Good morning. Twenty four hours I was on here ready to talk about something important, I can't remember what. I had to stop everything though, and write out my church pledge, and then remembered that I had not paid the church for November yet...so did that, and then on and on...I didn't write my blog.
When I got home from church, Theodore was just sitting on the sofa. He was completely winded, having just taken out the bag of trash to the bin...and was worn out and winded. I found out he had not had his breakfast, so I made breakfast for us. (My 'second breakfast')...and as we ate, I talked to him about going to the ER as he'd been ordered early in the week, but he would not. Said he would think about it on Monday, but I told him that we would be expecting the arrival of Benjamin on Monday and it would be better to go to Kaiser NOW and get it over with. So he agreed to go and we were out there by eleven thirty. I left at three with him still in the ER...he'd been ordered to stay overnight so they could get a handle on what was going on with him...and were searching out a room for him.
He waited for three hours AFTER I left, in the ER, before they got him a place. I had to nag and beg for him to get something for lunch about two...and they finally got a drink and sandwich to him. They are not ill-intentioned, but they just forget to honor the request that they realize is perfectly reasonable to make. His blood sugar was 55 or so when he got the food. No wonder he is weak.
Anyway I came home to a big wind and a ferocious rainstorm all evening long, but when I got up at five thirty this morning all was calm. Let us pray that Theo had a good calm night and will be able to come home today. YAZZYBEL
Monday, November 21, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Demise of a Giant, Illustrated
Good afternoon. The tree, in most respects, is all down. It has been a whale of a job on a whale of a tree.
My sister asked me what it would be like without it. I do not know yet, for only the seasons will tell us what it is like not to have it looming over our back area and dropping leaves, twigs, mini branches, and threatening us with imminent collapse when the wind blows. Jose the tree man seemed to think it was about to drop a lot of big limbs too...and you should have seen those limbs. As parts of the tree were removed, more were revealed, twisted, doubled back, hanging down and leaning on other limbs, leaves dangling, whole portions dead...it was scary, but it is also sad to see such a big thing reduced to dust. I am happy to say that its children are residing in a couple of pots in our yard, and that they will be planted out there somewhere in the lower forty,to grow to glory, and to terrorize the owners perhaps fifty years from now if they are not given some care. Now, the pictures...I should be able to get a few on if I am careful, without blowing this whole dang thing away. YAZZY
Demise of a Giant
Today, Thursday, our huge old eucalyptus is finally going down . I say, "ours," because it is within ten feet of our house at the back. Though on the other side of the fence, and the property of the neighbor, it has been our companion ever since Theo or I have lived here...
It used to shelter little birds by the hundreds at twilight, and I loved to hear them settling down for the night. And it has had the nests of hawks, too, and of later years the crows who probably have driven all the others away in time. Of late years, even the crows have had it with the tree, and this year they did not nest up there although they hung out and chattered. I felt that they did not make their nest there because of the tree's precarious state of health and care. It had not been trimmed for years and years, if ever. Theo took down two huge overhanging limbs about ten years ago himself, which were nearly touching our roof. Since then, nada. The tree man says the tree's seventy feet tall.
There is a machine out on the street, spewing ground up debris into the bin of a large truck. They have a lot more to do. I'll come back on later and post more on this if I can, and show you some pictures. My sister no. 5 asked if I am going to like the results. My answer is, We'll have to live with it and see. It ought to be a lot neater around here at least. YAZZYBEL
It used to shelter little birds by the hundreds at twilight, and I loved to hear them settling down for the night. And it has had the nests of hawks, too, and of later years the crows who probably have driven all the others away in time. Of late years, even the crows have had it with the tree, and this year they did not nest up there although they hung out and chattered. I felt that they did not make their nest there because of the tree's precarious state of health and care. It had not been trimmed for years and years, if ever. Theo took down two huge overhanging limbs about ten years ago himself, which were nearly touching our roof. Since then, nada. The tree man says the tree's seventy feet tall.
