Talking About What We Don't Talk About in Everyday Ramblings

From a walk in the neighborhood this morning. Mrs. Sherlock and I were going to gear up and walk across the river, but she and Frieda bailed. It was raining hard, big ploppy drops at that point, so I went for a less ambitious walk on my own.

The maple leaves are so colorful. I spread a bunch of them (on the garden plot yesterday) that I collected when they were dry. As I was doing that a gorgeous younger woman leaned over the low fence and asked if she could recycle her pumpkin in our garden. Umm. She said she read online that we took them.

Some of the other bigger gardens have robust and well-tended compost schemes but we do not. We have a couple of plastic compost bins near the small gates but in all these years I have been aware of our garden I have never seen them not full. And tended to.

We are required to dispose of our own garden waste. All the homeowners have green bins. I am lucky to have a neighbor that lets me use hers. I carry mine out.

I told her gently that no, “we” did not take them. I recommended a much bigger, sort of flagship community garden near the grocery we all mostly shop at.

Our teachers are on strike. It changes the complexion of the city, having the kids (except for the ones that go to private schools), out and about. The buses are less crowded. I think because parents are trying to wrangle working and unexpected childcare. Also, no classes of 5th graders on the bus on a field trip during the day.

In spite of my best intentions getting around here noting is much more hit and miss than it used to be. I still haven’t started on my reading for the Theosophy and Yoga class yet. Having League meetings in person provides more things to do. I did start Deadlift Club this week too.

Having one of the guy’s delightful wife in the coffee guy’s (I call us Walt’s box of misfit toys) group is changing the dynamic. Whereas I was the only women in the group for most of a year and listened quietly on many many matters that I had opinions on and spoke up only judiciously, she is totally fearless and speaks her mind.

It gives me way more latitude in what I feel comfortable saying. This week we talked about money. Whoa baby, that is a challenging topic. In a mixed group. Much of the discussion was about our reluctance to talk about money.

Anyway, as an aside, in talking about her life of unpaid labor as a mother she dropped into the discussion that she had deadlifted 150 pounds the day before. Her husband is recovering from long covid, and they are both doing strength training to help with his condition, but I couldn’t have been more delighted.

I was feeling draggy and hadn’t wanted to go to hang out with them, but I went anyway. I won’t say I was glad to have gone as Walt was down in Riverside showing the film to a college class with one of the guys in the film and the conversation is usually better with him facilitating. But the conversation gave me all kinds of things to think about.

We talked about professional authority, with a retired doctor, and also a retired therapist in the group. One of the guys, who has been involved for years and years with ecological issues and foundations just got back from a meeting on a private island with some young heirs to a huge well-known fortune who were planning some giving. That got us into a long interesting and non-political discussion about class. And how it is much easier to support and take care of an additional person in a poorer country.

We talked about the boundaries of responsibility when it came to folks in our lives that had made choices that involved them getting to a point of not being able to afford their lives. Oh, and while most of us make art in some fashion, none of us wanted to do the things that one needs to do sell it. Though some of us do.

With fall in full court press here it appears to be time to turn one’s attention towards the holidays.

But first, I have some reading to do.

Last updated November 04, 2023