Sunday Salon---Random thoughts

The street trees (Flowering plums) are all blooming but the skies haven't been so blue this past week.

Today's Sunday Salon is all about those random thoughts twirling around in my brain. Aren't you lucky? You get to take another little peek into my brain as I put some of those random thoughts down in print.

Weather: This is the time of year when things are usually pretty unpredictable around here when it comes to weather. Last week I posted photos of lovely blue-skied days with the promise of Spring everywhere. Then this week arrived. Early in the week it snowed, then hailed. Don and I sat there in full shock as we watched the sky open up and spew down on us. That is even weird for our own measure of weird. Yesterday it was beautiful and sunny, so we all thought a long walk was in order and we headed out with light coats on. We had to cut our walk short as the wind was so cold and biting.

Now here are some real random thoughts:

Books: My sister commented that she has noticed that I am not reading as much as I used to. That stopped me short. Is that true? How can it be when I am reading six books right now? Oddly all of them seem like "project" books. 

• Three are audiobooks with limits: 
• A Promised Land (Obama) I listen to it only when I am with Don in the car; 
• A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (Green) I only listen to this one when I am with Carly alone, often while we work on puzzles; 
• Dune (Herbert) I only listen to it when I'm alone. Talk about a project. The book is over 800 pages.
  
• Of the other three books all feel like I am reading for a "purpose."
• A Lenten devotion (Fury and Grace). I read only a short chapter each day. 
• Another book is on racism/antiracism. (Just Us) is excellent but not an easy, light-hearted book. 
• And a gift from my mother-- (The Atlas of Happiness.) Though it is a happy and thought-provoking book, it still feels like I a reading assignment.

Voting rights: Ted Cruz (TX) was caught on tape this week. He said Republicans must not give an inch on the voting rights bill (HR-1) because if it passes republicans will never win another election. What about this? Pass the voting rights bill and then work on being a party that attracts rather than repels people. The outcome could solve so many problems in our country if both parties weren't operating in the extremes.

I'm always on the lookout for something funny:

Zoom: I am on the church committee to help determine how and when we will open up the church after this COVID-19 pandemic is under control. As we start to open things up I offered to host a small meeting in the building, with masks of course, and one person on the committee said, "But Zoom meetings are so convenient." Are you kidding me? Aren't we all eager to get together in person again? Speaking of Zoom, my family will be gathering on Zoom this coming Monday to help celebrate my Mom on her 92nd birthday. 

St. Patrick's Day celebration. We fixed our boiled dinner a day late, but it was still delicious. Have a listen to this wonderful gift song to us-- an Irish Blessing. Listen all the way to the end for a special treat.

Call the Midwife: We finished watching all nine seasons in three weeks. Every single night we watched at least one but usually more than one episode. We finished up last night by watching three. Now what do we watch? (Don't say basketball, my husband is already doing that.)

Speaking of the NCAA basketball tournament: The UO Ducks advanced without playing a game. Their opposing team had to withdraw due to too many COVID cases.

White evangelicals and sexual repression: This week's terrible news about the man who killed eight people at spas in Georgia because he was a frustrated sex addict, got me thinking about the amount of pressure Christian churches put on people to be "pure." Have you noticed how many of these churches seem to rank "sins" and they always put sexual sins at the top of the list? I believe that sexual feelings are natural but people who are told from childhood on that those feelings are bad will learn to repress them. Then, because they can't help it, they will start obsessing about sexual thoughts and may end up acting out big time, like the man in Georgia. Ugh. Read this excellent article about this topic in the NYT from 3/20/21. The article also addresses how often men (and the church) blame women for tempting them. Double ugh.

 

Ever feel like this? This is another way of saying my brain is always working on random things...

Guess I don't have as much to say as I initially thought. 

Stay tuned for future random thoughts. Have a good week!

-Anne