I'm still feeling a bit hungover from the events of last week. A bit unsteady on my feet, like I'm recovering from an illness. Why did that Las Vegas shooting affect me so deeply? Was it the randomness of the crime, or the inexplicable behavior of the shooter? The lack of an apparent motive? The sheer incomprehensibility of it all? I don't know. It sent me into a funk for days.
I have been fascinated by the conversations about guns that have followed, though. I'm not going to rehash the issue here any more, but it's interesting how emotional people get. Gun control is like abortion -- an issue that one side and the other see with entirely different eyes, based on their beliefs and experiences.
I just wish I could feel a bit more back in my routine.
It's not helping that this week, all the high school students are on school trips, so there's a lot less to do in the library. The middle-schoolers are still around, but they're just a fraction of our "customer base." So I've been working on weeding and straightening shelves.
I took the photo above in Petts Wood before hitting the trail on Sunday morning. Yes, those appear to be geese in the shop window. Here's a close-up:
I'm not sure what geese have to do with luggage sales, but I guess they add a decorative element. Maybe, like those old American Tourister commercials that challenged a gorilla to destroy a suitcase, this is meant to infer that these bags are tough enough to survive an onslaught of....barnyard fowl?
I stopped at Homebase on the way home last night for another flowerpot to house another rescued houseplant that I picked up while walking Olga. I feel like we are forever buying flowerpots. It's getting a little ridiculous.
You and Dave - you are The Flowerpot Men! See this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_Pot_Men
ReplyDeleteI keep reading your headline as Gorillas and Cheese. Makes me think of a Wallace and Grommit adventure.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what books you have weeded out of the collection? I need to heave some of my books to the local Junior League thrift shop but I can't make myself part with them yet. I have a book from the 1940s called Life in a Putty Knife Factory which is supposed to be humor but is instead fascinatingly un-funny, and I can't quite divorce myself from it.
The Las Vegas tragedy haunts me still, too. Because it was slaughter; it was the mass shooting that this country has been legislating for since the Regan administration. In the 1970s, when planes were being hijacked to Cuba and Libya, Archie Bunker (All in the Family), a buffoon from the right, suggested that the solution to the crisis would be to arm every passenger. It was considered a ridiculous proposal at the time, and now that's exactly what the Republicans are gunning for: they want a country where every citizen is armed with a concealed weapon. And, oh by the way, you can carry a gun into a hospital or a school, but not into a state legislature -- another sign of how these politicians are entirely self-serving.
And don't underestimate geese. They are mean.
"Bump stock."
ReplyDeleteThose words have come to represent everything evil about this gun situation. I don't know why. It makes no sense. But that's just the way it is.
I like the geese. I think they look just like someone who has come into the store to look at the goods.
Or maybe they are meant to represent tourists.
Steve, I have been in a funk about it to, while trying to go about my life. It's like a dark undercurrent, making everything a little gray. The awfulness of it is perhaps too much to let in at once, and so it seeps through consciousness slowly, and lack of knowing what we can do about, the feeling that no action will be taken, and in fact action will be actively thwarted, it sometimes feels like too much to bear.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to hold a discussion with somebody who has a gun!
ReplyDeleteI've been in a funk ever since Trump was elected. I'm in a funk about the nature and state of this whole country. I only see it continuing to spiral down until we are so divided that we split up into 2 or 3 separate countries. or 5. I don't think we're going to recover from this. Trump in our Nero. and it doesn't help that I've seen several articles claiming he will get a second term. and the latest beyond rescinding any and all healthcare for women that concerns the reproduction of the species (and what is that about?!) doing away with the clean air/clean energy regulations in favor of coal and oil so no more money for renewable clean energy. and congress. who are these people? hell, it may even be the end for the whole world if he gets his pudgy little trigger fingers on the button.
ReplyDeleteI think we could start a funk club and more than half the country would be members. Now that I think of it, probably half the world would be members. This is a pretty grim time right now. I keep going out for walks hoping to balance the political/social reality with beauty. This morning the skies here are smoky from the fires south of us. I like geese!
ReplyDeleteLike Ellen, I've been in a funk since the election also but, I think this shooting has deepened that feeling a bit. I find it very troubling that we don't know what motivated this guy and I'm not sure why that bothers me so much. It's an unthinkable act no matter the reason.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading this morning about the terrible fires in California. Every day seems to bring another new catastrophe. As one of the displaced Californians said "it looked like Armageddon." It is difficult to be cheerful.
ReplyDeleteLast night I had dinner with my dad's new wife's family & one of them (her sister-in-law) went into a tirade about the kneeling situation. Thank goodness another family member (grandson) engaged with her to refute most of what she was talking about. I wasn't really able to be coherent. And today I'm thinking this lady helped elect the man who is tearing down the world as we know it. She probably feels righteous about it. All I know is that don't want to sit next to her at dinner anymore!
ReplyDeleteOn another note - thanks for recommending The Dry. I'm listening to the audio book & the mystery is gripping, but the Australian accent is pretty fabulous too.
I can't shake this funk I'm in. It hit reght after the shooting and has continued up until 5 minutes ago when I found myself inexplicably close to tears over nothing. I can't seem to shake it off.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the geese in the window are could be connected to flying south for the winter. For non-geese that often means packing luggage and boarding a plane to fly south.
ReplyDeleteJust an idea...
Alphie
YP: I have never heard of the Flowerpot Men! Thanks for illuminating that little corner of British TV. Dave and I have a joke that when a children's TV question comes up on a quiz show, the answer is always "Blue Peter."
ReplyDeleteVivian: Weeding books is always hard. I'm in the nonfiction section now and I've flagged some things for possible removal like computer programming books that date back to 2010. Have to talk to the programming teachers about those. Thanks for commisserating re. guns.
Ms Moon: "Bump stock" IS a sinister phrase. It represents so many of the utterly unnecessary (to me) devices out there that simply increase firepower. And to what end?
37P: Yes! The dark undercurrent! That's exactly how it feels.
Red: Well, that's definitely true! Maybe that's why so many people have them. They don't WANT to talk.
Ellen: You're right. This "dark uncercurrent" (as 37P put it above) DOES go back to the election -- and even before, in our case, to the Brexit vote. I felt this way during the early 2000s too, after 9/11 when we were on the verge of invading Iraq -- like, who ARE we?!
Robin: Yeah, undoubtedly a lot of people feel this way. I'm so sorry about all the destruction out in California! I've been watching this news of the fires with horror. I've been worried about you!
Sharon: Yeah, the lack of a motive is bothersome. I don't like unresolved questions, especially of this magnitude!
Catalyst: It DOES seem like one thing after another, doesn't it?
Bug: Well, I'm glad someone challenged her. The whole kneeling debate seems so ridiculous to me. We have honest-to-god disasters happening out there, and people are upset about players kneeling at a football game?! Glad you like The Dry!!
Jennifer: I understand! And I think part of what exacerbated it for me was having a (very civil) debate on Facebook about guns. I know you've found yourself debating this issue on your own blog. It's such a sensitive issue that discussing it brings a sense of hyper-awareness that I think makes us feel WORSE afterwards. You know?
Alphie: Of course! Duh! I didn't even put that together!
Steve, I watched the ad you linked to, and then got sidetracked watching other old ads! I just wanted to say that the fire in Grenfell Tower is what made me feel the way you described. I don't know why it was so much worse than all the other terrible news; maybe it's just that we reach a saturation point and have to grieve, and then we can sort of start over until we reach that point again, ad infinitum. I don't know.
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