Saturday Special

Friday morning was frosty, making me glad that my seedlings are still inside, even though I have been preparing the ground for planting when the weather warms up.

On Thursday, the general doggie mayhem caused by all the garbage and recyling trucks, was greatly exacerbated by the jhumming and boshing going on next door. No-one yet seems to have moved in, but of course, why miss an opportunity for hammering and noise? And to add insult to injury, since it was sunny, the gardener for the strata was out with his big man-toy leaf-blower, which succeeds in doing a less efficient job than a broom, whilst adding to sucking life out of the planet and simultaneously winding up small dogs (ie not just ours).

The past couple of days, I have found myself, bizarrely, having to talk people at my church out of a bit of casual anti-Semitism. And I have by no means yet won the debate, but the most ridiculous argument I have had thrown at me is, 'it doesn't matter if we do it since the congregation are intelligent enough to know we don't mean it.' What a freaking wonderful catch-all argument. Let's just indulge in the occasional sexism, racism, homophobia because everyone else is clever enough to know we don't mean it. Well guess what? that excuse is no excuse at all. The leadership of absolutely anything is supposed to be better than that and furthermore, if we do it, even once in a while, then we get tainted by it.

For the second weekend running, internet access at the Static has been as good as non-existent. This is annoying and frustrating but oh well, what can you do?

I have been mightily taken by one of Raymond's posts in which he talks about a Japanese idea that the brain works better when the head is cold and the body warm. I thoroughly concur with this, being a woman of middle years, it is my head which always feels uncomfortably warm most of the time, and at this discomfort stops me from concentrating fully on other things.

Simon Schama, whose name I have now learnt how to spell, continues to enthral me with his History of America. I think I admire Thomas Jefferson quite a lot, and many members of the Meigs family. I'm also still quite focussed on the growing horror of many Americans, particularly in the north, of the practice of slavery, whilst the south were willing to go to war to protect the 'right' of white people to 'own' other human beings. It's just quite incomprehensible to us now.