Do you want help?

I am having a mental battle with grocery shopping. First, I am spending more money on fuel for the vehicle than I am on what I am eating. How can this be? The snow is off the ground so I will get the scooter out and put on long underwear and reduce the cost as much as I can. That is not the grocery store issue. I have been looking at the grocery store displays regarding the “ bring your own bag or buy the bag” offered so that we can get out of using plastic. We get the newspaper at the house so one of the dog walk events can be captured in the blue bag (my preference) but when the grocery bags are eliminated; this will result in an additional expense. My friend Joe has a tin can pooper scooper for his midget dogs, but he has not picked up after Lady Phoebe who is neither small nor tidy in her droppings. I shop in the most upscale and suburban grocery store. It just got the national award as the mostest groceryest store in the USA. It is surrounded by affluent and prolific yuppie families most of whom use the largest cart in the store and then have it heaping over with their dinner party and family foods. I put my $35 worth of veggies, fruit, bread and yogurt into a small cart and most of it, except the green packets (2 for $5) go in the part where the child should be sitting. It comes to three plastics only because the rule at the store is five or less in a bag. I took some time yesterday to really check out the carts. Only one very distinguished gentleman with grey hair and a mustache (reminding me of my grand father in age and dignity) had the same as I. The rest were getting a power gym work out just pushing the cart around the store. I didn’t even see large bags of dog food, just meat and produce and can goods. As I walked past the long lines for regular groceries on my way to express, I lingered at the check out counter to find out is Jake is nicer to Reese than whatever her ex’s name was. I watched as the check out person but the stuff in the bags. No way was this multiple hundreds of dollars worth of stuff going into canvas bags. Folks were looking at me with a cautious eye since I was “hanging out” and I watched the Mom move her purse to the other side. So I left before the final $ count or bag fillings. I went down to my row with a few men who also appear to live alone and are on fixed incomes. I always smile at my healthy gatherings: 2 baguettes, yogurt, silk milk, cheese, and veggies and yep – three bags and $37. What happened next put me into another place. As I swiped my card, I thought I was mistaken, so I said, I am sorry, I did not hear you. And the nice cashier repeated, “can you carry the bags to the car or do you need help”? I wanted to rip open my clothing and display
my black belt and give her a chop in her young head. But being the nice catholic raised daughter of my always polite and nice Helen Mayer, I just said, “no thank you, not today” and left.

Reminders

Yesterday there was a major event on a college campus. A student, probably feeling inconsequential, took two or three guns and walked casually about his campus and killed and shot professors and other students without saying a word to anyone. The event lasted several hours with a several hour break in the middle. Once again, it proves my theory that you can do anything if you do it casually. I proved this point many times by walking into places appearing to belong and have purpose and no one said anything. I dressed appropriately with expensive duds and makeup and moved with confidence and authority. I was asked to sign at a few places and did so using a scribbled Iama Nobody U.C. and walked out of clinics and courts. People who look like they are in charge often cause others to react as if they also believe they are in charge. And what happens to the others who also feel like they are inconsequential or powerless but don’t act out or act away from themselves? Often they give their power to the dominant and feel badly about themselves. When I was little, cousin and roommate until age five, Eugene, who in retrospect never felt very good about himself and was really a reclusive boy often sad, found that his little cousin bonny, who thought he was wonderful, would allow him to take charge. On one occasion, he wanted to look at blood under the new microscope, so he slit my wrist and took a sample. Of course he is not stop the sample site when he had his drops and I found myself feeling “woozy” (a family term) and went dripping to my aunt asking for a glass of water. He often got to go with my beloved Uncle George, his father, since he was 13 yrs older than I. They would say, we have to go and see a man about a horse (another family term). Well I liked horses and that only made it worse. He also was the one that told me to put my letter to Santa in the oven and then go outside and look for him to come. I heard the oven door close and ran to find Eugene reading my personal mail to the bearded one. When I really got made at him, I would try to take a swat at him and he would put his long arm on my head so I could only bat at the air between us. That made me angrier. It is power and it is not that these bullies or emotional bullies have power it is that we give them our power. We give them our power to not react by reacting. The more we react, the more they take the power. It can even be an unconscious thing on the part of the Eugene’s but the result is that we feel powerless about what appears to be our lack of power. What we do on the way to wherever is as important as the journey. A dear man and friend gave me a book last week The Holy Man by Susan Trott. It is a very simple 173 page book with short chapters that you can almost read in one setting. It is about this very thing. We all want to get to the top of the mountain – to see the holy man – to do something. But life is about the journey, the climb, what we see on the way, who we meet, what we say, what we think. Getting to the top or meeting the Holy Man is not purpose, it is the journey. Somewhere in the life of the shooter of the folks on the campus yesterday, someone was a parent, a friend, a lover and someone missed a call, a sign, a need for help. If there is a lesson, it is to walk mindfully aware of the passage the process without a casual attention on the destination but aware of the needs of those walking with you.

