The Needle

My job this weekend was to annoy people. It was an especially difficult task given that I spent 10 hours on Saturday at a zazenkai (day-long sit). That's a lot of annoying to squeeze into not much time so I really had to work at it.

First I got us all tickets to see The Magic Flute performed by students at Queens College. A friend is a professor in their opera department and he recommended it highly. Since I have nearly failed to offer any kind of musical education to my children, I jumped at the chance. Mozart, college students and cheap ticket prices: a combination that was music to my ears!

I took this image from here.

Finnian was not happy. To his mind, I had pushed the limits and gone beyond. Never has a mother been so cruel, so unfair, so evil as to force a child to attend an opera. Yet, he survived and later, when we were talking about it at dinner (the performance was totally delightful and the students were amazing, at least to my completely uninformed ears), I noticed Finnian was laughing and adding his thoughts about which characters were funny, etc.. Sometimes it pays to be the object of loathing, if even for a little while.

But my irritating abilities did not stop at forcing children to attend operas! No, I did what I had told myself I would never, ever do again, which is to engage in an emotional argument on an email list. The details are unimportant. As that awful feeling came to the pit of my stomach as more and more emotional emails poured into my inbox, I realized that I really don't like being the annoying one. Some people are good at it, thrive in it, but not me. Apologize and step back. Apologize, step back and learn the lesson!

What's that they say? At the end of each day in the zendo? Oh yes...

One of the filet crochet pieces to be presented as part of Unconditional Yes.