My stone fountain and little pond in my back garden have become my new focus in the past couple of weeks.

Robert and I have been trying to get the ecosystem friendly to the little goldfish we put in the pond.  True to his mathematical mind's propensity to seek answers, Robert has read a lot about raising gold fish lately.

We've been sad to lose several fish since last year when we started putting them in the pond.  I so enjoy sitting on the rock next to the pond and gazing at them as they dart around.

The night after I returned from Lisbon,  a racoon raided the pond, and ate all but one black fish.  We were very upset.  Robert set about constructing something to put over the pond to protect it at night from predators.

After some experimentation, he built a removable lath and chicken wire "lid" to place over the main part of the pond.  It really works great.

We now have the black fish and three gold fish, more aquatic plants, an ammonia 'trap" and the protective lid.  In the late afternoon, the little fish swim out from their rock hiding place.  It's so fun to watch them. We stand and whisper to each other, noting each fish's position.

Robert read that fish can talk (!)  We think the black fish has been indoctrinating the new ones with tales of the racoon's murderous raid, and noting our clumsy splashing around adding gravel, plants, and the protection device. 

This is our anthropomorphic explanation of why they seem reluctant to come out from under the rocks.

Some of you have asked to see the photos from my son, Gunther's recent ride for Tour de Cure, the fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association.  You can click here to see him and Anders (who has Type 1) and his brother, August.

http://picasaweb.google.com/rohrer.gunther/TourDeCure2009

Tomorrow I leave for Milan for the two-day numerology seminar, and Lisbon for the conference in Portugal.

I know I have not written in a long time. Should one feel guilty for not blogging enough?

It's been a beautiful spring

Cleaning out old files

Changing the desk in my study for a simpler, lighter look

Weeding

Buying and planting pink and purple flowers

Observing the five tiny fish in my funny tiny pond

Reading library books to Auggie and Anders on the couch on the deck

Making polenta with mushroom marinara sauce and

Shrimp in coconut sauce

Talking with my old friend, Jaye and her daughter, Palin, who are visiting from New Mexico

Going to the Andy Warhol exhibit with Jaye and Palin. Being fascinated by his four "video auditions" of the members of the Velvet Underground--(each man just looks steadily at the camera, hardly moving; one of them slowly drags on a cigarette) mesmerizing.  I realize how much Warhol has affected my viewpoint.  He said he liked boring things.  I like repetition and monotonous sounds, rain, music like chanting, didgeridoo sounds.

Going with Rainey to the Fraenkle Gallery for the last day of the exhibit of photographers who captured a view of the world much like Edward Hopper.  I fell in love with one beautiful photograph of a store window empty of everything except a small, old-fashioned adding machine with a crank handle.  The sign on the store said Calculators.  This image is as beautiful as a Vermeer to me.  It IS a Vermeer!  The light quality, the serenity, the creamy colors, the interior space. Timeless.

Art.  You gotta love it. 

Mommy and Daddy away five days 

Anders sleeping soundly at Nana's

Seven years old

with 100 days of first grade done

Sound of rain at night

and happiness 

Today 

Clear winter Monday morning

Sound of birds outside my window

The flock flies in again

flicks feathers in the fountain

fly away

Happy 

Intuition is always working.

Five minutes ago, I was posting my monthly column.  I suddenly had the urge to look outside to see if my neighbors were putting out their green waste cans this week (I have forgotten the schedule as I've been away for two weeks.)  Sure enough green cans were on the curb so I hurried to get mine out as it has been full of cuttings for over a month.  Just as I turned to go back in the house, the green waste can truck came around the corner.  If I had delayed another two minutes, he would have past on by my house!

Last night a part of my filling fell out requiring me to call the dentist today.  Two hours before it happened my client for this afternoon called to reschedul because she's ill.  That gives me more time to schedule an emergency dental appointment.

Synchronicity and intuition work at every day levels that most of the time pass unnoticed.  We like the big splashy synchronicities like meeting someone we know in an unlikely location. 

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. day!

I'm sitting here this afternoon with four layers of shirts on--it's a bit chilly here in my study.

Robert and I got back from our tour to Southern China the day before Thanksgiving.  Gunther and Eliza made a wonderful dinner and it was great to come home to the family.

We had a really good time--the 18 other tour members were ALL Chinese, so I was the only non-Chinese speaking person on the trip. It's a good thing Robert speaks Cantonese.

We arrived in Hong Kong and ferried to Macau.  Over ten days, made our way West to Guilin where those stunning, individual rock mountains jut out of the earth like shark's teeth--the ones that you see in Chinese scrolls.

I was quite impressed with my daily views out the bus window, watching the rice fields appear and disappear, and catching vignettes of people living their lives. I snapped as many photos as I could as we rolled by--sometimes at 5 miles an hour, sometimes at 55 miles an hour.  

