ROAD BLOG AHEAD

You know things are bad when activities like blogging and knitting a few rows on a sock feel as indulgent as eating chocolate in the middle of the night when nobody is looking.

I’m paying for running away to knitting camp last weekend by having to work my ass off this week trying to do all the scheduling, ticketing and logistics for the next month or so of teachings. There have also been necessary tasks like replacing the windshield on the Subaru wagon I’m borrowing from my daughter while I’m here. I can deal with the growing crack, but I’ll be ferrying Rimpoche around at various points and it would be real bad form to have him end up with a lap full of broken glass.  That brings the total repair costs for this car up to about $800 US on this trip (replaced an axle, a battery and several other things) so that I’d have a driveable vehicle. The upside is that I really like this car a lot and Subarus are generally worth the trouble of fixing them up. May this not be the exception that proves the rule.

Between that and various other errands and the huge chunks of time spent researching plane tickets and writing email, I’ve been putting in 18 hour days this week. Really, they should only have been 16 hour days, but I’m a bit slowed down by this head cold we’re all sharing among ourselves here in Salem, Oregon. Actually, we’re just west of Salem in Dallas, a small town that I would never have either found nor looked for if Veronica hadn’t moved here with her guy and the 4 kids. And they just moved here because housing is cheap and plentiful - they’d rather be up North nearer to Portland. THe only things Dallas has to recommend it is that it’s surrounded by beautiful green farmland and vegetation and the oldest part of town has a few graceful old Victorian houses. Otherwise, it’s one of those places with churches on every corner, strip malls, fast food joints and bored teenagers. As fat as I am, I probably have no business talking, but the obesity level around here is shocking - anyone who doesn’t wear plus sizes looks out of place. I ascribe it to the sheer number of burger and fries drive throughs, pizza chains, all-you-can-eat buffets and gigantic bags of WalMart chips and cookies that are available without having to walk more than ten metres from your car. It’s always been that way, but, after India, I seem to be noticing it a whole lot more.

Tomorrow morning I’ll get up pretty early and drive up to Whidbey Island Washington for the remainder of the weekend. The Lamas are teaching there through Sunday and then, after they leave for SF on Monday morning, I’ll stay and do two days of tarot readings for the community up there. I’ve been there before and the people are really terrific, all of them personable, creative and open-hearted. We all love the Whidbey Island gang a lot!

When I can steal a bit of attention from the whole scheduling and organizing process, the first thing that grabs my attention is this:

and this:

I cannot begin to tell you how very much I am in love with my granddaughter Danika! I could just spend days nuzzling her little fuzzy head, bouncing her in my lap and listening to her babble at me. Even her runny nose and fingers grubby from exploring the floor enchant me totally. Her brother, Destructo-boy Alaric, doesn’t really stop tearing around long enough for much cuddling, but Dani is a love-bug baby. How can a grandmother not melt when the child of her child spots her, lights up with smiles and toddles over, arms extended for a hug or a pick-me-up-grammy?!  Alaric,  on the other hand, is as likely to clunk me over the head with a toy truck. At just under three, he is not the easiest child in the world, for his parents especially. I give Veronica and her guy, Kurtis, major points for mainting their patience as much as they do. We all love him, but often threaten to duct tape him to the ceiling.

We think Roni’s cat, Molly, may be in labour now. She lost 2 kitten of the litter a couple of weeks ago but the vet was pretty sure that there was another one in there, still viable and, sure enough, she’s been growing. Now she’s prowling around, meowing, looking for somewhere to nest. She’s finally settled in under the baby’s crib in a pile of blankets, meowing and wanting Roni with her constantly. Whoops, no, now she’s off to hang out with Roni in the other room. She seems to want company for this. Molly is very young, a stray that adopted them last fall and is incredibly good with the baby so she’s been adopted right back. We were sad about the kittens that died after a few hours, too underdeveloped to survive. Hoping this last one makes it okay. She’s now crawled into Roni’s lap to do it.
Hmph, I was going to talk about yarn and knitting before the cat came in. I’m still working on the Lorna’s Laces Irving Park socks.

