Wednesday, January 20, 2021
I slept well until about 2:30; I was wide awake and filled with anxiety after that. I wanted to pay off the solar before the market crashed, assuming it does. Either way, I have little to lose. If it doesn't crash, I get the service. If it does, I get the service- or not because we are facing the end of the world. I'm not into the Rapture, but we sure are living in interesting times. So much fun!
I don't know how much longer I stayed in bed. I finally got up, thinking it must be around 3 or 3:30. I didn't look at the clock. I threw on a sweatshirt and sat in the living room working out a schedule of payments. I'm doing it through the credit card company because I get reward points in cash. Otherwise, I'd make a direct electronic payment to the solar company. Because I have a very low line of credit, I have to make a series of payments. The idea was the moment the payment is posted with the credit company, I pay it off. I can call them and do this. I worked out a time schedule for the payments and the amounts. Ah! That's better. But I still wasn't relaxed enough to go to sleep.
I got up around 4 and sat in the living room, checking off the books between the St. Patrick's list and the one from Notre Dame, the first seminary I got book requests from. It was comforting. It was busywork, keeping my fingers and my mind occupied. Were some of the books on the St. Patrick's list on the Notre Dame list? Was that why I couldn't find more books for St. Patrick's.? Those books are already gone. That would mean the Cataloging program isn't foolproof. But what is?
At one point, I heard the water run. I thought Yvette or Josh must have gotten up to go to the bathroom, but the water turned into a shower. It was too early for Josh's shower. That occurs at 5 am. I can set a clock to his shower. Then I heard my alarm go off at 5:30. I had no idea what time it was. I went out for my walk.
I understood that the credit card charge would be posted by 7 am the following day. By the time I got back from my walk, it was 8 am. That would be 1 pm east coast time. That charge should have cleared. I called. It hadn't been posted yet. I called a few hours later. It still hadn't been posted. I spoke to a customer service agent. She said that the solar company had to complete another procedure before the charge could go through. I called Kathrine, the solar company rep. She called her office. No, they never did that procedure; they sent their money straight to the bank. I called back a few hours later. Now, it was a different story. The agent told me that it was because of the time difference between HI and wherever they were. Katherine said that the charge had gone through at 11:30 here. My guess is it didn't register with the credit card company till shortly after 6 pm. Their end of the day. The charges will clear tomorrow. This throws me somewhat off schedule. The effect is to calm me. There's nothing I can do about it.
Katherine had to come over to have me sign a document. She had given me the wrong one yesterday. I apologized for my anxiety. She talked about her response when we had the false bombing attack several years ago.
Everyone got a message on their cell phone that North Korea had launched a missile at Hawaii. We were told to shelter in place. I was calm as a cucumber. Not much I could do about this circumstance. If it didn't hit where I was, I would live; if it did, I would die.
Josh called to tell me to make sure Yvette knew. I grabbed Elsa and went down to her quarters. One side of her house is solid rock. If we were going to seek shelter, there couldn't be a better place. Josh's bathroom is windowless and right up against that wall of rock.
Yvette and I sat and chatted. We were both calm. Then the all-clear sounded. The alert button was pushed in error, and the governor couldn't find the code he needed to cancel the alert.
Mike had it the worst. He was at a deacon retreat on Oahu. Everyone was there with his wife except Mike. He was hysterical. He cried and cried. Someone made some comment that he was weak. That guy was there with his wife. How dare he judge Mike!
I had a session with D at 11:30. We worked on writing a story. It took a full half-hour to pull the bones of a story out of him. He just strings together miscellaneous details. When we had the notes, I discussed the aspects of a story: character, setting, both where and when and plot. I told him the plot needed a problem and a solution to that problem. That's what makes it a story. There was something there to work with. I would construct it with him next time.
At 2:30, I had M. We continued working on inferencing. She does some better than expected. She bombs on the math word problems. We were still working on the third-grade level. It will take time before we move beyond this.
_____-_____-_____
Musing:
No, I did not like Biden's speech. He spoke about unification. What is going to unify us? I am reminded of a young friend who is a Libertarian who thinks if we can get rid of government, we can all get on the same page. Whose page? When I hear 'same page,' unified,' it raises the hairs on the back of my neck. Unified under what? All the major religions have spoken about unification. All were planning to bring universal peace by getting everyone to belong to the same religion – theirs.
Biden also spoke about ending lawlessness and violence. Sadly, he didn't say at both endless of the spectrum, leaving us all to infer that he was only referring to those bad guys on the 'other side. Do I think those prepared to come armed to attack the Capitol shouldn't be reined in? You'd better believe it. But speaking only about that faction pushes those not in that violent camp to join up with them. If not, in fact, in spirit.
Do I think he 'meant' well? Yeah. But I hold him responsible for knowing the impact of his words as much as I do Trump. Trump claimed he didn't really mean what we heard him say. "There are good guys on all sides." Do I need to list them all?
Now Pompeo makes no bones about his position." This is not a multicultural nation." If we have a president who believes we are not a multicultural nation and is prepared to fight for this, we are in trouble.
If we're not multicultural, which culture is our 'true' culture? (Back to unity). If someone claims 'a true 'culture, what happens to the rest of us. I know I'm out if the evangelicals are defining it. I'm Jewish- need I say more. I'm Catholic. The evangelicals don't think well of the Catholics. They don't believe they are Christians. I'm an intellectual. Oh, my. In other words, I'm screwed. What amazes me is that I know people who respond to the rallying cry of the right who will also be screwed.
One culture for all would be nice. It would be so relaxing. Ah! We would all know what's right and what's wrong. Everyone would agree. How peaceful. I agree that's how we're designed to live; in small groups where everyone knows everyone and goods are distributed evenly, with a few extra trinkets here and there. But those days are over. It's the fault of population growth. Population size eliminated the functionality of those small groups. Religion took over defining the 'acceptable' culture. If someone was of your faith, then you could trust them.
Take a look at Israel. When we commit to a single way of doing things, the fundamentalists grab hold of the reins and ride us all. That's the way it works. The fundamentalist, the orthodox, are committed to a single way of doing things and are prepared to put their shoulders into making it happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment