November KIVA Loan

November's KIVA loan goes to Guillermina, a 63 year old single woman in Santa Cruz Bolivia who has no children. Her business is selling empanadas and fruit drinks in the streets. She is enterprising, independent, dependable, active, responsible and hard-working. She has lived her adult life alone and lives in her own house made of brick which has water and electricity.

Her desire to improve her life led her to form a group of people with businesses like: plaster handicrafts, selling soft drinks, selling clothing, the selling fruit, selling tomatoes, a bookstore and cosmetic sales, to request a loan to improve their commercial activities. (She is seated in the photo)

Guillermina is dark skinned, has long black hair and medium stature. Her native tongue is Quechua and she speaks Spanish for her business. Her business is selling empanadas: which are a light pastry with a salty or sweet filling and either baked in the oven or fried, depending on the filling. The filling might be beef, chicken, fish, vegetables or fruit. The pastry is generally made of wheat flour, although she also uses corn flour and other grains. They are often eaten with a traditional fruit drink like mocochinchi (dried peach boiled with cinnamon and sugar), which is very sought after on the very hot summer days that come in Santa Cruz.

Guillermina walks with a basket filled with empanadas on one arm and a large thermos and a packet of plastic cups in the other. This under a burning sun that gets to 88-90 F degrees each day. She walks along the busiest streets of Santa Cruz.

This is her first loan with the institute in the five years since she started her business. Her dream is to have a snack bar. At the age of 63, having worked at hard physical labour for many years walking all day carrying a a heavy load is hard for her to do, and she needs a less strenuous way of making a living.

For these reasons Guillermina is requesting a loan to buy tables and chairs to expand her business so she can sell her empanadas and fruit drinks from a snack bar, rather than having to carry them through the streets all day. 

The KIVA partner in Bolivia is Emprender. Emprender has been working in Bolivia since 1999 and is dedicated to the development of its clients and the improvement of their quality of life. Emprender offers both urban and rural clients the opportunity to obtain financial products tailored to fit their needs and businesses. This include housing loans, salary loans, “opportunity” (short-term) loans, and student loans allowing young people to go on to obtain a college education. Emprender also offers free medical consultations and health classes given by trained doctors.

This is a Group Loan.  In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.

While the group's description features Guillermina and her business the other members of the group will each receive an equal share of the loan's total $3,250 to use to invest in their own business. As you can see from the photo, most are young people, some have very young children, but all are eager and will work hard to improve their family's lives. Please consider visiting KIVA and lending $25.00 to help a hard-working person in the Third World today.  

October KIVA Loan

October's KIVA loan goes to the five women who make up the Danaya Group. All five women are married, average 38 years old and have three children. They live in the traditional polygamous families in the Djalakorodji district of Bamako, Mali. They know one another through neighbourhood ties, family and business. They have a variety of businesses. Sitan sells second-hand clothing, Maïmouna sells incense, Mariam sells hair extensions, Fatoumata sells spices and Aïché sells vegetables in the market.

Sitan, Mariam, Fatoumata, Maïmouna, Aïché

Sitan (sitting on the far left in the photo) is well-known in the community for selling second-hand clothing. She plans to use her loan to buy two large bales of clothing from Médine. She will then go house-to-house on foot selling the clothing, mainly to women in their homes.

Sitan expects to earn a monthly profit of about $55.00 USD, which will be used to pay for health care for her children. She hopes to increase the size of her business through having a larger selection of clothing to offer to her customers.  All the group members hope to increase the size and profitability of their businesses by improving their selection of merchandise. 

The group is working with KIVA's field partner, Soro Yiriwaso. This will be their second group loan. Soro Yiriwaso is a partner of Save the Children. Soro Yiriwaso's mission is to increase the economic opportunities of Malian entrepreneurs, especially women. Soro is a microfinance institution started by the Sahel field office of American non-governmental organization Save the Children. Soro lends solidarity-based credit to poorer borrowers, and was officially registered by the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Malian Government in 2003. 

As a rurally-focused microfinance institution, Soro’s product portfolio is focused on two sectors: agriculture and commercial business. Agriculture loans include seasonal loans for groups of female farmers and individual loans for buying, stocking and commercializing agricultural products. 

The organization’s commercial loans include loans for entrepreneurs running small-to-medium sized enterprises who need working capital or additional equipment to grow and generate more income. Group loans are also available to support women involved in small business.  

We have extended loans to about 10 women's borrowing groups in Mali and found they are very conscientious in repaying their debts on time, and in every case they report the loan has enabled them to improve their business and financial stability through hard work and careful management. We're so happy to be able to partner with these dedicated women and help them, in our own modest way, to reach their goals of providing better lives for themselves and their families.  

The Terrorist in Training

Oh my heart is heavy, down in my boots today.

Our condo building is on the "ethnic" side of town. It's filled with people from everywhere in the world. The building is now 10 years old, has four floors, 186 units and is Y shaped. Beautiful landscaping, community garden. Totally mixed community, singles to young families to people in their 80s, and every race, religion, nationality and culture. Every neighbour I meet smiles and greets me, many have a hug for me. But every barrel seems to have at least one rotten apple, and this morning the stink was overwhelming.  

We woke up about 3:00 this morning smelling gasoline, but we couldn't tell where the smell was coming from. It seemed to be from both inside and outside. Tony checked the hallway and while it seemed somewhat stronger there we weren't certain. We debated about calling 911 to report it but it was so nebulous we didn't know what we'd even say. The air intake for the building is on the roof and if the wind is right it can pull in diesel fumes from trucks waiting at the nearby light at the intersection, or smoke from someone's fireplace. There's a convenience store just down the block, I thought maybe they were filling their gas tank and we were getting the fumes. 

We woke up to firetrucks and a hazmat truck in the parking lot and then police banging on the door. Some knuckle-dragging sociopath had gone around between 1:00 and 2:00 am and poured gasoline on the carpet in front of the doors of our Muslim residents, including the man across the hall from us. The hazmat team treated the gasoline so it won't burn, and we now have these ginormous fans in the halls vaporizing gasoline into the air. 

But the sickening part is that anyone would do such a stupid, evil thing to their own neighbours. Because the police say it had to be an inside job. Our building has a state-of-the-art security system. The doors are fobbed, each entry and exit is recorded, and the security cameras record no one entering last night carrying anything that could conceal a jerry can. Also someone would have to know the who our Muslim residents are and where they live in order to target them specifically. 

