I know, I know, it's supposed to be another J-month you say that about. But nothing like a week in the teens to make 44 seem balmy....
I was walking the dog on this rare warm day when I had a crack in my brain open and I fell into 1970!
I was thinking of my early days at Harvard Divinity School. I almost didn't get to go because I got drafted. The first piece of mail I got in Cambridge was of the "Greetings..." variety. Eventually, the bishop of WV got me classified 4-D (the only category besides 4-F that wasn't being drafted) divinity and disability were the only things to keep you out of Viet Nam in 1969!
But what I thought about mostly was G.E. Wright, and Old Testament professor (or 'Hebrew Scriptures' as they're know in a more PC time). I never had a class from him but he was bigger than life and you couldn't help but know him.
He used to tell his students there were two ways to study the Old Testament: "The 'von Rad' way and the 'Wright' way!" (Von Rad was a German scholar Wright didn't agree with). Wright was "Right" and nobody questioned it. He was that kind of man.
What I remembered about him (probably because today has so much talk about 'the Intelligence community) was seeing this boisterous, supremely confident man sitting on the sidewalk of Divinity Avenue weeping--really weeping.
For reasons beyond all comprehension but Harvard's, the CIA had a small office in the Semitic Museum on Divinity Ave. The Semitic Museum had artifacts from all over the Mid-east and especially ancient Israel. Some SDSers had bombed the CIA office and destroyed some irreplaceable, unique works.
Wright had been called, of course, before the smoke cleared. He was sitting in his suit on the sidewalk, holding a broken bowl, crying his eyes out for the Past....
In spite of his sometimes hard to take personality, that made me a GE Wright fan for life....
Funny how stuff like that is in the cracks of your brain and can crawl out while you're walking your dog....
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Wet dog
Our dog loves the snow. He hated the rain, will object to going out in the rain. But he loves the snow.
Bela is very furry--though it feels like hair instead of fur. Snow makes him just as wet as rain does, but that hasn't occurred to him yet, I don't think.
So, today he's a wet dog.
The snow started about 11 am and it's 3:30 pm now and still snowing. It's suppose to continue until at least 11 tonight.
So, we're looking at a wet dog for awhile.
He's sleeping behind me as I type, covered with a huge white towel.
Wet dogs need towels....
Bela is very furry--though it feels like hair instead of fur. Snow makes him just as wet as rain does, but that hasn't occurred to him yet, I don't think.
So, today he's a wet dog.
The snow started about 11 am and it's 3:30 pm now and still snowing. It's suppose to continue until at least 11 tonight.
So, we're looking at a wet dog for awhile.
He's sleeping behind me as I type, covered with a huge white towel.
Wet dogs need towels....
Thursday, January 5, 2017
taste memory
We've all heard of 'muscle memory'--which is why I can sit here and type without thinking about what my fingers are doing. They just know what to do from muscle memory.
I think there is 'taste memory' too. I had mussels for lunch. Every time I eat mussels, I am back in England where Josh was working after college. He worked in The White Horse Pub in Chelsea. Bern and Mimi and I went to see him for a week and we must (Josh and I) have eaten mussels in some form every day. He's the only person I know who likes them as much as I do. The White Horse was at Parson's Green and had over a hundred selections of beer--mostly on tap! It was the employer of young people from all over the world who got into the UK on a special program/work permit upon graduation from college. One of his best friends was Liam, who was one of the cooks and prepared us a seven course meal (with a different beer for each course!) Liam died young. I still remember that meal--we even had a mussels course. Josh had a girl friend from Columbia (the country, not the University) who went with us most everywhere we went. I am drawn back to that visit by my 'taste memory'.
Then, did I ever tell you that I always feel loved and secure when I walk down the laundry detergent aisle in a super market? I'm sure it's the bleach. My mother bleached everything, even stuff she shouldn't have. Our apartment always had the faint odor of bleach.
That's 'smell memory'....Don't let me get started on that....
I think there is 'taste memory' too. I had mussels for lunch. Every time I eat mussels, I am back in England where Josh was working after college. He worked in The White Horse Pub in Chelsea. Bern and Mimi and I went to see him for a week and we must (Josh and I) have eaten mussels in some form every day. He's the only person I know who likes them as much as I do. The White Horse was at Parson's Green and had over a hundred selections of beer--mostly on tap! It was the employer of young people from all over the world who got into the UK on a special program/work permit upon graduation from college. One of his best friends was Liam, who was one of the cooks and prepared us a seven course meal (with a different beer for each course!) Liam died young. I still remember that meal--we even had a mussels course. Josh had a girl friend from Columbia (the country, not the University) who went with us most everywhere we went. I am drawn back to that visit by my 'taste memory'.
Then, did I ever tell you that I always feel loved and secure when I walk down the laundry detergent aisle in a super market? I'm sure it's the bleach. My mother bleached everything, even stuff she shouldn't have. Our apartment always had the faint odor of bleach.
That's 'smell memory'....Don't let me get started on that....
Monday, January 2, 2017
Not stupid...worse....
I found a pin for Bern for her stocking that said "Stop Making Stupid People Famous".