Not my Time

There problem with not having adversity and issues 24/7 is that when they come and hit you in the nose when your just walking along enjoying the walk... you get tossed about. Durkheim attributed anomie to the absence of any kind of rule, law, principle or order. In this state there is a sense of walking about without ground underfoot. While I feel principles it is the order that feels mixed like I have been caught in a very large power lawn sweeper and I and the leaves are all floating about with rapid thoughts and confusion about direction. I have been going to Albany for several weekends now to support my friend and get a sense of where she is in her health life. At the first meeting, she got annoyed that I used the word cancer for her 3.5 inch tumor and this past weekend, still without a final diagnosis except metastasis breast cancer in the Ilium, she sat in the oncology unit with a drip into her body to help increase the bone strength. The information that the doctor gives you in the session with him, is clear at the time, but then leaves you as you walk out the door. What was the term, what are you taking, what did he say, what is happening.. what happens next. First and foremost has been, don’t break the bone. Second, don’t let it hurt too much. The horses are settled for now. A great friend of hers is paying to have help with them morning and night. The dogs are still an issue, but she is handling them since she is still walking about and is strong enough. When you look at her, she is still the same person with a good appetite and challenging personality but when you read about what is happening.. it does not read like storybook. Then I drove home in what was stated to be the storm of the century. There were cars off the road and very bad driving between Albany and Utica, but other than that, not a bad trip. The bad part was really bad. There was a second when my life was in front on me and taking care of my friend sounded like a good deal. A woman who had been hanging in the passing lane, did not see me and forgot I was there and started to pull into my lane. She hit the slush and it blinded me. I blasted my horn and slowed up and with good luck, she moved back into her lane. It could have gone the other way and she would have hit my car and spun us into fate. I came home to my roomer finding out that his wife, whom he has been “talking with” for some months with the hope of some reconciliation, not only found out she has had a person in her life for years, but now has a new love and can’t eat or sleep with the buzz of the new love. Of course she has no money for the taxes and has a big penalty for hitting her retirement money. So he will take every penny he has saved and pay the taxes with a promissory note that she will repay... My dog will get her hair cut today and then start wearing her underpants.. my car, which just had the final payment, is making weird noises. So like when I would come home dizzy form too much to drink.. I just want to put my foot on the floor and stop the world from tossing so much up in the air. Since that can’t be done and when in a state of Anomie.. take a warm shower, wash your hair, do laundry, pay taxes, balance checkbook, meditate and be in the Now and know you can handle whatever comes down the pike.

