A Day of Kindness

Now I am reading a book called Awakening Kindness:  Finding Joy Through Compassion for Others, by Nawang Kechong.  In the exercises at the end, he suggests living a day devoted to  kindness, and describes the many ways we can be kind.  Last night I decided to adopt this idea today.

There aren't many of us awake around here this Monday morning - Natasha and me.  It is mostly easy and natural to be kind to her; she wants a cuddle first thing when I get up.  She wants her canned food when my cellphone alarm goes off at 8:00 a.m. and I take my Neoral.  Sometimes she doesn't recognize kindness, of course, as when we give her her two daily doses of liquid antibiotic.  She doesn't even know that her baseline exam at the Vet's cost $125, nor could a cat understand the concept of money.


After the cuddle, the first kind thing I did was put the teakettle on and get the water hot to defrost the birdbath.  I haven't seen any creatures use it yet, but I have faith.  I like being kind to the birds, especially now that it's been so cold and wet, the remaining berries covered with snow.  Then I noticed myself throwing out Tashi's water from last night to give her fresh, and a little thought crept into my mind, This is not kind to the earth. That water can be put into the little watering can for the indoor plants.  

Gratitude to the earth preoccupied me as I reheated some fried potatoes we'd brought home from a restaurant, imagining the human hands that planted these, or ran the machines that planted and harvested, the semi that transported them here, the roads it ran on. . . . I thought it might not be hard to get one of those sacks they sell now to plant potatoes in, maybe that would be kinder, take less resources.  Wishful thinking; we don't have a full day of sun except in the front yard.  The sack would look peculiar out on the lawn.  I'm working on this.


But the most striking thing was realizing kindness toward myself.  How many little things I want to do, need to do to have a more peaceful life, like get my new purse calendar filled in.  Do my small finances for the month.  Put a second coat of nail polish on, to keep my fingernails from breaking and peeling (effect of the immunosuppressants, I guess).   Get a second pair of rubber gloves on the grocery list, to protect my fingertips from cracking.  All things that mitigate against having any grand aspirations.  


I also had thoughts about how following impulse is often really not so kind, if it means these other things don't get done and ba-a-ad karma ensues.  Nevertheless, I know I'll make time for a game now and then of Color Junction.  A game or two between tasks, not thirty.  Hey, it relaxes me from all this discursive thinking.

Things to do, and toxic begonia

Here's the gist of my e-mail this morning to Cindy:

Good morning.  Yes, we are nice and warm.
I have labs this morning at exactly 10:00, then stop at Riverside to pick up a CD of my latest CT scan to take to kidney-stone doctor on Friday.  Oh yes, need to order four med refills.  That's today's medical.
And maybe I will get at least some of that Xmas stuff cleared off the dining room table.
And a load of personal laundry done.
Meanwhile, it's possible Tom's sister is coming tomorrow for a couple of days.
And I have to do something about this blind cord Tasha finds so appealing.
Don't you hate it when you wake up with a long to do list circling you like a shark?
Thank you!!! for the shoveling.
lvu,
Jeanne
p.s.  And they are threatening to jail me if I don't return a stupid library book.

No wonder I haven't posted for so long. Or bought my new camera, yet (first I have to balance my checkbook, which I haven't done since the surgery).  So far, I haven't got any good pictures of Tasha-kitty, without flash -

or with flash:

This could be better, if I could learn Photoshop and take out that reflection of the flash.  I should know better.  She looks a little odd because her belly was shaved for her surgery.  And this doesn't show her silvery sheen.  It does show her willingness to walk on a 1-inch windowsill, giving no thought to what might be (or might have been) on that sill. 

And I should have taken a picture of the Wreck of the Begonia, a large, aged Angel-wings Begonia that was a gift, and which I loved.  When we realized she was stripping off the leaves, I looked it up, and begonias are one of many, many plants that are toxic to cats.  I had to kill the Angel-wings, nowhere to put it where she couldn't get to.  The three little ones - which I bought at Cat Welfare, BTW - I have moved to a crowded surface she does not get on.  So far.  We are watching.

I have started the camera research, narrowing it down to a Canon I can afford.  So I promise more pix, of her amazing eyes, green ringed with gold, of her star paws, of her new endeavor to climb up on my shoulder.

All in all, a good day.  I got done all the things I had to do and then some.  That laundry is dry about now.

My post-transplant nurse, Karen, told me that people don't usually feel well ("human," my word) for six to nine months.  I said, "They don't tell us that."

She said, "I know.  But I do.  That's why they don't want me in pre-transplant." 

But I actually do feel good today - my GP's nurse called to say the urine culture was negative, meaning, I am healed from the horrible UTI that manifested December 20.  Maybe I'll stay healed. Wouldn't that be nice?  But I don't count on it.  Believe me, every good day's - a real good day.