Ten on Tuesday

1. I really don't feel like going to walk this morning, but I think I'm going to anyway. Just as soon as I finish this post. Really.

2. 150 years is a long time to spend in prison. I haven't followed the Bernie Madoff scandal very closely, but you don't really need to have read much more than the headlines to get it. Still, 150 years as a sentence is fascinating to me. It seems to reach back to a sort of primal, superstitious form of punishment to sentence someone to more years than they're going to live. There's something weird and mysterious about that. Mysterious in the sense that I don't think we always realize why we do what we do as a society.

3. Who would have guessed that by the time there was any sort of withdrawal from Iraq that there would be so much going on that we'd hardly even notice?

4. The newish pastor of Riverside church has resigned. From the coverage I'd seen, I'm not sure this is a bad thing, except for all the sense in which it's always a bad thing when a pastor has to resign. I hope and pray they can get themselves back together. He's right that the world need a vibrant Riverside.

5. I am beginning to get the feeling that President Zelaya of Honduras is probably not going to get to return to office. When we have such strong ties to the Honduran military, it's hard to believe that we really did everything we could to avoid this coup. The big test will be whether they really have the election that was already scheduled for this fall. Interesting note in that article about President Zelaya annoying Hillary Clinton by summoning her late at night to come shake hands with his extended family; I can see how that would be annoying.

6. I think the heat here in the Heart of Dixie has finally broken a little bit. It was only 63 when I got on the computer just now. We had a big storm Sunday afternoon that hopefully shifted that a little. In fact, our power was out for 4 hours or so. It was weird to have a Sunday afternoon with no facebook. Not sure that's a good sign!

7. We're going on vacation this weekend! That is exciting. We will be staying with friends in another city not so very far away. Will enjoy fireworks and music on Saturday, and not do a whole lot else besides hanging out, I'm guessing. I'm looking forward to it. But you may not see a whole lot going on here from Thursday through Monday.

8. I took care of some domestic detailed tasks yesterday that I'd been putting off for a couple months. It wasn't nearly as painful as I'd been imagining. I was going to say, "Isn't that always the way it works?" but quite frankly, sometimes those sorts of things (calling insurance and credit companies) are worse than you imagine. I just got lucky.

9. There's that luck thing again. What I didn't say earlier was that I know people here in the Heart of Dixie who go out of their way not to use the word "luck." As in, they will only attend a Covered Dish Luncheon, not a pot-luck. I had one church member tell me that she has colleagues who say you shouldn't use the word "luck" because it starts with the same letters as Lucifer! People are weird. I wonder if they say "Hello"?

10. I've got two books that I'm supposedly reading right now, and I don't feel like taking either one of them on my vacation. I hate it when I get into a book and don't really like it. I feel a pretty strong obligation to finish things, but I really do not enjoy reading things that annoy me or feel like a waste of time. I might go get something from the library though and leave these two at home.