So What's Happening?

Since I wrote a reflective blog yesterday I am going to please Jen and write a newsy one today.
Today is Jordan's 76th birthday and I am expecting him here in half an hour. I am taking him to dinner and to see the movie The Secret in their Eyes which Phil thought excellent. I don't see a lot of Jordan anymore. I don't think he has stayed overnight here in months. And that is fine with me.
Tomorrow morning Phil comes to work in the yard. We recently put in two bougainvillea on the wall bordering the driveway to complement three flowering vines that we planted last year. The colors there are fuchsia and white and I may plant clumps of white and fuchsia vinca at the base of the vines.
I am disappointed over the lack of sun in my back yard. The Lady Banksia rose did not even bloom that we have on the arbor. The sprays of green look lovely but I miss the flowers. Phil has been modifying the watering system and we have waited until he finished to go get the rest of the summer flowers. I will just do the minimum because I plan to be gone most of July.
Also tomorrow I am taking Mary and Alex Keenan to lunch at The Olive and the Ivy which is right around the corner from me at The Waterfront. They have hosted me so many times that I felt I had to stretch my budget and treat them back. They have tons more money than I do. For instance I spend $4000. - $6000. on vacation while they spend $50,000.!!!
On Friday I have a hair appt. Thank God as I am at the old lady witch stage and will be so glad to get my hair cut and curled. Then I will go to Marth's house for dinner and to spend the evening with her and Sara. They usually get together on Fridays and watch old movies.
I find that I am tiring of Farmville and will probably quit it before I go on vacation. It takes a lot of time and I have about run out of ideas about arranging the property. I feel drawn once more towards writing and I could also profit by using the time for more exercise.
I am missing the Suns/Lakers game tonight but if we play like we did on Monday it is just as well. I kept waiting for OUR SUNS to show up and they never did. The Lakers played their best and we played badly - just couldn't get baskets. I can get up a good hate for Kobe Bryant too.
Many of my shows are winding down. NCIS has it's finale next week as does Idol. Project Runway, Amazing Race and Survivor are done. Dance is coming soon and it is a great favorite.
It will be interesting to see what I do to fill in the empty time slots.
Had my cleaning girls here today and groceries delivered in the midst of their work - a bit hectic. Getting three weeks worth of product put away is a bit of a chore but even with my handicaps I can still manage. I am so grateful to be able to be so independent. When I think of my brother and sister dying at 61 and 63 respectively I am so fortunate to not only be alive but to be managing my own home.
Vacation is coming closer and closer. And the way time flies it will be here before I know it. I am going up to San Jose on July 12th and stay with Mary for two weeks before going down with her and Lis to meet Sara, Marth and Ame for a week's stay in a beach house. Then I will go back to San Jose with the girls for another week. I will be away from home for a month. Phil and Joan will stay in my house. I always find myself reluctant to leave home. But as soon as the plane lifts off the ground I leave it all behind. And the time away, the change of environment is invariably renewing.
I have been waiting for some books that I have on order: The Last Station and the 3rd in the Steig Larson trilogy. In the meantime I have been enjoying some Mary Stewart's that Marth has lent me. I read her years and years ago and had forgotten how good she is. Just reread My Brother Michael, Wildfire at Midnight and am starting Airs Above the Ground. She had also lent me The Children's Blizzard, a harrowning documentary style tale of a violent winter storm in the midwest of the 1800's. Despite all of the new technology nothing takes the place of books in my life. I truly reverence them and love owning so many.
As Porky Pig would say "That's all, folks.!!"

Nothing Special

As soon as that title popped up in my head I thought of Joko and her book by that title. Again the paradox is there as what she is teaching is that although nothing is special, everything is special. How much less stressful my life and everyone else's would be if we could truly live that reality.
Think of how we go from day to day with our " I want this and I don't want that. I want it just this way and not that way. I don't want him or her to get it because I want it." And on and on and on.
And I am not saying that what we are doing is wrong. Because as human beings it is how we are wired from the day we began to sense that we are a self. It follows that this 'self' must be defended, protected from all those other 'selves' out there with their own endless list of want and don't wants.
As a way of knowing this 'self' that we have created we can practice taking an honest look ,moment by moment, at what is actually happening, what we are doing, thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting. The Twelve Step programs call this taking our inventory. Zen practice calls it emptying the false self (that is the one that we have created). The emptying is the process of paying such close attention that what is not conscious becomes conscious and thus evaporates.
I had a bout of this kind of unconsciousness coming to the surface over the weekend. I fell into an intense desire for romance and companionship. I have been involved with what I call the MAN thing for as long as I can remember. I have done Twelve Step programs, Zen practice, various types of therapy including Gestalt, Bioenergetics and Jungian dream analysis. From time to time I sense that the MAN thing for me is pretty emptied. And then WOW up comes all this pain, longing, yearning, tears. After so many years I should not be surprised. It is not as though it hasn't happened before.
So I let it wash through me. Wrote once more to a guy who had already indicated no interest. E-mailed an old flame that I had let go of. I just watched myself do these things without judgment.
No harm was coming to anyone as a result of my behavior. It was important to look at and experience these feelings. In this way they got out of the prison I had them in and thus were free.
In twenty four hours the storm was over. The pain left - no more yearning.
We have all these buried places like stuff long stored and locked in attics and basements. They are filled with energies wanting to be owned, to be brought up to the light of day. Until they are they cause mischief. Energy has to move and when imprisoned it moves in a distorted manner which we call neuroses. Painful though it might be to open these dark and shadowed places there is a payoff for facing all of our life, not just the parts of which we approve.
I am sure my attic and basement are not empty. But I am peaceful and relieved to have at least freed one more hidden clutch of energy this weekend.

