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The Psychologists I’m Not Disagreeing With

July 18, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Isms (religion), movies, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , Comments Off on The Psychologists I’m Not Disagreeing With

Department of Nine Out of Ten Psychologists Agree…

…that turning to familiar (“comfort”) activities in stressful times is an adaptive behavior.  Which partially explains why moiself  recently rewatched one of my favorite movies, Tootsie.  But really – who needs an excuse to watch that classic – which is perennially near the top of the American Film Institute’s list of best comedies – about a neurotic, out-of-work actor who becomes a better man after putting himself, figuratively and literally, in a woman’s shoes?

For y’all who haven’t seen the movie WTF is wrong with you ?!?!?!. ,  here’s a brief recap of what has led up to the movie’s final scene, which has one of the best ever, IMO, dialog endings of a movie.

 

 

(Jessi Lange as Julie, with Dustin Hoffman as Dorothy Michaels/Michael Dorsey )

 

Michael Dorsey is speaking with Julie Nichols, his fellow actor on a popular TV soap opera, where he pretended to be a female actor (“Dorothy Michaels”) playing a female character on the show.  Michael left the show after his dramatic, on-air revelation that he, a man, was in fact playing Dorothy Michaels.  Several weeks later, Michael has caught up with Julie outside the TV studio and tries to make small talk with her.  She blows him off until he drops his guard about why he did what he did.  Michael has fallen in love with Julie, while Julie, believing Dorothy was a woman, befriended Dorothy and came to deeply care for her as a friend and mentor, confidant, and even a mother figure.

Michael:
I just did it for the work; I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.
Especially you.

Julie (after a long pause, whispers):
I miss Dorothy.

Michael:
You don’t have to.  She’s right here, and she misses you.

Look, you don’t know me from Adam, but…I was a better man with you, as a woman… than I ever was with a woman, as a man.  You know what I mean?
I just gotta learn to do it without the dress.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Questions With No Simple Answers

A little while back, moiself  read a post on a community social media bulletin board (the post in its entirety can be read in my longest blog footnote ever     [1]).   The poster wrote about her child’s school district’s proposal to bus children from one grade school to another one, to create a Life Skills classroom for special needs children. The poster adamantly insisted that all students be mainstreamed and was strongly against the proposal (as in, if you hold a different opinion, to quote her directly,  you are wrong!).

After reading the post my first thought was rapidly followed by a bajillion others, all of which kept coming back to this:  I have a feeling that this issue is more complicated than the poster made it out to be.  [2]   Will the well-meaning people on all sides of this issue be able to listen to one another with open hearts and minds?

Moiself  is no longer a parent with children in primary schools; thus, I’m not familiar with the current educational strategies for students with special needs/cognitive and emotional disabilities.  I *am* familiar with human nature, and so I’m crossing my fingers (but not holding my breath) that reason and compassion and open minds will prevail over Possibly Misguided-But-Good-Hearted-Intentions ®.

 

 

This issue is often referred to as mainstreaming vs. special or adaptive education.  Probably not a good idea to phrase it adversarial terms; it’s a not one size fits all subject, and each Special Needs Child ( acronym-ed here as SNC – I will be using the vocabulary used by others, although I’m not fond of that term ) is an individual, not part of some apocryphal, Special Needs Child Community® .  But, society being what it is, students can seemingly be pitted against one another when it comes to funding educational programs.

Both MH and I volunteered in our offsprings’ classrooms in their K-8 years (and MH in high school).  [3]   I’ve some opinions on this issue based on (1) what I saw/dealt with in the classrooms, (2) what my offspring shared with me, and (3) what some concerned (and sometimes frustrated) teachers confided to me.

First of all, there’s the poster’s lofty proclamation that “…your children learn compassion, kindness, and acceptance” by being in a class with SNC  (“who struggle to fit into the educational environment due to their unique and personal disability needs”) kids.  Yeah…maybe…sometimes.  But why do some adults seem to forget or discount how downright nasty children can be to other children?

 

 

 

In Belle’s kindergarten class there were two SNC children who were mainstreamed at their respective parents’ insistence.  My heart broke for one in particular, when, after repeatedly seeing his inappropriate behavior during recess,   [4]   I (privately and discretely) asked The Teacher®  about him.  TT®  had tried to get him help, but was dealing with the fact that he, along with another SNC child, was taking up so much of her class time…she knew it was unfair to the other kids, but even though it was “just” kindergarten, he was behind in so many areas….

I saw a similar dynamic in Belle’s first grade classroom.  Again, as a classroom volunteer, I discretely asked The Teacher®  for tips as to how to deal with a certain student during the reading groups I was leading.    [5]  He was disruptive to say the least, and the other students’ frustration with him was growing – it was *their* time he was disrupting, as well as his own.  And TT®, sadly and discretely, told me that she had at least five students who needed their own (as in, one-on-one monitoring) classroom aide, but only one of those students had an aide.  She then surprised me by apologizing to me for what, given the realities of the classroom, my daughter Belle was missing out on.  She explained it to me thusly:  by being one of the “smart” students (as in, hardworking, able to stay on task, eager to learn),  Belle didn’t get the attention *she* deserved – and still needed no matter how smart she was, by virtue of being a first grader – because of all the time that the teacher had to spend trying to keep the SNC students on track (or at least to try and quell the disruptions).

The teacher shared this privately, but it was no secret.  Even at age six the students had more social awareness than many adults gave them credit for – and their resentment (of their share of their teacher’s time and attention being spent on SNCs ) was palpable.

 

 

You know the thing that adults do with (so many issues, but in particular) regard to SNC – the trying-not-to-say-what-they-are-saying?  The euphemisms change every five years or so, but I saw that what was true when I was in second grade was still the case when my kids were:

  You can call the reading Groups A, B or C,
or The Red Group and The Green Group and The Blue Group,
or The Eagles and The Hawks and The Ospreys, or whatever….

Pick your code of choice, it doesn’t matter.  You and other adults may never use the words  (“the smart/advanced/gifted” groups and the “slower/special/challenged” groups); you may even banish such terms and labels from your classroom, but guess what?  The kids still figure it out.  And they don’t necessarily apply the terms in a negative way, but simply as another way of noticing who does and who is what.  Kids will do the seemingly instinctive, self-descriptive, sorting that kids do:

* I have blue eyes like my mom; I’m allergic to nuts;
I suck at jump rope; I’m in the advanced math group;

* I like kittens and puppies; I don’t like spelling tests;
I’m good at kickball; I’m a middle reader;

* I’m tallest in my class, I like reptiles and parrots;
I’m a fast runner; I’m in the slow math group…

 

 

There is an unintentionally cruel side to mainstreaming, that Belle’s kindergarten teacher described in a way that almost broke my heart, when she talked to me about the disruptive child I previously mentioned.  The child was frustrated; he was soooo much slower (in every way – speech; vocabulary, physical coordination; emotional self-regulation…)  than the other kids.  And his developmental delays were obvious to him, as well as to his classmates.

If the boy could have been in a class with other students at the same skills and maturity level he could, on some days and in some situations, excel, and maybe even have a turn at being on top.  He might learn to enjoy school and learning.  But by mainstreaming him, at least at his particular age, he was always going to be at the bottom of the heap, and school (and by extension, academics and learning) was going to be a painful reminder of that, for him.

 

 

Oy vey…I don’t know.  What a dilemma.

I have been fortunate. Through an inscrutable combination of luck…

* The genetic lottery?
Our kids’ respective,  “natural” or inborn temperaments and interests?

…and intention

* Mindful parenting? The history, on both sides of MH’s and moiself’s’ families,
of education being cherished, valued, and enjoyed?

…navigating the world of SNC has not been my parental row to hoe.

And I have felt the shame of resenting the SNC whose overwhelming needs/deficits took time away from other students; I have justified my resentment about the time and resources taken away from the others – aren’t all kids supposed to be *special* ?!?! –  when I saw how my own and other supposedly “gifted” kids didn’t have enough to challenge them, when they were given busy-work that bored them…or were given the label “gifted” with no accompanying programs or opportunities because, as one teacher told me, they didn’t have the resources ( several other parents of a child who’d tested gifted told me that they’d been told by their child’s teachers that getting SNC students up to grade level was prioritized over keeping the “higher level” students engaged)….    [6] 

I have seen and felt the teachers’ genuine devotion to and concern for their SNC students, when it seemed obvious to me that the kids were not only falling behind the rest of the class, but, worst of all, seemed genuinely *miserable.*  How could that kind of mainstreaming be in those children’s best interest?   [7]   

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

 

My favorite part of the bible is when, after the flood, the ark landed, and all the carnivores waited until their prey reproduced before eating them.

 

*   *   *

May you menfolk “learn to do it without the dress”
(or hey, with the dress, if that floats your boat);
May we mindfully navigate the pitfalls of educational good intentions;
May we rejoice in knowing there’s less than 17 weeks until Exploding Whale Day ;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1]  “Local Friends and neighbors…. Please read and share my thoughts on this important change coming to our grade school! I am so mad, so sad and so very disappointed in this proposed change….

Our grade school is planning some really big changes that you may think does not impact you or your children, but you are wrong! The benefits that your children gain by having their friends and neighbors who struggle to fit into the educational environment due to their unique and personal disability needs are enormous. Your children learn compassion, kindness, and acceptance by just including those who do not learn as they do. We all have differences, and we need to learn to live together and accept one another. Not to exclude those who are different but to include them. Our society pushes those who do not fit into the traditional learning model out of society because they have been taught to do so by school programs such as these. This is not necessary! Please come to the meeting and say “NO!” Not at our school.

They are proposing bussing children in from ______(location redacted) grade school to _____(location redacted) to create a “Life Skills” classroom. I can tell you from experience that no life skills will be taught here, this is a place to put our children who are different so that they do not impact the learning of those around them. This is happening because our district has hired a Special Education Director who has absolutely zero experience with anyone who has special needs. This Director was head of a high school TAG program with no experience on how to support someone with high sensory needs so that they can learn alongside their peers and not be segregated and separate. I have heard rumors that they have allowed the placement of a 4th grade student to the preschool classroom to “hang out” for the day because they do not know how to support this individual. We need to hire someone who can support our children so that they can be accepted and included into society, not shoved into a separate room and forgotten about by their friends and neighbors.

Please come with me and help me tell the school district that we do not want this change! Keep our children at their local community schools. All children deserve an education alongside their peers regardless of their disability. Ask them instead to please hire experts who can teach from experience how best to support our children where they are because their lives are valuable too. Children with disabilities deserve an education alongside their peers at their local community schools and the other children deserve to know them, to be friends with them. This is a disservice to our entire community, not just the few children that are bussed in and forgotten about. This impacts all of us.”

[2] and I confess that I have not seen any follow-up reporting (nor read the comments) on the issue.

[3] With the exception of K’s first grade teacher, who made it clear that she did *not* want parent volunteers in her classroom.  She told me that, in her experience, she ended up spending too much time tutoring certain parents – and she couldn’t tell who were the quick learners and self-starters among them and it was difficult, once you had a parent volunteer and realized, “I’m going to have to hold this one’s hand,” to find a genteel way to “fire” them…so she found it easier not to have any at all and thus not have to make those distinctions and be accused of favoritism, etc.

