“There’s a wonderful Japanese term, for which there isn’t a precise English translation. The term is Mono No Aware ( mo no no a- war -ey ) loosely means, a sensitivity to ephemera; the bittersweet feeling of seeing things change. Mono no awareis a wistful awareness of the transitory nature of existence. Since everything we see all around us will one day be gone, we must appreciate every millisecond. According to this idea, cherry blossoms are not only beautiful despite only blossoming for two weeks once a year, they are beautiful *because* they only blossom for two weeks once a year.
When you notice yourself fearing or resisting change, perhaps you can remember the concept of mono no aware, and find harmony with the impermanent nature of all things. As Jack Kornfield [1] said, ‘Like a sandcastle, all is temporary. Build it; tend it; enjoy it. And when the time comes, let it go.’ ” ( from Daily Calm morning meditation, 7-22-26 )
* * *
Department Of Apropos Of Nothing…
…or at least the nothing that now seems so important, or at least, memorable. Recently, both a book I was reading and a podcast I was listening to, on the subject of the history of the radical undergrounds [2] in the 1970s-1980s, mentioned an incident in Chicago where the boxer Muhammed Ali ( “the most recognizable man in the world” ) joined in on an action to disrupt the eviction of a poor Black family living in a Chicago tenement. I didn’t know about that incident; while I admired his acting on behalf of that family, hearing about it got me to thinking of the impressions I carried of Ali, and still do, to this day.
My parents were not very interested in boxing. Moiself actively opposed and was confused by its very existence: why were select men given money and medals for doing something that, if they did it in the streets instead of in a sporting arena, they’d be arrested ? [3] I refused to watch any boxing matches as a matter of principle, but when it came to the Ali-Frazier competitions I – like the entire country, it seemed – was well aware of the pre-matches hype and the post-matches analysis.
When it came to that classic rivalry – the three Frazier-Ali matches known as The Fight of The Century (1971) and the rematches Super Fight II (1974) and the Thrilla in Manila – my parents, like most Whites of that era (so it was assumed), supported Joe Frazier. Joe Frazier was shy, respectful, softspoken, and humble; those traits of his were ridiculed by Ali and his supporters as being more palatable to White people whom, they sneered, saw Frazier as a Good Negro®.
I admired Ali for how he stood up for himself and was willing to go to jail for his principles. I’d never heard of a Black man talking back to White people like Ali did. It wasn’t so much that Ali talked back, it was that he unapologetically stood up for himself. I lovedthat. And I hate hate hated the way Ali talked about, and to, Joe Frazier.
Joe Frazier supported Ali ( both publicly and financially ) after Ali refused induction into the US Army and was subsequently stripped of his title, banned from boxing, and threatened with jail. Frazier even lobbied the boxing powers that were ( and President Nixon! ) for Ali’s being able to return to the sport. Here is what Frazier got in return: Ali boasted about how “pretty” he himself was, and contrasted his own handsome visage [4] with the features of Frazier, called Frazier “ignorant” and “dumb” and “ugly,” and actually compared Frazier to a gorilla.
Those astoundingly racist epithets would’ve been called out as being just that if they had been uttered by a White person instead of being brashly spewed by the self-proclaimed [5] “Greatest.” You could try to excuse Ali’s taunting by saying it was part of the boxing culture’s pre-match hype; but Frazier didn’t, and never forgave Ali for the taunting and bullying he (and his family) endured from Ali supporters.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) was the celebrated agnostic orator of the 19th century, sparking what became known as The Golden Age Of Freethought. A Civil War officer, abolitionist, civil rights and women’s rights advocate, author, and skilled orater, Ingersoll’s lectures attracted thousands, and he was the person most responsible for the flowering of Freethought in the USA.
Although I knew *of* Ingersoll I did not encounter Ingersoll’s vow until after my own coming out as religion-free. Moiself got goosebumps, the first time I read this essay of his, to think of how the experiences of a someone of over 100 years ago so paralleled those of my own. It’s as if he was emptying my thoughts onto his pages.
The *news,* was not what Ingersoll realized he was convinced of ( e.g., the natural, not supernatural, origins of our world; the fact that religions are mythologies ) but rather of his ability – his*need,* his obligation, even – to express this openly.
When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths – there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free –
* free to think, to express my thoughts; * free to live to my own ideal; * free to live for myself and those I loved; * free to use all my faculties, all my senses; * free to spread imagination’s wings; * free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope; * free to judge and determine for myself; * free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books
that savages have produced,
and all the barbarous legends of the past; * free from popes and priests; * free from all the “called” and ‘set apart;’ * free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies; * free from the fear of eternal pain; * free from the winged monsters of the night; * free from devils, ghosts, and gods; for the first time, I was free.
There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought – no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings – no chains for my limbs – no lashes for my back – no fires for my flesh – no master’s frown or threat – no following another’s steps – no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.
And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain – for the freedom of labor and thought – to those who fell in the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains – to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs – to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn – to those by fire consumed – to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.”
* * *
May you remember, or soon discover, the first time you realized that you are free; May you know the wistful joy of appreciating ephemera; May you feel free to spread imagination’s wings; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Jack Kornfield is a Jewish-American writer and teacher of the Vipassana style of Theravada Buddhism. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, and has been teaching mindfulness meditation since 1974.
[2] The Weather Underground, The Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army.
[4] Which, as more than one White and Black pundit pointed out, was the result of having some European ancestry in his lineage – specifically, an Irish ancestor from County Clare.
[5] “To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.” “I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.” Muhammed Ali In His Own Words.
[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: 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
MH and moiself recently received this text from daughter Belle:
“Mom and Dad; you guys raised me to be such a safe driver that I am being urged to drive more dangerously by my friends.”
She then sent a copy of a message from a coworker…
…and added, to us:
“but don’t worry, you also raised me to not give in to peer pressure “
* * *
Department Of The Things We Rarely Do Via Venues Which Could End Up On Social Media
That would be tell the truth about knotty issues – truths that may not present ourselves and/or our loved ones in the best of light.
Sub-Department Of The Unflattering Memories I Did Not Write
On The Post Right Before And Then Right After My Late Mother’s Birthday… [1]
That was because it felt wrong to complain about her on or near that day…although my truth-telling was not so much complaining as it is realizing.
Department Of Self-Analysis
Dateline: a weekday some time ago; circa 7:30 am-ish; morning walk while listening to NSQ ( No Stupid Questions ) podcast. It was a repeat episode: How Can You Stop Comparing Yourself With Other People?[2] The main topic the hosts [3] were discussing was – wait for it – comparing yourself to other people. They of course mentioned social media, where it’s very easy to feel yourself dull and/or unfulfilled [4] when you look at the posts of other people, and see their pictures of them and their well-mannered, high-achieving children travelling to beautiful, exotic places …
These images came through my earbuds as I was about to take (and then post) a picture of the morning sunlight glistening off the top of the waves at Manzanita beach. I snickered at moiself, and resolved to do my part to fight this trend: Instead of posting a picture of this enviable costal sight I’ll return home, take a picture of the cat litter box, and post that instead. But before I could make a note to moiself to actually do that, the NSQ hosts distracted me with their comments on aspects of Social Comparisons Theory[5] (specifically upward and downward comparisons).
“Having more fun than you’ll ever have – I mean, wish you were here.”
“…the upward comparison is what people worry about with social media. You go on Instagram and it’s always sunset, and the wind is always blowing just so, and everyone looks amazing…. that is the dark side of upward social comparison. ‘…
schadenfreude, the idea of taking pleasure in somebody else’s misery, is kind of a form of downward social comparison. When we look down on other people and that, at least temporarily, boosts our self-esteem…”
The talk of upward/downward comparisons brought back a not-so-pleasant memory. Since I have included in this space ( in, e.g., The Summers I’m Not Forgetting, 6-28-19 ) an epic moment of my mother’s parenting (making me my favorite “fresh” apricot pie for my December birthday), equal time will now be given to an epic parenting failure of hers.
Backstory: From junior high through high school, the girls in my circle of friends were good-looking. As in, ranging from beautiful/cute to down-right-gorgeous, in both the face and “figure” departments. I didn’t befriend them for that reason; that was merely a fact, which was born out by another fact: they each had several of our guy schoolmates either lusting after or sincerely smitten with them. Moiself, I had conversations, and phone calls. Initiated by those guys. About my friends. With the phone calls, it would typically take the guy who called me many minutes (sometimes over an hour – no exaggeration) to get around to the real reason for his call.
