Powerful Friends

Let your friends do your work for you.

Time is one of your friends.
No force on earth is more powerful than time. Get to be buddies with it and it will be happy to do you favors, both big and small.
One small example; I have learned to ask of time to help wash the dishes. I used to work hard, using lots of soap and elbow grease to try to scrub baked crusty stuff off of a dish, mostly because I didn't want to spend a lot of time at the task. Now I put the crusty dish under water and let time do most of the work. I come back and help once in a while. We make a good team.
There are many big examples too.

Bugs are friends.
What I loosely call "bugs" do most of the biological work in the world. Getting comfortable with them is important to being comfortable on earth. As we encourage the most helpful bugs, they will help clean and recycle and defend us from unhealthy bugs.

The Teacher is on duty

Yesterday I was low on personal energy due to a 24 hour flu bug. I was tired of everything and wondering why the hell I'm working so hard and investing so much in our crazy venture. There must be better things to do with my time and money; certainly easier things.

Tonight I'm feeling better and started reading some blogs.
Whamo!!
A series of lessons lined up to beat me in the face and say
"THIS is why you are working!"

It started with "How to save the world " Saturday Links
And led to Earth in imminent peril
Then Birds vanishing
Then Climate change and battles for resources will set the world aflame
And Climate change blamed as Lake Superior Shrinks
and more stuff... but you get the idea

Amy update

6:00
Amy is doing her own blog now.

Lynn called at 3:30. Amy is at Mayo and doing well at the moment. She is hydrated and not in pain; just slightly nauseated; not even on an IV. Doctors are running tests. Colin is still with Amy. Lynn and Ruth are going to bed.


Background:
Amy was feeling good in the morning (Wednesday) and even walked 1/2 way to work. By 2:00 she started getting sick and went home. By evening she was in pain, had blood in her stool and bad diarrhea.

She went into the emergency room at Brainerd. Her white blood count was very high. After a little consulting, they decided not to mess with it, and to ship her to Mayo by ambulance.

Life happens

Babysitting on a regular basis lately is keeping me a full time grampa. That tends to eat up the words, time, and energy that I might otherwise have spent blogging.

So... rather than writing clever insights into life, I'm living it for a while.

Password woes

I seemed to be stuck in a perpetual loop. Google (blogspot) seemed determined not to let me change my password, but I finally got it done.

Maybe now I can use this site more often.

Storage

Lynn asked me to find a place to store this telephone number if we need to reach Ruth and Nathan. This is the most accessible place I could think of.


Dear Family:

On Monday May 21, we leave for our two-week trip to Hungary, etc. We return home on June 6, 2007.

Here's how to reach us.
1. Dial 1-866-305-6462

2. Then dial our global premium mobile number 447924078640

Please call only in case of an emergency.

With much love,

Denny and Ruth Talbot

Quotes that struck me today

We don't see things as they are, but as we are.-Anais Nin
The world is our mirror.


Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be.-Clementine Padford


Zen meditation isn't what you think...

Physical addiction

We are hooked on fossil fuels in such a huge way. We not only built personal habits around them, we built our physical infrastructure around them.

We used to be able to walk to the local neighborhood grocery store. Now we drive to a big box supermarket. Big box stores are located on big new sites where there are no sidewalks or bike trails.
We used to be able to walk to school. Now schools serve a 20 mile radius, and new schools are often located in the country, where nobody can walk to them.

It will be very difficult to change our infrastructure to again make it easy to live without constant dependency on cars.

This is a good analogy to what goes on in our bodies when we get hooked into a strong habit. Our brain physically changes as habits get ingrained. To change that habit can be as personally painful and difficult as it will be for our country to change its physical layout to reduce fossil fuel consumption.

Habits-R-Us

Habits are the only things that exist.

We are made up entirely of habits.
Matter is just habitual patterns of energy.
Neural networks are adjustable habit machines.

Habits can be deep and ingrained, or shallow and easily changed.
We can even have a habit of changing habits.
(It helps you be creative.)

Once we absorb and accept the idea that we are composed of habits, we realize that the hardest thing to do in life (change habits) is actually our deepest source of power.

I can shape and mold who I am and how I react.
I can make onerous tasks easy.
I can make dirty dishes clean without a thought.

I can improve my littlest habits slowly every day.
After 1000 days Just imagine how much better I will be.


