Fools & Angels, Pope & Coffee
Life Is Good can get in a rut though. Bed by eight-thirty, to sleep instantly, summoned rudely by nature between twelve and one, back to bed determined to think about nothing, awake again by -- usually three, this morning it was five, which is good.
There are eighteen steps in the staircase, the Massalina Drive house had fourteen steps and no bannister, but eighteen here, bannister on the left coming down, handrail on the right. Steps and bannister were Alfred’s, the handrail is mine, installed for safety when Linda’s mother was here. Eight 1912 concrete steps down to get the PCNH for Linda, eight back up.
Coffeemaker on, while waiting for it to say SELECT PRODUCT READY FOR USE, select a cup. This morning’s cup has a photo of two little girls in 2005. Press button for two coffees, carry the aromatic essence to my recently adopted downstairs corner, turn on lamp, sit in glider chair, stretch legs out on glider footstool, pull light blanket over legs, sniff and sip coffee, open charged MacBook, click YAHOO and scan the morning news. Deaf Twins Going Blind Euthanized. Paralyzed woman loses first Irish right-to-die case. Couple sharing same name have split. Angry Husband Leaves Home To Find A Friendly Welcome. Obama, Netanyahu: Bad Blood between key allies. Tebow in Arizona. Obama to gun-control foes: examine your conscience. (what a foolish thing to say, there is no conscience only obsession with rights and the rhetoric is frightening, disturbed, scary, deranged, mentally unbalanced, crazed, we will soon join the middle-easterners who fire automatic weapons into the air during public celebrations). Doomsday Clock Holds at 5 ‘Til Midnight.
Sip coffee.
Cursor to bottom of screen, click Pages, select the portrait blank, start typing -- what?
Sip coffee.
Seeing that +Time posts are like a journal, by me for me, and can be whatever I dee well choose and please, type whatever and today’s temptation is not Euthanasia but gun-control. Caution though: it overflows into the realm of the irrational, emotional, mentally disturbed. Two decades ago a one-time friend, an undetox-able alcoholic who had once been the senior lay person in my parish, out of the blue and in drunken rage posted handwritten signs on his house and around his property warning people to keep away and ranting irrationally and irrelevantly about not taking his firearms. One of the most disturbing events of my life. Identical mindset was seen yesterday when a CEO ranted about “starting to kill people” over the issue of gun control. Not going there this morning, mindful of Alexander Pope and “An Essay On Criticism.”
Ever notice? In archaic European style that German still follows, Pope capitalizes every Noun.
At any rate --
No Place so Sacred from such Fops is barr'd,
Nor is Paul's Church more safe than Paul's Church-yard:
Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead;
For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.
Nor is Paul's Church more safe than Paul's Church-yard:
Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead;
For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.
Or, go online and read Pope’s whole essay poem, which though delicious is even more tiresome than that which he criticizes. Someone said that bad criticism is even worse than bad writing.
OK, so enough then.
More than enough.
Sip coffee.
Preview. Edit. Publish.
TW