free and well favored

The Buddhists speak of the preciousness of a human birth that is free and well favored. I thought about this quite a lot today while I was volunteering at a home-rebuilding project for an elderly, low-income family in Denver.

This particular volunteering group was organized by Michael's companyHere we were, a bunch of employed, well-paid, mostly caucasian individuals who were taking a few hours of free time to help another family.

In the midst of all this, there were a few volunteers whose job it was to make sure the other volunteers had their free T-shirt and foodlots of food. We were provided with free Starbucks coffee & Einstein bagels all day, and a barbecue lunch (hotdogs, sausages, 4 kinds of chips, sodas, bottled water, 2 kinds of potato salad and slaw). And since I'm choosing to be meatless right now, I starting thinking about the lunch I would make out of pretzels and potato salad when it really hit me how much privilege I have...

I can make the choice not to eat what is provided for me at this event because I know I don't have to worry about whether or not I'll be able to get food again whenever I want. I can actually make a choice to not eat meat because I can afford other options to remain well nourished. Here I was volunteering to help re-build someone else's home when I've been paying someone else to remodel my bathroom.

Sure, I've experienced my share of oppression and prejudice, but the amount of privilege I have is really incredible. And I am grateful for the opportunity to experience such a precious human birth, free and well favored.

9 eggs today (forgot to get them yesterday)

creative void

So I have nothing original or clever today. So I shall share some other people's creativity that I enjoy:

Peeps Research: http://www.peepresearch.org/
Naked Dancing Llama http://frolic.org/
Llama Song: www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama.php

hiccups

I have the hiccups. My hiccups are loud, and tortured goose-like.

you want my whipped cream?

Whew, so it has been several days since I posted! Here are the highlights

Friday: We had a booth with 2 alpacas at Naropa's Earth Day. Long day in the sun, but good fun sharing one of my passions with the world. 3 eggs

Saturday: I went to an alpaca meeting in the AM then came home and started cooking like crazy for the seder...which was good fun! Discovered Mogen David wine...yum. And had a very nice time chating it up with a bunch of Jewish men. 4 eggs.

Sunday: spent the day cleaning the house, washing dishes, doing laundry, and cutting Miko's hair. Also spent a while chatting with my sis for her birthday...her birth is my earliest memory :) 4 eggs.

Today (Monday): highlight of the day was dinner with the raquetBall guys. I had an avocado smoothie that had whipped cream on top. Usually Miko eats my whipped cream, but he turned to D and said "you want my whipped cream?" D, not seeing the topping on my drink though that Miko was offering ME! 5 eggs today.

Jews and Chinese Food

Yesterday Paul and I spent many hours bonding while planning a passover seder for some of our goyim friends. Yes, Passover ended already, but this weekend was our only option. I really enjoyed spending time with someone who has a shared cultural background...What did you do on Christmas Eve growing up? Go to the movies and eat Chinese food, of course!

I think Paul might be a distantly related cousin...he feels like family, and it is nice to have family around, nu?

5 eggs today! We'll be having Deviled Eggs at our seder...yum!

connections

Today has been all about connections...making closer connections with certain friends and re-connecting to my heritage and my past have all been "up" today.

Here's a favorite passage/poem from Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Submlime by Stephen Batchelor

Connection

I the beholder,
The one I behold,
The beholding itself
Do not connect with one another--

Just as I who desire,
The one I desire,
The desiring itself
Do not connect.

We do not connect
Because we are not
Apart from one another;
We would not be together

If we were apart.
I am other than you
In relation to you;
I could not be your other without you.

Were I other than you,
Then even without you
I would be someone else;
I cannot be your other without you.

There is no otherness
In either you or me;
Without otherness,
There is no me or you.

I do not connect with me
Nor do I connect with you--
No connecting, no
Connections, no connectors.

tenderhearted

Earlier today I thought about my friend the persnickety lady when I heard a discussion of the correct usage of weary vs. wary. And today when I looked at the date, I realized it was the birthday of my very first ex...he turned 18 on the 18th the year I turned 16 on the 16th (my BFF would be extremely upset to learn that occasionally I do still think of this ex). And one of my students gave me a formal hand-written invitation to graduation and her class's after-graduation celebration. And my honey was still down in the dumps today and I think he's finally back out.

4 eggs today!

case of contagious blahs

This morning I had a serious case of Monday Blahs. So sleepy...I had planned to go to the gym, and while I was eating breakfast remembered I had a 9am meeting which meant I had to change, shower, and then get myself to work lickety split. I alternated between hunger and nausea with all around lethargy...Mondays!

I pretty much snapped out of it by the end of the work day, only to discover that Michael had caught the Blahs. Damn contagious stuff!

