Pumpkin Pie, Outdoor Yoga, and Potential Oil Fires

I keep meaning to post pictures... really I do... I just have to get them from Stacy's camera since I don't have mine. It was borrowed by my teacher to show Geshe Michael pictures we took of fabric for the quilt that we need to get made for him. True story. Soon I shall show pictures. Hopefully.

The next matter of business is that I need to add a link to Phantasm's most recent video. Phantasm is Steve's band. You may not know who Steve is or who Phantasm is but now you will and in getting to know them you will learn how to make pumpkin pie - and you will laugh.

Day 6 - Outdoor Yoga

I did yoga outside today. Arizona is hot. Did you know? It was wonderful! Except of course when that bee was stalking me and I had to stop doing poses to run away for a minute. Oh, and I could almost smell the singe of my white skin in the sun. But other than that it was great. Seriously, it was. Mountains all around me, sun shining, ipod on a yoga playlist. And before this outdoor yoga I got a professional massage. Tahiya is one of the women staying to help the retreat. She's from California and one of the sweetest women ever. She's a massage therapist and as soon as I walked into the house in the morning and said "wow, my back really hurts" she said "well I can take care of that." An hour later I was on a massage table for like 45 minutes. It was rather blissful. Outdoor yoga and a professional massage for free. Thats how we roll at DM, yo. (of course there was also hours of chopping, several potatoes, and lots-o-crazy as well but at this point that goes without saying)

Day 7 - Oil = Dangerous

"This life, it is so short. It goes by in an instant. Tibetans say its like a bubble on the surface of the ocean. You don't have time to waste, every moment is precious." - Lama Christie McNally

Sometimes when I go yoga I feel high afterward. I may have written about this previously but its worth mentioning again. It usually happens once in a while when I have a really awesome teacher give a really awesome class. (Like when Stacy taught us a yin practice - relaxing poses held for longer than usual so the pose reaches down to the muscle) Today though I just did an improvised practice on my own again outside and for the first time doing stuff on my own I got a yoga high. I guess it means I'm learning. (Thanks to Stacy and all the other wonderful people here who've been teaching me) Its just so great. Like, I have this stupid smile I can't get off my faced and I keep giggling at everything. Its so great.

We had a lull in what we were doing today and I was sitting quietly on one of the couches resting. I hear Razia calling my name from across the room. She said "Kimmy, come here and I will tell you how to make ice cream." So I sit down, she puts paper and pen in front of me and gives me 2 recipies for making ice cream and a whole bunch of other recipies. One for a salad that somehow involves raw Ramen noodles. I'm so excited to cook when I go home for Thanksgiving.

Then came the almost oil fire... I was sitting down and all of a sudden I hear one person say calmly "we need some help..." and then another say even more calmly "ok, so, I need someone to find me a fire extinguisher as soon as they possibly can..." So I come to find out that the oil in which falafel was being cooked started to boil over and come dangerously close to the flame on the stove. But no one panicked. We all just got up and started looking around for an extinguisher. Only at Diamond Mountain... It didn't end up boiling over and it was taken care of but still, any other group of people would have probably started screaming and running around. We all did what I'd like to call "efficiently chilled."

Days 3, 4, and 5 - Potatoes, Potatoes, Potatoes

The funny thing about the whole potato thing is that they just keep showing up.  Every day there are potatoes.  It makes sense because when people are in retreat they say they need to eat heavy foods that ground them since they're doing cool things like staying silent and doing a whole bunch of crazy meditation.  I've just never seen so many potatoes in all my life.  So then to tie it all together - today Razia (who I adore) is talking to Stacy and I about different concepts in Buddhism and Stacy asked what Buddhists believe about the different realms.  I won't get into it here but within the description Razia, in her wonderful Hebrew accent, says "...and then they fall to hell like a potato."  This may or may not be funny to you since you can't picture her or hear her accent but it was hilarious on its own and then all I could think was "heh, yeah, potatoes are hell."  It just seemed so fitting to me...

Day 3 - honey gloves and learning how to cook.

