Home Briefly

After a cold Christmas eve at a hotel in Albuquerque--the heat in the room didn't work--I departed for home.  On the way back I sat next to a troubled male-to-female transexual, who restlessly alternated between a kind of grunting sound, and asking the flight attendant for peanuts or "something alcoholic."  After the first Jack Daniel's was consumed, the flight attendant said they were all out of Jack and had only "Woodruff" which she explained was "like that."  I had a strong feeling that woodruff was a non-alcoholic drink that only tasted like liquor, and that she was preventing a drunken scene through a compassionate act of deception. Do you know?

Anyway, I silently practiced compassion, feebly, but I didn't start up a conversation.

Once home, my fabulous practitioner girlfriend L interrupted her personal retreat to pick me up and then exchange gifts.  It was lovely.

Then the 26th and 27th were maintenance days, fixing and "smogging" my car, shopping, and a little meeting with Nina in preparation for seeing A Rinpoche.  In 2001, Nina and I cofounded his California group Osel Thegchog Ling, and needed to talk about what we and others would say to him at our annual checkin tonight.  After this meeting yesterday I went to visit Lama Pema Dorje and Kunsang, who were staying with their son in Berkeley.  He gave me a text (Tseringma dice divination) that I am going to get translated somehow, at my own instigation, then I helped with a few phone calls for them to help iron out some visa problems for one of their sons because they leave for Asia Sunday morning.  Taiwan is a time consuming hassle to get into, India is easy, for someone with  Nepali passport.  This I learned.