Pollen count is over 2800 today.......

Where do they get this system? How do they come up with the pollen count?
Is there a little person out on the lawn with a little teeny tiny pollen counter???

We live in a yellow world, it will go on for a few weeks. Those among us who are suseptible to this stuff will be miserable.
I never had much of a problem with allergies, but this year I can tell stuff is bothering me. My eyes are dry, scratchy, my nose is running like a steam locomotive, and I have headaches all the time.

Everything is covered in yellow pine pollen. According to the folks that know, the pine isn't the stuff that makes you sick, it's all the other stuff that you can't see, oak, birch, sycamore.....

In the meantime it's no use cleaning your car, the outdoor furniture or the driveway. We keep our doors closed as much as we can, so we don't get the stuff all over the furniture.

Not being much of a 'duster' it pays to just keep the stuff out of the house. :>)

UPS just delivered a package. I forgot what I ordered.

Oh!

It's a very lovely picture of the hands of a guru, holding a lotus flower.

Back in the 1970s, when I left Puri and went back to Holland for a few years, Puri started his spiritual search.
He 'ran into' Baba Muktananda, who at that particular time started to travel all over the world and gathering quite a following.
For the next couple of years I was reluctantly drawn into this world. Inevitably I became a devotee of sorts. After meeting Baba real time in England (in the days when personal visits were still conducted, later you were happy to get a glimpse or maybe a quick touch in Darshan, as he became a bit of a rock star celebrity) my life took on a life of it's own. Hard to explain, but 'stuff' started happening in quick and ferocious succession.

I will go into this part of my life in more detail another time.

Since I've been married to Wheelie, and since Baba died, my spiritual path and my relationship with this world became rather subtle. No longer was I close to any meditation center, no longer did I practise, but the force was/is always with me.

After Baba died, his translater/personal secretary/friend/pupil took over his teachings. Her name is Gurumayi Chitvilasanada.

Bugs has always had a nicely framed picture of Gurumayi in her house. When Daddy left, he took it with him, apparently. I mean, the frame is missing, but the picture was tagged onto the fridge in his friends' house (where he has been staying)

Bugs was all ticked off about it, and wants her picture back. She was afraid his friends were having it on their fridge to have something to ridicule.

I told her to leave it alone. A picture of any holy person in anyone's house can only be a good thing. In my opinion these folks don't have a clue what's hanging on their fridge :>)

So I ordered another picture for Bugs, going to have it framed, and it will be her Mother's Day present.

I'm a happy camper. Not only did the picture arrive and it's truly a lovely and powerful image, I also went and made a copy of the picture I posted here yesterday. I enlarged it a little and will send it to my newly discovered cousin in Australia.

These past couple of days have been a whirlwind of emails from Australia and Holland. New/old cousins, stories pages and pages long, histories surfacing, old faces and stories becoming clear again, it's just incredibly fascinating.

I am truly amazed by my cousins' stories, honored they are willing to share them with me, such rich and interesting lives. And so wonderful to catch up with them again after all these years.

I see a reunion coming on!!!!

So, it's Friday, the weather is outrageously beautiful, and my heart is happy.
In an hour or so we'll be rolling on the floor again with our little Boo-boo.

Sometimes (and this week has been one of those times) the door to happiness opens up a little, displaying the sun and the stars and the rainbows.

Thank you, Cis and Margo and Ignatius!

It's my mother's 85th birthday on the 13th. The family is celebrating it at my sister's house on Sunday. How I wish I could be there too.

Have a super weekend, y'all!

SGMKJ!