If If's Not One Thing, It's Your Father

My father was a very smart man, probably the smartest man I have ever known. Quick sense of humor, biting wit.

I look like him but otherwise I have few of his better qualities and most of his worst. Unfortunately, I have to own the smart mouth, among others.

Daddy was a left-brain guy, analytical, logical, mathematically inclined. He could do mathematical calculations in his mind that I would have to use pencil and paper (pre-calculator, of course1) to do. He had all kinds of little tricks, like rounding up and down and estimating, and bam, bam, shazam he had the number. Me, not so much.

I'm pretty right-brain. I can write an essay and share my feelings all day. I can talk the paint off a wall and make friends with a tree stump.  The stump will end up telling me about the year of the drought that caused that funky ring and the time the tree-borers tried to invade. Maybe even about the pain of the final chain saw. In short, I'm all about the emotions. 

This caused some issues in my childhood when there was schoolwork involved. When I had to retake Algebra I in summer school one year you would have thought that Mars had just crashed into Earth. Apparently I was every kind of dumb if not actually stupid. Turned out that once I got the right teacher, it all made sense to me . (My Algebra teacher was a left-brain too and hopelessly unable to explain to us righters.)  I loved Geometry because of the symmetry of the proofs. Okay, I was never going to be a mathematician but I was capable of something more than simple addition and if you needed someone to do long division for you, I was your girl! 

For me, long division was the mathematical version of diagramming a sentence. Does anyone diagram sentences any more? I could definitely use some sentence diagramming as I try to learn Spanish! All those competing verbs!!

So as I've grown older, and I've now lived more years than he did, I've always regretted that I don't have more of his skills. I often think of him and wish I could tell him about some new invention or situation to get his opinion. 

On the right-brain side, Daddy loved crossword puzzles. No, not the London Times puzzles but the ones in The Washington Post and The New York Times. The Sunday puzzles were his favorites, needless to say. I wish he was here to compete in the Post's Neologism contests or to invent captions for The New Yorker. He would have loved Wordle, especially the versions that involve multiple words. And he loved mysteries, especially the old British locked-room-in-the-stately-house ones by John Dickson Carr and Ngaio Marsh. By the time I was eight, I was a fan too, and I can still lose myself in a Peter Wimsey novel in which the solution to the crime revolves around something as arcane as the incorrect pattern of a bunch of church bells.

What brings all this up is that I've been searching all my life for a man as smart as my dad. And just recently I figured out that, as Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

I am my father, after all. 

There's nothing I like better than a good Sudoku. My father would have loved Sudoku, and might even have been designing them by now. I'm a word puzzle nut. And knitting a piece of intricate lace, and seeing the pattern emerge from a chart full of unfamiliar symbols is sheer joy. Putting words together in an essay or in a novel involves some mathematical precision too. There's an order for everything. And the geometry of English Paper Piecing!

My father is alive in me, every day. And I have a little more control over my sarcasm and bitter humor than he did, most days.

By the way, for those of you wondering about the tinking of the shawl, I'm happy to say that problem is resolved and I'm moving deliberately through Clue 2.  Still three clues behind but slow and steady goes the tortoise.

Responsible or Craven? You Tell Me

 

At what point does showing respect for others, or for a group of others, become disrespectful to another group? How does one say "I support you, I'm with you, We love you," without saying to someone else, "You people who don't support, love, etc., etc. are not worthy of my respect?

Can one say "I want equality for all" without disrespecting the views of people who believe we are not equal? How do you avoid showing disrespect to people you really don't respect?

The subject of equality among races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, religious beliefs, is very touchy. As an individual, I can put a Black Lives Matters bumper sticker on my car but, because I live in a community with a homeowners association, I can't put a sign in my front yard. That applies to all signs, not to any particular group. It just says you can't show your preferences in your front yard while you're part of this community association.

But if I did put my Black Lives Matters sign up, I'm sure some people in the neighborhood would think less of me because they don't think that black lives matter or because they think that black lives matter is not an adequate statement because really all lives matter. Then the question in my own personal life would be, do I really care what those people think? (And, of course, some of my neighbors are undoubtedly rule followers and they'd be upset because I flouted something in the "official rulebook.")

