More Goslings & Creative Thinking
Spring Goslings - Wilsonville, Oregon - April 26, 2012
CK and I trying to bring some creative thinking to things with Mom. Still in the planning stages, but we have some ideas that we're going to look into to see how feasible they are.
Today at work I took a little break and sat by the stream that runs through the campus. Nearby were some more of the goslings we see each spring, I think there's almost a dozen of them around the campus. Goslings in spring are definitely a perk!
Small feathered beings
Carefully guarded over
By cautious mothers.
Cherry Blossoms & Avoidance
Cherry Shrubs - Wilsonville, Oregon - April 23, 2012
Busy day and a therapy appointment in which I avoided talking deeply about what's been bugging me. Some days are like that.
The tomatoes we planted on Sunday are looking happy under their cloche. We hope to have fresh tomatoes by June!
Near the door I most often use to the building my office is in are some cherry shrubs of some sort. Delicate, pale blossoms, but instead of a tree they are pruned, shaped into spare, but tallish shrubs. They just started to bloom within the past couple of weeks. Once they're done they will have red leaves through until autumn.
Delicate blossoms.
Pale pink against the blue sky.
Fleeting spring treasures.
Enticing Bees
Bees & Purple Flowers - Parkdale, Oregon - October 2010
When we pay attention there's quite a lot to worry about. I worry about bees. Colony collapse disorder is something we should be more worried about. We depend upon bees in ways most people don't appreciate.
As much as we think about veggies to plant in our garden, we spend some time thinking about flowers to entice pollinators, like bees to visit our yard. Besides the general loveliness of the flowers we've been adding, they bring bees. It makes me very happy to see the bees buzzing around, gathering pollen. The big, fuzzy bumble bees particularly make me smile.
Watching the bee fly
I am full of gratitude:
Her work becomes food.
Winter Haiku. Spring Day.
Earth day today and Portland was blessed with puffy white clouds against a blue sky, shining sun, and weather warm enough for a t-shirt. Our new fence was struck today, with well-placed posts setting up. A bed is cleared and ready to plant as well. Tomorrow may find us on a picnic or at a nursery buying veggie starts!
Today we had Indian food, shopped at the Japanese market, and I plotted art projects today and made a Japanese inspired, spring dinner with grilled tofu, asparagus, snow peas, a sushi roll and rice balls. It really was too nice a day to beat myself up over not having gotten more useful things done.
Here's a winter haiku for a spring day:
White clouds. Blue water.
Winter sun brings welcome warmth
To the grey season.
Water Clouds - Powell Butte, Portland, Oregon - January 2011
April in Portland
There reaches a point in Portland where the days really start to get longer and a little warmer. CK's Mom would still say it is cold here, but in Portland we're finally happy to put on light jackets, squint at the UV, and delight in the dryness of our stroll through the park.
This evening I got home and took Dora up to Peninsula Park for a quick walk. It made me late for a meeting, but it was so worth it. She rolled in the grass in doggy delight until a happy string of drool was plastered across her snout.
Most people in Portland are funny, smart, sweet and kind. Yes, there's a lot of weirdness, but I think Portlandia does us a disservice to some degree. And when the sun begins to shine and flowers pop out of the grass, people smile with such utter joy that I'm filled with such gratitude for my home.
Flowers peek from grass,
Lift up faces toward the sun.
Petals seeking warmth.
Tiny Flowers - Peninsula Park, Portland, Oregon - April 18, 2012
Spring Life
Goslings - Wilsonville, Oregon - April 17, 2012
I have the distinct pleasure of working at a campus that's a dedicated bird refuge. Small ponds and running water dot the campus and we see a fantastic variety of avian life. CK even gave me a bird book as a Christmas gift and I keep it on my desk in my office.
Spring brings flowers, rain, and both Canada and Cackling Geese. The Cackling look the same as the Canada geese, only smaller, and the flock largely together. We get to see them pairing off and today I spied eggs alongside one of the ponds near my building. I also spotted a first group of fuzzy goslings, which I stopped to admire despite the hissing parents.
