Went down and back to Brooklyn today. On the way down we did what GPS told us to do and it took a little over 3 hours to go 92 miles!
We went for Eleanor's third birthday, which is tomorrow. She is so wondrous, even a three hour trip through horrendous traffic seems with it. Mimi and Tim are well and happy. We love them all--just like we love our Baltimore Bradley/Chen family. Neither Mimi or Cathy took their husband's names. Good for them.
We all went out and her parents bought her a scooter and a ladybug helmet at the neighbourhood toy store. She road it home, veering left a lot and then we went out to their building's outdoor space--about half a football field on the second floor and she rode and rode her scooter, getting better every moment. We hugged them all and she was still riding when we left.
After we got to the Whitestone Bridge, I told Bern to turn off the GPS, I was going Hutch and Merrit no matter what that stupid woman's voice wanted me to do! The Brooklyn Queens Expressway was a mess but we got home in just under two hours. S-U-C-C-E-S-S, that's the way to spell 'success', yes!
The GPS's preference for I-95 was our undoing going down.
We usually make it to Baltimore in 4 hours and 15 minutes and that's 288 miles, not 92....
New York Traffic is the sixth ring of Dante's hell.
Bridget was confused about why we were gone so long, but, as far as we can tell, she didn't pee in the house. That girl can really hold it--unlike me!
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Friday, August 9, 2019
It got very dark
The electricity went off on upper Cornwall Avenue last night.
It happened about 8:30 p.m., before it got completely dark. But 45 minutes later, it got very dark.
I called Bern, who was at her Group, to let her know the porch light wouldn't be on when she got back.
Then I got Brigit and a candle and a flashlight and cigarettes and wine and went to the front porch.
It's amazing how dark it can get without lights from houses and street lights. I finally just sat with the candle and the dog and waited on Bern. You miss people more in the dark than in the light.
When she got home, Brigit was delighted. We got a couple of more candles and our bedside lights worked because they store up electricity somehow I don't understand.
We went to bed by 10 p.m.
I realize why folks before electricity were 'early to bed and early to rise'. Not much to do in the dark--with no radio, no TV, no computers--except go to bed.
20 minutes later it came back. We both got up to do some stuff.
Amazing how light encourages action.
I didn't write on my blog last night because I couldn't.
Now I can so I told you why....
It happened about 8:30 p.m., before it got completely dark. But 45 minutes later, it got very dark.
I called Bern, who was at her Group, to let her know the porch light wouldn't be on when she got back.
Then I got Brigit and a candle and a flashlight and cigarettes and wine and went to the front porch.
It's amazing how dark it can get without lights from houses and street lights. I finally just sat with the candle and the dog and waited on Bern. You miss people more in the dark than in the light.
When she got home, Brigit was delighted. We got a couple of more candles and our bedside lights worked because they store up electricity somehow I don't understand.
We went to bed by 10 p.m.
I realize why folks before electricity were 'early to bed and early to rise'. Not much to do in the dark--with no radio, no TV, no computers--except go to bed.
20 minutes later it came back. We both got up to do some stuff.
Amazing how light encourages action.
I didn't write on my blog last night because I couldn't.
Now I can so I told you why....
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Quotes to ponder
I haven't done it for a while, so I'm going to send you some of the quotes from my box of quotes Ann Overton and the Mastery Foundation gave me.
Print them out, if you like, to spend a few days pondering and wondering and learning from and being inspired by them.
"A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops."
--Amos Oz
"A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
--Steven Wright
"The future is not someplace we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination."
--John Schaar
"This God's mission, to help human beings, every human being, to progress from slavery to freedom. This is the mission of culture and education. And all the rest is interpretation."
--Rabbi Ofek Meir
"We are trying to live as if we were an experiment conducted by the future."
--Marge Piercy
"Not how the world is, but that it is, is the mystery."
--Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
--William Butler Yeats
"We are here to add to the sum of human goodness.
To prove the thing exists.
And however futile each individual act of courage
or generosity, self-sacrifice or grace--
it still proves the thing exists.
Each act adds to the fund."
--Josephine Hart
"A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worst, to avoid trouble."
-- Mohandas Gandhi
"May God bless you
with enough foolishness
To believe that you can
make a difference in the world,
So that you co what others
claim cannot be done."
--From a Fanciscan Benediction
"Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing."
--Eugene Ionesco
Enjoy being with them. And be thankful you are.
Print them out, if you like, to spend a few days pondering and wondering and learning from and being inspired by them.
