They still draw attention ~

I find it so fascinating how people are drawn to stories of Nazi Germany and the Jewish Holocaust. So many movies have been done about this and so many stories have been told about it and I just can't fathom how bad it must have been but I also don't want to dwell on it.



It was horrible but I don't want to sit for two hours and be dragged through the muck of emotions associated with Nazis and Germany and delusions and horrific violence and treatment of people. I just don't like to watch it and I don't like to see it.



While visiting family they wanted to watch a movie and chose "The Boy in the Red Stripe Pajamas". I gave it a try for the first 30 minutes or so. It's about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and the treatment of Jews. It's all done through the story of a little boy and it's just heart-wrenching and I didn't even see the bad parts.



I don't like that stuff and I don't like to think about it and I don't like to dwell on it. I really don't want to see it because hyper-accurate depictions of people being starved and treated like animals is not my type of entertainment.



So I stepped out of the room and read on my mobile device. But the images I saw haunt me still...



+++

Writing with left hand ~

Recently I was talking with someone who is a counselor, and he noted that I was writing with my left hand. He was surprised and said that a very small percentage of the population actually is left handed, and that it takes a different kind of thinking to be left handed.



They've done studies on the brain, and how writing left-handed changes the brain. He was even more astounded when I told him that I was right-handed but about 20 years ago I decided to learn to write with my left hand, and got to a point to where I use my left hand to write most of the time now.



I was brought up and spent most of my adult life right handed. I always got gigged on my handwriting because it was messy. My print was called "chicken scratch" by my father, who didn't have much better handwriting than me, but still.



My teachers lowered my grade on my English papers because my handwriting was so bad. I remember papers being given back to me and being told by the teacher that they couldn't read them. And so I would rewrite it and really take my time and do it as neat as I could with my right hand.



Writing fast was necessary because there was so much information to capture in school. When I got to college I scribbled notes all over the place and tried to keep them orderly, but even I when I went back and reviewed them had trouble reading them.



In my professional life handwriting was necessary and so I would consciously slow myself down when I would write on flight strips, when I filled out forms, they were legible but it was hard. In my 40s I got an office job and got off of shift work and had some extra office time on my hands.



I was very analytical and very locked into certain ways of thinking and I was exploring ways of changing the way that I thought so that I could become more creative and maybe less negative and improve in other ways.



I locked in on left-handedness being a complete change of the brain to where the brain would have to remap a lot of different things to make it happen and then to maintain being left-handed I would have to think different.



So I picked up the pen in my left hand and as uncomfortable as it was I started writing.



I was so slow at first but it was so neat and legible. It was amazingly clear because I had slowed down and because I couldn't go fast. It was also so important to me.



It just was easy to read. I did notice that as I got used to it over a couple of years if I sped up it would start to look sloppy but not as bad as my right hand did. Then I'd pick up the pen with my right hand and scribble something and chuckle and start writing with my left hand again.



Once I was proficient with writing with my left hand, I would switch back and forth on purpose just to see what they looked like. I thought about changing my signature but decided that was going to be too much administrative hassle in banking institutions and other places.



I would go in and I would fill everything out with my left hand and put the pen in my right hand and sign it. People would look at me in shock. It was fun. I tried other things with my left hand once I got used to it.



I played ping pong with my left hand and found that I was really good, better than I was right handed. I tried to throw a football and found that that went a lot better. I don't do that very often anyways. I threw a Frisbee left handed and it went wild off course and I was like, that's one thing that's not any better.



It's an interesting experience because I don't get confused about which hand to use, I just do it. I do try to change things up and use my left hand to wash myself and do clothes on the washer and try to use my left hand primarily and that feels weird.



I do live in a right handed world, but I feel I accomplished my objective. I'm a lot more creative and I come up with a lot of different ideas that I don't think I would have ever come up with before.



So being left handed on purpose can be done and I didn't even have to lose a finger or hand to do it.



+++

Gnarled old tree ~

One of the things that I and many other people find beautiful and interesting to look at is a gnarled old tree. You see a tree that's over a hundred years old and it has the rough bark that's been aged and sun and rain and wind and cold and hot.



If it's had some damage it has holes where branches used to be, sometimes even splits where the trunk was torn asunder and yet the tree kept living. The windblown gnarly trees on the coasts are also so fascinating.



Continuous wind coming in off the ocean or off the edge of a mountain causes all the branches to go in the opposite direction because they can't grow into the wind very well. When you find one on a rock jutting out of a river and it defiantly is holding on and growing they're just so beautiful and you wonder what the story is and how long they've been there living it.



But when people see the branch dangling from a few more strands of cellulose or whatever the substance is that makes up their sinewy branch material. Most people just think it's time to cut that off.



Some people just want to rub paint or some sort of sealant on it so the tree maybe will continue but they think it's ugly because it's white or black paint and it's not beautiful to look at when it's been damaged.



If it's gnarled by the twisting winds the trunk is looked at as a thing that is struggling and maybe shouldn't even be there. Picked the wrong place to live, didn't you? Very few people are interested in the process of becoming gnarly, aged with weather and experience.



Fascinating, isn't it?

Not a door mat ~

I was recently reading Proverbs chapter 29. Each month when I get to the 29th I hear this and I always think about it.



In verse 21 it says "if you let people treat you like a doormat you will be quite forgotten in the end."



It always gives me pause when I hear that. I wonder if my kindness is getting me treated like a doormat.



It is getting me left out when others get to go and and do things. It bothers me because I've been left out of a lot of different things. I understand that I can't be included in everything, but cannot even be thought of for some of these things. And then to be circumvented in purposefully left out at times. It hurts!



