Sitting Down To Meditate With My AK-47

Playing on the iPod: Something vaguely Irish-y with lots of guitars. Your guess as good as mine.

Meters swum today: 1600

Miles swum in July, Swim for Distance Month: 21.4

Take a look at this banner for a second:

I have great respect for Christiane Amanpour. I think she's awesome. She did a tremendous series on being a woman in Afghanistan that should have won all kinds of awards (and maybe it did.) She's my favorite journalist besides Anderson Cooper (I still wanna take that soulful, sad-eyed boy home, feed him a good meal, give him a hot bath and _______ his brains out; unfortunately he bats for the other team, or rather my team, or--well, he wouldn't be interested). But I gotta wonder where on earth she got the idea to call her new series "Buddha's Warriors." Uh, hello? Christiane?

I mean, talk about antithetical. In Myanmar, lots of monks got the snot beaten out of them recently for protesting 500% increases in the prices of gas and most foods. What did they do to deserve this? Pretty much march up and down the street chanting. When the guys with the billy clubs showed up, they didn't fight back; they just got pounded into the ground. I mean, there are exceptions - many Samurai were Buddhists, and they killed people for a living - and there's Buddhist Army chaplains (one who served at Abu Ghirab) and plenty of modern-day Buddhist martial artists running around, but for the most part, Buddhists? Warriors? Hard to fit into a sentence together. I realize "Buddha's Peace-Time Civilians" isn't nearly as catchy a name for a series, but somebody should have thought about it. Sincerely.

That's not gonna stop me from watching, though. I'm rabidly curious. I wonder if it's gonna be one of those, "This is what Buddhists believe" things that are always so accurate. Sorry, that's me being snarky again. This being Texas and all, there's plenty of letters to the paper that say, "I'm a Christian and therefore I believe..." as though all Christians always agree on everything (and even when I was a Christian I didn't agree with a lot of folks; Christianity is kind of God's joke on the term "organized religion"). There are worse letters about what all Muslims allegedly believe, and don't get me started on Wiccans/pagans. But still, it's very cool that somebody's doing an actual series on Buddhism. Maybe they'll say in the series how many Buddhists there are in the world, the U.S., or whatever; Buddhists never seem to show up on those Pew Research Center surveys of American religion. (Prompting my Buddhist monk friend to say, "But of course; Buddhists do not believe in answering surveys." Uh, he was kidding.)

Meantime, you might wanna check out this book. Heck, for that matter, so do I. I wonder if the local library has it. Oh, Joan...

This is your knee. This is your knee on the slab.

Playing in the background: "Food Detectives" on the Food Network, which just incidentally is a channel Jen should not be watching.
Meters swum today: 1600
Miles swum in July, Swim for Distance Month: 19.3

What we have here in this nifty graphic is a representation of a human knee. I think it's a right knee. If you'll squint at a little structure underneath that top knee bone, kind of on the left (your left, not the knee's left) you'll see something called a "lateral meniscus." Why is this important, you might well ask. Because, I tell you, it is this little structure that is causing Joan so much distress.

Remember when we went to get married in California? Well, the day before we left, Joan took a bad step outside a restaurant and her knee went "AAAAAIGH!!" Two and a half emergency room hours later it was determined that nothing was broken. And just now, three weeks after the fact, we're finally getting the MRI results back. Guess what. That "lateral meniscus" fella has suffered what we shall call a "radial tear." And that's not all: The inside of Joan's knee (I guess that'd be the curvy bit above the squiggly bit) is possessed of "stage III and IV degenerative changes," which is to say, arthritis. So Joan is headed for surgery. Directly for surgery. Do not pass "Go," do not ask your health plan how much this is all gonna cost.

