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The Dream I’m Not Interpreting

June 28, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Me so happy, movies, Oregon, politics, science, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The Dream I’m Not Interpreting

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Department Of Referencing Moiself

The post is a part two, meant to be read as companion piece to part one, my post of 4-7-23 ( The Upbringing I’m Not Regretting ).  Cliff notes preview:  the subject for part two is my leaving “the church” – specifically, how I told my pastor (but first told moiself ) that I was doing so, via a dream that I’d had.

My dreams range from pastiches of images/seemingly random blurbs from the previous day’s events, to straightforward narratives of events or scenarios realized, to Cecil B. DeMille    [1] style, cast-of-thousands epics, with the occasional/random celebrity cameo.  I think that the scenarios and images contained in my dreams can be

*  both profound and significant, with my unconscious mind using my dreams to work on puzzles, or try to message my conscious mind;

*  due to the random firing of neurons stimulating the brain’s centers of memory and creativity;

* everything above and beyond and in between.

 

 

I had a class in college wherein dream interpretation was mentioned and briefly discussed, [2]   and for a couple of months after that, I kept a dream journal. Upon waking in the morning – or sometimes in the middle of the night, when one of my dreams was either so intense or ludicrous that my brain decided to rouse me from sleep with a what the hell was that? –  I wrote down whatever dreams I could remember. I wrote what I wrote and put that journal away until the next dream; I purposefully did not read the journal entries until several months had passed.  My idea was to try to view what I’d dreamed with new (or newer) eyes and perspective.

When I did go back and read them, I was astonished.  Employing images and scenarios that were in turns realistic, fanciful, or outrageous, my brain apparently was using my dreams to work out/try to identify ongoing dilemmas relating to my school studies, my job, my boyfriend(s), my relationships with my apartment mates, my past, present, and future…  Yeah, like, that would be, My Life ® .

My subconscious mind – likely the hippocampus, an area in the temporal lobe which is believed to be key in dreaming and imagination, and not to be confused with the part of a college where large semiaquatic mammals native to sub-Saharan Africa hang out….

 

“Are you sure this is the way to the dining commons?”

 

I’ll try that again.

My subconscious mind – likely the hippocampus, an area in the temporal lobe which is believed to be key in dreaming and imagination – knew things that my conscious mind was apparently unable or unwilling to deal with.  And in that sense, my dreams were my attempt to send a message to moiself.

Although I was fascinated (and at times embarrassed)  to read my dreams, I was busy with work and classes, and fell out of the habit of writing them down.  Then,

 

 

As in, Hillsboro, OR, one winter weekend morning almost twenty years ago.

Moiself  awoke in a state of some agitation.  As MH and I packed up the car and kids for our day trip to Mt. Hood, I asked if he would mind driving  as I needed to “…write something down.”  Once we were on the road I opened the blank spiral notebook I’d grabbed at the last minute and wrote down the source of my agitation: the early morning dream I’d had.

I hadn’t consistently written down my dreams since college. This time after writing down my dream I did not set the notebook aside, but read through it again…and again…and again.  Later that day, after we’d returned to Hillsboro, I told MH about my dream.  I told MH that my brain was sending me a gigantamous, face-palm of a message:

You.  Have.  To.  Leave.

You have to leave “the church;” as in, religious attendance and affiliation.

Your involvement has served its purposes (see 4-7-23 post for what that was).

Continued involvement, even in the liberal/progressive UCC, will not only give you
an increasingly severe case of cognitive and ethical dissonance but will
actually be harmful to the children you are trying to educate and raise with integrity.

I stopped going to church.

The pastor of the church (“Pastor D____”) our family attended was a person I liked and admired, as well as being one of the most well-read people I have ever met.  A month or so after I’d had the dream she called to ask me if she could take me to lunch to discuss why I had left the church.  Sure, I said, then asked if I could email her the narrative of my dream, so that she could read it before we met up.   [3]    Pastor D____ agreed, which probably accounted for the pleasant lunch that we had.

D____ in no way tried to refute or chastise me, or convince me that my decision was wrong.  In fact, she told me that after reading my account of my dream she’d realized that, “Yes, it’s true, you don’t belong in the church.”

 

 

Yup; really.

And we enjoyed our chai teas and the Indian restaurant’s ample lunch buffet, and talked about…other stuff.

Over the years I’d shared my perspectives on Christian theology with D____, and through my participation in the weekly nonfiction book   [4]  group that she led, she was aware that I was not a “true believer,” even when it came into the UCC’s liberal theological/social gospel interpretations.  What she was not aware of was that when it became my turn to serve as a deacon   [5]   and I was setting up for a church service, I would perform my own little acts of dissension, such as (but not limited to) the following.

In our church there was an enormous King James Bible kept on a platform behind the altar (the hefty tome had been donated by two church member in honor of their late son; the UCC is not a King James-ish denomination when it comes to bible translations ).   It was customary to have that bible open to the pages of whatever Old Testament reading had been chosen for that particular Sunday’s service (even though, with extremely rare exceptions, the laypersons doing the scripture readings did not read from that KJ bible).  When doing my Deacon set-up tasks, instead of opening that bible to the page(s) featuring the morning reading I would find a nearby page which contained a particularly odious passage, such as the Psalm which lauds dashing the infants of one’s enemies upon rocks ( Psalm 137) , or the Hebrew god’s directions of how and when to kidnap and rape women (Judges 21:10-24; Numbers 31:7-18, ad nauseum….) or the story of Yaweh sending bears to maul boys who had teased a prophet about his baldness (2 Kings 2:23)….