You know, assuming this malicious act was a response to the barbaric actions of ISIS in the Middle East, you have to ask, what logical argument could any sane person make for putting the lives of approximately 300 people who have absolutely nothing to do with ISIS at risk? One lit cigarette, one spark, and this building, salted with gasoline on every floor, hallways saturated with gasoline vapours, would have gone up like a box of fireworks. 

In such a fire the loss of life would have been catastrophic. There would have been no way we, or most residents could have escaped a firestorm in the hallways. 

The police are calling it a hate crime, but it's terrorism plain and simple. You, trogloydyte with the gas can. You are a terrorist. If you think burning people to death (including our neighbour's nine month old son) is not as brutal as beheading or shooting you've never worked in a burn unit. 

Tis a tale of two fridges

I have a house which looks like a hoarder's den. There are tools everywhere, sawdust in every corner, furniture out of place and the cats are having a ball with cardboard bits and rediscovered felt mice. All this because we got up Friday morning last week to a dead refrigerator. (The freezer compartment was still working, thankfully.) I went out and bought ice to help keep the fridge compartment cold. 

We measured the space and I sat down with the web to shop for a new fridge. I quickly discovered that in the ten years since this building was built fridges have grown. I could only find two which fit in the space I have. One was really cheap, less than $500, and when I went searching for reviews they were uniformly terrible. Not one recommendation. So, though I didn't necessarily want a side by side fridge/freezer, it was the only other fridge I found that fit the space (or so the dimensions on the site said.) 

I went out Friday afternoon and bought a new fridge, lightening my pocketbook by $1100. They arrived with it at 6:00 Tuesday evening and while I thought for the $90.00 we paid to have it delivered that they would at least unpack it and plug it in, they wheeled it in and left it sitting unpacked in the middle of my tiny kitchen floor.  I had paid for them to take the old fridge away, which they were a bit disgruntled by, but grudgingly did, when I waved the receipt under their nose and insisted. 

Never ever let anyone tell you expanded polystyrene is not strong. The doors were secured by an i-beam of polystyrene. It took us an hour to dig it out with the business end of a closed pair of scissors. I was sweating like a Dallas Cowboy by the end. It took us another hour to peel off the adhesive film it was shrink wrapped in, rather like skinning a bison, with less blood and more swearing. 

Larger than advertised

So we unwrapped this King Tut's mummy of a fridge and went to roll it into place. We'd already decided that plumbing the water line for the ice maker and filtered water could be done later, but wait - it wouldn't go in. Oh, I had forgotten. We had to remove the skirting board which is sort of a fancy profiled molding along the floor which projects 3/4's of an inch into the room, including the corner where the fridge sits. 

So I got down on my knees with a chisel and hammer and pulled off the skirting board. That should do it. We rolled the fridge back. No. It still wouldn't go. Now what? The wall looks straight, but when compared to the fridge it's clear it bows inward, and the fridge catches on the bow.

On the other side the immoveable object is a 30" stove. (Very poor design - what dimwit puts a refrigerator adjacent to the cookstove?) The fridge and stove had discovered each other and instantly fallen in love. The corners were kissing, and would not give up this new-found intimacy.   

We stood back and surveyed the situation. The formica top on the lower cabinets projects about an inch beyond the cabinets, leaving a useless gap between the stove and the cupboard along the wall. You can't get a broom or any cleaning instrument in there. If we could cut that projecting bit of formica off, we could move the stove over that inch and Bob's your mother's sister's husband. (I say "we" meaning Ian of course.) I place a call for rescue.  

Ian, who learned these skills at his father's knee some 35-40 years ago, arrived at the door about dinner time, armed with dinner and a power saw with a diamond-tipped blade.  The first cut, which took off an inch, was not enough, for while the store's website gave the fridge's width as 80.3 cm (31.6") it measures 83 cm (32.7").  The evening ended when the building's mandatory 10:00 pm "quiet time" kicked in, and the fridge was still sitting in the middle of the floor. 

I woke up in the middle of the night with the sick realization that while we could move the stove over there is absolutely no way to move the range hood over. It is connected to exterior ducting, and while it is angled at the front six inches, it widens out to span the stove width after that. I shot off a quick e-mail to Ian and went back to bed. 

I began figuring how we were going to have to sell this fridge at a considerable loss, buy the one which had received terrible reviews and cross our fingers that it wasn't as bad as everyone said it was. I used to carry a tape measure in my purse. Why did I quit doing that? 

I had a medical appointment shortly after noon which took several hours, then I went grocery shopping. When I returned home at 4:30 I was delighted to find my fellas had figured out how to get the fridge in. Ian removed the entire blind end of the cabinet and countertop, and the fridge squeaked in. But it went in only because the range hood is an imperceptible inch shorter than the stove on each side. If it had been as wide as the stove we would have been hooped. 

Lesson learned byes and gurls: Tyke yer type measure to the shop wi ye and measure the ting yerself. Don' go trustin' no website ner salesclerk wi' dollar signs a shinin' in his lovely brown eyes when ye asks him, "Are ye sure enuff now this tis is only thirty one and a half inches wide bye? Looks bigger to me now I sees it up close." 

Because he'll be tellin' ye anything tuh get that fridge out the door, and cause it's on the sale now ye won't be bringing it back and all.  And what does he care thet you'll be spendin' two days sweatin' bullets and rippin' up yer kitchen. And them two nights you'll be havin' the nightmare about walkin' around that fridge sittin' in the middle of the floor of yer wee kitchen for the rest of yer nacherul life. 

Ah, but 'tis a fine fridge, and has two grand doors side by side, fridge on one side, freezer on t'other.  And it uses less of the electrics than the old 40 watt bulbs. Even me mother would be impressed, and she was a hard un to please, was mother.       

There is no escape

“It is always the same with mountains. Once you have lived with them for any length of time, you belong to them. There is no escape.” ~ Ruskin Bond

It's true. We lived in a tiny house on the final slope of the Rockies in the mid-70s, one of the happiest periods of my life. I have always longed to return.

                                            ----------------------------------------

They lie on the western horizon, grey and lowering like storm clouds. As you drive toward them they seem to rise up from the earth. We turned off Highway Number One and drove down Highway 40, into Bow Valley Provincial Park between two towering rows of mountains with mile after mile of dense coniferous forest. Trees which have grown so closely together that their trunks are bare rough posts for the first six meters (20 feet) with green topknots casting a deep gloom below.

It is a perfect day. A week ago we had 35 cm (14 inches) of snow. Today it is 24 C (75 F) and we don't even need a jacket. The sky is so blue you could fall up into to it, and breathe in the effervescent mist of one of the clouds which pass by.   

