Longer days and shorter nights

I love the long hours of daylight and evening twilight that we get in Seattle at 47° North latitude. There are 16ish hours of daylight in June and another hour of twilight before sunrise and after sunset.

I woke up this morning feeling very serene, peaceful and grateful. After a pleasant day of Kindle reading with fresh corn on the cob for dinner, words are not forthcoming to express my gratitude for today.

This is my 27th post for the month of May--which is about 5 posts more than my previous monthly average. As you might expect, focusing on gratitude has lead me to feeling more grateful than ever for the blessings in my life today.

I am grateful for longer hours of daylight along with the security of knowing that even a relatively short gratitude posts is plenty good enough for right now

Grand Army of the Republic's "Memorial Day"

Today is Memorial Day. It is best known for being a 3-day Holiday weekend in late May. Memorial Day was started by Union army veterans of the Civil War when they placed flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

The meaning of MD has evolved over the years to become the three-day weekend first and foremost, signaling the unofficial start of summer, then a day of memoriam for soldiers and for the deceased in general including friends and family members.

My brother Bryce died in a Air Force training accident in 1975, no other immediate family member within 3 generations has died while serving in the armed forces. My father served as a naval aviator in WWII.

The day my brother died is the worst day of my life. My family life immediately fell apart due to mom's alcohol abuse. Remembering those times is a mixed blessing. There were many negative events that happened during those dark days along with many positive events in my life as I progressed through high school from a sophomore to a gradating. I miss the dead family members that I knew and loved.

I am grateful for all the good times and wisdom they bestowed upon me when we were together. Today I will celebrate life in memory of the dead who passed before me including family members and those that died in service to our country so that we remain a free country.

Doing random acts of love and kindness

Studying and practicing gratitude has changed my life in the last five months. For example, it used to be really hard for me to give gifts. I would buy gifts for people and not be able to give the gift to them due to some sort of fear of rejection or painful comment on the gift.

This last week I was able to:

● gift a favorite waitress going on vacation a modest amount of cash and wish her a great vacation;

● give a friend a birthday card with a note that I knew would be funny;

● help another friend in a moment of stress to remember their mindfulness/meditation in a way that lead them to immediate serenity;

● suggest to a lady that was overwhelmed with deaths in the family to be mindful of the moment, it turned out she had tremendous mindfulness/mediation skills and went in a 10-15 minute reflection on happier times with family members;

● giving not merely a compliment but strong encouragement to a young nervous waitress doing a great job to have more confidence in herself in a way that clearly helped her be grounded in a warm positive place.

That is all new behavior for me. It feels wonderful to be able to help others with words & deeds in a way that I always wanted to be able to do in my life, but never had the skills, insight, and experience to be able to do it on a daily basis in pleasant small ways.

I am blessed and grateful for how studying gratitude has improved my relationships with friends and strangers in my life. It is a miracle to see this much progress in my relationships at the age of 52.

Local cultural entertainment

Went with Leslee to the Bellevue Art Museum this morning. The BAM had two new exhibits that opened this morning. One was a largest traveling display of Latin American jewelry ever outside of Latin America. The other was a "Midway" display of re-fabbed mechanical children's toys that had been plated with precious metals by Cathy McClure.

We were escorted through the exhibits by Curator Nora Atkinson. Nora brought the stories to life with fascinating explanations of a few of the artists perspectives. The BAM has a goal of showing craft art in keeping with the sort of things that are displayed at the huge Arts & Crafts held on a closed streets on an August weekend each year.

I am grateful for such high quality cultural exposures in our community and people such as Nora who clearly make it a labor of love to share art with the rest of us.

Celebrating milestones with friends

Today I got to give a friend a birthday card and buy her lunch—four days before her birthday. She is not a big fan of the smeared-out birthday celebration like I am. It went well. I got to write that I love her and am very proud of her. She is doing really well considering the nasty painful shoulder she has to deal with.

I also got to take two friends to the T-Mobile store to help them buy new cell phones. Shawna sold hernearly new smart phone to Leslee and then bought a new G2 with the money and contract renewal credit. She was delighted with her new G2. Leslee upgraded from a pre-paid G0 (zero!) phone to a G3 smart phone with full web access, touch screen and qwerty keys.

