grateful today

She smells like a wild boar.  With a hangover.

I think it’s because the warmer weather has melted a layer off the snow on the ground, revealing a great deal of deer droppings.  Poopsicles – Happy’s favorite snack.  Even at my most vigilant, she can usually scarf down a few before I can bark out “leave it!”  (At which point she always obeys me, but she just can’t stop herself beforehand.  Girl needs an intervention.)

In the spirit of Sympathetic Joy (genuine delight in the good fortune of others) I’m attempting to be grateful for her finds.  I’ve also noticed that she loves shouting at the squirrels from inside the house, so I set up a carrot feeding station just outside the living room to attract them for her.

May she be filled with loving kindness.

May she be peaceful, and at ease.

May she be Happy.

May she eat poop.

-Katy

I started off yesterday in one of those itchy, crawl-out-of-my-skin moods, and I’m grateful that no mood lasts forever. Or even, seemingly, for an entire day. In Pema Chödrön‘s Taking the Leap she describes how even while on a three-year silent retreat she would feel that familiar itchy feeling.

“I would be sitting in my small room looking out at the ocean, with all the time in the world. I would be silently meditating, and this queasy feeling would come over me; I’d feel that I just had to rush through my session so I could do something more important. When I experienced that, I realized that for all of us this is a very entrenched habit. The feeling is, quite simply, not wanting to be fully present.”

Remembering that, I didn’t push or pull at the mood too much. Instead I noticed the feeling, named it out loud to a friend, and then talked and thought about other things. It’s almost always best to treat my brain like a toddler, distracting it until the tantrum has melted and we can get on with washing the dishes.

- Estyn

Noola shredding boxes is pretty much daily entertainment.

I just wish she did this to junk mail instead of cardboard.

- Estyn

Today, I am grateful to live in a culture of such abundance that it includes doggy daycare facilities.  I take Happy to Karnik Pet Lodge, and they have web-cams so I can watch her during the day.  Just like a human childcare facility.  I’m a little embarrassed and a lot grateful.  She comes home from daycare days relaxed and socialized and exhausted.

This afternoon, the web cam screen froze at EXACTLY the moment she was leaping over the 5 foot boundary fence into the puppy pen.  Awesome!

When I came into the living room and found this on the couch.

When I was reminded that an old roommate used to complain about having “a cottage industry” in our living room because two of us housemates were always knitting and quilting.

When I parted the kitchen curtains to find the squirrel under the bird feeder staring at me, his little front paws held up to his chest tidily. Like this.

When I read your post.

- Estyn

When Happy leapt straight up in the air, dove down nose first into a snow bank, and re-surfaced with someone’s abandoned tennis ball.

When I was exiting a bathroom at the exact moment a co-worker was entering, and felt the door handle fly out of my hand. “I must not know my own strength!” I thought for a millisecond.

When I was talking to B about dating – much hilarity ensued.

Walking to work, when I remembered a dream about my dissatisfaction while shopping for loafers, (probably in reference to dating.)

When I opened my eyes in the morning to a staredown from an absolutely famished dog.

Uncomfortably, when Happy and I heard coyotes across the street screaming “Woo!  Woo!  Woo!” to each other about something sinister and mysterious.  Creepy joy!

-Katy

My dog’s name is Happy, she’s such a joy to me.  Recently the fan on my heater started rattling, so I’ve been turning the heat way down at night.  This is making her curl up in a teeny tiny ball to try to conserve warmth  so I’ve started calling her potato bug.  Or did you call them “pill bugs”?  I was going to add a link here, but they are not as cute as I remember them.

I’m also on a campaign to change the official terminology about button ears on dogs to “drop down menu” ears.  Depending on how she holds them, her ears are perfect black triangles pointing down.  -Katy

This poem by Rumi came this morning from a friend who had wanted to read it to us at New Year.

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

My house, the house I live in, was once a guest house. It could teach me some things.

- Estyn

After many patient emails, Estyn finally got me to appropriately scale and edit photos in wordpress so they are not blurry.  Crisp gratitude – joy comes from celebrating small victories this Monday.

I’m also grateful that our Awakening Joy class starts soon, I need a booster shot.  It’s not too late to join us!

-Katy

For my birthday, ten years ago, friends gave me a beautiful blue and white bowl filled with smooth black pebbles and planted with paperwhite bulbs. My heart had been recently broken and I kept the bowl on my desk and watched the scruffy brown bulbs grow tall and green while I made plans for my new life.

Living in New York City, I bought paperwhite bulbs from the florist on the corner of Greenwich and 6th nearly every year, and planted them using the same black pebbles and some shiny new white ones.

On a weekend in the city this past December I bought bulbs from the same shop. Now they’re blooming, next to last year’s amaryllis, which survived their closet hibernation and are waking up on the windowsill.

- Estyn