Out of Sight vs. Out of Mind

Blog 2566, 31 January 2022, Monday             

Dear friend,

Doughnuts, Donuts, and Don’ts! That’s the problem. I moved the donuts off the kitchen counter into the cupboard and now they are “Out of Sight.” That’s good, but it’s not good enough. A far longer journey will be “Out of Mind,” but that’s a distance not figured in feet or miles but gluttonous behavior. I put them in the far cupboard, closed the door, and in an effort to forget about them, I chose to write about them. I know the problem, it is I. Again. At 2:30 the coffee has finished perking and I can pour myself a cup of coffee, but that leaves one hand free to hold a, what?, I ask myself and answer faster than a Jeopardy contestant can ask, “What is a doughnut?” My second-best answer is to just eat them all and feel guilty about it, but I have housemates here. I can say, “Don’t!” but I cannot truly mean it. I know guilt is so much easier to bare than discipline. If Compulsion and Discipline got into a gunfight, Discipline would control its rage and not draw, Compulsion would have fired six times before it noticed Discipline hadn’t drawn its weapon. There are, coincidentally, six donuts.

Yesterday I had two events that made me chuckle. The first was after church and after we’d loaded the car, we stopped by Subway to have an “Eat-as-you-drive” meal. Having paid the bill, the employee said, “Have a nice day.” I, wanting to outwit him, said, “Have an interesting day.” Said he, “Oh, I hope not.” I’d been out-profounded. I walked out of the shop chuckling.

Later, a victim of getting up too early and watching a boring opening quarter of the 49ers-Rams football game, as the punters battled but not the scorers, I dozed off for most of the quarter, sitting in a friend’s house, eating popcorn and drinking good coffee. I awoke just in time to see the first score, a touchdown pass. Not embarrassed but ready to apologize if necessary, I asked, “Was I loud?” Sleeping sitting up is often a snoring situation. Said our host, “You’re allowed” (to sleep). Aloud and allowed, the game got interesting while I wondered if I ought to apologize for being “aloud” or grateful for being “allowed.” Yes, I probably was.

I’m at Lake Ki, it’s 2:45 a.m., everyone else is asleep and they cannot hear the donuts calling my name, muffled by the cabinet door and across the room. Life is not easy when the alternative is an apple fritter. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written: 3 a.m., Posted 1 p.m., Monday

Off (to) Ki

Blog 2565, 30 January 2022, Sunday                        

Dear friend,

I wrote a full blog yesterday that I didn’t send. It was negative and, apparently, so was I. After the blog, I turned to catch up on some of the work I had to do and had a ridiculously wonderful day. It felt like I was forty again and could spend all day writing. I formatted a manuscript for later consideration and I printed off volume one of four to send to my publisher/friend/editor in Michigan. Temperatures there were in single-digits and snow was in double-digits, so I figure this is a good time of year to send him work. I walked even less yesterday than during those icy days, but it was a really good day despite some early morning crankiness.

Today Jean and I are off for a couple of days up to Lake Ki, our summer fishing getaway. In the summer I’d get up early, work a little, then before the sun rose, I’d slip away from the dock and paddle my canoe out into the lake and fish in the growing light. There are few things I do as relaxing as that. But it isn’t fishing season, I won’t be taking the canoe out for the 8 a.m. sunrise (instead of 4 a.m.) and need to bring other projects.

Our church cancelled it’s annual congregational meeting today, a second year in a row. I know the board members agreed to serve an additional year without an election, I don’t know how willing they are to serve a second year. These are tough times for churches, can they gather, dare they gather? There are churches that are not surviving this pandemic. If you are a giver to the church, please continue to do so and/or give a little more. Our church is not especially fragile, but others are.

I look forward to the days when we can again linger after church and talk with friends. I don’t think I fully appreciate how important these church friends, these siblings in faith, really mean to me. I do know how good it is to share face-to-face, masked or not, conversation. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 5:45 a.m., Sunday

“I Don’t Wanna” Is Not a Theological Statement!

Blog 2564, 27 January 2022, Thursday         

Dear friend,

I write myself notes. Usually the things I write down have nothing to do with the subject at hand, never do they implicate anyone there. The Tuesday group was talking about the reluctance of so many to take the jab and I wrote a note to myself, “’I don’t wanna’ is not a theological statement.” No one said anything like that, I was just trying to figure out what I was thinking and I summed up my own thought, wrote it down, and decided I liked it. Humbly I confess, I think that quite often about the words I weave.

