Barely here (or there) all year.

I left for India the day after the equinox. I missed my own annual party in order to pick up my business visa in Tokyo. I’d agreed in January to consult with HasGeek on Kilter. I had no idea where this was going to lead.

I celebrated my birthday at Kilter. Zainab splashed out for a delicious cake which I cut with Amal’s blinking, singing knife. Hilarious to be eating cake at a ketogenic diet conference.

It was a birthday kind of month. I threw Shreyas a birthday party at home. We also went to see Hamlet the Clown Prince featuring some famous Bollywood stars. Shreyas has stopped being so careful with me. That’s unexpectedly bittersweet. I am glad for the freedom, but it makes things a little lonely.

Jenn called me to help her with Mom, who fell in December and has been having trouble with her mind and body. This is the third time since January that she’s been in the hospital/rehab cycle. I jetted off to the US via Doha for a ten-day visit. Mom was in Maple Farm. The doctors told her she isn’t going to be allowed to live at home alone any more. She is furious. We found her a personal care apartment at Keystone Villa, just down the road from her house. I felt bad that I had to leave before she was discharged from rehab.

Hillhacks in Bir was a good time. I went paragliding, helped to build a tensegrity structure with rope and bamboo, taught chisanbop and character play in the local schools, got regrettably drunk, hula hooped in the mornings, made a camp stove with a piece of marble, danced on beds, and ate many meals at the tiny Tibetan place in the village. After six weeks apart, it was good to see Tod. We parted on bad terms, though, as I went back to the US and he went home to Chiba.

This started six weeks of being in the US –  longest visit I left in 1998. Mom moved into Keystone Villa shortly before I arrived and Jenn and I prepped Mom’s house for sale. Cleaned out the attic, gave away scads of things, tried to find buyers for furniture and antiques. Took myriad photos. John & Kris came from Chicago to help paint the porches, shutters, and garage. The house looks great thanks to their help. I developed a routine of remote work for HasGeek, visits to Mom, and house prep alone and with Jenn. That is how the month passed by.

After we got the house on the market, I headed back to Bangalore. I dove into work at HasGeek where time became a blur of long days. I expanded my role and ended up with a job offer!

It wasn’t all work, though. Shreyas and Anish and I went camping somewhere west of Mysore on a slow river. Anish and I hung out while Shreyas recovered from heartbreak. It was delightful weekend of doing nothing. I showed Anish how to paddle a kayak. We laid on the lawn and watched the clouds. We discovered we have the same unusual pattern of breathing.

And another weekend, there was a circus! Noopur, Shreyas and I went, getting into an autorickshaw accident on the way (nobody hurt, but it was shocking). The circus was a small company of about 20 performers who did everything. The show was more than two hours and a half long. The facilities were scruffy around the edges, with stagehands in street clothes shuffling plastic lawn chairs for our seating, but there was great skill from the performers and some acts I’d never seen before, including a water swallowing routine.

I made an effort to be social by going to Karthik’s weekly game nights. I thought I’d hate it; games are not my thing. But I learned something about myself. Games are ok. I don’t like the other players. Especially when they are slow, inattentive, and forget the rules at every single turn. Fortunately, Karthik is fine to play with and so are Mithun and Akshay and a few others.

Working with such youthful colleagues had a good effect on my mind, body and soul. I am the doyenne; the greybeard in the company. I am 30 years older than my youngest coworker. Karthik got me to count up the jobs I’ve done in my lifetime. I got to 57. So part of my value at HasGeek is sharing my general work experience as well as the actual work I do. But I get to learn as much as I teach and I love that.

I’m also learning Inglish. I do things “in some time” but if I am in a hurry, “today itself”. I cannot bring myself to “revert with doubts” but I’m sure I will get there in some time.

I MC’d Dev Week, five days of HasGeek conferences at MLR in JP Nagar, and then bailed out of Bangalore in mid-September. Every time I leave I cry, even when I know I am coming back. There is something about Bangalore and all the people I love there that makes me weepy. I don’t cry when I leave Japan or the US or anywhere else. Just Bangalore.

Tod & I reunited happily, which was a relief, because I’d been on edge when we parted in June and our communication through the intervening months was minimal. It was lots of love, cuddles, and way too many indulgent meals. I think I gained 2 kg while I was back.

We took a roadtrip in Tilly. Destination, Onomichi! The plan was to spend a month camping along the way and seeing various towns and sights that we’d never been to.  Except the weather was against us, so we ended up driving a lot and staying in hotels. But that was OK, too.

Our itinerary started on Niijima with Rob for a couple of days; that’s always a good camping time. Then Tilly chugged up Mt. Fuji to the 5th station. I didn’t know a car could go under 5 km/hour. We met a lovely old lady who had always lived on the mountain, and rescued some European travellers who had misread the bus schedule.

We camped on the shore of one of the Fuji Five Lakes, and also in Ikeda, Gifu-ken, that had an onsen with the silkiest, best water. We stopped in Himeji, which was probably my favorite town on the trip thanks to a revolving restaurant and a charming shotengai, in Kochi where I loved the built-in design of the hotel room, and in a suburb of Tokushima where the main business seemed to be funerals. I will try to post separately about the trip; there are a lot of photos and little stories.

After two weeks of driving in the rain, I couldn’t take it any more. I just wanted to get home. Tod figured out a route that involved putting Tilly on a ferry and floating back to Tokyo. It was a brand new ship with a sloshing sento and everything. I was happy not to drive, though a typhoon was approaching and I got seasick at the beginning of the trip.

Returning to Kamogawa, I finally had a follow up with my doctor after the February tests. I’d also had an MRI to investigate the white matter that had been found in my brain in 2001. It has mysteriously disappeared, or maybe it never was there at all. Regardless, there is nothing wrong with my brain. That is a relief and quite confusing. But good news. I’ll take it.

Dr. Mizukami suggested that my official heart diagnosis would be one of exclusion. All the possible tests were negative and it looks like nothing is wrong with me, but I have symptoms, so I have something called “cardiac syndrome X.” Okay.  At least it has a name. I still think it is allergies – but allergy test I had done for some of the suspects like mould and dust came back negative. Another case of confusing, good news.

And with that, I headed back to the US for a short visit around Thanksgiving. We hosted a feast in Mom’s apartment at KV, but she was stuck in a wheelchair and struggling with what turned out to be an ischemic stroke. She went to the hospital a few days after the holiday and then into acute rehab where they got her walking again in about ten days.

I was scheduled to go back to India on December 2nd, but I changed my plans. I wlll be staying here through January.

One of the reasons I’m staying is that Mom’s changed residences again. She’s moved into Maple Farm the day before yesterday. They have more skilled care, fewer residents and a warm and friendly staff. When Mom arrived, she received greetings by name, lots of welcomes, and even a hug from the lunch lady. This is a good place and I hope she will have many happy days there.

Now Jenn and I get to move out all the things that we moved into Keystone Villa this spring and to push to get Mom’s house sold as soon as possible.  Plus Christmas, teh New Year and some gigs as The Hill Sisters.

We’ve been writing songs in our spare time. Listen for You’re Adopted, Rock Glen Junior High School Cafeteria Song, Hit by the Tired Stick, and the Amazon Song. We even wrote a hat song for when we’re busking.