Binge Blog: The Dead Spread, Trees of Life

RantWoman assumes nothing one way or another about neighbor Martinez and Day of the Dead based on her last name. But she gets a tree of life picture for landing a memorial in the middle of RantWoman's #Halloween blog binge.



Day of the Dead Tree of Life--with SKULLS and flowers

Neighbor Martinez was a Jehovah's Witness. RantWoman did not even think to ask about the worship at Kingdom Hall when another neighbor was inviting people to the the after party Dead Spread to be held in the vicinity of the RantWoman / late Neighbor Martinez's domicile.

RantWoman thinks it's a bad idea to judge a faith community on the basis of its Dead spread, but the dead spread for Neighbor Martinez was an inspiration, both for food and for everyone there being utterly welcoming, also bronwer than RantWoman.

The menu: chicken, both roasted and fried, deviled eggs, some kind of hot links dish to be sure we got our nitrites, potato salad, green salad, some kind of green bean dish, some other things RantWoman did not pay attention to. Desserts: cookies, cakes, brownies. Drinks: punch, water, soda.RantWoman was invited to take leftovers home for later but was really glad to see the leftovers were well dispersed before RantWoman got around to thinking of any take-homes, a good bet with resurrection a ways off.




Angel, graves, grey mist

RantWoman was interested to learn:
Kingdom Hall nearby hosts 3 congregations, 2 English-speaking ones and a Chinese Speaking one. They take turns using the facility. They all work different geographical areas and would not all fit at the same time.

Inviting Neighbor said her congregation has about 70 "publishers," people who go out to preach. Inviting Neighbor said the actual service is more of a talk. Some people wore black; lots did not.
Inviting Neighbor knows a LOT about medical powers of attorney, partly because of Witnesses' beliefs about blood transfusions. RantWoman was glad to hear today the Witnesses also believe in flu shots! No point in heading off for the pre-resurrection doze any sooner than absolutely unavoidable.
RantWoman made mental note to ask more about birthdays: Inviting Neibghobor mentioned something at Kingdom Hall on her sister's birthday in march. RantWoman is curious what birthday means since RantWoman thought Witnesses do nto really observe birthdays.

Whole experience also brought to mind Arborist buddy of RantBrother's. Arborist Buddy was a Jehovah's Witness, but not enough of a Witness to pass up a RantBrother invitation to visit a strip club. When RantDad was still alive, Arborist Buddy would sometimes bring a yong "publisher" by the RantParents' house for coffer after a round of Saturday morning rejections. RantBrother worked with Arborist BusinessGuy off and on for a long time and then crashed at various places Arborist Buddy owned. Then Arborist Buddy remarried. RantBrother (understandably) failed to charm Second Wife. But RantWoman deeply respects the long friendship before that.

Anyway, to Neighbor Martinez, blessings on your journey and to those who hosted the Dead Spread blessings on the feast!

The Horror: No Barefoot Lawyer in Worship--so far!

(Alert readers will probably have NO problem guessing some good reasons RantWoman's ruminations on themes in this post did not make it out of her mouth during worship.)

Yes, RantWoman acknowledges that sending 6 sugary skulls as a token that someone fleeing the local police is alive is weird symbolism. In Chen Guang Cheng's "The Barefoot Lawyer" it was actually six packages of dried noodles. RantWoman thinks the skulls are more ironic.

The send six of something communications symbolism was the culmination of a long career as a human rights activist, a spell in prison and then incredibly intrusive house arrest, but back up a few steps.

RantWoman is also schlepping around in the brave new world of paying for images. RantWoman has not read the terms of the promo. If the six sugary skulls go poof after some interval, RantWoman begs readers' indulgence and will try to be more attuned to copyright in the future. RantWoman hopes that the images will just stay with the option of downloading.

(RantWoman means also to find the link to Chen's speech at the 2015 American Council of the Blind convention but so far....

Chen was born in rural China in 1971, about the time the Rant children were making the transition from black and white to color television. He was the youngest of 5 boys born after a sister died in infancy. The family was very poor. As an infant, Chen developed some kind of very high fever that lasted 3 days and took his vision. Chen did not go to school at first AND his family had to pay extra taxes and penalties for having a disabled child. Eventually Chen made his way to school and then later to a program at Nanking University.

This was before the onset of China's one-child policy; Chen writes of how many of his family members of his generation were affected by that policy in their childbearing years.

The house arrest was basically full employment for the entire region: Chen, his wife and young daughter were guarded by at least a dozen people at a time, 2 shifts a day. The family kept getting new cellphones, amking videos, shipping the videos out, hiding the cellphones. The secret police kept coming to search. Chen and his wife would quote the Chinese constitution about the police not having a right to search. The police would search anyway, but when the accompanying beatings reached a terrifying level, Chen decided he had to flee.

Chen fled and eventually made it to the US embassy. His case became the subject of an especially vigorous flurry of international negotiations because Chen reached the US embassy just as Secretary of State Clinton was arriving for a summit. Saying anymore would be a spoiler; besides, people should read the whole book to understand the force of Chen's activism.


In general, RantWoman seems presently to excel in NOT go to sleep bedtime reading.

