Overcoming the Yin

Gosh, has it been so long, months have gone by since I felt like putting something here.  Well, the solstice brings that to a point, can't neglect the yin, to which I attribute a couple of months of good sleeping weather and interesting travel, by planes and in my dreams.

Commuting home tonight, sans radio still, I was doing my occasional practice of numbers in French and Chinese by reciting, as quickly as I could, the digits on license plates.  Which got me to observing vanity plates and the slogans people put on their cars.  "Na Kane O Ke Kai" on the back of a pickup, which I think means "belonging to the man of the sea."  I know very little of Hawaiian language, but after a while, it just seems natural.

A vanity plate confused me.  F8HFUL. I think it is supposed to be "faithful" but I read it as "fateful." Who knows. (Although local people tend to say "th" as "t", as in Tanksgiving or one-two-tree, so it could go either way.)

Solstice observations:  the fateful spider is gone from my lanai, the faithful kolea are busy in the yard, and I was pleased to note that, despite my neglect (or perhaps because of it) over these past two months, the Christmas cactuses have set blossoms and look like at least a few will be blooming on Christmas Day.  Faith or fate seem to have nothing to do with that. Tao at work, the ziran of the Christmas cactus.

And at the rate I update this blog, the next time will be at the New Year...and I don't mean next week, but the lunar Year of Snake, in February.  So many calendars.  In any case, for the Gregorian New Year, I will hang up my 1957 scenic French ESSO calendar.  Turns out 2013 works the same as 1957 (and 1963 and 1974 and many other years). So if the Mayan calendar prevented you from investing in a 2013 calendar, you can just recycle an old one.  Look in your attic or go to eBay (where you will find among others, an incredible offering of old gas station Vargas and Betty Page pinup calendars...someone found those worth saving!) In fact, I also just found in my storage a gorgeous Sierra Club calendar from 1991, works too. A reminder of the beauty of the earth, which still exists for preservation.  I won't be buying calendars this year! But not because the Mayan Calendar ended.