Okay; perhaps a wee bit o’ hyperbole in the blog title. I refer to the crop of contestants in the current season of The Great British Baking Show. And I am rooting for some of them. This is rare; I usually root for everyone. But (so far), not this time.
Moiself is disappointed with this year’s…crop of contestants…no; that’s not quite it. What do you call a group of bakers – an oven? A rise? A batch? A batter – that’s the one.
Yet again, I digress.
I am disappointed with this year’s batter of bakers. Maybe, like mold on the forgotten pie that’s been cooling on a windowsill since the Fourth of July, they’ll grow on me. Usually, I like the majority of the home bakers and root for them all. But more and more, as in, with each passing season and TGBBSgains popularity and viewership, it seems to me that there are certain contestants who don’t care about the baking as much as they care about what they think being on the show can do for them: get themselves in the public eye, and establish – gawd, I hate even typing this – a brand or platformfor future ventures. These wannabe celebs mug for the cameras – they act Special Enough ® to be the attention getters, whether through their on-show behavior or their carefully curated bios, and they joke with and chummy up to the show’s judges as if they are peers with Paul Hollywood and Nigella Lawson…. [1]
( hint to contestants: you are not )
I can think of two contestants in two different seasons of TGBBS whom I’ve actually loathed and actively rooted against, due to (what I perceived were) their respective senses of entitlement. Both were older contestants; one was German, the other British. Both were talented home bakers, and both seemed to be more experienced than the other contestants – two facts they each seemed to be aware of (read: smug about). And both made it to the finals, and each lost their respective season’s final, which frosted my cupcake, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
Oh honey you know I do.
* * *
Department Of Adulting 1101 – The Graduate Seminar
“There are no bad guys here. Just sad guys.”
Lather; rinse; repeat.
Why do I feel like someone died? I ask moiself. Because some thing did die: a decades-long, cherished friendship has become collateral damage to one of Life’s festering shit shows—in this case, years of terminal illness and its aftermath.
“I have to watch a movie where I’m guaranteed to laugh,” I told MH, two days into my week-long funk after having received the news I was predicting/dreading. I could’ve put on Airplane!
…but I wanted something with more… human, as in humane, laughter situations. The first thing that came to mind was Little Miss Sunshine. No matter how many times I’ve seen it, the movie’s climatic dance-performance-at-a-kiddie-beauty-pageant slays me.
But a microsecond after I had the thought, moiself cringed for the memory that used to be heartwarming but which now is a wistful reminder of loss. The friend whose life circumstances triggered her withdrawal took me to see Little Miss Sunshine after she’d already seen it – specifically, she told me, to watch my reaction to that scene.
Dateline: earlier this week; returning from local errand. Moiself’s route took me past a local church, which has one of those message/bulletin boards on the church’s front lawn, facing the street. You’ve seen them: aside from listing the time of their worship services, some of the boards have (what the church bulletin board posters believe are) are pithy or profound proselytizing-ish sayings, ala:
This particular church changes the sayings on a regular basis. The saying of the week I drove past was something along the lines of, “Let Jesus fill the hole in your heart.” Ones in prior weeks have included messages (sometimes rhyming) about how “…only God can _______ (solve a certain problem).”
Moiself finds these messages to be the gotcha!tipoff to how Christian theology operates. I imagine a conversation with the pastor [3] who put up that first sign and who is pitching a Happy Heathen ( such as moiself) as to why I should be attending his church. [4]
Pastor: “Come hear the good news, about how Jesus can fill the hole in your heart!”
Happy Heathen: “No thanks. Actually, I don’t have a hole in my heart.”
Pastor: “Come on in anyway, and we’ll give you one!”
With the likely exception of some forms of Buddhism, [5] most religions’ theologies purport to solve problems that are nonexistent, at least in the real/outside-of-their-religion world. Theology is the ultimate scam. It invents a nonexistent problem, then tries to convince you that (a) you have this problem, and that (b) believing/following the tenets of their particular religion is the only solution to this problem.
Imagine the person who punches you in the face, then offers to sell you an ice pack to ease the swelling around your bruised eye.
Christian theology purports to “solve” problems that are, in fact, its own inventions. Even more creepily, it must convince you that you are broken, in order to “fix” you. The very concept of sin comes from the Christian scriptures. And then there is Sin Deluxe: witness the “problem” of Original Sin – a doctrine which, BTW, didn’t exist until Augustine coined it in the fourth century (and which no other religion, from Judaism to Hinduism to Buddhism to Islam, extrapolates from the stories in the Hebrew Scriptures). Ladies and Gentlemen, we’d like to introduce you to the problem of Original Sin, and its resulting estrangement of humanity from god, which can only be fixed via…may I have a drum roll, please?… ta da!, Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s give a big round of applause for the Doctrine of the Atonement!
As former minister Dan Barker put it, ” ‘Sin’ is a religious concept, hence ‘salvation’ is merely a religious solution to a religious problem. Would we respect a doctor who ran around cutting people with a knife in order to sell them a bandage?”
May no one ever convince you to fix what ain’t broke; May you weather the inevitable waxing and waning of relationships; May you enjoy TGBBS no matter how smarmy certain contestants are; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] This season’s judges. Paul Hollywood has been a judge from the start; Nigella Lawson replaces Prue Leith, who retired from the show after the previous season.
[3] or whichever church member is responsible for choosing and putting up the weekly saying
[4] actually, I don’t have to imagine it; I’ve had these conversations.
[5] Which tends to be more of a life philosophy than a religion. Rather than a theology, Buddhism is more of an observational list for natural truths, and provides suggestions for how one might live with, for example, the knowledge of the truth that we human beings are of the nature to get sick, and eventually die.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Dateline: last Thursday, 12:35 pm,; walking to the Manzanita Post Office to mail a couple of letters. A jogger runs past me and gasps what sounds like, “Like the purple.”[1] I reflexively thank him, although I’m not really sure what he is referring…. Then I get a load of what moiself is wearing: a black t shirt under a purple long-sleeved shirt; purple pants, purple jacket, purple shoulder bag; purple hat….
* * *
Department Of Perhaps I Should’ve Rephrase That
Dateline #2: Sunday evening ;7 pm-ish; driving back from Rock Creek Tavern, where MH and I had enjoyed our usual date night (for their Sunday Irish Music night)…which turned out to be somewhat less enjoyable than usual because, for the first time either of us can recall, the scheduled musical act did not show up.
MH is driving; moiself is making a mental inventory of the unused items from our weekly CSA produce share, thinking of how I might use them for the next day’s dinner. I have a few ideas, and ask MH if he has any preferences:
“So, what would you like to see me do with the broccoli tomorrow? And don’t be rude….”
* * *
Department Of I Don’t Do This Intentionally…
…but moiself’s mind just goes there.
Dateline #3: Monday;10 am; the beginning of yoga class. The yoga teacher asks us yogis to set an intention [2] for the class. She offers these words for us to silently repeat to ourselves several times during the class, synchronizing it with our inhalations and exhalations:
(Inhale) I am here. (Exhale) l Here I am
Here is what moiself’s mind silently repeated instead:
(Inhale) I am Sam. (Exhale) Sam I am.
* * *
Department Of Autumnal References Sub-Department Of Time for The Clear Fingernail Polish
Harbingers of the Fall: cooler, crisp morning temps; geese flying south in V-formations; hot apple cider; crunchy maple leaves underfoot; pumpkin-spiced everything; the fingernail on my right pinkie splitting…
Yeah, about the latter omen:
My sister N, who was three years old, was playing chase with her 18-month-old sister [3] (moiself). When it was moiself’sturn to chase my sister, N fled into the bathroom. N slammed the bathroom door and locked it, failing to realize, despite my ensuing, bone-chilling shrieks, that I had reached out to N at the last minute, and that my right little finger from the top joint up was crushed between the door and the door jamb.
Our parents convinced N to unlock the door. They rushed me to the doctor, who examined my pulverized pinkie and pronounced, “It’ll probably need to be amputated.” He took a second and third look, then mused, “Well, maybe….”
In a Nobel-Prize-worthy moment of medical inspiration, the doctor reached for his miracle salve (Vaseline), dabbed it on the top of my smooshed finger, and wrapped the damaged digit with gauze. Doc advised my parents to keep the bandaged finger dry – no peeking! – and return in two weeks, or sooner if the finger started to smell like last year’s ham sandwich. [4]
Two weeks later, at the unveiling, the tip of my finger had partially re-formed itself, and was thus spared its date with the guillotine.
So: I grew up with a funny finger. While admittedly un-decorative in appearance, it is largely functional.
Besides my pinky’s misshapen profile, its Fun Finger Facts include the following, most of which are true:
teeny sub-dermal bone fragments are palpable on the underside of the finger.
the fingernail grows cleft from the nail bed to the edge, with the split running bottom to top in the left side of the nail, and curving down at the edge. The fingernail’s growth is self-limiting; it tends to disintegrate (for lack of a better term) at a certain length, and split on the left side.
( See that little bit of split fingernail, on the left, jutting upward?
the tip of the finger, from the second joint up, has reduced sensation (as compared to that of other fingers) and is prone to bouts of numbness.
during one such numbness bout I discovered that Icould stick a pin in the top of that finger, sans pain. Besides giving me that certain, je ne sais quoi cachet among eighth graders, this ability proved to be a helpful form of pest control. Waving my impaled pinkie was an effective gross-out/shoo-away to a certain cheerleader-type who’d attempted to make me feel self-conscious several times by loudly broadcasting, “Ew, what’s wrong with your finger?! That is SO DISGUSTING!” in the classroom and at the lunch tables.
There is no fifth Fun Finger Fact.
The tip of the finger is an effective dowser implement, and twitches when in the proximity of an underground water supply. [5]
The Fun Finger Fact #2 is the subject of the omen of fall. During the decreasing humidity of autumn, the fingernail gets more dry/brittle and split. The first time moiself notices it doing so I start applying several (at least three) coast of clear fingernail polish to the nail a couple of times per week, which helps hold the cracked nail together.
* * *
Department of Employee Of The Month
It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself. Again. The need for which I wrote about here. [6]
10. No one will kill you for not drinking Beer.
9. Beer doesn’t tell you how to have sex.
8. “In the name of Beer…” has never caused a major war.
7. Adults don’t force Beer on minors who can’t think for themselves
6. When you have a Beer, you don’t knock on people’s doors trying to give it away.
5. Nobody’s ever been burned at the stake, hanged or tortured over his brand of Beer
4. You don’t have to wait 2000+ years for a second Beer.
3. There are laws saying Beer labels can’t lie to you.
2. You can prove you have a Beer.
1. If you’ve devoted your life to Beer, there are groups to help you stop. [8]
* * *
May you discoveryour own Dr. Seuss-inspired exercise mantra; May you have a stranger compliment your color choices; May you know what you’d like to see done with the broccoli; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Not many other words that rhyme with urple, which was the last word he said.
