waves+pebbles+rocks+sand=perfection

A couple of months back, I listened to Backstreet Boy's Millenium cd after years of not hearing it. I was amazed to find that I still knew each and every one of the lyrics, I could anticipate the notes before they were played, and I could fall in love with that spanish guitar in "Show me the meaning of being lonely" all over again.
The beach was kind of like that. So familiar and yet so new. I might have gotten a little carried away with the photographs I took, but I wanted you guys to see each and every pebble and rock the way I had yesterday.

The Indian Ocean's nothing like the Atlantic. For starters its warm.
French beach is a safely enclosed cove, so that's why there's a lot rocks and cliffs.
Crabs are still one of my favorite animals. Poor archaic beings.
The way the air smells at the beach is hands down my favorite smell (even above oleanders after a summer shower).
While in the water yesterday, we happened to make friends with a sea turtle. He kept swimming into us.












Watching waves break over rocks, feeling the water spray upon your face, and digging your toes into the sand are things that I find doing exquisite in many different ways. I watched a man walk around with a snake and a mongoose on the beach, the same man who'd walked around years before and admired the crevices in his face, the tanned crow's feet around his eyes. I find myself falling in love with Karachi, everyday that I wander its street.









Lastly, I found this verse from some Elizabeth Barret Browning poem somewhat creepy.

What do we give to our beloved?
A little faith all undisproved,
A little dust to overweep,
And bitter memories to make
The whole earth blasted for our sake.
He giveth His belovèd, sleep.

The new love of my life

Meet Kasuku, our family's parrot. Full of character, this little guy has become the new love of my life. No joke. Unfortunately, Kasuku is not enamored of me; I might be his least favorite person in the house (other than my Aunt and mother).

Kasuku hates small children, making him the ideal pet for absolutely no one. He's an African Grey who's twenty five human years old, and is capable of outlasting most humans. He also has a tremendous vocabulary and can mimic any sound.

Notable things Kasuku has said in the last couple of days that I have been spending with him. And trust me, I spend a lot of time watching this bird.
"Ammmmar" in my grandfather's voice.
"Kasuku, I love you" in my grandmothers voice.
"Mummmmy" in both my uncle and my father's voice.
Kasuku mimics the sound of my grandfather spitting, blowing his nose, and washing his hands. He also knows how to respond to basic question-answer prompts, if in a good mood.
He loves ice, and does a thing I like to call a "Baraf Dance" when he sees the freezer door opening. He shifts all of his weight to one foot, picks the other one up, squacks, then repeats it on the other foot. He has a bell in his cage, which he rings for attention, food, or because he's seen a cat. He also mimics the cawing of crows- probably my least favorite noise.

Today my father and I went to go visit our almost new apartment and on the way I tried taking pictures. Abajaan wouldn't let me get out to take pictures so most are harried shots taken out of a moving vehicle.
The mango stand, I've found is ridiculously common all over Karachi. Literally every corner you turn, you see another mango stand.

This goat has absolutely no idea what is in store for him. Look behind him at the unfocused slabs of meat, and you can get an idea of the unsanitary ways people buy food.
This rusted metal contraption is a stand for making juice out of sugar cane. One of my favorite summer treats, lemon and ginger is added to the juice and served in disgusting glasses with sketchy straws. This man holding a mango is my grandfather. He loves that I love mangoes, and buys the best ever. Then he cuts them up for me. Here we get organic seasonal fruit everyday. No meal is complete without a serving of mangoes, bananas, papaya and plums. Kasuku squawks and squawks as soon as we sit down. My father and I, both of us suckers, get up a half dozen times every meal to give Kasuku all kinds of fruit.

"They sell Crocs here? That's pretty epic"

So these pictures pretty much sum up the travel nightmare that ensued. Ammar spent a good amount of time of the trip doing anything but sleeping. Playing on his iphone, watching the movies on Emirates or harassing me, mom or both at the same time.
We ended up having to spend the night at the Washington Dulles Airport- we slept on blankets and pillows that United Airlines gave us.
The Dubai Airport was absolutely CRAZY. From selling MAC makeup to BMWs and any sort of electronic device humanly possible, Ammar and I entertained ourselves with all of the phones and camera lenses.
Also, they had palm trees in the airport.

Rothko Chapel, Rice Village and Montrose

There's a certain kind of peace that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to replicate that I found in the Rothko Chapel.
Fourteen paintings in shades of purple and gray that have transformed me.

Rothko said that he wasn't an abstract painter, but rather that he was interested in expressing basic human experiences. tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.

"The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions… the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them" -Mark Rothko.

I'm at a point in my life where I though I had two simple choices. Stay here or move forward
Sitting in the chapel -where a skylight was the only means of lighting, and the emotions changed with every passing cloud- I realized something.
I have only one option, move forward.

The rest of our expedition was a jumble. A jumble of laughter and songs, a bowl of soup and potatoes at Empire Cafe, a gaze into a mirrored reflection of a broken obelisk, a jaunt into two half-price bookstores, and a tearful goodbye to all of those precious escapades in Rice Village.
Between sorting through postcards, and falling in love with a shelf titled "terror/politics/espionage" I don't feel as though I'm really saying goodbye.
More like hello world-

Butterflies

This Saturday's day-trip adventure ended up being a visit to the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

The last time I visited the HMNS, Katie, Jenna and I amused ourselves at the Cockrell Butterfly Center and the Body Worlds exhibit- it was right before both Katie and Jenna left for the University of Texas, and I left to do the Massachusetts thing.
I was hoping to replicate that feeling over "forever together"ness I had felt then. This time we saw something I found more amazing than words could describe- Lucy, the 3.2 million year old Australopithecus afransis found in Ethiopia.
The exhibit surrounding Lucy was another wonderful idea, full of stories and anecdotes of Ethiopia's religious and historical background.

I fell in love with a beautiful butterfly that I found hovering over a small cluster of flowers. It just kept coming back to the same bunch, its wings beat so fast they seemed to almost disappear. It flew so close to my face that I felt it flutter on my face.



Later we went to see the dinosaur skeletons- Chrissy and Katie entertained me and my camera in front of the mammoth, and I found the triceratops to be gorgeous.




Last, but not least- during our micky d's lunch break I discovered the joyous art of overexposure on my camera. Katie's face and Brendan's lunch bag are proof that this camera was a great buy.