Mt Kidd

The magnitude of the forces which created these mountains is unimaginable. The Canadian Rockies are made up of sedimentary rock, limestone, dolomite and shale, which was laid down in layers kilometres thick when western North America lay beneath a shallow sea. 

In most places the Rockies are formed of pieces of continental crust that are over a billion years old thrust up as two tectonic plates collided. As one plate was forced beneath the other it shattered the layers of sedimentary rock above it pushing them into broken rows of jagged and tortured peaks. 

And then the ice came. Again and again the ice crushed and gouged and milled cliffs off boulders and boulders to dust. It carried boulders as big as houses down these valleys and out  onto the prairies like your mother carried a roll of quarters in her pocketbook to the laundromat.  

Mt Sparrowhawk

Some mountains look like a horrified baker just dropped her layer cake to the floor on its side. The layers of another were at a 90 degree angle to the ground, and looked exactly like an enormous petrified tree trunk which had been broken off by the wind. One appeared to be a medieval castle with battlements, another a stone hawk hunched against the wind, its wings poised to fly. The snow glistening from ridges and slopes accentuate the fantastic shapes. 

As we drove Ian pointed out the many peaks he'd climbed. I may complain about his climbing, but I understand it. The Mountain may be a fickle lover, and a dangerous one, but to embrace her is enthralling.   

Barrier Lake

The glacial lakes that dot the valley floor like a string of beads are indigo in the shadows, milky turquoise and radiant Caribbean green in the sun, depending on depth. We stopped at Barrier Lake to take pictures. The air is rich and crisp with the scent of pine sap and aspen resin. A few miles father along we stopped and walked up a trail at Wasootch Creek.  We stopped to buy a soft drink at the only service station in 100 miles of road, then turned to make our way across to the next valley over, where we found more mountains, more trees, and a washboard gravel road. 

Wasootch Tower

I had a very fine time teasing Ian that my teeth were being rattled out of my head, begging him to drive more slowly, and all-in-all giving him a good-natured hard time. These are the roads we used to drive when he was four and five when we rough camped out here, before any of the campgrounds were developed.  I love spending time with my oldest son. 

At a rest stop we saw the only wildlife spotted on the trip, a chunky little chipmunk who kept his distance. And in due time we arrived in Canmore where we had dinner and helped one of Ian's friend's celebrate his 50th birthday.   

There is a deep solid peace which I glean from those mountains. They speak to  me in a language I hear nowhere else on earth. As evidence of their power I slept that night without pain medication, the first time I've been able to do that in several years.  

September Surprise

It's a good thing I took the pictures I posted last Friday because by this Wednesday we had 35 cm (14 inches) of wet, heavy glue-like snow on everything. The trees haven't even begun to put on fall colours yet, everything is still green and in full leaf, so the snow settled on branches and leaves not designed to carry such loads. There are branches, limbs and entire trees down all over town, and many people were left without power because falling trees took down power lines. 

The lower branches of the crabapple and plum trees outside were weighed down right to the ground. The shrubs and flowers went higgeldy-piggeldy in all directions, laid flat by the snow. 

There's a slender tree, about seven and a half meters (25 feet) tall, a volunteer of indeterminate parentage, right in the corner at the entrance.  Looking out the window I could see it was bent almost in half by the weight. When the wind came I could see that tree was going to snap, so I quickly threw on my jacket and gloves, grabbed the broom and went downstairs. I used the broom to knock as much snow off the lower branches as possible, getting a lot of snow down the back of my neck in the process. But I couldn't reach the upper branches, so I grabbed the trunk, which is only about the size of a round metal fencepost in a chain link fence, and I shook it. I definitely got snowed on! But the tree returned to its upright position. 

I then went over and knocked the snow off the worst of the crabapples branches, and having done in my arms, came up for my morning coffee. 

The trees look none the worse for wear thankfully. I haven't even seen any broken branches. But my echinacea are fallen warriors. The Ligularia is broken in half, but the hostas have sprung back and a little mini rose bloomed under the snow and since the snow has now melted it is smiling like nothing even happened. You couldn't go wrong emulating that little rose. It takes a kicking and keeps on blooming. 

September Song

After several days of rather cool and wet weather; it actually snowed a couple of inches day before yesterday a few miles south of us; the sun graced us today and it was warm and lovely outside. 

I was able to finally grab my camera and go out to the garden to get pictures of the flower beds in their last flush of late summer glory. We have snow in the forecast for the start of the work week, so my flowers may soon be a memory if I don't preserve them with my camera. 

The Ligularia put up a magnificent bloom spike with a half dozen large sunflower-like  flowers. However the recent wind and rain beat them to tatters so I didn't bother taking a picture. The veronica is so eager to grow it has worked its way over the sidewalk. I will try to get down and trim it back tomorrow. But I'm very happy that the shredded bark mulch has kept the weeds at bay and there are very few weeds. 

Now for the good part. The crabapple trees are hanging with red jewel-like crabapples. I think they need just a few more days to get ripe, but I didn't try one. I may do that tomorrow. They are just slightly smaller than a ping-pong ball but they make good eating, if you like a tart apple. I'd like to pick a bag-full before the frost gets to them. A half cupful is a great snack, and you can't get any healthier or environmentally friendly. It's the 100 foot diet, or as the crow flies, the 25 foot diet.  

Moving down the bed the sage is four feet tall and blooming at the last foot of the stems. It looks rather disorganized and untidy, but the bees love it, so I've left it. 

Here you can see the lavender stems sprawling in all directions, and further down the row the echinacea blossoms, the bright red geraniums at ground level and small but bright yellow blossoms of the yellow potentilla that stands at the back of this bed. 

And here, a closeup of the echinaceas or coneflowers, which have just outdone themselves this year. The stems are just over three feet (one meter) tall, each plant has about half a dozen blossoms and each blossom would be saucer sized if it were flattened. I will look for some of the coloured ones next spring. They come in an astonishing range of colours but despite being expensive seem to fly off the shelves as quickly as they arrive. And it takes them two seasons to acclimate. These bloomed half-heartedly last year and half of those I planted died.  

The roses, both red and yellow, have bloomed all season, despite my fears that they both might have been winter killed. I didn't get pictures of them today, but both have about eight or ten blossoms in various stages, from opening bud to fully open flower. 

In the bed at the outside edge of the walkway the wolf willows have done well this year, after being shaped and pruned last year. The oxeye daisy that I thought might have been drowned during our spring thaw, when that bed was underwater for two weeks, came out none the worse for wear and is putting on a cheerfully spectacular display. This is from a single plant I stuck in the ground two springs ago. 

