Good Old Fashioned Neighborliness

My plan for yesterday was to create a website for the Finding Om yoga class and post-asana discussion group. I think that a website helps give the project an extra air of legitimacy, and I figure that any way I can get people interested in, paying attention to and signing up for my study has got to be good. I want to make the site useful aside from just explaining what Finding Om is and who is eligible, so I am also planning on putting up a resources page which will include books, websites and resources about yoga and binge eating disorder and anything else that seems relevant to my target population. When the group gets up and running I may also put a password-protected particpant-only discussion group area. With me as the moderator, of course. I found a really cute picture of Ganesha, remover of obstacles, and got the artist's permission to use it as my pseudo-logo. So I was feeling all ready to go.

What do they say about the best laid plans? Yeah. I could have used a little Ganehsa-powered obstacle removal in my own life yesterday. This web page creating business is not quite as straightforward as I imagined. I know all the tools are available for me but it was definitely not the WYSYWG drag-and-drop experience I had hoped for. So, at about 12:30 I took a break to go see if the mail had come. It hadn't but my little 9 month old cat got outside and ran up a tree. Way, way, way up a tree. To make a long story short, my afternoon alternated between being frustrated about this dumb website business and trying to come up with creative solutions for getting a really frightened cat out of a tree. Got the mailman involved when he came by at 3:30but that didn't work either. Finally I left a message for my neighbor JG, since my husband is out of town and I definitely needed some more help.

Around 6:30 JG called, and he and his 3 kids all came over-- for some reason, bringing their own cat on a leash. We had no luck and it was getting increasinly cold, so we all tromped inside for a glass of wine (adults, anyway). Finally at about 8:30 we tried again to get the cat out of the tree... to no avail. I decided to call it a night and get my kids to bed, since today is a school day and it was already 9 PM. Well, unbeknownst to me, JG was on a mission. He went home and got a giant ladder and climbed right up there and got the little bugger. 9:30 the doorbell rings, and there was the G clan, holding my cat and their cat and lots of flashlights.

Who says there's no such thing as caring neighbors anymore? Seriously. How nice was that? I know my kids and I all slept better knowing that our cat was not out in 18 degree weather freezing her skilly little feline butt off in a squirrels nest.

Later I am going to bring over a bottle of wine for JG and a batch of cookies for the kids. Just to be, you know, neighborly.