2024-04-26 12:30
Recently, we stopped by at Chinese restaurant at the local strip mall for early dinner. The supplies in the fridge did not inspire any creativity and the day had been too long to contemplate… Read More
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Heartcrossings Blog
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About culture, technology, parenting, marriage, relationships. music, art, literature and poetry
2024-04-24 12:30
I was reading this essay curious to understand how Richard Feynman distinguished knowing from understanding but was struck by his definition of what is means to have "fantastic imagination""… Read More
2024-04-23 12:30
Heart-warming to read about Toni Morrison handing rejecting letters to aspiring authors. There is so much grace and kindness in how she said no. ..she occasionally ended a rejection by… Read More
2024-04-22 12:30
Loved reading about this woman who became a scuba diver at fifty just because she wanted to. In the paragraphs that form the story, it becomes evident that she had potential that was ignored… Read More
2024-04-21 12:30
Nice essay on the building a patchwork family and the particularly painful decision to leave a good enough marriage when there are children involved. An overwhelming majority of folks who ar… Read More
2024-04-20 12:30
If you have ever been part of a large program involving between ten to over hundred teams, then you have surely sat in a program retro session. The higher the level of dysfunction in the org… Read More
2024-04-19 12:30
Kudos to this woman for being able to get honest feedback on why she was not hired for the job - not wasting an hour of her life to put on a face - that is called making an effort when… Read More
2024-04-18 12:30
Reading this essay about how coincidences are not magical and signs from the universe reminded me of another story I had read a while back also involving truly large numbers, double jackpot… Read More
2024-04-18 12:30
I started to volunteer at my local kindergarten recently. The idea has been on my mind for a few years but it took a friend to learn about me and hold me accountable - she made sure I signed… Read More
2024-04-17 14:07
Being rich and leaving your windows open go together. I have seen this phenomenon is some neighborhoods - one that comes to mind is a townhouse community on the river with boats docked in fr… Read More
2024-04-16 12:30
I took my friend L to the most authentic desi restaurant in town. The food and ambience are both a real taste of India without the filters and adaptations that make India food very uninteres… Read More
2024-04-14 12:30
It was incredibly sad to read this story about the abuse of female workers in the sugar can fields of India. I grew up in India in what seems a different time - things were far from gre… Read More
2024-04-13 12:30
Reading this in the news some time ago reminded me of my friend N. A regular person but she has had life experience similar to royalty in this case. N too has three kids and her spouse was d… Read More
2024-04-12 12:30
When I got my first Lakme lipstick as a teen, I remember the giddy excitement of reading the names of the different shades and how each one produced a different emotional response and inform… Read More
2024-04-10 12:30
My friend L has two kids of her own and two step children of which I she likes very much but still can't claim to love. Her own kids have posed more than their fair share of challenges to he… Read More
2024-04-09 12:30
Sad reality of how much a single person needs to make to live comfortably in a big city. Presumably it make sense for to live in such places while single to maximize professional and persona… Read More
2024-04-08 12:30
One of the rites of Spring in my town (and maybe elsewhere as well) is the emergence of Girls Scouts selling cookies outside grocery stores. The other day, I saw a group when I was making my… Read More
2024-04-07 12:30
One of my LinkedIn connection shared this no bullshit profile that I totally loved. This person tells a compelling story about his career without wasting his words or the reader's time. In a… Read More
2024-04-06 12:30
The first time I paid attention to all the chatter about TikTok was when I read the NYT article on how its recommendation engine works. The numbers to chase were time watched and r… Read More
2024-04-05 12:30
Over the years, I have often questioned what it is to Bengali and Indian when all the colonial debris is removed from those concepts. It seems quite an impossible task as all the history of… Read More
2024-04-04 12:30
I always find it amusing to read that a certain vegetable is having its moment as it it were a new line of handbags launched by a famous designer. This year the cabbage is having its moment… Read More
2024-04-03 12:30
Interesting article about outcomes in one British school is being helped by strictness. Some of ideas being implemented in these schools are reminiscent of who school was for me in India gro… Read More
2024-04-02 12:30
S hasn't been her usual cheerful self for many months granted I only see her during calls where we are both required attendees and come on video. I wasn't sure what to make of it and with th… Read More
2024-04-01 12:30
In his book Imaging India, Nilekani says "Voters, especially the poorest ones, see their votes in these states as a trade for safeguarding their basic rights." This largely squares wit… Read More
2024-03-31 12:30
