Author: Joanne Corey

Please come visit my eclectic blog, Top of JC's Mind. You can never be sure what you'll find!

A (Fitbit) walk to the farmers’ market

I wrote recently about my newly acquired Fitbit. I have decided to stick with my low, but attainable, goal; I’d rather make my goal and overachieve than always be struggling to make a high goal and feeling badly when I couldn’t do it most days.

I am getting most of my daily steps in by walking while I telephone my mother in the morning and by taking a walk in the evening with B.

Today, my morning call was short and my evening walk may not happen because I have a poetry meeting, so I decided to walk to the farmers’ market this morning. I wanted to buy some apricots and lettuce. I grabbed a cloth bag and a little purse with just my essentials, as my pocketbook is too heavy to lug around on walks.

As often happens at the farmers’ market, I bought more than I intended to. There weren’t any apricots, but there were lovely prune plums and some early apples, which I knew that T, who will be home for the coming week between her internship and new semester, would enjoy. And I didn’t want to run short of carrots and maybe a fresh tomato would be a good addition to the salad I am planning for dinner tonight. Oh, and look at that lovely selection of summer squashes, picked nice and small the way I like them!

The next thing I knew, I had a hefty amount in my bag to carry home. About halfway there, my Fitbit vibrated to let me know I had reached 5,000 steps. I had to shift my bag from arm to arm as I walked, relying more on my left side as my right arm has been weakened by some orthopedic problems.

When I got home, I weighed my bag and found it was eight pounds.

I want brownie points for the extra calories I burned carrying it home!

(And I will resist the urge to indulge in any actual brownies.)

One-Liner Wednesday: infinite knowledge

“And what is the point of infinite knowledge if it only cuts you off from the world?”
– Kate Soper, from the program notes for her opera, Here Be Sirens

This post is part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Join us! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/08/19/one-liner-wednesday-the-superpower-we-didnt-know-we-have/ 

public vs private

I heard a radio story today about a Kentucky county clerk who is in court for failing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, citing a religious exemption because her personal religious belief is that same-sex marriage is prohibited.

Her belief is protected by the US Constitution. The recent Supreme Court decision made abundantly clear that no religion or religious officiants would ever be required to preside over a wedding which violated their religious beliefs.

However, in the public sphere, marriage between two consenting adults, regardless of gender, is legal. So, in dealing with the public, the law is the determining factor. The religious belief of a clerk, justice of the peace, or judge should not be allowed to interfere with a lawful action by a member of the public. If it does, it violates the establishment clause which says that the state is not allowed to establish an official religion.

There are lots of instances where people of faith take actions in dealing with the public that may go against their personal tenets. For example, a Catholic judge may perform a civil wedding ceremony for a person who is a divorced Catholic who has not obtained an annulment from the church. A Catholic priest would not perform a sacramental marriage in that case, but a Catholic judge is not faulted in any way for fulfilling the civil duty of his/her office in performing a civil wedding.

The same reasoning extends to other public endeavors. A Morman server in a restaurant may serve alcohol or caffeine to restaurant patrons, even though the LDS church does not allow its members to consume them. A Jewish server can bring a customer a pork chop or shellfish, even though s/he may believe they are forbidden foods.

The bottom line is this:  One may believe in whatever religion to which one is called and practice that religion freely. However, one may not impose this belief on another member of the public.

Calling people from around the world!

A few days ago, I re-blogged this post: https://ireadencyclopedias.wordpress.com/2015/08/08/reaching-out-to-the-world/
from Jay Dee of I Read Encyclopedias for Fun. He is trying to get comments from as many countries as possible. So far, people have responded from USA, Canada, UK, Germany and Ireland. Let’s help him expand the list!

Here’s how you can help:
1) If you are from another country – and I know I have regular visitors from India and Australia – please click on the link and leave a comment, telling Jay Dee where you are from.
2) If you have a blog, are on Facebook, tweet, or engage in any other social media, please consider sharing the link with your followers. There are handy sharing buttons at the end of the post or you can copy and post the link yourself.

Let’s see if we can get visitors from dozens of countries for Jay Dee! Thanks!

340 US rabbis: ‘We support this historic nuclear accord’ | National Catholic Reporter

In this post, I expressed my support for the nuclear deal with Iran. I so appreciate these rabbis from the United States expressing their support, especially after the announcement by one of my US Senators, Charles Schumer, that he would oppose the deal. I hope the support of these rabbis will help him to change his mind.

340 US rabbis: ‘We support this historic nuclear accord’ | National Catholic Reporter.

Sunday blast from the past

…although “blast” may not be the right word.

It happens that the lectionary readings at church today contained two texts which I have set to music.

The Hebrew Scriptures reading from Proverbs chapter 9 contains part of the text I used in composing an anthem for the dedication of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Johnson City, NY and the Gospel reading from John chapter 6 is the basis for my piece “And I Will Raise Them Up,” which was also written for the choir at Blessed Sacrament.

It’s as though all that happened in another lifetime.

Ten years ago, the parish that I knew, loved, and served disintegrated.  A remnant of it existed for a while longer and eventually merged with a nearby parish. Its complex of buildings closed after a second devastating flood within five years. They have been sold to a nearby Christian college, which will eventually re-open the church as their chapel, although, as is common, the altar, stained glass windows, and other religious accouterments were removed before the building was sold.

