The years are catching up with me

Only last year during my vacation, I jumped in on invitations to go cycling and fly kites by the river with my adopted brother. And a couple of years before that, again during a vacation, I built a tree house with him - it was an unfulfilled childhood dream of mine to make one and he was more than happy to go the extra miles to build a nice platform with a roof for three of us to relax and play cards.

Today, he asked me if I wanted to go cycling and I heard myself say, "No, not this time, I feel too old for that now."

The trip home has been okay so far. It is always nice to experience the familiar and pleasant things one misses, like the family, the food and the environment. The transition from 49 weeks overseas to 3 weeks back in the home country is like a minor culture shock. It takes several days to get one's head around the people, attitudes, obligations and ways of life. The way of life, for me, is the easiest to get used to. Taking public transport, putting up with the abundance of parasites around the house and having to put up with a little extra house chores are negligible issues. Harder to get used to are having to meet random people (who are close with my parents but not me) and pretend to be interested in them, being reminded to call everyone who I should show my gratefulness to 'out of a sense of duty', being introduced and displayed as the 'daughter from abroad', having to defend myself about why I am not interested in marriage yet and having to put up with sympathies of 'well wishers' who are worried about my single status and recommendations to allow my parents to 'start looking for suitors' without further delay. So these 3-4 weeks out of a 48-49 weeks in any given year are the most challenging, requiring a lot of mental endurance.

On to more interesting topics - the cats at home, to whom we have been supplying cat food from across the seas for several months now, are quite entertaining. They have fattened up from the scientifically balanced nutrition  present in commercial cat food pellets. They seem happier with the new change (see image below).

Kitty and Kini dozing off after a satisfying meal of cat food

Also, I was quite fascinated to watch my mom make tofu, soy milk and soy cutlets from 500g of raw soy seeds. The process involved blending pre-soaked soy seeds and straining the milk out. The residue mixed with spices went on to the making of the soy cutlet, which turned out delicious. The milk was then boiled (some was consumed as soy milk) and a curdling agent was added to this. The curdled mixture was poured on to a rectangular mould and the result in 45 minutes was a block of thick tofu. Such a simple and economical process for a great source of protein and fibre!

And that was Christmas of 2011.