The most memorable of those calls went on for two hours, during which time Guy Friend® AC and I discussed, among other pointless diversions topics, the possible interpretations of the rock group Chicago’s song, 25 or 6 to 4. [6] AC was the most prolific phone caller: from his first call, [7] to every single time he called, I found out I had to talk around the reason he’d called me. If I asked him to directly confirm why he’d called, it would take even longer to get to the point – I would finally get around to dragging out of him what he was really after. [8] Which was always something along the lines of: was (my friend) RR going to be at the JV basketball game after school tomorrow, and if not, could I figure out a way to get her to stay after school and watch the game with me, so AC could at least see her there and maybe even get up the courage to talk to her by coming up to the stands after the game to talk with me ( he had no qualms in doing that because, he said, I was “easier to talk to” )?
After that 2 hr marathon of a call I had a case of dry mouth and brain. I schlumped into our kitchen, shaking my head to (I thought) moiself as I reached into a cupboard for a water glass. My mother was at the sink doing something. [9] She noted the puzzled look on my face and asked me what was up. I told her about AC’s most recent phone call (she was aware of his series of calls), and my other conversations with male friends about my female friends whom they had crushes on/wanted to date. I told her that I found it all so…odd, and silly. I couldn’t understand the obsessions; certainly, my friends had positive – and in some cases, outstanding – qualities, which is why I was friends with them. These guys are missing so much! They’re intimidated by, for example, LM’s and RR’s beauty or MB’s body…if they’d just talk to them, they’d see how much more they have to offer than their…uh, pulchritudinous-ness….
I was just sharing (what I thought of as) the cluelessness of my male friends and acquaintances. My mother either misheard or misunderstood the situation, and jumped to the conclusion that instead of being bemused on behalf of my friends I was disappointed by the fact that moiself was not the object of the same kind of attention. In an oh-so-awkward, cringe-worthy, kinda-joking-but-kinda not manner, she began to give me advice I’d not asked for, which began with: Perhaps I needed to find myself a less attractive group of girlfriends?….
Oh yes, she did.
I didn’t let her finish all of her thoughts. I walked away, once again gobsmacked by how someone I’d lived with for all of my life could seemingly not know me at all. Was I adopted by aliens, or I was I the alien, whom my parents had adopted?
A tender motherly insight, shared with her daughter:
If you hang out with homely girls you’ll look more attractive by comparison.
Gotcha. Message received.
Gee, thanks Mom!
When contemplating the phone call scenarios, never-had-I-ever thought about my own appearance vis-à-vis that of my friends’ until *you* brought it up. But now, I certainly (and forever, gawdammit, ’cause that’s how memory works [10] ) will.
Decades ago, when I first heard (what was to be a series of comments from friends and family) someone mention my mother’s and moiself’s facial similarities, I blurted out, “Yep, I got my mother’s bones – she’s 65 now, and I’d like to give them back.” My mother and I were the two in our family (of six) who looked the most alike, in terms of general facial structure. When I look back on her boner-of-a-mother-daughter-moment, it is because of this physical similarity [11] that I can forgive her ham-handed comments. I interpreted them as a reflection of her insecurities about *her* own appearance.
All these years later I realize how significant her blundering “counsel” was to me at the time. Fortunately, all these years later it doesn’t sting with freshness of that moment, but now and then I still feel the wispy, wistful regrets, re the fact that she never really knew me…and it’s too late now. There can be no answers to the questions I would like to pose to her, given the chance.
Also, once and again/as she was wont to do, my mother had failed at Communications 101. That could have been an intimate, kitchen-sink-conversational-moment between the two of us. I was not asking for her guidance; why couldn’t she have just listened, instead of providing the totally unsolicited (and truly wretched, ego-deflating) advice that in order to make myself seem more attractive – which BTW was not my goal in life (which she would have known had she paid the least bit of attention to *who* I was, and what kind of person I was striving to be) – I should hang out with homely females, or at least ones even less attractive than moiself.
For that incident, and a few others which followed over the years, I am soooooograteful for not growing up in the world of social media. I mostly put that situation – and my mother’s unintentionally [12] yet nonetheless degrading comment – out of my mind. Although it later reared its ugly head several times. [13]
Particular head-rearing examples from the After College Years®: on more than one occasion a man with whom I had a passing acquaintance/lives-down-the-apartment-hallway/met at a mutual friend’s party/co-worker kind of relationship, asked me about a friend/acquaintance/coworker of mine (or in one case, my younger sister). As in, he found her attractive and wanted my advice re asking her out.
Not for the first time I was bemused by the request, and not for the first time, my answer was hardly earth-shatteringly original: I encouraged him to approach her directly. Strike up conversations in the hallway and/or at the mailboxes; pay attention to cues…DUDE, just ask her. And not for the first time, such basic, straightforward advice of mine was countered with, You just don’t get it, followed by his confession that he found talking to “girls” difficult, to the point of being intimidated. “But, we are, at this very moment, are talking,” I would point out. To which he and all the other he’s over the years, would respond with a version of:
“Yeah but, this is different. I don’t know what it is,
but I can’t talk to a girl I find attractive.
Sure, I can talk with *you,* no problem….”
Each time it happened, I decided not to further enlighten the clueless Date Fail Men – [14] all of whom, with their obliviously demeaning comments, reminded me of my mother, in ways I didn’t see at the time.
Another reminder came from the source itself, from a letter my mother sent me when I’d been married for less than two years. Not long after MH and I had visited my parents at their home in Santa Ana, I received a four-page letter (two pages of a yellow legal pad, written on both sides) from her, the gist of which is that she and my father had found my then-current hairstyle unattractive.
Really. Four pages.
Some of the page space was devoted to examples of people she knew (mostly her age) who’d found a flattering hairstyle in their twenties and stuck with it. [15] Was it a matter of money, she posited? If so, she offered that she and my dad would be happy to pay a competent stylist…. Also, after my and MH’s visit, she felt moved to get out her favorite picture of me, the one where I’m waving goodbye to her and my father after they’d helped me move into the UC Davis dorms the fall of my freshman year. How sad, she wrote, that I now looked “ten years older” than I did in that picture.
Holy epitome of obliviousness. I look ten years older? Uh, yeah, I’ll take that. Mom – I am, as of this writing, almost *fourteen years older* than I was when that picture was taken. Cutting/styling my hair in *any* way ain’t gonna change that.
(And that wasn’t the worst comment/jab. She also wrote that the way I was currently wearing/styling my hair wasn’t how I had it when MH first met me…and implied that if I looked then how I looked now, he wouldn’t have been attracted to/married me).
After I got over my initial WTF!?!?!? shock, I xeroxed her letter, circled and numbered the major points she made ( so that she could see – and not deny – what she’d written), and wiped the floor with her obtuseness addressed them all in a letter of my own, which I attached to the copy of her letter. I was brutally upfront: Your opinion about my hair is the forest you can’t see for all the straggly trees in your way. Imagine how I felt, getting a four-letter page from my parents essentially telling me how old and unattractive they find me.
I reread the letter one more time before I sent my response, and realized what was at the root of the hairstyle red herring. Of their four children, I was the one who lived farther away from my parents. Several times I’d discussed with my siblings how, when I saw our parents in person, I was very cognizant that they were getting older. [16] This can be jarring for an adult child to realize, but it is also the Natural Order of Things ®. What we don’t often think about is that it can happen the other way. When I’d made the trip to SoCal (which prompted the haircut-diatribe letter) it had been almost a year since I’d seen my parents. For whatever reasons, I looked older to them. Now, if a parent notices that their adult child is getting older, what does that say about *their* own aging?
Here is the gist of how I ended the response to my mother, followed by my signoff:
I get it, Mom, even though you obviously don’t. Since we share some bone structure/facial similarity, if you notice that I seem older to you, well then, what does that say about *you*? I hate the be the one to break it to you, but you are – surprise! – getting older. And you need to deal with whatever issues you have about that before dumping your own insecurities onto one of your children.
I love you because you’re my mother, but I don’t like you very much right now.
She telephoned me as soon as she received my letter. She apologized, said she was so embarrassed for having sent the letter; she asked me to throw it away, and she promised that she would throw away her copy.
I can’t remember how I phrased my bald-faced lie. [17] I agreed with her request, even though I had NO intention of throwing that letter away – Are you effin’ kidding me? This is exhibit A. No way was I giving her the nonexistence of the letter as a proof of her likely denial ( “I never said, would never say, such a thing” ! ), should the subject ever come up again.
“If the veil of self-condemnation, inherited shame, religious fear, and psychological self-rejection were finally pulled back, we might discover something terrifying to systems built on control: that human beings are not cosmic mistakes in need of metaphysical cover-up. We are expressions of existence itself, carrying immense depth, creativity, consciousness, relational capacity, beauty, and becoming within us.”
