Oddly Satisfying Conversation
We had a lovely weekend, a confirmation of a much-loved young friend, and gathering afterwards in her home with other close friends.
On our way home, AdventureMan was laughing so hard he almost couldn’t drive. He had asked me about the serious conversation I had been having with the host.
“We were talking about loading the dishwasher,” I told him, not thinking to incite this hilarity.
When you run into someone who shares your interests, it can lead to a great conversation. I love doing dishes. I find it meditative. I like gathering them and rinsing them and stacking them. The host agreed with me that my loading his dishwasher would not be a good thing.
People who LIKE loading dishwashers have their own ideas about how it needs to be done, it’s like we have inner patterns that must be met. I want to load my dishwasher because I unload the dishwasher, and if I load it, I have all the things together that need to be unloaded together. I like to unload and put away because I like to know where things are in my kitchen. If I put them away, it is always in the same place.
I think it’s OK to be a little bit obsessive about a few things!
A friend once laughed because all my spices were in alphabedical order. Now, I’ve changed the pattern; I do this now and then when new ways of achieving efficiency come to mind. Now I have herbs and savories together and baking spices together, and it makes sense to me, but to someone else it might not.
But I’ve discovered it is like a secret club, this need to have order. Some people are not wired this way, but those of us who are can discuss pros and cons of different patterns endlessly and enthusiastically.
And AdventureMan just laughs.
A Small Disaster
“Aaaahhhk! Aaaaaahhhhkkk! AAAAAHHHHHHKKKK! HELP! HELP!”
Our quiet, peaceful Saturday morning suddenly goes emergency mode as AdventureMan aaaacckkks in the kitchen.
“What??? What?!!” I ask, because he can’t articulate in his distress.
“We have water running all over the kitchen!” he gasps.
Alaska girl that I am, I have a stash of thirsty old towels nearby, and as I go to get the spare towels tub down, I ask “Where is it coming from?”
He checks under the sink and finds this:
There is a gap in the drain pipe to our right side sink. AdventureMan is in the process of making his famous beans, and when he ran the water, it started gusing out the gap. He tried to twist the connector-thingy but it did not grab.
“I’ll mop up, you call the emergency plumber,” I said, already at work gathering up the stuff stored under the sink, cleaning up the mess and dragging out things that needed to be further cleaned. It isn’t a bad leak, but it’s a leak that prevents us from running water into that sink. On the other hand, it gives me an opportunity to give the area a good cleaning up; you know how it gets under the sinks. As I am cleaning, I admire the solid pinewood cabinets in this mid-century house, built in 1974. I had the plain pine re-faced with birch when we bought the house, years ago, but I won’t replace solid wood cabinets.
Our normal plumber is a family owned business, with the luxury of taking the weekends off. Fortunately for us, there are emergency plumbers, and we are on the list for one to come today. Meanwhile AdventureMan has found a fan to dry out moisture remaining under the sink, and is continuing on with his baked bean magic.
LOL, as I look at this photo, I can see the near-empty tub for the towels on the dining room table, and the bottles from under the sink. And I see that the ham and the bacon are already frying to be added before the beans bake.
April has been a month for home-keeping. The handyman put in a set of discreetly hidden laundry lines outside, far from prying eyes, and I have already used them for sheets, and now they are ready for a load of towels to wash and dry for future emergencies. Our electricians put in lights and switches, small luxuries, but small luxuries can make such a lovely difference. I am personally thankful that the pipe broke while AdventureMan was using it, and that we tackled it as a team, so that the end result was only 15 minutes of chaos and disruption, rather than a whole morning. And oh, the wonderful aroma of beans baking slowly for hours, as AdventureMan makes his magic.
We are invited for a special celebration tomorrow, and when I asked “can I bring AdventureMan?” she immediately responded “Oh Yes! Can he bring biscuits?” Who knew that after a career as a top dog, he would become famous late in life for his fabulous cooking skills? Life is full of mysteries!
My Problem With ICE
I have a long history with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I’ve been in and out of the USA since I was a little girl. We have filled out countless forms for passports, and many times more those forms telling what we are bringing back into the country. The only time I ever had a problem with ICE was on returning from one of our African trips when I was bringing in wildebeest jerky from South Africa. I laugh now, it was me and a lot of African nationals shunted off. They were opening suitcases full of vegetables they were bringing back for family, and I was told my package of jerky was illegal in the United States. AdventureMan was annoyed with me, and I was ashamed I didn’t know. But they let me off with a mild scolding about infecting disease free animal life in the USA. I’ve never forgotten.
I’ve never minded the tiresome lines for immigration, always manned by sturdy, polite young people wanting to know where we’ve been and how did we like our trip; they were doing their job and they had been trained how to deal with people. In all my times going through those lines, I never saw any kind of incident.
They had a mission.
