How I made it through today is a miracle! My plane was supposed to leave at 9 pm last night from San Jose. I was up in Berkeley meeting with Ministry and Oversight, then a chance to spend Sunday with Jaemon and Tana and Jennalise. Got to the airport at 7:30 pm last night. No problem checking in, but then they posted the flight as an hour late because of crew problems. When they finally got a pilot to pilot the plane, he got antsy about some of the equipment and so we wound up not taking off until midnight. It was 2 am by the time I got home, then up at 7 am to go pick up the Monster!

 

So I've been dragging through this day and will go to bed early tonight! In spite of all that it was a good class today and there will be a long day to take care of tomorrow.

 

 

Spent all day yesterday preparing the handouts for Spring Semester classes, which begin Monday. Then after a little dinner I was off to Quaker Meeting to lead a group on the topic "What bugs me about Quakers." I expected to get just a small group and that I would have to stimulate discussion. Boy, I've been a Quaker too long (over 40 years now). There was a big turnout and lots that folks wanted to say. Most of the comments were about our process, which seems to take forever to reach unity on any topic. While it does seem we don't need to spend the time to reach unity on every topic, folks forget that for Quakers our process is more important than our product. Quakers believe that engaging in the search for truth with each other is more important than whatever issue we are struggling with. It's about community and about process. It might take 6 months to decide to move a bench in Meetinghouse from one side of the room to the other, but where the bench is placed is really not important. The 6 months of trying to reach unity is the real product.

 

Today I need to get ready for a Ministry and Oversight Meeting this weekend. I'm supposed to present a preliminary agenda for our annual gathering in August. It's gonna require a lot of deep thinking today. With the dark, dreary and rainy day today, I think I have a perfect day for it. I might even try to get in a wet run this afternoon. I love running in the rain!

 

Got word yesterday i won the lottery for the High Sierra Camps hike this summer, with one additional camp this year! Hurrah. So in August I have two weeks of wonder. A week hiking the High Sierra Camps in Yosemite, and a week in a music camp in Maine just before school starts. The music camp is gonna be lots of fun. It's at Meadowlark Camp. Here's the url: http://www.meadowlarkmusiccamp.com/

Grades for winter intersession are done and posted to the website. Ain't technology grade? I'll officially turn in the grades on Tuesday and have a few days off until the Ministry and Oversight Meeting next weekend.

 

No rest for the Quaker. At least I'll spend a few hours with my granddaughter and her Mom and Dad.

Today is the last day of Winter Intersession! Hurrah!!!!

 

A week off, which begins tomorrow with FLGBTQC (try using the alphabet song when saying it) this weekend. FLGBTQC=Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns. Being a good Quaker group they wanted to be totally inclusive and not exclude anyone. I've been a member and a past Clerk for about 15 years now. Love the group, hate the name! The group began as FGC, then became FLGC, and then FLGBTQC as more and more folks joined and felt left out because they weren't part of the name. Mostly I love the group because it's gay folk who aren't afraid to talk of their spiritual lives. We have some deeply spiritual folk in the group. In fact, some of the deepest spirituality I've seen in Quakerism has been in this group. Clerking the group a few years ago was one of the hardest Quaker jobs I've taken on. FLGBTQC and AFSC taught me most of what I know about being a good clerk.

 

I'm really going to enjoy being with these folks again this weekend, and then having a week around the house to get ready for Spring Semester, which starts a week from Monday!

Monster and I had a great run this morning. Up in the mountains just as the sun came up, with the crescent moon still on the horizon and the sky turning brighter blue every minute as we climbed up to our highest point. Below us, there was a dark and cold pond with ducks. Above us, the hills were turning green from the recent rain. Around us, the sweet smell of sage and the shrill sound of birds. The wild cucumber vines are sending out tendrils now, and there is new growth on almost every bush, though the trees are still not yet quickening. The trail was soft and still moist from the recent rain, so there was no dust. Instead it felt like a wonderful carpet. The air was brisk, not too cold, yet still the need for my white cotton gloves.

 

Although I'm still barely going barely faster than a fast walk, it's mornings like this that make me glad I'm running again!

 

Below is a picture of me and Chico, my dog before Monster who I had for 18 years. Based on this picture it's almost as if there is dog reincarnation...it could actually be a picture of Monster now!

Finally feeling human again! Monster and I went for our run this morning and we both seem to be okay, though he wanted to come home 10 minutes after we got out the door. By the time we got to the dogs he loves to antagonize because they're caged in, he was fine and enjoying the run.

 

Looks like my Wednesday Friday classes for Spring will be cancelled! UGH. No one wants to go to school on Fridays, so those classes don't fill unless they're early and this time they gave me two later classes. So it looks like they're cancelling two of my statistics classes and replacing them with a beginning algebra on Monday and Wednesday, which gives me a Monday thru Thursday schedule. Not exactly what I wanted. I love having Monday off because of all the Quaker stuff I do on Sunday. Oh, well. Looks like I'm back to a Monday thru Thursday schedule for Spring Semester.

Monster and I got into some bad chicken last night for dinner. Either that or I lost the gamble with the flu. I was up every two hours and in the bathroom. What makes me think food poisoning is that Monster had to go out three times last night, too. This morning neither one of us could venture very far from the house. Just a little while ago we went for a short walk and things seem calmed down for both of us, though I have no desire right now to eat anything at all and test things out.

 

The worst part of it is that when I was trying to rest I could hear every line from "Walter, The Farting Dog" coming back to haunt me. Any burglers coming into our house last night would have been treated to an awful greeting!

 

In any event, this is a day for Monster and I to rest and sleep, getting ready for the last week of classes and a week's vacation...

I've come down with a chest cold. UGH! Came back from my run this morning and it felt like there was fire in my chest. Barely made it through classes yesterday. Mostly very tired and sleepy. At this point it doesn't feel like the flu, but simply a chest cold. We'll see. I forgot to get my flu shot this year, so we're gambling! Thank God today is the last day of teaching this week. I'm limping along to the weekend.

 

One bright spot is that most of my students did very well on their second test. Over half of all the classes had B or better! That's wonderful! What's difficult to understnad, though, is that I haven't had a lot of drops. One class still has 34 students in it. That's very, very unusal at this point in the semester. So Winter Intersession is turning out to be an odd duck!

 

Saturday night I'm going to a bluegrass jam session. It's almost impossible to feel down when listening to bluegrass music. Like Hawai'ian music, bluegrass has the joy of life in it! I'm really looking forward to going!

I've posted a new album this morning of some great pictures from Christmas and from Tana's sister Linda's visit! Hope you enjoy them.