Let’s see.  Here’s what’s been happening since my last post.

Returned to Dallas in December.  Amit followed shortly.  Wonderful week with the whole family, including waking up to a real White Christmas.

Tulsa with Dad and Sam.  Moti Bua & Manni Uncle spoiled us.  Stars align with Tamra too.  Pleasantly surprised by Tulsa.

Roadtrip to Houston with Sam.  Our wonderful uncle Tracy and his beauty-queen English bulldog Baxter.  Sam & I get hired to do 2 websites.  On a freezing cold January day in Houston, things gets serious and Monastral Blue is born.

Next I meet up with Amit in L.A.  It’s cold there too.  And it rains.  The Whole Week.  What the…?  I launched into work while he made connections.  We saw lots of friends.  We held hands and walked in the rain.  Lots and lots of rain.

Back to Dallas, back on the road to Houston with Sam & Amit.  Mini-college reunion.  Back to Dallas.

Where Amit finds the perfect production company.

Then he goes back to India… after his plane’s mechanical failures give us an extra day together.

After that, Mom, Dad, Sam & I survive a record 12 inches of snow and 15 hour power outage. Dallas looks like Michigan.

Weather clears just in time for Sam & me to head to Boston to be with Kathryn & Jeff.  So here I am, recovering from an awesome 24 hour excursion to NYC.  I’ll head back to Dallas on Monday, and hopefully stay put for a while.

Yes, I’m a little tired, but this… I don’t mind.  I love my job, I love being somewhere totally different next week, and I love getting to see so many of the beautiful hearts I’m grateful to count as friends.

Wow… I wonder where March will take me!  I hope San Francisco is on the list.

P.S. Tomorrow we are putting Kathryn’s painting on the frame Jeff and his dad built!  It’s going to stay whole, and trust me, this is the right way to go.

Everyone go have a look at the new site!!

Click here:

Special thanks to Sam who got this thing running in record time!!

Be sure to make friends with our new Facebook page as well.

And finally, stay informed about all our doings and follow The Refuge on Twitter.

We hope we’ll be bringing you plenty of exciting news!

I’m taking a break from story to develop a beautiful new website makeover for refuge.tv. I’ll be having a cut/paste marathon this week, but Sam informs me that it should be pretty easy to program, at least. I will send out a notice when it’s up. Get ready for a clean new start and quicker loading times.  I’m getting a promotion, by the way. I am now The Refuge’s Creative Partner and Head of Development. Hopefully, a big raise will follow.  ;)

Every once in a while, I’ll be out in Delhi or Bombay, and I’ll look over and get a shock when I see a particularly pale person in the room.  For a split second I’ll think, “Wow, that freak isn’t just white-as-in-Caucasian white.  I’ve drunk fresh milk that had more color.  What’s she doing here?  Poor girl might as well be a flashing neon sign, for all the chance she has of blending in.”

Then I’ll glance over again, and realize I am looking at a mirror.

Sigh.

This Halloween, I am leaving all that behind and dressing up in the perfect disguise… a new writing project.  I am borrowing elements of worlds that exist from Amit and India, and reshaping them into a new one.  In it, there’s always a way through, even when things look hopeless.  There are huge obstacles, but also serendipity and wonderful mysteries waiting to be uncovered.  People aren’t perfect, but some of them will surprise you in the best way.  It’s clean and beautiful, because everyone cares about their environment, and nobody is carelessly trashing the place.  In it, I am a brown-skinned, bookish teenager from Bombay, displaced to a village in the foothills of the Himalayas.  I’m also two precocious, rule-breaking partners in crime from the elite boarding school nearby.  And hopefully, if it’s good enough, nobody will guess that there’s a pasty American woman underneath.

I love writing.  Ruthless, immovable reality, with all its unsolvable complications and blind injustice, can take a hike.

Amit has introduced me to a lovely jogging/walking loop called Jogger’s Park.  It’s beautifully lit and manicured like a garden, and right next to the ocean.  Just 5 minutes away, and for the low entry fee of Rs. 2 per person (4 cents), it’s been a perfect place for us to stretch our legs and chat a few times a week without being interrupted by my compulsive facebooking/emailing or his incessantly ringing phone.  (I mean seriously, he talks to a hundred people a day.  When they come out with a telephone chip implant, his skull will be first in line!)