Now here's the strange part. Every time I start talking about this, or blogging about it for that matter, my own right knee starts to hurt. Why, I have no idea. I was in a skiing accident some 24 years ago (having violated the Family First Commandment of Skiing, which is, "Thou shalt not follow Uncle Rod," who is, just incidentally, my father) and caused some as-yet-unknown damage. Every now and then, when it gets humid or a storm is coming, my knee makes my life unpleasant for a few hours. To have it simultaneously kick on and off at the drop of a hat, or a knee, is a new thing.

Well, there's only one possible explanation. We've been together so long that my knee is having sympathetic ouchies. It's a good thing we didn't have kids or one of us would be having sympathetic labor pains.

The Ultimate Lesbian Wet Dream

(Boy, that oughta increase site traffic...)
Playing in the background (badly); Jocelyn Pook, music from "The Merchant of Venice"
Meters swum today: None.
Miles swum in July, Swim for Distance Month: 17.9

Okay, kids, take a look here at the cover of Time Magazine. That's Dara Torres, age 41, a serious medal contender in the 50-meter freestyle at the Beijing Olympics. This is a slightly more flattering shot:
I admit I have a thing for the older ladies (I am exactly 18 months younger, thank you). Seriously, though, when someone who's 41 can do great things in a sport that's dominated by 20 year olds, the rest of us oughta have a prayer in heck, wouldn't you say? In a recent post I was whining about not looking like a swimmer. Well, take a look at Dara here. THIS IS WHAT A SWIMMER LOOKS LIKE. Rippling muscles. Six-pack abs. Eighty-inch wingspan. Jen's wingspan, for anybody who's interested: 65 inches from middle fingertip to middle fingertip. Joan had to help me measure. She graciously agreed to be interrupted in the middle of the Sunday papers for this purpose. She is a sport. She also speaks of herself in the third person when she wants me to add something to my blog about her, which she could do herself, but hey, I digress.

Anyway, if God had asked me what body I wanted for Christmas I could not do better than Dara's (though whether that's a body to be in, or a body to be all over, I don't think He was specific. I also don't think it matters. Alas, she is straight. And I am married.) And, yes, it's true that I took the body I got and did terrible things to it, but even if everything had gone exactly perfect, I would not look like Dara. Wrong set of genes altogether.

This week I finally got near a scale (the scale at the pool underweighs me by about 30 pounds, which is flattering, but not at all accurate) and discovered I've reached a weight I last saw in 1997. At least, I think it was 1997 because it was the last year before Beth moved to Oregon and we went to Disneyland on her Holiday Inn employee rate pass. Anyway, we were in Tomorrowland where they have these scales that show you what you'd weigh on different planets and I had this moment of amazement standing on the one for Earth because my weight was over a certain number that ends in two zeroes for the first time. I'm not gonna tell you what number that was. Here's a hint, it did not start with a one.

From 1997 to 2006 is nine years. It took nine years for me to pass this double-zero milestone and go up to my highest weight ever, which, again, I'm not gonna tell ya, but it was 40 pounds more than the first one. It's only taken A YEAR AND A HALF to come back down from there. That's a miracle. That's the hand of God. And here I am whining that I don't have Dara Torres's body. In either capacity. Which just goes to show that we human beings do a lot better and are much happier when we appreciate what we have; air conditioning, law enforcement that comes when we call (usually), three cats, a laptop, four functioning limbs.

I solemnly vow not to whine about how long it's taking me to lose this weight any more. But if Dara Torres ever wants to come over for dinner, a movie, etc. etc., that would be just fine.

Century Mark!

Playing on the iPod: Paul Horn, "Amazonia" from Brazilian Images (I'm not much of a jazz fan, but this one speaks to me)
Meters swum today: 1600
Kilometers swum in July, Swim for Distance Month: 24.4

I finally hit 100 miles in the pool for the year -- 102, actually, as of this morning. Very cool. I'm not gonna make 25 miles for July, but I might make 20 or 22. That's a big increase over the typical month (12-16 miles).

