All About The Mama

Les came home and assumed Bean Watch this morning. Shortly after, I headed out of the door to meet Jodi for a girl's day. Let me just say that we shopped and we ate and we talked, and we got our hair done and it was NICE.
I am not sure that I have ever had a "day off" when I was able to head out of the house and have a day with a friend and take it easy. I loved it. I loved every minute of it.
I am glad that I have a husband that will willingly take over Bean duties so I can head out. I am glad that I have a friend like Jodi that I can spend an entire day with and think, "man, what can we do next?".
I spent money on only myself (except for $6 that was spent on a pair of glitter-tastic shoes for Bean). I was able to talk Jodi's ear off.
Can't wait to do it again.

Drips and chit-chat

Today the ice cream truck trundled down our street. I hollered and sent The Bean running out of the front door, with me hot on her tail. We bought a chocolatey Snoopy thing and a SnoCone. Then we sat on the front porch steps eating our treats as they dripped down our arms, talking about everything and nothing. Watching the neighborhood.

That was a perfect summer moment.

Sneak Peek

My parents and sister have been looking for a new kitten. They wanted a girl and were not particular about anything else, so when my neighbor across the street came over with her hands full of a little black kitty, I immediately thought of The Smokewood Gang. It turns out that they trust my instincts with cats and they want her. Evelyn and I will turn ourselves into a kitty delivery service tomorrow and freight the kitty to them. The kitty is all black with a small, short muzzle and green eyes. Her current name is Delilah and it sounds so cute when Ev says it.
You guys (Smokewood), she is a real sweetie, I could hardly get a picture of her because she just wants to be right up on you all of the time and when you are standing, she just winds about your feet. She has been letting Evelyn love on her and she just grabs your hands with her little paws and gives you the lightest and cutest kitty kisses- we may have found your lap cat.


Billy Bones remains un-impressed however and wants her the HELL outta his house.

Stella has no idea that she is even here.

An Old Lady and a Watermelon

Let me explain.

It all came about because Les and I have subscribed to this Thought Of the Day from Eknath Easwaran, an Eastern Philosopher (that's the easiest way to sum him up). I love to read the thoughts because they are usually about controlling anger and dealing with different hardships in your life- you know stuff I have difficulty with. Well, the one yesterday was about helping out your fellow man when he needed it. Okay, I loved what was said and I thought , "that's nice", not knowing what lay ahead of me in the day.

Grocery shopping, hours later.... I am entering a local store and see a little apricot haired lady standing and waiting patiently, I notice her almost as an afterthought as my mind was blissfully drifting in my own thoughts (Bean was at home with Les and I was all alone to seriously contemplate the unit costs of pickles and the like). I go in the store and do my thing. An hour and a half later, I exit the store and my cart gets caught on a bump in the sidewalk right next to the apricot haired lady! She was still there. But now, she was quietly crying. "OH man" I thought. She looks up into my face and in heavily accented English, asks me if I could help her. I tentatively say "yes....". Then she goes onto explain that a friend of hers had dropped her off and promised to return but has never showed up. I ask how long she has been waiting and she had been there since 2pm (it was 5:20 at this time, so she has been standing out there in the heat all alone for at least 3 hours. I explain that I have a big truck to climb into and I don't really know my way around as I just moved here but that I would help her, she was still game for my assistance. I have to admit on the inside I was highly agitated , I mean it was hot, I KNEW that she wasn't going to be able to walk well and I had already eyeballed the ginormous watermelon in her cart, plus I had company coming over and I thought of all my cold stuff getting hotter and hotter and I had one more store to hit- arggh. But then, I remembered the thought of the day and I remembered how I was raised and I realized that in the long run, it was just better for ME and better for Usci if I took her home.
So I hauled my cart load of stuff down to the Tahoe and I loaded in my groceries and I drove up, put on my hazards and began the loading of Usci. Let me tell you that WAS a big watermelon and it weighed a ton, well more than Usci, I can tell you that, I know because I actually had to life both of them into the truck.

So that's it, that's how my Saturday Grocery Run got entangled with a lost octogenarian Russian and a huge watermelon.

You know what? I enjoyed her company, her driving tips were just downright hilarious and she has promised to pray for me and my whole family every night for a hundred nights.

Thanks Eknath.


This is the thought of the day.....

******

July 30

But they for whom I am the supreme goal, who do all work
renouncing self for me and meditate on me with
single-hearted devotion, these I will swiftly rescue from
death's vast sea, for their consciousness has entered
into me.

-Bhagavad Gita

When the lover of God finds somebody in danger, he
doesn't turn away; he runs to help. This is one of the
unmistakable signs of true love of God.

When someone is in trouble, you don't say, "How
did he behave towards me?" You don't ask,
"Of what race or color is she?" or "Is
this person my countryman? Does she belong to my
religion?" None of these questions can be asked by the
person who truly loves God. He or she just runs to the
rescue of the person in trouble.

When we are trying to help someone, it is we who get great
joy out of it. If we try to rescue someone who has been
unkind, the joy is even greater. This is a secret all but
forgotten in our modern world: we find a much more lasting
joy in rescuing others than in trying to save ourselves,
because in rescuing others we are making sure that we will
be saved by the Lord who is within.

Imagination

Just recently, The Bean has started using her big brain powers for...imagination. I just love it. I love to see how kid's minds work and the things that they come up with. I used to sit and daydream about being a Mom and one of my favorites was to go through scenarios, in which, my child was telling me some grand tale. I have waited for this to happen with Bean and I was, quite frankly, beginning to despair because she is really so logically based that I just thought that stuff was out the window. (because let's face it, at art time, I rarely get a drawn picture, I usually get a grocery list or a menu of some sort, or she has written down insurance information, or even used her little scissors to cut up tiny bits of money) ....well, I was wrong.

The Bean has entered the world of child imaginings with a bang. I mean one day she was all, "what's your name?, why are you here to see the Doctor?" then the next? BAM!, there were robots in the basement that ate cat food and talked to each other, a simple red boa wrapped around her waist transformed her into a Bird Princess, or she was a Sky Fairie with wings and magical powers with the simple addition of a homemade tutu.

My favorite so far has actually been a blending of the logic and imagination. This morning she told me the following tale, and I will simplify it here because the original telling took about 10 minutes. Let me paraphrase.....

" Mama, I don't think I want to get any bigger than I am right now. I know I will have to get big to do some things though but I won't want to stay big because I want to be your little girl for a long, long time. So I am going to build a....hum... like a robot tube but it won't be a robot. It will have a long cord for plugging into the wall so it won't have to ever run out of batteries. It will be a big thing that I get into and I will have two cards to use in it. One red and one blue. When I get in and want to be big, I will use the red card and then IT will make me taller and taller and then I can do the things I need to be tall and big for. But. When I am done, and I want to get small gain , I will get in and use my blue card and then IT will make me just this size again. How does that sound?"

That's my girl.

Oh My

Buffy

Here is a link to watch some Buffy online. Oh yeah, I know what my afternoon is looking like.....