I mentioned previously that I've invented a honey glove.  (photo still pending)  We have a massive tub of honey.  We need to take a small amount of that honey from the massive tub and put it into small containers so the retreatants can enjoy their honey without being up their elbows in it every time they want to enjoy some tea.  Every time people tried to pour these smaller amounts of honey they got it all over themselves, all over the containers, and all over the floor.  So Anne walks up to me and says "Kim, I need you to figure out a way to get the honey out of the tub...some sort of spout.  Maybe you could use some cardboard, or a glove.  I don't know - just figure it out."  So there I am, with a look of mild panic/confusion on my face with a rubber glove in one hand and some duct tape in the other.  Thankfully after a month in the desert having to completely rearrange my way of thinking my mind is rather pliable.    So I squat down next to the tub of honey and get to work.  After a few uses and some minor improvements we have a wonderful product.  We needed some nice, strong gentlemen to lift the massive tub of honey when it was still very full but now that its being used up I can pretend I'm strong and use the contraption myself.  However, for the first few days there was a man holding a big white tub with a rubber glove duct taped to the end and me kneeling on the ground squeezing a rubber glove  like I'm milking a cow.  And the excitement in the room when we thought of poking a hole in the lid so the honey would come out faster... kind of like when your mom would buy those big cans of juicy juice when you were a kid and would poke 2 holes so the juice could glug glug glug faster into your cup.  I really hope I'm not that weird and someone knows what I mean by that.  Lastly on this topic I'd like to say that (before our product was perfected and I was still getting some honey on my hands) I now know what Whinny the Poo feels like...

So Razia is a wonderful Israeli woman who LOVES to cook.  She's been cooking group meals all throughout the term and I loved her and her Israeli food from a distance but didn't get the chance to cook with or talk to her until the retreat started.  Now every day I'm in the kitchen before 8am chopping and listening and learning.  She's so adorable and says the funniest things and I'm learning so much from her.  Now when I'm chopping or washing or cutting or whatevering I have this Hebrew accent in my head telling me what to do with the food.  Its so wonderful.  I help her all morning and during the early afternoon to make lunch for everyone.  We've become a really great team.  While we're cooking she talks about Buddhism and tells me stories.  She gets so happy to talk about these things that I'll look up from cutting when she gets to the exciting part of her story and she's looking at me with the funniest most excited look on her face.  Ugh - I wish everyone could have a Razia in their life.  The world would be a better place.  I also think the world would be a better place if everyone had a laughing fit at least once a day.  (It happened today - Day 5 - with Stacy and Anne.  We laughed so hard it hurt.  I love that...)  It's always so easy to be in the kitchen with her.  Then we get to the end of the afternoon and we get the food out the door and she says out loud "We did it!"  Every time, "We did it!"  Like we had any doubt that we would complete our task.  I love that woman.  Also, she just had hey 29th wedding anniversary.  I'm not even surprised.  I would totally stay married to her for 100 years if I were her husband, she's so great.

Day 4 - cottage cheese is disgusting and i dont care what you say

Not only is it disgusting, it is disturbing.  I would even go as far as to say that it is foul.  If you eat it, God bless, but you know what, you're a little gross.  One of the Israeli's was eating toast with jelly and cottage cheese today and I thought to myself "I have never in my life eaten cottage cheese and I will never do it.  Ever."  And I mean that.  It is white with chunks.  Why would anyone eat something that is white with chunks?  Why would you do that?  Dan from Pizza Hut Fredonia used to eat cottage cheese every day and I felt the same way then.  I've changed a lot in the past few years but this has stayed the same.  And it will not change.  Ever. 

On a better note I came across these quotes today while reading a book called Jivamukti Yoga and decided I wanted to share them:

"Let love be your guide.  When you love what you do, the means to do it will be revealed to you."

"...you will start having your own insights.  They will come to you in magical little explosions that will feel like things you've always known but didn't know how to express."

Day 5 - Awful

I didn't sleep enough on night 4.  I came back to the house in Bowie and sang a bunch of songs with Eirenne and Zack.  Well, I sang one song - the only one I remember how to play on guitar.  Then Zack played a bunch which was awesome.  Thats when I started getting tired.  But I couldn't go to bed.  I love private concerts.  This makes me miss John.  Private concerts are awesome.  Private concerts on your balcony in Brooklyn are even better.  Then I got over tired and we moved on to Disney songs.  Theres something about me and Eirenne that when we're together we inevitably start singing either I Just Can't Wait to Be King from The Lion King or something from Aladin or The Little Mermaid.  Then there was also the one time we made up a song about walking down a hill titled "Walkin' On Down the Hill"  (By the way, if anyone wants to play us some banjo for that song it would fir perfectly...)  We then started to discuss how hilariously awful Gaston in Beauty and the Beast was which led to 1am, a plan for Zack to cover a Gaston song at open mic and a youtube adventure.  Do yourself a favor, watch this, laugh, and be happy. 