RantWoman downloads something interesting from BARD. RantWoman sticks the USB drive in the cute, Cute, CUTE Talking Book player and cranks the volume and reading speed to desired levels. 
Usually at bedtime RantWoman hits the sleep button twice,  "sleep 15 minutes." "Sleep 30 minutes."  15 minutes is long enough to fall asleep sometimes but not to stay asleep when the reading stops. 30 minutes is sometimes long enough to fall asleep, stay asleep and then have to backtrack the next night. to get what one slept through. Sometimes though the "sleep 30 minutes" option is enough to get RantWoman completely hooked, to remind her that she really should sleep and to force her to admit that she will not be able to sleep and therefore should just prees the "Sleep" button a couple more times. And then a couple more times. And then....

The Horror: First ever Halloween Binge Blog

RantWoman humbly presents her first ever Halloween / Day of the Dead / Dia de los Muertos / All Saints Day / Reformation Sunday Binge blog.




Either a haunted house or a weird cactus

On top of average RantWoman scariness levels and bats flapping in and out of various belfries, RantWoman has a whole tangle of things muddling back and forth in different time frames, seasons, geographies. For the occasion, RantWoman went a Halloween / Dia de los Muertos / Day of the dead A// Saints Day / Reformation Sunday image binge. Okay, this is the place to come if you want All Saints or Reformation Sundayeven for terrible linguistic confabulations topical to Reformation Sunday.

This is a binge blog. RantWoman does not promise t o be NICE. In fact, there may be horrors all over the place. RantWoman promises visuals and arty verbiage trying to capture the visuals, intemperate opinions and MAYBE appreciation for people who do things right.




Day of the Dead Black cat
with bones and flowers

National Oatmeal Day

RantWoman had no idea there is any such thing as National Oatmeal day.

But since actual #Quakers get confused with the oatmeal people all the time, RantWoman is going to return the favor with a shameless product promo, trademark symbols and everything, inviting Quakers who do not mind the oatmeal meme to take advantage of this fabulous commercial offer.

RantWoman knows perfectly well that lots of people happily consumer plenty of oatmeal completely unencumbered by the Quaker® Oatmeal brand. And good on them too.

QuakerOats (@Quaker) tweeted at 3:08 PM on Thu, Oct 15, 2015:
On 10/29, we’re giving away Quaker® Oatmeal for #NationalOatmealDay!
Stay tuned for more details. http://t.co/RpoezflKII(https://twitter.com/Quaker/status/654780906599612416)

Abundant RantBrother proxies

It was RantBrother’s birthday last week. Happy belated birthday RantBrother.

 RantBrother called RantMom. RantMom says she thinks he’s missing family. Family peculiarly admit to missing him even though the missing comes with a LOT of prayers that RantBrother might somehow be willing to interact with enough help that the rest of the family can…

 Hold that problem in the Light.

 And meanwhile, just when RantWoman was thinking about maybe permitting herself to miss some of RantBrother’s best Brother Demento emails, lo, RantWoman’s email groans with contributions from someone  sipping from the same thought streams: abstruse references to legal matters is random legal jurisdictions, mentions of familya members entangles both in drug trafficking and law enforcement, mysteries derived from the average route straightto spam folder email streams....

Bless us oh Lord with sincere gratitude for the abundance of RantBrother proxies in RantWoman's life.

Can't wear just anywhere: I didn't tell you about #whitecaneday.

RantWoman is terribly glad to see this old Ladies Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society emblem surface again recently on Facebook.

RantWoman also humbly acknowledges that one can't wear the thing just anywhere. For instance this year, RantWoman observed #whitecaneday a few days ago with lots of officials from several local transportation entities.

RantWoman's WA Council of the Blind T-shirt was dirty. RantWoman exhorted others to wear their WCB T-shirts but no one else who might have worn a T-shirt showed up. Still, probably NOT a good place to wear a Ladies Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society t-shirt.

Pity.

RantWoman got the day off to a festive start on twitter. Someone tweeted about how people should celebrate #whitecaneday by giving a blind person a hug. RantWoman likes hugs a lot, preferably if asked first. RantWoman has serious issues with various forms of "Grab the Blind Person and Bless them," especially if "Grab the blind Person and Bless Them" comes with expectations about extravagant expressions of gratitude for the encounter. So, NO, please DO NOT celebrate #whitecaneday with a hearty round of "Grab the Blind Person and Bless Them."

The first terrifying, real space moment occurred during introductions. RantWoman said the word "Waterfront." Readers can tune into RantWoman's other blog for continued commentary about the waterfront and the word "Accessibility." RantWoman and those assembled opted to duck about the topic for #whitecaneday.

A friend of RantWoman's led a walking tour of big blind-friendly improvements in RantWoman's neighborhood. If you want the right search strings, you will have to look on RantWoman's other blog. Here RantWoman gets to wrestle with all sorts of unholy and less than politic commentary.

One of RantWoman's tasks, it turned out, was to provide color commentary that the friend of RantWoman's could not provide.  For instance, RantWoman opined at one point that it would have been really nice if the organization sponsoring the event, the organization where RantWoman's friend works,  had teamed up with another organization VERY close.

