Jesus and Buddha walk into a bar...

I was thinking this morning on my walk from the MAX station to work about a conversation I had with one of my coworkers about two weeks ago. I happened to mention in passing friendly conversation that I was a Religious Studies minor in college. Typically I’m reluctant to mention this fact to people, especially coworkers, considering it is a touchy subject for many and I don’t think it is very appropriate to discuss religion at work. In fact, it just may be against the law. Actually, I don’t really remember what brought it up but what I do remember is the conversation that ensued.

A little background on me: I was raised in a Christian family, and was quite active in the church up until I went to college. My beliefs went through an adjustment period as I grew and changed and came into myself as an individual. Hubby’s family is, for the most part, Jewish with the exception of Hubby’s Mom who practices Bon. When asked, I typically respond that I am a Buddhist because the majority of what I believe is encompassed in Buddhism. I’m not going to get in to the deep recesses of why I believe what I believe, suffice to say that it is my choice and I have put A LOT of thought in to it.

Let’s get back to where this all started - that conversation. What it came down to was me trying to explain to her as how I viewed the Buddha in terms similar to Christianity. Somehow, I managed to end up comparing the Buddha to Jesus. This may seem to be a strange bridge but allow me to explain. Christians generally believe that Jesus came to earth as a means by which God could save the sinners from Hell. Similarly, Buddha found a way to escape Hell – in Buddhist terms this would be continual reincarnation and the suffering that is life – and shared. That is not where the similarities end. Both taught to love, be kind, be spiritually faithful, and one can escape from Hell. Now, to clarify, I’m not saying that the Buddha is “the savior” in the same respect that Christians consider Jesus to be their savior. Buddha (which means the enlightened one in Sanskrit) would be more of a prophet or a teacher, the one that figured out the key to enlightenment for the everyday practitioner (or Average Joe Buddhist). Buddha came in to the world as a Hindu and didn’t necessarily intend to start his own religion. Similarly, Jesus was raised as a Jew and probably had little intention of starting his own religion either – he was sent to put people on the right path.

I realize that comparing Christianity to Buddhism may seem like comparing apples to a prickly pear, but my personal understanding is that most religions when you take away the dogma all come down to two things: answering the question of powers larger than us as humans, and being a good person.

As ShoeDiva would say: “I’m just sayin’…”

What's in a Genre?

As I have mentioned before, I love books. I love to read and do so quite a bit more frequency than I used to. With that in mind, also knowing that I used to work at a small used book store, and being the daughter of an English teacher has made me a bit of a genre snob.

After yet another foray with my book club and a bottle of wine mostly between me and ShoeDiva we took a stroll around Powell’s to sober up. Giggling at the counter culture nick-nacks with ShoeDiva and FishSticks I started to think about my lack of experience with genres outside of “Literature” and “General Fiction” (This could have been a result of a conversation they had been having but the alcohol has wiped that memory from my mind). When the giggles died down I turn to FishSticks and ask if she could recommend a good bodice ripper to me. She looked at me and a smile spread across her face as she began to ask questions and lead me over to the Romance section of the store. I sighed to myself wondering slightly what I had gotten in to and sheepishly answering her questions.

Up until recently I looked down my nose at the Romance and Sci Fi genres, I could see why people might enjoy them, but it wasn’t something I could get in to. In fact, while I worked at the used book store I had women who came in regularly to trade the romance novels they’d blown through for a new set. I couldn’t help but wonder at the time what the draw was. I turned to the back cover to read the description on a Nora Robert’s book and had to keep myself from laughing too hard at the novel’s synopsis. Maybe I took myself too seriously, maybe I took my reading habits too seriously, but I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to read anything in that genre. Now though, the notion strikes me that as in all genres there are different levels of quality, and what better way to find out than to ask some who I know and trust?

Having fettered down her options down to a manageable queue of likely possibilities, FishSticks starts to hand me books from the shelf when I have two in my hands and she’s going for a third and I can’t help but say: “Wait!” I didn’t even know if I could finish one of these let alone three and the last thing I wanted to do was disappoint my friends after a tentative step into the Romance novel wading pool.

It was three days ago that I walked out of Powell’s having purchased my first Romance novel. I’m sure this book is training wheels for the likes of me – a story of a woman who wakes up a vampire and some innuendo thrown in. So far it has been a quick and overly simple read. I believe I shall now refer to the bodice rippers as the “Brain Candy Genre”.

Who Are You Calling Domestic?

