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by Anura Guruge

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Related posts:

>> Happy Vesak 2014>— May 13, 2014.
>> Vesak 2014 Pandols>— May 13, 2014.
>> Pope’s 2014 Vesak greeting — May 10, 2014.
>> 2014 Vesak post — May 4, 2014.
>> 2013 Vesak post — May 16, 2013.

++++ See Category ‘Sri Lanka‘ or search on ‘Sri Lanka‘ & ‘Buddhism‘  for other related posts >>>>

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It is THE most significant full moon to the Buddhists in Sri Lanka and they ‘observe’ and honor each and every one of them.

Not sure if they are work holidays anymore. There was a time when the Full Moon, ‘Poya‘, was a holiday each month — and then we even went through a 3 – 4 year period where we abandoned the Christian Saturday/Sunday as the weekly holidays and went instead with Pre-Poya/’Poya’ combo — where ‘poya’, in this context, referred to the 4 phases of the moon. Yep, our own calendaring system. The family that adopted me were very instrumental implementing this huge change. Since since the 4 phases of the Moon do not necessarily come around every 7 days, like clockwork, you had to make allowances for a 6 day work/school week. The days in school calendar were named: P1, P2, P3, P4, P5 and then a possible P6. How to deal with P6 was an issue.

Long story. I will tell it someday. Colombo was still a very busy and important sea harbor in those days and the Poya system wreaked havoc with shipping — especially with cargo ships. Ship’s captains, despite their supposed familiarity with things astronomical to help them with navigation, just could not deal with not knowing beforehand whether they would be arriving in Colombo on a Poya-day, i.e., the equivalent of a Sunday, and hence a holiday. They had to abandon it mainly because of this.

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by Anura Guruge

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Related posts:

>> Happy Vesak 2014>— May 13, 2014.
>> Vesak 2014 Pandols>— May 13, 2014.
>> Pope’s 2014 Vesak greeting — May 10, 2014.
>> 2014 Vesak post — May 4, 2014.
>> 2013 Vesak post — May 16, 2013.

++++ See Category ‘Sri Lanka‘ or search on ‘Sri Lanka‘ & ‘Buddhism‘  for other related posts >>>>

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Teischan, now 8, is big into keeping track of birthdays. Since last week she reminded us, more than once a day, that Maya’s birthday was coming up — and I was informed that we were going to celebrate in the cutsomray manner.

Well, as far as Teischan remembers, the ‘customary’ celebration for the dogs’ birthdays is cheeseburgers from McDonalds. There was a time, when we lived in Gilford, and only had Ulysses, that we would do ice creams cakes from Hanaford’s. But, I think the dogs prefer the cheeseburgers.

They get McDonald burgers/cheeseburgers fairly often. Maya at least now associates the McDonald’s in Alton with burgers. Braxton, still to turn 1, hasn’t worked it out fully — though he knew that something was up.

So around 4:30 pm we went to McDonald’s. The dogs got a double cheeseburger — plain.

The ice cream machine was broken again. Amazing. So I got parfaits — which we normally get anyway. When we got home Teischan made her own Mickey Mouse ice cream cone.

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That Maya’s birthday fell on Vesak was a total coincidence. It is better to say that Vesak, a moveable feast, fell on Maya’s birthday — which is May 14.

But that her name is ‘Maya’ and yesterday was Vesak is kind of CUTE in a perverse way.

I got HECK that she had been named ‘Maya’!

I had forgotten that ‘Maya’ was the name of Buddha’s mother. ‘Maya’ was Deanna’s name. I didn’t name either of the current two dogs. I let Deanna name them both.

My sequence of names had gone: Rousseau (after the philosopher after having come back from a trip to Geneva), Winston, Maggie (after Thatcher), Ulysses (after grant) and our dear (departed) Monty (after Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC).

I personally don’t think that naming a beautiful Golden after the Buddha’s mother in any way disrespects her! I am sure there are dogs and cats called ‘Mary’. I just thought it was funny that I got heck for Maya’s name.

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