You are currently browsing the Enchanting Sunshine weblog archives for November, 2007.
November 28, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
I have something to say. I’ve tried many times to compose a post on this topic, but chickened-out each time, because it’s a challenge to think about our belief systems. If there’s one thing about human nature, we don’t like anyone challenging our belief systems. We like to be right and we hold far too much of our beliefs as sacred truth, never to be examined. In fact, we may have been taught to do just that, to accept what we’ve been taught, to not question and to hold all of those teachings as sacred.
However, as part of my agenda to solve world peace, I am obliged to say what I have to say. I know it’s unlikely that it will change anything, but maybe, just maybe it will plant a seed, and as a result, I have to try. Because we’d all be a lot happier and get along a lot better if we would acknowledge those parts of our belief system that are beliefs, not truths, and therefore, not being truths, things that we should be willing to accept that while we hold them tightly, we are not necessarily right.
Here are a few examples. Last week, Nova aired a documentary on the fight in Dover, Delaware about “Intelligent Design.” Essentially, someone in the community didn’t believe in evolution and decided that the public schools should teach both evolution and ID, because, in his opinion, students should be exposed to both viewpoints.
Here is a belief that I hold sacred. Parents are the ones who are responsible for bestowing their beliefs onto their children. Public schools are meant to be secular, to serve the needs of all the taxpayers. I’ll never understand the Religious Right. Their agenda and self-righteousness to institute Christian religious education in schools is dividing society and making them a much hated group. There are so many avenues for them to give their children a religious education: Sunday school, private parochial schools, church on the weekends, or even, crazy as this may be, teaching their children their values themselves. Why try to take over the public schools too? Public schools are not the place to teach religion.
Back to the Intelligent Design debate. The debate centered around whether ID is a viable, testable scientific theory, or creationism. After researching the history of the “textbook” on ID, it turned out, surprise, surprise, that ID was in fact creationism, deliberately renamed, with the specific agenda to provide a Christian alternative theory to evolution. The proponents of ID knew that the theory was nothing more than creationism, but singularly focused on accomplishing their agenda, regardless of the cost to the community. These good Christians lied. That’s not all they did. They issued death threats to teachers and members of the school board. Death threats. What a religion they have! What principled people! Now, that’s the way to convert me.
Can I remind everyone that it’s 2007? Where’s Galileo? Let’s kill him too, while we’re at it! Pity our DNA is evolving without us, while our intellect is stuck in the Middle Ages.
I wonder how do people, knowing that what they believe isn’t provable, and is based purely on faith, so narrow-mindedly dismiss, not just science, but all other belief systems. It seems to be our human nature, “I believe this, so everyone else must be wrong.” Why instead don’t we say, “I believe this, I have no proof, maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. Maybe the people who worship the moon are right.” Those who believe in traditional religions dismiss new age beliefs, and likewise, those who have adopted new age beliefs think traditionalists are narrow-minded and wrong. No one has any proof, yet all are steadfastly convinced that there is one truth and they have found it, without need for any evidence whatsoever.
Here’s another example of what I’m talking about. I’ve been listening to a podcast called “Sacred Contracts.” It’s a new age call-in radio show with host Caroline Myss (pronouned “Mace”). There’s an expression about not being able to turn away from a train wreck. I don’t understand it, because if there was a train wreck, I would definitely turn away, but that’s my general feeling about this podcast. In my opinion, and I mean no disrespect to anyone, it’s completely ridiculous, but I can’t stop listening because it’s so fascinating.
Here’s a summary of the average call:
Caller: “I can’t lose weight. When I was six years old my mom started weighing me and I’ve always been obsessed about my weight. I’m a vegetarian, and in the last year I’ve gained twenty pounds, but I haven’t changed my diet or my exercise patterns. What can I do?”
Myss: “[blah…blah] When I’m in your energy, I feel like I’m trapped in an apartment. Your creativity is trapped.”
Caller: “Well, I’ve been that way for a while, but the last couple of weeks I’ve been writing eight hours a day.”
Myss: “There you go. You can’t lose twenty pounds in two weeks. The target is not your weight. The target is your creative overload.”
In another show, a caller had recently enrolled in graduate school and wanted to know if it was the right decision. People call in asking for a diagnosis for medical problems. Mind you, Myss is not a doctor. Callers want help deciding whether to leave their husbands so that they can be with their soul mate, who they just met. They want to know why they have to work for someone else and can’t work for themselves, what career they should enter into…and so on.
