I just watched this video at the blog of an old college mate, Autumn. I think we can all agree it deserves re-posting, though we may each have our own reasons why. I'll let you watch it without reference to my opinions, which you can then read in the "comment" tab.

poo, Beth, and boundaries

A lot of outdoorsfolk say to watch the animals for how to behave in the woods. There’s an eccentric and controversial long-distance hiking guru named Ray Jardine who even feels we ought to poo as they do, whether we are indoors at the toilet or out. We should sit down, poo as much as we can, and immediately get back up. If we sit for hours at the pot, we train our bowels to excrete their contents leisurely. But over time, he is convinced, we can retrain our bowels to do their business and be done with it, just like the animals, and that this is actually healthier. But pooing is a rabbit trail; the point is watching animals.

I remembered that little Rayism this morning while I watched from the window as Beth made her rounds. She looked into a tire rut for muddy water, her favorite flavor. She meandered through the leaves, sniffing at one in particular, side-hilled down the embankment to the creek, and side-hilled back up. All along the border of the property she went, seeing what's new since yesterday, what's old.

She was a live picture of the concept of visiting your life’s borders, taking stock of yourself, seeing what’s new and what's old. This is something that can only be done in stillness, non-rushedly, even if there is commotion all around. Traffic buzzed by, cars and big trucks on the road, planes overhead. And Beth, apparently unaffected by these things, kept sniffing and looking. I want to sniff and look more too!

Sniffing out the borders is something big to me about now, because Jason and I are in a holding pattern, not making any sudden movements, and it's a good time to take stock. A lot has been on our collective mind. I will blog about it soon, but in a different entry or it'd be way too long.

Great Falls Park with Brie

We spent Thursday with our niece, Brie, at Great Falls Park since she was out of school. She is very interested in Biology, so Jason had a hoot discussing animal behavior, bird tail shapes, and tree types with her. If things got too technical for me, I simply sang, "High on a hill was a lonely goatherd. Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo. Loud was the voice of the lonely goatherd. Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo." - you know! From the goat puppet show on The Sound of Music! Brie brought up that song since we were on the Billy Goat Trail. And an appropriately named trail it was, with much rock hopping.

It was a stunning evening, finished up with an equally stunning supper of locally-made icecream. That brings up an interesting point. If anybody out there likes white chocolate, please. I am truly interested in why you do. I cannot taste much of anything when I eat it, which is why I usually don't. Does white chocolate have a taste? It's more just sweet waxiness, isn't it?

a few Christmas time pics

Ocean City / Steve & Darla

We went to Ocean City, Maryland last weekend and walked along the Atlantic coast. Here are some of our mini treasures. Aren't they cute all together? Even though in their days of living they might've fought each other.

We also walked along the boardwalk. Here's Jason, spending $5 at a game center to very bravely win us 37 tickets. With those 37 tickets, we were able to purchase 45 cents worth of goodies, including a harmonica, two erasers, and a green string. People might not be surprised by this - I have to say I actually was - but the harmonica did not work. It had a bunch of holes like usual but only played three tones. The picture is before I discovered this sad fact.

On our way back to Frederick, we got to have coffee with Steve and Darla, here for the holiday from Portland! He grew up in this area, as did Jason, and Darla and I are from towns a couple hours apart in Montana. Despite all that, we actually knew Steve from Alaska and hadn't yet met his wife of now over a year. It was December 23rd, and we planned to meet them in a gigantic parking lot in front of a sporting goods' store, rife with shopping humans. We both had car GPS's of our parents to find the place, as well as cell phones. With all that technology, we still missed seeing each other parked two cars apart. I mean, we were both at the far outer edge of the lot, two cars apart out of like 4 billion. Anyway, what a fantastic couple of hours we had together in front of a fake fireplace at a strip mall coffee shop, catching up on each others' lives and dreams, and discussing living with less technology, ignoring the urge to buy things out east here, the state of America's education system, and nature deficit disorder. It was nothing short of therapeutic for me.