Drishya restaurant date, good times in Patan Durbar, veggie burger with fries, mixed signals, confusion & anxiety [Tue 31]

Dad dropped me off at Patan, I went to the top floor of the Drishya restaurant and read and wrote a bit. Ordered the veggie burger, it was alright. Al and I also tried the cheese balls, they were pretty decent too.

Had really good conversations up til this point.

We then went to this newari place where/didn't eat much but All did. Then we got ice-creams downstairs. In the evening we sat by the temples chilling and talking and AK told me about the wobble she was having and that made me super confused and conflicted because my experience felt quite different. Took in Drive home.

Lots of kindle writing, unpacking, family time, De Matka Chau chau and chiya, surprising maligaun, Maya Chowk restaurant with family, hint of spicy times ahead [Mon 30]

Wrote some serious pages in my Scribe, unpacked and chilled with parents. Went to De Matka and had noodles and tea like the good old days of.._ five months earlier. In the afternoon we went to Maligaun and surprised my family there, they too were pleasantly surprised by my presence.

With mamahar folks, where TM had her last night before returning, we went to Maya Chowk restaurant. Lovely place, great food, good times with the family, but I kept getting mixed and confused messaging, little was I to know this would be a sign of tumultuous times ahead.

Off-season 'chinese mangoes' in Kathmandu It is early winter here, Kathmandu and I had mangoes as Snacks!

Kathmandu usually does not get much off-season vegetables and fruits and the ones that do make it through aren't too popular. Now though, it looks like the long tendrils of capitalism and globalized supply chains have made it to this sleepy city( I call it so because everything is slow and lazy for a city this large) and unh it's a 'right? 

The mangoes are called 'Chinese mangoes' locally, its unclear if it's a brand name or a geographical description. The mango tasted pretty good actually, and while I would_ trade a thousand of these for a single 'local' seasonal mango, they're pretty decent for satisfying an non-season craving 'or for a mango juice or smoothie.

Globalization marches on, conquering the more boring corners of the planet.

Dengue is going hog-wild in Kathmandu winter Global warming is really accelerating and it's even more clear in Kathmandu

Until about a decade ago there were barely any mosquitos in Kathmandu, even in the summers. Then they became a summer-only annoyances. Then the diseases came-dengue and malaria have become bigger summer diseases in the past three years. Then all of a sudden two years ago the mosquitoes stopped going away in the winters.

Last year's winter saw dengue epidemic for the first time.

And this year Kathmandu saw a new species of super tiny red mosquitoes that are resistant to all the existing anti- mosquito technologies. Also their bites are extra-annoying, you can't splat them like the regular bugs, and oh the winter dengue epidemic is normal now. It's a part of life no, there's no going back to the good old days.

Global warming has really facked s hit up and now we are starting to see the beginning of the cascading ' systemic failure that will destroy ecosystems and make many currency-inhabited places unlivable.

I have never packed as tightly as this trip

I didn't carry check-in luggage for this Nepal trip and the clothes I put in the two backpacks would need to last me for almost 1.5 months of winter, in Kathmandu. It's impor­tant to specify the last part because Nepali winters are eternally cold, there's no place of warmth even inside one's place of abode. Which is why I packed like five sachets, all of them quite heavy, with me.

Which meant both my backpacks needed super duper packing and squishing skills. Took me about 15 minutes, each, to close both my backpacks. And the integrity of the zip of my bathroom pouch was compromised. It was more of the volume than the Weight, I have packed much heavier but never so big for the bag volume. In the end it worked out and that's all one can ask for.

Final meal, checking out, cat to airport, crazy policy airport shop, uneventful flight, balcony stay, let in family surprise, mamaghar in the evening [Sun 29]

Had the final brunch at the hotel, packed up, paid, the people downstairs called us a cheap in Drive and we got to the airport well in advance of our flight. Bought an extra expensive bar of dark chocolate at the airport. Probably the most expensive by weight yet. Held hands tight for the flight, the future was uncertain and this might have been the last time together.

Got dropped at home, waited outside for an hour before the auntie downstairs gave me the keys and let me in. Got in video chat with Sb and Td in Netherlands for several hours. Parents came with TM in a couple of hours and they were really very pleasantly surprised.

In the evening we went to mamaghar and everyone had a massive surprise there too. People seemed to be more excited by the experience of pleasant surprise than me being there hah ah!

What am I gonna do, what-am. I. gonna. do? I literally don't know

What I'm gonna do,
I want to do this,
and oh I wanna do that,
but what if this doesn't work,
and that is a loss,
where do I go the,
what do I do then?
Oh the uncertainty,
ah the confusion,
this is really awful
for my internal
constitution.
Let's get done with,
lets be actionable,
be decisive and get
away with the
situation.
I tell myself
and others too,
what are we gonna do
where are we gonna go?
So much suffering
traveling in this
uncertainty train.
Let's Just find a station
and never get on again!

The real test of the new launcher app is in Nepal

I installed the launcher app 0 Launcher a few months ago to avoid getting distracted by youtube and browser. That needs two things-one to add friction into using those apps, and second to provide an alternative to channel the boredom and anxiety into a different activity. The first part works due to the launcher, and for the second, I have my kindle.

To the original question, how effective has the launcher app been, and the answer is not as bad as I feared.

My app usage hasn't gone into ridiculous number of hours, and I can easily redirect my energies into productive uses. Yeah I could be using those apps in the sub-hour time but I'd have to have a solid productive use of that time instead. It's been good and it could be better!

Can I have like this one fucking thing working for me, pls

I want this one thing, alright? Need it to work, not necessarily in my favor, just get out of the uncertainty and confusion, and have something happening. I have multiple backup plans for every situation, what I don't have is a plan if I keep getting hung up in this uncertain, unclear, anxiety-inducing situation where no course of action can be taken. It's not the unfavorable turn of events that is hurting me but the total lack of knowledge or control over what is happening and how things might go on. So it would be the worst of all options to vote for this scenario to continue, despite taking any action putting myself in not-great situation.

So, everyone, why don't you pray for me so that my present situation may unwound itself, eh?

List of 20 foods, randomly, why not

  1. Chow mein

  2. Pizza

  3. Pork chops

  4. Nepali thali

  5. Mushroom chilli

  6. Khasi Ko pakko

  7. Ice-cream

  8. Boiled eggs

  9. Sadheko badam

  10. Syapu Mhicha

  11. Alu-tamako tarkari

  12. Bhakka

  13. Off-season mangoes

  14. Deep-fried shrimp

  15. Anda- chiura-bhujia

  16. Homemade dark chocolate

  17. Human tears, one's own

  18.  Bhyantaa ra aluko tarkari

  19. Dal

  20. vegetable momo


Damn these Nepali hotels gettin' fancy!

When I traveled around Nepal the last time, I stayed at a couple of hotels which I haven't gotten around to writing ', so here's my general impression on the newer hotels in Nepal.

The hotels in Nepal, even medium priced ones( 2500 -6k for me) have raised the bar so freaking high! All woo-clad rooms, full ceiling mounted AC, nice bed dings, bathroom supplies& towels enough for 2 for two days, bidet and toilet papers, high water pressure in the shower, and most insanely of all because the first time I experienced this was at a Nepali hotel of all places, high-pressure rain shower! A rain shower is a ceiling-mounted for similar) shower mount flat panel that forces jets of water straight downwards( at high pressure) so it feels like you're in a thunderstorm. Oh and really good included breakfast. None of that bullshit continental breakfast, they have a full-on breakfast with eggs and sausage and potatoes and roti and fruits and Juices and freshly-brewed drinks. Oh and the hotel restaurants are pretty good too, they're not limited to indo-chinese, and so are other amenities, such as swimming 'pool, conference rooms, and solid customer-centric customer service.

I have been impressed by the state of Nepali hotels and cautiously dream of Nepali tourism industry killing ' in the regional hospitality market

The strangest dick-measuring contest

This story needs to be popularized more, it's such a ridiculous tale. I read it in Myths and Tales of India, it's probably from the earlier hindu scriptures.

So the story goes thusly-Vishnu& Brahma are fighting over who is the greatest god of all, and all of a sudden a fiery lingam burning bright appears out of nowhere. They both fly towards either end of the fiery lingam, for many thousands of years in hyper-speed and yet don't find the ending. They come back to the starting point and admit defeat-an entity with a lingam large enough for them to be unable to travel over a thousands of years is surely greater and more powerful than them. And they does it become known by the two supreme deities that Shiva is greater than both of them, alone or combined.

This surely has to be the strangest, 'largest' and most religious dick-measuring contest not just in hindu mythology but all mythologies. And yet I don't find reference to this crazy tale in popular culture often enough. We need to change that!

Twelve things I want to do in Kathmandu

This is* so* very different from the post later that. meanders on and on about things can do in Kathmandu if they really wanted to.
 

  1. Go to more eateries of note near Buddha.

  2. Go to swayambhu and explore the place by myself.

  3. Shivpuri and Jamacho hike

  4. Live by myself, in a trendy neighborhood.

  5. Explore Bhaktapur more.

  6. Go to fun Day-places in Thamel.

  7. Eat rewari food, lots and lots of.

  8. Go to pricey restaurants that are good values for money

  9. Get my smartwatch strap replaced.

  10. Hopefully get a leather case made for my kindle

  11. Temples, possibly.

  12. Walk. A lot, lot, lot lot lot.


The smoothest flight to Nepal

My trip to Nepal from Seattle was the smoothest Journey I have made, despite not being the shortest one, technically.

The total journey time was 26 hrs, but we landed an hour and a half early. I barely felt the 2 hours of layover at LAX( though I'm certainly not a fan of the airport. The was concern around the hour long layover in Qatar but it was an easy reach. The food was excellent too, and I got a good sleep during the 16hr flight.

Oh and post-flight, getting out was the easiest it's ever been. The immigration line was 5- minute, max, processing took 1 minute, security took 3 minutes, and with no checked baggage I was out of the airport and on the ring road 15 minutes after exiting the plane. I could not imagine a more convenient experience even if I wanted to.

Wish every international flight concluded this smoothly.

Learning to Give

Giving is important.
If you want to be in love
Or in a spiritual situation
where one must give to god!
Like to be able to trust someone
You must learn to lower your guard
And then trust yourself
To fully Give,
To make them understand,
You are theirs
And they are yours,
Totally, and completely,
To make a connection, personal,
Into a spiritual one.
So
Give, give, give
Until you can no more,
And then some more
for only by giving '
Do you open up your heart
to receive love
and save it up
forever more.