Sometimes Myss gives good advice and I don’t mean to sound condemning about the callers or Myss. I’m not. I think it’s great that people who are so lost feel like they have somewhere to turn for answers. It’s just that I wouldn’t call a mystic to ask about help with weight loss and I don’t think bottled up creativity causes weight gain. I think there’s a scientific reason for weight gain, such as hormonal levels (leptin for example), calorie consumption, and metabolism.
Not that science has everything figured out, but they’ve figured out enough that governs my daily life, so I trust the methods used. Science has created pharmaceuticals, electron microscopes, the space shuttle, wireless Internet and airplanes that fly, for the most part, safely. I mean, I think they’re onto something. Science doesn’t know everything yet though.
Therefore I allow that while I trust science first, maybe Myss really is a mystic. Maybe I should worship the moon. Maybe everyone’s spiritual beliefs are right and maybe no one’s are. Because I don’t have proof, while it seems far-fetched to me that someone can “feel energy” over a telephone, how do I know?
I mean no disrespect to anyone, in fact my point is just the opposite, but I think other belief systems are equally far-fetched. Christians believe that Jesus was borne by a virgin. A human being was the spirit of God, incarnate because, all-powerful God needed to become human in order to reach our lost species. Jesus died to save humans from their sins, as part of God’s plan that Jesus royally tick-off the Romans and then get crucified. Why did Jesus have to die to save humans from sins? I don’t see the connection. Hindus believe in Kali, a deity with four arms, all without any sort of mention of radiation toxicity. Ganesh is an elephant God. The Romans had all sorts, as did the Vikings. Why would a God, who is supposed to be all-powerful and better than we could ever be, have so many character flaws like egotism and regrettable rage? I know we’re supposedly created in God’s image, but if all-powerful God can’t lick his bad habits, what hope do I have?
Is any one of these beliefs more far-fetched than another? Is religion meant to divide or to refine us? Is it meant to bring out the worst in our human nature or to help us become as good and loving as we can possibly be? Why can’t we live and let live? Reinforcing our beliefs in our religious house, living in a way that is morally appropriate in our daily lives and accepting that we don’t have a monopoly on the truth, without attempting to force the rest of society to adhere to our belief systems?
To quote a dear friend of mine, I don’t care if someone worships and howls at the moon, as long as he/she respects my boundaries and doesn’t tell me what to believe. I joke about the Jehovah Witnesses trying to convert me, but it’s just because they’re an easy target. Honestly, I’ve had more new-agers try to convince me of the truth they’ve discovered. There’s no shortage of the facts: all medical conditions are rooted in a psychological cause (finally a cure for MS!), thinking hard enough about something can change the outcome (still haven’t seen anyone win the Lotto though!), anything bad that happens to you is because of something you did in a past life. Sadly, though they’ve come to their beliefs after rejecting a traditional upbringing, they can be just as stubborn, arrogant, pushy, and righteous.
Maybe they’re right. I don’t know. That’s the point. I don’t know and neither does anyone else. We want comfort. We want logic and fairness and a way to impose order on a chaotic world. We crave meaning. However, we each have to find our own “truths.”
In my ideal world, we would all be able to acknowledge that beliefs are based purely in faith and be open to the possibility that we are no more “right” than anyone else. We would return to a society where we can keep ID, renamed in whatever form, in our religious house, understanding the logical division between belief and truth. Our country was founded on the principles of religious freedom. Is it possible for us to return to a society of peace, where there isn’t fighting and bitterness over religious values, expressly created to engender a divide among Americans that makes some people more or less electable in our eyes? Is it possible for us to see through politicians who are the only ones benefiting from magnifying our differences, for us to no longer get sucked into their game?
It took a lot of courage to publish this, and my hope is that instead of being offended, if you are religious-minded, you seek peace, seek to find our commonalities, seek to acknowledge how our divisions are not only arbitrary, but actually deliberately fabricated. We create the divides. We can’t say that we have absolute truth when we say that there is an absolute law that murder is a sin, except when it suits our needs, say in war. Abortion is murder, but how often does the church take a stand on war with the same vigor? Where are those protesters? Murder in war is not an equal sin to the sin of abortion?
