Hot chocolate and Oreos? Another UFO bites the dust.

Hello,

Here's another UFO hitting the finished object pile.  It's the end of January and I have many of the Christmas 2010 preosents ready. Yahoo!  I love this UFO  method.



This is a lovely soft scarf (the kind that pokes thru itself) in yummy soft wool sock yarn from Knitpicks.com.  Feather and fan stitch.  The colorway is called something like hot chocolate and Oreos, if I am remembering right. No, I found the ball band (miracle).  It's Smores.   It's been discontinued now.  I have one more skein, so I'm making something to go with it.  I haven't decided just what yet.

I've been working on a Buddhist meeting, an SGI  Women's Division Kick-Off Meeting.  It was today and it went great.

Just in case you missed it, here's what I said for the welcoming  words: 

"I want to welcome all my beautiful Myoho Sisters to this meeting, the Central Area Women's Division kick-off meeting. We women rock! And especially I want to welcome our guests today. Thank you so much for coming and checking out this incredible practice. Give it a try, stick to the person who brought you, and soon you'll know why we are all grinning so much.

What are we kicking off today? The wonderful women-led 4-divisional district meetings for February, 2010. They're going to be great!

The February meetings are traditionally a great time for us to introduce so many of our friends to this wonderful practice, so I hope you brought  your friends to this meeting. And I hope you are all chanting to be able to bring ALL your friends to the February district meeting, too, for this will guarantee their absolute happiness in life. The women's division have such tremendous power of faith and abundant joy that the meetings you are planning in your districts are sure to be rousing successes.

Chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo with conviction and joy, looking into the future with confidence, setting goals and reaching them and helping each other do this all along the way, this is a most wonderful way to live. This is what it means to live the vow we made as Boddhisattvas at the Ceremony in the Air, practicing together with our mentor, President Ikeda, creating the greatest possible benefit for ourselves and mankind in this precious lifetime.

This practice is the best medicine for whatever the karmic illnesses of mankind are. So let's share the wealth, and let everyone know about this wonderful practice of the Lotus Sutra, let's tell them about chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo to the Gohonzon to make all our dreams come true and help others do the same. Nichiren Daishonin said in “Letter to Niike”, “When one encounters this sutra, one will overflow with happiness and shed tears of joy. “

I have a long list of things I am chanting for, do you? I hope so. I keep crossing things off the list as I accomplish them and I keep adding even more to it. The list just gets longer and longer. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Chant, joy, benefit, appreciation, repeat. Chant, joy, benefit, appreciation, repeat. It works like the shampoo.

When I was a new member I had a very short list. I had lots of problems, but my natural nature was so negative, I could not imagine any of my issues being solvable by chanting, or by anything else for that matter. So I thought I had nothing much to chant for. My sponsor told me to make a list, but I could not think of a single thing to put on it. With time, as I chanted more I developed more and more hope and I thought, “Well, maybe that problem is something I could chant about. Gee, maybe this other one, too. Oh, how about this one...” As a result my list grew and grew and my benefits began to pile up like purple flowers drifting under a Jacaranda tree in the Spring. “U mandara ke”, like it says in the 16^th chapter of the Sutra that we chant during Gongyo, right? The Boddhisattvas of the Earth receive benefits like abundant mandarava blossoms floating down onto their heads under the tree, right? Every time I see a blossoming Jacaranda tree with heaps of purple blossoms underneath it, I am reminded of this image Shakamuni chose in the Lotus Sutra to describe the tremendous benefit we derive from this practice. We don't have mandarava trees in San Diego, but we have Jacarandas.

President Ikeda said in Words of the Week for this week of January 25, 2010, “The SGI is the hope for humanity. Let's continue to sow the seeds of peace of the Mystic Law for the sake of the future. The accumulation of steady efforts will cause the flowers of victory to bloom without fail.”

