1. I knew next to nothing about raising chickens when we decided to get six a few years ago--probably the reason none of the original six are still around. Now we have seven. They are friendly little things, and keep us supplied with eggs. But they are not clean creatures. I wouldn't exactly call our black lab Sadie a clean dog, but she would never poop where she sleeps--something that chickens do all night long. They also, uh, defecate as they're walking around, so there is frequently poop in their food and in their water. As far as I can tell, they never even notice. It's really irritating, because presumably they shouldn't drink water with poop in it, so I have to clean it up. There you go, your Chicken Insight of the Day. You're welcome.
2. All of us anglophiles went flutter-y this week when a video popped up on social media of Prince Charles (you know, the heir to the British throne) on stage with a bunch of Shakespearean actors who were arguing adorably about how to say Hamlet's famous line, "To be or not to be, that is the question." If you haven't seen it, it's here. Seriously. Ian McKellan, David Tennant, Dame Judi Dench, Benedict Cumberbatch, Prince Charles.
3. If you live in a place where you can go see Shakespeare any time you want, skip on to the next item. But for the rest of us, forgive me for gushing, but Much Ado About Nothing, filmed live by the Royal Shakespeare Company a few weeks ago for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, is coming to a theater near you. Or at least, near me. On May 23rd. I'm hyperventilating, I'm so worried something will come up and I'll miss it. Try this link for more info. Apparently the skit from #3 was recorded at the same event, because all of those people (besides the Prince of Wales) are in the play, plus more. Be still, my heart.
4. If you're a voracious reader, and I am, there are few things more unsettling than not being able to find something to read. It makes me twitchy. I've tried half a dozen books in the past week that I couldn't get into. Of course I have piles more, so no worries, but this is unusual for me. I usually read for about a half hour before I get up in the morning, and for an hour (or more) before I go to sleep at night. If I'm not reading, I end up just messing around on my phone, which then feels like wasted time. #firstworldproblem
5. MadMax suffers from mild GERD (a fancy way of saying he has heartburn) which means we avoid tomato products around here. Since spaghetti and meatballs is one of my favorite easy meals (NO I do not make meatballs from scratch, are you kidding me? Costco sells them by the enormo-bag), I've had to come up with a non-tomato sauce for them. It's actually not bad, and it's sort of like making a potion--i.e., it's fun. You shake some worcestershire sauce, some kitchen bouquet, a blob of beef bouillon paste, and a smaller blob of chicken bouillon paste into a jar with a tight lid, fill the jar about halfway with water, add about a third of a cup of flour and shake it up until smooth. Then you add that to the meatballs which you are already simmering in beef broth. Makes a kind-of gravy. I'd still rather have traditional tomato sauce, but for MadMax's sake, this works, and he loves it.
6. Did anybody else see the new version of The Jungle Book? I have to confess I was a little disappointed. After seeing the trailer on the big screen a couple of months ago, I somehow thought they were going back to the book--which I've never read, but the idea intrigued me. But it is basically a remake of the 1967 animated film (which came out when I was in grade school and I loved with a great love) without most of the music. It's not badly done, but not what I was expecting.
7. We went to our Last High School Band Concert this week. (It was excellent, by the way. Amazing how much a bunch of kids can learn about their instruments in six years.) As their bring-the-house-down number at the end, they played Stars and Stripes Forever, which I also played at my last high school band concert back in 1979. Traditionally, the piccolo players stand up on the third verse and play their tweedly-dee bit, and since I was one of two piccolo players, that included me. I freaked out and barely played two notes, although fortunately my friend and fellow piccoloist Lynne nailed it. It practically made me sick to my stomach when the poor girl from MadMax's band stood up for her moment, but she did not freak out and did a great job. The next tradition is that the trombones stand up for the last verse, and MadMax's band director went one better by having the entire back row of brass players stand. That part brought tears to my eyes, as it always does. Partly because of the music and the exuberance, partly the whole "last time" bit-- I suspect I'll be crying from now until August 26, when we get home from dropping our poor kid off for freshman orientation. Keep Dean and MadMax in your prayers, they may not survive this.
I just noticed as I was scheduling this that tomorrow is Friday the 13th (which will be today by the time you read this). Hope you have an uneventful day and a great weekend.
2 comments:
Okay, lovely post on buddhism and Christianity and the crossover lesson, but I was frozen at the paragraph introducing Pema Chodron and the side note on it being an intermediate practice and your negative response to it as representative of hierarchical spirituality. I hadn't heard that term before and I'm curious about other examples of hierarchical spirituality.
Is this similar to the stages of spiritual growth -- a la Scott Peck, James Fowler. I've always been drawn to this way of thinking because it's the only way I could explain away legalistic condemning and judgy Christians who inflame my ire. (Not sure that's a thing -- inflamed ire). Anyway, now I'm feeling like a snob because I think you're write about the repetitive simple lessons. But how can I mirror back judginess at those crazy intolerant God warriors with a trans bathroom phobia if I abandon the idea that the institutional thinking of so much of our U.S. Church world is inferior to the skeptic or mystic on a spiritual journey.
You're just messing me up. So, yeah, I lost the point of the blog because I'm stuck in that third paragraph. But thanks for making me think.
And, by the way, my 54 year old eyes suck and I can't read the words I'm typing so I can't correct the typos. So, to the extent they are there you just need to live with them.
Well, don't worry too much about losing the point of that blog post because it wasn't very clear. I'm not sure I know what the point was either. "hierarchical spirituality" is a term I made up on the spot because I didn't know what else to call it-- back in the days when I was attending New Age spirituality circles, it wasn't at all uncommon for there to be a separate meeting for people who had been around longer. In one group, there was even an initiation ceremony you went through, and supposedly when you got to the inner circle, you would have access to higher level teaching. But it seemed to me it just led to arrogance and snobbery. Maybe I shouldn't have generalized my experience, because it may have been specific to those groups-- i.e., particular personalities involved. For me, it was a deal breaker. I quit going to one group because of it, and refused to go through initiation in the group that had the ceremony even when I was invited. I'm not familiar with James Fowler or Scott Peck (other than having read and re-read the Road Less Traveled many years ago) but I gather from this that they are talking about fundamentalism as a lower level spiritual practice? I get the point, and I agree in some ways. I will think about this. I was going to go back to these exact ideas in my next Tuesday post (didn't have the energy for it last week, and no one seemed particularly interested). Good comment, thanks for making me think.
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