The Blog: Spellbound by our own imperfect lives...

There are several big, fat (thanks to me) squirrels who hang around our yard, getting into mischief, tormenting the cat, eating top shelf bird food, and generally being nuisances. They are fun to watch, though. There is one in the tree right now, making eye contact with Woodrow. He is sitting on a branch of the apple tree, staring into the cat's eyes. Just like this. I just mentioned to Regis that he has quite the pessimistic demeanor today. He told me that it didn't matter that PHC was getting good reviews because it is a dying market. When I looked disturbed, he comforted me by saying I will most likely be dead before that happens. Oh, boy. It's easy to get sucked into the rabbit hole of anger and pessimism. It's why I avoid the news...it colors my view of the world. There's a robin sitting in my redbud tree. Now there's optimism.

I love this event. Where else can you see a thousand people running down the street, most in costumes, many with either a dog or a baby carriage? It's a blast. I took pictures and Facebook turned them into a video. Now I can't post the video here and I'm too lazy to get my phone and find the pictures again. Here's the link to the video. I can't even begin to describe how tired and frightened I am of the current political scene. Aren't those assholes in the government supposed to work together? The Affordable Care Act...nobody wants to do anything constructive about it. They only want to blame the POTUS. What a horrible thing...wanting people to have health care. It's like communism. And those f***ing emails. Can we get past the emails? Can we put away the pitchforks and stop acting like loons? The racism is truly painful to read about. Racism in a small school in North Dakota. Racism against Amish people. I can't even write articulately about ...

I'm not sure how this will go. One of the things I am aiming for in my life is to merge my recovery life with my real life. This is an attempt to do that. I have a blog on an online support site that I use. My posts there are recovery focused. My posts here tend to mention recovery from time to time (I sort of hate that word but that's another topic. I hate labels.) but most often are about something else. I realized some time back that the more I thought about other people while I was writing here, the more difficult it became. It's what Natalie Goldberg calls the monkey mind. The critter that sits on your shoulder reading as you go and making judgments like this: That's not true. He might laugh at that. Don't say that. You could be pissing someone off. It makes it hard to write freely. Hahaha! Like this. I have been writing a blog post in my head the past few days. Couldn't gather my thoughts enough to get it down on paper but I thin...

I went for a walk with Regis and Gus this morning, just as the sun was coming over the horizon. If it had been up to them, they would have gone 30 minutes earlier but then we might have missed this great cloud formation. A dragonfly in the sky. A symbol of transformation. Perfect. I went to yoga this morning, then to coffee at River Rock. I feel like I have been to a really good church. Good friends sharing that namaste thing, then dark coffee and oatmeal cookies. Perfect. It's been a fabulous fall, so far. I went to the fall festival at Gustavus with Tiffany and the little boys. The whole bunch of us went to the pumpkin patch last Sunday then came back here for soup and birthday cake to celebrate Zoey's 6th birthday. I love those family things. I can't remember what came in this box, maybe the flame genie. We gave our chimnea away because it was too much work and we are basically lazy. The flame genie lights up using wood pellets and has a nice fla...

We have had a minor shift in the weather since yesterday. I was sort of inclined yesterday to do some projects in the house. You know, like the dishes and maybe some laundry. But the weather was so beautiful and I just had a feeling we were coming to the end of it so I went to the Arboretum instead. I sat on the swing for a while, walked the paths, took some pictures, and stared at the clouds. It was warm and peaceful and perfect. This morning, Regis went for a walk at 6am. He said he heard the wind and rain slapping the window and decided that I would probably not want to venture out. He was right. I am going to write this post and then go to the basement to forage for a winter coat, hat, and mittens. My exercise options this morning are to go swimming or to walk, inside or outside. I am choosing outside. What better way to blow some cobwebs out of the mind that a cold and windy walk. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of 100 days since I last let liquor touch my li...

The other day I was tidying up on the patio. I found a garbage can filled with water and when I started to dump the water out, a fluffy tail floated to the top. Uh oh. I abandoned that task and reported to the dead rodent manager in our family. He investigated further and discovered a squirrel must have dropped in there and been unable to escape. I know squirrels are rodents, but it made me sad to think of the poor thing scrambling to get out of there. This morning on our walk, we saw these beautiful cloud formations. I think they are called mare's tail clouds but none of the pictures I found on google were quite this nice. I love the frames around them. As we passed one of the buildings on the edge of town, Gus got interested in a rat poison thing. We hollered to get him to leave it alone but he sure was curious. As we got closer, we saw a poor rodent (maybe a gopher but I don't want to start that controversy again) was stuck in it up to his shoulders. He had probably ...

I'm drinking my favorite coffee, Wake the Dead. Gus has been out and has been fed. Woodrow has been fed and has had his treats. He reminded me by politely knocking the container off the counter and then giving me the evil eye. You dare not forget or make him wait. I spent Friday night watching a program on television about tiny houses, then one (several) about people buying vacation homes on the ocean. Both could make you crazy. If you want to be reminded of the great diversity in human beings, this is a good place to start.  There was a young couple with three kids under the age of six, and one on the way. They were planning to take their entire family in a house of less than 300 square feet on the road to tour the country. Everything she said, he responded with, "That would be a lot of work." That would have been enough for me to commit an act of verbal violence. They finally settled on a moldy old school bus that had been made into a camper where they ...