Turning around and walking back up the sidewalk the late-blooming pink potentilla is lovely, and the cornus alba (red osier dogwood) has grown to a height of eight feet (2.4 meters) since it was planted as a 3 foot (.9 meter) stick last May. 

Otherwise most of the shaded garden is not much to write home about. The slugs have been snacking on the hostas. The astilbes and coral bells have bloomed and gone to sleep. Only the fern and bergenia look perky. 

In the Zen garden the sedums around the standing stone continue their march through a seasonal flourish of colour. 

And soon a blanket of snow will cover it all. I am a gardner who follows the "Leave the stems and seed heads in the garden over winter" philosophy. When we first came here the only birds we saw were pigeons and seagulls. 

With the garden, small birds come to feed on the insects and the seed heads. Warblers, wax-wings, chickadees, sparrows, robins. Slugs may eat holes in my hostas, but in turn they make a fine meal for a bird. I cured the out-of-control aphid problem by taking out the plants which were not getting enough light to thrive (and thus were unhealthy) and replaced them with plants which like deep shade, and we have no aphid problem now. 

Anyway, thank you for touring my garden with me. It is one of my great pleasures.   

One fish One hook

This is the tale of two partners. Partner A is anxious and while A finds completing a certain task too anxiety-provoking to do, is also anxious that it be done, so reminds Partner B multiple times that it needs doing, and offers to bring materials to B so B can do the task.  Partner A grows anxious and increasingly insistent. 

Partner B on the other hand is psychologically resistant to being pushed to do the task, which is scheduled for later in the day and grows increasingly aggravated at being interrupted while working on another task. 

In the end, Partner B stops work on the task in progress and does the task Partner A is anxious about, but a few cross words ensure between the two of them. Shenpa at work.  

Partner A comments; Anxious Buddha; Grumpy Buddha    

In Buddhism shenpa is the word used to describe the physical or emotional hook that triggers our habitual tendency to close down, strike out, worry or nag. We get hooked into that habitual pattern we use to gain relief from that anxiety.

Our goal is to begin to recognizing that moment when shenpa kicks in and learn to relax, rather than react to it.

We can train ourselves to spot shenpa. For example, when we say something to another person and the expression on their face, or their response, triggers shenpa, and we feel that tensing in the gut, that feeling of resistance. Rather than get caught up in a story line about how right or wrong we (or they) are, we stop and pay attention to our response/ anxiety/ anger itself. We notice that while our response may be somewhat uncomfortable, it actually poses no threat. It is simply an emotional response which triggers physical symptoms which are not harmful. They do not require that you act upon them, and if you observe them dispassionately, they soon subside. 

Oh, and it helps to remember there are no right or wrong in trivial domestic disputes, and we are almost always more comfortable when we choose peace over power.  

Dear White Mom

Reblogged from BonBon Break written by Keesha Beckford:

Dear White Mom:

I’m writing this to you as a friend, as a dear friend. We’ve shared so much over the years, before kids – blissfully ignorant childhoods, angsty teenage years, the discovery and recklessness and uncertainty of college and early adulthood, and now this. Motherhood. We’ve been there for each other all the time – through birth plans gone awry, breastfeeding, being so sleep deprived we don’t know if we’re wearing shoes, picky eaters, husbands who appear to be working against us, discipline, the mean moms at the playground, everything. I don’t know how I’d be here without you, and I hope you feel the same about me.

I love you, girl, you know I do.

But now I need something. My heart hurts so much I can barely stand. I don’t ask for much — you know I hate asking for anything, but now I need help, desperately, and so I’m going to put myself out there.

Michael Brown was recently shot. I know you know who that is. You’d have to have your head under a rock, and I don’t befriend women — people–like that. Another young black male, unarmed, shot dead by a policeman, or some white person who just thought he was in the wrong, simply because he had brown skin. The list is growing, weekly apparently, so much so that it seems like it’s open season on black men and boys. Boys like the little guy I have at home.

Read more....

Relax, NOTHING is under control

Surprise! After all that most unzenlike palavering, I survived my thallium stress test just fine.

Ian took me in the wheelchair which meant I didn't have to walk, which is the most tiring thing I can do, and we didn't know if I'd be in any shape to walk out or not. The gargoyles who ran the clinic I went to before have apparently all flown back to Hades, or wherever they came from because these new folks were so very nice.

First off they got me into the little cubicle and started the IV drip, then they wheeled me off to the testing area where there is a highway-sized treadmill. First they reassured me that they were under orders not to do a standard treadmill test, because Dr. Connelly didn't want my hip joint stressed. (Bless him!)

I got a drug injected into the IV line by a wildly cheerful and funny cardiologist. He was a riot. He assured me I was in good hands, as he rarely killed anyone and that was from laughing because he got his medical degree from clown college. I got a little light headed, but Dr. Silly was assuring me that was because of his good looks. After a few minutes they injected the thallium, which basically means I can find myself in the dark for a few days. I did about two-three slow minutes on the treadmill to diffuse the thallium into my system. Then it was off to the dreaded camera room.

Hoorah! New camera! Instead of the old rotating tin barrel you now lie on a semi comfortable gurney, your arms still have to go up above your head, but your shoulders and arms are supported by a cradle, and I took my special neck pillow to keep my head from rolling off onto the floor.

There's a round half-cylinder that moves down over your chest right below your chin, which kind of creeped me out (flashbacks to that iron lung thing) but I had prepared for it mentally and started running one of my favourite movies in my head. (You didn't actually believe that moving stream thing did you? For 25 minutes?) But this test lasted only 8 minutes. I hardly got to the scene where they discover the mysterious building at the end of the dirt road before they had me out of there.

Then Dr. Clown College came to get me and pushed me full speed down the hall to the CT scanner yelling, "Oriental behind the wheel, everybody know Chinese not know how to drive!" He chased a couple of techs around corners, while they scrambled out of the way, yelling "Crazy China man! Where you get license to drive that thing?"

The CT scan was over almost as quickly as it started. Two minutes. Then it was back to the cubicle, IV line out, strict orders that I could not eat yet, but I could drink water, diet pop, black coffee or plain tea. A volunteer brought me a diet coke. It was 11:00 and I had to be back at 2:30 to be scanned again. No food till after the final scanning.

Ian needed breakfast so we stopped at a place where he got a nice omelet and potatoes and CAWFEE. I don't like it black, so I had a diet coke. It was cold and raining so we were able to make a grocery run for fruit and stuff and bring it home before heading back to the clinic.

