Summer camp in India

Here I am, at summer camp in Mysore. This is my schedule so far.


Every morning, I arrive at the shala to do yoga from about 6:30 to 8:00. I consider myself lucky to have a later spot. Many people prefer to get a jump on their yoga at 5 am, so tthey can do the chant with Pattabhi Jois. While the chant is special, there are two days a week when I have to start at 5, so I will relish this later time spot and my sleep.

After yoga, the yoga students drink from coconuts and banter about their asana progress. Out of the three days I have practiced, I have skipped this once. I like the juice; I'm not always keen on the frustration over slow progress. Since I like where I am in my practice, I often find that I have very little to contribute to the conversation, unless I aim to piss people off. I don't aim to do that quite yet.

I go home; I peel off my sweaty, sticky, stinky clothes and shower. I am immediately sweaty and but less stinky. I have breakfast of fresh fruit and chai. I have twice tried to order a coconut dosa and both times been forgotten. It just isn't in the cards quite yet. I will report back.

At 10, I head to my Ayurvedic massage class. I am such a hippie. It's three hours per day for 17 days and covers the basics of Ayurveda (which means signs of life) and some insane massage. Today we learned the backs of legs. I fell asleep and drooled while my partner worked on me. When I wiped the drool off, I had to then dole out a massage for my partner. It reminds me of Thai massage. Same, same, but different. You know, because I'm in India, not Thailand.

At 1:30, I wander around, thinking about eating again. I have another coconut and a sweet lime. Maybe I go to the market in town. I met the incense kid there and he rolled me some sticks of sandlewood. That's the local specialty. Maybe I go to the internet cafe and write and listen to a sickenly high voice sing through lunch on an ancient-sounding recording.



At 2, I practice Tablas with my Tabla-playing pal. He is from LA, and he really likes living there. I am trying to discover why. After we practice, we both have lessons for an hour. My Tabla teacher bobbles his head from side to side as he tells me the notes to play. Ta, Di, Tom, Nam. That's all I know for now, but it sounds nice when I get it right.

By 5, I am ravenous. There are about 5 places that cater to the delicate stomachs of westerners. I really like the one above my internet connection because the view from the dining area on the balcony is miraculous. It's nothing but palms and wires as far as the eye can see. I have spotted squirrels and monkeys cavorting with the birds in the trees. Just in front of the distant horizon, there is an ornate tower rising from some temple or other that I can't seem to find when I'm on the ground. Every perspective changes things in Mysore.



After dinner, I read and read and write and write and I go to bed by 9. Isn't that something? I don't know when I have gone to bed at 9 for three nights in a row. Every night, I listen to the rickshaws and motorbikes putter along the street, and the children laughing, and the birds or some, as yet unidentified, living creature cackling.

I imagine that I will start going out a bit. But for now, I decided that since there are so many westerners here, I would like to do my best to learn somethings from Indians that I could not or perhaps, would not, do at home. Maybe I will discover a way to bring Tabla and massage together at long last.

Holy Cow

Thank goodness for jetlag. This morning, I successfully arose at 4:30 to get to the yoga shala by 5. I comforted myself by remembering that it was eleven o'clock in New Zealand. It was my first day. I worried about my yoga mat. I worried about underpants showing above my yoga pants. I was ridiculously nervous; I was the new kid on her first day. I would be so obvious; I would be the new penny in the batch. I thought I would fall down and bring anyone near me with for the ride. I could seriously injure a bunch of really committed and excellent yoga students. I could ruin their chances for yoga student achievement, or whatever it is that everyone is going for. I was pretty sure that it would be horrible.

But it wasn't. Duh, you already knew that. It was just a yoga class. In fact, Pattabhi Jois is like a lot of yoga teachers I have known... maybe because they learned from him. He teased us in the poses. He made us stay longer if we moved before he told us. He told us to inhale and exhale. That's a yoga class, right?

The most discernible differences: there were about 60 people in the class, and because the woman who showed me the way wanted to sit in front, they were all breathing their yoga breath behind me; the teacher was older than any I have ever had (but only by a few years); and I finished by 7 in the morning. Boy, that certainly leaves a lot of time in the day.

