Christmas in Belize

Here I am the first day in Belize...maybe this set the tone for my delusional mind? At least we were laughing then. Stay tuned for more! And Merry Christmas...

From the I Celebrate January 2nd Club Director.

sorry to the family

One never knows how they affect this thing called biological family. to me it mostly means a gross mistake when the storks were delivering eggs. but then there is karma...or is there?
I am leaving for a week to get away from this never ending list of things we are "supposed to do..." as lame moms, grandmoms, aunts, uncles, nieces...whatever...
My United States of whatever.
I am driving in a 70 something Olds station wagon with my head hanging out the window...my hair is blowing and blond. We are either on our way to Chicago or leaving there on our way to Los Vegas where my sis gets taken to the ER for some paradoxical reaction to compazine...I a wearing a white sailor suit top and my hair is the whitest blond you can find out attachment?

Just pissed at the world, I guess

Can't help it...just seems like the world is some sucky gray place set up to destroy any illusion of goodness.
OK...I am really tired and saw only depressed, painful people today and then had to deal with delusion at its most extreme...and who am I to talk or think or even pretend?
Tired of friends with advice...tired of me own mind, too.
Maybe tomorrow will be better?

strong, urbane, and simple

OK, what does the above describe?

Check back later for some hints.

Took my boards today and am wondering who the hell picked the questions on this year's test?

Simply put, the whole experience sucked...except that I did not get a parking ticket and should have.

Happiness

Happiness

http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=622998359#/photos.php?id=622998359

Bhutan - The First Couple of Days

The first couple days of our trip were filled with beautiful skies. It is considered auspicious to be able to see Jomolhari, so the trip started well with many great views of one of Bhutan's most revered mountains.

The nuns did a prayer ceremony for us, and will continue to do so over the next few days. We made a special butterlamp offering for Susan's health and well-being through her last heavy duty chemo treatment.

My Girls

While I was away in Bhutan, Judge Swandahl ruled temporarily that Cheeks doesn't have the right to see Miss Gigi, pictured above with her sis Amélie. The above are some photos of the last time Gigs was up here...we danced to girls just wanna have f-un and where's the love y'all (you know - one world).

Where is the love? Hope Keith finds some in is life, 'cause we got plenty in our neck of the woods.

May the ruling get changed, mostly for the sake of my beautiful girls. No matter what, I still love all my grandkids...ain't nobody can take that away from me.

Well, I know, Chieko isn't up there, but you can click on the link to the right to go to her blog to see some awesome photos of her and Melanie...(this side of north dakota)

Photos from Bhutan to follow soon. (Maybe...)

Oh yeah...go Obama! Only two more days till our world rocks.

scarier

Voilå

About an old friend, kind of, who just died.

Robert Steinberg, who helped elevate chocolate into the realm of fine wine and gourmet food as founder of Scharffen Berger chocolate company, died Wednesday in San Francisco. He was 61.

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Dr. Steinberg died at UCSF of lymphoma, which was diagnosed in 1989.

"Chocolate in this country is changed forever because of Robert," said Alice Medrich, cookbook author and founder of Cocolat dessert company in Berkeley. "He and his partner made a chocolate that was so different, it set off this explosion. He changed our idea of what chocolate is and what it can be."

Scharffen Berger was among the first small artisan makers of premium chocolate in the United States, creating chocolate from high-quality beans and less sugar than conventional candymakers.

The award-winning chocolate led to a wave of high-end chocolatiers across the country and a national craze for dark chocolate. Scharffen Berger was also among the first to advertise the percentage of cacao in each bar.

"He showed us that chocolate is not just a sweet candy," said Medrich. "It really was revolutionary."

Dr. Steinberg was born in Boston, the son of a clinical psychologist and elementary school teacher. He received a bachelor's degree in English literature from Harvard and a medical degree from University of Connecticut, moving to San Francisco to complete his postgraduate work. He practiced family medicine for many years in San Francisco and Ukiah, quitting when he was diagnosed with chronic lymphoma.

