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So we’re watching For the Love of Ivy and there is just one thing I have to say – OMG. Are you kidding me? Why did I not see this movie before?

A friend of mine owns a beach house that has lost two thirds of its value, a double she rents out and wants to get rid of because it’s always something and has a pool that was just installed at her house that is causing her nothing but anguish because it was installed improperly. I said, well I don’t want to be comforted by your misery, but somehow I am.

As I went in and out of my office yesterday, I had to pass the scaffolding that is up for them to tear out the dry rotted and termite eaten wood on the addition in the back of the house. They are replacing the low grade cypress with Hardie board and using the appropriate nails. Oh and they’re back priming the boards and then going to seal them when they’re up. The guy doing the work shakes his head and says, “This is carpentry 101.” And I shake my head too and say “We only had remedial carpenters here after Katrina. Whatyagonnado?”

Yesterday, when Tin got home from school he didn’t want to go outside, he wanted to build a tent out of his bunk beds. So I tucked the covers into the top mattress and while I was doing that he got involved with his train and started choo choo’ing around the room. So I snuck in behind the tent. I thought I’d be there for a moment only but then I was fascinated by watching him from the little crack I could see out of. He had pushed the train into a road block and was trying to figure out how to get around it. So he got up on the chair and stood there surveying the problem. (He’s not allowed to stand on furniture.) A moment later Tatjana called to me, but I didn’t answer but it scared Tin so he tried to jump off but brought the whole thing down crashing to the floor.

Then he came back to pushing the train around but he didn’t like the way the tracks were laid and the caboose had come off from the rest of the train. He was trying to put it back together and was getting frustrated and started crying. I said, not moving, “Do you need my help punky?” and his head twirled around like a top. He then got up and went over to his toy box and opened it and looked in and said, “Are you in there?”

We kept this is for another couple of rounds where I’d talk and he wouldn’t see me and then I worried I was spooking him out so I let myself be found to his delight – he loves to be surprised.

October 14, 2011

1. Taurus (4/20-5/20)

    

   You are about to enter a placid, worry-free time, when fun and feeling good are the name of the game. The world will suddenly feel like a giant amusement park, with stimulating sights and thrilling rides at every turn. This is a great time to begin exploring that new hobby, interest or career opportunity you’ve been thinking about. Your brain is open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. This proverbial old dog is ready to learn some new tricks!

The other day walking through City Park, I ran into a woman who was telling me that she accentuates the positive and that helps her to really enjoy life. I ran into another park friend this morning who said he has found in life that you always have to make decisions and sometimes you make the right ones and sometimes you make the wrong ones, but that you just have to keep making the decisions that your heart tells you to make and see where it leads you.

I’m thankful for my park philosophers as they echo back to me a world that I’m beginning to only understand now.

I was running in City Park this morning with the dogs, I had gotten out the door later than I wanted to but had at least taken the time to meditate this morning before I was off to the races. I got right to the point where the bridges cross over to the old casino and saw the plein air painters setting up and just behind them was sunlight that bathed the tops of the cypress and oaks with a rust colored hue that made me stop and say, wow, I mean wow. And all of the painters looked up and said wow. It was wow beyond wow.

I went back to running and started singing songs in my head and it was truly wonderful how a playlist came together that mirrored my life over the last year:

CCR’s I see a bad moon a rising, I see trouble on the way, looks like we’re in for nasty weather, hope you are quite prepared to die.

Jack White’s I just don’t know what to do with myself, I don’t know what to do with myself.

Dolly Parton’s Hello God, are you out there, can you hear me, are you listening anymore?

Van Morrison’s What’s the sound of one hand clapping? Enlightenment, don’t know what it is.

John Lennon’s Imagine all the people, living life in peace, you could say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Johnny Nash’s I can see clearly now the rain has gone, I can see all obstacles in my way, gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.

It’s gonna be a bright sun shiny day.
I think I can make it now the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared.
Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for…

I’m simply amazed at how fear grabs people and throws them down on the ground and occasionally takes a few unnecessary kicks. People, listen up, our job is to silence the gremlins, to keep them at bay, and to take a deep breath and forge ahead.

Consider yourself a GREMLIN SLAYER.

Then again most of us grow very weary after battling the gremlins, especially on days when they have taken you into the street, down on the curb, and have raised a foot aimed right at your face. But carry on we must.

If you don’t slay your imaginary gremlins, who is going to do it for you? No one can see them, silly.

Shakespeare talked about life as we are all actors fretting and strutting across the stage, let’s update this point of view, imagine you are a video game and those gremlins are dropping out of the sky, jumping from behind bushes, popping up out of manholes, now you – READY, AIM, FIRE!

October 12, 2011

1. Taurus (4/20-5/20)

    

   Every little thing you do is magic today, so expect plenty of accolades and curtain calls. And make sure you look your best when you’re in the spotlight — investing in some new clothes is an excellent idea, but you should shop around to find the deals you deserve. Bargain-hunting will be a fun game — and it’s one that you are getting more and more skilled at! Your profile is about to be raised to a whole new level, and you are ready for absolutely anything.

There is a song sung by beautiful Puerto Rican women that goes like this:

Mañana por la mañana
llena mi casa de flores
de seguro que visita
la virgen de los olores

In the morning, in the morning, fill your house with flowers and you can be assured you will get a visit from the virgin of scents.

There you have it, nonsensical, but this morning as I was running through City Park and looking at the rosy fingers of dawn stretched across the big lake, I thought it was the virgin de dolores, the virgin of sorrow and I was translating in my head that if you fill your house with flowers sure enough as life is want to do, your happiness would be doused with a visit from the virgin of sorrow. But instead the song is a nonsensical lyric about if you fill your house with flowers, it will smell beautiful. If you fill it with sorrow, you will have tears. Get the point?

Exactly.

Getting out of bed early is a great thing except for that one annoying factor – the alarm. I’ve been getting up without an alarm for so long now that having re-entered the world of school and schedule is something I must say I could do without. But the truth the beginning of the day is always the best part of the day for me because you have the whole day ahead of you. Well today was one of those life is short, but it’s wide days and much that went into it was informed by my taking the path of least resistance.

Some meditation while walking the dogs helped.

The guy who has been working on the house and pulling the dry rotted boards off the addition and replacing them with Hardie board, had to shift over and start addressing the termites he found active under the house, and today while addressing the termites, he had to shift over to be a plumber and deal with the pipe that is leaking directly under the bathtub and the water backup under the outdoor shower. He has spent the last year shifting around the LaLa and making me uneasy every time I go outside to talk to him.

But that’s okay, see because I’m shifting too, I’m shifting away from a woman who believed it was my sole duty in life to make sure this house was rock perfect to someone who believes it will either work or not. To someone who is shape shifting through the LaLa, through my life, through my career, and elsewhere fluidly becoming what I need to be to simply be.

This is only one part of my day, the other parts were filled with a little to the left and a little to the right and at one point a Monarch butterfly cruised by and almost brushed the tip of my nose. Hello, it said, I’m beauty in motion.