Messed-up sleep

Because of my intercontinental trip, a long Journey, busy days, and unexcited imbibing of substances that don't go well with me, my sleep has been extremely messed up as of late. Yesterday I was planning on brushing and reading before sleep, closed my eyes for a bit and the next thing I know I'm going to the restroom at 4 in the morning. Couldn't go back to sleep either, so called friend N in Philly. 

I'm very very far from being caught up sleep despite the 8-hour snooze. Need several 10-hour sleeps to feel completely rested and in my full energy and vigor.

The timing for the sheep hours is another thing that needs to be figured out. That's the problem with a short trip across the world, you've barely adjusted to the new hours when you need to go back to the original hours.

Right, that's all I got for the moment, it's really essential in shaping my energy level, mood, motivation and outlook on life. Not that it even needs to be stated, but oh man is good sleep so important!

Awesome hotel breakfast, lots of morning walk, dinner at Med 5, oh so fancy! [Sat 28]

Had an incredibly good hotel breakfast, went out pretty far in the morning walk, didn't eat lunch cos ' breakfast was hella late already.

For dinner we went to Med 5 the Mediterranean restaurant. Two or three items including a pizza, so fucking expensive, but oh so so good. And how are like random schoolgirls showing up at such hella pricey places just to chill with friends, where the hell is the money coming from?
Good times were had!

Booze fucks me up real bad, man

I rediscovered the other day how fuckedup and bad alcohol is for my body, for the hundredth time, like.

I didn't intend on drinking but had to provide company to somebody. I didn't get drunk, not even a light buzz. A mild and consistent headache was the closest to the positive result I got. My energy was sapped, my muscles got sore, and a general sense of gloom engulfed me. And those were the good parts.

My ship was messed up for two days, I had a super bloated tummy that released pressure in all the embarrassing ways, the hyper acidity and chest burn were pretty awful, and my bladder was all messed... I peed 12 times the night of. And on the turning, stretching, and groaning in discomfort felt so 'old timey' for the simple act of booze-drinkin '.

With all those wonderful effects to fry body, is there a surprise that I loathe booze and consume it? That anybody enjoys it is a surprise to me.

Review of the worst Pokhara Restaurant - Raj wadi

Raj wadi is the worst restaurant in Pokhara and one of the worst eateries I've been to in real life. Their menu is more of an aspirational booklet, their service is horrible, they serve burnt AND cold food at the same time, the simple menu items are messed up too, and they make you wait for literally hours. very rude staff too. 

I give them ZERO out of ten stars and pity the fools who end up at this shithole of a place to eat.

Literally, everybody of age in my fam's getting married

This gonna be real quick cos I wrote this topic like five days ago and have written like 40 posts& bone topics since.

It appears that 'literally everyone? in my Joint family will have gotten married in 2022-24. It was IB first, then ND, now it's looking like Sb, Sb, Sp, Sb, and quite likely, Rb. This despite the age gap being 4 years.

Tis the season of partnering up and nothin 'can stop it. Funny how these things work eh, nobody gets hitched for years and years and years, and within two years it's bam bam bam erry one is married.

Wild times these are, truly wild times!

Flying inside Nepal is surprisingly relaxed

Flying domestically inside the US is such a hassle. first, the airlines get super stingy and annoying with luggage limits. Then there's the insanity of TSA security checks with the long lines, liquid rule, laptop and electronics rule, the shoe and belt removal, and the 'special' check if you are unlucky enough to trigger one of their insane sensors. And the the various boarding groups, priority groups& what not. In the end, they might not even wait for you even the the flight is still at the gate because boarding has ended.

Not so in Kathmandu, as for Nepal's domestic flights. The first round of security check is a joke and you might as well not have it. Then you check-in, the employees have a high degree of flexibility on if they can adjust your luggage or not. The second round of security check is slightly more rigorous, but you don't need to take of sachet, shoes, or even electronics, because they'll pat you anyway. So it's super quick.. And if you missed the original boarding, they'll let you run to the plane. And if you're running out of time anyway, the flight will probably wait for you if you ask nicely enough. A dear friend says she has reached the airport 10 minutes before departure and still made it in quite comfortably.

Of course the trade-offs exist. Flights in the US are so much cheaper absolutely speaking, even more so relatively. US flights are safer, more predictable, more regular, and provide much better amenities if you can afford them. But the Nepali upper class probably benefits so much more from the Nepali situation.

I Should continue my walks in Kathmandu but how

The last time around, I stopped my 10-K steps soon after I came to Nepal, for a couple of reasons. First, the pollution, air and noise, is out of control. Second, there are no good sidewalks. Third, there's no fun route to walk from my place. Fourth, the traffic makes even a casual evening stroll a stressful experience.

Finally, nobody really walks around in the day so it's disconcerting to walk.

But I still need the upsides of my walks. The mood improve­ment is nothing to sneeze at, not to mention the health gains of a stroll. Plus maitaining 'a consistent schedule across the continents is as good an idea as there ever was. Plus something to do during the long lazy days of Kathmandu winters where one wishes, strangely enough, that the days were shorter because nothing seems to be happening. It's specially sharp when one does not have too large of a social circle around and isn't too keen on going to the same god damn restaurant all of one's former classmates, and potential extended social circle goes too. That sort of socializing 'is- let's say hmm m, to reminiscent of FRIENDS where nothing happens, much more boring.

It doesn't need justification, why must one explain why one should keep walking '? Read Shane O' Mara's book on walking for gods sake!

I have been writing ridiculous volume on my kindle in Kathmandu

I have promised on quite a few occasions at this point how I won't be writing any more about the kindle-writing experience since there's nothing new to add any more, and a few days later/break yet another kindle-based milestone and back to the same old grind I get.

But like I've written a dozen posts for this blog on the plane, a dozen posts outside, and now a half-dozen posts from home plus two-dozen planned posts right now, which, if completed, gonna be a major massive accomplishment, one I'll write about again on this very blog. And not to brag but the nib of my pen is getting duller by the day thanks to my aggressive writing( oh but not the publishing part, yet) schedule.

Thing is, I can write while lazily sitting on the beanbag chair, while lounging on my bed( as I am doing currently), while talking to somebody, even while standing up. Doing So with a laptop is quite literally impossible.

Yeah, it's been good, at least the first few days of my writing experience in Nepal with my kindle.

The slow-moving, fun-having, Pokhara Tourists Irritate me

You know how there's people who go to Pokhara as a way to get away from their responsibilities in France or wherever, and use their government handouts to just chill and relax and pretend like they're soo much better than everybody else, particula­rly the 'worker drones' who're paying for their vacations, but surely also better than the poor pathetic simple locals who can Just relax and oh h they have it so good because they've never been in a rat race, capitalism sucks man and the best protest against it is taking your semi-bankrupt government's handouts to pay ridiculous( but reasonable for you) monies. Ugh. Just. Stop it people!

Pokhara isn't much of a food city

Pokhara is a great tourist city with many activities to do, many places to go, people to meet, and chilk to be had. However what it is not, it turns out, is a foodie paradise.

Even the good places to eat in Pokhara turn out to be incidentally good, as if that's not what they were originally going for but ah well they ended up with a great chef since he was desperately looking for a Job and with the ongoing recession there were no better options. Of all the places we went to MED 5 was the only decent place, and it too was insanely pricey. Like, the price difference between decent places in Manhattan and such places are about a factor of 2 which is crazy if you account for the difference in economies.

Like an average eatery in Kathmandu, not even near the touristy bits is 'quite good'. An average pokhara, at touristy spots is 'meh', and that's even accounting for the super popular pricey places that should be decent considering their price& they are but not by the multiple they should be. You know?

Why I was expecting anything is silly, I guess the US and 'hidden treasures in food' cities have spoiled me. The truth is nobody goes to pokhara for their food really it's the mountains and lakes and the chill vibes. But still. I had hoped against chance of getting lucky with food and the reality set in. Ah well. Still had a good time, guess that's all that matters anyways.

Stability

Stability is the real deal, innit?
It gives you the chance to take risks and gives you a semblance of solidity
A feel of calm and peace
and the desire to do better,
and reach high.
It is what we all want, if the end,
it drives our life and makes us content so lets all join our hands and sing '
for stability in life is one of the best things.

Surprises

Surprise surprises are so much fun when surprise Surprises hurt no one
And everyone wants to get on in
till it begets a grand old conspiracy the revealing of which leaves everybody in an overjoyed fizzy.
And everybody cries in excitement& joy.
then all keep talking about the tale of great surprise.
Over and over again, until everyone is sick. And nobody wants to hear the story no more.

Morning walk, breakfast, not much to do, okay dinner [Fri 27]

We went on a nice long morning walk, decent breakfast downstairs and lunch right there too, and had lunch too late at one of the only remaining places, takeout fried rice and momo meal.

Spent the entire day watching Netflix and Youtube.

Fantastic hotel breakfast, writing, relaxing quality time, lunch at nearby place, dinner at disappointing Rajwadi [Thu 26]

We got awesome hotel breakfast and walked for several unwilling hours up to Khapaudi. There we stayed at a restaurant where All got drunk and I sipped, only to suffer for the next two days. Deep important convos were had, and it was at this point I started suspecting our goals may have been massive misaligned. Which is why, three weeks later, when it's been 10 days since things ended, I don't care.

Took the super duper crowded bus to Hallam Chowk, and then a cab to the hotel. Napped and rested until the evening, when we walked to get dinner at Rajwadi the worst restaurant in Pokhara. Awful service, awful food, awful experience overall.

Watched Nepali comedy series in the evening.

Hotel Review: Stay Inn Apartments, Pokhara

I stayed at the Stay In Apartment hotel in Pokhara some time ago at the recommendation of a friend. 

Impressions & review follows.

Despite the hotel's distance from proper lakeside (it's a walk of ten-ish minutes), we never felt the distance hindered our experience in any way. The apartment suite was an inspired choice and I'm regretful such a stay has not been in my sights in the past. A separate space to sleep, and a separate space to watch tv, eat, maybe even reheat food, and keep one's luggage at creates a sense of calm and relaxation if one's stay is longer than a few short days. The bathroom was clean and modern, it had rain shower, and the water pressure was too good! The staff and the service of the restaurant, was highly commendable, so much so that the regret of not tipping them, well,( due to hushed departure) lingers to this day. They went above& beyond to help us out.


The restaurant downstairs had decent food, it wouldn't be a huge loss to stay in( hah ah) and order room service from them. The morning 'breakfasts were quite something, fresh tasty, and varied and honestly something we looked forward too.