Knowing when to quit

It is so tempting to want to keep going once you start a task. You can see the edge of the end just beyond reach and if you just stretch a little more, you can make. When I drove to Colorado, I discovered that the Rocky Mountains which were just over there, were really way over there. It is a lesson that I forget often. The end of the day, has often been my make up for my sins time...or if I “lolly gag (aka procrastinate)” around for most of the day, I can always put it into high gear and move forward with light speed and make it to the destinations. Sometimes, they just move the mountains or the capacity button is short circuited. I decided last night in Yoga, there is some positions that I just don’t bend that way. I know that with time you can do it, but I have other things to do with my time and bending my toes forward and backward with a very hurting bunion, is not on the list. So when I am doing a task that is tedious and I am tired and I am pushing to finish, effectiveness is dull, your error rate increases and once you get to the end, you are too tired to do anything you really wanted to do. Somehow this week my Sunday morning weekly planning session got pushed to Wednesday night and so I have to do the entire week of todo’s in less than seven days and I am tired. It is about pacing, balancing, and focus. I watched the end of the Dancing with the Stars last night... you have to have passion, tell a story, keep the rhythm, look like you are having fun, all while moving your feet and hands head and torso in some predetermined manner in unison with some partner with whom you are hardly connected. Who invented such an impossible demand and yet I see so many of us try to do the dance of life in a foxtrot. In my life, the plan is the dance of meditate, yoga, vitamin/supplement, eat well and healthy, meet obligations, save money, enjoying free time with friends and look happy. The reality is scratch meditation, yoga, and eating healthy but keep in the obligations and then things you just take on because no is doing it mix that with some lake of time planning and you find yourself keeping up with friends on the cell phone as you drive to wherever which appears to be at least 40 miles one way from home... so while my song wants to be.. “I won’t dance, don’t make me”...it isn’t “Is that all there is”.... but maybe it is just “I am (a 21st century American) woman see me roar.......

Gazette Article on Thailand

The Kingdom of Thailand, in Southeast Asia, nestled next to Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar was not on my list of must see places. My view of the country was primarily what I remembered from the movies The King and I or The Bridge on the River Kwai. A few years ago, I started to have Thai massages to help me stretch out my aging joints and that led to a new interest in Yoga were I saw a flyer about going with a group to do Yoga in the hills of northeastern Thailand in January and February 2007. I took one look at the Farmer’s almanac for upstate winter weather and another at the world map and average temperature for Asia in winter in the low 90’s and I was packing my bags. Thailand is the oldest monarch in the world and one of the few countries never colonized. It is not a good place to go if you don’t like rice since that is the staple food for every meal, including fish rice soup for breakfast, sticky rice and mangos for desert and whisky rice for forgetting why you are eating the rice. The people are gentle and honest, preferring not argue or raise their voice.. While there are about 7 million people driving scooters, tuk tuk (a modified scooter with a covered metal back seat for three), cars or vans in a bumper to bumper line that turns and twists in all directions like a bucket of snakes, there is little to no road rage. I spent a week in the Bangkok and lived in the happening backpack area of 24 hr action and walked or took water taxis or Skyway to get around. You can eat on the street with local vendors cooking morning glory hot salads, fish soup, chicken and rice, bananas etc. for about $2 a meal. In order to get a feel for the country, I also spent some days in a midsize city of Chiangmai, and the rural area of Chiang Dao as well as a visit to the Hill tribe villages. I flew to Cambodia for a few days to see the old temples of Angkor Wat and the disturbing living quarters of floating villages of Vietnamese living in Cambodia. There were many highlights of my Thai experience but two most notably were the children at the small school where we did our Yoga practice. Every child was healthy and happy full of energy and enthusiasm but lacking arguments and rivalry. At noontime, without a prompt, they took their toothbrush and brushed their teeth. Young pre-school children played with clay for hours without destroying another’s work or being fidgety. The other high point was my trip to the rescued Elephants. There are still some wild elephants walking in the rice fields but most are used for tourism or logging. The elephants at the nature park were rescued from cruel owners or because they were ill. Walking in the jungle next to a blinded elephant will be a memory that I will hold dear until I return next year to volunteer at the camp, study Thai, and spend my winter in the land of smiles.

