It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard’s pear tree. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
* * *
Department Of Proof That We Are Doomed
Dateline: Tuesday; circa 8:15 am; breakfast table talk. MH and I are discussing the “gamifying” of the apps we both use –e.g., the New York Times games – apps which keep score for you, even if you don’t/never asked them to do so and that’s not why you play them ( How long did it take you to solve this morning’s mini crossword? Ten seconds longer than your average solve time…how many days in a row did you play and win….).
MH uses the term gamifying, which I haven’t heard before but immediately “get.” Moiself understands gamifying as –
the incorporating of game design principles (accruing points, keeping score, applying rules, competing with others and/or yourself) and features into non-game activities and circumstances
– as a marketing/behavioral design feature to cultivate commitments to products and services. Translation: yet another design feature to get you to use more/buy more.
I told MH that I’d experienced the gamifying creep in other apps, such as my meditation apps and yoga streaming classes, which note how many times per week/days in a row I’ve used their daily meditation and/or yoga practice. Perhaps the fact that I find this irksome means I need more meditation/yoga/mindfulness in my life, but when, for example, the Calmapp [2] shows me a weekly calendar with the days marked when I did their guided daily mediation (and thus when I didn’t), I feel like talking back to the app ( “Stop belying your name! It doesn’t make me feel calmwhen you point out the days you think I missed or skipped. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but just because I didn’t meditate/do yoga with *you* today doesn’t mean I didn’t do it at all….Sorry, but you’re not the only fish in the sea app on my phone….” ).
Perhaps some folks find these reminders/trackers helpful, even motivating. Great; whatever levitates your zafu cushion floats your boat. But, why not have them be elective, as in, you must opt in to such features instead of having them be the default. For moiself, such reminders/trackers erase that fine line between encouraging and nagging.
Once again, I digress: this (the gamifying of everything) is not the proof that We are doomed. That came when MH reached across the table to show me what had just popped up on his cellphone screen. “Do you get these ads?” he asked, indicating the Anti Flatbutt technology ad (featuring a man’s buttocks clad in a tight pair of pants) on his screen. Sighing with world-weary commiseration, I said, yes, I’d noticed that ad popping up at least once on my phone. And while moiself appreciates seeing such a make-believe “problem” being marketed to men for a change, with all of the actual problems going on in the world – compelling problems which we need technology to solve or at least acknowledge and address – the existence of this particular ad may be the tipping point: there is no (or at least, little) hope. Is it time for us to buy the Doomsday RV®?[3]
* * *
Department Of Sometimes A Lousy Book Has A Lousy Cover
We’ve all heard the aphorism:
Never/Don’t/You Can’t/You shouldn’t:
judge a book by its cover.
I recently (over) heard it used, in a public place, where Person #1 was chiding another person for making what Person #1 thought was an incorrect or rash assessment. I often find that trite, book-cover-judging, non-trusim to be dismissive and erroneous when it used to advise or admonish someone else for doing…simply what people do. So often in life that’s exactly what we have to do, when we have incomplete or partial information, or simply not enough time, but have to make a choice or decision.
Everyone is a judge, in and of their own life. And most everyone is accused at some point, when practicing the fine art of judging, as being judgmental.
That term gets a bad rap if I do say so moiself. [4] Every time I choose thisand not that– from the significant decision of voting for a presidential candidate to the relatively minor but necessary-at-the-time decision of which dressing I want the waiter to bring for my salad… and all choices above and beyond and in between – unless I’m flipping a coin, I’m making a judgment that one choice is “better” – for me, my circumstances, my family, the planet…name your variable.
* * *
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. [5]
May your life be free from gamifying; May you be considerate with the judgements you need to make (and be free to change them when they prove incorrect/unsuitable); May you have a sympathetic jury when you are brought to trial for bitch-slapping the obsequious dude who rang your doorbell, ignoring your no solicitingsign, and tried to sell you his anti-flat butt technology;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago.
[2] Which I’ve mentioned before in this space and which I used on a regular basis.
[3] MH and I can never get an RV, because I have informed our offspring that if they ever discover that we have bought one it will be a signal that we have given up on humanity and plan to hit the road and see everything we can see because the climate change/MAGA-idiocracy-induced apocalypse is just around the corner.
[5] 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.
[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
Does anyone remember Boobquake? Reading the current news headlines (moiself handles it by glancing at them and shrieking), I feel like the world could use many more rounds of guerilla activism and mocking-the-mock-worthy.
Boobquake, a rally to protest (read: mock) an Islamic cleric’s proclamation attributing earthquakes to women’s immodest attire, took place on April 26, 2010. It was inspired and co-organized by (then) grad student and blogger, Jen McCreight. [1]
“In early 2010, there came news reports that an IranianIslamic cleric, Kazem Seddiqi, had blamed earthquakes on God‘s wrath because of women who dressed immodestly and advised ‘Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes.’ and Iranians should ‘adapt their lives to Islam’s moral codes’ to avoid being ‘buried under the rubble.’ The day that this was reported, (genetics grad student and activist/blogger ) Jen McCreight [2] comically encouraged her readers (via Facebook) to dress ‘in your immodest clothing to represent Boobquake,’ which they referred to as a scientific experiment. The actual event took place on April 26, with McCreight carefully avoiding hateful, anti-Islamic, or anti-Iranian messages.
The center of the event (the ‘epicenter’) was at Purdue University, with participants dressed in appropriate attire and carrying signs saying things like Cleavage for Science, andGod hates boobs….
An estimated 200,000 people participated in Boobquake…..true to the, um, scientific nature of the event, McCreight ran a rigorous statistical analysis of seismic activity during Boobquake and figured out that world-wide incidence of earthquakes on April 26 was actually below average. Conclusion: boobs stop earthquakes!” ( excerpts, rationalwiki, McCreight )
* * *
Department Of Why Do We Forget This?
We hear so much about PTSD – so much that some people are under the mistaken impression that every traumatic event will bring PTSD to those who experience trauma – and we hear relatively little about the other effects of living through or with trauma. One of the most important effects is a positive: PTG, as in, Post Traumatic Growth. PTGis not about denying or repressing one’s suffering, but about recognizing that living through trauma can also lead to developing resiliency and insightfulness, to having changes in perspective and increasing compassion for one’s self as well as for others. But PTGrarely seems to be addressed or even acknowledged, along with the fact that it’s possible to experience both PTSDand PTGfrom the same traumatic circumstances.
“There is research showing that, in the aftermath of a traumatic stress, some people – probably not immediately – actually end up better off. They develop resources, friendships, social networks, insights into themselves, a sense of purpose….so many people, for example, who receive a terminal diagnosis of cancer at least will *say* that it *really* put things in perspective, and they valued their last days much more than they probably would have in any other scenario. So, it’s possible, for example, that there is some benefit for having been through something terrible.”
Well someone knows enough about it to turn it into a list.
* * *
Department Of A Name I Can Live With
As regular/longtime readers may know, moiself cannot even bear to type the name of that international sign of shame that is our current occupant of the White House; thus, I must resort to aliases (e.g., the Mandarin Mussolini) when mentioning him. But, leave it to science – specifically, taxonomic classification – to provide an alternative.
This nomenclature suggestion comes from (I assume) an ornithologist, or someone in the birding community:
The Common North American Trump( anus tangerinus ).
* * *
Department Of Finding An Unexpected Use For A Often Troubling Technology
As much as I have grave doubts about AI usage (except for certain applications, e.g., to medical and scientific research), there is one thing which recently gave me a favorable feeling toward these technologies: their mere existence has given me the almost perfect framework with which to understand, or at least classify, a phenomenon which has both bemused and saddened moiself for decades.
I have Religious Friends And Family Members ® whose correspondence and interpersonal interactions [3] have long struck moiself as…pamphlet-like, ya know? I’ve struggled with ways to describe it; after last weekend, I shall struggle no more.
Dateline: Saturday; 7:45 AM; morning walk. Apropos of almost nothing ( but perhaps a recent article I’d read about professors despairing of reading the all-sound-alike, AI-assisted essays from their students? ) I had a clickmoment which provided me with a more contemporary description for my impressions:
It’s like these RFAFM’s lives are guided by Christian AI.
There are many, many Christian denominations – over 200 in the U.S. and a staggering 45,000 globally, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity – a head-scratching number for a religion that, according to most of its adherents, is just so obviously the only true faith/pathway to salvation/god. [4]
Ah, yet again, I digress.
These RFAFMs of whom I write are typically aligned with the conservative/evangelical brands of the religion. Over the years, when I listen to the things they say/read the things they write/watch the things they do, I’ve often found moiself wondering, Is there an individual in there? It all sounds so…scripted. I can’t distinguish what she said or wrote from what her sister or that cousin/friend/coworker said or wrote. In conversations with RFAFM’s that might actually (and would likely, with other people) steer toward the substantive, there is little of anything uniquely personal – little of *them* present – other than their discernable desire to fulfill an obligation to be looking for any moment, in every situation (particularly when they are in the company of us happy heathens), to say or show how their lives are a “witness” to their religion.
It’s as if they are reading from a Christian AI script. [5]
* * *
Department Of Sound Advice For The… Day… Week… Month…Your Entire Life.
This is advice (usually but not always solicited) which moiself has given – and heeded – many, many times:
Write it down. Then put it away. Come back to it in a few days ( or better yet, weeks), and read it with the mindset, Is this still what I want to say? Edit, then send…
or not (maybe it’s no longer necessary?)
Context: moiself’s favorite advice columnist, The WaPo’s Carolyn Hax, writing to an advice seeker who’d been zinged at her mother’s funeral, by her mother’s sister. The advice seeker was wondering how to respond to her aunt, as the zing – and the feelings it brought – still linger. Hax listed several possible options, including
* write off your aunt’s words as the rantings of a grieving mess; * two variations on the do-nothing/let it go response; * handwrite a note to your aunt.
Moiself strongly favors that last option. I have seen too many friends and family estrangements come from slights and resentments left unspoken. Brushing things under the rug gets you nothing but a houseful of lumpy rugs. Don’t leave it to others to assume how/why you are feeling what you are feeling…
BUT, and this is a big but…
almost as big as this one?
BUT:
* choose your battles, and
* use the perspective which can only come from deliberation,
as opposed to the instantaneous reactivity of texting, or emailing,
or (gasp) using social media IN ANY WAY.
Write it down; then, sit on it, so to speak.
“The purpose of paper is to encourage slow reactions. You write it and set it aside, in case just writing it is enough; if you want to send it, then you rewrite it as needed until all venom is out; then you snail-mail it so she can’t hit “reply” and react. Etc. Cooler heads.”
( excerpt, “Aunt’s vicious jab at funeral tarnishes a late mother’s gift,” Carolyn Hax, The Washington Post, 5-6-25 )
May you never attribute temblors to tatas; May your birding binoculars never be soiled by the image of an anus tangerinus; May your interactions never sound as if they are AI-scripted ; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Jen McCreight goes by the name Jey McCreight now and uses different pronouns, but at the time of Boobquake and her other feminist activisms other she identified as Jen/female; thus I am using the names/pronouns which she used at that time and was identified as in news reports, etc.
[2] who described herself on her blog (at the time) as “a liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted atheist feminist trapped in Indiana.”
[3] both of which are becoming increasingly infrequent, given the years and physical and emotional distance between us.
[4] So “obvious” in its theologies and tenets that there is a need for all those denominations, as these followers of the One True God ® can’t agree on how that god wants them to eat, live, sing, worship, dress, pray, love, play music….
[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
Text message on moiself’s cellphone, from an unidentified number:
“To all ______(political candidate) supporters,
please do not click away from this important message….”
Congratulations, sender. You have just guaranteed that moiself will “click away.”
* * *
Department Of One More Disturbing Consideration (About AI) In An Otherwise Enjoyable Exchange Between Two Interesting People
“Stephen Dubner, host of Freakonomics Radio, has long been fascinated by the physicist Richard Feynman. As has Alan. Stephen has devoted a year to making a remarkable podcast series on Feynman, and Alan has played Feynman on the stage for a year. They compare notes on what they’ve come to learn about him.”
