On Christmas Trees

I was working on a puzzle last night while SodaBoy watched some TV, and overheard some heated debate about a Rabbi suing to have Christmas trees removed from an airport in Washington state. SodaBoy was flipping through channels and did not stay on the Faux News station, so I didn't hear the full story, but it got me thinking a little bit. My initial reaction was that it was a frivolous lawsuit: Christmas trees are not a religious symbol. Decorating with lights and greens has been a holiday mid-winter tradition for thousands of years. That was my gut reaction, but I was not comfortable with it.

It's just not consistent with my normal feelings about this kind of thing. I firmly believe in separation of church and state, and I feel very strongly about it. I wrote last month about my ill ease at being forced to vote in a church, and I support the lawsuit of a Florida man fighting his local election board over that exact issue. I vehemently oppose the teaching of "intelligent design" in the science classrooms of public schools; I also see no room for prayer in public schools. I don't think the ten commandments should be displayed in courthouses or other public spaces.

All these things smack of government endorsement of religion. Thanks, but no. I'll stick with my first amendment. So as I thought about all these things, my own inconsistency was disturbing me. Shouldn't I be opposed to the display of religious artifacts in public facilities? Well, yes, and I am. My stumbling block was the classification of the Christmas tree as religious: to me it is more of a pagan display than anything else. I bounced my concerns off SodaBoy. He pointed out that the very language is part of the problem. Christmas is a Christian holiday; calling a decoration a Christmas tree makes it by default religious. There is that problematic detail.

I got online this evening to look further into the matter.

First of all, leave it to the television to get every.single.detail about the Seattle airport case WRONG. Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky did not sue to have Christmas tree removed; he merely wanted to see the inclusion of a menorah. Which his organization had volunteered to both provide, and set up. The Port of Seattle chose to remove the trees instead of allowing the erection of a menorah. This caused a huge uproar. People wanted their trees back. The Rabbi graciously withdrew his suit yesterday, since he'd never intended for the trees to be removed, and last night airport staff reinstalled the trees. Still no menorah though. Read more here.

Secondly, I am not the only one who doesn't find Christmas trees to be a religious display. It turns out the Supreme Court agrees with me. Both Christmas trees and menorah displays "are part of the same winter-holiday season, which, the court found, has attained a secular status in US society." The case was decided in 1989. So this entire media hoopla was entirely pointless. The Port of Seattle was completely unreasonable in denying the request to display the menorah, and utterly irresponsible in their decision to remove the trees in the first place. It's non-issue: put them both up, and stop stirring up anti-Semitism.

So the Supreme Court says I shouldn't feel guilty about not objecting to Christmas trees or menorah displayed in public. Greens and lights, baby, bring it on. Here is our own personal holiday tree:

Photo by SodaBoy
And as for the Rabbi Bogomilsky, I wish him all the luck in the world. Now that I've taken the time to learn more about the situation, and understand his good intentions, I can't help but support his cause. No menorah display in the airport might seem like a petty little first world problem, but if no one fights against these unjustices, we will all be the the poorer for it.

News and Views

This morning I went up to the nursing home for a visit with my grandma. I got there in the middle of a program called “news and views,” where a recreation aide took the local daily newspaper and went through it with the residents. This is a nice idea, since some of the old folks have poor vision and can’t read the small print in the papers, and some of the them lack the mental capacity for reading at all, but still enjoy the interaction.

Maybe she did the real news before I got there, or maybe the aides intentionally focus on the lighter stuff. There was not one mention of war or politics. The aide read the Dear Abby column, and asked around the circle to see if anyone had any advice of their own to give. She read the horoscopes, asking each person when their birthday is, so she could read them their personal prophesy. Some residents clearly follow astrology and gave their sign instead of their birth date, while others were too confused to remember their own birthdays. I was pleased that Grammy answered August 29th with no hesitation; memory is not her greatest strength these days.

When I arrive in the middle of a program, I usually just sit down next to Grammy and hold her hand, or scratch her back. She is on a floor where the vast majority of residents are wheelchair bound, and trying to squeeze her out through the maze of chairs seems likely to disrupt the program for everyone. As a result, I’ve seen a number of different recreational activities administered by a number of different aides.

There is a wide range in the quality of these programs, as in all things. Although the “news” was entirely fluffy in nature, this activity seemed to me of higher caliber than some of the others I’ve seen. The level of interaction and participation is what delineates the good programs from the bad. I’ve sat through some of them where the aide just read out lists of words in a monotone, and I wasn’t the only one bored. So I guess what I liked about today’s activity was the way it was done: the recreational aide made such an effort. She didn’t know everyone’s names (this is a large facility) but she spoke in a loud clear voice, smiled a lot, and got everyone to play along.