To fill it, I tried to walk to Mysore but ended up somewhere suspiciously close to my original point. I got in a rickshaw with a new friend named Caroline from the US and we ended up near Gandhi Square. I was on the hunt for something to stabilize power to my laptop; she was looking to retrieve a bra she left at her previous hotel. I assured her that she would never see that undergarment again when we saw that the housekeeper was a barely post-pubescent boy. He was sheepish, but conclusory when he told us he had never seen it. Yeah. It's on his pillow.

We found the market, filled with heaps of colorful powders and fruits and incense sticks and flags and silk. Someone took my hand and demonstrated the staying power of the pink powder by drawing a flower on my hand. The flower is still there, and I have my hand back. It took quite some persuasion to regain it. On the way home, two cows nuzzled each other in the middle of the street. It doesn't cause any traffic for cows to love each other here, even when they do it on the main road. And that's nice.

I paid Pattabhi Jois for my month of practice. I had a stack of rupees almost an inch thick. He took my cash flashing the bling on his fingers and the flash Nokia phone. He put the bills in a cash counter. In thinking of this transaction and his success, I am pleased to know that some people in the world acquire the wealth they deserve for doing good work.

The cow in the road looks like my dog

Bangalore, at eleven in the morning. I found an internet cafe with the help of one of the many, many, many, many men who offered to take me anywhere I would like to go. Well, that's nice. I thought I would just wander, but not having been able to communicate for a couple days, I thought that I should at least let my husband know that I made it to India healthy and happy and with eyes very wide open. Okay, well, they are open as much as they can be until I start sneezing from rickshaw exhaust.

Things are stacked. Cars are stacked on rickshaws are stacked on pushbikes are stacked the road. The buses are stacked with people and the people are stacked on each other. On my first day, I love it. The colors, even with a layer of dust churned up from the dry roads, are vibrant and shocking behind billowing puffs of exhaust. Bangalore seems to be experiencing quite a boom from the IT industry. Everyone talks about it. Everyone wants to know if I live in the Silicon Valley when I am in California. Thank goodness, no. (Yeah, like LA is so much better, huh?)

I go to Mysore today where I will be able to unpack my bags and make myself at home for a month. All indications point to easy internet use, and even more fodder to write home about. Fodder... I will keep it from the cows as long as possible.

Whoa, Sydney

My goodness gracious. Sydney is a very beautiful city. People told me that it was nice, but that Melbourne is better. Hot damn, I can't wait to see Melbourne.

Since I have to put everything in terms of things that I know, I would venture to describe Sydney as a cleaner, warmer San Francisco/Los Angeles with all the super rad sensibilities of Osaka. My little New Zealand-accustomed mind is reeling at the crazy height of buildings and my California-wired perceptions are confused by the strange sounds of the birdlife soaring through the streets. I watched a chess game become overrun with knee-height, white birds with this talon-beak that didn't scare anyone else but me. I really don't like birds.

Tomorrow, I'm heading out to the beaches, and I really want to take a picture of the entrance to the funzone on the other side of the harbor. I think it's a female face with crooked teeth and excessively long eyelashes. You gotta walk through the teeth for the fun to begin.

As a single traveller with a clear lack of itinerary, I managed to attract families from around the world seeking a photographer in front of the Opera House. I think I got some really nice shots for everyone. By the end of the afternoon, I was able to suggest different compositions to some of these families. Yep, making friends. My favorite family of the day: just in from Taiwan, the father was tired, the mother was enthusiastic and the daughter could give a shit about the Opera House. They had me take five pictures, each one directed by dad. "Yeah, something pretty. Make it nice. You're professional. One more. With the water. Okay, everyone move. Now smile. Done. Another. Another. Over here. Try again. You want your picture taken?" I declined. The daughter became more and more embarrassed. Finally, she just stopped looking at me and the camera. Aren't family times the best?

Just where is the grass greener, anyway?

This is what I see out the window, right now, at this very moment. Actually, the light has shifted a bit and the clouds have spread since I ran out on the balcony with the little doggie to capture yet another insanely beautiful evening. The springtime light that falls from behind our hill is tricky after a shower. It picks up the remnants of rain from passing clouds and casts rainbows right into the strait. Right now, it's particularly lovely. It's like a tribute to the day, except, the day wasn't really this good. I mean, it was okay, but not THIS great. It certainly wasn't incandescent.