WIth everything else, they are moving slowly. I’m getting a bit nervous because the 2×2 ribbing the whole way down for my size 12 feet is eating up the yarn really fast. You can’t see it inthis picture, but there’s not a whole let left and I’ve still got about an inche before I begin the toe decreases. Wish me luck okay?

I kinda want to get through these so I can start a new project with impunity. My friend Witt gave me 2 skeins of sock yarn as a gift at Knit Camp and the Trekking XXL is so absolutely lovely that I want to eat it! The colours are fruity and juicy and just glorious. I’m going to do mitts or something similar so I can look at it rather than hide it under shoes:

There’s also a really cool skein of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in another vibrant colourway that I can’t wait to see knit up:

I was hoping to find more good pictures from the knit camp, but the people tended to be fuzzy and indistinct or turned away from the camera. What was amusing however was that, in almost every shot, there was a really good view of… Yarn! It’s very photogenic apparently.

TIme to go to sleep as I’m up early to try and avoid Seattle traffic.

Hartford this time, from where I will be flying back to Portland for a few days.  It’s been a marvelous six days in which much happened.  We all converged here, Lama and Lena flying in from Toronto and I from Portland. We stayed in Conway, Massachusetts at friends’ Woody and Barbara’s very comfortable house. Conway is in one of those historic, 17th century areas full of marvelous old buildings and landmarks.

Having been born and raised in Chicago, which had been razed by fire well less than a century before I was born and then living in San Francisco which also had a notorious fire and, while full of charming old buildings, is mostly 20th century or later, I am enthralled by entire villages that were built before 1800. I’d forgotten just how much I love New England. The woods there are gentler, the spirits of the place, calm and friendly compared to, oh say the forests of the Rockies or the Himalayas. Some of these places were sheep pastures a century ago and there is plenty of dappled light and space.

We rested in Conway for a couple of days and then I got to see friends.  Friday Lena and I went out with Marcy and Oley who we know originally from the Sheep Thrills e-list. Marcy stayed at our house in SF about 5 years ago for a party and I hadn’t seen her since, though we keep in touch. I got to meet Oley for the first time:

Oley is a Marema sheepdog. He’s quite an impressive fellow. Some of him is with me even now as I sit at the gate in the form of long white hairs on my sweater - which is probably also impregnated with Oley drool. My that dog can drool! He’s very photogenic too, though the picture of Marcy didn’t turn out all that well, consisting of mostly top of head, one arm and a leg, so we’ll just have to make do with Oley.

Friday afternoon, while Lena and Lama prepped for the introductory teaching to be held that evening in Shelbourne Falls, I drove up to Bennington, Vermont (and yes Alfred, I waved hi as I got there) for Knit Camp 2007 put together by and for members of my GLBT knitlist. I’ve been a member of this list for many years off and on and really enjoy it for its ecclectic membership and the way we all love to knit but are able to talk about  pretty much every imagineable topic with humor and open-mindedness. It’s a phenomenal group of people and I was really really thrilled when the planning for the event put it on a weekend when, not only was I going to be in the U.S., but Lena and Lama were teaching in the area, less than a 2 hour drive away! A lovely drive too through New England into the Green Mountain National Forest where the snow still lay thick in some groves and fields and the sun shone bright on stands of birch trees. Birch are my favorite trees, they are simply so beautiful and so elegant no matter the season.
I’ll do a more in-depth blog post about Knit Camp when I hit Portland, but let me just say that it was one of those weekends with fabulous people and outstanding comraderie that you really, really don’t want to ever end!  Not only did I get to meet some of the fantastic people I know from the e-list, I learned a whole bunch too and got to fondle yarn and fibre. It doesn’t get much better. Now, lest you all think we really camped, let me say that the event was held at a hotel in Bennington, the Paradise Inn. The weather, however, cooperated nicely and we were able to spend some time on Saturday afternoon knitting outside in the sunshine:

Looks like the plane is about to board so more later…

I have no idea how many times I’ve posted from a waiting gate at Portland airport. Many to be sure. It’s a decent place to fly from and, especially to wait in as they have free wi fi that works well. I’ve encountered pay for play wi fi and supposedly free wi fi in a number of places that make it extremely complicated to get online. By the time you’ve registered and worked your way through welcome screens, it’s time to board your flight. Not so here. Turn on, log in and go.