Angry parent goose,
Hissing in disapproval
As I praise goslings.
White Cloud Blossoms
CK is in Arizona until Wednesday evening attending a conference. I decided last week I'd work from home today so I could take the car in for an oil change and check up. After the rain we'd had today was warm, bright and sunny. It was really nice to be home with all our companions, enjoying the sun coming in through the windows while I worked.
Being at home today also gave me time to stop by the bank and get a new debit card since mine had expired Saturday. That stop at our credit union let me take a moment to enjoy all the flowering apple trees in the courtyard, with one tree still rather bare and not yet flowering.
This evening a friend came by and had dinner with me. I made spicier grilled tofu than I normally would and we compared the merits of his Tabasco vs. a small bottle of hot sauce that had been given to us during the Road Food Festival in the French Quarter while we were on vacation. Having a friend stop by for excellent conversation really helps combat the blues I feel when CK's on a trip -- seems obvious, need to try that more often!
The sunshine, the flowering trees and the pleasant company yield forth another haiku for my poetry month!
Like a warm promise:
Day of sunlight after rain.
Dazzling brightness.
White Cloud-Blossoms, Portland, April 2, 2012
Chocolate Poetry and Busy Life
CK is down in Mountain View and has been for over a week. These long trips are hard. Right now with everything going on with Mom, it has felt really tiring. Work is very busy, although I've come to understand that the nature of my new(ish) job is that my team is always busy. Right now I feel like I should be working, but I am letting myself take the evening off having done work the past couple of nights and over the past weekend. I'll be working some this weekend too!
This evening Dora and I took a 40 minute walk up to the park and around the rose garden a few times. The moon was golden and beautiful and it was a chill, but dry evening. The happy result of the walk, combined with enjoying a big bowl of simple borscht and wheatberries for dinner, was finishing off a chocolate bar and enjoying every bite! I've been trying to be much more mindful about what I'm eating and how much. It is far too easy to fall back into mindless eating and it feels good to really savor the chocolate and make the bar last days!
The particular brand of chocolate includes love poetry printed on the inside of the wrapper. I really loved seeing part of Astrophil and Stella by Sir Philip Sidney and I thought it would be nice to share it.
Sonnet 81
O kiss, which dost those ruddy gems impart,
Or gems or fruits of new-found paradise,
Breathing all bliss, and sweetening to the heart,
Teaching dumb lips a nobler exercise;
O kiss, which souls, even souls, together ties
By links of love and only nature's art,
How fain would I paint thee to all men's eyes.
Or of thy gifts at least shade out some part!
But she forbids; with blushing words she says
She builds her fame on higher-seated praise.
But my heart burns; I cannot silent be.
Then, since, dear life, you fain would have me peace,
And I, mad with delight, want wit to cease,
Stop you my mouth with still still kissing me.
Gratitude 2011
I've mentioned before that Thanksgiving is a rather meaningful holiday for me. I love the celebration of the harvest, particularly in preparing delicious vegan food for a big feast. I also really love looking back on the year, reflecting on the events that have past as the darkest days of the years tick down. Sharing this holiday with people I love means a lot to me.
This year CK and I nearly spent the holiday in Sacramento with her family. Her Father is trying to cause some problems and she hasn't been down in a while. Ultimately we realized we were feeling very stressed in planning to go down. Bigger than her concern that she was falling back into the habitual behavior learned while growing up, CK realized that Thanksgiving with her family, complete with both turkey and ham being served, was another example of a communal meal that would leave us feeling distracted, sad, being made to feel othered by our being vegan, and complicit in the suffering of sentient beings.
So we stayed home and several friends came over to celebrate with us. Another friend came by to foist more dessert upon us and DW dropped by between our place, her Dad's and her brother's adopted family. We all enjoyed a big feast, with our friends bringing food and wine to celebrate with us. I'm so very grateful for this meal, this time with friends who share and support our desire to live our lives honoring peace and non-violence. I'm really honored by CK and her desire to make this holiday one that celebrates peace and non-violence -- even when doing so means dealing with a lot of hurt feelings from her family.