We didn't make use of their swimming 'pool but it was clean and warm& regularly maintained.
Five tacking stars out of five. Bravo!

What to do in Kathmandu: A meander in nonsense

There are so many things you could do in Kathmandu, if you wanted to. You could take the car on cable, and go to the chandragiri hill. Or you could walk all the way up to get to the top of the Bagmati river, at Bagdwar. You could go down to Thamel and party all day long, and the nights too. Or you could explore the varieties of hotel the city has to offer. You could go, to the historical square of the Basan tapas durbar, or you could walk down the dirt. trodden tracks of old-town Indra chowk & so on. Might as well climb, up the ten-thousand steps, of the Swayambhu Stupa, or how about you, amble around the cool neighborhood of the Boudhha Pagoda. Then there is the temples galore, at Pashupati you will meet the city's protector god, or you could spend some time at the newly-minted cafes and tea shops, so so many of them, good lord!


And if you are the fancy kind, the city has a golf course or two, for offer to you. Perhaps a chopper ride up to the mountains just to get a nice breakfast, might also whet your luxury appetite.
 

And in the end, if you feel like it on your way out, why not pay for the ridiculously overpriced coffee at the airport on your way out of town, eh?

Restaurant review: Med 5 Restaurant

I went to this restaurant in Nepal at some point in the past. My impressions and a quick review.
 

This is one of the priciest restaurants I have been to in Nepal, full stop. An order of mushroom chilly was about 800 rupees. A nice order of pizza with extra cheese was 900.
 

The pizza was great and so were our other Mediterranean orders. Mushroom chilly was just alright for the price.

Ambiance was great and the service top-notch. Perhaps it was the company I was in but I had a fantastic effing time in there.


Highly recommend if you're around town.

I am in Kathmandu

Surprise, surprise! Eh? Everybody has been massively, pleasantly surprised and they appear to be enjoying the act of surprise more than the actual presence I have in the place. Planned length of stay is... variable.
 

I was here like five months ago so its not like anything new has happened. Except oh there's a new restaurant at my family has started going to and is absolutely obsessed with, and oh more nice tea cafes have opened up in my neighbourhood.
 

What am a gonna do, how am I going to spend my days? That's also highly variable depending on how things go but I have very little planned. Last time I had plans and goals, now I have a heavy, hot rock in my tummy. The existence of the rock has been highly variable too.
 

What is even real anymore?

How will I even write anything

It doesn't seem possible to be able to write under present circumstances. I'm far too stressed out and anxious, and uncertain about the future There is legitimate reason for all of this soo... shrug.
 

But maybe I 'II take advantage of my new kindle which will put me in love with writing?

As good as an excuse as it gets

Here's the dealio the dealio of life. Which is, that this is as good as an excuse as it gets to not write on this blog. And that's the beginning and end of it.

Rubble rubble, toil & trouble, with writing

 It is again* that* time of the year, when I come up with excuses and justifications for why I have not been writing my daily posts and oh how terrible things are but guys I'm going to win against the mean mean monsters... of my own self-control, and get wining again. So yes, lots of that all of that, it's terrible yad da yad da.
 

This time around though, I have legitimate excuses reasons, and yeah I'm going to be so very vague and unclear on what exactly is up, and when asked be super evasive and reply if I could tell you I would but I can't and so wont which will only add oil to the fire of suspicion that I am in fact bluffing but hear me through this-if in reality I did have a hella good reason, these are all the things I would say also, no? Give me some benefit of doubt for gods sake. As I have explained elsewhere, I need hell a lotta benefit of doubt too.
 

Right. Writing. Truth be told as I write these words on my kindle, I haven't touched a laptop in three days. This is the sixteenth post that's not been posted and hanging in my reader... and I plan on producing ten more posts this way today. And that's because I'm under confindent on if I can get my Journal posts written this way. If that gets figured out too then man, laptop-based posting ' is done for!
 

Not to brag, and it would be silly to brag about such matters for fear of tempting fate, but the surrounding around me is the most suited for writing on a notebook as I am doing right now. Waiting 'for my meal as I warm my back against the potent and warm early winter sun, surrounded on all sides by near& dear ones, loved ones.
 

I began this post by pretending I hadn't been writing, which is untrue. I just haven't gotten around to posting, because of life, and I have been writing at a decent pace.
 

Wish. Me. Luck.

Nepali Thal: Better take Your meds

With the spices and fats in a typical Nepali meal, by which I mean the ghio-rich Nepali that offered by every corner restaurant in an 'all you can eat except pieces of meat' deal, the heartburn and turn my troubles that are only too predictable for the following day aren't just probable or likely, they're a certainty. So it would only make sense if those places also added a more premium( pricier) option where they included medications for hearturn and hyperacidity and the spicy poops because that would sell out so damn fast!

Either my barber is bad or I gotta ask better

So I go to this barbershop near my home where all my Nepali gang friends go too. They're quite affordable for_ this day and age and are friendly-Also quite gossipy but that's a whole different point. For the last three haircuts I've asked them to give me a sharp fade which is that sharp shaved line on the scalp tha usually but not always lies on the fade-point 'aka the boundary between different levels of hair trim. And every single one of those occasions they've made it like they understood my request but didn't do it.
 

And by the end I've always been far too embarrassed to ask them to do as initially asked.
 

Friend SK, who also goes there, pays exactly the same money I do, but always comes out with a better out than I do, tells me that he realized the quality of the barbers there is quite variable. There's one barber... and only one(!), who knows what he's doing. He'd told me to ask for Dave but I was a bit shy about asking for him when I went-Which was a mistake because there was a queue of two people before me, and they were both waiting on Dave. Clearly this guy is the favourite of clients at this hair cutlery and I've never had the opportunity to get my hair trimmed by him.
 

So once again I didn't get a sharp fade, once again I got a mediocre haircut for the same price as an excellent haircut. I had been looking forward to this for quite a while, and they didn't even trim my hair as short as/wanted. I asked twice to make it quite short and explained I wouldn't mind if they ever cut it too short. The disappointment was pretty rough since I'd built up the haircut so much.
 

When I got home, after a nice hot shower I took vengeance upon my hair. By sharing my own sharp fade lines. But I didnt have the tight razor or the template so it was pretty bad. To make up for it/shaved a bunch more of my hair on that side, and then the other side to balance things out. The errors kept on escalating. By the end of this, the two Sides were uneven, and my left side now looks like an alien haircut from the 1970's. The right side is OK. A K and E D think it's fashionable.

Top 15 things I really want to get at Costco but haven't yet!

  1.  Minoxidil the hair fall medication that's available at bargain

  2. Bulk lactase tablets to last me years!

  3. Apple cider powder once again!

  4. The dessert( creme brule) which you can buy a dozen of in $10 and you get really nice glass containers too!
  5. 12-pack of coconut water

  6. Bulk quinoa, bulk glutinous rice, balk Jasmine rice

  7. $40 air fryer, what an amazing deal!

  8. Various M1 Mac studio devices that are on sale

  9. Clothes in my size, they never sell anything small or XS.

  10. Frozen appetizers, all of them, yum yum yum

  11. Bulk vitamins

  12. Vegan meats, all of them, in bulk

  13. The nicer oils for cooking, they're priced really well

  14. Costo nuts in bags, they've gotten rid of the containers

  15. All the interesting medical aerosols and tablets

  16. Books! They stock interesting books but I've never actually bought them!


Up early, quick shower, wait at the airport gate, easy domestic flight, lovely PKR flight with AK, pricey taxi, great hotel Stay Inn, momo lunch, relax, Nepali dinner [Wed 25]

Woke up early in the morning, nice long shower with fantastic water pressure, acted and waited right outside the welcome gate at the airport. All picked me up in a cab, we checked in, both my luggage would be hand-carried. Short uneventful flight, an expensive cab right later we were at our wonderful apartment hotel. Freaking loved it right from start.

Lunch was mono and fried rice at the hotel restaurant, nothing to write home about.

At the hotel we unpacked, unwound and relaxed. Went for walk around the neighborhood.

In the evening we went to this place with Nepali that, pretty good it was, I didn't even mind the strand of hair in the rice.

Full-on flight, peaceful & uneventful, good eats, much waiting, land and walk to a new hotel after quick negotiations, good night's sleep [Tue 24]

I've written the journal posts up to Nov 20 between yesterday and now, 5 more posts to go and lets just say I'm not having a good time remembering all the painful s hit. Makes me want to not write at all but ah well.

The entirety of this day was spent in the flight, nothing happened really, the one hour of transit at Doha was way more than enough. Did a surprising amount of reading and writing in the plane.

Landing, immigration and customs were shockingly smooth. I was out on the ring road 20 minutes after disembarking. It was at 2, walked to where my hotel was supposed to be, found a decent-looking place on the way, negotiated a really good price and moved in. Solid room, solid bathroom, what more can I ask for?

It was a good night's sleep, no jet lag or anything.

Who even designed LAX?

 It's holidays season so people will be travelling a lot. That is the reason why so many of my recent posts have been travel- related or adjacent. In this post I want to talk about what a terribly designed and inconvenient airport LAX( Los Angeles International Airport) is.


My issues with it arise due to its massive size and the lack of any internal public transport. If you are unfortunate enough to have a connecting flight that goes thru it, you could end up walking maybe 40 -45 minutes between the gates, no trams or trains and the walkways in very limited areas. And more woe to you if you happen to be equipped with heavy hand-carry, because a short intermission in your trip could easily turn into a rigorous military training regimen. Perhaps the airport grew to its current size organically as need for air services increased, but then why would no one consider the need for automated devices to transport people from one end of the airport to the other?
 

The second issue is, while the major atrium at the airport are clean, shiny and well-lit, the corridors that connect the different terminals are dark dirty and sketchy-looking. I don't comprehend the logic of spending billions to constructing such a great hat but the cheap ing out on the parts that actually make people like and use the place.
 

Maybe the next time the airport things will be better? They were doing renovations all over the place, there is something worth being hopeful about.

It's confirmed-this time is different

I've written eight posts in the past twelve or thirteen hours on my kindle. That's more than the total number of all the posts I have ever written on the plane before this. When I initially bought the kindle, I brought up the issue of whether the device was just yet another totem of hope or a useful tool to improve my productivity and commitment to writing. But this round makes it more clear-I've gotten used to this as a tool to write wherever I am, and the dozen-and-half posts published from here only add extra ammunition to the cause.
 