 


I hadn’t told Pastor D____ about that little petty prank of mine.   I had told her other things, and she’s always assured me that those beliefs/disbeliefs of mine, those “arguments” I had with the tents of religion, were exactly why my presence and perspective was needed in church.  Thus, during our lunch, after having read my dream, D____ apparently felt no need to discuss my reasons with me. She did say at one point that while it came as a disappointment to her that I was leaving (the church), it did *not* come as a surprise, considering how I’d “…made many close friendships with __________”  (she named several people who had attended the church at one point, and then left).

Much like writing down a dream, setting it aside and thinking about it later, that remark of Pastor D___’s came back to me.  When I shared it with MH, he reached the same conclusion about/interpretation of it, as moiself:

“In a way it’s like she *wants* you to go,
before you stay longer and influence others to leave as well.”

And now, the dream (followed by my thoughts about it, written later that same day, after I’d reread what I’d written):

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The Dream ® :  early Wednesday morning, April 20, 2005

I am looking at an old house that is for sale.  Design or style-wise, it is a combination Victorian and what I call “Grandma house,” with many classic features, from the glass & brass doorknobs to hardwood floors, moldings, built-ins, and exceptional woodwork.

Pastor D___ is showing me the house.  I’m unclear as to whether she is selling it; i.e., whether it is her house that is for sale, or whether she is acting as an agent for another party.  The house has been newly remodeled and upgraded; I glance out a window and see workmen, their trucks parked in front of the house, packing up ladders and painting supplies.  D___ tells me about the new plumbing and points out the fresh paint in many of the rooms and talks about the upgrades, which are very eye-catching.

Then I see the basement/first floor (I’m not sure which it was; we seemed to start touring the house in the middle floor, and the house had at least three floors), and I am astonished.  The basement/ground floor is an absolute disaster.  Its wooden flooring is old and rotting; paint has been randomly flung on the walls; floorboards and moldings are missing or pulled out and splintered, light fixtures are missing or damaged, woodchips and sawdust litter the floors….  I ask D____ if the remodeling will be finished soon, possibly by the workmen I’d seen outside?  No, she tells me, they are packing up and not returning – they’re finished with this particular house.

D____ senses my disappointment, and points out that I can finish the job myself or hire another remodeling crew…and then she offers to lower the price to $305,000. (I can’t remember the asking price, but it was a good deal higher).  I know that 305k would be a good price – a great deal, really – for that kind of house, if the house was in top condition, but its ground floor needs BIU extensive work, and I have neither the time, the skills, nor the desire to do it myself.  I add up the time, materials and labor costs, estimating what it would take to get the floor in shape (I’ve been looking at similar style houses for some time and have comparison prices in my head) and am quite discouraged, as it would be less costly to just tear the place down and start over.

I tell D____ that I appreciate her showing me the house, and while it may be a good price for what it is, I just can’t buy it.

*    *    *   

I just can’t buy it.

How obvious can my subconscious get?!?!  The last line of my dream, not-so-subtly screaming out what’s been eating at me.

(And it is about what’s eating me.  Despite K’s and Belle’s discussing their objections to bible-religion/”church stuff” with me over the years, they were not in the dream, nor was MH.)

I like many things about the UCC Hillsboro congregation in particular and the UCC denomination in general.  But, for all our/their remodeling, they are still a Christian church in a Christian denomination, and the ground floor — Christian theology in particular, religion in general — is, to me, a mess:  archaic, in shambles, needing to be replaced or simply razed.  I also love, respect and admire Pastor D____ for what she is, and for what she does and tries to do.  I appreciate the “deal” she has made for (people like) me, but I can’t buy it.  I can’t buy Christianity – even the laissez-faire, UCC brand – for what it is.

I’m certain that there have been several recent triggers for this dream, including the Sunday when a family from our kids’ school attended our church.  There was a baptism, and I remembered experiencing discomfort and even embarrassment on their behalf (or mine?)  when I listened to – actually paid attention to –  the baptism liturgy and thought, yet again, I don’t believe this stuff.   That the “waters of baptism” confer any special blessing or standing – that’s voodoo/chicken bones talk.  Much if not all of it is symbolic and/or metaphorical, I realize, but that’s not what was said (and then, what’s the point for using the symbols and metaphors?).  The new member class I attended (as a longtime member who was there to meet potential new members) also brought uncomfortable issues to mind, as does almost any meeting where church policy related to theology is discussed.  The new member attendees were all pleasant people, but listening to their experiences and ideas of what a church is or should be was awkward for me.  When ZM mentioned how she was unfamiliar with the Bible, having grown up in a Hindu household, and was learning about it through the children’s sermon and her daughter’s children’s Bible, I found myself wanting to blurt out, RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!, or at least, “Don’t go any further than the kiddie version, or you might not like what you find.”

These feelings are nothing new to me.  Participating in a “worship” service of any kind has always been a matter of toleration, as I find the whole concept itself to be silly at best.  I don’t know what this means in terms of practical application; it’s not like I feel I must Leave The Church ®  this very moment.***  I think they/we are mostly trying to do good in the world, and I enjoy the community.  But the intensity of my concerns has increased…and it’s not just a social club, it’s a church.  The community, as nice as I may find the members, is based on and organized around the false premises of religion, and I’m not good at pretending to not know what I know.