Usually, I just walk, but yesterday, I ran.  Yeah, you read that right.  I forgot how fun it is!  I mean, until your out-of-shape, mold-and-pollution-ridden lungs start to burst.

But until then, your body pulls itself into this efficient, aerodynamic piece of machinery, veering around curves and slicing past slower-moving obstacles.  You catch air as you cut through the atmosphere, creating a soft breeze against your skin.  You hear your breath, your heartbeat, you feel your blood moving through your veins.  And even if it’s just for 60 seconds at a time, like it is for me, you leave all your demons in the dust.

Baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies this afternoon, I halved everything in the recipe except for the flour.  Oops.  I guess I’m making oatmeal chocolate chip scones.  :)

Just in the nick of time, Sam has brilliantly discovered a way to stream live television programming onto our TV here, so we got to watch the Longhorns edge out the Sooners after a trip to Zenzi.  Bombay and Texas, all in one night!  The world gets smaller every day.

The pixelation and slightly uneven streaming did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm, though we sometimes had to wait in momentary agony for the announcers to tell us whether the kicks were good, or whether that pass was incomplete.

We had to crank up the volume pretty high, as Divali fireworks were exploding right outside the window of our 9th floor apartment.  We laughed at the thought of us a year from now.  We’ll be like those people who reminisce about silent films and black & white TV.  “Remember when we couldn’t even watch the Longhorns play all season??  Back in the Dark Ages!”

Back in the kitchen, I attempted a flourless chocolate cake, with great success, the only casualty being a dusting of cocoa powder across my keyboard while I referred to Epicurious.com.  I am going to be making this often!  Next time with a dash of vanilla!

I also discovered my friend Bernadette has a blog with some mouth-watering recipes for summer tarts, among other things.  You know what I love, I love recipes from scratch.  With ingredients I can find in India as well as the U.S.  Thanks B!

I’ve arrived safely, gotten the first stamp in my third passport, and reunited with Amit and Sam, who could barely contain their joy and excitement at having me back.

So thrilled I'm back.

Thrilled, I tell you.

Upon returning to the apartment, I found it in pretty good shape thanks to Anjali.  However, it has deteriorated somewhat into a bachelor-pad state, complete with a fridge full of nothing but condiments and beer, a half-loaf of a mold farm that used to be bread, and a dearth of amenities such as toilet paper.  Yeah, I was afraid of that.

Taking advantage of the wonderful resetting of my circadian rhythm, I enjoyed a morning of actually being awake and fixing breakfast for my boys.  The late-running monsoons ended just before I arrived, so it isn’t as hot as a normal October, and the tropical air is clear and bright.

The kites have returned, and we’re glad to see them because they keep the noisy, pesky crows away.  They glide around our courtyard, and then perch in the sun along the tops of our buildings, stretching their wings as if they’re glad to dry themselves out.

In the afternoon, Sam headed off to Blue Frog Studio, and I joined Amit for a session of Telecine on his latest commercial.  He’s determined to keep me on my feet and out of the house, and I’m not complaining.  Telecine rocks.  It’s like Photoshop for the moving picture.  In the cool, darkened suite, there are several displays gauging all the visual information of each shot.  On the left, there’s a large window showcasing the giant piece of machinery through which our original film is run back and forth as we tweak the hues and shadows of each take.  Concentrating on pretty colors and visual details (with a good cup of chai for fuel) is a pleasant way to stave off jet lag.

All in all, a pretty good first day back.  But by 8pm, I’m toast, and crash as the guys head out to Zenzi for a beer.  Good night, folks.

Hooray, the Cowboys won tonight!  After a long day stressing out over taxes, a beer and a football victory really hit the spot.

However, during the post-game interview, Tony Romo somehow reminded me of Jeff [my sister's boyfriend], which is now causing me to like him against my will.  I know, right??  Jeff and Romo.  I can’t explain it either, beyond his somewhat-similar dark brown eyes and ability to smoothly incorporate multi-syllabic words into his speech.  Which left me talking to the screen:  “Aww, he seems kind of… NO!  I’m still mad at you for last week!  And besides, you play golf.  GOLF!  What kind of man are you??”

Tony Romo

Jeff (with Kathryn) Similarity? You be the judge...