If it’s possible that the church changes it’s position through the centuries, all the while using the same guidebook, perhaps that’s a clue that we should allow that we don’t have “the truth,” we have an understanding that continues, hopefully, to evolve. That same understanding should make us peace-seekers, acknowledging our own hypocritical and contradictory beliefs, and peace-makers.
Each one of us, regardless of what we believe can offer our own proof that we have the answer, which proves that we’re all right and none of us are. For now, I choose to believe and derive comfort by making chocolate chip cookie batter sacrifices to appease the Gods and I can offer as much “evidence” and have as much foundation for saying how this is pleasing in God’s sight as anyone else.
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November 27, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
There was a time when I first moved to Charlotte that I hated winter. I left a climate that was warm and sunny 365 days a year to be in a place, that at that time, was like a winter rain-forest. I didn’t own a sweater, a pair of jeans or a coat. The majority of my scraggly winter wardrobe from Baltimore was gifted to the Goodwill at some point during my time in Tampa to free up closet space. I moved here in August and within a week, I had to buy jeans because I was so cold. My house had a heat pump (on my list of things to never to do again - only gas heat for me!) and my house was never warm. With each passing month, it got colder and colder and, because of the El Nino, the rain never stopped. No more of the things I enjoyed doing in Florida, no running outside, playing tennis or bike riding, no driving along the beautiful Causeway or going to the beach. I ha-ted it here. Hated it.
It’s funny to remember that now. I still don’t like being cold, but years ago, I allowed myself to buy a Down comforter, I bought a house with gas heat, and I met a man who allows me to cuddle him, even if he is easily heated. When I am in the warmth of my house, the cold of Fall and Winter seem as much a blessing as any other season, words I never thought I would utter. This is the season for homemade soup and comfy sweat pants and snuggling under a blanket with hot chocolate or coffee.
Anyone who knew me from my first years in Charlotte can testify how unpleasant I was. (I think the word a friend of mine used was “evil.”) There were other reasons I didn’t like it here, but I’ll save that for another time as it could fill a book.
It just proves that when we sit thinking in this moment, we have no idea where life will take us. I had lunch today with a friend and former colleague. After leaving our company seven months ago, she decided to take a chance and open a bed and breakfast. Next week, she drives her car to the West Coast to have it shipped to her new home. She will be running this bed and breakfast in Hawaii. That’s right, Hawaii. Her dream is coming true. Friday will be the last day for my other colleague who is starting his own business.
Even if it isn’t happening to me, it is so inspiring and exciting to see such wonderful things happening to people I know and care about. (Honestly, I’m excited enough for myself that there are two people who read my blog.)
On a related topic, last night my husband successfully diagnosed the cause of the problems with my laptop. The soldering of the graphics processing unit (GPU) onto the motherboard has come loose. He managed to find a way to force it down so that the laptop is working. I don’t know how he does it. I think he’s having an affair with a computer God or has made a deal with the devil or something. It’s the only logical explanation.
As I sit here, cozy and happy, the cat snuggling me, in a warm house, my computer working, albeit temporarily, I know how lucky and blessed I am. Even so, I can’t help laughing with (not at) poor Mindpinball, bless his heart, who seems to have my luck with sports teams. I shake my head in pity, and yet I laugh. And I think, “Maybe some things never change. Maybe my friend was right. Maybe I am evil.”
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November 27, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
Yesterday, I was a tad cranky about it being Monday again, but in an unprecedented show of self-restraint, I spared you my grumblings. Besides how dare I grumble when there is so much to be grateful for.
Today the weather is mild again. I wore my favorite purple down coat, but left it in the trunk of the car. It will be 62 degrees today, November 27, and I am quickly reminded of why I live in the South.
It’s a wonderful time of year to live here. Last night, driving into my subdivision, it was raining leaves. Fall is a month late. The trees were already losing leaves in September because of the drought (our beautiful, water-loving rhododendrons that I planted and nurtured for three years, have died). When October came, the leaves changed a little, but were rather dull, so I expected that we wouldn’t get our traditional brilliant Fall.
A couple of weeks ago though, the leaves turned into their bright reds and yellows that make me wish every day that I had remembered my camera, because no matter how many Falls I live through, I love each one equally. Each one is such a treasure that I’d hate to miss and I never tire of it. Each new season, I look forward to the special gifts that the season brings and am so glad to be alive to experience it.
