Filling a pool?

Hi,  Everybody,

I feel good, like James Brown.  Today was lovely and warm, the perfect spring Saturday after starting out a bit cool in the morning.   Now in the early evening the fog is drifting in.   It'll probably be cool again tonight like it was last night, from the fog.

Nate went home today, end of spring break with Gramma. Here we are keeping warm and watching a Star Trek movie together.  I'm knitting, of course.  This is my take on the Storm Cloud Shawlette from Ravelry.  I'm using size 6 needles and 2 strands of bedspread weight mercerized cotton, so it's shiny and silky and will adjust its shape easily as I pull on it to wear it.  I'm  mixing various colors as I use up stash.   Pink glitter, a mostly pinks multi, a soft salmon,  lilac and violet.  It is lightest at the top and moves darker and it works its way down.   I think it is going to be great for summer.   More a summer cover up and not so much for warmth.

The bridal shawl is coming along, the center section is done.  I have begun picking up the border stitches all along the edge.  This is no small matter.  I'll count them all when I get done but I'm guessing maybe 600 stitches or so.   

Anybody want to guess how many stitches I end up with on the edging?  I know, can't tell much about lace until it is blocked...

Dan just handed me a very yummy quesadilla.  We recently found this little Mexican market not too far from the house that makes it's own home-made looking thick and grainy corn tortillas.  When you get them they are still hot from the press and taste like corny heaven.  So....  Heat that up on the griddle with some very sharp cheddar cheese folded inside, wow,  is that good or what?  I think I'll keep him.... 

Lilo is hoping for a taste of the cheese, so she is on her very best adorable-sweet-pretty-white-kitty behavior.  I am not fooled, but I'll probably give her some cheese anyway. 

Heather and I were talking a few minutes ago and I used an expression that reminded me of something that happened a couple of years ago.  I was thinking about buying a house, but the prices were so crazy at the time, that I decided not to.  Turned out to be a good idea as the loans offered then were all ARM's and the market crashed shortly thereafter.  I would have lost it.   But for a while I was looking at houses.  So one house I looked at was in Serra Mesa and it was in pretty sad shape, lost of water damage and mildew everywhere.  Selling "as is".   There was a big swimming pool that had been built tight up against the house in back and it was pretty clear to me that the pool was leaking underground.  The homeowners had emptied the pool to stop the water damage from pool water leaking into the house, good idea, LOL.  But the realtor was determined that it is a bad idea to show a house with an empty pool.  So he was trying to fill the pool up with a slender garden hose.  This was not working so good, as the leaks were emptying it at about the same rate as the hose was filling it, so after several days of running the hose the pool only had maybe 18 inches of water in it and the moisture was dripping everywhere in the house.  The agent was complaining that filling a pool with a garden hose takes forever.  Ya think!   Especially a leaking pool.  So, "like filling a pool with a garden hose" has become an expression of wrong headed futility between Dan and me.  

See ya,
Julie

Music: Latin Jazz on Iceberg
Mood: finer than frogs hair
Location:  At home in San Diego

A note from the top of the world

Hi,
I got a postcard from a friend of mine.  A note from the top of the world. She is in Barrow. Alaska. Wow!  What an amazing place. Literally on top of the world.  71° 17′ 33″ N, 156° 47′ 18″ W   

Here's where you can see the freezing summer fog, lol.  http://www.gi.alaska.edu/snowice/sea-lake-ice/barrow_webcam.html

I'm enjoying the warmth of a San Diego summer evening, she has 3 degrees below freezing right now.  That's their Idea of high summer, LOL. 

We met several years ago at FNCC (Florida Nature and Culture Center, just outside Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  http://sgi-usa.org/memberresources/fncc/index.php  FNCC is a Buddhist conference center.  It is so great.  I have always determined to go once a year, and so far I have, even twice a couple of times.  This year is a big challenge.  As Nichiren said,  "Still I am not discouraged."   I'm planning to go in December.  Logic says no, but I'm saying yes. And chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo and making every possible cause to change my destiny.