Honestly, the last thing I look like is a distance swimmer. Swimmers tend to be tall, lanky, and have very long arms. I'm short, fat, and have legs like tree trunks. I have no wingspan to speak of (little chicken arms) and a pair of enormous floater bouys (that's breasts to you non-swimmers) that play hell with my center of gravity. This should disqualify me (and it probably would, from the Olympics or something) but nobody on my team seems to mind. I think they thought I was kind of cute at first - a mascot or something. I even had a nickname. "Fireplug." Now I'm just one of the gang. And ya know, one of the gang is not a bad thing to be.

How far is 102 miles, you may be wondering. Well, ponder this: It's like swimming across the English channel. Five times. Later!
.

Rejected By Tricycle Magazine

Playing on the iPod: "Robin Adair" by the Black Watch
Meters swum today: 2000
Kilometers swum in July, Swim for Distance Month: 20.9

Dear Ms. __________,

Thank you for your previous essay submission, "Losing Gally." We are sorry we were not able to reply any sooner, as organizational issues kept your essay in the backlog for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, your article does not meet Tricycle's requirements at this time.

We frequently receive essays on insights and lessons learned from the myriad of phenomena that compose our lives (including cats!), and we enjoy hearing about how the simplest things can lead to the most the most profound lessons. However, we found your essay was not pertinent enough to Buddhism for publication in our magazine.

We are very glad you thought of Tricycle, and we wish you luck in placing your work elsewhere.

Sincerely, etc.

Not Pertinent Enough To Buddhism. I love it. Not content with merely flaunting its intellectual superiority and more-Buddhist-y-than-thou, Tricycle Magazine is now grading my relevance as a writer. I guess I am not surprised, just kind of sadly amused. I knew I should have called myself Ven. Gandalf Aragorn Rimpoche when I submitted the silly thing.

Course, it's also possible they saw my post about the DharmaCrafts Catalog...
.

Wetitude, Part II

Playing on the iPod: "This Moment Now" by 2002
Meters swum today: 2000
Kilometers swum in July, Swim for Distance Month: 18.9 km or 11.74 miles

Nope, I didn't hit the century mark yet. Very close though. Maybe tomorrow.

Swimming pools, on the whole, are not great places for enlightenment. Well, I suppose enlightenment in the Buddhist sense can strike basically anywhere, any time, but great ideas should pick better times to hit you than in the middle of a 400 pull descending. Why? Well, because when you gasp in delight, you're likely to inhale a mouthful of water, come up coughing, and maybe lose a hand paddle flappin' around tryin' to get stable again. It's always the left hand paddle, too. Dunno what it is with that. Kind of like I always get water in my right ear and not my left ear. What? Huh? Come again?

This is all the fault of an airplane book called The Wheel of Darkness, by Douglas Preston and somebody-or-other Child. What, you may ask, is an airplane book? Well, it's a book that you pick up right before you get on an airplane, when you realize much to your dismay and chagrin that you didn't bring anything decent to read. (I dunno about you, but to me, getting on an airplane without a good book is like crossing the Gobi Desert without a water bottle.) A true airplane book stands out from other fiction of its class in that you can leave it on the airplane half finished and never miss it. It's either that bad, that poorly written, or that uninteresting. In this case, all three.

In case you're not familiar with these guys, they apparently write books about a repressed FBI agent named Pendergast that gets involved in lots of investigations of weird arcane artifacts and folklore from places most Americans don't visit. In this case, Tibet. The artifact in question is an evil scroll that, when you look at it, kills all of your interest in your fellow beings and strips you of your moral sense. Kind of the anti-enlightenment, I guess; instead of realizing all beings are one, you decide that you're the only being that matters. There's a lot of Buddhist subreferences, which was why I picked it up in the first place. But don't be fooled. This book has as much to do with Buddhism as weird arcane artifacts and ancient folklore have to do with the everyday goings-on of the FBI. In short, it's the perfect airplane book, right down to the bad dialogue and forgettability. And there's all this plot about a luxury ocean liner and a frustrated captain and, I dunno, crashing on the rocks and killing four thousand people or something, but by the time we got that far I no longer cared. Hate to tell you this, but ol' Pendergast wasn't much fun even before he dealt with the evil scroll.