[4] Read:  out of the blue/apropos-of -nothing, * violence* toward a classmate.

[5]  Reading select books to students, five students per group.

[6] Some administrators in our local school district apparently thought that parents would be placated by the Gifted label, even though there was no corresponding change in instruction or programs or opportunities offered for the gifted.  When I discovered that reality, I told son K’s teacher I didn’t want him tested for the program if there was no point to it – they weren’t going to pacify us with a feel-good label (and she told me, in confidence, that she fully agreed…then went ahead and had him tested anyway.)

[7] One of those kids was a girl in my son’s 3rd grade class.  I knew some particulars of her family life, and saw how lost and spacy she seemed  (her bio dad, along with a series of “mommy’s boyfriends,” passed through a revolving door between jail and her mother’s house, and her mother had been doing drugs while pregnant with her).  I was a math aide in that class; after noting the girl’s consistently abysmal worksheets and test results on the most basic of arithmetic skills, I asked the teacher if I might offer to tutor the girl after class.  I think the girl trusted me; after noticing how her classmates scorned and/or ignored her, I’d made it a point to always greet her during my volunteer shifts and find something nice to say to her.  The only time I saw a light in her eyes, which were consistently dull and glazed,  was when I complimented her (ratty, faced) red high-top sneakers.  The teacher had tears in her eyes when she told me that she so appreciated my volunteering to tutor the girl, but that the suggestion had already been offered, *several times* by both the teacher herself and other teachers and classroom volunteers.  The girl’s mother had vehemently refused (and seemed to resent) all offers:  Her daughter was going to be in the age-appropriate grade, and that was that.

[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

The Weather I’m Not Changing

July 11, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Weather I’m Not Changing

Department Of Why Didn’t I Think Of That Comeback?

“When a man says to you, ‘You’re prettier when you smile,’ tell him,
‘I’m prettiest when I’m dismantling the patriarchy which made you think
hat my face owes you anything.’  ”

More smash the patriarchy tips from Rev. Karla.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of An Extraordinary Quote From An Extraordinary Interview

That interview can be found on the recent Hidden Brain podcast, wherein host Shankar Vedantam speaks with U of Michigan School of Public Health researcher Victor Stretcher.  Stretcher explains how he strives to understand the connections between the changes he made in his own life after his daughter’s death, and the things he is studying as a scientist, including looking into the science of purpose, transcending values,   [1]  and emotional regulation strategies.

 

( Daniel Goleman is American psychologist and science journalist   [2]  )

 

From the HB website, the intro to Hidden Brain: What Is Your Life For?:

“…At every age and every stage, many of us are intimidated by the question of what we should do with the remaining days we have left….A lifespan of a few decades is but a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of the planet to say nothing of the universe. How can we spend this time meaningfully?
This week on Hidden Brain…we explore the science of finding a life that is meaningful. There is no one-size-fits-all answer for everyone. But there are scientifically tested ideas about how we can feel more in harmony with ourselves and the world….”

Excerpts from the podcast:

Victor Strecher:
“People with transcending values have less activation in a part of the brain that relates to fear and aggression called the amygdala. They have more activation in a part of the brain that relates to long-term orientation, a future orientation, and that’s called the ventral medial prefrontal cortex….”

Shankar Vedantam:
“…Your research has found that people with a greater sense of purpose employ different emotion regulation strategies than people who have a weaker sense of purpose….why are they [emotion regulation strategies] important?

Strecher:
“…we all have stressors in our lives, right? All of us.
And the question really is, how do you cope with those stressors?
Turns out that of 16 coping strategies that we looked at, strategies like drinking alcohol or eating too much or venting, were negatively associated with sense of purpose. Whereas seeing a big picture, knowing this won’t last forever, taking walks in nature…were strongly associated with a sense of purpose. And along with that, emotional self-regulation….”

 

 

Stretcher illustrates emotional self-regulation by sharing a story told to him by a colleague, whose son has a five-year old child who attends a Montessori school.  [3]   One day the child comes home from school, and for whatever reasons, he and his father start getting in a big argument…

Stretcher:
“…and they’re almost yelling at each other…finally, the five-year-old child says, ‘You know what?  I’m gonna change my own weather.’   And suddenly they have an adult conversation.
And I was thinking, I wish a lot of senior leaders had that ability to change their own weather, going from cloudy to sunny….what that requires…is a sense of understanding what your emotion is, and also having the agency to be able to change it.”

 

Yeah, all of the above, to get to that (quote from a child).  But, what a  that  is that.   

“I’m gonna change my own weather.”

What a remarkable metaphor, image, strategy – for anyone, let alone a five-year old child.

 


( Pema Chodron is American Buddhist teacher and author. )
 

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past

Dateline: January. New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  Perhaps moiself  will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025.  So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a  YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!  [4]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [5]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago July to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )

 

 

The blast is going to the way back – to when the blog was but ten months old.  Here is an excerpt from my blog of 7-12-13 ( The Phrase I’m Not Saving ).

RESCUE 911
 “We’re lost in the woods, and need an extra large with mushrooms and double cheese…and a helicopter, please.”

Join our thrilling, reality-based series, during which MH and I discover our son’s true concerns should we ever end up lost or injured in the wilderness.

Dateline:  Sunday, July 7.  MH and I planned on driving up to Vancouver, WA to go hiking on a new (to us) trail. We invited son K, who declined.    [6]

As I was lacing up my boots I informed K of our destination, and told him I was leaving a map of the trail on my computer.  I decided to test his hiking/outdoor recreation, Buddy system safety awareness   [7]    by asking him,

“So, what would you do if we did not return by a certain time?”

“What time?” K asked.

“Absolutely, by dinner time,” I clarified. “But we should be back way before that.”

“Well…” K steepled his fingers in front of his face in a Mr. Spock-like pose of thoughtfulness.  “I haven’t been to Pizza Schmizza in a while….

 

 

 

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [8]

  “ ‘Life doesn’t need purpose, purpose needs life.’
 A religious believer acting as a slave to her deity isn’t actually purpose-driven in any sense we should admire, because the purpose is someone else’s and is often taken up under threat or by bribery. A mind free of superstition and servility is necessary for a fulfilling life…. as a non-believer, your purpose resides in yourself; it is yours alone to discover and develop. It’s about choosing to live your own life for your own reasons. No one can dictate your purpose. You decide.
Freely choosing to help and cooperate with others is the true path to finding purpose. Life does not need purpose: Purpose needs life.”

( Dan Barker, musician, composer, former evangelical Christian minister, co-president of
Freedom From Religion Foundation; excerpts from his book, The Good Atheist )

 

 

*   *   *

May you have the self-awareness to change your own weather;
May your purpose be your life;
May you look absolutely fabulous while dismantling the patriarchy;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] Transcending values are core principles which move beyond self-interest and personal desires and needs, and are typified by a concern for the welfare of people other than our selves or our inner circle (family/neighbors/friends/co-workers).  Transcending values focus on broader ideals, such as seeking the well-being of all people (and non-human species, for ethical vegans, for example) contributing to the betterment of the human condition, casting aside tribal beliefs and concerns to focus on the larger ideals of truth, justice, (and the American way  calm down, Superman ), compassion and altruism.

[2] Goleman is best known for popularizing the concept of emotional intelligence.

[3] Montessori schools are known for teaching children emotional regulation skills. 

[4] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.

[5] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[6] There were, as always, aliens to be battled in cyberspace. (at the time of the post K was age 20, home from college for the summer).

[7] Always inform friends and family about your trip itinerary, ideally include a map and tell someone where you are going and when you expect to return….

[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

The Blog Post I’m Not Completing

June 27, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, nature, Oregon, politics, school, science, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , Comments Off on The Blog Post I’m Not Completing

As in, this is not the post that was intended for today.   [1]   But first, this breaking news:

Dateline:  Monday eve, 6-23-25.  Scott Harris joined us for dinner.

 

 

Several years back, when people were starting to post pictures of meals they’d eaten and/or dishes they’d prepared on social media, moiself  decided to do so, as a kind of joke.  The first time that I posted a picture  [2]  of a meal MH and I were enjoying, my friend Scott Harris   [3]  commented on the post with something like, “Oh, not, you’re not going to turn into one of those people who posts pictures of food, are you?”

Moiself  picked up that gauntlet he’d thrown down, and ran with it.

 

Here’s the gauntlet I picked up.  I’d assumed it was thrown by Scott.

 

From that time onward, every week or so I post a picture of a dinner I’ve prepared, along with a caption containing variants of, “MH and I would be delighted to share our stir fry with Indonesian peanut sauce with Scott Harris, were he in town;”  “If only Scott Harris could be here to help us finish off this grilled steelhead with lemony garlic greens, spice-roasted butternut squash, and MH’s homemade sourdough…”

 

 

 

It became a long-running joke, with several of my FB friends wondering/asking moiself  if there actually is such a person as Scott Harris?  Indeed there is, I assured them, but Harris and his family have lived abroad for many years (first Hanoi, currently Hong Kong).  He occasionally gets stateside to visit family in So Cal; we’ve tried to arrange get-togethers but nothing has worked out…until three weeks ago Scott messaged me with the news that, due to his youngest son’s participation in a touring baseball team tournament comprised of expat kids, he and his son would be in the Portland area,  and:

“…if you are around, I demand to be fed.”

We were, and he was.  Photographic evidence (yeah, I know, it could be AI-faked) is available, privately, for doubters.

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of If You See One Movie This Summer…
( You Need To Get Out More Often )

Dateline:  Tuesday.  Coincidently, the day after a long-time friend   [4]   visits – the kind of friend where you can both catch up on each other’s respective lives and discuss the state of/meaning to the universe in the same paragraph – I met my dear buddy and fellow Movie Buff® CC at a theater to see  The Life of Chuck.  This is the incident which made the title of this week’s blog appropriate.  Translation:  I’m not writing the blog installment I’d intended, because moiself  can’t get the movie’s themes from careening through my frontal lobe and my amygdala like a drunken sailor.

I felt odd, driving home from the movie theater, and actually wondered at one point if I should pull the car over and strip off my clothing and run into traffic whooping and yelping in both despair and delight  catch my breath, because my mind, and possibly body, felt… elsewhere.   After the movie was over I told CC, when we were both stumbling for words outside the theatre, that “…when I get home tonight MH will ask me how the movie was, and I’ll have no good answer, and then he’ll ask what was the movie  about, and I’ll say something like ‘it was about living life with the knowledge of the inevitable obliteration of the cosmos, whether physically or philosophically/personally…and I can’t explain it any more than that.’ ”

And then I’ll have to sit in one of our Comfy Chairs ® and stream a movie about dinosaurs or King Kong or something.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of…Or Something

The next day I saw one version of  Or Something: The Phoenician Scheme,   [5]   which, for moiself, is the existential opposite of The Life of Chuck.