This is the intro to Freakonomics podcast host Stephen Dubner’s guest appearance on Clear + Vivid most recent episode, Feynman On Our Mind. In their wide-ranging conversation about any and all things Feynman, Dubner and C+V host Alda talked about AI and our relationships, and Dubner posed a question about how, if AI obtains sentience, might we, in some ways, regress to the time humans did not understand their universe and left it to religion and religious authorities to explain the world to them? [1]
Alda and Dubner miss the late great Feynman’s curiosity about *everything,* and his ability to identify and weigh complex problems – on all subjects, not just physics. They wished they could have his commentary on how the advances in technology affect humankind, as it seemd to lead to fewer people understanding how our physical world works, and thus we defer understanding to…well, to whom? It used to be to the religious authorities, then to “the experts,” and now it’s to machines; i.e., computers.
Dubner: “…I think one of the most interesting arguments about AI and what’s going to happen – how we will integrate with AI…is that if AI really becomes sentient and omnipresent in a way that it’s just beginning to gain a foothold, might we humans revert to something like the pre-Enlightenment, where religious thinking dominated, where when rather than thinking for yourself about natural processes and decision making and so on, you kind of defer.
In the old days, many many many people deferred to some kind of deity; is it possible that in the near term, people will defer to a different kind of supernatural intelligence in the form of AI, and therefore, stop thinking so much for ourselves?
And if that’s the case, what are we humans going to do? Are we going to take what we do well and do that even better, or are we gonna kinda give up and let ourselves turn into… We can be – the way we treat our dogs, now in wealthy societies, we often care about them more than we care about our fellow humans. It wasn’t like that a couple of hundred years ago – dogs were work animals. So, are we bound to become the pets of the AI, or do we have something to contribute?
I think these are the big fundamental questions that we’re all wrestling with…. Feynman would have been a phenomenal person to think about that…to sort the wheat from the chaff, the BS from the reality, and sort the pompous, self-aggrandizing behavior from the intelligent behavior…. So yeah, even though I never knew him, I miss him.”
Why does it seem like the people working on AI have never watched any science fiction?
* * *
Department Of More Fun With The Same Podcast Episode
As moiself has mentioned previously/just recently in this blog ( “The Pranks I’m Not Playing” 3-15-24 ), at the end of each episode of the Clear + Vivid blog, host Alan Alda asks his guests seven quick questions, all of which have some relation to the idea of communication. Here is how C+V guest Dubner answered the seventh question.
Alda: “Suppose you’re sitting at a dinner table next to someone you’ve never met before. How do you begin a genuine conversation?”
Dubner: “I once made a podcast with a friend of mine…..and I asked him some version of that question, and he gave me an answer that I thought was not very good, and now I realize it was very very very good. It’s a very simple question: ‘Where are you from?’ and that question is not just one little piece of factual, geographic location, it is an invitation to that person so say, tell me who you are. Tell me the version of who you are that you want to tell me, and then we’ll take it from there. It’s just also as non-invasive as it gets…unless they were born in a Gulag in Siberia or whatnot….”
As I reflect on it, I think that question might be “better” than my strategies [2] (depending on the circumstances and the person with whom you are trying to converse). “Where Are You From?” can be deceptively reassuring/non-threatening, and thus draw out a reticent person. That question leaves you free to interpret how far back you want to go: where (physical/geographic) you were born, or perhaps the locale you’ve chosen as an adult, or “from” in a metaphorical/intellectual sense, or some combination of whatever criteria fits your definition of your roots.
If I moiself was asked, “So, where are you from?….
Dateline: decades ago, one weekend when I and my college boyfriend were visiting my parents in their new (to them) Santa Ana home. I wanted to show BF where I was “from,” and we drove a mile or so from my parents’ new home to 1509 Martha Lane, the address which had been home for most of my childhood. [3] Except that there was (and is) no more 1509 Martha Lane. The reason my parents were in a new home is because during my freshman year at UCD, Santa Ana college (SAC), the junior college that had been my family home’s expanded “back yard” playground, did what they had been threatening to do for years: SAC enacted Eminent Domain. [4] They annexed our cul-de-sac street, and a few other nearby streets. The homeowners were compensated and their houses auctioned off. [5] Martha Lane became a college parking lot.
The thing is, on the lot where our house once stood, SAC left standing two of our trees. The towering pine in our backyard – from whose top branches my siblings and friends and I used to watch the Angel’s stadium halo light up – along with our apricot, lemon, plum, peach, and banana trees and pomegranate bushes were all gone, but still standing, surrounded by concrete, were our two Japanese elms – the one in the backyard and the one in the front yard. Using those trees as a guideline, I traced out for my BF where my house had been. “Look!” I said, estimating paces from the front elm to a spot between painted lines delineating several parking spaces, “this was my bedroom!”
As we got into BF’s car to head back to my parent’s house, I started to wax philosophical, about how *this* – I indicated the parking lot – might explain a lot of my mindset, or my outlook on life. Understand my roots and the impact of my So Cal heritage: “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Yep, they did, but I can still look at a parking lot and see an outline of my childhood….
BF didn’t find my waxings as profound as moiself did. His loss. Take it away, Joni.
* * *
Department Of Moderation In All Things
Just in case ya’ll may have been even momentarily concerned for my emotional stability when I relived the afore-mentioned existential crisis, two hours after reliving that my-childhood-home-is-a-parking-lot incident, moiself got tickets to a local movie theater and saw Godzilla x Kong.
* * *
Department Of Unanticipated Joys
As per both my personal experiences and observations of fellow homo sapiens: perhaps the most surprising thing about parenthood, which moiself did not anticipate, is the sheer/utter/simple delight of having an adult relationship with your children (that is, a relationship with them, as adults, when they are adults).
You will never have (nor want, I hope) a peer-like relationship with your offspring; regardless of their age, there will always be the parent-child dynamic. But the privilege of seeing them grow into the kind of people you would choose to spend time with, even if you weren’t related? Words like incomparablespring to mind.
Just sayin.’
Son K, still adorable, still adores cats.
Daughter Belle, still as cute, with slightly better table manners.
* * *
Department Of Sheer Unadulterated Joy
Another surprising source of bliss is watching that phenomenon which is Savannah Bananas Baseball. Not that I’ve been able to do so in person – their home stadium is in Georgia, and their tickets are sold out even before their seasons begin.
If anything is stressing me out, I search the ‘net for some Bananas clips. Seriously, this is how baseball should be played and enjoyed.
No rule *against* having a pitcher on stilts, is there?
Not that they don’t have rules:
RULE 1: WIN THE INNING, GET THE POINT Every inning is worth one point. The team that gets the most runs in an inning, gets a point for that inning, except for the last inning, where every run counts.
RULE 2: TWO HOUR TIME LIMIT You get the idea. No new inning can be started after 2 hours. In the last inning of the game, every run counts.
RULE 3: NO STEPPING OUT If the hitter steps out of the box, it’s a strike.
RULE 4: NO BUNTING. Bunting sucks. If a hitter bunts, they are ejected from the game.
RULE 5: BATTERS CAN STEAL FIRST On any pitch of an at-bat, the hitter can try to steal first base. This can happen on a pass ball, wild pitch, or any time the hitter chooses.
RULE 6: NO WALKS ALLOWED If a pitcher throws ball four, it becomes a sprint. The hitter will take off running while every defensive player on the field must touch the ball before it becomes live. The hitter can advance to as many bases as they want.
RULE 7: NO MOUND VISITS ALLOWED Let’s keep the game moving. No mound visits from the coach, catcher, or any other player at any time. Hype your pitcher up from afar if needed.
For those of you unfortunates who’ve never heard of the Bananas, nor their unique, alternative “Banana Ball” format for baseball, some brief descriptions excerpted (my emphases) from their Wikipedia entry:
The Savannah Bananas are an exhibitionbarnstorming baseball team based in Savannah, Georgia…until 2022, the Bananas competed as a collegiate summer baseball team …. However, after the growth of their alternate “Banana Ball” format, the team transitioned entirely to exhibition games against their partner touring teams… the team has been featured by ESPN, The Wall Street Journal, CNN 10, and Sports Illustrated because of its on-field hijinks and viral videos.
Yeah, they had me at hijinks.
On-field hijinks include dancing. At the drop of a hat (or mitt…or bat….).
The Bananas’ rendition of Dirty Dancing’s “I Had The Time Of My Life” finale.
Some of the Bananas fans’ fave team dances from last year can be found here.
And as for team selection, not only do the players have to have genuine and even extraordinary talent (check out this footage of a “360 tornado catch” by a Banana outfielder), but moiself swears there must be a face and body…uh…selection during team tryouts process. Because dem boys be hot. [6]
The most exuberant dancer is one you’d guess – it’s the home plate umpire. Dude doesn’t make it in the hot bod department, but he knows how to shake his baseball booty.
* * *
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. [7]
I love it when you find the perfect spot for the duck feet.
* * *
May you always feel free to click away from annoying texts; May you enjoy present-day relationships with (yours or other people’s) now-adult kids; May you have the time of your life at a Savannah Bananas game; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Of course, the religious authorities’ “God did it” is a non-explanation, but their “God did it,” followed by, “so stop questioning things or else this all-knowing all-loving god will put you on the fast track to hell” was sufficient inspiration for keeping mouths – and minds – shut.
[2] Asking a question like, What are you thinking about lately/ What occupies your thoughts these days? What are you surprised by? Tell me about the last time you were surprised/scared/overjoyed/disgusted? Or, simply start out by finding a commonality, as with the dinner table scenario (“So, what’s your connection to [the host] – how did you meet?” )
[3] Save for two years in San Diego, where I started school (K and grade 1), when my father was temporarily transferred for his work. We rented out the Santa Ana house and returned to it the summer before I entered grade 2.
[4] the right and power of a government or to annex private property for public use, with payment of compensation.
[5] To people who bought them at a greatly discounted price, and then paid to have them shipped to empty lots, etc.
[6] Hellyeah, I look. I am decades happily married, but I’m not dead.
[7] 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.
[8] “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
Content warning: Despite the date, and one or two moments of comic relief, [1] this is probably the most serious and personal blog post I have written. No foolin.’
* * *
Department Of Worst April Fool’s Day Ever
The following took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – twenty-one years ago today, April 1, 2001. Background info: MH and I and our offspring, K and Belle, were members of a local church. [2] Within the past seven weeks we’d celebrated K’s eighth birthday, and Belle’s fifth.
* * *
At approximately 12:20pm, Sunday, April 1, 2001, MH and I were in the ___ (church name) Fellowship Hall’s kitchen, doing cleanup after coffee hour. K and Belle were playing with other children outside, in the church’s courtyard. Belle found a hypodermic syringe (“A shiny toy,” as she later described it to me) on the grass under the bushes next to a play-shed in the courtyard. She picked up the syringe, which was capped, but the syringe’s needle — which was sticking out at an angle from under the side of the cap — poked her in her right thumb. She dropped the syringe and walked away.
K had seen Belle pick up something and then quickly drop it. He went over to where she had been, saw the syringe, and picked it up. He intended to take it upstairs to MH and I, to show us what Belle had touched…then he also got stuck by the needle (in his left thumb) when he picked up the syringe.
K came into the kitchen, holding the syringe. He told us that he’d found “this thing on the grass” and that he’d accidentally stuck himself with it. Before K had finished his sentence MH whisked the syringe from K, and recapped it (K said he took the cap off *after* the needle stuck him, as he wanted us to see exactly what it was that had stuck him, but that the syringe had the cap ON when he picked it up).
I rushed K to the sink, quickly but thoroughly washed his thumb, and told MH to get Belle and meet us at the hospital. We had our two cars with us; I wrapped the syringe in several paper towels and ran down the back stairs of the hall with K in tow, telling him that we were going to the Tuality Hospital ER (which is less than half a mile from the church).