Bern hates stupidity, so it was perfect for her.
I only wish Donald Trump (dare I type it...? 'our next President'?) was 'stupid'.
He isn't stupid by a long shot. He wouldn't be where he is if he were stupid. Seldom do stupid people create amazing buildings, incredible golf courses and run multi-billion dollar businesses.
But stupid people also don't get elected President.
Trump's problem isn't that he's 'stupid', it's that he's an undeniable and probably terminal narcissist.
Being a narcissist doesn't prevent you from being famous or successful...it just makes it impossible for you to be a) rational, b) reasonable and c) able to engage others as equals.
A 2012 book on power-hungry narcissists suggests that narcissists typically display most, and sometimes all, of the following traits:[7]
And it seems clear to me that most, if not all of that makes Donald Trump like the Greek character, Narcissus, who fell in love with his reflection in a pool of water.
I am close to more than one Narcissist. I like them, more or less.They are 'charming' (because they want you to admire them) and 'engaging' in an odd way that has to do with always being attentive to their lives. But I know their psychological disposition and make sure not to provoke them unless it is ethically necessary for me to be who I am.
But I've never be in a position where 'my leader' was a narcissist.
So, what comes next is a new experience for me.
Narcissists are not easy to deal with because they lack the ability to (as I said above) be rational, reasonable and see others as equals.
God help us, I'd say. And I really need to believe in a God more interested in politics than the one I believe in to get God's help in this.....
I wish he were just stupid.....
That I could deal with.
Bern hates stupidity, so it was perfect for her.
I only wish Donald Trump (dare I type it...? 'our next President'?) was 'stupid'.
He isn't stupid by a long shot. He wouldn't be where he is if he were stupid. Seldom do stupid people create amazing buildings, incredible golf courses and run multi-billion dollar businesses.
But stupid people also don't get elected President.
Trump's problem isn't that he's 'stupid', it's that he's an undeniable and probably terminal narcissist.
Being a narcissist doesn't prevent you from being famous or successful...it just makes it impossible for you to be a) rational, b) reasonable and c) able to engage others as equals.
A 2012 book on power-hungry narcissists suggests that narcissists typically display most, and sometimes all, of the following traits:[7]
- An obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges
- Problems in sustaining satisfying relationships
- A lack of psychological awareness (see insight in psychology and psychiatry, egosyntonic)
- Difficulty with empathy
- Problems distinguishing the self from others (see narcissism and boundaries)
- Hypersensitivity to any insults or imagined insults (see criticism and narcissists, narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury)
- Vulnerability to shame rather than guilt
- Haughty body language
- Flattery towards people who admire and affirm them (narcissistic supply)
- Detesting those who do not admire them (narcissistic abuse)
- Using other people without considering the cost of doing so
- Pretending to be more important than they actually are
- Bragging (subtly but persistently) and exaggerating their achievements
- Claiming to be an "expert" at many things
- Inability to view the world from the perspective of other people
- Denial of remorse and gratitude
And it seems clear to me that most, if not all of that makes Donald Trump like the Greek character, Narcissus, who fell in love with his reflection in a pool of water.
I am close to more than one Narcissist. I like them, more or less.They are 'charming' (because they want you to admire them) and 'engaging' in an odd way that has to do with always being attentive to their lives. But I know their psychological disposition and make sure not to provoke them unless it is ethically necessary for me to be who I am.
But I've never be in a position where 'my leader' was a narcissist.
So, what comes next is a new experience for me.
Narcissists are not easy to deal with because they lack the ability to (as I said above) be rational, reasonable and see others as equals.
God help us, I'd say. And I really need to believe in a God more interested in politics than the one I believe in to get God's help in this.....
I wish he were just stupid.....
That I could deal with.
Read this book....
I read a lot but seldom recommend books since I read mostly mysteries and never read non-fiction. People are always recommending non-fiction books to me that they say "you'd love, Jim". I've stopped telling them I don't read non-fiction and promise to look for the book they're touting at Cheshire Library. But since I never go in the non-fiction section, I never look for it.
But I've half-way through a book right now by Alice Hoffman called Faithful. And though I haven't even finished it I think you should go to your local library and check it out, or get on the waiting list for it since it's a new book and Alice Hoffman is very popular.
Don't buy it or get it on Kendal (how ever that's spelled!) Go to the library and check it out--it's probably on 14 day loan but I bet you'll read it in two days. I just started it this morning and it's 4 p.m. and I've been out a lot and I've read 114 pages and will likely finish it before I sleep. That's how good it is.
(The reason I want you to go to the library and check out a real book is so libraries don't disappear. I love libraries but like non-Smart phones, I fear for their life expectancy....)
Faithful might be one of those books that change my life or at least how I look at living.
That good....
But I've half-way through a book right now by Alice Hoffman called Faithful. And though I haven't even finished it I think you should go to your local library and check it out, or get on the waiting list for it since it's a new book and Alice Hoffman is very popular.
Don't buy it or get it on Kendal (how ever that's spelled!) Go to the library and check it out--it's probably on 14 day loan but I bet you'll read it in two days. I just started it this morning and it's 4 p.m. and I've been out a lot and I've read 114 pages and will likely finish it before I sleep. That's how good it is.