"He thought about his life and re-evaluated his decisions because he realized he would be ill. He knew he wanted to do something with food because he had always loved cooking," said his sister, Nancy Steinberg of New York. "A friend suggested chocolate. We had high-quality wines and coffee, but no high quality chocolate. He thought the country was ready for that."

Dr. Steinberg was intrigued by the complexity of chocolate and the combination of science and cooking skills required in its manufacture. He traveled to Bernachon, a small chocolate-maker in Lyon, France, to learn the nuances of chocolate-making, and opened Scharffen Berger in 1996 with his friend and former patient, winemaker John Scharffenberger.

The pair experimented in Dr. Steinberg's kitchen using a coffee grinder, mortar and pestle, electric mixer and hair dryer. Their first products were created in a South San Francisco factory, which they outgrew in 2000 and moved to a larger plant in West Berkeley.

In 2005, Hershey bought Scharffen Berger and Dr. Steinberg left the company, starting a new career working directly with cacao farmers in Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras. He hoped to help them grow higher quality beans and improve their economic outlook, his sister said.

He was planning trips to Nicaragua later this month and France in October, but contracted a fever two weeks ago and was admitted to UCSF.

"Notwithstanding the extraordinary tenacity that was required of him, he was quite a gentle soul," said his friend and college roommate, Tony Ganz. "He was such a sweet guy in so many ways, but at the same time had an iron will. He was remarkably resilient and uncomplaining."

In addition to his sister, Dr. Steinberg is survived by his mother, Selma Goldberg of Marblehead, Mass., and a stepsister, Judith Margolin of Stamford, Ct..

Services will be private.

Donations can be sent to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, P.O. Box 4072, Pittsfield, MA 01202.

OK, OK - It is hard not to make fun of HER

The Unknown Side Effects of Chemotherapy

Since they are unknown, they are.
But the known ones = fatigue, bad taste in mouth, poison exuding from your pores...fatigue...not to mention the known ones like hair loss and hair loss.
Susan is such a trooper...looking a bit pasty after her second round of toxins being poured into her blood. Here is a photo of her getting shot up with pink kool-aid.

Tayata Om Baykhense Baykhense Maha BayKhense Razad Sama Gate Soha...or something like that. May all beings undergoing chemo find health again.

Do we really want this dude to be prez?

Jon Stewart on Sarah Palin Posted by Buster Taint

Blue Moon Cabin Brochure Almost Done!

It has only taken four years, but I have almost, finally finished the cabin's brochure and new rate card. Wow...and instead of really finishing it right now, I am blogging! Surprise? I guess not.

Here is a preview:

So, now on to my website and whatever!

Buster Taint Palin

That is my new name...given to me appropriately by the hickey mom...oops, I mean hockey fuck mom...oops...hockey puck in red lipstick.
Love it love it love it!

Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who...

Whatever...

No Woman No Cry

This is a photo of the first snow of the season on September 1, 2008, taken from my bedroom window, just as the photo from June 11 or 12th.

Here are MY current updates:
Susan's chemo to start next Wednesday...a whole day in Billings spent being victimized (ME, not S) by the medical system. FUCK!!! I hate this shit.
New/used tractor on its way to 200 Mountain Brook...a 45 horse power Kubota...looking for 18 grand, and think I can find it...
Milou and Bodhi washed today...smelled like dead animal (rabbit) and now smell like shampoo. Which is really worse?
Brochure for the cabin done...now website and then???
Tomorrow, leading Ngondro practice and meditation...is that a joke, a blessing...both...neither?

Listening to Susan Vega sing "hold me like a baby that will not sleep...oh.oh."

And Amélie says: "blah, blah, blah, something, something...whatever...WHATEVER." I love her more than anyone or anything I can remember in this lifetime. She is my hook and may I use that to benefit something bigger than what I know as me.

Rainy today and cold setting in. Fingers are cracking already, which means about 1 and 1/2 months of crack free-dom.

Khenpo is coming in November...I love him, too, but know I am unable to love him.