Don’t have much to say at the moment other than that I made it here on time despite rain and family schedules that tried to interfere. I fly to Washington DC, change planes and go on to Hartford, CT where I meet up with Lena and Lama W. Mostly today will be spent in transit. Having gotten up at 3:00 am to get her by 5:30, I’ll probably doze as much as I am able, but I did bring knitting just in case. I dont’ want to curse it by saying that I[ve never had trouble bringing my knitting on a plane but, really, I’ve never had a problem bringing my knitting on a plane. Of course, I’m an afficianado of bamboo dpns and circulars and that might help.

The hotel in which knit camp is held does have wi fi so that will make me happy. If I don’t pos before Friday, I’ll at least manage a pos then.  I hope.  Famous last words…

I do understand why (most) women don’t have babies in their fifties - it’s a lot of work and you spend a whole lot of time getting up and down off the floor, picking things up and other activities that require bending and crawling around under furniture. I’m getting better at swinging my arthritic knees up and over the baby gates and standing up while holding 20 kilos of squirming toddler, but, overall, it’s too much for this old body. I watch my daughter (26) and her guy (almost 40) lift and squat and bend with apparent ease and the kids doing somersaults and crab walks like they’re made out of rubber and just have to marvel. However, after 3 days I’m finding it a tad bit easier so I guess it’s a matter of practice using the right muscles. Not easy, mind you, but easier.

I’m saying this because, at the moment, I’m babysitting while both Veronica and Kurtis work. So I’m doing it all - the older kids are in school ’til 3 so I can’t send them searching for diapers or chasing the baby when she crawls lickety split down the hallways - I have to dash after her myself. This is definitely a challenge.

I’ve been doing sponsorship and scheduline work 12 hours a day for the past few days, getting ready to meet up with the lamas tomorrow in Hartford, CT. We’ll proceed to Conway, MA where the lamas will teach this weekend. I finally get to meet Woody and Barbara, of whom I have heard so much (all good too) over the many years I’ve been doing the scheduling. Generally I don’t go to the Conway gigs since the people there always have things in good hand and don’t need me to micromanage them. This year, however, I am scheduled to attend a knitting camp put together by an e-mail list I belong to, over the same weekend. It’s in Bennington, Vermont, which is quite close to Conway so they kindly invited me to come and visit. I’m jazzed, both to meet people I’ve long respected and about the knitting camp. Actually, it’s being held in a hotel in Bennington, so we’re not exactly “camping.” More like hanging out with people who have been emailing each other for many years (I think I joined 7 years ago or about that.) Sounds like my idea of a good time! Not as exciting as a revolution in Nepal or boating on the Seine in Paris, but one kind of fun anyway.

I had hoped to be more rested by this point in the trip, but I’m still playing serious catch up games! If you are STILL waiting to hear from me about your offer of sponsorship, please both continue to be patient AND write me again - I appear to have left some of my notes and printouts on my desk back in India. I’m trying to reconstruct from e-mail, but a nudge in the right direction would be much appreciated. I have a group of nuns from Spitti that desperately need help. They have been doing road construction in the high mountains during the summers, breaking rocks and working with gravel and dynamite, in order to be able to practice and make retreat the rest of the year. It’s backbreaking, health-destroying work and several of them are too sick to even think of continuing this lifestyle, but the alternative is starvation - or sponsorship so that they can continue to survive and practice. I am overwhelmed by the grit and perseverence of these women and stunned by their stories of abuse, rape and mistreatment in pursuit of their faith. I’m hoping to match one of these women with each of the people who has written me volunteering assistance.  Lena and I gave them enough to hold them for a month or so while we try to figure out what to do.

