OK. We have this fancy new phone system now, wherein our voicemail messages on the home phone get e-mailed to Steve’s account and mine, too. Which would be useful and all, I suppose, if they made any cussin’ sense. But they don’t. To wit:

“Hi you guys, honey. Am so married already actually isn’t gonna end at five. It went well. I got one and gonna and like after five. We don’t exactly know when but I’ll call you when we know and I’ll leave a message on your way you guys this cell phone. Okay. Alright well, yeah Marilyn, it’s Bennett. It’s gonna and up like 6 inch of. Bye “

Well, good thing it had my daughter’s cell phone number attached to the message, cuz otherwise (to quote my dear grandfather), that wouldn’t have made no damn sense.

She was saying something along the lines of… the birthday party was fun, the mall was fun, the party is (was) still going on (which explains the “isn’t gonna end at five” part) and… it will end around six. At least that’s what I got out of the message from my husband, once he’d talked with her. Telephone is just like the game “telephone,” it turns out. Only more so, nowadays.

Oh, technology, you’ve made life so much more complex than it already was.

Now for a short round-up:

Reading this week:

From the “suffering caused by the lack of wisdom” section of the Hanh’s mindfulness book:

“In the case of a person, try to see every suffering which that person is undergoing. Begin with the suffering of bodily form (sickness, poverty, physical pain) and then proceed to the suffering caused by feelings (internal conflicts, fear, hatred, jealousy, a tortured conscience). Consider next the suffering caused by perceptions (pessism, dwelling on his problems with a dark and narrow viewpoint).” etc. and then, “Meditate on all these sufferings until your heart fills with compassion like a well of fresh water, and you are able to see that the person suffers because of circumstances and ignorance.” (p. 94.)

I am nowhere near that yet, especially when we’re talking about this, that is.

Cuss.

“The Balanced Mom” (by Bria Simpson) was good, but I just wanted a little more there there, if you know what I mean. Just started “The London Eye Mystery” (by the late Siobhan Dowd), it’s great.