It was reported that Michael Jordan and his new bride signed a prenup. (pic: bet.com)

The rich are different from you and me.

Couldn’t help thinking of this quote when I read about Michael Jordan’s prenuptial agreement with his new bride, model Yvette Prieto.

It was reported that should the couple end up divorcing, she will receive $1 million for every year that they stay married. And if the marriage lasts for 10 years, she will receive $5 million per year in the event of a divorce.

It was also said that the prenup will protect Jordan’s huge fortune.

I guess $1 million is small change to Jordan, in comparison to his total wealth.

Well, what about us regular womenfolk? What do we get, after a year, or several years of marriage. Let me count the ways.

The first year of marriage, he tells you on Valentine’s Day: “This is your day. You don’t have to cook” So we eat out for breakfast, lunch and dinner. As the years go by, the Valentine dining out treats dwindle to two, then one. In some years, the treat metamorphoses into one of those standard heart-shaped box of candies.

The first year, he is all attentive to your words. As the years go by, a husband seems to lose the ability to hear the questions that you ask. Often,you have to repeat two, or even three times, before you get an answer or some kind of response.

Unlike Yvette Prieto, for regular womenfolk, you bank account may or may not grow during marriage.

But, then again, some things do grow in the relationship/bonding account: things like a shared history, and someone who knows your idiosyncrasies, and more importantly, someone who tolerates them.

The color gray has never been lovelier. (pic: London Media/ The Daily Mail)

This post in the Daily Mail has a great photo selection of cats camouflaging themselves in their surroundings. But I was totally bowled over by the beauty of this image.

The freesias uncovered a childhood memory.

The first year the freesias bloomed from the bulbs that I planted deep in the ground, I was really happy to see them gracing my garden.

The years pass; every spring the flowers bring beauty and its light, delicate scent, almost like baby powder.

Then one day when I looked at the freesias, a memory from long ago came to my mind.

I remember when I was a very young girl, a page of a nursery rhyme book made a big impact on me.

It was a picture of Little Miss Muffet. She was in her garden, and the detail in the illustration that really captured me was the colorful flowers drawn with little feminine faces.

The freesias took me on that long journey back, to that piece of art that had so captivated me. I saw that little flower faces again, with their big, twinkling eyes and petals for hats.

Maybe, the freesias reminded me of the shape of the flowers; or maybe it is one of the mysterious ways that the mind recollects.

And it made me think: in a wooden house in the tropics, a little girl sees a picture of English flowers. But in the imagination of a child, unsullied by limitations, her mind is free to travel wherever it wants to go.

And that power of the imagination, ideally, should never go away.

It was fun to see the shape of the trunk and two small eyes of a baby elephant face on the cotton piece on the left.

The park was quiet. The walk, especially looking at the trees, was invigorating to both body and mind.

I gazed at the cotton tree, and the cotton looked like white gloves.
Then on the one on the left, a baby elephant face emerged. Can you see it, too?

An excerpt from my upcoming work:

Yunus could tell that the young man admired his mother, June, for all she had done for her children.

Yunus’ admiration for her also grew each time he stopped at their home. He admired her not only for her determination, but for the fact that she did not become bitter and still took pleasure in injecting beauty into her humble, everyday life.

He feared that he was falling in love with June. He knew that it wrong for him to have those feelings as he was a married man. When he imagined the faces of his wife and children, he felt a jolt of guilt. He would try to dismiss the situation by telling himself: “I’m just being silly.”

And yet he could not deny himself this feeling. It was like waking up to a cloudless blue sky: it made him feel vital, happy and he looked forward to the start of each day.

He wondered if June suspected that he had these emotions. He knew that he often stared at her when they were talking, and once when they were sitting on the sofa, without realizing it, he had moved his hand close to hers. She did not move for a while, then she abruptly got up and excused herself to fetch some snacks from the kitchen.

Yunus wanted more from their friendship. He wanted to hold her in his arms. He wanted to buy her presents; he felt that it was time that she was pampered by someone, instead of being the selfless one all the time.

But he knew that those desires could only be in his imagination. It was dreadful to be between two worlds – the real world of his home and the dream world of this pulsating new love.

But that was all he was entitled to at that moment.

Having your own home is great most of the times.

But there are times when challenges crop up. Like when you’re dealing with property tax bills, and a clogged kitchen sink at the same time.

I tried all kinds of do-it-yourself remedies – bleach, liquid drain cleaner – but they didn’t work. I had stalled calling the plumber, whose fee can almost rival that of a lawyer.

So, in the midst of all this, I kept dreaming about Hawaii. Scenes of lush, verdant greenery….clear, delicate breeze flashed in my sleep.

I looked up dream interpretation dictionaries to see what this dream mean. They all say the same thing: dreams of Hawaii are symbolic of relaxation and leisure, and that the person is attempting to escape from her daily stresses.

Sounded logical, but honestly, I was disappointed with this interpretation. I had been thinking, or anticipating, that there might be a deeper meaning to this dream.

Anyway, a trip to Hawaii seemed unlikely at this juncture. I did the next best thing: attempted to recreate a feel of the restful place of my dreams. Poured fresh pineapple juice in the most resort-looking glassware that I have, put my feet up in the backyard, and tried to let my imagination do the rest.

A short escape. Before I go back to bailing out water from the sink.

March marches in with an invisible tempo of energy. March makes one feel that the serious business of the year has really begun.

The daffodils have already burst with color. The birds have returned.

Should I still be meandering, “germinating” ideas instead of buckling down and really working?

Soon the cold will no longer be an excuse. I need to march along with March.

Sun shines bright

We leave the cold

behind,

Enjoying nature’s gifts

of blue and gold.