"Some say its just a part of it...won't you help to sing these songs of freedom...cause all I ever have...redemption songs...all I ever have...redemption songs...these songs of feedom...How long will they kill our our prophets?"

HEY - This is MY United States of WHATEVER...whatever.

We Must NOT Blink, Charlie

This is MY United States of....whatever

For Dad, After All These Years

In honor of my dad on the 26th anniversary of his death.

Benjamin Hutson Hintze
July 8, 1919 - August 30, 1982

Dad 1938
I believe he was a senior in high school in this photo.

Wine, Coke-bottle-bottom glasses, and pipe.

Dad was born with congenital cataracts that weren't discovered until he was five years old. He had the biggest blue eyes in the world when he wore those glasses, and actually, even when he had his contacts in. He wore some of the first contacts made; they were as big as his eyeball and hard glass. I can still smell his pipe and cigar butts in the abalone ashtrays that were in the living room.

Me and Dad
I actually remember the photo on the left being taken. I was crying (of course) and Dad was holding me. He called me his "double recessive" — the only kid out of four that had blue eyes and blond hair.


Here is a poem by Barbara Kingsolver that I found years after Dad's death:

FOR RICHARD AFTER ALL

For Richard after all
these years, and for myself, I am

careful. A patient reader,
a waiter between
dropped stones:
you can, did you know? hear
the water's lips open

and close, watch it

fall to the bottom, dream-speed,
identify it at rest before dropping
the next one. This was not how I stayed

up with him, a kind of vigil in the all-night
coffee shop, listening and not listening, restless
under the words and the one-tune jukebox going
nowhere, exactly two days before

to the surprise of all but himself he was
dead in a garage. Leaving me

with that all-night, rubbing edges
that don't go smooth, not even
under an ice age,
looking for the word that happened while I
didn't hear. A stone fallen in
deep water among so many other stones.

Richard left me with every other friend in my life:
to read them with care, to the end, like
borrowed books.

Dad died in a car in the garage that had just been cleaned for the first time in Hintze family history. His glasses were in his lap. I never saw him dead, and for years I dreamed of meeting him on some city street in some foreign town, mostly recognizing those blue eyes. I would see him, he would walk right by, but I knew it was him. He was my saving grace.

I still miss him...after all these years.

'Cosmopolitan' Institute Completes Decades-Long Study On How To Please Your Man

Horses, horses, horses

What does it take?

In the time we live our lives...our confusion...what does it take to really love somebody?

Gigi, Savai, Amelie...maybe the first time I really felt love was when that nurse brought little Amelie out of the surgical suite and handed her to me...or maybe that was just some kind of silly attachment? Or perhaps it was when Chieko first came out of my body...I think I was too young to feel that with my first born...I dunno...

Tomorrow, Milou gets her female organs removed...

Maybe tomorrow, the death mentality will lift...the guns to the head will go away, and the clear light of day will supersede the darkness???

For now, I started a new website called "Beyond Ordinary Mind." .com Why? I don't know...maybe it will come to me.

Happy Chokhur Duchen.

When a rainbow appears in the sky

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Thoughts and the Mind

Like waves, all the activities of this life have rolled endlessly on, one after the other, yet they have left us feeling empty-handed. Myriads of thoughts have run through our mind, each one giving birth to many more, but what they have done is to increase our confusion and dissatisfaction.

When we closely examine the ordinary habits that underlie whatever we do and try to discover where they come from, we find that their very source is our failure to investigate them properly. We operate under the deluded assumption that everything has some sort of true, substantial reality. But when we look more carefully, we find that the phenomenal world is like a rainbow—vivid and colourful, but without any tangible existence.

When a rainbow appears in the sky we see many beautiful colours—yet a rainbow is not something we can clothe ourselves with, or wear as an ornament. There is nothing we can take hold of; it is simply something that appears to us through the conjunction of various conditions. Thoughts arise in the mind in just the same way. They have no tangible reality or intrinsic existence at all. There is therefore no logical reason why thoughts should have so much power over us, nor any reason why we should be enslaved by them.