May your safe driving inspire (or intimidate) your friends; May you talk to people you’re crushing on directly, instead of going through mutual friends; May you share the hidden meaning (if you figure it out) behind Chicago’s 25 or 6 to 4; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Those blog posts would be either the last Friday of June or first Friday of July.
[3] Psychologist and author Angela Duckworth and economist and Author Stephen Dubner.
[4] The FOMO experience…which sometimes seems to be the primary purpose of social media.
[5] Nutshell presentation: Social comparison helps us evaluate ourselves by comparing our traits and abilities to others. The upside: – upward comparisons may push us to improve; downward comparisons make us feel better about ourselves. Either way, comparing ourselves can also lead to misleading judgments about our abilities.
[6] (aside from it’s amazing guitar solo, what was the song really about?)
[7] We were somewhat friendly and were in a couple of classes together. The first call came as a surprise, as he’d never asked for my phone number. He must have gotten it from that retro form of information dissemination, the phone book.
[8] I never hung up on him; the calls – thanks in great part to MY conversational skills –wandered into some really interesting and entertaining territories (e.g. music and art and politics)…. Or so I thought when I was seventeen.
[9] Not the dishes – that was my after-dinner chore.
[10] Many a psychological and/or neurological study has shown that “…insults linger longer than praise or compliments….” (“Spoken Insults Stir Up More Brain Activity Than Compliments And Linger For Longer, Too,” sciencealert, 9-4-22), and that humiliation is the strongest emotion we can feel (“Does This Brain Research Prove That Humiliation Is the Most Intense Human Emotion? Wired.com)
[11] Which I always found ironic, once it surfaced, as we were the two least alike (re interests, personalities, worldview) in the family.
[18] “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!
* * *
[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 Yet Another Reason Why I Love Norway
I have immensely enjoyed the times moiself has had the opportunity to travel to/around several European countries. Each of those times involved at least one embarrassment-by-association experience, wherein Some Otherwise Enlightened World Citizens ® that one finds in, say, a Rick Steves travel group feel compelled to bray about the high taxes of, for example, the Scandinavian social democracies. [1] This typically happens after visiting a country’s house of parliament or other such facilities: we visitors are chatting amongst ourselves, comparing and contrasting, say, Norway’s standard of living with that of the USA, and SOEWC will feel compelled to remind everyone how the people who live in those countries must pay “far too much taxes to *the government.*“
This triggers moiself and others to remind the braying ignoramous Ugly Americans SOEWC that, it’s the people of those countries, not some random/arbitrary “government,” who understand that the governmentis not some far away entity. It is them; it is *their* government. This is how they vote to collect and spend *their* money, on a system which runs on the premise (read: reality) that a higher standard of living for everyone benefits everyone. [2]
Why is it that so many folks in the USA seem to forget what they pay for later ( is it simply that, the timing? ) rather than up front? By nothaving a portion of their taxes fund a system of national health care they think they get to keep more money in their pockets; they have financial amnesia when it comes to what later flies out of those same pockets, sometimes seemingly at light speed, for medical insurance premiums and copays and care and medications and visits and “conditions not covered” and…and…and….
Fortunately, we have level-headed (if bemused by USA obliviousness on the subject) Norwegians to explain it to us.
* * *
Department Of History To Keep In Mind
Several years ago I found this old employee status board in an antique shop. It’s currently in my office, keeping track of the comings and goings of my imaginary coworkers. These coworkers are people, real or fictional, whom I admire in some way. When the Cesar Chavez sexual abuse scandal broke, I reminded Mark about that board – I asked him to go into my office and take a look at it, and notice whose name was #7 from the top. [3]
I always thought Dolores Huerta was the un- (as in, lesser) sung hero of the farmworker’s movement. Little did I suspect what Huerta endured – what she felt she had to endure and keep silent about – for a cause she put above her own mental and physical health.
Amid the rush to cancel the memorials to Chavez’s name (and in some cases, rename them for Huerta), moiself offers this suggestion: how’s about we stop naming public facilities – from roads to recreation centers to parks and preserves – after people? Our idols *always* turn out to have feet of clay (or in Chavez’s case, feet of…festering ICK).
As for the legion of progressives who feel let down/betrayed by and disgusted with Chavez, I am almost one of them. But, not really, as in, not fully. And if you are, I ask you to consider…why?
Progressive male leaders were/are still…male leaders. Male leaders’ sexism in the 1960s-70s anti-war and civil rights movements helped motivate what has become known as Second Wave feminism, and was an open secret among activists of the times.
“The only position for women in the movement is prone.”
Decades later [4] a few SNCC members pointed out that Carmichael was known to be supportive of women activists; thus, perhaps what he said was a “bad joke” taken “out of context.” No matter what Carmichael’s intentions might have been, [5] that statement is merely one example of “the entrenched misogyny of 1960s activist movements, which prompted the feminist critiques of the New Left that would later develop into the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1970s.” [6]
This embedded misogyny was arguably/most blatantly on view during the Counter-Inaugural Protest, [7] a series of speeches and marches organized by the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam. When antiwar activists and feminists Marilyn Webb and Shulamith Firestone tried to address the crowd about the realities of sexism outside of and within the anti-war movement, they were booed and sexually harassed by men in the crowd (including fellow/male activist leaders), some of whom hurled a memorable taunt revealing the true feelings of many male leaders re what place women activists should occupy in the movement:
“Take her off the stage and fuck her.”
How’s that for progressive leadership?
In the late 1970s I read an article [8] about (or by?) the feminist, “Lavendar Menace” and LGBTQ rights activist and author Rita Mae Brown, in which Brown discussed her involvement in the (then) nascent Gay Rights movement. When Brown spoke/wrote [9] about the threats and hassles she and other lesbian activists received from men, and what it was like was working alongside men in civil rights organizations, she used a phrase that has haunted me ever since. Moiself cannot now recall verbatim the first part of the phrase, but I’ll never forget the second. When asked to describe men’s reaction to lesbians’ participation in human rights activism, she said something about how the strait men tried to break our spirits (which was not unexpected), but that
“…the gay men broke our hearts.”
Gay women made the heartbreaking discovery that although gay men were their supposed allies in the struggle for civil rights, gay men were still, first and foremost, men. As in, they interrupted, talked down to, belittled or just plain ignored the women in the movement, took credit for their female peer’s ideas and activism, and expected the women to get their coffee, answer the organizations’ phones, and type the groups’ memos. One lesbian activist wrote that, when it came to dealing with men, women in the gay rights movement had even less power than women in the civil rights/anti-war movements, because in the former, “…since they (gay men) don’t have to pretend to be nice to us and respect us in order to fuck us, they don’t even pretend to.”
* * *
Department Of Among The Many Things I Don’t Know…
This department title might scare readers into thinking, Holy crap – this is gonna be the longest blog post ever. Not to worry. [10]
Dateline: Two Tuesdays ago; 8 a.m.-ish; morning walk. As I pass by one of the two banks in Manzanita I look through the bank building’s side wall of windows. Moiself sees two people, sitting at what I presume are their desks. One has her arms wrapped around a coffee mug; the other is slowly flipping through the pages of…a report or manual of some sort? I find moiself thinking thoughts I do not typically entertain; that is, thoughts about banks, and the people who work in them.
* Are they called bankers, or bank employees?
*And what exactly is a banker versus a bank employee?
* Is a bank teller a banker – what constitutes being a banker?
* What is there even for bankers to do, now that people can do so much of what they used to do in their bank at the ATM, and/or online?
*Are those two bank worker/people I saw sitting there, looking forward to a great day of Exciting Bank Work® …or are they just sitting there, resigned with casual dread to their lot: “Great, another eight hours where I have to justify my existence, look busy look busy look busy…”
“[On religious dogma] …It’s funny, I’ve always been told that peace comes through Christ. That leaving or letting go of my faith would lead only to guilt and sadness. But here I am, finding the truest joy I’ve ever known in all the places I was told not to look.” ( Author and audio book narrator Natalie Naudus,
quoting her own experience, in “Gay the Pray Away” )
* * *
May you never idolize leaders of any social movement; May you never have to look busy to justify your existence; May you find joy in all the places you were told not to look; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland. Ireland and Great Britain also came under fire for their respective nationalized health care.
[2] I appreciated, during MH’s and my RS tour of Ireland, the Canadian nurse who was able to enlighten the Some Otherwise Enlightened World Citizen who started dissing the Canadian system of (gasp) socialized medicine ( despite SOEWC never having any experiences with that system). Canadian nurse graciously but firmly corrected the blatant falsehoods and distortions SOEWC attempted to attribute to Canadian health care.
[3] They are listed alphabetically by their first names.
