Dilly Dally Shilly Shally #2: Two jewels from this afternoon’s outing

January 13, 2024

 

Note: See this:

This afternoon, headed out, on foot, with backpack, to nearby Dollar Tree, Fresh Thyme, GNC, and Aldi.

Of course, I wondered what kinds of fun interactions I was heading into.

At Dollar Tree, I asked the clerk, a polite, athletic looking young man, likely an IU student: “Are you new here? Haven’t seen you before.”

“Fairly new, about four months.”

“But you don’t have a parrot yet, right?”

He laughed. “Right.”

(Inside joke: Another, sweet older man and long-standing clerk, has had a pet parrot for many years. The parrot barks out “I love you” each time he comes home.)

At GNC, after looking around myself, I asked the clerk if they sell NAC. “I’ve got one here, right behind me!” he exclaimed. “Oh good,” I responded, laughing. “Now you don’t even have to put it on the shelf!”

At Fresh Thyme, a complex interaction: First, I run across a clerk who I’ve seen before, remember her because of her sweet smile. She wasn’t smiling today. Looking back now, I’d say she came across as bored and discouraged, while waiting for somebody in line for automatic check-out to need her help.

As I passed by, I remarked that I remembered her, because of her wonderful smile. “Come on, others have said the same right?” She instantly lit up, mumbled “yes,” and embarrassed, kept bringing her hand up to cover her face. “Oh thank you!” she exclaimed. “You’ve made my day.” Within another minute there we were again, talking. This time she asked my name: “Ann.” I asked hers: “Campbell. Cam-P-bell.” “Oh wow,” I exclaimed. “Unusual name.”

I asked if she was in school. “Yes, but I decided to take a gap year. Best decision I ever made.”

Me: “Good for you!” Then dramatically, theatrically: “What am I doing? WHO TOLD ME TO DO THIS?”

She laughed and agreed. I asked what her major was. “Harp. But I want to switch majors out of the music school altogether.” The music school at IU is world famous. Frankly, I was surprised: “Why?” “Because even though I enjoy the harp, I find myself out of step with the other students there.”

So here’s a young woman who’s already thinking for herself. Good!

At this point I was about to try my hand at automatically checking out. Usually I have to ask a clerk for help. But this time I did not. Went through, lickety-split. Felt very proud of myself. Until, that is, I was about to put a second jar of seriously reduced price Vitamin C in my bag. It fell to the floor, with a sickening clatter. I picked it up. Oops. Bottom shattered.

Campbell came up. “Just replace it,” she said. Sorry I can’t leave my post, but I’ll cover for you, let them know you’re not stealing.” We laughed. Just then another clerk came up who must have overheard us, and said she would replace it for me. “But there’s a problem,” I said to her. “I got the last two bottles on the shelf that were seriously reduced. ($18 to 45 cents)! And that’s why I got them!”

“I’ll figure it out,” the second clerk said, and headed back to the vitamin section. Meanwhile, Campbell and I talked more, speaking especially of how the world is actually a much nicer place than “the news” would have it. “Yes,” she said, “there’s a bad-news bias, and it’s awful. Especially social media,” she added, with a grimace.

A few more minutes, and we wondered why the clerk hadn’t returned. Oops! There she is, about to talk with somebody. That somebody turned out to be her manager. She too had noticed that there were no more seriously reduced Vitamin C bottles, and wanted to switch the broken one out with one that was full price. At this point the manager came up, with another young man who I presume also worked there. She started talking, I can’t remember what she said, but then the second man interrupted her. “Oops!” he stopped. “I shouldn’t interrupt people.”

“Yeah,” I countered, “You’re almost as bad as me!” Lots of laughs.

Needless to say, the manager approved the switch. And it wasn’t until I got home that I realized the one she switched it out to was a third bigger than the original.

Oh yeah, and one more interesting tidbit. At Dollar Tree I had debated getting a $5 rug doormat for the living room (because of tracking in snow, salt, etc.). But it was heavy, and stiff; didn’t want to carry it all the way. Hmmm. Maybe come back this way before walking home?

But wouldn’t you know, at Aldi, my final stop, there was a rolled up version of a doormat, easy to lug home and it cost $4.95, five cents less . . .

I love to shop the sales, which is why I make forays out to nearby stores several times a week. And of course, these forays double as occasions for surprising social interactions which, inevitably, are full of fun and good will.

In this troubled world of increasing atomization, let us recognize that each and every conscious interaction we engage in, especially those out in public, can serve as a tiny, potent dose of “alternative medicine” to help bend the world towards unity while lifting our own hearts.

The result, for me, unending JOY.

To “connect the dots” is TO PLAY WITH PHENOMENA

January 13, 2024

SO HEY, LOOSEN UP? OKAY?

With yesterday’s three memes, I did not “connect the dots” in any way, although we all know instinctively that everything is connected. But HOW? We find ourselves asking? I.e., which dot-connected thread is the “right” one? Which true, which false? which real, which fake? Which misinfo, disinfo, controlled opposition, etc?

How about this? It all bleeds into one heaving sea, as in the Buddhist co-dependent arising.

Co-dependent origination

Excerpt:

“’This is, because that is. This is not, because that is not. This ceases to be, because that ceases to be.’

“Stated in that way, the assertion could be taken to mean that correlation means causation. What the Buddha had in mind was not, however, the single cause and effect relation the West has focused on. It is instead a plural causality, or conditioned interpenetration, of all things whereby each thing arises in relation to all others, and can therefore be said to be conditioned by all others.”

Yes. All linear chains of cause and effect dissolve into that great heaving sea.

Thus, any time I construct a flow-through narration to connect dots from meme to meme, I am playing with phenomena. Period.

Okay. Let’s play again:

First of all, notice how Archbishop Vigano has one way of connecting the dots of yesterday’s memes:

(Yesterday’s memes)

To summarize the conclusion of his hard-hitting January 2024 message: those who are waking up to the atrocity of having agreed to be vaxxed won’t tolerate what’s being done to the world’s children. 

Vigano is our role model.

 

Here are three more memes, with a (playful, remember) “narrative thread” (framed as to “cause and effect”) to connect them:

First, as lucrative (for weapons manufacturers and banksters) wars heat up and spread like turbo cancers in the Middle East, plus China into Taiwan? and ongoing Ukraine debacle, why hasn’t an alternative spelling to this goon’s name gone mainstream?

OBOMBA

Meanwhile, all sorts of  well-funded (by whom?) “studies” are always taking place — in NGOs, three-letter Big Gov agencies, Big Ed and spin-off “think tanks” — all righteously, politically correctly, and supposedly aimed at eliminating the causes of, motives for, etc. etc. WAR.

And yet, what “makes the world go round”?

But hey, we’re busy documenting the (virtual?) heaving sea in which we are? apparently? soon to drown?