It took 2 T-Mobile sales guys over an hour with help to complete the transaction. It is easy to imagine why few people shop at the T-Mobile store even though they have the best monthly rate plans for smart phones. I can buy a phone at Walmart for T-Mobile with a swipe of the bar code at the cash register. At the T-Mobile store, the same process takes 20 minutes.

Someday soon, I will have to pony up for matching technology. I will likely get an Android touch-pad in the next year while stretching out my basic cell phone plan for as long as possible.

I am grateful for all the choices in mobile communications and connectivity between devices types, manufacturers and cell service providers, and that I am able to help my friends shop wisely between a myriad of deliberately confusing choices. Competition is a good thing for consumers.

Waterfront views

Depending on how it is measured, Washington State has a coastline between 157 and 3,026 miles long per Wikipedia. 157 miles is ridiculously under measured since Google Earth shows that a straight line between the mouth of the Columbia river and the Washington/BC border at Semiahmoo bay is 198 miles. There is a coastline paradox that the finer the resolution of measurement, the longer the coastline gets much like the difference between measuring the coastline on a low-resolution map and walking the entire length of the shore.

Puget Sound has hundreds and hundreds of miles of coastline by any high-resolution measurement. This makes for some spectacular waterfront dining at scores of restaurants on the shores and adjacent hillsides. One of the best restaurant rows is in Tacoma on Ruston Way. Last night a friend and I went to dinner at the The Ram on Ruston Way. We were too late for waterfront seating since we had to sit in the bar. It was a beautiful drive on Ruston Way with intermittent views ranging from North Seattle to Des Moines to Browns Point and the Port of Tacoma on the east side of the Sound and Vashon Island on the west side.

There is something uniquely peaceful about being on an uncrowded shoreline unlike any other setting. I am grateful for the miles of beautiful coastline and spectacular views in Washington State.

Doing things in a timely fashion

I committed to blogging 5x/week as a New Year's resolution for 2011. That works out to 21.7 posts per month. My posting rate is right on schedule except for coming up a little short in March. With this post, I will have posted on 21 of 22 days in May. It is entirely new behavior for me to do my chores in a more ASAP vs. last minute style.

Among the many changes in my behavior, doing things well before the last minute has precluded a lot of unnecessary stress in my life. College in my 20s was horribly unpleasant/stressful doing chemical engineering homework at the last minute.

I am grateful for the vast progress & improvement in my time management/scheduling skills that enables me do most activities in a much more timely and less stressful way.

A new shaving brush

I bought a new shaving brush this week. It is made out of silvertip badger hair. Looks like your basic shaving brush that you dip in hot water, rub around in a cake of shaving soap and then use to slather on the soap to shave.

Shaving does not work that great for me. I have soft skin, a tough beard and bleed easily. Tonight after taking a shower, I tried shaving after brushing on warm shaving soap. It worked really well and I got a great shave without bleeding.

I am grateful to have the disposable income to buy accoutrements such as a $60 silvertip badger shaving brushes. They make my life better.

Temperatures above 70° F

For the first time in Seattle in the last 191 days (6 months+), the temperature rose to 70°. Not 71° mind you, but exactly 70°. It was a glorious day with clear blue skies and warm sunshine with mother nature flourishing in her countless shades of green.

Sandy and I had lunch al fresco at Tu Casa in East Bellevue. She got held up at work and so I *had* to sit in the glorious sunshine by myself munching on chips & awesome salsa while being mindful of the gorgeous hues of greenery. It was a great way to meditate on being in the present.

The guys at Tu Casa were great—all the staff I saw today were men. They provided excellent service even while I was sitting outside by myself. By the time we left, all the tables were taken. There are not a lot of restaurants with outside dining in the Seattle area. Those with outside tables usually do very well in the warmer months.

Today I am grateful for great friends such as Sandy, warm days, sunshine, greenery, and the excellent service at Tu Casa.

Partially processed food including frozen chicken breasts…

My friend Leslee gave me a gift bag of Japanese foods including Kikkoman Teriyaki Glaze. I made teriyaki chicken breasts with broccoli and rice. It was healthy and delicious. The glaze is much thicker than most teriyaki sauces.

There is a 10 pound bag of frozen chicken breasts from Costco in my freezer. They are fantastically more convenient to cook compared with back in the day when my Grandma would first raise the chickens, chop their heads off, pluck them in hot water, clean them, cut them into pieces and then cook chicken.