The second organization also gets a lot of foot traffic;  it might be entirely logical for blind people to want to be able to go to on their own via decent sidewalks with good landmarks, that is good landmarks for blind people, from nearby bus stops without needing paratransit just to cope with the last 1-3 blocks of pedestrian route. (RantWoman, CHILL! Chill!. You can do Dial-a-Tirade another time. Chill!)

Everyone who wanted one and did not already have one got issued a white cane. Possibly if RantWoman were just blinder, she would have relied on superior mobility skills and gotten to skip out on being terrified by a bunch of sighted people flailing their canes willy-nilly without even the faintest effort to simulate actual use of white cane for detection and navigation. As it was RantWoman made one comment and then either walked ahead of the group or behind the group the entire rest of the way.

RantWoman's friend did a couple great commentaries about listening for multiple cycles of a traffic light before deciding how to cross the street. RantWoman also did great narrative about the back up and try again problem-solving people who get formal orientation and mobility training get about obstacles and paths they are unsure of.

Maybe the most topical side comment for RantWoman: if you think you are helping and think you know RantWoman well enough to be entitled to automatic thank yous, could you MAYBE listen to RantWoman enough to have a more refined sense of what actually helps. Hint: no, RantWoman STILL can only do VERY minimal facial expressions. Yes, thank you very much, RantWoman can see orange construction barriers if she looks in the right direction soon enough to avoid them; if not she finds them with her white cane and adapts her route accordingly. But if you want big giant smooches of appreciation for telling RantWoman about newly placed construction barriers, please be advised that 1. RantWoman may already have detected the issue arriving at the location and 2. RantWoman is naturally charm-challenged and may possibly have already run out of graciousness thanking bus drivers, bus passengers, random Grab the blind person and bless them perpetrators, street drunks, small children, and passersby for "help."

Anyway, at #whitecaneday, RantWoman asked her friend to please tell her if RantWoman was talking too much. NO, said friend, you were great! (Praise Jesus!)

One of RantWoman's favorite moments: the new #ADA coordinator for the WA State Ferries asked RantWoman a VERY insightful question about the white cane and leaves. It was a dry day. Even so leaves are kind of a pain. It's pretty easy to wind up with kind of a snowplow effect moving a lot of leaves and even worse if the leaves are soggy or it's raining. Leaves are treacherous enough by themselves, but the presence of leaves also frequently indicates the presence of trees nearby, along with enhanced likelihood of sidewalk vs tree root disruptions, the sort of sidewalk discontinuities that increase risk of falls, sprains, broken bones, and general public irritableness! . RantWoman likes trees fine. RantWoman recognizes that leaves are awesome organic matter. But for the safety of white cane users, people with shopping carts, people in wheelchairs, RantWoman was VERY glad for the opportunity to issue a general exhortation for people to please keep their sidewalk right of ways cleared off!


After RantWoman set the date and time for this to post, she remembered the date coincides with a time when she MIGHT in fact have worn the T-shirt, even though people in authority cannot automatically be expected to see humor about anything that says "terrorist society." RantWoman also remembers it was the sort of occasion where people would get searched and political buttons tended to get confiscated as "dangerous weapons," well not as dangerous as the weapons being protested but never mind. The more interesting dynamic. Buttons that said "Refuse to be Abused" sometimes got confiscated and then tended to get flashed from inside someone else's collar.

Here rantWoman will pause for now. rantWOman feels another missive from the bedbugsc coming on but rantWoman must FOCUS for now on....

Pinata

The New Yorker cartoon above is:

--a meditation rising from an offering in worship about a therapist who challenged the bearer of the message?

--an evocation so confusing and convoluted that people are allowed to be frightened and RantWoman should not expect anyone but a well-trained professional to be able to unravel?

--a fabulous "go talk to your therapist" moment which belongs nowhere near anything purporting to embody the Blog as Quaker Journal model of blogging?

--such a fabulous "go talk to your therapist" moment that there is NO WAY words about the topic would make it out of RantWoman's mouth during a actual therapist's appointment; this is why RantWoman is scrawling them all over the internet in the first place.

--an invitation to riff on the theme of people who are brilliant music teachers for everyone's children but their own, including moments of extravagant praise after some or another particularly abusive moment has generated the desired results?

--a window into the kind of creepy thinking that sometimes comes up in the same sentence as phrases like "National Domestic Violence Awareness Month."

--an invitation to the same sort of wacky theological conversation that happens when someone talks about the Resurrection in terms of someone getting tortured to death and coming back to have a party?

--an impediment and a distraction if RantWoman would like to be taken seriously for grabbing soundbytes such as "It's always bad public policy to start a war?"

--Something just to HOLD IN THE LIGHT for now!

Immoderation

RantWoman is awed and humbled.

 

RantWoman is awed and humbled to encounter so many able contributors to the Still Didn’t Get the memo Committee on Email Immoderation.

 

God is indeed bountiful!

 

Blessings upon us all and all the world’s inboxes!

Before enlightenment... After enlightenment...