I mean, today was a day spent thinking about leaving here. I'm calling the movers and talking to the bank and telling the little dog about her next great Pacific crossing. (She wags and slurps and then snores on the beanbag.) So committed did I become to high-tailing it out of here, I looked up the weather in LA. Sunny and 79. Surprise, surprise.

Today, I completely disconnected from this place. In honor of the status shift, I put on a backpack and went to the museum. I walked a lot and ate gelato and when someone recognized my accent to be somewhere from North America, I lied and said I was just visiting. At least, as a tourist, I can anticipate our departure. I can start craving the apples from our lovely garden in the backyard, and the pizza from Tarantino's or the butterscotch pie at Pie n' Burger. I'll start taking more pictures to share with friends and maybe reactivate my brain should I be so fortunate to become an employed attorney again. Maybe I'll stop saying "wee bit" and "quite" and get going on the "totally" thing again. We're packing up. It's time to go home.

But I'm taking a moment to sigh, just for a second. Because New Zealand is really beautiful. It just isn't home. I mean, wouldn't you sigh, just a wee bit if you were looking at this from the window in front of your computer in your own house? And we pay a really reasonable rent!

We left LA a year ago, not making promises to never return, but with the intention to make the most out of this tiny place in the middle of the ocean. It's a lovely country with a wide sky and more sheep than people. You've heard that, right? It's a country where the middle class can still inhabit the coastline, and the kids wander around on the beach without supervision, and young mothers park their strollers outside cafes and leave everything in them while the order up their lattes. Sometimes, even their seedling.

Despite all the beauty and simplicity and apparent safety, neither of us felt the commitment to the place that would keep us from responding to the wild call of California. When I visited family in June for ten days, I smiled everytime I heard someone say "hey" and "dude." "Oi" and "mate" don't do it for me; they're too sharp, too refined. I like the heavy eyelids and requisite smirk that comes along with a nicely expressed "dude." I like what that smirk makes us. I like the old guys who cruise on beater bikes along the boardwalk in San Diego. I like to watch the old dudes interact with the young dudes, the twenty-somethings who are growing little pots above their shorts and share the same taste in women as the old dudes. Sure, there's a lot of cars, and smog, and, well, a fairly depressing lack of social consciousness among the population in southern California, but at heart, the people are still decent and diverse and moderatley pleasant to each other. They say "excuse me" when they bump into you. If you make eye contact with someone, she'll say hi, even if she's really old or really young or completely shocked that it came out of her mouth.

In California, for all its faults, there's an aim to achieve something. There's a desire to make change. There's a inclination to enjoy what's out there. People want to innovate and work and be happy and look beyond the miserable aspects of the sprawling cities to celebrate the orange trees and the beaches and the mountains that are out there... somewhere...maybe off the next exit? Well, whatever, you can see it all when the Santa Ana blows. Even if they really can't see the physical form of these things through the smog, people seem to consider themselves blessed just to stomp the ground of wonderful California. And even if the wonder of California is antiquated or has been paved or turned into a strip mall, people are still pleased as punch to be Californian. Why that is, I have no idea. It's a party without a reason, but it rocks.

Hot Chocolate in New Zealand

Goddamn, I loved soy hot chocolates. I loved them in the morning. I loved them in the afternoon. I occasionally enjoyed them in the evening when I was feeling festive. For a time, in July, my love for hot chocolates became too severe and I suffered headaches at almost any moment when I wasn't drinking a large cup of cocoa. I had to make a change, so I faced my issue and started to order lemon, honey and ginger drinks. They are equally sweet, far less satisfying, and the ginger can give you gas. Thus, I am not writing about a new addiction; I am reflecting on my old one.

It is only now, after several months spent gaining the upperhand over my liquid obsession that I have realized the truth. It is not the chocolate that I was after. It was the damn marshmallows. Here in this lovely island nation, where the streets are narrow, where the clouds soar faster than time, where a day without brie is a day not known, and where a baked good is an afternoon imperative, the people know how to do marshmallows. They come with every cocoa; they will be pink or white; they are sometimes shaped like a fish and dipped in chocolate. Can you think of anything stranger?

