Oleksii Kyrychenko of Kiev, Ukraine took this photo of his nine-year old daughter. He titled it "Girl with Candy":
A few days before the Russian invasion he took this photo:
Let us pray that Kyrychenko's daughter, and all of the children of Ukraine, can be brought through this present madness. Of all the things that are lost in war, childhood innocence must be among the most tragic.
Today... I ain't got nothing. Just too wiped out already from the proverbial "day at the office". And my mini dachshund Tammy is in my lap and REFUSES to let me get any real blogging done.
Maybe I'll have something tomorrow.
In the meantime, hot dogs for dinner! Don't y'all worry, Tammy gets a share too :-)
It's been awhile since I really followed college basketball. It's still the sport dearest to my heart, mostly because I remember cheering on the '83 "Cardiac Pack" team at North Carolina State as they won the national championship under coach Jim Valvano. And on the twenty-fifth anniversary of that game, I paid a visit to Valvano's grave to leave flowers. In high school I thrilled to watching Duke win back to back national titles after so many tries by Mike Krzyzewski (hey, I finally spelled his name right!!). One of these days maybe I'll get to see my alma mater Elon University go to "the Big Dance". And then everyone will be asking "Elon? Where's THAT?" just like we did with Gonzaga.
One person who knows basketball... and I mean REALLY knows it... is my lifelong best friend Chad Austin. He's been finding some good stuff lately and sharing it on Facebook and I thought it was worth passing along to all two of this blog's regular readers. The first is an article from the News & Observer about this being Krzyzewski's final season as Duke's coach, and his relationship with legendary UNC coach Dean Smith. Some may want to have a tissue handy.
Then today Chad posted this article about Griff Aldrich, the head coach at Longwood University. Aldrich is 47 and made a drastic career change mid-stream, from a job paying $800,000 a year to being the coach of a small school's men's basketball program. The Longwood Lancers tip off against Tennessee during tomorrow's opening round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Aldrich's story is nothing short of inspirational. It certainly is to me.
And finally, Chad turned in an article of his very own for the North Carolina Baptists website: about "Bones" McKinney, the legendary coach at Wake Forest University. McKinney had a dual career as basketball coach and also Baptist minister. Chad interviewed a lot of people, including basketball broadcasting giant Billy Packer, to get the story about McKinney and the impact he made on the court and in the pulpit. It's a terrific piece and this one also, is quite inspiring.
Thanks for finding this stuff Chad. Thanks to you I now have a school to root for this tourney: GO LONGWOOD!!
I'm beginning to believe that I'll get through Lent having made a blog post for each day. Even if on some days there's nothing to blog about.
That's what today has been. Just a fairly typical Monday. But I had a good weekend. I ended up writing the first short story that I've composed in almost four years. It was me hunched over the iPad Pro and a keyboard. All that was missing from the scene were cigarettes and a bottle of Jack Daniels.
(Like I really smoke or drink. But it took a long time to get to the place where I could author fiction again so the tortured writer image still applies...)
I need a change, or something. That's what I told my dog Tammy earlier. Almost six years ago I said the same thing and the two of us ended up driving across America. Do I need another traipsing across the landscape in search of adventure? Ehhh, not really. Not right now anyhoo.
On second thought, Albuquerque was nice. Something about the desert there called out to me. Yeah, the New Mexico desert is the happy place I discovered I had when I was doing EMDR therapy before the plague hit (and I really want to start that again since I didn't get to finish it the first time).
Got a haircut today. Just for fun I asked the lady coiffing me how old did she think I was. She said I was in my early to mid thirties. Ha!! I turn 48 at the end of this month. But I'm always getting mistaken for much younger. Is this arrested development? My health is excellent. I still watch Saturday morning cartoons (thank you MeTV!). Every so often I'll buy a new LEGO set. Is this what "middle age" is supposed to look like?
(I don't like saying that word. And so far nobody has told me that I am "of a certain age". I want to keep it that way. "Middle age"? Middle of WHAT exactly? Besides fifty is the new thirty, or somesuch...)
I suppose if nothing else, today was just life. Not "good life" or "bad life", but simply life. To be accepted however it is that one finds it. But that doesn't mean you don't give up trying to make it a little better.
I like to believe that I'll never stop doing that.
A few years ago a movie, or whatever, started popping up in Facebook ads. Something called The Chosen. I looked into it. Turns out that The Chosen is a streaming series about the life of Jesus Christ as seen through the eyes of the disciples. Intriguingly, the entire show has been completely crowdfunded. Season one aired in 2019 and this past year saw the release of season two. More seasons are planned. A few months ago saw the release of a Christmas special in theaters, and it apparently did quite well.
