Perfect is the enemy of good.
~Voltaire
Category: Life
The Swans of Ballycastle
I ordered some of the books people recommended after 12 Months to read 12 Books but none have arrived yet. Meanwhile, I found this book in a pile while cleaning and read through it yesterday.
It’s an Irish folktale about three children with a single dad. They live an idyllic life with him until he goes off to Dublin and comes home with a wicked stepmother. Some other stuff happens (magic) and they turn into swans. They paddle off to live on an island with other swans.
There’s more to the story, of course, but I got stuck on the wicked stepmother. I mean, take Cinderella — what if her stepmother wasn’t wicked, but was nurturing. What if Snow White’s stepmother didn’t feel threatened by Snow White’s beauty? What-ifs can take a story in a whole new direction, right?
Tune in tomorrow for the delightful stepmother edition of The Swans of Ballycastle.
Essay on Lessons from an Angry Stranger
It’s Writer Blocks Day. Here’s my roll: Essay, Lessons, Angry, Stranger.
Forgive me if I’ve told this story before.
Remember the days of COVID when businesses shut down and then slowly reopened with new rules and regulations. Masks. Social distancing. Hand sanitizer. Who could have imagined it all?
Cooperation was palpable in those early days. We looked for ways to make it all work. Hand-sewn masks were made and distributed because manufactured masks weren’t available. Restaurants developed take-out menus. Zoom changed its meaning; it became a way to meet and connect, rather than something a car did on the highway.
When the sports facility where I worked reopened, we required everyone to wear masks. In the pool, where masking wasn’t possible, we implemented social distancing rules. Every other lane was left vacant and swimmers had to sign up to reserve their lane.
Over time, the restrictions were slowly lifted. The mask rule remained, however, long after other businesses in town had removed it.
One morning, A.M. (Angry Man) came in the front door. “WHAT THE #@*!$# DO I HAVE TO WEAR THIS FOR?” he yelled across the foyer to me.
I started to answer, but he continued cursing and yelling. “I DON’T HAVE TO WEAR IT ANYMORE. THE STATE LIFTED THAT REGULATION.”
I wanted to say that I understand. I wanted to tell him that I’m sorry; I don’t make the rules. I wanted to remind him that we are privately owned and run; we have to wait for The Foundation to lift the rule.
But he was yelling and other members were coming in, wearing masks, checking in at the front desk.
As one woman scanned her membership card, she said to me, “This is how Hitler got started, you know,” and she pointed at her mask.
A.M. was still yelling, F-ing this and F-ing that. I swear, the Hitler woman was smirking at me behind her mask. Other people were staring — at me, at A.M., at the mask sign on the front desk. I turned and walked away.
I walked into the back office where my supervisor worked. She wasn’t there. I walked down the long hallway to the Director’s office and knocked on the door. I interrupted a meeting.
“I don’t get paid enough to be compared to Hitler,” I said, and I told her the whole story.
When I finished talking, I saw A.M. coming down that long hallway. He reached me and went down on his knees.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Please forgive me. I’m so sorry for the way I spoke to you.”
“Of course, I forgive you,” I said. “Thank you for apologizing.”
We had a brief conversation and I went back to work. I think he stayed to talk with the Director.
Just the other day he was in my office.
“You know I have opinions,” he said.
I smiled. “Yes, you do, but this is a nicer way to handle them.”
He shared with me a concern/complaint/suggestion. I listened and thanked him.
That first angry interaction did not define our relationship and he is no longer a stranger. I think there’s a lesson or two in there somewhere.
Logic
I know, I know — it’s ONE liner Wednesday, but I’m going to give you two quotes because they walk hand-in-hand.
“People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind. ”
William Butler Yeats
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
Albert Einstein
When you make a cup of coffee…
When you wash your hands, when you make a cup of coffee, when you’re waiting for the elevator – instead of indulging in thinking, these are all opportunities for being there as a still, alert presence.
Eckhart Tolle
It’s the first day of 2025, a day when we have a fresh start on a new year. 365 days lie ahead, unspoiled, full of potential and hope.
I’m one of those people who DOES make resolutions and here are mine.
- Post here more regularly. Tentative schedule
- Wednesday — one-liner Wednesday — sponsored by Linda Hill. Today’s word is “coffee.”
- Thursday — W3 (poem) — sponsored by The Skeptic’s Kaddish. This week’s challenge: an ode.
- Friday — Unicorn Challenge — new photo posted each week. Write no more than 250 based on it.