Mind is what creates both samsara and nirvana. Yet there is nothing much to it—it is just thoughts. Once we recognize that thoughts are empty, the mind will no longer have the power to deceive us. But as long as we take our deluded thoughts as real, they will continue to torment us mercilessly, as they have been doing throughout countless past lives. To gain control over the mind, we need to be aware of what to do and what to avoid, and we also need to be alert and vigilant, constantly examining all our thoughts, words and actions.

To cut through the mind’s clinging, it is important to understand that all appearances are void, like the appearance of water in a mirage. Beautiful forms are of no benefit to the mind, nor can ugly forms harm it in any way. Sever the ties of hope and fear, attraction and repulsion, and remain in equanimity in the understanding that all phenomena are nothing more than projections of your own mind.

Once you have realized absolute truth, then you will see the whole, infinite display of relative phenomena that appears within it as no more than an illusion or a dream. To realize that appearance and voidness are one is what is called simplicity, or freedom from conceptual limitations.

After Independence day

Sky thundering, dogs barking.
A guy in Ukiah hangs himself, leaving three kids, a wife and a bunch of other folks to wonder "what the hey..."

Moose!

Early Morning at Blue Moon Cabin

I had to chase mama and baby away when mama started heading for my plants. She was HUGE! The morning light was beautiful.

What I kinda understood today

is that it is the plastic wrapping that surrounds us all that keeps us apart...we can get close, we can touch even, but never, ever really get skin to skin...heart to heart...boundless view to mind to mind. Always some kind of wrap that keeps us "intact" and "safe." and separate.

Is that where animals come into the picture? We can love them unabashedly, treat them like shit and they still love us...what is the word...something like unconditional...not bound by conditions, or maybe even compounded phenomena?

What would it really be like to be seen and see without the lens filter?

My first Miller Moth today...gotta call Max.








Me after Rigdzin Dupa...Guru Rinpoche Day June 13, 2008. I tried to take a photo of Milou, but there wasn't enough light.

yak shit in heaven

"Every picture has its shadow...and it has some source of light. Blindness, blindness and sight"


Tonight again thinkin' it is time to leave this country...can't really figure why I am here anyway...pissed off people can eat it...when dinner matters more than prayin' for peace...when money matters more than caring about human and animal suffering...

Some beach, some wave, some island...some other place where the pace is slower, where time is relative...where rock walls bear the imprint of female Buddhas and sleeping in yak shit is the same as being in heaven...(Photo above taken at Bum Drag, which means 100,000 dakinis. You can't see the yaks or the shit, but both are there.)

Me and Pema and a few others who made it to the lake that day...just lucky, I guess. No way out except up? Wonder how come our eyes are closed.

Oughta Be a Woman Calls it Quits on Monday...

Here is a photo of my beautiful daughter with her equally lovely daughter. (All three of us born in the year of the horse, '54, '78, '02)

Here is a photo of my daughter's eardrum on Friday evening just about ready to burst:

This was after she had driven to Bozeman to pick up her two high-needs step children for the weekend, after their dad mistakenly (?) told his lawyer that he had full responsibility for them for more than 320 days of the year. Somehow he managed to forget that she has had both Logan and Savai at least every Friday and Saturday night for the last school year. Plus for more than ten days over the last two Thanksgivings and Christmas holidays...and that she has driven to Bozeman three times a week for more than a year to connect with these kids, whom she considers her own. (All without any thought of being compensated by Keith for her time and money spent.) Tuesdays in particular she would take Logan to her choir practice, after school, because her dad, who lives in Bozeman refused to do this. (Did I mention that Logan is an awesome singer/performer?).

I know that Logan and Savai's dad is suffering in many ways that I cannot understand. I also know how many nights I laid in bed holding Chieko while her eardrums were getting ready to burst with absolutely no way to relieve the tremendous pain she was experiencing until her eardrum actually ruptured.

