The first predictions of snow were really off. However the one for the day after Christmas was quite accurate.
When it was light enough to look outside, it was a beautiful sight to behold. From inside my room I could look out the window and see the snow. (I am appreciating how often they clean the windows here. It makes it possible for me to take clear pictures.)
After I got dressed, I walked, using my walker, down to the lobby to get my morning pastry and to fill out and turn in my dinner menu. I looked out the front window of the facility and saw so much snow. There was someone in the parking lot using a snow shovel to clear the sidewalks. That would certainly be a huge and time consuming job.
The first time I looked at the creek I thought I saw the water moving.
When I looked at it a couple hours later it looked frozen. I thought it was a possibility considering by then it was 27 or 28° degrees outside. I imagine there was water still running under the ice.
The snow stopped much earlier in the day than forecasted. It will completely stop by 7 pm.
I have written two other posts about the creek outside my window in Woodinville. I have changed the titles of those articles to include this title and have added Part 1 or Part 2.
In the last installment I mentioned that even if the creek contains a lot of water during the rains, the water disappears and the ground once again becomes muddy soon after the rain stops. This photo is a good example of what I mean.
mud
This week it has been raining a lot. One day, I looked outside and the water in the creek had a current. I made a video to show you the current. Look at the left side of the video.
We often don’t get the weather that is forecasted. If even part of this happens, it is going to get interesting around here. Take a look at the temperatures that have been forecasted for later in the week.
I learned this week that earlier this year, Amma (Amma means Mother) had started singing a song about laughing at our ignorance. I don’t know who wrote the song.
In addition to the concept of laughing at our ignorance, three lines caught my attention when I heard it for the first time. One pointed out that we focus on what we don’t have rather be happy about what we have. The second line said that even after we learn our next breath isn’t in our hands, we keep on gathering wealth. The third line was one that said even with people around us dying, we think we are immortal. Each was followed by the statement “Mother told us to laugh at such ignorance. “
A friend found the English translation of this song for me. When I read it, two more lines caught my attention. 1) Mother told us to laugh at fate by using our intellect to overcome it and 2) Mother told us to laugh loudly forgetting our worries.
While my laughter blog series is not about laughing at our ignorance, it is about finding humor in serious situations. And humor definitely decreases my tendency to worry.
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A friend that was visiting me was trying to convince me that I should replace my mattress. I could imagine flipping or rotating it, but saw no need to replace it. Later in the visit, she was lying on the bed and slipped off the comforter and landed on the floor. Thankfully, she wasn’t hurt.
After going home, she wrote me and said she was still chuckling about being tossed out of the bed. I said for me it was more like full laughter than a chuckle and that she had fallen too gracefully to have been tossed. Later, I added that I thought that if she had been tossed it was the mattress that was the culprit, because she was trying to get rid of it. That image made me laugh even more! In fact, I still laugh when I think about it.
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This week there was an African drumming performance at the Woodinville Senior Center where I am living. There had been a text and a phone call about it but I didn’t hear or read either of them. The performance was already half over before I was aware that it was happening.
African drumming speaks to my soul. I was filled with memories of being in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco as well as the grassy part of Seattle Center where I had listened to drummers and danced. At one time I had taken African dancing lessons. I never was good at the dancing but I sure loved to do it. I cried deep tears all the way through the performance.
There was a point when the drummers invited everyone to dance. I stood up but my feet wouldn’t move. My dancing days are probably over.
The African drummers got the African employees to dance and that was fun. Pat, an employee I have talked about in previous laughing posts although I may not have named him beforebefore, started leadng a group of residents in a dance. I had an intuition about him later that night. The intuition I had was that he was a introvert masquerading as an extrovert because of his commitment to bringing joy to the world. I asked him about my thought a couple days later and he said he wasn’t sure. He said he definitely was an introvert before he went to seminary but he may have changed to an extrovert there.
My ex-husband AlI had a stroke the weekend before Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day my son Satvamrita arrived from India to take care of him him. Satvamrita was allowed to take his dad back to his apartment at that point. It is certainly not a funny situation but funny things have happened. Like the day Al decided to go to the store. Satvamrita was walking and Al was in his powered wheelchair. Al wouldn’t tell Satvamrita where they were going. Satvamrita videoed part of that experience.I will this post with two video clips of their journey
I am currently living in a senior living facility in Woodinville,Washington. They have all sorts of activities here. Most of them I do not participate in because of my health but I do what I can.