Getting back to this morning, though, I now have somewhat of a handle on where I get my ideas. I think they're amalgams of things I run across during the day and they just fall together in my head in such a way that I can Make It Work, People. In this case, the airplane book, two nine-volt batteries, something that Nicholas said in Mindbender and the basic interconnectedness of everything all fell together (in the middle of a 400 pull descending) and I suddenly knew why Roland was the way Roland was. What happened to Roland, that is, to make him Roland.

Backing up a sec: Who the hell is Roland. Roland is my bad guy. Well, kind of. He's not a nice guy, that's for sure, and he does some really nasty things, but once in a while I get the feeling he might actually be the only one in my group of characters that has any kind of grasp of what's going on. He might even be the hero. Anyway, nobody likes him except me, and I'm crazy about him, but that's mainly because Roland does whatever Roland decides Roland needs to do, and to hell with everybody else. For somebody who's so caught up in What Everyone Will Think Of Me most of the time, this is just unbelievably cool. But, something had to have happened to Roland to make Roland Roland, and that's been bothering me for the whole last book and a half. Then, today, this morning, I finally figured it out.

I called Joan on the phone from my car at the swimming pool's parking lot and asked her if she had a minute. She said, "Jen, I'm standing on the front porch with my keys in my hand about to leave for work. What is it?" I told her I had to tell her something before my brain exploded. Ever patient, she stood there on the front porch and listened to me rant about the evil scroll, the nine-volt batteries, something Nicholas said and the basic interconnectedness of everything. Joan is such a sport, she didn't even say, "So Roland looked at the evil scroll?" Well, no. Not exactly. But the evil scroll was an important part of the whole falling-together-of-things. Anyway, Joan's ability to let me rant and even say "Oh, cool" occasionally is just one more testament to her absolute goddesshood. Anybody who would put up with me is inherently a supreme being.

Anyway, I think I can finish the book now. It's about time, hey?

So how's the book going? you ask.

Well, you didn't ask, but--Spellbinder continues to go great guns. I'm closing in on The End, maybe fifty pages or so from now. And what do I do for my next trick? Well, howabouts getting the first one published so the second one can have some kind of existence? You think maybe? I seem to be stuck again. I told David two weeks ago I'd be sending the silly thing to MacMillan and then I didn't do it. I'm liking Spellbinder a whole lot more than its predecessor. Can you publish part two of a trilogy first? Hey, Douglas Adams wrote a five part trilogy and it wasn't even called Confession, Obsession, Possession, Repossession and Replevin. Okay, that doesn't rhyme.

Chloe the Cat just leaped across the keyboard and left a stray P someplace. Now I can't find it. I think she likes the laptop because it is warm. Which is odd because it's about a million degrees outside and when I hung up the laundry, I could pretty much take down the first pillowcase by the time I finished hanging the last one.

I'm procrastinatingp. Can you tell?

Wetitude

Playing on the iPod: Some track with a French-sounding name from Masters of the Renaissance Lute
Meters swum today: 2000
Kilometers swum in July, Swim for Distance Month: 13.5

Good news, gang - I'm closing in on the century mark for miles swum in 2008. 95 miles as of this morning. I wanted to hit 100 before July started, so I could make a big leap during July and coast the rest of the year, but that didn't happen. Oh well. I had a great swim this morning. I felt strong and could have kept going. I may try to do two miles on Friday if I feel this good.

The Funerary Belly Plate Scene

Playing in the background: "Tougher in Alaska" on the History Channel
Meters swum today: None. See below re: overslept.
Kilometers swum in July, Swim for Distance Month: 7.7 of 40.2

Good news, everybody. Despite my failure to find a malleable female with an available belly for sugar cube counting, I've finished the scene with the Egyptian funerary belly plate that caused such chaos and disruption earlier. Here's the relevant snippet from Spellbinder.
...

