Joe Isuzu's Daily Slander

A Griswold Christmas

"Thus ignorance and awakening are simply different names for this single mind. Although there are two different words or terms used, there is only one mind."
"Therefore one must not cut off or do away with ignorance. For if one cuts off the dreaming mind that is ignorance, then one will also lose the waking mind, the mind of enlightenment."

WND Vol. II

The Unanimous Declaration By The Buddhas of the Three Existences regarding the Classification of the Teachings and Which Are to Be Abandoned and Which Upheld

Not just one of the most beautiful letters Nichiren had written, but somebody gave it quite a handle too.

My wife and I had gone to our itty-bitty condo in Utah, which we rent out when not being used by us, during Thanksgiving week and packed the lock out with presents for the kids, the youngest being 18 and the rest are in their 30's. I have come to think of the Christmas holiday as not much more than a reason to leave LA and get away from it all, especially the madness, the sadness, the franticness that Christmas seems to bring out of many people. As a matter of fact, that's why I bought the place 15 years ago when I was flush. And I like to ski. It's at 8,000 feet altitude and walkable to the slopes. With an unobstructed view of the mountains that takes your breath away so much so that you don't need to ski to enjoy being there. Food tastes better. Books read better. Music sounds better. I described it to a writer once and he ironically dubbed it "Nirvana".

The condo itself was originally two bedrooms. I converted an aditional small space into another room with a bed. By small I mean I actually built a bed in the room like a ship in a bottle. It's not a room so much as a cocoon. The living room sofa has a bed in it too.
So technically it sleeps eight. But six is very manageable. Six humans that is.

So the plan, and we had a plan, was for six humans and three small dogs; a pug Adel, a miniature Pom puppy Tater Tot (a miniature Pom is like a regular Pom with the same amount of hyper activity in half the body and half the brain), and a mutt named Celie, whom I've written about before. I went a week ahead of everybody else to do what us handy guys do; fix stuff. Secretly I imagined myself skiing most of the time. (Ha ha ha!) I took two of the dogs, the ones who don't mind the cold so much, with me. It's about a twelve hour drive, which I like do do in one shot while listening to books on tape. My wife and I, when we travel together, don't listen to the same stuff. She likes Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts. They put me into a diabetic coma. I like Richard Dawkins or Cormac McCarthy both of whom my wife finds tediously boring. She refers to them as my "Buddha Buddies". She doesn't practice Buddhism. I don't get it either. But I think it has something to do with the fact that I chant daily and therefore I'm obsessed with Buddhism. I brush my teeth twice a day too but she doesn't refer to my preferred reading as my "dental care cronies".

When me-and-them-there-dogs-got-to-where-we-was-agoin', it was cold. Really cold. 40 degrees below freezing. When I open the car door, the dogs jumped out then jumped right back in and asked to go home again. They knew I was tired from twelve hours behind the wheel so they told me that they'd take turns driving home. I tried to explain to them that we were on vacation, this was going to be fun, and that their licenses were for being vaccinated, not driving a vehicle. "Besides, dogs shouldn't drive at night." That's what I told them and they bought it. Hey, they're dogs and the Dog Whisperer told me to take charge, so I did.

Once inside I discovered that we had no running water. With the subzero temperatures even the dogs could figure out that the pipes had frozen somewhere. So at 3AM I found myself crawling in the crawl space (thus the name) looking for busted pipes with a miners light strapped to my forehead and pulling a space heater behind me, my thinking being the sooner I started the thaw, the sooner I could take a pee inside. I got no sympathy from the dogs.

At the end of the crawl I didn't find any busted water pipes. I did find that I couldn't turn around. So while I laid there on the frozen subfloor slab, I tried to recall what Charles Bronson did in the Great Escape. Or that old guy from Strangers On A Train. I also remembered some lyrics from Big John and Timothy. Those motivated me enough to put everything into reverse. I couldn't help but laugh at myself thinking that here was yet another occasion where if I could only pull my head out of my ass I could at least see where I was going.

The next day I left dozens of messages for plumbers before finally actually speaking to one who said they would be there when they could. Everyone everywhere had busted pipes. I was fortunate to even get a hold of one. I was also fortunate to get ahold of my neighbors and let them know that there was a problem. They got me access to their places because all the pipes run under each other's units. The next night when the plumber finally came we found that someone (no one copped to it) had turned off my neighbors heat and all the pipes froze under that unit. 24 hours later, we could flush again. So where did I go pee for two days? With the dogs, of course. Where did I do everything else? At Home Depot of course. I learned a lot of clever things when I was younger and living in my car.

