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I didnt realize that 9×12 is such an odd photo size to print. Most places do not print this size. I got a few prints from nations photo lab and i assumed everyone printed it only to figure out nope. Ugh!

One of most under-talked topics in India is how hard Indian men have it when they lose their spouses, especially our parents generation and ones before. If the man passes away, the women amalgamate into other families far more easily than men do. If the family does not have a son, then the women don’t have much problem joining their daughter families, or even women’s extended families and become one of their own. They have so much more to give to the household than men can, and more often than not, men are mostly seen as a burden once their wife passes away. I am not justifying the men here, but saying that’s just how society looks at in India. My dad went through the same experience years back when he became a widow, and had it not been for my brother back home, its unlikely he would have a found a “home” per se, and most likely be living alone by himself. My grandpa did the same when he lost his wife. But my great-grandma just became a part of my grandpa’s family after she lost her husband. My dad’s sister didnt live alone when she divorced her husband – she just became a part of our family for the longest time before she re-married someone else. This is such a uniquely men issue, at least in India.

Last night I and a cousin were catching up reminiscing our shared time spent with aunt who passed away, she quipped, how will our uncle live anymore and where? The son’s here in the states, and while his daughter is in other part of India. While my uncle has his own family in the town, there is literally no chance he’d be spending time with them. In a matter of 7 years his house that used to be filled with people has gone literally empty – kids moved out, his own elderly mom & died within an year of each other and now his wife after after few years. I really feel for him now that he has nothing but an empty house to come back to every day. I hope that in time he figures out a way forward like my dad did (though much thanks to my brother more than anyone else!), and in time finds a path ahead that keeps him happy and motivated.

Sigh, as if to make it all worse I came to know just now that my cousin and aunt’s daughter is pregnant and my aunt knew. They were waiting to share the news more broadly once she had recovered. This feels like history repeating itself in the family and I am watching my own life from 14 years ago play by. Mom’s passing, her knowing we were expecting back then, and the devastating feeling it came with that she would not see her grandchild. This feels all too real seeing this play out again for my cousin. Life can be very cruel at times 🙁

Woke up to a sad call that my aunt passed away back in India. She was mom’s sister and second person now amongst the 5 sisters to have passed sway. This one hurts because I spent so much time with her during my engineering days, practically living in their house whenever I was bored of hostel. She suffered through some great pains in the last few months, a side effect of beating cancer a decade ago. I am glad she is at peace finally but also feeling very sad about how young she was. A decade and half later another of my mom’s sis has left. 2 years ago my grandpa and their dad passed away too and I am glad he was not around to see another of his kid suffer and pass away. I guess we are all at that stage of life now where a 5am call means something bad. She was barely 54-55 at best. Gone too soon 🙁

Its been almost a month since the election and my decision to stay off consuming all political news and content has largely paid off. I still keep seeing headlines and masto/bsky posts around topics of interest, but I look at the headline and just don’t get into it. The first political article I read after few weeks last night was Biden forgiving Hunter and I am glad it happened. But now I am going back into that mode again to try and avoid consuming as much political content as I can. I am done, and I think I like this change a lot right now.

We started watching mission impossible series with the kid last night and my wife remarked that the first movie we were watching came out when she was nearly the same age as our kid right now 😆. This is a series that really has just overstayed.

Something is happening in California. A distressing number of people I know as ex-colleagues or acquaintances on Facebook have all come out slowly but surely indicating they voted for Trump for one reason or another. These are folks I worked with for a long time while I was at Cisco and they are all pretty much South Asians and a couple of Eastern Europeans. I just feel weirded out reading all their posts.

Our downstairs floors are frigid this morning. Electric heat pumps are the absolute worst kind of heat there is – the system basically runs on Aux heat nonstop which almost always kills something inside that needs replacing. Sometimes I wish this system just conked altogether so I can replace it with a gas system which is far more better and predictable than this electric heat nonsense. It simply does not work in real cold. Period.

First real walk in cold today with doggo in low 30s is a sign of things to come. I am not looking forward to these walks as much as they do help me in some ways tolerate the cold. But ugh, I hate hate hate winter.

Ugh the miserable wretched cold is finally here. Can we fast forward to spring please!