Yikes !.. 12:30 and I’m just sitting down to blog.. there are many days that I say to myself “Self..,.. why don’t you just go to bed and skip the blog for tonight ?”.. But.. I can never bring myself to break that chain: 484 posts. without missing a day. One day it will happen.. but not tonight.

Today was peaceful and productive. It started well. I had 45 minutes between taking Gabe to school and my first call that allowed me to take a quick snowshoe with Diane and our friend Jill and her 2 dogs. The day was a brilliant white and blue. It was barely below freezing so it felt very much like spring.

I always like looking back at our house from the rock on the high field.. everything looks so complete and peaceful from this distance.

Here are my two pretty snowshoeing companions…

I got into work in time for my first face to face meeting. as I walked in to the building  I ran into this guy that I vaguely new many years ago. He came up and introduced himself as Carl Hoffman, Wendy’s dad ! It was so cool to make that association ! He’s working or Qualcomm now… in fact he’s working with our friend Fram, Diane’s old office mate. I love making connections like this.

The day was super busy.. not too much time to think.. many calls and several face to face meetings. I’m realizing how much I’ve missed the social part of being at work.

Around 6 I went home and picked up Diane for our last meditation class at the shambala center. Once again, it was a really interesting class. the last of 4. I’ve grown to really like the other folks in the class and the instructor, Robert. Here again. I’ve been reminded just how much I love sitting around and talking  .. and listening to other people talk.  We spent the last class going back through the central tenets of  shambala teaching: that everyone and every thing is blessed with basic goodness, that each of us is as deserving of love and joy as any other of us, and that the living in the present moment is the only thing that really matters  in the world. I really like thinking about this ‘in the moment’ concept. Sam’s passing and the time since have pushed us face first into the moment… where everything is clear,and  beautiful, real and sometimes overwhelming. The shambla folks call this in the moment-ness ‘great eastern sun’ .. or ’10 o’clock sun’ because everything in the present is so bright and illuminated. Living out of the moment, in the future or in the past, they call ‘setting sun’ . That is living in the future of worry or the past of regret. I resonated so deeply with that . I really feel a bonding to the other 20 or so folks in the class.. yet.. today is the final class. I’ll probably never see most of them again.. that’s sad.. and yet it’s OK.  We ate  few more cookies, drank a glass of tea , shook hands with each other and said good bye forever.. They became our past, while our present went on to the grocery store to by toothpicks, straw and toilet paper.. A it turned out.. all things on Aisle 15. It just goes to show, that all your needs can be met in one place if your needs are simple enough .

I couldn’t leave the store without leaving a little constructive vandalism.. I’m hoping that the new owner of these mushrooms will have a cool moment when he/she figures out the meaning of this stone.

OK.. I gotta sleep.. I’m only doing about 5 .5 hours per night again and that’s probably not good for me. . So.. I’ll say g’nite  all, ‘nite Sam.

-me

ps. I still can get over this picture in the Louvre that Julie sent yesterday .  It looks so much like me.. Who was I then ?????