I won’t bother to give even a rudimentary summary of The Phoenician Scheme’s plot line, because it doesn’t matter.  It was a Wes Anderson movie, in all its Wes Anderson-osity, with its plethora of *name* actors eager to play a part in his highly stylized eccentricity: Look at us – as actors we’re all individually and collectively capable of emoting our spleens off, but here we are in Wes Anderson ®  mode, so enjoy us being deadpan and quirky amidst the symmetrical, bright-vintage and hyperrealistic, Andersonesque set design!   [6]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of In Three Days My Mother Would Have Had Her Ninety-Seventh Birthday

To honor that, moiself  will be excerpting a blog from three years ago (  The Holiday I’m Not Renaming ), in which I shared one of my favorite memories of my mother:

Dateline: earlier this week.   A FB friend posts pictures of his grandchild‘s visit to what looks to be an amusement park, and a picture shows the child playing that classic arcade game, Whac-a-mole. Seeing this picture prompts a lovely flashback for moiself – a memory I’ve not thought of in decades.

Dateline of memory: A long time in a galaxy far far away (Southern California).  I am visiting my parents at their home in Santa Ana.  It’s summertime, and the County Fair is on.  My parents tell me they haven’t been to a state or county fair in ages, and suggest we go.  And so we do.  As we walk past the various cheesy games and merchandise and food booths, nothing catches our interest, until we come to an arcade. I espy a Whac-A-Mole game, and instantly am obsessed with getting my mother to play it.

 

 

My mother is hesitant, despite my enthusiastic recommendation. She knows nothing about it, she says  ( Even better!!!, moiself  thinks to moiself  ).  I assure her that it’s a straightforward game, no complicated strategy or levels or scenarios: she simply must hold the mallet and whack the heads of the moles as they pop up from the console.

“Why?” she asks me.

“There’s no time to get existential right now,” I reply.  I put my two quarters in the slot, press the game’s start button and put the mallet in my mother’s hand.  “You don’t want me to waste fifty cents, right, Mom? Look – there’s one!  Pretend it’s digging up your rosebushes!”

…my mother is exquisitely awful at Whac-A-Mole.  Her timing is atrocious; even so, she soon gets into it in her own way, emitting a high-pitched,  “Oh!”  whenever a mole head appears, followed by her delayed whack at its head. My father and I, standing to the side of the game console, are doubled over with laughter as we watch my mild-mannered mother, with an increasing maniacal look in her eyes, pursue those pesky moles:

“Oh!”
(whack)

“Oh!”
(whack)

“Oh!” (whack) “Oh!” (whack)

“Oh oh oh oh oh oh!”
(whack whack whack whack whack whack)

It is one of my favorite memories of her.

 

This is another one.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”

( Carl Sagan, the late, great, American astronomer, planetary scientist, teacher,
author, science communicator…. )

 

 

*   *   *

May you realize that we’re all living  The Life of Chuck
May you have a favorite memory of your mother;
May your life never resemble a Wes Anderson movie;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Some musings on “special ed” programs.

[2] on Facebook, my only social media outlet.

[3] I’m making an exception here (in my blog) to identify a real person with his real name (and not an acronym or initials).  He deserves it, and also, being a journalist for years, he kind of qualifies as a person in “the public eye.”

[4] We’ve known each other since junior high ( I was in the 7th grade, and Scott the 8th).  Can you imagine the hideous (as in, embarrassingly adolescent) stories we could tell?

[5] Yep, I returned to the movie theater.  I’m trying to get back into watching a movie a week in the theater…which shouldn’t be so difficult given the plethora of summer releases but which in fact is difficult for moiself  when the majority of the releases are the seventeenth in a series of I Know What You Did/How You Screamed  Fast and Furioiusly Last Summer – Marvel Super Hero, Inside Out of Training Your Despicable Me’s Dragon, Mission Impossible: The Final Squeezing Of Blood From A  Movie Ticket Turnip…

[6] At least I didn’t pay for it…directly.  I have a movie club membership, and have amassed many free tickets.

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

The Letter I’m Not Sending

May 9, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, family life, freethought/humanism, Oregon, politics, reproductive rights, TV, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Letter I’m Not Sending

Department Of A Blast From The Past

New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  Perhaps moiself  will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025.  So far it has, but time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a  YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!   [1]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [2]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago May to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? ).  But this time, I’m making an exception.

While Searching for something else,  moiself came upon a post from the second Friday of October, seven years ago, that eerily (read: sadly) resonated with (too) many issues of the here and now.  So I’m running it in its entirety.

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 10-12-18 ( The Letter I’m Not Sending ).

*   *   *

[1] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.

[2] Was it really over twelve years ago?

 

*   *   *

The Letter I’m Not Sending

That letter would be to orthopedic surgeon and Oregon State representative Knute Buehler (R-Bend), the Republican party’s candidate in the Oregon governor’s race.  [1] The subject matter of the letter would be the why behind the fact that although there are reasons I might consider voting for him, I cannot vote for him.

And the reasons have nothing to do with the fact that Oregon has elected only one Republican governor in the past 43 years.

I gotta have some respect for a Republican who receives the following critiques:

…Buehler frequently found himself getting into hot water with party activists who didn’t think he was conservative enough. They particularly criticized him for refusing to embrace President Donald Trump and for describing himself as pro-choice on abortion. Buehler’s recent vote in favor of a gun-control bill related to domestic abuse also rankled many gun-rights activists.
(“Republican Buehler Nominated To Face Brown
In Oregon Governor’s Race,” OPB 5-18-18)

After reading about some of Buehler’s positions on various issues, MH wondered aloud, something along the lines of,

How/why is this man was even a Republican?

 

I have no logical answer at this moment.

 

I have found the incumbent governor who is running for reelection, Democrat Kate Brown, to be…. mostly acceptable. What I find unacceptable is her campaign’s advertising campaign  [2] against Buehler.  I am particularly disappointed with the way the Democrats are trying to smear Buehler re his claims of being prochoice, despite his repeated public proclamations as such.

“I’m going to vote for you, but I sure wish you were pro-life,” (a Republican voter tells Buehler at the Oregon state fair).
(The Republican voter) says he finds abortion offensive and posits that Buehler’s position is just an appeal to the liberal western portion of the state. Buehler sympathizes with his perspective, but confirms he supports abortion rights. Efforts should be made to make abortion as rare as possible, Buehler says, but the decision to have an abortion should be between a woman and her doctor.
(“Buehler’s ‘pro-choice’ stance: Disliked by conservatives, discredited by Democrats,”
Salem Statesman Journal 9-6-18)

That seems straightforward to me, and expresses sentiments similar to those I’ve heard from both prochoice conservatives and liberals. But many Oregon Democrats don’t like the fact that Buehler disagrees with them on related issues – “it’s my way or the highway” seems to be the attitude they are taking. He must agree with every issue they, or the Oregon chapters of NARAL or Planned Parenthood – organizations which I support, both philosophically and financially – deem to be related to abortion and/or reproductive health care, or they feel entitled to take away his prochoice label.

Example: there was an Oregon House Bill, signed last year by Gov. Brown, which required insurance companies to cover abortions and other reproductive health services at no cost to the patient. (I favored that bill, BTW). Buehler opposed the bill because he considered it “fiscally irresponsible to fund a new program as others were losing funding.” So, Those Who Think They Own The Label ® declare he “really isn’t pro choice.”  Which means I am seeing and hearing political ads featuring Concerned Women ®  saying, “We just can’t trust Knute Buehler,”  and implying that Buehler would somehow do away with women’s rights. And that just frosts my butt.

 

While this picture is in no way illustrative of the issue addressed in the previous paragraph, wouldn’’ you rather see a cute sloth than the writer’s frosty butt?

 

In 1969, Oregon was one of the first states to legalize abortion, even before Roe v. Wade hit the law books. “Our policies are borne out of Oregon exceptionalism,” says (the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon). “We are progressive and libertarian. Voters on the east side of the Cascades may or may not agree with a woman’s right to access abortion, but they sure as heck agree that the government has no place in that decision.”
(“Why Oregon is the Only State that Doesn’t Limit Legal Access to Abortion,”
Portland Monthly)

Oregon’s long record as a prochoice state makes us the envy of many other states; thus, the issue of abortion in this particular political race is not a “biggie” for a staunch prochoice advocate such as moiself. And although he crosses his party’s line in his prochoice stance, I know there are other issues about which Buehler likely toes the Republican party line. But he is willing to tackle what is one of the most important state political issues for me, and one that the Democrats have repeatedly failed to address: the fact that Oregon’s growing public pension obligations are crowding out the rest of the state budget – what the NY Times refers to as a severe, “self-inflicted crisis.”

Oregon…is caught in a fiscal squeeze of its own making. Its economy is growing, but the cost of its state-run pension system is growing faster. … its spiraling costs are notable in part because Oregon enjoys a reputation for fiscal discipline. Its experience shows how faulty financial decisions by states can eventually swamp local communities….
Oregon’s costs are inflated by the way in which it calculates pension benefits for public employees. Some of the pensions include income that employees earned on the side. Other retirees benefit from long-ago stock market rallies that inflated the current value of their payouts.
The bill is borne by taxpayers. Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System has told cities, counties, school districts and other local entities to contribute more to keep the system afloat. They can neither negotiate nor raise local taxes fast enough to keep up. As a result, pensions are crowding out other spending. Essential services are slashed.
 (“A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash,”
NY Times, 4-14-18)

I like Buehler’s willingness to address Oregon’s need for PERS ( Public Employees Retirement System) reform. The PERS as it stands, IMHO as well as the opinions of financially astute people on all sides of the political aisles, is a disaster in the making. The system is unsustainable as currently calculated and implemented, and yessiree Bob, it will be a complicated and a “dirty” fight to reform it.  The spineless Democrats haven’t done a @#$?! thing about it, except to criticize Buehler (or anyone who has a plan to reform PERS), as being anti ____ (teacher, firefighter, or other public employees    [3]  ).  Thus, every four years when it’s time to elect a governor, here come the ads showing Concerned Teachers ® – mostly female, from what I’ve seen – talking about how ____ (insert name of non-Democratic candidate…this year, it’s Buehler) is “against” them.

My butt grows frostier by the minute.

 

Oh, no! Don’t worry; we’ll save you from the pictorial representation of her wrath.

 

No no no no no – and did I say, no? Teacher Ma’am, those who point out that your purse is leaking dollar bills and that you need to either get a new purse or fix the existing one – or at least stop walking down the street with your purse hanging upside down – are not “against” you, or your profession. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Someone who is trying to save you from inevitable bankruptcy is not out to get you (boys and girls, can you ask your economics teacher to explain what happened in Detroit, or Greece ?). But the critics of those who offer PERS reform, time and time again, year after year, offer nothing substantial in response, except for the occasional mealy mouthed admission that “something” needs to be done…eventually…by someone….

Buehler has proposed a sound beginning approach to PERS reform, and the response is ad homimen criticism from Democrats and teachers’ unions: “Why does Buehler hate teachers/public employees!?!?!?  Their distract-from-the-real-issue hysteria reminds me of the rabid, irrational criticism from conservatives leveled at football players who take a knee to protest racial injustice. Instead of actually listening to and considering the grievances which inspired the players’ actions, it’s,  WHY DO YOU DISRESPECT OUR FLAG AND OUR SOLDIERS ?!?!?!?!?

 

But everyone respects a picture of a lovely cowfish, so let’s all take a deep breath and think before we yell.