The answer, of course, is that I do care what they think, and I respect their rights to have those thoughts, but I don't intend to let that change my actions. 

So, then back to my car. When I see a car with a bumper sticker that offends or annoys or otherwise harshes my mellow, I don't hit it or bash it or run into it; I simply shake my head and say "Hmmm. Another jerk."

If I wear a shirt that says PRIDE or EQUALITY or BLACK LIVES MATTERS or NO, JESUS DIDN'T SAY TO DO THAT, YOU IDIOTS, I know what I'm in for when I leave the house. Some people will like it and some won't like it but hopefully no one will shoot me over it.

But what happens when you belong to a bigger group of people? A business, for instance. The federal government has something called the "Hatch Act" (and don't even get me started on Orrin Hatch!) that prohibits federal employees from participating in any way in the elective process. And that settles that for those people. (Wonder whether that applied to any of the folks in the January 6 attack on Congress? But I digress.)

But if a business puts up a sign or a banner that supports some members of the business but not all, what happens? If I wear my PRIDE earrings to work, does that represent the company or does that represent me? Or are they just colorful?

What about visitors? Should visitors be insulted if they see my PRIDE earrings? Should I be insulted by their Nazi tattoos? Should a company that wishes to express its support for a group of people, especially a group of people represented in the company, put up a banner and be loud and proud about their support?

What if doing so will insult the members of the community who find that offensive? What if a visitor coming to the business is offended? A neighbor? What if the visitor is coming to the business with an expectation of making a donation and they are so insulted that they take their check back?

And when does measured response become cravenness? A business that is self-supporting, for-profit, and doing well doesn't have to worry about things like that. But a nonprofit business, dependent on donations from all people including bigots and racists as well as people who share the company's beliefs, don't have that luxury.

So how do we tell the 1% or 10% or 20% or 30% of the people associated with our company who are gay or trans or any other member of the LBGTQIA+ community that we support them, we accept them, we love them, we stand by them, we hear them, without offending the people who might make us pay for our beliefs? Will wearing a name badge that lists my preferred pronouns (SHE, HER, if you care) offend someone or will it serve as a thought-provoking reminder to think before we speak? 

This is the dilemma many churches are feeling right now. The Episcopal Church took a stand in 2003 when the first (openly) gay bishop was consecrated. That resulted in a schism and many of its member churches left the Church for other denominations. The United Methodist Church is in the middle of this process now, as conservative churches and members choose to disaffiliate rather than embrace policies they find offensive. Feelings are strong on both sides. Some of it has to do with culture, some of it has to do with a strict interpretation of the Bible, and some of it, frankly, has to do with being old and fearing change, and coming from a generation when those things weren't done. Of course, they were done, people were just quieter about it then. 

And because Jesus said that homosexuals are bad. No, wait, that's not right. He didn't say that. Scratch that last sentence. And besides, Jesus was white. No wait, he wasn't. Nor was he Protestant. He wasn't even "Christian."  He was Jewish. 

Oh, hell, this is definitely not a question that's going to be resolved today. But I'm ready for it to happen.

The Struggle is Real

 A little knitting content, for those who follow such things and for those who don't:. 

Here's one of the (many) things on my needles right now. It's part of Clues 1 and 2 of a Mystery Knitalong Shawl by Romi, and I have to say it's beautiful. I've done several of her designs and she is a master designer, not to mention being a pretty nice person. And I was pretty proud of it and its progress (even though I'm still on Clue 2 and the rest of the knitting world has already finished the total of five clues that comprise this pattern.)

I say "was" because somehow I put it down wrong and a bunch of stitches fell off and here's what it looks like now:

Yes, I dropped something somewhere, somewhere in the middle of a cable and a border and a double yarnover. And, yes, a more skilled knitter than I could probably figure out how to fix all those happenings, but I can't.

Interestingly, Romi teaches a class, and I took it many years ago when she came to Atlanta to teach, about how to fix problems like this but that was many years ago and I have no idea what to do except to tink it.

TINK means to unKNIT something. Do the math and you'll figure it out.

