One Fine Day with the Dalai Lama

Having front row seats to listen to the Dalai Lama is probably a once-in-a-lifetime event for me. But my front row seats were far to one side of the stage, and the Dalai Lama's interpreter was seated right in my line of site. His Holiness gestures gracefully when he speaks, so at times, it appeared that some disembodied arms were playing an invisible harp. Or that I was watching the Once-ler speak.

I did get to see his face occasionally during the talk, but his message was why I was there: "Cultivating Happiness." It's a powerful message. But it's a very simple message.

Things do not make us happy. We want something, we buy it, and for a moment, we think we are happy. But the next day, we are not happy.

Alcohol and drugs do not make us happy. We may be happy while we are consuming, but the next day, we are again unhappy.

Wealth does not make us happy. Some of the wealthiest people on earth are unhappy. Some of the poorest are happy.

Religion does not make us happy. (There were a few gasps from the audience when he said this. I wondered if a gasp came from the priest I recognized there.) Many people who claim to be religious are not happy. Many people who follow no one religion are happy.

What makes us happy? The Dalai Lama says that compassion makes us happy--giving it and receiving it. Compassionate people are happy. A baby who has its needs met--is fed, is warm, is held and loved--is happy. A person who has been the recipient of compassion is happy. A person who is the agent for compassion is happy.

If we can maintain and strengthen our compassion for one another, we will be happy.

Hey, the Beatles said it, too: All You Need is Love.

I don't care, call me a granola-crunching, tree-hugging, Birk-wearing, heathen hippie. I can take it.

One Fine Afternoon in Class

My first-year composition students have just started reading (by my requirement, of course--first-year students don't read anything you don't tell them to read) the book Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams. I asked them what their "refuge" might be. Some of them looked at me blankly. I tried again. Ok, well, what do you do when you are really upset? When you want to feel safe and protected? Oh! That!

Several young men said that they like to get in their cars and take a long drive with the stereo cranked up. A few women said they like to take a long walk away from other people. One guy said he loved to just sit under a tree. Many kids said they love to go camping, and that started a discussion about sitting around a campfire, staring at the glowing embers or at the starry night sky, and the wonderful sleep you sleep in the out-of-doors with the rhythmic crickets and something rustling in the leaves.

The room got quiet for several long moments as we all smiled our internal smiles at the memory of our own personal "refuges."

After a delicious and warm silence, one usually very quiet young man said, "I don't see how you guys can possibly sleep outside in a tent. I've always been scared to death to fall asleep in case the elephants come crashing through the forest again."

Buh? Stunned silence. Then, everyone turned to look at the speaker. In unison, we all "Bwahahahaa-ed" our lungs out.

We had forgotten this guy was from the southern tip of India.

I won't be bitching about those pesky mosquitos anymore.

One Fine Weekend in Boston

And so both of my regular readers have given me hell for not posting since July 19th. Feh. I had nothing to say.

Not true. I had stuff to say, but I had no time to say it. And then, when I had time to say it, I forgot what it was that I wanted to say. I didn't want to list what I had for dinner, or how many times I'd stubbed my toe that day, so I blew off the blog altogether.

But now, I have a few quiet moments, and I had a great time in Boston last weekend with one of my "regular" readers--my son (Ell)--and with my daughter-in-law (Bee) and my granddaughter (Ess). They live there, and based only on my brief stay, I don't know how they will ever be able to leave that city. What a neat place!

So first of all, there's a beach to go to. I ran and played in the surf with Ess, and I never once gasped for air like I do on that god-forsaken eliptical trainer at the gym. It must be the salt air, or maybe it's running on sand. Maybe it's just having a great time with someone you love. Maybe you go into a different kind of flow that transcends any awareness of physical exhaustion. I did sleep well each night...

And then, there's public transportation. Where I live, public transportation consists a bus system in which the drivers must daydream a lot. They don't seem to make consistent stops, and they don't always stop for you when you are standing five feet into the street, waving your hands madly and jumping up and down like you have hot coals in your pants. If the bus system suddenly stopped in this city, I'm not sure anyone would notice for a good hour. In Boston, nearly everyone rides the "T" and busses. Public transportation is considered a god-given right, and BY GOD don't take it away from them! Here's how I found this out. I flew into Boston and took a bus to a subway stop so I could ride downtown to meet Ell near his office. We were going to get back on the T and pick up Ess at her daycare, and then take MORE public transportation to their apartment. (See how this works? It would take HOURS to do all of this via public transportation where I live!) Ell and I were on the T a total of three mintues when the train just stopped. We were stuck on a bridge on a stopped T. People began to grumble. Loudly. Then the train moved about a foot. Backwards. More grumbling. Louder. This was repeated about five times before we began moving forward again. We slowly rolled into the next station (not the one we wanted), and eventually found out that there had been a fire in one of the stations, that fire engines were blocking the path of the T, and that no one knew how long it would take to get things moving again. The Red Line and the Green Line were not moving. A guy sitting on our train started hollering, "This is BULLshit! This is BULLshit!" He looked like a homeless jogger; he was wearing gym shorts, he had a terrycloth band around his graying ponytailed head, and by the time he had worked himself up into a screaming lecture about the bullshittedness of what "the man" was doing to his public transportation rights, he had yanked the front of his T-shirt over his head so that his belly was showing, yet he still had sleeves. Soon, people started whipping out cel phones to call someone who might have some knowledge of what was happening on the outside. Then, a woman hopped onto our train and shouted, "My friend and I are going above to hail a taxi. We are going south. Anyone want to split the fare?" No one responded or moved. The woman shrugged and took off. Ell and I looked at each other. "Got any cash?" he asked me. "Yeah, wanna go?" We took off after this woman. We didn't know where we were going, what we were going to do, where we might end up, but it was better than sitting on that train listening to a crowded trainful of disgruntled maniacs.