Meeting women like the Spitti nuns makes me aware of how priviledged we are that we have all these options about how to live and where. In India, we interact every day with people who don’t have such choices, whose “lifestyles” are all designated by suvival and the basic human needs for food, shelter and relative safety. It’s the 21st Century and most people in this world aren’t getting those needs met in any reliable way. I’m hardly the first person to have had this epiphany after living in a third world country and others have written about it more eloquently than I, but it really and truly is humbling to see first hand how truly relative the concept of suffering can be. It’s an internal perception, one that the individual can choose to focus on or not, but really, in the scheme of things, where does my lack of double lattes or having to make do with acryllic yarn fit in with women who have been starved, beaten and sexually battered all their lives or children who think that “enough” means sufficient boiled rice to not go to bed hungry?

My family isn’t rich. Growing up, I sometimes didn’t have “enough” of something I wanted. We drove a car for years and years until it died of old age; we didn’t take fancy family vacations. My father repaired watches and cameras for a living; my mother was crippled with arthritis and lived almost half of her too-short life confined to a wheelchair. In contrast to her condition, my ability to walk at all despite my lousy arthritic knees is a really good thing, I think. Then I look at some of the people I know who have grown up in one room with a dirt floor and no plumbing, no lights, who think a cauliflower means a feast for a family of seven… They don’t take vacations either, near or far. Conversely, they might be able to run up the mountain with a sureness of foot that my mother never had and I am unlikely to ever have again. So, when possible, I drive. I drive to the market and buy enough food for myself, my daughter, my grandkids, enough so that we’re all in the category of folks who ought to lose some weight. It’s relative for sure but, while I can, I’m going to try and even things out in this world, at least a little bit.

That said, bits and pieces of my time in Oregon. I’ve been working, but did take a little while off to go out with my daughter. She was wearing these:

Yup, the rainbow socks. She saw them on my blog and fell in love with the yarn so I gave them to her. We both have humongous feet and I’d say they actually fit her better than me. There should be two socks, but grandson (yup it’s definitely a boy) Alaric is laying on the other one. He assumes all pictures being taken are of him.  Mostly he’s right, though I’m tending to also take pictures of this little peach:

I didn’t take this picture, but it’s a good one of the older kids, Kellan and Kaia so I’m posting it here. Isn’t Kaia a ringer for Emma Wilson (she’s even got the same curly hair though you can’t see it in this pic where it’s braided.)

So Veronica and I went out because I’d lost my needle gauge and needed to pick up a new one. I had no intention of buying yarn when I went into that store, really I didn’t. Especially since, when I arrived at Roni’s, this was already here waiting from me from Ray of Knitivity:

And I’ve been working on this since Delhi:

I like the spiral pooling effect on this one so I’m keeping it, doing 2×2 ribbing all the way down. I should be much farther along, but I keep falling asleep while knitting. Not boredome, jet lag.

So, anyway, we went to her favourite place, Artistic Needles in Salem, OR. They were having a closeout sale on some embroidery floss. Veronica does embroidery. Needless to say, I bought a huge amount of the sale floss. That’s okay, it was really, really cheap. They were out of needle gauges which is what I went for. I headed for the door but, before I could escape, these followed me out to the car:

I need more sock yarn like I need A. Hole. In. My. Head.  Yeah but A. These are solid colours and I want to do some fairisle knitting B. one of them is not sock yarn, but a delicious, cloud soft laceweight merino. I don’t have enough laceweight yarn. Um, actually, this is all I have at the moment. I’ve got some stuff I’ve spun back in India, still unplied, that will be a wonderful ply of qiviut and mauve tussah silk. Eventually. For now, I have this big skein to play with. I needed it dammit and, besides, it followed me home!

We went over to Have You Any Wool and I was much, much better there. I only bought this:

Isn’t this a pretty cool gauge? It’s transparent, gives US and Metric sizing AND has a built in 2″ wrap gauge as well. All for $3. Okay $6 since I bought the last two they had (ha!)

