My blood test turned out badly, even though as Erehyns put it, I studied hard. I am waiting to be called into the principal’s office — I mean, the doctor’s. It is tempting to conclude that, since six months of health food and gym visits made my numbers worse, I should switch to a regimen of rich foods and lolling about, but that is probably not the case.
I also have visitors coming this weekend. My old college friend, for one thing. She has always been called by a nickname, so I will call her by her real name here, and no one will know who I mean. Mary Alice and I have not seen each other for a couple of decades. So we will have a lot of catching up to do. I am not having any high school reunion-type worries about being successful enough or looking good enough (Mary Alice and I can both be “Been there, done that” about our looks), but I have other qualms. For one thing, this is a woman who lives by herself. How will she adapt to life among the Wild Things? For another, she lives in Pasadena, a city with a song about it. We have plenty of bucolic charm here, but will the farmers’ market and the grist mill be excitement enough? And of course, Mary Alice knows way too much about me.
The other exciting thing is that #2 daughter is coming down with a couple of friends. I am so pleased that Mary Alice will be able to meet her, and I always enjoy meeting her friends, too. I think there will have to be some serious grocery shopping, though.
Here is #2 son with his homemade bow and arrow. It was while tidying up his room for Mary Alice last night that I discovered that the curtain rod had been made into arrows. I think she might want curtains even if he doesn’t, so I will have to go and get a new curtain rod. I thought we had some extras hanging around, but evidently there was a great need for arrows…We have plenty of handmade archaic weaponry on hand, though the trebuchet was damaged in the last rainstorm. With five guys in the house, it may be repaired and put to use. Would that be as exciting as life in Pasadena?
In the midst of all this, I have gotten the second DNA scarf well under way, but nothing more than that. Not even one full repeat of the pattern yet. And it is frilling. Ah, well.
make the best of it…
i have made, throughout the years, a variety of weapons as well…a trebuchet (though i doubt it was as good as yours…in fact…it sucked)…a slingshot…fire-cracker-launchers (i guess a kind of juvenile DIY version of a cross between a crossbow and a grenade launcher)…all manners of staffs made from everything ranging from curtain rods to pvc pipes and of course the ever popular (at least in my world) nunchaku! HI-YA!
Anyway. Its interesting that you say the moral dimension comes from there being consequences to decisions. That is what i have learned is called a consequentialist view, of which Utilitarianism is one. Immanuel Kant, however, has an ethical theory that is duty-based and has nothing whatsoever to do with consequences. i won’t be going into that here because it’d be way too long and detailed, but i tend to think a moral dimension can come from more than just the consequences of things, despite my consequentialist leanings. the fact is that there can be a moral dimension to any action, even one as seemingly inconsequential as choosing between tea or coffee, as you pointed out. however, who has the time, willingness, or intellectual capacity to sort through that tangled mess of causal relation to arrive at a moral decision? and in a case such as choosing between tea or coffee, you would HAVE TO sort through that tangling mess in order to arrive at that decision (to complicate it even further, that tangling mess is itself tangled with all its own infinitely repeating causal relations to innumerable other things!). furthermore, the fact that there can be a moral dimension to any situation doesn’t mean that the moral dimension is inherent to all situations (at least this is the opinion i hold). WE choose to make it have moral dimensions or not. As Protagoras once said: “Man is the measure of all things.” And I tend to agree with that and i feel that in many cases, we shouldn’t turn things into a moral issue because more immediately pressing practical/pragmatic issues are at hand.
Peace!