Category: Wisdom Tidbits

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Glitter Is Not Dirt

Robin and I were at Pho Grand waiting to be seated.  It was a nice night and we were sitting on the bench just outside the entrance anticipating our number coming up.  As we sat there a family was leaving.  It consisted of both parents, and two children.  I only discovered the gender of one child from her voice as I would have had to turn around to see them.   The father and daughter were discussing whether or not a bath before bedtime was needed.  The father was of the opinion that one was not.  The daughter’s opinion differed.  I could not hear her reasoning, but was able to intuit her logic a minute later upon the father’s reply.

“Glitter is not dirt,” he said.

Apparently they had been someplace where glittered had been applied before going or perhaps there.

I do think that will be my new motto, “Glitter is not dirt.”

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Wisdom from the Alzheimer’s ward

My mother who cannot remember my name; my mother who thinks her mother is still alive which would make my grandmother 119 years old;  my mother who was surprised when I reminded her that she was once married; my mother who wanted to know what restaurant we were at as the staff at her nursing home was putting out dinner… Sung the whole chorus to this song 5 or 6 times in the hour I was there.  I really found it a piece of wisdom from a surprising source.  Of course, the song does have an “eat, drink, and do Mary for tomorrow we die” theme to it.   But sometimes that is not bad advice.

I have included the YouTube video of a Guy Lombardo rendition of the song below.

Just for the record my mother has  been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  She is in a lock-in memory management unit at The Baptist Village in Oklahoma.

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The Parable of the Wee Dog

The Wee Dog

The Wee Dog is a terrier mix.  Or as I am fond of saying, “part terrier and part mama got out.” I call her the Wee Dog because she weighs in at a whopping 14 or 15 pounds.  However, most of it is muscle with the rest some very wild, wiry black and white fur.  The fur over her eyes has a tendency to grow and droop over those organs. The Wee Dog’s mother aka Robin works diligently to keep this area trimmed as well as the rest of the wilderness that is her coat.  For whatever reason through my anthropomorphizing eyes the Wee Dog always looks very worried.

Being a rescue dog the Wee Dog has some issues, most of which she has grown out over the last year or so. Continue reading “The Parable of the Wee Dog”

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Snowflake Globe Meditation

snow-globe-239988_640I was listening to Krista Tippett’s show, On Being, on NPR this Sunday morning. It is also available as a podcast.   Krista was interviewing Simone Campbell of Nuns on the Bus fame. Ms. Campbell is a nun, a lawyer and a lobbyist for social issues.   She also practices Zen.

She had the most wonderful description of mediation. She described life as being like one of those globes with all the snowflakes in them. In our lives, most of the time, the snowflakes are swirling around pell-mell. Meditation allows the snowflakes to settle and be quite for a few minutes.

I found that a wonderful image.

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Select Shorts podcast – Against All Odds

I am absolutely in love with this show, Select Shorts and generally listen to the podcast every week. Their description of the show is as follows:

“Its story time for adults with PRI’s award-winning series of short fiction read by the stars of stage and screen. Recorded live at Peter Norton Symphony Space in NYC and on tour. A co-production of Symphony Space and WNYC Radio.”

This week’s show was especially good. The first reading by Amy Ryan was of Lauren Groff’s , At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners, a tale of a sensitive boy growing up in a house full of snakes. Her imagery was as delicious as the story was captivating.

The second reading which starts about 33:30 was intense, and of more than general interest as I spent 3 years in Jackson, MS. I recognized many of the landmarks he referenced. It is a coming of age story in the racist South by writer Kiese Laymon. The essay, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, is read by Brandon J. Dirden. I found it very intense, and emotional. It is an essay that lingers as you maul over injustices in our nation.

Against All Odds NPR podcast

 

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Nickel Philosophy for a Saturday

I think the Buddha had it right, when you are chopping wood, chop wood. We spend so much of our time living in the past or worried about the future, that we miss the here and now. The Here and Now is all we really have. We need to be present in the present. I frequently remind myself of this when I am doing mundane tasks with some degree of boredom and/or resentment. It is amazing how pleasant even a task like cleaning the bathroom can become if you focus your being on what you are doing. I’ve been known to say to myself, “When you are folding t-shirt, fold t-shirts.” The results are always better with the change in perspective. We spend so much time multi-tasking that we never really concentrate on chopping wood. And that my friend is my nickel philosophy for a Saturday, Be Present.

As an aside that sound you hear is Robin saying, “Why don’t you practice a little of the Buddhism you are preaching, and clean the bathrooms.”

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My Father, Ted Weinhaus

ted(This is the remembrance speech that Robin gave at her Father’s funeral.  I thought it amazing and beautiful)

I begin by starting with the end.  Dad died at 8 pm Sunday night. He spent his last day allowing his body to do what it had always done, keep him alive the magical way it could. His breathing was such a struggle and yet breath after breath he persevered. For days, our breath labored along with him, ourselves struggling with each breath.  In the end, the pneumonia won and we gentled our breath in gratefulness and surrender.

Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s many years ago.  He lived in a world where he could not express himself with his words and thoughts. We will never know what he thought.  But we did know that he had joy in his heart. He showed this daily to his caretakers at the nursing home. He showed his joy to most anyone who he could have eye contact with. Just last Wednesday, less than one week ago, he looked into my eyes, opened his mouth and laughed and smiled. He was filled with joy to see me. You could not help but wonder why he laughed and smiled but we all came to the same understanding that there was a shining, golden appreciative man inside.

I am grateful. I am grateful to have been taught by my father to love life and appreciate each and every moment of it. Even when life is tough and it Is not the way you want it to be, there is a lesson and a blessing to be learned. My father has been a great teacher to me. Continue reading “My Father, Ted Weinhaus”

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Damn it, you’re welcome

There is a lot of good advice in this short article, 19 Words That Will Make People Like You More.  There is one section that struck me most vividly as it has been a pet peeve of mine for quite some time now. From the article:

“Words No. 3 and 4: “You’re welcome.”

Sometime in fairly recent history it seems people stopped saying, “You’re welcome,” and started substituting, “Yep,” or, “No problem.” At the risk of sounding older than I am, I think this is a step in the wrong direction–at least in a business or professional setting.

Why? Because ditching “you’re welcome” for these other phrases changes the message. “You’re welcome” acknowledges that you’ve done something worth someone else’s thanks, while “no problem” suggests that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Saying the former phrase conveys that you think it was a worthwhile favor. That’s an impressive message to send.”

I first started noticing this phenomenon on NPR.  The interviewer would say to interviewee, Continue reading “Damn it, you’re welcome”

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So It Goes

kurt_vonnegutRobin sings in the choir at The Center for Spiritual Living here in St. Louis. They tend to end meditative/pray moments with the saying, “And so it is.” This sounded familiar to me and then I realized it is very, very close to Kurt Vonnegut’s famous saying, “So it goes.”

“Unlike many of these quotes, the repeated refrain from Vonnegut’s classic Slaughterhouse-Five isn’t notable for its unique wording so much as for how much emotion—and dismissal of emotion—it packs into three simple, world-weary words that simultaneously accept and dismiss everything. There’s a reason this quote graced practically every elegy written for Vonnegut over the past two weeks (yes, including ours): It neatly encompasses a whole way of life. More crudely put: “Shit happens, and it’s awful, but it’s also okay. We deal with it because we have to.”

~~ from an article by By Tasha Robinson, Kyle Ryan, Josh Modell, Noel Murray & Scott Gordon 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will