At this time MH and I did *not* know that Belle had also – and first – been stuck by that same syringe’s needle.
MH found Belle standing in the entrance to the Fellowship Hall, crying and holding her thumb, which was bleeding. MH asked another child, who was lying on a couch in the entrance, what was going on. The kid glanced at Belle and casually replied, “Oh, she cut herself.” MH asked Belle what happened; she said that “a knife” she found in the courtyard had cut her finger.
I’d parked on the street by the entrance to the Fellowship Hall. Just as I was about to pull away from the curb MH ran to my car, pounded on the window, opened the door and practically threw Belle in the back seat, next to K. MH told me about Belle’s thumb as he strapped Belle into her car seat; we tried to get more out of her, but she was very upset. She didn’t want to say that it was the needle which had cut her, but K said that it was, and then Belle confirmed this.
All of this — from the moment K came up to the kitchen with the syringe to MH running with Belle to the car — took place in less than two minutes. I squeezed Belle’s thumb to get more blood out, gave her a tissue to hold over her thumb, and drove to the ER, with MH arriving in our other car about four minutes after the kids and I did.
The bad news:
…was what had happened. Of particular concern was the fact that the syringe was from an “unknown source,” which is hospital jargon for, “We don’t have the syringe’s user to test.” However, as the hospital personnel [3] – and our own instincts and experience told us – as far as what the syringe had been used for, we should assume the worst. Translation: the syringe had been used to inject a person or persons with illegal drugs; it had not been left there by a diabetic who on the spur of the moment decided to adjust his blood sugar/insulin ratio in our church’s courtyard’s bushes. (Coincidentally, earlier that morning I’d been told by the church groundskeeper that the previous day, members of our church had done a cleanup of the church grounds, removing beer cans and trash from under and around the bushes in the courtyard, where the groundskeeper had occasionally found “vagrants and street people partying.”)
Hospital personnel told us the syringe was likely used to inject its user(s) with a certain kind of heroin (“Mexican brown”) and/or methamphetamine, which, for “street users,” were the injectable drugs of choice both the hospital and the police were seeing at that time. Although we brought the syringe with us (and could detect a micro-microscopic drop of fluid inside of it), we were told that there was nothing the hospital could test it for. In fact, it was hospital policy notto test it, for among other reasons, the false reassurance of any false negative results (which they would likely get, as there was no way to determine how long the syringe had been there).
The relatively good (or at least, less bad) news:
-Both kids’ immunizations were up to date, including for Hepatitis B.
-Although there were no vaccinations for Hepatitis C and the other rare strains (D, E, F), risk of transmission for those infections, in that kind of possible exposure, were negligible… Also, those strains of hepatitis were rarely seen in Oregon at that time (Hepatitis A is not transmitted via needle sticks).
-The syringe had a small gauge needle; thus, the possibility of a significant “viral load” transmission was small.
-HIV, the big fear factor at the time, is a very fragile virus. Despite its many mutations it can survive only a few hours (if that) outside a host body.
The children were seen by P.A. ____, who examined them and then spoke with us about what happened. Over the next three-plus hours, the P.A. consulted via telephone with Drs. E___ and L___ at Emmanuel Hospital’s Infectious Disease and Pediatrics Infectious Disease departments, with our pediatrician’s on call group, and with other physicians at the CDC. [4]
We were told (by the P.A. and a Tuality ER physician) that HIV prophylaxis treatment was something we should consider, for both K and Belle. We did, and decided against it, with the following information in mind:
– None of the doctors consulted would strongly recommend that we start either K or Belle on prophylactic treatment for possible HIV exposure, given the parameters of the particular accident/incident, nor was such treatment the recommended protocol for that kind of possible exposure.
– MMR (Morbidity & Mortality Report) statistics showed no transmission of disease had been recorded to have occurred in “this kind of injury,” in Oregon.
– Risk of transmission of HIV was estimated to be less than 1%; risk of side effects from AZT or other prophylactic HIV treatments definitely exceeded 1%.
K and Belle had blood drawn at the hospital for baseline HIV and Hepatitis titers, and we were given scripts to have the tests repeated at intervals of two, four, and six months. The P.A. suggested, for our own peace of mine, that we do another test at twelve months (although that was not the official recommendation).
******************************
Department Of The Aftermath
At one point, sitting in the ER exam room with MH and the kids, I remembered noting the date and thinking, “If only this were an April Fool’s joke….”
The above was the Dragnet (“Just the facts, ma’am”) version of the incident, which I sent to family, and wrote for our own records. I left out the emotions experienced by K, Belle, MH, and myself, which you can probably imagine (and which took me months to forget).
We were at that ER for hours. We waited, while the P.A. consulted with various specialists and/or waited for them to return his calls and periodically came into the exam room we occupied, to update us. All the adults were (trying to be) calm. The ER seemed understaffed, to me (a hospital staff member later told me it was unexpectedly busy “for a Sunday afternoon”). Even so and speaking of the afternoon, I wish one of the staff would have thought to offer our kids some food. It was lunch time when the accident happened, and a little after 4 pm when we got out of there. MH and I were too adrenalized to be hungry and, in our state of shock and with possible scenarios and outcomes running through our minds, we forgot that the kids, of course, were hungry[5] ). I finally had the presence of mind to realize this, and got someone to bring them some sugary drinks, which made them both happy.
Waiting, waiting, waiting…. We bummed drawing supplies (paper and pens) from a nurse, to keep the kids amused or at least distracted, while hospital staff checked with one another and called various experts. We shut the door to the exam room we were in and talked loudly to the kids when an accident victim with a fractured femur was brought into the ER (we were mostly successful in muffling the victim’s cries of pain, which echoed down the ER hallway).
MH’s cousin is a pediatrician and her husband an epidemiologist; MH used some of the waiting time to call her (she lived on the East coast). She was very reassuring. She told us that, to her knowledge and after checking her sources, there were no cases of someone “sero-converting” – i.e., going from a negative HIV test to a positive – after having “that kind” of accident (being stuck with a needle which had likely been used and discarded several hours before the stick-accident).
Okay; yes; this is good. But, if this is common knowledge, why is this taking so long?
Why all the consults – are they preparing detailed information for us,
for a prognosis we don’t want to hear?
We had plenty of time, sitting/waiting/pacing in that exam room, to imagine the worst. I had worked for nine years in the women’s reproductive health care field but been away from the medical world for almost as many years and hadn’t kept up with “things.” HIV, despite its ability to mutate rapidly, was – or had been – a very fragile virus. Perhaps new strains had developed, which I was unaware of – new mutations which could survive hours outside a host body? I thought that unlikely, thus; actually, my main concern was not HIV.
I was more troubled to think that the kids might have been infected by one of the new strains of hepatitis that seemed to be cropping up left and right. When I’d worked at Planned Parenthood, just before MH and I moved up to Oregon, I’d had a needle stick accident, [6] and had to go through the routines of initial HIV/hepatitis blood tests, getting the Hep B vaccine series, [7] then follow-up HIV and hepatitis tests at two, four, and six month intervals.
Meanwhile, back in the ER…. Finally, a little before 4 pm, the ER staff attending to our case had documented it to their satisfaction. We needed the kids to each have their blood drawn for the first round of tests, and then we could go home. MH and I and the hospital personnel tried to be as straightforward – and as nonchalant – with the kids as possible. “Everything is going to be all right, we just have to do one test (which…er, yeah…will involve another needle stick)….”
K tried to be brave. He was old enough that we could explain the hospital procedures to him, how they’d need to draw a small amount of blood for a test. Did he think he could cooperate? His lower lip trembled as he nodded yes. He sat in my lap, I hugged him, and he hid his head under my arm when they drew his blood sample. For each of the subsequent, follow-up blood draws (at two, four and six months after the incident), K got better at handling the needle poke (he even watched the last one, instead of turning his head to the side!).
Belle’s reaction was…almost feral.
What a difference three years makes, especially for younger children, in terms of experience and comprehension. Looking back, I realize that Belle was also being brave, in a different way – in defense of herself. She did not understand why she had essentially been held captive for hours; she did not understand the need for the tests the adults were trying to explain to her. She understood that she had already been injured by one needle, and she was determined not to let that happen again.
The hospital personnel were kind and patient with her, but despite their assurances that they would use the tiniest needle possible (“The size we use on preemies,” a nurse told me) Belle became unhinged. Even her beloved daddy could not get her to cooperate, nor could he restrain her. Finally, in order to safely draw her blood, the hospital staff put her in what I can only describe as a full body straitjacket. It was a device/garment I’d never seen before, [8] and it provided me with one brief moment of levity in that dreary afternoon (I had to leave the exam room for a moment, to stifle my giggles).
The follow-up blood draws were, for Belle, not much better (although full body restraints were not necessary). For years after that ER visit Belle maintained a visceral fear of needles. Routine vaccinations were…stressful, to put it mildly, for Belle, her parents, and her pediatrician.
Despite Belle’s fear of needles (which had not been present before the trip to the ER), neither she nor K seemed to carry any long-term trauma from the needle stick accident. They also barely displayed any short-term distress. By the morning after they seemed to have accepted what the adults had told them (it was an accident; everything is going to be fine), and it was almost as if the accident hadn’t happened.
The night we came home from the ER they both fell asleep even quicker than usual (fatigued from the excitement, was my guess). Oh, to have that short term memory dump capability, I remember thinking. Meanwhile, as our children dozed in blissful ignorance, MH and I sat upright in our bed, eyes abuzz from our respective adrenaline overdoses.
“What just happened?”I said to MH. “I feel like – like I should attack something. I’m all geared up for battle, but there’s no one to fight.”
* * *
When the option for prophylactic HIV treatment had been offered to us, I thought:
Is this the day our lives change forever?
I hoped the medical personnel were going to advise *against* such treatment; instead, they’d presented the pros and cons, and left the decision to us.
I’d already decided that, unless there were compelling evidence to do so, no way was I going to agree to poison my kids to play the odds. During some of the down time in the ER exam room I’d chatted with the kindly if seriously-demeanored P.A., and discovered that he too was a parent. After he and a hospital physician had presented the HIV treatment option to MH and I, I waited until the physician left the room, then asked the PA,
“What would *you* do, if this had happened to *your* children?”
He paused, and I continued.
“I know you’re not supposed to answer that kind of question, but please?”
The P.A. nodded at me, in a way I can only describe as respectful, and I saw the brief flicker of a smile cross his eyes for the first time since he’d met us. No, he said, if they were his children, he would not opt for the HIV prophylaxis.
* * *
Thanks to the merciful element known as “the passing of Time,” the distress of that day has morphed, for me, into having an impassive remembrance of what happened without having to relive how it “felt.” Years will pass without me thinking about the accident, and then something will remind me.
One such reminder came via a local public television show I saw a few years ago, which featured an interview with an activist who “represented” an encampment which homeless people had been setting up in a Portland neighborhood. The encampment was in an area which had been designated as a wildlife corridor; homeowners living near the corridor were disgusted and alarmed by the encampment’s accumulating trash, habitat destruction, and crime. The activist/representative said that the camp occupants were policing themselves – she looked directly into the camera and declared that they had a strict, no drugs/no alcohol policy.
Local news reported that within days of authorities evicting the campers, the encampment resembled an EPA-declared toxic waste dump. City employees and volunteers who cleared out the hundreds of pounds of garbage the campers had left behind had to wear special gloves and protective garments, as the trash included – surprise, “self-policing” activist/representative! – drug paraphernalia, including contaminated syringes and needles.
When I read that follow-up story I was right back to that day – back to the moment when MH ran up to my car, carrying our frightened five-year-old in his arms; back to the moment when I realized that *both* of our children had been stuck by a hypodermic needle; back to the moment when, as surely as I could sense my own pulse hammering in my carotid artery, I felt as if my “spirit” were draining out of my skull, down through my chest and gut and legs, and exiting my body through the soles of my feet. And no, this is not a florid way of saying I peed my pants (which I didn’t). The sensation was so vivid, I later checked my car’s floormat for…something (I didn’t really know what I was looking for).
