This week, I've hopped from book to book - sampling a few pages here and there and then abandoning them all because it was too slow or too boring or too dry or too character-oriented or too-plot-oriented or... You get the drift. Life We had another one of those sick-kids-and-Covid-tests week. My daughter came home from school one day with a runny nose that quickly became chills and tiredness. She had no issues with smell or taste, nevertheless we took her for a test as neither she nor my son would be able to get back to school without a negative test. Thankfully, the test results came negative. This time around, we were all ready for what needed to be done, unlike the first time a month ago. Other than that, my week has been very quiet. My parents and my father-in-law got their first shots of the Covid vaccine in India, so we are finally trying to confirm my parents' travel plans to the US - a year later than originally planned. It's quite exciting to realize we will soon
Today I'm home alone with the dog, the husband having left this morning to drop my family off at New York so that they can catch their return flight to India. Rue has been holed up on our couch all morning and is now in our bed, sulking. My dad used to take her for a walk every day and my mom used to give her the kind of snacks all dogs drool over. No wonder she loves them. She's going to be brooding and avoiding food for a few days, until she realizes that she is not going to see them any time soon. It bugs me that there is no way to tell something to these adorable critters, especially when they are so obviously upset.
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A Very Sad Dog |
Me? I'm not doing too well either, but not for the same reasons as Rue's. My brother is also returning back to India and let's just say that I haven't taken that well at all. Some of you may remember that a few years ago, he was hospitalized after getting seizures out of the blue. After two months of recovery and therapy, he was all ready to go back to school when he found that he isn't as sharp as he used to be. Even basic daily rituals would send him into one of his dangerous angry moods. His career has suffered heavily and since nothing has been working out here, we all agreed, with a lot of reluctance, that it is best for him to go back and start afresh. This post is basically a rewrite as my first stab has turned out to be a heavily depressed piece of writing. It was a therapeutic post however and it did its job - so now it can catch dust in the deep interwebs of bloglandia.
As my day so far hasn't been great, I have been filling it with classic comedies and TV shows. Nothing better than TV therapy to get your spirits up, eh?
I've been quite tired this past week. The idea of my warm cozy bed was what would get me through the day and then by 8 or 9 pm, I was either already in bed or seriously considering going to sleep. So there's been nothing creative going on this week - no reading, no knitting. I did get to about page 70 of The Book Thief and hope to make more progress with it today, but we'll see. The sad dog isn't helping my cause much either. Yesterday was a load of fun however. We went for a brunch, then spent the afternoon bowling, had caramel-flavored pretzels in the evening, did some shopping, and made some guacamole for dinner.
Since I barely slept last night and have been up since 5.30 am, I feel like a train wreck already. I can't believe it's not even lunch time yet. It's been a loooong time since I have been by myself at home and I am not enjoying it much, even though I am usually an introvert and like me some solitude. I have some grand plans for the rest of the day, which all include crossing some items off my to-do list. We'll see how many of those will actually get done today.

Comments
I hope your brother is able to get the fresh start he needs in India, Athira. My thoughts are with you and your family, including your brother. I know it can't be easy.
My first thought when I saw you were reading The Book Thief was that it may not be the best book for you right now. It's such a sad book.
I hope you are feeling more at peace tomorrow. Take care of yourself.
I think sometimes when we are down, we try to snap ourselves out of it so that we can deal with day to day stuff but really, what harm does it do to wallow a little? I think I get over stuff better when I let it take over for a day and just give into it. Sleep helps.
Caramel pretzels sounds delicious.........
Hope you are having a good week so far Aths