One day around.Halloween, they offered a complementary pancake breakfast. People were invited to come in their pajamas. I decided I would participate in the breakfast although I would not be wearing my pajamas.
I hadn’t looked at the flyer carefully and showed up on the wrong day. After some confusing moments, the hostess figured out what was wrong.
I decided not to participate in the actual event. I went down to the lobby soon after it was over however and saw a staff member in a very large onesie. I don’t know how many people came to the breakfast and I don’t know how many wore pajamas.
I don’t even remember who was wearing the onesie and I don’t remember if it was a costume or actual pajamas but I will long remember the experience of turning the corner and seeing her. And I will laugh.
On Thanksgiving Day, I also walked to the lobby. This time the person that is most often in the front desk said “Look at what I’m wearing.” She came from behind the desk, pulled up her skirt and this is what I saw … big skinny chicken legs. (They were actually socks.) I laughed.
I was pleased that when I asked for one, she gave me a photo and permission to put the picture on my blog and to say whatever I wanted to say. I will hold that whole experience in my memory. And I will laugh when I think of it.
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I thought I would give a warning before the next section. some of you may not want to read it because it is gross or because I sound like a middle school student who is obsessed with bodily functions.
My stomach is gurgling a lot. Actually it is more than likely the gurgling is coming from my intestines. One day I was too tired to hold the phone while I was talking to my son, so I set the phone on my abdomen with the microphone pointing towards my head. All of a sudden the gurgling started. “What is that?” my son exclaimed! Remembering that moment still makes me laugh deeply.
I am on so many medications that constipation can be a real problem. I celebrate it on a day that I poop at the beginning of the day. I sometimes even celebrate the size of what comes out of me!
It isn’t only stories about humans that are making me laugh. Somebody sent me the cartoon about two crows, a baby and a parent. The parent crow was saying to the baby crow “Just hold it until we find a parked car.” Not only is that like middle school humor but it also feels like it is actually true that the crows have their strategies for interfering with human lives all planned out.
For many years, I have only remembered one joke. Question: How do you make God laugh? Answer: Tell him your life plans.
This week, a friend added to my joke repertoire. I don’t know why he told me this joke unless it is because I have so much gas and essentially no control over when it comes out but it certainly fits the category of bodily function humor:
An elderly couple is in church. The wife says to the husband, “I’ve let out one of those silent farts, what do I do?”
For most of the time I’ve been here, what is called the “creek” has just been dry ground. On the rare occasions that it rained though, some puddles formed. When it began to rain more frequently, the puddles lasted longer and then turned to mud.
dry “creek”
About two weeks ago, there was a big windstorm and at least one tree fell. (There are pictures related to that incident in my last post.) Since then, friends and I have speculated that one fallen tree might have pulled others over as it tumbled.
Last week it rained heavily. The next time I pulled up the blinds, I had the view below of the creek. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This time it looked more like a lake.
If it hadn’t stopped raining the water likely would have soon gone over the embankment and probably would have made it to my building.
The water was significantly down by the afternoon. I could see ducks, along with a brown animal, playing in the water. When I looked at the brown animal, the word mongoose came to my mind.
I found a picture of a mongoose on the internet. The brown animal could have been a mongoose, but it could also have been something else.
(I’m not wearing glasses regularly nowadays because they fog up when I am wearing a mask and if I have any screen time on the laptop or phone my eyes get blurry so my eyesight is almost never clear.)
The next day the creek was back to just mud and puddles. More logs and branches were visible and they were closer to me. I suspect some had been submerged when I last looked and had become visible again when the lake turned to mud.
Also, it was possible that other trees had fallen in the storms and maybe there was running water under the still water. If so, tree parts may have been washed downstream and were caught here when the creek became mud again.
When I was contemplating a title for this post, the words snap, crackle, and pop came to my mind. These were the mascots for Rice Crispies when I was growing up. They probably still are. The three words seemed like a fitting title.
A few days ago, at dusk, I heard a loud crack outside my window. I don’t remember if I looked outside then or not.
I rarely wear my glasses now, since I often am wearing a mask. And besides, it was getting dark. So even if I had looked outside, I probably would not have seen what had happened.
Two days later, when I looked out the window during the day, it was obvious what had caused the loud cracking sound. A large tree had fallen. It had broken into numerous pieces and landed in what will become a creek once there is more rain.
Navatratri is a nine day Hindu festival that celebrates three forms of the Goddess, Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. The tenth day is called Vijaya Dasham, the festival of victory. In 2016 Navaratri was October 1-10.