The intellectual dishonesty of the rationale for continuing to participate in church stuff – to support a more liberal group to help counter the Right/conservative religious voice (aka the  “voting for moderates” justification, as per MH’s reason for why he remains registered as a Republican) –  is no longer enough, for me.  By being part of a religion, even a relatively progressive one, I lend credence to ideas that, in their application, are dangerous and just plain wrong, including

(1)  the standards of reason, judgment and evidence I apply to every other facet of life may be set aside for matters of “faith;”

(2)  extraordinary propositions can be believed without evidence;

(3)  that, by applying interpretation and razor’s edge scholarship (read: by rationalizing myth, fallacy, ignorance and atrocity) the Christian bible – or anyone’s bible –  is an appropriate and even a good lens through which humanity may view present day circumstances.

 

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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world – not even in infinite space.
I was free – free to think, to express my thoughts – free to live to my own ideal – free to live for myself and those I loved — free to use all my faculties, all my senses – free to spread imagination’s wings – free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope – free to judge and determine for myself –  free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past – free from popes and priests – free from all the “called” and “set apart” – free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies – free from the fear of eternal pain – free from the winged monsters of the night – free from devils, ghosts and gods. For the first time I was free.

(as quoted, in Leaving Christianity, from Why I Am Agnostic, by Robert Green Ingersoll.  Ingersoll [1833-1899], nicknamed “the great agnostic,” was American politician and orator, humanistic and scientific rationalism philosopher during the Golden Age of Freethought    [7]  )

 

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Parting Shot:  I love it when/I hate it when…

I love it when my dreams are stylishly consistent.

Example: Godzilla once had a cameo in a dream of mine.  The dream had started in color, switched to black and white during Godzilla’s scene, then went back to color when Godzilla left.  Up until then, the only Godzilla movies I’d seen were filmed in B & W.

 

 

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May you remember the dreams that are worth remembering;
May you remember that any dream you remember is worth remembering;
May you pay attention to what your subconscious is telling you;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

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*** Even though I did.

[1] Am I dating moiself  with that reference? Should I use Spielberg, or Nolan, or Cameron, or the casts-of-thousands directors of today?  But then, today’s cast of thousands are maybe a cast of 6 actual actors with 1,974 CGIs….

[2] The jist of the discussion being that no dream can “mean” anything out of context for the one doing the dreaming – no object in th dream “represents” any thing or idea for all people.  Or as that influential but misogynistic man of his times/founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud once admitted, Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[3] I made no formal proclamation of dissociation or anything like that; I didn’t even really tell anyone. I just stopped going.  MH was not ready to do the same, so he continued for a few weeks, taking the kids at first.  When our offspring realized they had a choice, they elected to stay home with me.  We were all still in the habit of having a certain amount of hours set aside on Sunday, and used that time to go to nearby city park, taking our trigger-handled trash grabbers and large trash bags.  We’d roam the grounds of the park,  picking up the plethora of garbage (fast food wrappers, beer bottle caps, etc.) which the park users somehow neglected to escort to the park’s many and ample trash bins. 

[4] Subjects ranging from science and theology, comparative religion, religious history, critiques of religion….

[5] Duties vary widely between denominations and congregations, but generally a deacon is a church member who helps out the pastor and/or church members with, for example, setting up the sanctuary for the church service and then cleaning up afterward.

[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

[7]  “The Golden Age of Freethought is the mid-19th-century period in United States history which saw the development of the socio-political movement promoting freethought. Anti-authoritarian and intellectually liberating historical eras had existed many times in history, notably in eighteenth century France. But the period roughly from 1875 to 1914 is referred to by at least one contemporary writer as “the high-water mark of freethought as an influential movement in American society”….   Freethought is a philosophical position that holds that ideas and opinions should be based on science and reason, and not restricted by authority, tradition, or religion. It is characteristic of the 18th century Enlightenment but hardly confined to any one epoch or place. The late nineteenth century American Golden Age was encouraged by the lectures of the extremely popular agnostic orator Robert Green Ingersoll, the popularization of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the push for women’s suffrage, and other political, scientific, and social trends that clashed with religious orthodoxy and caused people to question the traditional ideas about the world that they encountered in received opinion.”  (excerpts, Wikipedia, The Golden Age of Freethought )

The Husband I’m Not Tempting

June 21, 2024

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, exercise & fitness, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, Isms (religion), movies, music, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), theatre, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Husband I’m Not Tempting

Department Of Belated Summer Wishes

Happy Summer Solstice to all!  And to my fellow yogis, if this tradition is in your practice, I hope you had a memorable 108 Sun Salutations.

 

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Department Of Get Thee Behind Me, Satan
Sub-Department Of Stop Tempting My Husband, Bitch

Dateline: Saturday morning, circa 8 am, sitting at the breakfast table with MH.  MH picks up his copy of yesterday’s (Saturday) NYT crossword puzzle, which he hasn’t yet finished; he works on it a bit, then tells me he’s stuck with the 49 across clue and the down clues which cross the answer are not helping him.

Moiself  did the puzzle yesterday but can’t remember the clue.  MH reads it to me:

” ‘Noted tempter’ …I  can’t figure out the missing vowel;
I have “S _ _ AN.  Susan?  Susan is a noted tempter?”