I had my scan and we stopped so I could eat. It was 3:15 and I hadn't eaten since a small snack at 10:00 the night before. I was ready to eat a table leg.

I should have trusted the Buddha's advice. Leave tomorrow's worries for tomorrow. 

Mali Market in the Morning

Our August KIVA loan goes to the Djiguiya Group, six friends who live in Bamako Mali. All are married women who live in the traditional polygamous households found in Mali. They are, on average, 38 years old and have four children.


The women all live in Daoudabougou neighbourhood and know one another through their neighbourhood savings groups and their businesses. They sell vegetables, clothing, basic food staples like oil, rice, dried beans and fish.

In order to increase their working capital, the group members have decided to work with Soro Yiriwaso, a partner of Save the Children. This will be their first group loan.

Aïssata (sitting on the far left in the photo) is a successful fruit and vegetable seller at the Ouolofobougou Market. She plans to use her loan to buy two large sacks of onions, a basket of tomatoes and a basket of cabbages from the wholesale market. She will then resell them at the market by the pound at retail prices, mostly to women shopping for ingredients for the day's meals.

Aïssata expects to achieve a monthly average profit equivalent to about $80 USD, which she will use to reinvest in her business and meet some of the needs of her children. She is relying on her partnership with Soro Yiriwaso to achieve her goal of enlarging her business by allowing her to buy a wider range of vegetables at wholesale prices.

This was our 63rd loan and it cost us nothing at all, as we had $33.00 come back as repayments from individuals we have loaned to in recent months. All we needed to do was decide where and to whom we wanted to loan our $25.00. KIVA is a non-profit that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur across the globe.

We've made loans to people in 27 different countries. You choose who to lend to — a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a carpenter in Mongolia or a woman in Mali who sells vegetables in the local market  — and as they repay their loan, you get your money back. It's a powerful and sustainable way to empower someone right now to lift themselves out of poverty.
Feel free to join us!

Oh bittens n bytes

Mama's big baby - Smokey Joe

Day whatever of the declutter challenge. I have lost count but I have managed to get rid of something most days. One day I trashed a stack of 40 or more old washcloths which were so disreputable I only used them to clean the cat's bum.

Leads me to wonder if I didn't have a washcloth fetish at some point in my life? I've used a puff for years so all I need are a few washcloths to use for the aforementioned cat bum duty and for cleaning rags.

I am beginning to wonder if all is well between my ears, but this morning I explained a very complex biological process to a newly diagnosed patient, so I think it's more a case of my brain simply not processing information when I'm really tired.

My appointment at the Connective Tissue Clinic was both a disaster and an excellent experience. Since my fingers and brain seem to be no longer reliably connected I wrote down the wrong dates for both the echocardiogram I was supposed to have before seeing the cardiologist and the date and time for the cardiology appt. I missed the echo appt, but the clinic called and re-booked, as sweet and kind as could be.

The day of the cardiologist's appt I was almost an hour late. Again they were totally sweet, never even commented on my tardiness. I did call ahead and apologize profusely at 1:00 when I looked at the letter they sent me with directions to the Clinic and realized I wrote 2:00 in my diary when the letter they sent asked me to be there at 1:00. But it didn't seem to matter. The cardiologist and his student were wonderful, unhurried, funny, relaxed and very thorough.

Now I have to have a thallium stress test, which I've had before and am not anticipating with any excitement. I was in an iron lung as a toddler and quite aside from the test I am very averse to small tight spaces. (You may read this as, "She panics and wants to scream and claw her way out".) I cannot have anything with caffeine in it for 24 hours prior to the test, including my pain meds. I can't take anything by mouth after midnight the night before the test and it's scheduled an hour and a half before I am even awake most days.

I am going to start the test weak and in pain. My grumpy hip is going to roll out of its socket on that bleeding treadmill, and after they have run you into the ground they inject you with a radioactive dye and put you in a tight totally dark cylindrical container with your elbows bent and your hands tucked under your head (this will cause my shoulders to roll from their sockets).

The cylinder is 1/2" from the end of your nose, you have to lie absolutely still because it rotates. The earplugs they give you do little to dampen the noise. Sounds like a bush hog in a clear cut. Hopefully they will have sped up the process since the last time I had it done. There's a camera associated with the cylinder, the whole apparatus looks like it's attached to a big C-Clamp, so the camera rotates around you. In between heartbeats it takes a picture of your heart from every angle and you have to hold your breath every time it takes a picture.

This process takes roughly half an hour, but the entire testing procedure runs to about four hours. I've never like having my picture taken to start with and this studio is run by Lucifer and his attendants. Or at least cooked up by him. I'd cry if it would do any good but I've learned that sort of thing is useless, so I'm mentally preparing myself to do what I did last time. Meditate on a moving stream of water surrounded by ferns and dappled sunlight.

Oh look, there's a minnow now. Smokey and I are going to follow him and see where he goes...

Decluttering and my missing brain cell

Oh, you know me. I got too busy being two cats' mama, and a host of other foolish things and didn't post my day 2 declutter: two pairs of slacks, actually surgical scrubs which are very comfy for gardening but the fabric of these is nothing short of a cat hair magnet. Throw them in the laundry with anything else and they will pull every cat hair from everything else, which is handy I suppose, but it makes them unwearable, unless you live above the Arctic Circle. OUT OUT DAMN SLACKS!

Day 3: 2/3 of a pool noodle, which I will count as an item, whether it's only 2/3rds or not. I use the remaining 1/3 to stretch my back and try to get ribs to pop back into place, but the other 5 feet of it I don't need. The second item is a shirt with a hood I never wear, and the 3rd a T-shirt which must have been a joke in the factory - "Look what we send to the round-eyes!" It is the weirdest fit ever, as it's cut on the bias. Why I've left it in the closet so long I will never ever know and will not argue over.

I have a busy day ahead with a list of a dozen "must-dos" to ready myself for an appointment with the Connective Tissue Clinic, and my brain and mouth are totally unsynchronized. I switched the top cover on our bed for another one. Tony asked what I did with cover number one, so I blithely answered, "I put it in the fridge!" Granted there's room as I desperately need to grocery shop, but I actually meant the closet. Took me three tries to get it right.

Now I have to go make an updated list of the meds I take, what my allergies are, print out information on a brace I want to ask questions about and order some refills from the pharmacy. And while I can write coherently (I think) my speech has taken leave of my senses and is off on a beach somewhere playing in the mud. Trust me to choose a muddy beach!

Oh fiddle! It even smells bad, or that may have been the cat. He looks at me with such love and then emits the most appalling stench.  Arghh.. time to quit.