 He picks up the briefcase, which is small but oddly heavy for its size. It’s a good thing he hasn’t ordered breakfast because there’s barely room on the table to perch the thing on the edge. He expects it to be locked but it opens on the first try. Inside, the case is lined with black velvet, a drape over the center portion. He pulls back the drape and raises his eyebrows. A square plate of what looks to be solid gold, about the size of a hardback book and covered with Egyptian hieroglyphs, glints in the dim light. “I didn’t think you collected Egyptian stuff.”

“I don’t. I’m Greek, Minoan and a little Chinese. But I, ah, happened onto this one piece, you might say.”

“You might say,” he agrees, tapping the plate with an experimental finger. Definitely gold, and a high purity from the softness. “What is it?”

“It’s the funerary plaque from the tomb of Princess Ankhneferaten,” she says. “Amarna dynasty. She was King Tut’s great-aunt.”

Don Cristobal lets out an appreciative whistle. “Looks like she had a few bucks. What’s it for?”

“They stuck it over the incision, on the stomach, where they took out the guts. When they were making the mummies.”

He pulls his hand back. “I hope it’s been cleaned since then.”

She smiles, though it’s not a friendly smile. “It’s three thousand years old. I imagine it’s been cleaned a few times.”

He looks back into the briefcase. The eye of Horus winks up at him. “I guess you could melt it down,” he says. “Sell it for the gold.”

Iliana does a pretty good job of suppressing a shudder at the idea of somebody melting down a piece of Egyptian art. “I wouldn’t. It’s pretty rare. There’s only six in the world.”

“Yeah? Why’s that? Curses? Ancient magic?”

“No, because it’s made of gold. And it’s small. And portable. Tomb robbers couldn't resist them.”

Don Cristobal grunts. “Well, it’s awful nice of you, ma’am,” he says in a bad John Wayne, “but I don’t reckon I know what I’d do with–”

“You’d take it to Morocco,” Iliana says, tossing a business card on the table. “And you’d call that guy.”

“Fariq Al-Saud, Dealer in Antiquities,” he reads. “Ten Charles de Gaulle Way, Marrakesh.” He looks up. “Why him?”

“Because that’s who I stole it from,” she says, shaking her head at his denseness. “And he’ll be very happy to see it again. I’m sure he’ll make you an acceptable offer.”

“Well, it’s nice,” he admits, “but I’m kind of not in the market for an Egyptian funerary belly plate at the moment, so–”

“I’m not selling it,” she retorts. “I’m giving it to you.”

He frowns. "What are you doing that for?”

“I asked you to leave the kid alone,” Iliana says, and smiles sweetly. “This is just my way of saying pretty please.”
...

Thanks, again, Tammy, for making me sound like I know what I'm talking about -- always a challenge in this business.

Jenz Book O'The Decade

Humming merrily in the background: The air conditioner
Meters swum today: None. Overslept. Again.
Kilometers swum in July, Swim for Distance month: 7.7 of 40.2

I'm pretty sure I've plugged Mel Ash before, but I've just reread his book, The Zen of Recovery, and it's just so darn cool I'm gonna do it again. I stumbled uponst this particular paperback Stone of Wisdom during a rather trying time in my early OA career. OA, and all the other A's, have a spiritual component, in case you didn't know. For some people that can become overtly religious. I was in this "90 meetings in 90 days" phase where I was trying to go to as many meetings as I could (it helped that I was unemployed). I went to one that took place in a Babtist church in Mesquite, which, in itself, wasn't that big a deal (I've been to meetings in lots of different kinds of churches). BUT, this particular meeting was where somebody told me that I'd never recover until I asked Jesus Christ to become my personal Saviour, and this particular meeting also closed with the Lord's Prayer. Both of these things are major OA no-nos. One of the whole points is not pushing any particular religion but inviting each person to define his or her own Higher Power. And the Lord's Prayer to close? Even some way Christian OA people I know told me later that they thought that was pretty weird. I didn't know any better, though, being new, and I came away from this meeting rather mopey.

