In the air, like a bird
Last weekend we went off for a tandem paragliding experience. This was at Mussel Rock Park in Daly city. The take off and landing were relatively straightforward. We were up in the air for 20-30 minutes – I didn’t get around to looking at the clock. Both of us had our own pilots. Mine was Mike. We were mostly flying over the cliff by the beach. Parts of the cliff had vegetation. I was expecting the wind to be wild, but it wasn’t. I could hear the waves. I was hoping to be able to fly with the birds, but they couldn’t be bothered. A large group of cormorants were nesting on rock close by. For 4 minutes, Mike had handed me a GoPro and here is what I saw.
More chaos overhead – Veil Nebula
Veil is a supernova remnant – a star, 20 times larger than our sun, exploded. Went boom about 10-20,000 years ago. The structure is so large that six moons can fit in. There are a number of named substructures within it – the Eastern Veil (the bat nebula), the Western veil (the witch’s broom) and the Pickering’s Triangle. My mom thought it looked like an open mouth. I could imagine an angler fish with its antennae (bat nebula) and a large mouth (the central veil).
Chaos overhead – the North America nebula
We had attempted to shoot the North America nebula last year, both from Paicines in September, as well as Panamint Valley in October. We hadn’t failed both times. Our camera had captures a million stars, but we were off-target so we had missed the classic nebulosity. It is supposed to be an easy target for newbies so we had to try again this year and I am happy to report that we got it this time.
To north americans it looks like the continent of North America. My mom says it looks like a tired dog. I am with my mom on this one.
What looks like a dark region (aka Gulf of Mexico) in the visible spectrum becomes a river of stars when imaged in infrared spectrum (link).
A walk in the fog
One of my wants from the Scotland trip was a walk in the fog. I found that walk much closer, at Point Reyes. The region could be touristy, but it isn’t. Nearly a dozen years ago, we had stayed at the Dancing Coyote Beach Cottage in Inverness pondering the challenges of buying a home in Bay Area. This time, after the surgery, when I needed to convince myself that I was ready to resume normalcy, Dancing Coyote Beach Cottage came to mind. This time I called in early to request the Beach Cottage, it is closest to the Bay, the other cottages stand behind like a small squad. With Beach, one gets a bit more privacy and a lot more view.
These cottages are built by SF born architect Igor Sazevich. Last time we were at Inverness, Sazewich was still alive. The cottages are by the Tomales Bay. They are small but perfect in every way. From anywhere in the cottage – including the bathroom, you can look out at the Bay. The most notable view is the SS Point Reyes shipwreck as the foreground of Black Mountain.
Post-op reflections
I am out of my “surgery”. It will be a few years before we will know the outcome. For now, there is no more to be done.
I had researched a lot leading up to the decision and while I was researching, I was anxious. But when the time came to walk into the surgery, I couldn’t be any more calm. The room was in the basement of a modern glass building. Like any other modern basement, it was bland. Light colored walls, flat lights, odd collection of waiting chairs, random wall decor, … It had felt routine and familiar. My procedure ran its course over three consecutive days. Each day was near identical, and ran like a clockwork. I was in and out in an hour.
The physicist in me was completely blown over by how clever the machine is and how routine the procedure was. An MRI is a lot more invasive in comparison where you have to get into a hospital gown and they stick an IV line in your arm. Here, I was in my normal home clothes wearing my lucky charms. The only non-routine part was a specially molded mask that held my head stationary. I am not fidgety by nature and if asked to lie still, I can lie very still. But I was glad for the mask – without it, the experience might have been utterly forgettable. The first day, I had asked for meditation music and had kept my eyes closed. The next day I let them choose the music and they chose salsa. I watched wakefully and I found my feet tapping to the music. On the final day, I decided to go without music. I watched and I listened closely.
What I suspect was her linear accelerator had a high pitch whirring sound. The rest of her was rather creaky. Each movement came with an effort. And she had a good amount of movement in her. If I imagined my head looking up at 12 o’clock. She could go down as low as 5 o’clock and 7 o’clock. I could empathize. Her movements reminded me of myself. I too move a lot, I too hear groans escaping when I do.
Read the rest of this entry »Ancient light, modern light… align, stack…precisely
I am stepping into a precision driven medical procedure tomorrow. If my birth was the most significant medical event of my life, this is the second most significant one.
