Following your bliss

It's week two of the re-re-re-re-running of Mo and my favorite series Key West (isn't it a coincidence that I love Key West and the show is called Key West???... not so much!! :) Our hero, Seamus, has lost all his money and has spent some hilarious moments on the show trying to make a living at various careers at which he... well, bungles is too gentle a term. He is now in a quandary about what to do in order to fulfill his dream of being a writer and make a living while living on the same island that Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams (and other writers actually!) had gotten their creative juices from. After a visit to the recentering program with the town's sheriff, Cody tells Seamus about his vast experience in living a life of bliss wherein he became "a lion, manifested" while Seamus sits beside him, ostensibly meditating. But the sheriff realizes he can't live his life that way. They'd put him in a zoo. So he had to "learn how to do his karma dance with the physical thing." 

   

So my favorite quote is the one that has gotten me through the darker moments of my work related life in the past five to six years, like when I was working a second job at the local grocery store as a Courtesy Clerk (a.k.a. Bagger). I had to go out on some of the coldest nights of the year-- well, correction they were actually record cold temperatures that year--  to bring in the grocery carts... and I was already so tired and weary after having worked at my other job all day and I wondered why I was out there schlepping metal carts around on the pavement in between the poorly parked cars for people who were too lazy to even put them somewhere that I could get to easily... Why was I doing this again? I was often in tears (or had icicles on my cheeks that wanted to be tears) as I shoved the carts through the snow angrily. 

And the answer would inevitably come that I left my old life in order to be a writer. I NEEDED to be a writer--- and I couldn't be a writer and be on my own without money...I needed as Cody put it "The green energy" So...         

My favorite quote from the show for this week and the question to ponder...

“How do you live in this world and follow your bliss?"

Favorite Mug

Erica and Christy are hosting the HOTNESS on Thursdays Blogfest and while I have a busy day and wasn't sure I would have the time to participate my morning was freed up I think I'll have time to get to see many of your entries today and what I don't get to today I will come to see tomorrow!! So without further ado! My favorite mug which I actually do not drink out of because I do not want to ruin it with dishwashings, etc. 

It's an Ann Taintor mug. Ann Taintor, if you are unfamiliar, uses actual pictures from the 50s and puts hilarious  quotes next to them. If your wondering why this particular one caught my eye, you can read more about my history here, otherwise, take my word for it, it was what life was like for me at one time.

Another favorite:

And I do drink a lot of hot tea out of this one... so there you have it. 

My favorite mugs!  

Chasing the skies

Ordinary day, driving the kid to school and we're late. I'm rushing, pushing, passing cars, edging ahead of traffic. Seconds tick and I feel the day's urgency, an invisible hand on the small of my back, nudging me ever forward. Conversation is short and clipped, my focus on the lights ahead pulls my son's gaze into the race, his urgings -come on car, come on- only adds to my anxiety. Leaning back in his seat, his relaxed angle allows him to see what I in my urgency would have otherwise missed... 

Ballooners taking advantage of the cool morning air and blue skies, soaring just overhead, so close that it seems that we might be able to hitch a ride if we were able to catch up. My path briefly follows theirs and I am torn, longing to shed the mornings duties and follow the balloon, wind, blue skies and whim or turn the car and carry on with duty and responsibility. I pause, considering...

But the balloon takes a turn that has him gliding over treetops and rooftops, past stream and ravine, on a path where my car could not follow, too swift for my feet to pursue... 

I was left in it's wake with the hope that I too would have days to chase the skies and sail off into the blue. 

Library clears its shelves in protest at closure threat

Users urged to take out full allowance of library books in campaign to keep Stony Stratford branch open

• Maev Kennedy
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 January 2011 17.47 GMT
• Article history
  
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• Stony Stratford library is one of two branches being considered for closure by Milton Keynes council. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
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• The library at Stony Stratford, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, looks like the aftermath of a crime, its shell-shocked staff presiding over an expanse of emptied shelves. Only a few days ago they held 16,000 volumes.
  Now, after a campaign on Facebook, there are none. Every library user was urged to pick their full entitlement of 15 books, take them away and keep them for a week. The idea was to empty the shelves by closing time on Saturday: in fact with 24 hours to go, the last sad bundle of self-help and practical mechanics books was stamped out. Robert Gifford, chair of Stony Stratford town council, planned to collect his books when he got home from work in London, but left it too late.
  The empty shelves, as the library users want to demonstrate, represent the gaping void in their community if Milton Keynes council gets its way. Stony Stratford, an ancient Buckinghamshire market town famous only for its claim that the two pubs, the Cock and the Bull, are the origin of the phrase "a cock and bull story", was one of the communities incorporated in the new town in 1967. The Liberal Democrat council, made a unitary authority in 1997, now faces budget cuts of £25m and is consulting on closing at least two of 10 outlying branch libraries.
  Stony Stratford council got wind in December and wrote to all 6,000 residents – not entirely disinterestedly, as the council meets in the library, like many other groups in the town. "In theory the closure is only out for consultation," Gifford said, "but if we sit back it will be too late. One man stopped me in the street and said, 'The library is the one place where you find five-year-olds and 90-year-olds together, and it's where young people learn to be proper citizens'. It's crazy even to consider closing it."
  – they should be finding ways to expand its services and bring even more people in."
  Emily Malleson, of the Friends of Stony Stratford Library, said: "I was lucky, I got in early, so I got some nice children's books – and my children came along and took out all their books too. I had to bring the car to get them all home.The late-comers just had to take whatever was left."

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• http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/14/stony-stratford-library-shelves-protest