Oatmeal with Chia Seeds

My life has been busy of late.  Yesterday my kitchen sick plugged up to the extent the plumber has to cut some pipe in the front yard and replace it.  My bathroom downstairs is under renovation from a burst pipe last March.  We decided on radiant heat which is basically a warm floor.  Two days ago the electrician came to install the key pad and we found out the flooring was installed incorrectly so now it has to be broken up, re-glued and then re-grouted.  The tenant in one of our rental hasn't paid rent in 3 months and refuses to move.  The police can be called to force the move the day after Thanksgiving.  This is after I just completed two weeks of tune-up body tests which are unnerving as I age and after my husband was told he was exposed to Agent Orange while on duty in the Coast Guard in Guam.  My tests were fortunately, mostly positive, healthy, no-problem-go-lead-your-life good.  My dermatologist, internist, radiologist, ophthalmologist gave me a thumbs up.  However, my neurologist told me the good news first.    "You've had that thing, that little bit of extra tissue, in your head probably all your life."  But then he said, as we gazed at my brain slice and he pointed to the very middle of my brain and just above my brain stem, "However, there was something else of interest.  We will keep an eye on your pineal gland.  It seems a bit bigger that it should be. Could be nothing but I will see you in a year."  I asked, "Should I worry?"  He scanned me up and down, "No.  You are healthy so I wouldn't worry but next year let's get a high-definition head scan."  Don't worry.  I don't think he knows me. I immediately went home and googled pineal gland while my husband was out running around Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire getting heart and lung scans, X-rays, sonograms, blood tests, all checking for Agent Orange effects.  One heart test showed an anomaly.  My husband reported that the doctor told him, "Could be something or nothing.  Don't worry.  We will keep an eye on it or do more tests."  While my husband reacts like a sloth hanging from the limbo of a cacao tree munching lazily on seed pods and leaves, I wonder if he's going to have a heart attack tonight or maybe this very minute and be gone forever.  So there has been a lot going on, including a happy trip to upper Maine for an overnight visit with my friends who live on a lake.  It's where my soul just settles it's damn self down.  We  stayed with a fellow yogi friend and her husband.  We drank wine as we warmed in the hot tub and looked out on the woods in her backyard after dinner.  The next morning she told me she had a surprise in store.  With pajamas still covering my ever-widening rear end, my wild bedhead curly hair bound up at the top of my head and my coffee mug full we set off to drive a short distance to the other side of the lake just as the sun rose.  And there I saluted the sun, standing tall in tree pose.  Taking a giant, life-affirming breath of air in I let it flow all the way down to my toes.  Life is definitely full of bodily surprises, political nonsense, house ills and woes, family that makes no sense to me, dogs that are literally on their last legs and weirdly warm weather that truly disconcerts me but it's good.  Life is fundamnetally damn good and I am grateful for it all...well maybe not the pineal weirdness or my husband's whacky test result but I will take it all in with genuine wonder and gratitude.  And stay positive today.  And go workout.  And eat my oatmeal with chia seeds.