Everybody likes cake. Another dinner party last night — our friends Bob and Robin came over to see the new garden. Since my chi is still a little low, I made the same dinner that I cooked for Patrick and the Nice Girlfriend the other night — but I made a cake. People think making a cake is a really big deal, but it’s not. I made the Buttermilk Cocoa Cake out of Laurie Colwin’s fabulous book More Home Cooking. It could hardly be easier — in a bowl you mix together flour, cocoa, sugar, a little salt and baking…
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Roast Chicken to Cure the Blues My darling brother has a new girlfriend, and of course, when you are no longer young, new relationships tend to come with some baggage. The Nice Girlfriend had a tough day yesterday, her baggage was all noisy with her about the fact that she’s moving on in life, and she was a little blue. She’s also renovating her house, and domestic disarray never helps when feeling blue. Plus, the brother has a cold, and was a little low himself. So late in the afternoon they came over and we sat on the new, comfy…
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Go read this right now. Jeanne d’Arc at Body and Soul, as usual, says the thing the rest of us have been fuming about. As my friend Bill Campbell, former war photographer says “I’ve seen African coups run better than this.”
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My acupuncturist diagnosed mental overstimulation. Mental overstimulation that has led to low kindey chi, which leads to dried out ligaments, which, along with the amount of time I spend at the keyboard, led to my hand spazzing out last week. What mental overstimulation? Holding down a full time job, writing a second novel (after being notified last week that the first one is going out of print), doing the reading that’s necessary to feed the creative part of the brain that the full-time job tends to deaden in order to write the novel, planning a garden, digging said garden, watching…
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Fourteen Precepts in Seventeen Days Fourteenth: do not mistreat your body. Learn to handle it with respect. Do not look on your body as only an instrument. Preserve vital energies (sexual, breath, spirit) for the realization of the Way. Sexual expression should not happen without love and commitment. In sexual relationships be aware of future suffering that may be caused. To preserve the happiness of others, respect the rights and commitments of others. Be fully aware of the responsibility of bringing new lives into the world. Meditate on the world into which you are bringing new beings. Being Peace, by…
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Fourteen Precepts in Seventeen Days: Day Fifteen Thirteenth: Possess nothing that should belong to others. Respect the property of others but prevent others from enriching themselves from human suffering or the suffering of other beings. Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh LivingSmall took the weekend off from writing about the precepts (one can never really take time off from the precepts, since the precepts are always with us). But now I’m back on task, with this deceptively simple precept. I say deceptively simple because how many of us can truly say that what we possess should be ours? One of…
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Signs of Spring in Livingston, MT Sandhill cranes flying over the dog park in the morning. One pair. Clacking. The 2 year old bird dog loses his mind and chases after them for ten minutes. Marks In and Out is open again — authentic 1950s drive in, white tiles so clean you could do surgery on them, and the best authentic cheeseburgers made with locally grown and processed meat. A cheeseburger you don’t have to feel guilty about. And for 2 bucks, no less. Bare root roses for the garden — 2 Yellow Persians, 2 Fairy Pinks, 2 Therese de…
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Twelfth: Do not kill. Do not let others kill. FInd whatever means possible to protect life and prevent war. Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh Well that’s pretty clear, isn’t it? Simple. Clear. Directive. Note that there’s no “but if … then it’s okay” clause. If you haven’t seen The Onion’s take on this precept, it’s available here: God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule. (Just because we’re talking about something important, doesn’t mean we can’t be funny.)
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Fourteen Precepts in Fifteen Days Eleventh: Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature. Do not invest in companies that deprive others of their chance to life. Select a vocation which helps realize your goal of compassion. Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh I love the idea of vocation. Of course, growing up Catholic, the word always had a certain sotto voce cachet (especially in my materialistic, wealthy suburb) he thinks he might have a vocation. And for me it carried directly over into the idea of writing, of being a writer. My first literary…