Forget Meditation, Forget Nachos

Pluto's what matters.

From: Aggles
Subject: There are 9
Date: November 13, 2008 5:52:09 AM

Don’t know if you communicate w/ StrayG other than through your blog but if you do here’s a little something for her. It’s my favorite picture from the uproar over the demotion of Pluto.

Aggles' Nacho Meditation

Aggles tailored this meditation technique especially for me:

Here’s a nice little meditation for you to experiment with. Set a length time for however long you’d like to do this – 8 to 10 minutes is plenty fine.

Sit somewhere nice and comfortable and close your eyes lightly. Let your awareness settle on any physical or emotional sensations going on. Just gently feel the sensations. No need to analyze or give words to them. (If words come just let them flit away as you go back to being aware of the sensation.) If no sensations in particular come forth just very lightly become aware of your sensation of your breath in your nose as you inhale and exhale.

When your 8 to 10 minutes is up, do a stretch or two for a minute or two (still sitting) until you’re ready to get up. Light activity is always nice after this. I suggest eating nachos or throwing a load of laundry in the washer.

Don’t hassle the meditation. It will be what it will be. It will take you where you need to go. Don’t be concerned w/ whether or not you are doing it right. Let it go. No need to analyze the experiment or analyze the after effects in your daily life. No need to search for evidence that this is “working.” Let it go and eat some chips and dip.

Photo + Illo!

© Linda Davick
& Whistlefritz

Low Tide

I've never considered myself a social person, but I'm so surprised by how good it feels to get comments from my friends when I post something sad. I think I depend on people an awful lot.

When I first started blogging I attended a get-together in San Jose. At the time I didn't know anyone personally who blogged and so I was really hungry to meet other women who blogged.

Through this conference I came into contact with some interesting women and made careful lists of their blogs. But when I returned home I found that most of the blogs I had collected were written by depressed writers who were going through crisis after crisis. I got the impression that you had to be troubled in order to write a respectable blog. I read several of the blogs on my list avidly for a few months, but the crises never seemed to let up and then I had had enough. Such an oddball introduction to blogging made me never want to be that kind of blogger.

So thanks for listening and for the comfort you give. Luci even sent me this photo of her son's new collection: paper airplanes. It knocked me off my feet! She says he makes a new one each day, so there will be more and more.

Happy Birthday, Katy

Warning: Not A Pretty Picture

Today I woke up in a good mood and made a plan. I decided I would be happy no matter how today's phone conversation with Mom went.

Around 4:00 I was winding down, and starting to get a little anxious. I knew Mom would be calling. I was tired, so I lay down but couldn't fall asleep. The phone rang and it was Mom.

Mom: Honey, I can't find my toothbrush. I haven't been able to brush my teeth for days. My teeth feel like carpet.

Me: Mom, I know you said you found your toothbrush on the floor yesterday. I told you to wash it off. Did you?

Mom: I tried to. But now it's disappeared again. What can I do? ... And how long will I be here? Can you tell me that? And why am I here?

Me: I'm going to call the front desk and see if they have a toothbrush. I'll call you right back, OK?

I get in touch with Mona, who's in charge of Mom's hall. She tells me that she was just in Mom's apartment 20 minutes ago and found her toothbrush and put it in her hand. But that she'll go back and find it again. I call Mom back.

Me: Hi, Mom! Mona's on her way over to help you find your toothbrush.

Mom: Oh, wait a minute, Honey. Mona's here, with another grown-up.

I hear Mom exclaim: Where did you find that? And I hear Mona tell her, Exactly where I put it before ... I'm going to go ahead and put toothpaste on it for you, and get you in your pajamas, OK?

I ask Mom to call me back once she's brushed her teeth and she agrees. A half hour later the phone rings.

Me: Mom, hi! So did you brush your teeth?

Mom: NO!

Me: Well why not?

Mom: I just ate!

Me: (laughing) Oh, OK. But you know where your toothbrush is, now, right?

Mom: No! And I'm really worried because I'm afraid that bug is going to reappear any minute.

Me: Bug? What bug?

Mom: He went behind the cushions.

Me: How big was he?

Mom: Oh, about half the size of my index finger.

Me: AGGGGHHH! You might have to pull the fire alarm and evacuate the building.

Mom: What?

Me: Oh nothing. That's awful. Well, guess what. We have bugs, too.

Mom: I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep tonight.

Me: I meant to ask you ... Did you get to watch Keeping Up Appearances last night?

Mom: I'm not sure. I meant to. I had it marked. ... Oh!

Me: What's wrong?

Mom: My nose is bleeding.

Me: Is it bad?

Mom: Yes, it's pretty bad.
.....................

When I hang up Tom asks me if I'm ready to go for a walk. Then he says: What happened? Take it off and go soak it in cold water.

I look down and see that the front of my shirt has blood on it and I realize I've been digging my nails into my neck the whole time I've been talking to Mom.

Tom and I walk on the Coastal Trail. I'm in a terrible mood. Everyone's in my way. Why do people walk three abreast? I step on a little orangish poodle's foot as I'm trying to pass his family. The poodle screams and I apologize profusely. It's too late. My plan didn't work and I've fallen into the abyss.

