Halloween

The only joke I ever remember is a Halloween joke.

Why are ghosts sterile?*

My husband said he saw a ghost three nights ago. It was standing by the bed staring at him. As it faded away, he noticed it wearing my pink ball cap.

"Was it malicious?" I asked.

"No, just staring," he said.

"Were you scared?"

"No."

So then I asked, "Did you know who it was?"

"It was you", he said, pointing at me.

I nodded and said,"Good, I've been attempting to leave the body while awake. Maybe I've been successful when sleeping. No wonder I've had a headache for two days."

I love that pink hat. It keeps my brain safe.

This is a recent ghostly experience hiking on Ossipee Hill. The picture was meant to capture some fall foliage and showed a ghost instead.

*Because they have hollow wienies.

Oct 30

Imagine waking up this morning as a different person in the same body. Not Kafka's bug, but human. This morning you have no doubts. You are in the perfect place, perfectly positioned, without Hunter S. Thompson's fear and loathing. Everyone you meet loves you. Your body works just the way you want it to, without pain or restriction. You get a sizeable check in the mail. There are no chores waiting. Words flow like water, and water calms rather than terrifies you. Okay, words flow like shallow, clear water, not deep dark water. It's clear without doubt.

What kind of day will it be?

Enough

The Weighty Issue of Having Enough

Or

Is That Fish We're Having for Dinner?

There is a great deal of difference between "I have enough!" and "I have had enough!".

In having enough there is a sense of expansive contentment and satisfaction that spreads out like a comforter on the world.

Having had enough is a constricted fist of frustration, an unpleasant limitation leading to black eye, headache, backache, overweight, depression and anger. In that sense of frustration, there is a feeling of being "had". This is not to be confused with haddock or having haddock.

What would be the difference between saying, "I have had haddock" and "I have had enough"? Not to mention the phrase, "I have had enough haddock, bring on the red meat."

I am contented to have enough haddock and hamburger for dinner. You're invited.

Oct 28

A Concussion Symposium!

Received in the form of a postcard, this beautiful pastel PET scan image shows the delicate brain folds and the frondy form of the cerebellum. Everything looks to be in order, except for that red nasal cavity and bloody lip. Is it simply an overzealous use of red?

This is what happened. The man was imitating Maurice Chevalier singing, "Sank heaven for leetle girls, For leetle girls get bigger every day..." Repeadtedly. Ad nauseum. A knuckle split his lip after he ignored warnings to shut up, stop singing, give it a rest. Alcohol was a factor. The next morning he did not know why everyone ignored him, seemed angry with him, or why he had a fat lip. All he knew was his head ached, he had the brown bottle flu, and it hurt to smile.

Oct 27

There is a widespread frost alert all throughout the Eastern Colorado valley. The roses will not last long. It's a good day to cut them all off, place them in beautiful vases and allow the house to be as a Memorial rose garden. Will the gamers of Civ 5 be planting gardens for the next season? Will it freeze in New England before the end of the month? Is it time to plant bulbs?

No. No. Yes.

Oct 26

Travel Day, Back to Boston

Our Lady is replaced on my travel necklace and she reminds me of the 4 locks and keys, suggestions rather than commandments.

Maitri karuna muditopekshanam sukha dukha punya apunya vishayanam bhavanatash chitta prasadanam.

To those who are cheerful, give friendship.

To those who are virtuous, give love.
To those who suffer, give compassion.
To those who are nonvirtuous, give gentle disregard.

And in addition, to those who are traveling, give coffee, foot rubs, and wide body seating.

Christmas in October

Played myself in scrabble and won again. Especially liked the word "pique", lower right center, score 14.

Today we are driving to Scottsbluff for a hair appointment and more restaurant food. I hope it doesn't pique me when ordering yet another banana split at Shari's.

Oct 24

The obligatory visit to Cabela's showed the usual big game trophy heads on the wall, a full sized elephant and cloven hooved animals climbing on a cardboard mountain.

Cabela's also has a gun library where Jim always looks for the most expensive gun. Today's gun is quite impressive. The librarian said if I ordered one today, it would be done in 2024 or 2025.

Maybe next visit.

Oct 23

The community center has a torture chamber upstairs, visited by many. The secret word to stop the beatings and madness, before someone gets hurt, is "kitten".

Full Hunter's Moon

Today is the Full Moon at 9:17 PM EDT.

Yesterday we played golf on a beautiful sunny day in Sidney. I was the scorekeeper, and I won the match. My brothers celebrated with beer. I did a little smug dance in front of the mirror.

Wake Up!

At Boston Logan there's a new display next to the shoeshine booth. Some days one needs a cuppa this big to greet the day.

My mother-in-law is said to have drug her children out of bed, grabbing onto a toe sticking out from the bedcovers, and reciting this little ditty:

Rise and shine,

Up and att'em,

Greet the new day!

Another wake up call from an old boyfriend is:

Sleep not sluggard's sleep,

Plow long and plow deep,

And you shall have corn to sell and corn to keep

That lasted about 3 months. I mean, really, corn?