 

There is a sad truth I am getting back to, in the letter I am currently not sending to you, Rep. Buehler. Despite just having expressed disgust with the black/white, you-must-agree-with-me-on-every-thing-or-you’re-against-me attitude and despite admiring you for your ideas on an issue that is of paramount importance to all Oregonians, I cannot seriously consider voting for you as long as you are willing to remain affiliated with the Republican party.

People who know most of my political positions probably assume I usually vote “for the Democrat,” and that is (usually) correct. For most of my voting life  [4] I have been registered as independent or decline to state for political party affiliation.  [5]  I have, at times, temporarily registered  in a variety of parties – mostly in the two “biggies” (Democrat or Republican), depending on how I wanted to vote in a primary election (or in a couple of cases due to my curiosity as to what kind of political mailers I would receive by being on, say, the Peace and Freedom Party’s membership roll  [6]).  In each case, after the primary election was over, I left skidmarks switching my status back to Independent.

I have never felt a strong affiliation for a political party, in any personal or “loyalty oath” kind of way, and have always loathed (what I view as) the kneejerk, no-thought required tendency of many people to always vote for their party’s candidates, no matter what.  I have voted for Republican candidates who, like you, Mr. Buehler, seemed willing to tackle difficult issues in a meaningful way and “reach across the aisle” to do so. But, as I have previously stated in this space, I will never vote for a Republican again, as long as your party continues to support/does nothing to oust #45.  [7] 

Now, you may point out that the governorship to which you aspire is a state office, not Federal.  It doesn’t matter; I will not vote for a Republican for any political office. If you claim the party affiliation, you share that affiliation with those who support the affront to human decency and civilization that is The Current Occupant of The White House. Your Republican brethren at the top seem impervious to criticism from the top, so I’m holding all of y’all down the totem pole responsible.

I’m sorry, Mr. Buehler, because you seem like a thoughtful, intelligent, just plain good person in many ways, and one who is trying to do his best for the state he loves. But the continued presence of #45 shows, to me, that those who support him have turned a blind eye to their country and their humanity – as particularly and abhorrently illustrated by the events of recent weeks  [8]  – which leaves me ethically unable to support anyone at any governmental level who is willing to remain on the Republican team.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Possible Exception To The Previous Proclamation

I could vote for a Republican who was actively and publicly working to remove #45 from office via impeachment or by invoking the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

*   *   *

Department Of Oh And One More Thing

The above political cartoon, by Bruce MacKinnon for The Halifax Chronicle Herald, should be a shoo-in, IMHO, for the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.

*   *   *

May you carefully weigh the costs of your affiliations;
May you accept my thanks for abiding with me through one-issue rants posts;
May pictures of sloths warm your frosty butts;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Notice I did not use the term, Gubernatorial, and when you’re around me, please don’t you use it, either. I find the word offensive, as in unnecessarily fancy…and just plain nasty.

[2] An objectionable political advertising campaign – what a surprise!

[3] Which include some OHSU physicians and Oregon University football coaches, some drawing grotesquely inflated pensions of more than $76,000…per MONTH.

[4] Since I register to vote at age 18 I’ve never missed an election for which I was qualified to vote.

[5] The label has varied from state and county, etc.

[6] The mailers were never as interesting – or out and out loony tunes – as I’d hoped they’d be.

[7] Whose name is not spoken in my house.

[8] I of course refer to the SCOTUS nomination and confirmation of Judge “I love beer so much I can’t remember the women I tried to rape when I was drunk but I love beer don’t you love beer and nothing’s gonna happen to privileged white preppie boys like me, boy ya gotta love beer!” Kavanaugh.

The Weekend Vacation Pictures I’m Not Showing You

April 25, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, reproductive rights, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Weekend Vacation Pictures I’m Not Showing You

Department Of Headache-Free Travelogue   [1]

Moiself  and MH took off last Friday to spend the weekend with daughter Belle.  After starting the day with an appointment with our lawyer (to update our wills – a task which was much overdue and was in no way related to our calculating our odds of survival in making the trip) we drove north to Auburn, WA.  Auburn is the headquarters of Schilling Cider, where Belle works as QA manager, and also home to Belle, whom I recently insufferably boasted wrote about ( here ), re her passing her Pommolier exam.

We met Belle at her workplace in the late afternoon, got a brief “update” tour (we’d been there a couple of years ago) and had dinner with her at a local Thai restaurant.  After an acceptable hotel sleep   [2]   we picked her up the next morning at her apartment, drove south & west to Tacoma ( where both Belle and her brother, K, went to college,   [3]  and where Belle lived up until a year ago) for breakfast at one of Belle’s favorite diners, the  HobNob.  On our way there we discovered that Belle didn’t know what it meant to hobnob; she thought the term was a noun,    [4]   rather than a verb.  I told her she should pretend that MH and I had a certain amount of celebrity (or at least notoriety) so that she could say she had hobnobbed over breakfast.

Suggestion for Good Clean Fun ®:  try saying hobnob over and over and over. Or,  elbow, or  farm – in just a few moments you’ll sound like you’re making up nonsense, instead of repeating actual works that have actual meanings….

 

 

Once again, I digress.

After breakfast we drove across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.  The TNB’s claim to fame is its predecessor, the original TNB bridge, nicknamed Galloping Gertie.  GG’s collapse a mere four months after it opened (July 1940; likely due to an  aeroelastic flutter during a windstorm) was caught on film, and became  de rigueur viewing in West Coast high school physics classes for decades afterward. 

 

 

After a gallop-free bridge crossing, we headed up the east side of the Olympic Peninsula to Finnriver Cidery, where we had lunch and then a private tour   [5]  of their orchards and facilities.  Since the tour guide and Belle are both in the hard cider industry, I got to hear them exchanging a lot of shop talk (perhaps even a few trade secrets?).   It was a beautiful drive; Finnriver was an impressive place (Belle had been saying for two years that she “had to” take us there one day); the tour of the orchards and facilities was interesting, informative, and also tasty – during the tour we got to sample taste several different varieties of their ciders.

 

 

 

 

Afterwards we drove east to Port Townsend, the “…historic seaport with an artistic soul” on the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula.  We stayed in a downtown hotel, walked around the downtown waterfront area, had dinner at Tommyknocker’s, a restaurant specializing in worldwide variations on Cornish pasties and other British Isles dishes (I was the only one who ordered a pasty – a vegan/Indian spiced variety).  After dinner we returned to the hotel to play games from the hotel’s collection in their library.  MH and Belle played a new version of Sorry; I joined them for Scrabble on the condition that, as MH put it, “You can’t win.”  [6]  After breakfast on Sunday we made a leisurely trip back down the peninsula, returned Belle to Auburn, and returned ourselves back down to Oregon.

Sorry (not really) if I bored the crap outta y’all, but this is so much more relaxing than the It’s-even-worse-than-I-thought ®   political primal scream commentary moiself  had originally planned for this space.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Yeah, What He Said Quote Of The Week

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Quoting The Who,

“Meet the new boss/same as the old boss”
( The Who, Won’t Get Fooled Again )

So, yeah, a pope died this week. Which means there will be a new one, soon.

Some of my religious friends   [7] – those on the more liberal side re Christian theology – have said nice things about Pope Francis over the years.  Moiself  has seen no reason to not remain been skeptical.  Sure, I wanted someone with that kind of (regrettable) power over the ignorant ovine masses faithful to be more broad-minded than his predecessors; but as I’ve said before, PF’s kindler, gentler façade is just that:  a façade.  It’s a new window dressing on a cracked, skewed window.  The House (of Roman Catholicism) got new drapes, while it’s 2000-year-old window frames, door jambs, and its very foundation continues to erode.

Given his (or any pope’s) influence, PF’s proclamations could have inspired his flock to action that would have benefited people all over the globe. But the only reason he had that “authority” (religious, cultural political, whatever) is because people gave it to him. 

“I have as much authority as the Pope.
I just don’t have as many people who believe it.”
( Comedian, author, social critic George Carlin, from his book, Brain Droppings  )

People continue to pay attention to proclamations from the Vatican (or other religious institutions and leaders) as it they were relevant to our century.  Coming from pre-scientific, superstition-bound folk, that is understandable.  From present-day, religion-free progressives and their liberal religious brethren, this is mind-boggling:  y’all be reinforcing the influence of the elderly inhabitants of the Vatican – an institution that was historically and is currently hostile toward rational thought, intellectual freedom, and human rights (no matter how many “nice” things they may say re classes of people they formerly abused and still [if tacitly] denigrate).

 

 

The more I think on it the more irritating I find the progressives’ and liberals’ praises re PF.  I mean, what did Franky-boy say that hasn’t been said – and better and sooner – by others?  PF began his pope gig by playing nice, by saying kind things…uh yeah, a decent human being is supposed to be like that.  Why were progressives fawning over a religious leader, and not for being factually correct, but for being nice?  

PF said a few “nice” things ( “nice” if contrasted with, kill them infidels and pervies ) things about gays, and made an acknowledgement of the existence of global warming, and liberals suddenly pretended *not* to remember the RC church’s 2000-year history of getting everything wrong, and then ignoring/refusing to right the wrongs in the face of the evidence.    [8]

Franky-boy said that “women in the church are more important than bishops and priests”…right after saying “…on woman as priests, that cannot be done.”  Thanks for throwing us that cheap/holy bone, Your Inadequacy-ness.    For *twelve* years PF was the leader of the his faith’s hierarchy, that “clutch of hysterical sinister virgins”    [9]  who assert their divine mandate to dictate sexual standards and reproductive health care proscriptions to and for women, while banning women from that same hierarchy.   And he did not use his pope power to change that.

 

Ordain women or stop baptizing them.

 

I’m tired of blathering about it all these years; I’ll let others more articulate and accomplished than moiself  blather their share.

Andrew L. Seidel, Staff Attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation had these observations after the pope’s brief visit to three major US cities in 2015:

“The pope’s whirlwind visit was a public relations coup for the Vatican. But scratch the surface of the PR machine and we find that the pope is all talk….

The pope speaks a great deal about healing the wounds of child abuse–child rape and torture is the more appropriate phrase–even saying “God weeps.” God might weep (if he existed), but they must be crocodile tears, because the pope speaks, but does not act. The pope has the power to stop the rape and torture of children. The solution is simple: Turn over priests accused of this to the criminal and civil justice system and stop hiding and shuffling them around the globe. Turn the rapists and their protectors over to the police and use the vast wealth of the Vatican to make some amends to the victims….He has this power and budget, but does not use it.

He denies women control of their bodies and lives, and upholds the Catholic ban on contraception, even though condom-use would save millions of African lives. He cares more for the rules of his god – supposedly all-powerful though easily defeated by a thin strip of latex – than human life. He’s the pope, he could change the church’s stance, but won’t.

He opposes equal rights for LGBTQ people. He may “not judge” them, but he has the power to change billions of minds and help LGBTQ rights…. But he won’t….

When someone has the power to change a moral evil but does not, their words and excuses are irrelevant. Actions, as the saying goes, speak louder than words. Frank talks a good game, but he’s not doing anything. Talk is cheap….”