I dropped the egg count for a few days, but we're steadily getting approx 4 eggs a day.

in-laws

the interface with the in-laws is always interesting and quite exhusting. I'm very drained from a full weekend of garden work and labor exchange. The phone call from the in-laws has put me over the edge of exhaustion and now I must sleep....

Drama Fairy and Braggin' on my Sibs

So I have 2 sisters and 1 brother, and the drama fairy decided to visit C today...her car was stolen. Sometimes I imagine that there's a drama fairy floating around waving a little wand... "BING" your car goes stolen or some other crazy drama.

My sibs are all amazing people. C is living her dream in the music business...something she talked about constantly as a kid. I always figured she'd run away and be a groupie, but sista girl got herself a business degree and is climbing up the ladder of success. L is on her way (1 more year!) to becoming a Nurse! She is going to do some incredible work helping to alleviate the suffering in this world. She is so passionate and caring for others. My baby brother Z is not such a baby anymore...still hard for me to grasp that he's in his 20s and not 4. Z is a student at NYU (1 more semester!) and is no doubt going to write/produce some award-winning TV and movies.

Yes, I've got major pride for my incredible sibs...and I want that stupid drama fairy to stop waving its wand at them.

Spring Rituals

When you own livestock, one of the springtime rituals is to start scouting studs for the females. I got REALLY excited today when I got an email from a breeder who owns a stud that we really want to breed to, and found out they're going to give us a good discount. I feel like a matchmaker from the old country..."matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch..."

And speaking of spring and rituals and the old country...last night I co-lead an awesome Passover seder. I really love this holiday...particularly the communal gathering to talk about freedom and the many ways oppression manifests in our modern world. I created a Haggadah that still needs some tweaking, but it incorporates a bunch of modern-day tie-ins that make the passover story relevant today. If you're interested, drop me a line and I'll email it to you.

3 eggs today, 3 eggs yesterday

Plotting and scheming

I love plotting and scheming about my garden...and it turns out I love plotting and scheming other people's gardens too. My spouse tells me that I am not really being very helpful when I'm bossing people around telling them what they should plant and when to plant it. Can it be so? Fine, I admit it, I am an older sister to everyone I know...

In actual garden news, the second batch of bok choi has sprouted! I think I may plant another batch of brussel sprouts too. 5 eggs yesterday, 5 eggs today...what good hens!

dumplings and pudding...hooray for the weekend!

Saturday I spent the whole day in Boulder...I got to witness an amazing presentation of a Masters Paper, had glorious dumplings for lunch, helped friends move two fridges, went to back to work to set up for our celebration of the Papers being done! And I went OUT afterwards...I felt a bit like it was some sort of last hurrah. Strange to be feeling so fatalistic when I got to witness two of my favorite people sweetly walking away from the rest of us with their arms around each other...

Today we painted the bathroom "pudding". I think it looks quite good. I really wanted to buy rice pudding at the grocery store, but decided that there was enough pudding in the house for now. 5 eggs yesterday, 3 today.

Some Ketchup with your Paint Chips?

I have spent a lot of time today trying to decide which shade of off-white to paint the bathroom. Shall it be "pudding" or "meringue" or "white wisteria"? Who has the job of coming up with the names for all the different shades of paint?

I am a paranoid packrat. Michael discovered some ketchup packets I stashed in the glovebox in my Prius. I defended the stash as "emergency rations". I believe ketchup packets could be life-saving in a crisis, don't you? 4 more eggs today.

Baby Kicks

This morning when I was feeding our alpacas, I was watching Maya and saw her baby kick...she's due mid May! There is life in there, in that slowly growing bulge. A new life with long legs and long eyelashes. I haven't yet had a dream of this baby, so we'll see if the magic dreams of alpaca baby gender happen this year as they have every year so far...and 4 more eggs today.

Sometimes friendships need little kicks too...a small catastrophe to help you realize how important those you love really mean to you, and how devastating it would be to lose them. Sometimes we create these small disasters without consciously knowing why...other times, they just happen to us. I'm working to appropriately demonstrate my affection for all the ones I love and have connections with.

To Meat or not to Meat

I had meat today for the first time in several weeks...I've been playing with being meatless (aka vegetarian). I'm actively working with the idea of how I can justify eating meat if I can't (won't) kill my own chickens. I do have a farm, and all my critters have names. I thought of my chickens as I made the decision to get a snack at Wendy's. I didn't really enjoy my chicken nuggets, and I think I shall return to being meatless for a while again. 4 eggs today.

Great Scissors of Doom

Thinning sprouts always makes me sad. We have 4 kinds of plants that we've started inside so far that have sprouted: cherry tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, brussel sprouts and bok choi. I always over-estimate how many seeds will actually germinate, and then get sad when we pull out the Great Scissors of Doom.

first rant

OK, fine. I have been convinced by my sibs to come further out of hermitville. I'm still completely unconvinced that this thing will make my life more worthwhile. Prove me wrong...I need more humbling.