Bottom line, I'm unknitting down to the source of the problem, probably about row 1 of Clue 2. And for those knitterati who are wondering, no, I did not have a lifeline placed. I had even pulled out the dental floss to put one in but I couldn't put my hand on a tapestry needle at the moment and so I just breezed ahead like I knew what I was doing.

The struggle is real.

Random Thoughts in No Particular Order

The election official who checked me off the list of registered Paulding County voters today at the Georgia Primary and complained mightily about all this "dadburned technology" that's changing the way we do things probably didn't vote for the same folks I did today. Is there a Luddite party? Or is that redundant in Georgia?

At my age I'm officially "senior," but while voting at the Paulding Senior Center today, it occurred to me that, until today I didn't know it existed except I knew those white minibuses had to be going somewhere. I'd like to last a few more years before I go there to find something to do or someone to talk to.

There was one person of color working at the election site today. Why did she get the work station situated next to where some doofus used the wrong kind of tape to tape down an electrical cord, resulting in her tripping and me having to catch her? I don't want to get all conspiracy theory on y'all, but Georgia has some pretty devious ways of making sure that black folks don't vote. Just say'in, that's all.

The major downfall to spending all day on a virtual call, staring at oneself on a small screen, is the knowledge that I look very different than I want to. Could that possibly be my chins wobbling or is it a flaw in the camera? 

The problem with reading is that it leads to more reading. My friend has been recommending I read "The Thursday Murder Club" forever but I balked at the price to buy it on Kindle. (I have my standards and I never go above $10 for a bunch of zeros and ones.) She was insistent, or should I say, encouraging, and finally convinced me to join a library in a state I never go to (I know, I know) so I could read it. I did and requested either the eBook or the audiobook version. Within a day I had  my electronic version. I'm enjoying this book! It's not "War and Peace" or even Margaret Atwood, but it's pretty darn good. Today I said to her that I was starting to think I should invest in the Kindle version to own it. Then just to prove to myself how virtuously frugal I was, I looked it up on Amazon and it was ... $2.99 temporarily. Of course, I bought it immediately and bought the audio version too. Because if it was fun to read, think how good it will be to listen to it. (And, btw, buying both versions books cost me more than my $10 limit.)

And speaking of reading, yes, I'm one of those people who cheats on books with other books. I always have an audiobook, a Kindle, and a wood-pulp book going at the same time. And a stack of New Yorkers I haven't read yet. At least. Today, it's a police procedural on Audible, TTMC on Kindle, and in paper, it's "Going Back to Bisbee" by Richard Shelton. Being a fan of most things Bisbee, without ever having been there, I should tell you the book by Shelton is heavy on Arizona and light on Bisbee, but probably one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. And beautifully researched. Which naturally led me to buy one of Shelton's poetry books, "The Last Person To Hear Your Voice." In paperback because when I read poetry I have to hold an actual book. I'm not sure why.

The next Shelton book will be his memoirs of working with the prison population. And then ... well, who knows?

Enough deep thoughts for today.

FOMO?

 Can one person have too much in her life? Too many blessings? Too much to do and not enough time to do it all?

That's me. It's been five years since I've written here. I've been too busy. 

Doing what? I feel like I haven't accomplished anything!

And, no, this isn't another COVID screed. Yes, the past few years have been stressful but, in many ways, they haven't impacted me much.

I still go to work. My precious older daughter is gone. I have lost a husband I loved but, truthfully, he was lost many years ago to Alzheimer's. I've really lost a beloved task, not a companion.

And I'm still writing...sort of. Still knitting...but not finishing much. English paper piecing? Not in months!

Yes, travel has been impacted. My beloved job with Stitches events has trickled down to a once-in-a-great-while event. CARF has stopped sending me interesting places. I still do CARF surveys but they're all (so far) virtual. Satisfying, but yet ....

Last year friend Debra and I flew to Rhinebeck for our "coming out party" from COVID. After all the fuss and worrying and stressing over details (do I even know how to buckle my plane seatbelt after all these years? why isn't there food on the plane? I can't breathe through this mask--I brought the wrong one! can I find my vaccination card?), it was fine. 