Several months passed before the needle stick accident wasn’t the first and last thing I thought of every day. Some mornings with stoic acceptance and some nights with fierce, Samuel L. Jackson-style defiance (“C’mon, just try and hurt us again, you needle-discarding, muthaF#&%?! ass#@&%* !”), I’d contemplate the fact that there are so many things out of a parent’s control. Seemingly apropos of nothing, I would find myself ruminating on the plethora of shit, be it circumstantial, biological, genetic, or whatever, that I could neither anticipate nor control, but which could harm K and Belle.
I eventually made peace with the reality that generations of parents before me had recognized:
Your life can change in an instant;
your love for your children may be river deep and mountain high,
but it cannot protect them from everything that might harm them….
including random fate and their and other peoples’ (and your own) mistakes.
One day, several months after the NS accident and after things had returned to the proverbial normal, I was out running errands with Belle. We were at a crafty-type store, getting supplies for her preschool project, and she had to pee. The store’s restroom was a fairly large, handicapped access room. After Belle flushed the toilet and began to move to the sink to wash up, she exclaimed, “Look!” and reached for a shiny object lying on the floor, to the side of the toilet.
I had my first ever out-of-body experience: I watched as a hand (that was apparently my own) reached out with lightning speed and slapped Belle’s hand just before she touched the object; I heard a banshee’s voice from the bowels of the hells I don’t believe in bellow from my mouth:
” NO NO NO NO NO !!! Don’t EVER pick up ANYTHING when you don’t know what it is – didn’t you learn ANYTHING from the accident ?!?!? “
It took a stunned two seconds for first Belle and then me to burst into tears, and a nanosecond after that for me to apologize to her.
* * *
May you never have a similar story to tell; May you make peace with life’s realities but do your damnedest anyway; May you remember to ask for something to eat and drink when you’re stuck in an ER room for hours; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Thank you for the inspiration, Samuel L. Jackson.
[2] One of the more (if not most) liberal of the Protestant denominations. Yes, this foulmouthed expressive atheist and her family were active church members.
[3] The P.A., doctors, and nurses we saw during our ER stay.
[4] He had also spoken with at least two other Tuality hospital physicians, one of whom, along with the P.A., presented the HIV prophylactic treatment option to us. We also had several nurses (in and out of the exam room where we and the kids waited) who never introduced themselves.
[5] Although, oddly enough, neither of them said anything to us about it…which I attribute to them being intimidated by the surroundings.
[6] This happened as I was doing a finger poke blood draw from a high-risk (multiple sexual partners; IV drug user) patient: I poked myself with the same lancet I’d just used on the patient, as I was transferring the lancet to the sharpie container. It was a move I’d done a hundred times, only that time I somehow managed to stick myself as I grabbed the sharpie container. To this day, I’m not sure how it happened, but I’ll never forget how the patient looked at me and said, “Uh oh.”
[7] Which I should have had anyway…but I’d kept putting off for time/scheduling reasons.
[8] Then a few months later, in a veterinary setting, I saw a similar garment used to restrain a fractious cat!
Tomorrow is the official day in my state, Oregon (and also Washington and California (Oregon) when the mask mandate is lifted. Excusez-moi; it’s actually/officially lifted “after 11:59 p.m. on March 11.” [1]
Recently I’ve overheard at least two conversations [2] wherein people were talking about having a mask-burning party to celebrate the lifting of the mandate. Moiself gathered that these parties were more about embracing reaching certain pandemic milestones, and were light-hearted, akin to the tradition of the celebratory mortgage-burning parties. These intended parties were to be nothing akin to the hostile, the anti-mask demonstrations held in certain areas of certain states during the past year, e.g. Idaho, where mouth-breathing child abusing ignoramuses red-staters taught their children to embrace their parents’ imbecility and anti-science stances:
“Parents cheered Saturday on the steps of the Idaho Capitol building as children threw handfuls of surgical masks into a fire. Far-right groups and some lawmakers held similar demonstrations in more than 20 Idaho towns, seizing on growing impatience with COVID-19 restrictions.
‘Hey fire, you hungry?’ asked one boy as adults watched him toss face coverings into a burn barrel. ‘Here’s another mask!’
Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin and state Rep. Dorothy Moon addressed the crowd of more than 100 people, standing behind a lectern on the Capitol steps. Nearby, a banner with the racist phrase ‘Wu Flu’ was draped over a replica Liberty Bell….
Idaho is one of 16 states that have not implemented a statewide mask mandate….
Idaho leads the Pacific Northwest in COVID-19 cases and death count per 100,000 residents. In the Gem State, people are dying at almost twice the rate of Oregonians, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.”
(“Mask burning rally in Idaho fans COVID-19 worries in Oregon” OPB 3-8-21)
Yeah, and not only that, those people are allowed to breed, and vote.
I don’t think moiself will be burning any masks any time soon. Rather, I’m going to pause and take a moment of gratitude for the lives that mask-wearing saved, as documented here and here (and also here and here, and….) and also be grateful for how wearing masks contributed to a record-low flu season during the COVID pandemic.
Nope; not gonna burn, gonna celebrate, I thought to moiself, while I was out walking a couple of “laps” around the movie theater I’d arrived at. I had 20 minutes before the show began, and as I walked I looked at my surroundings, as I am wont to do, and my eyes were drawn to a trash comparison. Walking along the sidewalks of the busy streets by the movie theater, as well as the non-busy back alleys, I noticed one distinctive bit of trash which rivaled cigarette butts in number: discarded facemasks.
When I think of all the excess trash the pandemic brought us, it frosts my butt. It seems like we’d just gotten people to bring their own reusable bags when shopping, and to even consider bringing their own reusable drinking straws and take out containers when dining out…then came COVID and the (unnecessary, it turns out) regressive turn, back to the one-use, discard-after-use, plastic everything. This increase in our trash made me almost as sad as the number of COVID deaths. I’m not exaggerating.
“The amount of plastic wastes generated worldwide since the outbreak
is estimated at 1.6 million tonnes/day. ( COVID pollution: impact of COVID-19 pandemic on global plastic waste footprint, Science Direct, 2-21 )
Moiself is not One Of Those People ® who rant and rave about self-checkout lines at the grocery (or other, but mostly grocery) stores – about how they are evil corporate plots to reduce employment (even though they probably are), or how they are bring us one step closer to Orwellian scenarios, or how they are just inefficient or whatever. I use the self-checkout option, occasionally to frequently, depending on the store. When I have a whole lotta items in my cart I’ll use the regular checkout lines…unless they are quite backed up, in which case I’ll do the time math in my head –
do I have more complex items which will require manual input and/or the self-checkout clerk’s attention – e.g. fresh produce and/or bulk items which require weighting and manual input of codes, wine – or primarily pre-packaged items, which I can scan almost as quickly as an experienced checker –
and pick one or the other.
Midway through the pandemic restrictions, the checkout clerks at New Seasons[4] and I began joking about when the “return to normalcy” would begin, and what that normalcy would look like. The NS clerks always seemed somewhat apologetic about their store’s policy banning customers bringing their own/reusable bags. They were also one of the first stores to return to letting customers bring their own bags, and then one of the first to return to bagging customers’ purchases in the reusable bags.
Most of the other grocery stores I skulk around patronize have both regular and self-checkout options, the latter with no item limits (some still have a “15 items or fewer” option). But I’ve learned, even if there is a line of three carts ahead of me in the regular check outline, if I have a cartload of items it’s ultimately worth it to get in the regular checkout line.
Hmmm, which line….
The checkers are just more efficient – surprise! It’s what they do, all day long. And the logistics of the self-checkout stations…urgh. I can count on the fingers of two hands the number of times they have truly been *self*-checkout (as in, no store employee contact) for moiself, despite my having used the self-checkout option hundreds of times.
It seems like I can’t get through checking out my own groceries without needing the employee in charge of overseeing the self-checkout lines to come over (and input his or her magic code, or whatever) when my self-checkout scanning machine refuses to scan any further because:
* it didn’t register the proper weight of an item
* when I rearranged an already checked item in one of my bags, trying to make room for another item, it thinks I took some items out and didn’t put them back
* I need an age/ID verification for an adult beverage
* I need a verification on the weight of my bags after I checked the “I brought my own bags” option on the scanner and it didn’t register them because my bags are deemed either too light or too heavy
* after I get the okay for my bags and arrange them in the (inadequate) space allowed, one end of one bag slips over the edge of the counter, and thus the last item I placed in it doesn’t get its weight registered properly
* the organic beets I’m trying to buy have no UPC code/tag and are not listed in the “look up item” option on the scanner….
All of these and many more scenarios stop the scanner, and trigger the dreaded hopeful, “Help Is On The Way”message on the scanner’s screen. While waiting for the HIOTW employee to arrive I often look around at my fellow self-checkout-ers.. I see that they are also awaiting the same service; I see one of them shake his head and grumble that he’s been waiting for five minutes to get help because the loaf of the store’s freshly baked bread – FFS, he only has ONE item – lacks a scannable code, and the store’s self-checkout line overseer/employee is helping another customer scan their 985 coupons….
My favorites in the we-are-all-waiting-for-the-help-that-is-on-the-way group are the sweet and petite elderly women who wave their hands in a Yoo-hoo ® manner at store employees, optimistically yet incorrectly assuming that this will expedite the process.
Once again, I digress.
*Most* local stores have returned to allowing reusable bags, but why *all* have not returned to bagging a customer’s purchases using that customer’s reusable bag is a mystery to moiself. After all, this is what we’re all supposed to do – bring our own bags – right? There are a few grocery stores that, if you are in their regular checkout lines, will not bag your groceries if bring your own reusable bags. Yep, I’m talking to you, Albertsons (and Safeway…and since one chain bought the other several years back, I’m assuming this is the parent company’s policy).
At first, I thought it was a staffing issue. The last time I was at Albertson’s I decided to test this notion by going through a regular checkout line. There were two people and their respective cartloads ahead of me, and an employee other than the cashier stood at the end of the cashier stand, bagging the customers’ groceries in the store’s paper bags. So, they *did* have staff available to bag. When I unloaded my cart, placing my two reusable bags along with my groceries on the conveyor belt, the cashier pointed to my bags and asked me if I was “comfortable” bagging my own groceries.
Perhaps noticing the lack of enthusiasm in my, “ ‘Comfortable?’ Uh yeah…downright cozy” reply, the cashier followed up with, “We can’t do that” (indicating my reusable bags) because of “the COVID thing.”
Which is ridiculous.
“I told her I wasn’t going to touch her filthy reusable bags and the bitch done left me with her cartful of items.”
I did not tell her that her company’s policy is absurd, seeing as how she was a rank-and-file employee who was just following the store’s policy. But the other employee, the one who either was the bagger or was temporarily functioning as such, stepped aside, yet remained at the bagging station…to do what? I wondered, as I pushed my cart to the end of the checkout line and began to bag my groceries. So, you’re not going to bag my items, you’re going to…uh, provide them with an escort? Or chaperone me, while I bag them? Dude, what is your function?
Many months ago at the afore-mentioned NS market, when they were still not bagging your groceries if you bought your own bags, the checkers and I joked about how it was understandable to have such draconian policies, two year ago, at the very beginning of the pandemic, when people weren’t sure what COVID-19 was or how it was transmitted. But we’ve known for some time that COVID is an airborne virus. You are not going to get it from my woven grocery basket, nor from my reusable bag made of nylon or another synthetic materials.
I tried and (mostly succeeded) in not berating store employees for following their company mandates, no matter how *not*-based-in-reality such mandates were. There was one notable exception.
