Sunday, March 30, 2025

Sunday, March 30, 2025

 

   I had a terrible night's sleep.  What Dean said about Kaiser aiming to close the Kona clinic upset me.  I have calmly considered disastrous living conditions as the economy fails, pushed over the edge by political greed, but this was an immediate detail.  I spiraled into stinking thinking. I slept till 1:30 a.m. and was up for the rest of the night.  

    Sitting in church helped to soothe my frayed nerves.  The woman I did the healing on was at church but did not come out to greet me as she had done every Sunday after Mass before this incident when I did some healing on her.

   Ironically, the reading today was on Jesus healing the man born blind. Jesus restored his sight. The Pharisees condemned him because he had done it on the day of the Sabbath. Jews are prohibited from working from sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night to observe the Sabbath.  Someone pointed out that Jesus did something good for someone else. They shouldn't make an issue about it being the Sabbath. 

   I did something good for this woman. I relieved her pain and showed her what she could do to maintain her pain-reduced if not pain-free, state.  I can hear the woman saying, "But you're not Jesus."  The Christian faith says God is Love.  Then, by definition, wherever you find love, there is God.  "A rose by any other name is still a rose." Regardless of the person's faith, a Christian should consider any act of love or kindness a manifestation of Christ. If Christ equals love, we should look for the Christ in everyone.   This woman is a pharisee. However, she is not organizing a crucifixion party on the front lawn of the church. So, I'm good.  But I do have a concern.

    This woman lived in joyful peace in the bosom of Catholicism. I have done something that's rocked her world.  I long for the peace she knew.  I see it on the faces of the young people from the University of Nations, an evangelical charismatic organization. I pray she will find her way to a safe world despite her experience with me.  Hopefully, she will be more open-minded.

    I think people like this woman are what Joseph has described as 'cognitively secure." They don't let in any information that contradicts their worldview.   There are advantages to that way of thinking. I don't have to describe the negative side. The KKK is an outstanding example.  Someone who is unlike me doesn't think what I think is evil. It's as simple as a pimple. It has to be popped. The other is a blight on a perfect world.  

   Besides those who are "cognitively secure," some think they should feel cognitively secure; they should always be correct.  They're called insecure. It's well deserved. If you have to be always right, you have to be God.  If you're not, you will not always be right. Period end of sentence. If these people lower their expectations, they would be much happier.

   I was supposed to have an appointment with fourth-grade MH—or is she in fifth grade now?  I have a devil of a time keeping track of their grades. My focus is on their level of performance. At any rate, I never met with her today. She came home too late from a basketball tournament for our session. Her dad proposed doing it on Monday. I was booked solid with five appointments. I only do half-hour sessions, so it's not as bad as it sounds.

      Someone came to pick up the push-mower in need of repair this evening. Yay!  I had something like a dozen responses to my ad. Of course, I was giving it away for free.  I responded to the first request.   I don't know how old he was, but his and his friend's lives were a mess.  He couldn't pick it up because he didn't have a functioning car. But he really wanted the mower.  Then he texted me to say he didn't get hold of me because he spent the day in court. His friend, Brittany, would pick it up.

     Brittany had her problems. She was breaking up with a dude who stole her wallet and the plates off her car.  Yeah. She drives around without plates and only gets stopped occasionally. That's Kona.  Then, she tells me she drives a Honda Civic, and the back seat doesn't go down. Would the mower fit in? I doubted it. But then I figured out how to fit it into my car without lowering the back seats. The final blow is that she texts me at 9:30 at night to say she just finished dinner at a restaurant in Kona. Could she come now?  It was lights out around 9:30.  Why hadn't she done it before eating dinner?  Some people's lives are an ongoing mess, and you can do nothing to help. 

   I posted 10 and 12-gauge electric extension cords today. I had close to 20 responses within an hour. Both the plug and outlet were scorched and needed to be replaced. I advertised them before for $10 a piece and got zero responses. Free goes over well. Did I forget to advertise them on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and Nextdoor? That's where the responses came from now.

   Damon called-twice.  He called on his way to pick up August for dinner and on his way home after dinner.  he told me about his trip to London for 'work.' The score for his new movie was recorded at the Apple Studio, where the Beatles recorded.  I couldn't imagine what function the movie's executive producer would have for this event.  He said it was just a bonus for all his hard work. Several other top-ranking employees also went.  Cylin, his wife, joined him on the third day. She has a college friend who lives there. They saw her and toured. 

   We usually talk about his life. I only talk about mine when I have a problem. I don't think he sees me or my life as particularly interesting.  He hasn't figured out I'm a human being yet, and he's over 50.  But today, I did talk about myself.

     I don't know why I started talking about my past success. I did some acting when at the University of Wisconsin. One boy told me he and a group of his fellow acting majors thought I was the only one on the campus with enough raw talent to make it in the profession. Also, a traveling Hollywood talent scout offered me whatever he offered people. That's a fun story.

   I agreed to read a scene from T.S. Elliot's Cocktail Party with a friend who was getting a degree in acting. When we finished the scene, the scout said it sounded good, but he was looking for comic talent. I said give us a minute, and we'll do it again. I pulled Jonathan aside and showed him how to read the same lines with a comic voice.  I'm from NYC; everything is said with a comic voice. I got the invitation to come to Hollywood; my friend didn't. I said no.  While I liked the craft, I wasn't interested in the lifestyle, not from what I heard about the ways' talent' got treated by casting agents and directors. I could never have handled the endless rejections.  Also, the scout, Eddie Foy, Jr, represented Miramax. Does that sound familiar? Harvey Weinstein worked there. I dodged that bullet.

    I took the bound version of Blog Book 2019 out of the paper bag it came in today after ignoring it for a good six months. I flipped to the back page to discover it ended on September 30, 2019. It wasn't even the full entry for that date. Microsoft struck again. It edits my writing without my permission or knowledge. I had all the entries on Blogger.com. I started working on retrieving them for the Blog Book.