Day 192: Moral Dilemma

Posted on 09/21/2020 by chick

I have a moral dilemma. Some people in one of my Facebook groups have been posting things that are bigoted. I feel a moral obligation to speak out against that, and a lot of other things, too. But these people are mean and angry, and that worries me, because they live in my town. I am not anonymous on Facebook, so they could find my address easily, which makes me feel unsafe. Also, having debated some points with them recently, I know that my arguments are unlikely to sway them. However, I cannot stay in the group and allow their comments to pass unchallenged. I would feel complicit.

I see two courses of action for resolving this dilemma. I might simply leave the group. Having proven that they don’t listen to reason, I can walk away comfortable in the knowledge that I did at least try. Plus I’m sick of their crap. So I can justify this course of action. I just can’t convince myself that there’s not some moral cowardice in it.

There is an alternative worth consideration. If I wait a few weeks before commenting again and change both name and avatar, they might be unable to recall my name or recognize the account, which would give me some anonymity going forward. My arguments may have proven ineffective, but they have disrupted the echo chamber, and that’s important. These people need to know that they don’t own the space and that not everyone agrees with them. More importantly, the people reading the posts need to know that. A brief comment and a link to a relevant website ought to suffice. This way I can can show another point of view while not involving myself personally in any arguments.

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Day 191: Stealthy-Like

Posted on 09/20/2020 by chick

As I mentioned previously, I did some rage donating on Friday and Saturday. I wanted to send a message to Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham. ActBlue took in a ton of money over the last few days (over $100 million last I checked) because of people like me who wanted to speak out, and I do believe our voices were heard.

But now I can already feel my rage cooling a little bit. I’m still angry (always angry these days!), but that’s not quite the same thing. I don’t want to let the rage go, because rage is motivation. Continuing to lash out might keep the rage alive, but lashing out is not necessarily going to accomplish anything more for me or for anyone else.

I said I’d make more donations, and I want to follow through. At the risk of losing momentum, I’m going to sit down and do some research on Dem candidates in downballot races who could use a little extra cash. It’s another way to give Mitch the finger, just stealthy-like. That’s what I’ll keep telling myself, anyway, if my enthusiasm flags.

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Day 189: A Dollar Saved Is a Dollar Donated

Posted on 09/18/2020 by chick

Today I spent part of my day talking to my home and auto insurance agent. Talking to her is one of my least favorite ways to spend time. I do not like insurance, and I do not like her. But it’s that time of year, so it had to be done.

The problem with insurance is that the rates go up every year unless you switch companies, but you can’t switch every year, because it gets progressively harder and harder to find decent rates, plus it takes a lot of time and energy. So usually I put up with the rate increases for a few years, then switch when I finally get mad enough. But before switching, you should at least try what I did today, which was to threaten, politely of course, to take your business elsewhere. If you’ve been with the same agency for a few years, what will usually happen is that the agent will magically find you a cheaper plan that they somehow overlooked before.

Sure enough, my agent pulled a cheaper plan out of her . . . hat. The Magic Plan that she’s offering will save me some money. By dropping the coverage on my car to the lowest possible level, I’ll save a little more. So my time today was well spent, even if it wasn’t fun.

But I hadn’t even had time to celebrate my savings before I got the news that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died today. And before her body was cold and the country even had begun to grieve her, Mitch McConnell had already announced his intention to fill her SCOTUS seat before the election, in violation of everything he’d said when denying the duly-appointed Merrick Garland his SCOTUS seat. Not that we hadn’t known what he’d do, but it was still infuriating. I wanted tell Mitch McConnell where he could stick his announcement, but his voicemail inbox was full, so I sent him a message in the form of a campaign donation for his opponent. It was my way of giving him the middle finger.

I’m not the only one flipping Mitch McConnell the bird tonight, if ActBlue’s numbers are anything to go by. And I’m just getting started. Republicans picked a bad day to piss me off, because I saved enough on my insurance to flip them a lot of birds!

But, though that might relieve some of my anger at Mitch McConnell, it doesn’t do anything for my grief. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an inspiration, and our country has suffered a great loss today. RIP, RBG.

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Day 188: One of Fourteen

Posted on 09/17/2020 by chick

One good thing about having purchased so many books is that I feel obligated to read them. So far I have finished fourteen, among them this Poirot mystery:

Three Act Tragedy (aka Murder in Three Acts) by Agatha Christie

Grade: B

Three Act Tragedy is a Poirot mystery, but he plays only a minor role in it. However, Christie provides three amiable lead characters to gather evidence for him to use in the final act. First there is a retired actor named Sir Charles Cartwright, who is described as a “well-built, sunburned man of middle age.” Then there is Mr. Satterthwaite, “a dried-up little pipkin of a man . . . patron of art and the drama, a determined but pleasant snob, . . . a very shrewd observer of people and things.” And last, there is the young and attractive Hermione “Egg” Lytton Gore, who has set her cap for the much older Sir Charles.

