Muskoka

Sylvain has finally posted his very detailed account of our vacation.

Honorary Iranian

A fellow I consider a friend (though we’ve never met) emailed me today to let me know he had seen me on Iranian.com. That’s a site that has 700,000 unique readers per month.

I had to go check out the “Farsi Primer” YouTube video that Sylvain made of me last year, reposted as Canadian Farsi. I was curious to see the context. It seems I have been voted Iranian of the Day for September 26, 2008.

Reading the comments Iranians and others have posted has put a huge smile on my face on a day when I most definitely needed a lift.

Zen of Work

Sr. K had a really good point in her comment on my dream about the baby who wouldn’t nurse. And who am I to assume that the me in the dream ready to breastfeed is my Higher Self? Babies do tend to know when they need to eat and when they’ve had enough. Sometimes I take the warrior training…perhaps a bit TOO seriously. Maybe that dream baby felt as if it was being force fed and had indeed had enough for now. Time to burp.

When I listen to all the teachings that I’m so absorbed in these days, they all warn about the same area to be careful of. We westerners are very given to using the teachings to beat ourselves up. It’s supposed to be about compassion and kindness, starting with ourselves. I tend to remember the parts that say meditation takes gumption. Mindfulness practice is a lifetime of discipline, though it pays off immeasurably. I hear the gumption part and the hard work part and the discipline part, but I forget about the “gently” part and the loving kindness even (especially) toward myself part. Thank you for reminding me. Again.

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Today was my quarterly performance review. Our supervisor randomly selects a certain number of cases we’ve handled and rates us in five categories. The scores are averaged so that we get one percentage for all the cases surveyed. Last time I got 97% and was told our goal should be to meet 95% all the time.

I’m not still a perfectionist, am I? I prefer to think I’m a recovering perfectionist. Nevertheless,  I told myself that the reason I’d missed getting perfect scores was that new criteria had just been introduced and I was still forming the new habits. Ok, I KNOW I’m making progress because the reviews don’t make me nervous like they used to. Plus I interact differently now; I feel less attached to outcome than ever before in my life. Oh well. I probably still look like a perfectionist from the outside, but really I’m just a hard worker who takes pride in what I do. How is that different from someone who really gets into carving a piece of wood? Yeah, I’ll write a book: Zen and the art of travel claim adjudication.

Anyway, today I got 100%, which felt pretty good. She asked me if I’m happy in my job. Rather than say, “it pays the bills,” I told her the atmosphere has improved so much since she came on board. Which is true. She told me she was also very impressed with a special project I’m working on.

Then she asked me if I had anything to bring up to her, any concerns. I’m not sure if I would have been brave enough to bring these things up had I not just had my confidence bolstered by the good review, but I said, “Now that you mention it… I was wondering if we could do something about the ergonomics of my work station. My chiropractor says the way I sit is contributing to my back strain.” Fortunately, my supervisor is no stranger to chronic back troubles, and by the end of the day we had ordered a keyboard tray with articulating mechanics and an Obus Forme back support for my chair.

I also planted yet another seed about my wish to become more involved in systems. We are about to switch to a new database. I told her I’m quite the keener when it comes to systems. I like to dive in and read the manuals and handbooks cover to cover, discover what the system can and cannot do and tutor others. This has been my role at previous places of employment.

That makes about the fourth time I’ve tried to steer them in the direction of using more of my technical aptitude. We’ll see if this seed hit fertile soil or not.

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Sylvain and I looked at two condos for rent in a very nice complex near here that I’ve talked about before. In fact, we’ve looked at probably six or seven units in that complex. I had made up my mind that I would say yes to one of the two of them no matter what. No more pussy footing around, I have to get a place already! So I saw one on the 13th floor with a gorgeous view of the Detroit River, the tops of trees, downtown Windsor on one side and the masts of the boats in the marina on the other side. The apartment was sweet, well cared for by an older woman moving to Florida. I held off deciding for one day till I could view a second unit on the 2nd floor with no view (parking lot) but some extra square footage. Well, it was very poorly laid out so that the extra space didn’t make it feel larger at all. In fact the kitchen felt tiny, the cabinets were dark and the carpet was lumpy. I don’t want to live with carpet at all unless it’s very clean, very low pile. So we told the agent helping us look that I would take the 13th floor unit. The next day we discovered the owner isn’t interested in renting, only selling. Slight miscommunication.

Sylvain couldn’t help but point out that I could buy the condo and my payments would be less than if I rented. So any of you who think to point that out can save your breath. I am not interested in owning property right now.

Pie with Nancy’s Apples

The woman who came ’round with eggs still warm from the chickens’ nests is Nancy. One morning she brought a basket of apples just picked from a tree planted by her grandmother, who had settled here in 1908. She said they were cooking apples, nice and tart, and added that her family is trying to graft a branch of the old tree onto another tree since their granny’s tree is not going to last much longer. Nancy told us all about the drastic decline in the number of apple varieties in North America over the past decades. There is no way of knowing now the name of the cultivar we were accepting from her.