The shots I missed because my camera shutter speed is slower than my artist's eye are:

• 4 different blue trucks, each carrying a load of live pink pigs
  
• a man driving a motor scooter with two metal cages stuffed with flapping, outraged red hens
  
• a man on a 3-wheeled, pedi-truck carrying a tall, balanced stack of 20 wooden chairs
  
• a truck loaded with two water buffalo bullocks, eyes round as saucers
• a truck loaded with several water buffaloes, packed end-to-end and looking bored

•  a dangling, wooden wheel barrow being lowered from a roof top
• endlessly repeating squares of harvested rice paddies, the dried stalks left in perky, little triangular stacks
• rice stalks burning, the smoke curling into the dusty sky
• 3 people squatting and chatting alongside a resting, empty wheelbarrow

• stone walls plastered with strings of red Chinese characters, announcing, offering
• tar paper shacks made of ancient and older layers of scraps upon scraps--sheltering a place to store tools--or nap between chores
• families in the fields digging, hoeing, gathering, reaching, waiting, eating, walking home

• a two-mile long straight lane bordered by an unbroken stone fence--one person starting the walk home at sunset, carrying a bundle

• a man quietly fixing his bicycle--wheels up-ended-- by the side of the roadway
• a six-year old holding hands with his four-year old brother walking "in the middle of nowhere" on the narrow side of  the roadway, no adult in sight
• two road workers wearing shorts, orange vests, and peaked, bamboo hats, squatting and smoking alongside the road
• a woman shoveling rocks into a wheelbarrow on a highway soil-erosion project, tiny ant-like figures above her placing rocks by hand
  
• a mother driving a motor scooter with a baby in front and a toddler hugging her waist in the back
• LOTS of mothers-- hair flying, one or two children huddled against her on the scooter or bicycle
  

• two Chinese scarecrows
  

Robert and I watch a lot of CNN and BBC News and financial reports, and often hear about "emerging markets." I loved this trip because I could see for myself how actively and rapidly China is developing--from the ancient plots of land to the seemingly endless skyscraper apartment buildings, some moderately new (thirty years or so following the Cultural Revolution) and some brand-new in Hong Kong.

I realized that if I looked hard enought, I could almost always find a person out in EVERY field WORKING--unlike when I drive Highway 99 or 5 through the silent, monolithic Central Valley here in California, where the agricultural tasks are industrialized, with machines and sprinklers and no person to be seen.

It dawned on me as I grew accustomed to the rhythm of villages appearing and disappearing that inhabited areas were spaced WALKING distance apart--maybe two miles or so. 

I don't think I saw more than one or two overweight people the whole time.  Everyone in rural China is burning off the calories by being naturally and continually engaged in productive activity-- walking miles to home, pedaling a bike, shoveling dirt and rocks, carrying furniture, stacking up piles of vegetables, casting fish nets, using tools, hoeing, hammering, culling, cooking, drying fruit, climbing and trimming trees, herding water buffalo, draining shrimp ponds, weeding--you know, all the things we avoid doing, or pay someone else to do, or use an automatic device for!

I've been in third world countries before, so I'm no stranger to old-fashioned squatting toilets, but the time we stopped the bus at a gas station which offered only stagnant, reeking pits gave me a whole new appreciation for whoever invented "flush" toilets, and all that term implies and provides. 

One day we visited magnificent caverns with huge rooms of stalagites (and stalagmites) soaring more than 150 feet high, brilligantly lit with colored lights--an emotionally stirring environment--fanciful, symbolic, warm and humid.  I was sweating after 30 minutes of walking through the place. I wondered about the girl who had the job of selling souvenirs in the cave day after day, underground with  no reference to the sun.  Probably a step up (or down) from the daily hoeing alternative out there in the fields.

Robert and I celebrated our 8th anniversary of meeting each other one morning by dancing a waltz in an immense open-air plaza filled with ball-room dancers, tai-chi groups, and fan-dance exercisers, when our group stopped to admire all the activities.  It was a beautiful day, and will be a long-remembered trip.

November 11 is an appropriate date to commemorate those who served to protect their country. Eleven is the master number called The Inspirer, and is composed of two 1's.  One represents honesty, courage, bravery, leadership, and command.

Last night I watched the PBS show on John and Abigail Adams.  John Adams was one of the Founding Fathers and major architect of the United States Constitution. Adams was the first Vice President under George Washington, and the second President.   His wife, Abigail Adams, and he were a devoted couple.  She was a brilliant woman, mother of several children, and ran their farm when Adams was gone for long periods of time during the early founding of America.

Adams and Thomas Jefferson had a deep relationship, during which they were estranged for years, and then reconciled in 1812. Almost unbelievably, both men died on the same day--July 4th, 1826--the 50th anniversary of Independence Day. Doesn't that just blow your mind?

The show as riveting--please see it if you can.

I wanted to see what the numbers said about these remarkable human beings and their destiny to found a country.

I used the Julian calendar dates (11 days earlier than the later Georgian calendar, which came into use in the 1700's). 

John Adams was born October 19, 1735--the karmic number 19 has the quality of someone who is not always treated well in the public eye--true of this man who called himself "obnoxious." His Destiny is another karmic number 13--the reformer--in this case, a literal revolutionary who fought for the idea that America should split from Britain.

Amazingly, he had the Line of Foundation, a relatively rare occurrence where his most frequent numbers are 1 and 4 (without a 7--so it was hard for him to connect with people.)

