CrankyBuddhist   the learning never ends …

I was standing out in the front yard the other day, woefully contemplating the state of the garden. It’s not really a garden but a yard without grass. Not having grass is on purpose.

What the yard has is a lot of Oxalis, which is an invasive clover with perky, happy, yellow flowers. The yard also has a lot of other plants. The Daffodils are blooming, as are the Cala Lillies. The Lavender is finally looking healthy, the Rosemary is making me sneeze and the California Poppies are starting to burst their orange blossoms.

But the weeds are everywhere, choking everything, and doing it in a very cheery-yellow sort of way.

In the middle of the yard there is a big, unshapely, bald patch where the Oxalis got pulled out in some attempt to take control of nature and save some of the California Poppy plants from choking to death. The bald spot looks like garden mange.

As I was standing there, looking at the sad state of affairs, no less than four people walked by and stopped to tell me how beautiful the garden is. One neighbor even said that she comes by sometimes to stand for a moment to meditate near it.

I guess I should consider changing the way I think about the garden!

From twitter: RT @anyaelise: So I wonder if all these conservatives praying so hard for the #hcr (healthcare reform) bill to fail, will accept its passing as God’s will?

A little more thought on words having power.

I realized that after the age of 50, there seem to be a few American phrases that have dropped out of my everyday usage. Phrases like “Kill me now” when something so boringly unbearable happens. Or telling a friend that “When I start acting geriatric, just take me out in a field and shoot me.”

Nope, those are things I don’t say anymore.

I realized that no matter how long I live, how much time I have left, there isn’t enough life left to be saying such things, in my head, or in public.

Sometimes it’s when I’m in the dirtiest, grittiest places that I get really in touch with living life. I think that’s why, if I am going to live in a city, I usually seek out gritty neighborhoods. My current digs in Berkeley are really too nice. But my current housesit is in the gritty and very dirty barrio of the SF Mission District, which I happen to love. This place makes me feel alive.

The only thing missing is an organic produce vendor.