The Best Day of Her Life

I went outside this afternoon to shovel the driveway, even though there wasn’t really that much snow. A few inches at the most. And since it’s supposed to warm up Sunday, I probably could have gotten away without. But shoveling is a chore that I enjoy, at least early in the season before the novelty wears off. It is a physical task that one completes outdoors, and the best part is the visible progress. I can immediately see the fruits of my labor, which is very satisfying.

I have never seen so much traffic on my street before. We live on a quiet, residential street that does not connect to anything but a few other similar streets. Normal traffic is limited to residents and delivery vehicles. Today there was a constant flow of vehicles. Not just the sheer volume, but some of the vehicle types, and some of the speeds traveled suggested that these drivers were not residents. I began to wonder if one of the major streets nearby was closed. After I finished shoveling, I decided to walk around the block to investigate the situation.

The street that runs parallel to ours is a thoroughfare, and it was indeed blocked off, with detour signs directing motorists to my humble little street. I walked the length of the closed block, and saw several work vehicles, and three men standing in the street discussing the circumstances, but nothing beyond that. Nothing that would make clear to me what the problem was. Then I kept walking since I was enjoying myself, despite the frigid temperatures. Another benefit of shoveling is it warms you right up.

As I approached my house on the return leg of the loop, I could see my neighbors had come home and let Maggie out. Maggie is a golden retriever who is sweet enough in temperament that we mostly overlook her tendency to crap in our yard. She loves cars. Luckily, she expresses her affection in a most tolerable fashion, running the width of the narrow yard, but right up next to the house, not down by the street. [I am always terrified of hitting one of those dogs that actually chases cars.]

Maggie is in heaven today with this persistent flow of vehicles. Her excitement is palpable. She has completely beat a path down in the snow, running back and forth. I watched her for a while, and she would express her joy by occasionally taking a big gulp of snow as she executed her turn. She is not a barker, but the afternoon has been punctuated by her intermittent and involuntary yelps of pleasure. She is so happy, it makes me happy just to watch her.

Bullets of Banality

Our cat rules. It's snowing out, the big-flaked, fluffy kind that is especially scenic. We haven't had much snow around here yet this year, and decided to take a walk up to the open area to see if Elijah would be as enthusiastic a walker in the snow. Short answer: yes.

We toyed with the idea of buying a tree today, but it just didn't happen. We did go out to run some errands, but I have one of my evil headaches, and didn't have the energy to wrestle with a tree.

We did rule out the possibility of buying a tree at one of the big box stores. Not only do they not have blue light specials anymore, but the store we visited doesn't carry fresh-cut trees anymore either. Only the kind in a box, and they don't even smell nice. Bah!

I did get a box of holiday cards while we were there though. Maybe they will help me get in the spirit. Of course I selected a variety featuring cats.

I also bought a new shower curtain liner. Fascinating, I know. But I am so damn sick of that Chester the Molester of a curtain that is in there now. This new one might not be any better, but I had to try something.

Could someone please rant about how badly sliding glass doors for the shower suck? Pretty please? 'Cause maybe then I would stop coveting them so much. From where I'm sitting now, they look pretty good.

Today was the first day this week I didn't apply for a job. Blame the headache. Yeah, that's right, the headache. Blame this entire post on the headache, actually. I just cannot think straight. It's prolly a good thing I didn't apply for a job.

Takes One to Know One?

Many employers now restrict job seekers to online applications. Like most things, this has both pros and cons. One disadvantage is the web sites often have long complicated forms one must complete, frustrating because of their redundancy to the resume, which must also be submitted. Some larger employers design their sites so the applicant only fills out the form once, and then the data is stored under a user profile. But this is by no means universal. An obvious advantage to online applications of all varieties is they save postage. And trips to the post office.

I wrote a cover letter today for yet another job application, this one requiring snail mail supplication. After printing out the letter and resume, I addressed the oversize envelope and headed to the Post Office, innocently enough. I am always paranoid about getting the proper postage on oversize envelopes that don’t follow standard postal rules. Especially for job applications. Nothing says “hire me” like an application package marked “postage due.”