[2] In yoga practice, to “set an intention” is to choose a focus or attitude for your practice to ground you in the present (instead of, say, like working out at a gym with a future goal in mind – e.g., “I’m gonna lose five pounds/tone those abdominals”). Variations of “I am here, now,” are commonly used intentions to help your mind focus when you are feeling busy or distracted.
[3] I’ve no memory of this incident – for which I’m grateful – only the finger to remind me
[5] This is such a lie. Please don’t tell me if you fell for it.
[6] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg. Until I did.
One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics, and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens. No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.
[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[8]Moiself’scompilation, adapted from many, many sources, including the FFRF Freethought Today’s “The Top Ten Reasons Why Beer is Better Than Jesus”
Department Of I’m Not The First Person To Notice This
Lately it seems as if every interaction with business employees – e.g., someone helping me out at a store, or when I’m ordering at a restaurant – the employee comments on my order and/or choice, in superlative terms. Excellentand perfectseem to be the semantic pinnacles du jour.
Client: “I’d like the sides a little shorter than usual.” Hair Stylist: “Awesome!”
Customer: “I’ll have the soup of the day, no croutons, please.” Waiter: “Excellent!”
Customer: “Would you please add a gingersnap cookie to my order?” Deli clerk: “Perfect!”
It doesn’t frost my butt the way some other verbal tics do, although moiself has the usual complaints re how overusing and/or misapplying words dilutes their significance. But since there isn’t much in my life right now wherein, say, a committee is going to award me certificates for excellence in anything, I’ll gladly sit with the knowledge that the barista apparently considered my pomegranate tea choice to be impeccable.
* * *
Department Of Almost Bought The Book….
A just-released cookbook, that is. Then I read the book author’s introduction ( I’m so glad online booksellers have this option ):
“Let’s get one thing out of the way. I’m not a vegetarian. No, no! Don’t go anywhere. If you’re looking for labels, I can give you a few. I’m Tanya, an editor for Cooking and Foods at the The New York Times. I’m a Leo (Aries rising, Libra moon)….”
Hi Tanya, I’m Robyn, a reader of your The Veggie newsletter. As per your mythological bullshit astrology identity, I’m a Stradivarius whose gorge rises [1] at the mere hint that asentient being with an IQ larger than her bra size would give enough to credence to astrology so as to state her zodiac sign as an identifying characteristic. And my moon is…well, that’s me at the monitor, figuratively mooning your amiable idiocy.
While I was cautiously (as in, with reservations [2] ), looking forward to your book it’s highly unlikely I’m going to spend $ on it now. Instead, let me recommend a good read to you: Carl Sagan‘s The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. [3] The entire book is a must-read, but if you’re pressed for time (or just lazy), check the index and read the pages dealing with astrology. Here’s a sneak preview:
“Astronomy is a science—the study of the universe as it is.
Astrology is a pseudoscience—a claim, in the absence of good evidence, that the other planets affect our everyday lives.” ( This quote is from Sagan’s book, Cosmos.
Those that follow are from The Demon-Haunted World )
“[Horoscopes] are consciously designed to be so vague
that they could apply to anybody …”
“Astrologers cannot even agree among themselves what a given horoscope means.” [4]
“Astrology can be tested by the lives of twins. There are many real cases like this: one twin is killed in childhood in, say, a riding accident or struck by lightning, while the other one lives to a prosperous old age. Supposed that had happened to me. My twin and I would have been born in exactly the same place and within minutes of each other, exactly the same planets would be rising at our births. If astrology were valid, how would we have such profoundly different fates?…”
“How could the rising of Mars at the moment of my birth affect me, then or now? I was born in a closed room. Light from Mars couldn’t get in. The only influence of Mars which could affect me was its gravity. But the gravitational pull of the obstetrician was much larger than the gravitational influence of Mars. Mars is a lot more massive, but the obstetrician was much closer.”
* * *
Department Of Editing Mishaps That Make Me Feel Better Sub-Department Of I’ve Never Tried That Recipe Before….
This oopsie is from our CSA’s weekly newsletter, [5] in which the farmers let us know what veggies will be in our weekly portion and share other farm-related news:
The tomatoes made a comeback only to be sprinkled with rain and dew again….
We roasted a good chunk of the peppers which can now be frozen and fucked away for stews and sauces during the winter.
Um…well…ok. Always looking for a way to liven up those stews and sauces.
“Don’t even think about it, lady.”
* * *
Dateline: last Wednesday, circa 1:30p. I did some grocery shopping on my way to pick up our produce share (from the afore-mentioned CSA), and treated moiself to a copy of Cook’s Illustratedmagazine. I do this every once in a while, even though over half of the recipes in the magazine are of little use to me since I don’t eat meat or dairy. It’s the cover illustrations that get me. The magazine’s current (number 202; Sept/Oct) cover makes okra, both whole and sliced, look like exotic flora from another galaxy.
One of my favorite sections in the magazine is Quick Tips, wherein readers send in their innovative and easy ways to perform cooking-related tasks. [6] Examples from the current issue include a home cook who repurposes used plastic gift cards as nonstick dish cleaners (“Gift Card Turned Pan Scrubber”); another who found that a clean fine-mesh laundry bag can be used for squeezing water from thawed frozen veggies (“A Tip for Squeezing Excess Water From Spinach); another who uses a vegetable peel to shave a piece of a celery stock to serve as a tie for a bouquetgarni (“An Edible Substitute for Kitchen Twine”)….
Before heading to the farm I got a lunch at a local café, where I opened the magazine and turned to the Quick Tips section. I tried to explain to the servers why I was chuckling to moiself, after reading a QT with the caption, Keep Burritos Warm.
Keep Burritos Warm.
I guess that’s an issue for some folks, but, really…keep burritos warm.? This may be the first time in my life I have encountered that phrase. Here’s the QT in its entirety:
“Keep Burritos Warm When____ (reader name) wants to take a burrito on the go, she keeps it warm and intact by sliding it into her thermal travel mug. The burrito fits neatly inside for easy carrying, and the insulated walls keep it warm until she is ready to eat.”
Indeed, it is a handy tip, if keeping burritos warm is a concern of yours, But for some reason it struck me as…silly, and profoundly funny. Later that day, when I tried to explain to MH what I found so amusing about that particular QT, it took me several minutes before I could speak without giggling. Finally, I was able to choke out that “…it reminds of Three Word Slogan! Three Word Slogan! What you put on a protest sign and/or chant at a political rally.”
No More Kings! Yes We Can! No Nukes Now! Stop the War! Keep Burritos Warm!
A mere three words brought me to my knees (translation: brought my forehead to the table). And now, how many paragraphs did I just write about a three word caption?
* * *
Department Of Be Careful What You Ask, Even Rhetorically
Writer and commentator Molly Jong-Fast recently published a New York Times Opinion essay ( “I’m Not Going to Lie About My Neck” ) wherein she revealed and defended her decision to undergo plastic surgery shortly after she turned 47.
According to Jong-Fast, her physical appearance is directly tied to her livelihood, and she felt pressured by our youth-obsessed culture [7] to either conform to beauty standards to prolong her career or step back from “the arena” and face her inevitable marginalization. In her essay she rhetorically asked if opting for cosmetic surgery is “cheating” and if it makes her a “bad feminist” by reinforcing patriarchal beauty norms. Then she chickens out advocates for a revised definition of feminism that does not heap “hostility” on those who have plastic surgery and which “respects individual autonomy and survival choices under a male-gaze-oriented culture.”
It was one of the odder versions of “you go girl/whatever makes you feel good about yourself, “ written by a herself *for* herself, that I’ve ever run across. A good portion of the comments to Jong-Fast re the article (sampled below) revealed that many if not most of the article’s readers had similar feelings as moiself:
“Does it make you a bad feminist? Of course it does! We succumb to our own insecurities first, and then the ever-present male gaze, and even fiercer female gaze. As long as we keep succumbing to the cultural expectation of youth, there will be no way out….”
“Curious if you feel similarly about operations/treatments that aren’t as normalized, such as skin bleaching? Colorism is still alive and well in this country, but I very much doubt anyone would attempt to defend such a treatment…”
“It’s not that women who have plastic surgery are cheating. I don’t care what other women do to try to change themselves (though I do feel bad for women who believe that they aren’t good enough as is). The problem is that the more people who do ‘cheat’, the greater the price is for those of us who don’t. The more conformity there is to impossible ideals, the greater the momentum is toward impossible ideals. That harms us all.”
“As the mother of two daughters…I do not want to send them the message that it’s not ok to age because it’s happening to all of us…when I’m 70, I’m not going to fool anyone into thinking I’m 40 – no matter what I do…. I can’t agree with you that your choice was to conform to the standards of beauty or reject them and lose your career. There are examples of women in the public eye who aren’t doing this… At 63, I am still on Zoom calls most days and no, I don’t like the way my neck looks or the wrinkles around my eyes and mouth. But I’m never going to be 43, 33 or 23 again. Instead of trying to be, why not be an example for my daughters so they know aging is natural and ok?”
“Does that make you a bad person or a bad feminist? No. But it is a sad commentary on our culture that women feel that need at all. I hope by the time your daughter reaches your age she feels more confident in the world.”
“It is not ‘hostility.’ That is reframing to tell a narrative. You are buying in, and it is depressing. It is your choice to give your power away to ‘men’ and ‘society’s’ obsession with youth. For what, smoke and mirrors and a media ecosystem that promotes what exactly? Anything positive? Or just more of the same darkness?
*Molly, it doesn’t make you a bad feminist, it makes you a selective one. (and I, Robyn, would add here, and it makes you a cowardly one). Succumbing to the misogyny but cloaking it in professional demands is a cop out. You say that one’s level of perceived attractiveness or unattractiveness drives inequality in the workplace and society, but don’t note that plastic surgery worth tens of thousands of dollars is completely out of reach for the majority of women, driving further inequality.
“If our lives are controlled by a set of traffic signals in the sky, why try to change anything?” ( American scientist, professor, author, science educator Carl Sagan )
* * *
May you read The Demon Haunted World if you haven’t already; May you find a better use for your peppers than f***ing them away; May you remember that you no longer have any excuse *not* to Keep Burritos Warm®; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Reference for you young’uns unfamiliar with the idiom: One is disgusted or sickened by something. (The “gorge” is the stomach: “I could never be a doctor. Blood, vomit, open wounds—the gorge rises at it.” Definition from The Free dictionary ).
[2] Wondering how many of the recipes I’d actually be interested in, as her newsletter contains many with egg and dairy ingredients (vegetarian, but not entirely plant-based)
[3] Actually, there is nothing about this book that would make me recommend it solely to Tonya; I think *every* person should read it, as a good guide to evaluating evidence, learning skeptical and critical thinking, and thus developing your own “baloney detection kit”.
[4] The book describes examples of scientists testing astrology by, for example, having contradicting horoscopes given to astrology believers and printed in newspapers and testing the believer’s reactions….it’s worth the read just for these entertaining examples of human gullibility.
[6] They receive a complimentary one-year subscription to the magazine for each tip CI decides to publish.
