What is Perfection, Anyway? in Everyday Ramblings

Walking last weekend Mrs. Sherlock blurted out as we went by a rosebush in someone’s front garden that she loved white roses and gathered the blooms to her for a smell. The next day I walked by this new rose in my own neighborhood and was happy to get this shot. A particular bloom like this only lasts one day in this state of perfection.

There has been a beautiful late blooming Peace rose in this yard for years but then they sold the house. Last year it was a bit neglected, so I was thrilled to see three new well-tended roses there this week. All is not lost.

We had an interesting discussion in class this week about perfection. Something to ponder.

Walt has been passing around this novella Foster by Claire Keegan to each of the Thursday coffee group participants as required reading. I got it about three weeks ago and was hoping to read it while lazing around in recovery after the angiogram. It was a hardback and well let’s just say there was some oozing from this amazing new air-filled pressure bandage thing they use these days, and I didn’t want to ooze over a borrowed book. I read it this week.

It is told from a child’s confused perspective and is beautifully written. When I gave it back to Walt this week, we were alone, and he asked what I thought. He said this is the most important thing, I think. Loving children and taking care of them well. He feels very passionate about this and it might come from his years of work with prisoners and their stories of neglect and abuse.

And speaking of prisoners, one new fellow showed up for coffee this week. A guy that has just taken on the role of President of “our”, or Walt’s sister organization, Open Hearts, Open Minds, which works in the local prisons. A funny guy. He started out mentoring at risk teenagers he said about 13 years ago after a horrible shooting here. This morphed into also co-leading these open-ended dialogue groups in prison where the guys get together twice a month and talk to each other for three hours with a facilitator about whatever comes up. He clearly loves doing this.

After he left Walt told me that this guy is basically a saint. He feeds breakfast to older folks every morning five days a week at a local Meals on Wheels, and he had just come from reading out loud to a mutual friend of theirs that had had a devastating stroke.

Walt read us parts of a handwritten letter (in purple ink) from a mutual prison friend (to them) with some song lyrics, one was quite funny, in the style of a Woody Guthrie song.

We also talked about next steps with the peace dialogue we started last month. And this talk we are going to have with a benefactor of both of these groups who lost her beloved granddaughter to a Fentanyl overdose recently. We are all at sea about what to do there, but I do think we can offer her compassion and understanding. And maybe some ideas for artistically inflected outreach.

I need to get my volunteer hours in for the community garden as I haven’t been able to be down there as much as I would like lately for, you know, reasons.

After an exciting week where the framing was done, nothing happened on Fred (my apartment) this last week. Nada. We think they are waiting on the dry wall guys, but communication has not been robust. Grr.

The budget stuff needs to get looked at as well. Now that I am allied with the board of the League as the budget chair, I am privy to more communications, and I tell you there are people quietly working very hard to make this a better city and a better world.

First though Mrs. Sherlock and I are going for another walk this morning and I need to see if the gift tomato plants I put in over the last few days are established enough to be cut back and caged.

It may not be official here yet for a few weeks but for all intents and purposes, summer has arrived.

Last updated June 04, 2023