2006-08-07

After Morning Offering, Jim dove into the summer sauna of the day to mow and garden and I had the pleasure of spending the morning surrounded with clouds of papers, choosing the quotes I will use for Chapter One of The Choice 101. I am a strange figure, sitting in my office murmuring to myself the story I am telling in this section, then that section, coming to a sense of how I will write this; how the material needs to flow. It works for me, I think!

Jim surprised us both by stopping by for lunch! What a treat, as we stretch together when he is home at midday, which is good for us both. And it was good to see his dear face.

In the afternoon I worked on writing the first of the six sections I have chosen to divide the first chapter into. It came out on target as far as length. The mystical unity of all things as seen by religion has now been discussed!

I had just enough time before gardening to go after my suddenly crowded desk. Gary had put a batch of my mail in an alternate place not designed by me to be my Inbox up here in the bower office, so it was lost for, oh, about a month! There was a sweet packet from Pu and Peter in Britain containing a chakra scarf in the seven rainbow colors and a collection of wonderful birthday cards from friends.

I wrote thank you notes and otherwise cleared the desk, then sorted out cards and letters to go downstairs to mail or to archive – we keep all L/L Research mail for several years just in case someone writes with a problem, and also in case we are audited by the IRS, as has happened three times in our history since 1980. It is always good to be able to pull out great big cartons of mail from all over the world when they ask us if we do much business.

I must confess I have previously enjoyed watching the auditor’s face when we get out the big boxes of recent orders and letters. The expression goes from frankly suspicious to quietly resigned, but much more friendly. We obviously do have a non-profit company which is active.

Out into the yard I plunged, after hanging my pretty new cards on the office doorway for eye candy, for a brief weeding spate before our bath. I found one last stand of lily canes in the Wuthering Heights stone garden and got those pulled. Now I believe the yard is free of canes, except the little dogies that were not ready to come up yet. We’ll get those in a couple of weeks, when this hot, dry, August sun has loosened the earth’s hold on them.

Jim spent his usual relaxation time dealing with health insurance matters and then with packing up the rest of the Amazon Advantage orders which had come in while their many glitches kept Mick from accessing their site. Apparently so many vendors were unable to access their orders from Amazon that Amazon set up a special path for them to use while they repair the glitch. Was Jim grateful for that! He has now sent out all ten of those back orders. I hope Amazon gets their software bug-free soon, as this has been a trial for the technically challenged Mick.

On the other hand, Mick likes to retain this job of sending out the book orders, as it makes him feel that he is still working directly for L/L Research. He has to content himself with mowing lawns and paying the bills so I can work full-time for L/L Research, which is altruistic but personally challenging.

He was used to working full-time for L/L himself for over twenty years, so it has been a real process for him to release feelings of being left out of the fun, out there mowing away. It is a huge sacrifice, but it was needed, as we were unable to meet our bills with the trust which Don left us after about 2000. I imagine a good many older people, depending on the income from saved funds to pay the bills, have found it necessary, as we have, to go to work late in life to pay the bills. As Jim says from time to time, welcome to 3-D!

I was not well today and, sadly, neither was our gentleman pussycat, Sedgwick. He was not able to eat all day. Three months ago or so, our vet wanted to put Sedge down because he had been diagnosed with a mortal cancer. He said Sedgie would not last more than 2 to 4 weeks. So we feel very lucky that we have had three months more of Sedge’s devotion, purrs, antics and company. He has not seemed to be in pain or even to be uncomfortable until today. He and I do seem to be moving along the same lines of tummy woes, a striking coincidence. I have the perhaps foolish fancy that Sedgie is helping me get through whatever is wrong with my tummy by his illness. I am probably quite wrong there. It is, however, a peculiar coincidence.

We spent the late evening, after supper and the Gaia Meditation, patting kitties and talking about the arrangements in the house for the upcoming Homecoming. We said a most fond good night about 11 PM.