"A lonely bitter hag with a lot of cats” in Everyday Ramblings

I don’t know what this plant is. I took this picture a couple of days ago out in the neighborhood. It is an area that is curated by professional landscape people around an apartment tower. Part of the redevelopment project.

Vox has this new 15-minute show available on demand on Netflix called “Explained” and I watched the first three episodes recently. There is one on Monogamy, one on the current state of Gene Editing and one really good one on the wealth gap between whites and particularly African Americans here in the U.S.

Although they don’t mention Portland, red lining and exclusion and discrimination are (and have been) so rampant here. I have been thinking lately about this idea of reparations. How do we make things right even though we personally are not responsible for slavery?

We certainly benefit from the fruits of slavery in this prosperous country. Yeah, yeah tell that to the family living in their car.

It is so wonderful to have had the time in the last few days to watch these shows! I never watch anything anymore. I also watched the David Letterman interviews with Tina Fey and Jay Z. The Jay Z one was fascinating because other than the profile in the New York Times a while ago and the fact that he is married to Beyoncé I knew nothing about him.

I was interested in the fact that though he was simply but very well dressed he wasn’t wearing any jewelry. He wasn’t wearing socks either.

It was very much a statement of wealth and power.

But he looked tired. Very tired.

Apparently he and Beyoncé have wedding ring tattoos. Didn’t Beyoncé say, “Put a ring on it?” Or are we over that now? Apparently Prince Henry doesn’t have a ring either.

I am grateful for so much here on this Memorial Day in the U.S.A. but for sure most grateful for the freedoms that I am allowed as a “lonely old hag with cats”, something a troll called the retired English teacher that corrected the letter she received from the White House (in response to her letter about the Parkland shooting) and sent it back.

Neither she nor I am bitter.

And this old hag, (like Henry’s bride’s amazing mother), is teaching yoga tonight and went out and had an experimental run of her inner pony this morning on the track. I love the track. This morning I did a proper warm up, you know, skipping, kickbacks, running backwards and sideways and deep lunges and then took my sweatshirt off to reveal a light sleeveless t-shirt and sports bra.

No wonder I don’t do proper warm ups. They are hard!

For the first time in at least 10 years I didn’t pay any attention to my heart rate. The only thing I was concerned about was my breath, the ability to breathe normally and my body temperature.

And boy did I get warm.

But I did not hit a wall. I am so excited. My old dog arthritic SI Joints were bothering me and my bunion (I was wearing old shoes) but those things are manageable, seriously.

Could there be biking and running in my near future? That would be so good because they are both such stress relievers and mood boosters and in the age of Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris and oh yeah that vain creature in the above mentioned White House I can use all the stress relief I can get.

Last updated May 28, 2018