Anyway, I met T. there, and we have kept in touch ever since.  She is a nurse who travels under contract to places that need her, and they tend to be extreme.  A very hot, dusty corner of Arizona or Nevada, a very cold spot in Alaska.  She has been to Alaska many times and loves it there.  Loves to fish in the fishing derby.  One time she caught a halibut that weighed twice what she does and the picture made it into a fishing magazine.

Hi, Honey!  Keep warm!  Catch lotsa big fish!!  December at FNCC will be nice and warm, hint, hint.

I've been thinking about  "Still I am not discouraged."  I told my  friend Judy this story and she asked me to blog about this.  Now,  I have to do this by teling the story.   Let's see if I can make it a short version.... 

In the late eighties I was going through a difficult divorce from my sadly mentally ill ex.   He was so out of control you can't even imagine.  It was especially sad because he was hurting our children real bad and had no idea that he was doing that.  Stalking us and various other nonsense.   Anyway, it amused him to tell the IRS that I was working in his business and had stolen a quarter of a million dollars from his business and that's why he was in arrears in paying taxes.  All a bunch of big lies.  I had nothing to do with any of that.  The business was defunct and all rights to it had been given to him in the divorce.  I had not worked in it in years.  I did not take a dime.  They believed him, however.   It was December 21st.  They siezed my bank accounts and my paycheck.  Then the IRS agent was not returning my calls to ask him why.   I called an attorney who specializes in IRS matters, and told his answering machine my problem, including my name and social security number and that I wanted to hire him, but he also was not returning my calls.  I was at my wit's end.  I had $20 and 2 quarters to my name.   My 2 kids expected something under the tree for Christmas, and I could not even pay the rent.

I was at  work, the plant was empty as everyone had taken off for the holidays already.  I was sitting at my desk trying to enter purchase order data into the computer, but I was mostly crying.  I decided I needed to do something to stop the crying, so I got up and walked to the back of the plant where there was a ladies' room I was sure would be empty.  I washed my face and rallied my courage.  I began chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo standing there in the pink tile palace, chanting along with the humming of some automated machinery in the empty plant.   I decided that hunger was not helping, if all else fails, try chocolate, right?  So I headed to the break room to buy a candy bar.  As I walked to the break room I was chanting under my breath and decided that I needed a small, immediate benefit, please.  Something to show me I was on the right track and keep me encouraged.  After all, Courage is life's most precious commodity.  If we humans have courage, we keep on fighting against impossible odds until we win.  Without courage, we give up on the easy stuff and are defeated.  Human nature. 

So I put my 2 quarters into the candy machine and 2 candy bars came out.  I started laughing so hard I had to sit down.  That second candy bar was pretty cheap encouragement.  I howled with laughter.  It was enough and my life condition lifted.  I laughed and chanted appreciation.  As I walked out of the break room to return to my desk, I nearly tripped over the automated floor cleaning robot that normally cruised the plant, aimlessly cleaning floors and bouncing off walls to clean in a new direction.  Roomba's industrial grandfather.  Emblazoned on its side was it's name, which is the name of a hard-working Japanese protective diety, it even appears in one of the corners of the Gohonzon as a wheel rolling king.  I laughed again.  "I see, the protective forces of the universe are working hard, out of my sight, to protect me.  If I can manage not to trip over them, I will be fine."  As I returned to my desk, it was the IRS attorney calling.  The reason he did not call me back sooner was that there was only one day of court time to spare before things shut down for the holidays, so he dashed straight to court and had been working on my behalf all day.  We had a date set for later in January to meet with the IRS and in the meanwhile they had released my bank accounts and my paycheck.  He had just faxed the release to my company's HR folks and they would see it in the morning.  Later in January we got it all straightened out.   Many years later Bill Clinton changed the law so that innocent former spouces can't be attacked this way any more.  Thank you, Bill.   "Still I am not discouraged."

Here's a picture of Peter's Father's Day socks.  The ones that I did on the cruise with Heather.



Nathan's great grandma on hs father's side at the Long Beach Harbour (by the Queen Mary) on Father's Day.


Good night,
Julie

• Location:Home in San Diego
• Mood:rested
• Music:Larry Coryell, Three guitars

Why the Dragon Dotr?

Hi, Everyone,

Wednesday, weather variable, sometimes cool and windy, sometimes still and hot, hard to know how to dress.  Sweater on, sweater off, on, off.