[7] : Jong-Fast is a political commentator who appears frequently on television and digital video screens.
[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
As a longtime reader of (select) advice columns, moiself has come to think that they can open an interesting window into human motivations and behaviors. Over the years I have noticed an irritating pattern to many of the letters sent by advice-seekers: ( trigger alert: massive generalization ahead)
* A man will report his emotions sans even the slightest modicum of introspection
( “Why doesn’t she understand how she’s annoying me?!?!?” );
* A woman will report her emotions and second-guess herself ( she reports an astoundingly annoying thing – a thing that would even piss off Mr. Rogers or the Dali Llama – which was said or done to her, yet asks, “Am I right to be annoyed by ___?” )
“Yes, you can stop second-guessing yourself, sweetie, your boss really is a flaming asshat.”
Aside from the indisputable entertainment value of kitten-bops-enormous-dog’s-nose videos, social media ‘s worth goes up a few notches when you consider how it can be an effective way of transmitting insightful observations and analyses about the politics of personal relationships. One such analysis which I recently came across online (from “The Inner Pattern” ) addressed and partially explained the roots behind the complicated advice-column-letter-dynamic moiself mentions above.
What’s the most damaging thing patriarchy ever pulled off? Convincing everyone that male anger counts as objective reality, but female emotions get filed under subjective instability.
Watch how differently the same emotion gets treated depending on who’s feeling it. He slams a door and it’s “he had a rough day.” She raises her voice once and it’s “she needs to calm down.”
His frustration gets a cause. Hers gets a diagnosis.
We grew up watching men’s reactions get treated as data — something to analyze, respond to, take seriously. Meanwhile women’s reactions got treated as noise — something to soothe, dismiss, or wait out. So, we learned early to run our own feelings through a filter before anyone else even heard them. Is this reasonable enough? Am I being too sensitive? Will this get taken seriously or will it just get me labeled?
That filter isn’t caution. It’s conditioning. It’s decades of being taught that our inner world needs to justify itself before it’s allowed to exist.
Your anger was never irrational. It was just never given the same benefit of the doubt his got by default. (my emphases, FB, first seen by moiself on 9-5-26)
* * *
Department Of There Goes The Neighborhood
Dateline: The morning of August 5; SeaTac airport; Alaska Airline’s first-class lounge; waiting to board our flight to Iceland. Checking out the massive, multi-buffet table breakfast spread set out for the lounge passengers I see that, on the end buffet table, there is a contraption that look like a 3-D printer. This machine is labeled, “pancake printer,” and moiself alerts my family to its presence. None of us actually want a pancake, but we have to see how it works, and so I press its start button.
Five seconds after I start the pancake printer a woman walks past the side of the buffet table and eyes my family with confusion. She is dressed in that casual money style [1] and holds a plate of pastries which looked like they’d have French-sounding names. Meanwhile, my family – MH in his tie-dye tee, son K in his black leather jacket /death metal band shirt, daughter Belle in her in Pacific NW/Columbia lumberjack gear, and me in my CatZilla t-shirt – is crowded around the pancake printer.
I remain standing while the rest of my family bends forward, practically down on their knees, as they watch a blob of (ostensibly) pancake batter make its way down a series of the printer’s criss-crossing cooking treadmills. I make eye contact with the woman, and with widened eyes and a knowing nod of my head, I project (or so I intend) an amiable, joking, yeah right – like we’ve never seen a pancake before vibe. In return, her facial expression and body language…
Oh, how can I put it? So much attitude is succinctly and clearly expressed in the rolling/stink eye stare she flings toward me and mine:
“OMG, who let the Beverly Hillbillies into the first class lounge !?!”
Y’all come back now for the pancake breakfast, y’ hear?
* * *
Department Of Yeah, The Date… September 11 Memories
Twenty-five years ago, since those horrific ( and/yet mesmerizingly cinematic [2] ) terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. So much has changed in our nation; so much of that change is not for the better, and so much of this not-for-better change has been and is attributed to needing to Get Tough On Terrorism®.
I remember the unscripted eloquence of British PM Tony Blair, who interrupted his planned speech on a domestic issue to express his profound shock and sympathy for the American people and pledge his and his country’s full support for his allies.
I remember the stark contrast of Blair’s heartfelt articulateness with the glassy-eyed, aardvark-caught-in-the-headlights expression of the clearly-not-up-to-the-gravity-of-what-lies-ahead “leader” which was George W. Bush. The only solace I had been able to take from GWB’s mistaken ascendency to the presidency was that, up until 9-11, he had seemed destined to be a one-term president.
“Uh, Dad? Dick Cheney? Somebody, tell me what to do…”
But I’ll let the pundits and historians elaborate on that. After all these years, moiself is more interested in the personal stories – select memories, from those at Ground Zero and those of us across the country and out of the country [3] – of we who were affected by the attacks. It is the stories of our reactions, the memories of that impactful, holy-shit-am-I-watching-a-movie-or-is-this-real ?!?!?! day, which we will impart to our children who were too young to remember (or who were born after) the 9-11 attacks.
Moiself will always know that September 11, 2001 was on a Tuesday, because I was in my home office that morning, getting ready to leave for my Tuesday 7 am book club. I gathered my book club items – coffee mug, [4] purse, jacket, the book the group was currently discussing – and stepped out of the office. Before I could head down the hallway to the garage, I looked up at the sound of MH’s voice.
MH was standing in the upstairs hallway, leading against the stairway railing, a confused look on his face. He said he’d been listening to NPR’s Morning Edition, [5] which had just reported that an airplane had hit one of New York City’s World Trade Center Twin Towers. I replied that I remembered reading, several years ago, that a small/private plane had collided with a large sky scraper in some big city – I found that to be an odd and accident, as you’d think the pilot could see such an enormous building in his path…
MH, still confused, said, no, this was a commercial-sized jet, and the report was that less than a half hour later another jet hit the second tower, and “…what kind of air traffic control mixup or other accident could account for…”
I gasped as I interrupted him: “TWO jets? That’s no accident.”
After listening to a few news reports I grimly drove to book group, which met in the pastor’s office of our local UCC church. [6] Every member of the book group showed up, despite or because of having heard the news. We all had the same feeling: we wanted to be together. I was one of the last to arrive, and made my entrance feelings-first:
“Well, we are ALL FUCKED. This is how wars start.”
I forget the name of the book we were discussing. The leader of the group, the pastor, obviously felt some obligation to try to steer us toward the book, even as she was glassy eyed with shock and worry (her beloved sister-in-law was a flight attendant who often worked the American Airlines route from Boston to LAX) . [7] But (of course) we spent most of the morning discussing the attacks, speculating about all that we knew and did not know, and what might happen in the days to come.
Two weeks later, when details of the terrorist plot were being revealed, the book group again set aside our book for the day and mostly discussed the attacks. One of the group members brought in an article he’d been reading, written by a foreign correspondent who’d been researching the recruiting process for Islamist terrorist groups. The article addressed a seemingly unfathomable question: given the human instinct for preserving one’s own life, how do you recruit young men for a suicide mission? The book club member began reading the article’s list of commonalities found among the terrorist recruits:
“…strong ties to hard-core religious beliefs; weak ties to their own families; political idealism; religious and cultural conservatism – and while not necessarily virgins themselves, the young men were attracted by the enticement that their martyrdom would be a righteous deed which would earn them a shortcut to heaven, where they would enjoy the sexual attentions of 72 dark-eyed virgins….”
I heard my own snorting-with-ridicule interruption as if it were coming from somewhere other than my own mouth:
“Yeah, right – that shows you what kind of mindset fanaticism appeals to. What kind of sexually ignorant, inexperienced idiots want – I mean, seventy-two *virgins*? That’s an enticement? Give them just one middle-aged woman who knows what she’s doing…”
I looked around the circle at my book comrades’ wide-eyed, Is that so? expressions, and thought, maybe middle-aged moiself should have kept that to moiself?
* * *
* * *
Department Of Not One Damn Recipe
I recently got a new cookbook, which is one of my favorite things to get. Cookbooks – moiself tends to read livres de cuisine like novels, as in, getting inspiration from more than actually following a recipe step by step. After reading through this new book I found moiself wondering, Why did I order this?
The book’s recipes concentrate on a culture whose cuisine is mostly unfamiliar to me – as do several cookbooks in my collection, so it’s not that. Sourcing many of the key ingredients would be difficult, but…see previous comment. It’s just that there was not one recipe that stood out, not onerecipe that made me think, I’d like to try that, or work up a variant moiself. My get a new one get rid of an old one policy, [8] has kept my cookbook supply steady at seventy-four. And it will remain at 74 as this new book goes into the list of sixty cookbooks I have recycled. [9]
A cigarette pack is one of the few consumer products…that practically insults its own customer. Buy a pack and you are greeted by…blunt declarations that your habit may kill you. Governments force tobacco companies to confess the danger directly on the packaging because the evidence is overwhelming: smoking causes cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, and millions of deaths annually….
Yet the satirical image asks a deeply uncomfortable question: if cigarettes require warning labels because they can harm human beings, why do religions—whose histories include crusades, inquisitions, sectarian wars, terrorism, witch hunts, executions for heresy, honor killings, forced conversions, and systematic oppression—escape similar scrutiny?
The meme…exposes an asymmetry in moral outrage. Society treats physical harm as measurable and ideological harm as sacred.
The irony is brutal. A cigarette company cannot advertise without legal constraints, but a preacher can tell children they deserve eternal torture for doubting a doctrine and still be called a moral authority. Tobacco executives are condemned for manipulating fear and addiction, while some religious institutions have built entire civilizations around fear of invisible punishment….
Imagine if holy books carried labels modeled after cigarette warnings:
WARNING: This ideology has been linked to violence, intolerance, and persecution when interpreted literally.
WARNING: Excessive exposure may impair critical thinking and increase susceptibility to authoritarianism.
(from my supply of stickers I carry with me when I travel, in case the hotel room has a Gideon bible or other religious book in the dresser drawer.)
* * *
May you see your emotional reactions as data, not noise; May you practice the get a new one get rid of an old one policy; May you benefit from the experience of even one middle-aged woman who knows what she’s doing; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Like pornography, I know it when I see it, even if I can’t describe it…and so can you.
[2] I watched footage of the two places crashing into the towers, over and over, in a way trying to convince myself that it was real – it seemed like something out of a movie…but CGI was in its infancy then, and a Hollywood special effects crew couldn’t possibly have pulled off such an epic job.
[4] That was the one day a week that I drank coffee in the morning.
[5] Which was his Monday – Friday morning routine, before he got out of bed and we got our kids breakfast and ready for school.
[6] The church MH and I were members of for years, until we came out of the Happy Heathens® closet.
[7] She had no news about her SIL at that time, but later that day was assured that her SIL was not working that day.
[8] Which I apply to most “things,” from cookbooks to household items to clothing….
[9] As in given away to friends and/or family and/or Goodwill.
