A minimalistic Diwali 2012, the Mercury Retrograde, whatever next?

So Halloween week ended and we got back on track. Looked foward to my gym routine, the zumba, the  Diwali cleaning,  preparation of Diwali sweets, life in general, so on so forth........And then finally when wrestling with a coconut last Sunday morning, managed to cut my palm with the knife. It was a pretty deep gash. The whole family accompanied me to the Emergency. Came back with four stitches and a pretty limitedly use-able left hand and feeling very foolish and clumsy. The girls have been pretty concerned about it and I think I scared them too when I rushed out of the kitchen with a cloth pressed.......

Since then, it's been an imposed strike for a lot of stuff. Diwali was therefore minimalistic, in terms of preparation. Cleaning was a cursory vaccum, my once-a-year attempt to drape a saree abandoned in favour of a salwar kameez, the work-in-progress sajjapa idea shelved and single-handedly made  badam kheer - just few in a whole series of adjustments. Kept the kids home from school as the pooja muhurat was in the afternoon. A sad thing is that in Belgium, Hinduism is not a recognised religion so for Big G I had to give a certificate of sickness from the doctor.

On an aside, Diwali pooja is one such occasion when I am reminded of our (the husband's and mine) very different cultures and upbringing. In my mother's place, we do Laxmi Pooja and worship a book (actually a ledger), as is done in business families. The husband insists on me doing the pooja my way since I know(??). Then, of course, he says one must pray to Ganesha first, ... so, we exchange places and he does the invocation to Ganesha and then we switch places, each intent on our part, ending with a joint Aarti. I sometimes fret we don't have a clear guidance on how to do the Pooja, but I think faith is the most important factor here, and establishing our way, which we pass on to the kids. That really is the beauty of our religion too. A year ago, I had seen a document on do's and don't for the Gauri Pooja and it seemed very complex to follow, even if you are DIY.

The Mercury retrograde refers to all kinds of breakdowns and slowdowns. I read this blog by Susan Miller, who seems to be a pretty popular astrologer. I am thinking that possibly astrologers pursue additional degrees in literature and psychology  too. Well, I can never remember if the predictions are true or not, generalized as they are, but this Mercury business has been crazy - for instance first Big G managed to drop water on the husband's laptop, now thankfully ok. And just today, I dropped my iphone and now it says SIM is not active or somesuch. Not only that, I have disconnected myself from the wi-fi and I hate to admit this but I don't know the password. Husband is travelling and I have no phone connection, it's pretty serious state of affairs. I need to pull up my socks and get my act together.

Possibly, come to think of it, the only thing that I can say I did timely was contribute this book review on time. Not too happy with myself on a lot of counts. Now going back into my shell.

PS: All sorted out on the iPhone front, thank God they are resilient. For the password did a quiet think, must tell the husband not to be so predictable. And when someone looks for white pulp in marijuana seeds, they land here. Wonder at their reaction:)