This past week, for a number of reasons, my curiosity got the best of me and I decided that it was finally time to check out The Chosen and see what the hype was about. I finished season one last night.
What did I think? In a word: WOWSERS!!
Let's talk about the cinematography first. The Chosen may be the most beautiful attempt to depict the era of Christ, that I have ever seen. Yes there have been more theatrical efforts, like The Passion of the Christ, but that film is in a class all its own. The Chosen's camera work reminded me of that from Game of Thrones... and that's not a bad thing at all. In fact, all while watching this I found myself thinking that this series wouldn't be that far removed from being an HBO quality show. Right down to what could be considered an iconic title sequence and work of art all its own. Part and parcel to this is the effects work: there is more than you might expect from a series like this. The miracle of the fish is one of the better CGI-enhanced scenes that I've beheld in recent years. I'm looking forward to seeing what else The Chosen brings in that regard as the seasons progress.
Then there is the casting. Every role is well played, from Jesus Himself (portrayed by Jonathan Roumie) to the initially reviled Matthew (Paras Patel). And for Nicodemus the producers were able to cast Erick Avari. You'll know the face even if you can't recall the name. Avari has been in a lot of good projects and his inclusion in The Chosen bode well. I think my favorite character so far has to be Simon, played by Shahar Isaac. Watching Simon transform from punchy slick-talking fisherman into Jesus's most devoted servant is a lovely thing to behold.
Concurrent with casting, there is the chemistry at work among these characters. Especially among the disciples, who are coming from disparate backgrounds and careers. By the end of season one they are well on their way to being the band of thirteen (including Mary Magdalene) willing to follow Jesus unto the ends of the earth.
The writing on The Chosen is magnificent. It is also more than a little daring. This series depicts Jesus in ways that nobody has risked doing before and yet it ALL makes sense. When we see Jesus making farting sounds to entertain a couple of children who have found Him, well... why not? This Jesus is absolutely divine. And He is also absolutely human.
Folks, I'm just gobstopped by how impressed I was with The Chosen season one. It was NOT what I was expecting at all. Dallas Jenkins and his crew have turned in a television series as mighty, as risk-filled, and as rewarding as any other. And I will absolutely recommend catching it.
You have some options about that. Seasons one and two are available on Blu-Ray and DVD. But if you wanna watch it now (and you should) there's the official The Chosen app for iOS devices and on Google Play. I watched season one on my iPad, except for the final episode which I streamed onto my high-def TV. So if you've a streaming thingy like a Roku or whatever it'll work with that too.
And if you like The Chosen enough, you can also contribute to the crowdsourcing. Season three has been fully funded and they're now onto funding season four. I decided it was worth making a contribution toward. And after watching a few episodes, you may decide it's worth contributing to also. Visit the official The Chosen website for more.
It would not be at all surprising if Vladimir Putin was out of power in Russia by Easter.
And, word on the street is that his country is going to take a financial hit this coming week.
We'll see.
No getting around it: this past week, from last Saturday on, was pretty craptacular.
How bad? Something happened that has prevented me from driving for the most part, until further notice. No, not a speeding ticket or anything like that. I haven't had a ticket in... wow. Over ten years now. Not since I racked up those three in less than a month and a half (with two of them in Virginia on consecutive weekends... hey I was eager to see my girlfriend what can I say? :-).
I like... I like... to believe that things are getting better though. Why do I say that?
My cooking skills leave much to be desired. It's not that I'm a BAD cook per se, it's more like... well, I'm intimidated by the kitchen. It all goes back to that Boy Scout Jamboree, and my night to cook for our troop. I put WAY too much salt into the mashed potatoes. So much so that it's rumored that the ground where we dumped it at is still too barren for foliage to take root (sort of a mini "Devil's Tramping Ground").
Yes, I've blogged before about some excursions into culinary experimentation. Recently I wrote about preparing wild boar baby back ribs. That was pretty easy though: laying the ribs on a foil-lined pan and cooking for two hours. Very little preparation at all. I think the most complicated dish that I've documented on this blog has been baking a pecan pie... and I got that recipe from a friend in Belgium.
Ever since then I've been a little scared to make more than a Chef Boyardee pizza. I won't deny it: my diet has mostly consisted of frozen food, Subway sandwiches and Cocoa-Pebbles. But with inflation hitting hard and less money to spend on "extravagant" cuisine, I'm having to learn to overcome my fear of the kitchen.
So that brings us to tonight, and what I did for dinner.
I had no idea what to make for dinner, just that I was hungry. Tammy - my dachshund - was getting hungry too. No, I didn't want Chicken McNuggets again. We've had that twice already this past week.
Then I remembered that I had some spaghetti - the kind you find on the pasta aisle of any grocery store - and some sauce and parmesan cheese. Christmas gifts from a friend who wants me to cook more for myself. So that's what I endeavored to do.