It was a busy day today. Heather sent me some of her photos from the cruise, so I thought I'd share them here. This is Heather in the spa as we were leaving the San Diego harbor.


Me in full vacation regalia.


Heather and Ron posing in the artwork. Heather attached the two photos as if they were one.


The model of the ship in the dining room.

Arriving at Catalina, a couple of shots stitched together.


We went shopping for new dining room chairs this afternoon, and well, we figured out what we don't want.

Then we went to dinner with Dan's family visiting from Germany.  Pizza Nova on the yacht basin.  Fun place.



When I got home, my friend, Dee, asked me why Dragon Dotr for my blog.  Well, the spelling came from the number of characters Live Journal allowed me, LOL.  The meaning is from the Lotus Sutra.  You know I am a Buddhist.  I have been one 32 years.  I am a member of the SGI-USA.  There is lots of good info at   www.sgi-usa.org  if you are curious.  I chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo every day.  This school of Buddhism is based on the Lotus Sutra.  In the 12th chapter of the Lotus Sutra lies the explaination for the equal treatment of women in the SGI. 

The Buddha is greeting various Buddhas visiting from distant places and asking them how the progression of Buddhism is doing at their home.  Manjushri comes from out of the sea and  tells him how wonderful it is that so many of the folks under the sea are attaining their enlightenment under the Lotus Sutra, and how quickly.  Bodhisattva Wisdom Accumulated objects, saying that the Buddha himself struggled for a long time to attain his enlightenment, so how could any teaching cause folks to get there fast. (You can tell I'm telling this in my own words, right?)  

A young, female sea serpent comes out of the water and bows to the Buddha.  She is the eight year old daughter of the Dragon King of the Sea, Sagara.  She praises her teacher and tells the Buddha her vow, "I unfold the doctrines of the Great Vehicle to rescue living beings from suffering."   This is the vow of a great Buddha.
Wisdom Accumulated objects again, he can't quite get his head around her gender, nevermind that she is a child and a dragon.  She shows them by way of explaination how quickly she takes a jewel from the folds of ther robe, a jewel worth as much as a major world system of stars and planets, and quickly hands it to the Buddha, who quickly accepts it.  Then in an instant, she transforms herself into all the different kinds of beings she needs to be and in a flash attains her enlightenment.  Then they understand.

The story in the Lotus Sutra is the foundation of the gender equality in the SGI, so that's why the name has meaning for me. 

BTW, my friend Dee sells Avon. Go here to see her web store.  http://youravon.com/dbaldus  I just got some yummy new perfumes from her and a very sexy lounge set.  In My size...

I'm very tired so I'd better stop here and go to bed.

Lilo sez "Bye" as she heads out the window for her nightly walk on the wild side. 


Love,
Julie

• Location:at home in San Diego
• Mood: tired
• Music:Chris Botti, Italia

A scarf for Zee, back story, beads

Hi,
My friend Zee was in the hospital, so I knit her a silly lime green scarf in an easy lace stitch.  Hope it cheers her up.

Here's the free pattern.

Easy lacy scarf
Cast on an even number of stitches and knit 1 row.  (I used 22)
Row 1: K2, *K2tog, YO. Repeat from * to last 2 stitches,  K2. Don't forget the last YO before the final K2.
Repeat Row 1 to desired length.  If you work loosely, it will go faster.
Knit 1 row and bind off in knit.

Then I made a couple more since they are fun to make, like potato chips, you can't make just one.  Here's a picture of one of them, a skinny one made with 12 stitches. 



Can you see the pink miniature roses blooming behind?  They are just starting this year.
I strung a necklace to wear on the cruise this afternoon.







I had a massage the other day and my massage therapist, Wendy, was talking about my back issues.  I told her this story.

Around 2000 there was a weekend Buddhist study conference in the San Francisco Bay area.  Dan and I signed up and bought our airline tickets using some coupons we got when an earlier flight messed up.  The week before the trip, I hurt my back by reaching deep into the bottom shelf of the refrigerator to pull out a big bowl of homemade ravioli for a party.  As I dropped the ravioli into boiling water to finish them, my back was popping and extreeeemely painful.  I went to the Chiro twice before the trip and he did his best, but my back was really messed up.  I was walking so funny everyone was asking me what happened.  I got tired of the ravioli story, so I started telling them it was the work of my new 26 year old Brazilian lover.  Ha!