Although some venues were stricter than others, and Rhinebeck itself was reduced in size and attendance, it was a wonderful few days. We met old friends, some from many miles and other parts of my life, we ate our favorite Rhinebeck foods old and new (I'm talking to you, Roasted Brussel Sprouts!), even met a few knitting celebrities.

Then in March of this year, we went to Stitches West.  A great show as always, just smaller. I met old friends and made some new ones. I missed some people.  Again, Debra and I drove around the SF area and ate and laughed and talked to people and maybe bought some yarn. I didn't walk in the Pacific but I got close enough to be sprayed by waves.

And family! There's so much to say about family. New babies, grands growing up and marrying and going to school and, and, and. My family is truly my life. There is nothing I like better than snuggling one of my children, from months old to 35.

My job has been more than I could have expected. I've truly found my passion with the kids of Murphy-Harpst. Every day there is more to be done, less time to do it, and more joy than I could ever have imagined. I actually feel that I'm making an impression on young people who need me. This is my jam, for sure.

So why do I feel unfulfilled? Like I'm not living up to my potential. Like not getting done all the things that need to be done. Not writing that novel. Not moving on to my life without a job. Not traveling to all the places on my list. Not finishing that quilt top. Not, not, not. 

I'm a mass of negatives in the middle of so many positives. 

Am I fearing, not death, but not finishing everything in my remaining years? Or am I just an ungrateful, whiny cow?

Well, It Finally Happened!

               I finally lost a friend over the election. The first that I know of. The first to tell me I'm dead to him. In person and not on social media. And I can't even blame him--it was I who lost my temper and said things that shouldn't be said. (You know how emotional we females can get--I blame it all on menopause and drinking too many Diet Pepsis .)

               And I'm the one who said I would respect each person's individual vote. After all, we all have our own issues, prejudices, and hot buttons. And they drive our votes. As for me, I'm a card-carrying bleeding-heart liberal. I don't mind paying more taxes so others can get the services they need, even if they don't always deserve them. I'll fight to the death to have a competent Secretary of Education of our public schools so the children of the trump voters can have a better education.

               But it's tough. My friend called me a poor sport. Like I just lost at marbles. Actually, where important things like the Washington Redskins are concerned, I admit I'm a pretty poor sport.  But, with lots of practice, over the years I've honed my ability to pretend I'm okay with the Dallas Cowboys claiming they are "America's Team" while the Redskins stay home again from the Big Game.

               But I digress. I tried to explain that, more important than being a good sport, I have real concerns about the competence and experience of trump and his cabinet members.  He waved that off as having less importance than that the Republican party had vanquished Hillary and Obama. Oh, good. The black guy and the woman are gone.

               He's also a bottom-line guy who hates the idea that a business, like the one we work for, would be forced to pay for employees to have basic healthcare due to the Affordable Care Act. Or the idea that the federal government would force its opinion or any type of regimen on anyone. God knows we wouldn't want anyone telling us we had to be a Christian or a heterosexual or eschew birth control or guard ourselves from grizzlies in our public schools.

               But I'm pleading temporary insanity. When he told me that (a) there is no evidence that Congress wants to repeal healthcare coverage for under-26's or for those with preexisting conditions and (b) there is no evidence that Russia was involved in the recent debacle, I felt my precarious hold on mental health starting to fail.  I asked where he was getting his news. When he told me "that's Hillary stuff," I heard a snapping sound from inside my head. Something vital had broken loose.

               When our coworker, sitting with us, naively asked what Congress intended to replace the ACA with, since obviously so many people needed it, he told her not to worry about it, that Congress would handle it. At this point, I flew over the edge of the cuckoo's nest.

               This was not going to work. I had gone into a gunfight armed with a spitball. And it didn't end well. The top of my head blew off and blood and brains spewed out. Metaphorically speaking. When he told me I was dead to him, I think I remember telling him to send it to me in a 140-character Tweet so I'd know it was official.

               The important thing here is that it was my fault. I didn't set out to lose a friend I've worked with for 15 years. I had no intention of making an enemy out of a coworker that I work with daily.  And friends, long-time or new, are nothing to scoff at. I value my friends. I take full blame for what happened.

