July 22,, 2024

 Well Bill and I worked out our differences,  and tomorrow Bill is driving me up after his talk with his therapist and we will spend the night at the cabin then he will return home and I will be up with Scott, Jessi, and the boys until Friday, when they will return home and I will spend until Monday with Nora,Riyad and Nikolaj.  So that gives me a week away from Bill on my own, and I think we both need the space.   I look forward to the time away.  Thank goodness we worked things out!

July 21, 2024

Today was a bad day and Bill is troubled.  I am just trying to ignore him and be okay.  Blogging is not in my blood today. 

July 20, 2024

 Today we took it easy.  We did our exercises and took a walk, then had lunch at home.  I decided not to go with Sandy to a Laurel Birch show, and instead watched a movie.  I rested afterward and now am writing in my blog.  I am worried about next week.  Whether I should do a lunch with Sandy on Monday, and weather to go to the cabin with the kids.  I'll talk to Bill about it.  

July 19, 2024

 Today we went to Trader Joe's after breakfast and then put all the groceries away.  Then I worked on my blog and Away from Her for a long time.  When I asked what we were doing for lunch Bill wanted to go to the Rockridge Cafe.  We ate there in our favorite spot by the window, then came home and I watched a movie about ballerinas.  Also, Nikolai face timed with me for a few minutes and then I responded to all his photos on line.  Now I'm blogging and very happy to be home.  It's 100o in Santa Rosa today so Nora, Nikolai and Riyad went to Bodega Bay for a cooling off for the day.  They brought lunch and when they return will have leftover salmon from last night.  

July 15, 2024

 I am enjoying my blog more and more.    Today we went with Jessi, Wesley and Lewis to the Botanical Gardens of Berkeley, and though Wesley was upset at first, he quickly got into the spirit of things after seeing a bunch of newts and other animals, like birds, rabbits and lizards.  After they went home Bill and I went to the Orinda hofbrau and had sandwiches, potato chips and Iced tea.  Then we went bak home and I saw a movie and then got down to my blog.  I am so looking forward to our couple of days away, even though it means getting up tomorrow at 6:30 so the cleaners can come early at 8 am.  I hope we have fun in Carmel.  It will be good to get away.

July 14, 2024

 I am writing my blog after a long day at the San Francisco Zoo with Jessi and her boys.  We left at 9:30 and returned after 3 pm.  We saw a lot of wonderful animals and rode the train and had lunch there.  I loved the peccaries and the Komodo dragon and the lemurs.  We really rushed around seeing a bunch of animals.  We saw the aquarium, the reptile zoo and so many special animals.  I hope others appreciated it.  We really did.  Now I will try to think of something interesting to eat for dinner.

July 12, 2924

 Today we had lunch with Scott and Jessi, as it was their last day without the boys until school begins.  We also went to the post office to take our two days away at Carmel, and got groceries from Star.  It was fun going out with Scott and Jessi and she is going to take us on Sunday to the San Francisco Zoo.  Her trip to Pinecrest will be postponed for a few days.  Because Scott wants to work some more on various projects.  We love being with them.  Hopefully Riyad can come up tomorrow for lunch with us.  We don't know yet.  We will see him and Nora and Nikolaj in August.  

July 11, 2024

 I am blogging today about my doing better on the two blogs.  I did 110 on the first and 91 on the second.  Also we walked in the heat and then had lunch at the beer baron on College.  Then we did the phone call with my person at Aldero partners.  I am now done with this exercise for today.  Enough of Aldero partners  for today.

Wandering along the path: Right Speech

 I am beginning a brand new blog today.  I am using my new blog to go back over my distant past and especially to highlight the concerns I had after my fourteenth birthday.  After today, you will need this new site to see what I’m writing.  I began a couple of weeks ago and today will be my latest entry into that blog:  which is “Looking into my Past”.

Wandering along the path: right speech

 Across rhe long divide I am now home and able to speak right again.  Please bare with me as I apply

my mind to my my current state of affairs.  More later.  I am very rocky still.  

