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.

NOT NEW YEAR YET

I observed the solar new year last night, but over here on the yin (lunar, feminine, cranky) side, I will wait a month and a half for the Tiger to actually arrive on February 14, which is also Valentine's Day and the Sunday before Ash Wednesday.

Lao Hu Lurking

So not yet looking ahead here, I engaged in a bout of intense nostalgia, watching DVDs that, for  a change, required no subtitles or lip-sync studies to tell whether the actual spoken language was Cantonese  or Mandarin.  No, Mad Men is in English, and the best early '60s reminiscence I've ever seen.  They say if you remember the '60s you weren't there, but 1960-63 wasn't really the '60s, it was the last gasps of the '50s, and I do remember it.  To be sure, I was younger than the Madison Avenue folks in the series; I was probably one of their children who needed a psychiatrist.

Part "Man in the Grey Flannel Suit" and part "30-Something," the Mad Men episodes are like memories.  Evocative situations, not quite complete storylines (at least in the first two seasons), but...my dad wore a hat, my mom wore those poofy fluffy dresses and pointy bras, I remember where I was when JFK was elected and shot, to say nothing of the Cuban missile crisis. I come to realize, a lot of the people I work with now, quasi-peers, weren't even born yet then--9/11 is their most violent historical shock marker.  Even now, I love to look at old Life magazines (of which I have pretty much a complete run in storage), not necessarily for the editorial, but for the advertising.  Mad Men is like that.  I wonder how this show plays with those folks who don't actually remember Nov. 22, 1963, the day before my mother's 40th birthday. When I came home from school that day, she was watching the TV and crying. She had campaigned for Nixon. I was so confused.
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Since I'm talking about advertising, and its major god, materialism, I am also thinking about the element of Christmas that is gifts.  I am puzzled as to why I received, from more than a few acquaintances who may or may not remember the Kennedy assassination, an incredible amount of liquid hand and body soaps, hand sanitizers and lotions.  I might take it personally, but I don't think it's just me who is getting these gifts. H1N1 panic? (This has nothing on the Cuban missile crisis.)  I have enough liquid soap on hand to wash up everyone in my condo complex for a month...maybe a year.  For generic gifts, I'm more of a scented candle person (or if I know the person well, a book),  but what is this thing with all the soap?  I'm not a compulsive handwasher.  I am the opposite of OCD. I should probably be a little more OCD.  I don't usually use paper toilet seat covers either.  If everyone else does, why should I?

I got the Wizard a chair for Christmas.  He wanted a La-Z-Boy recliner, waxing enthusiastic about his 89-year-old father's, which says to me, despite the "boy"  part, "old man." I should also have gotten him some soap: he likes Irish Spring, but not all women like it too. (Mad Men, are you listening?)  I prefer  cuir de russie smells, and there is a leather-smelling Badedas soap we buy in Hong Kong I like a lot, but not easily available here.  Quel dommage.

I looked at the stock of La-Z-Boys (at the furniture store whose philanthropic arm financed the Wizard's extended teaching gig in Beijing in 1987) and they all looked like they should come with a free roll of duct tape, like Frasier's father's chair in the making. But lurking in the back, I found a La-Z-Boy I could live with,  a leather rocking (yeah, baby) recliner.  It smells really good. Only lacks nailheads. I think I should have bought two.

The Wizard loves the chair.  "Just like sitting in a big hand."  But he is a sweaty guy. The finish requires some terry cloth to be comfortable...toweling...(one of your first three words in Turkish: towel. )

My artist-astrologer friend gave me a fabulous Ed Hardy beach towel with a tiger on it.  I don't go to the beach too much.  I don't think she will mind that I use it on the Wizard's chair. Toweling beats duct tape!

Soon comes the Year of the Tiger.

YIN and YANG INTEGRATED

I went out today and observed the rising 82% gibbous moon on the one hand and setting sun on the other.  The air was so clear, the mountains so defined, all so perfect, so balanced.

I have created the yin and yang of blogs, somewhat by accident. Perhaps yin posts (reverse type on black ground) will go here, yang posts (black type on white ground) on the other (you can find it). Since it is evening, I suppose yin is the place to start. And also it is the Ides of March, if that is auspicious.

Today, went to a contest of Toastmasters...which I sometimes mistype as Taoistmasters. There is a big difference. I did not have to speak on the table topic, "Should we be judged by the company we keep?" And just as well. We were in a church, a simple stripped down folksy place of indeterminate denomination, with a flag, a podium, a cross, and I think a baptismal tub under a print of Jesus holding some lambs. As a Zen meditation hall might be compared to a gaudy Taoist temple, this church compares to a big bells-and-smells cathedral. The comparison ends there though, because I have a taste for the bells-and-smells. Still, had I been speaking in this environment, I would have suggested "Suppose someone was seen with a prostitute," and gone on to talk about Jesus and the disgraced Governor of New York. Both political figures with concern for their publics, they each had dealings with whores, both were sacrificed, both are judged by the company they keep. But one became a savior and one becomes needy of salvation. Indeed we all judge and are judged, but the key to the table topic seems to be, just what are we doing with that company we keep?