jaggery & neem

Last week was Ugadi, which is the New Year celebration in Karnataka (where my husband is from). He and I don’t usually do much to celebrate festivals or holidays, though I wish we did. We happened to have made dinner plans with a good friend of V’s mom, who lives in Seattle. She actually introduced V’s parents and is the sister of V’s dad’s brother’s wife – so, she’s family, and really the only family we have here.

Prema Aunty made us a classic thali-style feast of sambhar, pappadum, rasam, chapatis, black eyed peas, and kaseri bath. I wished her happy Ugadi and she told me that traditionally the holiday is celebrated by ceremoniously eating a combination of jaggery, which is sweet, along with some neem leaves, which are bitter. Sometimes in your own random portion, you get a larger amount of jaggery and sometimes you get a larger amount of neem. This is symbolic of what we should expect, and greet with equanimity, from life: a mix of sweet and bitter circumstances. (I’m sure I didn’t explain this very well, but Google is there for you if you’d like to learn more.)

This year is not even half gone, but it’s already brought a bounty of both ingredients. It’s hardly a novel idea, and most cultures have idioms to the same effect – “look on the bright side!” “there’s a silver lining in every cloud!” – but given recent events, it sort of resonated with me more strongly than I would have expected. The “greet with equanimity” part reminded me of V’s dad; he was always the picture of Zen, no matter what. It could have been a year full of nothing but neem and he would still find things to be joyful about. And in the jaggery times, no one smiled bigger or laughed harder. It wasn’t just an attitude of “be positive”. He carried himself like a person who understood that neither good times nor bad times last forever, and who possessed the sort of spirit that could withstand any bitterness while relishing every sweetness. I aspire to be such a person.

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I’m going back to Wisconsin a week from tomorrow for 5 days and I can’t wait to see my family, biological and otherwise.

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We switched insurance providers beginning April 1, so there are officially no real barriers standing between us and starting IVF, except of course my own fear of picking up the phone and getting the ball rolling. I need to get over myself and just do it. By the time I blog again I will have at least made the call, and then we’ll be on our way to daily injections and super fun side effects and embryo testing and major anxiety and all that jazz. CAN’T WAIT.

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After that great meal at Prema Aunty’s, we were craving more Indian food, so on Saturday we went to a dosa place in Issaquah. It was…magnificent. As much as it pains me that paneer is not really a big thing in south India, dosas come very very close to making up for it. V’s mom is visiting in August, and this time I SWEAR TO GOD I will finally really learn how to make them. We BOTH will.

jaggery, personified

 

What I’m Reading:

• I gave up on King Leopold’s Ghost and spent a few days on Miriam Toews’ Women Talking. It was okay, but sort of tedious.
• I’ve moved on now to Shane Bauer’s American Prison, which is the book-length story that grew out of his Mother Jones article of a few years ago. Surprise: prisons are fucked up! Private prisons are *really* fucked up!

What I’m Eating:

• Crap, mostly, tbh. I’ve made one or two genuinely healthy meals in the last several days but mostly it’s been cereal, bread, pasta, and sugar. God that looks even worse in print than in my Fitbit log. Who am I kidding…I haven’t been actually logging anything for weeks.

What I’m Watching:

• We bought the current season of Schitt’s Creek since it isn’t streaming anywhere yet because we really missed it. David and Patrick are everything.
• The last season of Game of Thrones, for obvious reasons.

What I’m Fuming About:

• Our landlord, or more specifically, the property manager. It is too stupid to even get into but I am on the warpath.
• Why is basic economy even a thing?? Airlines are like “this is for our more cost-conscious customers” like that isn’t fucking everybody but the .01%. Your cost-conscious customers don’t want to pay $315 to fly from Seattle to Madison without getting a seat assignment OR any overhead space because it’s not like $315 is any kind of bargain when you can pay $50 more to have the goddamn overhead space! You know I’m going to spend that extra $50! Why are you like this????