I knew enough about cooking spaghetti to know that you break the noodles in half before you put them in the water. And after Googling it I learned that you put the pasta in the water after it's started boiling. Eleven minutes later the spaghetti had finished cooking. A heapin' amount of sauce and cheese later and it was all finished.
And, I surprised myself by how good it was! Making it myself, somehow made it even better. It was easy-peasy Japan-esy. And now I have another dinner to add to my (admittedly small) repertoire.
But you want to know what the best part of cooking spaghetti tonight has been? It's been discovering that Tammy loves it too. I had no idea that a dog could enjoy pasta, but apparently she does. So now there is something I can whip up in the kitchen, that she and I can enjoy together. Much healthier than sharing McNuggets too, no doubt.
So, that's today's post as part of blogging every day for Lent this season. I have an idea of what tomorrow's post will be. In fact, I'm about to watch another episode of it now.
More later.
Brunswick stew is practically a staple food of the rural South where I come from (north-central North Carolina) during the autumn and winter months. Many groups like churches and Boy Scout troops make stew to sell as fundraiser, and lots of people enjoy inviting others over for stew that they've made in pots like this one (or even much bigger). A big stew is an all night affair, with cooking starting as early as 6 p.m. and going on through til 7 the next morning. It's also a communal event, with people slicing onions and potatoes to put in the pot. And taking turns stirring the pot from dusk to dawn (often with a cold wind blowing). Nothing like a big steaming hot pot of stew to keep you warm through the night.
Anyhoo, the BBQ Pit Boys do a fine job showing how Brunswick stew is made. This is certainly not something you'll find at McDonald's or even Texas Roadhouse. This is, as one of the crew says in the video, "good living".
Last night I found myself enjoying the camaraderie of a local chapter of the Rotary Club. I've never been to one before, but I have friends and family who have been Rotarians. They do a lot of good work, like their endeavoring to eliminate polio forever. They are probably NOT like what Peppermint Patty thinks them to be...
Maybe if I get to be an executive type one of these days I can join Rotary. Seriously, I was the most dressed-down person in the whole place last night. But what can I say? I'd just come in from the job and my particular career involves lots of field work. But my friends insist that I could join the Rotary Club anyway. We'll see :-P
Of all the photos that have come out of Ukraine in the past two weeks, it's the one most heart-wrenching to me. The photo that says it all about what that evil bastitch Vladimir Putin has done to that country.
I came across it on Facebook. On one of the many dachshund-related groups that I'm a member of there. It was a few days ago. And I've been thinking about it a lot.
It's a photo of a Ukrainian woman, fleeing the destruction. In her arms, she is holding her dachshund. Keeping it safe amid the turmoil.
I saw that photo and it damn nearly broke me.
I have a dachshund also. Her name is Tammy. She turns ten years old one month from today. She and I have been through a lot together. We look after each other. She's been there for me through a lot that's happened in my life. And in return, I like to believe that I've given her a good life. I'm hoping that we have many more years together (dachshunds can sometimes live to be twenty, maybe a bit more). Tammy sleeps in the bed next to me every night. We curl up together. I can't imagine my life without her, and I know that one day I'm going to hurt very much when she is no longer with me.
I saw the picture of that Ukrainian woman and her dachshund, and it broke my heart.
Why is this war happening?
I don't agree with Lindsey Graham on everything but he's right. Someone in Russia needs to KILL Putin. Needs to blow him away or slip some polonium into his salad or whatever. He is a madman. A lunatic who God only knows what he's going to do with his hand over the button that could launch three thousand nukes at the civilized world.
I don't know much. But I know this:
In Ukraine, tonight, a woman is desperately holding onto her dachshund.
And it pisses me off, what has happened to her and her country.
The price of gasoline here in South Carolina shot up twenty cents between 8 this morning and 4:30 this afternoon. It is now $3.99.
Let's go Brandon!
I'm getting concerned. I thought doing a post a day would kickstart my "old" writing skills back into play. Five days into it and I'm nowhere close.
The last time I was able to channel the really inner parts of my intellect, was before I left my old home in 2016 and headed west. I don't think that experience has anything to do with losing my writing ability in earnest. If anything it made me a deeper, more broad person as a whole. But as soon as I got back I had an issue with my medication and...
That's what I blame most for what happened to me. The meds. They keep me suppressed. They help me hang on to some semblance of normality. But they also rob from me a measure of spirit.
I've been trying to overcome the effect of the meds. Have been working toward readjusting my mind around them. But they are so pervasive, so very permeating into my neurobiology. But little progress has been made.
