Month: January 2018

A silly thought

Okay, let’s accept this little fact before we get into this silly thought I had today: Everyone farts.  I think there’s a book on it, even.  I once bought a dinosaur book for my nephew that illustrates the potential sounds that various dinosaur farts might have had, and how their poop might have looked (because everyone poops, too, you know).  A nurse once talked to a group of us about how something like ten farts a day suggests a healthy body and diet for humans.

Makes you want to start keeping track, doesn’t it?  😛

Now that we have that out of the way, the thought I had today.  Have you ever left someone that sad present in an elevator?  (Dreadful idea, I know!)  The poisonous trap, provided especially for you by a stranger.

I was all alone in the elevator today, just going up one floor (the stairs are inaccessible, unfortunately).  I had actually seen only two other people even in the building so far in the day, and no one was around when I got on the elevator.  No one is usually around on the floor where I was getting off the elevator.  Even still, when a bit of gas presented its desire to escape, I hesitated – I guess it’s just that engrained in me not to let it go in an elevator.  Seeing as no one was around, though, I went ahead and let it slide.  (I guess that’s literal, too.)  It was small, I could tell, and so harmless in almost any setting, anyway.

When the doors opened, and I began to walk out of the elevator, releasing the end of my internal chemistry class experiment, I was presented with a man in the hallway… and he walked directly into the elevator!  I think I couldn’t have opened my eyes any wider as I considered the situation while I walked down the hall.  I barely even saw the man, because we were walking in opposite directions, and I had to turn the corner almost immediately.  But he was there, and he went straight into the elevator.

I just left him a present in the elevator, went through my mind.  And I laughed instantly.  Naturally…

My only solace was that it was definitely a small fart and he was only going a maximum of one floor… so, there was a chance that he might not even notice it.

But there was also totally a chance that he would notice it and would know exactly what had happened: a friendly stranger had left him a present in the elevator.  Face in palms… 😛

So, have you ever done it?  This was definitely my first.  I think so, anyway.

Have a great night, folks!

Post-a-day 2018

So, what are you?

Today, I share something I received yet again in the e-mail for yesterday.  I love the quote in it, and something similar lives always within me in my everyday life.  I say and have said for years, “We are what we eat, and we are what we think about all day long.”  And I ask myself, “So, what am I?  What are my thoughts?  What am I thinking about all day?”

I now ask you the same.  Who and what are you?  What do you eat, and what do you think about all day long?  What words do you think (even if you do not say them)?  And what would you like to think?

I do a regular cleansing, so to speak, of my own thought patterns and language.  I evaluate what words and thoughts I have been using and entertaining, but which do not suit the self that I want to be.  And I make a conscious, daily, minute-to-minute effort to think the thoughts and use the words that I want myself to think and to use.

And I always feel so – for lack of any other way of describing it – clean afterward.  It almost feels like bathing, slowly but surely.

………………………………….

JANUARY 9

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.

– SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

The ancestor of every destructive action, every destructive decision, is a negative thought. We do not have to be afraid of negative thoughts as long as we do not welcome them. They are in the air, and they may knock at anyone’s door; but if we do not embrace them, ask them in, and make them our own, they can have no power over us.

We can think of thoughts as hitchhikers. At the entrance to the freeway, we used to see a lot of hitchhikers carrying signs: “Vancouver,” “Mexico,” “L.A.” One said in simple desperation, “Anywhere!” Thoughts are a lot like those hitchhikers. We can pick them up or pass them by. Negative thoughts carry signs, but usually we see only one side, the side with all the promises. The back of the sign tells us their true destination: sickness and sorrow.

Nobody is obliged to pick up these passengers. If we do not stop and let them in, they cannot go anywhere, because they are not real until we support them. There is sympathy in the world: pick it up. There is antipathy in the world: don’t pick it up. Hatred destroys. Love heals.

 

The Thought for the Day is today’s entry from Eknath Easwaran’s Words to Live By.
You can view the Thought for the Day on our website

 

……………………………….

Post-a-day 2018

that 1%…

Have you ever had strongly disagreeing viewpoints with someone close to you, on a topic of great importance?  I have, and I currently still do…

You see, someone rather close to me – let’s call her Carol – has a completely different view on money than I have, and in a way that we disagree on how to go about certain things.  To her, people with money almost have a responsibility to give money to people who don’t have money.  Now, I don’t mean in the sense of homeless people, or people who do nothing with their lives.  She believes that people who work hard and who are smart just kind of deserve money, no matter what careers or jobs they have.  For me, for example, I’m kind of a high school teacher.  That maxes out my salary at around, say, $60,000 per year for a lifetime in the career.  Most of my acquaintances began their first jobs post-college making at least $50,000, and have gone up from there – they will surpass my lifetime maximum within ten years at most in their jobs.

These are the situations in which Carol believes that the money-making acquaintances have an almost-obligation to give money to people like me, – or at least to do things that cost money for people like me – since we have no chance of ever affording it ourselves, through no direct fault of our own, per se.