The Color of Pomegranates had been on my list for a long time and watched it recently. I came to the movie knowing close to nothing about Armenian culture or history and had not heard of Say… Read More
2024-03-30 12:30
Our walks in the evening frequently take us past a tennis court where people around the community come out to play. Recently, while passing by we saw a toddler sitting by the edge of the cou… Read More
2024-03-29 12:58
Reading this quote about dystopian fiction gave me food for thought. It might also explain why true-crime and murder mystery thrillers are such popular genres specially with womenStudies of… Read More
2024-03-28 12:30
J was about ten when I experienced a series of hardships ballooning into an unmanageable mess. While I was able to keep our unit of two afloat, my batteries were completely drained and could… Read More
2024-03-27 22:30
Read this very self-serving and blithely oblivious to reality piece of wisdom predictably dispensed by a rich and entitled tech bro. If I had to guess he rose to the level that he did in lar… Read More
2024-03-26 12:30
Such an interesting way to work remotely - just live in a train. It seems to be working out for someone: Lasse travels 600 miles a day throughout Germany aboard Deutsche Bahn trains. He… Read More
2024-03-25 12:30
I had the amusing experience of S (one of my best friends from high school) call me on International Women's Day to ask if it was okay for him to wish me on the occasion. He was concerned th… Read More
2024-03-24 12:30
I was chatting with another parent with grown-up kids about how we dodged the bullet by getting kids out of college before the time of ChatGPT and the like. That conversation left me thinkin… Read More
2024-03-23 18:20
Just got done reading Kristi Coulter's Exit Interview and would highly recommend it to one and all - not just current or former Amazon employees (though they would be the most edified of all… Read More
2024-03-22 14:43
I don't know that I can agree with this idea of women needing to ignore all the popular wisdom about career. A mentor can be from outside the organization entirely and from a different busin… Read More
2024-03-21 12:30
Reading these lines from Nandan Nilekani's Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation, gave me pause. I had to remind myself the author is talking about the average Indian politician and… Read More
2024-03-20 12:30
Performance reviews only make sense if all voices matter in an equal way. The lowest person on the totem should have a right to express how they feel about the performance of the CEO - Glass… Read More
2024-03-19 12:30
I came close to gifting a dear friend and AI generated work of art - my prompt, my idea but not my art. Reading this Wired column made my glad that my effort had failed and I had to come up… Read More
2024-03-18 14:50
The idea that the very rich can breathe different air than the rest of us takes entitlement to new heights. On June 7, 2023, New York City briefly had the worst air quality in the… Read More
2024-03-17 15:23
Over the last five years, I have being ghosted at an exponential rate. Both professionally and in personal life. Email has gone the way of phone calls it seems - most people will not respond… Read More
2024-03-16 15:23
I met a young couple at a class we took recently. We shared the table and got chatting. To their credit they were eager to get to know people their parents' age and we were glad that they wo… Read More
2024-03-15 12:30
There is a small jar of gardener's salve on my kitchen window sill. It reminds me of Camden every time I use it. We were trying to start a life together after having failed before. It was mi… Read More
2024-03-14 12:30
This experiment sounds a bit like recording and replaying yourself to come to independent conclusion about the error of your ways. Initial data on Laika is promising: 75 percent of the… Read More
2024-03-13 12:30
Interesting essay about the degradation of reading skills among college students. Everyone is impacted by the malaise but the younger you are the longer you will live to suffer from itEven a… Read More
2024-03-11 12:30
Cleaning up my fridge recently, I found an almost empty jar of kalamata olives (my favorite kind) that was promptly used. That jar of olives brought childhood memories of my aunt's exception… Read More
2024-03-10 15:12
While incomparably less well-read than someone like J.G. Ballard, I can still relate to his regret of having read the best books of his life before twenty. Around my mid-twenties, I started… Read More
2024-03-09 13:30
Sad story about marketing cosmetics to tweens. The overall system is designed for frictionless consumption. Points of friction like needing ID to buy things that could potentially be harmful… Read More
2024-03-08 13:30
There was an unhappy baby in the flight who went quiet shortly after the plane took off. Once we landed the baby got back to being noisy but now in a happy, chirpy way. She was propagating t… Read More
2024-03-07 13:30
Having dinner with friends at a farm to table establishment recently, brought to mind this story about how prison labor is involved in a lot of food we eat. The number of people behind… Read More
2024-03-06 13:30
I met a former co-worker after a few years recently when I was in her hometown for work. R looked much the same but a lot had changed since I saw her last. She had suffered a miscarriage rig… Read More
2024-03-05 13:30