So maybe with a little self discipline, and applying myself to the task, maybe that will help me where simply trying to evade the meds has failed.
What do I miss most? Being able to write about God. Being able to write about my relationship with Him. I've lost that most of all. Maybe that I lament that, is some evidence that I haven't lost it. Maybe the fact that I'm writing about that right now, proves that I still care. And maybe if I care about God, maybe He still cares for me, too.
See you all tomorrow.
Got back a little while ago from seeing The Batman. It may take a while to process this thoroughly. It's definitely a change-up from what we've come to expect from Batman on film. Director Matt Reeves has crafted what is easily the most jagged, grim and dirty Batman story we've seen on the big screen ever. And though some of his choices to slaughter some of the mythos' most sacred cows are disconcerting, even so I found myself completely enthralled by this movie.
It's not perfect. There will never be such a thing as the perfect Batman movie. But I would rank it right up there with Batman Begins (2005) and Michael Keaton's Batman from 1989.
This week I feel like I’m in a Peter Sellers movie… with me as Peter Sellers.
The Russian people did not wake up pokey one morning last week and decide to invade Ukraine. Neither did the Russian people occupy Poland and impose the Iron Curtain. The average subject of the emperor didn’t care where Pearl Harbor was if he even knew it existed at all. The Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland spent decades blowing each other up… why, exactly? The typical Palestinian when pressed on the matter can not say why he wants to shove every Jewish man woman and child into the sea.
I woke up this morning wanting to die.
I was having the most beautiful dream. About all the people who I've ever known and loved. Especially the ones who I've hurt along the way: so many relationships that were broken because of me. Because of this mind that God let me have. But in this dream, everything was okay. The people I'd hurt, were telling me that they loved me. That it didn't matter anymore. We were all going to be together forever. And I thought that was what was going to happen. And then I woke up and until the alarm went off from its final round of snoozing I was just laying in bed... wanting to die. Wanting to be there, where there is no hurt. No past to be reminded of. No brain that has turned against me.
Instead I got up, and shaved and showered, and went into the office. There was a three hour training session done over Zoom this afternoon, about disclosure as peer support specialists. It was a continuation from the day before yesterday, and I gained a lot from it. But one of the exercises today triggered me. Triggered me hard. Reminded me that for all of my attempts to have some measure of happiness in this life, I might forever come up short. It will always be someone else who has the things that matter most.
I never wanted much. Just a little family. That's all. But would someone want to be associated with one with such a mind? That mind destroyed a chance for family. Hurt people I cared for and still do care for. Poisoned me from having another shot, when it had been so close. How close? I was going to buy the ring the next day.
I'm tired of hurting others, and I'm tired of being hurt all of the time. I want it to stop.
I'm tired of doubting God, more often than I really care to admit.
A few weeks ago something happened and, I told my friends that it was definitely a God thing. My car had a breakdown coming off the loop onto Pleasantburg Drive in Greenville. But the car had enough to coast into a friend's driveway. They drove me to work while my car was being worked on, and in the end it was fixed. It's the car I've had since 2007, the one that drove my dog Tammy and I across the country and back. I want to believe it will make it to 300,000 miles. Maybe it can now. But how the car had just enough to make it into their driveway, and how it resolved in the end... yeah, that was "a God thing" I told people.
I can see God in the small things. Is it wrong to hope that He will be good in bringing some big things along the way, too?
Am I going to die alone? If I am, what difference does it make if I die tonight and get it over with?
Why am I writing this?
I asked a friend today, since it seems a lot of others are doing it, what can I do for Lent this year. I don't really have any luxuries to give up for this period leading up to Easter. She suggested maybe write something every day. A gratitude journal, she said. Something along that line of thought.
It reminded me of one time, some years back, when I gave up blogging for Lent. It was hard, but I did it.
It would be too easy to do that again. My blogging has become pretty lax. I want it to make it at least until its twentieth anniversary in 2004. But there are times when it seems I'm just ready to give it up entirely. But I don't really want to do that either.
So the idea hit, that maybe for Lent, I could write a blog post a day, every day, until Easter.
Just writing something. Anything. Whether it's stream of consciousness or a book review or whatever. Just WRITING, whatever comes to me. I can do that. And maybe it will help me along with some other things that have grown stale in my life. I've lost something as a writer, I blame the meds more than anything. Maybe writing despite them will help me find it again.
Maybe it can help me draw closer to God again. I used to write about God... more than anything. I used to write about Him in college, for our newspaper. I've written essays about Him for newspapers. Maybe writing again here will let me find my way back to Him like that. If so, this will have been an exercise well worth undertaking.
So that's what this post is. The first of Lent, 2022.
I'll do my best to resist the doubts. I have to resist. There are forty-some posts left to write and I've got to get to it...
