Happy Friday, which is also National Cucumber Day (I hope to have a bumper crop later this summer), National Bourbon Day (I can only tolerate it if it’s mixed with other thing), and Flag Day. I love Americana, I love this flawed country, I used to flag up the house, and a few years ago I tried to take back the flag, but man oh man some people make it really difficult for the me to love the flag.
This week I hit the gym THREE TIMES (M/W/F) and practiced yoga at home the other two days. I asked ChatGPT, “can you please create 3 30-minute workouts that I, a 51 year old unfit woman, can accomplish at Planet Fitness in order to build strength and stamina?” And it did! I swapped a few machine workouts in for the free weight suggestions because I’m not familiar/comfortable to be grabbing dumbbells and doing that kind of thing.
And our ceiling fans were installed, after months of being ghosted by electricians and hampered by my own inertia. Everything went perfectly.
Let’s hit the Friday 5! This week’s theme is A Wrinkle in Time. I could never get into that book because I never liked Charles Wallace (the OG Young Sheldon) and I didn’t understand the tesseract … thing. Did the three W’s wrinkle time and space together by just thinking it? I don’t know. I tried it in fourth or fifth grade and understood very little, tried it as an adult 20 or so years ago and was bored.
- When have you refused to do what (seemingly or actually) everyone else was doing?
I don’t binge TV shows or books. Take Bridgerton, for example. Netflix decided to be a jerk and release the first four episodes five weeks ago and the final four episodes this week. Almost everyone binged the first four and whined and wailed about having to wait for the final four. Not me. I watched the first four at a rate of per week, and now I’ll watch the last four one per week. If I’m going through programs that are already released, I can’t watch more than three episodes before losing interest. I think content producers should go back to releasing new episodes weekly.
(I am pro-Eloise and am a Benedict girlie.) - When have your faults been helpful?
Never. I’m lazy and I catastrophize constantly and those traits never help at all. - Have you called anyone Uncle or Aunt who wasn’t related to you or married to a relative?
Growing up, I called our older next door neighbors Aunt and Uncle. - When did you last reread a book?
I reread Little Women during the heaviest time of the Covid pandemic but overall I’m not a rereader. There are too many new books to read for me to take time for reruns. - Honestly, if there is a battle between good and evil, which do you think is ahead?
I will always believe in good. Evil is loud and quick and has fantastic PR. Plus, evil is very good at tricking good into thinking they’re on the same side. However, good has the numbers and the tenacity to win out. It just takes a long time to do it. See also: the arc of the moral universe being long but bending toward justice.
And to tie this back into my ‘ergh’ about the flag, I listen to Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s podcast called House Calls. I’m behind, so this week I listened to the May 1 episode. When Murthy’s family was immigrating to the United States, his parents told him it was a place full of “courageous, compassionate optimists.” And that’s what I think the flag should be representing, instead of having the design co-opted by xenophobic pessimists or (illegally?) modified to become a pro-police symbol. I want us to quit meddling in peoples’ lives and get back to courageous compassionate optimism.
But that’s just me, your blog neighborhood bleeding heart liberal who tries to love everyone. Safe, loved, warm, yadda yadda yadda.
Do I have weekend plans? I don’t think so. Next week is going to be wild (middle-aged wild, not early-twenties wild) so I might hide in my hammock this weekend in preparation.
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The difference between Young Sheldon (whose show I have never watched, so I’m actually basing this on grown-up Sheldon) and Charles Wallace is that Charles Wallace is something of an empath, too. His ability to feel what people are feeling makes him special in the cosmic sense, and it’s why IT (the stand-in for the antagonist) is able to latch onto him the way IT does. But you might not know this if you haven’t read that far. 🙂 It’s my favorite book.
I’m with you. There may be setbacks, but good prevails and good will prevail.