Sow a thought, reap an act
Sow an act, reap a habit
Sow a habit, reap a character
Sow a character, reap a destiny
. old Chinese proverb

Power

We are walking around in a convention center. Several vendors are handing out free helium balloons and the little kid we have in tow has his fair share. To ensure the safety of his prized balloons, we start tying them to our cart. Suddenly a finger slips and the precious balloons float 30 feet to the ceiling.

This has happened many times over the years. Usually the kid panics and has an emotional meltdown on the spot. The sense of loss affects even the adults. The kid is inconsolable.

This time was different. Ethan (the kid) watched it go up, then he grinned and said; "we can get them."

Why the change?
Where did this new sense of empowerment come from?
He wasn't just given these balloons. He earned them by spending the previous few hours plucking strays off the ceiling. He acquired a balloon with 30 feet of string, then attached some duct tape sticky side out. He learned patience and motor skills as he fished for the balloons 30 feet above him. The whole operation also taught problem solving and people interface skills.

Now he knows he can act to make a situation better.
That brings a sense of confidence and calmness.
That is personal power.
It is also great entrepreneur training.

Catch-up

I'm not waiting any longer for the perfect inspiration to write a blog. Between medical dramas on all sides, excess meetings and an enhanced role as grampa, time has been slipping right past the log-in screen. So, I'm sitting here with a stuffy nose, a minor fever and a minor tooth ache, ready to write with or without inspiration.

It is fun watching Rochester learning to write blogs and handle money.

You have to marvel at today's temperature. If I read the history right, it didn't just set a record; it blew past the old record by 20 degrees F. I have seen entire junes that never got this warm. This comes on top of the warmest winter in the whole world by a huge margin. (note: further research tells me that wunderground is not the best place to do weather research. the real margin is more like 3 degrees)

Maybe by the time Al Gore gets drafted as president, we will see that global warming is moving faster than we thought.

DreamSpeak

Early morning; I start becoming lucid enough to realize that the series of challenges and frustrations that have been dogging me are actually dreams. I can relax a bit and not take them as seriously.
Then I notice a pattern...

Each of the dreams was about a building. Each building had maintenance problems. Each was a hassle and potentially dangerous. Then I realized that when you dream about a building, it usually represents your body. It makes sense because I have been surrounded by medical issues lately.

The first dream, the problem was some food we had left lying around in a remote part of the house for untold years. Now it is a mess. It is a potential health hazard and is real difficult to clean up.
It represents Me (and Lynn). We spent much of last week getting in depth physical exams. Both of us need to eat better food and exercise more.

The buildings in successive dreams had successively more severe problems. The last one had severe, actively worsening cracks in the foundation. Pipes and wires were breaking and oozing all over the place.
I think they represent Ian, who needs surgery on his spine before things get worse; and they represent Eric, Amy's friend who has a football size cancer tumor eating up his colon. I had been doing research all evening to find options for both of them.

Ian update

Raya got more news from the doctor today about Ian's MRI. Stay tuned to her blog for the latest.

Background research...
FAQs about tethered spinal cords

Going slow

As of this morning's x-ray, Ian still has most of the metal inside him. He is still being flushed out. They are about 1/2 way through the second gallon container of fluid that is being pumped into his stomach. His tummy is mostly distended, but the fluid is trickling through and flushing him out.

The poor nurses are cleaning up lots of messes. They are really nice about it.

As we slip into the weekend, you can bet there won't be a lot of professionals hanging around for high level testing and diagnosis. The doctors are talking about an MRI next week. It sounds like this may take a while.

Right now Ian is playing happily with a cool toy they gave him as a reward for being good (to distract him) while they stuffed another tube down his nose. He coughed up the last one after his nap.

Ian update

Nothing went exactly as planned.
We arrived at St Mary's hospital at 8:30 for Ian's 9:00 procedure. At 11:32 the procedure finally started. They put some tools up his butt to reach the coins in his intestine. While they had him under, a neurologist tested the nerves that control his bowels. There is function there, but it is weak. We don't know exactly what that implies yet.

They managed to retrieve one badly stained nickel. They weren't able to reach the rest of the metal due to a "shelf" of skin that made it hard to navigate to them. So they stuffed a tube down his nose and plan to flush out the intestines from the stomach side.

