Tuesday, May 25, 2021

 Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Today should have been yoga, but there was no one in the driveway by 7 am.  Yvette had stopped up the other day and told me she would be working with her yoga teacher, Jennifer in Hilo, to videotape a yoga teaching video. I knew she was going over; I didn’t think she would be staying overnight.

Last night I gave Elsa her first dose of the pills the doctor had prescribed.  One I had to give once a day, the other twice a day. Both should be with food. I prepared her dinner and set the pills aside to give her once she had wolfed down her food. I sat bolt upright in the middle of the night as the ½ written on both bottles registered. I had been so focused on how many times a day and with food, I had ignored the ½. I called the vet to find out what to do. The receptionist said just to continue with the rest of the prescription and, since she seemed to be just fine, not to worry about the dosage.

Judy called, crying. Their dog Beau has been in bad mental shape for a while. He’d stand in a corner with his head against the wall. Now he was standing in his water bowl, and he fell down a flight of stairs. He was also moaning. She had called the vet and made an appointment to put him down. I offered to go with her. I always did the putting down of animals on my own. Mike was no good with that stuff. Mike liked to pretend death didn’t happen, but Howard, Judy’s husband, was going with her.  

Because humans weren’t allowed in the vet’s office, I was concerned Judy and Howard wouldn’t be there when Beau was put down. I told Judy to ask to have him put down in their car.  It was only an injection; it wasn’t like special accommodations were needed. However, I had no need to be concerned.  They took Howard and Judy into the clinic. They were there.  Judy held it together so she could be there for Beau as he went.  Howard fell apart. He was sobbing. Mike would have been like that. 

Judy and Howard’s loss triggered grief in me. It’s always sitting there just under the surface. I wept for Mike and a couple of my dogs, Chantey and Peaches, particularly Peaches. She was an amazing dog. When I walked her, the children in the neighborhood came running out to greet her. All that stopped when we got Horatio, and I walked both.

While Horatio was my least favorite of our dogs, he was important to Mike. Mike had taken Horatio into the vet when we saw something peculiar going on. I don’t remember what we saw, but the vet wanted to open him up. Mike said if he got in there and saw a problem to let him go. I was driving home from school when I got a call from Mike. He was sobbing uncontrollably. I pulled over to the side of the highway. The vet had found Horatio riddled with cancer.  Mike didn’t take it well.

I went to town to do some chores. The biggest thing I needed was more bottled water.  I needed to go to Island Naturals to buy more pumpkin seeds. I use them in my salad. They’re delicious and add protein. The store had water, expensive water. What the hell! I bought five glass bottles of Hawaiian volcanic water, whatever that means, for $5 apiece. I also looked for golden flax, one of my staples. They were entirely out.

. I was planning to stop at T-Mobile because I was having a problem with my phone. I couldn’t modulate the sound. It was stuck on LOUD when I played a podcast. I also couldn’t get any sound on the videos I received from my niece and my cousin. I just made a quick trip to Petco to look for a new harness. I had ordered one on Amazon. It said it was mesh. I didn’t want anything solid for Elsa. We live in the tropics; she doesn’t need extra cover. I found something with thicker straps than the one she had now, but it was better than the one I got from Amazon. Then I headed home.

I went for a quick walk before my session with K. Judy and Howard passed me on their way home from the vet.  She stopped briefly to indicate they were both crying and continued home.

My session with K went very well.  The last time we worked, I noticed that he often skipped over a word. Today, I had him name the letters in the words before he said the words. His concentration was amazing.  I also learned that he doesn’t know his own last name or his birthday. His mother says he can’t tell time and has no sense of time. Long ago could be yesterday.  We will have to address these problems.  This boy is not stupid.  He is now in second grade and is reading and comprehending third-grade material.  I have to figure out what the metacognitive glitch is.  

I was supposed to have A. today, but his mother canceled. 

I must say I have had some weird experiences since my last session for Yoga Farm Ithaca.  I was incredibly relaxed for two days.  I have been tired ever since. I just want to sit and meditate- even more, I want to sleep.  Sometimes my body feels better, stronger than ever before, and sometimes my body whines at me, and it is an effort to move through that. 

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Musings:

 

“The present moment is the only time our lives actually exist.  The ‘past’ and the ‘future’ exist in the mind only, as ideas or concepts of what was and what might be.”   The statement is true. However, the message is that we should always be in the present and give no thoughts to the past and the future. Nonetheless, the very people who advocate this have scheduled classes for 2022. Obviously, they don’t mean what they say. 

Living only in the present moment is a true high. When facing danger, we are in the present moment alone. We give no thought to how we were hurt by others in the past or how we will pay our bills in the future. What a wonderful feeling- easily achieved if we live on a battlefront. We’re there, right there, and no place else.  Ah! Where is a good conflict when you need one? 

We can also achieve that moment of being in the pure present at the birth of a child or through meditation and possibly prayer, but there are all those other moments of life. 

        We all need advice on balancing our thoughts of the past and future with our existence in the present. Those who claim to live only in the present demonstrate through their behavior that they don’t do it. Do they achieve the necessary balance? If so, how?