When an acquaintance suddenly drops dead at Sir Charles’s dinner party, the three characters suspect murder, but the police and Hercule Poirot (who was also present) disagree. Later, one of Sir Charles’s oldest friends dies under similar circumstances, throwing new light on the first death. Sir Charles and crew begin their own investigation into the suspected murders.

Overall this was a quick and enjoyable read. Unfortunately there were some insulting Jewish stereotypes and old-fashioned views on women, both common problems in Christie’s books. I bristled when I read them, then reminded myself that they are a reflection of the times in which they were written. They still bothered me, though, as they should.

At the end there was another problem: the murderer’s motive didn’t ring true. I was curious if other readers had felt the same way, and when I investigated I found that there are actually two versions of the story: one from the 1934 American edition and another from he 1935 U.K. edition. The two versions are said to be similar except for the motive. The alternative motive, which I read about on Wikipedia, makes more sense, but it calls to mind a certain famous work of literature, and the comparison does Christie’s book no favors. I don’t know which of the two motives was written first or whether my copy was the American or British version. It really doesn’t matter, because neither motive quite satisfies, and I recommend this mystery only for die-hard Christie fans.

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Day 187: Half a Year, Not Halfway

Posted on 09/16/2020 by chick

At first I wasn’t sure why the numbers in my post titles were bothering me so much, but then I realized that it’s because we’re now past the half-year mark. We’ve been living this weird, closed-off lifestyle for over six months, and it feels like we ought to be halfway through this pandemic, about to round a corner and finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. That’s not where we’re at, though. Even if the vaccine became available today, distribution would take more than six months. There are so many ifs. If the vaccine. If the election. If, if, if. Nothing is certain. This is the Age of Uncertainty, and a very long age it is.

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Day 186: Talking to Myself

Posted on 09/15/2020 by chick

Yesterday was the kids’ first day of school. I meant to take a picture of them. A photo from the first day is traditional, and it makes a nice page in the yearly photo album. But I forgot to take the picture.

Perfectionist Me says, “You really screwed up! You missed your chance, and you’re going to regret it later.”

Practical Me says, “Take the picture tomorrow. No one will know the difference, not even you.”

Nonconformist Me says, “Why does it have to be the first day anyway? Why not the third, or the seventeenth, or the one-hundred-and-eleventh?”

Grumpy Me says, “Good. That’s one fewer picture to squeeze into the album!”

All the Mes have valid points of view. Perfectionist Me and Grumpy Me want to dwell on the negative, though, and that’s not a good way to start the school year. I’m going to listen to Practical Me and Nonconformist Me instead.

What I’ll do is take some pictures of the kids this week, as well as some later in the year. When it comes time to make the album, I’ll pretend that one was a first-day picture, or I’ll come up with a different label for it, or I’ll contrast a photo from early in the year with one late in the year, or I’ll make a distance-learning collage. Or maybe I’ll come up with an ever better idea before then. I can’t know which way I’ll go until all the pictures have been taken (or not). But I am sure of one thing: I’m the keeper of my own memories, and I can do anything I want with them.

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Day 185: Soon

Posted on 09/14/2020 by chick

Recently I mentioned how I wanted to create a walking path on my property and that one of the potential destinations for the path was the big rock at the front of my property. Here is a picture of that rock.

Big Rock

To get to this rock, you must either cross the Sometimes Stream or walk across an area with a lot of poison ivy. That is why I had never gone to it before. One of those issues has temporarily cleared itself up, though. The weather has been so dry that there’s no stream right now, nor even any lingering mud, so you can simply walk across the dry bed.

Granted such easy access, I decided one day earlier this week to finally visit the rock. Approaching it from this direction, the only way to get to the top was to climb it. That task was made significantly easier by this interesting tree.

This tree has grown into the rock, creating a large, barky “step” for getting onto the rock.

Climbing wasn’t difficult, and the poison ivy was conveniently sparse along that side. The rock was just high enough that when I got to the top I felt like I was above the world.

View from the Top

At the top, toward the front, there are loose rocks (boulders, really). They’ve been there for a long time and might be stable. Then again, they might not be, so for safety’s sake that area will have to be off-limits. The only part anyone would be allowed on is the back, where there’s this pleasant, somewhat grassy area.