Yesterday I got a notification from Amazon Prime that my $1,599.00 new telephone would be delivered by the 28^th of January, 2022. It’s an

Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max

$1,599.00

Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max (1TB, Gold)

$1,599.00

My US bank doesn’t have any such charge. It’s bogus. The sender of the bill is: Amazon.com<quickbooks@notification.intuit.com>

Notice how the Amazon.com part is not a part of the real return address. Curious. Just be careful. And, my philosophy is to trust no one, or anything that is foreign to my way of thinking, like a sixteen-hundred-dollar cell phone would be. I’ll keep you posted if I hear from them again. And, when I tried to print my receipt, the part about it being an Apple iPhone and $1,599.00 wouldn’t print. “Curiouser and curiouser,” cried Alice.

This morning I walked earlier, going to the 156^th Avenue Starbucks which opens at 4:30. It was thirty degrees and foggy, weather for an early morning walker. I was home by 6 a.m., having met five joggers and one other walker. The fog was intense enough that I missed one of my urban corners, I walked right by 25^th Street and never saw it. I carried my light in my hand to quickly flash it on if any cars got close, but none drove by me until I was on the sidewalk along 156^th.

Last week I heard the traffic lineup to get into that store was all the way out along 156^th. Today there was no lineup, no lights, and no coffee. The note started, “Due to a lack of staffing …” So I saved $2.81, walked three-plus miles, and came home to make coffee. But the walk in the foggy dark was worth it. The world isn’t going to go back to what it was. We’ll be OK. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 6:30 a.m., Thursday

On Being Cool

Blog 2563, 26 January 2022, Wednesday                            

Dear friend,

I have loved the clear, cool mornings. I’ve been wearing my long winter coat with hood (and reflective vest), a bit like the way I look when I’m walking in a heavier rain. In the rain I feel like a turtle, in the cold I’m unmindful of the weather. With Puget Sound trapped beneath a temperature inversion, mornings are foggy, mystical, and a touch romantic. It makes me look for Bogart and Bacall. It’s perfect weather for a murder or a love story, time for Bigfoot sightings and whispered voices. It’s fun walking in weather which others shun and at times when no one is out there. Nowadays, I seldom even see police cars. Jean insists I carry my phone with me which is probably good advice, but when I forget to charge it or turn it on, I feel even more isolated.

A sidenote, when Jean wonders where I am and calls me and the phone rings in my office, she always starts my welcome home sentence with this word: “Marvin!” The punctuation of that one-word sentence is accurate. No other words are necessary, but she doesn’t seem to have ever noticed that.

But this morning, even knowing the Starbucks was closed, I walked there, getting my two miles in, starting the day. Behold, it was open. Only the two veteran baristas were there, an hour later some others came in to work; rookies, I think. The radio said it was 34 degrees; it felt colder. It wasn’t a “wind chill factor,” it was more of a damp foggy morning that got colder as I walked downhill. Someone on a motorcycle went by me, convincing me that I’m not quite the craziest person out in the mornings.

The temperature this morning in my study is 64.5˚ and still I don’t turn the heat on. The temperature here has dropped two degrees since we changed our flooring. The heating bills for our downstairs neighbors will probably go lower now that heat isn’t escaping through their ceiling, our floor, as easily. Last year, I don’t think my temperature went below 66˚ ever. If this keeps up, at 62˚ I’ll probably turn my heat on, but I really do believe my brain works better when the study is cooler. It’s my only chance to prove I can be considered “cool.” Love,

Jeannmarv

Posted: 8:30 a.m., Wednesday

They Shut Down My Starbucks

Blog 2562, 25 January 2022, Tuesday                                  

Dear friend,

I slept seven hours last night. That’s like a normal person sleeping twelve, I think. I am at peace with life. Yesterday I intentionally set aside the project I was working on and intend to let it sit for a few months. I’ve been getting up and going directly to work until I reached a plateau in the work. I reached that point when it was wise for me to set it aside and get back to reality,  but I didn’t stop. With the mad effort to get to a good place to take a break, I reached it and kept going. Compulsion is one of my driving forces, it pushed me to go further. I recognize it as a form of addiction, a force I know well. So, yesterday, I set it aside.

It feels as if I took a deep breath and looked up to find an existence away from the computer. This morning I went out and walked to my favorite Starbucks at Main and 148^th and found it was closed. I wondered, “How long have I been in hibernation?” They don’t give a reopening date, and I’d probably guess correctly that it was a lack of staffing. I was living the Rip Van Winkle story.