Lately, Meeting for Worship has been visiting and revisiting themes of hope and hopelessness, love and faithfulness.

From Meeting for Worship, a couple weeks ago, a Buddhist quote which RantWoman remembers as :
"Before enlightenment, chop wood; sweep the floor. After enlightenment, chop wood; sweep the floor."

RantWoman: Wait a second! It's the age of global warming and trying NOT to cut down all the planet's magical lungs and natural climate control. What about:

Before enlightenment, Chop wood, sweep the floor.
After Enlightenment, how about passive convection heating, solar-powered cooking, and a renewably powered Roomba (robotic vacuum cleaner) to clean up after ourselves?

Oh, wait, RantWoman is Missing the POINT about faithfulness.

RantWoman missing the point? Impossible!

The Angel Band Project event October 26, Benaroya Hall

RantWoman has NO expectation that posting this here will cause anyone to attend the Angel Band Project performance at Benaroya Hall on October 26. In fact, RantWoman is going to make readers look up details your own selves.

RantWoman is simply filing this as part of a continuing story of one VERY gutsy sexual assault survivor. Click with caution; extreme trigger warning for account of horrifying sexual assault.
SLOG: The Angel band Project. Why we're using our voices...

Did your boyfriend do that?

RantWoman is festively celebrating National Domestic Violence Awareness month and National Disability Awareness Month with a tangle of issues present and past.

"Did your boyfriend do that?"

RantWoman heard that a lot during a Summer of Swollen face a few years ago. Mostly the question came from strangers.

(RantWoman sees badly but RantWoman a time or two has thought though not always voiced the same question.)

RantWoman appreciates that she had people in her life who laughed when she said "No, my doctor got paid to do that to me."

RantWoman appreciates that a couple of the people who laughed work for her eye doctor, the practitioner who got paid for RantWoman's swollen face.

RantWoman also appreciates multiple people who suggested arnica, a remedy RantWoman remembered from"herbal medicine witches" she had spent time around years before while being out consensually getting dragged around and coming home all bruised up.

All of that is appreciated but neither here nor there as far as other matters of listening, ableism, and general exasperation.

Please hold all in the Light and find ways to ask about bruises.

The bedbugs, roused

RantWoman would SO have preferred that one to RantWoman's ear NON-URGENT item on a recent Meeting for Business agenda be heard another month when another topical figure as well as one of the people to whom RantWoman is led to say "Thanks but no thanks" could at least be present. RantWoman freely admits, she has been hearing "thanks but no Thanks" uttered a little too often in her direction and keeps testing whether this is the basis for her leadings about "Thanks but No Thanks." Hold that problem in the Light.

In the meantime, RantWoman has received another missive hacked up by her Meeting's bedbugs.

To all Friends everywhere.

Remember us? We are the bedbugs at RantWoman's Meeting. Past precedent has been on leap days to offer our accounting of life at our faithful Interpreter RantWoman's Quaker Meeting.

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-fares-truth-among-us-as-told-by-our.html

Frankly we have been a little distracted watching the size of the 2016 Republican primary hopefuls list mushroom. We lost count somewhere around 4 zillion and are not particularly amused that most of them seem to boast the same foreign policy consulting firm.

And our faithful interpreter RantWoman has been very busy being true to her Light about matters outside her Meeting.

RantWoman is also very conscientious and we have had several conversations that RantWoman would call "client education." In these typically, the language professional carefully explains to the customer any number of different reasons the customer really should consider engaging another interpreter. We understand RantWoman's concerns that our words might be better heard if they came out of someone else's mouth but we have found no one else with RantWoman's capacity for linguistic nuance and perspicacity.

We are inclined to tell those distressed by our presence that they just need to cope. Sometimes people just get the interpreter they get! We also cope with usual interpreter protocol about speaking of themselves in the third person and the professional norm that if the client utters it the interpreter is liberated of multiple forms of social opprobrium for repeating it. We do not even apologize if this whole paragraph just gives readers headaches trying to figure out who is actually speaking and on whose behalf and whether or not the direct lines to God have somehow gotten tangled.. Consider yourselves held in the Light and Cope!

What has roused us earlier than usual to begin putting together our Leap day offering?

We have learned of a concern, among other things that the State of Society reports from RantWoman's Meeting frequently turn into community laundry lists where all is glorious and the children are all above average and Friends may or may not detect recognizable spiritual content, never mind whether we have even had a conversation about what we mean by "spiritual content" BEFORE we charge someone with cultivating it!

Partly in an effort to start earlier than average and to work on this concern, two volunteers, "It's Not Good for the Community Friend" and "I still don' wanna read RantWoman's email" Friend have stepped forward and announced their desire to speak on behalf of the Meeting. It's Not Good For the community Friend has other Noms de Blog but part of the point of our leading to begin work early examine the state of RantWoman's Meeting arises from the ways "It's not good for the community" Friend and "I have only been trying to Silence RantWoman for Five Years and I cannot understand why she demurs about me thinking I am going to be able to fix any better than I have for 5 years Friend  have done to earn their Noms De Blog.