So get your lists fired up, girls, get your firey determination in gear, chant abundant, joyful Daimoku and give this upcoming February meeting your very best shot. Then, you'll be calling me, to tell me all about your great benefits. And we'll both be lovin' it.  I hope you enjoy today's meeting!"

It was a great meeting.  Everyone had such a great time.  So, after a nice nap I was ready to take on my project of finishing up all the unfinished things, one at a time. 



Lilo came in from her evening adventure in the cold and now she wants to play with me.  She's getting feisty about it, since I am busy blogging.  Good night , Lilo.

Good night, All.
Julie

• Location:home in San Diego
• Mood: content
• Music:the Salsa compilation from Brynna and Aolfredo's wedding

Thursday means Mexican Soup

Hi, Everyone,

It's sunny but cold here in San Diego.  So, it was time for some yummy Mexican soup.   I still have a cold so it is my "Mexican medicine".  My first mother-in-law was Mexican and this is a variation on her soup.

Memo's soup

2Tbsp bacon drippings or EVOO
8 oz ham, cubed
1 large onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, sliced (I could have also added carrots and green peppers, but I did not have them on hand)
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
1Tbsp crushed red pepper (like comes with pizza)
4 big chicken thighs with bone, cut into thirds
1 large can hominy
1 med can tomatoes with peppers
1 tsp salt
1tsp leaf oregano, crushed in your hand
4 cups water
1/2 Cup red wine vinegar

Saute the onions, celery and ham in the bacon drippings until they begin to brown.  Add the pepper, cumin, red pepper and the garlic.  Cook until you smell the garlic.   Lift the onion mixture into the crock pot.  Brown off the chicken in the remaining oil.    While it cooks, add the hominy, salt and the tomatoes to the crock pot.   When the chicken is brown, add it and the oregano to the crock. Deglaze the pan with the vinegar, also the water.  Scrape up the fond (the brown bits) real good, as they add so much flavor to the soup.  Add the resulting broth to the crock.   Set the crock pot to low and cook 4 hours.  Taste and adjust seasoning.   Serve with quesadilllas or cheesy toast.   Add a salad or fruit and you have a great cold day dinner.   I had fruit with mine.   Yummy.

I gave my freind Barbra a bowl of the soup when she stopped by today to knit and talk.  She is studying fashion and is using me as a model for her plus size swim suit line.  I hope she makes a mint.   This is an area that needs more young designers to make the suits fun.

I finished a shawl from the UFO collection.   Purple and magenta.    7 feet long and about 15 inches long.   Crochet, mixed patterns.



The yarn was from Mexico.  A few years ago (like maybe 4) Dan and I went to LA to attend his sister's graduation.  We stayed at the Miyako Hotel in Japan-town.  http://www.miyakoinn.com/   We got a great deal through AARP.   We had so much fun.  They have Japanese style rooms, too.  They were so Japanese, the breakfast menu included natto, super stinky fermented soybeans.   The neighborhood included great Japanese food, jazz clubs and a fun local micro- brewery.  We had a blast.   I'd do it again in a New York  minute.

Anyway, in the neighborhood was a yarn shop that specialized in yarns from Mexico, and I bought this yarn.  Good thing Dan speaks Spanish.  Great colors.  And now it's done.  There are leftovers of the yarn, plus some of the other purples I bought at the same time.  So now I'm working on a new one where the colors shift gradually.

Enjoy my soup,
Julie

• Location:home in San Diego
• Mood: relaxed
• Music:Santana, Supernatural

Reviving the languishing UFO's

 

Hello, Friends,

I hope you are warm and dry. It's a cold, wet, stormy and windy Friday night here in Southern California. We should not complain, as the rest of the country gets this stuff all the time, but for us it's unusual. I know, I know, it's called rain...
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It's good to hear back on some of this stuff. Glad you liked the free baby leggings pattern. I'm going to do another one in a solid color. I'll post when it's done.
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Today I finally put the buttons on a cute toddler bolero that has been a WIP for a very long time. It's my own design, the yarn is some simple washable stuff from Michael's, size 3 needles.