Clutter

4/10/07
Knowing when to hold and when to let go is an art. Spending the weekend with a friend to help her clean up some areas in her house, I was able to be a witness rather than a participator in the process. As an outsider, it is easy just to get a large trash can and sweep the scraps of paper, letters, notes, store coupons into file #13. I also recognize that I don’t have the stamina to get up in the morning after a tedious and torturous drive, do horse tasks that I am uncomfortable doing, and then keeping rolling through major housekeeping as well as cooking a few meals for hour after hour for three days. I came home tired and a tired bonny is a disconcerting things to the surrounding people and pets. I wanted a day off.
You usually don’t sleep well in new surroundings and I found I had to go to the bathroom but resisted. I lay in bed for about an hour thinking, I can wait but finally knew that I needed to get up in order to sleep. Seven dogs have a mind of their own and when something is unusual or out of the ordinary, like a person leaving a bedroom room to go to the bathroom (which doesn’t have a door that the dogs can’t open) in the middle of the night, is a call for all 28 legs to hit the floor and all 14 paws to be placed ever so ungentle on your body. These are the times that you wish you didn’t have a night shirt and an also have a firm realization that the skin on your butt is tender. You sit on the toilet holding your head and face so that the paws and tongues are not too invasive and soon everyone returns to their former post, you are able to get up and go back to bed. What feels like seconds, you are jarred by the morning call for farm tasks and the dogs nose saying she has to go out urgently. You can identify. You try to get some clothes on before you run the seven dog gauntlet. Do the morning tasks at the barn, do the morning task with the dogs, do the morning tasks with breakfast and then back to the hold and let go.
I keep thinking what would I take if there were a flood and I had to leave in minutes. The first items are easy.. my hairy girl friend and two screaming cats. Then what... my computer.. my alter.. my pictures....what would not be replaceable or not needed. I keep thinking, what if I had to downsize.. to a small apt... TV.. bed.. some clothes... to a nursing home – a chair and four drawers.
When you look at someone else’s stuff, it is easy to say.. off with your heads... out the door.. but your own stuff – Is it greed? – having to have and hold on to.. ownership.. Is it scarcity? – I don’t have the money to replace it...even if it has not been used or looked at for a long time. Is it trying to hold on to what is not or your past? Letters and pictures of people that have passes and stuff from travels long ago. Before I went to Thailand, I did not have 7 pair of Thai farmer pants and a rice cutter and a tobacco holder.. I lived without them, but now that they are here, they have taken their place in my important holdings. It doesn’t replace anything, it just adds to... on top of or underneath the other important holdings. I have yet to find someone who likes to live in clutter or filth, but we hold it for if our hands, hearts, house were empty, what would fill the space? Can we stand the silence of nothing or live with just a few well selected things. After all, if one pair of Chinese shoes is good.. ten pairs must be every so much more “better” and you never know when you will need that...