But above ground was chaos. I didn't realize that a Red Sox game was about to begin, and apparently you don't fuck with Red Sox fans and the beginning of the game. There were people running in the streets, on the sidewalks, hailing taxis, walking, running. One guy (wearing a Red Sox shirt) was screaming into his cel phone, running in a zigzag through traffic up a one-way street. Sarah and Lisa (the woman and her friend who made the taxi offer) and Ell and I stood on different corners of an intersection, each trying to hail a cab. Of course, in all of the chaos, there were fifteen people ahead of us also trying to hail cabs. It must have been 30 minutes of cab hailing when an empty cab pulled up for us. Right--the cabbie spoke broken English, and he didn't know how to get to the JFK station. Sarah had to direct him through traffic. Lisa kept looking out the cab windows, saying, "I might be able to get out here....I think I know where I am...no, I'm not sure. Ok, I think I know where I am! I can walk from here! No, wait..."

Here's another thing I've learned about the people in cities where there is an excellent public transportation system. If you dump them out in the middle of town, they have no idea where they are. They know how to get from one station to another, and they know where they need to go in relation to that station, but that's it. Dump me out in the middle of my town, and I pretty much know where I am. Of course my city is a fraction of the size of Boston, but my point is that I think I've driven on nearly every street in my town. I've even driven all the way across town taking nothing but alleys just to see if I could. I know so much of my city because I have to. When you have public transportation, you don't have to.

Traffic was insane. Ell and I got off near the JFK station, not really knowing where the hell we really were. We found out that the Red Line should be running from that station to where we needed to go. We hoped.

I had left the airport about 4:00pm. By 8:30pm, Ell and I met Bee and Ess in a Starbucks a few miles from their apartment.

So what else did we do? Ah, at the beach we rode a carousel and ate fried clams, we dined at a REAL Irish pub (the guys sitting behind us were speaking Irish), we went to Boston Commons and Quincy Market, we saw the end of a marathon, we walked a qua-jillion miles in downtown Boston (but it didn't feel like a qua-jillion miles), and Ess and I read Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein five times. (Ess calles him Seashell Silverstein.)

Ess informed me, after watching Hammy on Over the Hedge, that she can burp her ABCs. Really? I asked. "Yep! uuhAAAAAY! Beeeeee! Ceeeeee! Deeeeeee!" She got all the way to F, and we were each in complete laughing fits after each letter. By that time, I had to go to the bathroom, and while I was in there, I heard her laughing hysterially. Then it got quiet. Then more hysterical laughter. Uh oh. I opened the bathroom door, and Ess was hopping up and down. "Gramma! Gramma! I can FART my ABCs, too!" What an angel.

One Fine Day at Trader Joe's (and one stupid day at a grocery)

I have a handful of favorite people. One of my most favoritist favorite people has a blog at http://jinserai.livejournal.com. My post today is a response to his "Clueless Crusade" rant.


Today's blog entry is a response to jinserai's entry, "Clueless Crusade." I originally wrote today's blog as a comment on his, but I erased it. I decided my own rant belonged on my blog. But I'm certainly giving jinserai credit for getting me wound up about the topic again.

I have my own personal crusade against plastic bags. But my gripe is that I don't like the things blowing through the air (especially those flying out the back of garbage trucks), I don't like them stuck in the trees, and I don't like them tossed in my yard. Yes, we humans do use TOO MUCH, but I also don't especially want the government telling me I can't use a plastic bag when I want to (or even charging me 15 cents to use one). So what do we do? Change our *own* GD behavior and use some common sense! Stop being so f**king greedy with our resources! Think beyond our own pitiful lifetimes!

Recently, I purchased several reusable bags and tried to use them at the local big-chain grocery store. I made sure the cashier knew I had them, and she let the sacker know. At first I wasn't watching the sacker (I was unloading the cart), but when I looked up, he was over half finished packing my reusable bags...WITH EVERYTHING FIRST ENCASED IN PLASTIC BAGS! At that very moment, the cashier leaned over to him and said, "And be sure you put the meat in plastic, too." I asked her, "So what's the point of all the plastic bags? I asked you to use my resuable bags." She shrugged her shoulders and said, "I dunno. I've never seen them before." HUH?!?