RantWoman has other concerns, not all of which are documented as RantWoman posts and editorializes. And we, the bedbugs, also recognize that "It's not Good For the Community Friend is particularly distressed about everything to do with Bedbugs. We are sorry. We do not know of anything we can do to help that. If being held in the Light by bedbugs seems palatable please consider this an offer to do so; if not, please cope and do not blame RantWoman either. She is only our messenger.

Sincerely,

The Bedbugs.

I Made Myself Blind: Living With BIID

Warning: EXTREMELY Upsetting Content, posted here for prayer at least.

Click PLAY with EXTREME Caution

The video below and a related newspaper article RantWoman has not yet encountered have been inflaming passions on one of RantWoman's blindness listserves.

RantWoman actually has little bandwidth even to go near the topic or people's reactions.

RantWoman knows that there is considerable psychological scholarship devoted to various forms of self-maiming and related syndromes.

RantWoman saw one comment suggesting that the psychologist in the video is guilty of malpractice; RantWoman on the other hand knows a number of people who identify as transgenderand who are much happier if theyacknowledge that fact of themselves. Some of the time RantWoman can view this video in the same spirit.

RantWoman has never met anyone with this exact story, but RantWoman does note that one element of her "Blind school" voc rehab experience and other journeys to Planet RantWoman is pretty gut-wrenching stories of people's vision loss experiences.

Phonetics note: RantWoman notes that although the narrator speaks with a british accent, all the other voices appear to speak various flavors of US English.

If you just need some topics to hold in the Light and do not feel like clicking "Play," good on ya!

Decorative Gourd Season

This post shamelessly recycles material from theAssociationof Bad Friends group on Facebook. RantWoman figures now is the season.

Introducing ...after God the pscyho kidnapper has scooped out the goopy innerds and set one's punkin head aglow with the Inner Blowtorch.

Or, iff God the Kidnapper doesn't work as a meme....

It's Decorative Gourd Season M-F*ckers

Go Team!

Comparative Football Careers

RantWoman humbly admits that she is almost COMPLETELY football-challenged, only VERY sporadically able to muster conversational capacity related to football. And look what happens when RantWoman goes near the topic.


Wonder blind person Jake Olson played high school football after losing both eyes to cancer. He is now playing for the USC Trojans. He talks in an interview about his faith. ESPN articles talk about how good his presence is for team morale. Use the search engine of choice if you are led to research further.

GO TEAM!


A recent twitter search on #quakers yielded a surprisingly high percentage of tweets dedicated to some or another football competition. There being both British and US tweets, RantWoman expects "Football" has multiple meanings.

GO TEAMS!


Irrepressible Nephew's name appears on an internet site along with about half the other names on his high school team roster who have

--No jersey number

--No position played

--the fact that he is a freshman; many on the no information side of the roster are upper classmen!

--No height

--No weight.

(RantWoman is unsure the reason for this approach to a team roster but for various reasons is inclined to think there is an aspect of inclusion and welcome and maybe some other threads.)

GO TEAM!


In the ongoing collide again with previous phases of life that comes with every new eara of Irrepressible Nephew's life, RantWoman notes for comparison:

--RantWoman has never wanted to play football, either before or after vision loss. Good thing because the Rant family eye conditions recommend against contact sports.


--RantWoman in high school was taller and larger than a large percentage of both the football team and the men's basketball teams. This does NOT mean RantWoman was anywhere near their equal in athleticism.

GO TEAM!

Quaker Speak: A Quaker in the Texas House of Representatives

A Friend who found his way to Quaker leadership starting in worship during the Vietnam era.

In 2003, "It's always bad public policy to start a war," a comment persuasive enough to switch about 5 of 120 votes

Midweek, Authority, Take On Me by Genghis Barbie

RantWoman, ever striving to be humble about such gifts of prophesy as show up in her vicinity is certain days in advance that it is going to be the kind of week where readers just need some Genghis Barbie.

Consider the leading to provide such fulfilled.




Readers who can both listen to music and listen to other audio tracks (RantWoman, SOMETIMES, for instance) might also want to check out a wonderful 45-minute item from Lloyd Lee Wilson about spiritual authority. The moment RantWoman takes away: "if the proohet says what is needed, the prophet has done HER/ HIS /ZIR (RantWoman editorializing about presumed gender issues) job regardless of whehter the prophet has been heard.
Look here for Lloyd Lee Wilson item on spiritual authority.

Why Are Quakers Pacifists? With a Russian Subtitle Option

RantWoman quite appreciates Russian Friends for the growing body of translations at Quakers.ru and for adding Russian Subtitles to selected Quaker Speak videos including this one.!

Advocacy! Gratitude!

Friday at the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing, RantWoman fielded another call of the form "I have multiple crises. Bureaucracies are driving me up the Wall. No one knows anything. Will technology help and how fast can I get trained?"

This caller lost vision almost completely very suddenly in April and has been dancing with options for help ever since. Even the Friendly Neighborhood Center call routing is um, also an excursion. But Friday RantWoman was in the house.

Caller expressed particular vexation about Highly Topical Agency. Caller mentioned something about being told he has too much anger and anxiety for Highly Topical Agency to be able to help him.