He’s serious, and I can’t stop laughing.

 

 

 

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Department Of Another Family Contemplation Of The Theory Of Relativity
Sub-Department Of My Daughter, The Content Creator

Dateline: Tuesday am.  We’ve had some home maintenance projects – new gutters and downspouts installed/exterior house painting – that are 99% completed.  MH shared pictures of the house exterior on our family’s message board, so that our offspring could see the progress.  The following hijinks exchange ensued.

MH:
All done. Except for a gutter adjustment tomorrow.

Moiself:
Actually/unfortunately, the gutter adjustment isn’t until Thursday.

MH:
I’m living in an alternate timeline.

(daughter) Belle:
If you don’t actually go to sleep tonight, then maybe Thursday is tomorrow?

Moiself:
Don’t go getting all quantum time bending on us.

Belle:
Is time a fixed variable that we have no influence over? Or is it a mutable part of the universe that we simply haven’t figured out how to manipulate yet?  Is our perception of time the definition of it?  So many things to consider.
But yeah, for now we’ll just say Thursday.

Moiself:
This conversation is so going in my blog.

 

Yeah, but what time is dinner?

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Department Of The Best Pasta Shape Ever   [1]

That would be Sfoglini’s reginetti.  Soon I will be ordering another case of it (the whole grain, which is my fave) because I’m down to three boxes, and moiself  cannot be reginetti-less.

What is not to love about this shape – it’s like a teensy-weensy lasagna noodle.  Makes me happy just to look at it.

 

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Department Of I Respectfully But Vehemently Disagree

Moiself  recently heard a Tony-nominated playwright interviewed on an NPR show ,   [2]  during which he talked about his years of struggle to write his play, and how he scraped by due to the kindness of friends.  He used his experience as an example of why “we need government funding” of the arts.  I guess he meant we need more funding than we already have ?  For as I heard him whine speak about the subject, I wondered if he was somehow not aware of the NEA and other state and local government grants and funds, as well as the hundreds of private individuals and organizations offering artistic grants and funding?

 

 

Dateline: Sunday evening watching the latter half of the 77th annual Toni awards. There is that same playwright – David Adjmi, accepting a Tony award his award for Best Play for Stereophonic.  In his acceptance speech, Adjmi gushed about how “this was a very hard journey, to get this play up here….” and named the friends who let him sleep on their couch for seven years so that he could write the play, and then, again:

“It’s really hard to make a career in the arts; we need to fund the arts in America – it is the hallmark of a civilized society….”

Admi brought himself to tears as he recalled his struggle.  Of course when he made the plea for funding there was the obligatory applause from Supporters Of The Arts ®, who must whoop it up reverently with their version of, say amen.  Preach, brother!

As I do with most preaching, be it religious or artistic, I’m listening, then thinking…

 

 

Adjmi decries how hard it is to earn a living in the arts. This is nothing new; it always has been hard to earn a living in the arts.  It always should be hard to earn a living in the arts.

I’m not denying his or any composer, singer, actor, writer, painter, potter or other artist’s struggle.  I *am* calling for all who have chosen to pursue their art to check their privilege – their sense of exceptionalism –  if they think, for whatever reason, that their particular job should not be a struggle, and/or is deserving of endowment.

Struggle is the common lot of most people in the working world, who do not receive any kind of artistic accolades nor have opportunites, e.g., award shows, for public forums in which they may complain about their struggles. They plow the fields, fix the cars bag the groceries manufacture the semi-conductors, empty the bedpans, collect the lab results, interpret the data, bake the bread, comfort the bereaved, put out the fires, clean the kettles, sweep the movie theaters, mend the crab pots, patrol the demilitarized zones…

Adjmi didn’t mentioned receiving financial aid or grants for Stereophonic, and his play’s success belies his plea for funding.  Somehow, he managed to produce this work of art without the government’s help – and  let us always remember that the translation of “the government,” means the tax dollars of moiself and y’all.

Save for those rare artists born to wealth (or the nepotistic receivers of artistic funding and opportunities), life in any artistic field has always been that of financial struggle before commercial success (and often afterward), usually involving multiple side jobs and other means of support.  How would the playwright who thinks there should be more public funding of the arts, and others who hold similar sentiments, define what would constitute more support of “the arts,” and who will get to define what is an art worthy of support, and which artists will get support, and for what length of time such support is given….?

There are museums and art galleries wherein I’ve lingered for hours, and others I’ve fled after15 minutes because, content, meh.  I’m a fan of performing arts and patronize live music, theater and other events.  There’ve been plays and concerts I’ve attended/movies I’ve seen where I left feeling entertained and even aesthetically transformed, and others – even a few ones which won prestigious awards and were recommended by “everyone”  [3]  –   where I left during intermission, or if I forced myself to stay to the bitter end, I left the venue thinking, Holy imaginative waste of time, how did this piece of embarrassingly trivial, reductionist, hackneyed crapola ever get produced? It’s a bad enough that I spent money on a ticket, but to subsidize this playwright’s/director’s/performer’s delusion that they are “artists” worthy of third party “support”….?

