Girija, Shabnam and the colors of life

Yesterday was a day partly of working with Gary in his garden reminding him how to lift iris to separate them, then persuading him to wait till after frost to prune the butterfly bush. It's an easy way for me to garden -- I tell and point, he digs. Then I say "we" gardened.

Lovely walk, after that, this is being a marvelous October, best I can remember

Then a great surprise -- text arranging for two old friends to visit early evening. That was the greatest time, just laughing and catching up.

I'm five foot three and I tower over them! Left to right Shabnam, Moi, Girija.

Girija brought Diwali gifts

Tealights since Diwali is the Feast of lights, candy, scarves, an embroidered wallet, such treats.  

I served lemonade and paneer cookies, they were  impressed I'd made paneer (!) they both being great cooks, that was good to  hear. 

Girija particularly, when she lived across the street educated me on today's Indian food and spices.  And they're happy to hear that Amitha, my next door neighbor, who with her husband bought the house from Shabnam, is keeping me supplied with curry leaves, since Girija did that when she lived across the street.

They ran about checking on what I'd made since they last saw me, and loved the denim vest. Neither of them does anything like this, so it's all a bit of a mystery, and the socks I showed them, too funny to see their faces, how is this done??

I'm so lucky to have such friends, literally my son's age. Looking forward to seeing them again, too 

And meanwhile here's the cardamom tea I made as the first tea experiment of the winter. Pretty good.

Speaking of colors, I did finally get the new Kindle working, it's used to my touch  and I don't have to stab at it now, and found a lot of books I'd forgotten I had loaded on the old one and now transferred them.

I had a whole lot of foreign books in translation, a freebie from Amazon to promote non English writers, so I embarked on this, translated from German.

Set I think in Bavaria, though it's not specified, it's touching and easy reading with a tragic theme of pediatric cancer and joy in spite of it. It's probably a YA book, for young readers, but not childish. I'm glad I rediscovered it lurking in my Kindle library. 

I did lose a lot of Project Gutenberg books I learned to download onto the old Kindle, because there's no Amazon pathway, so once the Kindle went so did they. 

I'd have to relearn how to load them. PG is the anti- Amazon source of free classic literature. You use Calibre software to access them and I think my tablet isn't up to it. I did it originally on my now almost defunct laptop.

Happy day everyone, happy Diwali, lights in your life, enjoy!

And here's dear Sister Corita Kent, nun and pop artist who pursued pop art and joy despite the angry opposition of her Cardinal, there's a back story. He tried and failed to extinguish her art and joy. Art won!

Photo AC