Something That Bugs Me

I'm a big fan of prayer. I do it all the time. I like to pray. Prayers are beautiful.

I am not a big fan of email chain prayers that have flashing pictures of angels and end with "Now make a wish, spin around 3 times and email this to 412 people and your prayer will come true".

I'm not a theologian, but I can tell you right now, that ain't how it works.

I admit that sometimes the prayers I'm sent are very lovely. If they are so lovely that I feel compelled to share them I copy and paste the prayer, just the prayer, into a new email and send it to those I think might appreciate it. But I'm here to tell you that I do not and will not, pass on a stupid, superstitious, pagan "don't break the chain" prayer email and I don't care who sends it to me.

And while I'm ranting, here's another thing. I have some friends who are not of my political persuasion. That's a good thing, for everyone. But with most of those friends we follow a policy of "agree to disagree". I don't send my W jokes to them, they don't send their "Bill Clinton is the anti-christ" crap to me. It works very nicely.

But I have this friend who has been sending me stuff lately. Not just me, other folks, too. A few weeks ago she sent me something negative about Barack and I responded with, "You do know I voted for him, right?" Her response? "Yes, and I love you anyway".

Well, thanks a crap ton for that, sweetie, but it did make me wonder if I was being too subtle. What would make a person think, Obama supporter that I am, that I would enjoy negative emails about the man's character? I'm not talking about a well-reasoned op-ed piece by a conservative journalist who has questions and concerns about the direction an Obama administration might take. Bring it on. No, I'm talking about half-baked dribble drabble that regurgitates Swift Boaty lies and distortions. And I hate that crap.

Right, so the other day she sends me something else, purporting to be from Newsweek magazine, showing all the demographics of the election: how the Republicans won more states, more land area, more counties nationwide were red than blue...like that.

And all I could think was, "What is your frakking point?" Are you suggesting that Barack Obama isn't really the president-elect? That the election was somehow stolen? Or is it just that after 8 years you can't handle the fact that for once the election went the other way? Because the bad news is, the other demographics suggest that all that "land mass" that went Republican is inhabited by 13 red necks who graduated 8th grade and haven't had an original thought since puberty. (Am I stereotyping? Why, yes, I believe I am). I for one am relieved that this time around we as a nation weren't subjected to the tyranny of the undereducated & hyper religious.

Anyrant, I was so mystified by this email that I didn't even know how to respond. So I didn't. Because the one think I refuse to do is mix it up with someone who I otherwise care about but who is clearly so partisan that she can't even give the guy time to be inagurated and mess up before she starts lambasting him. (Oooh, that's a good one...I shoulda told her that). But turns out, I don't have to. At least not this time. Someone else on the email thread did it for me.

Her response was calm and well-reasoned. It included the Snopes link that demonstrated that the "article" in question was a rehash that's been going around for years and then she summed up with "So what? The election is over. Move on".

I liked it so much I wrote to her to thank her and she wrote me back to thank me for thanking her and it was a nice little bit of closure.

And that reminds me of something heartbreakingly amusing. Martha was telling me a story the other night about Mr. Stewart. They'd adjusted his pain meds but it gave the poor guy hallucinations. Mostly it was members of the family kept coming to visit him (which is sweet if you think about it) but sometimes the hallucinations took another tack. Once he told Martha urgently that they had to go vote.

"No, honey, we've already done that. The election is over".

"But I have to go, I have to win the race".

"Honey, the only race you're in is the race for heaven".

He looked at her perplexed and asked, "I'm not Obama?"

Takes some serious meds to make my dear Republican BIL think he's Barack Obama. But it handed me quite a laugh, for which I'm grateful. And yeah, they've since readjusted his meds.

