TGIF

Spending some lovely quiet time at Robin and Roger's.  You may know the tale of Blackie and her kittens over at The New Dharma Bums.  Well, I was hanging out there today and saw a black cat run by in that stealth way that Blackie always did.  I managed to grab my iphone and snap a picture to send to Robin (she is at a wedding).  What are the chances that Blackie has busted out of the cat shelter to find her way back here?  Ah, but this one has no bent tail.  So it couldn't be...could it?

Anyway, cat drama aside, I am enjoying the fragrant mountain air, the birds, the deer and some really whispy clouds this afternoon.  It's a fine Friday, and I'm feeling grateful.  Bonsai floats from room to room, soft as a whisper unless he's pleading to be let out.  The birds are gulping down their seed from my morning dispensing, and all is right with Chez Bumz.

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

TGIF

I'm retired, so Fridays are really not the thrill they used to be.  Case in point: yesterday my friend Joanie and I drove up to Reno to meet up with a friend of hers and play the day away.  We drove to Virginia City and toured the place and went on a mine walk 58 feet under ground and 300 feet into the mountain.

What fun!  The mine was dug in 1856 and being down there, imagining the working conditions really blew my mind.

We headed back to Reno to Circus Circus and played slots.  Daring woman that I am, I gave my self a $20 limit.  Well, I tell you, I got a lot of play out of that money.  And Joanie won BIG - $200 - and shared some of the wealth so Deb and I could play some more.  This was only the second time I've ever gambled, and this time I actually had fun.  I can now see how this gambling thing can be addicting. 
After eating dinner, one of the best Mexican food dinners I've ever had, Joanie and I headed back to Sacramento and I was home at the respectable hour of 10 p.m.

Who needs Friday when you can do this on Thursday?

TGIF

Finished two wonderful books:  Solitude by Robert Kull, and If the Buddha Dated by Charlotte Kasl.  Great books read together, actually. A journey into a year of living alone, and a journey into the heart of what it means to be human.

So many things to look forward to in June.  I feel like a kid coming on Christmas.

Gratitude for it all.  And for you, dear reader.

TGIF

a long ribbon of highway...


a beloved daughter graduating from college...

a grandson who is a ball of energy and who can exhaust me, and I love him so.

Have a great weekend!

TGIF

My favorite quotes from Buddhist Boot Camp this week:

What you put up with is what you end up with!

No reason to stay is a good reason to go.

 
Have a wonderful weekend!

photo by taradharma

TGIF

Friends. Family.

Good Books.

30 minutes of laps in the pool.

Meditation.

Wanda Sykes tonight, LIVE.

Have a great weekend!

TGIF

Waking up to this lil' guy.  Having coffee and toast with my daughter.  Planning a day of grocery shopping and errand running.  All good things.

Hope your Friday is wonderful!  What are YOU doing this day?

TGIF

Yesterday as I was writing my post about my efforts to go vegan I realized that the actual writing about it inspired me to action.  It was an a moment of clarity that spread out into widening circles of joy.  And then I had another idea: I want a book where I chronicle the good things.  So I jumped into my car and headed down to my favorite art store to see what their inventory of blank books looked like.  And there, on the bargain table, sat a blank book marked down to $5.09 (you know I love a bargain).  It wasn't just any blank book, it was a guest book for a wedding!

It was perfect because the blank pages did not contain any lines, leaving me complete freedom to write and or draw.

But what to do about the first page?  Well, maybe I could cut it out.  Or, maybe, just maybe I could incorporate it.  And so I did.

I have journals filled with the challenges and sadness in my life.  Books I used to 'work it out' on the page.  Books in which I am filled with negative thinking and doing.  Bemoaning.

I guess my meditation practice is changing the way I think.

Happy Friday, Readers!

TGIF

I had a great Friday evening out with a lovely lady I've been dating.  New restaurant (for me) where we had fried chicken, mac and cheese and mustard greens.  OMG.  The security man (it's a saloon/music hall) recommended the dish after I asked him what his favorite was.  I was just trying not to get carded, so I chatted him up.  (Because I look under 21 don't you know?)

It's so much fun getting to know someone...finding the things we have in common, laughing at the lunacy of modern life, sharing family stories.

So much to be grateful for!