I got frustrated with the lace at the sleeve hems, put it aside and there it stayed in the bottom of my WIP stack by my chair for a long time. My knitting chair has a nice heated massage pad in it that Dare got me for Christmas a couple of years ago, so I was motivated to sit there today, warm up and dig through the stack. The lace is right side up on the bottom edge, but would be upside down on the sleeves as they are picked up from the armhole and knitted down. I finally found it and pulled it out and the answer to the lace problem was so easy I finished it up in no time. Funny how that works. Answer? I just let it be upside down. It looks great that way. Only 4 rows of lace. Now, I just finished sewing on the cute green triangle buttons and we're good to go for my niece's birthday this spring.  I think I'll make a plan to resolve (either finish or rip) one UFO a week in 2010. 
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The baby I originally started this for is in kindergarten now, but who's counting. Babies are like buses, if you miss one another one will be along soon. So if I can't finish a baby gift in time, I give something else and finish at my leisure. I have a couple of pairs of cute baby booties made up in my gift drawer at all times for emergencies. Let me tell you why.   My daughter called me late one Wednesday and said she was going to a baby shower for her boss and could I make something homemade, it's so much more special than store bought. “Sure”, I said. She replied, “OK, Mom, the Shower is Saturday and she's having twin boys, so it needs to be 2 cute blue things.”    I did a hand crocheted contrast edging on 2 store bought blue blankies.   Cute and fast. LOL.
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I also want to show you a couple of fun slippers I designed. I wanted cute turned up toes like Turkish slippers and enough fabric in the back that they'll stay on. Pull on loops to help me get them on quickly.  Enough foot coverage to keep me warm. Sexy would be nice, too. I think I got the requirements all covered but the last one, sigh. I'm still working on that. Warm and comfy seem to be in conflict with sexy ... Story of my life?

The pinks are a ladies small and the grays are a ladies medium. Hmmmm.... I wonder who fits these?

Don't you like the knitted in purple beads on the pink ones? I used short rows to turn up the toes. Yarn is more of the 60's WW stuff, size 7 needles.
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Here are a few Warming Words from my mentor.  Something to warm the heart on a cold winter's night.    "The ungrateful feel that it is below them to show any kind of appreciation. They are under the delusion that showing gratitude to others diminishes their own worth. But it is this sense of appreciation that elevates, enriches and expands the human spirit. A lack of gratitude is actually a sign of arrogance"    - Daisaku Ikeda

Ta Ta,

Julie

• Location:home in San Diego
• Mood: mellow
• Music:Metropolis

Leggings to match the BSJ

Hello, Friends far and near,

You think you have Too Many Projects on the needles?  I tried to count my WIP's once, and stopped counting at fifty.  It's no wonder that after 40 years of knitting, I am still buying new needles all the time.  LOL.   I need to find a way to finish more than I cast on.  Casting on is so much fun...

I love to make Baby Surprise Jackets, the "geometric progression" baby sweater from Elizabeth Zimmerman, aka the "BSJ". The pattern is available from her daughter, Meg, at www.schoolhousepress.com.   Easy and fun.  They're like potato chips, bet you can't make just one.   I have even done them in my size, the ASJ.  Go buy the pattern, it's the best deal in the Internet.

Marilyn, one of the moderators of the "knitbabysurprise" group on Yahoo, mentioned that she had once made leggings that use the same method of double increasing as the BSJ, resulting in leggings that look matching.   I think this is a great idea, as I always wanted a matching legging to use when I want to give a baby set that looks good and matches.

I googled for the free pattern she mentioned, but I could not find her  "BSJ-esque" legging pattern, so after much googling around, I gave up and started experimenting based on Marilyn's recollections of knitting them.   I just finished them and they're cute and "go with" the BSJ.