It's different because there's nothing to distract me in the device itself. Because when it's so easy to 'see' text persist on a certain physical location, it feels more persistent. The lack of a rotating screen, the lack of a separate input device, and the tactile feedback in the act of writing all make handwriting here much pleasant than any writing in a computer. Which is not to say I don't like computer posting- it's way faster, convenient and the posting experience is much less frictioned. But not when I'm not in front of my personal computer with lots of privacy in my personal space. Since I travel around a lot, and crash at people's places, this is useful for 'external' posting.
 

When I originally bought this device ten days ago, there was not much expectation of using it as a tool to write. It was supposed to be a reader thru and thru. I haven't done that much reading on this device it turns out. But it has found its use.
 

I projected to make the device worth the cost I'd have to read like 300 books in it. It wasn't a serious argument but seeing as to how often its been used, it might pay for itself shockingly quickly.

Menya Mushash Seattle - A review

 We went to Many a Mushashi over the weekend on Saturday. The journey to get a seat there was long and arduous-we got told our wait time was 1hr, went elsewhere where it was similar for wait( Kinki), then we got back outside their doors and waited for perhaps an hour/hour and half. I wouldn't be able to give exact numbers for I smoked up a slight bit, my first time since mid-July so perspective of time is a bit unreliable. It was extra-challenging to get a table since we were a group of 7: me, Aks( y), SK, AR (e), ARI g), GS, and IB, who I've seen a lot more of in recent weeks as he appears to be Sk's new friend.
Because I had had a heavy lunch at the Greek food and Theo's in the morning, I didn't intend on eating anything. But neither did A Rey, and the server seemed particularly grumpy, seeing as the place had been walls-to-walls busy right from the morning, it was a long day for him. So there was no way I could go without ordering anything.


A general note on the place before we go further-I'm fairly certain I have been at the location previously. So a more fuller review must surely be in the archives, as I ordered just a side option.
 

I chose the croquette curry with rice, an appetizer of sorts because it was smaller in size and cheaper than anything else on the menu by half. Perhaps it was the munchies, or perhaps I enjoy rice more than I'd like to admit, but it was so so good! I could eat it in the morning and the evening! yummy!
 

The ambiance was pretty nice, the restaurant was a Samurai-themed eatery. Everybody else enjoyed their meals, AR1Y) basically ate half my order and healthy portions of many others 'suggesting the food must have been quite good since she is a picky eater.
 

All-in I paid ten dollars fifty for the yummy meal and the experience with friends. A full order of 25 buckaroos would have been a bit much but it was a great value for money with what I paid. On slower days, an order of Ramen at Musashi would be a good colder idea.

Rhine haus for clubbing

 The other day over the weekend we went to Rhinehans in the evening to dance. I've been there a few times before, the last notable experience was in the world up time with AyP. It's such a fundamentally different place on non-world up, evenings though.


We got there on the earlier side of evening, 10.15 ish. Stood around all over the place awkwardly talking and watching people play Bocce. Eventually we ambled to the dance floor but our gang of five was the largest( and basically the only) group dancing there. Folks were disappointed for sure. 'And somebody said there wouldn't be space on the floor to move your arms, 'somebody observed. Eventually two more dudes, friends of ours one of who recently started DJing, showed up. And we danced freely.


The one good thing about this music venue is their music is extremely danceable, and I recognize a song or two every so often. By half past eleven, the crowd had thickened considerably but it was still manageable. There was a large group of Seal students who seemed to be having a ball of a time-and whose first clubbing experience it seemed to be-they were bunched together into a tight circle at the middle of the floor and edging everybody else out. Besides that, this appears to be one of the more conventional clubs in Seattle.
 

The crowd on the dance floor grew and grew and crew. So much that by midnight there was barely a space to tap one's feet for flail one's arms without hitting somebody. A good-sized crowd is important for a fan clubbing experience but not to the point that you're like no leaks on a solid, unable to turn your head or even properly see who you're dancing with. Our group kept getting separated because of the aggressive students, and I was tired and sleepy. It was time for me to get some air, and eventually walk back home. I texted the rest of the gang and they too headed out thirty minutes after I did. It was a solid night, we explored a new place I'd never been to before and nobody got too drunk or anything.
 

A solid night out in my books. At 1.30 apparently the guys got talking to a group of Nepali girls who had been out& about.

Excited for You

 I am
So very excited,
we tell each other,
for you.
Oh the wonders
you will see
and the great things
you will do,
oh the people
you will meet
and the places
you will go to,
Just thinking about it
so so very excited for you.
I am so excited
for the_ things you will eat
and oh! the royalty& celebrity
you will greet!
Oh the conversations, wide and deep,
that you will have,
and from a those places,
the amazing souvenirs and memories
you will keep!
So, so very excited for you!
The world we have seen, the one we have been in,
Will soon be no more, for things are always a- changin '
And it's all the more reason, to learn& explore, and feel The excitement not just for yourself but your brethren!

Happy Dashain Everyone!

 A very happy dashain to all my readers! Usually around the holidays season I'm with family but because of specific plans and particular circumstances, that was not possible for this year's dashain. No matter I have planned tihar and other events with family, long time since I celebrated the festival with home folks, that's always an exciting thing to look forward too.


This year both sides of my family are celebrating dashain from over a half-dozen countries, in almost a dozen cities. That's the nature of existence for folks like us, from immigrant cultures whose identity and history is defined by intra-and inter-generational movement geographically for a better life for their families and their progeny. And it is exciting 'too, and those migrations have only improved the quality of life, so we must thank our ancestors who put us where we are now and who must have traveled for weeks if not months every few years to celebrate this great festival of ours.


I just talked on vibes with family who were together celebrating and it feels wonderful knowing no matter what people find excuses for Joy and celebration among themselves. Talked to my parents, grandparents and on chat groups with the cousins.
Good times, good times!

Qatar Airways International flights food-comparative study

 Since the holidays season is here and everybody seems to be traveling somewhere, plus the previous post on how one might want to divide a long plane Journey and I got thinking about airline food. As in, the stereotype is how they're so bad, but that's not been my experience at all. At times, I have actually missed airlines food( particularly the well-spiced ones catered in good airlines) and dreamt up restaurants where airlines might sell their food, or get rid of their surplus supplies: Since Qatar is the airline I have Journeyed internationally the most, it makes sense to talk about it...


So all of my experiences with@ A food have been pretty decent. Since my travels consist of trips to Nepal, the flights are mostly South Asian folks, and the food is decent Indian food. Not to praise the food too much but I'd rather have the Qatari plane food than food from some restaurants in Seattle. And so last year when I went to KTM with ED, I was expecting a similar quality when I set my food options to 'vegetarian' online before the flight. I had not anticipated what a terrible choice that would turn out to be.


The food was bland, un spiced, unfilling and really should be considered sustenance. If that was the standard quality of airlines food, I'd probably travel a lot less, or prefer to take flights with actually edible food instead of the gloop we were served. And the annoying thing about the whole experience was that ED had followed suit in ordering meatless eating 'and oh what a massive disappointment it became for her. At least the return flight had regular edible food, and the flights since have only impressed or satisfied my expectations, there has been no disappointing experience since. Qatar and Turkish airlines, to and from the middle east & South Asia, amazing food, would highly recommend to all whom that is a priority.

The different ways of dealing with long flights

Friend N and I were talking about our preferred ways to divide long Journeys. I said I didn't mind a long flight if that meant a short layover that'd be done with and I could reach home on the quicker side than later. Because that way I'd have more time at the destination, and once I'm already in a 12-hour flight, what's four more hours, you know? I like settling down on a place and getting used to it so I have emotional strategies to deal with the experience.
 

N said he likes it differently. His preferred approach is to divide the Journey into chunks, have a stable and good time at every layover through the lounges) and then reach the destination all frosted up and ready for action. His view was-.. yeah he'd reach the destination later but he'd be fully functional and get out and about right away with no need to recuperate.
 

That was such an interesting and different approach to a common thing that it got me thinking. The issues I have with his approach are: I could hardly ever 'ignore' a 40/50-hour trip no matter how much break I'd had in between. Second, I don't really need all that break to be functional and out and about. A good night's sleep, combined with a little bit of effort to align one's mental clock to the destination would get me at the destination workflow. Plus, I'd find the most tiring part of the experience to be trying to get myself setup at different lounges and airports, better a one long medium-quality sleep than three or four high-quality but interrupted and broken up maps, please. It's hard to fall asleep in the best of circumstance as it is, wouldn't want to do it three or four times in one trip.
 

I wonder if our individual. approaches to this specific scenario can be generalized to ur personalities and approach to living our lives, or if it's one of the many many things one can do that just happens and doesn't say anything about anything.

Shit's fucked up at work

So earlier this morning, the morning of Monday the 23rd of October that is, I got a request for a quick call from my manager. The morning of the last day before vacation: I got a cold, sinking feeling immediately. I asked for sometime because for unrelated reasons I was in a car and didn't want to appear irresponsible even if that wasn't the layoff call. In the meantime AD, who's a Nepali coworker in the company, texted me telling she had been laid off. The deal wasn't too bad-last day of work at Dec 29, and the 3 months of severance pay, which means if one found a similar job within five months, they'd be better-off. But a layoff is a layoff and if I were to lose my Job now, I'd be in a very hot and extremely funky pickle.


In any case, I took the call with the manager. By this point I was already planning on contingency plans and options to explore if the unfortunate happened. So when I started the call with my manager, I was semi-expecting to be laid off.


My manager began the conversation with the context of how our industry was in a really rough situation and how our company had had the worst year in two decades. At that point there was not a doubt in my mind that I'd be laid off. Would crying and begging help? could I sue? Whom, and what for though, and it's not like I had a cause... long story short, my manager had set the meeting to inform me that my position and salary were unaffected by the layoffs. I groaned a loud sigh in relief, and joked how I'd almost gotten a heart attack. And the I asked him twice to confirm that I had not been laid off and I was in fact safe. Phew.


And oh later in the day, my last workday before the holidays, I talked to a coworker who had his not laid off" call after mineand the first thing he was told was apparently 'don't worry, you are not affected 'so at least my feedback was useful...

Gundruk as common currency

This is one of those silly things people don't think about normally , but it turns out somethings have more value than other was perceived when there is a lack of them. This is about Gundruk obviously. A month ago I hadn't cooked gundruk at all and now I am an old pro, having done it more than five times in all the various ways. Like yesterday, for example, somebody who was going to come didn't do spicy food, so I cooked the dried fermented leaves( mixed with sink/without the chilies, warmed burned actually) the green chillies in hot oil elsewhere, and mixed them. The sound and feel of dropping tempered spices into a stew is such that I could see why people would prefer to do it for the ritualistic aspect of it and not for any functional reasons. It makes you feel like such an adult doing cool interesting things in the kitchen.