We packed for the trip and were waiting for the taxi to take us to the airport when I figured out I had forgotten to cook the salmon I bought for dinner the night before.  So, I quickly seared the salmon on the grill pan and put it into buns with lettuce and tartar sauce.  I zippy bagged them, dropped them into my carry on and dashed out to catch the cab. 

The bay area was fogged in and our flight was delayed.  I knitted and did not mind the wait, as we would not be late for the conference.  We were traveling the day before to allow us time to enjoy the trip.   We ate the salmon for lunch and everyone asked us where to get one like it.  Better than airport food.   We finally were put on a flight to LA, with the idea we would transfer to a flight to Oakland from LA.  Sorry, homemade.  But SAn Francisco was still fogged in.  A couple flights were going thru to Oakland and the airlines offered me a bunch of freeebie coupons if I would give up my seat for some folks who just had to be there today.  Ok, we're in no hurry.  After an hour they did the same with the next flight, more coupons.   Dinner time came and the airline sent us to Wolfgang Puck's on their dime.  We eventually got to Oakland later that evening, on time for our conference the next day.

Meanwhile, my back is still out.  It was difficult attending the conference and sitting on the hard chairs for an hour at a time.  So another attendee, a Chinese lady named Ellen, asked me if she could help.  She did some kind of body work for a living, I did not recognize the name of the practice.  She asked me to lie down on the carpeted floor of the lobby.  I feared the hotel would object, but she said we would be done before they noticed.  She chanted Nam Myoho Renge Kyo three times in unison with me to get us synched up.  Then she walked around me looking intently.  From time to time she would stop and poke my shoulder, or hip, or back.  Not a big movement like a chiro adjustment, just a nudge.  Then she said I could get up.  I was astounded.  My back was fine.  I enjoyed the rest of the conference.  I asked her for her card, since I wanted to see her again.  It would be worth the flight.  She refused.  She said if she gave me her card, I would be her client and she would have to charge me.  Since this was a freeebie she could not give me her card.  She had some strange logic.  She had a big problem with spiders in her house.  She was constantly being bit by spiders, but she would not spray.  She had decided they were her reincarnated ancestors who had done such bad things they had to come back as spiders, so she could not kill them.  This is not standard Buddhist doctrine.  Her Buddhist leaders tried to convince her to do something about them, but she was adamant.

When I got back to San Diego, I kept my Monday appointment with my chiro and he was amazed.  My back was perfect.   He wanted her card so he could fly to Oakland and take a master class from her.  He was astounded that she had refused to give it to me.  A couple of years later I heard from a mutual friend that she had died of cancer.  I will always remember her body work. 

Good night,

Julie

• Location:home
• Mood: hungry
• Music:SGI Video

Remembering Shinobu's choices

• Apr. 24th, 2009 at 9:45 PM

Friday, the weather is overcast, cool and breezy.

I went to dinner with DareKun and Dan again, this time we tried Vietnamese.  It was fun.

Lilo is glad to see me back.  She was fighting with my slipper.


I'm still working on the blue lace shawlette.



This shows the pattern better.




I had a massage today, so I'm real mellow.  I try to see Wendy at www.sd-massagecare.com at least once a month.  I feel so great afterward and the feeling lasts a week or so.  Someday I will be rich and I'll see her once a week.

Wendy and I were telling tales from the past, and it reminded me of one I'd like to tell here.  It's about how to live a life of no regrets by making conscious choices.