And this is a point on which we disagree entirely.  While I certainly appreciate when people do things like that for me, – and I know that I would do things like that for people, if I had the money (for I already do with the little money I do have) – I do not believe that they have any obligation to me.  I regularly feel as though I am being encouraged to take inappropriate advantage of friends, family members, and acquaintances, because we so much disagree on this.  For me, it is not seizing the opportunity, but strangling out every penny someone could possibly give to me.

I did, to a certain degree, select this work.  (I avoided it for a while, because I hated the idea of the salary, I really did.  And yet, here I am, anyway, teaching.  Nothing else has ever piqued my interest.  Though, I’ve had lost no experience in anything else real, really.)  But Carol believes that people need to give me their money, give me their airline miles and hotel points and all the other benefits – not so much that they themselves suffer the loss, of course, but just so that I get to benefit alongside them – that their high-salary jobs afford them.

And, while I would love to find a partner in life who’ll provide loads and loads of money for our lives, – let’s be real: I’ll probably give most of my share away – that is the only person I would expect to provide me with money or benefits of any kind.  And not because I’m lazy, but because there is something valuable for me to do, that we both see as valuable, but that is not up there on the high-salary scale.  No one else even comes close to being expected to share anything but a little time with me.  That’s why I have the friends, anyway, is to spend time together.  Not to take their money.

 

I feel like I’m not saying any of this very well, and that I definitely am not making a worthwhile point… I’m just exhausted tonight.  Today has been unique and somewhat terrible, as some days do turn out in life… I look forward to the balancing of the scale for today soon.

Post-a-day 2018

Unpacking & Unboxing

Three and a half thoughts:

1.  I spent my afternoon today opening and sorting boxes from Japan.  I finally have the much-needed winter clothing I’ve been wanting the past month and a half.  Good thing it was almost warm today.

2.  I was happily surprised that almost everything I brought back was totally practical and useful and something I really like.  I was worried that I wouldn’t like loads of it all.

3.  It’s interesting to me how Japan no longer feels like a sort of adventure.  It actually surprises me when people have big reactions to the fact that I was there, living there.  It feels the same as saying that I buy vegetables at the grocery store – it’s just something simple and everyday.  I lived in Japan… and so do millions of other people.  I know that it isn’t the regular deal for people around here; I’m clear on that.  I just mean that it feels so not special to me specifically.  It almost feels more unique that I floss my teeth every day (sometimes more than once a day), than that I lived in Japan.  I guess it’s just old news for me now. So does that mean I need some new news, then, if only for myself?

1/2.  Wait until you see the tubs of kimono that I have…!  (Doesn’t that sound like ice cream or something?)  😛

Post-a-day 2018

Dreams disregarded

Have you ever been reminded of a sort of dream you once had, and then wondered if it might still be a dream of yours?  Tonight, participating in something I haven’t done in a while, and in a slightly new way, I was reminded briefly of a dream I once had relating to it all.  I wanted it so badly, it hurt not pursuing it back then… and I pursued it somewhat, when finances allowed for it.  But, eventually, something happened, and I stepped away.  Ever since then, I’ve been kind of tentative being involved at all…, yet I saw tonight that that dream might still be within me.  And something has me terrified of it in a bad way, while part of me feels entirely comfortable and at ease with it, kind of like a, ‘Well, of course I’ll do that.  Easy.’

My stomach is quaky with caffeine right now, unfortunately, so I’ll have to see how I feel in the morning and tomorrow.  Is the quaking just the caffeine, or is it more?  (I’ve got my fingers crossed (and terrified about it) for it being just the caffeine.)  We’ll see.  Perhaps I won’t even remember it tomorrow.  That might be the determining factor, actually.  I really might not remember tomorrow, it is of so little real importance to me, this disregarded dream I once had.

Post-a-day 2018

Teatime with the girls

A sort of short story about a girl’s casual, 30-second train of thought.

……………………………………………..

“…I go on a job interview there, and that’s how we finally meet up, and discover that we really do like one another in a dating capacity.  And so, I start working over there, and we start dating.  That’s easy enough, you see,” says Eliza.

“Okay…” replies Karen speculatively.  “And then?”

“Well, and then we realize that we totally love one another,” continues Eliza, “and we’re ready to get married.  But the question is whether we get married here or over there.  If we got married there, it would be totally classy and cool, but then all of my family and friends here likely would miss out.  But then, I think, what people here do I really care about having at my wedding?  Most of them would be invited only so I could show off my amazing husband and wedding to them, anyway.  And wouldn’t it be accomplishing the same thing by getting married in Europe instead, where my husband is from?  It shows how he’s exotic, and so am I, getting married over there.  Plus, then all the ladies could wear their fabulous hats and everything would be so chic and practically straight out of some fashion magazine.
“I would have a dress that is inspired from the princesses’ wedding dresses in London over the years, with a hint of French flare and loads of my own personality, all tied together beautifully and stunningly.”

Karen cuts her off, “You have the dress planned already?”