Would Trump have to do this

Does this happen to Donald Trump. Somedays, everything we do feels like a major project and problem. My friend in Hudson, needs to have a cell phone working and operating incase there are any issues regarding her health as she moves about. She has complained about the battery not keeping a charge for the day even when she charges it all the time. When I was there a few weeks ago, I took the phone into the local sales office and he looked at it and said, it is low because the farm is in an area that requires more battery power to get a signal. Ok. Well she did not buy that and went to the store that also has repair. There the man said, well your battery is damaged and you need a new battery. She said, I just got a new phone and he said, well they put the old battery in the new phone so you have to buy the battery. She needs a phone, so she bought the battery. On the way home, she is thinking, when the phone came, it came with a new battery so the battery is the same age as the phone and since the phone is still on warranty, why isn’t the battery. She calls up the store and the sales man says, ok.. we will honor that and the next time you are in the area, just stop in and sign a paper and we will give your phone bill credit for the battery. So far, while annoying, still good. We all see on the TV the guy traveling with this pack of people .. the support group. I am not sure what they all do, but they should be expecting pink slips. You will think that there would be one in the bunch that would have stepped up and said, I am your billing support group person and this is the deal. Nothing.. no one. So, we were going to stop on the way back from the Dr. meeting, but the Dr. meeting was cancelled. When my friend gets something in her head.. it is in there until she can check it off. So Sat am, we drove to a southern suburb of Albany to the Verizon store. Admittedly we looked like we just got off the farm and probably had hay in our hair, but we were customers. I have an $80 a month bill and she $40 and many of our friends have plans etc.. so I can talk to several people without a charge. You are my IN group... As she started to talk with an eastern woman about just signing the sheet to get the credit, I looked in the parking lot for the support team.. must have been coffee break for there was nothing but a black dog (Lady) barking in the car. The man that she has dealt with was not there today. This woman took her to the next room to talk to the man at the computer. Jon started clicking away. Georgette started asking the other man that was there if he remembered the situation since he was there. He probably will also be on the fire list, since he did remember. Click click ... Jon said, where is the battery, we need the battery... click click ... at this point, I stepped in and said.. NO WAY ARE WE DRIVING TO HUDSON ( 30 MILES AWAY AT $4.00 A GALLON) TO GO GET A DEAD BATTERY THAT YOU ARE GOING TO THROW OUT... MAKE THIS HAPPEN...YOU MAKE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ON OUR NEED FOR A CELL PHONE AND YOU ARE GOING TO NICK DIME US OVER A BATTERY) I was about 8 feet tall when I said it and I must have sounded like I would go “postal” if he did not do something.. click click click click.. Ok.. we can take care of it.. click click.. I went out to the other room to start cooling down. A sales person came over to me as I opened each phone and looked at it... No.. just hanging out waiting... click click click Jon was at it. The man who was just sitting back there with Jon said, there is lots of paperwork when you don’t have everything the way the system expects you to handle things. I looked in the back room and around the store and again in the parking lot.. I guess he doesn’t have a Verizon team to help him either. She left the store with the paper.. but I wonder.. if Donald Trump came in for the same issue.. .would he have to do this?

Maryann

If you stay awake every day, there are many lessons that come our way and help to point us toward who “our dogs think we are”. I think I do better being ill than trying to figure out how to be helping to someone else. I know when I am thrashing like the fish out of water, trying to figure out what is going on with me and what I need, I tend to get annoyed at those trying to assist. I want a bandage and they bring a tourniquet, I want a drink of water and they bring the ocean, I want the ocean and they bring a glass of water. I had a friend in high school and college with a severely enlarged heart. Maryann, missed much school but was so bright it mattered little. She lived with the risk all the time. I was captain of the basketball team and she was a very good player and wanted to play in a tight game. She had been ill and out of school and had just come back looking like she was dragging and I did not want to put her on the list for starting the game.. at the end of the first half, she came up to me and said..what is the deal.. why are you holding back. I quickly added.. I don't want be the one to kill you.. and she said.. I don't want you to be the person that doesn't let me live as much as I can. She played.. we won.. and we both smiled. She died after the birth of her first child at age 22. She knew the risks and would not take anything that would harm the child that she carried. She had Addison's disease at the time of delivery. They lived as a "family" in the hospital room for the last 6 days of her life. We were all friends and the pallbearers were out boyfriends or husbands. As her husband Scott sat in the first row with their child, Christopher - I really knew that she had done what she want to do and lived her life to the fullest an brought to the world a child that Scott would be sure that he knew of his mother. That is 100 years ago now, but I often think of Maryann when I want to be protective and over do. The whole process of assisting someone is the art of learning helping and not helpful. The “ing” gives more of a meaning of co-work when the “ful” gives more of a meaning of dumping help onto someone. Tricky business and I have much more to learn about it.