It’s a sickness I tell you. Oh hell, any of you who care enough about things fibery to have read this far already know about the sickness. THere is no cure.  Anyway, knitting is cool. Knitting is hip. Knitting is the new black…er… you know what I mean. I am a hip, cool, black wearing grammy, er… knitter. How many other grandmothers do you know who have ever knit a kelly green angora Willie Warmer?

No. There are no pictures.

The process of catching up with everything proceeds apace, neither really fast nor really slow. I made it yesterday to my daughter’s house ouside of Salem, OR. Not only do they have kids, but they have wi fi. I may never leave, it is such a huge relief to be able to rely on a high speed connection! So I’m focusing on getting information and logistics handled for the next two weeks’ events. I’ve never been this close to the wire in the 20 years I’ve been organizing for Rimpoche and it’s nerve-wracking! I know I’ve been bitchier and flakier-seeming to everyone I’ve been dealing with than I like to imagine due to my stress and worry. If any of you are reading this, accept again my sincerest apologies for forgetting things, not getting back to you quickly and for allowing my personal crankiness with inadequate technology to affect my communications. I try to stay mellow as things explode around me, but I fail more oftehn than not.

When I haven’t been on the computer, I’ve been hanging out with my grandkids. My arrival at PDX was complicated by granddaughter Danika having to be rushed to the doctor yesterday morning with a nasty abcess on one buttock. They decided to lance and drain it immediately so daughter Veronica couldn’t come pick me up. I got it - the baby’s health is our number one priority - but I was also a little flustered since I landed not knowing how I was going to get all the way from PDX to Dallas, OR, over an hour’s drive away. Fortunately, the step-grandkids’ mom, Hilary, just moved up to Tigard and was available. She kindly picked me up and drove me out here just in time for the kids to get out of school, so it worked for everyone. Danika got her minor surgery and all was well. She’s being incredibly cheerful for a babe with a boil on her butt:

Alaric, who will be 3 in July, is cute as ever and full of the dickens:

And our beautiful daughter Veronica is a wonderful mom and a great all around person. Hard for me to believe that she just turned 26.

I am totally smitten with Danika and she seems likewise taken with her grammy. When I enter a room she’s in, she grins, runs over to me (she’s walking really well for 10 months) and holds up her arms to me. Very loving and affectionate and who can resist that in a grandchild.

I really like this being a grandma stuff.  The two older kids are at their mom’s place for the weekend, so I don’t have pictures of them yet, maybe tomorrow. I got a new camera specifically for blog pics and am slowly figuring out how to use it.

More on the road show occurances after a good night’s sleep.

My head is in a bell jar, but I finally made it to Oakland (there is a there there) and my friend Denise’s place with her and her charming fur family. I spent the last 2 days mostly asleep and finally faced up to the fact that the antibiotics were NOT working. So I’m on a different sort as of today. Hopefully that will do away with the small green frogs my body is producing (probably more information than you possibly wanted about me, eh?) Instead of leisurely visiting with friends and seeing a few clients, I’m trying to cram the day full of drive by social events which isn’t nearly as much fun, but better than not seeing anyone at all. Besides, I have the fun of giving out presents to my old buddies and cute kiddies so it’s all good.

I’ve gotten a few fun things myself in the past 24 hours. Winna, bless her heart, made me an Easter Basket - probably the first one I’ve had in 40 years! That was just too too sweet. So yesterday I overdid it like a little kid on chocolate eggs and jelly beans. Today I got to Denise’s and she had a goody bag waiting too. It contained some very very odd things I must say. Not only a chocolate Easter Bunny, but some odds and ends that she, also a global traveler, decided might be useful: Some Airborne flu and cold preventative (oops, too late) some Nyquil (just in time) and the oddest of all, a spare Fleet enema, just for a giggle (I hope - I don’t think she was trying to tell me something, but maybe she was… Am I really full of it? Perhaps.) Oh and a gorgeous pair of beaded earrings in shades of brown, orange and yellow. They are my new favourite thing and perfectly matched the dress I turned up in.