The person who introduced me to Buddhism was a charming Japanese lady named Shinobu.  One day I asked her to tell me about how she ended up in San Diego.  She said after the war she was living on her parents' farm in her hometown village, a small farming community high in the mountains of the northern island of Hokkaido.  Life was filled with hard work on the farm and while it was rewarding, there was not much in the way of entertainment.  It was very cold there in the winter and they were often snowed in, with snow up to the second story of the farmhouse.  They had to dig tunnels in the snow to get out.   In the winter the family would sit around a low square table, with a band of quilt attached to the edge.  In the middle was a well in the floor and there was a charcoal brazier in the well with live coals in it.  The family brought their work (schoolwork, crafts, newspaper, vegetables to slice, whatever they were doing) to this table, put the quilt tight around themselves to seal in the heat, and all worked together there, enjoying the only really warm spot in the house. Beds were covered in thick fluffy quilts.  

After the war, only 2 young men returned to the village from the front, and they were already engaged, marrying soon after returning.  Shinobu complained to her mother, asking how would she ever marry in this village?  Her mother told her that there was no point in complaining.  People who complain need to make a choice and take action to change their circumstances.  So, Shinobu needed to make a choice.  She could choose to stay on the farm, enjoy the farm life, inherit the farm, become rich (she had a great head for business/numbers) and having chosen this of her own free will, never complain again about the lack of marriage prospects.  If she wanted to stay on the farm, she should know that she was choosing to remain single, so no point in complaining about not having children.  If she choose the second option, marriage, she should understand that meant moving to town, where there were more young men, so no complaints about giving up the farm life, which she loved.  Make a conscious choice and then no complaints, after all, you choose it.

Shinobu decided she wanted to marry.  So they discussed where she should go to find more men.  She and her mother decided she should move to Tokyo and get an office job in the hope of meeting more men.  Shinobu moved to Tokyo and found work in an accounting firm, not a small matter in the aftermath of the war, with much of the city bombed out.  She returned home to visit her mother and her mother asked her how it was going, specifically had she met any nice young men. 

Shinobu responded that in Tokyo, too, not so many had returned and they were choosing somewhat younger girls, as they had lots of choice.  Shinobu complained that she did not stand a chance against the young, pretty, sophisticated city girls.  The young men all just laughed at her countrified Hokkaido accent.  Her mother responded that complaining means you need to make a choice.  So, if this plan was not working, how could they expand the pool of possible men. Older, no, they also died in the war. Younger, no, not good. So what kind of men was she seeing in Tokyo?  Shinobu said, mostly American ones.  Her mother asked her if she wanted to marry an American?   Shinobu thought that would be all right.  Her mother said she should be aware that if she choose to marry an American, he would eventually be posted back to he States and she would end her life with him in the US.  Never mind what the nice young man might promise her when he urgently  wanted to marry.   Since it was so expensive to travel back to Japan, she might not see her mother again. So if she choose that, she should understand what she was choosing up front.  If she did not want that, she could choose a challenging accounting career in Tokyo, stay single, get rich and never look back at marriage.  Shinobu wanted children, so she decided to marry an American. 

So her mother asked her where Shinobu could work where she would meet lots of them?  Shinobu changed jobs and went to work for less money as a cashier at the PX on base, where she met many nice young men.  Bob Thomas proposed.  He was a few years younger, but very sweet. He said he would never leave Japan, but she knew the Navy might have other ideas.  She took him to see her mother and they agreed that he was a nice young man who would try his best to make her happy.  Bob didn't speak much Japanese, and she did not speak much English until later, but she said they communicated in a way that made language unnecessary.  She married Bob, the Navy sent them to San Diego, and she was happy, knowing that she had made clear choices, so no need to regret anything.  She did manage to visit her mother with the grandchildren, but only twice.  

She and Bob were very happy together, he adored her.  They had 4 children and lived in the outskirts of San Diego, where she had a huge (maybe acre) garden and happily tended her Japanese vegetables to her heart's content.   I would visit her to chant together and after the meeting she would ask us if perhaps anyone felt like a little tempura? Yes, yes, we all said.  She would take her basket and go out into her garden and return with super fresh vegetables.  Depending on the season,  yard long beans, Japanese eggplants, pumpkin or some unique Japanese vegetables I did not recognize.  Then she would dip them in batter and fry them up nice and crispy and we would all sit around dipping tempura in sauce, drinking green tea, talking and laughing and having a great time.  This was the life she chose, so no regrets.

Her mother was an interesting lady....

Have a great night,

Julie

• Location:home in San Diego
• Mood: content
• Music:Brad Mehldau