Odds and Evens

Toshan called me over to his table at the feast yesterday.  Sitting with his wife Madhurya-lila, he grabbed my hand and said "Gargamuni, I had a strange dream about you last night."  "Yes?" I said curiously.  I dreamed that you and I were being shot at in the street." "You mean like some kind of drug war or something?" "Something like that," he said.  "You were hit a couple of times and were taking cover lying on your belly and I was running over to save you."  "Oh my God," I said.  "You weren't hit bad," he said  "They only had 22's and you were just grazed."  

We've hit a warm spell here in Alachua County.  It was in the 80's yesterday and will continue in the low to mid-80's with almost no chance of rain through the weekend.  The weather was heavenly at the temple yesterday evening.

I'm going to go out on the road by myself in search of some doh-ray-me starting Thursday and may stay out all the way until Sunday.  This is what my Spring Break "vacation" comes down to. It's like out of the frying pan and into the fire.  I could ask someone to go with me but I think I'd rather go it alone this time.  I'm pretty much going to stay in the South Florida area and hope I can find a decent price on hotels, otherwise it will somewhat defeat the purpose.  If I go by myself, the expenses will be higher, but so will my income and freedom.  My irritation rate should thankfully be lower.  

The Gaura-Purnima program at the temple was nice.  I put on the big white diaper (dhoti) for perhaps the second time in the last year or so and hobnobbed with old friends milling about the temple midway.  Shyam had asked me permission to take the van to go to Saint Augustine and camp for a night.  Both of us had forgotten he was planning to go on Gaura Purnima.  He told me he's chanting several rounds every day, recently read "The Perfection of Yoga," and is about half-way through the Bhagavad-gita.  Although he didn't go to the evening Gaura-Purnima festivities, he did go to the morning program before he left for Saint Augustine.  I never forced Krishna consciousness on him when he was growing up and am now happy to see him becoming more serious about spiritual life.  Govinda went through a similar transformation several years ago.   Now, let's see what happens with the Shyam-man.  The coach from the South pines Club team called for him yesterday to see if he wants to play on their team as a guest-player for the State Cup soccer tournament for U-19's.

I walked to Colen's, across from Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at the Gator Plaza, to get my hair cut. This time, the oriental lady K.C. cut my hair.  As she cut, I heard the owner complain about Obama to one of his friends.  "He just gave away $400 billion more, that makes $1 trillion now," the owner said.  "Yup," said the friend.  "They have to borrow it from Korea or China," said K.C.  "Now, how do you suppose they gonna pay it all back?" the owner said.  "They'll have to hand over Alaska," he continued.  "You know that Japan already owns half of Hawaii?"  said the owner.  "Really?" said the friend.  "How do you know that?  I never read that."  "Just look it up.  It's right there on the internet," said the owner.  "I'm sure glad they don't own Florida yet," said K.C.  Later, I walked over to Mother Earth before going back home.

Radha's friend Prema spent the night last night.  She got her driver's license about a day or so after Radha did and drove Radha back from the temple.  She didn't want to show it to me at first because she didn't like her picture.  After the temple, I stopped at Kesi's and picked up two vinyl albums he bought me- John and Yoko's "Double Fantasy" and the Cars' "Candy-O."  I stopped at the new Walgreens in Alachua to buy some allergy medicine for Radha.  "I'm going in with a dhoti to buy drugs," I told Kesi.  Inside, I met Ramanya and he talked about how he became friendly again with his ex-wife Chaintanya-lila before she died.  He promised her to move back to the States to be closer to their children.