Ouch

I'm pretty much a wuss when it comes to pain. The worst physical pain I have ever endured was kidney stones. I thought I was dying. In fact, I was pretty sure of it. I had given birth 18 months before, without drugs. That was a walk in the park with a kite on a string compared to the stones. But pretty much any pain or discomfort results in me desiring for the world to stop and sit in silent sympathy as I suffer. That said, I would rather bear any pain myself than see my baby hurt.

It's not very happy around here, just at the moment.

The Shipping News

I could never have an on-line store or sell things on eBay. If I want to send a gift to someone far away and can order it on-line, that's terrific. But I hate to actually ship things myself. I hate finding a box the right size. (Yes, I know they sell boxes at the post office but it seems I rarely desire to send things the size of any of said boxes, that doesn't really help). I hate wrapping the box, assuming I find it, in plain brown paper. Mostly because I hate wrapping things. I never have packing tape. Probably because I hate to ship things so why would I stock the accoutrement necessary to that activity?

Yesterday I got inspired to deal with the mailing that's been hanging around. The first was easy. We switched our cell phones to Credo Mobile (remind me to tell you all about that, btw, because they are just superfantastic). They have a partnership with Collective Good, which will repurpose the old cell phones. Credo even included a shipping label. But the boxes sat in our room for, like 2 months, because I hate to ship things. I finally called Collective Good yesterday and the guy said I didn't have to use the boxes and could just put the phones in an envelope. We have some padded envelopes. I found some glue for the labels. It was awesome. And then I even took them to the post office and mailed them. Check one off the short list.

But I hit a wall. Remember Edy's shoes? The superfantastic shoes she loaned me for Seattle Coffee Girl's wedding nearly 2 years ago? Yeah, those shoes. I still have them. Just ship them back in the box she used, says you. That would assume I'd saved it, says me. All stoked up from my cell phone success I determined to return the shoes. I dug around in The Child's room for a shoe box (she's been hording small boxes because she is planning to build a fairy house), but, alas, found nothing the right size. So Edy's shoes are still here. Although I swear, as much as I hate shipping things, they are going back to Minnesota this week even if I have to go buy a new pair of shoes just so I can have a box the right size.

I have a book I want to send to Buck. I'll probably just hold on to it until his next visit here or mine there, whichever comes first. Because I hate to ship things.

It wouldn't bother me, this disinclination to package and send, except that I have people in my life who are just aces at it. Afore mentioned Buck, for example. Dariush ships things (although if I talk about that again he'll be all "really, it was nothing, stop making a fuss" and I can't do that to him. Because he knows how to ship things. Which I admire). Dame Judi is quite the pro at both wrapping and shipping. It is not genetic.

But for all that, I do enjoy going to the post office. We have the most darling post office, staffed by the nicest people in the United States Postal Service. And even though there is nearly always a line, it moves quickly and the people are always interesting to watch because we live in such a diverse community. I enjoy the whizbangery of the weighing and the little machine that spits out the postage label and the satisfying thonk of the package dropping into the outgoing bin. Unfortunately, I just don't enjoy it enough to seek out the experience more often.

And of course, I really enjoy receiving packages, which you'd think would motivate me to more generously ship things off to other people so that they too can have the joy of opening a surprise every once in a while.

But I hate shipping.

You Know What I Really Hate?

I really hate it when you open a bag of the Easter jelly beans to do a taste test to make sure they are the right kind of jelly beans (the ones where the red tastes like red and so on) and you put some in a small dish to munch on while you're at your computer and you're pretty sure you pulled out all the black ones because the only person you know who likes the black ones is your mom, Dame Judi, and she's not here to give them to so you just throw them out because no one in your house is a fan of the black jellybeans (which, oddly, are the only ones that taste like an actual thing, in this case, licorice, which generally you enjoy but somehow not in jelly beans so much) and you are munching away and looking for the recipe for tonight's dinner and all a sudden you bite down and somehow you snagged a black one so then you have to spit out your mouthful of jellybeans and take the time to vet them all again to make sure there aren't anymore black ones that obviously looked purple in the light.

I really, really hate that.