The land of ten thousand lakes

Twin lakes

I took a long awaited vacation last week. Long awaited because we didn't go anywhere in the last six months after coming back from our yearly pilgrimage to India. We couldn't. If you have a cat who gobbles up the entire amount of food given to her in a matter of seconds and then starves for the entire day, you just can't leave her like that. So, until May lost some weight and we could leave her with the pet sitter without upsetting Mota too much, we couldn't allow ourselves any vacation.

Who doesn't need a vacation? On the Friday when I logged myself out of my work computer, locked my laptop in the drawer and turned off both my BlackBerry and PlayBook, my vacation started :-) There are two types of vacation for me. One is the outdoorsy type when we mainly go for camping and stuff in the back country. That is fun, but not relaxing. You still need to do all the cooking/cleaning and then have to wake up early enough to go hiking in the trails. The second type is, well, when you do nothing. By nothing, I mean *nothing*! That's what we did this time in Minnesota....

At Lake Itasca

Relaxation is the key word for this vacation. What I did the entire week was this -

1. Wake up late, that is wake up only when I completed my sleep and didn't want to sleep any more. Get some breakfast (made by mom or aunt- "Gopa mashi"), potter around for a while.
2. Go outside to the yard and sit on a swing in front of the lake. Watch swimming ducks, count water lilies, chat with Arnab, read books under the willow tree, grab cat-tails (the plant, not real tails of cats).
3. Get back before lunch. Take a shower. Eat..... eat home cooked Bengali food. That includes kolai-er daal, posto, ilish machh, mangsher jhol, even rosogolla.

River Mississippi starting from Itasca

4. Go upstairs and read books. Books = SaratChandra, Saradindu, Bankim....I finished reading "Thakurbarir andarmahal" - story of the women of the Tagore household. Then take a nap. Nap = sleep for four hours. Complete the nap.
5. When I couldn't sleep any more, wake up, go downstairs and search for snacks. Muri (puffed rice) being one of my absolute favorites, I used to eat those. For Arnab, he had his cuppa tea!
6. Go out to the yard again, watch the ducks, go for boat rides, walks in the neighborhood, chat with the neighbors, see their red and blue fishes....
7. Get back home for dinner. For dinner, there were sometimes Bengali food, sometimes grill or eating out.
8. Watch a movie with the family until I could barely keep my eyes open.
9. Go upstairs and sleep.

Shaking cat-tails by the lake :-)

My life resembled my cats' daily routine for a week. However, some nice things that I *did* was going to see the Broadway musical called "Fela!", which is the inspiration behind my post for Africa (stay tuned), visit my cousin and her husband for Fathers' Day dinner and going to see the source of Mississippi river at Lake Itasca. All of those were great...

Now I am thinking when is my next vacation... :-)