I'm getting ready to go outside to read my electric meter, a task I share with my electric company, one month they trudge out to check the numbers, the next month I do. Today, a cumbersome bit of uncertainty slithers up from some region of my mind and I find myself wondering if they really show up for their end of the bargain or have they, in their corporate foxiness, found a way to get me to do their job--me foolishly reading the meter and them doing only an estimate when it's their turn. I feel suddenly suspicious. 

(SUSPICIOUS: a state of suspecting wrongdoing without sufficient proof or evidence). I'm reminded of all the retailers who have installed self-checkout units in order to eliminate checkout clerks from the payroll and get me to do THEIR job. I paw through my past years elec. bills to see if I can catch them in a scheme to do the same. But even as I do this, I realize there's a deeper issue in the mix--a sort of cocktail of darker stuff--my own lack of trust and fear of being taken advantage of being the main ingredients. This is not proof, (although yes, in a reasonably clear vessel, intuition might certainly arouse suspicion--but I'm not sensing that sort of conviction at the moment) I find no proof in the electric bills either--each month is marked with a code: A for actual reading and E for estimate. As nearly as I can tell, things have gone according to our agreement about who reads the meter, when. I suppose that they could still be cheating me and lying on the bill but I also know that I do not want to call up some poor clerk and raise a ruckus based only on my suspicions about the possible lying, cheating, conniving nature of big businesses in general. I decide I don't want to do that at all. I'd rather clear out the clutter in my own mind so that I can again choose to focus on the joy that resides inside and let the Universe take care of the cheaters. It will. Maybe once in awhile the Universe uses me as the vehicle for that payback but not today. Today I get to be happy and nothing else is required of me yet. And aaah the fresh, expansive nature of an uncontaminated mind--nothing beats it. Have a delightful day. May your dance of life sparkle with joy!

That time of day

It's about 8 p.m. here at my house in the ubiquitous upstate New York. I'm doing ok. I didn't kill anybody. There's food in the fridge. Nobody I know lost their home or any of their loved ones. Noone's car needed me to push start it. This is the time of day when I wind down. I've either accomplished what I wanted to accomplish today or its too late to do anything about it and whatever it was that didn't get done will have to wait because I seriously need a nap, some dinner, or to just lie back with a book or a movie and let the tension melt out of my neck and shoulders. Yay! So why, you may be wondering is there a picture of some seagulls when the topic apparently is vegging out?  Good question; I'm glad you mentioned it.