There is a machine out on the street, spewing ground up debris into the bin of a large truck. They have a lot more to do. I'll come back on later and post more on this if I can, and show you some pictures. My sister no. 5 asked if I am going to like the results. My answer is, We'll have to live with it and see. It ought to be a lot neater around here at least. YAZZYBEL
Monday, November 14, 2011
Stll with the Breath
I wanted to tell you about church, a play, an Evensong, and a reception, but I need to finish some thoughts I had about breathing, the wind, the words, the living entity about us, that solid thing that is solid and apart and yet within us--the air.
I was thinking about the air and imagining it as a solid thing, a person. The Navajo think that this air in the largest sense is WakanTanka. It exists inside of us and in us it is made up of Little Winds but is still part of the whole. When the fluids of a man and a woman unite, then a small wind or little winds are created, and that happens at the moment of conception. (So that settles that!)
I was thinking of when Gregory died, and when I was wakened up and told that he had "stopped breathing," and I visualized his Little Wind, the part of Wakan Tanka that was apportioned to him at conception, drawing back into the larger body. Just gently joining back in to something that was there all along. When we wear out or lose the house where the Little Wind has been residing, then there is a receding of the individual's wind into the Wakan Tanka that has been in us all our lives. That is a gentle concept, for it means that the essence of Gregory was not lost, and I never thought it was.
In fact, so many people who have lost a loved one have told me, not in any Native American sense, that they 'feel' that their loved one is all around them still.
Then I thought about our Christian theology (which I am not too knowledgeable about either) and wondered what idea could compare to where all our loved ones are now, and I thought--Purgatory. There they all are, (and we too if we remember that it's all around and within our houses of flesh)...and when the Great Gettin' Up Morning comes,--what will happen? We don't know yet. But we will only be where we have been all along. All is OK.
I won't talk about the play, the Armed Forces Evensong, and the reception yet, but perhaps later, when I have sorted out the email, read the paper, and fed Theodore his breakfast, I'll come back and do just that. YAZZYBEL
I was thinking about the air and imagining it as a solid thing, a person. The Navajo think that this air in the largest sense is WakanTanka. It exists inside of us and in us it is made up of Little Winds but is still part of the whole. When the fluids of a man and a woman unite, then a small wind or little winds are created, and that happens at the moment of conception. (So that settles that!)
I was thinking of when Gregory died, and when I was wakened up and told that he had "stopped breathing," and I visualized his Little Wind, the part of Wakan Tanka that was apportioned to him at conception, drawing back into the larger body. Just gently joining back in to something that was there all along. When we wear out or lose the house where the Little Wind has been residing, then there is a receding of the individual's wind into the Wakan Tanka that has been in us all our lives. That is a gentle concept, for it means that the essence of Gregory was not lost, and I never thought it was.
In fact, so many people who have lost a loved one have told me, not in any Native American sense, that they 'feel' that their loved one is all around them still.
Then I thought about our Christian theology (which I am not too knowledgeable about either) and wondered what idea could compare to where all our loved ones are now, and I thought--Purgatory. There they all are, (and we too if we remember that it's all around and within our houses of flesh)...and when the Great Gettin' Up Morning comes,--what will happen? We don't know yet. But we will only be where we have been all along. All is OK.
I won't talk about the play, the Armed Forces Evensong, and the reception yet, but perhaps later, when I have sorted out the email, read the paper, and fed Theodore his breakfast, I'll come back and do just that. YAZZYBEL
Friday, November 11, 2011
The Beautiful Stars
When I wrote about the stars about eight days ago, I forgot to remember that I got the idea of thinking about the stars from an incredible book I got in the mail last week.
The Spell of the Sensous is the book's name, and its author is David Abram.
This book is like a giant diamond with a myriad facets, and I do not really grasp any of them. But the book starts with an unforgettable picture of when the author, once when in Bali, stepped out of his hut in the midst of a rice paddy in the middle of the night. Suddenly he was standing in the midst of a boundless skyful of stars. It took him a moment to orient himself to earth and to realize that the rice paddy, being deep in water, was merely reflecting the great sky full of stars and clouds. Visually there was no delineation between earth and heaven; he was surrounded by the starry firmament. Merely thinking of this makes me dizzy.