Georgette

There is an elephant in the room but who sees it. I have looked at my writing over the past few weeks and have had to say.. self, why haven’t you said anything about Georgette. I feel like I have known her my life time and yet, not sure any 2 legged could really be close to her. When we talk to the doctors, she always says, this is my best friend. I have always felt her heart but like many in my family, I have not been someone she has known what to do for or about. We were introduced by a longtime scout friend of mine on our annual ski trip. We were the best skiers in the bunch and she helped me go through a major shift in how I skied which lead to my ski patrol and competitive ability. I was about to take a job in Rochester, and she was interested in doing more photography work, so we got a small apartment in Rochester and started living away from family. We did a Christmas card the first year, which was a pen and ink drawing of field flowers and I did the poem “From sunlight slanting through paper leaves..the glitter of silver crystals fall on waiting tendrils of staw” I can think of many stories to describe her and our relationship, but I think the ones that really stand out were our Christmas Card adventures. I had a project for a community group that required a silk screen poster. Georgette is a trained graphic artist, so I asked her to help. She didn’t know, but we would learn. We found a guy, Clayton Hayes, who was an alcoholic and great guy (last I heard was married to a lesbian in Florida so she could get family food allowances for her and her girl friend and he could get medical care.. but that is another story) Clay ran a shop in the building that is now the Downstairs Cabaret and he helped us learn the techniques and how to hand cut a screen. Georgette loved it and said.. lets do Christmas cards..... One thing about Georgette, once an idea floats into her head and sticks.. there is not saying.. I am in grad school, this is the end of my first term,..I have 10 papers and reports etc.. I am commuting to Syracuse twice a week.. I am in field placement ... best to stop all of that and just say.. OK Well, if we are going to do this, we should do enough for her father to send as his business card.. and and and.. so we will do a couple hundred cards. OK.. and you will do the verse... OK. To summarize the process, each color is cut onto a screen and then attached to a press, the paper is placed in the middle like a sandwich, the paint is placed on top of the screen and then dragged across the screen with a squeegee. Each of the 200 cards must have this process for each color. The most complex card we did in our 25 years of printing was an eight color card. Each color takes 2.5-3hrs to print and dry. That is where I come in. It was my job to figure how we could do this. So, I took the ironing board and put weighs on the far side and attached it to the card table she was working on. Then I took our projector screen and attached it to the wall and turned the screen parallel to the floor. Strings were attached between the ironing board and the projector screen that had knots in them. The cards were then clipped with paper clips and hung on the string. This contraption would hold about 150 cards and then the rest had to be placed on the floor, beds, kitchen table etc. Georgette would print the picture and place it on the ironing table for me to pick up and place. The trick was to keep the pace going so the paint consistency did not change or start to dry on the screen. My job was to run back and forth as quick as I could .. while trying to read my school chapters, make notes for a paper etc. If the paint dried.. and she had to clean the screen.. there was 30-40 min extra work a color. So I got up at 5 and drove to Syracuse. Went to class and left Syracuse about 6 drove home getting home about 7:30 – fixed dinner and started printing a few colors around 8 trying to finish about 1:30am for bed and starting over the next day. This year, for whatever reason, we had selected an orange color that was extremely thick and very toxic. The smell was just overwhelming. As I was running back and forth, bending over or down to place the sheets on the floor, I became ill and started to get very dizzy. Keep going, the paint will dry...OK... I am pretty tough but at one point, I was hanging my head out the back window trying to get some air. We lived through the process and managed to do 25 cards. They represent our life together. In the note on the last one, “twenty years ago, Georgette and Bonny created their first Christmas card. That was the only card that was not silk screened. For the 20th card, we have screened the same concept of the first card. During the years, we have lost several friends, both of our fathers, and out pets – Mr Cat, pouncie, Oskie the Raccoon, and silver the horse. This card is both a tribute to a long friendship and a Thank You to all of you for being our familes, friends, pets, and associates. On to the next twenty years. Well one can read the date 1984 and we have made it farther than the 20 years.
And tonight I will drive to her home at the farm and go with her tomorrow to hear what the oncologist suggests for her treatment plan for the breast cancer that has found a home in a 3.5inch tumor in her hip. And we will get through this also. Nothing we ever have done has been easy. She is not easy and talks more to her 7 horse herd and her 7 dog pack that she will to me. And I will say things that will make her angry like, you need a health care proxy and fix your will and lets clean up your house.. And I know that not much I will do will be the way it should be done according to her. I signed on as a friend 40+ years ago and I will try to be as mindful as I can that in spite of herself now more than every she will needs friend.
“Friendship like winter flowers ENDURES
soil – rich of fathers pets friends
stems – strong of values principles concerns
Blossoms forth with colors of experience love and time.

