Archive for April 2025
My plan is to create a blog entry every day, but obviously my plans are bigger than my daytime awake hours. In the wee hours of the night, on the other hand, I create all kinds of entries. I decided today to present the weirdest one that’s come to me lately. I imagine what a difference it might (or even could) make in the world if the Koch family were to have the following conversation.
K#1: Pass the Hors d’oeuvres
K#2: Sure, and by the way, I’ve been thinking …
K#1: Glad to hear it
K#2: Seriously. Now that we know the fossil fuels hazard, how about applying our business genius to the development of renewable energy. I mean, it could be fun. Just look around at all the creative methods that are being invented, as well what’s already known. We could make a bundle and have a good adventure in the process.
K @1: Hmm. And what about all the related oil-based products? –like Vaseline, for example.
K #2: Well, we wouldn’t have to go crazy and abandon all the other things we so cleverly own, but we could gradually create an emphasis on things that would create less complaint about damaging the environment.
K #1: Maybe we’d be getting in on it too late. There’s already a lot of potential competition established.
K#2: And did we ever shy away from competition?
K #1: Kind of a crazy thought. But pass the Hors d’oeuvres and I’ll think about it.
I’ve often wondered who pays for Elon Musk and our other billionaires to use America’s infrastructure? Is that a gift that tax-payers like me – and others – give them?
Just wonderin’
Just a short complaint. There’s not much I can do to stop the trampling on our constitution. I can at least, though, sign petitions. But I’m finding that difficult and annoying since so many of the requests pull a “used car salesman” kind of trick on me and require a contribution before processing my signage. And then they send messages accusing me of not caring because I haven’t signed. To tell the truth, much as I care right to the core of my being, I’m beginning to feel used by those I want to help.
Just sayin’
Getting past all the frightful negative stuff that’s going on now under the current national regime is difficult. The awful arresting of the best and the brightest – students with the courage to practice the right [we once had] to protest – colleges and universities being attacked and punished for doing their job – knowing that what I used to teach encouraging diversity, equity, and inclusion is now under attack. How fortunate I was to live in the days of academic freedom. How sad I am to watch what’s happening now to my chosen career.
But I’m choosing today to talk about something that really made me happy. You can read about it yourself at https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1jy3u0x/rolling_with_their_babies_for_fathers_in_search/?rdt=47375
But let me tell you a very personal reason why it makes me happy.
As I approached the end of my [not yet published] story of Mona as a psychologist, currently titled How Could These Lovely People Have Let it Happen?: a Psychologist’s Intimate Journal, I realized how my small part teaching the psychology of women and promoting the topic A Healthy Woman is a Crazy Person had helped to shake up the basic structure of our society in the women’s movement of my time.
I’m referring to the fact that working on women’s problem that has no name (Betty Friedan) had defeated the notion that we were the opposite of men, consequently opening up broad opportunities for us. It wasn’t at the forefront of our minds to recognize that we were creating the problem that has no name for men whose assumed roles were perforce changed. What an opportunity for men to choose the broadening of their lives!
And that’s what I like about the article referenced above – the twofold goal of enjoying parenting and broadening communication with each other.
I’m not sure I’ve said it well here. I think I’ve done a better job – with more words – of saying it in my manuscript. Basically, it thrills me to see people at all points on the gender continuum finding their fuller, more potentially joyful selves.
p.s., feel free to email me with an offer to read my manuscript. forgivenessoptions@earthlink.net
I just can’t get over the injustice of sending Kilmar Abrego Garcia to suffer in a notorious prison in ElSalvador and choosing to leave him there in spite of the admission that it was a clerical error that condemned him to that horror in the first place. How casually the Prresident changed his tune and yielded to Elsalvador’s President when he refused to return him. Sort of like, Oh, I just realized I was wrong; It wasn’t really an administrative error after all. So, okay, no matter what the courts say, I’ll yield.ilmar Hmm, Is that the response of a strong man? Seems to me like giving in to the playground bully.