“Well, I’m not sure about the whole thing exactly, but I know how the sleeves would look, and they’re spectacular and classy.  And YES, they do exist, despite all this recent fashion of sleeveless wedding dresses.  So not my style.”

Karen shakes her head, and takes a sip of tea as Eliza continues.

“Anyway, so that could be cool.  And we’d have a super-fab old Church for the wedding, and that would be amazing and not cliché, because it’s actually just normal in Europe.  But then, we’d have to have some kind of something here in the US afterward.  I’m not sure what, exactly, but something to celebrate specifically with everyone here who couldn’t make the trip.  But nothing lame.  Too many people do a lame ‘Oh, we couldn’t invite all of you to the wedding, but we still want to celebrate with you’.  Aka ‘Give us presents, even though you weren’t good enough to be invited to the wedding.’  Not to be harsh, but you get the point…”

“Who’s she talking about?” whispers Lorena, who has just returned from flirting at the tea bar.

“The guy from the photo I showed you yesterday,” replies Karen, sighing.  Lorena accepts this, and begins to process what Eliza is saying.

“Then we’d continue living over there, and it’d be perfect, because it lines up with my wanting to live over there, and we’d be so close for an easy trip up to visit Christine and her husband whenever we wanted for a long weekend or whatever.  Or I could go alone super easily.”

Astounded, Lorena cuts in, “You mean you’ve already decided on wedding plans with this guy?!  You haven’t even gone on a date, yet!”

“He hasn’t even asked her out,” chuckles Karen.

Only slightly defensively, Eliza replies cooly, “Well, if we can’t agree on a wedding location and place to live, then it isn’t really worth bothering dating in the first place, now is it?  We’d be wasting our time if we knew so soon that it never would work out, yet went forward with it all, anyway.”

“She has a point,” allows Karen, raising her eyebrows.

After a pause, Lorena replies, “True…  I still hold that you’re nuts, Eliza.”

“I’ll second that,” throws in Karen.

“Third it!” laughs Eliza.  “Oh, I know I’m totally nuts.  That’s why it’s so important that a guy and I be compatible through and through before we bother starting anything.”

They erupt in giggles and laughter, enjoying the ridiculousness of the conversation, and knowing how true Eliza’s statement really is.

“Weirdo,” says Lorena, playfully.  “Okay, let’s have some lunch.  I’m hungry, and now all I can think about is smoked salmon…”

The other two frown questioningly at her.

“What?  You were talking about weddings.  Weddings always make me think of smoked salmon.”

“Weirdo.”

“Total weirdo.”

Lorena laughs, “Whatever.”

……………………………………………..

Post-a-day 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘I am not a robot…’

You know those automated checkouts at grocery stores?  Well, my mom and I had a giggle fest at one this afternoon.

IMG_2406

Okay, so there’s a lady’s voice that says everything out loud for you at the self-checkout, right?  Usually, she is somewhat bland and middle-of-the-road with her interest in your shopping spoils.  “Please, enter your alternate ID on the keypad now,” she says with command and a certain ‘Hurry up, you idiot,’ edge to her voice.

This is how she usually talks.  Her sentences are prerecorded as sentences.  They are all somewhat monotonous and easily ignored.  We still mute the sound whenever we use the self-checkout, nonetheless, because we don’t want to listen to the noise, since it isn’t pleasurable in and of itself.

Today, we discovered that, when she did the recordings for the individual names of the fruits and vegetables, she did them in a somewhat happy mood.  Instead of plain old, regular “Bananas,” you have, “Bananas!”  And we discovered this by overhearing someone else’s station, of course.

Our station is silent.  My mom and I are scanning and placing the juices in our homemade bag without much conversation.  In between the few comments we have been exchanging, slightly annoyed with one another, we suddenly here the self-checkout lady’s voice come from the checkout station next to us.  An older man, grandpa style, is scanning his shopping selections.  We hear the regular monotony of the lady’s voice at first, but then, mid-sentence, we are surprised with her joy before she finishes in the original monotony.

“Please, weight your… Bananas!… now.”

We catch one another’s eye and practically convulse with silent snorts of suppressed laughter.  We aren’t at all sure why we find it so hilarious.  We remain silent, and continue our checkout routine.

The cashier lady voice continues a few moments later, “Please place your… Bananas!… in the bagging area.”

We bite our lips, finish checking out, and walk out the door.  By the time we are in the parking lot, we are almost falling down with deep, full laughter.  Getting into the car, I attempt to repeat the voice’s phrases, and fall apart at “Bananas!” both times.  “The fact that it was an old man…,” I manage to say, shaking my head, “…and she was just so… Happy… about the bananas…”

My mother agreed, and we continued our fits of laughter as we drove off from the store, feeling ridiculous for having laughed in the first place, but enjoying the incident nonetheless.  At least, now we know that the fruit and vegetable names are happy recordings.  I guess the lady likes fruits and vegetables.  Or, rather… at least, she likes bananas.

 

P.S.  Yes, I know that I am ridiculous.  I am aware.  😛

Post-a-day 2018