Tag: bicycles

It’s a backyard late afternoon under the ash tree, waiting for a promised rain to blow in. This morning I tended my shroom farm, looking for any sign of fruiting – none found today, but it’s still early.

Next we were off to attend an AA meeting where ten people grappled with the meaning of spirituality – a consensus was not attained. It never will be attained, which is a great part of the fun in bringing it up.

Following this Robin and I cooked up a batch of corn chowder to take to a friend who lives alone and is suffering from some fairly severe postoperative pain. We are two of the many friends looking in on her.

Then I climbed into the saddle of our Schwinn stationary bicycle to punish my crotch for 30 minutes. It starts out just fine but at about twenty minutes the seat becomes a cruel device that would not be allowed under the rules of the Geneva Convention. Tomorrow I will walk standing straight up jonce again, I’m pretty sure. I would have thought that by now there would be some callus development in that sensitive area, but nooooo, seems to not be the case.

So I‘m waiting for the rain … what can I say … it’s a downright pleasure. It requires no effort on my part whatsoever.

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Watched snippets of the grilling that Secretary Kennedy got in the Senate hearing. It was pretty much D- performances on both sides. There are so many legitimate questions to be asked, but the senators keep saying things like “One word answer, yes or no.” As if.

Kennedy is a doctrinaire quack and we deserved to get more information on the depth of his incompetence, but we won’t get it when all the Democratic questioners seem to be looking for are personal photo-ops and gotchas.

Breaking up the CDC is a public health disaster, and those responsible have put their irresponsiblity on clear display. It may take years to repair the damage they have done. It is beyond shameful. I fear that the phrase from Hosea: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” describes the outcomes we can expect in the near future.

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When I was a kid I remember the guy wandering up and down the aisles at the Minneapolis Millers baseball stadium shouting: “Programs, Programs, You Can’t Tell The Players Without A Program!” Well, following the news these days requires someone running up and down the streets shouting the same thing. Except this time the program is the Constitution of the United States. Every member of Congress, every President is required to take this oath upon assumption of their office.

I obtained a copy of the Constitution from the website of the National Constitution Center, and offer it to you here. Even with all of the Amendments it is only 19 pages long. A trifle in terms of reading time. And yet, when the governed agree to be bound by it, it is the most important 19 pages in our lives as Americans.

But now we find that when a serial oathbreaker is elected to office there is a problem. Such a person may not pay any attention to its provisions, and if Congress (and, God forbid, the Court) goes along with the transgressor … it becomes only words on paper.

Unless we, the people, remind those in power what the Constitution requires of them.

Using a stout stick to get their attention whenever needed.

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I have had a detente-like relationship with my bathroom mirror ever since adolescence, when it began displaying small versions of Mount Vesuvius on what had been perfectly acceptable face just the day before. After that betrayal, I began to approach it under mostly dim light conditions, to avoid unpleasantness before breakfast. Before any meal, for that matter.

About twenty years ago, I was told a story involving a nice elderly couple named Ethel and Jerry. They were both in their mid-70s and fairly spry. So when Jerry told his wife one morning: “Ethel, you need ironing,” and then Ethel passed the joke along to the rest of us, I laughed along with her. Of course, Ethel was aged, aged people have wrinkles, and I never bothered to look ahead that far.

But now to get back to that bathroom mirror, which is no longer satisfied with detente but is in full war regalia and marching straight at me. I, to my horror and perplexity, see clearly that I need ironing.

So it’s back to dimming the lights from now on. Lose a pound or two, I told myself this morning, and you will be smooth again. Just avoid looking into that glass.

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There is a British television series, Unforgotten, which I can recommend without a qualm. It’s a police procedural series, and there are six seasons of it available to us on PBS. Yesterday we finished the last episode of Season Four and something unusual happened to me. The episode was particularly moving, and when I tried to talk to Robin about how well done it was, I burst into tears and could only speak with difficulty.

I don’t do that. I am not a blubberer. At least I didn’t think I was. But there I was, having been manipulated so well by the writers talents and the actors’ skills that I felt for each of the characters in the story. For a moment I cared about imaginary people and their imaginary lives as much as if they had truly existed. Their losses meant something to me.

This wasn’t some AI deception, but a story well told, by human beings. Enough that while watching, the barriers in my brain that serve to separate real from unreal were down altogether. I’d been had and I was not troubled by it at all.

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