 

 

Sorry, starving artists.  Eat less, get a second job, a third job, a patron, a couch to surf on.  Struggle, like the rest of us. Government support for the arts? You take their money, you play by their rules.  In Russia during the USSR era there was little art seen by the public apart from that which was funded – or allowed – by the government.  Remember any great works of socialist realism that came out of the Soviet-sponsored art?

Socialist Realism
A form of modern realism imposed in Russia by Stalin following his rise to power after the death of Lenin in 1924, characterized in painting by rigorously optimistic pictures of Soviet life painted in a realist style

The doctrine was formally proclaimed by Maxim Gorky at the Soviet Writers Congress of 1934, although not precisely defined. In practice, in painting it meant using realist styles to create highly optimistic depictions of Soviet life. Any pessimistic or critical element was banned…. It was quite simply propaganda art, and has an ironic resemblance to the Fascist realism imposed by Hitler in Germany (see ITAL Entartete Kunst – degenerate art       [4] ).

(excerpt from the Tate Museum’s “Socialist Realism,” https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/socialist-realism  )

 

 

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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [5]

 

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Parting Shot:  I love it when/I hate it when…

I love it when I come across a new (to me) George Carlin witticism; I hate it when I remember that Carlin died years ago and isn’t here to reflect on today’s wackadoodle.

*   *   *

May you have strength when tempted by Susan;
May your art remain free of government supports and constraints;
May you decide to have a favorite pasta shape;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] As decreed by the Most Omnipotent Italian Saucy  Epicurean  Loving  Foodie,  as in, moiself.

[2] Can’t remember which program…a Fresh Air interview, most likely?

[3] for example, not to deny the creativity and hard work of Lin Manuel Miranda, but I couldn’t abide Hamilton (or In the Heights) – both of which I so wanted and expected to like (or maybe, thought I *should* like).  With the rapid-fire, rap-ish dialog, I felt like the cast was shouting at me the whole time.

[4] Degenerate art ( Entartete Kunst)  is the label the Nazis applied to art they didn’t approve of – any art which did not extol or depict “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” ( family, home and church), which was the Nazi party’s and Hitler’s view of the virtues of German life. 

[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Supernatural Bread Explanation I’m Not Appreciating

June 14, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, community, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, nature, politics, Recreation, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Supernatural Bread Explanation I’m Not Appreciating

Department Of How Am I Just Now Seeing This Movie?

That would be A Million Ways To Die In The West. 

AMWTDITW is a takeoff of a specific genre, ala the Airplane/Police Squad/Naked Gun lampoons of, respectively, disaster/detective/mystery movies.  AMWTDITW’s writer/director/producer/lead Actor Seth MacFarlane pays respects, in a way, to that most American of movie genres, the western, and his AMWTDITW is the even more profane and scatological, red-headed stepchild of Blazing Saddles (and thus might not be everyone’s cup of whiskey). 

Just about every western cliché gets its moment, with a few contemporary updates (e.g. MacFarlane’s mild-mannered sheep farmer protagonist debates self-esteem issues and gently chastises his fellow Old West townsfolk when they use ethnic slurs).  I started watching AMWTDITW on Monday, during my morning pre-breakfast/pre-yoga, ~ 35 m elliptical warmup, and finished two days later.  Other movies and series I have watched or am watching during elliptical time include Tacoma FD and Fisk, both of which my spirit animal recommends.

 

 

Hats off to the composer of the AMWTDITW score; the opening theme in particular is a mahhhhvelous homage to the classic western movie soundtracks.  And I’ll put more hats on, just to be able to take them off to Netflix, for adding this to their streaming recommendations for moiself.

And the last hat goes off to one of the best movie sight gags I’ve seen, involving a sheep.    [1]

 

 

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Department Of Wildlife Identification

What is this?

 

Did you guess that it’s an antiskid pad that is glued to the foot of the legs of one of our kitchen table chairs – a pad   [2]   which detaches itself, and then is patiently reglued by MH, at least 10x per year for the past twenty-seven years?  You are correct.

I’ve seen it on the floor a million times….okay; more like 270 times, according to the above estimate.  So why then, last Friday afternoon, did moiself  see the pad on the floor and for the first time realize that it reminded me of the door to a trapdoor spider’s burrow?

 

 

That long time ago would be in the galaxy which contains the city of San Diego, where my family lived for two years, during what was moiself ‘s  kindergarten and first grade years.   [3]  The house we rented was on the rim of one of the many canyons winding through the city – a canyon my sisters and I and our neighbor friends considered to be an extension of our backyards.  We spent many glorious afternoons – and almost all of the summer days that we weren’t at the beach – exploring and playing down in the canyon, experiencing what now might be referred to as a “free roaming”  or “free range” childhood.  (Sadly, I have little doubt that when MH and I took the parenthood plunge in the mid-90s, were we to have let our own children have such freedoms   [4]   someone would have sicced Child Protective Services on us.)