Free Baby Leggings Pattern to match EZ's BSJ

The beginning is the grey part in the crotch and them the increases create the rest from there.  Same geometric progression idea as the BSJ. Fun to knit.  This is what I did to make them. Using a circ, I cast on 8, knit them, pulled the left hand needle out and picked up 8 stitches from the underside of the cast on. Now I am going round in a circle, much like the toe-up cast on of a sock. Knit front and back each stitch around.  Knit one round even.  Using 8 markers I set up to inc 2 (one each side of the marker) at each of the 8 points every other row. Just like the second half of the BSJ, but more so since it's 8 inc points.

I kept going until one side of the octagon (between any 2 markers) was 10 inches, since I wanted a 20 inch waist to fit my niece.  You can pick your own side length depending on the size waist desired. One side of the octagon is equal to one half of the waist measurement.  It's all proportional.   As EZ said, "babies are square."   Don't worry about the leg length, that is adjusted at the end.

Now comes the hard to describe part. I decided which segment was the back waist and short rowed a bit to give some diaper room. (5 pairs of short rows, if you catch my drift) This is optional if you do not enjoy short rows.  See the picture below.

Then I knit down one segment (to become the side seam of the leg later).
If you want to lengthen the leg, this is the place.  You can add as many rows as desired here to the next segment.  I decided the cuff was enough and did not add any more. 
Then I knit a 3 inch CUFF in K1, P1 ribbing, bound it off but did not break the thread.
I crocheted the sides of the ribbing together and then did 3 needle bind off until I had attached the 2 leg-side segments together and my live stitch was back at the waistband.
Put the live stitch on the right hand needle and knit across the next segment (front waist band), knit down the next segment (leg side seam again), another rib cuff, another 3 needle bind off.
Last stitch on the right hand needle.
Now I have only the 2 waistband segments on the needles plus 2 stitches.
I did 3 rows K2, p2 ribbing, one row with holes for the lacing (k2, yo, p2tog).
Two more rows ribbing and a suspended bind off. Thread in a lacing. All done.

The tie is a boot lace from the 99 cent store.   Ribbon is more "girly", but I like the rugged looking boot  tie against the rough texture of the garter stitch.

I alternated the colors every 2 rows to be able to see the construction, but I might not do that again. Kind of fugly in these strong colors. The yarn is from the sixties, acquired at a yard sale.  One of the ball bands actually had a date in 1961 stamped on it.

The back photo shows the 5 pair of short rows added for more diaper room.



Now I'm trying to catch up to the others on the KAL on the on the matching BSJ.  I will be able to catch up because in order to use this yarn and needles and end up with the size I want, it's cast on 120, knit 25, ddec, etc. The bulky BSJ. So it'll go real fast.  (The normal is 160, right?)  About half as much work.

Have fun with your leggings.  You're welcome.

See you soon,
Julie

• Location:home
• Mood: pleased
• Music:Enya

Coming back, Happy New Year

Hello, Happy New Year!

Sorry I've been away so long.  The holidays were a busy time for me.  I'm a Buddhist who was raised Christian.  Dan's what I lovingly call a BU-Jew.  Relatives of every possible combination.   So we just celebrate ALL  the holidays.  Even Hindu New Year with an Indian  friend, Kesh, some years.  Now that I think of it, not since his wife passed away.  Now that's sad.  This year I'll have to make a point to look him up.

Result of all this holiday foolishness?  About a hundred hand knit gifts.  And a bout with bronchitis that did not help.  But I'm back now. 

This year I'm pruning the gift list and starting earlier.  I already have 6 put away in the "magic drawer".  Sigh, I say this every year.   I never learn, do I?

Last night I finished a fun pair of slippers from yarn I got from my garage-sale-loving friend, Nhien.  The ball band of one of the balls was dated 1961. Great, intense colors.   These are very purple, darkly luminous psychadelic purple, even though they photographed more blue.  The pattern is from the same era as the yarn, very retro.



I also recently (since New Years)  finished a keyhole scarf with a ruffled edge.