I feel that kind of helpless again. I can't do anything to relieve this pain...not the ear pain, not the pain of her broken heart and dreams, that night she awakened to her crazed, jealous soon-to-be ex-husband strangling her in the night.

My prayers are that Keith find his happiness, and in that, recognize the gifts that generosity bestow upon the generous. And that Savai, Logan and Amélie recognize that love is what matters without attachment or clinging. And that Chieko's ears stop hurting soon.

"Oughta be a woman calls it quits on Monday, Blues on Tuesday, Sleep until Sunday...Down, sit down, sit down..."

Just had to vent a bit tonight!

just watch me now...

Some people, they like to go out dancing
Other peoples, they have to work
Just watch me now
And there's some evil mothers
Well they're gonna tell you that everything is just dirt
You know, that women never really faint
And that villains always blink their eyes
And that, you know, children are the only ones who blush
And that life is just to die
But anyone who ever had a heart
Oh, they wouldn't turn around and break it
And anyone who's ever played a part
Oh, they wouldn't turn around and hate it

What do I got?

Feed Your Head

Morning near Bum Drag, where 100,000 dakinis left their footprint in stone.

Elevation about 11,000 feet. In Bhutan, my spiritual home. You can see the Himalayas in the distance looming above a bank of clouds.

Remember what the doormouse said...

Oh yeah, and still waiting for Pam to wake up from her nap in Hawaii to post to her blog.

Pam's new do

Pretty cute, eh?

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Happy Mexican Snowballs to everyone!

what is it with this world?

So much sorrow and suffering...so much selfishness...so much need.

Is it Dakini or Bikini???

My dog is still in heat. It is too cute to see the way Bodhi and Milou love each other these days. So maybe all the love is just really hormones, and that is why us menopausal women are so ferocious.

Looking for a change, and right now Bhutan sounds pretty damn good.

Oh yeah, may all beings be happy, free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

Together we sit, United we fall...

Monday, April 14, 2008

3:30 AM, PDT...alarm goes off...we drag our asses out of bed in Castro Valley where we slept for about 3 hours after driving back from Santa Cruz...Sarah makes us some coffee, we get in the car, take a wrong turn and end up on 880 - have to return to 238 to get to the Oakland airport car rental return before 4:30, so we can be at the airport at 5 to check in for our flight at 6 AM...should have known it would be a bad day when I made that first wrong turn.

We get on the jet in Oakland and make it to Denver (by the way, who designed that airport?) by about 10 AM (MDT)...waiting in front of our gate for our so close flight back to Bozeman, when what I think is a joking woman with a microphone announces that the flight to Bozeman has been canceled...it takes me a bit too long to realize that she is not joking and we need to get to customer service ASAP...we wait in a long line, I get an automated call from United telling me we've been re-booked on the next available flight, which is tomorrow at 2:30 PM...I ignore that call, we wait in the line...we get to the counter, tell the lovely young black woman at the counter that, no, we cannot wait until tomorrow to fly home, that there is a five year old child who will need to be cared for...this woman proceeds to ask "well, where is that kid now?" and when we say school, she says "well, you better find a friend to get her, 'cause there ain't no more flights out of here today to Bozeman." We ask for her supervisor, who comes over, tells her to book us on a flight to Salt Lake City and then on a Delta flight from SLC to Bozeman. This is an impossible task for her to figure out, partly because she is talking to her friend and not paying attention, and partly because she just doesn't know what the fuck she is doing and mostly because she just doesn't give a shit. Finally the guy next to her books our tickets...so we will be on a late afternoon flight from Denver to SLC and then the last flight from SLC to Bozeman. Sitting waiting for our Denver United flight to SLC, Chieko notices that Flight 751 has been canceled.
To make this long story short, we are in SLC after being re-booked on a Frontier flight out of Denver, waiting for our 9:30 PM flight for home...Delta has been known to cancel this flight, so we may be here even longer...

What's the moral of the story? remember to pack more than one pair of underwear??? Or maybe don't have a five year old waiting at home for you ...The best part of the day so far was seeing Stephan Colbert on Larry King. Patience is a virtue, right?