I think Starbucks is a foundation point in many people’s mornings. It’s not a good thing to disrupt. The last thing the Starbucks people should want is for their customers to realize how much cheaper it is to make coffee at home, how many fewer calories you give yourself, and missing one more line to be in each day is a gift of time. I could imagine it cutting people’s commuting time by five minutes a day. Starbucks have backed themselves into an alley and need to find a way out that doesn’t retrain their consumers. They can’t “bully” themselves out of this situation.

Today I then walked to the local QFC where they have their own Starbucks stand, a place that sells really old people 50¢ coffee, and there I read and worked on one of those “evil” sudoku puzzles that I get on-line. It was cold this morning, there were no other walkers, the air was crisp, and I felt free to stand straight and walk easily, no longer crabbed by imaginary obligations from my own project. It feels like a very good time in my life. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted, 7:45 a.m., Tuesday

It Is Done

Blog 2561, 22 January 2022, Saturday                      

Dear friend,

Is there a place in your life that is personally sacred? A place of memories, hopes, and/or peace. That’s what my study is to me. For the twelve years before we got married, I lived in a little, one-room house of books, one desk, my office chair was a low stool, and I was happy there. Today I have a one room study with a separate bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen—it is so much better. As you know, I have three desks now and I really do use them daily. I am happy here. For the last two weeks, I’ve been living on an edge. My nest wasn’t comfortable, for a time I forced myself to work elsewhere and I had to push myself to be more intentional than usual. As of yesterday, I’m back in my peaceful state of freely drifting with several different focuses (that’s foci for any English nerds out there). I’m home. It feels as if I’ve been traveling for several weeks, but I’m home now. I be happy!

Even my walking has suffered this month, first a week of ice and snow, then two weeks to move almost everything we have, to move it again, and finally a third move to restore what we had. We made very few changes, yet we know more are coming. We swung by IKEA this week and looked at their sleeper-sofas. When we came back from Tanzania a dozen years ago, we saw a three-by-five card on a church bulletin board that offered a hide-a-bed sofa and easy chair for $50 and we got them. The easy chair died several years ago, I think it’s time to let the sofa go. It’s a really comfortable bed but the cushions have worn out on both sides. Either we reupholster or replace, it’s probably cheaper to replace. It needs to be a sleeper because someone is using our second bedroom for something else. Marvin!

It would be nice if it felt like life was returning to normal. By the time it does, if it does, we’ll have changed and so will the new norms. Such, I suppose, is life. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted: 7 a.m., Saturday

Like a 10,000 Piece Puzzle on a Turntable

Blog 2560, 21 January 2022, Friday                         

Dear friend,

I brought half the junk into my room and put it all away, then I brought in the second half and messed everything up. I redid everything I’d done and some parts of it more than once. Finally, on Thursday afternoon my office looked like a real office. If only I could have stopped there, but there were two flaws: my blinds were stuck in the up position (usually they’re down and turned open) and the sound system needed major work.

Thursday night I tore down half of my south wall, clearing access to the window blinds. I fixed it, well, not really fixed it but I have it working again if I remember to never pull them up so tightly and I figured out how the ancient sound system will fit in. Now, all I have to do is reinstall everything and it’ll look good until the next time I look around and decide what would be better than that which is now. I can always make it better, I don’t do “best” on anything. It’ll take me three hours today to restore what I almost had yesterday. It was close, but a day later it feels as impossibly distant as ever. I’ve come to the conclusion that refitting my office was like constructing a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle on a spinning turntable.

During my deconstruction breaks, I’m listening to my computer read to me what I’ve typed into the program, that four-volume, historically and hysterically funny, highly bias accounts of our digestive problems in our 1992-93 sabbatical year.

Maybe I’ll be done with the office this week, but for now it’s like having an itch you’re not supposed to scratch, which makes it itch worse. I can’t concentrate on anything but this 10,000-itchy bites. That’s what it’s like to try to write in this room today. Sorry. But with love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted, 3 p.m., Friday

Trying to Blog

Blog 2559, 18 January 2022, Tuesday                                  

Dear friend,

I’ve been up three hours before I even turned my computer on. In three hours I had a cup of coffee three times, reheating yesterday’s coffee at first, then twice more reheating the coffee I’d just reheated. I think I have about a quarter of my office in condition to actually accomplish any work there. Then I’ll come back and hook up the electronics that are currently sitting in place but uncertain whether it’s where they’ll remain. My only constant was the placement of this computer I’m typing on, even the printer that is attached to it umbilically (wire, not remote).

