Tuesday class

Come here, without anticipation. She said. Do not bring any judgment.
Close your eyes. She said. Let go all your thoughts.

I followed. I closed my eyes. My body was screaming at me.

The swollen bunion. The injured ankle. The stiff neck. The weak muscle. And the pain from inside.

Feel. She said. Listen to your body.

I listened. To the stories I once buried.

Frankenfish for dinner?

"What's for dinner Honey?"

"How about cedar plank Franken-salmon?"

"What is that?"

"That is a genetically modified salmon."

"Does it have 2 heads?"

"Not yet...the fish is genetically engineered so that it grows at twice the normal speed. It produces a lot of growth hormones so it may really help to make the cancer cells spread faster. And...and of course they are farmed in a cozy crowed area. Full of good antibiotics. Maybe there will be new type of disease coming out of this. Isn't that cool?"

"But I really liked the wild salmon you made last week..."

"No. Can't have that anymore. The Frankenfish will be taking all the food. The regular fish won't stand a chance. Frankenfish will also likely to eat the weaklings. So soon we will only have Frankenfish. Who knows, maybe it will eat us too."

See - Rick Moonen's article
See - ORGANIC (Ltd) article

Sex and the City 2 - Still loving it

I watched "Sex and the City 2" over the weekend. Even though this movie has received extremely bad reviews, even by women, I still have to say, I love it. It's not a movie made for Oscars, why is everyone so serious about it?

One of the reviewer's comment says:

The new movie is just an exercise in self indulgence and complaining about problems that aren't really problems. Charlotte complaining about how hard it is to be her when she has a nanny AND a housekeeper. Miranda complaining that her boss doesn't like her. Carrie complaining that Big puts a TV in the bedroom. Samantha complaining about her hormones. I just kept thinking "are you kidding me?? This passes for dialogue??". That's all in the first 8 minutes and it's just downhill from there. I'm just disgusted.

Well, they are not life threatening problems, but they are the things that women complain about, EVERY DAY! They are not real issues, but I don't know anyone, including guys, that's not guilty of making such complains.

"My kid wakes up all the time and we can't get any sleep."
"My boss is an idiot."
"My husband must have 10 sets of tools and he just bought another set."
"I am fat. I need to loose weight."
"I have wrinkles." (-- that's from me.)

I think the movie has represented our everyday "not problem" problems, in an exaggerated way. It's a movie. It suppose to exaggerate. People think it's stupid because they are seeing the "problems" in a 3rd person perspective. Should they be put in the situation, they may not be any less of a brat.

And I still think the ladies look fabulous in those costumes. Yes, they are costumes. No one wears an "Alice in Wonderland" dress to the souk without bodyguards. Even the rich and fashionable. That's announcing "Please rob me! Please Please rob me!!" Nonetheless, it's a movie, and in movies, the characters can wear anything and I am totally fine with that.

I am especially happy to see that the Carrie paid 100 dirham for her shoes at the souk. I was given the same price! So they are not just ripping me off. Though I didn't buy the shoes, more like slippers, because I thought it was too expensive and it wasn't nearly as fancy as Carrie's.

In conclusion, I think it's a very entertaining movie. It made me laugh.

Can a zombie reach Nirvāna?

Shavasana.

The air was hot and humid. Lying on the sweat drenched mat. Breath in. Breath out.
The warm air was quite soothing and just as I thought I could fall asleep, a soft voice said:"Free your mind. Let your mind be empty. Let all the thoughts escape. Just breath........"

Well, guess what?!! Everything came back! Each and every single thought that I was so ready to "let go", CAME BACK. Just why did she have to say that! I was perfectly fine before her soft and tender voice.

While everyone else was enjoying being a corpse, I was struggling not to jump up and scream. I opened my eyes. I can still be a corpse with eyes open, right? (Though, usually that means the person has unfinished business...) But, a corpse is not suppose to have thoughts...or is it? That would make it a zombie.

Can a zombie reach Nirvāna?

I guess not. Zombies are not free from craving and anger and thus subject to suffering.

Then can a Corpse? A corpse has no thought, no feeling, no nothing except the physical body. And it has no attachment to the physical body. Let it rot, see if the corpse cares. But then, Corpse doesn't care about Nirvāna either. It is the empty shell which we need to let go also.