[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
AEDD. No, it’s not some type of learning disability…you could think of it as a culinary learning (or experimentation) opportunity.
It stands for Asparagus Every Damn Day ® . To honor both the impending arrival of Spring and my love for asparagus, I challenge moiself to cook and/or eat asparagus, in some form, every damn day of March. Last year I had some favorites creations; mostly, I defaulted to what’s-easy-but-I-still-love-it (e.g., oven roasted lemon garlic asparagus spears, creamy [1] asparagus and green pea soup….).
Gird your proverbial loins and let the wild rumpus begin.
* * *
Department Of My Favorite Blast From The Past
Were I asked by Someone to come up with an example of carefree bliss, I would show that Someone this picture.
Moiself, son K and daughter Belle (and Mt. Neahkahnie in the background), on Manzanita beach, circa…two decades ago. Picture taken by MH, existential protection provided by Mt. Neahkahnie.
Dateline: last Friday; driving to the Oregon coast, listening to one of my science podcasts. At the end of the podcast there is an advertisement from one of the podcast’s sponsors. The ad is for…some kind of service having to do with manicures. Repeated at least three times during the ad is the service’s enticement/slogan, something about how “…we all deserve to have perfect nails.”
And I find moiself thinking, do these people understand the target audience of this podcast? And how can the proverbial we all – or just moiself– deserveanything having to do with our fingernails? And is it deserveas in, how we all deserve basic human rights and to be treated with dignity (and not harassed about our less-than-perfect nails)? And what, exactly, constitutes perfect nails? And is there a committee, a governing board, which establishes and oversees such a standard of perfection?
And the sheer inanity of this ad is provoking way too many, And and and andquestions – which made me want to (should moiself be offered a free sample of the product) take whatever was being advertised and heave it off the rim of the Grand Canyon. [3]
Important Note To The Advertising Industry, whether large scale Commercial/Industrial And/Or Small Business Owners: Struck as I was by the astounding vacuousness of the ad’s tag line, I can’t tell you what service it was for. Which is the ultimate failure of an advertisement, the very purpose of which is to get you to want (or at least remember the name of) the product.
I’m assuming these were not the top choice of the Fingernail Perfection Police.
Relax; it’s a story about Porch Proselytizing®. There will not be pamphlets left on your front doorstep. [4]
The prompt for this story is…moiself saw an article online having to do with someone complaining about having to shoo Porch Preachers away from their front door.
The above is the sign I made and had laminated 10+ years ago, a larger version of which is on our front porch below our doorbell. The sign, in my estimate, keeps ~98% of solicitors away. Before I did the rewording I had another sign up, a cartoon illustrating how we do not want solicitors, but – surprise ! –there was always a Someone who thought it didn’t apply to him. When moiself answered the doorbell, realized who the stranger was on my porch/what he was up to, and pointed toward our no soliciting sign, that Someone would say, “Oh, I’m not *selling* anything. I have good news that’s free…”
Even before the signage, religious solicitors – Mormon “Elders” [5] in particular – left skid marks getting away from my porch, after I’d engaged them and they realized What Kind Of Uppity Woman They Were Dealing With ®.
What used to surprise moiself, about the solicitors I personally encountered as well as those I’d known over the years who’d engaged in such activities, was their seeming befuddlement re overwhelmingly receiving less-than-hospitable reactions from those whom they sought to evangelize. I had to wonder: from Jehovah’s Witnesses to Mormons to Evangelicals, in their witnessing training, was there not even a smidgen of attention paid to the basic human psychology behind someone not in *your* group being presented with *your* group’s message, with no request from themfor yourthoughts and/or opinions?
Was there no mention of the reality that it is highly likely that what you are indoctrinated trained to think of as informative/friendly/useful information, will be seen by others as presumptuous? And that’s because it *is* presumptuous. A friendly demeanor and/or beatific smile on your face does not dilute the ultimate cluelessness and arrogance of your mission: you are approaching a stranger, unsolicited by her, knowing nothing about her save for the (likely [6] ) fact that she does not share your spiritual worldview, which therefore in your worldview means her worldview is deficient…and you think you can (and even should) enlighten her!
I bet she can’t wait to hear the good news from white boys wearing even whiter shirts!
I remember seeing and hearing my mother deal with the Mormon “Elders” ( nine out of ten of the proselytizers we got were Mormon ) who would, every couple of months or so, ring the doorbell of our Santa Ana home. First off, no one who knew our family came to our front door (when I was a young child I didn’t even know if our front door “worked,” or if it was just for show). We all entered and left the house, along with our friends and neighbors, via our side door or backyard door. Thus, when there was a ring/knock at the front door we knew it was from a stranger; i.e., someone who didn’t know us. This Someone, experience taught us, most likely wanted to sell us something, and would ask to speak to “the adult of the house,” so I and my siblings would call for our mother to answer the front door. But I liked to lurk in the background, to…watch.
My mother would never confront the Porch Preachers, despite my advice that she should tell them the truth ( that you think they’re whack-doodles ) and not waste anymore of your or their time. But Mom came of age in the 1950s, meaning she was raised to be a Nice Woman®. She would listen to their opening spiel, then give her standard, gentle-but-firm, “No thank you; we have our own religion,” response, and wish them a nice day while she gently shut the door.
There was one exception (that I know of) to my mother’s unperturbable niceness with solicitors. This happened during a weekday, the summer before I entered eighth grade. A pair of Elders knocked on our front door. I heard the customary/brief exchange between my mother and the elders, then noticed it was going on longer than usual at the front porch. I was surprised to hear the rising pitch of a young male voice, followed by my mother sputtering, “Blasphemy!” before slamming the door.
After commending her display of backbone, I asked what they had said to her. Instead of simply accepting her brushoff, that pair of snot-nosed albinos [7] didn’t do what they should have done at that point – thank her for her time, apologize for disturbing her, and get the fuck off her property. [8] Instead, one of them challenged her. Yes, you may have your own religion, the cadaverously pale, just-past-post-adolescent pompous primnose [9] preached to a woman twice his age, but only *our* faith has the “true revealed truth“ (I can’t remember the verbatim exchange, but I remember that phrase, and how I’d guffawed at the redundancy).
“Yes, God is beyond our understanding…but let me tell you about him….”
* * *
Department Of And Now For Something (Not So) Completely Different
( excerpt a scene from the movie The Big Kahuna. Three industrial lubricant salesmen, Larry, Phil, and the evangelical Christian Bob, are at a convention in Wichita. In this incisive scene, Phil is speaking to Bob, emphases mine.)
“You preaching Jesus is no different than Larry, or anybody else, preaching lubricants. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling Jesus or Buddha, or civil rights, or how to make money in real estate with no money down. That doesn’t make you a human being. It makes you a marketing rep.
If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids, find out what his dreams are — just to find out — for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation, to steer it, it’s not a conversation anymore — it’s a pitch — and you’re not a human being. You’re a marketing rep.”
Or perhaps you prefer the wisdom of *this*Big Kahuna (on the far right) from the world of Gidget surfer-movies.
* * *
May we all have our own favorite example of bliss; May you never give a thought to the quality of anyone’s fingernails; May you enjoy all that damn asparagus; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Yet, without cream. Yep, it’s those dastardly plant-based cooking tricks….
[3] Please do not take this as any form of encouragement to litter in our beautiful national parks.
[4] At least, not metaphorically, from moiself. Who knows what happens in *your* neighborhood?
[5] I just love that title, once reserved for revered people of great age and wisdom in the community, now doled out by the LDS to pimply-faced boys who get the respected title simply by being a male age 18 and up, while a kick ass, grown-ass woman like moiself who is twice their age could never be an Elder in their world.
[6] It’s more than a likely fact, if you are a Mormon missionary. Mormon missionaries are given a list in the neighborhoods they canvas; they don’t waste time showing up at the houses of other Mormons. They know whether or you are not Mormon, because they are given that info by the local Mormon church. Unlike other brands of Christianity, if you are Mormon you do not go to whatever LDS church you like, you go to a certain church – “chapel” – that has a specific geographical area assigned as “their area.” If you live in that geographical area, you are supposed to go to services at that chapel, and your address is noted.
[7] You’ve never seen how white the white boys can be until Mormon missionaries come to your doorstep. I used to think they were selectively bred for their lack of melanin.
[8] I probably don’t need to explain that that was *my* 12-year-old-smartass’s interpretation of their responsibilities as uninvited solicitors, and not my mother’s thoughts.
[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
Department Of Now That The Winter Olympics Are Over I Can Get Back To
Considering Issues Of Profound Ethical And Existential Importance®
Host David Marchese: “What do you think we should *do* with the increasing awareness that more animals might be conscious than we previously thought? ….we *know* human beings are conscious and we exploit the hell out of other humans all the time.”