I was also able to wash & dry a load of clothes during the time it took to make dinner, eat dinner, clean up and blog this post. Clothes dryers are another miracle of modern living. Dryers are a lot more user friendly than having to wait for a dry day in the Northwest to hang the clothes on a line.

I am grateful for the labor saving conveniences of modern living including easily cooked delicious foods and clean clothes.

Clean healthy teeth

I have been going to the same dentist for the last dozen years. Before that, my sister's first husband went to the same practice for 30 years. Dr Kuo has a great location for a dental practice. He is one klick down the road from Microsoft.

I had my teeth cleaned yesterday. Not my favorite way to spend an hour, but it feels great after they have been cleaned.

My teeth are in excellent condition. I still have all my teeth sans having my wisdom teeth pulled ten years ago. Considering that I went 30 years with lax dental care, I am blessed with good dental health.

My gums are healthier now than they were ten years ago thanks to using a Sonicare (high-speed electric) toothbrush and Therasol mouthwash. They have actually grown back several critical millimeters from being too low to sorta low.

I am grateful for straight teeth in good condition that don't hurt.

Living on a hill → never being flooded out

After a weekend of record rainfall on Saturday and Sunday (gasp—almost two inches!), it is a bit wet here in Bellevue. That same two inches on the other side of the Cascades in Ellensburg and Yakima resulted in more than a few flooded roads, apartments and homes.

In the Mississippi river from Minnesota to Louisiana, there has been a slow moving wave of massive flooding. The all-time record flood level in Natchez, MS was 58 feet in 1937. It is expected to reach 64 feet in the next five days.

There is an easy way to avoid floods. DO NOT LIVE IN THE FLOOD PLAIN! I have always lived on at least a small rise and have never been concerned about getting flooded out of my home. It boggles my mind how people have rebuilt New Orleans after Katrina and are upset that once again a city on the coast below sea level is having problems with flooding.

In college, I studied chemical engineering. While the professors never stated it so crudely, the basic rule of thumb is that shit runs downhill → don't stand at the bottom of the hill.

I am grateful for never having been even threatened by flooding.

Grateful for solitude

For the last seven years, I have lived in a two bedroom apartment in near downtown Bellevue. Sometimes with a roommate and sometimes by myself. I like the companionship and rent money I get when I have a roommate. I love the solitude I have when living by myself—sometimes a lot too much!

Recent roommates have been in early recovery and had an amazing amount of drama going on in their lives for people without jobs or SO relationships. It helps me be ever more grateful for my sobriety and the attending low level of drama in my life.

Currently I am living by myself now. It is nice and quiet. I get to have my own erratic schedule without bothering roommates or looking like a nutball when I am up wandering the apartment at 4 AM.

I am grateful for the solitude and serenity in my life today.

Carrying the message of recovery

The 5th tradition of all 12-step organizations is to carry the message to those who are still suffering from addiction to whatever the primary focus whether it be alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, food, etc.

Many members carry the message on a personal level. On an organizational level in my hometown, the outreach committees have nearly always consisted of one person from what I have seen. It would be nice if there were more members carrying the message. On the bright side, there is endless opportunity for me to carry the message in whatever way I see fit to do.

We are blessed to have some funding by members so we can try a variety of proven methods to carry the message. We have put on educational lunches for professionals, signs on Metro buses, information packets for non-members, business cards for police to hand out to "potential members" and placing literature in libraries, doctor's offices and hotel lobbies. It is a program of attraction, not promotion that can simplistically be thought of as the difference between an invitation and a command imperative ("you should go to a meeting of….").

I am currently serving a two-year term as the local Public Information (PI) committee chair. Today we had a quarterly meeting for like minded members in Western Washington in Kirkland. It is rejuvenating to see all the great activities others are doing to carry the message in their communities.

My planned big project for the term is to get large bookmarkers (2.2" x 8.5" = 5/page) with contact information including websites & phone numbers in all of the King Country libraries (KCLS). I hope I succeed and that this works really well. The KCLS checks out more book than any other library system in the country. All I have to do now is to persuade the powers that be at the KCLS to accept the bookmarkers, design the bookmarkers, get them printed, and then distribute them to the libraries. A key element of the plan is being able to drop the bookmarkers off at library HQ.