[10] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
MH and I have been re-watching the TV series ER. Aside from some older technology artifacts – the hospital records and procedures are not fully computer-integrated (e.g., the staff keeps index card files on certain patients! ) – the issues, both medical and personal, remain, IMO, compelling and contemporary. Except for wanting an old-fashioned schoolmarm’s stick to whack George Clooney’s character on the back ( “Stand up straight! Look people in the eye! You’re a doctor, FFS!” ), the performances are spot-on. Although (for moiself at least) Clooney’s hangdog/horndog, mannered performance as Dr. Doug Ross takes some getting used to, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how… fresh… everything seems. It’s fun to rewatch a great episode I haven’t thought of in years, and turn to MH and say, “Oh, wait, I think I remember this…no I don’t/no, wait – something weird is gonna happen here….”
Someone who’s on the cusp of being a ginormous movie star and making an obscene amount of money should have better posture.
* * *
Department Of Why Isn’t This A Thing Yet?
Percussive energyis the thing that isn’t, yet. And it should be. After all, moiself blogged about it four years ago ( The Clean Energy Source I’m Not Yet Inventing ). And yet the eyes and ears of the scientific community remain blind and deaf to my far-fetched ranting well-thought proposals?
I wrote aboutpercussive energy as the counterpart, or rather compliment, to solar and wind energy. Short recap: utilizing all that tap, tap tap [1] of raindrops – as in, designing a surface, which could capture that energy find a way to use or store it (an answer to the old school people who decry “clean” energy by saying, “Yeah well solar only works when it’s sunny/wind power only works when it’s windy….” ).
The world is still waiting for, still needing, youth science fairs and contests to challenge and/or incentivize their entrants to…basically…save us from ourselves. Or at least help us out with our existing problems, rather than translate their budding scientific and entrepreneurial skills into designing yet another mind-numbing gaming/entertainment app.
Lilly Downs, eighth grader from Osteen, Florida, wins Lemelson Early Inventor Prize winner at her 2025 science fair. [2]
* * *
Department Of Gems Discovered While Seeking Something Else
That would be a blog segment from five years ago, specifically 8-20-21 ( The Butt I’m Not Kicking ) where in moiself wrote about MH’s colonoscopy:
Department Of Post-Procedural Updates
Background info: MH has never been able to roll his rs, which is the main reason, he told me many years ago, that he took German as a foreign language in high school. He’d thought Spanish would be more useful/practical, but he simply could not roll his rs as is required for the correct pronunciation of many Spanish words, and he was somewhat intimidated/embarrassed by his lack of being able to perform that particular linguistic feat. And it’s true: over the years, I’ve tried to get him to do it (or trick him into it), and he simple cannot roll his rs.
Dateline: Thursday, 10:50 am. MH is back home after his colonoscopy. He thinks he’s fine, but it’s obvious to moiself that the effects of the Versed (the sedative used during the procedure) are still reigning. [3] He’s… goofy
He stands at the kitchen counter, looking at the color printout he was given at the hospital, which includes a map of the lower intestines. He begins reading off the “map sites” to me:
MH (in a voice much higher than his usual range): “The ilium! The cecum! The rrrrrrrrrrrectum…”
Moiself: What?!?!?! Holy crap; did you hear yourself?! You rolled your rs!
MH (in miffed toddler mode): “No I didn’t.”
Moiself: “Oh yes you did!”
MH proceeds to say “rectum” over and over, drawing out the rsound without rolling it. But for one glorious, Versed-induced moment, them rs were rolling like a river.
* * *
* * *
Department Of Not Completely Different But Similar, As In, Involving A Memory
MH and I met in a Lutheran Church. Yep; yours truly the flaming atheist, Humanist, Freethinker, Skeptic, religion-free apostate/heretic was raised by Lutheran parents and was herself, like her now equally religion-free ( but less flaming [4] ) spouse was once an active church member. But that’s a story for another day (preferably, a day involving cosumption of gin and tonics by both the storetellers and story listeners ).
A momentary digression for Educational Purposes®: moiself has been referred to, by other active and former Christians, as both a heretic and an apostate. Neither word is one I consider pejorative; both are arguable as to their applicability as labels for my beliefs and experiences. [5]. In general, both labels refer to someone’s rejection of the religion they are/were “in” and/or were raised in. The difference is in the degree of rejection. Apostates totally reject or renounce their religion; heretics stay (or attempt to stay) within their religion and/or religious community but openly hold and assert beliefs that contradict their religions’ theologies and doctrines. [6] (interesting factoid: at some point in time, every new religion/demonization has been accused of heresy/apostasy by their onetime co-religionists).
Moiself recently overheard a tidbit of a conversation in which one person was relaying to another their experience of being challenged as to their worthiness of ascending to a certain position in their work. This reminded me of a story shared with moiself by one of the pastors at Grace Lutheran Church in Palo Alto, the church where MH and I met.
Grace Lutheran was a congregation in the ELCA synod, the most liberal synod or wing of the American Lutheran churches. At that time (when MH and I were attending) Grace Lutheran had two co-pastors, one male and one female. I became friendly with both of them, in particular the female pastor, SK. This was in 1986, and although the ELCA had been ordaining women pastors since 1970, their acceptance was a slow process, and women pastors were not automatically welcomed with open arms. One afternoon a few months after I’d joined the church SK and I met for tea in downtown Hillsboro. During our wide-ranging conversation the subject of her being called [7] to Grace Lutheran came up. Specifically, I asked her how smooth the process had been: did she feel accepted by all of the congregation, or at least the majority?
SK told me that her call to Grace Lutheran went smoothly, although she was aware that the final vote of the congregation (to accept her call to be one of their pastors) was not unanimous. On her first Sunday at Grace Lutheran, the leaders of the congregation held a reception for SK in the church’s Fellowship Hall, after the worship service. The reception wound down after about two hours, which was a relief to SK, who, although grateful for the warm greetings she’d received, was beginning to think her petit frame could not bear another well-meaning handshake or congratulatory hug from the throngs of parishioners who introduced themselves to and welcomed her.
SK headed to the Fellowship Hall kitchen, intent upon helping the staff with KP duty, when one of the few parishioners remaining in the Fellowship Hall approached her. A Tall Elegantly Dressed Older Woman (TEDOW) smiled broadly at SK, introduced herself as a “long-time” Grace Lutheran member, and said, in a friendly tone of voice that belied the rebuffing sentiment she was about to utter, that she would like to take SK to lunch to tell SK why she had “voted against your call, as I don’t think you belong here.”
SK kept her composure, smiling in return as she thanked TEDOW for the lunch invitation…which SK declined.
Moiself was impressed by SK’s graciousness under fire, so to speak, and even more so by the rational simplicity of her response:
“No, thank you. I *am* here; I don’t have to defend my being here.” [8]
May you have fond memories of a loved one’s post-colonoscopy rantings; May you enjoy binging an old favorite TV series; May you never have to defend your being where are you; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[3] I suggested he go upstairs and sit or lie down, as he was rather wobbly standing. He wanted to go up the stairs by himself; I insisted he hold on to the handrail, which he did, while vaulting up the stairs two at a time. When I snapped at him to slow down he said, “It feels better this way!”
[4] Except when he’s high on Versed and flamboyantly rolling his r’s….
[7] Being called refers to the process by which churches find and employ their pastors. It varies between denomination and churches; here’s the link to ELCA call processes.
[8] I never met TEDOW. She (and her husband) left the congregation before I began attending. According to another congregant whom I quizzed about the incident, TEDOW and her husband were opposed to female ordination and also had problems with the other ways in which they felt their church was embracing heresy/leaning more liberal, and when they left Grace Lutheran they made sure that certain people knew they were leaving and were “taking their money” with them (implying that they were generous financial supporters of the church, which, that person I spoke with said, they were *not.*).
[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
Dateline: Circa 7:45 am; taking my morning constitutional. In a neighborhood where I sometimes walk, I pass a house that is heavily trashed accessorized: its front yard décor includes a multitude of plastic multicolored flowers, garden gnomes, smiling animals, faux garden implements stapled to the house’s siding, etc.
A sign on the front door of the house reads, “This is my happyplace.” My first thought as moiself reads the sign:
The Very Nice Exterminator Man (VNEM) tried unsuccessfully to stifle his laugh when, as he followed me on the pathway around the side of the house to the place where the squirrels were using our trees to access our roof, he told moiself that the traps he was going to set were kill traps, and I blurted out an enthusiastic, GOOD!
“Wow, it’s a squirrel howitzer,” I said, when I saw the first trap.
“Your attitude,” VNEM chuckled – then quickly added, when I turned around to see if he thought I was A Terrible Person ® , “I like it. It’s, uh…very different…when I’m in Portland.” He explained that when he’s setting up traps in optimal places ( for where the squirrels are accessing the house ), his Portland clients often ask him – whisper to him, he said – if he can “hide them (the traps) so the neighbors don’t see.”
I correctly surmised that was because they don’t want their neighbors to know about the kill traps. “Let me guess,” I replied. “Portlanders fear their neighbors’ judgement because they, like their neighbors, are misinformed. They think it’s somehow better or more humane to trap the squirrels and ‘relocate/transplant them,’ when they in fact know nothing about squirrels, including that
* squirrels are highly territorial; thus, depending on how far away they are transplanted, they will find their way back to your property and continue to be a problem/do the damage for which you wanted them gone in the first place, or
* they will be beaten and harassed by other squirrels into whose territory they have been released, [1] not given a moment’s peace to establish their own territory, much less forage, and they’ll starve to death;
* the majority of Oregon’s squirrels are *not* native, but are introduced species which, through being larger and more aggressive and via spreading new diseases, have taken over the native squirrel population…”
“You *do* know a lot about squirrels,” VNEM said, as I finished my Why It’s Okay To Hate Squirrelsharangue explanation.
“Enough to loathe them,” I said. “Look; I love animals; my diet is 99% plant-based; I escort spiders from our house (even bought a special device that traps, rather than squishes them)…and I detest squirrels.”
Ater one week with the traps up: the body count is two traps, two dead squirrels. [2]
The following is not a picture of a dead squirrel. The Picture That Does Exist But That I’m Not Showing You [3] is of a squirrel tail trailing out of one of the bazookas, the tail waving in the slight breeze, like a flag of surrender…. [4]
She’d never want us trapped in a sloth bazooka, but then, we’d never chew on her house or electric wires and cause hundreds of dollars worth of damage….
* * *
Department Of Traditional Foods Whose Existence I Acknowledge…
…but will not touch with a ten-foot pole. Or narwhal tusk. Or whatever is available to push the hákarl as far away from moiself as possible. The idea that you can call such a thing “food” is, IMO, an insult to all which is considered edible.
You’ll be safe with me, lady. Let’s order the tuna casserole instead.
Y’all may have heard of hákarl, the infamous Icelandic “delicacy.” If not, videos of people chunder-spewing immediately after having tried it are just an internet search away.