I saw a young woman not much older than J enter a nice apartment building with her poodle on a rainy evening while on my way back to the hotel. The rain was spent by then and only a mild spr… Read More
2024-03-04 13:30
Watching The Umbrellas of Cherbourg reminded me of my grandmother who passed away when J was a couple of years old. As some who lives past ninety, she had a lot of wisdom about old age… Read More
2024-03-03 14:42
A couple of co-workers and went to dinner recently in a town two of us knew nothing about and the third had just recently arrived here so was still a relative stranger. We picked a place tha… Read More
2024-03-02 13:30
I am read Six Seasons : A New Way with Vegetables and found this intriguing idea for combining pickled vegetables with butter.Pickled Vegetable Butter Stay away from bread-and-butter pickles… Read More
2024-03-01 13:30
On my way to a store I don't go to often, I passed by a few new apartment communities on both sides of the street. These did not exist a year ago when I was there last - atleast that is what… Read More
2024-02-29 13:30
My friend M told me a strange workplace story last time we met for lunch. They had a bi-weekly call with their skip-level manager - something this guy does to rally the troops and give them… Read More
2024-02-28 13:30
I read The Second Sex as a teenager and it was one of the books that shaped my thinking as an adult woman. Many time since then, I have wanted to return to it but hesitated fearing that read… Read More
2024-02-27 13:30
Found this story about retail shrink very informative. The separation between the business ownership and the community it serves is cited as a factor :..an emptier store — where worker… Read More
2024-02-26 13:30
It seems like lot of people discovered the joys of being introverted and solitary during the pandemic. Once they could not have the "air" of social contact they thought they needed to breath… Read More
2024-02-26 00:24
If you want to read something "controversial" the public library (unless they are zealously banning books) maybe your best bet. It is one of the last remaining escapes from unrelenting digit… Read More
2024-02-24 13:30
Reading this article about your boss's impact on your mental health was triggering for me. I have had a few horrible ones in my life and it was no surprise that anyone who had to deal with t… Read More
2024-02-23 13:30
I am very far from a car enthusiast and have no desire for novelty when it comes to car. Its always the safe, boring and reliable Japanese auto for me without the technology bells and whistl… Read More
2024-02-22 13:30
Heard this really interesting story about responsibility avoidance. My former co-worker P shared this bit of office gossip last time we caught up. Her boss had been out on maternity leave fo… Read More
2024-02-21 13:30
I have shopped on Temu a couple of times - primarily driven by curiosity. My orders were small and the experience was good enough mainly because I had no performance expectations. J had neve… Read More
2024-02-20 18:53
I was looking for a card to give a friend who has lined up a new job and a bit nervous about starting there. We talked about the dreariness of what she did even if it offered stability and g… Read More
2024-02-19 21:17
Very relatable article about older financially independent women not wanting to get legally married and put everything they have worked hard for at risk. I think the situation is reciprocal… Read More
2024-02-18 13:30
This essay on how all cells in our body can think and not just brain cells made for an interesting read. It turns out that regular cells—not just highly specialized brain cells su… Read More
2024-02-17 13:30
This sounds like a fun collaboration - lip balm meets salad dressing. This set of flavors may not be for everyone but the I love the general direction of this idea. On our walk earlier… Read More
2024-02-16 13:30
In a recent picture of my mother, I noticed her wearing a sweater she had knitted for me when I was in my teens and that was a second act for this sweater. An aunt had knitted the original s… Read More
2024-02-15 18:43
It was over fifteen years ago when R said to me that I don't accomplish most things I want to because I have this great fear of succeeding at something which will then break my inner narrati… Read More
2024-02-14 13:30
At New Era Insurance, Ellen, a seasoned project manager, was in a quandary. Jen, a key team member, decided to leave midway through a pivotal project. The departure threatened to derail thei… Read More
2024-02-13 13:30
Early last year, I thought about M one of my former colleagues and wondered what he was up to lately. His work email which he preferred for communication bounced but his LinkedIn profile sti… Read More
2024-02-12 13:30
I am definitely the person that does all the outreach to my friends and acquaintances with a very small minority who also do their part. There would be any number of reasons for one-sided fr… Read More
2024-02-10 16:51
My oldest, most over-worn jacket is the most trending color of the year it sounds like. I usually wear it when I am working in the yard on a chilly day and after I am done the jacket is ofte… Read More
2024-02-09 13:30
Every few months, M gives me an obligatory call to check on me and mine. She is a friend of my parents and I did not know her until rather recently. All our phone conversations follow the ex… Read More
2024-02-08 14:31
Loved the quote about not being able to draw or write in this post about good writing. I have not read the book Ogilvy recommends reading thrice - that may be the primary source of my troubl… Read More