- Saturday — TToT — Ten Things of Thankful
- Sunday — Writing Dice — luck of the roll — a gift from my daughter — I’ll post pictures when the time comes.
- Monday — writer’s choice
- Tuesday — writer’s choice
- Be present in the moment. See quote from Eckhart Tolle.
- Cut back on things that aren’t important.
- Invest in things that are important.
- Clean the house.
Udder Questions
“Just hold out the grass on the palm of your hand,” Mom said, demonstrating the open palm to Iain.
Timidly he did it, taking baby steps forward until the heifer snuffled her warm wet snout onto his hand, licking the grass off. He laughed at the sensation: the smooth snout, the strong rough tongue.
“I grew up next to a dairy farm,” Mom said. “It’s where that housing development is now.”
“You were so lucky,” Iain said. “Why do we have to live in a city?”
“Your father has a good job there,” his mother replied.
“Are they [tipping his head toward the heifers] really where we get our milk?” he asked.
“Yup,” she replied.
“But I don’t see the thing they squeeze to get the milk out,” he said.
“These are heifers,” she explained, “young cows that haven’t had their own calf yet. They don’t have full udders until after they calve.”
He puzzled on it and bent his head sideways to try to look underneath. Sure enough, there were teats but no udder.
“Where’s the dad?” he asked. “We learned at school about babies. It takes a mom and a dad, right?”
“Bulls are dangerous,” she explained. “They use AI.”
“ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?!?” he said incredulously. “Like aliens??”
She laughed. “No! Artificial insemination.”
“What’s that?” he asked. “How does it work?”
She gulped and reddened. “A picture would be easier,” she said.
Back home, she looked up the following picture on her computer.
“Ewwww!” he said.
This is my submission for the Unicorn Challenge. Just write no more than 250 words based on the photo prompt.
Several years ago, I wrote a poem about growing up next to a dairy farm and the experience we had when our pet heifer wandered over. Here’s the poem:
When my parents bought the farm
(literally)
Pa Jackson was over the hill
(euphemistically and literally)
He milked the cows by hand
While the barn cats tumbled in the hay
(euphemistically and literally)
I watched with wide eyes
(the milking, not the euphemistic tumbling)
The Jacksons had a bull
To do the job of the artificial inseminator
And when our pet heifer,
Sock-it-to-me-Sunshine,
Wandered over
To get to know the Jacksons’ cows
(literally)
The bull also got to know her
(euphemistically)
Then, our heifer
Was in the family way
(euphemistically)
She was loaded on a truck
And sent to a home
For unwed cows
The next summer
The Jackson’s cows
Were also loaded onto trucks
And sent to auction
Because Pa Jackson was
Extremely
Over the hill
(euphemistically)
A few years later
We read in the newspaper
That he had bought the farm.
(euphemistically)
And here’s the pet heifer with one of my brothers.
Crippling Grace (and a sermon recap)
There’s a poem I’ve read over every morning for the past week or so — mostly because I’m still not sure I’ve unpacked it. I probably never will. It’s called “No accident” by Norman MacCaig. Here are some bits from to give you the gist:
Walking downhill from Suilven (a fine day, for once)
I twisted a knee…
I didn’t mind so much. Suilven’s a place
… [where] a heaven’s revealed, in glimpses.
Grace is a crippling thing. You’ve to pay for grace.
The heaven’s an odd one…
…hiding
Forevers and everywhere in every thing — including
A two-mile walk, even, and a crippled knee.
You reach it by revelation. Good works can’t place
Heaven…
…in the hard truth that, if only by being
First in a lower state, you’ve to pay for grace.
“You’ve to pay for grace.” I think those words bothered me, because Christianity teaches that grace is free.
But Sunday’s sermon was from 2 Corinthians 12 where Paul talks about his “thorn in the flesh.” I’m sure it wasn’t a twisted knee. I know the scholars propose an eye affliction. But I don’t think Paul is saying anything much different from Norman MacCaig, though, when he says that God’s grace is sufficient and that power is made perfect in weakness. (1 Cor 12:9)
My take-away from the sermon was this quote from Fr. Nathan — “Our weaknesses, our scars, our really big wounds — these are the places where God can work in our lives.”
I needed to hear that reminder. The challenges in our life are how we pay for grace — or God pays for it. It’s where He works.
Getting Old
I almost titled this post “My Left Hip,” because, dang, my left hip is hurting today.
Oh, it’s been hurting for a while. I thought it had to do with my hip flexor, but when stretching and rest didn’t help, I got an x-ray.