This whole time I was chanting that things got resolved asap and that I wouldn't let this be too distracting while I got the place ready for the family. It did and I wasn't. So far, so good. Then my wife called.

She was on the way, driving separately, and informing me after the fact that she was bringing two aditional BIG DOGS, Brutus a boxer and Igor a bulldog, belonging to HER kids. One of HER kids initially wasn't coming, but now is coming and bringing a friend. "I'm driving so I gotta go. Bye." Click. She knew intrinsically that I'd say no to the dogs for sure, possibly even say no to HER kid who changed their mind, so she took me out of that equation. We now had 8 humans and 5 dogs. 13 mammals. 16 feet and 20 paws. That's when the water heater broke.

Okay, so now I'm getting pissed. I have to get ahold of the plumber again, drop a grand for the Christmas-time-priced water heater, and text my wife to drive slower so they don't show up with the unwanted BIG DOGS, which would in turn drive the sequestered little dogs crazy all the while I have men, pipes and welding torches all over the kitchen.

Things I don't want to hear from my wife when she show's up:
"Did you get all the food on the list I gave you?"
"Oh boy, it's Christmas!"
"So, how's it been skiing?"

I was getting tense. The very thing I always tried to avoid by leaving LA at Christmas. It was all coming to me now, and we still had to make a few trips down off the mountain to the airport to pick up the rest of the minions. Oy!

"The purpose of this passage of commentary is to assure foolish persons of this latter age that they are included among those who can carry out the practice. The term "the ordinary distracted mind" is used in contrast to the term "the mind fixed in concentration." Chanting the Lotus Sutra means chanting all eight volumes, one volume, one word, one phrase, one verse, responding to the sutra with joy for single moment and continual propagation to the fiftieth person. The words "whether sitting, or standing, or walking" means that there is no objection to [fixing your whole mind on the words of the Lotus Sutra while] carrying out the activities of daily life. The term "whole mind" does not mean the mind that observes the truth. It is the mind that is found within the ordinary distracted mind of daily life."

WND VOL. II
On the Protection Of the Nation

I felt entitled to be upset. I was justified in my anger. I was mystified as to why no one else could see what I see. I was like an angry American Idol reject; synonym-delusional.
I had a conversation with my wife where I told her what a selfish and stupid thing this was to bring too many people and animals together in too small a space because now no one was going to have a good time because everyone had to spend it cleaning up dog pee and dog poop and walking these dogs out in subzero temperatures. Of course I was talking about me. Of course this was in my head and not actually to my wife's face where she could hear. Of course this was while I was chanting. Of course I was so resentful. Of course I tried to mask it for a day or so. Of course that didn't work and the tension was palpable.

I teetered on this edge, chanting in my distracted mind, unresolved, as to whether or not to just go to a very miserable place and drag everyone with me, when I found the energy-life force to make the determination not to go there. Yes I got up three hours before everyone to walk the dogs in stages; feed them; walk them again; go to the balconies and pick up frozen poop; carry buckets of hot water to wash off frozen pee; then make coffee while I went and chanted for five minutes. When everyone else got up I would great them with "Who wants breakfast before I go ski?" Something changed in me. I liked me. I could enjoy all this now. I could appreciate being with these people and their dogs. It became mutual. There was a balance that came with my change in attitude, because now everyone else could see too that dogs needed to be looked after when the dogs needed it and not when they got up. Everybody pitched in. The change was a half conscious choice, but that only came after I had the energy that comes with HOPE. The hope came from me. It was there all the time, just the other side of despair.

We had the best time for the whole rest of the time. (Tater Tot too) Later in the week the eight of us were invited to dinner at a friends home. It's a really big home. They are really sweet people. They are also zillionaires. They invited anyone who wanted to ride home on their private jet. So when the time came, they took three people and three dogs. Super cool. Because that gave me time to clean the condo before the housekeepers I hired to clean, came to clean. And don't react like I'm the only anally retentive person who does this either! You know who you are.

Posted by joeisuzu at January 19, 2010 12:06 PM