When I unpacked my groceries at home, I had a pile of 18 plastic bags that encased my food, which was all then placed in my reusable bags. The sacker used at least three times more plastic bags than my purchase would have required withOUT the reusable bags!

Completely different experience: Yesterday, I went to Trader Joe's with two reusable canvas bags. I purchased about the same amount of groceries as I did in my previous big-chain grocery store purchase. I walked out with my TWO canvas bags full and one sack of potatoes. The cashier didn't even ask if I wanted my potatoes in a plastic bag. (They already come in a plastic bag, for crissake!) I can't count how many times in regular grocery stores the sacker automatically puts my milk in a plastic bag. And my sack of potatoes go in a plastic bag. Plastic encased in plastic encased in plastic.

I'm thinking of messing with the cashiers and sackers the next time I get groceries. I could tell them, for the love of god, DON'T put my stuff in plastic bags! I am deathly allergic to plastic bags! I could die within minutes if you put my stuff in plastic bags.

The big-chain cashier and sacker who encased all my stuff in plastic bags would believe it, no doubt.

Fine July Days in the Backyard

July in the midwest. Today: cool, sunny, wonderful perfect weather. Next week: probably 95 degrees with 98% humidity. So I spend these few bearable days in the backyard as much as possible. Here are the delights. First, squirrel under glass. Next week, this squirrel feeder will be a squirrel steamer. Hmmmm, hassenpheffer minus rabbit/plus squirrel.

And critters falling from the trees. I put my laundry outside on the wooden drying rack, and somewhere high in the maple tree, an egg sac of praying mantises (praying manti?) have hatched. If you look closely you can see a tiny mantis next to the blue vein on the back of my hand.


Let me just say that photographing praying manti is not easy. They are curious creatures, and seem to like studying me as much as I liked looking them over. But as soon as you ask the little suckers to "vogue" for you, they freak.



The critter communities in the front yard are skittish, nervous and wary, but the squirrels and birds (and that pesky chipmunk) of the backyard sit and watch me come and go and read and grill and garden...and fling peanuts at them. They beg for food and think nothing of coming within two feet of me. We are used to each other in the backyard.

One Fine Day in the East Room of the White House

These kids give me hope for the future (click on title).

In case you haven't heard, 50 Presidential Scholars that appeared for a photo-op in the White House on Monday handed the president a signed and handwritten letter asking him to recognize human rights and to cease torture in the name of the United States.

I find it interesting that the only places I can find complete descriptions of this event (complete with video of John Roberts interviewing three students and transcripts of both the CNN and NBC interviews) are on the websites and blogs that claim the "liberal media" has taken over the minds of these young scholars. Meanwhile, the so-called "liberal media" is giving this event only a passing mention.

What do we make of that?

For one damn funny take on the day's events, see http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/06/maureen-dowd-w-learns-from-students.html.

One Fine Productive Summer

At least this year I can say that I got something constructive done during the summer.

With my own hands, yes, I caned two chair bottoms. Keep your admiration and awe to a minumum; caning these chairs was easy. The caning material is "pre-manufactured," that is, it is pre-woven. All I had to do was dig out the old caning material (including the spline and decades-old glue), cut the cane and the splice pieces to size, soak the materials in warm water, fit it all together and glue the splines in place. Each chair from start to finish took probably three to four hours. Most of that time was spent carefully cleaning the old glue and materials out of the grooves so as not to damage the wood.

History of the chairs: These belonged to my maternal grandmother. She was the last person to cane them, and my estimate is that she did so in the late 1950s. I remember them in her kitchen when I was a small girl; her friends would sit in them around the kitchen table to play Euchre with her. (If you don't know what Euchre is, then you probably are not from this area of the United States!) Grandma died in 1975, and the cane was just starting to break in a few places then. I have been the steward of these chairs ever since.

It was an interesting experience, to remove the work she had done decades ago and to replace it with my own. I have a book of instructions that I use, but it often felt as if she were there with me as I worked the cane into the grooves and tapped the splines in place to secure the cane. At times, I understood just how the cane should react; other times, it was as if I could hear her say, "See? That's why you pull the diagonal cane corners before you tap the spline!" Working on this project was meditative. I became lost in time as I listened to the wood. And now I want to finish caning her old rocking chair that I've kept in storage. I abandoned this project two years ago. This one is much harder; it requires that I weave individual strands of cane. When I thought I was nearly finished with the back of the chair, I realized that I had been weaving the cane too tightly. I need to start over, and I need to cane the seat.

But for now I have two kitchen chairs that match, are reasonably comfortable, and that don't look like I dug them out of the dumpster at Goodwill.