Effort, More or Less

I know it happens to everybody, it is inevitable, obvious...but getting old(er) is kind of strange. You spend 55+ years of your life pretty much with out thinking about it and then, BLAMO..you have to worry about being in shape, or high Blood pressure or digestion or whatever. THEN you find you really do have to worry about such things.

I first started Aikido just before I turned 50, and while I was obviously not as robust as some younger people, there were actually a few times when I wore them out before myself. BUT, just before I quit a few years ago, I noticed my stamina was not what it once was and it seemed to take more to keep the weight off. And then I quit for almost 2 years.

Even after a few week of returning to Aikido I felt an improvement. But this Sunday I felt a cold coming on and by Monday after work it was bad enough that all I wanted to do was go home to sleep. Tuesday, the same. It just seemed my body was really old and tired. What a drag.

By today I felt a bit better but I was a little scared I would poop out mid class. But I felt I needed to clear out my lungs, so I rode around White Rock Lake. Not as strenuous as Aikido but enough to reassure me I was on the mend.

So why do I bother to even mention it? I guess I am trying to reassure myself that I am making an effort.

An Examined Life

A few years ago (may 7 or 8 or even 10 years) I read some wacky collection of liberal Catholic sermons where one homily quoted a Life Magazine article about a small town in Ohio that swarmed to the countryside to flush out foxes and then they beat them to death.

Anyway it sounded so outrageous that I tried to track down the article. Way back then the Internet didn't help at all. Yahoo failed me! So I found the nearest library with Life Magazine on microfiche since the only clue I had from the sermon was that it was Life magazine in the 1940's.

I went to the Richardson, TX Public library and opened the appropriate Readers Guide an tracked it down. I paid my dollar or so to print it out and the afternoon was complete.

BUT, I neglected to print or write down the date of that issue and I've always wondered if I should go back to the library and find it again. But I never did.

Then, this morning I was looking for something that I don't remember and landed on Google Books and saw a link for Life Magazines. It turns out Google Books has most of Life magazine digitized and within a few minutes I found the issue I spent an afternoon investigating years earlier.

Of course I had to spend the next hour or more tracking down ways to hack Google Books so that I could download my find. It is harder than I would have thought, and Google won't let you print all the great stuff.

My point is that, Wow, all I had in school all I had for reports was the World Book Encyclopedia. But now that I think about it I could have gone to the library if I had put out some effort. As with most things, I had better student study habits AFTER I was out of school.

And for today's bonus here is an ad from 1944, and I have no idea what it means.

FYI, the issue in question was 13 MAR 1944

Subliminal Message Not Needed

As we prepared to leave Aikido tonight (great class, Shawn did wonderfully) I couldn't help but notice that Bibliosk8 was even more slim and trim. He talked about his no or low carb diet and how well it worked. And the moment he said he cut out pasta and bread my mind imagined it and it tasted soooo... great in my mind's mouth.

I must be a marketers dream. No need for clever advertising, just say the thing I like in any context and I want it.

And driving home I kept thinking some Pinot Grigio would be really nice with the bread and pasta. I threw in some quickly roasted Asparagus as a nod to my healthy fellow Aikidoka.

OK, tomorrow, or next week, THEN I will get on my custom diet I developed last year which is basically a no carb, no beer or wine, week long diet and do whatever you want on the weekend. which actually matches Bibliosk8's version except I leave out the meat.

But then again, there is some stressful stuff going on and I seem to seek solace food an drink. We will see.

Things To Watch When Not At Aikido

I gather many people know all about Pomplamoose, I just recognized them from the Christmas car commercial.

This really makes we wish I was a musician.

Check out to cool lyrical substitution they made


Don't make me sing this part of the song
The lyrics are so bad
So we're going to skip ahead
To the single ladies part instead

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My foot still hurts. This may take longer than I thought

A Fractured Tale, not a Funny Fractured Fairy Tale

So...It is not a sprain. I have a fracture and I have to wear a boot for at least 3 weeks. No Aikdo, No bicycle rides, no exercise...just me and couch and the TV.

I hobbled Saturday, Sunday and by Monday I was pretty pathetic sight so I broke down and made a doctor's appointment.

Not much to do really...just wear a boot for few weeks because as ridiculous as I looked with a “boot” clomping around, I looked extremely sad dragging a lame foot about.