"A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops."
--Amos Oz
"A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
--Steven Wright
"The future is not someplace we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination."
--John Schaar
"This God's mission, to help human beings, every human being, to progress from slavery to freedom. This is the mission of culture and education. And all the rest is interpretation."
--Rabbi Ofek Meir
"We are trying to live as if we were an experiment conducted by the future."
--Marge Piercy
"Not how the world is, but that it is, is the mystery."
--Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
--William Butler Yeats
"We are here to add to the sum of human goodness.
To prove the thing exists.
And however futile each individual act of courage
or generosity, self-sacrifice or grace--
it still proves the thing exists.
Each act adds to the fund."
--Josephine Hart
"A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worst, to avoid trouble."
-- Mohandas Gandhi
"May God bless you
with enough foolishness
To believe that you can
make a difference in the world,
So that you co what others
claim cannot be done."
--From a Fanciscan Benediction
"Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing."
--Eugene Ionesco
Enjoy being with them. And be thankful you are.
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Something less grim...
I know I've been going off, reasonably so, in my last few blogs about the nonsense about guns in America and the tragedies in Texas and Ohio and California.
Don't lose tough with that. The President is going to El Paso and Dayton tomorrow though some have asked him not to come. Time will tell. Republicans, I've read, are scared sh**less all this gun stuff will lose their suburban districts in 2020. Devoutly to be wished.
But what I want to point out tonight is after the Yankees 4 game sweep of the Red Sox, Boston is 16 games behind in the loss column as the Yankees have 50 games left to play and the Sox have 47 games left to play.
Hard to make up that lead in that time.
Plus the Yankees, as of 10 p.m. are beating Baltimore 5-2 and Kansas City is beating Boston 6-2. Time for both those to change but one game doesn't make much of a difference in the scheme of things.
Let's Gooo, Yankees!
Baseball, being so slow and idyllic, always gives me hope.
Don't lose tough with that. The President is going to El Paso and Dayton tomorrow though some have asked him not to come. Time will tell. Republicans, I've read, are scared sh**less all this gun stuff will lose their suburban districts in 2020. Devoutly to be wished.
But what I want to point out tonight is after the Yankees 4 game sweep of the Red Sox, Boston is 16 games behind in the loss column as the Yankees have 50 games left to play and the Sox have 47 games left to play.
Hard to make up that lead in that time.
Plus the Yankees, as of 10 p.m. are beating Baltimore 5-2 and Kansas City is beating Boston 6-2. Time for both those to change but one game doesn't make much of a difference in the scheme of things.
Let's Gooo, Yankees!
Baseball, being so slow and idyllic, always gives me hope.
Monday, August 5, 2019
NOW he says so....
The President (who will not be named on this blog!) today denounced racism and Nazis and White Supremacists even though he's called Mexicans rapists and drug dealers and said there were 'good people' on both sides in Charlottsville (and 'one side' were Nazis) told woman of color to go back to where they came from, said no 'human being' would want to live in Baltimore and has forwarded White Supremacist tweets.
He said it today for the people of El Paso and "Toledo"--no, Mr. President, it was Dayton! Toledo is almost in Michigan. Dayton is hundreds of miles south, almost in Eastern Indiana.
"Empty words," Sen. Kamala Harris called the President's denouncements.
Wait until his next rally and let's see what he says to those who support him without thought.
I have no doubt that his rheortic has freed those on the extreme Right to hate in public as they have had to hate in private until he came along.
We are a nation 'divided' not indivisable.
"Make America White Again" should be what those red hats say.
I've always thought, no matter what happens, that our nation is 'better' than what ever is happening that is bad.
I'm no longer sure of that.
Alas and alack.
1
He said it today for the people of El Paso and "Toledo"--no, Mr. President, it was Dayton! Toledo is almost in Michigan. Dayton is hundreds of miles south, almost in Eastern Indiana.
"Empty words," Sen. Kamala Harris called the President's denouncements.
Wait until his next rally and let's see what he says to those who support him without thought.
I have no doubt that his rheortic has freed those on the extreme Right to hate in public as they have had to hate in private until he came along.
We are a nation 'divided' not indivisable.
"Make America White Again" should be what those red hats say.
I've always thought, no matter what happens, that our nation is 'better' than what ever is happening that is bad.
I'm no longer sure of that.
Alas and alack.
1
Sunday, August 4, 2019
And now there's Dayton....
A few hours after I wrote about the mass shooting in El Paso, there was the shooting in Dayton, on a busy street with people enjoying their Saturday night.