I remember a time when my sister would stick fluffy, white cylinders of mallow puffiness onto a wire hanger and let me cook it over the stove until it was charred. We weren't really building s'mores or anything. We were just eating something that was left over in the cupboard. We never had chocolate, as our mother's reality never factored in edible luxuries like chocolate or, god forbid, cheese. Sometimes, we had graham crackers. Usually, we just slurped the sloppy mess into our mouths, waving our hands furiously to cool down the burned sugar on our tongues. So, my sister knew how to do marshmallows, even if it was just her desperate response to an extremely hungry and extremely cranky younger sister. Oh, and our inadequate food supply did force her hand a bit. I know, I know, blow your nose and be done with it. While we didn't have protein or complex carbohydrates in our youth, we always managed to scrape together some marshmallows for a real fine indoor cookout. That should make you feel better about my troubled childhood.

Here, it's different. Yeah, I have some food in the kitchen, but not much. Since my partner spends the better part of every day at the Company, it's just me and the doggie who need to eat in the home. She gets kibble and I get soup. Or I get cheese and crackers. Or chocolate. My diet in adulthood is the obvious result of my youthful deprivation. Go ahead and wipe away that tear.

Anyway, the point of all this is: the marshmallows in New Zealand are extremely delicious, and may become my fondest memory of this place once I return to California. Sure, the scenery is close to perfect here. There's no smog, very little traffic, and stars that you couldn't count on two hands and two feet. Those things mean a lot to me, but there is also the white, pink or fish-shaped marshmallow. There is no marshmallow in North America that melts quite so delectably as a Kiwi mallow in hot chocolate. Kudos to the Kiwis for their commitment to providing two or more marshmallows with every cocoa ordered. This could really put them on the map.

The Supportive Wife.

One of the many roles I have accepted by refusing to become permanently employed in New Zealand is that of the supportive wife. It is an important role, and not usually difficult to fulfill because my partner is super great and nice and good looking and all that. Of course, in some situations, the requirements of my duty can be somewhat taxing, especially when my partner has been abducted by the Company until the delivery of the Big Project. I think that the real challenge in this position sneaks up in my interaction with other supportive wives, or at least, in the comparisons I inadvertently make among us. Truthfully, I don't know that many supportive wives, or even just plain wives. But there are a few in town with partners at the Company who understand their roles well, and act in accordance with the everchanging times. My respect for these wives is enormous; I am trying to learn from them.

At this time, when the Company is rushing and flailing, rushing and flailing, demanding more time of its workers and frowning upon the maintenance of any familial connections, at least until this Big Project is complete, my instinct as the supportive wife is to hitch up my trousers and dive into the muck. If the Company wants my husband, with no promises to love and adore him in a manner somewhat less passionate, but with every bit of enthusiasm as I do, then I want to fight the Company. If they cannot promise to send him home in time for a late dinner, then I want to pow-wow with someone at the Company about the sublime difficulties I have in the kitchen. If the Company fails to make proper plans to run itself smoothly and efficiently, then I want the Company to know that their ridiculous blunder does not constitute an emergency in my little family.

To be succinct, I am ready to have a go at the Company, or some representative of it. I will take this quarrel wherever they want it; I can march with a brightly-colored picket sign, or I can pen an angrily-worded letter, or I can sit on the floor watching boats pass into the harbor as I pitch some inane trash-talking out to the world on a little-read blog. And I have to say, they are lucky that I meditate, because in addition to abhorring their crude and inhuman strategies to complete a very Big Project, I have some issues with the grammar they use in their fun-filled and exclamation point-heavy emails inviting my husband to yet another Sunday of fun-filled work. He was told this Friday, "Don't worry!!!! We are not alone!!!!!!" Umm. Okay. Are the aliens going to help finish this thing up so my husband can share a meal with me and still have energy to say words, like how we used to, like in a conversation?