Ahem. Written by the person who, attracted by the title, purchased, Does Anyone Actually Eat This?Nanna Rögnvaldsdóttir, Iceland’s “best known food writer,” wrote this slim ( 73 pages ) but mildly intimidating book about 16 peculiar Icelandic delicacies. Besides the better known hákarl – Greenland shark meat that is fermented (read: putrified) in a way to remove the copious amounts of uric acid (read: piss) in the shark’s flesh so that you may eat it and not vomit blood (a common reaction to piss-shark-flesh eating) – curious culinary minds might want to read about other Icelandic delicacies, including
* Svið (a sheep’s head, halved and singed, then boiled with the brain removed;
* Súrsaðir hrútspungar (sour ram’s testicles) – yep, just that: sheep’s testicles, boiled, pressed into blocks and preserved in fermented whey. Some Icelanders consider it rude to call the dish by its name; thus, several euphemisms are used to refer to it, including millifótakonfekt( “between-the-legs candy” );
*Hverabrauð, a hot sprin- baked, dense, pumpernickel-rye bread, which at first sounds rather tame until you get to the details: “the bread…has a reputation for causing flatulence and is sometimes nicknamed, þrumari, aka, “thunder bread.”
Dude, a chase of thunder bread will absorb the urine/blood vomit aftertaste.
* * *
Department Of The Idealism Is Nice, But Your Age/Gender/Privilege Is Showing
Datelimne: earlier this week; listening to Clear + Vivid podcast, of 6-30-26. Host Alan Alda’s guest is American journalist, editor and biographer Walter Isaacson. The episode: Walter Isaacson: Are These Truths Still Self-Evident? From the episode’s description:
On the eve of our nation’s 250th, Walter Isaacson takes a deep dive into the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence. It’s what he calls “the greatest sentence ever written.”
After discussing the history of the declaration and the interpretation and implementation of that so-called “greatest sentence, [5] Alda and Isaacson discuss the current fragmentation of our nation and the fact that we seem to have lost our ability to compromise, which is what led to the crafting of Declaration, and later, key elements of the U.S. Constitution.
( Excerpts; my emphases ):
Alda: Now, what about the big question…how can we accomplish the return to this great sentence…and make it no longer merely aspirational or largely aspirational, but make it truly happen? What kind of things need to be done…can be done?
Isaacson: …Among them is look for ways where we can have shared national service, whether it be being part of civic life in your town or teach for America….
We should form the type of civic organizations that, when you and I grew up …you’d go into town, there’d be the Kiwanis Club, and the Rotary Club, and the bowling League, and the Elks and the Moose.
We all had whatever our religions, whatever our ideologies, we all rubbed elbows together. And so I think in our daily lives, we can say, how do we do it at a local level? We can’t do this at a national level now….
My reaction: Gawd, does he (Isaacson) ever sound old/white/male/upper class!
The community and social institutions Isaacson lists – it’s not a bad thing, IMO, that they’ve faded away and/or drastically lost their impact. In their heyday they exerted great influence in the business and social lives of their cities, and membership in them and other “fraternal” organizations were steppingstones for business and political success. But, the we all rubbed elbows togetherideal – what orifice did Isaacson pull that out of?
“My orafices are none of your beeswax, sweetie.”
Those institutions, whether community/civic or fraternal, were *not* welcoming and inclusive. They required an invitation and/or sponsorship from current members for your membership application to be considered. If you were white and male (and had an “in”), you had a chance.
Many a story I’ve read about those organizations’ resistance to change. In particular I remember a community newspaper article about the blowback faced by an Oregon Coast man, a longtime member of his local fraternal organization (Elks, maybe?), who lobbied his fellow members to allow women to join the organization. He pointed out that his wife and other wives of members already did the lion’s share ( maybe it was the Lions Club!? ) of the work when it came to organizing, setting up (and – surprises! – cleaning up after ) the group’s yearly fundraisers and other events, and that they and other women in the community had expressed interest in joining…. But, no. His fellow Elks/Lions were content to keep the ladies in auxiliary status. Women were capable of doing the work, but heaven forbid they get the recognition (and status and influence) of membership.
Two personal examples: Over a decade ago I congratulated an acquaintance of mine when I saw an announcement in the local paper about how she’d joined the local branch of a nationwide service organization (ala Kiwanis Club). She was one of three businesswomen who’d been invited to “integrate” the previously all male [6] club, which had gained a reputation among newer-to-the-area, younger and nonwhite/nonmale city residents as stodgy, elitist and out of touch. Two years later I saw her at a city event, and told her I’d once again [7] intended to support her in the group’s annual fundraising sales, but that I didn’t find her name on the group’s roster. She rolled her eyes in disgust and told me she’d resigned from the group, as she was tired of banging her head again the proverbial wall. “All those old men are going to have to die[8] before anything will change,” she huffed. [9]
Another friend of mine started her own business in her small Oregon town, and as her success grew she joined her local Chamber of Commerce. Her C of C experiences…
* being either ignored and or patronized by old time (read: white male) COC members
* her ideas dismissed/discounted by her male colleagues one minute, then ten minutes later appropriated by another COC member, who presented them as his own
…spurred her to rally other women business owners in her town to form the ____ (name of town) Women’s Business Association.
So yeah, definitely encourage people to get off of social media and find other outlets for personal connection. But before advocating a return to those old organizations, a remaking of them is in order.
And, BTW, what’s so bad about having bees that don’t wax?
* * *
Department Of A Documentary I’ll Have To Get Back To
A friend recently sent me a link, along with this message:
I don’t know if you’ll like this, but this week’s independent lens is about a woman dealing with her father who is the last creationist in their family. I appreciated her struggle.
The episode he linked me to was released earlier this week by the PBS documentary series, Independent Lens. Its title and description: Flood, directed by Katy Scoggin: A filmmaker revisits her evangelical roots to find connection with her estranged father.
I thanked him and wrote that I’d watch it later. I did, then sent this reply:
Oh… Holy crap. Figuratively and literally.
I love the Independent Lens documentary series, but I could only get about 20 minutes into this particular documentary before I had to stop watching it. I know there had to be a setup of the filmmaker’s conservative evangelical background in order to establish the estrangement between the filmmaker, who left those beliefs behind, and her father, who still holds them, but still…ICK.
If I never again, no matter the context or pretext, have to hear grownass adults serious singing/discussing about being “washed clean by the blood,” then I will have lived a happy life and can possibly withstand even global warming.
Listening to children reciting the gibberish of theology provokes a physical reaction in me. It actually twists my stomach, to hear children spewing things they’ve had to memorize but have no idea what they’re talking about. [10] Particularly retch-worthy was the scene at the filmmaker’s father’s dinner table, when one of his cherubic blonde granddaughters (maybe four or five years old?), chirps, “I know all vowels: A E I O U!” Then, smiling, she recites in a sing-song voice the first four letters of the alphabet, which she has been taught to link with bible verses:
“A – All have sinned and gada fada baba… ( it’s hard to make out many of the words, as she lisps and runs the words together [11] )…the glory of god
B – Believe in the lord jesus christ and thou shalt shall be saved
C – Children obey your parents in the lord for this is right
D – Depart from evil and do good….”
It’s child abuse; it’s emotional and intellectual child abuse. And I can’t watch that, any more than I can stand by and watch someone beat a child and not intervene.
* * *
Department Of Damn, It’s Inevitable, But They Rip A Piece Of Your Heart Out When They Go
May your bees continue to wax; May you remember to never eat a slice of thunder bread before yoga class; May your sweet tooth steer clear of between-the-legs candy ; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] I have seen some epic squirrel territorial battles in a nearby park which I regularly walk through/around – battles that have drawn blood between the combatants (and which unnerved me, years ago, when I didn’t know much about squirrels) and which would make MMA combatants envious.
[2] Upon completing his inspection the VNEM thought one or at most two squirrels were accessing our roof, trying to chew their way into our attics. Which was somewhat better than the last invasion, which included an entire squirrel family.
[3] But which I sent to select friends/family, who almost certainly wouldn’t rat me out to PETA.
[4] I did send the picture to the exterminator (when he asked if we knew if either of the traps had been sprung), with the caption, “My heart soars like a hawk.”
[6] And mostly all White, despite the city’s growing Hispanic population.
[7] I had donated to the group’s yearly fundraiser only because she was in it.
[8] A lot of them did…but then their nepo-stodgy sons “inherited” their memberships, so change as continues to be slow.
[9] And she even had an “in” – she was the former mayor’s daughter-in-law.
[10] And I have a similar aversion to kids reciting loyalty oaths, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, in schools. I stopped saying the pledge when I was in the fifth grade.
[11] It’s likely the Christian tenet, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god…” from Romans 3:23
[12] I was so NOT able to even type that last week.
[13] “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
Because moiself be doing a rerun. Similar to the monthly Blast From The Past® feature, [1] this is a blog segment I ran across while looking for something else. Specifically, one from ten years ago last month, found while I was lamenting this year’s lack of April Fool’s Day pranks:
Department Of Fun With Student Drivers
Dateline: Tuesday, early a.m., out for my morning walk, waiting to cross a street. As I watched the cross traffic’s stoplight and saw the green-changing-to-yellow light – the pedestrian’s rewarding indicator that it will soon be your turn to cross the street – I noticed a white sedan slowing down much more deliberately than is usual yet still not managing to come to a complete stop until the car’s front bumper was just a tad into the crosswalk.
My light changed to green, I began to cross the street, and saw the telltale red and yellow logo for a local driving academy on the car’s driver’s door. A student driver?
Excellent.
I looked inside the car: the student in the driver’s seat sat ramrod straight, an expression of nervous anticipation drenching her face. Her white-knuckled hands gripped the steering wheel and her gaze was fixed ahead. Her instructor was looking down at a clipboard he held; neither of them seemed aware of my approaching presence.
My instinctive reaction was to throw myself onto the hood of the car and scare the living pee-pee out of both of them.
How I managed to restrain myself, I’ll never know.
But, I did. Okay?
Had I gone through with my whimsical notion, ‘twould have made a good – dare I say, even legendary? – April Fool’s Day prank.
You gotta love a day that is devoted to honoring and encouraging practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks both well- and feebly-played.
The origins of April Fools Day’s are not completely agreed upon by historians, and have been variously attributed. What is agreed upon is that many cultures, going back to the ancient Romans and Egyptians, have set aside days for celebrating jokes and pranksters. Perhaps, as some people have speculated, there’s just something about the day’s timing – the fading of winter and the blooming of spring, which lends itself to the observance of light-hearted frivolity.
I can recall only a few of the pranks I’ve played on friends, family and co-workers over the years. The memories are silly but fond, and include:
* Sneaking a package of Hydrox cookies [2] from the family snack drawer and replacing all the cream fillings in the second row of cookies with toothpaste.
* Showing two positive pregnancy test dipsticks to a newbie Planned Parenthood co-worker and telling her I was pregnant with twins.
* Adding just a couple of drops of blue food coloring to the carton of nonfat milk in my parent’s refrigerator.