I am grateful for the many opportunities to help carry the message of recovery in my community. It is not a matter of how well I succeed in 'saving' others. It is about my being of service to others and getting out of my own self-indulgent thinking. Of course, it is more fun to be successful.

Financial amends or cleaning up the wreckage of my past

I have owed money on Guaranteed Student Loans (GSLs) since 1984. It has been so long that the Feds had given up on my ever paying them back. Tonight I paid off 95% of the loans, with one last payment after we determine out the final balance.

27 years is longer than most home loans. It feels good to have paid-up on my loans. Ten years ago my credit rating was so poor I could not add my name to a home loan my sister already qualified for. Today I have an Excellent credit rating. That is a lot better than how it used to be.

I am grateful that financial insecurity is no longer a problem, that my bills are paid in a timely fashion now and that late payment fees are a thing of the past. God that feels good, thank you.

Grateful for prison meetings

I volunteer at the Washington State Reformatory on the second Thursday night of each month. Tonight was this month's meeting at the WSR. As always, it was a great meeting. The inmates in 12-step meetings have an admirable level of serenity while living in a stressful crowded highly controlled prison environment.

In December, I will have been going to the WSR for 12 years. The inmates have been role models for me in learning how to have serenity in my life even with a life sentence behind bars. They live behind prison bars. I live within the bars making up the frame of my wheelchair.

Tonight we had a new volunteer go with us. Welcome to Lisa B. She had been ready to go for several months, but unfortunate timing worked against us getting it together so that she could attend previous meetings with us. It was good timing in the sense that Margie C can't make it again until near the end of 2011. Leslee, Mark, me and the inmates appreciated her stepping up to be of service to others.

I am grateful for the lessons I learn when trying to be of service to others at the WSR.

Grateful for my greatly increased sense of gratitude

This is my 92nd post this year on my gratitude blog. It has been a life-changing experience for me. My empathy has grown considerably and relationships with others are better and closer than ever before in my life.

It is a wet spring day in Bellevue today. One activity in which I find my bliss is in reading books. Earlier this week, I downloaded 15 sci-fi books by well-known or favorite authors. The first of these is being read with great enjoyment. There is pleasant anticipation in looking forward to reading the rest of them.

I tend to read "guy" books of the murder mystery or spy vs spy genres. One thing I like about sci-fi books is that they often have an alternative perspective of government where government is not a corrupt lackey of the military-industrial-congressional complex. The stories are of societies with honesty and integrity in their social relationships.

I am grateful my enhanced sense of gratitude, my love of reading and the brave new world of ebooks on demand.

Great role models

I am fortunate to have many great role models in my life that are close enough to me that I can emulate their behavior. Fellow trudgers leading the way in 12-step programs are close and simply for me to copy. Living Saints such as Gandhi or Mother Teresa don't resonate with me since their milieus are so different from mine.

Tonight I got to listen to Christine Carter speak in Seattle. She is the inspiration for my gratitude blogs. I have given away 5 copies of her book Raising Happiness to my friends. It is a easy reading combination of anecdotal examples based on sound scientific research into raising happier kids.

I don't have kids. Neither do my friends Gigi and Shawna. Yet we were still able to get a lot out of her lecture on how to improve our conflict resolution skills, enhance our relationships with others, and improve our overall happiness.

I am grateful for the role models in my life today.

Grateful for the many shades of green

Spring in Western Washington is a thing of green in many hues. Leaves of grass, bushes and trees all have their own special color. The fir trees even come in two colors with this year's growth being a lighter shade.

I am grateful for the many shades of green healthy vegetation growing here in the NW.

Walks with Leslee

For the last five years, Leslee J and I have been going for walks at Bellevue Square on Sunday evenings before we go to our homegroup meeting. Leslee is an avid mountain hiker. She hiked down and up the Grand Canyon with her two sons in March. Walking the halls of Bell Square is about getting some exercise for me and spending some time talking together.

Today is Mother's Day. I will not be spending time with my Mother. I will go for a walk at the mall with Leslee.

I am grateful to have good friends such as Leslee in my life.

Midsummer Night's Dream at Bellevue Youth Theatre

Went with a friend to watch Shakespeare at the BYT tonight. It was my first visit. Most of the cast was in high school. There were two somewhat older guys in wheelchairs in the play. It was very well done. One kid had been in 23 plays. Most of the actors had been in 2-5 plays and were reasonably good. The play was funny. High school girls make great fairies.