Okay, okay. You caught me. Here is where I commence the comparisons. I know these other supportive wives who see this mess, register the appropriate shock and mild anger, then resume with their personal needs and interests. They don't obsess on the absence of an articulated scheme for success in the Company. They don't spend hours seething over the Company's negligence in refusing to coordinate research and development at a more convenient time in the Big Project's plan, rather than 9 weeks before the deadline. These are healthy women. These women know where they have power and where they don't. These women know what it is to be supportive.

Of course, the perfection of the perfectly supportive wife depends on the husband. There are many different types out there, and so we all get to be different in our responses to chaotic times. For example, this suppotive wife is quick-stepping over the Equator to India for a month. From there, I can march all day and night with my picket signs and my husband won't lose his job over it.

The one thing that I was pleased to learn today in talking with a couple of supportive wives who I consider very strong in their games: we all spend far too much time looking at realtor.com and dreaming about getting our husbands back. That, and reading Hollywood rumor pages. Imagine being married to someone like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt for Pete's sake. Being a supportive wife to those lollipop heads would sure require a lot of picket-signs; either that or I'd become a scientologist too and start flagging down the alien ships who are coming to shore up the Company's failures and see if they can't also cure me of my freaky pash rash. Remember, we are not alone.

Restoring justice and things of this sort

On the second Thursday of every month, I attend my Restorative Justice meeting. It's a fine opportunity to connect with new Kiwi friends, debate important issues in criminal law and sentencing policy, and listen to one really strong south, south, south, really southern south island accent. The fact that the accent issues from the mouth of a hilarious former cop who has found more meaning in saving lives than incarcerating them only makes the occasion that much better.

This woman is a youth justice coordinator, a particularly New Zealand position in a particularly New Zealand institution. She runs Family Group Conferences, which are a Kiwi invention conceived to help young offenders get some idea of the harm they cause through crime. The offending kid has to sit with his/her family, the victim, possibly the victim's family, and sometimes community members. They all have a say in what happened because of the crime committed. Then they get to say what they want to happen. If that gets done by the kid, whether its car-washing or housecleaning or anger management or drug rehabilitiation, then the kid fulfills the contract and stays out of the big house. It's the early model for Restorative Justice in New Zealand, and it has successfully kept many kids out of detention facilities and off the criminal path.

I don't just like this lady for her accent or her job, I suppose. I also admire her candor about her complete 180 from super-cop-woman to super-youth-justice-woman. Plus, she is married to a cop who doesn't like her aboutface. She says to him, and it took me three or four times to understand it, "tough." And she proceeds along, trying to bring a bunch of kids face-to-face with the problems they cause, and getting them to acknowledge that it stinks. I wish you could hear her say stink. Now, with me, she is a facilitator with a Restorative Justice organization. She is expanding her reconciliation movement to the adults. The best thing is, for reals now, she used to play netball in Invercargill. She grew up somewhere around there. That's why she has that accent.

Netball. It's basketball played only by girls who wear short skirts, can't run with the ball and have to stay at least three feet away when challenging the ball handler. Good defense is a slight raising of the one hand toward the girl with the ball, but nicely. No waving it about. Plus, only two or maybe three people can actually try to shoot a basket and when they do, everyone gets really quiet and stops moving to let the player concentrate on her shot. Netball.

Here are some words I have worked out from my friend's mouth:

Stink = Stongk
Tasty = Tes ti
Tough = two f
Netball = neep ble (hee hee).

Equanimity and shit

I am not going to get all yoga instructor on you right now, but I did want to mention, quickly, the benefits of seeking to conduct oneself with equanimity. I am going through this exercise as much for your benefit as my own. Okay, more for me, less for you.

There will always be change. And things will always stay the same. Outside, there is a man walking his black Lab. Just an hour before that, it was a woman with her Jack Russell. The Volvo is parked two spots to the left of where it was earlier since I drove it to the travel agent to amend my trip one more time before the increasingly frazzled, but slightly amused worker can hand me my ticket packet. I pay another amendment fee just because they have to print out another ticket. Once again, the new tenant is parking in our spot. I smile and say hi to her. My sister has a crap boss and got touched inappropriately by a man at work. Her crap boss didn't get that inappropriate touching is something people generally don't appreciate. The little dog took another dump on the walkway three feet from the front door. We are out of plastic bags. We are moving again, at the beginning of December. We will move to a city plagued by smog but blessed with restaurants open past 6 pm. We have to pay property taxes in two cities where we don't live for two houses enjoyed by others. We have to pay money for the accident fund in a country we will leave. We paid money to become residents of that same country. The Winter I hoped for never brought the cold. The Spring howls its beginning with strong winds. The custom surfboard I gave my partner for our anniversary is finally done. My partner is working everytime there is a swell. My mother is telling me negative things. The bird outside whistles as the dusk descends. The Labrador barks at a lost stick. The little dog sleeps in the beanbag. I have no new email.