RantWoman talked what she could about technology and training. RantWoman among other things dutifully posted a request for help to the WA Council of the Blind email list and scored a phone call from the Chair of the Advocacy Committee.

Chair of Advocacy rates HIGH on RantWoman's list of Angelic Troublemakers. Plus Chair of Advocacy is also a night owl so if the phone says the caller is Chair of Advocacy, RantWoman will ALWAYS pick up.

Chair of Advocacy's comment about Highly Topical Agency, paraphrasing slightly: "Gee if they turned down everyon who has anger issues, they would never get any clients!" Yessss! This is why RantWoman loves Chair of Advocacy!

Bitterroot Sunset

RantWoman has many perfectly fine sunset viewing options in Seattle but this photo of MT's Bitterroot range at sunset definitely catches her eye.

Bedtime Music: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Genghis Barbie

A Friend from RantWoman's Meeting is fond of saying "If so-and-so had the sense God gave goats..."

RantWoman means to invoke that thought and try to be off tne computer nand headed to bed before this item posts. Good intentions.



Yeah, Good intentions with digressions.

One of RantWoman's consisten experiences at Quarterly Meeting is waking up in the middle of the night and needing to go pace quietly in the large room in the building where RantWoman most often stays. Pace. Stretch. Pray. Pace Stretch. After awhile either settle on a couch or jsut go back to bed.

RantWoman does not even care that this seems odd.

RantWoman does note that other Friends are sometimes also afflicted by various middle of the night  moments. One Friend frequently up at past Quarterlies complained one time of not sleeping because of leaving his CPAP home. This time RantWoman did not notice that Friend up and wonders whether he remembered his CPAP. RantWoman further notes this Friend jsut recenlty landed stable housing after a LONG spell of couch surfing. But thinking of two recent couch-surfing hosts, RantWoman kind of hopes they were a positive factor in upping the use of CPAP. RantWoman wonders this because, well because....

Cough. And RantWoman has her own benefit vs pain in the neck and annoying protocols and, and, and issues about the entire topic. RantWoman WILL say more but not tonight. In the meantime, hit play again ahd have some more Genghis Barbie.

Raptured with no dialogue, only Likes.

Trending on the Association of Bad Friends

Quakers do the Rapture:

RantWoman is well aware that theoretically she might have a whole lot more to say about the Rapture and these pictures. But RantWoman is going to go a different direction.

RantWoman is a student of different people's Facebook presences. Some people have lively discussions over short intervals. Not RantWOman. It's all RantWoman can do to count the number of likes. RantWoman cannot imagine trying to type enough to have lengthy conversations on Facebook. And for further comparison, RantWoman and SOME people are able to season things by email. This works best when everyone tries not to do more than one email / day.

Yet, as RantWoman does protest in the following blog post, http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2015/01/announcements-policy-composted.html RantWoman DOES like processes that show the range of waht matters to people. Okay, now what?

Meeting for Business: Jaws, the movie, not the screen reader. Just add Contrabassoon?

This is the BEFORE Business Meeting Blog Post, with post date cleverly adjusted. After Business Meeting, for the time being, RantWoman received another missive from her Meeting's bedbugs. Hold that problem in the Light.

RantWoman, since WHEN is the theme from JAWS appropriate aid for centering as one prepares for Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business?




Uhhh, every Business Meeting needs a good contrabassoon part?

Bless us Oh Lord for our headaches are abundant, possibly more abundant than can be handled with just a good bass line.

RantWoman notes a ferociously disharmonious convergence of calendar cycles, agenda items, people and  themes associated with said agenda items,

Among the themes on RantWoman's mind:

--Children of various ages and "Mentoring." da-da. Da-da. Da-da. Will RantWoman be called somehow to ...mention Sudoku?

--Thanks but No Thanks.

--What do we mean by "spiritual?"

--Silence and silencing

Possibly useful metaphors:
--a labyrinth for alternations of walking around in circles and walking back and forth

--Fractals where one can stand or press on one point and suddenly have the same pattern repeat on a different scale.


Random additional popcorn kernels:
RantWoman already had a pre-Business Meeting out of integrity email snit-fit.
 We have spiffy signs implying that our amplification supports hearing aid T coils. In fact right now and for many months, our amplification system has not been working at all because a key cable got stolen. Now fixing awaits some bigger scale worship room improvements RantWoman was previously unaware of. RantWoman thinks we should definitely take down the misleading T-coil signs and that now would be a prime time to ask someone who knows what they are doing for recommendations and look at multiple layers of listening, hearing  and technology.

RantWoman also wandered again by mix of email and phone into a question about parking lot at night. Duhhh. Yeah probably since parking in our lot is free and parking in our part of town is at a premium, probably it is not unreasonable to expect that sometimes people try to leave cars and go elsewhere. Probably it is reasonable to understand that our on-site staff would have the best data about the problem. That solves only half of a communications challenge. What? messages getting mangled and wires crossed around RantWoman? Say it isn't so...  Or maybe NOT please because RantWoman has too much of the saying it isn't so thing going on in a literal sense anyway.