A benign mass in my ear has been growing very slowly. For the first two decades, it was sneaky and only revealed itself the last few years. If it grows any further, it will start to get in the way of other functional areas of the brain. So we are left with no choice but to interfere with its growth. The technology is a precision radiosurgery technique called cyberknife. Weirdly named procedure, is neither a surgery nor a knife. Instead, it is an way to target radiation from thousand different angles on the tumor mass. It is designed so that no single beam of radiation has the power to disrupt the cells, but when they come together from many directions to converge on the tumor cells, they pool their damaging power together. The collated radiation disrupts the cell’s DNA and its ability to replicate.
The machine was first invented at Stanford and thousands of procedures later, it is the most non-invasive way to control a tumor. I am told that if I wanted, I could run to the clinic, get the outpatient procedure done, and run right back home.
Brain radiation has side effects like nausea and headache, but if it weren’t for the cyberknife, a neuro surgeon would be drilling into my head to carve out a piece of my skull and then scrape the tumor out and finally, glue my skull back in. I would need be in the ICU for days and in physical therapy for months. I was told that they would need to move some of my fat tissue from my belly into my brain to stop cerebrospinal leak. I don’t scare easy, but the idea of my belly in my head didn’t hold appeal.
Cyberknife has a lot of parallels with astrophotography. The ancient light from the nebula travel through the universe to reach the camera sensor. No single photon has the ability to leave a mark on the sensor. But with patience, the photons stack together and the chaotic beauty of our universe emerges. The mount tracks the movement of the celestial objects in order to undo the rotation of earth. It is further helped by a guiding software that sends small electrical pulses to the mount so the tracking stays on course. The camera sensor is effectively pinned in space with respect to the universe.
In preparation to the cyberknife, I had to get a personalized head mask done. A piece of plastic was heated up and moulded to my face. During the cyberknife procedure, my head would be held down firmly in place by this moulded plastic mask. Even then, the cyberknife will track my micro movements and adjust continuously, like the guided mount.
Unlike many interventions, this isn’t going to fix the loss of hearing or the tinnitus. Archy, my tinnitus, my muse, will be there for me in the coming years. This intervention will stop further degradation. If the radiation therapy is successful, the tumor will die a slow death over the course of the next few years. The dead tumor will stay cocooned, in place, by scar tissue.
Our experiences shape us. I am expecting this one to shape me. I am somewhat on my edge. I think about Paul Kalanithi’s book, When Breathe Becomes Air, where he, the neurosurgeon wonders at length about the risk a brain surgery presents to the patient. He felt that the person who goes in isn’t the same as the person who comes out of the surgery. In my case, the functions that lie adjacent to the site of operation may be altered. The neuroma isn’t deep into my brain, so the risk of changing the brain behavior is low to none. Yet, I am a little apprehensive of the who I might become after I walk through this one way door.
Exploring my mother’s memory
My mom is an exceptional story teller. Lately, we have been talking about her childhood, a time that winds the clock back by 70 years. Even today, Bengal is landmass interlaced with extensive inland water bodies and river networks. In her days, access to some of these lands was by boats alone. And when you landed, your options were to walk or get on a palanquin. It wasn’t uncommon for her to accompany her mother or grandmother in a palanquin or walk 10-12 km to get to the destination.
Before this story, I had associated palanquins with rich people of bygone days or a ceremonial affair. But in my mom’s case, it was neither. It was just necessity, a mode of transportation in absence of any other. Sarojini Naidu’s famous poem, Palanquin Bearers, is about a bride being carried in the palanquin and the bride is described as delicate and light to carry “She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream“. My mom’s mother and grandmother were both petite and light women. But mom remembers that the bearers would get tired and rest up occasionally. Sarojini Naidu further describes that the bearers sing while they carry the bride “Gaily, o gaily, we glide and we sing“. Mom remembers their vocalization as rhythmic grunting.
Read the rest of this entry »Post vacation normalization, routines
There is a first time for everything – I am not regretting returning to everyday routines after the vacation. And I think I know why. My routine no longer feels like a daily grind.
I grew up in a culture where elders are respected. While I have not questioned that practice, I had often wondered what makes age venerable. I understand that now. It is not wisdom. It is experience and survival. Life feels complicated today, but it has always been complicated. No one has an “easy” life. Every 80 year old has survived loss and pain many times over. Reaching the finish line every day is a victory. Finishing strong isn’t necessary, just finishing is sufficient. The other day at the doctor’s office, we overheard a gentleman confirm his identity, he was 96 years old. I imagined his experiences – growing up during economic depression, the second world war, the defense boom, the hippie movement, the tech dominance, the LGBTQ+ rights revolution, the modern narrative of AI and so much more.
Everyday, I wake up, I am grateful. I made one more day. I have been dedicating each day to finding joy in my everyday routine. And frankly, I am surprised at how many moments of joy I find.
