kindly, please no inflatables...

well i won't lie. i'm tired. we're in the midst of kristin's goodbyes. a beautiful party happened on saturday with around 130 of our friends from every corner of our kolkata lives coming through to feast alongside one another in celebration of kristin's life here...there was tear fest 99 as Sari Bari gave their goodbyes on tuesday. and today we did our annual flower pass in the lanes of the Gach. Which is always amazing and fun and crazy and exausting all at the same time. but it is a beautiful sight to look over one's shoulder and see an entire red light district alley lit up by bright yellow sunflowers. a sight no camera will ever be able to capture, but that will be stuck in my mind forever...it's been a sad sad time for our community as we say bye to our dear friend. so please do pray for us as we continue on in the next week of goodbyes and last suppers...spring servant team, you remember how i am with last last suppers, will they ever end, good grief.

however there's a few great stories i really must share...first of all its Puja time again in India, which is basically the Indian version of Christmas, lots of shopping, lots of parties, loud speakers blaring Bollywood hits, huge bamboo structures wrapped in everything from cloth to paper machete for the placing of the idol goddess Durga...hmm, ok not quite like Christmas, but the shopping, oh the shopping. and the crowds. its traumatic to enter the metro. and unless you have known me in kolkata, you have not seen the levels of irritation that can boil within this heart. like last week i was leaving Adoration encouraged and ready yet again to walk as the woman of peace and love i know resides within me...then i got on the bus home...maybe i needed a few more hours of hearing the rosary and the Lord's prayer...

then there's this great advertisement in the metro these days. it's a cartoon warning for people bringing gas cylinders and cigarettes on the metro. there's a nice voiceover explaining the explosion that happens when people bring such forbidden fire items onto the metro...but the end is the best part, the voiceover concludes by saying..."so please kindly bring no inflatable items onto the train, it may result in 200rps fine or behind bars". it took me a few times of hearing this to realize they weren't kindly asking me to refrain from bringing my inflatable raft onto the metro...perhaps they just had an editors strike before the publishing of fire safety metro advert...i love india.

so anyways, a few random windows for the week. peace.