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!