The results came back and I had to look up half the terms — “diffuse osteopenia” — the predecessor to osteoporosis. At least it’s NOT osteoporosis, right? “Subchondral lucency in the left acetabulum” — this has something to do with osteoarthritis, I think?
In any event, I have to wait until mid-June to see someone in Orthopedics.
In the meantime, I keep moving. Sitting hurts. Standing up from sitting is THE WORST.
But standing and walking are fine. I actually feel better after a good walk.
So I tell myself throughout the day, “Get up and move.”
There are people in the “rest” camp. They say things like, “You must rest.”
Trust me, though — rest doesn’t help. Lying in bed — the ultimate rest, right? — can be painful. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and feel the pain radiating from my hip down my leg.
So I listen to my body and move as much as I can during the day.
Yesterday, however, I overdid. I won’t even tell you what I did, but it was strenuous and it was a mistake. My left hip is hurting today.
Seriously, who has time for this stuff?
Thank God for Advil.
This post was inspired by my left hip and Linda Hill’s “Stream of Consciousness Saturday” whose prompt today was “move.”
I Thought I Knew
Yesterday, when I went into work at 5 AM and entered the building, I thought I smelled something.
What’s that smell? I thought.
Smells niggle, don’t they — tickling some unreachable place in the brain.
Oh — I knew the smell, or at least thought that I did.
Cannabis.
I shook my head. I certainly was not going to be the one who turned in someone on the night cleaning crew, but sheesh, they should know better. What you do on your time is your business, but what you do when you’re on the clock — not so much.
It was about an hour later that one of my early morning co-workers came by to see me.
“Did you see that this morning?” he asked.
“What?” I replied, somewhat confused. I had seen nothing unusual on the way into work and we both drive the same route.
“Right by the side door,” he said, gesturing with his chin to the door he uses. I actually use a different door when I come in.
I shook my head. “I didn’t see anything,” I said.
“You must have smelled it then,” he said.
I shook my head again.
“That huge skunk?!” he said. “It had obviously just sprayed, but I was worried it might try to get me too! We were that close.” He indicated a spot about 5 yards away.
I shook my head now for a different reason. Do skunk and cannabis smell similar? A quick google search affirmed that they, indeed, DO smell somewhat alike.
I thought I knew what I was smelling.
Guess I was wrong.
Sorry, night guys!
This is in response to Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: What’s that smell?
I haven’t done SoC writing in a while — too busy, too tired, life too full, all the excuses. When I read her prompt this week, though, I had just had my cannabis-skunk experience so I wrote it out.
Visiting British Columbia
It even says it on their license plates, Beautiful British Columbia, as if our eyes are deceiving us. Yes, this is a beautiful place.
I had to fight the urge of pulling over on my drive up from Seattle to take some pictures. The mountains are breathtaking. The trees stand tall, erect, pointy and somehow brave.
It’s so very different from the Northeastern US, where the mountains are lovely, but older. The trees are also lovely, but more are deciduous; they seem to go with the flow of life instead of the unmoving strength of those giant pines.
Ah, I know, I’m probably way off base. The oaks and maples have deeper roots, right? And I’ve seen tall pines toppled with their root system, shallow and broad, turned on edge like a wall.
But this is my submission for Stream-of-Consciousness Saturday — a day late — and I’m not going to go back and correct what may need correction. When I saw that the prompt was “Photograph,” I thought, Yup, I’ve taken a few photographs over the past few days.
We’ve gone walking every day. Two days ago, my son and his wife wanted to take me to see some glorious vista — which I’m sure would have led to not a few photographs. However, we started up the logging road and it got steeper and steeper and steeper.
“Are we there yet?” I quipped two minutes into the hike.
Twenty minutes in, after a couple of rests, I asked them to guesstimate if we had gone a quarter of the way yet. He studied the map on his phone. “Umm…. maybe just under a quarter,” he said.
We turned back at my request. I walk A LOT, just not straight uphill.
Instead we walked along the Fraser River which was lovely. The only photograph from that walk was of an immature eagle who stared down on us as we passed.
Yesterday, we walked along the Vedder River, a river which changes its name to Chilliwack once it passes under a bridge, so I saw the Chilliwack River, too. In fact, I only photographed the Chilliwack.
But my favorite picture of the day was one I took immediately as we started on the path. It made me laugh — and it still makes me laugh.
I love when people have a sense of humor.
I really want to know who thought of the poop fairy.
In Beautiful British Columbia.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 