The shooter was killed by police within a minute of his starting to shoot--yet he killed 9 and wounded 20. Within a minute.
Within a minute!
Who needs a weapon like that except to kill people?
No one that's who.
A weapon that can do that much damage in under a minute should be consigned to the 7th level of hell---and anyone who owns one should go there too.
NRA should mean "No Responsibility At all".
Guns have to go.
Do Democrats in Congress and Senators with a shred of a conscience have to courage to get rid of guns?
And would the President sign that bill?
I just want to find out.
I talked about El Paso and Dayton before my sermon today. No one is without guilt and stain from this as long as we don't DO SOMETHING ABOUT GUNS!
The blood is on all our hands until we have the courage and conviction to DO SOMETHING ABOUT GUNS!
How long can this be 'normal'???
The shooter was killed by police within a minute of his starting to shoot--yet he killed 9 and wounded 20. Within a minute.
Within a minute!
Who needs a weapon like that except to kill people?
No one that's who.
A weapon that can do that much damage in under a minute should be consigned to the 7th level of hell---and anyone who owns one should go there too.
NRA should mean "No Responsibility At all".
Guns have to go.
Do Democrats in Congress and Senators with a shred of a conscience have to courage to get rid of guns?
And would the President sign that bill?
I just want to find out.
I talked about El Paso and Dayton before my sermon today. No one is without guilt and stain from this as long as we don't DO SOMETHING ABOUT GUNS!
The blood is on all our hands until we have the courage and conviction to DO SOMETHING ABOUT GUNS!
How long can this be 'normal'???
Saturday, August 3, 2019
How long, O Lord?
Fifteen, at least, dead in a shooting in an El Paso Mall. Another mass shooting. How long, O Lord, until we do something meaningful about guns in America?
Just a few days ago, three dead in the Garlic Capital of the world in California. Ages 6, 13 and 22. Given an average life-span of 80 years that was 199 years of life for people who may have made the world a better place that was taken away in a matter of moments.
I've had people who I know ask me, "would you take away my guns?" And I always smile in a friendly way and say, "you betja!"
Anything that isn't obviously for hunting. Those you can keep if you can show you regularly hunt. But even guns 'for self defense' I would take because I'd be taking 'all guns' away and making life in prison the penalty for having one that wasn't for hunting--so why would you need one for self defense?
I'd do it to protect innocent people and the police. I'd do it to make this a non-hunting gun gun-free nation. Criminals with guns would automatically spend their life in prison and though I'm deeply opposed to the death penalty, I might consider it for having an illegal gun when committing a crime.
I would put gun manufactures and the NRA out of business.
I might even lock those people up for a good long time.
Don't give me that shit about 'guns don't kill people'--GUNS DO KILL PEOPLE!
If the horrible people involved in all the mass shootings hadn't had guns they would have to beat people to death or stab them to death or hit them with rocks. None of which is terribly efficient.
GUNS KILL PEOPLE!!!
For me, they have to go away.
I mean it.
How long, O Lord, before we, as a nation, come to our senses about guns? How many have to die?
Just tell me that--how many have to die?
Just a few days ago, three dead in the Garlic Capital of the world in California. Ages 6, 13 and 22. Given an average life-span of 80 years that was 199 years of life for people who may have made the world a better place that was taken away in a matter of moments.
I've had people who I know ask me, "would you take away my guns?" And I always smile in a friendly way and say, "you betja!"
Anything that isn't obviously for hunting. Those you can keep if you can show you regularly hunt. But even guns 'for self defense' I would take because I'd be taking 'all guns' away and making life in prison the penalty for having one that wasn't for hunting--so why would you need one for self defense?
I'd do it to protect innocent people and the police. I'd do it to make this a non-hunting gun gun-free nation. Criminals with guns would automatically spend their life in prison and though I'm deeply opposed to the death penalty, I might consider it for having an illegal gun when committing a crime.
I would put gun manufactures and the NRA out of business.
I might even lock those people up for a good long time.
Don't give me that shit about 'guns don't kill people'--GUNS DO KILL PEOPLE!
If the horrible people involved in all the mass shootings hadn't had guns they would have to beat people to death or stab them to death or hit them with rocks. None of which is terribly efficient.
GUNS KILL PEOPLE!!!
For me, they have to go away.
I mean it.
How long, O Lord, before we, as a nation, come to our senses about guns? How many have to die?
Just tell me that--how many have to die?
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