If you're for Cora, she's got my vote! Is Laurie Bishop the other Dem running?
This paragraph perfectly summed up my feelings after reading the Chelsea Green piece last night: "The strange way opposite ends of the political spectrum—presumed far right vs. presumed far left—often meet. Not to mention the toxicity of the workplace, which seems more common than not, and the horrible way people can act when they are "in charge." How people hang on to jobs in shitty situations because they feel they have no other options."
I have had it up to here with "nobody wants to work." I know 3 managers who have lost employees because the employees lost their housing and had to move away. No amount of magical thinking is going to change that, but no amount of reality seems to make a dent in magical thinking, either.
My go-to delight these days is Murderbot because I am a dork and Murderbot is my true self somehow. Also rewatching Picard. And gorgeous weather. And the couple who went on NextDoor to volunteer their plum trees, leading to me and my daughter getting enough plums for the winter's fruit leather and also meeting a wonderful older couple.
I’m watching spiders this year. For some reason it is providing me enormous comfort to watch the lovely cat-faced spider in my garden and the orb weaver in my community plot. And gardening, as usual, keeps me from screaming profanities most of the time.
From the article on Chelsea Green (which I too have admired for many years, though now I see them differently): "After a fruitless visit to the Mercola corporate headquarters in Cape Coral, the nerve center of his enterprise to push unproven supplement cures under the guise of natural health, the CNN crew buttonholed their man riding a bicycle near his gated mansion in Ormond Beach, sporting nothing but a pair of black swimming trunks, a baseball cap and a peanut butter tan."
I would not trust this guy to advise me on my health. Just saying.
Sweetness? I love this question. I find a lot of sweetness in my encounters with flowers. I tend to collect them on my walks, and support a local flower farmer's u-pick business, and I have a few still growing in my yard, too, so I try to spend time with them, one way or another, every day. It's dahlia season, after all! And I am smelling every rose I pass as well. I have to as they will not be here in a month or so.
Last night I was changing out the water in several vases, removing wilted leaves and drooping blooms--I can keep my bouquets going for 2+ weeks when I tend them lovingly--and I felt so happy doing this little ritual at the counter at 10 pm. Life is good when I stay connected to these little pleasures!
I might pick up 'The Wind in the Willows' now, too. Thanks, as always, for your insights, Chris.
That sounds like a wonderful ritual, Holly. We had CSA subscriptions for flowers all spring and summer from a farm just down the road from here. What a difference it makes.
Oh Chris, as a retired letter carrier, reading about the exchange you overheard in the USPS lobby was a distressing reminder of why I am so relieved to be out of that place. I had to work alongside a lot of Tods. (Toads?) After 34 years of work, 32 of those in one city, I came away from that job with about three friends worthy of staying in touch with. During those years I rubbed elbows with hundreds of colleagues and bosses. It's never fair or right to lump people into a single basket, but sometimes it just fits.
The single factor that buoys my buffeted spirits these days is that at least with the Delta variant kicking ass and taking numbers, finally COVID is killing off a nice percentage of COVIDIOTS.
Thank you for a great post. Now I'm off to find that article you referenced. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Keep writing.
I love the folks at my downtown post office, I just don't go there anymore. When I was at the bookstore, sometimes taking stuff there was a highlight of my day. But I get it. I've "heard things" not unlike you describe quite frequently.
Just like we have words for specific groupings of animals, we need one for "a group of white men holding up a line while they complain that 'no one wants to work anymore.' I've run into too many these days. I also appreciated your note about hating so much being told what to do as to make yourself unemployable - I am in the place where I cannot face working with a bunch of toxic software engineers while management caters to their every whine. I cannot deal being told to be nicer. I cannot deal with being told that my emails 'upset' people because I don't put 50 smiley faces in them and am telling them to do their job (which just so happens to be MY job). Things are falling apart because we're broken.
Chris I agree with you your sentiments on the “no work bullshit” Some days its all I can do to pull myself out of bed. There is so much hatred, and misunderstanding. Too many people viewing the world from the lens of a toddler having a temper tantrum. I love your posts, don’t ever stop writing.
I am picking up rocks from a small beach in a small hamlet called Lazy Point, where I'm staying for a few days. Small round sun kissed rocks, translucent pearl grey with ruby veined rocks, tangerine rocks. I'll put them in my pocket, pack them in my carry on bag and lay them them on a wood rail on my deck when I get home.
You'd think after so many years of pocketing rocks I'd know something about them, how they're made, where they've been, but no. Magic every time. Love Safina too!
I love the Wind in the Willows! For the last several years I've been reading it about once a year, sometimes just sections, but I always return to it. Of course I also adore messing about in boats...
Chris - I LOVE your poem. It's hard to believe it's a "draft." I also appreciate the sweetness question and enjoyed reading all of these responses. I've got one for you:
My mom just turned 82. She has terminal cancer and recently had to stop her chemo treatments because she had a heart attack and can no longer withstand them. Her favorite holiday is Halloween. She was afraid she wouldn't make it until then so we had a Halloween birthday party for her last Saturday. She was a cat (I wish I could add a photo but it seems not) and read two Halloween poems she wrote for the talent show that was part of the party. Instead of being sad and bitter, she's making the most of every day. I'm trying to learn this from her.
