So I'm not a "pro"...

Let's be honest, a blogger with a properly professional attitude would have been cranking out verbiage about the "Blizzard of Ought-Five", and what has now, officially, turned into the snowiest January in Massachusetts' record books.

I'll apologize right now to both of my readers (if they're still checking in) but I don't always feel that I have anything worth your reading, even by MY flexible standards of what I think will be interesting.

Recap: It snowed bigtime, I shoveled 2+ feet of snow off of the sidewalk, then scraped off the result of the (fortunately smaller) followup storm two days later.

Hey - This is New England... snow isn't really news, y' knowwhatImean?

Nor is a week or more of sub-freezing tempertaures. It's annoying, but it's not news.

And it's not really news that so many people DON'T clear their sidewalks, forcing me out into several of the busier streets in town when walking to work, and walking home, and walking the dog.

Now SHE is cranky about the weather and the sorry state of the sidewalks in the neighborhood!

Caper, my 4-year-old Pug, is just not a winter fan. Understandable, really, when you are traversing snowdrifts that are taller than you are, and are bounding from one previous passerby's footprints in the snow to the next, all while looking desperately for a clear patch of ground where you can Bush and take a Nixon. (Pugs seem to be very particular about where they do their thing.)

But I am trying to be more philosophical about the Putzim who don't shovel, or shovel from the driveway to the front door and nothing else, or shovel everything except the last foot to the property line, because they don't want to accidebtally shovel any of the neighbors' snow, or who do the whole length - in a trough of exactly one shovel's-width. ..

See how philosophical I am...? I didn't even mention the ones who shovel to the corner, then don't clear the last two feet to the crosswalk, so that you have to lurch over the two-foot high pile of compcted snow, onto the slushy residue that the snowplows left in the street, because people were parking their cars like complete and utter MORONS, making it almost impossible for the plow-guys to get through... I mean...



...TWO vehicles, almost across the street from each other, and parked DIAGONALLY INTIO THE STREET?!!?

ARE THESE PEOPLE FRACKIN' IDIOTS, OR WHAT??!!!??

...Okay... So I haven't got my "philosophical mode" down, yet...
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On that note, I'm reading an excellent book on dealing with the aggravations of urban life:

City Dharma by Arthur Jeon (2004; Harmony Books, New York; ISBN:1-4000-4908-3)

I have difficulties with some of the concepts - I'm not sure that to know all is to forgive all, but I'm willing to consider it as a possibility.

I'll give you two snippets of Jeon's writing, and leave it at that.

"At the core of most religions, sometimes well buried, sometimes hiding in plain sight, is usually a nondual idea. Christ's main teaching of the Golden Rule, 'Love your neighbor as yourself,' is often interpreted as 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' But this is quite different from 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' This positive command can be literally interpreted: love your neighbor as yourself because that person is a manifestation of consciousness, the same as you. To love him or her as yourself is simply to see this reality, ending the illusion of your isolated identity. This is almost exactly echoed by Buddha in the Dharmmapeda when he says, 'Consider others as yourself.'"

"Psalms 41:1 says, 'Blessed is he who considers the poor.' It doesn't say, 'Blessed is he who gives to the poor.' ... So much about what it means to be human is to have choice, and sometimes offering that choice to a person in need restores his or her sense of humanity."

Side note: It just happened that the two bits that I picked here referred to the Christian Bible. It is NOT a Christian-Zen book. Jeon mentions a number of other religions or philosophies to make his points.

Good reading and food for thought.
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Last weekend I was spending Saturday afternoon with Guin in Boston running errands before the storm hit. We were in the Harvard Square subway station and saw in incident to which I'm still not sure how we should have responded.

I blind man was waiting for the same train as we were, and was singing along to the music on his earphones. (Living proof, by the way, that blindness alone does not a Ray Charles make!) Alongside of him was his guide dog. Coming down the platform towards him and us, was a blind woman with HER guide dog.

As she started to pass him, the two dogs greeted each other, as dogs will, and both dogs were scolded by their owners for reacting to the other.

The thing is, I'm not sure if either of the humans involved knew that the other was also blind and that their dogs were simply greeting a "Lodge Brother", as it were. I mean, it was literally the equivalent of the professional courtesy of two people in the same line of work exchanging business cards.

I found myself wondering whether I should go up and explain the situation to them, or not...

In the end, we did nothing, but I'll probably always wonder.

Closing thought for today:
"When things go wrong, don't go wrong with them." -- Anonymous