One of the most memorable wakeup calls I received was while sleeping at a sponsor's home for a summer softball tournament in Laramie, Wyoming. There was an intercom system before it was a common thing for a home to be wired. A little before the appropriate time, the speakers in the guest bedroom pounded with the strains of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and the scent of bacon floated down the stairs. Marvelous!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWSqNTSN9iU&feathure=related

Oct 20

"here is little Effie's head, whose brains are made of gingerbread..."
- e e cumings

Friends have sent poetry books and music. I am grateful, but wonder if it's a hint to stop trying to be a novelist and write poetry instead.

I once rewrote a verse from the great Arthur Rimbaud's Le Bateau Ivre and sent it in a letter to a friend.
I've dreamed green nights of dazzling snows,
Slow kisses on the eyelids of the sea.
And sometimes I have seen
What men have thought they saw.

It remains in my mind as an improvement from the original.

Is it Rambo or Rimbaud?

We had our first hard frost. The leaves are sure to follow. And with them Red October into green nights of dazzling snows. It's travel day, again to the West where summer lingers.

Rainbows

I'd forgotten about those beautiful, too sweet, deadly drinks The Pousse Cafe. They are made based on the premise of density. Some liqueurs are heavier than others. The heaviest is poured into the glass, then a lighter one is poured over the back of a spoon to layer on top of the heaviest, and so on, finishing with the lightest liqueur on top.

It appears that grenadine must be denser than blue curacao which is heavier than creme de menthe. Like GOW 678, water is heaviest, and gas lies on top.

Cheers!

Oct 18

It's cold enough to retrieve the old quilts from the cedar chest. One contains fabric from high school days, like my mother's dresses, my jackets, my dad's pants, my brothers' shirts and swimsuits. The quilt smelled like mildew, so I washed it in vinegar, then another round with soap, both on the regular cycle. The embroidery held, but the backing fell off. So it is being repaired with thread and hand stitching.

It has reminded me of working as a bartender at The Mariner, an upscale restaurant where I learned how to make pousse cafe drinks. I was trying to quit smoking at the time. To keep my hands busy, I hand sewed 3 vests while tending bar, (the Mariner wasn't very busy in Nebraska) quit smoking, and finished 3 rather nice vests that never made it into a quilt.

So the moral is?

The samskara, or pool of the subconscious, is vast and holds old habits that die hard. One lapse and you'll be sleeping in mildew and stealing cigarettes.

Oct 17

Was it two or three inches of rain that fell? We collected the ceiling drips (again) into several buckets. But of experimental interest was this dining room bucket.

Specifically, this 6 gallon bucket held, when it was all over, about 4 gallons of rain drips.

According to Brad, a Navy blimp operator, to calculate the weight of water (or gas or oil), use the formula GOW-678. One gallon of gas weighs 6 pounds, one gallon of oil weighs 7 pounds, and one gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. So this rain water weighed 32 pounds.

That's much easier than the medical formula that I learned; "A pint's a pound the world around." Too much calculation in that formula. So, GOW-678 it is.

By the way, the roofers are coming soon to gussy up the place, put on a new roof, new windows, new door, and roof over the deck. Meanwhile, while waiting, we calculate the weight of rain in the buckets.

Fool

A friend who I hadn't seen for awhile asked over the phone if I remembered a card he drew some years ago from the Tarot deck. I had to admit that it's difficult to remember what was for breakfast. He reminded me that it was The Fool, and that's how he felt lately. And what did I have to say about that?

I said The Fool is at a stepping off place, and he'd better look where he was stepping. His doggie companion was either excited or yapping a warning. But, oh, how happy he is! He's probably whistling some 7-dwarf song about work, or hiking, or "Look at me, I can fly!"

Oct 15

It was a good and easy birthday hike to the top of Ossipee Hill. The old fire tower has been torn down and a cell tower stands in its place. Two OTT workers were manhandling a bucket truck, trying to attach wire to a new pole on a steep part of the trail.

There were many mobile calls during the walk; calls of good wishes, happy days and questions regarding cake. For breakfast we had German chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. For lunch it was hot cocoa and string cheese at the top of the Hill. For supper it was ice cream cake. So where are my presents?

Happy Birthday!

The cake baked yesterday, so today is reserved for hiking in the Caribou-Speckled Mountain Wilderness. It is forecasted to be beautiful, graceful, strong and have unyielding determination.

Sweet German Chocolate Cake -cooling on the stovetop

First Birthday

Blueberry Ridge Trail , bottom right center

Oct 13

A visit from a first cousin once removed brought us to a Wildlife Park so she could see a moose. The foxes and coyotes were more interesting than the moose. Skittery, nervous, and suspicious is more interesting than chewing, meandering, and staring; towing a tail like a banner more captivating than bearing a rack of antlers.

Oct 12

The place in between,

The twilight hour, the exact moment of dawn,

The place where land meets water,

Mist meets air,

Reflection meets substance,

Mirror meets light;

The very space, point, time and place

Where thought becomes action

And deed becomes something to hold in the hand,

You can find me there.

