Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

Sometimes it's tricky to find something mundane enough to blog about.  But I came up with one: Movies that made me cry. Firstly, there's Lassie . I was a kid. Don't remember anything about the movie, except that I cried really hard at the end. Then, from college years, Meet the Robinsons . I was homesick, okay? That wasn't the only animated  movie that got my lacrimal glands working, though. I also teared up for Inside Out . Every time I watch it. Artificial Intelligence made me weep, too, but I feel like that is totally understandable. Who wouldn't when presented with an innocent little robot kid? And that brings us to the outlier in this list: the Broadway musical Hamilton . No small kids involved. No self-sacrificing dogs, either. Definitely no robots. But boy, I could not speak for several minutes after the ending because I was so moved. Funny things, emotions. There is something beautiful about inexplicable moments like that, when the Pathos surprises the Logo...

 I like watching life. I'd like to say I love all life, but then I remembered cockroaches, so yes, I am a bit particular on which lives are watch-worthy. Birds are watch-worthy. I've had friends with pet birds before, but they seem mostly smelly and confined [the birds, not the friends], so for Christmas I asked for--and received--a window bird feeder. We always hear birds chattering outside our window in the evenings, but it took them 3 months to notice the feeder was there. And none of them are perfectly well-behaved. The cardinals chase off the smaller brown birds (I think they're a type of finch, or sparrow, or catbird?? I'm not a bird-watcher, despite watching birds) even though there is adequate room for both to feed. Meanwhile, the brown birds tend to sit on my potted plants (which by itself is fine) and pick off sprigs from my thyme plant (which is NOT fine. They don't even eat them, or take them for nest-making; they pluck them off and promptly drop them o...

 One of the most eye-opening things I have learned from the ongoing pandemic is that I don't need to personally have any type of social/familial relationship with victims of SARS-CoV-2 in order to have my life derailed. This truth actually makes me feel really guilty. I am not grieving the loss of anyone close to me. I am not the recipient of any racist actions stemming from the pandemic. But my body still seems to feel I should jump the tracks from [relatively] normal functioning to...something else. My symptoms: I have never been obsessed with food--even though I like baking--but now I think about what to eat ALL THE TIME. One of my favorite things about eventide these days is that it is such a short time of consciousness between bedtime and breakfast-time. I think of it as a very-toned-down Christmas every morning: Hurray! It is time for my favorite meal! A couple years ago, one of my friends told me that she is always thinking about what she can eat next, even if she has just h...

 In early January, while taking cardboard boxes down to the recycling bin in our apartment complex's underground parking, I noticed a cat-sized furry animal make a break for the back corner of the garage. Following up on this highly-suspicious occurrence led me to discover, behind a lean-to of plywood and sections of drywall, a cat [cats tend to be cat-sized, so I wasn't exactly surprised]. While I had, months earlier, seen a mouse in the garage, I doubted it would keep this feline fed, so I went across the street to the convenience store and bought a can of cat food.  Thus began a multi-week venture of me feeding the kitty. Though skittish at first, he would purr up a storm once I started scratching his head. I was smitten. He never tried to bite me. He never tried to scratch me. But I could scarcely fail to notice that my nitrile-gloved fingers would come away black with soot and dirt after petting him.  I decided to fix this. I got some old hand-towels, a torn-up shee...

I think, as a member of a privileged group of people, I am guilty of obliviousness. Right before starting local enrollment in a COVID vaccine clinical trial, I was trying to explain to another nurse practitioner--who would be working with me on the study--that it would be pointless to get fitted for the N95 masks that the primary study site had, as we would be in a mobile clinic with a completely different type of N95. That turned out to be wrong, because through most of the recruitment phase we worked right at the primary site, but the logic itself is sound. There were several other instances like that with this colleague, but what exactly they were doesn't matter much for my point. What I do  want to say is that she later brought these instances as examples of times I hurt her feelings or insulted her. And honestly, although I still  don't understand how she does not grasp what I was saying, I also have to admit that, at least in not understanding her, she has a valid compla...

 The only dependable Christmas tradition we have in my family (besides getting presents) is watching The Muppet Christmas Carol . I lucked out in marrying Mark, because his family has the same tradition; it makes honoring family rituals a lot more concise. I have been thinking, after watching it Christmas Eve, of how it tries to explain the concept of Christmas to Mr. Scrooge. There is a hint of religion in there, but mostly it defines Christmas as a loving time of year that does people good. Which is accurate, but not complete. As I thought of how I could distill Christmas into a concept, I hit upon Hope. Hope covers the most basic understanding--a child's anticipation of gifts, say--while also holding up to philosophical scrutiny and religious study. Hope for the humanity of mankind, hope that things can become better, and lots of other examples, but I want to concentrate on one: the Hope of A Chance. For many thousands of years, people have been born, and people have died. Amazi...

 Because it is November, the month allotted for Thanksgiving in the United States, I have been thinking about gratitude. In some sense, it's a rather simple virtue to follow--look at what you have, and give thanks for it--but I have been realizing that it can go much MUCH deeper. aka more complicated. It is possible for me to be grateful for what I have, but still want more; therefore, I am not exactly content with what God gave me.  For example, I like the apartment we live in, but am often longing for a house big enough to allow for needing less under-bed storage and thus the chance to get the bedframe off of the cement blocks it's been sitting on for 4 years. This seems a small request, but I suspect that as far as humans and material stuff go, we are rather like the camel that only wants his nose out of the storm, but then slowly takes over the whole tent. In a pre-COVID era a year or so ago, I was at someone's house with lots of other women, and was slightly (okay, ver...