And a pair of bright orange socks in a small women's size, with fufu  yarn along the top edge to trim the cuff.  In my mind, I have my friends classified by the size of their feet, LOL.  There are several who might fit these small socks.  Hmmm, I wonder who likes orange, I mean really likes 'em really orange. And has small feet.



And a Sutra case for an English language Sutra.  I like the floral lining.  The outside looks like Mexican tooled leather, but it's a suede-like fabric.



And another Sutra case sized for a Japanese language Sutra, much smaller.  This one has a piece of Guatamalan fabric from my friend Kim's mother (who is Guatamalan) in it.  The lining is the same pink and black floral that wraps around to the front flap: outside shot.



and inside shot. This one has an added extra inside pocket.  My Nam Myoho Renge Kyo card for scale.   I only had the one small piece of the great Guatamalan fabric, so I had to build up from there.



I have been reading Poetry in Stitches by Solveig Hisdal and now put colors together I never would have before, like rust and pink. The olde time fiber artists from Norway had a very different color aesthetic.   I'm beginning to like it.    I hope they would approve.

Tonight it was pouring cats and dogs, (winter in San Diego) so we decided we needed comfort food.  We're both getting over colds.  We went to the Souplantation in Point Loma.  Hot soup and salad and muffins, perfect for a cold rainy night... 

Keep warm and dry, where ever you are.

Lilo, busy reading the mail, looks up to say goodnight!



Ta Ta,
Julie

• Location:home
• Mood: full
• Music:Gardens of the world

Free Recipe: Savory Dutch Baby

 

Hello,
Lovely fall day in San Diego.  The air is soft and warm, not hot, not cold, soft breeze, birds singing. 

Dan and I are having a leisurely brunch.  I made a creation without a name.  It's a savory Dutch Baby.  Maybe I should call it that, Savory Dutch Baby.  It was heavenly.



Savory Dutch Baby

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit and also pie pan with 2 T olive oil or butter (let your conscience be your guide) I also put in the pan 2 sliced leftover brats, and some leftover baked vegies, onions, yellow bell peppers and apples. (You can tell what last night's supper was).   

In a food processor combine:
2 x-large eggs
1/2 Cup flour
1/2 Cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
a few grinds of black pepper
a pinch of smoked hot red pepper (Chipotle, cayenne or Spanish paprika will do)
1tsp sugar (seasoning quantities to bring out the other flavors, it's not supposed to be sweet)

Whirr for 1 minute. Pour into the hot pan and bake until it is well browned on top and puffs up high, about 25 minutes.

Sprinkle top with 2 Tablespoons chopped parsley and 2/3 Cup of grated cheese. Slide back in the oven for a few seconds to melt the cheese.

Remove and serve in wedges.  It will fall, that is how they do, but it will taste great.  This is my new way to zing up the leftovers. The pic shows it after it has fallen.  You have to be quick to get it all puffed up high!



We went to Buena Park for my birthday. We had Nathan.  Here he is riding a Pizza boat.  The incongruity of pizza in water is lost on him, he just knows that 2 of his favorite things are together, pizza and boat.



We went to Aladdin Cafe in San Diego with Heather. They have a menu option that is a whole mess of appetizers, feeds about 3 or 4.  It was great.  http://www.aladdincafe.com  They make their own fresh pita and everything is from scratch and totally fresh.  I love that place.



Dan and I went to see a movie, Julie and Julia, and afterward went to California Pizza Kitchen.  This is Dan's favorite moment, when he just opens the menu and is full of hope that they have added something special and new.  The movie was great.  I recommend it.


See you later, Nate and I are off to see the Cloudy with Meatballs movie...
Julie

• Location:San Diego
• Mood: cheerful
• Music: something Arab off the Aladdin website

International Day Of Peace at USD

Hi,
I had a great day yesterday at the International Day pf Peace event at USD
Doug and Dan at the SGI exhibit.






Oops, sorry about the flopped photo of me.

It was a lovely, peaceful day and we had a really great time. I wish I had a pic of the white peace dove release (54 of them), but it was over too fast for my laffable camera skills.

