Strange Bluejay behavior

https://youtu.be/MLNVV75yoY8
(link to my youtube blog)

(All opinions here are mine and mine alone.)

A bluejay flew down and got a drink from our birdbath.

Then he did a weird thing: he laid on the grass and spread his wings.

I watched for 10 minutes then started down to see if he was ok and he flew away.

Very odd to me.

Almost as odd as the time we're living in. The virus is one thing that makes things odd. The US is one of the few developed nations that hasn't dealt with it in a meaningful way. Cases in the south and south-west and California are out of control. No end in sight.

But so is what's going on with the President and in D.C.

It's been over 90 degrees there for over a week.

Maybe the heat is making things odd. 

But I bet that not it.

(I'd better stop before I get overtly political. Better to talk about bluejays.)

 

I need a pedicure

https://youtu.be/MLNVV75yoY8

link to my youtube blog

(All the opinions here are mine and mine alone.)

OK, two reasons it is hard for me to cut my toenails: I'm overweight and both my knees don't bend very well--one from surgery and one from arthritis. 

Bern cut my nails once during this weird shut-down. But I remembered, while she was doing it, how much it bothered me that my mother cut my father's toenails, so I won't let her do that again.

The pedicure place I go to is right down the street. It is run by a family of Asians--Vietnamese I think. Extremely polite and competent. I don't know when they will re-open, but I miss them.

(I'm writing fluff like this because if I got into politics on my blog: Mary Trump's book, the President's Rose Garden political rally, his handling--or not!--the pandemic,him trying to shut out the CDC from virus statistics and school openings, the President and his daughter plugging Goya on line--violation of strict ethics restrictions that the White House can't recommend any 'products'--his latest 'racist remarks'--"police shoot white people too"--thing after thing after thing.

If I started down that line I might offend even people who 'sort of' agree with me.

That's how outraged I am right now.

So, I better stick to nature and toenails for the time being.)

 

Something I still stand by

 

https://youtu.be/MLNVV75yoY8

  (the link to m you tube blog)

(These are my opinions and mine only.)

This is a post I wrote after our president was elected to my four granddaughters. I stand by it.

Open letter to my granddaughters #2

Dear Morgan, Emma, Tegan and Baby Ellie,

Thanks for letting me write to you to work through my emotions and thoughts about the election of Donald Trump as President. I have a lot to ponder and writing is a good way to do it. I don't know if you'll ever read these ponderings, but I am writing them because of you--you are the Future to me. I'm longing to be hopeful about your future in this confusing and painful moment.

"Rural white working class people" is a term that must be said thousands of times a day on TV and radio and in print to try to understand what happened Tuesday. "Rural White working class people" we are told, gave Trump the edge he needed.

I know the older three of you know where I come from (Ellie's just 4 months old, so she doesn't yet....) I come from southern West Virginia. Both my grandfathers were farmers. My maternal grandmother ran a boarding house for single coal miners for several years. My Grandmother Bradley raised my father and his siblings. My father had an 8th grade education. He was a farm boy who worked in the coal mines until 4 years in World War II damaged his lungs. After that, he was a bar keeper, worked in a grocery store, drove a dry cleaning truck and, in his last years, sold insurance. My mother taught elementary school--beginning before she had a BA!

The town I grew up in was Anawalt. There were 400 people there and about.

I 'was' from "rural white working class people".

That's who I am down deep.

So, why didn't I understand them more accurately before the election?

Did all my education and urban living divorce me from my roots in some radical way? I think many people would think that.

But I'm not sure. I wasn't really 'comfortable' and 'myself' at Harvard Divinity School. I'm still baffled by New York City. I'm ill at ease in many gatherings of Episcopalians--my chosen people!--because they sometimes are from a social class and level of wealth that makes me anxious. Even the town I live in--Cheshire, CT--sometimes makes me nervous because it is so upper middle class and white.

I think I spent all my full-time ministry is cities and among minorities and the poor because I am more at ease there.

The election, as you can see, has made me question 'who I am?' in a profound way.

Maybe I'm caught between two worlds: my mountain roots and my comfortable New England adopted life--in ways I didn't understand before Tuesday's election. And in ways that make me an 'outsider' to both. I have been thrown into a deep place of  reflection unlike anything I've known before.

I know 'understanding' is the 'booby-prize' but I write, trying to get a handle on what threw me for such a loop two days ago.

If you don't mind, I'll keep pondering by writing to you...to the future....OK?

