dual personalities

Hello, February!

The Olympic Games in PyeongChang begin in a little over a week.

This is the second time South Korea has hosted the Olympics–remember the summer Olympics in Seoul in 1988? I can’t say I remember much about them. I always used to love the winter Olympics with the skiing and the skating and the bobsledding. But I have to say that all the “big air” snowboarding and such leaves me cold. No one is an amateur anymore. Like everything else, it is all about the money and the politics. Oy.

It is also Black History Month.

In the Episcopal Church we celebrate the life and ministry of the Rev. Absalom Jones, the first African American ordained as a priest in the U.S. “Stepping outside the box this year,” the diocese has designed a morning program for children and parents or grandparents. Gee, I can’t wait to bring the wee babes to this when they are old enough to appreciate it. We sent our kids to a public elementary school where they were in a racial minority, so they have always felt pretty comfortable wherever they find themselves–unlike those kids in the picture above who, we are led to believe, will encounter people of color in a “museum”. Oy.

The Orchid Show starts at the Missouri Botanical Garden.

But orchids always kind of freak me out.

The air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish color, like light filtered through an aquarium tank.

Maybe I’ll just stay home and re-read The Big Sleep.

Thank goodness it is 31 Days of Oscar month on TCM. Lots of good movies to watch and/or DVR.

Find something to do this month that you can relate to. Engage with some real people. Have fun! .Don’t waste the month of February.

*Walt Whitman, “A Noiseless Patient Spider”