All of these things happen or will happen or have happened, and I am going to remain calm because there is no good reason to remain frantic; I don't even think it is possible to remain frantic because the wild energy forces the mania to reassert itself in other negative forms that may include anger or sadness or insanity. Ah, insanity. Insanity could be an antonym for equanimity, couldn't it? We don't want that result.

My composure is my buffer to all the flying pieces of crap that seem to launch through the universe to collide upon otherwise divinely aromatic tidbits of existence, thus creating round little fragments of good and bad, sweet and sour, lovely and vile, yin and yang. It is the sugar and the shit, coming together violently to require that a harmonic life actually have the blessing of a little positive, a little negative. It seems to be the law. Who doesn't love laws? With an even mind, it might be easier to call upon the faculties to accentuate the positive smell. Who wants to sniff after a load of poop anyway?

The man who makes underpants was not at pottery yesterday. I decided to make garments in his place, just to try the experience on for size. The underpants I made didn't look hot at all, so I turned them into a vase. I will have a rather large stockpile of vases for any and all who might suffer a dearth of flowerware. Make yourself heard and I will deliver what you need.

This is just so sad.

I am ashamed and embarrassed by the failure of the Bush administration to adequately respond to the tragedy left by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast. I am sad and heartbroken for the people who have lost everything, including their place in the world. I am pleased to see Americans and others talking about the issues underlying the federal government's failure to deal with this.

For the past week, I have eagerly, but mournfully, read through the new victim accounts that have quickly found their way to the Internet, despite the obvious challenges of disseminating a story when electricity is down, there is limited shelter, and there is no food or water. I have held my breath as I read them, waiting to hear that something good has happened to the communicator. And I am constantly disappointed because there is no good outcome immediately visible. What could be good right now, with so many suffering, unimaginable numbers dead or dying, imminent disease, the complete destruction of a beautiful city, and the total upheaval of its very congenial people?

Well, there are some possibilities that people are starting to discover as they exchange their feelings of disgust and outrage for the inaction of the government of the only remaining superpower. This failure represents a huge omission that provides an excellent lesson for all of us who have a moment to consider it. I think that all those surviving through the storm were the first to understand the implications of the administration's negligence. I hope that in addition to helping the survivors reclaim some peace in their lives, all of us who are not affected personally can join the survivors in learning the lesson as well.

A very sad statement has been repeated, often and passionately and articulately and sometimes not, online, on the radio, on television in the last week. The government has failed the poor, black people living in New Orleans. It is an abhorrent idea to contemplate because it casts doubt upon so many years of work by so many civil rights activists, and educators, and parents, and children and common American people who have learned to love all their neighbors, regardless of race, over the nation's history. But its validity must be considered because this situation requires our full attention, thought, and response. The applicability of that statement to this situation is not just evidenced by the government's phlegmatic response to the storm; it is obvious in the conditions most of those affected found themselves in when facing an evacuation order with no transportation, no money and no ability to get out. This situation did not just occur because a terribly frightening level 4 hurricane washed over a city. This atrocity was permitted to happen because the government has consistently ignored the need to rebuild New Orlean's levees, to provide better social welfare solutions to the poverty plaguing the sinking city, and to restore the surrounding wetlands that could have bolstered the city's natural defenses, left weak from too many years of plundering oil from the surrounding environs.