Several months into the pandemic moiself tried to donate cans of pet food to a local animal shelter. This is something I did periodically, although this particular trip was in response to moiself’s having read an article about how the shelter was going through tough times and needed donations for food and other basic animal care items. A volunteer at the shelter approached me as I began to lower my bags of canned food into the shelter’s donation bins – bins which were open, and at the entrance to the shelter, just as they had always been pre-pandemic. The volunteer apologetically said that the shelter would not take a donation of cans, “…because of COVID.”
Moiself: “Seriously? You *do* realize that you can’t get COVID from a can of cat food…don’t you?”
I immediately regretted my outburst response, apologized to the volunteer, [5] adding that I realized he was not personally responsible for such an idiotic, non-science-based overly-cautious policy. [6]
So, to reiterate: You (store clerk/business employee) are not going to get COVID from my reusable bag unless each component of the following scenario ensues:
* I, infected with COVID, am standing in your checkout line at your store.
* I feel a cough coming on, lift up my face mask, put my bag to my face, and hack and sputter into said bag.
* While bagging my groceries with the bag I brought and just coughed into, you – for reasons fathomable only by a highly perceptive mental health professional – grab that bag, lift your own mask, stick your finger into the glob of moist ejecta I coughed onto the bag, stick that finger in your nostril and inhale deeply and then, just to make sure, lick that same finger before proclaiming, “Just as I thought! Definitely NOT lime Jell-O.”
Neither are you, nor I, *not* are going to catch COVID because you, the checker, obsessively sprayed and wiped your checkstand’s conveyor belt between each customer. [7] Our mask-wearing, social distance-maintaining, hand-washing; our getting vaccinated and staying home when we’re ill – these are the actions that matter. However, store policies re obsessive cleaning are…well…policies. And when a policy is established, for reasons sound or otherwise, it tends to remain in place. ‘Cause, you know: Science. [8]
So, Albertsons, answer me this: Do your fellow grocery stores, your competitors – do all those other stores and their employees have a special dispensation or super powers which allow themprotection from those icky reusable bags which are out to contaminate your store’s employees?
Albertsons, hear this: It is safe for your baggers to use customer’s reusable bags. Update your policy. Either that or tell your “baggers” to get off their asses and move away if they’re not going to bag my groceries. I don’t need a chaperone or a witness while I do so. You could at least have them pretend to count the store’s supply of paper bags, or dust shelves or whatever, while I am doing what is supposed to be their job.
* * *
Department Of Sometimes I Amaze Even Moiself
Did I really just write over twenty paragraphs about the pesky [9] dilemma of grocery store bagging?
* * *
Punz For The Day Pundemic Pandemic Edition
I will tell you a Coronavirus joke now, but you will have to wait two weeks to see if you got it.
Why are four out of five fishermen *not* worried about COVD-19? Because they never catch anything.
What’s the difference between Covid-19 and Romeo and Juliet? One’s the coronavirus, the other is a Verona crisis
What will we call the kids who celebrate their thirteenth birthday
thirteen years after the start of the pandemic lockdown? The quaranteens.
Bonus Chuck Norris has been exposed to the COVID-19. The virus is now in quarantine for a month.
Special bonus Best pickup line, as overheard in a nursing home: Single elderly man says to single elderly woman, “If COVID doesn’t take you out, can I?”
* * *
May you never use “because of the COVID thing” as an excuse; May this post not be your (only) reason for avoiding lime Jell-O; May you remember to bring your reusable bags; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Lifted as in no longer mandatory in indoor public spaces and schools. Federal requirements still include masks on public transit.
[2] Had between apparent friends, in public spaces. And yes, I was keeping proper physical distancing. I wasn’t exactly eavesdropping; they were talking loudly and my mask did not cover my ears. Or, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
[3] As in, post-pandemic…as in, assuming what we had and did before was somehow “normal.”
[4] My longtime favorite store. Which does not (yet) have a self-checkout option.
[5]Moiself used to volunteer at that same shelter.
[6] “They’ll take monetary donations,” he sheepishly responded. The “they,” I assume, meant the shelter staff.
[7] Now, wiping the belt after the previous customer’s raw beef dripped blood all over it and I’m going to put down my fresh produce on that very belt – YES! Thank you!
Department Of Quarantine Reflections Sub-Department of The Neurobiology Of Love
“Neuroscientists have studied madly-in-love folks, putting them in the fMRI machine…. The parts of the brain that ‘light up’ while looking at the lover are the same brain areas activated by cocaine—the reward centers. These researchers concluded that love is like a drug.
… The chemicals of early love: testosterone (the hormone fueling the sex drive in both men and women), dopamine (focusing on ‘that special someone’), and oxytocin (the bonding hormone/neurotransmitter)….in early love, the critical part of the brain goes quiet…
Crazy in love is a temporary state; the brain can’t stand the intensity forever. At some point the critical parts of the brain come back online, and we see our partners, warts and all. The jazzed-up chemicals settle down, and our drug high gives way to a calmer brain state. Romantic love, researchers find, yields to a tamer version, called companionate love….
Many couples are deeply disappointed when their romance fades into a more sedate version. They crave the high of early love, dopamine and all. Some have affairs, or divorce and remarry, seeking another hit of the drug. But eventually the new relationship will become old….
‘I still love my wife, but I’ve fallen out of love with her,’ a man said to me recently. He’s missing the hit of the drug, and is thinking of looking elsewhere for that love high again. To my mind, ‘falling out of love’ sounds so passive—like falling into a pothole! I propose a more proactive view of long-term love, in which both partners work to create a great relationship. Once the initial glow wears off, the real work of loving begins. The stakes are high; while happy relationships are associated with health and longevity, the stress of an unhappy marriage can result in illness and earlier death.”
“Frankly my dear, after the dopamine dips, I won’t give a damn.”
“That warm, fuzzy feeling…called limerence…refers to the intense, involuntary attraction we feel during the first stages of a romantic relationship. Limerence is often characterized by intrusive thoughts (we can’t stop thinking about someone) and a need for reciprocation (we can’t stand the thought of being rejected by someone).
Limerence has a biological basis. When we are first attracted to someone, our brains release chemicals like norepinephrine and dopamine, which make our hearts flutter and make us feel happy.
The feeling of limerence can last for weeks or decades, although most people start to feel its decline within a year or two of starting a romantic relationship. As we form a lasting romantic bond, dopamine and norepinephrine stop flowing. They’re replaced by hormones associated with social bonding, like oxytocin.”
“It’s just limerence, darling. We’ll live through it.”
Although more and more people are becoming vaccinated, the health care, social, psychological, and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will linger for some time. Perhaps it’s too early to be in “look back” mode, but since I have been fully vaccinated, moiself’s mind tends to go there. “There” includes bits of wisdom I attempted to impart to my offspring – when they were still in the nest, and then reminders [1] after they’d left – about the good which can come from hard times, including:
* realizing the value of resilience
* discovering, on more than a theoretical level, that you are (or can learn to be) more resilient and adaptable than you may have previously thought.
In the past year+ I have been reading about how people got on each other’s nerves during the pandemic. Fortunately, there were also stories about how some lucky folks found new things to admire in their partners and family members. A particularly pleasant side effect of the pandemic for moiself has been the reminder,
Oh yeah, I married the right guy. (Right for *me,* that is).
MH has simply been…easy to be with. I hope he found moiself as agreeable (or at least as tolerable) as I found him.
I don’t want to make light of what has been a trying time for all families, and very difficult for some. I also realize that, in this stage of our lives…well, things might have been way different if our offspring were not successfully fledged but were instead school age/living at home and we had to juggle both childcare and education responsibilities, and if our economic situation had been precarious and/or not amenable to working from home.
As fun (and also overwhelming) as the passion of the early times of a relationship can be, I have always and strongly believed that romantic love is overemphasized by our culture, and that relationships which prioritize that “romance” side of love above all else are doomed to fail, as the partners conflate the ebbing of romantic feelings with diminishment of the relationship. As per the research quoted in the above excerpts, romantic love by its very nature has a shelf life, determined in part by the sheer newness of getting to know someone as well as by the biological realities [2] which produce those over-hyped romantic emotions.
Although the following Life Advice ® of mine is unlikely to inspire cinematic tales of inspirational star-crossed lovers, it is, IMHO, essential:
Marry someone whose essential qualities and temperament make you think, “This is someone I could stand to be quarantined with.”
To put it in terms of my own ongoing realization:
“More important than ‘being in love’ with this person
is the fact that I *like* him.”
How could I not love a man who lets me take a picture of him with his hair in a “granny knot” (courtesy of daughter Belle’s styling skills)?
* * *
Department Of Back In The Saddle
Those who know me, and/or who have been reading this blog since before the pandemic, know that I am a fan of seeing movies in a movie theatre. While I am grateful for the many streaming services that kept us all entertained during the times of social/physical isolation, I am now Making Up For Lost Time. ® In the past five days moiself has seen three movies, in a movie theatre:
* Cruella
* A Quiet Place Part II
* Dream Horse
Abby the Emotional Support Avocado gives two thumbs up to each. [3]
* * *
Department Of Things Unlikely To Happen In My Lifetime
As part of my coming-out-of-pandemic mindset, I still like to think of such things, even if they are unlikely to happen. “Things” as in, solving the world’s pressing problems. “Things” along the lines of, what would happen If I Ran The World ® ? And by ‘running the world’ I do not mean moiself would be doing so as a queen or any kind of monarchist, ’cause y’all know how I feel about that.
Rather, If I Ran The World ® things would be like this:
* All nations would agree upon a “Marshall Plan” (or series of plans), to stop the damage we are doing to our home planet and for cleaning up the messes we’ve already made. Those coming up with workable solutions would be compensated (and celebrated) to the highest financial and “celebrity” degree. [4] Instead of being hailed for designing an app for more convenient shopping or food delivery or online gaming, the creative young (and older) engineering, artistic and scientific minds would be encouraged to pool resources and take up the various challenges (“Ok, our group will solve ground water storage and pollution; yours will do topsoil rejuvenation…”).
Components of this plan include coming up with solutions for
– renewable/sustainable non-polluting energy sources
– cleaning/filtering pollutants from our land skies and seas
– halting and reversing global warming
For example, in this if-I-ran-the-worldscenario in no one would be using or manufacturing plastics anymore, but what about the bazillion tons of plastic refuse that already exist? Somewhere out there is an idealistic student, in the suburbs of Portland or the streets of New Delhi, who is eager to put her brilliant but unappreciated mind to work inventing or discovering a bacteria or other organism that eats plastics and excretes something useful – or at least non-toxic – in return (read: that doesn’t turn into the sci-fi movie bogeyman which is going to take revenge on us all).
Unless of course, the organism turns out to be the inspiration for a classic monster movie, ala “The Blob.” Then I say, bring it on!
* National boundaries as such would become an anachronism; nations and governments would be organized according to Bioregions. [5]
* Daylight savings or standard time – we’d pick one of those for our clocks to be set to, year-round, and we’d adjust our work and school schedules accordingly. [6] The choice would be in agreement with what medical science tell us is optimal for the human mind and body.
* High Schools would eliminate the teaching of trigonometry and/or Algebra 2, and a mandatory math class for all students would be statistics and data analysis (aka Data Science). [7]
Religious believers may still cling to their creation mythologies and other dogmas: practitioners of the three major Abrahamic religions ( Christians and Jews and Muslims ) will be free to believe that the earth as it currently exists was created in six days 6000 years ago by their god, which then fashioned a man from dust/clay and a woman from a man’s rib; Hindus may believe in their various origins mythos, including that Brahma created the cosmos from a lotus flower which grew from Lord Vishnu’s navel with Brahma sitting on it, or that life in the universe came from the cracking of an enormous egg; Wiccans can hold that “the Goddess” birthed a race of spirits that filled the world and became humans, animals, plants, and all living beings; Scientologists may assure one another that Tom Cruise is the heir to Xenu’s galactic confederacy ….[8]
Religious believers will be free to practice their beliefs as long as their doing so does not negatively impact their neighbors. For example, in the privacy of their own homes and churches, Christians will still be able to appease their deities through reenacting their Jesus-as-the-ultimate-animal-sacrifice ritual via the symbolic cannibalism of communion. However, there will be no governmental respecting of any religion’s theology, nor integration of such in public policy. Religious believers will still be able to vote however they please but will not be able to influence other people’s healthcare options, nor demand that public education incorporate their folklore about the origins of the cosmos as if those myths held equal weight to the geologic, biologic, and astronomical evidence.
