Wrong Side
The statement "getting up on the wrong side of the bed" aptly describes my whole day.
- I got up later than planned, and was only able to get in 7.5 miles (~12 km) of my needed 10 miles today to stay on track. So, now I am behind and will have to try to make up additional miles.... tomorrow if possible.
- Our dog..... (frustrated grimace).... this morning, I took her out for her constitutional, and must not have been paying close enough attention to what she was doing, but as she is apt to do on occasion, she (after eating breakfast) ate some LEAVES that had fallen from the trees while outside. She has a very balanced diet and always gets very good reports from the veterinarian. But, she likes to "sample" things (she has eaten a bite splint, a pair of glasses, a sock, a towel in the past).... so we do not get too alarmed when she sneaks a piece of tomato, or a potato chip, or whatever.... it is JUST HER behavior. But.... this morning, the leaf she ate, must have been not chewed well and not swallowed well (dogs do not have "chewing" molar teeth, so they tend to try to eat most things whole)... so.... she coughed a bit while on our bed this morning, and she coughed chewed up debris all over the set of clothes (including my hat) that I had laid out on the bed while I was washing up a bit.
- On the one section of road to the U where there is only one lane, I ended up being behind a driver who MUST have a really sore, painful foot, for he would not push on the accelerator in any appreciable sense. He was going so damn slowly I think even a sloth would have been angry to be behind him.
- And, everything is still leading up to the "Parish" Council Meeting I have to attend this evening. I WILL do it.... at least this time.... but I am strongly.... no..... VERY STRONGLY considering writing a resignation letter before another meeting comes around. When my wife and I settle on which parish we want to belong to, I will then immerse myself in helping at that parish. I am not looking forward to driving half way across the county to get to this new "Parish" Council Meeting when I already know.... especially since DOUBLE the people will be there..... the amount of important work TO DO... would AT MOST take ~5 minutes.... if even that. Any other business could easily be done by e-mail..... and all the e-mail could be written and distributed in about 15 minutes. But, this will likely be a 2-3 hour "yammerfest" where folks just blithely ramble on about nothing pertinent to the parish, the diocese, nor the Catholic faith.
My friend who goes by "Unknown" here made some significantly valid points about my pipe smoking. I grow so tired of abstaining. I am at a loss on what to do.
PipeTobacco
3 Comments:
Professor, this latest post of yours gives me a framework for better expressing my concerns, I think.
You are clearly, by nature and by preference, rather conflict-averse. In many circumstances that can be a very laudable quality, both spiritually and practically.
However, even Jesus Himself eventually upturned the tables of the money-changers at the Temple. The Parish Council bureaucracy clearly frustrates you as a waste of time that does very little good, or where the good it does is almost outweighed by the folks who mostly want to preen.
Well, have you considered that the people who disapprove of your pipe smoking are something of a "Parish Council" of busybodies who want to inflict their judgments upon you? Just as you may soon summon the strength to overcome your conflict-averse nature and tell the Parish Council that they are not welcome to run your life by sucking you into ridiculous bureaucracy and meetings, I hope you may soon tell the metaphorical "Parish Council" of anti-pipe folks that they will just have to deal with the fact that you are a contented pipe smoker, whether that means taking sustenance from your annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily pipes!
I'm sorry that so much didn't go according to plan today. We had meetings at school that easily could have been dealt with by email but the problem was...many people wouldn't bother to read that email. However, it doesn't sound like the business before the council would be discussed much anyway.
I hate meetings like that. When I ran department meetings, I kept them as brief as I possibly could.
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