CrankyBuddhist   the learning never ends …

Here’s a little home made commercial for TJ’s, my favorite grocery store, filmed right here in San Francisco. See, if commercials were cute like this they wouldn’t be so bad to watch.

It wasn’t until my short stay in the hospital that I realized what a food diva I am. The hospital sits exactly one block from the house where I stay in Berkeley in one direction and one block from the Whole Foods in the other direction. Most days I bypass the hospital and head directly for Whole Foods, but when the hospital captured me, I had to give in to my hostage surroundings.

After surgery I was put on a clear liquid diet. You might have thought this would be an easy no brainer. Clear liquids. Who woulda thought that clear liquids could be a problem? I usually don’t tell people that I am a vegetarian anymore, because in reality I’m not, I eat chicken and fish, not a lot, but I won’t turn it down. So in the spirit of being a good and unfussy patient I said that I just don’t eat beef and pork.

My first clear liquid tray came late in the afternoon with black tea, gelatin, beef broth, and apple juice. What I saw was caffeine, beef marrow, boiled Bessie, and juice from a fruit that prior to the surgery would have given me intense stomach cramps. Oh boy …

When I talked to the nurses about the tray, they were very confused. Gelatin is vegetarian, isn’t it? Caffeine won’t keep you awake! Anyway, my eating status changed two more times to Vegetarian and then Asian Vegetarian. The next few hours entailed about three nurses running around the hospital looking for all kinds of things that I could possibly eat. Which really didn’t produce anything that would be considered appetizing. We came to a settlement on popsicles.

What I really wanted was a big comfy bowl of Miso soup. Which I got when I walked back into the house twenty-four hours later.

There’s nothing like a food poisoning exorcism to make me look death in the face … or so it seems.

So let’s forget the last post while reading this one, just for Unconfusion’s sake.

As I was ramping up to stomach cramps, just at bedtime on Tuesday night, I had to ask myself what is that sensation? You see, I rarely get sick. I can’t remember the last time I was sick. So when stomach cramps hit, actually it felt like I was being gutted with a really sharp filet knife, my mind started reacting like Q in that episode of Star Trek TNG (Deja Q) when he had hunger pangs.

Even though I rarely get sick, when I do my usual M.O. is sheer panic. The only end result that can come out of being sick is death, right? I mean if someone so healthy succombs to a germ, well, there’s no hope left.

This time I did not feel myself panic. I just said ‘Oh fuck.’ I mean just that afternoon I had asked God to either kill me before my teeth fell out, or to please cure me of my vanity. Many of my friends my age, I am finding out are gettting false teeth, and I’ve always had teeth problems. By that evening I had only supposed that my prayer was being answered. There is no hope for my vanity.

I will spare all the details of the last three days. But I had great opportunity to contemplate dying in a chair alone at the emergency room. Although, I only thought about going to the emergency room.

But the important thing about it was, I was not panicked. I was not afraid. The situation did not scare me. It just was. And then it wasn’t.

Restaurant Dharma is very much like the Shower Dharma that I wrote about a few posts back. The difference is that Restaurant Dharma is easier to remember. Maybe that’s because it happens within an actual conversation with another person rather than only my own voice in my head talking at the speed of light.

Restaurant Dharma are the teachings I recieve when I go out to eat with friends in restaurants. I’m not talking about the lectures or the criticisms that I get from some friends for living my life the way I do, or having to justify my actions. I’m talking about the conversations that either come out of the blue unexpectedly and affect my way of thinking, or those that consume the entire meal in debate over karma or past or future lives or coming to terms with how life just is what it is.

Last night I had the latter Restaurant Dharma over some very yummy Chinese food at a restaurant up the street. My friend is seriously studying the dharma along with the rest of his sangha out in the desert, while I have chosen to allow the dharma to come to me in whatever form it chooses. In both cases we mull over the things we learn, each in our own way, and really discuss the crap out of them when we get together.

The good thing about this is that I remember the discussions, and last night’s dinner, even though short in duration, gave enough food for thought and fodder for the next few posts.

Yay!