Buddha Offerings and Circus Tricks

Dog grooming day was Monday. Drop off time was scheduled for noon with a pick up estimated at 4:00 and in between I ran errands and had lunch at a curious little hole-in-wall Chinese restaurant that had a countertop filled with coins crowded around a tall, jade Buddha. The pile was at least five inches deep and four feet long and I’m guessing it was offerings to the Triple Gem: The Buddha, Dharma and Sangha although there was no neatly printed place card denoting the meaning of all that money sitting there waiting for a snatch-and-run robbery, assuming the would-be criminal came in with a large bucket. If I’d been in a Buddhist monastery with steel bowls lined up for visitors to drop coins in I’d know they were for the monks and maintenance on the building but coins on a countertop in a restaurant? When it came time to pay my for my lunch special of $6.62 I handed the cashier the exact amount and to my surprise, the coins went on the Buddha’s pile and the bills in her cash drawer. I wondered briefly if customers are promised good fortune if we add our extra change to the pile. The cynical side of me thought it could be a clever way to make more money---like coins tossed in a tourist trap wishing well---but the idealistic side of me thought something inspirational was going on that I didn’t understand. I may have to go back again and ask some questions.

The dog grooming salon is close enough that I could go home to wait for Levi but I don’t like being home without him. It’s too quiet and I can’t hear the doorbell anymore without the dog jumping up to see who is standing on the other side of the glass, an action that lets me know how much I depend on him to be my ears when my hearing aids are sitting in their box. I should do something about that---wear those Resounds full time or buy a louder, old person’s doorbell---but I can’t bring myself to do either one. When my husband lived alone he was a heavy sleeper and he wired up a factory break bell to a timer that he used for an alarm clock, mounted it on the wall above his bed. He could sleep through it but the neighbors from across the street couldn’t and after listening to it for 10 or 15 minutes they’d come across the street and bang on his bedroom window while having their daughter dial his phone. The combination of the alarm, the phone and the banging would finally wake him up. Except for the time when it didn’t and they called me, knowing I had a key. After a half hour of bells and banging he still hadn’t woke up and they were afraid he was dead. Fast forward many years later when Don went in for a sleep study and he came out with a biPAP machine and that ended the era of nagging him awake with bells, whistles, water and letting the dog get involved in the action. Just the idea of getting a louder doorbell gives me flashbacks. Do I really want my neighbors to know every time someone comes to my front door?

I ate too much on grooming day. A protein shake for breakfast, Mongolian beef for lunch and a hot dog bun filled with chicken and cheese for dinner plus two---count them---one, two bowls of ice cream with peanuts and chocolate sauce. Why do I do that to myself? When I cut my personal trainer loose at the YMCA I cut myself loose, too. The half-gallon of ice cream in the freezer is the first I’ve brought home in months and I can’t leave it alone. I have no self-control when it’s around. I’m cheating myself in other ways, too, like recently I figured out if I go to the gym on Sundays, I can count that as both the third workout in the previous week and the first workout of the coming week. I do like summer Sundays at the gym, though. It’s relatively quiet except for this past Sunday when a weird woman dragged a cycling bike out of the cycling studio and into the hallway where everyone passes by and she was singing every third or fourth sentence coming through her ear bugs. “Get it on!” “Yeah, one more time!” "I like it like that." I would have told her to get a room but she had one and gave it up in favor of being an exhibitionist. 

Most people don’t talk or use cell phones at the gym. Most people respect each other’s concentration on their workout programs. I broke that rule this week with Circus Guy. I call him that for two reasons: 1) He has red and green tattoos covering every inch of skin what shows except his face and, 2) he does this thing where he stands one-footed on a soccer ball while holding a twenty pound weight plate in each hand. And he does this for several minutes on each leg, then he repeats that set two more times! When I walked past him on Sunday, I pointed to the ball he was balancing on and I said, “Now, that’s impressive!” He laughed and replied, “Comes from spending my childhood on hockey skates.” That was the longest conversation I’d had in days. Woo is me.  ©