The streets of my subdivision are lined with Bradford Pears. They’re brittle trees and we’ve lost many over the years, but the ones that remain create a beautiful symmetry that make for scenic roads, particularly in the Spring and the Fall when they all change color in harmony. Last night, a gust of wind sent the leaves running from the trees in a seemingly endless shower of falling yellow. Then another gust sent more flying through the air, carrying them to the street and toppling over my car. It was so beautiful. If only I had my camera, I could have captured wind on film, a long-time goal of mine.
My corner cube is surrounded by windows, and I find it hard to turn away from the scene outside, the wind tousling the branches of the tree an arm’s reach away, the horizon alternating a layer of clouds and a layer of blue sky. I wish I could stay in a reverie all day.
However, get back to work, I must. My boss made a snide comment yesterday implying that my colleagues and I spend too much time in the break room. Some people take smoke breaks, some people take coffee breaks. I look forward to the day when I am a pampered lotto winner and can watch the bird feeder all day or play Tetris, squandering my time however I please. Then again, I’d miss the time bonding with my colleagues. This morning I found a photocopy of this map on my desk. I knew immediately who left it, one of my British colleagues who knew it would make me laugh. It’s rather special if you think about it, that you have friends who know you so well, they know what you like, what your interests are, and make the effort to share those things with you. With that thought, I decided to be grateful for the things that life in a cubicle brings me and make the best of this day inside these same four walls I’ve visited for over nine years.
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November 25, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
Yesterday, Charlotte opened the new light rail. It took four years to build and it was over budget, but who cares? Seriously. I don’t understand all the public outcry and opposition to the light rail. What is it with American’s hatred of public transport? I love it. Years ago, I spent two months in Barcelona, Spain and my only transportation was my two legs and the subway and I loved every minute of it. I’ve used the subway in other European cities and loved them equally well, but my time in Barcelona proved to me that I wasn’t just romanticizing the idea of public transport as a tourist and not appreciating the real day-to-day life of being without a car.
Similarly, when I was in D.C. last month, my husband and I used the metro to get to the Smithsonian and later, to Georgetown. (I am unyielding about one steadfast rule formed after many bad experiences: absolutely no driving in D.C.) It was so pleasurable to not drive in circles for three hours looking for a parking space, or have people honking angrily at you a millisecond after the light changed to green and you hadn’t run over the hapless pedestrians still crossing the street in front of you. Or to be hopelessly lost because you’re on Fifth Street, NW, which is completely different from Fifth Street, NE, or D Street SW, instead of D Street NW, which is exactly what you deserve getting lost because you were driving around looking for a parking space instead of just paying the freaking $20 for that parking garage near the Smithsonian and getting rid of the car the absolute first second you could. Yes, my rule comes from personal experiences. But using the train, what a pleasure, what a relaxed, fun visit, without any bitter urges to abandon the car or shoot any other drivers in an uncontrolled moment of road-rage.
So when people start their yammering here about how we should have expanded the roads instead of building a light-rail, I stifle my urge to say, and I mean this in the nicest way, “You’re a moron. You know that, don’t you?” I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a city where the main thoroughfares are ten lanes wide. Charlotte is already approaching L.A. in our air pollution. Air quality warnings are issued nearly every day in the summer, and I don’t see anything much that the city is doing to make the situation better. The city is going to keep growing because, people are going to keep having babies, and they’ll keep moving here, so seems to me that it’s a good idea to have a plan for how to transport all these people.
The light-rail opened to great interest, double what “authorities” were expecting. I’m thrilled. Hopefully there will be the same interest in ridership tomorrow, when riders have to start paying.
We also dropped my mom at the airport yesterday, with much sadness. How is it that time passes so quickly? Everything becomes a memory so quickly and we have absolutely no control to change it. It’s a mixed blessing of appreciation that living away from home gives one. Perhaps my Project Relocate Family will be a success once I institute it.
And finally…Our Internet and doorbell have been working for fifteen straight days. Therefore, as punishment for all my joy, my laptop has crashed and died. Were I single, I’d add “utterly and irreparably” but my husband has spent the entire day troubleshooting it and seems convinced, naively optimistic sweetheart that he is, that he can fix it. I don’t know what I’d do without him, but I’d probably be in a lot of debt and institutionalized.
Reader, I have a confession to make. This is my fault. I did not make chocolate chip cookie batter sacrifices yesterday as originally planned. With three nearly whole desserts leftover from Thanksgiving, I thought it would be excessive and indulgent. Learn from my errors. Do not challenge the Gods. Make cookie batter sacrifices and appease the Gods for your own safety. It is not worth the suffering that chancing it will visit upon you.