Finding the invisible. Gone is our renters’ burber carpeting, in its place is a pale, mock-wood blond vinyl that’s not far different in color than our carpet had been, but in texture it’s a quantum change. Yesterday as I was moving one stack of nothingness (in value, not in weight), I heard a piece of something fall, it sounded like plastic that bounced but I couldn’t see anything. Later I hit it with the side of my foot, it skirted away, and I couldn’t see anything. My third encounter with it, I stepped on it and went no further. Carefully I lifted my foot, looked down, and saw nothing! I checked the bottom of my foot: nothing. I got down on my knees and swept my hands over the flooring and found a clear plastic pushpin. Without touching it, I stood up and couldn’t see it. I bent down and picked it up, in my palm I could see it but not on our new floor. “Interesting,” I thought, knowing this was only my first encounter with things invisible on our floor.  

Well, I got distracted (something that happens when you’re hanging on the edge of an avalanche of junk and treasure, indistinguishable one from the other) and decided to do one thing before I finished this blog. Oh, maybe tomorrow I might be done. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written this a.m., posted 3 p.m., Tuesday

I Be Numb

Blog 2558, 17 January 2022, late Monday                            

Dear friend,

For five days I worked all day, moving stuff. Of those five days, I woke up 1:30 twice, followed by 2:30 wake-ups for three days in a row. Yesterday morning I slept in until 4, today it was back to 1:30 again. I’m going to bed at 10-ish, just not sleeping enough. But fortunately, I don’t wake up bored—I have a whole household of stuff in the living room, everything that had been connected (usually electrically) is no longer hooked up, and where did all these books come from?

My old study was shifted around on occasion, but realistically stayed the same. For twelve years it was a constant. It took me twelve years of shifting and sorting and cleansing to get it to a state I was comfortable with (and in). Everything but the desks is changing, and if the other took a dozen years to nestle into place, I won’t get much done in a couple of weeks, but I can try. I got rid of our old box TV (26” by 24” by 18”, with VHF and DVD, over six cubic feet) that Linda from church gave us in 2010 when we arrived back from Africa. We got a flat screen for the living room years ago but I’ve used this one in my office to watch DVD, no cable. The scene in the living room that looked like a rollover accident of a garbage truck, strewing trash everywhere, has now been moved into my office and my job is to nail up all the bits and pieces onto the walls.

It is Monday evening. I haven’t turned my computer on until five minutes ago. The house in now organized except for one roommy office. I did one quick organization, then brought in everything else I’d hauled out. I may never catch up. Of the things I preplanned, nothing seemed to have worked out. Usually if I’d had another inch, that would have worked well. One inch too long is a disaster. But there are many “one-inch” that can crush a project. I know it is so!

So I’m sending this off so you know I’m OK, wading my way through, and will eventually be done. More later, my friend. Love,

Jeannmarv

Posted: 17 January, Monday, 9:30 p.m.

Who’s Got the Floor?

Blog 2557, 14 January 2022, Friday             

Dear friend,

Yesterday while strange men took over my study and floored it, I was tucked in a corner (actually beside a window, mid-room) with my computer, the work I’m typing, and time. Oh, I have work and time, that’s a delicious combination. I finished my project, 276,868 words, 459 pages. The New Testament has 184,600 words; the Old Testament has 622,700 words. I will go through my manuscript carefully, but even afterward there will be plenty of mistakes, and pictures need to be added, a few diagrams. For clarity’s sake, I may reword some of my thoughts, but I’ll try to limit that to a minimum. I’ll keep all the bad and sick puns.

I don’t know whether I should go celebrate or take a nap. This has been a four-month project. I rejoice.

And then, today, we finished the flooring and baseboard replacement. When you think we, think Johnny and his partner and Marvin who was encouraging them. I spent the day, again, moving boxes. When they finished, I hauled in all the stuff we had on the patio, it was there from Friday to Friday, the boxes are feeling moist, I’m hoping the varnish on the chairs was of the outdoor variety. Once again I was active for eleven hours, I didn’t go outside and have well over two miles without walking out the door.

The project is not over, we have a pile of rubble that takes up about half of our new floor, but in a few days, it’ll be put away, thrown away, or hidden in some deep and secret corner of our universe. I go post this now while London is still in their Friday mode, meaning it starts at 4 p.m. our time, aka Real Time. Love,

Jeannmarv

Posted 3:30 p.m., Friday