Miscellanea

Well, I kinda wish I hadn’t found out the cause of the power outage-- an 18 year old girl just had to go see her boyfriend in spite of the snow Monday night, and was in a hurry, and hit a power pole hard enough to snap it off. (No, she didn’t make it.)

I’ve been having a big post-depression surge of energy-- got my Christmas music mostly planned, did some major housecleaning, starting to decorate and shop, have even exercised the last few days. The good news is that my very careful exercise doesn’t make the ankle hurt any worse than usual; the bad news is that after a year of not being able to move around much, my very light warmup and stretch routine is enough to make the rest of my body ache!

Night before last, I didn’t sleep well. Fell back asleep in the morning after hubby and kid left. When I woke again, I didn’t want to practice.... didn’t want to do anything I was supposed to do. So I stopped and thought about what I really wanted to do.... and spent the day reading, exercising, getting the Christmas stuff out, embroidering, etc. Needed that.

Recent visitors to the window birdfeeder: cardinals, two woodpeckers (a hairy and a downy), and juncos, as well as the usual titmice, nuthatches and chickadees.

After spending a long time dealing with the generally anti-Christianity atmosphere on #callahans, plus working things out with someone who told me I should post more about my religious beliefs (we’ve worked that out, together).... anyway, I’ve suddenly realized that some of you (including that same person!) are actually interested in hearing about my religious ideas. So you may be seeing a bit more of such stuff here in the future (including a soon-to-be-written mini-rant tonight sometime.) The stick made me snarl... the carrot is looking rather tasty.

Spam/gossip

Every six weeks or so, I receive an email from a particular member of my previous church. They are always forwards of the “someone is attacking Christianity, do something!” variety-- boycott Coke, write to the FCC/your representatives, etc. Today’s was the claim that there’s an FCC petition which if granted would make it illegal to mention religion in any way on television, forcing the cancellation of Touched By an Angel, televised church services, etc. (At least she sent a version that acknowledges that Madalyn Murray O’Hair is dead!) It generally takes me maybe 15 seconds to find the debunking on snopes.com (the example mentioned is here).

Until now I’ve simply sent her back a correction with links, though I’ve been increasingly forceful about it. Today I clicked “Reply all” and sent the correction to everyone she sent it to, with a note about not spreading gossip. It may seem like a small thing, but this kind of episode really bugs me. First of all, there’s the stupidity and gullibility-- even if she was just naive the first time, she knows now that it’s possible to search the net to see if what she reads is true. Beyond that, I truly do think it’s a form of gossip, though not directed at individuals. She hears something negative about a person or group, and passes it on-- and probably pats herself on the back for “doing something for the Lord” when all she has done is waste her time and mine, and pass on lies about a person or organization.

Next time I’ll get really nasty and start tacking on Bible verses about gossip.