* * *
Punz For The Day Cinephile Edition
French movie fanatics want to open a floating cinema in Paris, with drive-in boats! I just think that’s in Seine.
Have you seen the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie? It’s rated aRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Why did Bruce Willis try to commit suicide with an overdose of Viagra? He wanted to Die Hard.
What is the internal temperature of a Tauntaun? Lukewarm.
Christopher Walken
Christopher Dancen.
* * *
May you appreciate those people you could stand to be quarantined with; May you make plans *right now* to go to the movie theater; May you start your own “If I Ran The World” list; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] “Reminders” sounds better than unsolicited life advice.
[2] Those romance hormones, like opiates and other “highs,” lose their potency as we develop tolerances to them.
[3] Well…Abby was a bit generous with Cruella, which needed at least 30 minutes of edits.
[4] Although I’d like to think the minds capable of solving our problems would not care about fame, it only seems fair that they’d be celebrated – and rewarded for their contribution to humanity – more than, say, the actor with the most Academy Awards or the basketball player with the highest field goal percentage.
[5] A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area. Bioregionalism, as a governing philosophy, advocates that political, cultural, and economic systems to be organized around bioregions (which are defined through environmental features such as watershed boundaries, soil and topographical characteristics), rather than via the arbitrary and often unjust national boundaries established over the centuries via wars, immigration and expansionist policies, and desire for land acquisition and resource exploitation.
[6] Once every month or so, in order to maximize our productive times with the times of the most daylight, we would adjust our schedules to start or end an hour earlier or later, and such changes would be implemented with a week’s warning time: “Remember, next week/in six days School/work class begins at 9 AM not 10 AM.” We don’t change our clocks; we change our schedules. 9 AM is still 9 AM.
[7] The reality is that few of us will go on to use trigonometry, but all of us need to know how to sort out the overwhelming amount of data to which we are subjected in our daily lives, and how to determine what are valid stats verses what is being used to manipulate us (i.e., make us afraid).
Noteworthy science podcast anecdotes; musings on how we understand, use (and misuse) the term “educated;” wondering how and why some people can believe in the efficacy of intercessory prayer; a bad pun or two; the last Partridge of the Week, etc. I don’t know if the subjects I had planned to address in today’s post were more profound, but they were certainly more fun, than…this.
“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.” (Vice President Mike Pence, 1-6-21, in a letter to members of Congress. From “Pence defies Trump, says he can’t reject electoral votes,” apnews.com )
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done….” ( #45‘s tweet, after Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged he does not have the power to throw out electoral votes )
* * *
Someone needs to be shot for insurrection.
If #45 had the cojones he accused Pence of lacking, he‘d call a press conference, resign, then blow hisbrains out [1] on live television. He‘d get the “biggliest ratings, ever!” which is and always has been hisultimate concern.
* * *
“Prevoskhodno! This is all going according to plan.”
* * *
How many times did I read or hear, during the last four years,
“Yeah, I know he (#45) is a dick a horrible person as a person, but I’m voting for him because of ______ (conservative policy).”
As friend MM so succinctly put it,
“Everyone who voted for Trump for tax cuts and judges, you own this.”
* * *
What was it that the anti-Vietnam war protestors chanted as they were beaten by Chicago police in 1968?
“The whole world is watching.”
And they were. And we are.
* * *
Department Of Get HimOut, Now. How Can You Not?
Congress: Impeach. Invoke the 25th amendment – #45is clearly “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” [2] Get the SCOTUS to lead a squad of Capitol Police to arrest him. Whatever it takes.
Please, no cries of, “But we only have to hang on another two weeks, for the good of the country…”
No.
For the good of the country, he needs to go. Would *anyone else* who had fomented a riot – committed sedition – *not* be held accountable?
For the good of the country, his legacy, as MH put it, “needs to be appropriate.”
For the good of the country, we cannot let strongman hooliganism subvert or even delay our democratic processes.
For the good of the country, we need to show the world – we need to show ourselves – that we have not become another anarchic banana republic our laws and ideals have actual meaning.
And, if heis allowed to just…leave, do you really want any portion of your tax dollars to go to hispresidential pension? $219,000 a year, for the rest of hisdeplorable life, living among whatever other deplorables can stand to abide with him? [3]
“A Russian dacha or a North Korean apartment – your choice, Comrade.”
* * *
May we get the kind of honest, decent, compassionate leadership we need; May you-know-who finally get what hedeserves; May circumstances allow moiself to return to “regular programming” next week; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Not to worry; it’d be a small splatter, considering the target.
[2] Section 4, 25th Amendment to the US Constitution.
[3] There need to be more footnotes, but the only appropriate footnote regarding this deranged disaster of democracy is an unending torrent of FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK !!!
When it comes to giving grieving advice, the best (as in, most helpful) might be:
Speak for yourself.
Hardly profound…but…really. Share your experiences and perspectives if asked to do so, but remember, they are just that. *Your* experiences and perspectives are not necessarily prescriptive for others. Preface your remarks with something along the lines of, “I can’t speak to everyone’s situation; this is what happened to me/my family, and this is what was helpful to me/us, and this is what was not….”
I have been reading up on grief experienced by families who have lost an adult child to addiction – a subject with which my extended family has had the misfortune to become acquainted with. In several online articles and forums, I came across three similar stories of parents telling how
* news of their child’s death was greeted by silence from both friends and family; * such silence was painful to these parents as they grieved their loss; * people later justified their silence with, “I honestly didn’t know what to say; I was afraid I’d say the wrong thing, and hurt your feelings….”
The similarity in these three stories was in the response of the parents to those people who explained or justified their silences. I am summarizing and paraphrasing their responses here, by quoting one particular parent:
” ‘Hurting our feelings?’ That’s impossible!” “It is *impossible* to hurt *anyone* who has lost a child – we have already suffered the worst hurt imaginable.
Say something, anything, to acknowledge our loss.”
Her adamancy on this matter practically screamed from the text. And I thought, “Well…certainly, she’s an expert on her own feelings, but why is she speaking in such absolutes – why is she presuming to speak for “anyone” (read: everyone) who has lost a child?”
Also, in several of the stories I read which both preceded and followed the It-is-impossible-to-hurt-us parent’s story, other parents – those whom she had labeled as-impossible-to-hurt – spoke of how they *had* been further hurt, by unintentionally but nevertheless painful and/or thoughtless comments from friends and family, neighbors and co-workers, doctors and law enforcement officers. Some people’s attempts at comfort came off as giving unsolicited advice to the grieving parents – often in the form of tacit or even overt religious proselytizing – or as passing judgement regarding the deceased, whose death was spoken of as inevitable (“his own fault;” “a foreseeable consequence of her poor choices”) and therefore less shocking than losing a child in other ways, such as via auto accidents, illness, even homicide or suicide.
Moiself doesn’t want to add to humanity’s burden of of consistently and compassionately understanding when and how to comfort loved ones who’ve suffered these kinds of devastating, personal losses. It’s complicated, to say the least, for both sides – the giving and receiving of condolences. As one poet friend so precisely and evocatively wondered,
“Many have traveled here, so why are there no better maps?” [1]
Better maps, indeed. Someday, we may have them. Until then, speak to and about someone’s loss with love and kindness. When it comes to giving advice, speak for yourself. And only yourself. And *listen* to the bereaved, as if your life depended on it.
* * *
Department Of Is That An Infectious Parasite In Your Brain Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?
“Toxoplasma gondii exerts a strange sort of mind control on rodents: Once infected with the brain parasite, they seem to lose their fear of cats and become more likely to get eaten. When they are, the microbe can make its way into the feline intestine to reproduce. But a new study argues that T. gondii’s effects on rodents aren’t cat specific; instead, the parasite simply makes mice more eager to explore and less fearful of any species that might gobble them up.” (Science, “Brain parasite may strip away rodents’ fear of predators—not just of cats.”
Given my previous advice, I shouldn’t speak for my entire species, so I’ll just say that moiself has no desire to gobble up a mouse or any rodent. However, I recently saw a mouse infected with (I’m guessing) toxoplasmosis.
I can’t think of what else might explain its unusual, survival-fail behavior. Oh, and if you’ve never heard about the life cycle of the toxoplasma gondii, treat yourself to a brief overview of arguably one of Mother Nature’s strangest, most face-palming, biological phenomena.
Dateline: Tuesday, 7 am-ish, leaving my house via the garage, to go for a walk. The sun is not quite up; as I walk down the driveway toward the sidewalk I notice something scurrying in the front yard, to the right, about five feet from me, in the dirt underneath our redbud tree. I approach the Scurrying Something, and see a mouse.
The mouse also sees me. Instead of freezing in place or fleeing, it raises up on its hind feet and looks up, its beady little eyes staring right at me. It begins to run in circles, first towards then away from me, and makes little leaps into the air and prances about, as if it is trying to attract my attention. Is this a batshit crazy mouse, I’m thinking, or is this behavior trying to distract me away from, say, its nest that is nearby? [2] Or…is this a horny mouse who’s lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, and it thinks I smell like cat pee? I’ll admit that my regular shower schedule has lapsed during the COVID quarantine months, but hey – it’s not THAT bad.
“Toxoplasma gondii …can only reproduce within the bodies of cats, and in mice, the mind-controlling parasite has evidently evolved to make mice unafraid of felines and even…sexually attracted to the odor of cat urine….” ( “Mind-Control Parasite Kills Mice’s Fear of Cats Permanently,” livescience.com )
Moving right along….
I’m bundled up against the 30˚ temp and fumble through my layers of clothing, trying to get my cellphone out of my pants pocket. I want to videotape this mouse’s interpretive dance or whatever it is, and show it to my offspring, both of whom were biology majors and worked with mice in undergraduate research projects. Just as I get my phone and find the video mode, the mouse scampers toward me, which gives me pause (uh, what if it’s rabid…and is that even a mouse-thing?[3] ). Manic Mouse gets to within less than a foot of my foot, does a little pirouette, then makes a beeline for our pear tree, which is about four feet away, by the sidewalk. I follow the mouse; it resumes its acrobatic antics around the pear tree’s trunk and underneath the surrounding azalea bushes. The combination of the darkness, the rapidity of the mouse’s movements, and my less-than-stellar cinematography skills makes for a poor video. I bid the mouse adieu and go for my walk, pondering, among other metaphysical wonders:
Why isn’t it pronounced, tox-o-plas- MOUSE -is?
“Yeah, what she said.”
* * *
Department Of Just Wondering #589 In A Never-Ending Series
Why do our big toes *not* have their own separate, special name? We have a unique moniker for the pollex, the short, thick first digit of the human hand: we call it the thumb, thus distinguishing it from the other fingers. But we have ten toes, and they’re all just…toes. Okay, the first ones are the big toes, but, c’mon, what kind of pansy-ass distinction is that?
Is it because, unlike many other primates, humans’ big toes are not opposable, and so the big toes get no respectable label?
I’m open to suggestions.
* * *
Department Of What Happens To Your Brain When You When You Read Celebrity News
Before You Go To Bed
The news in question was someone’s Facebook posting of a Twitter announcement, from an actor, of said actor’s newly-claimed [4] trans status. The announcement included, of course, the customary pronouns preference:
“… I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he/they…”
I read this before dozing off ~ 10 pm. Later, in the literal wee hours of the morning, I was awakened by the not-unfamiliar sounds of MH, getting out of bed to go to the bathroom but being not-quite-awake and forgetting where he was (read: he’d walked into a wall and was feeling around for the bathroom door).
Moiself, sitting upright: MH!