Early this week, Sylvain spent an evening making pies. I helped a little by doing the peeling.

I have been more inspired than ever to eat as locally as possible since following the My Local Food blog. In Waterloo, this year’s One Book, One Community read is The 100 Mile Diet.

In the backyard, Sylvain’s family has peaches and pears. Ma has already put up many jars of peach preserves.

Dream: Baby Won’t Nurse

On one of the last days at the cottage, I was in a prickly mood. I’ll blame it on ovulation hormones, but that’s not the point. I knew our vacation wasn’t going as ideally as we’d hoped and that the ability to turn things around rested with me. I could choose to flow with what was happening around me or I could choose to keep the negative thoughts in my head and mood in my body.

I have all these wonderful tools in my toolbox, but sometimes I am stubborn and don’t use them. Sometimes I am stuck and I know I’m stuck, but I don’t do everything within my power to get unstuck. Sometimes I eat sweets when I know the sugar crash will leave me groggy and irritable. Sometimes I sleep in even though I know it will leave my back stiff. Sometimes I don’t drink all my glasses of water. Sometimes I don’t swallow my pride and apologize even though I know the greatest inner growth could come to me if I would forge that new behavioural path…not to mention the good it would do the relationship.

I dreamed I had a baby and was ready and willing to nurse her, but she would not take my milk.

I awoke knowing this was an important messenger, this dream. I asked myself, “what is this dream telling me?” The answer is quite clear to me. There is a part of me that is recently born, but it is being stubborn. It is turning its face away from the nourishment of what my Higher Self or Wisdom wants to offer. Higher Self is offering the teat, saying, “here, baby, drink this and grow up strong.” The new part of me is turning away, like a newborn with Failure to Thrive sydrome.

I went through my day mulling over this dream and its lesson for me.  I recognize that in all the teachings I’ve been wading in over the past months, there are situations where I lock down in fear and don’t try the tools. I freeze with mistrust. I fall back into familiar patterns rather than crawl out onto the limb of new and very scary territory.

The more I thought about the dream and felt the truth of its message floating around inside me, the more I’ve realized I don’t have a lot to lose. I could try letting go, really letting go and melting into every fresh moment–NO MATTER WHAT. No more conditional acceptance, but greeting each “mishap” as a wake-up call and a teacher. Embracing and going TOWARD the scary stuff rather than recoiling.

Although I am still feeling reticent, I can feel that something is on the verge of giving way.

Feeding Bob and Bob

The place we stayed has 24 chickens, all named Bob.  Nancy said we could feed them if we wanted to. I started out giving them crumbled up toast but soon learned that they really liked my custom gluten-free blend of cereal, seeds and dried fruit. They liked the cranberries best, but found them too big. So each morning I tore the cranberries into teeny tiny pieces for Bob and Bob and sometimes also for Bob.

Back Home, Back Online

With a few chores in between, I’ve spent most of today catching up on blogs. I forewent internet for the six-day vacation unless you count occasional news and weather reports from Sylvain, who remained connected via his Crackberry Blackberry. I did not get the shakes, but I did miss my online community!

After blog reading today, I felt an urgent need to read my new book Peterson’s Field Guides’ FERNS of Northeastern and Central North America cover to cover, which I now must cross-reference with Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Algonquin Provincial Park.

The time away was very good. Sylvain and I will each be blogging details soon.

A Little Vacation

I can’t believe I forgot one of the biggest things I was thankful for this past weekend: Sylvain did the laundry! Yep, he did it on Friday because he had the day off and because he’s just a sweetie.  He got his mom to put the soap where he could reach it and away he went. I could not believe the huge difference it made in my mood having that chore OFF my shoulders for the whole weekend. He said he enjoyed doing it so much that from now on we should take turns. Well, okay then!

We are going away next week for a vacation. I am SO thankful for all the blessings that come together to allow us to do this. We have jobs that permit it. We have enough money to do it.  We live in gorgeous Ontario just a day’s drive from Algonquin Park and the Muskokas.

I tend to remain calm and let myself get excited once we are on the road. Sylvain on the other hand is already losing sleep because he can’t stop thinking about the upcoming trip. For weeks he has been following the blog of the place we’ll be staying. Every day he gives me news from the place.

“We can have fresh eggs from their chickens,” he’s told me.

We’ll be able to see a bajillion stars.

Some nights there is a guide who leads a wolf howling. They explain which howl belongs to the alpha of the pack and which are the younger wolves answering.

All week there have been emails back and forth between Sylvain and the owners of the little group of cabins on Lake of Bays. Will our cabin have a BBQ? Check. Coffee machine? Check. Microwave? Check.

We’re already building our pile of things to take in a spare bedroom.

Naturally I had to pick out some light cottage reading for the occasion. I didn’t quite manage to shift into fluffy novel mode; as soon as I saw The Drunkard’s Walk and gave it the first sentence test, I knew I’d found my book. Ha.  At least I am putting away all the self-improvement and spirituality for the duration of the getaway.

We will be leaving our laptops and internet connections behind as we venture into moose country.