Feeding Squirrels On My Way To Work

Monday, December 18, 2006

I've given up on Blogger beta. I gave up a long time ago. I don't know if these words will ever be published.

From now on, "Feeding Squirrels On My Way To Work" is located at: feedingsquirrels.wordpress. com.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

When it came time to replace our Saturn, there was no question that our next car would be a Prius. Well, almost no question. Our distant second choice was a Mini. There were several things against a Mini for us. With only two doors, traveling with a sugar glider cage would be difficult. With only two dealerships listed in the Seattle area - one in Fife and the other in Portland - I worried about repairs and servicing. We bought a Prius, and we remain fans of the Mini.

We see a lot of Minis in Seattle. Now Flexcar has replaced its "sports car" choice, from a Miata to a Mini. There is a Mini parked in the Flexpod up the street for us.

We have reserved a Flexcar Mini for a Christmas Day joyride. It's a bit of foolishness, but it should be fun.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Tonight is my last Church Council meeting. We are leaving the church.

This Friday is the last Friday evening yoga class. I have options.

This Saturday, we will have a sugar glider living with us again. Chicken Night will return.

This blog is currently dead. I am writing invisible words. Maybe someday, they will reappear.

Happy new year.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Will this post get published? I have no idea.

Yesterday was the Writers' Group Christmas party. Although no longer official members, Nancy and Blanche were invited. Barbara, Don, Russ, Bernice, and I - the regular members - were all there. Phillip came, too.

I read two pieces. The first was what I had intended to read last month. It was about a ten mile stretch of Highway 103, on Long Beach peninsula. I also read a more recent piece - a piece about the events that lead up to us deciding to get a new sugar glider.

During one of the periods of non-reading (which, of course, take up about 90% of Writers' Group time), I was asked why I hadn't been in church lately. Phillip and I had skipped church yesterday, and had gone directly to Writers' Group. So, Phillip and I confessed that we have been shopping for another church. Then the shocker came. We were told why the question had been asked: Two people in the room were also thinking about leaving Central, for, it turned out, the same reason as Phillip and me. (Russ wasn't one of them - he left Central a long time ago.) Then we learned that there are even more people - people not in that room yesterday - who are feeling the same as us.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

(I continue to write posts for this blog, with hope that Blogger beta figures out its publishing problems. Someday this words will appear, and my profile over there, which I commented out a long time ago, but which re-appeared when this blog went beta, will go away again.)

A thing about geocaching is that, as the forums keep pointing out, "everyone plays the game in their own way." There are a few hard rules: "Sign the log book," "Don't log a cache more than once," "Don't reveal the cache location in your log," "Don't steal geocoins," and maybe a few others. But, other than that, it's an open game - or sport. Some people play for the numbers, some for the nice walk in a park. Some don't even log their finds online. It creates a game that appeals to just about every interest.

This openess can, and does, create disagreements, unfortunately. What might seem like fair play to one geocacher may annoy another.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

I should be finishing a piece for tomorrow's Writers' Group, but instead I'm wrestling with the new version of Blogger - "Blogger beta." If you see this post, I've got the publishing problem solved. If you see my "profile" over on the right, I don't have the publishing problem completely solved.

When I tell people (especially people who have never experienced yoga) that I practice yoga, a typical comment is: "Wow! You must be really flexible." I don't mind that comment at all, but for me, yoga is much more mental than physical. Yes, I am twisting my body into poses it might not use at work, and often those poses are a physical challenge, but it is concentration and awareness of my body's alignment that helps me achieve those poses - more than physical strength.

Yesterday evening, we were doing Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle Pose), and I just couldn't figure it out. Like a puzzle with one piece at the wrong angle, I just couldn't make it come together. My hips were not in alignment, and I would change the position of my feet, or the twist of my back, or the angle of my legs - but it just didn't feel right. Lisa was working with another student, and I couldn't catch her eye, and then it was time to move on to the next asana. It threw off my concentration for the next few asanas. Yoga is, for me, a mental activity.

After class, I talked with a fellow student about what we're going to do when our Friday evening class goes away. She had been going to the Friday class longer than I have. Like me, the time and date were perfect for her. Like me, she has a few classes in mind, but each choice feels like a compromise. I don't know what I'm going to do. With our new sugar glider on the way, my choices become even more limited.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

I watched Miracle on 34th Street last night on American Movie Classics. It was the first time I had ever seen that movie from beginning to end. (It was, until last night, another one of those movies I'd always heard of but had never seen.) Sure, it's corny and overly-sentimentalized, but what for it is, it's a rather good movie. It has its moments. Besides, there's at least one non-Caucasian person in it. He works at The Post Office.

Then, somewhere, well into the story, AMC informed me that I was watching the "colorized" version, and that the original black & white format would be show immediately afterwards. I felt betrayed.