I was talking to my Mom last night and telling her about how I had just made a batch of Pesto from the basil that I had grown – after I had done some sewing, and done a bit of gardening. Her response: “My, aren’t you domestic!” That comment irks me a little. What is so wrong with enjoying making things with your hands? If a man were to make a bench or fix a leaky pipe we would call him “handy” so why is it when a woman does traditional things she’s considered domestic?

I know that I can go to the store and purchase a jar of pre-made pesto, a necklace or a dress for the party I’m attending, or even as many tomatoes as I can fit in to my car but where is the joy in that? There’s a simple pleasure in producing something whether it’s sewn or home grown that you can’t get from picking it up off a shelf in the store. It may be more time consuming but at least you know what it is a product of.

I know that I made my favorite pajama pants, not some poor child laborer working for twenty cents a day in Indonesia. I know that the lettuce in my salad I grew from seed in my back yard, so I know it isn’t tainted with Hepatitis C or whatever the latest food outbreak is. The same goes for any other little thing that I create or grow, there’s a satisfaction in knowing where it came from and what went in to it.

I suppose that my adverse reaction is probably due to the word domestic itself. To me the word domestic causes a mental cross reference to animals that we have as pets or food stock – so domestic means they are no longer wild and untamable. The other image I get is the typical “bare-foot and pregnant in the kitchen”.

I guess one might even call it a cultural revolution that as of late gardening is growing in popularity and there seems to be a great number of people who still enjoy crafting and sewing regularly. My personal belief is that it needs a new name… instead of domestic just call me “make it yourself friendly.”

Eat the View: Part 5, “Rise of the Word Garden”

Every morning I get up at 5am and go out to the back yard to water my vegetable plants. Living in the North West means that we actually have day light at that hour, it’s not much but it keeps me from stubbing my toes. My plants all loved the heat wave we had a few weeks ago making them all double in size. I had hoped that would mean tomatoes soon, but then the cool down back to normal temperatures quickly dismissed that idea.

As one might imagine, I check out my plants every morning as I’m giving them their drink of water. I have had about half a dozen or so snow peas to harvest on my snow pea plant every day and my cherry tomato plant has tiny green tomatoes on it. The problem is because our temperatures have gone back to their normal range of the 70’s it is not really warm enough for the tomatoes to finish ripening. So, I wait. Watching and hoping. I know sooner than I believe I will have more tomatoes than I know what to do with, but a part of me feels a little like Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka jumping up and down and screaming “I want it now!” I’m still learning that I can’t rush nature.

ShoeDiva came over on Sunday night to have dinner watch the season premiere of True Blood and in the down time between eating and the show starting we sat out in the garden with a bottle of “3 Buck Chuck” and began to talk. Like they say, one thing led to another, and we ended up naming all of the plants in my garden. We stayed with a theme of author names and tried to match them with the plant’s characteristics (did I mention there was a bottle of wine involved?): my two zucchini plants ended up with the names Poe and Wilde, the snow peas are Hemingway, the strawberry plants are Dr. Suess, my Shady Lady tomato plant is Plath, and the basil is Doyle. The list goes on, but I won’t venture to try to remember all of them. Being the intelligent ladies that we are, because we don’t want me to forget all of these fabulous titles we have bestowed upon these plants we wrote the names on popsicle sticks and put them in the soil next to the plant. Now I’ll never forget that my Lemon Verbena plant has been dubbed Lincoln Steffens.

What's the opposite of a "Pity Party"?

I am feeling full of deep thoughts this morning. I think it may have something to do with the big thunderstorm that rolled through yesterday evening. It seems like it hit all of a sudden, and after a torrential downpour, thunder & lightning and perhaps even a little hail, by the time I had finished cooking dinner it was all done.

Hubby's dad (MusicMan) has been doing something daily that I find intriguing. I guess he's been feeling down about the housing market and the balance between work and life so his business coach advised him to get up a little earlier every day and do something he loved before he started going through his routine of getting ready for the day. So MusicMan has started emailing every morning his thoughts on life. He started out with a group of ten or so people and Hubby tells me that MusicMan is now up to 50 on his list. Hubby forwarded the emails to me (MusicMan is titling them "Passion Party", the opposite of "Pity Party") and I read through the first 9 of his emails this morning. WOW. They are really simple observations on life, but you can tell that he's pouring his soul in to them.

I hadn't really thought about it much, but I think that I have my own little "Passion Party" every morning when I water my garden. It was still raining this morning so I didn't water my plants when I let Cleo out... & I kind of was disappointed about that. Like I said, I hadn't realized that watering my plants is kind of like a morning meditation for me - doing something I enjoy before I get my day started. And I do it every morning.

I hope you're doing something for yourself lately.

