Dreaming of a Bowl of Cereal (6/19/2014)

I opened the door to the pantry with a little more anticipation than usual this morning.  This was the morning after our return from India, and images of the first breakfast that I would consume at home had been playing in my head towards the end of the trip.  I was looking forward to my first bowl of cereal!  I felt a sense to relief when I looked up at the top shelf in the pantry and saw the nine different boxes of cereals neatly lined up, just as I had left it before we departed for India.  This was going to be a good morning!  Perhaps the breakfast of my favorite cereals would help me to get back into the swing of things in Gaithersburg after having been away for more than three weeks.

Truth be told, this trip to India has been somewhat  unusual, with a few life events experienced, both planned and unplanned, both happy and sad, and with enough changes and adjustments to plans and schedules to keep things more uncertain than usual.  One managed to keep up with the flow, and the good thing is that with the current circumstances of ones life the mechanics of making such adjustments to the travel plans were the least of the problems to be tackled.  I have to thank all those who facilitated all of the last-minute changes in schedules in various ways without hesitation and without asking questions.  You all know who you are.   Thanks also to everybody, family and friends, for their extreme hospitality in spite of the disruption that one caused.   I have to mention the one “planned” trip I made to a facility to meet up with an old school friend of mine for the first time in nearly forty years. It was a great gift to me that he recognized me the moment we met.  But the circumstances were difficult.  The extremely destructive mental disease that my friend suffered from had aged him well beyond his years.   The intelligent and handsome young boy I had gone to with school appeared to have been destroyed by his illness.  Life can be cruel, and some of us are more fortunate than others.

But back to the present.  The cereal boxes await me in the pantry and the routine of breakfast at home is going to help me get back on track.  Perhaps you wonder at the number of cereals in question.  Each one of them is a unique, and need I say a “healthy”, mix of grain, dried fruit and nuts.  So what does Kuria do with all of this?  He puts a little bit of each cereal that meets his fancy on any particular morning into his cereal bowl and creates his own yummy mix.  This is what it looked like this morning.

And then it is time to add some fruit,and then some milk,and down it goesuntil the bowl is empty!So, while I did relish the idlis, dosas, vadas, upma and other great stuff that I ate for breakfast while in India, this was what I was looking forward to and enjoying this morning.  Let’s see where the rest of the day takes me.

Submitted for the Weekly Photo Challenge with the theme Morning!