RantWoman is grateful one laying down of membership is not on the agenda. Said Friend has the same first name as RantWoman but spells it "wrong."  The problem is not the laying down of that membership after more than a decade of no contact.. The problem is that thinking of that membership heightens RantWoman's need to hold forth about a different family in the fractal world of her Quaker experiences. RantWoman is happy to acknowledge  a call to channel the figure she calls her Quaker Auntie about the second family. RantWoman has WAY more than that to say; the question is, will RantWoman's Light about marginalization make it out of RantWoman's mouth and / or onto RantWoman's blog?

RantWoman's labyrinthine mind wandered past a Friend, at one time one of two in RantWoman's meeting willing to speak of belonging to the daughters of The Confederacy. Daughters of the Confederacy Friend is a mental health professional used to say "You can't swing a dead chicken around here without running into a mandated reporter." Daughters of the Confederacy Friend and her husband resigned their memberships a few years ago. RantWoman thinks Meeting did something gauche like ask them for money without thinking to get in touch for a good while to see how they were doing. RantWoman is sorry. She counts herself among the number who could have kept better in touch. RantWoman is unclear whether this point will somehow wander into thoughts of how we all take care of ourselves spiritually and emotionally and what we ask of each other in community terms.


RantWoman needed THREE tries before the search engine of her choice stopped asking her whether she meant a different spelling of workshop leaders to be announced. Boo search engine for thinking it knows more than RantWoman does about what she is searching for. And Bother: Rantwoman is half-tempted to ask whether it would do us all just as much good to hold a session of the "How to Talk to Difficult People training that crossed RantWoman's inbox the other day, RantWoman of course being exhibit A on the difficult people front, though definitely not the only one.

RantWoman is again wrestling with a translation from excessively plain English to respectable Quakeres about one Friend. RantWoman has previously written that when this Friend offers vocal ministry, RantWoman hears really a lot of that Friend but has trouble hearing God. Upon reflection RantWoman realized that, like a number of guys RantWoman knows, this Friend has become MUCH better able to see past the edge of his own navel as a result of becoming a father.

RantWoman notes a concern with respect to "It's Not Good For the Community" Friend.

RantWoman notes that 2016 is another leap year and RantWoman foresees great likelihood that the bedbugs may again hack up another Leap Day missive. Pray...

On what planet? National Domestic Violence Awareness Month

RantWoman festively observes National Domestic Violence Awareness Month with two comments Friends offered in what to RantWoman look like pretty clear domestic violence situations. Thankfully, he situations have long evolved into safer terms, but RantWoman still needs to recount them and  is clear to poke at the attitudes they illustrate:


1. RantWoman heard about this one second hand and finds the problem credible enough to recount the story; RantWoman also has permission from the affected child's mother to speak of the situation.

Relationship is ending partly because of male partner being physically abusive toward one of female partner's children.

Child tells an adult from his Meeting that the male partner is "mean.."

The adult says "It's not very nice to say that."

On what planet does a child say someone is "mean" and not have an adult ask something like "Why do you say that?"

If RantWoman knew which adult was silencing this child, RantWoman would probably follow up in person. RantWoman continues to hold the child in the Light


2. Different end of relationship situation: Friend offers message in Meeting for worship about resolving to dislodge former male partner from her household after he threw her teenage duaughter against the wall during an argument. RantWoman had a conversation with someone who blamed "mouthy teenager."

On what planet is the existence of a mouthy teenager an excuse for an adult throwing someone against the wall?

Nuggets of Good News if one looks

It's FALL and the state of the world is more rant-evoking than average.

But RantWoman is seizing good news, albeit phrased decidedly non soft persuasion language, out of all sorts of sick and distressing situations:

1. Right wing foes of Planned Parenthood wage relentless attack on the organization with doctored video including someone pimping the body of a stillborn baby. Presidential hopeful Carly "I am supposed to be smarter than Sarah Palin" Fiorina loses it all over national television about the supposed murder of this child.

RantWoman comment: Gee, ma'am, I see how very distressed you are. Now what are you going to do if and when you become Commander in Chief? Will something stop you from giving all those orders to drop bombs and target drones and send in troops? I mean that would be a true seamless garment stance and it would be kind of amazing to see that in a President, but is that what you are running on?


2. As a baptized in the diaper stage Presbyterian and by Righteous Rev. rRant Granddad no less, , RantWoman is DELIGHTED that the Presbyterian Church USA is calling out Boob in Chief Candidate Donald Trump!
Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church USA calls out the Donald.

RantWoman is also intrigued by the term "stated clerk" but is not intrigued enough to chase down the etymology. On to the next nugget of good news.

3. One moment of sanity after another from David Pakman of RingofFireRadio about the Umpqua Community College Shooting

Margaret Cho ~ mom on gays

VERY Sweet bit about Someone Else's mama!




And then there is RantMom
Moral of Story: Okay, so RantMom is way certain she knows more about how to get around than her paratransit drivers even though she has never driven in WA? The spiritual discipline of letting go because someone else is getting paid to figure out the route? Okay, so?