I’m writing from her computer, waiting for friend Linda and her daughter Sophie to turn up. Sophia is one of the cutest toddlers on the planet (cuteness exceeded only by my own grandkids of course) and I’m really looking forward to seeing them and catching up. Then dinner with Michelle and Co. tonight if all goes well. At least a beer I think.

Tomorrow morning I get up at stupid thirty (okay around 4) to drive to SFO and pick up the lamas as they fly in from Hawaii at 5:30 a.m. It’ll be a lot easier from here at Denise’s than from Bolinas so I’ll spend the night. Then we’ll head back to West Marin to wash, rinse and repeat the whole process over again on Thursday.

I’m glad to have this time to spend the evening with Denise as I probably won’t see her in the States again - she’s moving to Egypt in August where she’s landed a job teaching in Cairo. If I’m really lucky, I’ll see her there or she’ll visit us in India. Her long range plans are to end up in Morocco which is a place I’ve always wanted to go so I am encouraging her with a lot of enthusiasm to proceed towards that goal! Denise has lived in Egypt before (in this lifetime no less) so she’s familiar with the place. This time, however, she’ll be there working rather than as a student so it’ll be a different take on the experience. I am going to encourage her to start a blog once she has a few spare moments!

Still behind, still trying to catch up, but feeling more optimistic about the possibility of doing so eventually. Not this week. Maybe not next, but by and by I will have the schedule put together, the air tickets bought, the accounting done. Right. I am a relentless optimist sometimes, but the alternative would be to feel defeated before I begin. So I’m chosing to believe it can all be done AND that I’ll get caught up on my e-mail before the millenium gets too much farther underway. Maybe, if I’m really lucky, I’ll get to experience the odd and elusive sensation of boredom for five minutes sometime before I die of old age. Optimist. Definitely.

Oh and I sure am enjoying real green salads. Viva Romaine!

I had a dream last night that left me both amused and bemused. The setting was a fancy dinner party in a New York townhouse (guess that’s what comes of reading Nora Ephron to put myself to sleep!) My hair was pinned up and I was wearing a beaded black gown and feeling quite elegant and very fine - the rest of the guests (all women) were equally dressed up. They were quite an assortment from old to young, all sorts and colours and all of them had an air of assurance and poise of the sort that comes with either success or social status or both. I felt a sense of satisfaction to be included in such erstwhile company. The key point in this dream was when our (invisible - voice only) hostess went around and introduced each person. She gave their first name and their occupation. I know that there was a doctor, an actor and a photographer in the lot, others I don’t recall. The only name I recall offhand was Alice. Then the hostess came to me and the voice said, “This is Joy. She’s a blogger.” I was so surprised by being introduced thus, that I woke right up!

Of the many things I do and have done and which identify my life, I thought it was quite funny that my subconscious chose to have me introduced as a blogger. Why not a traveler, a writer, a Buddhist shaman and yogini? Why not a mother, a political activist or even a knitter? Any of those would be quite apt. So why, in my dream, was I introduced to the world as a blogger rather than some other defining noun? I’ve been mulling it over most of today and have come to the conclusion that it’s because it is in my blog that all of those elements come together in one place. Here is where I write about my travels. Here is where I describe the revolution in Nepal, the trauma of displaced Tibetan refugees, the power of a blessing ceremony. In my blog I get to brag about my family and post pictures of my latest knitting project. This is the place where I get to be ALL of the many things I am and have a place to celebrate them. So okay, yes, I AM a blogger and proud of it!

I think it was also some kind of subconscious message that I really need to get off my butt and write an update before people think I went down somewhere over the Pacific or jumped ship during the layover in Hong Kong.