Have you discarded anything yet? A 20 pound cat may be on my list tomorrow if he doesn't stop doing that.

The 30-Day Declutter Challenge

How it Works
Right off the bat I'll admit that I've borrowed this idea from Next Avenue's: Take the 30-Day Declutter Challenge

The idea is to throw out or give away one item on Day 1, two on Day 2, three on Day 3 and so on for 30 days, at which point you will have jettisoned 465 items.

This challenge is propelled by both philosophical and practical reasons. The more stuff we have the harder it is to keep clean.

Today is day 1 for me and I have thrown away a wretched pair of socks, one that crawls down my ankles and slides under my heels to bunch up under my instep. I don't know why I haven't gotten rid of them ages ago.

So I invite you to join me in the 30-Day Clutter Challenge, and post your progress in the comments.

Is there ever an argument for war?

I keep seeing bodies of tiny Palestinian babies, days or weeks old on the news, killed by Israeli bombs, mortars and shells, and want to scream, "What are you thinking? Don't you know that hate breeds only hate?"

I knew two survivors of the Nazi death camps, a couple who had met afterwards and married. Both lost their entire families in the Holocaust. So one cannot blame Jews for feeling threatened, wherever they are, when they see Anti-Semitism.

WWII need never have happened. The reason no one challenged Hitler to begin with, as he began his campaign to wipe out Germany's Jews, was because Anti-Semitism was as rife in England, France, America and Canada as it was in the countries bordering Germany. No one cared about what Hitler was doing to the Jews, or those who cared were too few, and too politically weak to make their governments care. 

And after the war ended, Europe's Jews wanted to be safe, and while there was sympathy for what they had gone through no other country was willing to take them. Palestine was a British Colony, and Britain did what all nations have done to/with their colonies since the colonial system was born. Without giving a thought to the problems the "solution" of "giving" Palestine to the Jews would cause.  But giving them a mythic homeland  they hadn't seen in 2000 years meant displacing Palestinians who had lived there all that time.

This would be like today's politicians giving ownership of Eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey back to my ancestors the Lenape, who lived there for 10,000 years before Europeans arrived and took it from them.

Mark out a tiny quarter where all of today's non-Lenape residents of Eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey could live, herd them all in there, build a wall around them and then turn every house, store, building, roadway park and cemetery over to the Lenape. Lock, stock, barrel. I can imagine New Jersey Governor Chris Christy's face now. Oh, he doesn't look  happy!

There'd be a war. And anyone with any sense would say, "You can't just overturn 400 years of history, and take what people have worked for all their lives from them! You can't stuff millions of people into warren-like living conditions and deprive them of adequate food, water, medical supplies and the amenities of life without causing a rebellion!"

Yet that is precisely what has been done to the Palestinian people, and yet Israel has been cast as the victim when Palestinian anger and frustration boils over and they react with violence. You think the people in Jersey City wouldn't react with violence under the same conditions? 

Israeli politicians refer to their periodic invasions and destruction of Palestinian Territory as "mowing the lawn".  Many Israelis feel sympathy for the Palestinians and don't like the policies of their government, but their voices are drowned out by the rumble of the arms trade. In America there are fundamental Christians who urge government to arm Israel with the latest and biggest weapons in order to hasten what they believe will be the Battle of Armageddon, which they believe will bring on the destruction of Jerusalem and the "Rapture". 

Those of us who have no such delusions understand that we and the generations following ours will have to live in the world we are destroying with our greed and our ethnic and religious hatreds and would prefer to follow a different path. 

It's time people of peace everywhere rose up and with one voice demanded a better way, a different way, of dealing with each other, in the Middle East and elsewhere.  There is a petition here: Peace.Now   seeking to collect a billion signatures from people living in countries all over the world asking each government to create a Department or Ministry of Peace, just as they have a Department or Ministry of War, fund and staff it, and use it to seek non-violent solutions to our problems.

Grievances need to be heard and dealt with, before they eat the heart of a people and they feel violence is the only solution left. Please, join me today in signing this petition and become an ambassador for peace. When you sign, you will receive a free screening of the celebrated 20-minute film, Admissions, winner of 25 International Awards, starring Academy Award® nominee, James Cromwell. And pass on the petition to others, so they can sign as well. There must be a billion of us who are tired of war by now.    

A stroll through the late July garden

A stroll through the garden in late July finds quite a few flowers in bloom. The poppies have finished, as have the lovely mauve verbenas and lavender mints, but the roses are beautiful.

The yellow will bloom steadily now until frost. Their blossoms are about 2.5 inches across.

I have a red one like this right next to it but for some unknown reason I didn't get a picture.

The pink minis will bloom until frost as well, the blossoms are only about an inch wide.These are out in the front bed at curbside.

This rose was planted before my time. The plant is about four feet tall, rangy but the colours are fantastic. They are fucshia when they open but the petals are white at the base, making them look almost transparent. The rose is surrounded by wolf willow which has silver foliage and is a perfect foil for the radiant pink of the rose.




The shasta daisies are at their best now, with about half a dozen large mounds of cheerful blooms. 

Still waiting for the echinaceas to open, there are dozens of bristling buds on their three-foot high stalks, but they are not in any hurry to petal out.

Closer to the entry the lime hosta, veronica, astilbes and ligularia are all doing well. The astilbes are just getting started, and the ligularia leaves are starting to show up. 

A close-up of the veronica - can you spot the visiting bee?

Enough for the moment. I spent about half an hour weeding today but the black cedar mulch was a great idea. The weeds root in that top 2" of mulch and can be yanked out with practically no effort.

Talking at cross-purposes

Let us eavesdrop a moment on the "peace" talks, you know, the meetings where diplomats and mighty poo-bahs with testosterone-fueled egos sit around tables in fancy hotels and give fancy speeches, and pretend to listen to each other, all with the aim of stopping the armies, the bombs, the bazookas and tanks, the slaughter of women and children.  If we could hear what actually goes on I imagine it is exactly as this old story told of two debating monks.

                                                   >------------------------------<    

Provided he proposes and wins a debate about Buddhism with the monks who live there, any wandering monk can enter and remain in a Zen temple. If he is defeated, he has to move on.

In a small temple in northern Japan two monks dwelt together as brothers. The elder one was learned, but the younger one was stupid and had but one eye.

A wandering monk came to the door late one day and asked to enter their temple, properly challenging them to a debate. The elder monk, tired and aching in his old bones, told the younger monk to take his place. "Go and debate him, but request the dialogue take place silence," he cautioned.