This book is so beautiful. I cannot yet say what he is writing about because I do not yet understand it. Perhaps I never will. As I riffled through the book, like riffling through a sky-and-earth-and-water book of stars, I came to the concluding portion of the book where at last I found a little toehold familiar enough for me to grasp onto, so that is where I am starting the reading.
"The Forgetting and Remembering of the Air," is the name of this section. For an asthmatic it's a godsend. It is rich enough to be a whole book by itself. It's about the Lakota and the Dine, or Navajo, and their concepts of creation and existence. Just the first premise is overwhelming enough to totally change the way I look at myself instantly. Basically, it is that the Air is a person, all around us and within us, and we are within it. How unclearly I put it. But it is as far as I can conceptualize the idea yet.
Then, looking ahead, there is the idea of speech and words as part of the divine matrix of the air. Think if the air were thick and pink or pale blue, (to give it some substance in our visualization,) and we drew it into us and blew words out with it with our breath, as part of our breath, and think if we could see it. Doesn't that give us another idea or picture of what the creation around us is like, what it's made of.
And, looking further ahead, I see we are going to get into another of my favorite subjects, the alphabet, the Hebrew alphabet to be precise--its genesis and development and where it came from and how it came into being. All too complicated for my simple brain, but I can grasp features like little gleams of light from time to time, and I love reading it. It is wonderful. After I read from this section to the very end of the book, perhaps enough of Air will have entered into me to enable me to understand some of the other chapters. YAZZYBEL
The Spell of the Sensous is the book's name, and its author is David Abram.
This book is like a giant diamond with a myriad facets, and I do not really grasp any of them. But the book starts with an unforgettable picture of when the author, once when in Bali, stepped out of his hut in the midst of a rice paddy in the middle of the night. Suddenly he was standing in the midst of a boundless skyful of stars. It took him a moment to orient himself to earth and to realize that the rice paddy, being deep in water, was merely reflecting the great sky full of stars and clouds. Visually there was no delineation between earth and heaven; he was surrounded by the starry firmament. Merely thinking of this makes me dizzy.
This book is so beautiful. I cannot yet say what he is writing about because I do not yet understand it. Perhaps I never will. As I riffled through the book, like riffling through a sky-and-earth-and-water book of stars, I came to the concluding portion of the book where at last I found a little toehold familiar enough for me to grasp onto, so that is where I am starting the reading.
"The Forgetting and Remembering of the Air," is the name of this section. For an asthmatic it's a godsend. It is rich enough to be a whole book by itself. It's about the Lakota and the Dine, or Navajo, and their concepts of creation and existence. Just the first premise is overwhelming enough to totally change the way I look at myself instantly. Basically, it is that the Air is a person, all around us and within us, and we are within it. How unclearly I put it. But it is as far as I can conceptualize the idea yet.
Then, looking ahead, there is the idea of speech and words as part of the divine matrix of the air. Think if the air were thick and pink or pale blue, (to give it some substance in our visualization,) and we drew it into us and blew words out with it with our breath, as part of our breath, and think if we could see it. Doesn't that give us another idea or picture of what the creation around us is like, what it's made of.
And, looking further ahead, I see we are going to get into another of my favorite subjects, the alphabet, the Hebrew alphabet to be precise--its genesis and development and where it came from and how it came into being. All too complicated for my simple brain, but I can grasp features like little gleams of light from time to time, and I love reading it. It is wonderful. After I read from this section to the very end of the book, perhaps enough of Air will have entered into me to enable me to understand some of the other chapters. YAZZYBEL
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Do You Really Wanta Hear About My Breakfast?
Well, here it is anyway.
I am eating a bowl of:
1/4 c. Bob's Red Mill Oatbran and Oatmeal Hot Cereal cooked in
1 c distilled water
With a pinch of pink dinosaur toenail prehistoric salt,
And adorned with a spray of grapeseed oil,
1 T. of maple syrup,
And 6 raisins. YAZZYBEL
That was written this morning in response to a number of emails regarding people's breakfasts of oatmeal, brown sugar and butter. The only real sin in my oatmeal is the pinch of salt, prehistoric or not. But those few grains add a world of flavor to complement the rich blandness of the oats. And the maple syrup is pure luxury. I love it that it's healthier than brown sugar. I would buy maple sugar, but it is way expensive.