Okay, so, and RantMom's challenges about people from other cultures are clanging in RantWoman's ears every time RantMom talks about paratransit drivers and half the time when she talks about the regular bus? Okay, so, look RantWoman, you COULD have Margaret Cho's mother for a mom instead...

Get in Line!

RantWoman, It’s a warm sunny day and the trees are gorgeous, bone-dry but gorgeous.  What’s with this inarticulately grumpy?

 

 RantWoman lives on a planet where imperatives of confidentiality and imperatives of communion over shared problems gurgle and criss-cross. RantWoman in her hat of employers who get to interact with terms like disclosure and reasonable accommodations is feeling nostalgic for an application process a few years ago. One of the selected applicants wrote all over her application about her strengths and positive experiences learning to manage a condition that in many cases turns out to be easily manageable. Another selected applicant only disclosed dealing with the same condition when she sensibly sought local referrals. One of RantWoman’s twitches besides overlap with one of the Get in Line moments below is to reflect on whether anything that followed from the program administration side created barriers to either of these highly functional people taking care as they needed.

 

 It was a hard week on Planet RantWoman

 

It was September. Things in the RantWoman emotional compost heap can get easily restimulated in September and one of the Get In Line items below did that spectacularly. Good thing the current moment only involves multiple kinds of lawyers, not multiple kinds of interpreters too.

 

If you need to tell RantWoman that you want to treat someone excels in unwanted touch of multiple people differently than someone who has merely cursed and mumbled under her breath, Get in Line.

 

If you need to tell RantWoman you are bipolar, probably of your meds and have a hearing loss so you need RantWoman to put up with 17 obnoxious behaviors but cannot give anyone else the same grace, get in line x about 6.

 

(After sleep and sunshine, aside from “Get in Line,” even worse Bad Friend thoughts come to RantWoman: “Oh, you’re bipolar. What do you want me to do about it? I know! We can have an ‘I am more bipolar than you are’ bakeoff. It will be a fundraiser!” OKAYYYY even by the “you don’t HAVE to tell us such things” standards at the friendly neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing, that MIGHT be a little less respectful than we strive for, but….)

 

If you need to tell RantWoman you are leaving somekind of DV situation have multiple hearing, vision, mobility and communications issues,  and have just been handed two incompatible pieces of accessibility software with no training and told, Go forth and live independently and instantly solve all those forms you can only access online, get in line.

 

If you need to tell RantWoman you may need an ADA lawyer to help you tell another lawyer the second lawyer has to deal with accessibility issues get in line.

 

If the phrase “ADA lawyer” MIGHT wander into the same conversation with a whole bunch of public transit jargon, and you are not a public transit geek yourself, please bear with RantWoman’s need to babble. If you are wondering why RantWoman is not really doing well at basic social give and take, Rantwoman is holding a lot in the Light but beware lest RantWoman start babbling about her public transit fixations of the week.

 

#duckbuscrash #auroaBusCrash

Did we mention that the phrase “fatal bus crash” always sets RantWoman’s nerves on edge? Due to the wonders of Metro math, a fatal crash on a key arterial disrupts bus service all over the city. That was  LASTThursday. RantWoman notes that Thanks to Twitter she knows many of those hospitalized have been released from the hospital or upgraded. RantWoman is grateful. RantWoman is approaching the investigation updates gingerly on personal grounds but with heartfelt prayers and condolences all around.

 

And this week’s Thursday hashtags: #UCCShooting #OregonShooting. RantWoman is thankful to distill these tragedies through the tiny pipes of Twitter.

 

 

Okayyyy, RantWoman and now what’s with the grandmas?

 

Recently it dawned on RantWoman that she is nearing an age when she will be older than either of her grandmothers when they died. Yeah, and…?

 

RantWoman is deeply touched watching several people be grandmothers. RantWoman does not exactly want to follow suit, a good thing since it’s not directly an option. But RantWoman gave herself permission to pick up the rock and look at all the thought threads from a certain wedding anniversary photo montage:

 

A key moment: RantMom’s parents do not look much different from in RantMom’s wedding pictures 5 years earlier. RantMom’s mother Brave Teacher was a farm wife who went back to teaching school when Youngest Aunt was in elementary school. She taught for 20+ years before the state of CO instituted teacher certification.  After that for two summers she went away to college and left RantMom and the future Aunts in charge of all the cooking and canning and running the household.

 

Brave Teacher Grandma also was very forward-thinking. She herself was left-handed. She went and insisted that rantMom’s teacher let her be left-handed and even that she hold the paper in the way that worked best for RantMom.

 

In other words, Brave Teacher Grandma must have been pretty formidable, but RantWoman’s memories are kind of challenging. Brave Teacher Grandma had a wonderful Christmas cactus that sat on a coffee table in her living room, a container of near succulent calm in the midst of the visit RantWoman remembers most clearly: Little Sister was a baby. RantBrother was a toddler. There was at least one and maybe two baby cousins. This on top of extra adults in a small house made for a lot of kid screaming and hubbub. RantWoman had an ear infection and spent a lot of afternoons napping with a heating pad. Miraculously everyone survived. Unlike some younger cousins, RantWoman actually got to meet Brave Teacher Grandma. Go with that!