Columbus Day

There was a rumor that a group of people were going to create a video of each person's day to be called A Day In The Life Of... for the auspicious day of 10-10-10. These videos were to be placed in a time capsule for the next round of auspicious dates.

Yesterday was a beautiful autumn day and Pleasant Mountain called once again. So I made a 49-second video at the top of the mountain for my Day in the Life.

Today, the midwest guests return from their northern sojourn. We shall hear of their adventures and hope that the leaves don't turn even redder with the stories.

Ten Ten Ten

A Dolce Kind Of Day

Instead of the usual banging on the piano keyboard, playing forte, Forte, FORTE!!!, this piece came up from Clementi, to be played sweetly.

And it was.
And it is.

Oct 9

Yesterday a little Ganesha package was mailed, requiring a review of the Sanskrit alphabet for the consonants G, N and SH and the vowel E (pronounced A).

There is surely a way to put the Sanskrit alphabet in this blog. Just haven't figured it out yet.

Moving on; today relation from Iowa are meeting me at the Maine Wildlife Park so they can be assured of seeing a moose during their short visit. How would you say Moose in Sanskrit? Melinda gave me a huge 10-pound Sanskrit dictionary while on one of my visits to NE. It was tough packing in the 50-pound suitcase. There's Moola: The lowest part or bottom of anything; the basis, foundation or origin. There's Moosh: a thief, a mouse.

M-OO-S. And what does it mean? A big ol' can a whoopass.

Oct 8

The yellow pine and the voluminous yellow and pink sky last night brought forth melancholy.


Maybe it's the color yellow.
So this morning I am making a list of smiling or laugh-out-loud items to use, from the ridiculous to the sublime (not necessarily in that order), whereupon concentrating on one item, it will transport me from the state of melancholy.

1. Stevie, the Montrose dog
2. Performing on circus silks
3. Keith Panko, an 8th grade boy, singing in a soprano voice, "That's the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh."
4. Tom tiger dancing while driving home after a long hike
5. Diagnosing Osborne waves at Harborview Hospital
6. Peter saying hi at Skyhaven airport
7. Dr. Who
8. The vision of Vidya in her pale sky blue shirt walking with Ramesh along the Ganga
9. Hundreds of origami peace cranes stirring up the entire laboratory office at Christmas
10. Mike mincing around in camp wearing a red bra while drinking up all the fine single malt and slur-shouting, "You don't know me!"

Quest Day

This morning while browsing the Akashic Records in the meditation closet, I came across this photo. And I can identify Numbers 1. and 4., but what does Jean-Claude van Damme and Scott Bakula have to do with entering the ether (also known as akasha in Sanskrit)?

Oct 6

Yesterday we found a birthday cake so full of candles that it looked like a sweet neon porcupine or a pin cushion. There was no way to safely light them all. So we bought donuts instead.

And ate only the choice ones.

Today we are having breakfast at the airport with the old pilots who groan, complain about climbing into airplanes with their increasing inflexibility, smoke, and eat corned beef hash. I'm there.

Jimmy's Birthday

The Wendell Foss was a working tugboat out of Lake Washington. During one of the boat parades in Seattle, we witnessed the Wendell Foss do a 360 degree turn in the Montlake Cut. There was maybe a foot to spare on either end of the tugboat, people crowding the shoreline and road crossing the water, thundering applause, engines straining forwards and back, flags waving. Jim still talks about the Wendell Foss, and that happened a few years back. Like 22 years back.

Today we'll go for an airplane ride, eat donuts and breakfast sandwiches and read thrillers by the fire.

Oct 4

All Things Lobstah

Stained glass in the ferry terminal to Vinylhaven and Matinicus Islands

Lobster boat in the harbor outside of Wiscasset

Somewhere along the train ride to Rockland

And finally, Lobstah club sandwiches at the Brass Compass

Oct 3

My teacher from Pennsylvania says that when Ganesha visits, he always brings a gift. Just two days after Mary bought all those mini Ganeshas, we found a grand Ganesha.

We were walking down Main Street in Rockland looking for all things lobstah and came upon a Prius all decked out in a coppery colored paint job, complete with dancing Ganesh hood ornament.

"I must have that!"

The person who owns this car probably never has a problem finding parking, never gets a ticket, always pays the registration on time, and gets the advertised 50 mpg.

Oct 2

On our visit to the Delorme Map Store, Eartha showed a strange circular lake in Canadian territory north of the Saint Lawrence River. It looks like a watery crop circle, a donut cutter, a burning ring of fire. Any clues without looking up on google? No, me neither.

Rabbit Rabbit

Heavy rain, from 2-4 inches, expected today!

Yesterday we took the ferry to Peaks Island accompanied by the fog horn blowing and mist forming on the glasses. Many of the lobster buoys have been replaced with plastic Tide bottles and Clorox bottles.
Mary bought many little Ganeshas to put in the Ganesha box made with semi-precious stones and sand. Maybe these Ganeshas will keep all that rain away from our leaky roof. Oh great remover of obstacles, keep us dry during this flood watch and let us remember how to hear the rain as music.