(The reason I want you to go to the library and check out a real book is so libraries don't disappear. I love libraries but like non-Smart phones, I fear for their life expectancy....)
Faithful might be one of those books that change my life or at least how I look at living.
That good....
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Happy, Happy 2017
It's still over an hour before 2017 and I'm going to bed as soon as I write this New Year's greeting. And though I had wine for dinner and champagne for a toast to the year that was, I'm perfectly sober.
Unlike such days in years past.
We had dinner with Jack and Sherry, long-time friends from New Haven. It was Hoppen-John: pork and rice and collard greens and black-eyed peas--something people from below the Mason-Dixon line know is required eating tonight and tomorrow. Jack and Sherry's son, Rob was there. He's 44 and was Josh's older playmate growing up. John, our friend from WV, who is a psychologist for the VA was the only other human. Between Jack, Sherry and Rob, there were 4 dogs and 2 cats. Southerners and their animals, you know....
We had agreed for our happiness to not say the name of the President-elect out loud. But we invariably did.
We have three weeks for the thing that isn't just a river in Egypt. After that we have to wake up in a new reality.
We are all from, basically, White Working Class backgrounds, and none of us have yet figured out how we so drastically left our roots--the folks who made 'he who will not be named' the President elect.
But we've known each other for decades: Bern and I knew John in Morgantown when we were in college. John is an Episcopalian, like me and we met in church. Sherry was a member of St. Paul's in New Haven when I came there as Rector in 1980. Lots of years of friendship in all that. Plus Josh and then Mimi growing up around Rob.
Somehow we simply slipped away from where we came from and became Liberals.
And now, waiting for 2017, we are perplexed, anxious, angry, confused--each of us in different areas of those emotions.
But the year will come.
"It's not how many times you get knocked down that matter--it's how many times you get back up."
That would be my motto if I didn't realize that the saying is attributed to Gen. George Custer, not long before the Battle of Little Big Horn....
I know I'll 'get up'. But the 'knock down' this year was painful, perplexing, confusing.....
Happy New Year any way.....
Unlike such days in years past.
We had dinner with Jack and Sherry, long-time friends from New Haven. It was Hoppen-John: pork and rice and collard greens and black-eyed peas--something people from below the Mason-Dixon line know is required eating tonight and tomorrow. Jack and Sherry's son, Rob was there. He's 44 and was Josh's older playmate growing up. John, our friend from WV, who is a psychologist for the VA was the only other human. Between Jack, Sherry and Rob, there were 4 dogs and 2 cats. Southerners and their animals, you know....
We had agreed for our happiness to not say the name of the President-elect out loud. But we invariably did.
We have three weeks for the thing that isn't just a river in Egypt. After that we have to wake up in a new reality.
We are all from, basically, White Working Class backgrounds, and none of us have yet figured out how we so drastically left our roots--the folks who made 'he who will not be named' the President elect.
But we've known each other for decades: Bern and I knew John in Morgantown when we were in college. John is an Episcopalian, like me and we met in church. Sherry was a member of St. Paul's in New Haven when I came there as Rector in 1980. Lots of years of friendship in all that. Plus Josh and then Mimi growing up around Rob.
Somehow we simply slipped away from where we came from and became Liberals.
And now, waiting for 2017, we are perplexed, anxious, angry, confused--each of us in different areas of those emotions.
But the year will come.
"It's not how many times you get knocked down that matter--it's how many times you get back up."
That would be my motto if I didn't realize that the saying is attributed to Gen. George Custer, not long before the Battle of Little Big Horn....
I know I'll 'get up'. But the 'knock down' this year was painful, perplexing, confusing.....
Happy New Year any way.....
Friday, December 30, 2016
La-La Land
That's the movie Bern and I will go see on Inauguration Day.
Neither of us want to be near a TV that day.
For the two of us--and millions of others, Trump becoming President is something we'd not want to view, in any way.
So, we'll go to a movie and dinner and probably I'll drink some wine (Bern doesn't drink...to her demise in this case) and just try to get through the day and pretend 'life as we know it' didn't end.
But it will. It will.
"Life as we know it", for 4 years at least, is over.
(I bought all the adults in our family "We're Still Here" blue baseball hats for Christmas. Bill Maher designed them and Michael Moore wears one.Just a reminder to Trump World that we are still here.)
La-la-Land won't make reality 'real' again. But it will pass the day.
Hopefully.....
Neither of us want to be near a TV that day.
For the two of us--and millions of others, Trump becoming President is something we'd not want to view, in any way.
So, we'll go to a movie and dinner and probably I'll drink some wine (Bern doesn't drink...to her demise in this case) and just try to get through the day and pretend 'life as we know it' didn't end.
But it will. It will.
"Life as we know it", for 4 years at least, is over.
(I bought all the adults in our family "We're Still Here" blue baseball hats for Christmas. Bill Maher designed them and Michael Moore wears one.Just a reminder to Trump World that we are still here.)
La-la-Land won't make reality 'real' again. But it will pass the day.
Hopefully.....
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