Look, I dig Jesus, okay? Guy was cool. Long-haired rebel, wise one, scholar, poet and holy man. Plus, everything he ever said makes perfect sense if you consider who he was saying it to: the Jewish men of his time. Calling them to be better men. Insisting that they take care of the widows and orphans and do what they were supposed to do, according to God's law. Not letting them get away with this "Well, the Romans permit this sort of thing, and they're the bosses right now" bullshit. Unfortunately for Jesus, the Jewish men of his time were much more interested in chasing away the Romans, and thought Jesus was this general who would call them to arms. Imagine their surprise when he said "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's"; in short, it doesn't matter who the boss is, do the right thing because it's right. Which didn't end very well, for Jesus personally, although it did sort of save the whole human race from itself. (Would that he could do it again.) So I like the guy. He's awesome. I just can't get behind the whole religion thing. It doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, I called Joan at work and asked if she could find me some books about 12 Steps and Buddhism, figuring A. there had to be some and B. she's a librarian and that's what she does. She came up with Mel. She rocks. I started reading and found out that Mel had exactly the same experience with somebody telling him he had to become a Christian to recover (from alcoholism, in his case). He goes through the Twelve Steps, one by one, and draws stunning parallels to Buddhist theory and philosophy. Which is awesome. And which, finally, cleared up my whole confusion about what to call my Higher Power. He calls his Zen. I don't call mine anything. Both are fine, as is Jesus, Allah, Great Spirit, or whatever else you wanna stick in there. The point is that you rely on it. What you choose to call it is less than important.

So, anyway, this is my new Book o'the Decade. Anybody interested in Buddhism, Twelve-Step groups, or a really cool beatnik writer guy who has learned hard and painful lessons and used what he learned to save himself from himself, would appreciate it. Find it. Read it. Love it. Tell your librarian Jen sent you.

ps. In case you're wondering, I'm at Step Four, and I've been there for months. It's slow going sometimes.

Swim For Your Life!

Playing on the iPod: "Catch the Moments as they Fly" from Celtic River (awesome!)
Meters swum today: 2100
Kilometers swum in July: 7.7 of 40.2

Well, just when water couldn't get any wetter, along came "Swim For Distance Month" at Dallas Aquatic Masters. Yes, my swim team has "theme months." Not long ago we had a "breast stroke month" and I nearly deleted the announcement when it showed up in my mailbox, thinking it was some kind of porno spam. But anyway. The goal of Swim For Distance Month is to knock off 40.2 kilometers, or 25 miles for you Yankees, in a 31-day time span. Since I was gone from July 2 to July 8, I only get a 23-day time span. What this means is, instead of going to the pool four times a week, I'm going to be there every darn day, except some Sundays. (And, I gotta knock off a mile and a quarter each time, or I'll never make it.)

What do you get at the end? A cool t-shirt and a pat on the head. This prompted Joan to ask why I didn't just buy myself a t-shirt and spare myself the trouble. But anyway. This was my third day. If my arms don't fall off at the shoulders, I think I'll be fine.

Home again, home again...

Playing on the iPod: Something from Celtic Solstice by our buddy Paul Horn
Meters swum today: Zilch. I got home a little before midnight and getting up at five was Just Right Out.

I'm back in Dallas. Not much has changed, except the pile in my in-box has mysteriously grown, and gas costs 5 more cents a gallon. Not that I'm complaining: We paid $4.47 in San Diego. Wow. The cats are all right, the weather is good (some blow and bluster earlier but no rain, darnit) and apart from being almost totally out of food, everything's fine. Tomorrow I'm back in the pool. It's "Swim for Distance Month" and I have 17 more practice sessions to make it to 25 miles. Ya know, if I showed up on time, it might even be possible...