(  Excerpts, Reminder: The pope’s still conservative and a moral hypocrite,”
September 30, 2015 by Andrew Seidel )

 

 

“Anita Bryant did more for gay rights than this co-opting, faux-queer-friendly fraud ever did. At least Anita made us angry and inspired rebellion and fury against her stupid homophobia…. But this new guy does nothing and pretends to be gay positive.  Remember that song Smiling Faces Sometimes by the Temptations, with the lyrics ‘Beware of the pat on the back. It just might hold you back’?  This is Francis. ‘Good queer,’ he seems to imply when he utters ‘Who am I to judge?’ about gay marriage. Who *are* you?! You’re the fucking Pope for Christ’s sake, that’s who you are.“

( quote from Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder,
by John Waters )

 

Ordain women and LGBTQ folk or stop dressing like drag queens.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Heaven On Earth

Those of us who are Atheist/Skeptics/Humanists/Freethinkers/Brights generally hold no belief in an afterlife; we know that humans find and make our paradises (or netherworlds) right where we are, in the here and now.  And according to a study I just made up, whether y’all are religion-free or superstition/supernatural-bound a POOF  (“person of observant faith”)    [10]   there is nothing more satisfying for epicureans/foodies/gourmands than reading through a new cookbook.

Moiself  can’t think of any place else I’d rather be than right here, right now, flipping through the pages of a new   [11]   cookbook.  Dora Ramirez’s Comida Casera is home cooking (literal translation), Mexican plant-based style. And from what I’ve seen so far, Ramirez has a lot of sabroso (tasty) style.

As is my custom with a new cookbook, I read through it and mark on a piece of paper (which I keep with the cookbook) what recipes moiself  be interested in trying.  So far, I’d be marking just about every page.   ¿Como se dice YEE  HAW en Español?

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [12]

 

 

*   *   *

May you hobnob with the best of them;
May you savor the joy of reading a new cookbook;
May you stop praising dead popes and paying attention to live ones;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] As in, writing about family travels give me less of a headache than writing about the state of our democracy.

[2] Moiself  generally does not sleep well in hotels…if I get 4-5 hours’ worth, it’s a win.

[3] At the University of Puget Sound.

[4] Like…a nob that had…hobs on it?

[5] Only in that the three of us were the only three in the 1pm tour group – later tours had more people.

[6] I did win…but not intentionally, and just by eight or so points.

[7] Yes, I do have them.

[8] It took them until nineteen hundred and fucking ninety-two to apologize to Galileo.

[9] My favorite terminology for the RC’s (alleged) celebate male heierarch – from the pope and cardinals down to the parish priests – comes from (surprise!) the ever quotable, late great Christopher Hitchens.

[10] Which is an acronym I think the world sorely needs.

[11] Both to me, and to the world – it was published just this year.

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

The Strategy I’m Not Endorsing

April 4, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Strategy I’m Not Endorsing

Department Of So Long To Asparagus Every Damn Day Month

Every damn day.  Of March.  Yep.

I’m gonna miss it; moiself  loves fresh asparagus season.  It was fun, every damn day, either trying out new recipes or returning to long time favorites.   [1]

Asparagus Every Damn Day Month is not on the official National Day Calendar or those months long observances lists  [2]   …but it should be.  It will be on mine, starting this year, and continuing…as long as moiself  feels like it.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Attention, All You One-Issue Warriors:
This Is What Your Purity Got You

Moiself,  remembers how frustrated, hopeless, and angered-bordering-on-enraged I felt when, before the election, I was talking to daughter Belle about why some Otherwise Fully Left-Leaning People ® her age openly spoke of their reluctance to vote for the Democrats in November.  She said the OFLLP were thinking of either voting for The National Socialist German Workers Party  the MAGA Nazis the Republican presidential ticket, or not voting at all, due to the Democrats’    [3]   knee-jerk support of Israel.

 

 

“So, for this one issue about which they feel strongly, they are willing to risk the shitstorm which *Every* Other Issue will undergo, if the Mandarin Mussollini and his jackbooted thugs attain power?” I sputtered.  “What do they think will happen if the Republicans get to The White House – do they think Palestinians and those who support their cause will get a better shake, or anything resembling fair treatment?”

Though I am also frustrated by the seemingly unnavigable and unwinnable (for any side) Israel-Palestine situation, I was quite twitterpated by this leftist electoral clusterfuck strategy – which I’d heard/read about from other sources as well – enough so that Belle had to assure me that *she* wasn’t going to do that.  She saw that strategy as ultimately self-defeating (not voting at all would be a passive vote *for* the Evil Empire Republicans), if understandable, on certain levels.

And now, here we are.

“The video is a grim watch. Plainclothes officers, some masked, confront a student in a Boston suburb, handcuff her and force her toward an unmarked car. From what we know now, the student — Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old Turkish national on a student visa working on her PhD at Tufts University — was taken by homeland security officials to a facility in faraway Louisiana. The video of her arrest Tuesday proliferated on social media.

By Thursday, U.S. officials confirmed that Ozturk’s student visa had been revoked and that she was in deportation proceedings — one of a growing number of foreign nationals here legally who have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration for allegedly participating in pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses. Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized foreign students he said were ‘creating a ruckus’ in universities and said his agency had already revoked about 300 student visas. ‘We do it every day,’ Rubio told reporters Thursday. ‘Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.’ ”
(excerpts, The Washington Post, “Trump’s war on universities puts U.S. in an
autocratic club – Rumeysa Ozturk’s arrest reflects a wider global trend of
nationalist leaders targeting universities as hotbeds of radicalism….” )

 

 

“We’re going to punish the Dems; they take our support for granted….”
( rhetoric from Palestinian supporters & other disaffected leftists )

To y’all  Of-course-I-didn’t-like-tR___-but-I-wanted-to-punish-the-Dem-establishment  voters and abstainers:

Y’all happy now?
Did you get what you wanted?

Of course it wasn’t what you *wanted.*  But it *was* what was FUCKING  INEVITABLE, to anyone paying half a brain’s worth of political attention.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Speaking Of The Unspeakable

#47, who as regular readers of this space know will not be mentioned by his birth name in this space, is known for his nicknaming of his opponents, in spectacularly non-imaginative ways (e.g. such rhetorical zingers as, Crooked Hilary; Sleepy Joe).  The they-go-low-we-go-high optimistim policy of the Obamas, while morally and ethically admirable, was ultimately ineffective.  Thus, moiself  highly encourages one and all to take what little comfort can be gained in these times that try our hearts, by riding that low train on the low road, as far down as it will go.

If you need help in doing so, see ActionNetwork’s Pick a Nickname for D_____ tR___   here.
I think this was from a while back, but it’s still fun.  And petty/infantile?  Sure.  But, as the site curator wrote…

 “I think it’s time we came up with, and stuck with, a truly wicked nickname for Trump. One that all of us can use, akin to what Dan Savage did to Rick Santorum      [5]   oh so many years ago.
Now why do it? For the same reason Trump does it: It will drive him nuts. And the nuttier Trump gets, the more quickly he will show the American people just how unfit he is to serve as president. (And frankly, the man spends so much time taunting people, he deserves a little taunting back.)”

You can suggest entries of your own (moiself  likes The Mandarin Mussolini, which I first heard from Belle ), or vote for entries they list, which include such spot-on pithy descriptors as

* Traitor Trump
* Cheatin’ Donald
* Don the Con
* Cadet Bone Spur
* Agent Orange
* Benedict Donald
* Lil’ Donny Moscow
* Red Don
* FAUXTUS
* Mrs. Putin
* Impotus
* President Spanky McLiarface

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Sure-Fire Cure, However Temporary,
For Cynicism And Despair…

…doesn’t exist.  Yet.  But watching Love on the Spectrum comes close.   [6]

LOTS  is a reality television show, from a couple of years back (with a new/third season, available just as of a few days ago), with American and Australian versions.  It follows young (mostly) adults on the autism spectrum as they begin, with the help of family and friends and autism-knowledgeable life coaches, to dive into the dating world.

When moiself  recently started re-watching that series during my morning exercises, I remembered the spectrum (sorry) of emotions I experienced the first time I saw it, several years ago.  I didn’t know anything about the series when I first started watching it, then had a sheepish, Well what were you expecting?!  realization about halfway through the second episode, re what I was so surprised about?  I couldn’t (shouldn’t) have been surprised to see that, regardless of one’s neuro (typical or atypical) status, most of us share the same panoply of emotions and experience the same wonders and blunders of humanity, particularly when it comes to trying to understand attraction, dating, and love.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

 ( Excerpts From responses posted on ( an atheist-leaning) Reddit chat site, in response to the prompt:
“The Middle East is fighting over make believe again.
Do you ever think ‘fuck it, let them fight?’ ” )

* I will admit that this thought crossed my mind despite being a Jewish wife.
Then I saw the video of the grieving families….
I support both Israeli and Palestinian victims and stand against Hamas and the Israeli Defense Force and anyone else who kills civilians….
This brings me back to the murderous almighty.
“ Do you ever think ‘fuck it, let them fight?  Do you feel guilty for thinking this?
I felt guilty AF.

* The religions might be fake but the exploded loved ones are really real.
This fight will go on forever, until one side or the other is dead. It’s disgusting.
And it did not have to be this way.

* This fight will go on forever, until one side or the other is dead.

* It will not end after this. History has shown that they will just pick a new enemy to kill
over something equally meaningless.

 

*   *   *

May you never vote as a one-issue purity warrior;
May you appreciate the love in your life no matter your place on the spectrum;
May you enjoy the petty pleasure that is only possible
when savoring nicknames such as Lil’ Donny Moscow;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] When in doubt, steam or bake, dress with lemon juice, minced garlic, salt & pepper, a spritz of EVOO and/or a tablespoon of plant-based parmesan.

[2] There are some good ones there – I was aware of January’s Dry January and Veganuary, but had no idea that February is National Bird-Feeding Month (United States), April is Financial Literacy Month, and May is International Masturbation Month….

[3] the party in general and the Biden administration in particular.

[4] Why isn’t there another footnote here?

[5] In the early 2000’s Rick Santorum made many anti-LGBTQ statements in his campaign for the senate, including comparing gay marriage to man on dog sex.  In response, author, advice columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage led a campaign to have the name “santorum” mean a crude sexual act, and enough people participated in the stunt that for many months, when you googled ITAL Santorum the first two hits you got were a description of some quite visually repulsive imagery….  Ah, the glory days.

[6] No footnote here; nope.  Move it along, folks.

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

The Mental Gymnastics I’m Not Doing

March 21, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Me so happy, nature, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, science, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Mental Gymnastics I’m Not Doing

Department Of Good News First
Warning: Entering Parental Bragging Zone

 

 

On Tuesday I found out that daughter Belle, who works as Quality Assurance Manager for Schilling Cider,  passed the exam  [1]  (which was given during the  2025’s CiderCon convention ) to become certified as a professional Pommolier. 

My heart soars like a hawk.   [2]   Ya, hoo!!