Oh yes, one other thing to do, buy some sushi take it home and drink some wine while you eat. And from the way I feel tonight that may be the game plan for the immediate future

Weakness Overcame Me

(from Darker Than Black Anime)

I was tired. I was weak....so I just went home after work and missed Aikido Class, i.e. I was a wimp.

But at least I paid homage to Aikido's country of origin...Japan.

I stopped by the local kroger for some freshly prepared sushi and took it home and ate it as I watched Japanese Anime.

Again I am intrigued by the cool way most Anime draws cats

Tongue Tied Dream

I had a dream the other night that I walked out of the house I grew up in and just outside the door was the Zen teacher I saw for 6 or 7 years. He brought a crowd of people with him from Latin America and they smiled at me because they thought I could speak Spanish (and understand them I guess).

But I frantically tried to warn them that I only understood a little. I said

Lo siento, pero hablamos solamente palabras simplice

I was trying to say I only spoke in simple words, except I was horribly tongue tied and struggled to say palabras and it was like my tongue wouldn't work right. And of course in my dream I know simiplice is Italian for simple (or should it have been simplici?) and I was frustrated because I couldn't remember the Spanish word for “simple” but kept saying the Italian word. Which is all more strange since the English and Spanish words are basically the same thing...simple = simple

AND I don't know why I used hablamos (we speak) rather than hablo (I speak)

But the crowd of people with the Zen teacher in the foreground just smiled at me pleasantly and didn't say anything.

So I couldn't say words and could not remember anything simple

We do not remember days, we remember moments.

I read to day that Jack LaLanne died (not the picture above).

I remember my mother watching his TV show when we lived in Kansas City way back in the early 1960's. I used the elastic stretch things she bought because of the show as stirrups on my rocking horse. And I remember him as an large biceped chap who was always happy. So he landed in the area of people who don't bother me.

Then I read this bit...
LaLanne said his two simple rules of nutrition are:
"if man made it, don't eat it", and "if it tastes good, spit it out."

He may have been a wonderful man and a great father but this is pretty hard to take.

Sooooo...in defiance to it's prescription, after a good aikido class I came home and ate some pasta (man made) with tomato sauce(man made) and Parmesan(man made) and some cheap Red wine (man made).

There may be some context the quotes but supposedly he used those phrases repeatedly. Anyway why live to 96 if you can't enjoy a meal like I had tonight.

I am not exactly sure how this relates, but I remember reading something by Ceasare Pavese about “This Business of Living” so I goggled him and found this quote...

We do not remember days, we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese

And for now at least I remember this moment of pasta, tomato sauce and wine.

I don't plan to, but if I do...tonight I die a happy man!!!
(Notice the three exclamation points)

And I ask you my anonymous reader..what can you say of This Business of Living!....?

Trip To Houston

Here are some pictures from my motorcycle trip to and around Houston this past weekend. I had a wonderfully pleasant ride with the Skeptical Walrus on Sunday which is heavily representing. Plus a trip downtown to an art fair.

Sick From Head to Toe!

Well... my cure for the common cold (see previous post) failed me horribly. Because I got a horrible head cold, (un raffreddore for all my Italian readers), plus I really hurt my toe on Monday night's class. The last time I did this was maybe 2 years ago and I went to the doctor and he told me I had sprained my toe. This time I skipped the doctor and just let it get black and blue (see above-it looks way better than it did Tuesday night).

Anyway Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were pretty horrible. But that is me just whining. However I will probably give my toe a break tomorrow and skip class even though I was coughing up a lung on Wednesday and missed that class.

What can I say...I am a wimp, after all who but a wimp would post a picture of their wounded toe?

By the way I think that is my second post of my toe, wow what a wimp!!

Harpo Speaks!

I missed Aikido Class on Monday and may miss it tomorrow because of family obligations. So in lieu of something of substance....here is my crazy cat Harpo
...
for those of you not versed in Marx Brother's lore, Harpo Speaks! is the name of Harpo Marx's autobiography

Look At My New Picture

I just now put a photo of myself in my Blogger profile. How do I look?

I only now realized there was place to put the blogger's pic. Plus I only now realize you can find other people who have your same favorite movies by going to their profile and clicking on those movies. It is not easy to find Italian blogs by clicking on the favorite movie Mediterraneo.