Liver Lover

order your plush toy liver here

Do you like to have a drink or two in the evening? Does your doctor caution you about your liver? If so, here's a recipe I call the Liver Lover. I learned about this from Mary Ann last year. Since then I've made sure to knock back one Liver Lover every evening without fail, and so far my liver remains intact.

ingredients:

1 cup of hot water (or room temp. if in hurry)

juice of one lime (or healthy squirt from screw-top plastic lime)

Mix and swallow. Uncork bottle of wine and drink with impunity.

If you're the kind of person who finds it tedious to follow a link, here's the nitty gritty straight from Mary Ann's blog, which she actually cut and pasted from Ms. Beetnik's Breast Cancer Adventure blog:

Every time I go to see Efrem Korngold at Chinese Medicine Works, he works on my liver because my liver, which is an incredibly important organ, is weak. Like the majority of other Americans, I've led a life of excess ... too many unhealthy, over-processed foods that have had all the nutrients sucked or bleached out of them, too much work and not enough play, too much worrying about money money money ... all of which overtaxed me and my poor liver.

What happens when your liver isn't working optimally? Well, its job is to rid your body of numerous nasty toxins. If that doesn't happen, you end up f....cking yourself over in oh so many ways ...

But if you don't want to do acupuncture or get the herbs, here are two simple tips for strengthening your liver: 1) Drink a cup of hot water with the juice of one lime in it every day (or as often as you want), and 2) Add 1/2 to 1 tsp. a day of lecithin granules to your diet.

Efrem said that the lime drink is like "giving your liver a big hug."

Thanks, Mary Ann–although it worries me a little that I can't seem to locate Ms. Beetnik or her blog anymore.

Still Celebrating

Happy about the election, today I celebrated by getting a blue streak. You can, too. Go to Acme Head and Body and ask for Kimberly.

What's Black and White and Red All Over?

Here's one of those stories that makes it impossible for me to cancel my subscription. About an architect named David Trachtenberg, I read it at dinner along with takeout from Pagan on Clement.

"I think simplicity is a virtue," Trachtenberg said of his designs. "It's hard to make things simple. It's easy to make things complicated." He never worries about creating too simple or severe a space because "buildings are the stage on which lives are lived." Simply put, human lives fill out built spaces.

Another taste:

"One of the secrets of old buildings is they have a very limited materials palette," Trachtenberg said. "Any old, indigenous building has what's locally available. They had one kind of stone and a couple kinds of trees they could use, and maybe somebody made a clay tile." In charming old places, such as Italian hill towns, people unconsciously sense and appreciate the "rightness of the buildings," primarily because of their limited palettes, Trachtenberg said. In houses built today, he said, materials from India, China and Kansas are used, creating an unworkable hodgepodge.

It's 8:00 pm, My Friends

A Good Question

It's fun reading other people's mail, isn't it? Here's part of an e-mail message I received today: (Names have been changed to protect the lazy writer's identity)

... Today is my sister’s birthday. Andrew was busy making her gift last week. He used in conjunction to his “science” experiment. He had totally forgotten to inform his teacher that Jean does not live close by anymore. Now they are wondering how to ship her gift without it melting on the way. In the midst of economic instability, my sister quit her job and moved to San Diego. Jean has the need to accomplish more. She is competitive, driven, and focused in her goals. She knew that she had reached the highest she could in her previous job, and was not willing to complacently wait for her boss to retire to get the top spot. She moved on to a bigger field with more space to expand and endless possibilities. I did not know about this until I heard it second hand from my aunt.

I am known for my non-ambitious nature in the family a.k.a. lazy. But I do admire my sister’s boldness in taking the step to expand her wings. I understand her need to fly and soar. Every persons have different songs that they soul sing. It’s just while singing their song, they should never forget that their worth is never determined by how well they sing their song.

As a very lazy person with not much things to brag about I learned to understand my worth not from my accomplishments or my knowledge. Such things do not last. One can be brilliant, let’s say, in music. Then something happened to his playing hands. Poof, the gem is gone. One can be a genius. A nasty bump to the head scrambles his brain. Kapoosh, the gem is gone. Worth must go further than skill and talent. What do you based yours upon, Linda? What makes your soul sing? What makes you feel confident? What do you based your worth upon?

This question really bothers me. So I want to skip over me and move on to you. What do you base your worth on?

Dharma Mix

I don't see how you could, but if you get tired of listening to All the Road Running after hearing it 700 times, you can download Pandora and create your own radio station. It's amazing. Or, you can make a dharma mix to listen to as you jog.

I listened to a talk by Eugene Cash this evening and have already downloaded The Dharma of Food for my next walk.

Then, when you get back home and you're starving, you can uncork a bottle of Meridian Pinot Noir and make a batch of Dharma Mix. Here's how:

Find a bowl. An empty bowl. Pour a bag of Trader Joe's Oriental Rice Crackers into the bowl. Add all the little bags of airplane peanuts you've saved. Mix well. Do you have any leftover Butterfinger bars from Halloween? Crumble and sprinkle liberally on top. Dharma!