The Natural, Coemergent Gods and Demons

"People become obscured by their personal superficial defilement of ignorance and accumulate negative karma, creating unlimited causes for cyclic existence. They are constantly trapped in their karma and afflictive emotion. Therefore, the root of all problems is ego-fixation. Not knowing how to apply the antidote-the completely illuminating firelight of intelligent timeless wisdom-is remaining in the dark about the general meaning of karma and about all actions." - Machik Labdron


Machik Labdron, is one of the greatest female saints and an accomplished yogini. She lived in the 11th century in Tibet. Machik developed a system, the Mahamudra Chöd, that takes the Buddha's teachings as a basis and applies them to the immediate experiences of negative mind states and malignant forces. Machik's unique feminine approach was to invoke and nurture the very "demons" that we fear and hate, transforming those reactive emotions into love. It is the tantric version of developing compassion and fearlessness, a radical method of cutting through ego-fixation.

Song for the day

You say there's always gonna be this thing
Between us days are filled with dreams
Scorpions crawl across my screen
Make their home beneath my skin
Underneath my dress stick their tongues
Bite through flesh down to the bone
And I have been so fuckin' alone
Since those three days

Rock on, Lucinda!

Quotes for the day

From Khenpo Tenzin Norgay...Bhutanese teacher and lama:

"A person who is not able to help himself and thinks of helping others is just a joke. In the thirty seven practices of Bodhisattvas it says that very clearly. But the point is we must have the ability but not focus on the self interest."

From the 37 Practices of the Bodhisattvas:

"All of our sufferings, without an exception, derive from the wish to please but ourselves..."

Tricky business this Buddhism.

So this is how I hide the hurt

...as the road leads cursed and charmed. I tell Amelia it was just a false alarm...

Must have been 34 years ago that I met Jacquie, the most beautiful woman I know. Long thick black hair braided, her face so full of grace. It is was in an aisle in the Safeway in Ukiah, California, where I lived for 20 years of my life before leaving for colder and more remote parts of the world.

Somehow, I ended up being with Jacquie for the births of all three of her children, and today is the birthday of her second baby, Lucas. Since I am listening to my playlist of oldies and goldies (it takes a lot to laugh...that's where mother spiritual lives...tamp 'em solid, till they won't come down...heroin, it's my life and it's my wife...) and even though it is getting close to midnight, it seems good to recall the day that Lucas, who now is a chef in Reykjavik, one of my favorite European cities, came into this world. (It is somewhat unfair, however, to call Reykjavik a city...It is more like a small urban coagulation of houses, people, geothermal pools, restaurants, bars and cafés and sulphur odors)

At the time Lucas was born, Jacquie and Ed lived up on 160 acres of land called Greyhaven. Greyhaven was about 5 or so miles (maybe more) up Pine Creek Rd, if my memory serves me right, on one side of Mid Mountain outside of Potter Valley, a once small dairy farm community. I think by that time, the last dairy had probably already closed, so that we could no longer get those gallons of milk topped with at least five inches of cream.

Greyhaven was at the end of the road. I remember driving by those old white farmhouses and homesteads, dreaming always of my life in one of them as a farmer's wife (or a farmer, more likely), and then climbing up out of the valley into the evergreen forests that started just right around where Ed and Jacquie's land began.

I think at that time, the house that Ed built was still somewhat small, although I could be wrong about that. Lucas was born in the back room which was just off of the kitchen. The kitchen was open to the living room, which is where one entered the house. The house was full of people, and those that I remember were: Kiki - Jacquie's most amazing mom who was probably in her 70's at that time. Kiki was a tiny, fit woman with bunched up gastrocs and styled blond hair and make-up, who could walk faster and do more in pair of high heels than any person I have ever known. She kept us fed that day and for many more days. Kiki is still alive and doing well, or so I hear.

