A pleasant day

After not feeling so great yesterday and sleeping fitfully last night, I awoke late in the morning having to rush off to have lunch with Tracy. I arrived at her office a few minutes early and practiced my mindfulness for as long as possible (no more than 30 seconds!). Then I read my Learned Optimism book for a few minutes until Tracy was ready to go.

We went to a local restaurant, Doc's, that only serves lunch catering to a mostly hi-tech industrial park. I had a philly cheesesteak sandwich made of thin-sliced ribeye and cheese-sauce on a grill-toasted French roll. It lacked grilled onions and green peppers. Being from Seattle, I have no idea whether or not it was authentic to Philly. I have my doubts, but it was yummy. It was a great day to dine outside. Tracy is a talker. We had a long pleasant funny sometimes intense lunch conversation. Her mom has health problems that she does not want to discuss with the entire family. Similarly, I don't reminisce when I talk with my mother due to all too many topics being overloaded with emotional baggage.

I came home, cleaned up my apartment for a bit and then met with Charlie. We had a great reading and discussion about mindfulness. We read from a book by a Vietnamese Budhist monk The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh. That book suggested getting the book The Essential Discipline for Daily Us by Doc The. (A half-hour later after fruitlessly searching Amazon, Google and Bing for that book, I am back to writing about gratitude. I emailed Amazon for help—we will see how well that works. I am optimistic Amazon knows more than I do about searching for books.)

After meeting with Charlie, I walked to a pet store near the mall to get a new kitty litter box for my cats. I did not like what they had. So I bought some groceries and headed home. On the way home, I noticed my timing was such that I could stop in at the Alano Club and catch a meeting. That went well. After that, it was off to Home Depot to buy a cheap plastic tub to use as a kitty litter box. They work well being larger and 1/4th the price of the pet store equivalent.

I came home, started cooking a roasted chicken. While the chicken was cooking, I changed out the litter box, took out a bunch of trash had a nice chicken dinner and reflected on my day. It was good.

I am grateful for good days like today. This was my version of being productive. It feels a lot better than being semi-sick like yesterday.