There were all kinds of critters and trees and bushes and cacti and dirt paths in the canyon, and a small creek that somehow managed to survive even in the summer heat. My friends and my “canyon games” included Desert Scientist, Runaways In the Forest; Tracking the Wayward Outlaw, Pioneers Exploring the Prairie, and so on.  As for the latter game, I had to temper my fascination with the local flora after getting chewed out by my mother one afternoon. “How can a straight-A student be so stupid?!?!” she muttered, while she used a pair of pliers to tediously yank, one by one, the spines out of my jeans pocket – spines from the “baby cactus” knob that I thought was so cute I had to take it home to show my folks.   [5]

The canyon’s many snake holes and trapdoor spider dens were among my favorite canyon features to explore.   [6]  My friends and I sometimes played a version of Ding Dong ditch with the latter.  A trapdoor spider constructs the door to its burrow using dirt and plant material that the spider hinges on one side with its silk.  The TD spider then places twigs round the door, and weaves some of its silk as “triplines” around the twigs and down into its burrow.  When we found the telltale door to a TD spider’s burrow, we’d tap the ground around the twigs and the trapdoor (or sometimes tug on the twigs), mimicking the vibrations of passing prey, then raise our fingers as the trapdoor flew open and the spider quickly lunged out of its burrow.  The TD spider, realizing that instead of a juicy grasshopper within its reach there were just a bunch of giggling juvenile hominids, would flash its eight eyes in an expression that seven-year-old moiself  interpreted as the arachnid equivalent of, “You gawddamn kids get off my lawn!,” and just as quickly back down into its burrow and pull the door shut.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of The God That Is Not In The Gluten

Dateline:  last Saturday; 12-1:30pm; the classroom of a local gourmet grocery store/café which offers culinary classes; attending a sourdough baking class with 12 other civilians.

While chatting with the students standing on either side of me and overhearing the comments of others, moiself  surmises that the class is roughly 50% newbie sourdough bakers, and 50% experienced sourdough bakers who are interested in expanding tips and techniques.   [7]  The class teacher (whom I had met a few months ago, while buying one of the sourdough boules he makes on the weekend and sells in that store), is a fulltime middle school teacher.  He introduces himself and says a little about what got him into baking sourdough bread, which he took up as a hobby during his spare time when he was in the Middle East “…on a Christian mission.”

 

 

Yeah, I know.  Moiself  be thinking, why is this detail necessary? Is he one of *those* (Gotta take gotta make, every opportunity to witness!)?  Well, he’s a genial guy, so, let’s hope he got that out of his system and now it’s on to the bread.

Obviously, in a 1½ hour sourdough baking class there will be no start-to-finish product; rather, each student is presented with premeasured ingredients, and goes through the processes of feeding the starter and mixing the dough, gets tips on shaping and rising and scoring the loaf and baking, and gets to take home the dough they’ll mix, with instructions to bake it the next day.

 

 

Near the end of the class the teacher brings out an enormous bin of dough that he’d mixed five hours earlier, to show the class what the sourdough will look and feel like after the  recommended five-hour rest.  He will divide the dough into 12 equal portions, and each member of the class will get to practice different techniques in folding and pre-shaping the dough, reshaping the dough, transferring the dough to a rising bowl…  This ready-for final-rise dough we will also be able to take home, to bake at a later time.

As he stands at the head of class he taps his fingers against the dough peeking out around the edges of the bin, and gives a brief explanation of how flour and water combine to make bread.  Many people mistakenly think wheat flour contains gluten.  The two main components of wheat flour are starch and two proteins, glutenin and gliadin.    [8]   When wheat flour is mixed with water , this action helps combine the two proteins, which form gluten.

Correct.  But then he has to add, “And this is where, as a Christian, I see the hand of god…” and he hovers his hands over the dough.

 

 

And this is where, as a religion-free, reality-loving person, I somehow manage to prevent moiself  from doing a face palm (if only to keep my forehead flour-free).

What I want to say, but don’t:

“And this is where, as an Atheist, I see chemistry….”

…and physics, if you wanted to go even further into the explanation of the chemical bonds and structures of the proteins involved.
The point: there is nothing supernatural about how you go from flour + water + salt + leavening agent + time + heat = bread.

Again: this is where *I* see chemistry.  You know, the chemistry you just mentioned to the class.  You gave a brief, fact-based, natural world explanation of what happens when you make bread, then you introduce the supernatural?  Why?
Perhaps the bakers of ancient times raised their hands in prayer to Vesta when they put their loaves in the communal ovens, but most of us we now know that there is nothing magical/supernatural about baking….”

 

Does he also sees “the hand of god” in other natural processes?

 

Sometimes, classes for which you registered online send you a questionnaire or survey link after the class is over, so that you may offer feedback to the class’s organizers and/or teachers.  I keep checking my email, hoping to have the opportunity to offer a more abbreviated version of, “Hey, the class was mostly fun and useful, but I did not appreciate the teacher referencing his    [9]  religion in a baking class.  I found it odd that he credited an imaginary deity the supernatural within seconds of having mentioned the scientific explanation of how gluten is formed.”

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [10]

 

Hubert Reeves, Canadian astrophysicist

 

*   *   *

Parting Shot:  I love it when/I hate it when…

I love it when a religious believer who makes supernatural attributions to culinary results and a baker who is religion-free can use the same recipe and ingredients, follow the same instructions, and produce equally yummy-looking and tasting bread loaves.   [11]

*   *   *

May you raise your hands in praise of the person who gives you homemade bread;
May you be inspired to re-watch your favorite spoof movie;
May you never feel too old to play ding-dong ditch;    [12]

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] No no no – and shame of you for even thinking that.

[2] Not to pick on that particular chair pad; none of them stay on for long.