Now, finally engaged, the federal government of the US is launching a public relations campaign alongside its dismally tardy recovery effort. Karl Rove is finally attentive to the problem, and has quickly set a new stage. The Republicans will start to blame New Orleans and Louisiana officials for the tragedy. The government will behave as though they have been there, on the ground, assisting the recently homeless and delivering relief. They will begin the masquerade of competence and compassion that has been the hallmark of the past five years of this administration. It is, therefore, imperative that we remember that it is not just a storm that has ravaged New Orleans. It is many years of leaving the most impoverished to fend for themselves, without adequate healthcare, job support, housing assistance, childcare, a living wage, and most sadly but fundamentally, respect.

We have to keep talking about the importance of every person, regardless of color or culture or financial status. We have to demand that a government exists to protect and provide for its citizens when necessary. A government does not exist to make a profit for cronies, and to neglect all those who are merely living as obstacles to greater financial gain. This is not just a matter of partisan politics; it is a matter of right that people have forgotten to assert in the recent past. In our carelessness, the government has nimbly plucked our guarantees of life, liberty and happiness away from us. This is the lesson we can take from this. It is the lesson that we can also share with others as we do whatever we can to help the survivors along the Gulf Coast.

I'll get off my soapbox now. Thanks for reading. One more thing: since the US government has allocated so much money to Iraq and so little to its citizens, public citizens, the private sector, state and local governments and faith-based organizations are humanely trying to fill the gap. It looks like Red Cross could use some help: www.redcross.org

Ahh, springtime in September.

Here is one of the more fascinating bits of trivia that I can share that could win you and your drunk mates a free round at the next quiz night at the pub. Oh wait, you don't really go to those things? Yeah, I don't either because I seem to have become a quasi-puritanical American yoga freak who gets a headache on one sip of a fine bourdeaux. I am such a refined party animal. My drink of choice, should you ever wish to impress me: Rasberry Lemonade, or as they call it in my homeland, a Shirley Temple. Pack those cherries in, please, and I will impress you right back with my cherry-stalk tongue-tying trick.

Onto the quiz topic! You never know when you will lose your mind and sink into a deep bout of alcoholism to impress your friends. On what day do New Zealanders believe that Spring has sprung? The answer is ... NOT September 21! No, here, it's September 1. What? Really? That's not what I learned in my traditional, although poorly funded, public school in California when I was, oh I don't know, 7. And I really can't determine why people keep insisting on persuading me of this. I ask them, "Is New Zealand so far away from everything that the Earth's rotation and position is somehow affected thus changing the date for the Equinox?" I will share two of the more memorable responses I received: "I don't know who came up with it, but that's the way it is." The other: "Well, it's the day we change the clocks back." Okay, that's not true either. Clocks remain where they were in August.

Where are all these people getting this weird information? This leads me to indulge in one extremely tangential comment: there is a car down the street with a bumpersticker promoting a flat Earth. Maybe on a flat Earth, the Equinox is on September 1. Ew, I don't even want to think of the math for that one.

In fact, this year, the Spring Equinox is September 23, 2005. The knowledgable pagans online even list the time at 10:23 am for New Zealand. Good for those pagans. It's good to know the witches and warlocks are paying attention.

This is the definition of the Spring Equinox as I learned it from my extremely quick Google search just a second ago: "On the Spring Equinox the Sun rises exactly in the east travels through the sky for 12 hours and sets exactly in the west. On the Equinox this is the motion of the Sun through the sky for everyone on earth. Every place on earth experiences a 12 hours day twice a year on the Spring and Fall Equinox." For anyone so jazzed up that they need a cite, I'll include it and add that there is a fine diagram of the Sun's very harmonic travel over a nice little person for those who need visual representation of these dreary old typed-out words. http://solar.physics.montana.edu/YPOP/Classroom/Lessons/Sundials/equinox.html

So, there we have it. "Every place on Earth" is going to have its Equinox on the SAME day! And, as the pagans have shared with us, along with their studious astronomy friends, that day is September 23 this year. As if it isn't weird enough to celebrate October showers bringing November flowers (hell, that doesn't even have a decent meter), I keep running into taxi drivers and grocery clerks and friends and pharmacists all wishing me, "Happy Spring!" Yeah, right back at you, in 21 days. I'm not going to prematurely celebrate that big day. You won't hear any Spring glee from me until I get my 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. Bring it on; I'm waiting.

Happy September 2.