I read in a favorite news blog today that it costs, per year, $37,000 to send a young person to Princeton U.(a private university) and $43,000 to keep a person in NJ state prison. Now, there are many things to lament in that bit of news, but to me the biggest one is the fact that some people are proud of getting the government out of housing and feeding the prisoners. When caring for/housing/feeding criminals became a business, with a profit line, things got way out of hand. I'm agin it.
Should we go the way of Sheriff Arpayo of AZ, and deck the crooks out in pink underwear and make them live in tents? Why not? Doesn't hurt them and might make them think. I have always thought it unjust to have these people who defy the system of laws be choosing from three salad dressings at every meal. Feed them well, but no catering to whims.
And that brings us to another pet peeve of mine. I get more news on this topic from my sister no. 2, who is on the front lines of free food. (She doesn't get any.) She is on a severe budget, and recalls the day she decided she could not afford steaks and cherries at the supermarket, and saw before her in the line a woman with her cart piled with cherries and steaks, paying with a free food card from the State of Texas. This is not a time in history when those of the stiff upper lip will get what they deserve out of the bounties of this life. Those who don't mind weaseling and getting the food card are the ones who get the goodies. This past week, in the same store, in the same Texas town, my sister saw the (same?) woman in front of her in line. This woman had a cart full of good stuff, plus a number of big cans of dog food. "Oh, I'm sorry. You can't pay for dog food on the (State food card)..." So the lady put the dog food aside, held up the line while she marched to the meat counter, and came back with packages of ground beef. Done and done. Sold and paid for(by the taxpayer). I wonder what the doggies had for dinner that night? Grrr. YAZZYBEL, disgruntled but happy in the tummy with health food breakfast.
I am eating a bowl of:
1/4 c. Bob's Red Mill Oatbran and Oatmeal Hot Cereal cooked in
1 c distilled water
With a pinch of pink dinosaur toenail prehistoric salt,
And adorned with a spray of grapeseed oil,
1 T. of maple syrup,
And 6 raisins. YAZZYBEL
That was written this morning in response to a number of emails regarding people's breakfasts of oatmeal, brown sugar and butter. The only real sin in my oatmeal is the pinch of salt, prehistoric or not. But those few grains add a world of flavor to complement the rich blandness of the oats. And the maple syrup is pure luxury. I love it that it's healthier than brown sugar. I would buy maple sugar, but it is way expensive.
I read in a favorite news blog today that it costs, per year, $37,000 to send a young person to Princeton U.(a private university) and $43,000 to keep a person in NJ state prison. Now, there are many things to lament in that bit of news, but to me the biggest one is the fact that some people are proud of getting the government out of housing and feeding the prisoners. When caring for/housing/feeding criminals became a business, with a profit line, things got way out of hand. I'm agin it.
Should we go the way of Sheriff Arpayo of AZ, and deck the crooks out in pink underwear and make them live in tents? Why not? Doesn't hurt them and might make them think. I have always thought it unjust to have these people who defy the system of laws be choosing from three salad dressings at every meal. Feed them well, but no catering to whims.
And that brings us to another pet peeve of mine. I get more news on this topic from my sister no. 2, who is on the front lines of free food. (She doesn't get any.) She is on a severe budget, and recalls the day she decided she could not afford steaks and cherries at the supermarket, and saw before her in the line a woman with her cart piled with cherries and steaks, paying with a free food card from the State of Texas. This is not a time in history when those of the stiff upper lip will get what they deserve out of the bounties of this life. Those who don't mind weaseling and getting the food card are the ones who get the goodies. This past week, in the same store, in the same Texas town, my sister saw the (same?) woman in front of her in line. This woman had a cart full of good stuff, plus a number of big cans of dog food. "Oh, I'm sorry. You can't pay for dog food on the (State food card)..." So the lady put the dog food aside, held up the line while she marched to the meat counter, and came back with packages of ground beef. Done and done. Sold and paid for(by the taxpayer). I wonder what the doggies had for dinner that night? Grrr. YAZZYBEL, disgruntled but happy in the tummy with health food breakfast.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
And it's Wednesday
And there was music.