The truth is far less exciting, though a good bit safer: We landed in the U.S. on Monday, were wisked by the wise and beautiful Winna H.out to the hidden town of Bolinas in West Marin County (it really is hidden and the residents work hard to keep it that way) and proceeded to collapse with the worst case of jet lag I’ve ever experienced. For 3 days, Lama Wangdor, Lena and I staggered around the house in a stupor, nodding off over our meals, rising at odd hours of the night to the sound of the Pacific Ocean crashing below our windows, tripping over the dog and making absolutely no sense whatsoever. The internet connection here is only marginally better than it was in India - there IS electricity and, when there’s a signal to be had, the connection is much much faster than my cell phone modem. However the wi fi setup was done by someone who knew next to nothing about computers and the whole DSL thing has just come to Bolinas so it’s not exactly stable. I’m writing this offline for instance in the hopes that I’ll eventually be able to send it. The whole process has continued to put a crimp in my progress at getting everything done. I won’t even bother with the rant which would just be tedious. Much as I love it here, I am looking forward to getting up to my daughter Veronica’s place in Oregon next week where there is a reliable wi fi setup. If you’re waiting to hear from me about anything that’s not utterly urgent, please be patient - I’m still so far behind that I can see myself in the distance.

The sense of still being behind is compounded by the fact that, after I took Lena and Lama to the airport on Thursday morning to fly off to Hawaii to teach, I came back to Winna’s, collapsed into a stupor and woke up hours later with the realization that, yes indeedy, I’m sick. My throat is raw, my ears are stopped up and my chest hurts. I’ve been running a fever so alternately sweating and feeling chilled and very very thirsty and tired. I’d planned to go into the city this weekend and see a bunch of clients. Instead I’m languishing at Winna’s, taking massive doses of vitamins and whatever preventatives I have handy. Hopefully I’ll feel better by tomorrow evening when I MUST go into the East Bay and spend the night so I can be nearby to pick up the lamas when they get into SFO at 5:45 AM on Tuesday morning. Since I booked that flight, I have nobody to bitch at but myself! Still, it’s a truly unholy hour to have to run out to the airport and I’d rather not do it, but neither would anyone else, so I’m pretty well stuck with the job.

They’ll have 2 days to rest here in Bolinas before flying out to Toronto on Thursday morning. I’ll get a ride to the airport at the same time only I’ll catch a different flight up to Portland where I get to see Veronica and the grandkids. I am thrilled and I absolutely have to be feeling better. A sick and cranky grammy is not what I want to imprint on the little ones. So any and all healing vibes are appreciated. It’s going to be such a rollercoaster ride for the next four months. I still don’t know where I’ll
be when since I’m not going to be going to all of the teachings with them. It doesn’t make sense to have me following them around on all of it when we have experienced people at many of the locations who can handle logistics. But we have to work out exactly where and when I WILL be needed and then also work out the finances of those parts of the travel so that no one person or center bears too much of the cost burden. Once my head clears a bit more I’ll be able to juggle all the factors and make it happen. I’ve been doing this for years and can generally anticipate what’s needed and what’s important in the big scheme. Right now my clarity is being stifled by a head full of mucus. Though even that is better than it was yesterday. It’s one of the liabilities of travel - you get exposed to all sorts of stuff when you’re cooped up in a large flying tin can with hundreds of other people. Inevitably one of us gets a cold or flu the first week of a teaching tour. This year it’s my turn!

I bought another inexpensive Kodak digital camera on e-bay today which ought to meet up with me in Oregon later in the week. WIth Lena and I going in different directions for much of the next months, we actually need two cameras. We use them all the time - taking a photographic record of where we’ve been and what we’re doing is second nature by now and fun to look back on. I discovered this morning when I went to take pics of the quail in the yard and the baby deer next door that being without a camera feels wrong. Lena took the good Olympus with her to Hawaii and, because she knows that camera and its settings and hasn’t time to learn new technology, will be taking it with her on her ramblings. So I’ll get this new one and have it to take shots of the kids, my friends, all the baby critters and other stuff around me. Blog pictures should resume in a few days. All text and no images make Joy a dull blogger.

More stories about our adventures in transit when the viral fog lifts a bit more…