I am grateful for low-budget live entertainment and a great theater for kids to practice in.

Feeling good right now

I read two positive psychology authors and listened to a third's meditation tape today. Journaled about gratitude in the morning and feel so good that I am writing again now.

I am grateful for the progress I am making in turning up my "happiness thermostat".

An income greater than my bills

In nthe midst of the worst recession in my lifetime, I am fortunate to have a pension that provides an income greater than my expenses. Part of my recovery program is making amends when possible. I can't pay back much of the financial havoc that I wreaked directly. I am making indirect amends by helping others who are not so welll off.

I could give my amends money to charities. Many people have done that. For me, helping others directly is a lot more fulfilling and responsible. I have to find out what others need and empathize with that need. That already gets me out of myself. Helping others figure out what they want and need are skills I can help with. The goal is to empower others while making my finanacial amends, not to enable others with ostentatious displays of so-called virtue.

I am getting better at helping others. Yesterday was a great day for that by my standards. I fixed a guy's email problem, took him out for lunch, bought lunch for a man that could not afford the fast food meal that he wanted, put some money on a bus pass and helped a woman get a card and a Mother's Day flower for her mom.

It is mildly stressful for me to write about this. I am grateful I am the one with the resources that gets to help others instead of needing help. I don't want to brag about how virtuous I am. It is a conondrum for me in how to express my gratitude in getting to be of service to others with humility. Progress, not perfection.

I am grateful that I am able to give back to others what has been so freely given to me.

Modern refrigeration

Feeling lazy about cooking tonight, it was dinner from the freezer. Pulled sausage, corn, potatoes and an ice cream bar from the freezer. I usually nuke frozen food in the microwave. Tonight I went all out and used a steamer/double-boiler for the corn. It was not gourmet. The food was good enough and could hardly have been easier to make.

I tend to cook a hunk of meat (chicken, pork, beef or fish by frequency) and maybe have a salad with it for a meal. Tonight's dinner was reasonably well balanced for me.

Some day I will work more on that diet and exercise thing. Lord (and anyone who sees me) knows that I need it.

I am grateful for my refrigerator/freezer and the amazingly wonderful selection of meats, veggies, fruits and prepared foods at local grocers that I can stick in it.

fresh running water & a drain that works

My kitchen sink stopped draining last night. I made a few tries to get it to clear by running the garbage disposal. That didn't work. This morning there was a nasty sewage smell in my living room/kitchen—fortunately it was not too pungent.

I called the apartment maintenance dispatch people at 8:30 expecting a tech within 30 minutes. 4 hours later, still no tech, I called again. The work order had been 'picked up' but the tech had not arrived. I called the leasing office for more help. Cory got a tech over here in 15 minutes.

The tech was a new guy. He spent an hour on the problem, said it was fixed and left. I quickly ran some water and found that it was not fixed. The techs run around the complex with electric golf carts. He was in the cart by the time I got to the door. I did catch him at the tool shed before he put his tools away.

He came right back and worked on the drain some more. Using a small manual drain snake, he was not able to clear the drain. Using a larger electric powered snake, James ran it down the drain 50 feet. When he put the drain pipe back together, the drain worked as designed.

I was grateful that it only affected my kitchen sink drain and not my bathroom sink, toilet or shower. I am extremely grateful for clean inexpensive soft potable water. Good water is a major benefit of living in Western Washington with our large undeveloped forested watersheds.

Living in a place with few poisonous species

I just watched The African Queen with Bogart and Hepburn. The movie was filmed in England and Africa in 1951 in a lush jungle setting. There was one scene showing them being attacked by bugs and another with leeches. Throughout the movie, I kept thinking of how many nasty critters, bugs & diseases there must have really been there.

Western Washington is blessed with an absence of nasty critters. Our worst pests in the summer are mosquitoes—even then they don't carry malaria or other major diseases. Bees are the most poisonous thing most people will ever see in these parts. They are not killer bees from Africa either.

I am grateful for the lack of nasty critters & bugs in Western Washington.

Warm spring days

Today was a gorgeous spring day in Greater Seattle. I went for a walk and a meeting with friends.

I am grateful for good friends, meetings and warm spring days.