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November 24, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
Yesterday we spent the day touring Winston-Salem. I love touring historic places and thinking about how people lived a couple of hundred of years ago.
Here’s a short history of Salem, from my impeccable memory.
The Moravians settled Salem in 1766, from what I gathered, because it was in the middle of nowhere and a way to perpetuate the religion and keep its adherents brain-washed and uninfluenced by the rest of the world. In a word, a cult. The Moravians divided society into “choirs,” a group of like people: unmarried women, widows, single men, and those of like age. Each choir had its own tasks to perform, and I suppose, was a built in support network. (I wondered what happened when a woman lost a spouse and had to enter the widows choir. Was she still allowed to have her former friends?)
At the time Salem was founded, it was the back country. A tavern was built to provide a place for travelers to stay, so that the rest of society could stay protected and not be influenced by the ideas and habits of strangers. (Moravian travelers would stay with other Moravians.) Alcohol was allowed, but moderation was encouraged. Women who stayed in the tavern were allowed to drink, but had to take their drink to their room. Men could drink and socialize in the common room and play games, as long as they weren’t betting or gambling games, which might cause bad feelings between visitors.
Travelers rented bed space, not a room, so it was possible that a traveler would be sharing a bed with another stranger. Men and women had separate rooms, of course, maybe different floors, I’m not sure. The bed support was rope, which wound back and forth underneath the “mattress.” One look and you pity the ages before chiropractic care. It was also easy to see how things like lice and crabs were easily spread. The mattress looked like a feather bed, something not easily cleaned. The whole thing looked unsanitary and gross, and I’m not a squeamish person. Maybe it’s not all that different than modern day hotels. Now I wish I hadn’t started thinking about this.
People of that age had to be good planners. The fire had to be started two hours before it was time to cook. The temperature was measured by a very scientific method of determining how long you could hold your hand over the fire. The food doesn’t seem too bad. They had fresh food from the garden, and the pets, or farm animals, depending on how you look at it. They even had cakes, nicely decorated too. In the late 1700s, particularly in the back country, sugar was a precious commodity, so people of that time consumed only a pound a year. Some studies say that Americans consume one to two pounds of sugar per week. Makes me want to bake a cake every day, because I can.
By the 1800s Moravians were educating girls as well as boys. Even though there was a law prohibiting teaching slaves to read and write in North Carolina in the 1850s, the Moravians continued to educate them. They had slaves though, so in essence, they were barely better than anyone else in the South. (I’ll save that diatribe for another day.)
Moravians were known as fair traders with good business sense. They were known for their pottery and something else, which I can’t remember at the moment. The Moravians focused on skilled trades rather than farming. The church protected the tradesmen by limiting competition in the village. In the interest of making sure that every family could support itself, there was only one master tradesman for each trade.
By the last decade of the 1700s, the Moravians were second in the country to have running water. The water ran to the public squares and major kitchens in the village. I found that pretty remarkable and impressive.
Here are some pictures from our trip. Most of the pictures are from the toy museum, which proves that children have always been spoiled and over-indulged when families had the financial means to do so.
There was more interesting stuff, but I can’t remember it at the moment. Hope you enjoy.
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November 22, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
My pants hurt. A lot. They’re cutting into my abdomen and were before we sat down to eat a feast. After a wonderful meal, surrounded by love, and with a full belly, I feel the need to reiterate how lucky I am.
I also feel the need to mention how I’ve been vindicated, for maybe the first time ever. Dinner was an intimate gathering of my mom, my husband, one of my best friends and me. The conversation was pleasant until, out of nowhere, my mother mentioned how lucky I was that I never had to have hand-me-downs because I had an older brother.
I couldn’t let that one stand (in fact I had a post not long ago on that very subject). My mother looked stunned when I refuted her falsehood, claiming to not remember those polyester, purple pants passed on to me from my brother (there was a whole set of them in different colors). A bit of a dispute erupted about the accuracy of my memories, and charges were made that I had drawn faulty conclusions and created memories. A phone call to my brother confirmed that indeed, both of us suffered the humiliation of those purple checked pants. I have never felt so vindicated and never loved my brother more. My mother continued to try to deny both of our memories, but in the end, with the help of a professional, my friend, who is a psychiatrist by trade, elicted the much desired and rare concession of defeat and peace was restored.