 

 

A pommolier is the hard cider industry’s analog to a sommelier.  This, from from the American Cider Association website’s “Meet Our Certified Pommoliers ®  (where Belle will soon be listed):

“Becoming a Certified Pommelier is a remarkable achievement that celebrates dedication, perseverance, and a deep passion for the art and science of cider. It requires hours of rigorous study, sensory analysis practice, and a commitment to mastering the intricacies of cider. From learning about different apple varieties to understanding the complex flavors and aromas of ciders, Certified Pommeliers have honed their skills to expert levels. Their hard work and preparation not only showcase their knowledge and expertise but also exemplify their love for all things cider-related. Cheers to all Certified Pommeliers for their dedication and commitment to the craft!”

MH and I were impressed and also intimidated by the length and breadth of the knowledge Belle would be tested on, from the chemistry of brewing and fermentation to knowledge of/ability to identify obscure European apple varieties.  The test was given in February; she was told results would take (at least)  six weeks.  As we neared the results deadline I was a teensy bit anxious for her (the test is designed to fail at least 80% of those who take it).

Monday noontime I was at my favorite sushi restaurant here in Hillsboro, waiting to meet a friend for lunch, when I got Belle’s text.  I knew that she was at a local (Pacific Northwest) cider conference in Tacoma, and figured that, as she’d done earlier in the day, she was texting between symposiums to share conference stories.  Apparently the involuntary squeal of delight I emitted when I read Belle’s text (“ HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT:  I  DID ITTTTTTTT ”) was loud enough for the two sushi chefs to hear, as they both looked up from slicing saki and maguro, nodded across the sushi bar at me, and said, “Congratulations.”

I thanked them (and the people sitting at the two tables on either side of moiself, who also smiled at/congratulated me), and explained that there indeed was good news, but it was about my daughter….and would you like to know what a pommolier is?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Seasonal News Second

Happy Vernal Equinox, y’all. 

Hope you yogis were inspired to do 108 Sun salutations to mark the turning of the season.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Yet Another Sign Of The Impending Apocalypse

Dateline: Sunday 9:55-ish: MH and moiself  are sitting in our respective Norwegian “stressless” recliner chairs, after having watched  Ordinary People.  Despite the admittedly comfy chairs’ claim to fame, we are actually stressed – as in, under emotional duress – as each of us has forgotten how achingly devastating the movie is.  We exchange comments about that, then MH grows silent, looks out at his feet resting on his chair’s ottoman, and asks, “Do these socks make my feet look really long?”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Ugly Americans  [3]   Down Under
Sub-Department  Of One Of The More Stupid Attempts At Self-Redemption/Justification Moiself  Has Read In A Long Time…

…the source of which would be the story about an American “social media influencer” (Instagram handle,  Sam Jones from Montana )   [4]   who was visiting Australia.  One evening while traveling on a remote road this influencer spotted a mother and baby wombat off the side of the road.  Instead of acting like a normal/respectful person and taking a photograph of the animals, she exited her vehicle, snatched the baby from its mother and ran back to her car (where she apparently had a camera/phone mounted).  She held the wriggling baby wombat up to record its distress, which she narrated, while both baby and mama wombat squealed their displeasure:

“ ‘Mama’s right there, and she’s pissed, ’ the woman said in a video posted online. She went on to release the joey   [5]   on the roadside in the darkness, illuminated only by her car’s headlights….

The indignation was bipartisan…Tony Burke, said officials would review the woman’s visa to see if any immigration laws had been breached, and that any future applications from her would receive intense scrutiny. The government did not release her name but Australian news media identified her as Samantha Strable.

The drumbeat of criticism included calls to deport the woman. On Friday morning, ABC Australia, the national broadcaster, sent out a news alert saying she had left Australia….

Mark Heinz, a reporter for the Wyoming-based Cowboy State Daily, said he believed the woman in question was…Ms. Strable, whom he had interviewed in 2023 about her enthusiasm for hunting….

In the interview with Mr. Heinz, Ms. Strable, then a resident of Pinedale, Wyo., recounted her adventures of having hunted red stag in Chile with a bow and killed pigs and wallabies in New Zealand. ….

Detailing her pig hunting experience in New Zealand, in which dogs corner wild pigs allowing for the hunter to plunge a knife into the animal’s heart, she said it was ‘intense.’

‘Honestly, I cried,’ she said in the interview. ‘I don’t like killing. I like the hunting, I like the chase. It’s not fun to see anything die.’ “

( excerpts, my emphases, from “Outrage in Australia After American Woman Grabs a Baby Wombat,” by Victoria Kim, NY Times, 3-14-25 )

 

 

No surprise ( to moiself ) that this self-aggrandizing, social media slut influencer who terrified and stressed an infant animal and its mother, is a hunter.  And what a bummer to read that, after all the effort Strable put into her “adventures,” the hunter claims not to enjoy the end result of the hunt.  What a shock, that it wasn’t  fun for Ms. Strable to see the wild pig die – the living creature whom she’d sought out and terrorized by siccing dogs to chase and corner it – the living creature into whose heart she’d then plunged a knife ?!

 

Poor baby.

 

Yo, Strable: None of the animals you killed had to die.  The wild pig didn’t have to die, Ms. Strable. You could have just left it alone.  Or enjoyed the challenge – without using tracking dogs to terrorize the poor creature –  of getting close enough to the pig to take a picture of it.  Or enjoyed the “chase” by chasing a living being (a fellow homo sapiens?) who voluntarily agreed to participate in it.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Wanted Distraction While On The Elliptical;
What I Got Was An Aha Moment

I’ve been doing my pre-breakfast workout for the past few weeks while re-watching some Grey’s Anatomy seasons that I don’t have much memory of.  Dateline: last Friday morning I’m on Season 11; it’s the heart-rending episode where Dr. April Kepper gives birth to her and her husband Dr. Jackson Avery’s doomed/premature baby.  Relevant character background: April is a fervent evangelical Christian;    [6]   Jackson is an atheist.

April is distraught after an ultrasound at 24 weeks gestation gives bad news about her pregnancy.  Further testing reveals that her fetus has the most severe form of a devastating genetic disorder,    [7]  which will cause it to die either before birth or shortly thereafter.  April is gutted by the news, and after learning that her baby’s bones are already starting to break in utero, she opts for what her supportive husband and their OBs and pediatricians recommend as the least awful choice: to induce labor, and thus be able to hold their baby before it dies.

At one point, when April and Jackson are discussing their options, she is a walking open wound, ranting about how unfair it all is.  She’s believed in her god all of her life; she has followed what she thought was her calling, from her god, to be a doctor and to heal the sick; she is a believer; she has tried to do good; she has prayed; she’s done everything right and this is so unfair, so unfair….  She rages on about the unfairness, then adds….

“…and it’s *cruel.”

All her husband can do is listen in supportive agony.  And I found moiself  wondering if    [8]   he was thinking what I was thinking:   that while what has happened is certainly awful, it’s only *cruel* if you believe in (a) god.

It is only cruel because April believes in a god that made this world, and that she believes her god can and does act in this world, which leaves her with only cruel options:

*  either her so-called loving god gave her baby this horrible death sentence, or

* seeing as how April has expressed how she believes her god is all-powerful and all loving and that all over the world, “miracles do happen,” that when no miracle happens it is because her god is choosing not to fix what it could fix.

 

 

Translation:  What is cruel, actually, are her beliefs; what is cruel is her religious faith, which has filled her heart and mind with cruel, supernatural nonsense.

When people experience such tragedies they go through pain and mourning, the what-ifs, the sorrow, the frustration, the anger… This is true for people who hold any religious faith, as well as for people who are religion-free.  All of us suffer when tragedy strikes.

But Humanists, Atheist, Freethinkers, Skeptics – we who are religion-free – do not have the added burden of the gut-twisting sense of betrayal, of second-guessing of what we could have or should have done re our faith-based rituals, of agonizing over what our supposedly all-powerful god did or did not choose to do.  When tragedy strikes, we whose worldviews are free from superstition/religion/theology also suffer the same emotions of grief and loss, *except* for that huge one, because we acknowledge the truth of the natural world.

We know that we are neither punished/cursed by tragedy nor rewarded/blessed by prosperity; we know that when our loved one dies that there is no supernatural cause of, nor relief from, our suffering.  We know that sometimes, shit just happens…which means that a core part of being human is to wade through the shit, relying on and accepting the comfort and support of our fellow human beings.

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Things That Never Get Old   [9]

Welcome to yet another new feature of the new year, which may continue on the third Friday of each month.  Or…not.

When was the last time you rewatched Airplane!    [10] 

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [11]

“So I’m not really interested in the mental gymnastics that allow a person to believe
in both a loving god and baby cancer. Over and out.”

( anonymous poster on online religious debate bulletin board )

*   *   *

May you have reasons to be audibly delighted in sushi bars;
May you be free from the gut-twisting mental gymnastics of theism;
May you enjoy a joke/scene/song that never gets old;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] given by the American Cider Association, to cider professionals qualified/nominated to take it.

[2] Little Big Man.

[3] The pejorative “Ugly American” originates from a 1958 novel of the same name.  The book portrayed Americans’ attitudes ( be they tourists or business tycoons wishing to do business with/in foreign countries) toward non-Americans as those of ignorance, arrogance, and condescension.  The term has come to mean a stereotype of loud, ill-mannered, insensitive American tourists who offend the citizens of the countries they travel to.

[4] There is a “title” or job description that has had its 15 minutes of bullshit fame and needs to go the way of leech collectors, phrenologists, caddy butchers, and other obsolete professions.

[5] A baby wombat.  Yep, the same term is used for a baby kangaroo.

[6] Which doesn’t stop her from having fervent premarital sex with Jackson in hospital on call rooms – but this seems to be part of the contract those doctors working in Seattle have to sign.

[7]   osteogenesis imperfecta II (aka “brittle bone disease”)

[8] Well, if that character were real….but, although that was fiction, thousands of people face such dilemmas every day, around the world.

[9] At least, to ever-youthful moiself.

[10] Best disaster film parody ever.  In fact, I recall reading a comment from one film historian about how studios stopped making disaster films for a time after that movie’s release, because no one would take them seriously.  

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

The Waste I’m Not Disposing Of

February 21, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, Recreation, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Department Of Lost In Translation

“Thank you for helping us protect the habitats and wildlife of Connemara National Park. When you enjoy responsible outdoor recreation here, you help us preserve the Connemara wilderness and everything that makes it unique.”
(Intro to the Protect Nature/Useful Tips page
of the Connemara National Park’s website

Certainly, the Irish have a unique way of seeing the world.  Despite knowing this, while starting to research visiting Ireland’s Connemara National Park moiself  did a double take when I came upon this symbol on the park’s website, under the heading of “dispose of waste properly.”  It was only after I read the accompanying blurb that I realized it was referring to garbage and litter, rather than…uh…human…waste.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Things That Never Get Old   [1]

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Blast From The Past
Sub-Department Of Genius, Schmenius

Perhaps I’ve told this story before;  perhaps I’ll tell it again someday.

Dateline:

 

…more like 26-ish years ago.  This memory prompt happened earlier this week, when  I drove past the turn off road that led to our offspring’s favorite preschool/day care ( the owner/teacher called it, “Kids in the Country”), which was on a farm in southwest Hillsboro.  I remembereded how enchanted I was when, one day after I picked up son K from KITC, we spent the ride home with him telling me about the life cycle of an aphid ( KITC’s  project that week had been getting the kids to look intently at plants growing in the field, and learning about the insects that lived – either symbiotically or parasitically – on and around the plants ).  Stories like that from K were plentiful; the KITC kids  spent a lot of time playing and observing “nature” in the fields surrounding the house.