As wonderful as this night was it left me with very little sleep which makes getting up at 6am and working for about 14-16 hours very difficult.  I'm afraid this will be happening again tonight since it's 1:25 and I'm still not asleep.  Therefore I must say farewell for now.

Day 1 - Injury 1 * Day 2 - Potatoes and Pita

I got up at 6:30am on Saturday which was day one of the retreat.  I'm one of 15 people serving the silent retreat for the 140ish people doing it.  I'm lucky enough to stay at a house in Bowie instead of having to stay in a tent for the last ten days while we're serving.  However, the house I'm staying at was freezing the first night/morning.  I can't really figure out how I was more cold in a house than I was in the tent.  At least I was in a nice comfortable bed.  Tit for tat.  I went to the grounds on morning 1 and started chopping veggies for lunch prep.  The main chefs for the retreat are from Israel so if you'd like to picture what my days look like picture a small kitchen with cutting boards everywhere, pots of steaming soup and rice everywhere there isn't a cutting board and several people speaking what seems like impossibly fast Hebrew.  

The injury isn't bad - have no fear.  All I did was slice my finger.  It's not a bad cut at all - one of those annoying ones thats just bad enough to remind you every time you try to do anything during which you have to utilize your hands.  I just thought it was funny that it was the first day and I had already bled.

The feeling in the house where we're doing all the food making and everything is so great though.  There isn't one person there for any reason other than that they want to help out - just because.  How often does that happen?  It makes working together really great.   I keep thinking about how crazy it is that a group of strangers can become a family when you're all thrown together for a common purpose.  That's the beautiful.  The crazy is that we never seem to have the supplies we need so we keep having to make trips into town to buy more food and things like 5 gallon buckets and a wooden toilet seat -- Don't ask.  The only thing I know for sure is that it can only get more interesting as the next 9 days go on...

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween.  My Halloween night consisted of washing towels and eating avocado and toast.  Well, I did have some candy corn.  Also, I had to run to the mailbox and on my way back I witnessed trick-or-treating Bowie, AZ style: A kid, in costume, riding in the back of a pick up truck.  The truck stops at one house - kid gets down, grabs some candy, jumps back into the bed of the truck, parent drives to the next house down the road.  It was very entertaining for me, a great end to the first night of retreat, and an excellent addition to the crazy that is my life.

Day 2 - Injury 2

Just kidding.  No more injuries thankfully.  Though there are 8 days to go and you never know..

Today was good.  I'm so tired I don't really know if I remember detail but I'll try..  The day started with Stacy and I doing breakfast prep.  Then came the potatoes.  I've never had to deal with so many potatoes in my entire life.  I'm not really that fond of potatoes to begin with.  I mean, sure, I like french fries, I'll eat a few kinds of potatoes - but given the choice I'd choose a different vegetable almost every time.  This morning, though, my job was to wash the potatoes.  At first I thought this was no big deal.  Rinse some taters - peel 'em - rinse 'em again - good to go.  NOPE.  These specific taters had to keep their skin.  Cool.  "Kim, can you scrub these and get all the dirt off?"  "Sure!"  Ummmm - do you know how dirty potatoes are?  Also - I learned that there is an art to scrubbing potatoes with  juuuust enough pressure so the dirt comes off but the skin doesn't.  Then they just kept bringing more potatoes.  I scrubbed one bag of potatoes and then there was another kind of potato to scrub.  Then I got done with those and they brought another bag.  And another.  And another.  I thought I would never want to see another potato in my entire life.  But then I ate the potatoes and it made the scrubbing worth it.  Hell, it made life worth it.  Razia - one of the chefs is probably one of the best cooks in the whole world.  I might move to Israel just so I can eat her food year round.  I'd inevitably get really fat but hey man, happiness is happiness.

Then I grilled pita bread for like 2 hours.  Pita after pita after pita.  But then I got to take the most heavenly nap in the whole world.  It was one of those naps where you don't know how tired you are until you lay down thinking you're going to close your eyes for 15-2o minutes and then you wake up 2 hours later wondering what happened.  Oh man, I love those.  

The rest of the day consisted of cleaning, organizing, eating, celebrating a birthday, and inventing a pouring device for honey out of duct tape and a rubber glove.  I'm not even kidding.  I'll post a picture ASAP but for now I'll let you use your imagination.