The Top of the Rock

I’ve told you this tale of discovery as if I had been all on my own, but that’s not quite how it happened. I climbed the rock first by myself to see what it was like. But then Marshall begged me to take him up there, and since it had seemed safe enough, I did. My husband joined us at the top, and we talked about what we should do with this unused patch of land. Then Livia came out of the house and wanted to climb up, so I had to go back down and show her how to get to the top without covering herself in poison ivy. I actually ended up climbing that rock three times!

As for the plans discussed at the top, my husband says he’s going to remove the fallen tree and the poison ivy. Then we will add some things, such as…

  • Staggy: Staggy is our oversized outdoor Christmas stag. If we put him up there and lit him up, he’d be visible from the road. People passing by on winter nights might see him and think merry thoughts. We had been thinking of doing this anyway, and it would be an even simpler matter if there were already a pathway leading up.
  • Our old fake Christmas tree: why not let it serve for a few years outdoors before it goes to the landfill? It would look great next to Staggy.
  • A picnic table: if we mulched out a square of that grassy area, it would be a perfect spot for a picnic table.
  • Other fun things: statuary, fairy houses, etc. It’s my little hill, so I can make it as tacky as I want 😉 .

So now we have a more detailed plan. Everybody loves the plan and is eager to make it happen. The kids would be up there right now if we’d let them. “Soon,” I told them, and I hope that that was the truth.

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Day 184: Long Week Ahead

Posted on 09/13/2020 by chick

The new school year starts on Monday. Over the last few days we have tried to prepare ourselves, but it hasn’t been easy. The school committee didn’t make its decision until recently, so teachers and administrators had little time to prepare. Consequently, supply lists and teacher assignments only just came out.

I ordered our supplies immediately, and luckily they arrived in time. On Friday my husband collected school materials for the kids at the designated pick-up stations. Then we attended, via Google Meet, Livia’s 4th-grade orientation. Marshall had the same teacher for 4th grade, and I’m glad that we’re starting off with someone we already know. She seems well-prepared and we feel like Livia will be in good hands.

We still don’t know the identities of all of Marshall’s teachers. The middle school is less organized than the elementary school is, but slowly the e-mails are trickling in. By 8:00 a.m. Monday we should know most of what we need to know.

Speaking of 8 a.m., we are going to have to readjust ourselves to keeping morning hours. Unlike the quickly thrown-together distance learning that the kids had in the spring, this time around the teachers will be teaching class all day, starting in the early morning. That means no more rolling out of bed at whatever time feels good. Alarms are going to have to be set. Discipline will have to be employed. Darnit.

It’s going to be a long week.

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Day 183: You Have to Ask Yourself, What Would Aliens Do?

Posted on 09/12/2020 by chick

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, on the debate over mask-wearing in this country:

Imagine you were an alien who landed on planet Earth, and you saw that our planet was afflicted by an infectious-disease and that masks were an effective way to prevent the spread. And yet, when you went around, you saw some people not wearing them and some people wearing them. And you tried to figure out why, and it turned out it was their political party. And you would scratch your head and think, “This is just not a planet that has much promise for the future” — if something that is so straightforward can somehow get twisted into decision-making that really makes no sense.

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Day 182: So Close!

Posted on 09/11/2020 by chick

I found a potter who makes the most amazing Art Nouveau style vases. Her vases are expensive but so beautiful that my husband and I have decided to buy one. The only problem is that her work is in such demand that every vase she posts for sale is immediately snatched up. She never posts more than one per evening, and she’s not consistent about the timing. So it’s very hard to get one.

But we’ve come close! Last night, when I opened up her webpage, there was a new vase that appeared to be available. I thought I’d finally gotten my chance. But someone must have been in the process of buying it, because I couldn’t put it in my cart. I kept trying, just in case, but a few minutes later: SOLD.

And then tonight, my hubby got even closer. He had the vase in his cart! But then the page unexpectedly refreshed and that lost him the vase.

That’s OK, though. Both of the vases were small, not quite what we’re looking for. What we really want is one of the bigger ones that will be up for sale over the next few days. There’s one with butterflies and cattails that would be perfect for our bedroom, but all of the vases in the current batch are lovely. Any one would do.

So we’re going to keep trying, and if we don’t get one of these, we’ll wait for the next batch. And so forth, and so on, until we finally get one. Or until the pandemic ends and we can go to one of her shows to buy a vase from her in person. Or maybe both, because that would give us something to look forward to in the immediate future and something to look forward to in the more distant future.

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