Spin the plates

4/3
When I am just cruising along in life, it is like walking around the house when I am in a pick up the house mood. I walk into a room on my way to another location and I just pick up what is in my view that could or should go in that direction and then take it with me. At the end of the day, stuff is moved from place to place and I feel like I did something without doing anything (I was walking that way anyway). Sometimes it is just a matter of moving a pile from this table to that bed, but it feels like progress. However, in my eagerness or unware of my limitsness, I pick up more than I can carry. A few times, this turned into disaster like tripping over what I am carrying or dropping everything all over etc. For the most part, even though there is struggle, eventually, I get the job done. In the past few months, worrying that I would not fill my life when I am no longer working the “one day”, I have pickup a few tasks and have been given a few more that I had not anticipated. Like much about me, I am good at balancing plates. After grad school and my commitment to the Youth Bureau was over, I took on a staff job as Human Services planner for Monroe County. It was my long hair days and it was the job of my lifetime and where I wrote 5 million in grants and made some real difference in the delivery of services. I talked about the plate balance stuff and my boss after a particularly hard stretch, gave me a stick and a plastic plate. When I was looking for an assistant, I started to spin the plate to demonstrate what this job was about. Long hours, sometimes days with little sleep etc. I hired the best. She was not only one of the most attractive woman I have known, she was a great writer and edited my stuff better than anyone. To relax, I often took out the plate, put on my engineers cap that Chuck game me .. and talked and spun. I have always handled many things at the same time. I could get up from a scene like this, put on my public clothes and give a paper at a luncheon, followed by a press conference, meet the county manager for a debriefing and make dinner for the staff, while jotting notes for a new project. I need a planner and calendar and todo’s to keep up with myself, but in managing my time fairly well, can shift from one thing to another and usually make deadlines. I have learned to problem solve in my sleep, try not to drag one issue to the next issue window and I don’t expect anyone to follow my path. May people have asked, how many jobs or lifetimes have you lived. Just one.. but to the tilt. I love it. I probably am an over achiever, but I am pretty happy. The most unhappy I am is when someone sees my life and says.. wow.. let me help you but taking my task off of your plate. Take a plate, and I am unbalance. What I want to say is ..don’t be full of help.. and know if I need it, I will ask.

