Non Corporeal Riches in Everyday Ramblings

Early iris on the flower clock. The lilacs are coming on too. Beautiful morning here and I went over to the lilac garden to take some pictures for my niece who is finally getting to the end of her chemo. She tolerated it well considering. Not that it hasn’t dictated much of her life for the last few months. She loves lilacs and tells me she enjoys getting pictures. It is a small thing I can do to support her.

I took the first of my sweet pea seedlings down to the garden yesterday. The ground is still so cold and wet. The columbines are starting to bud but no mature flowers yet. And my many layered rose-like tulips are finally opening. They are this orange cream color with tiny flecks of red. The legacy blueberry is flowering. The little one I put in as a companion last year is not quite as robust. Fingers crossed on that.

There have been a number of meetings lately. One last night, one tonight. With that and teaching and doing the bookkeeping and figuring out all this stuff I have been busy. I did get my latest Covid vaccine booster last Friday and that had me a little achy and yawning big time over the weekend.

I mentioned a few weeks back that I had binge listened to the audiobook version of Fourth Wing. Since then, I have listened to the two follow-on books in the Empryiam series. We are talking a lot of hours of distraction. Such a needed balm here as the leadership of this country has gone completely insane.

One of the fun things about the book is that the main characters are very polite. They say Thank you… a lot. They even say thank you to their dragons. I got a kick out of that. One of the interesting decisions to make about interacting with AI’s is if one decides to thank them or not. I have on occasion thanked one. There is graphic sex and violence in the books. It is not like they are cozy mysteries. But the characters are on the whole quite well mannered.

Except when certain other characters are being evil.

I don’t know how this relates to the real world but as I don’t really have the option of going on vacation anytime soon, the distraction was most welcome. I now need to wait for the author to write the next book in the series…

I am working on two projects for the League that I need to finish in the next few weeks. By the end of May, I will have been through a complete annual cycle in this position. Next year we do have some challenges ahead both known and unknown, but I will at least have a much better idea of what the heck I am doing.

That has been the most stressful thing about this responsibility. The not knowing.

There seems to be quite a bit of that going on lately in general.

I am so grateful that we are cycling through to better weather. Last night walking home from my meeting it was clear and still a little light and if not warm, at least it wasn’t cold. Tonight, my meeting will end a little earlier. At least I hope so.

I do need to work on pronouns though. Getting the correct pronouns out of my mouth at appropriate times has turned into a challenge I need to master if I want certain people I need to and want to interact with to not write me off as a hopeless old fogey who cannot get it together.

My practice lately is to try to not be judgmental. Or at least as judgmental. Both of others and myself. This is a kind of ideal I would like to focus on.

There is so much meanness and cruelty apparent, so much cowardliness, so much resentment and self-centered behavior, for as long as I can, in my little bubble of lilacs, blooming dogwoods, unexpected color and fragrance and warmth and blossom I am doing what I can.

With the help of a big note on my kitchen cabinet. Pronouns, girlfriend, pronouns.