Post vacation normalization, food
On one hand I am relieved to be back to the comforts of home, on the other I am resuming familiar activities – movement, nutrition, health, job, groceries, cleaning and the myriad other things that tether me to life. This time, I am normalizing to my routine mindfully.
Nutrition and cooking have been integral part of my life activities for decades. So that was the first routine to get back to. In Scotland, one of the common BnB breakfasts was yogurt and chia seeds with berries, what they also call forest fruits. We were motivated to bring that back to California. Our last meal was at Dishoom in Edinburgh. I have had the Dishoom cookbook for years and all I had made out of it in prior years was their chai masala. So I decided to focus on a few gems from Dishoom cookbook.
But first, I came back home to a bunch of ripe passion fruits.
The first recipe to make from Dishoom cookbook was their Ruby chicken. Apparently, this is one of the most ordered dishes at the Dishoom restaurant. They also claim it to be blend between chicken tikka and butter chicken. It is a three part recipe that needs patience – the garam masala (rose petals in an uncommon addition), the makhani sauce and then the assembly. The garam masala makes 50 gm and only a small amount is needed in the Ruby chicken recipe, so there is longer term reward. The final dish is brilliantly colored, the chicken is deliciously juicy and the makhani sauce is well balanced. It left me wanting roomali roti….
Read the rest of this entry »Chaos overhead – the Butterfly in the sky
This year the sky is not cooperating. While the days are clear, the night sky is full of clouds. I am wondering if the trend will get far worse as we approach winter given the emerging Super El Niño prediction this year. We are finding ourselves getting aggressive – we are game even on full moon nights. In particular, the deep sky features where hydrogen alpha shines, moon is less of an influence.
Wrapping up with wee little tales
The Scotland trip came and went. I did my first post vacation normal household laundry today – to me this act signifies business as usual. I have not much more to write. It was our first car touring vacation outside of California. We walked over 100 km. Skye offered the landscape of my dreams although I found myself missing the fog. The scotch didn’t disappoint. The coffee was a pleasant surprise. If there is a next time in Scotland, it will have to be the Hebridian islands.
I wanted to end with snippets of tales, in order of observation, those that didn’t want to be left behind in obscurity of a photo album. But before the start of the end, I need to pay my tribute to an Isle of Harris scotch (link) – it was the crispness of apples, the brininess of sea and smell of peat in a glass.
And now for the snippets …
Read the rest of this entry »A walk with midges and clegs in the Ben Nevis range
If going to Scotland during summer, you would be armed against bugs. Question is, does the armory work? The other question is, would it be a Scottish summer walk if the bugs don’t get you?
There are two primary categories of Scottish summer bugs that bite. A wee little gnat, called midge that swarms in shade. And a robust horsefly (or cleg in Scottish) that prefers a sunny heath or moorland. The first one can’t bite through clothes, it can’t handle wind. You don’t feel the midge bite, the bite sites itches later. The second one has vicious fangs, their bite hurts and itches at the same time, and not much gets in their way. I had read that midges prefer certain hosts, like mosquitos. That meant trouble. I already knew that I was a mosquito attractor. So I got heavily armed against the wee gnat since that was the only thing I could arm against. The armory, in addition to long sleeved shirts and ankle length trousers, included perfume – Avon “Skin So Soft” dry oil spray. Apparently, the midges do not like that particular perfume. Then, a deterrent, Smidge. The claim is to deter all biting insects including mosquitos and ticks and being water resistant. And finally, the battleshield, a superfine head net, especially designed so the wee gnats couldn’t get in.
During the Old Man of Storr walk, I got bitten by hundreds of midges. I was busy navigating the thousand steps that led to the old man. I didn’t notice the midges while walking, but later that night I noticed my neck, hands and wrist covered in midge bites. The midge forecast has suggested “moderate” number of midges. I had left the BnB after liberally smearing myself with Avon. By the time the evening walk to Storr had come around, many hours had gone by.
Read the rest of this entry »Obelix’s forgotten menhir, the other famous crag
What they are calling the The Old Man of Storr, I am calling Obelix’s menhir (link). You tell me if I am wrong!
The Old man of Storr hike is popular. It is relatively short (2.5 miles) but steep climb (950 ft), half of it on stone stairs. The biggest challenge is parking. We were advised to avoid the 10-5 timeframe so we did. We started soon after 5. The old man itself is at a lower elevation than the Storr summit, so there was a good chance that by the time we got up, the old man would have been in shadows. As luck would have it, that did not happen.