Probably why they almost always temper Simba instead of frying in the same pot at the start.

Right, back to the gundruk talk. So it turns out gun drink and rice is not party food, not respectable meal, it's something you make when you don't feel like cooking anything else, or because your 'e poor. Here in Seattle though the talk of making hot white rice with warm and spicy gundruk is what makes people want to get invited to dinner to your place. And people seem to really really enjoy it too! Plus, besides the hellish cutting part at the start and I'm sure there's easier ways to deal with it) it's actually quite a simple dish. Much simpler than dal even. The cool part is you dont need to think about the spices to put in besides salt oil& chillies-it comes pre-spiced! It is of course an acquired taste but one all of us Nepalis have acquired, and that is what gives it so much value-the shared experience.

Drive to the airport, can work and heart-attack news, easy flight, work from flight and airport, plane writing paneer dinner in plane, sad LAX airport, sleep [Mon 23]

Worked for a bit in the morning, She drove me to the airport, put my laptop out and worked there too, my manager wanted an urgent meeting. AD had told me earlier she had been laid off so I was half dead already. Took a call at the airport and manager started it by making it sound like I was being let go.

Fortunately I was not! worked in the line, at the gate, bought internet and in the flight too. Got down at Lax, terrible airport, and worked until right before getting on the plane.

Wrote a bunch in the plane, had panes and rice for dining and forced myself to sleep, to align to Nepal time.

Costco drive with AKS, unwanted snacks and meds bought, Pizza lunch with the boys, haircut & mess, packing for the trip, ale-gun drink-that dinner, hectic miss [Sun 22]

One day before the trip. Went to Costco with AKS land GS. Bought so many snacks and meds I didn't need at all, bought pizza for the boys, it was A actually. Hectic day for A, he missed his bus and had to take a later one.

Got haircut, tried fixing it and failed hard, looking like a caricature more than anything, have written about that in detail. Rushed cooking because the girls said they were coming for dinner, so made that dal bhat gundruk and achar. They didn't come so SK and GS ate.

Packed for my trip in the evening.

Freemont market hangout, Greek lunch, Asian art for apartment, hanging out with the girls, hunting for a Ramen spot, Yummy Munya Musashi dinner, Rhinehaus dance [Sat 21]

Sk, AKS ly) and I went to the Fremont Market under the bridge along with GS, and S, who was gonna meet her of's parents later in the day. I got greek food, so did she, it was fucking good. It was antiques weekend so lots of old and second-hand crop. I found 2 nice Chinese hanging out and bought them for 20 bucks each. Good find!

In the evening we met up AR's to get dinner at Menya Musashi, but the wait was long, we went to the other spot, waited there for 20 minutes, got tired, went back to the original spot and waited for the 15 mins. I got the curry rice appetizer, which was lovely.

IB drove us to Rhine Hans, spent 20 mins trying to get his luxury car to auto-park. It was too empty at first, the dance floor at RH, and then far too busy, so I bailed out on the gang at 12.30 am. Talked to Al a bit and slept.

Productive day at work, leftover lunch, yogurt snack, Domino's pizza for dinner, AKS comes, I go out and come back in way too early, sleeping far too late [Fri 20]

I'm writing this on Nov 20 on my Scribe, having written the posts for the 30 days that follow already. Phew! What a journey it has been, past month has been so fucking eventful. So much so that my pen nib might be wearing out soon, about 200 pages into writing staff.

Since it was basically the last day at work, I gave a 3- he training to the group on what I had been up to and things that would be needed to be done while I was out. Lunch was leftover rice, had yogurt snacks from those Greek yogurt packs She had brought.

Bought Domino's Pan Pizza and had like 3 (4) slices for dinner to break my month-long fast. AK came from college and I gave him the pizza remains to eat. Later, S k, AKS and I went to Sk's old complex to hang out with the young dudes. I didn't bring my ID so came home to collect it and then never went back. Told them to have fun. Talked to AK until four or five in the morning.

Five hours of viber calls to friends and family, walk to office post work, sad little party, reading and writing in the evening there, evening walk, chau chau dinner [Thu 19]

I talked to AK, TD and ED during the course of the day, the total calltime on Viber was five hours ish. Totally ineffective and inefficient at work but who cares about that anymore.

Napped for a couple of hours in the afternoon because my sleep cycle had been kinda fucked since I started eating in the evening (I wonderrrr if eating too late causes sleep issues, specially when you need to get up early)... and then walked over to my office, way after office hours, for a small party they had. It was well organized but nobody else I knew, so had a packet of popcorn and a can of diet soda. Since I wanted to make the most out of my trip, went up to my desk, with my kindle, read a couple of books, and walked home quite late in the evening.

Since I hadn't got my steps full yet, put my kindle at home, and went for a quick walk. Came back, cooked Shin Ramyun with two eggs, mushrooms, and a whole load of spices, and shared it with Sk too, and watched tv. Didn't like the episode of Black Mirror that was playing, it was about a demon who got this Indian girl to kill people. Soon it was bedtime.

A review of Theo's Gyros at Fremont Bridge market

Earlier today we went to to the Fremont Bridge Market (it was antiques day today) and got some food before the shopping. Bought myself to nice Chinese art wall decorations, which I'll write about in the future, maybe, but now I want to write about the food I had there.

I got a chickpea falafel at Theo's Gyro. So yummy. They put fries in there too and everybody went gaga over the fries. The spicy sauces they had as optional things were yummy, the tzatziki sauce was so fatty, the sesame sauce was yum, the falafel was crunchy and soft at the same time, the pita was decent, and nothing overwhelmed anything else in the wrap.

The price was 13.50 which is on the pricier side, but hey this is Seattle and that's the state of things now, everything is insanely pricey and the city is intent on making things increasingly worse. There's no way out.

Anyway, if you don't want to get the Kathmandu Momocha truck food in the farmer's market, get Theo's because it was the bomb.

The end of a busy week at work, and the start of a nice vacay yay yay

This week meant the end of a hectic busy week when I was hella busy, a bit stressed out and got a lot of shit done. I had promised myself I'd work in the evenings and over the weekend if I needed to, to get the work done, but it turns out that sort of commitment wasn't necessary. Things just happened, and everything fell into place, and I'm in a much more comfortable and 'safe' place. SO on Friday I spent 2 hours training my squad on the work I was doing and how to catch up with my stuff after I was gone. I told them I'd be around on Monday but lets be real I'll be gone early in the day to spend time with friends and ain't working like a dawg then. So yeah not happening.

And now the Nepali holiday season begins, the beginning of my vacation too...Dashain, tihar, with friends and family, traveling, seeing the country, so many exciting things to come, I'm so freakin' looking forward to the whole experience!

The craziest thing happened with Amazon, and it was sorted out real quick

The Lavender tablets that I bought like six months ago, Amazon got around to processing them today. I found that out when my credit card was dinged a bit hit. It was a clear case of fraud at first sight because no recent purchases were made, but after a little more detailed exploration, discovered Amazon's silly decision. Reached out to the customer service and they sorted it out ASAP, but it was frustrating that those silly people didn't realize that starting the shipping of a product I'd originally ordered six months ago and had stopped caring for a long, long time go was not a viable strategy. That order had clearly gotten stuck in a queue somewhere and was impossible to cancel from the customer side. Anyway, thank god for the fucking fantastic customer service.

Silly fact: they force you to use their app for customer service chat on mobile, unless you force your browser to use the desktop version of the website, in which case nothing is problematic and nothing needs installation, thing are fine. Annoying, annoying.

Some bank bullshit with BofA maintenance fees, and the erroneous transfer

Couple of minor issues that happened over the last few days I want to keep a record of because...such bullshittery this was.

First, it turns out Bank Of America, which I have stored all my wealth and treasure decided to charge me maintenance fees because I didn't maintain minimum balance over the course of the month. Which was like...whatever. I don't care. I think what I'll do is put in the minimum balance required, and transfer immediately be cause fuck them, I don't care for their products, I don't care for them enough to do otherwise. In any case, I called them and forced them to refund the 12 bucks charged to me because I just...can't.

And then I accidentally put lots of money into the credit card payment account instead of checkings account, which created a minor fiasco, but fortunately I called them and once again the problem was solved. Should have deposited that cash a long time ago but ah well.

And the third thing, since we're talking about financial matters already. I, rather unthinkingly, put a large sum of liquid cash in my savings account, to a CD that was offering 5.5%, for a fixed 10-month term. 10 months is a big commitment, specially when the interest rates are on the up and up, but the bet is that they won't keep rising as much as they have been.

That created a bit of a liquidity crunch for me, and so freaking glad the cash from cc account got sent into my bank account because at one point I would have had trouble paying the credit card fees and my rent with available cash, and would have needed to borrow some moolah from friends. Fortunately that didn't happen and now I can work as required.

Walk to work, a case of mistaken identity, apple cronut at QFC on way back, seeing Sk on the way, volunteer park walk with Sk and M, dal bhat, alu-broccoli and airfried veggies cooked for dinner, evening write [Wed 18]

Writing this on the evening of Saturday instead of Thursday because well...weekend happened.

Walked to work, did solid work in the morning and afternoon.

Deposited a lot of money into my bank account from the BofA atm next to my work, or so I thought I did. Turns out I was actually paying my credit card dues, and had to work through a couple of hoops to get that transferred to my checking account.

On the walk back, I went to QFC and got an apple cronut because I was hungry and wanted sugar, oh sweet sweet sugar.

Saw SK working against the window of one of the cafes I was ogling, and caught up with him and M, so funny, small place.

Went to walk in the park in the evening, it was super duper sunny, so lots of chill, took multiple rounds of the park, relaxed.

In the evening I air fried frozen veggies and made some solid dal, and put rice to cook. Sk pan fried potatoes and broccoli. The dinner was highly highly nutritious and so very filling, confusingly so actually because we couldn't figure out what the shit it was that had filled us so goddamn much.

Wrote a tonne in the evening, on my air ebook reader, and generally, really.

Unseasonably warm and sunny season in Seattle

In the rain and gloom
When it's dark
and a scene set
for the doom,
a glimmer of hope,
a ray of sunshine
and the clouds clear
the sun comes out bright
guys and girls come out
and bask in the light
and cherish it
like a fine fine wine,
that will be gone soon
hidden and unseen
for months and months
only to be back
far away in the next year.

