Somethings I can't get my head around....

Just today, for example:

1) Monica Lewinsky: her article in Vanity Fair laments that she hasn't been able to get on with her life because we all still think of her. Well...I didn't 'still think of her' until her article in Vanity Fair. I haven't thought of her for years. And if I did in the last decade plus think of her, it was to momentarily hope she'd been able to get on with her life.

2)All the theories about why Monica wrote the article now. I've heard everything from 'the Clinton's paid her to' so by 2016 we'd have all forgotten her again (no less than Dick Cheney's wife said that on Fox news...there's tape) to the Koch brothers paid her to to derail Hilary in 2016. I just don't care. She wrote that I hadn't forgotten  her though I had and in a few months I will have forgotten her again.

3) Benghazi: correct me if I'm wrong (But I'm Not!) hasn't Benghazi had six congressional or senate committees already and haven't we all agreed it was horrible and nasty and not at all handled well by anyone AND that's what happened? (And maybe the Koch brothers are behind it to make Hillary look bad again--and she did look bad and admitted looking bad--before 2016?

4) The Koch brothers: I'm sure Tea Party Folk think about them a lot, but why should I--a left-wing nut--have to as well?

5) The NFL Draft: why is ESPN televising every moment of it? I wanted to know who got picked first and second and third, but now we're down to 81st and 82nd and 83rd and it's still on TV, I notice as I flip around between the Yankee game and the Red Sox being no-hit through the 8th inning.

6) Why am I still a Red Sox Hater and a Yankee Lover...at my age shouldn't I be over all that kind of stuff? I talked to a man today at UConn in Waterbury who thought people over 45 shouldn't be allowed by law to wear team jerseys. He said he was moving toward not allowing anyone who was older than any athlete who was playing in whatever game it was shouldn't be allowed, by law, to wear and college, hockey, football shirt at all--including children not old enough to be involved in whatever game it was. He was very convincing and definitely a socialist, if not a communist since all those shirts aren't about sports at all, but capitalism. I saw a short sleeve tee shirt in the gift shop of UConn-Waterbury today about the double NCAA basketball win by both the men and women's teams for $23.99. That's a tee-shirt, mind you. All that stuff is about money, not being a fan.

There are other things today I couldn't get my head around...quite a few, actually. But then, there are every day. That's what makes me ponder so much, not getting my head around stuff. So, I'm going to stop there for now, if you don't mind....

Tomorrow is another day to encounter even more things I can't get my head around. I look forward to it all.....

Personality Types and Jobs

I listened to a radio show today about personality types and jobs and it was very revealing to me.

I am (in  the Meyers/Briggs model) an ENFP.

That means I am and Extrovert, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceptive personality type.

My Extrovert score is just barely higher than my Introvert score. I move easily between social situations and being alone. Either one is fine with me.

All the others (the NFP scores) are off the chart in their direction.

An Intuitive (N) is someone who knows the answer and doesn't know how. The opposite is a Sensate (S) who follows the rules and goes from a to b to c.

A Feeling person (F) vs. a Thinking person (T) listens to their heart instead of the intellect. (Not always a good thing!)

A Perceptive (P) is unlike a Judgmental (J) personality type since a P takes in all options instead of knowing which option is correct and which other options are, by definition, incorrect.

I would have made a terrible trial lawyer. A lawyer needs a strong S and T and P.

Luckily my Extrovert/Introvert scores are always nearly equal since I can function wonderfully in social situations or alone. Being an only child also gave me lots of introvert leanings. I love to be alone and I love to be in a group.

According to the show I was listening to on NPR, the two roles and jobs that would have suited me perfectly were being a college professor and being an Episcopal priest. The Former is what I longed to be, the Latter is what God ended up making me, against my better judgement.

I couldn't, on a bet, as smart as I am (and I am very smart, by the way) have been a physicist or mathematician or scientist of any kind and certainly not a CPA. So Fate and God (depending on which you believe in) led me to be what I was meant to be. And I've never been unhappy about what my work was. Though I would have enjoyed that graduate level class on modern poetry and the one on the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I would have enjoyed all that and been good and happy doing that. But I came down where I was meant to be.

According to the show I heard, I am in the minority. Most people, for some reason, end up doing things that are unsuited to their personality type--hence the general unhappiness with their job...something that I've never understood.

I've been always happy and fulfilled with what I had to do each day. It suited me to a T.

Go ponder that....

A mouse in the house

Bern told me this morning she saw a mouse in the bedroom and put our 12 year old Maine Coon Cat, Lukie, in there and shut the door.

Later I heard her yell and she told me the mouse had been under the little table beside our front door and Lukie had chased it upstairs.

Now, I haven't seen the mouse, but I trust Bern to be honest about such things and Luke has been slinking around all day, stalking, I pray, the mouse.

I have no experience with mice in the house and if Luke is too old to catch it, I have no idea what to do next.

And Bern's reaction (she mostly being nonchalant and calm about all things domestic), has surprised me. She seems a tad freaked out by the mouse in the house. Not up on a chair screaming, but certainly not her normal placid self.

Lukie had better get busy and do his 'mousing-job' or we'll have to take further measures. I just don't have any idea what those are...mouse traps? a fumigator? moving?.....