After the booth take-down was over we went to the campus cafeteria for a late lunch.  I was surprised at how good the food was, and inexpensive.  A steak plate with a nicely done, cooked to order rare steak and freshly cooked veggies and salad for under $6.  I could have had potatoes, but I declined them.  My memories of college cafeterias from my time in school are not so great, hehe.  You go, USD!

Here is another finished pair of socks for another "bigfoot" in the family, Kevin, size 14 foot. Toe up, 2 on 1 circ, plain vanilla stockinette stitch with 1x1 ribbing at the cuffs.  The yarn is Colinette's Welsh-spun Jitterbug, with a few little additions of Kroy leftovers.  For a Size 14 foot  you need to add a little yarn to make the tops high enough.




Slowly but surely I am filling the "presents" drawer.

Right now I am mostly knitting on the Shaker yarn.  It is just so cool to  knit with yarn actually made by real Shakers!  It is coming out very wooly and warm.

Dan is taking me out to dinner tonight, so I'd better go quick and take him up on his offer!

See ya next time,
Julie

• Location:home
• Mood: happy
• Music:Carlos Santana, Supernatural

Fall socks

Hello,

Hot today.

Well, I finally went to Border Leather in Chula Vista yesterday.  http://www.borderleather.com/ In case you are wondering about the name, the husband does leather goods and the wife does yarn.  Wow!  Does she have a lot of lovely yarn. Good prices, too.  I bought a skein of black sock yarn to finish off the socks for the big foot brother in law, size 15 shoe, so that the tops can be long, as he prefers.  The standard 100 gram ball doesn't do it for him, more like 150 grams.   I'll have to go back for more yarn later.  I'll post pix when the big foots are finished. 

Speaking of socks, I finished the fall socks for my father-in-law.



I'm sure he'll like them. The legs are in Coin stitch, which is fun to do.  It's not as stretchy as normal ribbing, so the very tops have to be in the usual ribbing.  But I like the effect. Kind of peek-a-boo with the black frame and the variegated peeking thru.

I went to Orange County today to help my daughter with my grandson.  Those two work some impossible hours.  She was working at 4 am and he was working at 5 am, and the grandson needed to meet a school bus at 8 am.  So, gramma and grampa to the rescue.  This was the first day of the school bus, and he was so happy to be taking the bus.  He just loves the bus with the other kids.  Happy, Happy Nathan.  Crazy hours and long drive by the time we got home.

Tomorrow I will be working a booth at the International Day of Peace at USD.  http://www.sandiego.edu/peacestudies/news/events_calendar/  Good cause, but I will be totally pooped when it's over.

Love,
Julie

• Mood: tired
• Music:Jerry Lee Lewis, Live

Happy New Year!

Hello,
Tonight we went to see my in-law's for Jewish New Year.  It was a lovely dinner.  My little niece was cute as ever and the hit of the party.

I'm knitting on a scarf from some lovely blue and green wool that my sister sent me for my birthday.  She went to Maine this summer for a golf vacation at Poland Springs, www.polandspringresort.com.  While she was in Maine, she went to Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village and visited the Shaker exhibits and gift shop. http://www.shaker.lib.me.us/museum.html  She sent me the wool form the Shakers.  It is very simple two-ply wool, very Shaker-like in its style, full of lanolin on my hands and a little sheepy-smelling.   It's nice to knit is in a simple stitch on plain wooden dowels.  I feel very simple and Shaker-like myself tonight.   I should be singing one of their working songs as I knit.



It's been very hot in California lately.   This is Dan, cooling off in Daphne's, an air-conditioned Greek restaurant, with an iced tea yet.   So, are you too hot to smile, Dude?




These are the plantings in front of the restaurant.  I like the rust and purple grasses with the golden tufts.




My sister got the Smartcar this summer.  It's really fun.



Tata for now, I'm off to knit on my Shaker wool.
Julie

• Location:Home
• Mood: happy
• Music:Jazz, Brad Melthau

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