Warm and Cold
2/6/01
We had a short spring last weekend--about three days. I don't think I'll ever get over my East Coast amazement at seeing plants and flowers burst out February in California. We used to consider the Groundhog's 6 more weeks of winter to be a bargan if we could get it. I do remember that about March 20th, if we were lucky, you would see a crocus or two.
My choke cherry tree is blindingly white--I'm going to try to get a pix of it if the sun comes out. All of a sudden there are birds everywhere. They still haven't discovered my feeder in a big way, but its only a matter of time. As I write this, there are six birds drinking at the fountain and some smaller ones looking on waiting for the right time.
Last night, I heard the big daddy bullfrog start to give a few tentative honks.
The two local cats that have adopted me are not in sight now, but were evident earlier. One seems to like the steep bank on the right of the house. It can sit on a 30 degree slope and look totally at ease, like a big blob of orange squeezed out of some kind of pastry tube. The tiger prowls the deck--I think it keeps the salamander population in check. I also think the tiger is the one that, from time to time, comes into the garage through an ancient cat door and leaves dusty footprints on my winshield. Just letting me know who the real owner of the property is...
Record high temperatures made it almost intolerable to go inside yesterday. Neverthelss, I suffered through the usual Monday bundle of meetings. By early afternoon, it had become evident to all that I was coming down with a cold.
So I sit here in my office, with eyes tearing, nose producing a steady drip drip drip, head packed with unmentionalable substances, and my mood only slightly lifted by beauty outside my office window. I burned my candle at both ends last weekend, didn't sleep well, and whammo.
And, of course, my ISDN line is on the fritz again, so I can't even work well at home. I had been hoping to hang out and work from here, but with no connectivity I'm screwed. So it's off to get some meds and the off to work I go.
Sigh...
It's evening now. My plans to stay home, nurse my cold, and call in to the one meeting I needed to be at were dashed by the phone company. Home phone full of crackles, and the ISDN had a mean up time of 2 minutes. So I took a hot steamy shower, dosed myself with asprin and decongestant, and headed down the hill.
It's funny, this meeting was postponed three times, which is part of why I didn't want to postpone it again. It was just me, my boss, and one other person. I had been thinking about what I needed to prepare for it, but hadn't written a thing because of the phone problems (and feeling so rotten).
So, I had about 20 minutes to get ready for the meeting. I reached into my cotton-clogged mind and vomited all my thoughts on the topic onto a piece of paper, printed three copies, and walked into the meeting with my papers and a box of kleenex.
Well, I blew them away. They looked at what I had written, threw away their own notes, said things like "This is much more complete and well thought out than what I brought", we made a few changes, and that was that.
The funny thing is, I knew it would go sort of like that. One of the nice things about studying Huna is that making your unconscious mind an ally is a special aim of Huna practice. I've been getting there. So all through the three previous cancelled meetings, I've known that my unconscious mind was turning over the problem. From time to time, I'd think about it for a few minutes, and then consciously let my unconscious have it again, kind of like putting a bagel in the toaster.
It's a good feeling. I'm happy to be able to do it. I've read that Mozart would compose entire symphonies in his mind while riding in a coach, then write them down when he stopped. This is more unconscious, and the things I can do this with are surely not Mozart symphonies! But it's useful...
When I was a kid, I remember I used to try to think of two things at once. I'm left handed, so I lay claim to some tangled brain wiring. Once, for several minutes, I was able to think of two rather different things at the same time while having some unrelated background music going in my mind. The thoughts came to me as spoken words with two different speakers. It was pretty difficult, and actually of no particular value, since it was hard as hell to do.
After my mini-triumph at the office, I drove back up here, leaving just at the front end of the rush hour. I was pretty zonked by the time I got here, with drugs, fatigue, and stuffy sinuses. I almost dozed off a mile from my house, which scared the shit out of me. I'm home now, and happy to be here...
Thank you for reading.
Copyright © 2001 Pete Stevens. All rights reserved.
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