Could somebody please explain to me why the most relaxing part of our vacation was the flight home? While waiting at the airport I browsed through Mindbender, removing -ly adverbs from page 400 to 500 (my God, will this mad crazy merry-go-round existence ever end?) Joan read Time Magazine, which was doing a special issue about Mark Twain (in a previous life, she either was him, or she knew him, we aren't sure which). Joan was in a wheelchair owing to her injured leg, so we got to pre-board, and on the other end there was a wheelchair porter waiting to help us with Joan and her luggage. The flight was only half full (American Airlines is so going under; you heard it here first), I didn't need a seat belt extender (a first in recent memory!) and I fell asleep a little after takeoff. That's my idea of a perfect flying experience. Only hot chocolate could possibly have improved matters. But then I'd have needed the seat belt extender.

Seriously, I love my family and all that, and my parents like totally rock for not freaking out six ways to Sunday that I married a woman, and they paid for almost everything, which, again, is totally cool, but being on vacation with them just stresses me the hell out. I dunno if it's that regressing-to-fourteen-and-surly thing that sometimes happens when I hang around a gang of relatives, or if it's just that I'm a lot more laid back than certain hyperthyroid others, but honestly, at the end of the weekend I felt like I'd been breaking rocks on the freeway. (You gotta admit that anyone who has a nice time flying commercial is either way stressed, or delusional, and I may be both.)

So, anyway, it's good to be home. And married. Did I mention married? Heavens, I'm somebody's wife.

Nuptials complete!

Playing in the background: The pool cleaner. We're hanging out at the honeymoon chateau in Escondido, CA.
Meters swum today: Hard to say. I was trying to stay in the shade.

Well, gang, Joan and I are legally married. It only took about ten minutes, which sure isn't a lot of time for the 12-year buildup. There were three other couples getting married while we were at the courthouse, two sets of ladies, a male Army officer (looking resplendent in his dress uniform) and his pretty female fiance (who looked about twelve, but then everyone under 30 looks about twelve to me). My folks were there, some of our friends watched on the Internet, I only cried a little bit and my sister was there via cell phone. Very cool. I was kind of unprepared for how this hit me. Course we've been married for years but it's still different now, kinda. Not sure I can explain further than that except that we are very happy...

SMOOCHIES!!!

Joan took a bad misstep outside a restaurant a couple of days ago and hurt her leg so she is limping around with a brace on. Nothing broken, fortunately, just a bad sprain, but bad enough we had to go to the emergency room, have it looked at and all that. So she's kind of out of commission which means no climbing Yosemite this year. I can't tell you how much that breaks my heart. We will be going to Balboa Park tomorrow, though, and I'll be scooting her around in a wheelchair. Not sure how well that's going to work. My sister will be there with her husband Mike, too, and we'll be scooting him around in a wheelchair (he broke his hip a few months back) so it'll be like Spouses on Wheels or something.

Back to the honeymoon. Later, kids.

Impending Nuptials (Take Two)

Playing on the iPod: Something from "Zen Breakfast"
Meters swum today: None. Little crisis with Joan falling and hurting her leg. Details to follow.

In case you missed it the first time, or even if you were there and you wanna see it made legal, Jen and Joan's Wedding: The Sequel will be broadcast "live" from the San Marcos Courthouse in northern San Diego County this Thursday, July 3 at about 4:30 pm Pacific time. Log in instructions follow:

http://arcc.co.san-diego.ca.us/services/wedding_on_web_static.aspx

Click on "San Marcos" on the right side of the book at a little before 4:30 and we should be there. You can also click on "Upcoming Weddings," below, to view the schedule. We would be "Condell & Jonsson," of course.

Thanks, California, for finally giving us a marriage license!

HUGS TO EVERYBODY!!!!

Love, Jen and Joan