TGIF

It's raining women, I tell ya.  I'm on a dating site and tomorrow I have a coffee date with a gal, and on Monday a coffee date with another gal.

As odd and weird as it may seem, Internet dating is a way to meet people.  I am cautious, I converse via email for awhile before making my mind up to meet.  Coffee dates are easy, inexpensive, and casual -- my kind of 'first date.'  No big commitment, no huge outlay of cash.  Just a friendly get together over hot beverages.

The last time I was on this site (about a year ago) it was a virtual desert.  This time, however, things are jumping.  All the older lesbians in my area are out there looking for love.  Will we find it?  Who knows?  All I know is I'm in no big hurry, and can take my time and be selective.

There are a few blips, as in getting messages from women in Texas, which is waaaayyy too far away for me.  I'm going local only.  It's difficult enough to get to know someone, much less someone you can't spend any time with.

I have been coupled for most of my adult life.  This time, the goal is to date and experience that to its fullest.  I'm not applying for the job of Ms. Right.  I'm following my impulse to love and seeing where it takes me.  Cross yer fingers.

So, I'm thankful for Internet dating sites, grateful for the lovely women who have the courage to engage this way, and inspired by what may be.

TGIF

Have you ever been hurt?  Sure you have.  So have I.  I came across this helpful article on Tiny Buddha and it reinforces everything I have discovered in recovering from my latest hurt.

I had a revelation a bit ago, I cause my own suffering.  Duh.  Someone else hurt me, deeply, but I continue the torture: me, myself and I.  And, if I am the cause of my own suffering, then I can be the cause of my own happiness and well-being.

This is not the first time I've considered this, but this time the realization was deep, felt throughout my being.  We make choices every day to either continue our suffering, or to let go of it.  Every day.  Every moment.  We can step outside the vortex of our pain and experience things differently.  That's really hard to do when pain is sweeping  you away.  It's not something you can just say to someone, "Hey step outside of it."  It must be experienced and realized on a deep personal level.

And here's where mediation practice comes in for me.  When the skies are relatively calm, I can do the work to discover my inner landscape, to look at the stories I tell myself, to practice loving-kindness towards myself.  Because pain is always going to happen.  The world has a whole host of painful experiences to throw my way.  I'm going to have plenty of opportunities to put my practice into action, to take what I discover on the cushion, off the cushion into my daily experience.

I give great thanks and gratitude to my teachers at Middle Way Health, for helping me back onto the path. Sometimes a body just needs a teacher.  I've often heard it said that when one does, the teacher will appear.  It's true!

TGIF

I feel on top of the world.  So much to be thankful for!

• My daughter has been accepted into the graduate program she longed for.
• My step daughter has been accepted at all FIVE art colleges to applied to.
• My orthopedic appointment yesterday went well and my surgeon is very pleased with my new knee.
• I helped out my sister yesterday by delivering letters to various Senators around the State Capitol (which I find, oddly, exciting).
• I stumbled upon a fantastic one-day sale at my favorite art supply store, University Art.
• I made a delicious VEGAN dinner the whole family loved (3.5 out of 4 stars).
• Spent yesterday afternoon printing up a storm, including this new photo I shot while at the Medical Center.  The original was kind of blah, so I edited it and love the way it turned out.

Just so grateful that so many wonderful things are happening.

Inspired by my Meditation and Movement class -- love the teachers and students as well.  I love to be surrounded by people who are on a similar path to improve their well-being.

Hope you have a wonderful Friday, and a great weekend!  I'm going out tonight with friends for dinner.  How about you?

TGIF

Thankful that another staunch Republican has come out in support of marriage equality.  Grateful that a man like this has a gay son and that dad could respond, after 'wrestling' with himself over the issue, with love and compassion -- like the Bible says.  We are all children of God.  If you believe that God stuff.  Inspired that the Congressman was brave enough to write an opinion piece about his change of heart, because he is going to catch a lot of grief from his colleagues.  I think it takes as much courage as the straight parent of a gay child, to "come out" as it does for the child to come out to their parents.  Good on him.

It's Friday!  That means class at Sac State.  Dad is in Arizona enjoying some ball games at spring training, so Mom and I are left to our own devices.  Dad really does so much, and when I'm left to care for mom all by myself, I really appreciate all that he does.  So I must go now, and clean up last night's dinner dishes, pots and pans, get myself showered, administer morning meds to mom, get her up and fed, then showered and dressed and ready for the day.