All aware,
this might be the last time
in many months
that it might be so warm
and bright
all ready to soak in
the vitamins and the joy
and store it
till the next spring.

Uniqlo is pretty pricey if you buy the good stuff, I discovered

Spent 1.5 hours at Uniqlo yesterday looking to buy interesting items. Man, that's an expensive store if you're not careful with what you're buying. It's easy to get sucked in because some of their offerings are quite reasonable: their fluffy jackets, some mufflers and things of that sort. But the other things...ooof. Their standard t-shirts go for thirty dollars, socks are 5 buckaroos a pair, and underpants are 8 dollars. I thought I'd grab a couple of jackets and shirts and t-shirts, but uhhh that would have set me back a couple of hundos that I didn't want to spend. Instead I bought like four pairs of underpants that cost me about 40 quid all things added. Which is hella expensive for men's undies because...that's a lot of money for 'regular' underpants that are not specially branded...And uniqlo underpants are alright, they're not special in any way that I've experienced, and it's not like one would bandy about proudly wearing their wares, like one might with more popular lifestyle brands. For a mass-market brand, it's actually pricey.

But there's no other sellers in this market, nobody to cater to our style, or our size, and Uniqlo is the most suitable to our tastes etcetera, without being absurdly pricey. So it's not like there's too many options. It's just...not as cheap as one would imagine it'd be.

Visa situation not as great as I fantasized, it turns out

I got some demoralizing and disappointing news from the lawyers today in the email. It appears I had gotten aggressively optimistic and hopeful about the status of my immigration situation, and had considered my timeline to be six-to-eight months more advanced than it is really. So now I need to reset my expectations by that time. Which is not quite the worst, but it's a bit...of a downer, I'm usually not prone to such bouts of unjustified excitement, particularly with regards to visa and immigration but let myself dream for once, and ahh the falldown has been not great today. Everything has slowed down in terms of visa processing, I'm told, and I should just sit down patiently and wait without running my head off if I don't want to go insane.

The department of labor is taking forever to grant work permits, and department of immigration is taking forever to issue immigration documents, I'm told. None of the federal departments are doing what they're meant to be, which is really awful, but ugh the political situation in this country...I don't even want to...

Anyway, it's back to being a cynical grouch then!

The busiest day at work ever, power nap, a quick snack of trader joe's eggplants, walk downtown, Uniqlo shopping, exploring Ross, Chipotle lunch, Nordstorm exploration, back home, kindle writing, friend talks, short walk, evening write [Tue 17]

I'm writing this on the evening of Wednesday, the day after. That's a fair enough trade, to write a day later, after getting the full context of the events of the earlier day. Still haven't gotten around to writing April journal, but it will happen before the holidays begin.

I was super duper duper busy with work, barely got a room to breathe, so very productive, got shit done real quick, felt quite good about myself. It's not sustainable in the long term though, it's the sort of thing you do every six months or so and just be done with it.

Because there was a serious lack of proper sleep during the day, took a quick power nap after work, and then had the entire can of Trader Joe's Greek Eggplants for lunch. Like a rat, or a cat, who likes to eat canned eggplants. It wasn't the worst, and the flavor was fantastic. N had recommended it to be a week previously, and you know, a worthy recommendation.

Went to downtown on foot, Uniqlo first, where I hunted for shoes and anything else that might be interesting, but ended up buying four pairs of underpants. Hella expensive. Gonna put that in a post of its own. Went to Ross to see if there were any good shoes, found none in my size. Picked up buying a large pack of 'nicer' Hanes undies, but backed out of those, and just bought a fancy rubber kitchen drain cover. So many homeless outside the store yiikes.

Got lunch at Chipotle, so filling, so relieving, so affordable.

Went to Nordstorm rack to find shoes, none fit my size and preferences, and I realized at this point I already have too many shoes as it is. Tried a couple of shirts and jackets and would have bought them too if they were of the right size. Walked home, wrote a bunch of posts on the kindle, went on a quick walk, came back, wrote more on this blog, and went to sleep.

Food, gone

Handwritten on kindle scribe with minimal editing before posting here.

This isn't as serious as I'd hope it'd be, but I need not have worried about the calorie content of Chipotle burrito. For my tummy seems to have forgotten the ability to eat even the most mildly spicy foods, and ah let's just say I haven't slept since 4 am, if you get my fist.

Which got me wondering... I wonder if there is a spicy food-based weight-loss regimen or diet of sorts? Because spicy food will cause your tummy to lose more calories than you ingest and you won't feel hungry and miserable in between. Or maybe your body will adjust to the spice level and the trick stops working after the first few days? Is it possible that fat people eat spicier food, or less spicy food? Are their any relationships between regular spicy food intake as a part of one's diet and health outcomes? The thing about spicy food casing ulcer has been disproven now but what if we found something that's the opposite?

It doesn't have to be true-anything that tastes bad doesn't have the healthy by default( the causality is messed up on that assumption)... but is there a chance this one is?

Regardless, I had two meals, in a vague, not very committed, way, yesterday. And I'm far to full today.. to the point I'm afraid I might not eat a lot... which would mess up my eating scheme more. That wouldn't be very nice.

So I'm writing this sitting on a chair at Seattle public library central location, and mantis device is so very convenient. Falling asleep is harder, putting contact with material is easier, and the portability is much larger. Even if this is an unreasonable amount of excitement at a new device, this is going to be so good.
Anyway I gotta start heading back home. Get my steps... cook something 'good, or eat something, take a hit at April's Journal posts, and go on evening walk.

Need to finish reading 'the learning to learn book too.

Exciting times lie ahead

Seven things.

  1. Our CEO declared our company would see massive layoffs in the coming days and everybody is freaking out. There is fear, but also so many opportunities. Inside the company too!

  2. I'm going on holiday, and will take some time off, and am really really exciting for the holidays season.

  3. Beyond the holiday season, it's always fun to see friends and family during dashain-tihar-halloween-thanksgiving, which I'm doing.

  4. Going to see old places with friends, an exciting prospect for any guy!

  5. Working with bureaucracy is always fun, and I should know all the better, with how many issues I have had to deal with in recent days!

  6. The amount of optimism and excitement has shot through the roof, generally.

  7. Future is fine, we'll make it work with patience, hope, and desires?

Writing on the kindle and future plans on that

This is like the twelfth post about what I plan on doing with my Kindle scribe and how great it is, and the seventh post on how I've talked about my kindle for long enough and that I should get a life. All acknowledged. Let's move on.

With my kindle, I won't have to carry my personal laptop, and won't have to use my work laptop to post here. I can write in the company of friends and family, take it anywhere, and they won't feel like I'm too busy to deal with them. Because it's such a convenient format, and is so inconspicuous, I can write blog posts anywhere anytime, and just be done with it.

So that's the idea. You know how in the past I have not been able to write when things are out of my control because I don't have a personal space, where I'm undisturbed to use my laptop, and I don't like going to hide in my room to write, but then not driven enough to write in the blog in public either? Well the idea is, that won't happen anymore because I'll have an entirely new device that maps to an existing less intrusive idea of technology to most folks, and they won't have issues with me writing and posting with it.

And oh so much reading. And since it looks more like a book than a tablet, the hope is folks are not as intrusive in my readings as they are with internet usage (rightly so, IMHO).

Here's to hoping, wishing and praying!

I still need to get out April's posts, and then work toward the project 240, maybe the Kindle is a way to getting there in a realistic timeframe?

Thirteen crazy things I could do with my new Kindle scribe, probably, technically, and might end up doing that but who knows

  1. Read my uploaded books!

  2. Read the library books!

  3. Listen to audio books!

  4. Write journal and blog posts

  5. Draw with the pen

  6. Use as a planner

  7. Use as a notebook

  8. Torchlight in the dark

  9. A teeny tiny tent for ants

  10. Protect myself from the rain using it as an umbrella of sorts

  11. Defensive weapon towards an assailant

  12. Dictionary

  13. Infinity!

For eight months a year, there's only one kind of weather in Seattle, they say

They say Seattle in the winter has only 3 kinds of weather. They are:

  1. It is currently raining.

  2. It looks like it'll rain soon.

  3. It just rained.

  4. (Unofficial, but I read in a forum once and it makes total sense) It must have rained because the roads look wet and there are puddles, but I never heard or saw it rain, but surely it must have at some point, or where would all that moisture have come from?

It's quite true, summers are different because we actually get a bout of seriously hot season, and then there's no rain for about six months, but otherwise, it's a drizzly city. It never rains heavily, but enough to remind one that if you're going out without an umbrella, there's a good chance of getting lightly rained upon. Everyone expects that, and prepares themselves for light moisturisation. This is what we love Seattle for, after all!

Super busy at work, breakfast for lunch, kindle is here, kindle setup and exploration, laundry and folding, evening write, latenight walk [Mon 16]

I write this on the evening of the following day, the Tuesday. By now I've written six blog posts on my Kindle and posted them to this blog, on the device that came in yesterday, the Monday I'm writing about. And then maybe TEN posts even about how I love my kindle, lol.

Right, let's get back to journaling.

I was super duper duper busy at work. First there's the question of layoffs swirling around. And second I finally accomplished something I had feared would be impossible, even though that meant I had barely a free moment to myself.

After work, I waited for like 1.5 hours for the Kindle to be delivered, because I could see it on Amazon's map, but that took forever. Eventually it got into the apartment and I walked down to pick it up even before the deliveryperson had entered the building. Met the handyman who'd fixed my roof there who asked my how my ceiling was doing.

Setup the Kindle in the next couple of hours, wrote a bunch to post here, updated the device and in general had whole loads of fun.

For lunch I fried 3 eggs, air fried 3 hash brown patties from TJ's, cut half an avocado, lots of green onions, chilli flakes, etcetera, along with one remaining scallion pancake, and had that as Asian fusion breakfast taco. Not rice. After so long.

Read on the kindle played some more.

In the evening I did two large rounds of laundry, and then folding. As I've written in great detail here, the trick to folding quickly is to sort first.

Wrote extensively on this work after laundry, and then went on a walk. Slept after the walk, came back very late at night.

Pre-travel shopping

Originally handwritten on my kindle, posted with minimal edits.

I wanted to buy a few things before going for holiday travels. A nice pair of shoes, couple of cute pairs of Uniqlo undergarments( my bulk Hanes underpants have the tendency to spontaneously disintegrate), and Jackets or t-shirts that might catch my fancy.

Well....