In response to your message to find the "sweetness" We recently had lice in the classroom, I told my students not to use our resting cubbies until I can kill all the lice and in response, one of my students' says, "Oh, poor little guys."
what is my sweetness? i panicked a little when i asked this of myself because i couldn't answer. nothing came to mind. i read all the comments here and looked around to see where the "sweetness" occurs.
i write every day for at least couple of hours--saunter inwardly i guess you could say.
and read a lot. poetry. spiritual teachers like merton, pema chodron. memoirs.
and i listen to music all day long. spotify gives me so much pleasure. jazz. experimental. blues. music is so important to me.
we've had a handful of clear days recently (in denver) after weeks and weeks of suffocating smoke and ozone. on those clear days the mountains are so beautiful!
my wife and i have our morning breakfast routine. it takes 2 full hours.
hmmmm. i feel better now. lots of sweetness that's easy to overlook i guess because it's so ordinary.
Wayne, your schedule sounds dreamy, thank you for sharing. You have me wishing I could join you and your wife one day for that 2 hour breakfast routine!
Your wonderful poem in progress sings shades of Wind in the Willows, a very favorite of mine. You may want to keep your eyes open for Terry Jones' film version that Disney bought up and changed the name to Mr Toad's Wild Ride. Cheers!
As usual, thanks for making me feel a little more sane about the state of things. Or at least less alone.
I love the sweetness question - and all of these responses! The kids and I have been listening to Emily of New Moon by LM Montgomery, and it’s so sweet but not sappy. It has us all looking forward to the trek to school so we can listen to more of her adventures.
Nice, Chris. I’m so so sick of the “no one wants to work” shit too.
As for sweetness, my 3yo grandson Nikko just told me he’s having “a good day with me” so that’s a sweet win.
That's pretty much the picture of sweetness, Victoria.
If you're for Cora, she's got my vote! Is Laurie Bishop the other Dem running?
This paragraph perfectly summed up my feelings after reading the Chelsea Green piece last night: "The strange way opposite ends of the political spectrum—presumed far right vs. presumed far left—often meet. Not to mention the toxicity of the workplace, which seems more common than not, and the horrible way people can act when they are "in charge." How people hang on to jobs in shitty situations because they feel they have no other options."
I have had it up to here with "nobody wants to work." I know 3 managers who have lost employees because the employees lost their housing and had to move away. No amount of magical thinking is going to change that, but no amount of reality seems to make a dent in magical thinking, either.
My go-to delight these days is Murderbot because I am a dork and Murderbot is my true self somehow. Also rewatching Picard. And gorgeous weather. And the couple who went on NextDoor to volunteer their plum trees, leading to me and my daughter getting enough plums for the winter's fruit leather and also meeting a wonderful older couple.
Monica Tranel is also running. There might be others by now too, I don't know.
I’m watching spiders this year. For some reason it is providing me enormous comfort to watch the lovely cat-faced spider in my garden and the orb weaver in my community plot. And gardening, as usual, keeps me from screaming profanities most of the time.
That sounds about perfect, Heather.
From the article on Chelsea Green (which I too have admired for many years, though now I see them differently): "After a fruitless visit to the Mercola corporate headquarters in Cape Coral, the nerve center of his enterprise to push unproven supplement cures under the guise of natural health, the CNN crew buttonholed their man riding a bicycle near his gated mansion in Ormond Beach, sporting nothing but a pair of black swimming trunks, a baseball cap and a peanut butter tan."
I would not trust this guy to advise me on my health. Just saying.
That's such a great paragraph, isn't it? What a tool that Mercola guy is.
Sweetness? I love this question. I find a lot of sweetness in my encounters with flowers. I tend to collect them on my walks, and support a local flower farmer's u-pick business, and I have a few still growing in my yard, too, so I try to spend time with them, one way or another, every day. It's dahlia season, after all! And I am smelling every rose I pass as well. I have to as they will not be here in a month or so.
Last night I was changing out the water in several vases, removing wilted leaves and drooping blooms--I can keep my bouquets going for 2+ weeks when I tend them lovingly--and I felt so happy doing this little ritual at the counter at 10 pm. Life is good when I stay connected to these little pleasures!
I might pick up 'The Wind in the Willows' now, too. Thanks, as always, for your insights, Chris.
That sounds like a wonderful ritual, Holly. We had CSA subscriptions for flowers all spring and summer from a farm just down the road from here. What a difference it makes.
Oh Chris, as a retired letter carrier, reading about the exchange you overheard in the USPS lobby was a distressing reminder of why I am so relieved to be out of that place. I had to work alongside a lot of Tods. (Toads?) After 34 years of work, 32 of those in one city, I came away from that job with about three friends worthy of staying in touch with. During those years I rubbed elbows with hundreds of colleagues and bosses. It's never fair or right to lump people into a single basket, but sometimes it just fits.
