Catching up.

Omaha and I took the girls over to Leith & Kaeli's Tuesday for a lovely evening dinner of ratatouille and green salad. In pagan tradition (look, an oxymoron!), we were supposed to bring something we'd harvested ourselves, but sadly most of our garden this year didn't come to much fruition. We had a lot of mint, so a mint tea/lemonade combination was one of our contributions. It was really good, I was surprised. I do enjoy going over there, and this time Yamaarashi-chan had a lot of fun with the girls but Kouryou-chan was too entranced by a new video game they had to be very sociable. Oh, well. It was nice to be able to banish all the girls to the playroom and actually have adult conversation. We teased Sarah a bit about not having a decent photograph of herself for her icon so Kaeli took a lot of pictures of her. They came out well.

Wednesday, I had to take Yamaarashi-chan to her dentist for a filling. That was no fun. I was amazed that I was able to sit through it all, holding her hand. I'm normally terribly squeamish, especially about other people's pain, but the parental mode overwhelmed that I guess. She got the filling, but the dentist recommended that I find a pediatric dentist rather than a general pratice dentist, which he was, because Yamaarashi-chan was a bit whiny herself, especially about the needle for the novocaine. I don't blame her; I'm the same way. So I've made a call to a pediatric dentist I know in West Seattle and we'll see where things go from there.

I'm starting to realize that I need to wear a vest or sportcoat more often. I have too many things to carry all at once in my pockets and I'm just not the waistpack kind of guy.

A Daoist Koan to meditate over

A story about a Taoist hermit in the mountains conveys the truth of our oneness with divine humor. A formal delegation from the Confucian temple below decided to visit and seek his advice. When they arrived at his hut unannounced, they were scandalized to find him completely naked. "What are you doing meditating in your hut with no pants on?" they demanded. "The whole world is my hut," he replied. "This small room is my pants. What I want to know is, what are you doing in my pants?

- Jack Kornfield

No surprises here!

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