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

 Well, last Saturday I had a stroke caused by my irregular heartbeat.  I  was in the hospital until yesterday.  I'm grateful to have the drug that under the hour window to stop the bleeding.  I'm recovering well with lots of suppport and many doctors appointments!  I am so grateful for more chance at life and friends and family  Our kids rallied around  us and we feel loved and comforted.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had a relaxing time at the cabin and the weather was nice enough for just a light jacket.  There are still lumps of snow everywhere, mostly dirty, but they are melting quickly.  Our grandson tried to make snowballs and sled on a saucer, but we would have had to drive him to better snow, and we all felt like not getting in the car while we were there.  No wildflowers yet, but there were beautiful butterflies around, and one was an amazing orange pattern, not a Monarch but even more spectacular, and it landed on our grandson and stayed for a few minutes.  I believe that had something to do with peanut butter and jelly sticky fingers.  We cooked three luscious meals:  salmon, then chicken pilliard, then turkey meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  We made big breakfasts also.  Every morning we took a walk, then came back for lunch and sat on the deck in the afternoon.  I played many games of dominoes with my grandson, board games, and brought out the miniature fairy creatures, then the playground playmobil toys, then the horse and cattle playmobil, then I watched him play rockets, bunny family in the woods and other inventions.  

My husband can't sleep at the cabin, and he kept me awake as we rested on the pullout sofa bed, but despite his restlessness, I awoke ready to go every morning.  He slept until nine thirty this morning, and he's much less grumpy, but I'm still annoyed with him.  He often doesn't sleep well even at home, and he likes to tell me about it.  I figure it's his problem to solve, and the conversation is old.  My sympathy has dwindled over time.  Nothing I've ever suggested has helped or he won't try it, so I'm way done.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

 We had a pleasant women's group outside on a patio, and we were more relaxed.  I believe we are more comfortable with the pandemic at this moment.  We know about what is happening in Britain, but are more concerned about the Ukraine.   I felt more detached than usual, but maybe because I simply had nothing to say.  I encouraged another member to speak up about an issue that another member hadn't been present to hear about, and I was glad I did, because the member got more useful feedback.  I was supporting her, and not listening to myself.  But I also noticed another member seemed to dominate, and I took note of that.  I won't take any action, but I'm aware.  More is learned by me when I listen, rather than talk.  And I'm grateful to be in a position where I don't NEED to talk.  I'm okay, and looking forward to some days at the cabin with my older son, his wife, son and my husband.  There may even be lupine already!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

