Eisenhower and Troops
While I was rummaging through papers looking for a teddy bear pattern, I found a copy of a poem that my dear friend Char gave to me years ago. I was recovering from the car accident in which my car was totaled. The policeman told me my seat belt is the only thing that saved me. A week later I received a notice in the mail that my car was being recalled for faulty seat belts. I was lucky.
Char was my yoga instructor. She worked with me for four years to help me regain a normal posture and learn how to walk normally again. She could see how much pain I was in. It was the worst physical pain I have ever experienced. On a day that I was feeling particularly discouraged, she gave me this poem.
She was like a surrogate mother to me, but she died before I could ask her all those questions about life that come up as you make your way through your 30s and 40s and beyond. I like to think she’s my guardian angel now and that she made sure I found this poem again on a day that I needed to be reminded of it.
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
I doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow. If you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own. If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
So some note to self (and for archive) from doing the tech support Christmas presents…
Outlook -> Apple Mail/Address Book:
For the Harmony Remote, set up the DishNetwork box to never turn off from the remote.
Technicians who come anywhere within 10 feet of a network or broadband drop to a house should recognize if their device requires a crossover cable to attach to a home router. Said tech should recognize that a cable is or is not a crossover when they test it with a network cable tester, or read the cable jacket which clearly says: 568A/568B which indicates a crossover.
Money does make some things easier, I won’t deny it. But the truth is, Eric and I both have learned even more how to creatively solve problems because of our shortage of cash. Things we might have thrown away and replaced before we are now repairing and reusing. Eric has gotten very good with glue. So far the mending of the 3 foot tear in the mattress pad is holding.
I’ve acquired new skills. I taught myself how to cut Johann’s hair from a book. I’ve been cutting his hair for over a year now and no one can tell. I learned how to bake bread. Now that is the only bread we regularly eat. Eric has gotten very creative using his knowledge in woodworking and home repairs. He also made a CO2 system for the fish tanks, which saved us hundreds of dollars.
Our latest problem to solve was how to cool the fish tanks for the summer. With the temperature rising, we had to figure out how to maintain our tanks between 76 and 80 degrees. The easy way is to keep the air conditioner on higher, but that obviously comes at quite an expense. The other obvious option is to buy one of the cooling systems we’d seen advertised, but that would cost us at least $200. plus the cost of the electricity to run the coolers.
Eric wanted to add filtered water ice cubes to the tank. That was a good idea, but I had reservations. We needed to reduce the temperature at least 3 degrees, ideally more, to keep the temperature within our ideal range. A 20% water change with cooler water will do that for a short time, but not a couple of ice cubes. I was also worried about diluting the salts and disturbing the chemical balance of the water. And at some point too many melted ice cubes could cause an overflow.
I asked Eric about cooling the air around the tank. Eric said the water absorbs the heat from the outer air temperature, but will hold it longer. How was I planning to do it? Cooling the air would work, but he was worried I was going to turn up the AC. I was thinking about the ice packs in the freezer and all the extra ones we had in the attic. Eric was very skeptical. I said that you don’t know until you try.
I could hear his eyes rolling in his head as I put the first batch of ice packs touching the back of each fish tank. I waited about an hour and then took the water temperature. One ice pack reduced the temperature 2 degrees! Eric took the temperature himself, but then had to admit that it worked. Two ice packs on each tank did the trick. We were even able to set the thermostat a few degrees warmer.
So now we are changing the ice packs when we turn the lights on in the morning and again at night when the lights go off. But I like how we saved that $200. and were able to keep the fish from cooking in their tanks from the summer heat.
I’m sitting in the Midas shop all afternoon, brakes on all four corners needed replacing. We knew it was going to be coming, but it still comes as a shocker. Fortunately I was able to get some work done up on a Plone test site for the department, and catch up on email. I got a bit more writing done for a pair of future posts at The Other 95% and one for later this week here.
Oh, and in related news… it’s official, Connecticut has the highest average gas price in the nation @ $4.21/gal. Yep, CT. has higher gas prices than Alaska, California or Hawaii! The good news is maybe the increasing pain will create genuine change?
Eclectic Echoes is Stephen Fry proof thanks to caching by WP Super Cache