One afternoon when I’d picked him up from KITC, K was unusually – as in, completely – quiet.  I glanced at him occasionally via the rear-view mirror; he seemed to be mulling over something.  Eventually, apropos of nothing, he spoke up.

K:
“Mom?”

Moiself:
Yes?”

K:
“Ball  and tall  rhyme, but  ball  and  boy  illiterate.”

Moiself:
“That’s correct.”

Moiself  was gob-smacked; my heart swelled with parental pride ( read: hubris ) as I thought, He’s not yet five years old, yet K knows the difference between rhyme and alliteration!  I’m raising a effin’ genius.

Before my brain completed the thought, Belle, strapped in her car seat next to K, said something which annoyed him.  He turned to face his younger sister and spouted:

“Poo-poo stinky baby butt face!”

 Mission control to Robyn; please return to earth.

OK, that’s more like it.

 

Sure, and every kid gets a trophy.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Random Thoughts About Random Chance

But first, a recommendation for a podcast listen:

“ ‘ Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.’
It’s been 45 years since John Lennon sang that line, yet it’s an idea that continues to speak to an uncomfortable truth. While we all like to think we have some measure of control over how our lives will unfold, our plans are often upended by unknown events and curveballs we couldn’t have predicted. This week, we conclude our Wellness 2.0 series by talking with political scientist Brian Klaas. He studies how we respond to the random events that shape our lives….”
( excerpts from the introduction/ description of
“Wellness 2.0: The Art Of The Unknown”Hidden Brain podcast, 1-27-25 ).

I’ve often thought that the study of random chance and luck –  or just the acknowledgment of their existence – might reduce human hubris in the world.   [2]   In some religious traditions and theologies, it’s almost heresy to speak of randomness events as having significant consequences in peoples’ lives, because the acknowledgement of that truth poses a problem for the quasi-spirituality of Everything happens for a reason – a daft phrase which sugar coats a difficult truth (“I don’t know why that happened/Hey, shit happens”).

Many people, and almost all religious worldviews, do not respond well to randomness.  This is because the certitude with which they promote themselves/their theologies (“we/our god/the great spirit of the cosmos has all the answers and is in control, don’t you worry”) erodes in the face of the admission of unpredictability.  New Age, woo-woo spiritualities have this problem as well.

Personally, moiself  thinks the next person who offers me Everything happens for a reason  as a response to and/or an explanation for human tragedy should be pelted by moiself  with chains of spiky, healing crystals.  Then, when the Everything happens for a reason numbskull asks, WTF is up?!?, I will respond with something along the lines of, “Well, it’s like you said: Everything happens for a reason, and since this thing is happening to you, it is happening  for a reason…and I must have a pretty good reason to want to shove this rainbow moonstone   [3]    up your ass.”

 

More on this next week.

 

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Department Of Lost In Translation, The Pathetic Sequel

“Pope Francis sharply criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in an unusual open letter to America’s Catholic bishops…, saying criminalising migrants and taking measures built on force ‘will end badly.’.
The pope, who last month called Trump’s plan to deport millions of migrants a ‘disgrace,’ said it was wrong to assume that all undocumented immigrants were criminals.
‘I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church … not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters,’ said the pontiff….
‘What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,’ he said.
In Tuesday’s letter, Francis also appeared to respond indirectly to Vice President JD Vance’s defence of the deportations.
Vance, a Catholic, defended the crackdown in a January social media post by referring to an early Catholic theological concept known as the ‘ordo amoris,’ or ‘order of love,’ to suggest that Catholics must give priority to non-immigrants.
The pope said: ‘The true ‘ordo amoris’ that must be promoted (is) … by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.’ “

( “Pope Francis tells US bishops Trump’s immigration policy ‘will end badly’,”
Reuters, 2-11-25 )

 

 

It was inevitable.  Catholic convert and he-who-puts-the-Vice-in-Vice-President, JD Lance – if for no other reason than to counter criticism of his principles after he was compassion and theology-shamed by his pope – was gonna have to speak about love.

But Vance’s version of love, like that of the love often spoken of/taught by patriarchal religions, is hierarchal.

Just as there is a conservative Christian hierarchy of family – god, husband, wife, children – there is also in that worldview a hierarchy, a prioritization, of love. First you love  here, then you love  there; first, you love this, your god, and *then* you can love your family, and then you can love your neighbor, and then you can love your… As a circle widens you can finally drop the possessive – “your” –  and, assuming there’s some leftovers, try to love those people who have little or no personal relationship to you.

In this politically conservative-informed theology, you love your deity first, then “you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world” as Vance told a Fox News interviewer.

Y’all who subscribe to (or used to, or don’t any more but still have some admiration for) Jesus’s all inclusive, the-well-never-runs-dry  teachings about love, might be interested in the Gospel of Vance, in which Jesus’ lessons from scripture translates thusly:

America First.

I know; a link to a Fox News interview with JD Vance.  Ick.  I had to do an industrial strength sanitization to my eyes and the ears after listening to the clip, and then my fingers and keyboards after providing the link:

 

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [4]

 “Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture.
Reasonable – that is, human – men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life.”
(  Alan Watts, The Way Of Zen )

 

 

*   *   *

May you cherish the memory of when you understood
the difference between rhyme and alliteration;
May you acknowledge Random Chance and her sister, Luck;
May you see the life that happens while you’re making other plans;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] At least, to ever-youthful moiself.  Welcome to yet another new feature of the new year, which may continue on the third Friday of each month.  Or…not.

[2] Particularly that of the “I Pulled Myself Up By My Own Bootstraps” variety.

[3] “Rainbow Moonstone – Infused with feminine energy, this stone promotes the wisdom to accept the rise and fall, as well as the changing cycles in creative life. Constantly forcing creative energy can actually hold us back – this potent crystal helps us to go with the ebb and flow.”  ( The World’s Most Powerful Crystals )

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

The Government Department I’m Not Hating On

January 31, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Government Department I’m Not Hating On

Department Of Realization/Appreciation Of The Day
Sub-Department Of The Calm Before The Complaints

The juices from a roasting butternut squash, when they spill onto the roasting tray and caramelize, produce an absolutely, mouth-liquidingly, soothing, delicious aroma.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Phrases Religious And/Or
Other Well-Meaning People ® Folks Need To Retire

Dateline:  last Thursday; sushi lunch with friend CC.

After discussing and solving the problems of the universe (which we are wont to do   [1]  ), CC and moiself  shared Going To The DMV After Not Having Had To Do So In Ages stories.  My sojourn to the infamous Department Most Vilified  was to get my Real ID driver’s license; hers was to have the name of her recently deceased husband, SC, removed from the title to her car.  Her story won.   [2]

The DMV clerk asked CC why she was having SC’s name removed from her car’s title.  CC told her that SC had died, and the clerk replied,

 “Oh, I’m so sorry – there but for the grace of god go I.”

 

 

Oh my, Ms. Clerky McClerkface. Your reaction to someone telling you her husband is dead is, essentially, expressing relief that it wasn’t your husband who had died? 

Yeah, sure – the difference between your two circumstances is “grace” – i.e., the benevolence (or..er…not) of a capricious god. That’s probably it: an all-powerful, all-knowing   [3] deity said to its deity self, back in November, “Hmm, whose husband shall I kill today – the DMV clerk’s, or CC’s?”

There but for the grace of god go I.   How was CC – how is anyone –  supposed to respond to crap  a-perhaps-well-intended-but-still-ham-fisted-banality  like that?. 

 Yeah…that must be it…um…thanks.?

My friend appended her story with the strong suggestion that  “Christians need to retire” those tone-deaf aphorisms.  Yep.

There but for the grace of god go I.  That trite, emotionally lame proverb is likely meant, by its utterer, to express humility and gratitude, and acknowledgment that one’s circumstances could be different and that outside factors –  like a god’s “grace” ( ?!?!?! ) – play a role in one’s successes and losses.

Achtung, religious believers and/or anyone who’s ever slung  There but for the grace of god go I  to a fellow human being:  Is that how you respond to and/or think about tragedies and misfortunes – that shit falls on some people and not on others due to the whims (“grace”) of a deity?  And if you *don’t* mean that, please stop saying, There but for the grace of god go I  and other, equally so-not-comforting “comfort phrases” without thinking about the meanings and implications behind those clichés. 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Speaking Of The DMV….

When speaking of the DMV most people add a bit of cursing, as well.  It’s an easy gripe – a cheap dig – really, to rag on the DMV, which frequently tops the list of American’s most vilified government services.  But there is a case made for us to chill out regarding (at least some of) our complaints, via recognizing the egalitarianism of DMV inconveniences.

 

 

Think about it, Mr. Spock.  In nearly every other aspect of life the wheels of bureaucracy can be greased – or bypassed altogether for a sci-fi worthy transporter – if you have enough money and/or status and/or connections.  Food, housing, education, entertainment, defense attorneys – the more $$ you have, the better ___ (y’all name it) you get.  The DMV is a shining (if admittedly, sloth-like    [4]  )  exception.

“We are living in one of the most unequal periods in modern history…. Wealthy interests have an outsize influence on our politics and our lawmaking. Corporations can buy more political influence than voters can demand for regular people. Whenever you see a radically unfit candidate running for office, you can usually find a wealthy donor making that person’s campaign viable….

This stratification is everywhere — fast passes on toll roads, exclusive access at amusement parks, so-called black car premiums on ride-share apps, private dining clubs, fast lanes for loyal customers. Americans increasingly act like public spaces are for suckers because they can pay for exclusivity instead.

The D.M.V. is so hated because it does not make status distinctions. You can’t pay to separate yourself from the masses.  Everyone has to search the same cumbersome websites for the right forms. You have to compete for an appointment or show up early, whether you have a high net worth or a negative bank balance.  Best of all, everybody has to wait her turn.  It is inconvenient, but everyone is equally inconvenienced….

Hating on the D.M.V. is also socially acceptable because of who often works at the D.M.V.  Women and people of color disproportionately work in the public sector. The D.M.V. is one of the few places where privileged people — especially privileged white people — will ever encounter a woman of color with unquestionable authority.

The D.M.V. is a beacon of equality in this country.  Celebrate the place where you can watch a celebrity fill out the same forms that you do.  We should revel in the fact that there is no express lane for beautiful, rich people to renew their licenses.  When you sit in those hard chairs waiting for your number to appear on a screen, you should be delighted that no one else is sitting in a cushier chair.”

( excerpts, my emphases, from UNC professor and New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom’s article,
People Hate on the DMV.  But It’s Great.  [5] )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Musings While Taking The Train Up To Seattle
To Visit My Swenadian Friends   [6] 

My reflections had nothing to do with either my Swenadian friends or Seattle, but were sparked by the sight of a train employee in his Amtrak uniform, walking down the aisle of the train car, escorting a man in a suit and tie to his seat in another train car.  This was not long after I had visited the Seattle Asian Art Museum, where I enjoyed, among many other exhibits, the paintings of the regalia of ancient emperors and soldiers.