I bought four pairs of underpants at Uniqlo and they cost me almost fifty buckaroos, for that money I could get like 50 hares pairs, but that isn't a fair comparison. Then I went around looking for shoes and guess what no Shoes for my size, not even in the kids section. I could have, if I had wanted really bad, found a pair that fit me, but it was at this point in my shopping Journey that I realized I do have a few good pairs of shoes that I don't wear much in Seattle because I'm afraid of getting them dirty in the rain. 

So yeah I'll wear my little-worn shoes instead of investing in yet another pair of shoes that's unlikely to be worn...

At the Nordstorm Rack I tried several pairs of Jackets, button-downs and t-skirts and was ready to part with my dollars for them • • • had they all not been a bit large, large enough to make it clear that I was donning that jacket because it was the smallest I could find and that clearly I couldn't afford to by more well-fitted clothes. I don't want my clothes communicating f- so much about me to the Sherlock Holmeses around us so the idea was abandoned, and I came home withe 4 pairs of$$$ undies, a rubber sink-hole coven, and a literal bellyful of yummy Chipotle grub!

More appreciation of the kindle scribe and the handwriting process.

Originally handwritten from my kindle, posted with minimal edits.

The difference between writing a blogpost on a laptop when people are around, and writing with a pen on  paper-like device is bigger than I would have imagined. With the first, people assume you are bored with the present company and are trying to find a distraction. And of course writing on a laptop screen is so god damn distracting! Even if you tell yourself you have to finish writing such and such many words in so much time, you can't do it because your brain comes up with excuses to go somewhere else. Plus people don't take you seriously& you look otherwise engaged.

With a tablet writing however, your face is not blocked by a shiny screen, the device is on the table and you look like quite the intellectual writing. Plus your eyes are not obstru­cted from looking around, and your posture is quite casual, and does not signal 'I want to get out of the social interaction ASAP! Which is... good, no?

I've been rambling on about this for days and days but tablet waiting with handwriting recognition really seems to fit the perfect niche-me that@ meets the physical and the digital. To put it a bit more dorkily... pen-on-paper as an input device for computers are a lot socially acceptable and internalized means verses keyboard-on-screen. And that's just one of the many benefits of the input mechanism. I feel bad talking about this so often.. evangelizing it so much, but this is something I have come to truly believe in This the excitement of a true convert, except the convent has discovered the hidden meaning of the... a very small subsystem of their personal micro-universe.

Exciting times are ahead!!!
 

I found out where all the homeless in Pine & 3rd went!

Originally handwritten from my kindle, posted with minimal edits.

Earlier today I went to downtown Seattle to do some holiday shopping. First destination was Uniqlo where I bought some absurdly pricey underpants. The goal was to buy shoes there as well but they don't sell shoes it turns out, not that specific store. So I went to Ross. Cut a long story short, no shoes in my size, I realized I already have enough shoes, and lots of money was saved. But that's missing the lede.

I've mentioned in these pages how the 3ʳᵈ & pine intersection feels so much nicer and safer now that all the druggies aren't there any more. Well-they seem to have moved to pike right in front of Ross. And they've moved well since the entire block between 3ʳᵈ & 4ᵗʰ is full of homeless folks. It was quite something. The only solace was nobody seemed to be actively shooting anything into their bloodstream or consuming other drugs. It didn't feel quite as scary as 3ʳᵈ did back in the day but oh that's not really saying that much.
Having said that, the general vibe of downtown Seattle still feels so much safer and more citizen friendly than it has in the past three years. Many many tourists, with families, with children, international guests, etc have all decided that downtown Seattle is safe and hospitable enough for their visit, so I will take them at their word.

Even the world-famous Crackdonald's is doing well!
 

Chipotle is freakin' amazing, a reminder to myself

Originally handwritten from my kindle, posted with minimal edits.

I don't remember the last time I wrote about the Mexican fast-casual chain Chipotle on this blog but it was not recently that I remember. It has come up now because my trip earlier this evening led me to the place... I had had a light lunch and was looking for excuses to get dinner. I've never really had problem with the chain so in I went.

And you know what? Thank freaking gods for chipotle! For less than ten dollars in downtown
Seattle I had a 8 massive, filling dinner. The girl in front of me provided the template-she ordered no rice, lettuce or cream cheese, but went hard on other protein sources. And so did I. with a side of spicy salsa. What a discovery this has been, like my trips to the place don't always have to be disrupting and mess my tummy up. If I make a reasonable order of rice and beans, without the rice, with sofrito, and cheese and veggies, it's nourishing filling, and most impor­tantly of all for a place like Seattle, it's affordable. Highly affordable. And that's as good as it gets. The prices of eating out in Seattle have gone so much out of control that I'd happily spend the ten backs for lunch all day everyday. And I can get away with it too thanks to chipotle!

The thing is Chipotle isn't cheap, it's great value for money, and it's quite healthy. There's an ongoing competition in these pages for my favourite fast food restaurant, and honestly Chipotle is definite up there in the top three.

Recovery day, family talks, final leftovers with various Asian fixins and rice, evening walk to volunteer park [Sun 15]

Since I had gone to sleep at like 5 in the morning, after a long night of dancing and being a bit under on the calories, waking up was late, and even then I took my sweet time with sleep.

Sister and mom called at 7am but I was super groggy and confused so didn't talk much. Called ED and had a long conversation. Other family and friends were talked to too.

For lunch I reheated the final rounds of leftovers from late last week, added soy sauce, sesame oil, furikake and couple of other things, broke and egg in, and microwaved for 4 minutes. Mixed it all really really well so that the egg cooked with hot rice. Yum yum yum.

Went on a walk to Volunteer park in the evening, took just one round there because I'd already got the rest of my steps from the morning.

Didn't write at all, so the next few days would involve some catchup on writing.

Indulge me for a moment, and allow me to list all the ways I have recorded my thoughts and posted on this blog

I could do without this sort of self-obsessed minor overthinking sort of posts, but they're easy to type, quick to think up, and fill up so much of the blogspace.

This is about how I've posted to this blog in all the various different ways.

I've written on the browser, obviously, on the large typing screen, the way I've written almost the entirety of the entire weblog.

Then there are some posts that have been written through the mobile browser, at times when I feel specially motivated or excited. I used to do that lots more often when I was commuting to work on the train regularly, but that need to write on the bus or train has gone down, so this doesn't happen much anymore.

Then I've used my programming skills to post articles here programmatically. Not too many posts, perhaps five or ten maximum, but enough to make it worth bringing it up.

Couple of months ago, I started using Google Recorder to transcribe my thoughts, edit them later and post here. The one issue was the app's transcription is miserable, specially with my accent, and I had to put a lot of effort in transcribing technology instead of the act of writing.

Finally there's what I did today: write with pen on 'eink' paper, and have handwriting recognition run on it, and paste it here, creating the auto-transcribed blog posts. This one has been remarkably good, once you describe the language the test is being written in, the parser//lexer realizes there's no difference between command data and training data, and trying to get that sort of parser running is quite a work private network.

I really really need to get out of my OMAD diet

I have been on a special diet for the last two weeks, right to the day today. There was a cheat day last Thursday, but not really, and for the last 15 days, I have been eating only a single meal over the course of twenty-four hours.

They call this the OMAD (one meal a day) diet, apparently.

I have lost weight, the weighing machine doesn't lie. But my metabolism has also slowed down considerably, which mean I'm losing much fewer pounds now, and to lose proportionally as much, I'd have to be in an even larger deficit. Which is going to get harder by the day, since one does need a base energy level to make through and be productive and functional as a human adult being.

The reduction in metabolism rate is a problem because now I'm getting less hungry. I want to quit the diet because I got the required losses, and I want to get back to regular life and consuming regular amount of food, doing normal amount of physical work. But my stomach has adjusted to the new state of things, and there is literally no more space in my tummy to eat more than a decent amount of food, once, for lunch. Basically the slowed metabolism means going back to regular eating without increasing my base activity level will mean I'll gain weight at a faster rate than I lost it. Which is just some...massive bullshit.

But there are ways around it. I could consume a lot more fruits, veggies rich in fibers, and protein, and spread them out through the course of the day. That way I'm getting more balanced diet, without all the carbs and calories, and getting nutrients to the cells right when I need 'em. Workouts, and strenuous physical exercises will also get my body more in tone and fit.

Right now though, there's a lot of resistance in the form of laziness and failure of executive decision making, which creates hurdles for me in my attempt to feed myself correctly. There's a big push of motivation that's needed.

The work situation has sorted itself out remarkably well, all told

As regular readers of the blog will remember, last week I was freaking out about what was going on at work because I was tasked with a complicated, challenging piece of work with no clear way to accomplish it, uncertainty around if we really wanted it, and the value overall in the vision of the whole thing. Considering I'm going on holidays soon enough, it was sounding like I'd not get much done, and might have poor feedback for my next review, right during the uhhh layoffs season. Things weren't looking too good, specially for someone looking to spend at least a few hours a day chattin' up friends and family and loved ones. How the hell was I going to get that done, and this too, and oh the other thing as well, I wondered.

Well...the weekend came and went by, I did a little bit of work here and there this morning, and now it's looking like things are stabilizing. The entirety of the process is larger than we initially planned on looking, but we have successfully portioned out what needs to be done, everybody knows their roles and tasks, and there's a clear path ahead on how we will accomplish what needs to be done. And most cool of all, there is only a limited set of expectations for me until the break, which means I don't have to rush things, and I most definitely won't have to work evenings and weekends to complete this project before taking time off.

All of that to say: phew. That was a close one. Hoping things are better in the future.

Morning volunteer-interlaken walk, egg-in-rice-bowl lunch, evening write, extralong shower after long nap, latenight Chopsuey party on low energy, back home late, latenight talk, asleep super late [Sat 14]

I'm writing this two days after the events of this day have transpired.

I got up pretty reasonably around 8-9 am, couple of hours on viber talking to friends and family, and then went to Volunteer-Interlaken loop. Interlaken park after such a long time because my walks have been pushed into later and later at night lately, and Interlaken is not manageable during the later hours of the day. The forest is green and lush as always, no complaints there.

Back from walk, I heated up the leftovers, dumped a couple of asian condiments, and then broke a raw egg into the bowl. Microwave for four minutes, and quick whisk around for the egg particles to cook in superheated rice, and yuuuummm. This is one of my favourite cheat meals. It's possible I might get sick one day due to improperly cooked eggs, but I believe each strand of egg is bound to get cooked when it touches the super-hot rice.