A "Material Girl" I'm Not

Day one of the month of June and I already feel summer in the air. I feel like we hardly got spring first but that’s just fine with me. I love spring and summer in Portland they’re nothing like what I grew up with in Sacramento – it just feels like there’s so much more life in the heat of summer here.

With the heat of summer comes a change in wardrobe. Everyone sheds their big wool coats, knitted scarves, and rain hats for sun glasses, strappy sandals and short sleeve shirts. Now, let me get one thing out there, I am not nor have ever been what you might call a girly girl. I like to think that I’m in touch with my femininity but not obsessed with it. To be completely honest, I haven’t really been too concerned with fashion until the last year or two and even then I’m all for function over fashion. I won’t pin-point all of my evolutions here for you, though if asked I could likely tell you.

I don’t know if my evolution in to femininity is a result of me growing up or a result of the world in which I live and work. Given, I put more energy in to how I look in my office setting than I do at home or with friends. I find that if I have extra money I would rather spend it on a dinner out than a new pair of shoes. That doesn’t mean that I don’t look at a nice pair of heels and think “Damn, my legs would look nice in those.” I may think that, but I likely won’t be able to bring myself to spend over $50 on an item of clothing. Heck, I spent $20 on the cocktail dress for my company holiday party last year, and then another $10 on jewelry and I’ve worn the outfit three times. Though I can’t tell if that is just being frugal or me thinking that fashion isn’t worth all the money people put in to it.

I can’t put my finger on what makes me feel how I do. I just know that I am not “a material girl” or “high maintenance,” I do know that I like to feel like I look good but don’t feel like I have to be fully “done up” to go grocery shopping. I’m sure I could go on for pages about the evils of the fashion industry, but I won’t waste anyone’s time with that.

In the end I think what this all means is that I’m growing more comfortable skin. I think that’s all really anyone can ask for.

Eat the View: Part 4, Back to "The Word Garden"

The weather forecast predicted a high in the upper 70s over this past weekend, something for Portlanders to get excited about and cause to start making plans to be outside all day. I had ordered some tomato starts to be delivered in the beginning of April, and while I received them at their promised date, they have been relegated to living in our garden window until the weather was more appropriate for putting them in their permanent home outside. In the meantime, I have watched them inch ever higher and waiting impatiently for the day when they will start producing. Luckily I’ve had other things in the garden to be focusing my attention on to abate my “limited tomato based thinking”. While Hubby ran around mowing the lawn and other important yard tasks I took advantage of the warm weather and decided that my tomato plants would be able to survive outside now that the lows are hovering around fifty degrees.

Toward the end of March I planted four Oregon Snow Pea seeds in the hopes that one would sprout and produce snow peas for us to enjoy through the season. Much to my happy surprise all four sprouted and have been growing ever skyward. Noticing that they were starting to climb on one another I improvised a trellis with a tomato cage that wouldn’t come to use for a little while and strung some gardener’s twine diagonally between the bars to give the peas something else for their little tendrils to wrap around. When ShoeDiva came over to help me pull weeds on Saturday, she was shocked at the growth of the snow peas in the month since she had last seen them. Truth be told, I’m a little amazed at how quickly they’re growing too. But seeing as neither of us has really had any experience with veggie gardening our surprise should be no surprise.

The Guilty Conscience Strikes Again

I’ve written about this before – but I think it is a common topic among writers – finding inspiration. I have been so busy traveling for work lately that I have all but forgotten about my blogging duties. That could be just an excuse, but I’ll never tell if it is or not. Technically, I’m already doing better about my blogging consistency than I was last year and that is probably a good thing. I think I have subconsciously committed myself to posting to my blog at least once a week whether it’s a second hand article or I’m just “phoning it in”, and when I don’t I feel guilty. So I suppose that’s where blogs like this come in.

On my commute to work this morning I spent some time on the MAX thinking about what I should blog about next. I don’t want my posts to be too garden-centric, so I ruled that out. I don’t want to post about work or traveling for work, although that may come up at a later date, I’m tired of thinking about it right now. But again I come back to feeling like I’m writing for an audience and not for myself. In reality I should just be writing about whatever I want to write about and not what I think people might want to read. So, I guess ultimately this blog post is just going to be two things: me feeling guilty for not posting, and me not knowing what to write. Maybe I should just take the advice of my college professors and all of those years of participating in NaNoWirMo and just sit down with the intention to write and something will be produced. Lovely, I’m sure that will be incredibly entertaining.

I don’t know if anyone that I don’t know is reading this or not, but if you are reading this and would like me to write about something feel free to leave a comment. Cheers!