Grandmother Mayer

4/2/07
This is always a special day. My grandmother Mayer was 80 years old when I was born. I have a very special picture of her holding me as a baby. Caroline was her name and my second cousin Carrie was named for her and wore Grandmother’s wedding ring on her middle fingur until her untimely death from a hit-run driver at age 34. Grandmother had wavy silver - white hair, that wonderful really white with specks of shinny silver color. I was always impressed by the fact that she was a born when Lincoln was president. When you travel to old civilizations like Angkor Wat and see structures that were created in the 9th century, I guess 150 yrs ago doesn’t sound so old. She was a religious woman and a card carrying member of the WCTU – Women’s Christian Temperance Union and a parishioner at the Riverside Evangelic and Reform church. All of the folks, like sister Calhoun, called each other by the respectful name of brother and sister. They were a very small congregation and when we would pick grandma up on Sunday morning, they all appeared to have black coats, proper hats, and broaches. My grandfather, a doctor of languages, was always on her re her literal belief in the bible. He would point out that the Sanskrit or Greek word for the word in her bible had a very different meaning. She would say that she knows that he was learned, but the words were a comfort to her. He would go on about how she could find comfort in words with a different meaning etc. and she basically turned him out and off. It was always amazing to me how they every found each other and made a family of four boys. He was smart and strong and she was simple and sweetly kind. She called him pa, but the boys called him boss. He ran a tight ship and there was no talking at the dinner table (until me and I just talked and didn’t know any better and grandpa love it). She was a wonderful cook and baker and made rag rugs and listen to the bible thumpers on the radio... “just lay your hand on the radio and pray with me.. (and send money).” I would sit with her and lay my little hand next to her thin boney hand. I loved her hands and her silver white hair and she had a smell of old that I found comforting for it reminded me of her wisdom. Guess that is why it did not bother me when I worked in the nursing home. Worse things to be than old. While I tried her patience at times with my questions and unchanneled energy, she never said much to me about slowing down or staying out of the way. She was truly interested in everything I was doing and thought I would make a big difference in the world. For a learning disabled child, that was huge. She was the first person that I knew thought I was ok. I did know that when she was reading her bible, I did not bother her. Because she was a WCTU, there was never alcohol in the house, we did not play cards, and never mentioned that we went to the movies... all the devils workshop. She was special and this is her special day.

Gen the Vespa

4/1/07
For me, April is the turn the corner day. It is the hump month when you start to slide down to scooter days. I took the bike out of storage yesterday, put the battery in place, put air in the tires and cranked her up... zoom.. smooth. Easy. I bought the bike used, well slightly handled since she only had 700 miles on her and not over 4000. It was Suzanne’s bike for the first year and some of the second year. I road it in a timid way and always felt that when I dinged it.. as in dumping it a few times, that I would have to explain to my neighbor as to why I was not being more careful. When I got my first car a old green dodge convertible, was the green pig and then my Peugeots, being French were Andre and Pierre. Then I got cars American cars that I didn’t like and who had no personalities, so they were nameless. I like my Vespa and it is now mine in my head/heart, being Italian is is la signora d'argento (the silver lady) and I nicked name her Gen. What a difference it was to ride her with the thought of the street cooks bike I had in Thailand. My girl has wide soft wheels and a hum for a engine.. the Thai bike had decals, bike wheels and sounded like a mixer that you would buy at a flea market. Gen and I took a spin over to Sheila’s and two banks and down park ave...hmmmmmm it was spring and bonny and Gen were on the road again and like the elephants, I thought I saw a smile on Gen’s headlight.
Spring also got me into thinking of doing some “clean up” in and outside. I look for any excuse not to clean up outside. It is raining in Nevada and headed this way.. so .. oh well can’t work in the rain. On days like yesterday, that start with Yoga and breakfast with nice people and a walk trough BJ’s and irregular meals and TV.. I don’t get much done. I am much better about saying oh well. Another day and knowing that I will hit the floor on a trot when I am ready.. and I am ready. So I gave some more thought to minimal and downsize and cleaning up and away. I have a pile of stuff that I don’t need, want and will never use again and then there is a set of stuff that I am missing and looking for. I just can’t locate, or I have to move lots of stuff to find some really important stuff. So I decided that I am not going to clean up and toss out as a goal, I am going to locate and place in useable spaces, items that I want. To day I have declared, homecoming at bonny’s. I am going to took at and talk to all the thinks that are currently taking the front row seats and ask us (my higher selves – the ones that are not lazy or just sentimental for the sake of sentiment) if this is what I want in the front row and if not, is it time for the object to leave the nest, or rest in reserve or go to the retirement village. I then will find the items that are important, currently in demand and move them to the front row. If need be, I will have a dinner party and say a fond farewell to the items, but I need what I need to be locatable and useable. Rather than cleaning or spring cleaning, I am going to relocate my belongings.