 My husband and I picked up two cane chairs that had been repaired.  One my grandson stood on and the other my older son sat on.  Over the thirty plus years we've only had to repair two other chairs, and we have ten, for our dining room.  I love repairing over replacing.  These chairs have character.  They are Victorian, and are actually quite comfortable.  It's fun to go into the shop, as the place is chock a block with old furniture and gourds made into totem poles, sculptures, lights and other unidentifiable objects.  We are still waiting on the repair of the bench memorializing our daughter, and it's been six weeks, but the guy said maybe another month.  They are looking for wood that matches.  Anyway, it's like stepping into a Dickensonian world.  I had a similar experience when I went into a State shop in Mysore, India many years ago.  I felt the same feeling:  in a Victorian world with papers and stations and protocols that were from a civilization now gone.  It takes a very long time and longer wait to transact your business, and other customers are waiting on the sidewalk, as they cannot fit in the shop.  I, for one am charmed, but perhaps my husband, not a literature professor, is less so.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Well, speaking of right speech, Jane Campion blew it with her unconscious racism and eliltism. I just want to know why these actors don't write an acceptance speech ahead of time and run it by their handlers? We wouldn't have experiencedd the big reveal. She actually thinks her upper class priviledged background and white skin means she's struggled as much as a black woman from the lower class who has to run the gaunlet of racist and sexist remarks every day of her life. And people wonder why feminism is divided: It's divided between women of color who face racial and sexist behavior every day of their lives and women who think their brand of suffering is eqivalent to those who are other in more than one way. Thank goodness there are so many women writers of color telling it like it is these days, speaking for themselves and fed up with others speaking for them. What is sad is that Jane Campion had an opportunity to represent women overcoming sexism, but she really only was thinking of "her own kind", not the vast population of non-white women who face discrimination every waking moment of their lives. For them there is no repreive. Their color tells the story.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've been listening to Rufus Wainright this afternoon. He has this doleful sound that is also funny, kind of like Tom Waits. He makes me smile. My friend and I went to an outlet store this morning, and, as usual, I did better than she. I cam away with two sweaters, a pullover sweatshirt aand sweatpants that don't look like sweatpants. She found only two replacement pairs of black straight legged pants. We're both very short, but she is curvy and I am straight up and down. Evidently it helps me fit into clothes better, or maybe she is more discerning. She was a doctor and had to wear classic, elegant clothes, while I was a teacher, and lived in longish skirts, tees or sweaters and a blazer. Now I never wear blazers or long skirts, and she never wears elegant outfits. I guess we're fish out of water. I now wear jeans and sweaters with jackets, while she is still more classy, tending to white and neutrals. I'm a gaudy bird by comparison. We still kind of look like what we were: a doctor and a teacher, but gone to seed.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had fun this morning going with my daughter to Target. I purchased three $5 tee shirts, cards, printer paper, and various non-essential items as well as stocking up for the cabin, where we're going with our older son, daughter-in-law and grandson for three nights. We took a long time, and that allowed me to remember I've been needing a new glass pitcher for ice tea, and oven mitts, and Easter items for the grandkids. Then we ate lunch with my husband, outside on a cloudy day, but it felt fine, as that is what I'm now used to: eating with a jacket on. I was supposed to walk with a friend, but she was not feeling well, and we can always go another day. I've been trying to give her a book she wanted to read, but it's not worth a trip in the car to drop it off. Or am I lazy? Well, it's true that errands I used to accomplish without a thought now stop me in my tracks. If it involves getting in the car, I put it off. I'm turning into a sloth. Oh, well.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I was talking with my therapist about something my Buddhist teacher has said about nirvana: that equanimity is the best definition of itb. I'm attempting to practice equanimity surrounded by all this conflict and hatred that beseiges us. I get glimmers of it, and walking and talking to friends often helps me. Nature is the biggest aid, and soon I'll be going to the cabin with our olde son, his wife and six year old, and my husband and I will get a much needed break from the media, as our cell phones and laptops don't work there. I love that. We can listen to music, and we do have a landline phone for emergencies, but that's it. Tranquility break here I come!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I was listening this morning to my dharma teacher's livestream talk, and he addressed the suffering in the Unlraine, Darfur and the Sudan with helpful advice for me. He said we must bear witness and not blind ourselves in order to be more comfortable. The world is this place of suffering, but humanity can offer compassion instead of hate, and do what we can to cause these people caught up in war to be seen and hopefully helped. We've all got compassion fatigue, as he put it, but we should open our hearts wider, not close up. If we love humanity we have to see it clearly and honestly, not as we wish it was. When I think about suffering, I know there are events that we cannot change, like my daughter's death, and ones we can if we have the courage to turn and face the ugliness that our instincts push us to escape. I feel I have been doing a pretty good job of getting information in a non-judgemental and non-clinging way: by reading just what I need to and not dwelling on the sensational aspects of the news. I'm informed, but not addicted. I take time out to pray and rest my compassion on the victims. Images are incendiary, so I am careful with my intake. I strive to keep my heart open and my head clear and brave. It's a struggle, a new one every day.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm tired after a long morning walk with my friend. Reading makes me sleepy. I counter that by listening to music these days. Today I put on the Everly Brothers, which transported me back to my early teen years and sock hops and my first love. I still smile when I think about him. Then I put on a three CD set of Michael jackson, and thought of how little of the story we knew, and how tragic his life became. He's not a fave of mine but he sure was danceable. My younger son was a dancer as a kid and played Jackson in a dance production of "Thriller". When we moved here he gave up dance, except for a role in "Music Man" in Junior High School. Then his younger sister took up the mantle and danced through high school. I always loved dance, from toddlerhood through freshman year of college. And if I get a chance, I still cut a rug!