Meow!  Pffftt! RRowwlll! I could hear two cats screaming half a block away just before dawn.  Benny the marmalade ginger was at my elbow so I immediately wondered if it was YinYang, my 14 year old bandit-masked harlequin.  I ran out of the office in a flash to go outside and Benny ran right after me.  Entering the living room, I spy Yinnie sitting atop her box.  Too late, Benny runs across the room at her and, for a moment, everything went slow motion.  He stopped short, they bumped noses and did a quick mutual sniff of faces. Then he strolled over and hopped up on the couch to lie facing her.  She went back to sleep.   I see that even though YinYang is territorial and bitchy, making Benny run the gauntlet every time he comes in the house, deep down their first instinct after hearing the two cats fighting outside was each making sure the other was ok. What someone does in a crisis shows you who they are.  These guys will be fine.

October 17, 2014, Masaru has passed away peacefully with his wife by his side.  His last word was “Arigato”. (“Thank you” in Japanese) We believe his last word was to you, everybody. He was so grateful for you and thanked you all so very much. He used to say, “Life is LOVE which is a gift from God and parents, and DEATH is gratitude for going to a new dimension.” So now he is in another dimension and continues to look over us warmly with love and gratitude.

A friend is looking for make up ideas for a clown face for Halloween. I like a cute and sweet clown face, am not a fan of the scary zombie killer clown look.

Life has taught me that in real life, the scary dudes are always the normal looking ones. Be very afraid.

Thanks to my new Bissell steam mop, I’ve been cleaning the floors like crazy this week and it tickles me to see the reflection on the floors again. The lights reflect all over and it’s a delight to watch it dance around. I forgot that about a dull floor –> no reflection!  I’ve been moving furniture to clean the floor beneath it, taking everything away from the wall and away from the corners to steam the entire floor’s surface.  My typical floor show is a quick sweep, vac and swipe with the Swiffer wetjet.  But this week, thanks to the new steam mop, I’ve had fun cleaning the floors repeatedly.   I don’t know why it’s suddenly more important now than it’s ever been to get the floor clean, but it is. During meditation on it, I reflected that so often in the past I’ve made do with a surface clearing of my thoughts and behaviors and beliefs.  I’d make room for something new, but not completely replace the old.  I’d let myself walk between the worlds, so to speak, until I got used to the new ideas and until they ultimately replaced themselves.  Now something is clearly happening, and being reflected in me being obsessed with getting my floors clean.  I have something I want to strip away, to get at the bottom of, to make new and fresh with a clean start, to get in on the ground floor with.  I’m also on a kick washing all the fabric in the house. I look forward to the unfolding.  When I get to the bottom of it, I’ll let you know.

RELATED:  My first ever Steam Mop — A Bissell PowerFresh

A friend wrote on Facebook “I got an angry email from someone today who has been wanting to talk with me for the past few weeks. I’m in the middle of  many projects, and I’m supposed to drop everything to call her to chat? Keep in mind that this “chat” would be at least an hour of my time – if not more – and I just haven’t created that space for her. Now she’s pissed and wants me to remove her from my list.  Seriously?  How do you deal with unreasonable expectations of people? I know this is her stuff being projected onto me; I get it. And thank goodness it is an incredibly rare situation. But I am sitting in this question tonight, and exploring my own integrity in this, because I feel disappointed … and sad.  I truly believe that if I’m triggered, then it’s an opportunity for me to learn something about my own beliefs and even heal something from the past. The same is true for all of us – total responsibility for one’s own “stuff.”  Continue reading →