By the way, I had a happy entry planned for today in response to a story that made me smile this morning. I’ll plan to pick up on it tomorrow. https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1jy3u0x/rolling_with_their_babies_for_fathers_in_search/?rdt=47375
What I really want to do right now is rant about the injustice and cruelty, and maybe even stupidity of the rampant urge to kick immigrants out of the country, even in some cases retroactively removing their earned rights to be here. I have to admit that some evil part of me hopes the best and brightest will end up in welcoming countries where their talents will be employed for development and strength that might have been ours.
But I’ll pass up that desire and focus instead on the much more optimistic teams, trees, vibes, and dreams I mentioned in a previous blog. This time just on the trees part. I’ll start with the memory of a drive home from a week on the shores of Lake Superior a few years back. The nice thing about being in the passenger seat is the freedom to let my mind and emotions wander. And that’s what happened as we passed through a beautiful canopy of trees reaching across the road like a tunnel of life. It struck me – even moved me – when I realized that the trees and I were literally exchanging Oxygen and CO2. We were breathing life into each other. It was life changing for me as I realized the very real connection between me and the natural world. – Gratitude, even.
And then I read Peter Wohlieben’s The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel and How they Communicate. I admit much of the content was beyond my ability to remember, but I do recall the life-giving sharing of active roots strengthening neighbors in trouble. Teams, you might say.
And I thought of nurturance and growth strengthening underground where we don’t see it unless we open ourselves to feel it.
And that’s what I’m trying to say here. However chaotic and fearful things might seem right now, there is, I’m sure, goodness and growth beneath it all.
I hope I’ll find better ways to say it in future entries.
I know, I promised something more serious, but today (like so many days) got away from me. I thought, though, that, you might enjoy my response to our writers prompt for today — REGRET. It’s only four days from the anniversary of my falling-asleep-at-the-wheel adventure in 2015. (If you’d like more detail, there’s lots of it under “crash” on my web site: http://www.forgivenessoptions.com.)
I should have stopped at Doug’s to snooze
But that’s not the choice I chose to choose.
And that’s how I ended here at the Waters
Not a bad ending, considering the starters.
Mona, 4/11/2025
I just finished listening to a fabulous lecture by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I don’t have time now to write a lot, but, aside from the fact that it brought tears to my eyes for the days of confidence in our democratic system, it reminded me of what I had hoped to write today.
“Action happens,” she said, “from the ground up.”
And when she talked about the stress of not knowing where it will end, it reminded me why I like documentaries about the historical periods I’ve stressed my way through. I relive the tension of the time, but knowing how it ended.
I hope to be back soon to write about teams, trees, vibes, and dreams.
Who knew I’d have such a handy new example of onomatopoeia before the day was done. So here’s what happened. Sometime after 8:00 p.m. yesterday evening I was happily dressed for bed, warm and cozy in my white plush bathrobe, my bed pulled back and ready, as I was enjoying my daily phone conversation with Harriet in Maine. In case you wonder who that is, she was with me in 1951 typing on the SS Volendam as reported in the previous entry posted in the wee hours of this morning — my college roommate.
As we proceeded with our reports of daily activities I was distracted by an occasional chirp. She could hear it too. Chirp, chirp. No, not a bird in the apartment – but a signal that the smoke alarm wanted a new battery. Not a good thing on a Friday night when the weekend was upon us and all who might help would have gone home. But I was lucky. A call to the Concierge put me through to a guy working in the special care area. “I’ll have to charge you,” he said. “I’m willing to pay,” I replied, “if you’ll just charge the smoke alarm and stop the chirp– anything, anything!” Fortunately he was tall enough to reach the high ceiling with the help of my step stool. He changed the battery and started to leave when I heard it – chirp, chirp. He went back and touched some magical spot. The chirping stopped.