When Ian woke up with a tube in his nose and an IV in his hand, he was not a happy camper. He had restraints on his arms to prevent him from pulling out tubes, but being resourceful, he pulled the one out of his nose anyway. After that he stopped fussing and slept for a few hours.

Later a new tube went down with no problem. Now he is happily eating jello and playing with a cool little toy while gallons of fluid are being pumped into his tummy.
I hope this flush works.

Update from Mayo

This has been a medical week.
Lynn and I signed up for thorough physical exams at one of the best clinics in the world. (As long as it is in our state, we might as well take advantage of it.) Raya had appointments to find out what is happening with Ian's bowels, so we managed to get all our appointments in the same week.

So here we are... Lynn and I know more about our bodies than we used to. We are both basically healthy but need to exercise more and eat less meat.

We expected to hear that Ian's bowel problem was caused by a wheat allergy. Instead we found out that he has 4 or 5 pieces of metal stuck in his gut and masses of fecal matter dammed up behind it. Then the doctor was surprised that no one has told Raya before that Ian is missing the bottom two vertebrae. That might indicate that nerves don't function properly in his bowels.

Imagine 10 dimensions

I have often tried to stretch my brain to try to imagine what a four dimensional object would be like. Then I learned that I have to stretch further. The following video goes a long way to help.

When you go there, click on the rotating icon on the right.

Feelings of the week

It has been a busy week of playing catch-up.
All around me is life and death and life again.
My family members are growing older. As long as I avoid a mirror, I am not.

Everything goes slower and costs more than planned, and yet all goes well.
People are enthused. projects are happening.
Every day more people are coming to HUG for advice about some aspect of sustainable living.
Every day HUG becomes tangibly more intertwined with our community.
The learning curve is still steep,
and I love it.

We think we made contact

This morning we went shopping for a person who could be act as a local agent for RoundBelly to buy from the local artisans. Guatemala is famous for colorful hand woven clothing. San Antonio Aguas Caliente is a village near us that is reputed to have the finest workmanship (workWomanship?) in the country.

Today we made a special trip to see more of their work and to talk with the workers. Most of the weaving is done in homes and sales shops. I took lots of pictures. Lynn bought samples. Most of the women can’t get their minds off of an immediate cash sale. They don’t seem to easily grasp a relationship resulting in a steady series of sales. They all seem very pleasant and fun to talk with.

I want to be careful not to force an industrial model onto their artisan lifestyle. We shouldn’t order too many at once, or expect every piece to be identical. We want to make their way of life more rewarding, not kill it.

Finally our guide brought us to a non profit museum dedicated to helping preserve the artisan’s way of life. They act as a micro-lender to help people buy thread and such. They act as a sales outlet and a museum. They are happy to work with us to sell their products.

Perhaps we will want to set up a fair trade section in RoundBelly’s website just to promote such work from many countries.

Lesson from Irwin, the martial artist

Written Sunday

We are staying at a resort in Antigua, Guatemala. This morning we were four American tourists trying to decipher the Spanish language activities poster in the courtyard. Suddenly a well-dressed black guy appeared amidst us. He introduced himself as Irwin, from Aruba, and from the time-share sales office next door.

I have been to a number of time-share sales pitches. The skills of the salespeople vary, but the pitches are relentlessly high pressure and well organized. He seemed likable and helpful, but my defenses were up as he learned who we were.

When he asked us which rooms we were staying in, he immediately brought up the worst feature of those rooms (they are too near the traffic noise) and he asked us what we thought could be done to improve the noise problem.

It was a problem that we could have just complained about, but suddenly our minds were engaged to solve it. For the moment it didn’t matter that we were not acoustical engineers or that he was not likely in a position to make changes.

In what could be described as the finest move I have ever seen in martial arts, Irwin had broken down our defenses, as we all became part of the same team. In one smooth move that we didn’t even realize he was making, he found where we were off balance and then used our own energy to his advantage.

Follow through is important in any martial arts move. He brainstormed with us on the traffic noise for a minute until WE changed the subject. He continued to be helpful with advice about local things. He made sure we remembered his name. By the time he left, we had no fear or hesitancy about talking with him.

Later this week, if it comes time for him to sell us something, Irwin already has the hardest stages out of the way. If he makes these kinds of moves a regular habit, I bet he is a very successful salesman.