigi Pooja

Today is my favorite festival of all of the festivals that I have ever invented. (I love Kitty Eyebrows Day just as much, but Jimmi invented that one.)  What makes this Sunday different from any other day before Monday?  It's Gigi Pooja, of course!

 (Ginger, seen here in a reprentation known as "Reclining Gigi")

Gigi Pooja is a very special day on which we celebrate and express our gratitude for Ginger.  It's a day full of rituals, including brushing his fur and making him a special bed in a box with a pillow, like a throne.  The throne both provides comfort for Ginger, but also reminds us of his dual nature: He is both soft and snuggly, and embodies devotion when he milk treads your neck and grooms your hair in the night, but he is also a fearsome warrior who devours all paper products with his sharp teeth and destroys wicker chests with his fearsome claws.

On Gigi Pooja, after I henna my hair, we make a pilgrammage to our favorite pet store to buy devotional offerings like litter and wet food.  And we perform the act of Chin Rubs, which allows us to contemplate the infinite softness of Ginger.

We do this while he rests upon his lingam.

Earlier in the day, the other cats observed abhisheka, not with marigolds and ghee, but with fur on the lingam, which we will ritualistically remove with the magic sponge the day after Gigi Pooja.  Also, the day is full of naps.

On Gigi Pooja, we also thank Diana who told us all about her trip to India yesterday, including her observance of Shiva Puja.  Not that that has anything to do with Gigi Pooja.

Don't worry, people who think the new cats are apocryphal, the other cats will get their own poojas.  Not only do we always invoke Tiggy first on the blog with the sidebar, but Tiggy Pooja is an even more exciting day (tbd).  But let's live in the moment and take the rest of the evening to meditate on Ginger.

Happy Gigi Pooja, readers!

Amber & Hallucicopters & Vulnerable Vultures

I have had a terrible, terrible TMJ-triggered headache since I sat down on the D train uptown after work on Friday evening. By the time I got to 125th Street to change to the A, I was seeing floaters and experiencing phonophobia. And then, when I got off the train in the 175th Street Station and took a breath of that fresh east side exit stairwell, the nausea began. Friday night and Saturday were pretty much a blur of trying to nap, alternating cold and hot compresses, jaw clenching remedy, lion pose and chest stretches. But then, last night at 2 am, I was awoken by the sound of helicopters right outside my window and a searchlight flooding in my window.


Now, it's completely true that, over the course of the weekend, my system was treated to a cocktail of 1 part anti-spasm Cyclobenzaprine, several parts muscle-relaxant, anti-spasticity aid Zanaflex, one part anti-inflammatory Diclofenac, and a dash of just about every over-the-counter pain pill that didn't contraindicate the blend and a spritz of peppermint oil for a wholistic flavor. And, its absolutely true that Wikipedia claims that...

Tizanidine use has been associated with hallucinations. Visual hallucinations and delusions have been reported in 5 of 170 patients (3%) in two North American controlled clinical studies.

But that's totally lacking citation. And, I confirmed the reality of the helicopter, which made rounds from 2 am until about 8, with tweets from both GoGetter122 and 5starr_Chick (you really have to scroll down; 5starr_Chick in particular is a tweety little bird). And there was this unanswered question on Yahoo! Answers, providing no explanation but assuring me that I wasn't imagining a helicopter in some drastic self-punishing hallucination. After all, what is worse for a migraine than a loud helicopter and a search light?

Really, the side effects I most worry about from the fistfulls of pills I have been popping (which are just now seeming like maybe they are starting to work a little bit, maybe? knock wood very quietly? please?) are vulture extinction, rabies, disruption to Zoroastrian Parsi cultural practices, and the ruin of Wisconsin brunch. No, really I swear I'm only a little doped right now and the persistent pain is pretty grounding. Wikipedia, my frenemy, tells me...

Use of diclofenac in animals has been reported to have led to a sharp decline in the vulture population in the Indian subcontinent, 95% decline in 2004, 99.9% decline as of 2008. The mechanism is probably renal failure, a known side-effect of diclofenac. Vultures eat the carcasses of livestock that have been administered veterinary diclofenac, and are poisoned by the accumulated chemical. At a meeting of the National Wildlife Board in March 2005, the Government of India announced that it intended to phase out the veterinary use of diclofenac.... "The loss of tens of millions of vultures over the last decade has had major ecological consequences across the Indian subcontinent that pose a potential threat to human health. In many places, populations of feral dogs... have increased sharply from the disappearance of Gyps vultures as the main scavenger of wild and domestic ungulate carcasses. Associated with the rise in dog numbers is an increased risk of rabies" and casualties of almost 50,000 people.

The loss of vultures has had a social impact on the Indian Zoroastrian Parsi community, who traditionally use vultures to dispose of human corpses in Towers of Silence, but are now compelled to seek alternate methods of disposal.

Diclofenac was shown also to cause harm to freshwater fish species such as rainbow trout.

See how horrible my headache is?

I'm sorry, Mr. Vulture. I feel really bad about putting my head pain first.