[3] Due to my father’s temporary work transfer.  He was being groomed to be the chief of the audit division of one of the IRS’s 33 districts, a position he later turned down, as the promotion would have required permanent relocation, and his devoted wife and snippy little ungrateful bastards loving children told him they would refuse to leave So Cal!  (He was promoted to Assistant Chief of the audit division of the Los Angeles district, a title he retained until he retired).  My parents, knowing the transfer was temporary/for training purposes, rented out our Santa Ana house and in turn found a house to rent in San Diego for two years.

[4] We’ve never lived by a canyon or any large open area, but if we’d just allowed our kids to roam the neighborhood for hours, arranging play on their own with the neighbor kids without parentally supervised and/or arranged play  dates (which is how I was raised), I know someone would have called the cops on us.

[5] How I managed to get it in my pocket without sticking my fingers, I’ll never know.  Yet, that’s what I did.

[6] I discovered that western diamondbacks will give you a percussion performance with their rattles if you jab a stick down the gopher holes they are occupying.

[7] Rice flour is great for getting sticky dough off of your hands!

[8] Actually, he only mentioned the gliadin.

[9] Besides Friendly Neighborhood Atheist® moiself (and at least one other, if I gauge the eye-rolling reaction of another class participant correctly), I’m fairly certain (judging from conversations overheard/jewelry worn) there was at least one Muslim and one Jew among the other students.

[10] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.  No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

[11] Which proves the religion-free person’s point. 

[12] Except that, dammit!, everyone’s porch has cameras these days, so the anonymity is gone.

The Situations I’m Not Dismissing

June 7, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), extended family, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), music , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Situations I’m Not Dismissing

Department Of Props For Keeping The Mystery A Mystery

I am writing this portion of the blog on June 3 – the day, according to singer/songwriter Bobbie Gentry, that Billie Joey McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie bridge.

 

 

 

Gentry’s Ode To Billie Joe  is arguably the greatest song mystery never revealed.   [1]    Class act that Gentry is, I hope she takes that lyrical secret – what Billie Joe and the song’s narrator threw off the Tallahassee bridge –  to her grave.

*   *   *

Department Of Conditional Considerations

“Ideal for pre-existing foot conditions.”

The above teaser, for an ad promoting some orthopedic-looking sandals, caught my attention as moiself  scrolled online, looking for a friend’s social media post.  Distraction ensued, in the form of a wee bit o’ existential crisis.  Translation:  I spent way too much time trying to figure out the ad’s wording.

Pre-existing foot conditions.  Pre-existing; well, yes, I have a foot – two, lucky moiself! – and they existed prior to seeing or thinking about sandals or any other footwear…. So, ’tis likely not the foot which is preexisting, but the *conditions*.  Specifically, foot conditions; as in, conditions of the foot?  And conditions, as in the classic definition….

 

 

Here’s what Webster’s online offers, for condition:

1a: a premise upon which the fulfillment of an agreement depends; a stipulation
b: obsolete : covenant
c: a provision making the effect of a legal instrument contingent upon an uncertain event
must meet the terms and conditions of the contract
2 : something essential to the appearance or occurrence of something else: PREREQUISITE: such as
a: an environmental requirement (Available oxygen is an essential condition for animal life).
b: the clause of a conditional sentence
3 a: a restricting or modifying factor : QUALIFICATION
b: an unsatisfactory academic grade that may be raised by doing additional work
4a: a state of being  (ITALthe human condition)
b: social status : RANK
c: a usually defective state of health  a serious heart condition)
d: a state of physical fitness or readiness for use (The car was in good condition).

We have to go all the way to 4c to get into the definition which mosty likely applies to the sandals ad:  foot “conditions,” I suspect, is meant to reference or imply conditions as in foot problems (no arches; high arches; fallen arches; bunions; hammer toes; mallet toes; claw toes; twinkle toes; 18 toes….)

It’s possible moiself  is overanalyzing this.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Moiself’s  Many Mottoes
Episode 363, Regarding Ethics

Context.  Is.  Everything.

Without the test of context, your ethics – your sense of or proclamations about morality – are theoretical, at best.  I was reminded of that while listening to a recent Hidden Brain podcast, Innovation 2.0: the influence you have.  HB host Shankar Vedantam was talking about the work of Stanley Milgram, the Yale social psychologist known for his controversial research on human obedience to authority.   [2]

Vedantam:
Stanley Milgram grew up in a world that seemed bent on destroying itself. World War II was raging in Europe and Asia, and by the time he was 8, the U.S. was swept up in the conflict….
The fields of battle were far from Stanley’s home. But as he grew older, he couldn’t stop thinking about the war and its implications. Stanley was consumed by some big questions. Why did so many people willingly kill Jews in the Holocaust? Was everyone who followed Nazi orders inherently evil?

Stanley Milgram (video soundbite):
How is it possible, I ask myself, that ordinary people, who are courteous and decent in everyday life, can act callously, inhumanely, without any limitations of conscience?….

Vedantam:
As a high school student, (Milgram) was worried that the Holocaust could happen again in America. And everybody said, Stanley, that was Nazi Germany. That was then. We’re not that kind of people. And he would say,
I’ll bet they thought the same thing. And the bottom line, he says, is how do you know how you would act unless you’re in the situation?

