Csquared Thoughts

taking a day off

I took a vacation day for my birthday today, so I think I'll take a day off from blogging as well. See you next week!

(One comment though. It hit me this morning that I actually turned mfghty-mghft today!)

a week of puttering - Friday

Cleaned out my email In box, and cleaned up the audio books list on my iPod. Terry and I went to the exhibit hall at the Live Healthy Expo, and signed up for every-other-week delivery from a community-based-agriculture farm. Looking forward to that!

a week of puttering - Thursday

Truly a day of puttering. Lunch with Terry, then an ice cream cone with her while the cleaning people were here. Taking care of some things online: renewing a couple of memberships, submitting a proxy vote, and casting my vote for the Sierra Club board.

a week of puttering - Wednesday

Got caught up on filing. I'm hoping this represents a trend, so I don't end up with a year's worth of filing in December as I did last year. Well, at the very worst it will be eight months now. Oh, yes, and mowed the lawn.

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I was struck when I learned of two deaths in the past week week. One you probably heard of: Marilyn Chambers. The other you probably didn't, unless you live in the Bay Area: KTVU movie critic Bob Shaw (here's a video tribute). What they both had in common was that they were both 56. Why that struck me was that I will be 56 in August, as will Terry in December. Now there are not a lot of similarities between between the two of them and Terry and me. Both were born in 1952. We were born in 1953. Marilyn engaged in some highly risky behavior in her young adult years. Bob Shaw lived with chronic illness most of his life, which eventually caught up with him.

And it's not like I haven't experienced the death of my contemporaries before. In high school a fellow a year behind me was killed in an auto accident. A few years after graduation a classmate died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty heater. I can think of at least two deaths I know of from my college graduating class. There's probably more than that.

Still, such news reports within a couple of days of each other pull one up short. It certainly is a reminder of what a real gift life is.

a week of puttering - Tuesday

Shampooed the carpets. whew!

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Sunday's second reading reading included 1 Corinthians 15:10, where Paul says of himself in relation to the other apostles, "On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." That passage always irks me a bit. Paul so often seems just a tad arrogant. Now, he does have a lot going for him. He was, after all, the great advocate that Christianity was for all, and not just for the Jews. But some statements of his stick in my craw.

That's why I keep listening and studying and reflecting.

a week of puttering

Given the current economy, the division of my company in which I work has asked us to take extra vacation, and to take this week if possible. Given that I am one of those guilty culprits who has a lot of vacation time accrued, I'm doing so. I have no plans or things I have to do. I'm going to putter around the house and on the computer. I'm looking forward to it.

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A thought on yesterday's Gospel (Mark 16:1-8).

Most scholars agree that the original version of Mark ended with Mark 16:8, and the verses which follow are (two) later additions. It's an abrupt ending, but not as startling as it might appear at first glance. The words of the young man —the angel— at the tomb, "But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you" are fraught with meaning. One scholar, a Stanford professor whose name escapes me, suggests that this is an instruction to the women and the disciples to go back to their community and live the teaching. Pastor Koch suggests it's an instruction to go back to Mark 1:1, and begin reading the Gospel anew.

I like both. Both work

the ice cream man cometh

When I was a a kid, you only saw the ice cream man between Memorial Day and Labor Day (more or less). He had a nice, clean truck with neatly arranged pictures of his offerings. He was well-groomed and neatly dressed, maybe in a uniform.

Here in Gilroy in 2009, the ice cream man shows up all year round. He has an old, beat-up truck with the product decals sloppily pasted across the vehicle. He is shabbily dressed, trying to eke out a living.

It's certainly not the same.

some thoughts about priorities (Rated NC-17)

Warning: This blog entry contains explicit language and content that some may find offensive.

I've had this post in draft form for a while, and have gone back and forth about actually publishing it. I don't want to offend my readers, but I also want to be able to honestly write about my thoughts and feelings. So here it is. If you might be offended by NC-17 rated material, please skip today's entry and come back and see me tomorrow

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We've had DirecTV satellite television ever since we've been in Gilroy, since the cable when we moved here was less than stellar. But every year the rates go up, and this year the increase got to me. We cut back on our premium channels and on our regional sports channels, providing us significant savings. So far we haven't missed what we cut back on.

I think about the virtues of scaling back, and having a simpler lifestyle. Make life less complicated.

I'm reminded of former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz's comment in 1976 about Blacks, that all they wanted was "tight pussy, loose shoes, and a warm place to shit." Now from a racial perspective, this comment is clearly patently offensive and entirely unacceptable, and that the remark cost him his position in the President's cabinet is completely appropriate and then some.

But if you universalize the sentiment, and say perhaps that is what a lot of straight men want, or maybe even what a lot of people in general want, well....

Saturday Night Live at the time ran with the sentiment, and on their satirical Weekend Update "newscast" suggested that other high profile individuals had resigned their position because all they really wanted was "good sex, loose shoes, and a warm place to go to the bathroom."

In the mid 1980's, when I discussed Butz's comments, using the original, unexpurgated language, with my first wife, Ruth, who was Jewish, her comment was, "That sounds pretty good to me." Now I assume that on first point she was referring to the female equivalent desire, as I never knew her to have any lesbian tendencies.

From my perspective, born of WASP heritage, if I think about it, having those three things perhaps is pretty good. It gives you all the basics. The first suggests you have someone to wake up with in the morning. The second suggests you have the clothes you need. The third suggests you have  a roof over your head. Throw in food on the table and a loving pet at home, and perhaps what you've got is pretty good. Maybe anything else is extra.

Jut and idle thought of the moment.

united we stand

When I was in high school I was part of the public speaking group. One year things were in kind of chaos, as we had lost our teacher and weren't sure who we'd have the next year. When it came time to sign yearbooks at the end of the school year, I quoted a current popular song for one of my fellow speech group members:

United we stand, Divided we fall, And if our backs are ever up against the wall, We'll stand together

When I looked at what she wrote in my yearbook, I saw, "You are a nice boy. You have a good summer."

sigh. Sometimes our noblest intentions are not reciprocated.

the blues (and creativity)

I was sad to hear that the San Francisco Blues Festival is being canceled this year, and its future is uncertain. Such a feeling is rather odd, as I only went once, and I don't like the blues at all. I can't even say I went. It was happening in Golden Gate Park when I was out from Oklahoma (where I then lived) visiting my friend Alison, and we chose to visit the park. I remember that we saw a number of performers, but the only one whose name I remember is Big Mama Thornton. I remember Alison bought me a festival poster, which was long ago a casualty of many moves.

The year was 1979. I know that because I still have a poster from another event at the park. It was an exhibit put on by Chevron (I cringe to admit) at the Academy of Sciences called Creativity: The Human Resource. I don't remember the individual exhibits, but I remember it was very well done and fascinating. I've loved the poster (by Milton Glaser) enough to keep it all these years, and it's survived all those moves that the blues festival poster didn't. Many years ago, as it was getting the worse for wear after being attached to and taken off of so many walls, I had it framed, something that at the time I was not in the habit of doing, and which was in fact at that point a bit of a strain on my budget. But to me it was well worth it.

Today the poster occupies a place of honor above the stereo system in my loft office.

I don't think we always give enough credit to creativity. It's an amazing (and central) part of humanity. And I can hold out the hope that human creativity can help get us through even these trying times.