The Burrow

"Hi! How are you today?! SO good to see you!" The italics and the exclamation points don't come close to describing her smiling face and happy-to-see-me cheeks and her dancing eyes taking me in. "Look at how well you are doing!" And she knows, because she saw me at the very beginning.  She's part of the free-for-patients-and-visitors Valet Parking service at UAMC, the hospital that saved my life.  "Has it really been three and a half years?  It feels like yesterday..... and forever ago" And she's right.  I look at her face and I'm transported back to being driven, to needing a wheelchair, to lowering myself with exquisite care into the passenger seat, my injured leg following slowly, carefully..... and her body right there, between the open door and anything which might bump me. She never looked worried but she was always alert.  She was happy to see me, but aware that some days my smiles were harder to find.  "Look at y...

It happened again.  I am at a loss to explain it and I'm beginning to think that might be the whole point.  In any event, I'm confused and at peace at the same time. Mindful Meditation is quite odd,  indeed. I scarfed lunch and met the fourth grade girls on the playground, just as I'd promised last Friday.  As requested, I brought girly-er stickers than these robot ones; my attempts to dissuade them from the notion that such things existed fell on deaf ears.  They are pink and bows and sparkles and there's just nothing I can do about it.  Being ten-ish comes with its own set of challenges; the least I can do is take the pink stickers from my GRIN box with me in the morning. We talked about how mean girls get in the fourth grade, and of their hope that it would be better in the fifth grade.  I told them that was up to them, since girls were notorious for being awful to one another and I for one did not know why it happened.  I thought that, l...

I wish I understood the physiology behind mindful meditation.  I can feel that its effects are real.  I just don't understand how it happens. I was delayed at Michael's, caught up in the multiplicity of choices for FlapJilly's crocheted layettes.  If anyone is looking for a project, creating an attractive pink yarn might be right at the top of your list.  The skeins in the bins this afternoon were harsh, or rough or paler-than-pale; nothing jumped out and said buy me .  So, I wandered up and down the aisles, fondling and cogitating and then it was seventeen minutes until I had to be in the Kewitt Auditorium, prepared to commune with myself.  I checked out with what was in my cart.  I'll figure out what to make with it later on. Leaving my car with the free valet parking service at the UAMC main entrance, hugging the woman who took my family's cars while I was an in-patient and who took mine when I was able to drive to my own appointments and who ...

The Tucson Festival of Books has much more than books.  Early in the morning, it looked like this. But by mid-day this was more usual.  Everything is so well thought out at the Festival. The recycling is next to the garbage and both are recyclable containers.  There was no trash on the ground.   This vertical garden was an interesting idea, but the droopy leaf up there at the top made me question its efficacy in the desert.   When questioned, the grower couldn't disagree.  I moved on to the books. passing Authors Helping Authors and this friendly fellow who happily smiled for a picture in The Burrow. I gave him my card; I wonder if he'll comment and let us know that he's out there?   Of course, there were authors, too, Robert Dugoni, John Lescroart, Mike Lawson and I was able to sit up close to some old favorites and some new discoveries.  Mike Lawson and I shared a brick ledge on Saturday aftern...