With the new administration, that mission changed, enlarged. They were given different, even SECRET orders, orders that encouraged them to commit the sorts of acts we saw in Minnesota. It always looked to me like those acts, committed on US Citizens, committed on resident citizens, smacked of incitement to violence. Why else would these customs and immigration officers be asked to violate the US Constitution in pursuing their mission?
I applaud those stoic and humor-filled Minnesotans who protested with restraint, who did not invite violent responses. Even if the Department of Justice will not cooperate in the investigations you are conducting into the murders of Minneapolis citizens, you are gathering witness from street cameras and witnesses against the illegal actions, and the lies and accusations, unjust, of the ICE officials and the Department of Justice. I applaud the restraint that forestalled any illusion of reason for a “national emergency” and activation of a military presence. The militaristic costumes of the immigration and customs officials did not fool nor intimadate you. Your patient, evidence based investigations will be embarrassment enough to those who thought to prevail by intimidation and brutality.
So we have to look at why the ICE men and women sent by our leader to Democratic states felt so empowered to misbehave?
Many ICE hirees have law enforcement backgrounds. Many of them have served in the armed forces. They know the basics. They know the law. They must have had second thoughts, many of them, while conducting these unrestrained acts of violence characterized as arrests of “rapists, thieves and the mentally ill,” as they arrested family men, women – and children, with no criminal records.
As well as knowing the law, and the legal use of power, those who are Christian would know Christ’s admonition to love our neighbor as ourself. Those who are Jewish would know the Old Testament verses about welcoming the stranger. Those who were raised without religion might be familiar with Spiderman, who teaches us that with great power comes great responsibility.
These $50K hires are as expendable as Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem. Once they have served their purpose, they can be scapegoated for excessive zeal in pursuit of the mission, or charged with murder while their superiors, who put the secret policies into effect, escape blame and punishment.
Again, I applaud the Minnesotans, who with restraint, humor, and humanity, protected the weakest, the families and children, while EFFECTIVELY resisting the provocation they faced. Well done, Minnesota!
And lets take a minute to grieve the effects of the violence upon those who inflicted it, mere pawns in a greater game of thrones.
Welcome Easter in Pensacola!
If you live in Pensacola, you feel truly blessed when it rains as early gardens are planted, and dry weather means a drought in Florida. We have had beautiful sunny weather, good for planting seeds and sprouting them, and we need the rain to ensure their survival and vigorous growth. Thanks be to God for a glorious rain.
We had a strong crowd for the early service this morning; the flowers were stunning. I totally missed that the alter flowers were a metaphor for sunrise until our priest pointed it out.
This was the quiet service, the sanity service. Our family will be serving at the next service, the children’s service, after which there will be an Easter Egg hunt. There will be a brass band and celebratory trumpets at the two later services, making a joyful noise indeed! We will all meet up for brunch later. A festive and joyful day, The Lord is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!
Oscar Romero, Patron Saint of The Americas and El Salvador
My friends, when you hear that the immigrants seeking a new life in our country are rapists, thieves, the mentally ill and very bad people, please think of Oscar Romero, and all those who have fought the evil forces of thuggery and dictatorship to find a life of freedom for themselves, and for their families, especially, hope for their children.
I urge you to read a much criticized book, American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins. Here is what Wikipedia says. My experience was that the struggles exposed in American Dirt are very typical of people seeking to escape the violence of their societies.
American Dirt is a 2020 novel by American author Jeanine Cummins, published by Flatiron Books. The book is about a Mexican bookseller who is forced to flee as an undocumented immigrant to the United States, along with her son, after her journalist husband exposes a local drug kingpin.
ÓSCAR ROMERO
ARCHBISHOP OF SAN SALVADOR, AND THE MARTYRS OF EL SALVADOR
(24 March 1980)
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (August 15, 1917 – March 24, 1980), commonly known as Monseñor Romero, was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador. He later became prelate archbishop of San Salvador.
As an archbishop, he witnessed numerous violations of human rights and began a ministry speaking out on behalf of the poor and victims of the country’s civil war. His brand of political activism was denounced by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and the government of El Salvador. In 1980, he was assassinated by gunshot while consecrating the Eucharist during mass. His death finally provoked international outcry for human rights reform in El Salvador.
In 1997, a cause for beatification and canonization into sainthood was opened for Romero and Pope John Paul II bestowed upon him the title of Servant of God. Pope Francis canonized Romero as a saint on 14 October 2018. He is considered the unofficial patron saint of the Americas and El Salvador and is often referred to as “San Romero” in El Salvador. Outside of Catholicism Romero is honored by other religious denominations of Christendom, like the Church of England through its Common Worship. He is one of the ten 20th-century martyrs from across the world who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey, London.
from Wikipedia
Also commemorated on this day are three Maryknoll nuns and a woman lay missionary killed by a Salvadoran army death squad on 2 Dec, 1980, and additionally six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter, who were also murdered by the Salvadoran army on 16 Nov. 1989.
