News From Newark Liberty Airport

People, unless they are drunk, just don't seem to be having fun at the airport today.  It surely can't be the long lines to check baggage and then pass through security.  I mean, come on, I even found a baggage scale before check in to make sure I was under the fifty pound limit for which I still had to pay twenty dollars give or take a few just to get my bag on board.  And surely it can't be the food courts.  The woman in front of me bought the last cup of chicken noodle soup so I had to settle for minestrone which I might have chosen anyway and then the woman in front of me who bought the chicken soup I might have eaten asked for cheese to sprinkle on her soup.  I passed on the cheese and took the crackers instead.  And surely people can't be unhappy at this airport because sitting in the food court eating their lunches or breakfasts of dinners was a Continental cabin crew not, by the way making a good advertisement for the on board meals, complaining about the conditions at Continental saying things like, "I don't know anything.  No one ever tells us anything."  I'm hoping they weren't referring to essential flight information.  I began to worry that they were the passenger cabin for my flight to Los Angeles then discovered they were on their way to Israel.  As if that poor country doesn't have enough problems right now they are about to welcome a disgruntled cabin crew from Continental airlines.  And surely people can't be unhappy because every flight leaving Newark for anyplace north including Buffalo and all of Canada has been cancelled because of weather.  After all, those people get to spend a few days or at least tonight in this very terminal.
I don't know why people in airports seem so unhappy.  But so far not too many people are smiling.
I'll keep you posted.

Headed Home

Witsendmagazine took a ten day break to visit the East Coast and witness an amazing and powerful life cycle event.  Time to head home now, in the middle of the last of a tropical storm whose name I either never knew or forgot while listening to the rain slam into the side of the Jersey City apartment building where I've been staying for the past several days.
No Jet Blue this go round.  Just Continental from Newark home where life continues hanging in the balance with desperately ill cat and dog.
Hopefully they are also able to tast the delicious strawberries of their limited days and hopefully we will be able to enjoy their precious moments.
Isn't that what life is all about, anyway?
Life goes on even when we step away from it for awhile.

Monarch

This morning, the Other Family Human and I woke up after a rewarding but exhausting Yom Kippur in Ramona. We planned to pack up and roll out early, but we didn't even wake up early. We planned to eat on the road, but by the time we woke up our gracious hosts Diana and Scott had prepared a breakfast of French toast, veggie sausage and fresh-squeezed OJ. As we packed the car, Diana called us back to the fence at the back of their property to show us a vine filled with caterpillars and chrysalises and their final result, a host of Monarch butterflies flitting around the vine. For one day after the Days of Awe, it was pretty awesome.

On This Inward Turning Day

Sometimes just showing up is enough.
Yom Kippur.
A day of showing up -- wherever we are -- and turning inward if only for a moment.

Like the tides, life is a leaving and a returning -- always.

In The Moment With A Strawberry

A famous zen legend tells of a man running from a tiger that’s chasing him. He runs through the woods until he gets to the edge of a cliff. The tiger is still behind him, so he climbs down a vine. The tiger reaches the top of the cliff and paces back and forth, licking its chops. Midway down the cliff, hanging onto the vine, he sees another tiger below him, pacing back and forth, licking its chops. As he’s hanging there, two mice come out and start gnawing on the vine. He tries to shoo them away, but they won’t go. They just keep gnawing on the vine and he, hanging from it, watches as it begins to fray to pieces.
Just then he sees, growing out of the face of the cliff in front of him, a wild strawberry. He picks it and eats it. As the vine rips to pieces and he begins to fall to certain death he says, "What a delicious strawberry."

Loft Update

Scraps The Cat continues to live in the loft -- an elevated room we use as on office.  This evening dinner was late.  Generally a case study in sweet disposition, Scraps made it to the top of the stairs to complain about the poor service.  She didn't care that the Family Dog is ill and spending a night at the vet's.  So she ate her can of food and then enjoyed the chicken livers and rice we had for dinner.  Of course, later this evening she managed to eat her French Vanilla ice cream.  And then hopped up into my desk chair.  Scraps The Cat is writing the book on living every moment of life.

Stuff About Sleep

I come from a long and dedicated line of insomniacs.  That doesn't mean I'm happy about not sleeping but it does keep me interested in the phenomenon of sleep.  So, here's this from Ted.com.  You'll either find it fascinating or it will put you to sleep.  Really,  It's a win/win video.