So the young monk and the stranger went to the shrine and sat down.

Shortly afterwards the traveler rose and went in to the elder brother and said, "Your young brother is a wonderful fellow. He has defeated me."

The elder monk was astonished. "Relate the dialogue to me," he said.

"Well," explained the traveler, "first I held up one finger, representing Buddha, the enlightened one. So he held up two fingers, signifying Buddha and his teaching. I held up three fingers, representing Buddha, his teaching, and his followers, living life in harmony. Then he shook his clenched fist in my face, indicating that all three come from one realization. Thus he won and so I have no right to remain here. I will travel further." With this, he bowed and took his leave.

"Where is that insolent fellow?" asked the younger one, running in to his elder brother.

"I understand you won the debate."

"Won nothing! When I catch him I'm going to beat him up."

"Tell me the subject of the debate," asked the elder one.

"Why, the minute he saw me he held up one finger, insulting me by pointing out that I have only one eye. Since he was a stranger I thought I would be polite to him, so I held up two fingers, congratulating him that he has two eyes. Then the impolite wretch held up three fingers, laughing that then between us we have three eyes. So I got mad and was going to punch him, but he jumped up and ran away from me, and that ended it!"

Beyond a wholesome discipline…

There once was a monastery where the rules were very strict. Following a vow of silence, no one was allowed to speak at all. But every 10 years, each monk was permitted to speak just two words.

After spending his first 10 years at the monastery, one monk went to the head monk. “It has been 10 years,” said the head monk. “What are the two words you would like to speak?”

“Bed… hard…” said the monk.

“I see,” replied the head monk.

Ten years later, the monk returned to the head monk’s office. “It has been 10 more years,” said the head monk. “What are the two words you would like to speak?”

“Food… stinks…” said the monk.

“I see,” replied the head monk.

Yet another 10 years passed and the monk once again met with the head monk who asked, “What are your two words now, after these 10 years?”

“I… quit!” said the monk.

“Well, I can see why,” replied the head monk. “All you ever do is complain.”

                                                   >--------------------------------<

I admit a certain sympathy for that poor monk, who was "always" complaining.  Sometimes it feels as if that is what I chiefly do, though I'm actually usually trying to work out a strategy for getting more done than moaning about my lot in life. 

It's difficult to balance my limited energy reserves against what must be done, and when I don't get it right I can end up spending several days in too much pain to do much of anything, which is frustrating. 

But, as I often tell my husband, you just have to do the best you can do. Sometimes that's not much more than sitting in the rocker and watching a video or reading, sometimes it's more. But as much as I tell him that, I feel terribly guilty when I can't keep up.

After a busy week (for me) last week I was exhausted. The last couple of days I've been really tired but today I felt better. I was able to do laundry, make the bed, tidy and dust.  And I made dinner! Just simple steak with mushroom and onions and some bean thread noodles and lentils with a curry and coconut sauce but it was food, hot, on a plate, which is a triumph for me many days. 

But I saw this little photo on Facebook and thought; Well, that's what we do. We do our best, with what we have.

And I guess you can't reasonably ask more of yourself than that, without doing lasting harm.

As Max Ehrmann said in Desiderata:

"Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself."

KIVA and the peanut farmer

Jiguisseme B Group Kafana Mali

In this Group: Mariam K, Kadia Ali, Mariam O, Saran, Assetou A, Toron, Awa Salif, Maria Modibo, Bintou, Mamine B

This month's KIVA loan goes to the ten members of the Jiguisseme B Group, all married women who are, on average, 38 years old and have three children. Most of them live in traditional families in the commune of Kafana, Sikasso district, Mali.

During the winter months, the women work with the KIVA field partner, Soro Yiriwaso, in order to improve their agricultural businesses. This will be their tenth group loan. The previous loans were all fully and correctly repaid.

Saran (in the yellow dress, standing second from the right in the photo) grows peanuts. She will use her loan to buy fertilizer, herbicide, and pay someone to help her work her acre land. She sells her peanuts in Sikasso. Saran expects to make a profit equal to about $150.00 USD, which will enable her to repay her loan and help her husband to provide for their family's day-to-day expenses.

This is a Group Loan

The other nine members of the group each have a small business which they will invest their $95.00 loan in to improve its profitability. In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.

Soro Yiriwaso is a microfinance institution that works primarily in rural and semi-urban areas of Mali to provide underprivileged communities with access to financial services. The organization provides access for disadvantaged clients, particularly women, to new resources and services, fostering solidarity and cooperation among its clients. Kiva lenders’ funds enable Soro Yiriwaso to expand its outreach and target even more under served Malians involved in business and agriculture.

Many Kiva Field Partners implement innovative business practices and offer services in addition to their financial products to meet the needs of the people they serve. For example, many organizations partner with health-focused agencies to provide health care services to their clients who are more likely, as a result of good health, to be able to repay their loan. The inability to treat health related issues, when borrowers did not have access to health care, had the potential to cause them to fall back into the cycle of poverty despite running a successful business.

Other examples include institutions that stress the importance of education. This can mean loans that enable parents to start businesses and bolster their income so they can send their children to school, as well as educational workshops on topics that are not financial in nature, such as the prevention of disease and domestic violence.

This month we doubled our usual loan, in memory of our daughter Mary Margaret Isabel. Please consider joining us as KIVA partners and reaching out to lend a helping hand to a hard working business person. 

The illusive mustard seed

There's a story told of a mother who early one morning took her newborn son who had died in the night, to the Buddha, prostrated herself before him and weeping with grief said, "I have heard of your great wisdom Lord. Surely you have a medicine that can bring my baby back to life again."

The Buddha looked on her with deep compassion, knowing that there was nothing he or anyone else could do anything to restore her child to life. But he could not bear to send her away with no hope. So he gently told her, "Yes, there is such a medicine. But to make it I need one ingredient I do not have, which you must search out for me."

"Oh, anything," she responded, "I will get anything you need."

"It is a simple thing," he said. "I need only one mustard seed from a house in this village which has not been visited by death, and has never suffered the grief of parting from one they dearly loved."

The woman rushed off and began calling on her neighbours, explaining what she needed. But at every door she was told with tears of the children, wife or husband, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and grandparents who had been called by death, and of the burden of grief lying on every heart.

At the end of the day she went back to the Buddha, heartsick and exhausted, but with understanding. "There is not a single house in the village where death has not come," she said.

"Now you know you are not alone in your grief," the Buddha told her. "Take your child home, pay your respects and bury him. Your grief is everyone's grief. Loss is universal. Remember and honour your child by extending compassion and comfort to all those who also grieve."

