Woke up early without my alarm, waited to see if I was awake or if I was going to fall back asleep… time to get up! Fridays I don’t have work work, because I leave it open in case I’m needed to help with my dad and today I was needed! I thought about the monks when I woke up, hoped they had a nice night’s rest in Spotsylvania and were feeling good to walk yet another day! Timing… I needed to be at my dad’s by 10:30am, the monks were leaving their rest spot early, I had to pass by where they were crossing… so I left at 8, found a spot to park and stay warm. I watched Google Maps to see where the “congestion” (red) was, waited until I saw the police cars driving slowly and I got out in time to walk to the side of Lafayette Blvd, crouch down to my knees in the snow and look them all in the eye and thank them as they walked by. Yesterday I had on my sunglasses but not today – it was wonderful to see them all again. Venerable monk and walk leader (and Aloka the Peace Dog’s human) Bhikkhu Pannakara looked at me, said what sounded like ‘thank you mam’ and handed me a bouquet of some of his flowers. After they were past, I looked around at the couple of people who were standing with me and just said “oh my gosh! would any of you like some of the flowers?” and I handed them out. I kept an orange rose and I’m drying it out by pressing it in my National Geographic wildlife images book from my sister in law, Carly and would love to put it in my Awakening the Mind, Lightening the Heart book which my brother in law (Carly and Mike’s brother) Chris gave me.
Then off to my dad’s, not the best visit – couldn’t get him to get changed so we could go get our pizza, no matter how much I assured him, or tried to show him the schmutz on his sweater, he didn’t believe that his sweater needed to be changed. Tamam – keep your sweater on! LOL. It was unusual that he didn’t sing when I put on the Jammin with DRWD playlist, but he did say “Ah Steppenwolf, that was my………” to which I finished his sentence with “CB handle” when Born to Be Wild came on LOLOL. Couldn’t find appropriate parking at the pizza place so I went in, ordered two slices to go and went back to the car to wait with him, we had pizza at home. He remained agitated, but I could hear him laughing to himself occasionally. I’ll look for tips on how to get him to change out of his sweater for future visits. Forgot to post this on the 6th, posting it now. Bye for now!
DiForYou 