What can reach Nirvāna is the mind. An empty mind....okay, not empty, but liberated mind that no longer clings.....That's nice...but what am I if all I have is my mind. A spirit I guess.

An empty, no, liberated spirit....what does that mean?

All I want is to have a nap. And that's too much to ask, because "want" is not wanted in Nirvāna.

***SIGH***

It's alive!

After one of the zucchini plants, let's call it "chini", is forced to moved to a new location, I was sure it would die. When I moved "chini", it had one little fruit on it, no bigger than my little toe. All the leaves died the next day, but the fruit grew! It's exactly a week after and "chini" has a fruit of 3 inches long. It also has new leaves coming out.

"Chini" is alive. How amazing is that!

It's gonna rain; It's not gonna rain

I've never paid so much attention to weather like I do now. All of the main projects that are to be done this year are dependent on the weather. Seal the driveway, stain the deck, spray Roundup, to name a few.

Yesterday the report says sunny most of the week, today the report took a 180 degree turn.

The weather couldn't make up its mind......Or it just wants to mess with mine.

OMG...I think it heard me complaining!!!!! It's raining!

Painful Sacrifice

I knew zucchini plant could be big. Everyone warned me about it, but I didn't know it could be that big. I planted 2 on the same row, less than a meter apart. It's a mistake. A fatal mistake. At least for 1 of the plants.

The one on the outer side is not so healthy because the other one is invading its space and crushing it.

"We have to take one out to give space to the other one."
"But it may die."
"It's not producing any fruits. Better to have 1 healthy plant than 2 unhealthy ones."
"But it may die."
"It's not happy now. May as well take a chance and move it somewhere else."
"But it may die."
"It will prefer to make the sacrifice for its friend."

So I moved it. And its dying. All because of me, planted them too closely together.

First sight of redness

After a long month of waiting, we finally saw the first sight of redness in cherry tomato. This is very exciting. Though I'm not sure who's going to eat this first tomato, Kendrick or me. I think it's going to be me.

First Harvest

We collected our first batch of harvest this weekend. Peas are disappointing as it's not even enough to make a dish. Zucchini are growing rigorously on the other hand. We picked a couple of zucchnini and shared with friends. Yummy! Tomatoes are still green, but there are loads of them. Not sure if we are capable of consuming all of them.

Do you get it?

Found this Venn Diagram. I am confused. Where are you?

Tomato! Tomato!

Looks like in a few weeks, I can stop going to the market for tomatoes!
With 6 tomato plants and the rate they are growing, we should have more than enough for the 2 of us. Maybe I should start learning how to preserve them for the Winter season.

Enormous Zucchini plant taking all the space

When I bought the zucchini plant, it had 2 little leaves and was about an inch wide. 5 weeks later......the leaves are bigger than my head!



Good thing is that the leaves are quite pretty and decorative. Bad thing is that it's invading the space of other plants. I've already moved 2 of the poor little Jalapeno plants. Looks like I'll have to move the 3rd one too.

There are a lot of zucchini flower buds, hopefully we'll have lots of zucchini for the summer and autumn.

The war between me and the bunny

Look at it....



Soooo cute....NOT!!!!!!!!!!
Not when I found out it ate all the peas in the garden. All of them!

I planted more peas and built a heavy fence. It's a war between me and the bunny.
So far the fence seems to work.

I feel morbid today

It's the year of Tiger. 2010. My year.
"Not a good year for you," mom said, "should have something red on you throughout the year."
Okay mom, I'll try.

I don't look good in red, but I bought a red sweater anyway.
Maybe there is something about this year. It has not been very good so far.
Well, it has not being bad...but not good.

I know, I know, worse things can happen. Look at Haiti; Look at Chile.
I am looking. The disasters are moving closer and closer to us.

• The great South Asia tsunami of 2004;
• The China Sichuan 8.0 earthquake of 2008;
• The Haiti earthquake of 2010;
• The Chile 8.8 earthquake of 2010;

The disaster is moving from the other side of the globe to just under us.

Why is it that I have not seen any fund raising and relief activities for Chile?