Another something from the past

https://youtu.be/MLNVV75yoY8

  (link to my you tube blog)

I haven't been able to write since I know I couldn't keep contempt out of my words for our President. So, on this warm summer day, I'm sending you something from when it wasn't warm. Hope it cools you down....

Thursday, December 28, 2017

The cold

The cold now is brutal. You have to develop a very fine-tuned Stoicism to endure.

It'll be zero tonight (F not C, unfortunately) and won't be above 32 degrees again until a week from Sunday. That's what the Weather Channel predicts.

When I told Bern that she did some quick finger counting. "Today is Thursday," she said, "so you mean it'll be below freezing for 10 more days?"

My instinct is always to look on the bright side, but there isn't much of a bright side when nothing outside will thaw at all, not even a little, for 10 whole days.

I may have to start wearing socks.

When I ruptured my quad muscle and had surgery a year ago last September, my right leg was immobilized for 2 months. I couldn't put on socks on that foot and am stubborn enough not to ask Bern to do it for me.

Last winter was milder than usual and I got through it without socks and I've never worn socks from April through September and I just never got around to putting them on.

I've done ok, so far, but this cold snap may break me.

I've forgotten what socks feel like.

But I may learn again in the next 10 days.

I'll let you know.

I stubbed my toe

https://youtu.be/MLNVV75yoY8

  (link to my you tube blog)

(all opinions here are mine and mine only)

I stubbed my toe last night in my sandals, I do that a lot. I'm pretty clumsy.

But today, my middle toe on my left foot is dark blue. It hurts when I walk.

But my hands are free of bruises. You see, I have very thin blood, so I bruise easily. Doctors tell me I'm lucky not to take blood thinners. I don't need them. But I bruise a lot.

Good luck and bad luck go hand and hand, I'd say.

Nature is good luck.

I was out on our back deck yesterday morning and there were dozens of birds--all sizes, all kinds.

Plus two chipmunks.

Then a squirrel came along and scared most of the birds away.

But a Blue Jay flew down. They are very aggressive birds. I hoped he was going to go after the squirrel. I would have liked to see that.

But he just got a drink out of our bird bath.

I watched longer than I meant to.

Nature is 'good news'.

I guess climate change is the 'bad news that holds nature's hand.

Names and statues

https://youtu.be/MLNVV75yoY8  (link to my You Tube blog)

(Opinions here are mine and mine alone)

I have a take on the controversy over 'names' and statues.

It goes like this: I grew up a Washington Redskin fan. Now I know it didn't bother me because I'm a white male and the names of sports teams are not offensive since I'm not Native American.

I never approved of Confederate statues because they were traitors to my country. But Americans who were slave owners didn't bother me and are not offensive because I'm not Black.

Now, I have, in the last few months, realized how insensitive I am to people of other color's emotions.

I have been, I think a majority of Americans have been "woke" to the feelings of people not like me and how names and statues offended them for years and years.

That's what I think is happening. And though I've lived through the original Civil Rights Movement and the unrest of the 60's (taking part in it, in fact) I wasn't fully awake.

I'm getting there.

I 'get' why names and statues of American heroes who were slave owners are offensive to other, non-white Americans. I get it.

I have much more to learn.

But now I know as never before that I must learn from Blacks and Browns and Asians about what they find offensive that doesn't touch me in the way it touches them.

I am cautiously optimistic that White America is become WOKE in way we never have been before.

That can only be good and lead to a better America if we can stay awake and listen and understand in our hearts and souls.

What could be bad about me and other white people truly understanding the weight that has been on the shoulders of people unlike me in color--who are 'people', just like me in their souls?

Ponder that. Really. Ponder that.

Packaging

https://youtu.be/MLNVV75yoY8 (link to my you tube blog)

(all opinions here are mine and mine alone)

I don't know about you, put I can't open anything anymore.

It took me five minutes and a sharp knife to open some eye drops My eye doctor recommended.

Opening a new bag of dog food or a package of cheese is a challenge. I can't tear where it says "tear here".

I have to get scissors or a knife.

And kid's toys packaging! Forget about it!

You need industrial tools and a blow torch to get a Barbie out of her box.

Opening any jar with that cellophane around it requires stealth.

I don't get it.

Do things these days need to be packaged so completely? Why?

Or has packaging simply advanced far beyond usefulness?

Maybe it's just an aging man like me--but I bet not.

Ease up on packaging....