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Baby, It’s Warm Outside

Oh, blessings and misery. I confess, I like cooler weather. I get weary of downright cold weather, but still, I’ll take a stretch of freezing cold over an extended period of triple-digit highs almost anytime. So here it is, a week into November, and we’re still reaching the low 70s every single day.

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Sunny is okay, but make it sunny and cold.

I want my sweater weather! I like the feel and look of downy soft turtlenecks. I feel cozy and comforted. I like wearing ankle boots with my jeans. For whatever reason, I believe I’m stronger, more in control, with them. And all in all, what I like better, looks better.

I don’t want a sunny Thanksgiving or a balmy Christmas day. I want a nip in the air, days when I can’t forget my jacket, cold air that makes cheeks and even my nose a little red.

How we each feel about weather is a funny thing. I have friends who would never move away from the Southwest, despite the extremes down there. Others I know live in Minnesota (my home state) and while they grumble about the snow and deep freeze, they wouldn’t think of locating elsewhere. I’m in a state where we have four seasons, something I’m grateful for, although I wouldn’t mind a slightly longer fall and winter. These past couple of years those seasons have been annoyingly short.

I suppose our preferences are due in part to the priorities in our lives. If you love the outdoors, you may prefer the heat. If your favorite activities include reading, needlework or playing chess, the excuse to stay inside because of dropping temperatures may be welcome.

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Awwww, let it snow! let it snow! let it snow!

Whether you find it more challenging to walk your dog in the heat, with mosquitoes dive-bombing and sweat dripping down your brow, or in the snow, with your toes going numb and the sniffles that won’t go away, is part personality, part upbringing and likely part physiology. I’m betting some of us are just better suited for the cold. Maybe it’s an extra layer of fat. I don’t pretend to know.

Regardless of the reason for my preferences or the lingering warm weather, I’m begging for a little frost overnight and ongoing temps below 60 degrees. This perpetual heat is irksome.

Photos courtesy of Pixabay

Irksome

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My Literal Belief in Mythology

I was taught, in my high school Sunday School classes as well as by most of my professors at the Bible College I attended, that the Bible is literal. One of my professors, however, Mickey O. Day, proposed this thought: the Bible was written during a time when authors of religious material used mythology to describe God, or their gods. Why couldn’t the writers of the Bible have done the same?

Open book against grunge backgroundLet me describe what’s meant by mythology here: a story that tells of a quality of God in a manner that can be understood by human beings. Not unlike parables, the story may be pure imagination, but the characteristic of God that is described is most definitely not. He remains as powerful, omniscient, and glorious as ever. And ever.

We think of myths as being falsehoods, yet in its purest form, mythology is, in fact, truth. Now I don’t worship the gods of Greece or Rome, and I’m not in a position to debate their veracity. But thinking of some of the stories of the Old Testament as having been written in the literary form of mythology is intriguing to me, as well as more likely historically accurate.

I Beautiful Angel In Heavenbelieve in the literal birth, death and resurrection of Christ, by the way. I’m talking primarily Old Testament stories here, and not all of them.

It doesn’t diminish God in my eyes. If you struggle with this concept, I’m not saying what you believe is wrong. Frankly, I don’t know the truth, but I am secure in Whom I believe in.

Image Credits: (Angel) © Bigstock; (Book) © GraphicStock

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The Only Thing Exterminated Here is the Death Penalty 

In my last job, we weren’t allowed to kill the bugs.

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At the Inn at Bella Vista, this little one is safe.

Okay, it’s a bed & breakfast, so they had an exterminator come out on a regular basis for the comfort of their guests, but if a wasp flew into the dining room, you called Bill. He’d show up with the bug jar, capture the wasp and set it free.

Which is all well and good, but in my house, you take out the Raid.

The mice were saved, too, whenever possible. One such soul, Rodney, kept coming back, even though Bill would capture him in one of those humane traps and take him far into the woods in back. I’m not sure how he knew it was Rodney every time, but they developed a bond of sorts.