Lean To Coffee, the cutest little coffee shop
Lean To Coffee is not just cute, they serve delicious coffee. Scotland, in addition to scotch, appears to be obsessed with coffee. Typically, vacation coffee is the kind that builds character – bitter, over-roasted, black liquid that you drink for the caffeine and not for the taste. No so in Scotland. Nearly every cup was acceptable, some even delicious.
Skye seafood
Lookout Bothy, northern most tip of the land
The last visitor’s summary on AllTrails for Lookout Bothy – Rubha Hunish said “super muddy but impeccable views”. Rubha Hunish is a 3.4 mile trail on the northermost tip of Trotternish peninsula (link). On a clear day, one can see the Isle of Lewis across the ocean.
Cuith-Raing (or The Quirang)
Skye is uniquely famous for its crags (and the expansive sky). I would say the same thing for Himalaya, but it is very hard to comprehend the seemingly infinite scale of Himalaya. Skye mountains feel more human scale. I can imagine living in Skye and loving a crag. And getting to know the crag intimately like the back of my hand – across the 1000 hours of sunshine and the remaining 7000 hours of rain, fog and snow.
The mountains in Skye are part of Appalachian-Caledonian Mountains (link). The range was formed 250 Million years ago and is now scattered across continents – eastern United States and Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia, the British Isles, Brittany, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The oldest rocks in Skye are in Sleat peninsula (southernmost point), Lewisian Gneiss from 2.8 billion years ago. The final shapes that we we see today are result of glacial activity in the last ice age about 20,000 years ago (link).
Our BnB, Woodbine, is located in Uig. It is a good ways up from Portree, the commercial center of Skye. It also meant that we were rather close to the Quirang mountain. It took almost no effort to get there. The last few miles are a single track lane with passing places. The parking lot was nearly full by 10 am. If it weren’t summer, when sun rises at 3 am, I would have tried to catch Quirang at sunrise.
The trail The Quirang, it is a 5.2 miles out and back and should take anywhere between 2-3 hours. That assumes you are walking normally on a trial. It will take twice as long, if not longer, if you the kind that is impressed by rocks. As soon as you get off the parking lot, the view opens up and keeps on producing one grand view after another. So you can’t stop snapping pictures. The valleys, the lochs, the ocean, the sheep, sheep poop (I mean the daisies), the rock slides, the streams, the cliffs, the heather, the tranquil pool and the expansive blue sky.
We snapped a few hundred pictures and made only the first mile and back in three hours. Eventually I had to turn around so I could find a public toilet, the landscape (and the crowd) does not allow for a quick duck behind the bushes.
Where a sheep poops, a daisy grows
They say that the Scottish landscape is dotted with sheep. And they are right. From Inverness, we had headed out to Uig in the Isle of Skye. Apparently, the tourism in Isle of Skye has skyrocketed. The culprit is modernization, the island got connected to the mainland by a bridge on A87 in 1995, replacing the ferry-only option. And who would blame the high rate of tourism. Isle of Skye with its perpetual fog laden craggy landscape looks otherwordly.
An ancient forest in Cairngorms National Park
The Romans called Scotland ‘Caledonia’ and Caledonian pine trees are the name for the native Scottish pine. Incidentally, I had first come across the word Caledonia in the Astrix and Obelix comic series. Caledonian pines do not look like Douglas firs. To experience the ancient Caledonian forests today, one has to visit the Cairngorms National Park. Here in Cairngorms, the forest is dominated by regenerated Scottish pine with a native understory of wild berries, juniper, heather and rowan.
Sticky toffee pudding in Blair Atholl
I had to try the sticky toffee pudding at The Old Manse of Blair (link) restaurant, a Michelin restaurant in Blair Atholl in Pitlochry. The restaurant sources their ingredients within a 30 mile radius. I haven’t had a sticky toffee pudding before so I can’t compare. I can only say that this was an excellent cake. The interior was moist, the sweet and salty toffee sauce had a delicate burnt caramel flavor. The chef has replaced the more traditional dates in the pudding recipe with parsnips, the later being local to the highlands. If the service staff hadn’t mentioned the parsnips, I might have been left wondering about the woody nutmeg flavor.
Hermitage woods, Perthshire
Autumn is the best time to visit Perthshire…..
Edinburgh jewel, Water of Leith walkway
So now we are a week into the Scotland vacation. Edinburgh proved to be a lovely place to babysit the jetlag. It was a bit windy at times, but not the kind that makes you hold on to your hat. It was drizzly but not the kind that soaks you. So we walked. We were staying at The Raeburn in Stockbridge. From there, we walked to museums. We walked to the Royal Mile. We walked the Royal Mile. We walked the Botanical Garden. We walked to dinner. We averaged 7 miles a day. The nicest of these were the Water of Leith walkways. It is like going into a tunnel from one point and emerging somewhere else. Except that the tunnel is a walkway by the river, it is green, only allowing humans and their dogs to walk. The river is clean enough to encourage a bird habitat – we saw herons and mallards. Houses abutted on the walkway. Restaurants too. There were sculptural points of interest.