After partaking of a small piece of each dessert, we sit together watching the DVD of the latest version of Die Hard. I’m not as interested in the movie as I am in being here and part of this moment. Years from now, I know I’ll reflect back fondly to this night. The temperature has dropped, the candles are burning in the fireplace, and in this cozy room, I am enveloped in love.
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November 22, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
I’m what’s known in biological terms as “a bad seed.” There are certain lessons that I seem fated to learn the hard way. Here’s a short list (and sadly, trust me, there’s a long one):
1) Don’t stick beaded chains in electric sockets, twice. (Explains a lot, doesn’t it!)
2) Don’t drink and dial or email.
3) Don’t pet the cat and rub your eyes. Why? Why can’t I learn this simple lesson? How many times of red, swollen eyes does it take?
4) And the lesson from yesterday: Don’t blog at 1, 2, or 3 am.
I apologize.
But here it is 4 am and for some reason I’m wide-awake. So, I’m going to violate that last rule again.
One of my favorite quotes is this one by Zig Ziglar, “The more you recognize and express gratitude for the things you have, the more things you will have to express gratitude for.”
It’s true. We notice what we focus on. My husband and I aren’t in the habit of saying a prayer or reciting any sort of words about gratitude before eating dinner every night, but it’s a tradition I would love to institute. It’s such a great practice to consider every day all the blessings we have, particularly before all that global dimming and global warming eliminates the food supply. If only we could capture in a bottle the feeling of well-being and overwhelming gratitude we feel on some days and mist it on ourselves in times of need, say when the router breaks, or hormones poison us.
Here’s a short list of the things I am giving thanks for today, in no particular order:
~ My amazing husband who I love so much it’s overwhelming on days when I’m not hormonally poisoned (and he has remembered to take his Excedrin).
~ My mom, who I love so much when she’s not tormenting me. She arrived in Charlotte at noon yesterday and I’m so glad she’s here.
~ My loving family, particularly my favorite cousin Nikki and my aunts.
~ The long list of technology that makes my life easier, and sometimes just more entertaining, including first and foremost, wireless Internet (I make chocolate chip cookie batter sacrifices in your honor, oh honorable Internet) and Itunes. (Really if I had the power, I wouldn’t buy the world a Coke, I would bring them those two things.)
~ DVR. What a beautiful, wonderful thing DVR is. (Okay, those three things.)
~ Staying in touch with old friends, and making new ones through the Internet.
~ MASN in Charlotte. I love you MASN!! I love you!! I really love you!!
~ Vacations that create beautiful memories for as long as my mind lasts. Particularly, going to Cooperstown this year and my 40th birthday. I’m one of the luckiest people on the planet.
~ Cameras to capture memories.
~ Clean water and abundant food. A climate-controlled home. Ice and ice makers. Appliances that allow me to accomplish certain tasks easily.
~ Life in a country that is peaceful, even if sadly, we’re exaggeratedly polarized because we participate in the rhetoric that only benefits and makes powerful a handful of people.
~ An abundance of love from both the human and one specific member of the animal kingdom.
~ Rain, which finally came to Charlotte an hour ago.
~ Beautiful parks and hiking destinations, and all those natural places that make me feel spiritual.
~ Pictures from outer space which make me feel small, and remind me that my problems are insignificant, and in the cosmic sense, none of the stuff I worry about really makes any difference.
~ Charity and selfless people who make the world a little bit better.
~ Sleep, when it comes.
~ Kindness, love, forgiveness, and empathy, which are as much a part of our human nature as any of our less attractive characteristics, and make life worth living.
~ Chocolate chip cookie batter and shortbread cookies.
~ That nearly every day, apart from the hormone poisoned days, I feel like my life is better than the day before.
~ Luck and good fortune, because no matter how hard I’ve worked, everything I have, I have only because circumstances arranged themselves to allow me to have it, whether it be genetic traits, good parenting, good influences, or being in the right place at the right time, including being born in the one of the easiest places in the world to live. And also, the forces that have kept me from harm, natural or human delivered.
I guess that’s enough for a short list.
Here are some more quotes to celebrate today:
“Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.” ~G.B. Stern
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” ~Epictetus
“If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily.” ~Gerald Good
I hope you make your own list and also feel overwhelmed with gratitude for more blessings than you can count. May your day, and your life, be filled with love.