               But the more I think about it, we really weren't friends. We were coworkers who disagreed violently but politely on most aspects of daily life and culture. We were generally cordial as long as we stuck to topics with no possible religious or political significance. Pictures of cute puppies and grumpy kittycats were possible but only if none of the puppies was sitting too close to another puppy of the same sex.

               My friends and I don't always agree on everything but we agree on the important things--the value of other people, the importance of the environment, the need to be able to trust those to whom we've entrusted the leadership of our country. So I guess he and I weren't really friends. Just work acquaintances.  And I guess that's over.

I'm Back--and it took This Guy to get me back

To my conservative friend(s):

               Someone commented to me the other day that I seem to be "really bothered" by This Guy. And I answered that I was "worried," not bothered. That wasn't the truth.

               I'm not "bothered" by him. He is who he is. He has changed his public persona over the years, has claimed a multitude of beliefs and positions, and has been a chameleon depending on who he needed to be, who he was with, what he thought someone wanted to hear. Like the old joke about the snake, we knew he was a snake when we picked him up. The fact is, it's not his fault that he's in a job that he's uniquely unqualified for. It's the fault of the American voters.

               I'm not even bothered by the so-called deplorables (what a crappy word to call someone!), those voters who are uneducated or poorly educated, underemployed or unemployed, who have no hope for their present or future, who are racists or misogynists, or who are still fighting in bars rather than engaging in debates. Nope, I'm bothered by voters like you.

               I know you to be honorable. You're a good person, a patriot, a loyal employee, a loving husband and father. You are someone I've spent hours with, debating  history, football, and politics, always with the underlying idea that, although we fundamentally disagree on many aspects of today's culture, we share basic positions that we both hold dear: love of country, love of family, love of work, respect for the foundations of our country and those who seek to keep us safe, a complex spiritual life, and concern for those among us who have less than we do, either materially, emotionally, or health-wise.

               I'm bothered that you have endorsed This Guy with your vote. We've all met people like him. He's the boss who pinched my butt and tried to touch my breasts in the office (when I was 17 and in my first job), waving a soggy cigar when I pulled away. He's the guy who brags about how much he does for others but you have to dun for the entry fee for the charity golf tournament. He's the guy who stiffs the waitstaff because of some imaginary slight in the service. The guy who sneers behind your back that your (first) wife isn't as hot as his (third or fourth) wife, that your kid went into the military instead of a fancy university because the military is for "losers," that he's too smart to pay taxes when you just made your quarterly payment, that he's too smart to believe in God when you're seeking prayers for your sick child. He's the guy you don't let hold your toddler daughter. Ever. The business owner who overlooks your years of service to give the job you've earned to his nephew who has no experience. The guy who makes rude jokes at others' expense and doesn't understand why his peers aren't laughing.

               So, tell me. Would you hire This Guy? Would you ask him to join you and your wife for dinner? Have a drink with him in the bar? Introduce him to your daughter? Play poker with him? Ask him to mentor your son? Nominate him for an office in your professional organization? Suggest him to lead an important fundraising drive? Ask him to babysit your precious grandchild or dog for a weekend, a day, an hour?

               If the answers are no, he's not fit to be the leader of one of the leaders of the free world. We need a leader with experience, a willingness to learn the complexities of the world we live in, and an ability to work with others. (Harry Truman did it with little or no experience in national politics, but he was a selfless guy with a deep love of his country and a willingness to listen to a bi-partisan group of advisors.) Someone who will be honest with the American people (we all know those coal-country jobs aren't coming back--they don't exist any more and the jobs that do exist require a different set of educational and experiential qualifications--we need to be concentrating on education, not standing around waiting for a miracle). Someone who engenders respect, and maybe trust, from our allies and enemies alike.  Someone who can't be bought or influenced. Someone who puts the country's needs ahead of his own. This Guy isn't it. I'm not certain the other candidate was the best the Democrats could have come up with either, but at least I'm not worried she would get us blown up by North Korea because of an ego trip.

               Finally, my friend said, "hey, we've survived worse than this." Really? Is that now the qualification for president, that he's not the worst? Seriously?