Sorry, Walter, little Rodney can’t play today.

I couldn’t help myself. I offered to bring over my cat, Walter, for a play date with Rodney. That suggestion was met with a wounded look from Bill.

Despite my jokes, I respect Bill’s philosophy. It comes as a direct result of his time serving as a Marine in Vietnam and a police officer in Little Rock in the 70s. He’s seen enough killing and death.

He tells stories of his time on the force, but never as a Marine in combat. Something true of many, if not most, servicemen and women. What they witnessed, and took part in, during war is not something they want to remember or repeat, in words or actions.

Instead, some, like Bill, try to make sense of what happened by protecting all innocents. Bless the beasts and the children, as they used to say. A phrase born of a country at war. Where are the protest songs today?

We become the people we are today in part by our response or reaction to what happened yesterday. Ideally, it is a response, a chosen way of thinking and being. But what happens when you are thrown into a situation for which you are never prepared, then asked to live with the resulting emotions? The guilt, the shame of an inexplicable experience may result in burying your thoughts and beliefs about what happened. You lose a part of yourself.

There is hope.

Believe in yourself, the person you know yourself to be in spite of the thoughts that hammer at your brain. Seek out the support of others. Never give up in your search for better.

This life is far from perfect. But it is what we’re given for a time, so never give in to the worst. Let the better part of life win.

Image Credit: (bee and flower)courtesy of Pixabay; (hand and butterfly) © Bigstock.com

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The Kitsch is Back

You find the funniest things when you move. I’d given up on Francisco a long time ago (you may remember him from a previous post)– so long ago I’d forgotten he was strumming a guitar, not flamenco dancing.

Memory is a challenge sometimes. We think we remember so clearly, when in reality,  we’re completely wrong. Or at least partially wrong. I’m glad I remembered the charm of Francisco, even if I didn’t remember his profession precisely.

As you can see, he’s in need of a little repair. That will happen, and soon. After his journey back to my awareness, that’s the least he deserves.

And the kitsch is back!

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In My Little Town

I spent most of my growing-up years in the Bay Area of California, in a suburb of San Jose I won’t name for reasons you’ll note shortly. During the time I lived there, it was an eclectic little tourist town. It was also a place where respect was taught — in my high school — and practiced.

When I was a sophomore in high school, the girl who sat next me and the boy who sat behind her in my geometry class worked at a local Mexican restaurant, well-renowned in the area. One night, this 16-year-old girl found herself waiting on a man who looked vaguely familiar. Not vaguely. He looked like — he was — Robert Redford.

This was 1976, and this was what Bob looked like around that time, in case you’re too young to remember.

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Robert Redford in “The Great Gatsby” (1974)

Damn. Both of my classmates got his autograph, she as his waitress and he as the bus boy, and they were smart enough to let their manager know, too. They were also gracious enough not to say anything to anyone else. Mr. Redford was eating with his family, and they respected his privacy.

Today, I doubt it would happen that way. That quaint little town has turned into a new money hell hole, and people are very status-driven. Someone sees a celebrity, they likely scream it out.

lake-vasonaMy freshman English teacher had noted that unlike most of the towns and cities in the area, generations of families grew up and stayed in my little town. He’d taught the children and now grandchildren of his early students, in significant numbers. It was a pretty place, with a town square and tranquil parks. The high school had the only nighttime football field in our league, which made home games very popular.

I’m speaking in very nostalgic terms here. It wasn’t all glory growing up there. Numerous girls in my high school class, including some I was very close to, were sexually assaulted on or near the school grounds. More than one notorious serial killer had lived in the area during the time my family was there.

But if we can’t have sweet memories of our growing up years, and for me it has sometimes been hard to find them, it is harder to find the good in our world today. So I am thankful for the town I grew up in, as it was then, as it remains in my heart and mind.