Snow Delays

Short version... Snow storm in Dallas last Thursday... missed Saturday's class to deal with side effects of storm... still no power at home as of Monday morning... may miss tonights class to ferry 4 unruly cats from temporary home to newly re-powered home base (we hope it happens today)

Circle of Life?

I'm torn about the video. It started because I was thrilled to see a coyote race across the road when I drove home after Aikido class on Monday. So I look to you tube for coyotes running across roads. And this is the one that captures the grace I saw on Monday. I mean look at the way the coyote leaps across the road and races across the field. I mean it is so damn cool! Way more cool than most human stuff an definitely cooler thant seeing a human run.

I am not a hunter. But I actually have more respect for hunters who shoot, field dress and eat the game they kill than the meat eaters that buy it at the store and would be nauseous if they had to cut up a dead cow. And I suppose there is an argument for thinning the coyote population but this video makes me sad. Ok, I've had a few glasses of wine and it is late but still...

I get the whole circle of like thing and even though I try to avoid the results of factory farming of meat I just have trouble accepting this type of death.

So look at the first part not the last. But I think it is pretty clear the video-grapher is pretty pleased with killing rather than respect for the grace of the coyote...again I get it, death is part of life. But still I feel more of a connection with the coyote than the hunter.

I missed class again today. I just felt too crummy to motivate my old keister to class.

---

I was thinking about a story from my "Zen Years" which comes from a story in The Three Pillars Of Zen by Philip Kapleau about Enyadatta...

Enyadatta was a beautiful maiden who enjoyed nothing more than gazing at herself in the mirror each morning. One day when she looked into her mirror she found no head reflected there. The shock was so great that she became frantic, rushing around demanding to know who had taken her head. Though everyone told her, “Don’t be silly, your head is on your shoulders where it has always been,” she refused to believe it and continued her frenzied search.

EnyadattaHere I will interject a commentary from Roshi Yasutani before proceeding with the allegory:

This “head,” of course, corresponds to the Buddha-nature, to our innate perfection. That they even have a Buddha-nature never occurs to most people until they hear Shujo honrai hotoke nari — “All beings are endowed with Buddha-nature from the very first.” Suddenly they exclaim, “Then I too must have the Buddha-nature! But where is it?” Thus like Enyadatta when she first missed her head and started rushing about looking for it, they commence their search for their True-nature.

Back to Enyadatta’s tale:

At length her friends, believing her mad, dragged her home and tied her to a pillar to prevent her harming herself.

Slowly her friends persuaded her that she had always had her head, and gradually she came to half-believe it. Her subconscious mind began to accept the fact that perhaps she was deluded in thinking she had lost her head.

Suddenly one of her friends gave her a terrific clout on the head, upon which, in pain and shock, she yelled “Ouch!”

“That’s your head! There it is!” her friend exclaimed, and immediately Enyadatta saw that she had deluded herself into thinking she had lost her head when in fact she had always had it.

When this happened to Enyadatta she was so elated that she rushed around exclaiming, “Oh, I’ve got it! I have my head after all! I’m so happy!”

View From My Roof

Here is the view after I raked off some leaves on my roof.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

it is not really snowing but i read this poem by sylvia plath and decided to find a picture and show a few lines and neither have i seen any tulips

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.

Aikido-less Week

I was sick last Monday, something came up on Wednesday and relatives came to town on Saturday. So no Aikido for over a week.

Today I rode around White Rock Lake in Dallas. Above are the Pelicans and below the water dogs fetching balls in the lake.

Man On Wire

After my bicycle ride I walked to the nearest Movie Theater and saw “Man On Wire” which IMDB says

...A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974, what some consider, "the artistic crime of the century”

It is pretty amazing and the video of Philippe walking and laying down on a wire across the WTC towers brings you to tears. Of beauty? Of magic? Of what?

But it really is stunning.

I saw it on the anniversary of 9-11 so it had some extra poignancy which might have been interesting to address in the movie (it was not).

Probably improperly I have sympathy for this guy, in that he does things that have no objective value. Of course my value-less hobbies are not nearly so stunning.

In The Heat of The Day

I really took advantage of my head cold to practice laziness, so missed Aikido Wednesday.

I got off work a little early today and rode around White Rock Lake. If you don't know, Dallas on a late June afternoon can be a bit warm. I don't know if it was my lack of exercise or the heat, but I was really pooped after the hour ride.


I even stopped to take some pictures.