We will celebrate and honor the Buddha’s birthday with the precept ceremony this year. The date of the Buddha’s birthday, also known as Vesak, is defined according to the astrological calendar, as the time of the Taurus full moon and is usually in May. This date corresponds to the birth, enlightenment and passing away of the Buddha. It is typically celebrated with meditation, partaking in vegetarian food, and gifting to charity, as well as taking the precepts. This year the Buddha’s birthday falls on the first full moon in May, which is May 2. May also happens to have a blue moon this year! A precept ceremony is a way that people can commit to live according to the Buddha’s teachings. It begins with the taking of the Three Refuges, which are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. These are often called the Three Jewels. To take refuge means to use the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha for protection. I like to think of “leaning on them” for support. Precepts are guidelines and are not the same as rules. Rules are rigidly adhered to and people usually feel they must be perfectly enforced. There bail bonds re many precepts, and monks, nuns, and retreatants might elect to commit to more than what a typical householder will.

Mr. P and I are odd. He likes to surprise me and I dislike being surprised. This has created some tensions over the years because I tend to figure out his surprises before he gives them to me. Happily, Mr. is made of sterner stuff and because he easily thinks outside of the box, he has developed some coping skills. He doesn't follow the calendar at all when it comes to giving me gifts. He gives me gifts when I least expect them. This past Friday night, he presented me my Easter present. I didn't even know that I was getting an Easter present. As he gave it to me, he did tip his hand with "It's time for you to start reading Evelyn Waugh again." I did know the present was a book by it's shape and was delighted to find it was Evelyn Waugh's favorite piece of work, Helena . So now I'm reading Evelyn Waugh again. Lately, I've been spending my time reading about Evelyn rather than reading his work. Again I am forced to say, hells bells, what a man! For the life of me I cannot fathom the reaction Evelyn had/has on most people. Recently I read a 1973 interview with Sir Pelham (P.G.) Wodehouse where Sir Pelham took a very ungentlemanly swipe at Evelyn Waugh: We recall Evelyn Waugh's elegant 80th birthday tribute to Wodehouse: "The gardens of Blandings Castle are the orignial garden from which we are all exiled." "Did you ever meet Evelyn Waugh?" Wodehouse asks me. No, I tell him. amazon books He came here only once. A very strange man.

I'm not sure I'm going to make it through the Dharma Bums. A professor of mine once said some drafts of stories of mine lacked what he called narrative drive–that sort of itch in the prose or the character or the situation that propels you forward. I have reached the bottom of the mountain and the story seems a little stalled. I will give the book a little more time to see if I have reached the end of the road. Because I was reading the Kerouac vw dealer los angeles hile relaxing in the lake home of some friends of ours, I realized that while I don't think the term "summer reading" is very useful, "vacation reading" is. You want to be reading something James Wood wouldn't review.

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I'm sitting in The Daniele hotel five blocks from our home in University City, Mo., watching Brian Williams report -- briefly -- on the reasons for the impromptu hotel stay: our power has been out since a massive storm front swept through Wednesday evening. We're far from alone. Nearly 300,000 households in the metro area are sans power -- some, like us, for nearly a week, others since last Friday's encore storm. We finally gave up on most of the contents of the packed refrigerator/freezer in the kitchen and the large upright freezer in the garage. We can replace a lot of it with a few shopping trips but a large chunk of the spoiled food was squirreled away as I cooked over a period of months; some was from friends. (Then there was the stash of Frango mints ... ] And yet, we are among the luckiest of the power-less. We were able to check into an affordable hotel with air conditioning (except for one very nasty night), online access, and wonder of wonders, OLN on cable so we didn't miss the climax of ford bonds he Tour de France. The hotel cut back considerably on service, closing the restaurant, not cleaning the rooms for several days, but still a plus, especially when considering how far some neighbors had to travel for a room or how some couldn’t get at all one during the worst of it. Ad, as my brother Edward points out, it's not like it's unusual for me to spend a week in a hotel.

The sooner the US gets out of Iraq, the faster Ahmad Chalabi accumulates power. He, more than anyone, has played us. Clever bugger. Considering the time and effort he has made in pursuing contacts with power-brokers in the US, I wonder which other parties in Iraq can compete in terms of access. Is Paul Bremer simply going to retire when he's done, or will there be some ongoing relations through him personally? In the end, I believe that Chalabi's wit and sense of ingratiation, and simple experience in chumming the US waters matrox video card ill serve him better than most of the other contenders for power in post-war Iraq.

I'm not sure I'm going to make it through the Dharma Bums. A professor of mine once said some drafts of stories of mine lacked what he called narrative drive–that sort of itch in protect wood he prose or the character or the situation that propels you forward. I have reached the bottom of the mountain and the story seems a little stalled. I will give the book a little more time to see if I have reached the end of the road. Because I was reading the Kerouac while relaxing in the lake home of some friends of ours, I realized that while I don't think the term "summer reading" is very useful, "vacation reading" is. You want to be reading something James Wood wouldn't review.

So this is what I have been up to today. Well actually that is the "right as I realized I didn't take 'before' pictures and have just started to rip the baseboards off" picture. Here is a picture of the nasty flooring and the dark cupboards without the distracting clutter. True to form it has been three times more time-consuming and more difficult than I imagined. No it really isn't that difficult of a job to do. The challenging part is doing it while also having Bryceton and Nethan underfoot! Single motherhood is not for the weak or fearful... it is crystal clear it is for CRAZY loons.... How else do you explain me taking this on during a Holiday weekend when most are BBQing and at the beach? Not only did I take this on but the landlord actually gave me shit about doing it. Had to get snotty with him and tell him the tile I chose would look a lot better than what was already recipe programs here. What a creep. I have lived here almost 7 years and he has not done ONE cosmetic thing to this place. NOT ONE. My dad has done too many things for me to even count and we have not charged him for ONE of them. Pisses me off. Ok I chose to do this because I have been spending too much time on the computer obsessing and ruminating about Nethan's health and trying to silence this crazed internal mommy alarm about SMA. Clearly having a cable modem connection and the mind of a researcher are not good when faced with all the possibilites out there.