Guest Michael Pollan: “…there’s this whole conversation…that if A.I. is conscious, then we’re going to have to give it moral consideration. Well, really: have we given moral consideration to one another? Have we given moral consideration to the chickens and the cattle that we eat? The answer is no. It doesn’t automatically follow. So, we’re going to have to sort out the ethics.”
Michael Pollan: “Maybe it’s around the ability to suffer. Maybe that’s where you draw the line…but it’s not as easy as: Ital you’re conscious, therefore you have all these rights…. Who we grant personhood to is a very subjective human decision. We give it to corporations, oddly enough, which are not conscious, but there are all sorts of creatures we don’t give it to. I don’t think we’re entirely rational or consistent in our granting of moral consideration.” ( excerpt from journalist and professor Michael Pollan’s interview with David Marchese,
“Michael Pollan says humanity is about to undergo a revolutionary change,” 2-7-26, NY Times podcast The Interview )
So yeah, there’s that. Or….
I could search the incredible volume of available videos online and perhaps find an entire channel devoted to showing a continuous loop of All Races Won By Norwegian XC Skiing Æsir-god Johannes Høsflot Klæbo® .
You know what you need to do.
* * *
Department Of Five Words You Don’t Hear Me (Or Anyone) Saying Very Often…Or At All
“This Norwegian salad dressing rocks!”
Holy Hel [2] and Herring Heritage – it seems moiself is producing a (unintended) Norski theme blog. [3]
Dateline: last week. I finally got around to making this salad dressing, from the innovative mind of Norwegian chef Andreas Viestad. I’d been intending to do so for some time; now, I want this dressing on every lettuce-based salad I eat, for the rest of my life.
Viestad, who also hosts the PBS show New Scandinavian Cooking, pissed off impressed the European gastronomic world by when his cookbook on Norwegian food was selected the “Best Foreign Cookbook in the World” and also was awarded Special Prize Of The Jury at the 2008-2009 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.
Norwegian Salad Dressing (moiself’s adaptation of Andreas Viestad’s recipe; serves 2-3)
Viestad’s recipe uses juice from the lettuce offcuts to make a dressing with an intense lettuce flavor. Use your best lettuce for the salad, and the dressing (which will be an intriguing dark green color).
2 to 3 small heads of your favorite/most flavorful lettuce – one small head of radicchio or other bitter salad green [4] – 1 t Dijon mustard – neutral oil (I use avocado) – splash of lemon juice or any vinegar (optional) – ground black pepper; and a pinch of fresh or dried dill – sea salt to serve
(1) Rinse and tear the greens into bite-sized pieces; dry them in a salad spinner. Set aside the “cutoffs” (inner stems, core, and outer leaves) of the greens. (2) Juice cutoffs in a juicer; strain juice ( you want ~ ¼ c ). [5] (3) Add juice to a jar along an equal amount of oil as juice (or less, as moiselfprefers) the Dijon, the spices, and lemon juice/vinegar; shake well to combine. Mix dressing into the salad leaves, serve w/sea salt sprinkled atop greens.
Many people who eat salad don’t tend to care about (or even notice) the flavor of the lettuce – it’s all about the dressing. [6] Viestad came up with a dressing that uses the bits and pieces of the lettuce that we tend to throw away but where the lettuce flavor is concentrated – almost more lettuce-flavored than the lettuce itself – which is why the greens you use should be your favorites. Y’all foodies may be thinking, Why would you *trust* any salad recipe from a Norwegian? Growing lettuce in the high north might sound like a bad idea, but as one Norski “salad farmer” explained to Andreas, [7] the far northern farms of Norway have good soil, good water, good light, and the cold night temperatures help the salad greens to grow “strong, crispy, and tasty.”
The only reason our household now has a juicer is because moiself wanted to properly make this dressing [1] . I *love love love* this dressing; please try it out, and I must emphasize again that you should do so using the best, flavorful lettuce you can find. On that subject, I hope I don’t have to remind anyone that storebought [8] iceberg “lettuce” is anything other than nasty and flavorless. My favorite description of iceberg lettuce came from an anonymous post on a food-related bulletin board, from a former restaurant worker: “…with the experience I got being an employee I can tell you that iceberg lettuce tastes as poor as my life’s decisions….at the end of the day it’s just water with a cell structure.”
In moiself’s opinion, it was the preponderance of iceberg lettuce in the Titanic’s food storage holds that actually sank the ship (there was a miscommunication when the first mate radioed for help…and the rest is history).
* * *
Department Of Every Senior Person Should Be Taking This Class- Dang, That Means Me As Well…
Moiself is having a hard time identifying with that label, as, according to the various demographics (depending on which ones you consult), you enter senior territory at age 55, or not until 60, or 65, or 70, or 75…. I recently took a Zumba class labeled for that (“senior”) demographic. And now I’m thinking that every person, regardless of age, should also be doing so, if only to provide reason/excuse to get up and shake it instead of sitting on your ass all day commune with your fellow human beings.
I was trying to think of some activity something to stretch or even test my foot recovery. [9] At my most recent postop check (two weeks ago) I asked my doctor if a Zumba class might be good; I’d been searching for something other than what I do at home (neighborhood walking; elliptical and treadmill workouts; yoga; weights and core routines) to give my foot some new challenges. He asked if I’ve done any Zumba before my surgery. No; but I used to do a lot of Jane Fonda workout tapes back in 1990s.
I did the tapes, but not the spandex.
I told the doc that the classes were held at the local community/senior center, so it’s unlikely they’d include ski jump landing preps or ice-skating quadruple jumps or extreme…whatever. Thus, I told him, unless he said no, I was planning on checking out the Zumba class. After briefly examining my foot he gave me his thumbs up– “Feel free to resume normal activities but don’t push till it hurts/do anything stupid.”
So: moiself had my first class on Monday. [10] What can I say? I found it to be so delightful and stimulating that it’s probably banned in countries that frown on people of any age (read: females) moving in ways that distinguish them from infrastructure.
“Now, move to the music…can you even hear the music?”
And by moiself thinking that everyone should take the classes, I don’t mean only the specific brand of class called, Zumba – I’m referring to any exercise class incorporating movement/choreography/what might be called dancing.
Most of us have heard and/or read about how dancing is “good for us;” and most of us don’t have the time or inclination to take formal dance classes, often because we think that you must have a dance partner to do so. And the latter is not the case in a dance fitness class.
Research on multiple levels of study (involving brain health, psychological and social well-being ) suggests that dance-based workouts help protect against the cognitive decline that can happen as people age. From what I’ve read, learning dance/choreography workouts (I’m going to invent the acronym DCW [11] ) reduces stress by boosting your mood through the release of endorphins, providing an outlet for emotional expression, and, when it’s done in a class with other participants, [12] creates and strengthens social connections and a sense of belonging. DCW require focus as you listen to the beat, follow steps, and feel the rhythm – DCW require you to be mindful, as in, putting your mind in the present moment, or more colloquially, paying attention to what you are doing.
So, DCW aren’t just good for your mood – they’re also also great for your brain and your physical coordination. DW enhance cognitive functions, such as memory and spatial awareness and concentration…and yeah, all that’s fantastic, but it’s also just plain fun.
This move is not done in Zumba; still, I challenge you to be in a bad mood when you’re imitating a dog about to pee on a fire hydrant.
Oh yes, the class itself: the instructor (who was a sub for the usual class teacher) was excellent – both chill and enthusiastic. Also, it turns out she has a really great name (even though she spells it wrong [13] ). After the first two dance sections, in the five or so seconds of pause before the instructor queued up the next music, moiself inadvertently blurted out, “Oh, this isfun!” Apparently, in-class out-bursts are not the norm, as the teacher immediately assured the rest of the class, “She’s new.”[14]
( Emma Goldman was Russian-born, radical anarchist activist and lecturer who opposed capitalism and fascism and promoted equality for women, workers’ rights, and free education during the Progressive Era. )
* * *
May your lettuce (or your life) be more than just water with a cell structure; May you find make room for both Issues Of Profound Ethical And Existential Importance® *and* Norwegian sports videos; May your revolution (and exercise) always encourage dancing; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] In the Norse pantheon, Hel is the god (female – let’s do away with this “ess” notation, as if the male gender is the default and the female is the decorative afterthought) of death and the netherworld. Just in case you’re thinking of getting on her good side, Hel’s favorite offerings are tea, chocolate, dried meats, preserved flowers, mead, and raw honey.
[4] Soak radicchio or other bitter greens in ice water (helps tame the bitterness) for at least 15m while you prepare the rest of the recipe, or scroll online for cat videos .