*CK has posted a really good article about her decision to not partake in a non-vegan Thanksgiving on her blog.
The buidling reflected in the pond behind the heron is the one my office is in.
This year also brings me gratitude for my new job. Just last Thanksgiving I'd gone out on an icy cold, windy day for my interview. I'd talked about it with friends during dinner last year, but had been certain I wouldn't get an offer. It has been nearly a year now, much of it filled with an intensely busy project schedule, but I'm so grateful for a team that respects me and I feel like I can grow my skills further at this company.
It doesn't feel right not to reflect upon how grateful I am for my wife. This past week we worked hard together making our basement closer to habitable and mourning the discovery that several of our old, leather-bound books have suffered mold due to the increased humidity brought on from the house being insulated & weatherized. CK hung vivid red curtains in our living/dining room, making the space feel cozier and brighter. I was once again how struck I was at finally having a partner in my life who was there for me during the hard work and the fun. It makes all the difference and I am filled with gratitude for CK.
There are also our animal companions to be grateful for. They bring us so much joy and despite the regularity with which we find ourselves cleaning up messes, barf, and endless piles of fur, we wouldn't have it any other way. I'm so grateful that we're able to open our home to our little herd.
Finally, some gratitude that extends beyond my home for the news this past Tuesday that our current governor announced a moratorium on executions for the remainder of his elected term. This news is so welcome and I am so profoundly grateful for it. Although I wish he'd go so far as to commute all death sentences to life in prison, making an even stronger statement against the death penalty, I at least feel like his announcement opens things up to serious discussion. I felt particularly touched by this quote from the statement that was released, "I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer; and I will not allow further executions while I am Governor."
Moving Right Along
That's kind of what life does. When we're little it feels like it moves intolerable slow, as we age we find ourselves looking up, blinking in astonishment at how quickly things speed by.
Case in point. Here it is November, nearly middle of. Gracious!
Work remains very busy. I've come to accept that the crazy busy feeling at first wasn't the "ramp up" period of getting used to a new job, new team, etc. My team just seems to run on "damn busy" all the time and I'm trying to find peace with the fact that I end each week just worn out and feeling like I haven't accomplished nearly enough.
This past week I received a very nice compliment from one of the project managers. I'd run a meeting to review and validate user acceptance testing. It was a busy 90 minutes of keeping client testers on task and keeping our developer from feeling overwhelmed and picked apart. Later that day the project manager made a point to tell me how impressed he is with the work I put into making this project run. He went further to say that he felt he could really learn from the way I run my meetings and projects.
I'm trying to just let that one sit and feel good about it. I feel like I'm behind on all the tasks for that given project, so it would be far to easy to pick apart that compliment until there's nothing left but my task list. Instead I'm just reminding myself that I am actually very good at what I do and that people both see and respect it.
Mom... I haven't seen her since this summer. I've spoken to her several times, but I can't quite get enough energy together to see her in person. It is a combination of the fact that spending time with her literally eats away one of my precious weekend days, complete with a bunch more driving, and feeling the hurt of how she treated me.
We got into something of an argument on Monday night. I won't go into the details, but it mostly all got hung up on how angrily she meets my setting boundaries. When I fail to respond how she wants me to, she lashes out at me and at herself. I'm still growing the skill of setting a boundary and not rising to the bait when she responds negatively. It is hard practice and somehow seeing her in person seems like just one stone too many right now.
Her health remains precarious. She has ulcers that are bleeding and she's receiving transfusions about every 6 weeks. He husband's health is failing rapidly and she feels alienated by his family, like they don't trust her. It is hard and I feel so very sad for her suffering.
On my health front things are well. I've lost 10 pounds and my cholesterol isn't the 219 it tested at at the employee health fair, but a far happier 178. I've been going to the aqua power class on Saturday mornings and trying to go to a Zumba class offered at the gym at work. Being in the water on Saturday really helps a lot. Zumba really feels out of my comfort zone, I generally just try to keep moving and not crash into anyone else, but the group of women who go are generally encouraging and supporting, which helps.