The next two hours were peaceful and I called to assure Harriet that all was well. – until I began to hear it – chirp, chirp. No, I wasn’t hallucinating. But all I got when I called the Concierge number was an offer to leave a message. Now my nervous system was going ping, ping as I scrambled through my travel stuff looking in vain for ear plugs. There could be no sleeping with that chirp, chirp, so I real quick threw on some clothes, grabbed a warm blanket, let my door bang quietly closed, clicked the lock fob in the door, and headed for the sofa recently placed in a corner of the atrium.
Not good for my back, and too much light slapped at my eyes, so I tried a darker area of wall seats in the café. No room for my left arm, and besides, some resident I didn’t recognize came by and chatted a bit. I don’t think either of us understood what the other was saying, but he commented to one of the special care nurses as she passed by on her way home, “I’m just chatting with my friend.”
One last thing to try – a deep squishy pink puffy lounge chair in the darkened community room that was really quite out of place with the other furnishings, but maybe I could sink into those cushions and get comfy somehow. First, though, one last try. I instructed my Siri, a nice guy in my phone who sometimes says things like, “You’re welcome,” to call the Concierge. My hero answered, Kelsey the head nurse, apparently on night duty. “I’ll meet you in the apartment,” she said, and she did, as my lock fob was producing an opening ping.
Also very tall, she released and lowered the chirping alarm and declared it needed to be replaced. “I’ll take it with me,” she said, “and Nate will replace it on Monday.” “Just so it stops chirping,” I pleaded. “It won’t stop chirping,” she grinned, “but you won’t hear it.”
“Now I can sleep,” I thought. “A cup of unsweetened warm chocolate almond milk with a fistful of raw cashews will help.” Maybe the big mistake was slipping a bit of bourbon into the cup. Whatever, my ears armed themselves with invisible guards just in case the chirp should start up again. It didn’t, but I did get a lot done, along with the preceding blog entry, when I finally gave up on the hope for sleep and did a bunch of stuff at the computer.
And there you have it – what my daughter would call a “first world problem.” One way to avoid eyes snapping open with concern for so many suffering real problems. Next time someone asks me to think of something I’m grateful for, I’ll remember the removal of the “chirp, chirp.”
And there you have it. A nice, meaningless entry with no important message to convey.
The following is a result of the assignment for today’s (Friday, April 4, 2025) gathering of our writers group here at the Waters of Excelsior. If you remember the meaning of “onomatopoeia” just enjoy patting yourself on the back. If you don’t remember, then you’re in my boat. I needed a reminder. Anyway, here’s the definition: Onomatopoeia refers to words that imitate or represent sounds, like “hiss,” “buzz,” or “bang.”
And here, for your reading and listening pleasure, is what I wrote to include illustrations of onomatopoeia.
“June, 1951
The SS Vollendam crunches a few times against the dock in Rotterdam as ropes bump and release it closer to its resting spot, finally tethering it, slowing the slosh, slosh of the water’s agitation. The somewhat rattly pinging of the large company clock calls out the arrival hour, adding to the cacophony of motors revving up to large containers slapping the deck as they fall into place. Screeching winches hoist them onto heavily breathing trucks groaning a low, rumbling drone as they cut through the air on their way on access roads pausing in peace for a moment. A horn toots, anticipating their explosive gassy pop as they exit the pier. Voices clash into each other as workers shout commands. Somewhere the almost musical ping, ping, ping of a European emergency siren swoops the air, unlike the soprano rise and fall of an American get-out-of-the-way warning sound. Out of sight the harbor pilot skims through the breaking waves, its guidance job done.
Inside the bowels of the ship, we volunteers rush to complete documents that must be presented to shore authorities before gates will clang open revealing the disembarkation route down the slightly swaying squeaking gangplank. The click, clack, of fingers slapping the mounted keys on the contemporary Underwood tap back and forth between the zap of the carriage and the rip, swoosh of removal of the completed page.
And then it’s done. The push of Mona’s heart banging her ribs from inside celebrates the processing arrival in Europe to begin the frighteningly exciting eleven week journey to Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, England, Holland, and Belgium.”
monagustafsonaffinito 