Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We woke up to a deluge of rain this morning, a veritable torrent.  It's calmed down now, and we are grateful for any and all rain.  With it comes the clean air.  Last night we visited our younger grandson and gave him his presents and brought a tiny cake.  He was thrilled and sang Happy Birthday again and again.  He will love his party even more, but also be overwhelmed.  This was just our daughter, his other grandfather, my husband and me.  Today I am feeling prickly.  Not sure why, but I am going to respect it and take it easy.  I have two mysteries I can read, and my husband and I are about to take a walk in the rain drenched neighborhood.  I'm going to breathe in this fresh air, and think of the animals who will be helped by this storm and the new shoots and leaves it will produce.  Other sentient beings who are affected more than I am, and suffer in silence.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today my friend and I went on a shopping blitz.  We hit Target, Nordstrom Rack, a bookstore and bakery.  We are checking off our holiday lists.  I bought a little green cake for our grandson, who is two today.  His party is on the weekend, but we're bringing our gifts this afternoon and celebrating a bit with him.  He sure has lighted up our lives, and we enjoy watching him on Fridays.  He knows how to singing Happy Birthday, and he will love the party.  In spring, another grandchild is coming, and our cup runneth over.  I love the Buddha nature of babies.  How curious, open, loving and delighted they are, and how much they learn minute by minute.  Witnessing it is a miracle.  I love finding a gift for them and watching their joy.  A tiny car or ball is enough.  All gifts are the same.  As they get older that will change, but for now the whole world is magical. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today my husband and I saw "Bohemian Rapsody".  Wow!  Yesterday "Maria Callas" and today Freddie Mercury.  I loved both films.  The first is a documentary and in Callas' own words.  "Bohemian" is a film with actors, but they look amazingly like the persons they portray.  One an incomparable singer and great beauty, well, actually, both amazing singers and gorgeous.  I cried at the end of both films.  Callas was 53 when she died and Mercury 45.  Great losses.  Both had sad childhoods that causes wounds that would never heal.  They were shooting stars, awe inspiring and swiftly gone.  They were both full of soul, and all about the heart.  They received huge responses because that is how people connected with them.  You could bypass the mind and listen with the heart. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband read me an article in the paper this morning about a black bear who broke into a freezer outside of a man's house.  It was filled with venison, pork and  slabs of beef.  When the man walked outside he saw a stack of sticks near the shed where the freezer with the meat in it.  Curious, he opened the shed and freezer and looked inside to find all the meat still inside.  The bear had selected huge packages of corn dogs, carefully unwrapped each from the plastic, and after sucking off the corn dogs, methodically arranged the sticks in a pile.  Even bears in our culture go for the junk food rather than the pure protein!
I like that bear.  Corn is one of my favorite foods and it was my mother's as well.  Popcorn, corn on the cob, cornbread, corn salsa, you name it, my mother gorged on it.  My father used to drive to the nearby movie theater and pick up and bring back a big bag of popcorn for her.  Now if that's not love I don't know what is.  Popcorn is my dessert of choice, and today I'm going to see the documentary on Maria Callas, and a popcorn bag will be my companion.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Ah, a pound and a half up, but worth every ounce.  We had a great and grateful Thanksgiving.  Breathing clean air was wonderful, the rain was wonderful, the meal was wonderful and the  family was all together wonderful.  The little grandsons bungled, the granddaughter helped cook and was her aunt's assistant for the pies.  We all got along pleasantly and everyone agreed it was the most delicious meal ever.  The washing dishes part was shared by all, and by the next morning I could put away the platters and big bowls and all the paraphaealia we use only once or twice a year.  By the next evening I'd given the kids leftovers and the refrigerator could close again, and we'd had turkey cassarole for our day after  Thanksgiving meal.  Yesterday we drove our older daughter and granddaughter to the airport, and we had a salad for dinner and watched "Chappie".  Today we go to the premiere of an opera, "It's a Wonderful Life", which has gotten good reviews.  Then on to regular life for a few weeks, and the ordinary tasks that comfort us.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm so grateful for the whole family being here for Thanksgiving.  Last year all but our younger daughter, her husband, and son, made it to our older daughter's house, where, we had a lot of fun and, despite setting the oven on fire briefly, had yummy food.  We ordered most of it, but cooked the turkey ourselves, and two of the three grandchildren were there.  We were all very tender then, as our older daughter had been diagnosed with metastasized cancer, and she was drained from the brain radiation.  Since then, they've found a chemo pill that works wonderfully, and she has resumed her life enthusiastically.  She has a job she adores, her novel is being published, she's taking amazing trips with friends, and now she's flying down for this Thanksgiving.  Her daughter is already here.  What a difference a year makes!  We are blessed.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've been spending my time with my ten year old granddaughter and the younger grandson who is almost two.  Today my younger daughter and I drove up to see the older grandson.  It was a bit overwhelming for the granddaughter to be in the room with two hyper toddlers, and but she aquitted herself well.  We went out for pizza and she had them both crawling all over her and running trucks up the back of the booth.  At one point the older toddler danced in the middle of the cafe, and the younger was squirming on the floor.  We are not easily embarrassed and we carried on blithely.  We left the granddaughter with them for a couple of days and the younger grandson conked out the minute the car started.  They are all stir crazy from being inside, and the air today was dreadful.  Hope is on the way, as we are supposed to have rain tomorrow night or Wednesday.   We don't know how long this pocket of bad air will sit over us like a blanket of doom.  This is uncharted territory.  As is the big climate picture.  I hope a lot of people wake up and smell the smoke.  We need to take drastic action, and now.