Actually, there were a lot of other people there, but besides Ed, Jacquie, me, Lynn Meadows, and possibly Tobin, I can't say for sure who else was there. I could pretend that Shearn, Kathy Fisette, Leon and Bonnie and a few others were there, but I am not certain. Hopefully Jacquie can fill in those missing pieces.

This is how Jacquie gives birth...she just smiles and out pops the baby...my word at the time for her method of childbirth was and still is ANGELIC. Grace in action. Jacquie was barely leaning back on their bed, and Lucas more or less just came flying out; he was all wrapped and tanlged up in his long umbilical cord (or umbiblical cord as some might say here in Montana), which made it quite difficult to catch him, unwind him and hand him to his mama. In fact, except for some wicked luck, he almost ended up on the floor. He was born with a huge black mole or birthmark on I believe his right thigh, so he was called Spot for a bit. Jacquie always said some tribes consider those birthmarks very auspiscious, so she never let any medical person touch that thing.

Those days were magical. Like Jacquie's face, in Safeway, in childbirth, learning to drive, caring for Ed undergoing chemotherapy, sitting next to Tobin in his hospital room at Stanford as he got wicked chemo for his lymphoma, out on my back deck, making beauty out of seaweed and twigs. Dancing her beautiful dance...

For every heart ache she has experienced, I wish for her double the love...

Where's the love, you all?

To My Beautiful Daughter

To Chiki Piki Doodle Baba...
the most awesome of swammi-mommies and greatest of daughties:

Happy Birthday! 30 years old!!!
(whew, I was so much YOUNGER then...)

As the saying goes...or will I ever get it???

As the saying goes, "just as water never collects on top of a mountain peak, true worth never collects on top of the crag of pride."

"Don't follow the object of hatred; look at the angry mind.
Anger, liberated by itself as it arises, is the clear void;
The clear void is none other than mirrorlike wisdom."

Never think that any tiny act is insignificant just because it is so small, for the least negative action can set off a devastating chain of consequences, in the same way that a single minute spark can set fire to an entire forest. Conversely just as a slight trickle of water quickly fills a large pitcher, when one small positive action is added to many others the accumulated effect soon becomes substantial.

Precious and revered teacher, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Like the earth and the pervading elements,
Enduring like the sky itself endures,
For boundless multitudes of living beings,
May I be their ground and sustenance.

Little seed in a big pile of dirt

OK...mental health day at the clinic, and I am driving home dreaming about my little fresh grapefruit special with a splash of Kettle One. Then I started thinkin' about who makes the laws that dictate what is legal and what ain't??? Like why should something as toxic as ETOH be legal, when other substances are not?

How arbitrary is our freedom...and our mental health? Who makes the rules and who enforces them? In another time I could have been burned for being a midwife, imprisoned for fighting against Diablo Canyon, stabbed for being gay, fired for fighting for basic human rights in a system that denies our human-ness...and much more that I can't even write about.

I look at my wrinkled, old hands and think of all the dirt these hands have been in...digging to plant something that may sprout beauty and nourishment in a dismal world, somehow hoping that this dirt can grow what we need to survive, if we can just keep planting the seeds, watering the soil and believing in that process... and remind each other of this constantly...this love...this little seed in a big pile of dirt...

And besides that, Milou finally figured out how to jump up on my bed, so I don't have to help her up anymore. And my little, beautiful granddaughtie sang me a song about the four oceans and the seven (7, right?) continents and spelled Titanic all on her own. How awesome is that?

If you ever see a grizzly dancing on a hillside,

it's probably chasing ground squirrels...
as Chieko would say: "You know what that means?"

Check out Chieko's and Pam's blogs and photos..it is truly eerie.

Silver Suit Good to Me

You better be good to me...

Last Sunday I ragged on Tom Petty...this Sunday, Tina Turner rocks in her silver suit...maybe some rock stars age better than others? (duh) So Chiki just called to say that every single song on this year's Grammy's has been on some song mix she has done this year...right on to the coolest mom this side of the Rockies. (Hey what side of the Rockies are we on anyway?)