* Calling my father at his office and convincing him (if only temporarily) that someone had bought a raffle ticket in his name for the local animal shelter’s fundraising event, he’d won the raffle, and could he please let the shelter know when he was coming to claim his prize: an English Mastiff and a week’s supply – a 100 lb. bag of kibble – of the dog’s food. [3]
“I don’t get it. Why would that be funny?”
* Swapping my and my siblings’ framed high school graduation pictures, which hung in my parent’s hallway, with pictures of the members of Led Zeppelin.
* Replacing the hard-boiled egg in my sister’s school lunch bag with a raw egg.
* Cutting my finger, smearing my blood on the scissors in co-worker Roger’s cubicle, leaving a note on my computer saying I had been threatened by Roger and feared for my life, then faking my own death and leaving town.
Oops, that’s right – I never got around to implementing the last one.
As pleasurable as it is to pull off an epic prank, it can be equally fun, IMHO, to have a great prank played on your own self. I hope y’all have a Happy April Fools’ Day…and I hope that I do not regret having made that previous declaration. ( excerpts; 4-1-2016;The Instinct I’m Not Obeying)
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Department Of Seeing Yourself Through Other Eyes…Or, Not?
Dateline: Monday morning; scrolling through the previous night’s Nehalem BBQ posts. The BBQ is an online bulletin board of sorts. As per its mission statement:
The BBQ is a free public service provided to the citizens of the Oregon North Coast. It is dedicated to the promotion of community building by establishing a website forum whereon citizens may announce important matters and events, offer goods and services, express needs and provide information of general interest. [4]
Moiself clicks on the post that catches my eye – the one titled, North Coast Pinball Updates May 2026. North Coast Pinball is arguably my favorite beach business. I always spend a couple of hours there at least once a week. [5] I adore the owner’s community spirit, his generous, welcoming personality, his freethinking/humanist, feminist politics…and has NCP really been open for five years? Here is how the post begins:
“Fun fact: we’ve been doing this thing for five years now. Sold 562 used pinballs and 1272 stickers. Rebuilt more flippers than I quite know how to count. Gave away *so* many mystery tokens. Maybe you’ve seen our chess set in the corner; guess how many pieces have gone missing in five years?
None! Well, there was that knight who wandered off one day but it came back before I noticed it was gone. [6] Y’all are the best. Thanks for making NCP NCP.
Oh! Also in those five years I wrote a book about the place, which should be out later this month. You can learn more about that at www.mysterytoken.pub.”
I assume the post was written by NCP’s owner, with whom I am on a friendly/first name basis (moiself also assumes (1) he is writing the book; (2) trhe book will be self-published).
Wondering how/if he will write about those of us who might be considered regulars of NCP, I follow that link, which leads to this teaser/excerpt: (my emphases):
Can You Feel It?
stories from North Coast Pinball
“…another day, you may write in your journal that three people, who did not know each other a month ago, who live in three different towns, and who met each other playing pinball in your place, are now out on a hike together. Your journal will reflect a feeling that the purpose of your life has been fulfilled.”
“…five years later you’ll write a weird little book. A book that’s not so much about pinball as it is about how it feels at North Coast Pinball in Nehalem, Oregon….
“A book about what it’s like for the five-year-old peering through the window as you prepare to open. What it’s like for your ten-year-old regular, back once again to improve on his high score. What it’s like for the sullen teenager, dragged against their will on an obligatory family trip….
What it’s like for the sixty-something beach bum who comes in weekly for $20 in tokens, plays each game exactly once, and leaves her leftovers in the community donation jar….
“Holy crap, that’s me,” I blurt out, first to moiself, then to MH. I read the underlined section of the post to him, then wonder how the book’s author can accurately write a *nonfiction* book about “what it’s like” for the five-year-old, or the sullen teenager, or the beach bum, without interviewing said characters. [7]
My reaction surprises moiself. That (underlined) pretty much describes what I do when I’m there. I am sixty-something; I do frequent NCP weekly (when in town); I do get $20 in tokens; I do play the games once…but sometimes twice (and not all of them – I avoid the easy ones/the one-token-per-game ones…and when I win a free game I don’t play it again – I like to leave the free game available for a kid to discover); I do make sure to not use up all my tokens so that I may leave the leftoversin the community donation jar.
“But,” I confess to MH, “I don’t know how I feel about being described as a ‘beach bum.’ ” ( Although I realize that my ubiquitous attire – yoga pants and t- shirts and OR rain/sun hat – are casual to the max and could tilt perceptions of moiself toward the latter category.)
MH points out to me that the description could fit many people at the coast. [8] Nice try, honey. I’m not a vain person (what would be the point?). [9] Still…. Beach bum is one of those phrases that could mean colorful character to some people, or one-step-above-a-grungy/homeless person-and/or-those-men-in-their-eighties-with-their-pants-hiked-up-to-their-nipples-who-patrol-the-beach-with-metal-detectors to other folks. [10]
Beach bum. Okay; it’s two words. Until I have evidence otherwise I’ll take the description to be one that is meant with fondness. And although I’ll maintain my smugness re self-published books, I will buy a copy when it comes out.
My high score in one of my fave pinball machines, which I rented from NCP and got to have in our home (terrorizing/entertaining the neighbors) for three months a couple of years ago.
May you have unending patience with apprentice drivers; May you be entertained by how you might be described by others; May your you enjoy religion-free casseroles; and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] Wherein yours truly posts a segment from a blog of the second Friday of years ago….which I just did last week. Lazy ass writer that I am.
[2] Anyone else remember the precursor (and competitor) to Oreos?
[3] My sisters making muffled barking sounds to approximate background animal shelter noise was a great help in pulling off this prank.
[4] To post on this BBQ you must be a subscriber or non-subscriber who operates a business on, lives on or has a second home on the Oregon North Coast.
[5] …when I’m at the coast. That time has been rare since my November foot surgery and now since MH and I cannot easily get to Manzanita unless we can arrange the complicated care for our elderly, kidney-disease stricken cat…
[6] Okay…there is some missing info here. How did you know it was gone, if you didn’t notice it was gone, and then it was back and so it wasn’t gone?
[8] Perhaps…but how many of them play pinball at the NCP place and in the manner described?
[9] (that would be an exercise in futility – in vain?)
[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
Department Of Not One Damn Popover Was Ever Baked In Our Home
Moiself has nothing against popovers. I didn’t really know what they were before I got married, then had little interest afterward when someone described them to me as dinner rolls on steroids. Perhaps I had a lingering case of PPA (Premarital Popover Aversion)…?
MH’s and my wedding anniversary was this past week. Somehow, this memory popped (sorry) [1] to mind:
Dateline: However many years ago; some place in Palo Alto, CA; wedding reception of MH and moiself. I have been roped into small talk with a large man, one of the many Perfectly Nice People Whom I’ve Never Met Before And Whom MH Knows Only Vaguely Because They Are Relatives/Friends Of His Parents ® .
This PNPWINMBAWMKOVBTAR/FOHPis an older man who decides to engage me in conversation (translation: I listen to him talk about) the wedding present he and his wife got us: a popover pan.
Popover pan, sans popovers
A popover pan. This is the first time I’ve heard of such a specific piece of baking equipment (the Parnells were not a popover-consuming family). “I said, ‘Let’s get them a popover pan,’ “ this man tells me, recreating the pivotal gift-giving conversation he had with his wife. He also tells me, with evident pride in overturning the stereotypical, who-buys-the-wedding gift assumptions, that *he himself* volunteered to purchase and wrap the pan! And that he was happy to do so! Because, “I always loved it when my wife made me popovers, and I hope that MH will have the same experience.”[2]
I thank him, drain my glass of champagne in two gulps, and say, (while beaming the most oblivious-to-sexist-expectations smile that I can muster) [3] “I’m looking forward to MH learning to bake us popovers!”
Another happy couple looks forward to consecrating their marriage with the popover experience.
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Department Of Not What We Were Looking For, But A Fun Surprise
Dateline: last week; MH and I searching closets, file cabinets, the attic, the We-never-would-have-moved-them-here drawers…. When we had the house interior painted many months back, MH cleared out the room where our treasured LPs and cassettes were kept. [4]. And now we can’t find them.
We’ve become friendly with several of the Rock Creek staff. There are two newer servers – a brother and sister, [5] both of whom are into (what they call) “retro” music. I asked the young woman, “Nellie,” for examples of what she considered retro she mentioned several singers/bands (which I recognized as the soundtrack from my retro youth). When Nellie said that she really liked Joan Jett, I said, “I’m going to impress you, then.”
I told Nellie about having seen JJ twice in concert – once when Jett was with The Runaways, [6] and once with her band Joan Jett and The Blackhearts. And as if that wasn’t impressive enough…
…many years ago my grooviest friend in the world, former WWDC 101 disc jockey EDK, met Ms. Jett when she was in DC for a concert. Jett visited the radio station, as bands often do when they’re on tour. While she was there EDK asked her to record some station promos, AND wish me a happy birthday, which he recorded and sent to me on tape.
Nellie’s eyes widened with delight; she begged me to bring in the tape and play it for her.
But here’s something MH did find, in a file of old tax returns. He took pictures of the letter I’d written to the IRS (after our first filing as a married couple), and sent the pictures to our offspring: “While searching for other archived items, I came across this. Thought you might enjoy reading some nonfiction writing by your mother.” Transcript (with address/personal details redacted) below.
I have only the barest memory of writing the letter, and of the bureaucratic injustice which spurred me to do so. But after reading it I told MH, “Yep; sounds like me.” What’s nice is that I got the unexpected: a personal response, from a government bureaucrat! And it was a good one (I’ll spare you thattranscript) …although, as MH noted, you can consider it ironic or fitting, given the subject, that the IRS’ response letter is signed with a woman’s name, signing for the (male) IRS Director of Returns.
You may want to sit down; lest you be overcome with excitement.
I am writing to you regarding an inaccuracy on my Federal Income Tax refund check.
My husband and I filed joint returns for ____ (year). I have attached a copy of our Federal Income Tax refund check, which, as you can see, is made payable to “____ ( MH’s first name and middle initial and surname) and “Roby _____ (MH’s surname). While my husband’s name is indeed ____ (MH’s first name and middle initial and surname), my last name is Parnell. I am not Robyn _____ (MH’s surname) (and I am most certainly not “Roby MH’s surname”); there is no Robyn ____ ( MH’s surname) that I am aware of who is married to my husband and who has my Social Security number.
Two areas of interest regarding this matter:
a space for Spouse’s Signature (“if joint return BOTH must sign”) is provided on the 1040 form, yet there is no space, at the beginning of the form, for spouse’s name to be printed, although there is a space for spouse’s SSN.
despite not having a space to record my name, my Social Security number was provided, as was my signature, which, while admittedly not renowned for its legibility, is obviously not of someone whose last name begins with the letter “W.” I kept my birthname at marriage, as did my husband. I have never been “Robyn ____ (MH’s surname”) – the name is not mine, nor does it appear on any of my legal or personal records, nor is it associated with ____ (my SSN).
