A Buddhist, A Christian, a Jew and Half an Oscelot...

Sit zazen on Christmas Eve!

This has been a wonderful Christmas, one of those Christmases when I’m so grateful for all the non-material things that I have.

The Zendo where I practice usually holds a one hour long sitting on Wednesdays from 7 pm to 8 pm, but it was cancelled for Christmas Eve, so some Zen friends who live just up the block decided to host a sitting at their place. The fellow of the couple actually owns the house and his girlfriend, who invited him to Zen, co-hosted, along with his Bengal cat! I had seen them in pictures and videos, but it was my first time meeting one in person, or in cat, if you will. Blue, the Bengal kitty, was so beautiful and playful! She’s a mini for a Bengal so the size of a normal cat, but you can really tell she is descended from Asian ocelots. She is part wild! She has an actual tiger face! It is a bit alarming to be sitting zazen with a small tiger, but it was delightful! We sat zazen for 45 minutes then shared some reflections about the year. My hosts were in their twenties, graduated from college around 2020 and are working on PhDs and MDs. It was so nice to hang out with smart, interesting people who love zen and cats! The host cooked a simple dinner after we sat and I brought over red velvet cupcakes!

It was a quiet, warm, and lovely evening. I’m going back on Sunday for sitting and will see if I can get some pictures of Blue the Bengal!

Today I went out to see my mom and brought the meatloaf! Being with my mom is the most important thing to me on Christmas. The two worst Christmases of my life were the only ones I wasn’t with my mom. One was when I was a kid and for some reason I was at my Dad’s, even though I always did Thanksgiving with him and Christmas with my mom. I cried and cried on Christmas Eve, I missed my mom so much. I wrote a story about a child whose mommy can’t afford a Christmas tree. The kid walks by a stand that is selling Christmas trees over and over again, but they can’t afford one. She or he (it wasn’t clear in the story) is sad and knows mom is sad. On Christmas Eve the kids is walking by again, and just one small Christmas tree is left. It is lonely too, since no one has picked it for Christmas. The little tree is afraid it will be thrown away, but the owner of the stand sees the kid and asks if she would like the tree. The kid is ecstatic and the stand owner takes the tree home to mom, who is happy too.

Mom and I had a nice lunch with the meatloaf, baked sweet potatoes, asparagus and two pies from an Amish stand at the farmers’ market! I got both apple and cherry. We just ate part of the cherry and I left the rest for mom, but I took home the apple. Sure enough, two slices disappeared later in the evening. I can’t think how. As my old friend used to say about machinations of another Yale Political Union party that I wasn’t supposed to know about, it is “largely unclear.”

Wow, I haven’t thought about that in years!

Mom got me a wonderful warm coat for Christmas. It is so very cozy and toasty with a fleece lining, and it protects me from the extreme cold of my 7 am walks to work. I got little presents for mom: cat socks, cat earrings, and lavender lotion and shower gel. Lavender is her favorite. We now have matching cat earrings that are the shape of cats but have bookshelves on them. The caption said, “Perfect gifts for teachers and librarians!” That would be us!

Here is the meatloaf recipe as it turned out quite well!

2 pounds farmers’ market ground beef

3 eggs

1 package Jiffy corn muffin mix

1 can Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup

1/2 a large red onion, diced

about fifteen button mushrooms, sliced

1 red pepper, sliced

pepper

Worschestershire sauce I spelled it wrong and am too tired to look it up

ketchup

Preheat the oven to 350.

Mix up all the ingredients except the ketchup and red pepper and put in 1 tablespoon Worchersterhire sauce. Squish all together with your hands, remember to wash them before and after handling the meat and eggs. Mold them into whatever shape you want - I used a casserole dish so it was more shallow than loaflike, like a meat cake more than a loaf. Easier to cook that way.

Cook for an hour in the oven.

Mix up the glaze: half a cup of ketchup plus another tbsp Worchestershire sauce. Pepper.

Put the glaze on and cook for another half hour or so.

I let it sit overnight in the fridge last night and we warmed it when I got to mom’s. Really delicious!

I’m so grateful that I still have my mom, that all our cats are safe and well, that I have a job and good prospects for better ones, and for all of my wonderful Substack friends!

Blessings and peace to all of you. We are almost to 2026!

If you need these and want to match me and my mom, you can get them on Amazon!