Category: Everything Else

To a philosopher all news is gossip,
and they who edit and read it
are old women over their tea.

-Henry David Thoreau

To appreciate nonsense
requires a serious interest in life.

-Gelett Burgess

Yesterday I unplugged and got some things done that were in dire need of doing, and look what happened- the Dow went up 936 points.

Today “they” are announcing next steps to steady the economic earthquake, and tomorrow is the last presidential debate.

I plan to totally indulge in the media circus that is certain to entertain over the next 36 hours or so. It’s like a really challenging cryptic puzzle, attempting to tease out the facts after they travel through the media’s funhouse mirrors.

Go ahead and call me an old lady over her tea, but it is all so awful and wickedly fascinating, I just can’t tear myself away.

And as I let my husband have the last two slices of my birthday cheesecake, I feel I’m due a little indulgence. Not too much, though. Too much media spin is definitely not good for you.

Of course, I’m not going to just sit and veg. I’ll also bake cookies and bread (Click here for a coupon for whole wheat flour), prep tonight’s dinner (pork chops with baked mac and cheese, sweet potatoes and salad on the side), prep tomorrow night’s dinner (baked ziti, bread with garlic butter) and write thank you notes for birthday presents. That excuses all the CNN time, right? Right?

In other news, we received Jeff’s 401(k) statement Saturday. Holy cow, that’s depressing, almost laughably so. Did you get yours? What was your reaction?

Let us learn to appreciate
there will be times
when the trees will be bare,

and look forward to the time
when we may pick the fruit.

-Anton Chekhov

We are starting to hit those days where it is warmer outside than in, and not yet time to turn on the heat at night, and it is so very difficult to drag my sorry carcass out of my warm bed in the morning. (Admittedly it helps when you have a four year old bopping you on the head and yelling, “Get up! It’s day!”)

This is the second woolly bear caterpillar I’ve found this autumn. The first had a much more pronounced band of brown, which I believe indicates a mild winter?

Of course this one says otherwise. And that’s what I get for not taking my camera everywhere I go; I swear I’m going to have it surgically attached to my hand.

A little research uncovers the fact that the length of the bands actually reveals the age of the caterpillar, and therefore is more of an indicator of how last winter went.

But that’s no fun, is it? October being a month that’s all about symbol, and superstition, and the supernatural, and ritual.

In my heart I know I found an indicator of a mild winter, though I lack photographic evidence. So that’s my official prediction. And my fervent hope.

For the record, I don’t walk under ladders, and I die a little inside when I break a mirror. My rational side cringes with embarrassment, but I just can’t help it.

Are you superstitious? What folkloric and non-rational beliefs can you not help but hold to?

Finish each day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities

no doubt crept in;

forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day;

begin it well and serenely and

with too high a spirit to encumbered

by your old nonsense.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Um. I think this violet is confused. Don’t violets bloom in spring?

I looked all over and found just the one. But isn’t it lovely?

This quote holds a lot of meaning for me. I am one of those people who replay past mistakes over and over in my head, who hold grudges, who will dwell on past events until I’m hurt and angry all over again.

I have a slow-burning temper, and I am well aware that in the long run I only punish myself. But I could never just Let Things Go. I always wanted things to somehow be evened out, put right, made fair.

I wrote this passage out, painstakingly, in my very best lettering, and posted it prominently above my desk. I take note of it all the time.

I am learning to Let It Go. And I love thinking of it as my “old nonsense”.

How do you put the brakes on your temper? How do you Let It Go?