Today, knowing that the tower windows are gone is especially poignant. I had chosen the texts for my anthem for the dedication of the renovated and expanded church building dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament based on those windows, which depicted three aspects of the Eucharist – nourishment, healing, and presence – using images from Hebrew Scriptures. The Proverbs text we heard today, in which Wisdom prepares and invites everyone to a feast, was the basis of the “nourishment” section and the source of the title, “Wisdom Has Built Herself a House.”

It was sung publicly only once, at the dedication of the church. It’s unlikely that it will ever be sung again. It exists only on mute, hand-written pages and as an echo in my memory.

Fitbit – getting started

When I was visiting my daughter E in Honolulu, her workplace started a new fitness program and gave them all new Fitbits. E already had a Fitbit Flex, which she offered to me and I gratefully accepted.

I waited to set it up until I had gotten through the jet lag and backlog of stuff I needed to deal with, so I’ve only been using it for a week and a half. Given that I haven’t been diligent about exercise for months and months, I decided to start with a modest step count, 5,000/day, only half of the default value of 10,000 steps.

In order to make my goal, I went back to walking while I talked with my mother on the phone every weekday morning. Coupled with evening walks with B and running errands, I have been making my step count, including one especially active day when I made it to 10,649!

Today has the potential to be the first day I don’t make my 5,000 step goal. I seem to have pulled a muscle in my thigh, genuflecting at church this morning. I went for a short walk with B, trying to stretch it out, but it just seemed to hurt more, so I came home and iced it.

I’ll have to see what becomes of my goal today and this week. I don’t want to make my leg heal more slowly by pushing too much.

Leave it to me to have a liturgical injury…

Evening update:  I did manage to get 5,000 steps in, albeit more slowly and over a greater time span. I’ll have to see how sore my leg is tomorrow to ascertain if I can make my goal or need to declare a rest day.

new follower record

Thanks to the combination of my SoCS post and my 500(ish) follower post, which was re-blogged by OM of HarsH ReaLiTy, I set a new record for followers on August 16: eight, breaking my old record of seven.

Thanks, everyone! Now I am up to 510!

500(ish) followers!

The most popular topic among bloggers is blogging! I admit that, while I read a lot of posts on blogging, I don’t often write one, but today I will because I have reached 500 followers for Top of JC’s Mind!

Or at least, 500ish. The numbers are a bit squishy. The number following through WordPress is 389 with email, Facebook, and twitter followers pushing the number up to 500. That means that some people who follow me on more than one platform are double or triple counted, but….

Let’s just say 500! Yay!

I want to take this opportunity to thank all my followers, especially those who visit regularly. There are even a few who comment regularly; thank you for keeping me from feeling as though I am talking to myself.

I also want to thank all the blogs I follow – all 750 of them. Some I get daily or weekly digest emails and visit frequently; others I don’t get to very often. You have all helped me to learn about blogging and gifted me with beauty, humor, poetry, stories, travelogues, photos, thought, and heart.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart and the Top of JC’s Mind,
Joanne

SoCS: the fight of the bumblebee

It’s not often that I run away from something – okay, it’s not often that I run, period – but this past week, I did.

I was out mowing the lawn, using our electric rechargeable lawn mower, which I convinced my husband to get a few years ago so I could help with the mowing. I had trouble even starting our gas-powered one and wanted a lawnmower with a smaller carbon footprint. So, while I don’t have decades of experience with lawn-mowing, I’m not totally new at it either.

While we live in a suburban-style neighborhood, we and many of our neighbors have more rural-style lawns, meaning that among the grasses there are other plants, some of which flower. Depending on the month, our lawn has wild strawberry blossoms, violets, creeping charlie, dandelions, clover, and other flowers blossoming. Where there are flowers, of course, there are bees and we are used to seeing them as we mow. They generally buzz away from the mower to find another flower that isn’t in its path, with bumblebees being the mellowest, just moseying slowly away.

I was really surprised, then, when a bumblebee came around the corner of our shed and headed straight at me. Startled, I ran away, even tripping and falling in my haste – and getting grass stains on my pants.

I felt sheepish about being chased away by a docile bumblebee and, determined to finish the little patch of lawn left, went back to the mower. After a couple more episodes of bumblebee-chasing, I realized that they were flying in and out from under the shed, which meant that they must have built a nest under it. By that point, I was almost done and was staying away from the shed, so I thought I was safe.

But, no.

One of the bumblebees, obviously upset by my continued presence, followed me back to the garage as I headed back to it to plug in the the mower, got under my shirt-sleeve, and stung me.

In the not-the-most-mature reaction, I screamed, batted it to the garage floor, and hurried inside the house. I called my husband and told him I was scared and didn’t know what to do. Because my mom is allergic to bee stings, I had grown up being scared of bees and had only been stung once by a yellowjacket when I was a child. My husband, on the other hand, has been stung many times over the years. He calmly told me to take a couple of benadryl and ice the sting. It was getting near time to come home, so he said he would leave and be there in a few minutes.

The ice helped with the pain and, when he arrived, he made sure there was no stinger in my arm. He looked up some information that confirmed that bumblebees, unlike some other species, don’t have barbed stingers, so, good news – the stinger doesn’t remain lodged in the victim but – bad news – they can sting multiple times without dying. They also are not aggressive unless they are defending a nest. Yup. Got that fact right, too.

I am all healed up now and none the worse for wear. I haven’t needed to go back out to mow, but, if I ever have to run away from a bee again, I’m not going to go back out and try to finish.

I learned my lesson.
*****
This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. The prompt this week was to build the post around a word that ended with “-ay.” Join us! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/08/14/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-1515/

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