[5] You could also use a heavy duty/high speed blender, like I did the first few times, but this takes some time and it doesn’t work as well, IMO.
[6] Except for MH, who, much to many people’s bewilderment, has always preferred his green salads sans dressing ( he thinks that dressings are or can be a cover for less-than-tasty-greens/other salad ingredients.
[14] Her explanation was probably not necessary, as, from what I could see, all I got was enthusiastic smiles, and no Debbie-Downer Stop Having Fun looks from the other participants.
[15] “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
One of my favorite dates is today. Happy Birthday, She-Who-Was-Not-Intimidated-By-The-Rope-Swing-On-The-Treehouse-Deck. [1]
* * *
Department Of Why I Will Be A Couch Potato (Luger?) For The Next Three Weeks
The Winter Olympics begin today.
Bring on the Norwegians!
* * *
Department Of Human Interaction Is Sometimes Disguised As
– or Enhanced By – a Non Sequitur
Dateline: Tuesday morning; circa 10 am; The Dollar Tree Store‘s Birthday greeting cards section. [2]Moiself is picking out birthday cards, a lot of ’em. To an uninformed observer it might seem that I am choosing them at random, dumping them in my handbasket…but this is not so. There is method to my madness. As I grab one card two envelopes come with it, and the extra envelope flutters to the floor. Only when I reach down to retrieve it do I realize that a woman is standing next to me, in front of the Valentine’s Day card section.
“Excuse me,” I say, as I lean over to pick up the miscreant envelope, which has landed just to the right of her right foot. “I didn’t mean to fling an empty envelope in your direction.”
She smiles, looks at my handbasket, and I expect her to remark on the number of cards in it (which will eventually total 30). Instead, she replies, “My daughter was unable to have children, so she adopted four dogs. I get them all cards for every holiday and special occasion.”
* * *
Department Of Few People Say It Better Than Greta Christina [3]
“Dear Republicans,
Apparently some of you are having second thoughts. Recent events have led you to question your commitment to Trumpism, and even move away from it. A line has been crossed for you, and you can no longer accept the direction the country is going in.
Am I glad about this? Yes. Do I want you to step away from Trump and the Republican Party, to rethink the path you’ve been on and walk it back? Yes….
But as you walk back this path, you need to realize that it’s not going to be covered with rose petals. A lot of people are extremely angry with you, and we have every right to be. You have done a great deal of harm. The Republican Party has done a great deal of harm — not just in the last month, it’s been doing great harm for a long time — and you’ve been part of that. When you’ve hurt people badly, you need to do more than just say “Oops” and expect to be forgiven. You need to work to fix the harm you’ve done. And the greater the harm, the more work you have to do….
We warned you this was coming. Even the Republican Party warned you this was coming: the Project 2025 document spelled out their plans in detail. You chose not to listen. Moving forward, you need to be willing to listen. You need to do the kind of listening that involves not talking. You need to not get defensive, not try to justify your actions. You need to stop saying, ‘I didn’t vote for this!’ You absolutely voted for this.”
( excerpts from author, activist, blogger Greta Christina’s Dear Republicans 1-28-26, my emphases )
* * *
Department Of The Hidden Power Of Doubt
“What do you do when you’re not sure?” ( from opening monologue,Doubt: A Parable, a play by John Patrick Shanley )
Last week the podcast Hidden Brain concluded their You 2.0 series [4] with, as per the podcast website’s intro, “…a look at the hidden power of doubt — not as weakness or indecision, but as a tool that helps us make better choices and navigate an uncertain world.”
The episode opens with the story of the little known letter General Eisenhower wrote on the eve of the allied invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord, aka, D-Day. There were so many factors at play – including the weather – and an allied victory was far from certain. Eisenhower drafted what he dreaded, should he have to announce that the mission had failed. When it became apparent that Operation Overlord was succeeding, Eisenhower crumpled the letter and tossed it in his office trash can. His military secretary retrieved the letter and kept it, allowing history to see what (IMO) was the true leadership of the man.
“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.” [5]
Time machine to the present: can you imagine the so-called leader we have today ( The Tantrum-Throwing-Toddler-in-Chief ) writing something like that – taking responsibility so succinctly and directly? #47 will go to his corpulent casket carping and whining and kicking, blaming others for the political, moral, financial and cultural devastation he leaves in his wake.
Yet again, I digress.
HB podcast host Shankar Vedantam and his guest go on to talk about the power of doubt, which is something we tend not to associate with the stereotype of leadership (confident; decisive; never wavering; unwilling to back down).
“We don’t think of strong leaders as hesitant, doubtful, or unsure of the right answers. Confidence and determination are admirable traits. But they also have drawbacks. Confidence can lead to overconfidence; decisiveness can make leaders less likely to be tolerant of dissent; determination can blind us to risks. At the University of Virginia’s Darden College of Business, [Bobby] Parmar studies the value of doubt. He says that by avoiding uncertainty, we miss out on opportunities for growth.” (excerpts, You 2.0: Trusting Your Doubt, Hidden Brain Staff / January 26, 2026 )
It’s a thought-provoking presentation of a compelling subject. Two thumbs up for podcast listeners.
* * *
Department Of Learning To Lie In Another Language
Ég skil íslensku.
Funny how one of the first phrases I learned in my Plimsleur language app, which I’ve been struggling through like a stuttering pig using daily since last Wednesday, is a total lie: I understand Icelandic.
Yeah, fluency is just around the corner.
Adding to the hoax is that five minutes after learning how to say, I do not understand Icelandic, I have forgotten how to say, I do not understand Icelandic.
Just about every Icelander speaks English ( Ninety-eight plus %! English is a compulsory subject in Icelandic schools ), but still, I want to be a gracious visitor when we go there this summer. I think this trying-to-learn-some-conversational-Icelandic is going to be one of those things where I have to repeat lesson one seven times before moving on.
About speaking Icelandic. Knowing that fact (that Icelanders speak English), then bothering to learn to say in Icelandic, Excuse me, do you speak English? while perhaps respectful in intent, could easily come off as, to an Icelander, Why is this doofus butchering my language when it is totally unnessary to do so? Obviously, if I’ve bothered to learn anything about the country (including from when MH and I were there three summers ago), I should know that any Icelander whom I address will speak far better English than I speak Icelandic.
I wish the language course would start off by teaching Icelandic cusswords. That would be more inspiring. Of course, there is the internet, where I discovered, farðu í rassgat, which you would hurl as an insult when you are in the kind of situation where you want to advise someone tocrawl up your own asshole. Perhaps I’ll save that one for the United States customs agents.
“May your urine burn, you cowardly goat,” will be my backup curse.
When I recently saw this spot-on summation of Christian theology I was reminded of an acquaintance who, when I came out decades ago as religion-free, resorted to the believers’ last tactic: when you can’t counter facts and logic and rationality, use fear ( of something only the religious believe in – hellfire/damnation [7] ). He was not amused when moiself, using the following synopsis to do so, laughingly confirmed that I was indeed rejecting his god’s plan for “salvation.”
“Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders? [9] Faith: not wanting to know what is true. The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad
has made the world ugly and bad.
God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.”
May you remember to fix the harm you’ve done when you realize you’ve done harm; May you, as much as possible, not find yourself in farðu í rassgatsituations; May you resolve not to find the world ugly and bad; …and may the hijinks ensue. [10]
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Belle can still give you the badass, stinkeye look, should the occasion call for it.
[3]GC is an author, blogger, speaker, LGBTQ and atheist activist.
[4] The podcast does an annual series, at the end of the old/beginning of the new year, exploring the latest in evidence-based understandings offered by behavioral scientists – understandings which may help people improve their lives via establishing good habits/getting rid of bad habits, overcoming emotional, romantic, career-related, and cognitive challenges, etc.
[7] It’s a knee slapper, when you think about it: they try to make *you* afraid of something that is in fact *their* greatest fear, something which you don’t thing about at all, like pissing off Santa claus.
[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
[9] This is serious stuff; no need for a footnote.
Dateline: Monday, late morning. I received a text from MH, in forming me that his Uncle JW had died “peacefully, I’m told” this morning, and that that was the only information he had so far. I didn’t know his uncle well; I received the news with no emotion, save for the flat affect of Another piece of family history to log…. And as I was doing so, I remembered my first encounter with JW.