How do you know how you would act unless you’re in the situation? Stanley’s theory was that the context that people found themselves in shaped their behavior. This went for Nazis, but it went for ordinary people, too.
Most of us never get to find out if we will behave like Nazis because most of us never find ourselves in situations where we’re asked to behave like Nazis.( excerpts from Hidden Brain podcast, Innovation 2.0: the influence you have,  my emphases )

 

 

Most of us never get to find out if we will behave like Nazis because
most of us never find ourselves in situations
where we’re asked to behave like Nazis.

Remember the debates about Situational Ethics    [3]  ( SE, which I’ve heard referred to as ethical contextualism)?  I don’t hear much about it now.  However, I have memories from my high school and college years, when it seemed to be quite fashionable – a “requirement” of sorts – in Christian circles to dismiss the legitimacy of SE.

Dateline: A late afternoon, when moiself  was in college, at a bible study/social group which I occasionally attended.  One group member brought up situational ethics, and a lively debate ensued.  But it was a debate only because moiself  was involved; the others in the group were all in agreement that SE was a bad thing (even though – surprise! – a couple of the most vociferous anti-SE -ers couldn’t even define it when asked them to do so).

How could anyone justify SE? I was told.  Viewing ethics through the lens of situation is “subjective” and “individualistic,” and contradicts our god’s will as revealed in scripture.

There I was, in yet another situation wherein I almost outed moiself  as a humanist and freethinker, that time by disagreeing with the group’s disappointingly naïve, reductionist arguments.  Looking back, I don’t know why the group’s opinions surprised and disappointed me.  Their religion’s theology was so wrong about the natural world, why would it be a shocker that they would also be wrong about the basics of behavioral psychology?

Ethics do not exist in a void – they are only, and always, situational.  It’s uncomplicated to be ethical in theory; your ethics become credible, and are manifest, only when they are applied to a situation.  People who think that ethics or principles are black-and-white issues are morally colorblind.

I rolled up moiself’s  metaphorical sleeves and got to work.

 

 

“Lying is wrong; you shouldn’t lie.”  I used this classic “fact” that most people would agree with, then brought up examples of the telling of Little White Lies ® to spare someone’s feelings.  Let’s say your toddler nephew presents you with the picture he drew of your cat and asks you what you think of his artwork, after which his mother proudly models for you the new designer jeans she just purchased and says, “I’m so excited – my first pair of Calvin Kleins!  But really, do these pants make my ass look fat?”

 

 

Who, under the umbrella of ruthless truthfulness, would

(1)  tell your nephew the truth – you think that the alleged “cat” he rendered (in a series of hideous colors which look like something the cat barfed up) disturbingly resembles a monster from the Alien movies;

(2) answer your sister with the truth – that it’s not the pants that make her ass look fat, it’s her fat ass that makes her ass look fat.

Most of the group agreed with the concept that some “truths” might be less essential than others, and that erring on the side of kindness to spare someone’s feelings is usually an allowable (and sometimes even preferable) course of action.  But a couple of arguers disagreed: they were adamant that even those kind of white lies lead to the slippery slope® of justifiable dishonesty.

Alrighty, the naysayers asked for it.  How about this scenario? I asked:  [4]

Dateline: 6 pm on a weekday.  Responding to the insistent knocking, you open your front door and behold Ray, your friend Janelle’s husband.  Ray is disheveled and wild-eyed, and you know that on the previous day Janelle filed for a restraining on Ray, after he’d pistol-whipped her with his recently purchased handgun.  Ray asks you if you’ve seen Janelle – “She’s not at home; she won’t answer my calls; I’m worried about her…Have you seen her today?  Do you know where she is?”

Not only have you seen Janelle, you know exactly where she is…because you are the one who helped Janelle pack her suitcase and drove her to the women’s shelter.

How can your ethics tell you, in that situation, anything other than to LIE YOUR ASS OFF to Ray?   [5]

Don’t ever lecture me about the evils of situational ethics if your consistent, non-contextual ethics would require you to truthfully answer Ray’s question.

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Employee Of The Month

 

 

It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself.  Again. The need for which I wrote about here.   [6] 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

 

 

*   *   *

Parting Shot:  I love it when/I hate it when…

I love it when I feel gratitude for never having been in situations where I was asked to behave like a Nazi.

 

 

*   *   *

May social media ad content keep you on your (non-condition-stricken) toes;
May you consistently practice situational ethics;
May you always wonder why Billie Joe jumped off that bridge;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1]  Along with what man is the subject of Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain.

[2] The Milgrim Experiment was his most famous, and controversial research.  The Milgram experiment examined people’s willingness to obey authority.  Participants in the study were instructed to administer electric shocks to a learner, even when that obedience caused harm to the learner.  The results of the study showed that the majority of participants continued to administer shocks to the maximum level when they were told to do so by the experiment’s authority figure, even when they believed that the shocks were causing serious harm.

[3]  “Situation ethics (contextualism).  In situation ethics, right and wrong depend upon the situation.  There are no universal moral rules or rights – each case is unique and deserves a unique solution.  Situation ethics rejects ‘prefabricated decisions and prescriptive rules’. It teaches that ethical decisions should follow flexible guidelines rather than absolute rules, and be taken on a case by case basis.” (Ethics guide; situation ethics, BBC )

[4] One example which, sadly, I did not have to invent, as several like it were relayed to me by a woman who worked at a domestic violence hotline.

[5] And say whatever else to get him off your porch, after which you telephone (a) the police and (b) the women’s shelter.

[6] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg.  Until I did.    One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens.  No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.

[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org