I was really grumpy this morning, fighting with my husband and stepson over nothing. Why? I don't know. Maybe it was in the air? Maybe everybody is grumpy like Kat and I? Those were my thoughts as I drove to work. I forced myself to ignore the light, fluffy clouds in the sky and the bright green leaves on the trees. Here, on Long Island, I often see people with grumpy, stern scowls on their faces (as I surely was wearing) and thought to my non-grumpy self that they should just get over it and notice all the beauty around them. Well, today I would have none of it. But just remembering how that self would have thought about how I was acting now put a small crack in my grumpiness. I walked from the garage to my work entrance, grumbling that I had to climb steps and then saw several pigeons cooing and walking pigeon walk. They were so beautiful. I guess I smiled in spite of myself and I looked beyond the pigeons where a woman was walking towards the entrance from another direction. She smiled at me like I was a long lost friend. Her face was familiar but I had never spoken to her. This gentle woman held the door for me and insisted I enter first, beaming all the while. I chose to use the steps to get some well-deserved (in my mind) coffee and a cranberry muffin. I looked over my shoulder and the woman was still looking at me and smiling so openly and lovingly while she waited for the elevator. As I climbed the stairs I started to cry, the tears washing the irritation and grouchiness away. I thought to myself what a wonderful thing to see a bodhisattva today.