Sunday morning yard-blog

Sitting out in the backyard, typing on my laptop on a sunny Sunday morning. Light breeze blowing off the Bay, Boros is at my feet, just chillin'... to quote the Supersuckers, "it's gooooood livin'."

I can't imagine what this is like for Boros. He's always been content enough with a decent-sized balcony, and now he's got this whole new world available. I've even taken to letting him hang out in the yard without direct supervision; I just occasionally check on him from the window, and if I can't spot him I'll go make sure he hasn't wandered too far. He's usually just hanging out in the underbrush. And if I'm out here with him, he often sits where he is now, between my feet; I think it's all just overwhelming for him sometimes, and he feels safer there. Like when I was a little kid and would attach myself to my dad's leg when we were in a public place.

There are also three baby chickens who live here, they have to stay inside now because a couple of the first ones got picked off by predators as soon as my housemates turned their backs... now we're letting them grow big enough in a contained setting before transitioning them to their own coop in the corner. Boros is obviously fascinated by them, but so far he's shown very little of the hunting instinct. I don't think it's that he doesn't have it; he will sometimes "stalk" them, approach their cage really slowly, close to the ground, etc. But the way his brain works is that all the other non-cerebellum parts have to compensate for his motor-skills disfunction, so whenever he has to "multi-task" he gets even less coordinated. The other parts of his brain have to take care of their normal routines, and his cerebellum is left on its own. Something like that moron co-worker we've all had to deal with; everyone else has to work to help them with their regular day-to-day tasks, but when a big project comes in and nobody has time to help, they are exposed. That's Boros's cerebellum.

Finally feel settled in here; got the big recliner I inherited from the kids I subleased the Davis place from, set that up in the corner of my "office," so now I have a nice reading nook (more like napping station) set up. I'll post some pictures of the whole place in the next week or two, just to give an idea of where I live. But I feel comfortable here.

I'm going in this week to check out the Shambhala meditation center in Berkeley; Monday I'm going to a Zen archery practice (how cool is that?), and Wednesday night there is a yoga group that meets before sitting meditation. I'm excited to ramp up my practice some more.

Oh yeah, here's another cool thing; about ¼ mile from the house there is this ginormous park, it must be hundreds of acres... I was checking it out on a map, and you can literally walk out the door to my house, up the street, and then through this park all the way to the UC Berkeley campus some 10 miles away. I walked around in there for awhile last week, it's all rolling hills and trees up this way... amazing views of the Bay and San Francisco. I'm excited to go exploring some more.

Otherwise, just trying to settle in and get a good schedule going. Applying for more and more jobs, the right one is just around the corner. I can feel it. I've refined my "perfect job"; part-time, East Bay, preferably Berkeley. I've applied for a couple interesting paid internships, too: small publishing companies, Web and print, putting out political-action publications. Green living, helping the homeless, etc. Sounds promising, no? I will, of course, keep you posted.