MH: Yes?
Moiself: You’re in Hillsboro. And…
I stopped at “and.” But, honest-to-the-gods-whose-existences-I-refute, I almost added, [5]
“… The problem with gender reveals has grown so out of control, the woman who popularized them begged parents to “stop having these stupid parties” on social media. The most recent fire in California was started when clouds of blue smoke for a boy preceded the flames, which the expectant parents tried to put out with bottled water. In 2017, an Arizona gender-reveal party explosion started a wildfire that burned about 47,000 acres.” ( “After Gender Reveal Celebration Sparks Fire, Some Say The Parties Have Gotten Out Of Hand,” Here and Now, 9-9-20 )
On one end of the scale of Humans Who Are Concerned About Such Things®, there’s a small but vocal crowd which insists, “Gender is just a construct.” At the other end are those for whom gender is such defining human characteristic that they cause wildfires by trying to announce to an ask-us-if-we-careworld the sex of their not-even-born precious snowflake baby.
Maybe y’all are ahead of me on this, but moiself was gob-smacked to discover, which I did only recently, that more than one gender reveal party has started a wildfire.
Please, someone set fire to this.
To all future, even halfway serious considerers of holding a “gender reveal” gathering of any kind, please consider this: the only thing you will be revealing is probably no secret to those who know you:
“Congratulate us, we’re having a _____ (humanoid offspring of narcissistic morons) ! “
Gender is not “just” a construct, if only “just” by the fact that for some folks, determining if a developing fetus is male or female gets their (non-gender-fluid) panties in a knot.
Imagine the size of the knot which could entangle this pair.
“Just-a-construct;” “the end all and be all of life.” Perhaps these gender perspectives are the opposite side of the same coin… or, the adjacent sides of the same tetrahedron, considering the complexity of the issue? [7]
When I was pregnant with son K and then daughter Belle, our neighbors gave a baby shower/party for moiself and MH. Me being, well, me, my dear, tolerant friends knew better than to host a women/moms only event, and the guys/dads truly seemed to enjoy being included in the festivities. MH and I dared to wade through the murky waters of Being A Gracious Guest Etiquette ® by letting the party hosts know in advance that we did not want anything “gendered” – please, none of that pink or blue crap swag. [8] MH made it known that, in particular, any of those dreadful baby bows, which were popular at the time (mid-1990s) would be, how you say, not appreciated by the mother-to be. [9]
From what I’ve seen lately, those ridiculous bows are making a comeback. People: why are y’all doing this to your girl-childs?
The first time I saw a girl-baby with one of those forehead bands, I felt so…dispirited. Yet another reminder of how early it starts, for females: a few days out of the V-shute and the world wants to start decorating her already?
I queried the first sets of parental units I saw whom had accessorized their child thusly; I asked in (what I thought was) an open-minded, even-toned manner, about what the forehead bow-thingy was for? Each parental unit answered in the same way:
Gender-Crazed Parental Units: “Oh, isn’t it cute?! That’s so people know our baby is a girl!”
Moiself: “Oh…okay…well…your family and friends already know – I assume you’ve told them – your baby’s name, and that she’s a girl, right?”
GCPU: “Yes, but other people don’t. And with most little babies, you can’t tell by looking at their faces whether it’s a boy or a girl. “
Moiself: “And it is important for ‘other people,’ including strangers, to know your child’s sex, because…?”
Because it’s never too early to slap on those expectations and assumptions, and treat baby boys and baby girls differently from the get-go, before they can even sit up.
Why are they doing this to me? And why are boys and men already telling me to smile?
* * *
Department Of Partridge Of The Week
This week’s Partridge in our pear tree: Yeah, it’s a repeat of last week. Because he didn’t get his full shift in.
* * *
Pun For The Day
Yesterday, a clown held the door open for me – it was such a nice jester!
“I’m going to haunt your dreams if you laugh at this – it only encourages her.”
* * *
May evil clown laughter never haunt your dreams; May you nonetheless find a way to “encourage her;” May you come up with a really clever name for your big toe; [10 …and may the hijinks ensue.
[8] I had amniocentesis with both of pregnancies; MH and I knew, well in advance of any baby showers, K’s and Belle’s respective sex…but I can’t remember whom we told. I know we kept the names private until birth – which we’d been advised to do by a wise friend: “If someone doesn’t like the name you’ve chosen and they think there’s a gnat’s ass of a chance that they can change your mind – and they always think there is a chance that they can change your mind – they will try, so don’t tell anyone the name until it’s on the birth certificate.”
[9] Can you say, sling-shotted into orbit around Mars?
[10] And, it should go without saying, share it with moiself .
This has been such a dismal year, in so many ways…and yet, yesterday, November 12, gave us something to rejoice about: it was the 50th anniversary of The Exploding Whale, Oregon’s legendary contribution to contemporary culture. [1] And in honor of that most sacred (to Oregonians) event, the infamous news video has been remastered, and I present it below for your viewing pleasure. You’re welcome.
Turn up the volume and listen carefully: in the background, just after the explosion, you can hear a woman advising her (I assume) husband, “All right, Fred, you can take your hands out of your ears…here comes pieces of – oh – uh – whale…”
* * *
Department Of Nomination For Editorial Cartoon Of The Year
* * *
Moiself is still somewhat in shock. Is our nation’s battle with truth-telling and political constipation is finally over, now that we were able to take a giant tRump dump?
* * *
Department Of I Am Happy/Relieved, But Should Be More Ecstatic-er…
As per the Biden-Harris victory. But I’m not. For reasons I shall get into next week….
* * *
Department Of For Those Still Wondering What The “Defund” Fuss Is About
“Defunding” the police means different things to different people; I think it’s a poorly chosen term for a complex problem. But…consider this recent incident, in a small Oregon town, as yet another reason why So Many Of Us ® have concerns (my emphases):
An off-duty Forest Grove police officer faces a criminal mischief allegation after a resident reported that he stumbled into the family’s driveway early Halloween morning, banged and kicked at their front door and yelled at them to fight.
Forest Grove police quickly caught the alleged intruder about 50 yards away and recognized him as one of their own, even giving Officer Steven Teets a ride to his nearby house, investigators confirmed Monday….
Police also don’t have body camera video of Teets’ escort home because the officer who picked him up and gave him a ride home had a body camera that was not recording, a potential [2] violation of department policy that’s now under investigation, officials said.
“We feel violated by what he did to me and violated by the way this was handled,” said Mirella Castaneda, 39, who called 911 that night to report the scare. … Castaneda said she and her husband were awakened when an alarm from her husband’s truck, parked in their driveway, was activated around 12:30 a.m. on Oct. 31.
It went off twice, and after the second time, she and her husband saw a man emerge from between their two trucks.
The stranger then banged on their Black Lives Matter flag hanging outside their garage door and a Halloween witch decoration on their front lawn, which activated their outside light.
As Castaneda opened the front door and peeked out, the man charged toward her, she said. She slammed the door and locked it.
“The guy is kicking the door, pounding on the door, trying to get in,” she recalled.
Her husband, Pablo Weimann, was looking out their dining room window, yelling at the man, “What the hell do you want?” Their four children had been asleep inside, but their 13-year-old son was awakened by the commotion.
The stranger, according to Castaneda, balled his fists and responded, “Come on! Come on!”
Castaneda called 911 and remained on the line with an emergency dispatcher for about 15 minutes, she said. During that time, the stranger left and the dispatcher told Castaneda that an officer had stopped someone.
When a Forest Grove officer arrived to the family’s home…the officer didn’t seem that concerned but asked if they could describe the stranger, Castaneda said….
Between 2 a.m. to 2:30 a.m., a Washington County sheriff’s deputy arrived at the home and said his office was taking over the case because Forest Grove police personally knew the suspect, according to Castaneda.
( excerpts from The Oregonian, ” Family says off-duty cop terrorized them on Halloween. Forest Grove officer faces criminal mischief allegation. ” )
NOUN
Playful misbehavior or troublemaking, especially in children.
(‘she’ll make sure Danny doesn’t get into mischief’)
1.1 Playfulness that is intended to tease, mock, or create trouble.
(‘her eyes twinkled with irrepressible mischief’)
1.2 Harm or trouble caused by someone or something.
(‘she was bent on making mischief’)
Mischief is, apparently, used differently in a legal sense. Still, I find it…less than adequate, to put it mildly…to have the term applied to this situation, even with the modifier criminal preceding it. A police officer, a person who, even when not on the job, carries the advantage of authority (read: a gun and a badge) and then – surprise! – is treated differently (read: leniently…read: fucking *escorted to his home* instead of arrested) by responding officers than how a civilian suspected of the same crime would be dealt with.…
Golly gee; this is not my idea of Little Officer Stevie gettin’ in some “mischief.” For the family, I imagine it was more like, abject fear-inducing, a crazy man is trying to attack us/call-the-police terror…oh, it’s a cop who is terrifying us….
* * *
Department Of Who Was In Charge of Adjectives For This Article’s Headline?
” What the president of the United States did tonight wasn’t complicated but it was stunning, even after four long years of the politically extraordinary.
In his remarks tonight from the White House, Mr. Trump lied about the vote count, smeared his opponents and attempted to undermine the integrity of our electoral system.” (NY Times, “Trump’s Stunning News Conference,” 11-5-20)
And this is *stunning* because…? And to whom – some nickel miner in New Caledonia ?
No one who has paid a mosquito’s ass worth of attention these past four years would find this stunning. This is what The Tangerine Toddler does.
* * *
Department Of Why Aren’t You Reading Leonard Pitts Jr.’s Column On A Regular Basis?
Or, maybe you are.
…”If we don’t seek reconciliation, how can we go forward, together?”
The truth? Maybe we can’t…. All I do know is that if it depends on me to reach out to Trump supporters, it will never come to pass.
Please understand: I view this moment through the prism of an African-American man who is a student of history. And one thing that prism has impressed on me is how often this country has sold out Black people in the name of some supposedly greater good.
It happened at the founding, when a condemnation of slavery was removed from the Declaration of Independence to appease the Southern colonies. It happened in 1877 when Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency in a disputed election after striking a backroom deal to withdraw from the South federal troops who had been protecting black rights — and lives. It happened in the early 20th century when the Senate refused to pass anti-lynching legislation for fear of angering the South. It happened in 1961 when Attorney General Robert Kennedy agreed to the illegal arrest of the Freedom Riders as Mississippi’s price for protecting them from white-supremacist mobs. It happened in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson blocked a racially mixed delegation from being seated at the Democratic convention because that would offend the South.
Now in 2020, this great-grandson of slaves is expected, in the name of a supposedly greater good, to seek reconciliation with followers of one of the most flagrantly racist — not to mention misogynistic xenophobic and Islamophobic — presidents in history?….
At some point, this country has to… stop asking Black people to swallow insults to their dignity, their integrity, their very being, for the good of the country.
What about what’s good for us? When does that get addressed? At what point does America stand up for us the way it has always asked and expected us to stand up for it?
Trump and his supporters broke this country, and it will take years to repair, if we ever do. They didn’t care then, and as far as I can tell, they don’t care now. So as an African-American student of history — and frankly, just as an American who loves the ideal of America, the truths held self-evident and more perfect union of America — I ask you not to ask me what I will do to reconcile with those people. Here’s a better question:
What will they do to reconcile with me?
(“Blacks are supposed to reconcile with Trump supporters? Nah, not this time. You first.” By Leonard Pitts, Jr. Miami Herald, 11-7-20)
The many, many reasons I am not in favor of “reaching across the (proverbial, political) aisle” have been and are being expressed by persons more articulate [3] than moiself . Some of them were stated in the previous excerpts of Mr. Pitt’s op-ed.
Read, or even skim through these articles, if you have the stomach for it.
