#365Gratitude Day 259: Support Systems

Yesterday after work, I stuck around the neighborhood near my office, because it was a whole lot closer to the airport than where we live.  I got to have dinner with my friend Natasha, which was lovely, and afterwards go back to her house for a while to sit on the couch, cuddle, play with her horse plushie, Autumn, and talk about techie things before I had to leave to pick up Missy.

Tasha got to telling me about this super smart idea of hers for a Raspberry Pi based alarm clock that could be snoozed from the device, but only shut off from a web browser elsewhere in the house.  That way she would have to get out of bed.  What a smart idea.

It got me thinking about the nifty little support systems I have built for myself, both implicitly, and explicitly.  One of them is actually this blog.  Sometimes the blog is about really silly, vapid things, and sometimes it's about super serious things, but a big part of why I do it is that it's a form of long-term storage for thinking and exploration I've done before.

Just this morning as I was laying in bed, snuggled up to Missy, my brain was wheeling off into space, as I was thinking about the buddhist concept of shenpa, or attachment.  A while back I had heard an amazing lecture by Pema Chödrön about shenpa, Getting Unstuck.  She said that there are three ways we attach.  I couldn't remember them all.  (I knew about the shenpa of anger, and of pleasure.) I did a bunch of web searching, trying to find some text where she described them, because it was driving me crazy that I couldn't remember the third one.

Then I recalled writing about listening to that lecture months ago, in my blog.  (200 days ago, in fact.)  And I found it.

So glad I write this stuff down.

#365Gratitude Day 258: A Good Reason to Make My Bed

Yesterday morning right around 8:00am, I made my bed.

This would have been around 5:00am, pacific time.

Of course Missy was still asleep then, at her friend Sue's, in Tacoma.  She loves Sue very much.  (As do I.)  This was Missy's last day out west, after having been there for 9 days.

Long after I made our bed, she went to Seattle airport, and got on a plane.

On board, she texted with me, to let me know she'd made the flight, and loved me, and missed me.

I let her know I felt the same way.

I'm pretty sure she knew this already.  Doesn't matter.  Saying how much you love your spouse is a bit like real estate in Japan - you can never have enough of it.

She got to Salt Lake City, for her layover.

A little while later, she got on the very long flight from Salt Lake City to DC.

I may have watched the progress of her flight on my phone once or twice during my workday.  (Or maybe like 15 times.  Possibly 35 times.)  Eventually, she landed in DC, where she was now much closer to me.

I'm the blue dot in this picture.  But that's inaccurate, because I wasn't blue at all.  I was excited.

I knew at any moment she was going to come out of this hallway.

And about three minutes later, she did!

After which I:

• hugged her
• kissed her
• got her bags to the car
• drove her home
• brought both suitcases inside up many steps
• went to bed with her in the bed which I had made that morning.

See? I told you I had a good reason to make it.  Glad I did. 

#365Gratitude Day 257: Not that tired

Saturday night on my way home from my very long day out my tire pressure light came on. ​

This morning it was still on.  

Thankfully, I have a great mechanic who is minutes away from my house. 

Good thing.

One of the tires has a gash in the sidewall and needs to be replaced.   Another is wearing thin enough that it should go, too. 

Could be worse. At least it's just two tires.

Things have a funny way of working out just right anyhow.  I got on the road early this morning because I slept in a bit, planning to swim tonight after work. My sister-in-law gave me her next month's rent early, and the check is sitting in my pocket right now.  So I have the time & the cash. Plus, I got to catch my blog up as I wait. 

There's a special kind of grace to stuff like this. When I'm not caught up in how things should be, I work well with what's in front of me. 

That's why I'm only half as tired as I could be. ;-)  

#365Gratitude Day 256: Yang knows

On Sunday I was good for exactly nothing. I was so worn out from my late night (and to be honest, accumulated slept debt from this whole past week), that I mostly spent the day laying around the house. I did finish reading Wesley Chu's The Lives of Tao and listening to Peter Clines's Ex-Patriots .  (Not at the same time, that would be insane.) 

My awesome boycat Yang knew I was worn out and he gave me comfort snuggling all day.  

I mean look at that. How insanely cute is this cat?  

 (Oh and the Chu book was okay, I give it a solid 6 out of 10.  The idea is neat, but the storytelling has some big issues.  The Clines book is amazing, I've listened to it before. 9 out of 10, no doubt.)

5#365Gratitude Day 255: Good friends

Saturday was a jam packed day for connecting with friends.  

First, Saturday morning I had a good long online chat with Ms Lemon.  I used to be in service to Ms. Lemon and her husband, Rob. That was 12 years ago .

That blows my mind a little.  As I told her, the time I spent with them taught me a lot about who I was, and who I could be. It was a super important part of my life.  It was Ms. Lemon who introduced me to Dan Milman's Way of the Peaceful Warrior and who first really showed me what being in service felt like. Big, big things. 

Then I drove up to surprise my friend Peanut at a birthday party at Medieval Times. That was so super nice. She was all schmoopy over my being there and hugged me about a million times. I love Peanut to pieces. Her little is my little's best friend. We watched the show, and had really good cake.  Afterwards I really wanted to go home with her, and she really wanted me to, too.  

But I couldn't. I just had other things to do. Including stopping at my friend RS's house because I owed him a bag of diapers. I stopped there and visited with him, his awesome wife Kimby, as well as my friends Tan, Rumpus Parable, and Sandbox Phil, an American ageplayer who lives in the Middle East, who I get to see maybe once a year when he visits.  

That was so excellent. I stayed way, way too late, and drove home around 1 am. On the way, my little girl Valentalae kept me phone company which helped me stay alert on the road.  

I'm really very fortunate. I have so many good friends, friends I've had a long while, and who stick by me.  They love me, and I love them right back.