His brilliant wife, Abigail (born Smith) has the SAME line of foundation with her married name of Abigail Adams (in this name she also has the 7, completing and strengthening the Line.  She was known for her understanding of diplomatic relations and was a proponent of women's rights--an almost unknown concept at that time.  She was born (in the Julian calendar) on November 22, 1744--three sets of master numbers--11, 22, 44.  Not only does she have the master builder 22 as Day of Birth, but as birth path total 22, as well as a Heart's Desire of 22.  An amazing chart.

Thomas (22)  Jefferson (44) has the almost unheard of master number Destiny of 66/3--suggesting a brilliant speaker and mind destined to bring forth a document to serve the new citizens of the United States-- the Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson's Birth Path is 14/5--a karmic number of independence and need for freedom. His birth date April 13, 1743, shows the karmic 13/4--the reformer and transformer.  He and Adams both have the "mark of the Old Soul" of the zero Challenge in early life--perhaps indicating an almost predestined and spiritual meeting of the minds.  Jefferson had the Line of the General--born to motivate others to a worthy cause with a heavy emphasis on service (Ruling Passion of 6.)  His 6 Ruling Passion makes me smile, too, because 6's love their food and wine and earthly comforts--and remember, I mentioned that book I read on Thomas Jefferson and Wine.

Well, I hope I have not bored you with all these ramblings.  I am very interested now in the early days of the country.  History is coming alive. 

I just lighted my Halloween pumpkin and am waiting for the first trick-or-treaters.

Rainey and I drove down to Stanford University today to see the Richard Diebenkorn exhibit at the Cantor Museum.  What a lovely space!  In the lobby, Deborah Butterfield's cast bronze horse sculpture is astonishing.  It looks exactly as if it were made of pieces of driftwood.

Rainey (Lorraine Sykes) is such a dear friend.  We walk once a week and never tire of talking about books we have read.  She turned  me onto a  WONDERFUL book--a novella--by Alan Bennett, called The Uncommon Reader. 

The story is about how Queen Elizabeth--in a gesture of politeness-- borrows a book from the mobile library that visits Buckingham Palace for the benefit of the staff.  In spite of herself, she gets hooked on the world of reading and the story is about how reading changes her.  It's marvelous, and there are some great book references. 

At one point, the Queen's guards find the book she has hidden in the cushions of her state carriage (she was reading the book on her lap while riding through the crowds and waving automatically.)  The guard explains that they were afraid it was a bomb and that they confiscated it--perhaps even to blow it up. 

"But," says the Queen, "it's Anita Brookner!"  Fans of Brookner (I've read everything she's written and just checked out two from the library to re-read) know that her books have female characters who are deeply introverted and spend most their time ruminating on such things as a past kiss from a lover that happened fifty years ago--in a word, she is the least subversive author Bennett could have chosen! 

Anyway, I have been thinking for the past week that I wanted to share this book on my blog, so now I can move on!

This morning I saw a CNN segment about people who are obsessed with the election.  One man had sent in a self-made video of himself talking about how obsessed he was.  He goes home right after work and turns on his computer.  "My wife is real mad because she says I never listen to her.  There's a lot of things she wants me to do around the house.  A few months ago, a tree fell on the back of our house, and I haven't gotten around to dealing with it yet."  Wow, I love it.  Now, that is obsessed.

I just finished reading, The Architecture of Happiness, by Alain de Botton.  De Botton is one of my top favorite authors--his other great books are How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philosophy, and The Art of Travel.

Here are some inspiring quotes:

Comment From The Observer :  "De Botton wants to encourage his readers, and societies more generally, to pay more attention to the psychological consequences of design in architecture: that architecture should not be treated as an arcane and specialist discipline to be left to professionals, but as something that affects all our lives, our happiness, and our well-being."

On the front flap of the book:

"One of the great but often unmentioned causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kinds of walls, chairs, buildings and streets that surround us.

This book has at its center the large and naive question:  What is a beautiful building?  

De Botton raises the question--What does a building say to us? What does it speak of?

One of his comments (each of his sentences is like an essay of concentrated thought) on page 152 is "What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty."

He posits that we are attracted to and find beautiful those qualities in a building or work of art that we lack in our lives.  Simply put, we love nature the more when we lack enough contact with nature.

I also love the section on page 261

"In medieval Japan, poets and Zen priests directed the Japanese towards aspects of the world to which Westerners have seldom publicly accorded more than negligible or casual attention:  cherry blossoms, deformed pieces of pottery, raked gravel, moss, rain falling on leaves, autumn skies, roof tiles and unvarnished wood.  A word emerged, wahi, of which no Western language, tellingly, has a direct equivalent, which identified beauty with unpretentious, simple, unfinished transient things.  There was wahi to be enjoyed in an evening spent alone in a cottage in the woods, hearing the rain fall.  There was wahi in old ill-matching sets of crockery, in plain buckets, in walls with blemishes, and in rough, weathered stones covered in moss and lichen.  The most wahi colours were grey, black and brown."

I could go on, but I've got to run...I want to see Vicki Cristina Barcelona tonight.  I just wanted to pass along this book, this author.