Weekend Musings.
Weather has changed. While other parts of US were shivering, we the Floridians were still enjoying our warm weather, with pristine white beaches. Warm waters and screaming greedy seagulls. But now it’s getting cooler. Mornings and evenings are quite Winter like. Only last night I woke up to find that the blanket I was sleeping in was not enough so had to get up and pull an extra blanket from the linen closet. In another two weeks, it would be Thanksgiving and all the snowbirds from up North would come swarming warm Florida but poor babies would be disappointed if the cold trend persisted.
The other day my family went to cocoa beach for the day to enjoy the Florida sun and sand and
had a wonderful time there. They sat there to watch the sun setting on the ocean before heading home. They came home after night fall. The next day at lunch I saw all of them were tanned. It was not that bad though. All of them looked rosy cheeked
There is something I have noticed this year, that people are not into holidays mood as they used to. Halloween came and went away quietly. There were not many witches and gnomes, fairy tale characters or other spooky population coming to the doors asking for trick or treat and mostly looking for a good treat. People kept their porch lights on to welcome the night people but the candy bowls were left half full.
And now thanksgiving being so close, no decorative lights have been put up. Come the beginning of November, every family would be busy buying new light, new decorative styles, colorful or all white lights and decorating their houses like new brides. Or, building the nativity scenes in their front lawns, all illuminated and decked up with bright colored lights. Now Thanksgiving just around the corner and houses in our neighborhood are mostly standing naked! Our neighborhood is considered an up-scale community. Recently many homeowners moved out and are either selling the house or the house has been foreclosed. It’s economy. Yes. Though it went belly up a few years ago, but now things have improved a lot. But still paying a huge mortgage on the house is not easy. In many cases being late in paying the installments or some other defaults make the bank seize the property and put it in the market to recover their funding. Sad, so very sad! Letting go of a house you called home is not easy … not easy at all.
And our ducks and Sand hill cranes don’t come this way anymore. The lake looks so lonely, so forlorn. My family suspects that someone is catching them and roasting them and feasting on them. Oh I hope not! But it could be true though; because they are not on protected animal list. So, anyone can have a go at them, I guess. Sand hill cranes on the other hand are protected. Anyone harming them would pay the price either in fine or jail – depending on the nature of offense. This is their nesting time so maybe they are somewhere else , getting ready for the little ones.
A news item – actually a story of a liyari woman, published in dawn , sent to me by my dear Naim sahab.
A woman married to a cousin when she was 12. In 11 years of her marriage to the man called ‘ husband” she was beaten, abused verbally and physically, twice he tried to kill her by poisoning her then by putting a pillow on her face to suffocate her. She bore him eight children of which only four survived. She brought her younger sister to help around the house and her husband and the sister started having an affair. Now she tried to kill herself by putting herself on fire. Someone rescued and took her to hospital. She survive then the divorce came. Two of the children were sent to grand parents and two he took with himself to Karachi. House sold and this woman thrown on the streets. But she came back with a resolve. Found work as a tassel maker, sleeping on pavements or at shah Ghazi shrine, she saved enough money to travel to Lahore to get her children and came back. Working day and night she put her life together. One day one of the sons who his father had taken with him, came back. She even sent them to school. Now they are all grown up and living peacefully. One of them is married. She herself is now working from home – a rented house!
Aah, what a story! A brave woman standing up for herself and for her children, building her life , making living an honorable act. And what happened to the rascal? He married some woman who left him and now he is living all alone! It was really excruciating to read it but in the end I was happy that she made it. It’s a good example to all those who put up with abusing husbands and keep living being treated like dirt. Get up fight for yourself. Abuse is not just beating up. There are other kinds too – equally bad. Emotional, verbal, sometimes ending in murder!
Kudos to that brave woman!!
Someone please go and buy pine nuts “chilghozey” and when cracking them to get the kernal think about a ‘pardesi woman’ who loves this – nature’s parcel of goodness. We get them in the Middle Eastern groceries here but they are shelled and packaged …. and stale.
I remember quite a few years ago at the customs where we had gone to receive a friend coming from Pakistan. The woman at the counter had one question for every one “are you carrying any item not allowed under US customs regulations?” about six of the passengers declared “no, only nuts”
After a while the woman could not take it any more. She called across the isle “ hey Bob, guess what ? “
“What? “ he asked.
“ too many nuts are coming from Pakistan !” she said with a straight face.
The man was more gentlemanly. He smiled, shook his head and didn’t say anything!
Cheers!
11/14/2014
Orlando
Ali Imran Zaidi likes this