Allan G. Hunter's Blog, page 6

Diary 288

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Diary 288

Thursday, December 31st

New Year’s Eve this year (perhaps every year) is a time to reassess what the last twelve months has been. I like to think that this ghastly year has been full of positive things, if we care to look. I’ve learned that we need to run around in circles less, that people we love are the only items that’re worth caring about, and that we all need to be kind, to look out for our neighbors. It’s been a year (for me) when all those restless ego desires for getting ahead and getting things done have finally revealed themselves as hollow. And at the forefront of this has been a ‘president’ who is all about himself, his fragile ego and what it requires to make him feel less like an abandoned baby. Yes, this year has been, for me, about watching the way the ego can run out of control. 

For others the year has been cruel. And to me this conveyed that we need to be kind to all members of our world, always, as often as possible, and that we can start right now. 

In the midst of winter there are bright berries on the trees, telling us that a Spring time of growth awaits. It’s never about the tree; it’s always about the growth. Happy New Year.

Diary 287

Wednesday, December 30th

The urge to clear things out, to get rid of stuff, has been strong today.  Perhaps it’s because we’re all fed up with 2020, eager to get rid of this ‘president’ , desperate to be able to do more than we’re currently restricted from doing. Whatever it is, the charity shops are the beneficiaries – and since I have a couple of places that I like that actually repurpose things, or sell them at very nominal prices to those who need them, I feel good about what I’m doing.  I’m not just helping to top up some landfill somewhere, at least as far as I know.

I suspect we all have too much stuff. Perhaps it’s time to pass some of it on.

Diary 286

Tuesday, December 29th

Turkey — It’s all behind us, right?  Not so fast….

I’ve a tale to tell.  This year, again, the turkey was done much later than anticipated.  I couldn’t understand it. It went into the oven on time. The National Turkey Federation had supplied a time scale for the turkey weight, and so I couldn’t go wrong, could I? Pushing a meat thermometer into a still-not-cooked turkey showed us that something was not quite right. But what?  The oven was almost new, and not a cheap one, either.

So the next day, as a pie was being reheated, I thad an idea. I dug into the kitchen drawer and pulled out a separate oven thermometer. It was an old model that clipped onto the racks and had the stains of years of use.  I compared the reading with the one on the fancy-dancy digital read out of the oven. Over 30 degrees difference. The oven claimed to be pushing 375 when it was barely producing 340.  But this was a new oven! How could this be? And yet – it was.

Trusting technology to do whatever it is it claims to do is not always realistic. Blindly believing whatever it is the latest source tells us may not always be the best option.

Diary 285

Diary 285

Monday, December 28th.

A full moon this evening, sailing through a clear sky, reminded me that things take the time they take, that change is never instantaneous, and that reorienting our world will take time. It’ll take more than us noticing that the Natural world is under threat; or that the poor need help; or that a few Republicans joined with Democrats to over-ride the ‘president’s’ veto of a bill. 

Things don’t turn around overnight. But they do turn around. If we work at them.

Diary 284

Sunday, December 27th

The former ‘president’ has refused to sign the Covid relief bill that would have saved millions from near destitution. He behaves, yet again, as a petulant thug who is determined to hurt the vulnerable. Why?  Because to him the poor are not worth his regard, and anyway, they probably wouldn’t vote for him, would they? It’s class warfare, really. He wants to make so many problems that the incoming administration will be struggling right from the get-go, and he doesn’t care who gets hurt.

The two things Americans most fear – skyrocketing medical bills and unemployment from circumstances beyond their control – have come together this year. The ‘president’ did absolutely nothing about either. Now he’s repeating the same trick.

Diary 283

Saturday, December 26th

Boxing Day (today), was spent tidying up, browsing on leftovers, and reading my Christmas presents – in this case Barack Obama’s “A Promised Land”.  Not ‘THE promised land’ notice, something that’s given us, because it’s up to us to fulfill the promise this land, our land, holds. Brilliant, intimate, and exactly what we need after the previous four nightmare years.  Here’s a book that reminds us that it’s perfectly natural to have a vision for a better United States, and why we need to make that happen. It is the perfect way to inspire us all, weary as we may feel.

