Snow and Skate

The weekend, despite its dull start turned out to be good. The weather is really unpredictable here. I was completely taken by surprise yesterday morning. I was talking to a friend and he asked me when I was leaving to run a few errands. I replied maybe in a few minutes and I look back to face the window and go speechless. It took a few "hello's" from him to get a response from me. The clear skies had given away to a snowstorm. The snow was mercilessly leashing my windows. Though surprised and a lil upset over my plans, I was internally very happy. It gave me a reason to sleep for a few more hours.
Walking on the snowclad frozen sideways when you can hardly distinguish a road from a sidewalk wasn't fun. I almost slipped off the sidewalk onto the road. It indeed is so silent after a storm, in terms of weather. But for the noise and buzzing activity on the roads, it definitely isn't. It felt good to get out though and after a 3 hour grocery shopping I got back home.

Sunday took off to a slow start and a pissed mood - no reasons for the low mood. Mustered all the strength I could to go ice skating by myself - I'm so glad I did. I must admit that I'm no good at outdoor sports. For someone who grew up in a setup where studies and coming first meant everything and being good at sports was considered good-for-nothing, this was a big step today. I did it all by myself - 2 rounds of ice-rink walking (mind you no skating - will get to some skating perhaps next week) without falling down. A good Samaritan helped me skate a lil bit by holding my hands.
This image has been playing in my mind since evening - wondering if I can find a similar machine that transformed Tom Hanks from a 12 year old into a 30 year old in the movie Big. However what I would do is make it transform me into a 6 year old and I would do all the things that would make happy - play basketball, roller skate ice skate, roller blade, no studies, no schools and live my childhood the way I want to. Well all these things I could still do now but when you grow up you also get a set of inhibitions and living-up-to-others-expectations attitude as part of the package. And it is so difficult to change that.

After skating I went over to the library to issue a bunch of books for a friend of mine. He was so particular about Pulitzer prize winning entries only. Limited was my knowledge on Pulitzer winners. I admit that the Booker Prize winning entries and the Pulitzer ones are my recommendations to sleeplessness. Never could get past 5 pages. Anyways so I found that Ernest Hemingway was a Pulitzer winner too. The next task was to find which book of his bagged him the honor. Thanks to a foreword in one of his books, I found that The old Man and the Sea was the work in question. Its a 127 page book and there were many copies of the old book. Hope my friend enjoys this classic piece of literature.

I issued a couple of books for myself too. I don't know when I would get the time to read all the books that are lined up in my shelf now. Currently reading " A Wild Sheep Chase" by Haruki Murakami. This is one thing I'm gonna miss about this place - easy access to books and the urge to read everyday.