Wrote a significant amount in the evening, getting pretty much caught up on the posts.

Took a 3-hour nap, and then a long shower, before heading out to Comet where the boys were chilling. As I lined up, they came out of the place, and we went to Chopsoey for Dance Yourself Clean (DYC) party. Ten bucks.

At Chopsuey, our gang consisted of Sk, S, and T, the young dudes I have hung out with a couple of time before in company of SK. There we also met SS, I, B bro, and one of their other party buddies. I danced for 2 - 2.5 hours on a completely empty tummy to a music that was bizarrely hard to dance to. Medium-amount of fun was had. I returned at 1.30 ish, called friends across the world, and was on phone until basically 4.30-5 in the morning.

So yeah, went to sleep super duper late. SK went with the guys to after-party and was back at like 7 in the morning.

Turns out many things at Dollar Tree are less luxurious quality, even if produced by luxury brands

I went to the Dollar Tree on Wednesday, and discovered something wild: they do have a wild variety of snacks and undermarket offerings, even from good name brands. But the downside is that some of the products (not ALL of them, but definitely some), are produced in a lesser quality than the ones you might find at a nicer place.

Case in point: Pirouline wafer sticks. The ones you get at Costco and other finer purveyors of miscellaneous snacks are dark-chocolate flavored...the chocolate is smooth and melts easily on your mouth. The one I bought at Dollar tree was milk chocolate...and it was slightly more gritty than the buttersmooth ones I've had before. Not that I would have noticed that had I not tried the other version, but I have, and now I know the difference. There's a difference between cheap chocolate and fine chocolate, right at the texture level.

Having said that, I brought up this topic to ED and she agreed vehemently with me on buying random junk snacks at Dollar Tree. Since they sell small-sized snacks, you don't have to commit to larger packs, and can be more exploratory with random brands and flavors. You can also take bigger risks because since the costs are so low, the worse case scenario with a poorly-chosen snack is a loss of a buck twenty-five instead of six or seven or eight buckaroos.

Yeah, there are both upsides and downsides to buying snacks at dollar tree.

Good eats, so so very bad eats

I wrote this title on Thursday evening because we ate so well for dinner, and it was quite ironic considering all I had for lunch that day (which was still technically my fasting day) was...so very embarrassing...cheez-its and couple of pirouline.

I've written what we cooked for dinner: five veggies and achar: saag, titey karela, alu-chickpea, gundruk-bhatmas, and golbheda ko achar, with rice cooked in coconut milk. That is as grand and filling a dinner as it gets, healthy in Nepali terms, filling, homely, you throw all the positive adjectives in there and they still won't suffice. And for lunch, nasty nasty highly processed food, so very spicy too, on an empty stomach, that gave me the shits and got out of my body before I had a chance to process them.

So this day had the best of foods, this day had the worse of foods.

Two people and a dog living in a one bedroom apartment is a bit much, all considered

Yeah so there's not much else to write here, is there. Two people and a dog, in an apartment intended for one person generally is a bit small because wherever you go you're bound to encounter some being or other, there's no privacy or escape from anybody unless you hide yourself in the bathroom and even then the other person will get mad at you for spending too long, or if you leave your house but that doesn't sound good does it, heading out of the house because you find your place of abode, your home, too busy.

Right, so the conclusion here is that I'm done with the days of roommates, or roommates with pets, and this is probably -- hopefully highly likely -- the last situation I find myself in that situation. Beyond this, hopefully the only space shared will be with a reliable partner who can be trusted to coordinate their movements, and their dreams desires hopes etc.

Long chat, holiday planning, leftovers for lunch, work worries, evening walk [Fri 13]

Had a long chat on the phone with Ak and figured out detailed holiday plans that I wrote on these very pages.

For lunch I had the leftovers from the night before, in the evening we invited AR(e) but due to so much confusion she ended up not coming which was...whatever.

I had planned to go to work during the day, but it was hella stressful and busy and it would make more sense for me to not go to work than go, so I didn't, even though that might not reflect well on me later on.

Which reminds me, work was hella busy, I cancelled a project because it seemed to hard to handle, but later my director suggested I try anyway and we shouldn't be afraid to take chances, I made the jump and in retrospect, as I write this on Monday, it totally worked out. I didn't need to worry after all!

Watched bunch of Seinfeld in the evening during and after dinner, and walked to Volunteer park quite late at night.

Strength of handwriting blog versus typing

Handwritten from my kindle scribe and posted with minimal editing.

So this seems a little too silly to write just for the sake of writing. The act of putting pen on paper-or in my case the kindle premium pen that cost me sixty buckaroos instead of the keyboard that is free ( on screen) or the five dollar premium pen on notebook that is also negligible in price...does it really elevate the experience that much? Is it such a big deal or am I being really sad and pathetic to justify such a big indulgence or investment?

I think the situation I'm at is this -- the two mediums have their own strength and there is so much value in their fusion. With this I no longer have to carry my laptop everywhere I go in hopes inspiration might at once strike me and I'll get a place to write... And this also avoids the downsides of... writing on paper for digitizing that... and of course one wants to digitize that.._ is a bigger hassle than writing in the first place.
So... yeah, I'm of the opinion that the added frition... literal and figurative... in writing with a pen on paper is superior.. and that this is indeed the best of all the possible worlds!

Handwriting posts to this blog now

This post was handwritten on my new kindle scribe and posted with minimal editing.

So the first time I used kindle scribe I tho­ught this was the greatest thing ever.

Is this the greatest thing ever or what? I wonder if it will improve my writing interests and motivate me to work harder and blog better or if it will just be one of those failed attempts at 'getting my skit together' that never ever goes anywhere?
I Just got exited for no good reason all the time thogh. like yeah, this does enable me to write my thoughts without a computer and yah this does give me a whole different feeling about technology I have not had in a long while but is it really that much of a big deal? like...how much writing will I do anyway even with this pricey expensive pen? Does it matter in the end, like it was that expensive bike for friend'N 'or in the end it's going to be yet another futile attempt at bettering myself?

One thing is for certain... I definitely type a lot faster than I handwrite so.. I wont be winning on word count...

Immigration issues, hopes of good news?

The agony of the immigration circumstances might be coming to an end. Hopefully my current situation ends in like fifteen days, and I get approval of the current application, after which I can start gathering materials for the next stage, which should take four months, and then finally, after staying in this country for a bit less than thirteen years will I find myself surefooted document-wise in my America stay. Before that, there's really no telling what the plan is, how things will progress, and what I want to do next, because it's all unclear, as there's no guarantee of anything, since I'm a nobody from a legal standpoint.

Have been keeping close tabs on the immigration processing pages of the various government departments, and it does sound like progress is being made and the unpredictable nature of my existence might lead way to stability and certainty, a bit more than what I have right now anyway.

Goddd hoping this all works out.

Work getting tougher by the day

There's not much to talk about, so this will be short once more.

I have about a week until the Nepali holidays start and fun begins. That means all work needs to finish within the next week.

I have been assigned an important, crucial project, and it's not gone the way we hoped it would. I have tried to take control of the direction of it, but turns out I have gotten into a long-running battle between different factions and I need to support my director because he's the only one who knows what's what who can help me through the entire ordeal.

Nobody else can, because literally nobody knows shit about this matter. Which means I can't slack off, it's either do or die.

Unfortunate situation to find oneself in such circumstances, but what can be done, eh?

Might work couple of hours tomorrow on Sunday as well.

Jalepeno Cheez-Its (Hot & Spicy): A review

I bought the spicy cheez-its at the Dollar Tree when I went to South Seattle on bus 132 the other day. Here's a review of the cheez-it flavor.

I fucking love it. Normally I'm not a big fan of cheez-its because they're there just for the texture and the fat, and I couldn't tell you what cheez-its tasted like except say 'processed food'. It's as bland a food as one could reasonably find. With that, I was excited to find the spicy version on the shelves, and eager to try those.

I was not disappointed. It exceeded my expectations. One gets the strong smell of jalepeno peppers even before one pops those snack in their mouth. From there, it's a journey in salty, spicy, and the peppery smell and taste, that is not at all objectionable.

It was so good in fact that I filled myself up on jalepeno cheez-its for lunch on Thursday. I was worried about the calories since I was still technically on a one-meal diet, but the spice uhh forced everything out of my digestive tract so that concerned turned out to not have been valid.

If I could, I'd only buy the jalepeno hot and spicy cheezits from now on. Unless they come in even more exciting flavors.

Extra workin the afternoon, trash snacks for lunch, TJ's trip, massive five veggie cook and meal with P bro, latenight walk [Thu 12]

I worked a couple of extra hours in the afternoon because the work situation is heating up and it's all come down to me.

Had cheez-its for lunch because I was stressed out and my way to deal with stress is to indulge in bad bad snacks. The jalepeno cheez-its are the bomb, detailed review incoming.

In the afternoon, I went TJ's while talking to N from PN, and bought a couple of ingredients for a quick dinner that I was hosting the evening.

All in, I cooked five veggies for dinner. Jasmine rice with coconut milk. Spiced alu with chickpea ko tarkari. Titey karela. Saag. Gundruk with bhatmas ko jhol, and golbheda ko achaar. So much food. P bro came over, and SK he and I had a nice dinner. He stayed for 2 hours, Sk went to hang out with friends in the evening, and I went out on a walk.

Came back really really late, and really really didn't want to write, so procrastinated quite a bit. Sk came back after midnight and I let him in, which means I didn't sleep a lot.

Upcoming travel plans and apartment situation

This will be a short one, I've alluded to this in the past, and I don't want to ramble on and on about the matter, as there's already couple of related posts on the backlist with titles already.

So Sk has been crashing at my place for two weeks now, and he'll be here till the holidays...making the total length of stay...many many weeks. He'll become my roommate basically, even when I'm gone. He's proposed to pay me a bit...for the october stay, and I didn't complain because he...is not a guest in seattle, he just abandoned his apartment and started crashing, which is not an issue but still. The state of my carpet...I don't want to go into that etc, but lets say my living room looks far from the desired state and many things need cleaning. Anyyyways.

I am going East for the holidays, coming back after after a bit, and then heading out once again for Christmas and New Years, that's the plan for the moment. Then come new year, I might go South to Texas to see family, then to California for more family time, then to Chicago hopefully again to see family, then to Netherlands (the dream at this point) and talks for a Nepal trip early next year are happening too. Cousin S is getting married. 

With all this travel, it's unclear how much vacation days I'll have left, and how I'll get it done, but those are the plans, probably not how it'll work out.