Read the rest of this entry »Ready, steady and waiting to go
This one is not a competition unless one counts competing with other vacationers. But this is a bucket list trip. Soon we will be on a flight heading up towards Scotland. If all goes to plan, this is what happens.
We land in Edinburgh and stay four nights. We explore the city and work off the jetlag. During this period, we also get used to the shifts in weather, set aside work worries and get into the vacation mode. Then we hop on a rental car and start heading towards the Perthshire. We stop at Dunkeld and walk along river Tay. Our first night outside Edinburgh is spent in Pitlochry. Next day, we head up towards Inverness. But before we do, we have the option of checking out Pitlochry, or Kingussie. This is when you wish time would dilate and you could do both. But we prefer lingering. Inverness is a two night stay. And here too, we will have options – Cairngorms or Black Isle. We decided not to drive the breathtaking North Coast 500. From Inverness, we will head out to Uig in the Isle of Skye via Achnasheen and Plockton. We stay in Uig for three nights. In Skye I didn’t give ourselves options to leave the Trotternish Peninsula. After Uig, we catch a ferry to Fort Williams and here again we stay two nights to explore the Glencoe region before heading out to Callander. Along the way, we will find ourselves on the edge of the Rannoch moor. From Callander we head back to Edinburgh for our flight back. Our final sight seeing will be the Doune castle where a reenactment of Monty Python and the Holy Grail “Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person!” may occur.
I realized that my utter fascination for the Scottish landscape comes from reading and watching Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, hundreds of times. Conan Doyle grew up in Edinburgh. The story of the Hound of Baskerville is set in Dartmoor, but when Doyle describes the desolate hills, thick rolling banks of fog, and craggy rocks, I think of Scotland Highlands.
California is five times the size of Scotland. Yet, for such a tiny little place, this trip has been exceptionally challenging to plan. I have been trying for several years now. Any which way you look in Scotland, there are breathtaking mountains and lakes, charming villages, and fantastic food. Everything is must do. Everything is top 10. I first started with reading travel books. Then I hoped that AI would come to rescue. Finally, I had to call up a travel planner, Nordic Visitor, to rescue me. They have taken good care of us, have booked us in adorable B&Bs, kept our city to city travels short, given us time to breathe in-between. We drive a lot more in California on a weekend trip than we would drive on this ten day trip.
Yet, I am anxious. All of Scotland has thunderstorm, rain and wind in common. The mountains are often fog laden. This time of the year is also peak midge season – they swarm. If you aren’t careful, they will suck your blood and leave the sites itchy. Then there are many places that are the exceedingly touristy – I hear of the crowd being described as “gridlock” and “infrastructure failure”. I am a morning person, but I don’t like to head over to the car park first thing in the morning. I can’t share nature with noisy crowds. On the Antarctic trip, I was surrounded by chirpy humans, chirpier than the penguins. My movements were also circumscribed due to the fragility of the environment. I couldn’t get away to find a moment of quiet, I couldn’t listen to the nature undisturbed by the humans even for a single minute. I had felt extremely annoyed.
So, wish me luck this time and more importantly, wish me grace.
June bird sketches
This month I have mostly been sketching the loudest backyard bird. Half way through I decided to put a pair on a page, and where possible, a male and a female. With birds, the looks are very different based on sexes and putting them together helps me learn. I have been relying on Cornell for the reference images.
A tree from the land of my ancestors
This is a story surrounding a young Rangpur lime tree that is growing in our courtyard. Some might know the name Rangpur from Tanqueray Rangpur Lime gin. It turns out that this lime is from my ancestral land.
In Bengal, we have a lime called Gandhraj, literally translates to the king of fragrance. The closest it comes to is the smell of thai lime leaves. But the fruit is smooth skinned. Like thai lime, it isn’t juicy. But unlike thai lime, it is the fruit of Gandhraj that has culinary uses. Bengali food tastes the best when eaten with your fingers (link). A single fruit of Gandhraj can be cut into quarters or six pieces and shared by the entire family. The fruit is squeezed with your fingers leaving the amazing aroma on the plate and on your fingers. Every time you bring your food to your mouth, the fragrance of Gandhraj causes a palate cleansing effect.
Read the rest of this entry »
Locomotoring 