I always seem to get exactly what I want and need for Christmas (Thank you, family, thank you.)

Diary 282

Thursday, December 25th Christmas

Christmas: and all that is included when one has four excited grandchildren visiting. I know there was turkey involved, and plenty of delicious vegetables, and a lot of wrapping paper.  Oh, and laughter and squeals of delight and fun and love.  The rest is a bit of a blur.  But I shan’t ever forget the feeling.

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, too.

Diary 281

Diary 281

Wednesday, December 24th

A (true) Christmas Story

Many years ago, when my family lived in Sardinia, the sun could be cruel especially in Winter when a cool breeze deceived you as to its power. The seat covers on our patio chairs were shredded by its onslaught after only one summer. My father realized what this meant for human eyes and got me a pair of Air Force sunglasses from the Quartermaster. He told me to take care of them.  This I did. But one day, well after Christmas, I was climbing a hill to where I knew some stone age caves lurked. It was a long climb through thorn and scrub, rocky, sweaty.  And I lost the sunglasses.

I was mortified.  My father was annoyed. I was on my own for sunglasses after that.

He wore his own set of Air Force issue glasses for the next few decades.  When he died I found them in his desk.  It was only when I put them on that I saw how scratched and scuffed they were, and I came then to understand that the sunglasses I had lost were nominally his replacement glasses, as permitted by the Service. He’d given me the new ones he was entitled to – glasses that were not for sale – and struggled on with the old ones.

A decade or so later I was still wearing ‘his’ glasses when a houseguest, the daughter of my parents’ friend, an acquaintance from another fading era, managed to break them.  I kept the pieces but couldn’t repair the broken frame.

From time to time I’d search for a replacement on line and that was when I came to know just how expensive these glasses were, even used, battered and secondhand, and how highly they were esteemed. I felt I couldn’t justify paying that sort of sum for a sentimental memory and so I bought cheap replacements instead – which did not last.

Then just a few days ago, I saw a set on eBay. I bid, not daring to believe the very low starting price would remain that way for long. I checked each day. Still no other bids. Could they really be the same thing? Why was no one bidding? For some reason I couldn’t decide if I was being stupid or just confused.

I won the auction for $10.  In due time the glasses arrived and set me thinking anew about the whole process.  I finally had my sunglasses, really mine, and just in time for Christmas. And it was fifty years almost to the day since I’d got that first set.

The things we lose that we mourn do come back to us, often in unexpected ways and forms, and when they do we find we are changed, more grateful.

Dairy 280

Wednesday, December 23rd

Some days it’s a struggle to find something positive to write about.  The former ‘president’ pardons a whole slew of fellow felons; India’s air pollution in 2019 killed 1.7 million; more killing of unarmed black men. This is the drumroll that tends to blank out what’s important in our lives – and what’s truly important is that we’re taking steps to put these things right, and develop new ways of being for the future. As we lurch towards Christmas let’s think in terms of a new birth of awareness, a birth of new possibilities.  And like any birth, it’ll have its painful moments. But the child of our times will be born.

Diary 279

Tuesday, December 22nd

It looked as if the promised stimulus package, somewhat reduced, would in fact be happening sometime; perhaps soon, perhaps not so soon. It works out to be $600 per person on average, but gives very little support other than that. European countries have been offering much larger sums to help their citizens for months now.

Not that Europe is perfect. They are currently under threat from a new strain of the virus. 

But then, in a blatant attention-seeking move, the former ‘president’ announced he would not sign the bill because it was too small. So first there was no problem; then the problem would go away; then it required no action; now suddenly it’s so big that only the former ‘president’ knows how big it is.

Meanwhile people who need help get none.