Guys, we got a plant. His name is Gary, and if you ask nicely, we will let you meet him. Gary lives in the Hurley House kitchen most of the time, but is brought to the front of the store regularly so that he can get his daily allowance of natural light. Gary is quiet and pretty easy going. We are doing our best to keep him alive.
I, on the other hand, am writing this post from my sick bed. I have been struck by something awful and flu-like, and I don’t care for it one bit. I have been in bed for two days, and I feel like it might as well be two weeks. My mind is going crazy, by body hurts, and writing this post is going to require a three hour nap to recover.
Here’s what we talked about this week…
ONE.
Are boot cut jeans really coming back into fashion. Really? How is this possible? I thought we learned our lesson in the nineties and got that whole look out of our system. Now here it is, back with a vengeance, asking me to start wearing tall shoes again. Make it stop.
TWO.
If you have school-aged children, listen up. I think we need to start a petition or a rally or whatever it is that you do to get a new school inservice day established. My children get a day off of school for the rodeo, Columbus, and a number of other obscure reasons, but you know what day we really need off of school? November 1. That’s right. No one wants to go to school the day after Halloween. We all stayed up way past our bedtime, the kids are coming off of a tremendous sugar high, the parents are over it, the teachers are for sure over it, and everyone needs a day to sort of get it all back together. With all due respect to Columbus (which, maybe is not that much), I would like to propose we honor the accomplishment of parents everywhere who finished everyone’s costume on time, carved a pumpkin, handed out candy, pushed all the sugar boundaries, and managed to capture the moment perfectly and post it on social media. We’re exhasted! Can we please make November 1 a school holiday?
THREE.
Here’s an etiquette question for you. If you are on Instagram, and specifically if you are watch Insta-stories, then you know about the Direct Message feature and the two options it provides. You can either send a message directly to the person who has posted the story. Or, you can send a clip from a story to a friend and include a message to your fried. The tricky part is when someone thinks they are sending a message to their friend about the person in the story, but by mistake they send the message to the person in the story. This is not hypothetical. It has happened to me several times. Someone thinks they are messaging their friend about me, but instead, they message me. It’s a little awkward, to say the least, because I now know what this person was going to tell their friend about me. Thankfully, none of the messages have been negative, but I wonder, should I respond and let them know about their error? Or should I not respond and let them live in happy oblivion? And, side question, if one day I do receive a negative or snarky message intended for someone else’s eyes, I for sure should screen shot and post it for all the world to see, right? I kid.
FOUR.
In the age of modern medicine and advances in science and technology, I feel silly having to spell this out for us, but alas, it seems I must. Cold air does not cause colds. Germs cause colds. Our great grandparents may not have known any better, but we do. We don’t “catch our death of a cold” by stepping out into the elements. The reason winter is associated with more people catching colds is because in the winter we stay indoors, huddled around more people, breath recycled air, and therefore perpetuate the spread of viruses by our closeness. It is not because the air is cold. Science!
FIVE.
This week I caught part of an interview on Fresh Air that really stuck with me. Terry Gross interviewed Derek Black, the son of a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and “heir apparent of the white nationalist movement.” Derek broke free from this movement after a series of events in his life that caused him to reconsider his beliefs. One of these life-changing events was an invitation from two Jewish class mates for Derek to attend Shabbat dinner with them. He accepted the invitation, and began eating with them every week. Over the course of two years, sharing a weekly meal together and getting to know them better, he slowly began to change. Spending time together with others at the table can be a powerful thing. This story is a beautiful example of this truth, and I would encourage you to listen to the interview in full.
Have a lovely weekend!
Leave a Reply