Taking all of this in to account – and not for one moment daring to assume that a governmental agency would change my name without my knowledge, consent or request to perhaps follow a sexist, outdated assumption of what happens to the surname of a woman when she marries – I am at a loss to figure out how that name got on our check. Perhaps someone at the IRS can enlighten me?
(Don’t be too hard on yourselves – the state of California didn’t do any better. We also filed a joint state income tax return, with my name listed as filer and my husband’s SS# listed as “Spouse.” Our state refund check was made payable to two different versions of my name, neither of which even remotely resembled my husband’s name).
A friend of mine encountered a similar situation last year: her federal refund check was made payable to her and her husband, each listed as having her husband’s surname, which is not her surname, professionally, personally or otherwise. Both endorsed the check as it was written, per their banker’s instructions. A few weeks after depositing the check they received letters from the IRS inquiring as to who the second payee was who endorsed the check, as they have no records of any such person – the name they erroneously put on the check – having my friend’s Social Security number!
If this seems like small potatoes to you – “What’s a few letters changed here and there” – consider what would happen if I or any taxpayer had such a cavalier attitude toward listing and recording our expenses and deductions (“What’s a few numbers or decimal points changed or eliminated”)…we’d be in holy hot water (bureaucratically speaking, of course) quicker than you could say, “Subtract line 30 from line 23.”
IRS Commissioner Gibbs writes “…working together with you, I believe we jointly (my emphasis) can find ways to make taxes less taxing for all of us.” * By bringing this matter to your attention, I am trying to do my part.
Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely, your “valued customer,” *
Robyn Parnell
cc: – Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project
-Lawrence B. Gibbs, IRS Commissioner
* quotes taken from the From the Commissioner letter in the 1040 forms and instructions booklet.
“New rule: If churches don’t have to pay taxes, they also can’t call the fire department when they catch fire. Sorry reverend, that’s one of those services that goes along with paying in. I’ll use the fire department I pay for. You can pray for rain.” ( Bill Maher, “Real Time,” 2-17-2006 )
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May you have your own version of a popover experience; May you have a memorable communiqué with a bureaucrat; May you get the services you pay (not pray) for; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] I still remember his odd (to me) choice of words…but then, a popover ignoramus such as moiself might not know that having popovers is an experience.
[3] And that was my second of what would be many glasses of bubbly that night, so there was mustering to be done.
[7] Nor can we find a lot of others, and some really cool LPs…but, as my father used to say, “It’ll turn up.”
[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
Department Of Seriously, Chef? Sub-Department of Something Light (The Calm Before The Storm)
Dateline: late last week; perusing my latest copy of VegNews: The Best of Vegan issue. Moiself is happy to note the good travel news about Iceland, which the magazine selected for their category of Best Countries To Travel To for being the country with the highest percentage of restaurants that include vegan options on their menus. [1] Then I come upon the Best Restaurant awards, which has many, many categories. I’m looking for the local winners – Portland is renowned for its many plant-eater-friendly restaurants and cafes – and in the Best Mexican restaurant category I find…this listing.
Would you like a side of identity politics with your salsa?
This is too special, even for Portland.
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Department Of And Now, The Storm Department Of This Is How Easily It Can Happen Department Of What Do You Call Something That Almost Happened,
That Makes You Realize How Easily It Could Have Happened? Department Of Not All Men But Yeah…A Lot Of Men Department Of Not All Men, But Even Men Who Are “Nice Guys®” Department Of How Many Departments Will One Blog Department Get?
I’m not 100% sure what sparked my recollection of the story moiself will share here, but it’s likely related to certain news story that has been much in the headlines. I had been trying to do the seemingly impossible: avoid the news about CNN’s investigation of a “Rape Academy“ – a global network of online forums and chat groups where men advise, encourage and even teach other men how to drug, sexually assault and then film women and girls, including their own wives and girlfriends.
How I wish I were making this up. How I wish that the news of the existence of this global network of How To Become A Sexual Predator shocked moiself.
I snorted the third time I scrolled past a reference to the “Rape Academy” I saw on several friends’ FB posts, then heard a voice – which turned out to be my own – thinking loudly and derisively,
“Like this is anything new – no need for an ‘academy’
or any type of school, what with
the tried-and-true methods guys have been using for years….”
Then came another thought: thetried-and-truemethods…does that include what was tried on me which, fortunately, was not ultimately true? I will never know for sure. But I will also never forget. [2]
Dateline: last Saturday night. MH and I are getting dinner at a small café/bar in Manzanita. We’re enjoying a comfortable, slightly breezy night on the café’s outside porch, playing card games with the mini card deck I always carry in my purse, and talking about various subjects (to distract from the fact that the cards seemingly favor MH, and he is winning EVERY HAND).
The subject of dates comes up, and I share a story about four amusing dates I had, way back before I met MH, with a Stanford MBA student. Our fourth date was my first (and so far, only) time at a professional ice hockey game. It turned out to be our last date because of something that struck a sour note for me. Nothing “bad” happened, but I was irritated that Mr. MBA seemed at first mystified, then annoyed, at my asking him about the rules of the game. Ice hockey was a sport with which I was unfamiliar, and I wanted to watch it more perceptively: those different colored lines on the ice must mean something, and the ref keeps blowing his whistle for reasons I can’t discern; I played field hockey in high school, and perhaps there are some analogous rules….? His reply to all of my questions was some variant of, Nobody knows the rules of ice hockey, and nobody cares.
After he’d said that for the fourth time, I got the translation: Mr. MBA, you mean, *you* don’t know and/or don’t care about the rules. And that’s not a good look, blaming it on nobody. By date #4 I’d already figured out that we were a mismatch, what with him majoring in “MONEY” (his word and emphasis, not mine). Looking back, I felt fortunate, I told MH, in not having had many bad dates. “But there *was* one….”
It came to mind; I took a couple of yoga breaths and told MH about it.
In the mid-1980s I had a job at Vendtech, [3] a company whose core workforce was people around my age (early through late twenties), most of whom also socialized after work. One early night I was visiting friend and Vendtech coworker Ann, [4] whose apartment was directly across the street from a condo I rented with my friend Marie. [5] Ann and I were shooting the shit about whatever, when her phone rang. It was Ray, [6] a fellow Vendtecher. Ray had tickets to a concert at a local club and was calling to invite Ann to go with him. She amiably declined, briefly chatting with him before hanging up. When she told me why Ray had called we both laughed and I said, “Well then, I better hurry back home to answer the phone.”
Ray had a (well-known, among Vendtechers) crush on Ann. Ann, like most of our female Vendtech coworkers, considered Ray a Nice Guy®, and a friend. She had socialized with him in the small work group gatherings, and also one-on-one (e.g. a couple of movie dates), but had no romantic interest in him. I also got along with Ray, [7] and had been to the movies with him and to a couple of other outings which, when Ann and I had shared What-did-you-do-this-weekend?stories, always coincided with him having first asked Ann to see that particular movie, or whatever.
It never bothered me to be his second (or third, or…who knows?) choice. Ray was not a romantic choice of mine, nor I of him, I’d assumed, due to his frequently confiding in me re his interest in Ann (and also in another woman at Vendtech). Ray and I got along well, had overlapping taste in movies and music. Other than his always insisting on paying no matter what the outing (which I appreciated, as his salary was *way* higher than I mine), Ray was easy to be around.
Sure enough, it wasn’t five seconds after I entered my condo when the phone rang. It was Ray, asking if I’d like to go to the concert, which was this coming Friday night. The show started early (8 pm, early for a rock concert) and probably wouldn’t run that late, what with only one band on the bill. Sure, I said.
The concert venue was in a large hall set up to resemble nightclub, where the attendees were seated at small tables. The club had waiter/table service, and there was a snack bar at the back of the club.
Contextual info: I wasn’t much of a drinker. More than one Vendtecher had “accused” me (really; it was said in an accusatory tone of voice) of being a “teetotaler,” which I found bemusing and baffling. Apparently, this was because at work-related parties or events where alcohol beverages were offered, [8] over the course of the events (which often lasted four or more hours) I would have one or at most two drinks, while my hard-partying comrades downed five or six (or more).
Meanwhile, back at the club: as soon as we were seated a waiter came to our table. Ray ordered some chips for us and a pint of beer for himself, and asked me what’d I’d like to drink. I’d been to the club and knew that their vino selection was limited to three corky-tasting house wines, in shades of white, red, or pink. I didn’t drink beer and had limited experience with the so-called hard spirits. Gin and tonic was my go-to order, but I thought I’d try something different. I really liked the taste of tonic water with lime…hmm, what else to try? I ordered a vodka tonic.
The concert began; the band was good (and loud); the server returned to our table. Ray asked for a glass of water and another beer, but a half instead of a full pint. I declined Ray’s offer of another vodka tonic, and told our server that I’d like a glass of tonic water with lime only – no vodka – and a glass of water…I remember seeing Ray out of the corner of my eye making some kind of gesture to our server after I had ordered. This sequence repeated itself several times (however, I never got my glass of plain water, even though Ray got his), with Ray drinking smaller and smaller amounts of beer and me specifying plain tonic water and lime.
As the concert got to the obligatory, band-pretends-to-play-their-last-number-but-is-really-just-waiting-offstage-for-the-audience-to-call-them-back-for-an-encore, it hit me. Borrowing poetic license from Miley Cyrus, it came in like a wrecking ball. All-of-the-proverbial-sudden, I was blurry. The room was swirling; I told Ray I didn’t feel well and wanted to go home. He stood up, said he needed to use the bathroom, and that I should stay put and he’d be right back and take me right home.
I didn’t understand. How could I be…intoxicated, was it?…via one cocktail that I’d had almost two and a half hours ago? I looked at what was left of my fourth (or fifth…or sixth?) glass of tonic water, which was mostly ice cubes at that point. I sniffed it just as our server arrived, and I asked her ( I remember trying to *not* sound like an idiot, and forming my words carefully, as I felt my tongue was too big for my mouth ) What was this drink? Was there something else in my tonic water and lime? It was so loud in the hall — had she misunderstood me, or had she gotten my order mixed up with someone else’s?
She gave me an odd look, and told me that at our first drink refill, my “friend” had told her that I’d changed my mind, and wanted the full vodka tonic(s). Which is what she’d been bringing out to me.
I was too fuzzy to be angry…I was mostly confused. Huh? Why would he do that – why would he “override” my order?
I don’t remember walking to Ray’s car, or the drive to my place. I remember him helping me up the stairs of the condo I shared with Marie, who was not home yet (Marie managed a retail store, and worked a late closing shift on Fridays). He helped me to my bed, where I collapsed, face up…and then, he was kissing me.
I remember laughing at him – what was he doing? It’s not like we were… “What are you doing?” I giggled aloud. He pulled back and looked down at me; I remember my upper lip and chin feeling ragged, almost burned, as though instead of kissing me he had dragged a rasp over my skin (the Miami Vice stubble was a popular look for guys at that time, and Ray had a two-three days’ worth of beard growth.) “No,” he said softly, and stood up. He said he’d let himself out, and left my bedroom. I fell asleep (blacked out?), and didn’t hear the sound of the front door closing.