For some reason moiself  began thinking about how our clothing (including footwear and hats) simultaneously covers what we are, yet also displays who we are…or, often, rather, indicates who we seem to be or aspire to be, including what cultural groups (cultural, religious, political, professional) we wish to be identified with.

Uniforms are not worn only by those in the military, or in certain occupations where attire is specified, e.g., hospital workers; restaurant waitstaff, Mormon missionaries …

 

 “Even if our skin isn’t ‘white and delightsome’     [7]
we can still wear these delightsome white shirts!”    [8]

 

We civilians often have our own uniforms of choice, but because we (think we) have a choice of what we wear we don’t consider what we wear to be our uniform, or costume.  Some of us pay more attention to being put together, whether for work or play; others do the humble brag of ,  “I don’t care about what I wear. I just throw on the nearest clean jeans and T-shirt,” discounting the fact that the white lie claim of nonchalantly donning jeans and tees is just as much our own uniform as that of our coworker who wears the designer outfit with meticulously matched accessories.

 

“This old thang?  Somethin’ I jes threw on.”

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thoughts Of The Week     [9]

“Atheism     [10]   offers us the comfort of knowing that we can shape our own lives, and don’t have to rest our fate in the hands of a god whose ways can at best be described as ‘mysterious.’  It offers the comfort of not having to wonder what we did wrong, or why we’re being punished or tested, every time something bad happens.  It offers the comfort of experiencing the world as shaped by a stable and potentially comprehensible set of physical laws, rather than by the capricious whim of a creator who’s theoretically loving but in practice is moody, short-tempered, and wildly unpredictable.”
( American author, blogger, speaker Greta Christina,
Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God )

“You have two lives – the second begins when you realize you only have one.”
(Attributed to Confucius)

“What happens when you die?  I believe in Frisbeetarianism –
your soul flies up on the roof and gets stuck there.”
( Anonymous)

 

Another flying disc on its way to the afterlife.

 

*   *   *

May you remember that There without the grace of god goes…nothing;
May you appreciate the ultimate equality of your DMV inconveniences;
May you begin living your second life;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] If only the universe would listen.

[2] It wasn’t a competition, but had it been, hands down, she wins.

[3] By deity definition.

[4] But then, so are the lines at any store’s or business’s customer service/complaint/return centers.

[5] From the Don’t Tell My Friends, But…  series, in which the NYT asked their columnists to write about what everyone else is wrong about.

[6] My Canadian-Swedish friends had traveled from Sweden to Seattle to see their daughter and SIL and their first grandbaby.

[7] “ As of Friday, Dec. 6, the Mormon Church has officially renounced the doctrine that brown skin is a punishment from God.  In the Book of Mormon, (not the musical but the actual sacred text) dark skin is a sign of God’s curse, while white skin is a sign of his blessing. The book tells of a conflict between two lost tribes of Israel, the Lamanites and Nephites, who journeyed to the New World and made their home in Mesoamerica. The Lamanites sinned against God, and “because of their iniquity. …the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them” (2 Nephi 5:21). Later, when Lamanites became Christians, “their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites” (3 Nephi 2:15)….  Over the years, ordinary Mormons and church leaders have struggled with their (scripture’s) racist heritage. One racist passage in the scripture—2 Nephi 30:6 —has simply been fixed by Mormon authorities. Originally reading that conversion to Christianity creates a “white and delightsome people,” in 1981 the Church adopted a variant that now reads, “a pure and delightsome people.”   (  “Mormon Church finally says dark skin is not a sign of God’s curse “  12-12-13 Valeria Terico, alternet )

[8] Righteous Black people will become white (excerpts, my emphases “Black People and Mormonism, Wikipedia)

Early church leaders taught that after death and resurrection everyone in the celestial kingdom (the highest tier of heaven) would be “white in eternity.”[42][43] They often equated whiteness with righteousness, and taught that God made his children white in his own image.[44]: 231 [45][43] Smith reported that in his vision, Jesus had a “white complexion” and “blue eyes” – a description confirmed in another reported vision by follower Anson Call.[46][47] A 1959 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that most Utah Mormons believed that “by righteous living, the dark-skinned races may again become white and delightsome.”[48] The church also taught that the skin of white apostates would darken, and in the temple endowment ceremony (until at least the 1960s) Satan was said to have black skin.[17]: 28 [49]

Several Black Mormons were told that they would become white. Hyrum Smith told Jane Manning James that God could give her a new lineage, and promised her in his patriarchal blessing that she would become “white and delightsome”.[38]: 148  In 1836, Elijah Abel was similarly promised that he would “be made … white in eternity”.[2]: 38  Darius Gray, a prominent Black Mormon, was told that his skin color would lighten.[50] In 1978, apostle LeGrand Richards said that the curse of dark skin for wickedness and the promise of white skin through righteousness applied only to Native Americans, and not to Black people.[1]: 115 

[9] “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

[10] I like GC’s sentiments, but differ re the use of atheist with the ism.  There is no ism, as in, a distinctive doctrine, cause, or theory, in being identified as an atheist.  There are no atheist creeds or tenets or rites. Atheists may be conservative and liberal and progressive and socialists; they may be peaceniks or war hawks, love/hate sports, the arts….  All atheists have in common is a lack of belief in theism, which is “belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures.” (Oxford Languages dictionary). 

The Best Question I’m Not Asking

December 20, 2024

Robyn Parnell annoyances, community, current events, extended family, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, Holidays, Isms (religion), movies, theatre, travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , Comments Off on The Best Question I’m Not Asking

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 Creative Metaphors I’m Going To Regret

Dateline: my birthday, earlier this week.  We did our main celebrating the previous day, inviting friends and our offspring to join us for lunch and a couple of hours perusing the Portland Art Museum’s two current, well-presented, special exhibitions:

* Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm.     [2]

* Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s   [3]

 

 

On my bday itself moiself  just wanted a quiet evening at home.  After the proverbial comedy of errors re what we would order (takeout) for my bday dinner,    [4]   MH returned from his quest with za from Pizza Schmizza;   [5]   specifically, five slices of two (of their seven available) veggie options: Margherita and Extreme Veggie.  The latter’s toppings included black olive slices, which MH loathes.    [6]

MH and I sat in our respective chairs in the family room, enjoying our za and watching a recording of the most recent SNL episode. Our elderly cat, Nova, assumed her customary, après-diner  position (on MH’s lap).

 

Keeping it warm for her favorite human.

 

I glanced over at MH, and saw Nova investigating what was left of MH’s dinner.  His plate was empty save for a pile of  ~12 olive slices (each with a smidge of cheese clinging to them) that he had meticulously removed from his Extreme Veggie slice.

For some reason (other than knowing of MH’s antipathy toward olives?), I began wondering aloud, “Hmm, what must that pile look like, to you or other olive haters?”   As soon as the answer left my mouth, I realized I was in danger of regretting it:

“Satan’s assholes?”

 

Bet ya can’t eat just one.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Only  Sometimes?

Sometimes I loathe certain members of my species.  Like the asshat driver who delayed Belle’s train this past weekend AND sent one of the train employees to the hospital.

Belle was coming down for a quick/overnight visit, via Amtrak from Washington, to join MH and I and friends in celebrating my birthday at the above-mentioned art museum.  She didn’t have much time in her weekend schedule, but went to the trouble to get train tickets, which I greatly appreciated.  Ten minutes after she boarded the train to Portland we got a text from her, alerting us that the train had stopped.  The train passengers were told at first that the delay was due to a “track obstruction,” an explanation which was later expanded into, “debris coming into contact with train equipment.”  As the time passed Belle sent further clarifications:

“Okay, apparently at a crossing someone in a car hit the railguard and broke it because  they didn’t want to wait, and then our train ran into the broken guard and it smashed out the driver/engineer’s windows.
We’re going to a rail yard about a mile away to turn the train around and use the other (unbroken) engine at the other end instead.
They said the driver is okay. The train driver that is.”   [7]

Two hours later:

“Trail stillllllll hasn’t turned around.  Waiting for freight trains to get out of the way.”

An hour after that:

“Oof, apparently it took extra long because they did actually have to
take the engineer to the hospital.”

The train arrived in Portland three hours late.   No word on the condition of the engineer.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Succinct Review Of A Holiday Release Movie
( Sub-Department Of:  Filler Alert )

The musical Wicked had a running time of two hours forty-five minutes (three hours total, including the 15 minute intermission between Act 1 and Act 2).    [8]

The movie Wicked has a run time of 2 hours forty minutes…three hours total, including the previews of coming attractions…and only covers Act 1 of the play ( “The adaptation was split into two parts to avoid cutting plot points and expand the characters’ journeys and relationships.” ).

 

“Remember to schedule a pee break – pass it on.”

 

*   *   *

Department Of What Is The Best Question?

The best question…to?  For?  About what?

Yep, the question itself is almost totally subjective and context dependent.  But moiself  woke up Wednesday morning with that question in mind, and I’d love to hear other’s opinions.

Here’s a sample of best questions that sprung to my mind:

* May I give you a foot rub?

* Would you like to hold your grandbaby?

* May we help you practice your acceptance speech?

* Paper or plastic?

* Where shall we take our honeymoon?

* How would you like to celebrate your promotion?

*Where shall we park the new Porsche?

* Would you like fries with that?

*  Would you like conscious sedation or general anesthesia
during your colonoscopy?

* Vaccinations are up-to-date – would you like to take your new kitten home this afternoon?

* Would you like a complimentary upgrade to first class?

* Indoor or outdoor court for your pickleball lesson with Ryan Gosling?

* May I send you a picture of a pajama-wearing baby sloth?

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

 

 

*   *   *

May you never think your time is so important that you must smash through a railroad crossing guardrail;
May you have no culinary loathing equivalent to Satan’s assholes;
May someone ask you *your* best question;
…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] More than 250 “recently rediscovered photographs from Paul McCartney’s personal archives,” taken by McCartney during a pivotal period as The Beatles grew from British faves to international stars.

[3] Featuring more than 200 iconic rock posters, of a specific style first designed by graphic artists in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.  The posters’ instantly recognizable patterns – a combination of seemingly pulsating neon colors, unique lettering, and witty (and sometimes sexually and/or pharmaceutically suggestive) design – quickly spread around the nation as other poster artists used this new, psychedelic graphic language to promote rock concerts.   The exhibition also showcased the eclectic fashions of the psychedelic clothing styles.

[4] Our favorite downtown pizza restaurant forgot to turn off their online ordering; they were closed for their holiday party…someone noticed our order and called MH back to say, oops.

[5] A local chain, started in Hillsboro some 20+ years ago by two expat New Yawk bros, now with 20+pub ‘n grub style places in Oregon (and one in Washington).

[6] Black; Green; Kalamata, Nicoise; Castelvetrano….you name the olive, MH dislikes it.  Which is great for me as if we’re dining out and the salad or pasta has kalamatas, as then I get his.

[7] As you might imagine, few passengers were holding charitable thoughts about the okay-ness of the car’s driver.

[8] I saw the play, when it was touring.  I highly recommend it – you’ll never look at The Wizard of Oz story in the same way.

[9] “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

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