Rabbit Holes: Paul Samuelson, John Steinbeck and Anu Garg
It’s a rainy day in Pensacola, and Florida needs rain. The reservoirs are depleted, and a drought has been declared. As I go through my e-mail, I come to Anu Garg’s A Word a Day post. (Today’s word is “incubus”). I subscribed to his daily e-mail many years ago as I studied teaching English as an additional language.
Anu Garg is profound. He chooses wonderful words, words my foreign students adored. He also includes a quote at the end of each post. Today’s quote was from John Steinbeck.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. -John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (27 Feb 1902-1968)
And it just so happens that this coming month, my book club is looking at three Steinbeck novels; Tortilla Flats, Cannery Row, and The Moon is Down.
One thing leads to another. Tortilla Flats takes place on a hill above Monterey, California, where paisanos live.
Of all the places I’ve lived, I have never loved a place the way I love Monterey, California. We lived on a hill above Monterey, above the old Del Monte Hotel, now the Naval Postgraduate School. The location sounds very suspiciously a lot like Tortilla Flats. The book bring back so many wonderful memories, particularly lying in bed at night and hearing the sounds of the sea lions barking down on the rocks, the gulls screeching, and the fog horn warning – we had a lot of fog.
And I remember Paul Samuelson, the author of the Economics textbook I used for an introductory economics class I took my freshman year in college. I never intended to like economics, but I found Samuelson readable – and even riveting. I remember one quote from his text: “Man does not always starve quietly” which had to do with his theories on economic development. Within that chapter, he also explains comparative economic deprivation.
This was a long time ago, so I am paraphrasing what I remember, and I might be getting it wrong. Samuelson talked about how once the most basic needs are met in a developing country, food, housing, clothing, jobs – you’d think everybody would be happy, but once people can stop scrabbling to survive, once they are stable, they start looking around and see someone who has more – and this is relative deprivation. The see someone with something they didn’t know they needed, and now they need this, too, to be happy.
So how does this relate to Steinbeck, and La Mesa Village, and Paul Samuelson?
My husband and I and our brand new little baby were leaving one military school and headed for schools in Monterey when he got a call from military housing in Monterey. It was such a nice, positive call when it started out, telling my husband about the lovely house we were to have with three bedrooms and a fireplace in La Mesa Village, and went on to give information about measurements and furniture and we were joyfully amazed. Our military housing had never been so fine, nor had any housing office called us and treated us so respectfully.
And suddenly everything changed. “Oh wait,” she said. “You’re not Navy?”
“No,” replied my husband, “I’m in the Army.”
“You’re not a Navy Captain?” she confirmed.
(silence as we looked in horror at one another)
“No,” my husband said shortly, the way you respond when a short-lived dream-come-true has just died.
“Oh. Well you’ll be in normal student housing then. Sir,” she added, respectfully, but all the pleasantness was gone.
And that’s where my friend Paul Samuelson, the first Economist in the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize (1970) comes in. How much do you remember from your college classes? As we accepted our student housing – not a beautiful 3 bedroom house with a fireplace, but a flat in a quad with two bedrooms and linoleom floors (no fireplace) I remembered the concept of relative deprivation. I had a roof over my head in Monterey, California, heaven on earth. I had a baby and good child care and great grocery stores; I attended the Naval Postgraduate School and the Defense Language School. On weekends, we hiked at Point Lobos, and we were happy. Happy, except for that occasional twinge of jealousy when we passed the houses higher on the hill with three bedrooms and a fireplace.
And when I felt that twinge, I smiled and thought of Paul Samuelson.
From Axios: America’s Healthiest and Least Healthy States
(The United Health Foundation was established by UnitedHealth Group in 1999 as a nonprofit, private foundation dedicated to improving health and health care. To date, the United Health Foundation has committed more than $845 million to programs and communities around the world, including a $100 million commitment to help advance and grow the health care workforce.” (from the United Health Foundation website)
This is one of the non-governmental agencies using facts and statistics to measure outcomes of health practices in the USA. Official statistics are disappearing. Entire years of government studies have been deleted from websites. Fortunately, there are people who saw it coming and who recorded the data from the websites, hoping for a future that respects science, research and statistics, and uses that research to create a greater good for us all, and shares that knowledge and best practices with the world.
So Much For Health and Transparency
It started during COVID. Politicians and their Administrations stopped publicizing statistics when the stats revealed their government was doing little or nothing to prevent spread of disease. Now, under the cover of cost reductions and eliminating fraud they are gutting the agencies that maintain the statistics and restricting publications of what few statistics are being gathered. Fortunately, private institutions and individuals are watching, keeping track, and doing their best to keep a vulnerable population informed.
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