The next morning I awoke, fully clothed, shoes still on. Marie said she’d noticed that I’d forgotten to lock the front door when I’d come home. I said I didn’t remember that, and apologized. Ann came over later in the day, and asked me about the concert. I told her what I remembered of it; I was still confused about the mysterious (to me) drink situation. She wrinkled her nose and exclaimed, “That’s like…attempted rape!”
Ray and I never spoke with one another about what had happened. I ended up working for Vendtech for a few more months, [9] and continued to attend group activities with other Vendtech employees, which sometimes included Ray, but never went to another movie or one-on-one activity with him.
* * *
As I finished telling MH the story, it dawned upon me that I’d never really reckoned with what almost/could have happened: That someone I considered a friend – someone whom everyone knew as a good guy – had, essentially, poisoned me. This man didn’t (as far as I know) slip a mickey into my drink, but he might as well have. And this is how many women are raped.
MH listened quietly and thoughtfully to my story, and said, “I’m glad it didn’t happen,” when I was finished telling it. “Me, too,” I replied, and wondered why I hadn’t told him the story before. It had just faded into background history
I’d almost told K and Belle about it years ago, when they started going out with friends. MH and I had talked with both of our offspring about the existence of Rohypnol® and other so-called “date rape” drugs, and cautioned them to never accept a beverage at a party or any venue, from someone else, unless it was an unopened can of, say, soda, or unless you could be sure of what was in (or not in) the drink. I thought perhaps I should personalize that advice for Belle, about how this is not theoretical and it is not something that just happens “to *other* people…” But I didn’t.
I don’t know what stopped me. I don’t like thinking of moiself as a victim, of anything, in any situation – was that it? Was I protecting my daughter and my son, or me, or MH, from having the opportunity to have even a fleeting thought that I’d been naïve, or stupid, or….? I didn’t blame moiself, then or now, and it isn’t something that haunts my existence. [10] And again, it happened a long time ago in a galaxy far far away…which, unfortunately, when it comes to male predatory sexual behavior, resembles a lower tech version of the galaxy we’re still living in today.
I don’t know about y’all, but I’d like some sloth peekaboo therapy right now.
( Katha Pollitt is an American author, activist, poetic, social critic )
* * *
May you never get a free meal due to your ethnicity or gender expression; May you never have someone override your food or drink order; May you use your bare hands to rip the spleen out of anyone you see who
poisons the food or beverage of his “friend,” or anyone else; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Which bodes well for our upcoming trip there, this summer, to watch the eclipse…and eat good food (including non-vegan Icelandic cod).
[2] And by, I will never forget, I do not mean that I constantly remember what happened. I have lived my life for years, decades even, without thinking about it. I am not scarred; just aware.
[10] Or didn’t, until I had reason to think of it and told MH… then I realized I was going to have to write about it, because that is how I process things.
[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 only reason I’m not casting my vote for the 2026 Best Picture Oscar is because moiself is not a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences…either that, or the Academy misplaced my ballot. Not that it would matter, because I’d do a write-in; that is, I’d vote for a movie that didn’t win last year, because it was egregiously mistakenly not on the ballot: 2024’s TheLife of Chuck.
If you hold as truth, as I do, the idea that we all contain multitudes, [1] then all of the movies which existentially and ultimately mean more than diddly-squat [2] can be contained in The Life of Chuck.
* * *
Department Of Helpful Reminders
Tomorrow is Pi Day. Do you have your recipes ready? Seeing as how it’s AEDD [3] month, y’all can guess what my entrée will feature.
“I think she means us!”
* * *
Department Of Tomorrow Is Pi Day And Today…
…is a significant day for my circle of loved ones. Moiself wasn’t going to mention the significance until I made a…perceptive typo, if there is such a thing. [4]
Background info: every Friday I write and send two letters ( yep, “snail,” in the mail), one to each of my offspring. I begin each letter with either a haiku or limerick, rotating every week. This week is a haiku week. The two letters I sent today began by noting the birthday of someone dear to us, who was taken from us way, way, way too soon. [5]
A Haiku For SEH A wise life guide is
to “Love ’em while you got ’em.”
And she was so loved….
I can’t write about anything else today, which is SEH’s birthday. She would have turned 35 today. She’d have had finished her residency; I like to imagine her working…in one of her several specialties: family medicine; wilderness medicine; reproductive medicine? She loved the outdoors so much, and was concerned about this country’s eroding reproductive rights and access to medical care in underserved communities…. I like to think she might have stayed in Utah to provide women’s health care there, or in other more restrictive states. She shone bright in her brief but significant life, and her fabsence is keenly felt.
Yikes, did you see what I just did typed? I decided to let the typo stand; certainly her absence is keenly felt, but IMO she also had a keen fab sense.
“Sarah Elizabeth” English tea rose
* * *
Department Of I Guess I’ll Never Know The Answer
If I Never Ask The Question
Dateline: Sunday, ~1p.m., returning from lunch with MH. As MH steers our car into our driveway an oldiebegins playing on the car radio. I recognize Jimmy Soul’s bouncy 1962 hit, If You Want To Be Happy. The song begins with its chorus:
“If you want to be happy for the rest of your life/ Never make a pretty woman your wife/ So for my personal point of view: Get an ugly girl to marry you…“
The song goes on to extol the virtues of marrying an unattractive woman. The singer proclaims that, among other plusses, an ugly woman won’t ever leave you ( as per the stereotype, she’ll be grateful for any attention she receives, ’cause no one else would want her ). Oh, and she’ll be a great cook.
Har de har har!
The first time I heard that song ( Junior high? It was already an oldie) moiself was appalled. When I expressed my distaste for the lyrics, a guy friend accused me of being a Women’s Libber With No Sense Of Humor® ( “Oh c’mon, it’s an old song; a light-hearted joke of the times… “ ).
Skip to decades later, to the day when daughter Belle came home from high school in a grumpy mood. She told me about a boy who’d been sent home to get a change of clothing because he’d shown up to school wearing a t-shirt with a slogan on it that another boy objected to as being racist. What gave Belle the grumpies was that the previous week, when she and another girl had gone to the administration to complain about a couple of troglodytes male students who harassed female students and wore t-shirts with misogynistic slogans (e.g., with a drawing of a boy ordering a girl to “Shut up and make me a sandwich”[6] ), they were told by said administrative spineless lackies personnel that what those boys were doing wasn’t “illegal” and that there was nothing the school could ( read: would ) do about that.
I sadly confirmed to my daughter what experience was already teaching her. Yep, you are not imagining things: there’s a hierarchy of political and cultural concern with discriminatory isms and ists. Something deemed as racist is seen as worse than something deemed as sexist. It’s not (or shouldn’t be) a contest; still, isms/istsare often pitted against one another, as many a Black feminist has attested.
“As a black woman I’ve been told that…I’m supposed to be black first and stand in solidarity with black men. Focus on the impact of racism, specifically on racism that negatively impacts black men. Stop bringing up sexism so much.”[7]
If the student at Belle’s school had worn a short with a drawing of a white boy ordering a black boy to Shut Up And Go Pick Me Some Cotton, he’d be sent home/ordered to change his shirt and possibly even suspended. But wearing a shirt with a slogan meant to put a female in/remind her of “her place” – somehow, that was acceptable, or at least tolerable.
On the rare occasions when I hear that Jimmy Soul song – which still receives airplay on Oldies stations – I think of what moiself has long wanted to ask someone who whistles along to the up-tempo ditty: What if, instead of referencing a sexist stereotype of the early 60s, the If You Want To Be Happysong contained a 1962-ish, “light-hearted” reference to racism? Would the song have even gotten airplay, then or now? If it got airplay today, would its dodgy lyrics be excused as a relic of the times? Ala….
“If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, Never make a light-skinned woman your wife, So for my personal point of view, Get a colored girl to marry you…”
* * *
Department Of A Blast From The Past
Dateline: January 2025. A new year; a new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month). My thought at the time: Perhaps moiself will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature. 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?!?!?![8] friend gave me, all those years ago, [9] as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life. Thus, 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 March to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHATwas I thinking!?!? )
Here is an excerpt from my blog of 3-14-14 ( The Book I’m Not Stealing ) – two excerpts, actually, both of them book-related:
“The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.” ― Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book
A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away….
Okay, it was 1971. American anti-war activist Abbie Hoffman wrote and published Steal This Book. As intrigued as I was at the time – by the “counter culture” and social activism of the late 60-s–mid 70’s in general and by Hoffman’s cheeky chutzpah in particular – I declined to pilfer Hoffman’s prose. Stealing anything was not something I was inclined to do. I also did not buy his book because how in good conscience could I lawfully purchase a book that was, essentially if puckishly, advising me not to do so?
Thirty-three years later I find myself wondering: who, if anyone, bought that book?
Belle leaned against the doorway to my office, respectfully but insistently reminding me that I’d agreed to donate copies of two of my books (my short fiction collection This Here and Now and my juvenile novel, The Mighty Quinn) to her friend A’s senior project…and…uh… A needs those books, now. Up in the attic, searching for a box to put the books in, I remembered I had copies of another book of mine – “mine” in the sense that my writing was in it, even if my name wasn’t on the cover – to donate.
Feminist Parenting: Struggles, Triumphs and Comic Interludes (The Crossing Press, 1994) – has it really been twenty years since its publication? My contribution to the anthology was an essay [11] wherein I juxtaposed the naming of my soon-to-be firstborn, K, with how I chose names for my fictional characters. I was honored to have my contribution included along with a variety of essays, stories, and poems – selections from literary luminaries like Robin Morgan and Anna Quindlen, [12] and literary ordinaries like…well, like me.
The publisher-arranged publicity for the book consisted of readings by the anthology’s contributing writers, held at select locations throughout the country. There were enough contributors from the Pacific Northwest to do a reading in Oregon, which took place one stormy January evening in Eugene, at the erstwhile vanguard of independent feminist bookstores, Mother Kali’s. [13]
May Mother Kali recommend some light reading-perhaps a political satire or a wacky historical romance?
MH, sitting in the in audience with our son K on his lap, later noted that I was the only one of the speakers F-parenting in what (used to be) the normative child producing/rearing relationship: I was a woman married to a man with whom I was raising our child. There were four of the anthology’s contributors present: One lesbian mom, two divorced/single moms, and moiself -mom.
May you find a way to use diddly-squat in conversation today; May you know what it feels like to be the least normative in a crowd; May you remember to love ’em while you got ’em; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[6] The phrase has various attributed origins ( including a 1995 SNL skit ); whether it is aimed at feminists in particular or women in general, it plays off the sexist idea that it’s a woman’s place to be in the kitchen serving her husband or boyfriend.
[12] I particularly enjoyed Quindlen’s essay, “What About the Boys?”
[13] I know, I know. The bookstore was named in the 70’s, okay?
[14] “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
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