“The Victory of ‘No’ – The GOP’s unprecedented anti-Obama obstructionism….” (Politico Magazine, 12-4-16)
“I can’t ever recall a newly elected president being faced with the leader of the other party’s caucus saying “Our No. 1 priority is to make this president a one-term president,”’ says (Ed [4] ) Rendell citing the remark made by Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, that exemplified the fierce partisanship that has attended Obama’s tenure. ‘That McConnell would say that in the first nine months of Barack Obama’s tenure is absolutely stunning, disgraceful, disgusting — you name the term.”
(Peter J. Boyer, writing in Newsweek, Sept. 10, 2012, quote from WaPo fact checker article “When did McConnell say he wanted to make Obama a ‘one-term president’?”) “The Party of No: New Details on the GOP Plot to Obstruct Obama” ( Time magazine, 8-23-12 )
“The GOP’s no-compromise pledge” ( Politico, 10-28-2010 )
“Republicans Keep Admitting Everything
They Said About Obama Was a Lie” (The New Yorker , 2-11-19)
The behavior of congressional Republicans during the past 12 years have made it plain as to the futility of across-the-aisle-reaching. Democrats can reach all they want; Republicans refuse to do so. They’ve even bragged about their obstructionism.
Joe Biden, the nation’s president-elect and Kindhearted Uncle In Chief, has spouting the rhetoric of working together, going forward, reaching across the aisle. Biden is perhaps the best – and one of the only – politicians capable of such magnanimity…even so, I say, Yeah, good luck with that, Joe. Given that across-the-aisle for the past twelve years perches that monstrous vulture, obstructionist Mitch McConnell and his miserable minions, whose policy has been It-doesn’t-matter-what’s-best-for-the-country-we-have-to-be-sure-that-whatever-happens-THEY-LOSE.
I feel a deep, simmering, hard-to-accurately-describe rage when I hear calls for “reaching across the aisle,” “not treating your opponents as enemies,” and other statements which imply that seeking justice is “looking backwards, not forwards.” These calls are, of course, not coming from those on the Right who most need to beg for reconciliation with those whom they’ve wronged, but from Well-Meaning People ® on the Left.
“Swalwell calls for creation of presidential crimes commission to investigate Trump when he leaves office” ( The Hill, 8-14-20 )
I’ve been surprised by how many Well-Meaning People ® also seem hesitant to hold #45 et all responsible for their crimes, because, they say, they fear doing so may throw “gasoline on the fire” and be viewed by #45’s already volitile supporters as an act of vengeance.
Giving into the loudest/most unreasonable voices does not keep the peace, nor does it snuff the fire. Stop tip-toeing around the feelings of people who would support such a disgraceful, delinquent, despotic politician as #45. Such people Don’t. Care. What. You. Think. Or. Say. About. Them.
A thorough investigation of how #45 and his nepotistic nest of nincompoops and comrades abused and profited from the office of the presidency is not seeking vengeance, it is enacting justice. Prosecuting lawbreakers is what prosecutors do. In particular, a POTUS like #45, who appealed to tribalism via using the law-and-order tag, should be held accountable for breaking the law and fomenting disorder. To do otherwise is to uphold the fundamentally anti-American notion that a POTUS is above the law, and would help write the playbook as to how crimes and corruptions will be excused for the next would-be despot to occupy the Oval Office. [5]
When Biden wins I’m going to be a sore winner. Sure Democrats can reach across the aisle–if they’re serving subpoenas. I’ll “look backwards” at the crimes committed by Trump, his family, elected & appointed officials in the GOP. What will I “look forward” to? Convictions.
* * *
But…I amtrying to concentrate on some good, less stressful things.
* * *
Department Of Nominee For Quote Of The Year
Dateline and context: Tuesday morning, breakfast. MH is standing beside the table, looking over a jigsaw puzzle (“Rosie the Riveter”) which has been on our puzzle board for far too long. He has done the majority of the work; our cats, over the weeks, have done some overnight “rearranging” of the pieces.
MH is talking about completing the puzzle, about how it would probably be best to do “the blue section” next, as there aren’t many pieces in that section, and he’s got them all organized according to color…. He’s not addressing me specifically (he almost sounds as if he’s thinking aloud)…oh, but of course he is – who else is there? And he’s using a very gentle, encouraging voice, as if I’m a novice and/or special needs puzzle-doer. It’s not patronizing, but for some reason his placid encouragement cracks me up. I start giggling to moiself…but it doesn’t stay with moiself, and soon morphs into teary-eyed laughter. It is a full minute before I can collect moiself and answer his “Okay; why are you laughing?” query.
I tell him why. [6] His mumbled comment, as he sorts through the blue puzzle pieces while feigning indignation:
“This is why people are quiet.”
* * *
Pun For The Day
Why do grizzlies hate this part of my blog? They can’t bear puns.
“It’s *your* turn to make her stop….”
* * *
May you know that you can pursue justice *and* reach across the aisle; May you understand what the fuss is all about; May you remember why people are sometimes quiet; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Because there is too much post-election uncertainty for moiself to compose anything else, it’s time for the annual intro to the holiday season. Brace y’all selves.
Department Of Life Is Tough But It’s Even Tougher If You’re Stupid Chapter 22467 in a (never-ending) series
“The idea of a “War on Christmas” has turned things like holiday greetings and decorations into potentially divisive political statements. People who believe Christmas is under attack point to inclusive phrases like “Happy Holidays” as (liberal) insults to Christianity…. Christmas is a federal holiday celebrated widely by the country’s Christian majority. So where did the idea that it is threatened come from?… The most organized attack on Christmas came from the Puritans, who banned celebrations of the holiday in the 17th century because it did not accord with their interpretation of the Bible….”
(“How the ‘War on Christmas’ Controversy Was Created,” NY Times, 12-19-16)
* * *
Department Of If Something Seems Familiar, That’s Because It’s Time For My Annual Holiday Traditions Explained ® Post
What do vegetarians, egans, non-meat and/or plant-based eaters do on Thanksgiving? ( Other than, according to your Aunt Erva, RUIN IT FOR EVERYONE ELSE. [1]
The above question is an existential dilemma worthy of Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, who wrote eloquent discourses on the subjective and objective truths one must juggle when choosing between a cinnamon roll and a chocolate swirl [2]
* * *
Department Of I’ll Take Those Segues Where I Can Find Them
Three weeks from today will be the day after feasting, for many of us. Then, just when you’re recovering from the last leftover turkey sandwich/quiche/casserole/enchilada-induced salmonella crisis and really, really need to get outside for some fresh air, here comes the Yule season. You dare not even venture to the mall, lest your eardrums be assaulted from all sides by Have a Holly Jolly Christmas, Feliz Navidad, ad nauseum.
This observation provides a convenient segue to my annual, sincere, family-friendly, [3]
…that the Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that, “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.” [4]
Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans, and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts until 1681. [5]
“Do you celebrate Christmas?”
We Heretics/apostates non-Christians Happy Heathens often hear this question at this time of year. The inquiry is sometimes presented in ways that imply our celebration (or even acknowledgement) of Christmas is hypocritical. This implication is the epitome of cheek, when you consider the fact that it is the early Christians who stole a festival from our humanist (pagan) forebears, and not the other way around.
Who doesn’t like a party, for any reason? And we who are religion-free don’t mind sharing seasonal celebrations with religious folk– sans the superstition and government/church mumbo-jumbo — as long as they accept the fact that the ways we all celebrate this “festive season” predate Christianity by hundreds of years.
Early Roman Catholic missionaries tried to convert northern Europeans to the RC brand of Christianity, and part of the conversion process was to alter existing religious festivals. The indigenous folk, whom the RC church labeled “barbarians,” quickly discovered that when it came to dealing with missionaries, resistance is futile. The pagans intuitively grasped the concept of natural selection and converted to Christianity to avoid the price (persecution, torture, execution) of staying true to their original beliefs. But they refused to totally relinquish their old celebrations, and so the church, eventually and effectively, simply renamed most of them. [6]
Pagan practices were given a Christian meaning to wipe out “heathen” revelry. This was made official church policy in 601 A.D., when Pope Gregory the First issued the now infamous edict to his missionaries regarding the traditions of the peoples they wanted to convert. Rather than try to banish native customs and beliefs, missionaries were directed to assimilate them. You find a group of people decorating and/or worshiping a tree? Don’t chop it down or burn it; rather, bless it in the name of the Church. Allow its continued worship, only tell the people that, instead of celebrating the return of the sun-god in the spring, they are now worshiping the rising from the dead of the Son of God.
( Easter is the one/odd exception, where the pagan celebration was adapted by Christians without a name change. Easter is a word found nowhere in the Bible. It comes from the many variants (Eostra, Ester, Eastra, Eastur….) of a Roman deity, goddess of the dawn “Eos” or “Easter,” whose festival was in the Spring.)
The fir boughs and wreaths, the Yule log, plum pudding, gift exchanges, the feasting, the holly and the ivy and the evergreen tree….It is hard to think of a “Christmas” tradition that does not originate from Teutonic (German),Viking, Celtic and Druid paganism. [7] A celebration in the depths of winter – at the time when, to those living in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun appears to stop its southerly descent before gradually ascending north – is a natural instinct. For thousands of years our Northern Hemisphere ancestors greeted the “reason for the season” – the winter solstice – with festivals of light and gift exchanges and parties. The Winter Solstice was noted and celebrated long before the Roman Jesus groupies pinched the party.
But, isn’t “Jesus is the reason for the season”?
The reason for the season? Cool story, bro. Since you asked; actually, axial tilt is the reason for the season. For all seasons.
And Woden is the reason the middle of the week is named Wednesday. [8] My calling Wednesday “Wednesday” doesn’t mean I celebrate, worship or “believe in” Woden. I don’t insist on renaming either Christmas, or Wednesday.
“Now, go fetch me the sheisskopf who took the Woden out of Woden’s Day!”
The Winter Solstice is the day with the shortest amount of sunlight, and the longest night. In the northern hemisphere it falls on what we now mark as December 21 or 22. However, it took place on December 25th at the time when the Julian calendar was used. [9] The early Romans celebrated the Saturnalia on the Solstice, holding days of feasting and gift exchanges in honor of their god Saturn. (Other major deities whose birthdays were celebrated on or about the week of December 25 [10] included Horis, Huitzilopochtli, Isis, Mithras, Marduk, Osiris, Serapis and Sol.) The Celebration of the Saturnalia was too popular with the Roman pagans for the new Christian church to outlaw it, so the new church renamed the day and reassigned meanings to the traditions. [11]
In other words, why are some folk concerned with keeping “the Christ in Christmas” [12] when we should be keeping the Saturn in Saturnalia?
* * *
Whatever your favorite seasonal celebrations may be, I wish you all the best.
May you have the occasion to (with good humor) ruin it for everyone else; May you find it within yourself to ignore the Black Friday mindset; May you remember to keep the Saturn in Saturnalia; …and may the fruitcake-free hijinks ensue.
[4] “Increase Mather, A Testimony against Several Prophane and Superstitious Customs, Now Practiced by Some in New England (London, 1687). See also Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday,” New York: Vintage Books, 1997.
[5] Stephen Nissenbaum, “The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday.”
[7] “Learn not the way of the heathen…their customs are vain, for one cuts a tree out of the forest…they deck it with silver and gold…” Jeremiah 10:2-5
[8] Wednesday comes from the Old English Wōdnesdæg, the day of the Germanic god Wodan (aka Odin, highest god in Norse mythology and a big cheese god of the Anglo-Saxons until the seventh century.)
[9] The Julian calendar, adopted by Julius Caesar ~ 46 B.C.E., was off by 11 min/year, and when the Gregorian calendar was established by Pope – wait for it – Gregory, the solstice was established on 12/22.
[11] In 601 A.D., Pope Gregory I issued a now famous edict to his missionaries regarding wooing potential converts: don’t banish peoples’ customs, incorporate them. If the locals venerate a tree, don’t cut it down; rather, consecrate the tree to JC and allow its continued worship.
[12] And nothing in the various conflicting biblical references to the birth of JC has the nativity occurring in wintertime.
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