At work I had situations where people from out of state that came in to our facility under the flag of a powerful sponsor from upon high get preferential treatment, got promoted after having the plum assignment while being assigned to a different position so that they can get credit for both positions in not less than a year. I've watched others benefit when they really didn't know what they were doing, they just had strong sponsorship.



I've had some of that in my life. There been two or three times where I got a position because a group of people felt that they needed my skills in that position. I've also competed for positions and gotten them. And it's interesting that the higher I go and the more experience that I have the more I understand that there is very little based on merit unless you're in the free market. Different subject, sorry.



I went through that in high school. I was way outside at high school. Nerd, science fiction reader, in the band, super shy so that if I went to events I would find somewhere with a plate of snacks and a drink and I just park there most of the night. On the wall or in a chair, that was about it.



But I've never directly felt like I was being treated like a doormat. Over the years I've transformed from the quiet shy nerd that wouldn't say anything even if you were standing on my big toe to a sometimes brash and forward manager who calls things out politely but directly. And I ask a lot of direct questions, which makes people very uncomfortable at times. Especially Chinese exchange students.



I don't know. I don't think I'm treated like a doormat, but then sometimes I think that I am not even thought of. And I wonder if not even being thought of is being treated like a doormat. I guess not, because you have to think of a doormat to put it there and rub your feet on it. If you don't even think of someone than you're less than a doormat.



Just a thought. I get a lot of reading Proverbs each day. I read whatever chapter corresponds to the day of the month that it is. I encourage you to do the same thing. Hopefully you'll be able to figure out what it's like to be treated like a doormat and explain it to me!



Let me know...



+++

Fascinating word - ingenue ~

I was listening to an episode of an old-time radio show when I heard them describe a woman in the show as an "ingenue".



It was interesting because it was just quickly said in passing as if this word would be easily understood. The show was from the 1940s.



The only other time I've ever heard or seen was in a song. It was Styx on the Paradise theater album. The song was named "Homewrecker". It's a rocker! You can listen to the song at

https://youtu.be/whzzANKrPos



Ingenue is defined as being "a naive girl or young woman" or "the stage role of a naive girl or young woman".



Fun stuff!



Definition

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ingenue

Bread and butter ~

One of the things I remember from growing up is that we always had to have bread and butter with dinner. It didn't matter what we were having. Chicken. Beef. Turkey. Fish. None of the above. We had to have bread on the table. We had to have butter on the table.



And the butter was always spread on the bread thickly and eaten with the meal. When I say butter, I mean that in a loose sense because of weight and diet concerns.



My mother and father purchased margarine and the "I can't believe it's not butter" spread that was not butter. Because of the advertising and the articles they avoided actual milk based churned butter because of the salt content and the fat content and the impact on our bodies that had been advertised.



Sadly that advertising was just to sell the artificial stuff that was really bad for you. With the vegetable oils that were inflammatory and the hydrogenated whatevers that created more inflammation and irritation in our bodies than we could ever imagine.



If we lost weight eating this stuff, it was probably because our bodies were rejecting what we were ingesting.



Grammy, my grandmother on my mother's side, lived with us for many years. She would literally go into panic mode if we got down to less than a loaf or two of bread in the freezer.



This was almost always white bread. It was not Wonder Bread because that was too expensive. We didn't have a lot of money, so we bought the inexpensive kind. And as I got older, my mother splurged and bought the white wheat bread in an effort to be healthier. I don't think it worked very well.



We always had to have the artificial butter. The crock plastic bin of spread was prominent in our refrigerator. Sometimes there would be a splurge on the "I can't believe it's not butter" spread.



I don't remember ever seeing Land of Lakes butter in our refrigerator growing up. And I really don't remember seeing any of the actual churned milk butter in our refrigerator. Even for recipes when my mother was going to bake something.



I didn't think anything of it. But as an adult, in my 40s and 50s, I started noticing just how artificial the artificial butter was. And I switched over to regular "real" butter. I do remember a friend at work showing me what his father showed him about the Land of Lakes butter, how he had taken the logo from the package and overlaid it with another logo from another Land of Lakes butter package to show the nipples of the Indian on the package. I thought it was hilarious but also embarrassing.



Now when I consume butter it's typically real milk churned butter with olive oil in it or just sticks of milk churned butter.



No salt added is better for me but I'll even do it with the salt. I try to avoid the hydrogenated mess oils and spreads. And I feel healthier!



I guess today's marketing is working on me.



+++

Grilling in Alaska ~

I remember going on a trip to Alaska with my parents and my family. One of the highlights of that trip was grilling chicken legs at a cabin in the base where we stayed. My dad was in the Air Force and so as a retiree he had access to military bases and places that were set up as vacation spots for military and veterans.



My parents had arranged for us to be able to stay in Seward, Alaska, at the southern tip of the biggest part of Alaska up there. Not the one that extends down to Juneau but the one that is still part of the main part of Alaska.



It was beautiful! We enjoyed the trip though getting there with all four of our children and my parents who were getting older was challenging.



Everybody wanted to have grilled chicken legs. I thought was a silly idea, but my wife really liked the idea, and the kids did too.



So me and dad got out there with charcoal, turning over chicken legs with forks, and talking about how it was still so bright at 9pm in the evening. It never really did get completely dark while we were in Alaska. We didn't see the aurora borealis, but it would have been a capping event.



But I enjoyed being with my dad. I don't even remember what we talked about, or any of that, I just remember he time with him.

Good memory!



+++