And so it is we live with grief and understand that it is universal. She never forgot her child. I know because 43 years ago I also held a dead infant, which no one could restore to life, and I grieved, and I will grieve forever.  Born sleeping one mother called it. One day active and kicking, and then stillness. My breasts, readying themselves to nurse, felt different, less full. There was a bloodstain.

I called the doctor. "Oh," he said, as if he were talking about losing a mitten or a book he hadn't much cared for. "You've lost it, it's died. You'll go into labour within the week. Come to the ER when you do."

The labour was quick. She was born in the car on the way to the hospital. I ducked into the washroom just inside the door and took her out of the leg of my slacks. She was bloody, and wet, and her skin was peeling off like petals falling from a rose. Legs the size of my thumb, such delicacy. The membrane was still around her head, and I was in shock and felt I might faint in the cubicle. I thought they'd let us see her, hold her, once we were in a room, so I didn't take the membrane off. I should have looked at her face. I never even saw my baby girl's face. She lay curled in my two hands.  I didn't want her exposed to the curious stares of the people sitting in the waiting area of the ER. I wrapped her still, small body in toilet tissue.

I walked shakily to the nurse's station and handed her to the nurse behind the desk.  I don't remember anything else except lying on a gurney. The doctor was behind me. He had her, was unwrapping her. I asked if I could hold her. He said no, it was better if I didn't see "it" or touch "it".

I asked my doctor later what they did with her and he said all stillborns under a certain weight were cremated, no birth certificates, no acknowledgement they ever existed.  He said just forget about "it" - pretend it hadn't happened. But how do you carry a child for seven months and "just forget it"?

Mothers were shamed for grieving a stillborn baby then. You were told not to cry, not to "worry" your husband with it, and not to even acknowledge your loss. And for many years I didn't. I soldiered on, and stayed quiet, until I just couldn't bear to do it anymore. 

"The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same again. Nor should you be the same, nor should you want to."  ~ Elizabeth Kubler-Ross 

Mary Margaret Isabel born sleeping 17 July 1971

  

Waiting for Daisy

It's been a month since the landscapers came out and weeded the flower beds, then covered the earth in black cedar mulch. We had lots of rain for a couple of weeks, and for the last few days we've had what passes for hot weather in Calgary, days ranging from 23 - 31 C (73-88 F). The garden has grown like crazy.

Typically not everything has thrived. Several of the petunias I bought turned up their toes and died, as did every geranium. (Was it something I said?) I didn't know geraniums were so picky.You see them blooming like crazy all over town.

 The purple mints that were so lovely earlier have now finished but both the rose bushes I planted last spring survived the winter, as did the mini-rose with orange blooms down in the front of the bed.

The purple sage and the shasta daisies are dancing around nicely with the roses and pink verbena in the front bed. If you look closely you can the coarse foliage of the echinaceas and their fattening buds.

The bed beyond the bike rack has a native shrub called wolf willow, which has silver, granular textured leaves, and a large species rose which is red on the outside edges and white inside. This is a pretty spectacular combination, but between the bike rack and a moving van I couldn't get a good vantage point for a picture, maybe next time.

So at the moment the garden beds are a riot of colour. The poppies threw themselves into producing saucer-sized blossoms that were so vibrantly red they gave my cheap little camera lens a seizure. But they were a short lived delight.

To make up for the brevity of the poppies the Plaintain Lily Hosta has been blooming like mad for weeks. Though I failed to get a good photo you can see how many flowers it has on it.

My eyes are so bad I can't see if a picture is in focus. I take several and hope one will be good. This time I didn't get a good picture. This part of the garden sees only a bit of dappled morning sun, and is home to several hostas, a false spirea which is hanging on by its toenails and a lovely fern at the back, which you almost have to imagine in this photo. 

Two or three pale pink volunteer poppies bloomed right among the stand of purple veronicas, on the other side of the walk, but I was dealing with the flood at the time and had no chance to grab my camera and get a picture. Shame, the combination of frilled pink poppies and lavender spikes of veronica was lovely.

The lime green hosta is thriving next to the veronicas. It's shaded most of the day. Behind the veronica, though hard to see here, is the morning star ligularia. Its huge purple-green leaves wilt down every day, and come back up as the day cools. The flowers are just like big yellow daisies or sunflowers, but the foliage is so interesting.

Closer to the doors the purple-leaved coral bells are blooming, the tiny blossoms hover above the plants like pale pink fireflies, as in all but bright sunlight the stalks are so fine as to be nearly invisible.

And in my little un-raked Zen garden of gravel and three stones, the sedums I planted last year survived being completely covered in a mound of ice and have covered the base of the standing stone once more. They are even beginning to bloom, little splashes of yellow on the green. 

It's what I wait for all year long. 

The 24 Hour Channel called 'Monkey Mind'

                                                                                   

A learned professor of Asian religions traveled a long distance to visit a revered Zen master. The professor was excited by the opportunity to visit the master, and eager to share his theories on how this practice developed or another was influenced by some other teaching. He talked and talked and talked, until his throat was parched.

The master called for a tea tray, set out two cups and began to pour tea into the first cup, and poured and poured and poured. The tea filled and then overflowed the cup, spilled across the table and into the lap of the professor.

When people hear this story most will identify with the Zen master. We all know people like the professor, people who don’t know when to shut up. But the truth is that we’re very much like the professor, you and certainly me. It’s a human thing.

There's a commentator in my head, constantly regretting, planning, judging, worrying, fretting, feeling irritated, or fearful, angry or anxious, excited, happy, goofy or scolding. The voice in my head is like that visiting professor - it never shuts up.

Through practice I've learned how to quiet the commentator, at least some of the time. There are still days when it screams what an awful person I am and all I want to do is sit in a corner and sob, usually because I've said or done something that hurt someone else.

And when my commentator, what the Buddha called 'Monkey Mind', will not shut up and I have no strength or energy left to do battle with it, I have to shut it out, change the channel as it were. Sometimes this is through music or a dvd, not recommended ways to deal with the commentator but the best I can do at that particular time, and I leave working on taming my monkey mind to another day. Sometimes it works out well, and I like to think at any rate, patience may overcome what force cannot. A hot shower and a good night's sleep have been the cure for many a midnight's calamity.

Tao de Ching  Verse 15 

…when a man is in turmoil
how shall he find peace

Save by staying patient till the stream clears?

How can a man's life keep its course

If he will not let it flow?

Those who flow as life flows know

They need no other force:

They feel no wear, they feel no tear,

They need no mending, no repair.