Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Monday Melee

I really shouldn't be this late for my first one! Sorry, Fracas. It's been a wild week.

1. The Misanthropic: Name something (about humanity) you absolutely hate.

Well, hate is a little strong, but...the tendency to always try to 'improve on things'. Tinkering with Mother Nature. Excluding/discouraging varieties of things (bees, for instance) in favor of the strongest and best. Then, when the eggs-all-in-one-basket favored one develops an evolutionary weakness, or its natural predator has a good year, we're in hot water like we are now. Could say the same thing for wheat. We used to have many varieties. Now, we have one. And a lot of us are allergic to it. This world needs variety to be its best, even if some are just chugging along.

2. The Meretricious: Expose something or someone that's phony, fraudulent or bogus.

That's easy: Air fresheners. To begin with, see #1. Hey, there's nothing like fresh air, just the way it comes from the atmospheric box. 90-95% of all fragrances are petroleum based. Evil. Someone put a plug-in freshener in our church nursery. Took me a while to find it. After it was slam dunked into the garbage bin, the nursery still retained the scent -- for at least a month. Why? Because it uses heated petroleum-based fragrance to disperse and persist in the environment. Picture that coating a child's - or anyone's - lungs. Yuk.

3. The Malcontent: Name something you're unhappy with.

Aging. Well, some parts of aging, which shall remain unnamed.

4. The Meritorious: Give someone credit for something and name it if you can.

The tendency to improve on things...in a good way. Like what Jimmy Carter does. And naturopathic medicine and organic foods and free hugs.

5. The Mirror: See something good about yourself and name it.

That's hard. Really. Hmmm...I care.

6. The Make-Believe: Name something you wish for.

For children to have idyllic existences at least until adulthood...never to be kidnapped, victimized, frightened, abused and possibly murdered. This one's for Madeleine. I would like to think I would give up my life today if it would bring her back to her parents' arms, unscathed.

6 comments:

unklephil said...

1. The Misanthropic: the tendency to always try to 'improve on things'

Couldn't agree more. New and improved seldom is. My favorite adage in cardiac surgery is "the enemy of good is better". I've found it applies in just about all areas of my life; hasn't taken the perfectionist out of me totally, but I'm slowly learning to find less fault with reasonably decent initial efforts.

Oh, and thank you so much for (#5) caring. It's just one of the many things we all love so much about you. Makes your blog something extremely special.

Anonymous said...

Caring is good. I always believe that one thing I learned from you is unconditional empathy. You always make me feel like I can really be myself. That's why I adore you so much.

Scout said...

Good point about oil-based air fresheners--I'll add overly scented hand lotions that can fill an office air supply the minute the bottle is opened--hack.

I just read about Madeleine at a UK sight. It's very upsetting, also upsetting that parents would leave three small children alone, especially for the sake of dinner.

DearestDragonfly said...

DearHeart UnklePhil,

Let's toast the ordinary, for being so close to nature, and the mundane for sustaining it.

But...we'll still sing SSAATTTBBB Lauridsen anthems. OK?

DearestDragonfly said...

(Anonymous-in-a-tutu?):

I've always been in awe of your real self. You're simply marvelous and inspiring, sprinkling fairy dust on ordinary lives around you. So grateful to have my share of that.

Love you so much.

DearestDragonfly said...

Robyn, I also have someone at work that uses obnoxiously scented hand lotion. I'm amazed at how many people don't think of anything as perfume unless it comes in a spray bottle.

Pretty soon they'll just hang a cloud of 'Poison' (is that Calvin Klein's concoction?) over planet earth.

Let me off.