Privileged

I woke up this morning (after hitting my snooze alarm four times) and what I felt was this: privileged.

I only set my alarm on Tuesdays (to go to Clericus) and Sundays (to go to church). But I enjoy the snooze alarm so much, maybe I should set it every day. I'll ponder that....

When I wake up (as I have for over 67 years now, thank God) I realize how privileged I am.

I live in a free country. I live in a safe town. I have a wife I love like a rock. I have two wondrous and gifted children (both of whom read a lot). I have the best three grand-daughters ever. I've never been abused in any way. My parents and my extended family on both sides loved and spoiled me. I'm smarter than I need to be. I have a remarkable sense of humor. Nothing much makes me tense or anxious or mean. I read a lot. I'm older than I ever imagined being and still feel decades younger than I am. I know how to type and write a blog. I love white wine. I can eat almost anything and not feel bad later. I love my life. Almost everything either amuses or engages me. I am a liberal Democrat and an Episcopalian. Olives are wondrous--as is blue cheese and Italian ices and Marlboro Red Label cigarettes (I know, I know, don't hassle me about that, ok?) And I really enjoy bird songs and our Puli dog and Lukie our cat and Public Radio and movies and our parakeet and TV and the Yankees and the night sky.

I don't have to spend any part of my day walking somewhere to a well and carrying water home on my head in a bucket. The electricity is always on. Our house is heated and cooled as needed. Bern's garden gives me joy. I do almost nothing most of the time (besides reading a lot) and have all the money I need and more I don't need.

So, why shouldn't my attitude on awaking be 'privileged'?

Perhaps better, it should be called blessed, since I'm a priest and all.

Don't know why that wasn't the word I first thought of.

I am, by God, BLESSED!!!

And because of that, by God, I am grateful, humble, privileged, wondrously thankful, ecstatic, That's what I plan to be tomorrow, when I wake up, whenever I do, not prompted by an alarm clock...it could be nearly 10 a.m., by the way, since I'm retired and that can be...but whenever I wake up tomorrow, one more day toward paradise and so grateful to be alive, I plan to feel 'blessed' and ecstatic.

I promise you that....

Stuff that makes my head feel like it's about to explode

1. Parallel Universes

We started a conversation about parallel Universes today at Clericus. Mike seemed to know more about the physics that I do. But it makes my brain seriously near exploding to talk about how, in a parallel universe things might be happening differently. Like I might have married someone besides Bern, had different children, been killed in Viet Nam (For my friend, Bobby Joe, who was killed in Viet Nam, I hope things worked out differently in his parallel universes), had different grandchildren, committed suicide, had parents that didn't love me, won the Nobel Prize.

I have enough to deal with in this Universe. Don't blow up my mind with other options....

2. Bit Coins

I don't even know what they are or how it works and yet today I listened to an hour long discussion about 'Dark Wallet', where you can keep you Bit Coins secret. Bit Coins aren't, in any sense I understand, "real". My checking account will be worth as much tomorrow as it is today. And the day after. Bit Coins, as I understand it, can be worth vastly different amounts from day to day. You could get rich tomorrow or be broke. And to have a "Dark Wallet" to keep them in in doubly brain explosive since they aren't 'real' and the 'dark wallet' isn't REAL either. Leave me out of this conversation.

3. People who don't believe in Climate Change

I have no time to even discuss folks who don't believe in Science.

4. Made up days

Last week I discovered there was a 'Daughter Day'. I called Mimi and wished her well. I wish now I hadn't. I don't have a Father or Mother any more so I don't need to observe the made-up days of Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day, but I am a Father so I'll have to endure it in June. How about a "CPA Day" or a "Garbage Collectors' Day" or a 'Day Care Provider' Day? Those make as much sense. When, by the way, is "Guys whose brains are about to explode Day?"

Birds--how I love them....

I was sitting out on our deck at dusk and heard the songs of at least half-a-dozen birds. Wondrous! Beautiful.

I even saw two young Blue Jays. I'm not sure I've ever seen baby Blue Jays before. We have lots of Robins and Cardinals who are young--but a Blue Jay is a new one on me.

I sometimes think that it might be better in the long run for us humans to simply disappear and give the world back to animals without our carbon footprint.

A baby Blue Jay doesn't exist simply to give me pleasure. It exists because the world belongs to the creatures.

If we weren't here, the polar ice would return. The climate change we've caused would, soon enough, regress. And creatures would live without fear of our taking away their land to make subdivisions. Actually, it wouldn't take very long at all for nature to take back the space the humans have claimed. My house is 214 years old. It would only take a decade or two without our caring for it for it to began to be overcome by nature. Creatures would find a way in, trees would grow near the foundation, vines would overcome the walls. In a century or so, there would be little recognizable as a human habitation.

Maybe Nature would be better off without us.

But I'd sure miss the birdsongs at dawn and dusk. I truly would.....

Distopian hopefulness

My friend, John Anderson, sent me this poem, thinking I would like it. I do, but it is terribly troubling and right on. Thought I'd share it with you.



A Brief for the Defense --Jack Albert
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies are not starving someplace, they are starving somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in a tiny port
looking over the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come