being-have

Mug of hot & black and a turkey sandwich, but being have by not salting the sandwich. As well as meeting the tongue's need for the taste of salt, hoping No-Salt replaces the potassium that's depleted by my furosemide pills. Turkey dark meat on thin sliced Pepperidge Farm whole wheat bread, lightly toasted.

Frijoles Negros. Nearly always having a bag of small corn tortillas in the refrigerator, I read that a popular and healthy dish is soft corn tortillos with frijoles negros, black beans. So, I'm trying that. First try was not all that tasty, tortillas toasted to be pliable, then black beans, neither drained nor rinsed, heated and then spooned on the tortillas, then grated cheddar cheese sprinkled on top. I may try it again for a light snack at noon, but mix a teaspoon of chili power and a dash of one of my hot sauces, maybe the Carolina Reaper. At any event, no salt.

Why no salt? Because it works with my CHF to swell my feet, ankles and legs, starting with the right side first and worst. One day this week, taking the FuroForty, I lost five pounds. The next day, skipping the furosemide but cooking myself a bowl of oyster stew, I gained three pounds. Out of breath, quickly going breathless, is also common these days, can walk, but not ver7 far. Life is Short, and We haven't much Time, and You'll find, as I am finding, that at this age in life, health is a major balancing act. And if pain is added to it, as came with Linda's fall, everything else goes out of focus, nomesane? Of course you don't, so take my word for it.

What else? Reading about when the universe formed its first atoms. Looking at a photograph of the surface of Mars, and thinking that neither Mars nor the Moon offer appealing landscapes for human settling, a Time that, willy-nilly, will come. Venus, too hot. I read that Mercury may be habitable for life beneath its surface. I'm also thinking of a Star Trek episode in which one of our heroes beamed down to a distant planet where the environment was unending torrential rain. At least it was water, not acid, eh?

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Projects for today. Linda's Christmas tree lights are missing, so we may go out to Lowe's or maybe Hobby Lobby and just buy a - - "tree" - - that already has the lights installed. Dealing with pain from falling is even factoring in to Linda's favorite annual adventure of putting up the Christmas tree. At this stage of life, and as we transition from stage to stage, being-have means unending attention to personal safety. You'll have to behave, you cannot just do stuff that you've always done without even thinking about it; you've gotta be mindful of reducing risks to prevent falling, including foregoing altogether if/when Lady Wisdom says so.

Sometimes it may involve more regard for the words of others whose cautions one would once have ignored. Nomesane?

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Plan of the Day for Thursday includes opening this week's Tuesday podcast by Bart Ehrman, a Bible scholar I respect along with the scholars of the old Jesus Seminar. Apropos of the holiday season, Professor Ehrman's title for this week's podcast is "Who Says Mary Was A Virgin?" 

Yes, the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth is a major facet of Christian theology. When and How did it come to be so? And also, Why? Neither St Paul nor the author of Mark nor the author of John seem to know anything about it. Over the centuries, some Christian bodies became obsessive, almost fetishistic about it. Why is virginity so important? Because we're obsessed with sex. I remember a discussion our freshman year at Florida, it would have been school year 1953-54, a Bay High classmate who was now a hall mate in North Hall, the freshman men's dorm in Gainesville, said that sex is a sin, all human sexual activity is a sin, including when married couples mating only for reproduction. No kidding. God looks at all that he has created and says it's very good indeed, and someone decides the basic way of Becoming is wrong?!! Getouttahere!! Two exclamation points to indicate the ludicrousness of what he said!!! No, not a Roman Catholic, he was a Presbyterian and a Sigma Chi. My views as a KA and Episcopalian were quite different to his. He's dead now, I last visited with him, sat next to him at the table, at our last Bay High class of 1953 reunion. He was a really good guy who, like Robert, Scotty, Carl, Bentley, Walt, Joe and me - - and the girls, Gina, Mary Lou, Billy Jean - - grew up in our Massalina Bayou neighborhood. Plus, he was our Cove School class of 1949 classmate as well.

Reminiscing, just remembering how it used to be. That conversation with him was my first inkling that Presbyterians were unusually sin-focused. Later I found out that Lutherans can be too, don't smile on Sunday - - better yet, don't laugh on Saturday, because, Tomorrow's Sunday. Not my Catholic friends, who could simply go to confession before Mass and come out fresh and clean. Certainly not us Episcopalians, for whom sin was a just a passing rote liturgical matter of no real interest. Even Lent was simply a nuisance Time for dropping a penny in a mite box every day. We were free. I never gave sin a second thought.  

Wishing you the same.

RSF&PTL

T88&c