Saturday, November 5, 2022

Saturday, November 5, 2022 

 

  I ran into Juli and Vince on my morning walk. I've turned into a good listener in my old age. Juli loves to talk. She started sharing her irritation over the misuse of subject versus object pronouns. Using a subject pronoun after the preposition of drives her crazy. I feel some irritation when the subject pronoun is misused, less to none when the object pronoun is misused. 'It's me" sounds correct; I would find "It is I," irritating. But I love the "me and my ….." construction. It just rolls off the tongue. I believe in the reality of language change. It is always in the process of changing.

  She also told this horrendous story about an adoptive father who kidnapped and dumped his kids in another state when he left their mother because he didn't want to pay child support. Real evil. The boy was found immediately. The girl was found seven years later. She was brought into a hospital with a broken arm. X-rays showed repeated breaks. The authorities took her from her "parents,' people who were abusing her. Someone figured out who she was and returned her to her adoptive mother. The story was important to Juli because the girl was very smart. She learned multiple languages. All I wanted to know was what happened to that father. Was he found? Did he go to jail? Those topics weren't interesting to her. The story left me feeling depressed. That's the impact of evidence of pure evil.

   I was exhausted by 9:30 and took a nap. I hadn't slept well. I am very distressed by the political and social environment. No matter who wins, we're on the verge of violence. Can it be averted? If it were just in this country, I'd be more optimistic. But it's not. Then there's the rise of anti-Semitism. My family went through this in Germany. That's why they came here. Almost everyone made it out. Just three people remained behind, by their own choice. The parents died in Auschwitz, and their daughter survived Theresienstadt. Given the worldwide mood, a repeat of a program of Jewish genocide is a possibility. Even if that specific atrocity doesn't happen, the threat of violence looms as gun-toting people prepare to kill those who disagree with them. Some people are not gun-toting but contribute to the polarity, feeding into the dangerous atmosphere.

  Scott did a laundry and found the drier didn't work. The Sears repairman was here on Tuesday. It worked before he was here; he must have done something wrong. Fortunately, Scott is knowledgeable. He pulled the top off the drier and discovered a disconnected wire. Connecting it was simple. Unfortunately, he dropped a screw into the drier case. Retrieving it was the biggest problem. He fished it out and got the drier up and running again.   

    I was hot and sticky today. I had been that way for several days. I often wear a sweatshirt all day; today, I got out of my T-shirt and put on a tank top. This is weird. Our hottest months have always been August, September, and October. The heat and humidity break around Yvette's birthday, October 10. This year, those months were cooler than it has been in November. I put on the ceiling fans in the evening while watching the Spanish version of If Only on Netflix. So far, It had been fun to watch, but it was taking a dark turn.