I should have been aware enough to look at the calendar and plan for a lengthy visit. It is December, after all. Apparently some people are feeling the holiday spirit, and they don’t procrastinate either. The line stretched practically out the door. I myself am not feeling very festive this year: that’s what unemployment will do to a person. I even toyed with the idea of not getting a tree, but SodaBoy talked me out of that particular brand of heresy. It wasn’t too hard, either. I love me some sweet balsam aroma.

While in line, I watched the postal clerks patiently explaining the most straightforward things to the customers: if you use a priority mail package, you must ship priority mail; where this slip says, “name and address,” you must write in a name and address; things of that nature. Those postal workers really get an unfair rap.

I was also reminded of my power for attracting loonies. It’s far too prevalent a phenomena for me to blame the individual crazies, so I can only conclude that it’s me. I must emit some sort of come-hither-and-tell-me-your-woes vibe that only the unhinged can detect. Because tell me their stories they do. Sometimes it’s pretty funny.

Today, the woman in front of me in line felt compelled to inform me that she’d only eaten a donut so far today, and she’s really not supposed to eat donuts. Huh. And that her stomach has been bothering her all week. I foolishly offered a platitude about there being something going around, maybe she got the bug. Well, that just set her off: she had half her stomach surgically removed twenty years ago, she used to party a lot in those days, she’d gone on a real bender for her birthday, woke up in the hospital, she doesn’t party much anymore, except maybe dinner at the Olive Garden with friends, and…

ChattyPostalCustomers are generally quite harmless, so I just smile and nod along. But I am never quite sure why these people chose me to talk to over the rest of the masses. It must be the old cliché.

Puzzling Through It

jo(e) recently wrote a great post about her favorite childhood toys. The best part is you can tell she never outgrew them. Jigsaw puzzles are one of the toys she mentions. I am also a puzzler, although more so as an adult than a kid. I had some early formative puzzle experiences, to be sure. It is with great fondness that I recall an old wooden puzzle of the US where each state was a separate piece. I think I got that as a Christmas gift when I was 5 or 6 maybe. It prepared me well for the insipid little quizzes my 7th grade social studies teacher used to give, where he put cut-out shapes of the states on the overhead projector for us to identify by silhouette only. Ka-ching! Easiest.A.ever.

As an adult, puzzling is something I've really only come to in the last five years or so. Since we got our dining room table, anyway, because before that I wouldn't have had any surface big enough. I've had friends ask why I do puzzles; I know they seem utterly pointless to many people. Pretty much anything can be described that way, though, right? Pick your poison. Part of it is chaos reduction: it is very satisfying to create order where there was none. Part of it is I can puzzle while SodaBoy watches TV. I like to have puzzle project ongoing most of the time, but I don't usually sit and puzzle for hours on end. More often I'll just place a few pieces at a time while waiting for the water to boil for tea. It's filler fun.

And when SodaBoy wanted to experiment with time lapse photography not too long ago? A puzzle seemed like a good test run. I picked a small, easy puzzle. SodaBoy set up the tripod, and we took turns taking pictures. Curious about the time lapse thing, I immersed myself and put the puzzle together quickly, over the course of just two days. Then SodaBoy combined them to make this fun little movie, which I present for your enjoyment:

Confusion Reigns the Job Hunt

I ran into an interesting conundrum in my job search this week. It is often emphasized to us job seekers how important it is to address cover letters by name to a specific person. This isn't always possible, in which case one defaults to "Dear Sir or Madam," the salutation of last resort. The formatting for the greeting on a typical cover letter looks something like this:

          FirstName LastName 
          Company/Institution/Organization 
          Street Address
          City, State  ZipCode

          Dear Ms./Mr./Dr. LastName,

Filling in the blanks in the above formula is not normally the most difficult part of writing a cover letter. However, I hit a little stumbling block in this case, and I’m actually surprised I haven’t run into this issue before. What is the appropriate title to use for someone with an ambiguously gendered first name? I am not culturally aware enough to be able to distinguish gender for most unfamiliar names. Many non-traditional names are also confusing, both those of the hippie variety like River, and those of the yuppie variety like Taylor.

In the case of the job I applied for this week, the recruiter’s name was Chris LastName. This particular instance is especially frustrating, since “Chris” is a nickname, and being the contact person for a job posting seems to require a little more formality. Christophers seem to shorten their names to Chris more often than Christines, but it is not a fast enough rule to gamble by: I have a college friend named Christine who often went by Chris. And the dilemma is not limited to Chrises. How do you address Pat, or Jody, or Terry, or Sandy, or Jamie?