I'll leave  you with this great video, because it awesome.

TGIF

Papá del feliz cumpleaños!  81 years young today.

Vigorous, funny, idiosyncratic, a lover of Fox Noise, a proud 'chef', father of three daughters (bless his soul), grandfather to six, a great-grandfather to two (with one on the way), a storyteller, a student, a man who enjoys his life.  He is a walking contradiction, and I love him so.

Birthday Dinner

TGIF

"In a book I read recently, the author talked about humans as transitional beings—beings who are neither fully caught nor fully free but are in the process of awakening. I find it helpful to think of myself this way. I’m in the process of becoming, in the process of evolving. I’m neither doomed nor completely free, but I’m creating my future with every word, every action, every thought. I find myself in a very dynamic situation with unimaginable potential. I have all the support I need to simply relax and be with the transitional, in-process quality of my life. I have all I need to engage in the process of awakening."
(From Pema's newest book, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change)

It's powerful to think that we, each of us, have what we need to engage in the process of awakening.   "Awakening" means different things to different people.  It's as individual as we are.  To me, it means to be aware of what my mind does, when it goes off the tracks, when it is not helpful, and to find ways to change what I've always believed was an inevitable downward spiral.  But I'm learning to stand up to the negative thoughts, to challenge them, object to them.  I am not those thoughts.  They are just thoughts, habitual and normal within our human experience.

 Thankful, Grateful and Inspired Friday. 

TGIF

This week's TGIF takes the form of a poem.

 Long Days of Loss

Our grinning faces snuggled up close against the banquette

once again shine from my computer screen.

Days, weeks, months of tearful “what ifs?” – all gone.

I gaze at your eyes with tenderness in my heart

for all that we thought we could be together,

two beating hearts, alive with dreams.

I have longed for and struggled toward this moment:

Where love again settles into my heart

and peace pulses in my veins.
I forgive, I forgive, I forgive.

Heart Art by Traci Higginbotham

TGIF

I'm so thankful that I feel calm today.  And productive.  We have folks coming on Sunday to tour the house -- they are buying in the neighborhood and they want to see the kind of interior architectural design that dad did.  Very modern.  Very different from the other houses, which all look pretty much the same from the outside.  So I am shining up the stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, making it sparkle, and cleaning and more cleaning.  Have great music going on the headphones, and I'm in the groove.

And once again, I am grateful for the many good friends that I have.  I met one for lunch yesterday, and another for afternoon tea.  In between, I sat in the park soaking up the sun, watching the cars speed by and laughing at the antics of many dogs being exercised in the park.  They are just too goofy.

Inspiration?  My daughter, who is in her last semester of college.  She's taking a jam-packed full load and has applied for a graduate program that begins in the summer.  She does it all with grace and good humor, maintaining close friendships, raising her son and loving her husband.  She just turned 25.  I remember well my 25th birthday, and I know I couldn't have done what she is doing at her age.  She is a marvel.  Good going, kid.

Oh yeah, she's also a pretty good photographer!

TGIF

May you be filled with lovingkindness

May you be safe from inner and outter harm

May you be well in body and mind

May you be at ease and happy.

TGIF

Thankful, yes.  Grateful, for sure.  Inspired...not so much this week.  Maybe it's the cold windy rain, or the news of the world, or my winter hibernation setting in.  Keeping it small and manageable will do just fine for now.

 

TGIF

Is the cease fire holding?  If so, I am thankful.  The conflict between Israel and Gaza is so complex I can't even get my head around it.  I watched on the news as Palestinians were celebrating the cease fire, and saw a grown man helping his perhaps 5 year old son hold a heavy pistol.  Passing along the great tradition of hate and armed resistance.

I am grateful today for all the good-intentioned among us.  Those who follow the path of peace and loving our neighbors, and doing the right thing.  Those who are wise and not foolish.

I am inspired by those who devote their lives uplifting fellow human beings - the aid workers, the doctors in the fields of battle, the peace workers, the ones who provide support to the suffering.

And even, those little tiny acts of kindness that seem to be so small.  They are huge to those who receive them.