Friends of mine built a beautiful altar for Navaratri that year. Every item on it had meaning and many of the statues were handmade. I will never forget seeing this altar for the first time; it practically took my breath away. Oh how it sparkled.
This year, 2021, Navaratri was October 6-15. One of the friends who built the altar I had seen in 2016, constructed a Navaratri altar at the Woodinville property this year … with the help of two of her friends.
I bought a new T-shirt three or four years ago. I thought the design on it was lightning. I was dismayed when I discovered that it was actually a depiction of an angry bird.
I did not want to wear a picture of an angry bird on my T-shirt but it is the most comfortable T-shirt I’ve got and it is also easy to get in and out of. Both of those qualities are very important to me right now.
As I continued to think about it, I remembered when the crows used to dive-bomb me in the Greenbelt behind my house. There was an old helmet that had been left in the Greenbelt sometime in the past. If it hadn’t been so dirty, I would have been tempted to put it on as I felt I was being attacked. I was told that it was nesting season and that I was coming too close to their nests. The crows were only protecting their young.
This year, the same thing happened at the place that I am staying now. Crows dive-bombed me two different times in May or June. It happened in different parts of the property, so I don’t know if it was the same crow or two different ones. Those incidents happened three or four weeks apart. Both times, I could feel the wings of the crow touch my head. And once again, it was nesting season so the crows were simply protecting their babies.
When I remembered those experiences, I no longer cared about wearing a T-shirt that had a picture of an angry bird on it. Then, I realized that my role as a corrective parenting group psychotherapist had been to teach adult men and women how to take care of their inner children.
As such, I was an advocate for the young. I was also a protective mom when it came to my own children. Even though they are now adults, I don’t want anyone messing with them and will definitely come to their defense, at least in my mind.
So now I am able to wear my angry bird T-shirt proudly. It is one of the symbols of my life. What are the other symbols? I’ll have to think about that.
When my friend Pat mentioned a warning that went through his mind the other day, it occurred to me that I had missed an important aspect in my “Stay Alert” post. The area that I had not thought to include is to stay alert for warnings. We often are warned about impending problems but instead of heeding the warning we may answer the inner voice with a flood of discounting responses.
I wrote a post (Heed the Warnings) about these warnings in 2014. I gave a lot of examples from my life. I suggest you read that post first and then read this one. This post I consider an addendum to my recent Stay Alert post.
I asked Pat to write down and send me a copy of the warning so I would be sure to report it accurately. What he wrote was an expanded form, written after he read my 2014 post. I am going to include most of his comments. He wrote:
Loved the “inner voice”! Reminds me of the times I have heard “that voice” – that quiet voice …
And as Karuna knows, I heard it just recently about ten days ago when I was walking through the fraternity’s renovation project and heard that voice say, “watch out for nails!” . . . Just before I stepped on a nail! OUCH! 😳😲😀😂 (and just between you and me 😂 I didn’t listen to nurse Karuna’s voice telling me to get a tetanus shot . . . But I survived and all is well!)
I saw a new doctor a few months ago. At one point during the appointment, he saw that I had something in my mouth and probably figured that it was gum or candy. He stuck out his hand and said “Spit it out.” I was shocked but I’ve been laughing about it ever since. I am 72 years old. I wondered if he had children and how old they were. At the time, I simply mumbled “It’s for dry mouth and it is gone now.“
I kept waiting for something else funny to happen. One day last week, my phone provided me with that experience. I dictate almost everything nowadays. What I dictate and what the phone writes is often drastically different. That day, I wrote a friend who is out of the country and said I hoped that she and her husband were having a good time. What the phone wrote was “I hope that it was everything that you want and that you were in the freezer having a good time as well.” I have laughed about that change ever since it happened. Where does the phone come up with these things? At least this time it was not cussing.
Two friends visited me a few days ago. I was telling them about something that I wrote about in the first post of this series. The husband’s response was funny. I wanted to use it and to quote him correctly so asked him to write it down for me. When I received it in the written form, I discovered he had added to it. This was his response:
The way I figure is if you are old enough to be passing by a window, and you haven’t seen a naked body — now is as good as time as any! Not that I would give them much to see, and quite likely could scare the aliens away from the human race if they were seeking a probe-able body. In reality, I would likely be a little embarrassed, but not enough to think twice about the matter. 😊
If you don’t know what this is referring to I suggest you go back and read or reread the first post. I still am uncomfortable with the thought somebody might walk by my window and see my butt but I always laugh when I think of these responses.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”-William Shakespeare
Living, Learning and Letting Go 