The single factor that buoys my buffeted spirits these days is that at least with the Delta variant kicking ass and taking numbers, finally COVID is killing off a nice percentage of COVIDIOTS.
Thank you for a great post. Now I'm off to find that article you referenced. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Keep writing.
I love the folks at my downtown post office, I just don't go there anymore. When I was at the bookstore, sometimes taking stuff there was a highlight of my day. But I get it. I've "heard things" not unlike you describe quite frequently.
Just like we have words for specific groupings of animals, we need one for "a group of white men holding up a line while they complain that 'no one wants to work anymore.' I've run into too many these days. I also appreciated your note about hating so much being told what to do as to make yourself unemployable - I am in the place where I cannot face working with a bunch of toxic software engineers while management caters to their every whine. I cannot deal being told to be nicer. I cannot deal with being told that my emails 'upset' people because I don't put 50 smiley faces in them and am telling them to do their job (which just so happens to be MY job). Things are falling apart because we're broken.
That's a large part of the world I left behind, CR. It all but ruined me. Hang in there.
How about a "shitstorm" of white dudes?
Chris I agree with you your sentiments on the “no work bullshit” Some days its all I can do to pull myself out of bed. There is so much hatred, and misunderstanding. Too many people viewing the world from the lens of a toddler having a temper tantrum. I love your posts, don’t ever stop writing.
I can't stop writing, Patricia. It's the only thing I know how to do anymore, heh....
I am picking up rocks from a small beach in a small hamlet called Lazy Point, where I'm staying for a few days. Small round sun kissed rocks, translucent pearl grey with ruby veined rocks, tangerine rocks. I'll put them in my pocket, pack them in my carry on bag and lay them them on a wood rail on my deck when I get home.
I picked up rocks from the dry riverbed of the North Fork of the Flathead River a couple weeks ago. They are on my little altar here now.
I'm jealous you're in Lazy Point. I saw the Carl Safina book you posted a picture of. He is one of my absolute favorites.
You'd think after so many years of pocketing rocks I'd know something about them, how they're made, where they've been, but no. Magic every time. Love Safina too!
I love the Wind in the Willows! For the last several years I've been reading it about once a year, sometimes just sections, but I always return to it. Of course I also adore messing about in boats...
Me too!
Chris - I LOVE your poem. It's hard to believe it's a "draft." I also appreciate the sweetness question and enjoyed reading all of these responses. I've got one for you:
My mom just turned 82. She has terminal cancer and recently had to stop her chemo treatments because she had a heart attack and can no longer withstand them. Her favorite holiday is Halloween. She was afraid she wouldn't make it until then so we had a Halloween birthday party for her last Saturday. She was a cat (I wish I could add a photo but it seems not) and read two Halloween poems she wrote for the talent show that was part of the party. Instead of being sad and bitter, she's making the most of every day. I'm trying to learn this from her.
This is beautiful, Julie. Thank you. All my best to your courageous, wonderful mom.
Thanks Chris. I will give her your message.
Chris, please come back to our school!
In response to your message to find the "sweetness" We recently had lice in the classroom, I told my students not to use our resting cubbies until I can kill all the lice and in response, one of my students' says, "Oh, poor little guys."
This is great, Jacqueline, thank you. I'm going to do my best to make it back!
what is my sweetness? i panicked a little when i asked this of myself because i couldn't answer. nothing came to mind. i read all the comments here and looked around to see where the "sweetness" occurs.
i write every day for at least couple of hours--saunter inwardly i guess you could say.
and read a lot. poetry. spiritual teachers like merton, pema chodron. memoirs.
and i listen to music all day long. spotify gives me so much pleasure. jazz. experimental. blues. music is so important to me.
we've had a handful of clear days recently (in denver) after weeks and weeks of suffocating smoke and ozone. on those clear days the mountains are so beautiful!
my wife and i have our morning breakfast routine. it takes 2 full hours.
hmmmm. i feel better now. lots of sweetness that's easy to overlook i guess because it's so ordinary.
Wayne, your schedule sounds dreamy, thank you for sharing. You have me wishing I could join you and your wife one day for that 2 hour breakfast routine!
These are all wonderful examples, Wayne. Thank you.
thank you for adding facts to the employment situation. Enjoy your trip to Helena!
I will, thanks!
Your wonderful poem in progress sings shades of Wind in the Willows, a very favorite of mine. You may want to keep your eyes open for Terry Jones' film version that Disney bought up and changed the name to Mr Toad's Wild Ride. Cheers!
I saw there are a few versions out there. Soon as I finish the book I'm going to check them out.
As usual, thanks for making me feel a little more sane about the state of things. Or at least less alone.
I love the sweetness question - and all of these responses! The kids and I have been listening to Emily of New Moon by LM Montgomery, and it’s so sweet but not sappy. It has us all looking forward to the trek to school so we can listen to more of her adventures.
Thank you, Sara. I'm loving all the responses too.