Enchanting Sunshine reserves the right to retract this post in part or in its entirety and issue invectives and bitter vitriol to any deity, if the wireless Internet goes down again, after baseball season starts again, or should MASN cause me great injury by taking away their service.
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November 15, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
Last Friday, my husband and I had lunch at Spoons, the barbecue place in Charlotte, and possibly all of the Southeast. I’m personally not a big fan of barbecue and truth be told, I’ll pick anything else on the menu besides the pork. The reason I love Spoons, besides the bottomless hush puppies and the bread pudding, is the old-fashioned, Southern customer service.
Spoon’s is a family-owned business and provides service from a bygone era. The wait-staff are attentive and warm. In an age where trust is a rare commodity, Bill Spoon, the owner, operated on the honesty policy. The restaurant doesn’t accept credit cards, but if you forgot to bring enough cash, Bill would say, “Don’t worry about it honey, just pay me next time you’re here.” Not just to customers he knew, but to everyone.
A few months ago Bill Spoon passed away. Even though I barely knew him personally, I felt so sad to hear the news. He was a bit of an icon here and the embodiment of the best things of a lost time.
Here’s a quote from Charlotte Magazine about him:
“This is another one of the romantic aspects of Bill Spoon’s barbecue; he rounds bills off in the interest of saving time. Spoon’s refusal to accept credit cards is more common, but while the average proprietor might position a blunt message beneath the register—’ATM next door,’ for example—Spoon is more forgiving. ‘We accept cash, checks, and promises,’ his notice reads. Bill Spoon takes I.O.Us, and letters from cash-less patrons hang on the bulletin board across from the front counter, thanking Spoon for his patience.”
Spoon’s family continues to operate the restaurant, but in August, the world lost a beautiful part of it’s past.
Here are two articles about him if you want to read more:
Charlotte Magazine
Obituary Charlotte Observer
Too bad we’re not passing a Bill Spoon kind of world on to future generations.
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November 14, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
My husband brought home a movie I’ve never heard of. I liked it immediately. With a title like, “Mr. Brooks” we were off to a good start before we even put the movie in the DVD player. Kevin Costner stars in it so I had high hopes. I don’t know how to review a movie without spoiling it, so I’ll only say it wasn’t about baseball or Brooks Robinson, but was intriguing and had a theme of murder.
You can never be sure that you know who you think you know.
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November 14, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
Some days don’t you just wake up in love with life? This morning, even though I have a bit of a stomach virus and am always sleep deprived, I felt so cheerful. My bedroom door was wide open from the cat’s nightly wanderings into the bedroom to pull on my ear (see Maggie), so the sun was shining brightly into the bedroom. I looked around, tired though I was, and thought how much I love my home and my life, and how grateful I am for all the many gifts I have. (It’s amazing how having a working Internet can improve a person’s state of mind.)
Then I saw this word of the day:
flaneur \flah-NUR\ noun: One who strolls about aimlessly; a lounger; a loafer.
Don’t know why, but just the idea of being able to lounge around made me happy. Scenes of a powdery Florida beach filled my mind.
Then this quote of the day:
“Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.” - Maurice Setter
Ah so true. Loved that quote. Then there are all these other little things that made the day even better:
~ Marketplace is doing a special report on American consumption, a topic I find fascinating.
~ Remember the story about the baby who was misdiagnosed with the enzyme deficiency? And the irresponsible morons at the hospital didn’t know which baby does have the deficiency? Well, the baby with the deficiency was found and is doing just fine. That was really good news!
~ A friend of mine is starting his own business and said he will be quitting his full time job within a couple of weeks. I just love to hear about people pursuing their dreams. No matter what happens, he’ll never regret trying.
~ I had lunch at the Indian Buffet with some friends. Always good!
~ I uploaded some pictures on Flicker and some very nice people commented on them, which really made my day!
~ My friend at Mind Pinball sent me an article about Cal Ripken that essentially says he’s buying the Os! First, it was really nice to have someone think to send me the article and secondly, what great news! Here’s the article if you want to read it. They beat around the bush and you have to read between the lines a little to tease out the truth about Ripken saving the Os, but even so, it’s really good news.
In a random search, I also came across this gem from, “The Onion.” If my next job isn’t with the Orioles, I want to work for “The Onion.”
What a glorious day!! I guess the cookie batter sacrifices worked. I have no choice but to make more.
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