Little Bits of This and That

I am just beginning to come out of my latest health problem which has been a bout of bursitis in the right hip. I am still having some pain walking but am very much improved from what I have been enduring the last two weeks. I am grateful because Lis arrived yesterday for her week long stay with me. I was actually able to be on my feet enough to cook dinner for us - nothing fancy but good taste and nutritious and we sat at the table and had cloth napkins.

We had a grand time last night watching the Suns beat the Spurs in game one of the second round of the playoffs.

We had a quiet morning - I did not see her until noon. Then we had a two hour conversation about Adya's teachings which was very stimulating. She is presently out shopping with Marth who came by after school. They are shopping for Amy's birthday.

Ame will have a pajama party here on her birthday - Friday. I had taken from her that she did not want a lot of fuss so thought we would probably have take out and a birthday cake and presents. But Lis likes to do things up in a big way and has offered to cook and decorate. This is all fine with me as long as I don't have to do more than appreciate it. Just don't have the physical energy for it.

I realized in pondering my preparations for her stay that my fatigue from the pain had eroded some of my planning energy. I did not ask her what types of food or drink she would like me to have in the house (I always do that for guests). It did not even cross my mind. She is an avid coffee drinker and I don't even have a coffee maker!

But I did change all the bed and bath linen and put out fresh kleenix and soap. And put a mint on the pillow. I realized that I had shifted from the over the top person that I used to be. I myself have given lots of fancy parties requiring lots of time and effort. That is just not where I am anymore. So I will benefit as will everyone else from her energy. She is a great party giver and a great cook and tremendously creative.

Saturday night we will go out to dinner with Jordan and a new friend of his from the Mankind group. This guy is a very talented poet and a singer who does professional gigs around the Valley. Taking account of how bright and interesting Lis is the dinner table conversation should be quite stimulating.

Thursday afternoon I am hosting Lis, Danny, Christy and Jen for tea. Lis might want to jazz that up a bit too. Tea for me is just tea and conversation. Then the five of us will go over to Julio's and join a large portion of the family for dinner. This is Jen's party and a way to see a lot of family without making individual plans. There are just too many of us for that. It gets very tiring.

There is great golf on this weekend starting on Thursday. I see no time for golf on Thursday but Friday Lis will go shopping again with Sara and maybe I can catch up and watch some of Friday as well. Saturday I should fit a bit in and maybe Sunday night.

As Sunday is Mother's Day Lis wants to make a nice breakfast and have Marth join us. Because my mother has died and Marth is the only daughter not a mother she and I have traditionally spent some time together on Mother's Day. Also Mike and family have come out to visit the past couple of years. About the only time I see them except for the major holidays. I always enjoy them and suggest we get together more often but it just does not happen.

We also have more basketball to fit in as the Suns play again on Wednesday night and then sometime on the weekend.

I will post some of Raymondo's poetry some time - the fellow we will have dinner with on Saturday. I think he has a lot of talent.

I am not presently doing any writing except for journaling and I don't even do that on a daily basis which used to be my habit.

Lis was questioning in our talk why some people are so stuck in their conditioning and others are able to get free and blossom. As I have pondered her question what comes up for me is simply that that is what is happening. We don't question why is the color blue, blue. It just is.

LIFE manifests in an infinite variety of ways. When we are limited to the egoic view of things they are right and wrong, good and bad, satisfying or unsatisfying etc. Getting outside of the egoic view things just are. Moment by moment - this, and this, and this.

We have been going down birthday alley for some time. We had Sara on Valentine's day followed by Jane, Marth, Lis, Flynn, Sharon, Connor, Max, Danny and we have coming up on the 7th Amy's 5oth. After Jordan on the 19th we have no one until late July.