2006-09-05

Sleep stayed with me late this morning, a most unusual and enjoyable thing. I barely had the time to make my Camelot Journal entry before time for Morning Offering. The weather was certainly cooperating, with a lovely, cool night and dawning. Autumn seems to be floating into Kentucky quite early this year.

With all the rains we have had this summer, the grass has almost always kept growing, so even this late in the mowing season, Jim was slated to do all his customers today and off he went, to work through lunch and get the job done.

I spent the morning until 11 AM in the downstairs office, putting captions to Gary’s photographs of the Homecoming. Then Gary and I headed out to Dr. Aboud’s office. She had gotten back most of the lab tests I had initiated last week and those tests found no culprit. However she has become convinced by monitoring my symptoms that something is going on, so she is sending me to two specialists for further tests. I will have the joy of a colonoscopy soon, so I understand, at the University of Louisville Medical School, where there is a team of doctors who specialize in diagnosing the undiagnosable. We can have hope there! And she also will send me to an urologist, as she believes I may have an infection of the bladder wall, which does not show up on lab tests for urinary tract infections but whose symptoms mimic those. Both of those directions seemed to me to be quite sensible and I will gladly cooperate with the further testing.

Gary had given me a trip to a local restaurant, The Cheesecake Factory, for my birthday but we had never gone there, both of us being busy ever since July 16th. We decided this was the day, since we were driving right past the restaurant on our way home from the doc’s. Wow! The food there is wonderful! I had such a good time! Happy Birthday to me and thank you, Garissimus.

Arriving back home, I went back to Growler to finish the captions and worked alongside Gary, who was working on Maggie to clear the L/L Research Inbox after a long weekend away, because of the Homecoming (both Growler and Maggie are computers) in the downstairs office. By bath time I had finished captioning all the photos. I am, however, encouraging Gary to add to the captions as his sense of humor is so joyful that we all will enjoy his additions. Gary tells me he will be working with the photos tomorrow. The e-mail in the L/L Inbox was massive and he spent his whole day right there today, whittling it down.

I remain quite ill. It is challenging to contemplate normal creative work feeling this poorly. However my native intensity of desire to serve is pressing me to learn how to deal with this discomfort in such a way that I can continue to write on the Choice books. Both Jim and Gary feel that I specifically need not to task myself with this right now, but either rest or do simpler tasks than write. Both of these men have good judgment and they are probably right. However, knowing my own nature, I can predict that if this situation cannot be medically alleviated, I will eventually find a way to get productive again in spite of it.

For now I will simply commit to doing a two-week cleansing in preparation for a fast in order to reset my intention. This feels to me like a situation where metaphysical action will be helpful. A fast is such an action, as the abrupt change in physical action alerts the mind and spirit as well as the body that something is up!

After our bath, Jim and I relaxed for the evening with Romi and Gary. Gary offered the prayer after the Gaia Meditation and we all enjoyed a late supper. Romi discovered that my automatic back-ups on Traveler, my upstairs computer, were not working. I explained that I had begun shutting down Traveler every night at the end of my work day, as the keyboard had begun giving me signs that it was wearing out. Sometimes a letter does not type. Sometimes the typing of the keys does not result in any action on the screen. So I began shutting the computer down each night to rest the keyboard.

It has worked beautifully as far as the keyboard goes. However the backups, scheduled for 2 AM, were not getting done. Romi and I talked, and now the backups will be done during my Morning Offering time, by which time I have always booted Traveler in order to write the Camelot Journal entries.

Our sweet kitty, Sedgwick, seems more fragile each day now, and rarely sits directly on me, although he does sit on Jim’s broad chest still. However he purrs and expresses joy in our company and exhibits no sign of actual pain. We assume that the cancer has simply blocked his stomach or part of his intestines so that eating is impossible. Sedge gets a bite or two down several times a day, but that is all. We will see him through the gateway of physical death soon. So we cherish every purr and enjoy his hypnotic gaze – all his life he has had the habit of gazing at Jim’s and my faces, usually our chins, with almost an hypnotic look. The expression of devotion on his little Siamese face is utterly irresistible. Jim and I spent the last part of our day with Sedge, fussing over him until bedtime.