After experiencing several days of seasonal confinement, I lose track of which day is which…is today Saturday…or Tuesday…? Or, have we just come off the weekend? My online calendar would give me the correct answer, if I asked. But the fact that I have to question which days have passed and which have yet to take place worries me. It should not trouble me, yet my lack of confidence in my knowledge of when or who (but not where) I am gives rise to suspicion. Is this unpleasant uncertainty associated with senility? Simple mental decay? No, of course not. When evidence [suggesting which day of the week or month of the year is taking (or has taken) place] is lost or otherwise missing, the anchor to measures of time dissolves in a fog of confusion. Specific lengths of time like days or weeks or even months—representing the sequence of experiences—become irrelevant. In that scenario, seasonal confinement mimics solitary confinement. Snow and ice, for example, can seem like the bars of a prison cell. Monsoon rains and hurricane winds behave like brutal jailers, exhibiting the masochistic characteristics of prison guards revealed in documentary films like Cool Hand Luke 🙂. The demonic heat of summer ignites fury and fear and fire, leaving the ashen remains of watches and calendars and clocks strewn across the hellscape of eternal boredom. Idle hands, as the aphorism goes, are the devil’s workshop. But the biblical version (NKJV) of that assertion, from Proverbs 10:4 is: He who has a slack hand becomes poor, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. So THAT’s where Joel Osteen’s abundance theology comes from?! So, as suggested by the Bible, the rich get that way through “diligence,” and the poor must blame their poverty on their laziness. So, if you want to find a lazy person, just look for people who live in abject poverty? And if you want to see an industrious person, look for evidence of financial success? Could there be an alternative connection between poverty and plain old misfortune, though, and a link between affluence and corruption or fraud? And vice versa?
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We have watched some of Line of Duty, a BBC police thriller, but we’re (at lease I am) not sure just which seasons and episodes we have watched. Last night, we watched an early (or late) episode of the most recent season (#6). This morning, I read that season 7 will begin filming in Belfast this Spring (2026). Unlike Netflix, BritBox (the service where we have watched the series thus far) does not give viewers the ability to review which seasons and episodes they have watched. If viewers do not keep track on their own, it can be easy to watch episodes out of sequence, which can be enormously confusing. Night before last, we watched Sinners, a film given many rave reviews, award nominations, and awards. Despite its commercial and critical success, I was not impressed. Horror flicks have never impressed me; after watching Sinners, that remains true.
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A few years ago, news reports from Florida painted an ugly picture of the future of that state. A state littered with dangerous sinkholes and prospective sinkholes that could (and did) swallow entire homes. I recall one such report that told about a sinkhole that opened beneath the bedroom of a house in 2013; a man in bed in that room fell into the newly-opened hole in the ground. The home was razed, the hole was filled, and the body was never found. My late wife’s friend, Pat, and Pat’s husband lived in Spring Hill, Florida, about 20 miles north of Tampa. When we went to visit them…my memory of when is unreliable…they spoke of fear that their house would be swallowed by sinkholes. And they worried that, regardless of whether that happened, their house would soon be worthless. They had bought the house, new, only a year or two earlier (I think); just in time for it to be hit hard by Florida’s collapsing real estate market. I have a vague recollection that their very nice house was valued at around $50,000 when we visited them; down dramatically from what they paid. I have not been in touch with Pat for years; she may well have moved since then or…who knows? Why did this come to mind this morning? The mind sometimes seemed to reach back to replay catastrophes and near-catastrophes. If those recollections are anything but random, I do not know what they could be.
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When I lived in Dallas, during a visit to Costco, I stumbled upon Aidells Habanero & Green Chile Smoked Chicken Sausage. I fell in love with the stuff. We bought high-volume packages of the stuff and frozen it, taking a few links out of the freezer every so often to thaw and heat and eat. For some reason, I haven’t even looked at the Little Rock Costco to determine if it’s available here. It’s time I looked into that. If it is available, I want it. Even if it’s not available, I want it. And I want it now. Beans, too. Pinto beans, black beans, white beans, and more…mixed with canned tomatoes and green chiles and a magical mix of spices. Though I just ate a SECOND banana, I still feel hungry, as though I have not eaten in several months. Crackers may have to quell my hunger pangs.
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