I'm back.... I'm back from my New Year's silent meditation retreat.

I really missed this last year when I didn't get my registration in on time. This year, I registered early plus they did the retreat at the new center at Spirit Rock so they doubled the number of participants. This is a brand new residential retreat facility. It's huge and very very well built. This is definitely the 5 star meditation retreat place. The meditation hall even has air conditioning! (not that we needed it in December/January).

New Year's Eve was very quiet. (surprise). My teacher gave his usual New Year's talk where he talks about New Year's Eve being such an arbitrary thing. In the Bay Area, it's possible to celebrate New Year's Eve every month of the year with the usual Western calendar then Chinese New Year & Vietnamese New Year & it goes on.

Anyway...I'm back. I came home & dug in the garden. The previous owner had spent a great deal of effort buring row after row of glass bottles in the yard. They are half quart bottles, kinda like tequilla bottles. They've buried top down, surrounded by well established plant roots. I guess these were some kind of garden divider thing. Some people use stones or bricks. Others use glass bottles. Well, I'm trying to get them all out of the yard. That was my work meditation for the afternoon.

It was a quite pleasant day, digging in the garden...until the cat fight. One of my cats, Camille, isn't a very bright cat. She hasn't figured out that she's an indoor cat. She's a domestic cat. She's a small cat, as far as cats go. When I'm outside, she's often also out there in the yard with me. Today, she came out & started wandering about into the no man's land that's half cliff, half weed central behind my house. She's found the hiding place of the stray orange cat. They'd met when Camille was safely behind a window. That's when Camille can get as fierce as she pleases since she's protected by a sheet of glass. This time, there was no glass between the two. And the other cat is half again as big as Camille - and is a stray cat who probably has seen a fight or two. So what did Camille, the creature of very small brain, do? She started a fight with the orange cat. Not much happened beyond howling & some parries. When it started, I started climbing through the rotten fence, down into this mini-canyon to get Camille outta there. Then the orange cat ran away. I had a very difficult time getting Camille back in the house. She's fine...but I don't think I'll let her in the yard again anytime soon.

That was my afternoon adventure. That and laundry. My life is dull.

Stacey