Foo Fighters don't believe in AIDS...? Direct quote from 2 minutes ago: "If we're gonna see sucky bands from when I was in high school, couldn't it be Guns 'n Roses?...Axel Rose doesn't have to stuff his shorts."

And is country music so desperate some dude has to sing about checking for ticks???

Hey, you better be good to me.

There is a King in Thailand

An old friend calls to say there was a study done recently that says that Livingston, Montana, has the highest rate of pain of ANY place in the USA.

First of all...how was that determined?
Second of all...do we really a need a frickin' study to tell us that???

Today it is this song in my head...here is the last stanza:
On the beach Joe tries to listen
To the heartbeat of a whale
How it echoes his own heartbeat
And the distance he has sailed
Oh the distance he has sailed
My name Joe my name Joe
There is a king in Thailand
And he plays the jazz drum
He has a fine and healthy son
Oh no I'm not the one
My name Joe

Dreaming of a warm, white sand beach in Thailand...where the women are beautiful and so are the men and the food is good and there is a place to rest in every home and every heart. What a long, cold winter we have had...there is a king in Thailand...

Who likes Tom Petty?

How mainstream and boring can music f----ing get?
We are watching the SUPERBOWL M-O-M!
Anyway, I would rather see Janet Jackson bare her boobs than watch this crap.
Direct quote from two minutes ago "these guys should be in a retirement home" and just now "they are like totally in diapers".
I personally think Justin Timberlake has a lot more to offer the world with his SNL "bleep in a box" than TP having an MI with all those young juggle boobs flirting with him.
Well, Justin Timberlake is hot and Tom Petty has needed a haircut since before I was born.
Bless his heart, and yours, too!
Go Giants!!!!!!!














Cheeks and me watching the SB after porking out on Ruffles and sour cream dip. (me that is, obviously)

It's damn hard to keep up with all this bloggin'...but I'm gonna try

I work with the most awe-inspiring and amazing people in the world! Not only are they smart, kind, hard working and fun, they are also the most stylin' women I know (besides, of course, my totally awesome, stylin' daughter, Chiki).

Above are Pam and Barb flirting with my MacBook while I am probably doing one of the following things:

1. Trying the unplug the toilet that Pam just used
2. Looking for chocolate
3. Seeing a totally depressed client
4. Worrying about my puppy freezing her ass off in my truck because I got banned from bringing my pets to the clinic
5. Seeing a suicidal patient
6. Looking for my chapstick
7. Doing an STD check
8. Trying to figure out if the wind really is responsible for all the mental illness in Livingston
9. Seeing if I can buy coffee for someone so they will go and get some for me (yes, I know, not truly generous, am I?)
10. Seeing a homicidal patient, whose life was so wrecked by fucked-up parents, our penal system and bullies, that I am beginning to feel homicidal
    
11. Searching the medical dictionary for the term "dowager's hump"
12. Searching for where Colleen hid my RX pad
13. Trying to get someone, anyone, in medical records to do their job, which is to find my chapstick
14. ____________________________________________
    (your turn...)
    
    
    

My Back Pages

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps

"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts [flanks] of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led [Sisters fled] by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

tuesday tuesday

Suddenly, Roger McQuinn's voice singing "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now" re-enters my trodden brain and that's all I can repeat for a day or so...trying to remember the line about crimson flames...does anyone know the rest?

Addiction is my passion for this evening, reading everything I can get my hands on about Buprenorphrine and realizing it would sincerely and totally help 80% of my patients, and then finding the line I was dreading....PAs and FNPs are not allowed to participate in the program...another fight to have in the face of too much to already fight about. I know it is just a few phone calls to California to find out what it really happening out there, but then again, that takes some time.

So, right now, it is a two dog night...cats somewhere also...this warming trend almost makes me want to run naked down the streets of Livingston...dowager hump and sagging boobs to boot.

winter with two dogs, one face and two hands

montana...winter...two dogs
wet snow
the sun, up by 7 am
the light is happening
soon