Background: JW was the youngest of my FIL’s five siblings. [1] I met JW a couple of months after MH and I married. [2] This was at a time (late 1988) when gay rights issues were predominant in the national news – particularly in California – and fear of AIDS sparked a backlash against anti-discrimination legislation. JW, who knew that I was a native Californian and that MH and I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, steered any conversation he had with me toward “the gay thing.” He did this during every one of the (few) times he and I were in the same room, which were always at my FIL’s family get-togethers. [3]
That first encounter took place when MH and I flew out to Florida to join his parents, who hosted a mini-family reunion/ congrats to MH and Robyn! gathering at a condo complex in New Smyrna Beach. One afternoon, as one of MH’s cousins and I were out on the condo’s lanai chatting about our respective favorite beaches, JW, who’d apparently overheard us from inside, joined us on the porch. He asked me if I’d ever been at a beach and seen two men strolling by the seashore, holding hands. I said that I had. JW shook his head and made clucking noises, then said that he didn’t think he could “handle it.” “Handle what?” I asked him. “Oh, you know,” he said, shuddering with…ickdiscomfort. “I just couldn’t handle it.”
I knew what he was getting at, but feigned befuddlement. What was there to handle, I asked him, other than the sight of two people walking on a beach? JW said he realized that the theoretical, hand-holding gay couple technically weren’t harming “anyone else,” but that it would make him feel very uncomfortable to see that.
I reminded JW (perhaps, informedwould be the more correct way to state it, if moiself was enlightening JW as to something he hadn’t previously been aware of ) that in many countries around the world, especially those with conservative/religious/strict/oppressive cultural mandates, it is perfectly fine – and is in fact, the norm – for non-romantic, same-gendered friends to show physical affection in public, such as two men walking arm-in-arm or holding hands. However, in those same countries, a male-female romantic couple (even a couple engaged to be married) would not hold hands or be “physical” in public, lest a sexual liaison be implied.
Knowing this, I asked JW, why would you assume that any two same-gender people you see holding hands are gay? Perhaps they are expressing affection, as I had done fairly recently, with a female friend whom I hadn’t seen in years – and, yep, wouldn’t you know it, we were at the beach. As we strolled along the seashore, walking arm in arm, delighted to be in each other’s company, one of us joked about how someone’s bigoted uncle from the Midwest might be harumpfingto himself about ….those lesbos flaunting it in public.
My FIL later told me that his lil’ brother’s way of communicating was via teasing – that JW teased people he liked. I can’t remember my reaction; I probably responded with something mildly snarky. My lifetime of living in California had made me familiar with that form of teasing, in which someone, for some reason, can’t hold in their prejudice – they just gotta share it with you – but wants to be able to backtrack ( “What are you getting so excited about/can’t you take a joke? I was just teasing.” )
Moiself finds this next fact neither good nor bad – merely noteworthy: this story I’ve shared is the strongest memory I have of JW. Evidently it is also the most lasting impression, as it’s the first that came to mind when MH told me that JW had died.
At least we aren’t West Coast lesbians.
* * *
Department Of Memory File Search: What Was In That Letter Which Prompted My Response?
Last week while searching for my letter to my MIL, written in response to her critique of me keeping my surname after marriage ( the subject of my blog post two weeks ago The Name I’m Not Hyphenating, 1-16-26 ), I came upon a letter from moiself to my own mother (shared below). The letter from my mother which prompted my reply is somewhere up in my attic, but I decided it was more fun to suss out, from what I had written, what was the subject of her letter. Sure enough, it all came back to moiself– little-to-no sussing needed.
It was a kick to read something I’d forgotten about: my parents’ fond hope – obsession, almost – that one of their four children would want their truck-and-trailer rig after they could no longer use it.
I remember comparing notes with my siblings when our parents purchased what was to be their last RV-setup – a fifth wheeler towed by a pickup truck.
Ala this.
My comparing-notes suspicions were correct: all of us were, individually, being consulted by our parental units. Mom and Dad said they couldn’t decide which they preferred, a self-contained RV or a truck-trailer set up, and “for the future,” wanted to know what *we* preferred, so that it could be handed down to us. Poor, dear folks – they were surprised ( and definitely hurt ) that none of their offspring wanted…whatever setup they chose. We all respectively advised some version of, Thanks for thinking of us, but please pick whatever is best for *you,* as we don’t want any kind of RV.
I can read between the lines of the letter to my mother, and recall how bemusing and face-palming I found it when, in her letter to me, she’d tried to appeal to some stereotype of Men-Like-To-Drive-Trucks®, as perhaps a last ditch effort to get at least one of her daughters to consider taking the rig (our brother, my parents’ only son, was a strong no way from the get-go), if only to please her husband by offering him the ultimate manly symbol of manliness: the opportunity to drive a pickup truck.
Moiself’s unsolicited, non-RV advice to y’all: pick a time to go through some of your old family letters, whether in the attic or on your computer files. You’ll likely be surprised/touched/amused/confused by what you find.
April 13, 2009
Hi, Mom
Thanks for your letter and sharing your ideas about the truck and RV. You certainly put some thought into various options, which I appreciate. I got a chuckle out of the fact that, despite your claim that most men love driving and having a truck, we have [4] MH, R____, E___ and R__ – manly men, each in their own way – and not one truck drivin’ dude (as my daughter would say) among the four of them. It must be something in the water.
A few years back Dad brought up the subject with me. He said he’d made the offer of the truck & RV to all the Parnell kids (if anyone took him up on it the offer would include compensating the remaining three accordingly – he always strove to be fair, to, as he put it, “even things out,” which was so sweet of him). He told me everyone had said, “Thank you, but no,” and so he thought he’d eventually sell the setup and put whatever he could get out of it “into the estate.”
Anyway, you’re right about MH and I not wanting the rig. Although we enjoy kayaking and hiking, etc., we’re not interested in any kind of RV set up. We do have RVC hookup and parking space, but that is for temporary use only. Our CC & Rs prohibit us from storing any such vehicles on site. Even if we took you up on your generous offer to pay for off-site storage, the additional upkeep and insurance wouldn’t be worth it for something we’d use at most once a year (if that often). RVs can be great for retired folks, who have the flexibility to take longer trips or even just longer weekends, and who have time before the trip itself to do the necessary preparations and also time after the trip for the fix-up, put-back-in-storage chores (and such tasks take longer when the RV is stored off-site).
I’ve fond memories of our family trailer trips, and included in the memories are the fact that those trips were long. Our family enjoyed the benefits of Dad’s government job – he had something like 25 days of vacation (plus holidays) and often took them all at once in the summer, when we (I mean of course you and Dad) would prep the rig and then take off for weeks. MH and I simply don’t have that kind of vacation time. But we do appreciate the offer!
May you have fun reading between the lines of letters sent and received; May you remember to keep copies of letters sent and received; May you agree to disagree with – and challenge – your teasinguncle; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Only one of whom – the second youngest – survives now.
[2] Although they were invited, I don’t remember JW and his wife attending our wedding, which was across the country from where they lived.
[3] and which were mercifully [from moiself’s perspective] rare, as MH’s father’s extended family lived 2k+ miles away, in the Midwest and/or South and/or east coast.
[4] My husband, two BILs and brother’s names redacted. Not quite Epstein-file-redaction worthy, but still….
[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Perhaps not. But – with all apologies to novelist Thomas Wolfe, who perhaps didn’t realize this – you *can* go to your high school reunion, in your hometown.
Some of us may remember Wolfe’s admonition/advice, from discussing the themes of his novel Look Homeward, Angel in our high school or college literature classes:
The house, the town, the schools, even the people you remember from your youth and then left in your adulthood – they’ll never be the same, or make you feel the same, as you did when you were young. [1] They have all changed…as (of course), have you. Life moves forward; the only constant is change; the home you left behind can never be reclaimed…but it can constantly be remade in the present.
So yeah, well then. Dateline: Saturday October 4. My high school reunion.
Second semester Senior Class Officers: President AG, Secretary GR, and VEEP (yours truly) in the middle…apparently goosing AG (where is my other hand?).
Moiself’s pre-reunion fears: That I might be unable to stifle my kneejerk exclamation/observation upon entering the reunion venue ( “Holy déjà vu-ew – who are all these old/gray/fat/balding people – oh, that’s right, they are *us*!” )
Moiself’s Reality: “Who are all these happy, well-adjusted, warmhearted, engaging, kind, generous, witty people – oh, how lovely, they’re *us*!”
* * *
Department Of The Morning After The Reunion Reflections
This person is so warm, kind, funny, observant – why didn’t I know him/her better,
and/or hang around her/him more in high school?
Well, simply and most likely because it was a large high school (some 550+ in our senior class) and we were in different classes/activities/friend groups. Also, people change. Perhaps our respective personalities wouldn’t have been a good fit at the time, like the proverbial clashing combinations of oil and water, cats and dogs, pickled herring and crème fraîche…
Reunion activities included a tour of the high school campus Friday afternoon followed by dinner at a BBQ joint; the “official” reunion Saturday evening; an anyone-who’s still-in-town-and-would-like-to-do-so lunch meet-up at a downtown foodcourt mall on Sunday.