2024-02-07 13:30
An ad for Coldwater Creek popped up on my browser earlier and immediately triggered thoughts of my former boss R. She was in her early 60s back when I worked for her and I recall how s… Read More
2024-02-06 13:30
I was cleaning up my bathroom cabinets recently and thought of this Jane Hirshfield poem: MY MEMORY Like the small soaps and shampoos a traveler brings home then won&rsqu&hell…Read More
2024-02-05 13:30
Interesting disclaimer of Bard "Your conversations are processed by human reviewers to improve the technologies powering Bard. Don’t enter anything you wouldn’t want reviewed or… Read More
2024-02-04 13:30
My efforts to establish a salad everyday routine led me a few different places including this book Salad Freak. I read through the getting started, staples, kitchen and pantry essentials sor… Read More
2024-02-03 15:53
Dropped into a Pilates class recently for the very first time in my life and had the experience of walking into a room where conversations had been happening for a long time before I showed… Read More
2024-02-02 13:30
Several times in my career. I declined to interview because the hiring manager was fixated on some or the other certification that I did not have and had absolutely no desire to acquire at a… Read More
2024-02-01 13:30
Sometimes a book is just not for you, does not matter what. In this instance, I will attribute it to my lack of open-mindedness though even that cannot be entirely to blame. I very much enjo… Read More
2024-01-31 13:30
This past year, I returned to bread making after a multi-year hiatus. The recipe I started with was one of the easiest yet and worked out wonderfully. It was exactly what I needed to get bac… Read More
2024-01-30 13:30
On a recent Saturday morning, I decided to melt, re-wick and clean up my dozen or so old candles that have been gathering dust for a long time. The project was generally pointless, took over… Read More
2024-01-29 13:30
I used to have a jar of berebere that I made myself a long time ago. The empty (and hand-labeled) jar remains but the spice has long gone. It's too easy to over-use because it really lights… Read More
2024-01-28 13:30
Also from White Noise (which I am really enjoying) these beautiful lines about tourist hotspots:“Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thous… Read More
2024-01-27 13:30
Just finished reading The Devil in White City and absolutely loved. Last Larson book I read (and also enjoyed greatly) was The Splendid and the Vile so my expectations for this book were hig… Read More
2024-01-26 13:30
In his book White Noise Don DeLillo writes this of a blended family with his and her kids :Babette and I do our talking in the kitchen. The kitchen and the bedroom are the major chambe… Read More
2024-01-25 13:30
Discovered this quirky essay on raagas while looking for the history of Raag Chhayanat - one of my favorites and well-known to be a crowd pleaser. There are many amazing renditions of this r… Read More
2024-01-24 13:30
Any plebian schadenfreude reading how hard it is for the uber-rich to live their lifestyle will not last too long. While those billions go pretty fast it seems but they keeping mak… Read More
2024-01-23 13:30
R has been my LinkedIn connection for nearly two decades now. Since we stopped working together, I ran into him once at a local park where he was jogging - and that was by now nearly ten yea… Read More
2024-01-23 02:31
Interesting reading about ancestry tourism. All parties involved in the trend are making a buck thanks people craving to feel rooted to some place and something realSo-called heritage touris… Read More
2024-01-22 13:30
My first encounter with a beauty parlor was in my teens and in Bihar so a lot of this essay takes me back in time and place. I don't remember the name of the woman who ran the parlor but it… Read More
2024-01-22 02:41
Do people really need to have their ashes buried on the moon ? Reading this story made me think about the Tibetian Book of the DeadO nobly-born, that which is called death hath now come… Read More
2024-01-21 13:30
I have never been to Argentina and I am not a meat-lover but this lovely essay makes me want to take the trip and definitely try the meat. Lot of useful tips for the would-be traveler, inclu… Read More
2024-01-20 15:46
This quote from Rebecca Goldstein in Annaka Harris's book Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind made me feel better about my own lack of real scientific education a… Read More
2024-01-19 13:30
Traveling over the last few years has been specially rewarding for me coming as it does after a long hiatus. There were so many obstacles to getting away and going away - a lot of it self-in… Read More
2024-01-18 13:30
Over the years, I have spent a lot of time trying to resolve my relationship with my mother. Issues remain where they are and time is running out. The only way forward is to accept the statu… Read More
2024-01-17 13:30
This particular use case for AI far exceeds the usual level of pointlessness as things go. In many parts of the world finding food to survive is still a big deal so snacking is not even a co… Read More
2024-01-16 13:30
Such a wonderful way to bring students and senior citizens together. It would be great to see such partnerships be the norm around the country instead of an limited, experimental exception… Read More
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