New Year's Eve

When you travel across several time zones your clock gets confused. When your body doesn't know what to eat or when, you add to the tiredness. I slept most of the day but did get to the  Gate for the celebration.  I believe that this is not the start of the new year for the Thai calendar (birth of Buddha) but any opportunity for family to gather and a holiday is reason enough to take a holiday and send off some fireworks. H&H were not well so we did not meet for dinner. I had a baked potato which I ate walking down the back alley with Jeannine. She was going to connect with some friends which gave me more opportunity to pay attention to my hearing needs. Fireworks are readily available here and everyone appears to want to either send them up with the lantern or just shoot them off. Amazingly no one appeared to be hurt or burned but bang bang was the sound of the evening.
For  lunch I stopped at the Dada Cafe near the Mungala clinic and had a Mr Energy Smoothie pineapple and GINGER.  It gave me so much energy I went home and slept for three hrs. Sitting at the next table were a family of four. Getting me from here to there is hard enough but to schlep two little ones in strollers is beyond my imagination.  The one was passed out on mom's lap but the other had such a nice face, I wanted to share.

I also thought what a great cost is to order food for children that would rather play with the food than eat.

I rode the bike to Jeannine's guest house and then walked from there so I am keeping up the exercise. Today I will get back on track with my study, meditation, and food. 

I also had a good day, I fixed the zipper on my  suitcase.  I will get heavy thread and needles to assure it will not open. 

So for a learned lesson.  Very few people are working on themselves. Most really don't want to know what others observe but prefer to believe they are loved and wonderful.  Emotional attachment to your own fantasy of how you are seen is more important than someone else's opinion. I have caused myself grief by giving an opinion when it was not requested. I can and will have opinions but unless some one's actions will hurt another, they are just my opinions and I will live with them.  I will not isolate but be much more careful about attachments and selective with friends.  I am more interested in living than passing time at the"beach".

Ok back to the New Year's celebration. 

This is a collage I put on Facebook. The photos were taken primarily to the left of the Thapee Gate. The top photo is actually the after shot. What goes up must come down and so this morning the street sweepers will be picking up thousands of spent lanterns. When I lived on the bay as I walked through the parking lot I thought half of Irondequoit must have been conceived there.  Seeing these grey paper mounds reminded me of the parking lot condoms.

There were many selling the lanterns. They tried to get the people to light them away from the trees but some were so interested in lighting and the lift off that they did not pay attention to the direction. I think that is another lesson. The bottom left is Jeannine and her lantern and the others are just some of the different shapes - big small heart shaped, etc.

This also is a religious time for re commitment to the precepts so I passed through a Wat on the way back to the bike.  And all is well and a new day....think will you let it pass uselessly away.