My flight arrived Friday eve, too late for the tour…which I’d no interest in, anyway. [2] I’d last checked out the campus seven years ago, when I went down to So Cal after my mother died. While it was nice to see that the school had some kind a sign up referencing one of its name-drop-worthy alums ( Diane Keaton…street? Sidewalk? Lamppost? Library book return drop? ), I only recognized one or two of the buildings, and felt no positive – or negative – connection. Which seemed logical, to moiself. After all, the school (to me) was the people, not the buildings. It just…wasn’t my school anymore. Such is The Nature of Things®.
I’d left much free time in my trip planning, by both design and circumstances ( I was going to meet up with family who, due to ongoing health issues, could not say when they were available until last minute). Thus it turned out that I had plenty o’ free time on Saturday before the reunion, and decided to check out some old hangouts: the Santa Ana Zoo, Norm’s restaurant, and Bowers Museum.
The Santa Ana Zoo – initially known as Prentice Park, was vastlydifferent than I’d remembered, which was a good thing, as the zoo’s animal enclosures from decades ago were PETA-protest worthy. Although much-improved (and, like most if not all zoological parks today, very conservation-focused), the SAZ is still not an AZA member. [3] Even so, I had a good time observing the wildlife. And the animals were interesting, as well.
I had a nice interaction with this ocelot, who seemed to like looking at my hat.
Three of my visit’s highlights included what surrounded me after I’d ordered lunch at the zoo’s café and ate it on a table by the children’s play area/sandpit:
* A tiny boy, picking up pinecones under the trees by an outdoor eating area, toddled over to my table and solemnly presented me with one of his treasures. His mother was both proud of and astonished by her son’s generosity: “Oh, this is a first!” she gushed. “He’s so shy, he *never* approaches or even makes eye contact with strangers!” I reassured her, “Yes, well, I have that effect on men.”
* I overheard (then watched) two different parents – each trying to remain The Reasonable One ® despite their respective, escalating irritation – discussing what had happened and what then should happen re an altercation between their children. Dad A wanted Mom B’s son to apologize to Dad A’s toddler daughter, whom Mom B’s toddler son had pushed over in the sand pit by the swings. Mom B’s boy wandered off after the encounter (with Dad B chasing after him); Dad A was not pleased with Mom & Dad Bs’ reluctance to get their toddler to apologize. “Oh, he’s very young,” was their excuse, which Dad A countered with, “This is how they learn…“, adding, “Good luck with that,”when Mom B indicated that no apology would be forthcoming ( “They’re just kids; you don’t have to be snippy about it…”[4] )
* A family of four – two young men and two older women – sitting two tables away from me, played a game of Unowhile they waited for their café food order. They conversed loud enough so that I didn’t have to eavesdrop to hear the some of the details. Moiself surmised that the two young men were, patiently and with good humor, “defending” their sister (yay!), who was somehow a concern for the two older women (who didn’t like the young woman’s…boyfriend? Job? General life direction?). Also of interest to moiself was how smoothly all four family members switched from Spanish to English and back again, sometimes two or three times within the same sentence. Not being bilingual moiself[5], I couldn’t help but wonder, what is the cause/trigger for them to switch?
And what a surprise the Bowers Museum turned out to be. One of the city’s few “cultural” attractions, I remembered Bowers as the bane of Santa Ana schoolchildren, who had to do the obligatory (read: eyeball-evisceratingly boring) field trip to Bowers at least once in their elementary school career. [6] While Bower’s original (and beautiful) Spanish mission-style main building was still there, the museum had expanded. I remembered a few of the old/permanent exhibits, but there were many more, including the featured World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century, an impressive traveling exhibit I’d actually read about [7] before making the trip to SoCal.
Alas, I never made it to Norm’s (I got hungry and lunched at the zoo before heading to Bowers) I’d intended to send photographic proof of my being there to my older sister and her high school bestie, for whom Norm’s was a personal/in-joke, involving the less-than-stellar meals (with regard to the food’s taste and quality ) we’d had at that SoCal institution. The restaurant’s motto was, “Norm’s – We Never Close”( which I appended with, “No Matter What The Health Department says!” ).
“Okay, so the food is meh, but you can get it 24/7!”
All of these (and more) trips involved moiself taking Uber or Lyft , as I’d decided to forgo the hassle of car rental (and navigation of SoCal freeways). And that was entertainment in its own right. Really and truly, as I told several friends and family members, for my next trip I might be satisfied just booking different Uber or Lyft rides all day, to…wherever. Moiself so enjoyed the conversations I had with the drivers, all of whom were from a variety of different backgrounds and life experiences and who were friendly and eager to share their stories with me and hear mine in return, and who included:
* Jose and Raymundo, both of whom are getting married next week! [8]
* John, who’s off to Colorado to visit his daughter, who is expecting baby#1 next month!
* Zheng, who lives at the beach even though he can’t afford to, but it’s the beach!
* Michael, who is retired ( “big mistake”) and misses having something to do!
* Abdul, who’s only getting $4 for this fare (so he says) and wants me to know! [9]
Not one of my Uber drivers (but just as friendly).
* * *
Department Of Priorities
Dateline: Sunday, 8:15 am, the 61 Hundred Bread bakery in Santa Ana. I arrive early as advised and snagged a couple of loaves of their blue masa sourdough ( “Best sourdough in the universe” ), one to take to my older sister and her husband when I visit them later this afternoon, and one to take back with on the plane, for MH, when I return to Oregon.
Later in the morning, as I’m doing some prepacking for tomorrow’s flight, I realize I don’t have enough room in my carryon luggage to add the bread, unless I make some sacrifices. And so, the sparkly black *bling* sneakers I wore to the reunion will stay behind in the hotel room. [10]
* * *
The reunion committee, as wonderful as they were for all the details they had to plan and juggle, got my name wrong on the preprinted name tag they provided for attendees. They had me as “Robyn Parnell Wagnell,” which was one surname too many. The latter surname belongs to MH’s and my offspring (and is part of my email address; thus, the nametag mixup, I’m assuming). Not to worry; due to the facts that…
(a) this has happened before with nametags; and
(b) I don’t like premade nametags,
…I’d brought along my own, custom name badge.
There is a story behind why I decided to have my own name tag made.
Story Dateline: many, many years ago; attending an event wherein people were provided with sharpie pens and those HELLO MY NAME IS stickers. I am gob smacked by the number of people (and by people I mean, men) who have written their professional credentials after their name, and who are introducing themselves to me ala:
Introduction: “Hello, I’m Dr. Austin Tayshus.” ( Name tag reads: Austin Tayshus, Ph.D. or M.D. )
This event is neither a medical nor scientific conference, nor a professional gathering of any sort; it’s purely social. After the fifth or sixth time I encounter what moiself considers to be this boorish, status-signalling behavior, [11] I return to the party check-in table, grab a sharpie, and append my nametag to read, Robyn Parnell, N.a.D.
Which I have to explain to the next please-be-impressed-by-me Doc who introduces himself, then pretends, for a moment, that he recognizes my credential.
Pretensious Party Person: “Hello, I’m Dr. Igor Maniac. And I see you are……uh…’Na.D.” Yes, oh…Naturo…Allopathic….?
Moiself: “Robyn Parnell; Not A Doctor.”
Just want to make sure there’s no confusion about that.
Harold: “You sure have a way with people.” Maude: “Well, they’re my species.”
* * *
May you have entertaining encounters with ride service drivers; May you make any sacrifice necessary to include the sourdough; May you not need to have the Harold and Maude reference explained to you ; [13]
[2] And as for the bbq joint meetup, by the time I’d Ubered to my hotel and checked in, I could have shown up later, but I checked out its menu on line. Yikes. Nothing a plant-eater such as moiself would be interested in eating. Or even smelling.
[3] I wonder if that’s due to it’s size, or quality of animal exhibits/care, or….?
[4] Oh, the joy of watching that interaction and thinking about how I don’t have to navigate that world anymore.
[5] Being able to curse, insult, and critique the bathroom supplies in several languages doesn’t count as language fluency…I think.
[6] Or whenever we had the city and/or county history/social studies blocks.
[7] But didn’t know it would be at the Bowers Museum.
[11] It’s okay to be proud of your profession, and/or the education you received to get it, but other people also work hard and take pride in their professions sans trumpet-blaring – I couldn’t think of a reason why a person would do that at a social gathering, other than they wanted to accrue some kind of special treatment/elevated status points for being “a doctor” of…whatever.
[12] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[13] And if you do, may the first thing you do after reading this is find some way to see that movie.
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.