We are playing a duet by Jacques Ibert, Histoires. En francais, Histoires means stories. This piece is a series of five of the most charming musical stories I've ever encountered: La Meneuse de tortues d'or (Girl leading the golden tortoises), (slowest piece ever written but how beautiful), Le petit ane blanc (a donkey with quite a personality),A Giddy Girl,( a sly and sexy ragtime jazz blues dance), La cage de cristal, a quite touching sad depiction of fish in a bowl, or birds in a cage as time ticks by, and last the piece de resistance, La cortege de Balkis. Balkis is the Queen of Sheba, and here she is going to meet King Solomon. There's no question of her value as a human being as she solemnly processes along, swaying on her elephant or camel as as she's transported to an encounter of world-shaking significance. Wow. Good, interesting music.
For lunch I gave Patricia an almost vegan soup. That's like "almost human." Are you or aren't you? This soup was vegan as it started, with minced onion, red pepper, mushroom, corn kernels, and tiny cubes of crisp bacon. Bacon doesn't count as a meat. A can of chicken broth was added. Boomp. No longer vegan, but the flavor needed deepening. I also baked a potato while breakfast was making, and cubed the white meat of that into the soup. After Patricia and I had played, I sprinkled flour and curry powder over the resting soup (dry by now) and added skim milk. Double boomp. Cooked it up and in the meanwhixt toasted tortillas with a grating of cheese and a sliced tomato with tarragon sprinkled over, in the oven. When all was ready, we ate. The soup really was good. Would it have been as good without the chicken broth? Probably. Would the tortillas have been as good without the cheese? Yes, in their way. But I did it that way, and it was tasty. A tasty lunch.
Then a man came to talk to Theodore, to assess the errors made by Home Depot in planning and installing our new bathroom floors, and Patricia left, and I sank down after all for a well-earned slumber. YAZZYBEL (but I didn't sleep.)
We are playing a duet by Jacques Ibert, Histoires. En francais, Histoires means stories. This piece is a series of five of the most charming musical stories I've ever encountered: La Meneuse de tortues d'or (Girl leading the golden tortoises), (slowest piece ever written but how beautiful), Le petit ane blanc (a donkey with quite a personality),A Giddy Girl,( a sly and sexy ragtime jazz blues dance), La cage de cristal, a quite touching sad depiction of fish in a bowl, or birds in a cage as time ticks by, and last the piece de resistance, La cortege de Balkis. Balkis is the Queen of Sheba, and here she is going to meet King Solomon. There's no question of her value as a human being as she solemnly processes along, swaying on her elephant or camel as as she's transported to an encounter of world-shaking significance. Wow. Good, interesting music.
For lunch I gave Patricia an almost vegan soup. That's like "almost human." Are you or aren't you? This soup was vegan as it started, with minced onion, red pepper, mushroom, corn kernels, and tiny cubes of crisp bacon. Bacon doesn't count as a meat. A can of chicken broth was added. Boomp. No longer vegan, but the flavor needed deepening. I also baked a potato while breakfast was making, and cubed the white meat of that into the soup. After Patricia and I had played, I sprinkled flour and curry powder over the resting soup (dry by now) and added skim milk. Double boomp. Cooked it up and in the meanwhixt toasted tortillas with a grating of cheese and a sliced tomato with tarragon sprinkled over, in the oven. When all was ready, we ate. The soup really was good. Would it have been as good without the chicken broth? Probably. Would the tortillas have been as good without the cheese? Yes, in their way. But I did it that way, and it was tasty. A tasty lunch.
Then a man came to talk to Theodore, to assess the errors made by Home Depot in planning and installing our new bathroom floors, and Patricia left, and I sank down after all for a well-earned slumber. YAZZYBEL (but I didn't sleep.)
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