THE HUNTING GROUND

I WANT TO BE ORGANIZED AND NEAT! Every summer I swear that I am going to make it happen. And every night I dream and visualize  the things I'm going to do the next day to get all in order. I think of what I will get rid of, and how I won't answer the phone or go anywhere until the job is done. I think about the Life Changing Magic. I envision tasks long undone that I will now complete. It seems so doable from the comfort of my bed. And then I get up. Same old dreary whatever. Shower curtain rod hanging loose never to be repaired. Inside of medicine cabinet needing to be refreshed, probably also never to be done. I suck it up - can't change what you can't change - smile and go make the other changes! Shower get dressed, feeling good about it still. Go downstairs. Oh. Birds need cage changing and feeding. OK. That just takes a minute. Finally get to the kitchen. Always hoping that the counters will be clear and clean like I left them the night before. Nope. (Be careful what you wish for goes through my mind at this time.) Hmmm. Might as well get the kitchen back so it will be pleasant while I eat breakfast. And it only takes a minute. Now I'm hungry although I wasn't going to eat before getting at least one of those long dreamed of tasks complete. No newspaper. Go outside, day is BEAUTIFUL! sunny and temperate. Maybe when a task is done I can treat myself to an hour or so to read at the beach. I bought the pass and parking again this year, and it won't pay for itself unless I use it at least 6 or 7 times. Get the newspaper, recycle the plastic, back into the kitchen, get breakfast, sit at the counter and eat and read the Chicago Tribune. 

The Hunting Ground - When Lady GaGa sang her new song Til It Happens to You (click on the title to see the video) at the Grammy Awards show this year, I learned that she co-wrote the song with Diane Warren for this movie. The Hunting Ground is any college campus where young women are in danger of being raped by their fellow students. In the movie we learn that this is a huge and widespread problem that has for years been covered up by the colleges and universities in order to protect their reputations and therefore the huge donations they receive from alumni. It was amazing to me to learn that female university leaders have been complicit in this - the boys are believed and the girls are left to feel unheard and disrespected and shunted around a system that wants them to go away. This movie finally puts the problem front and center. The system has to be turned around. It started at Stanford when they expelled a star scholarship swimmer recently. But it hasn't turned around in our court system. The swimmer received a six month sentence because the swimmer, his father, and the judge felt that he'd suffered enough by being expelled, called out, named and put in the spotlight for his actions. All about the boy and not the girl. Again, the victim disrespected. There is so much that can be done and finally the tide might be turning. Our Vice President Joe Biden weighed in on this issue almost like no other. (Click on his name to see some of his remarks.) No means No. It's got to stop. 

Sometimes, like today, before I go downstairs, I come into my currently disastrous office to write on my blog. Over the years, it's sometimes a chore, never unpleasant, but another thing to do. I keep at it though. It's like a constancy and it doesn't let me down. I love reading and the blog has become a record and memory of what I've read, and, I think who I was. And am. When that happens, I usually never get back on track. For some reason writing the blog drains me. It's not easy to put your heart on your sleeve.
However, back to sitting at the counter with the Trib. That starts anywhere from 9:00 am to noon. I sit there and read and grab my iPad to check email or to look up something referenced in the paper. I'll look at my desk and do some straightening. I'll remember a short time sensitive desk type task and complete it. Finally I'll finish that damn Tribune. The time? I don't even want to admit that it's often 4:00. OK, still 3 or 4 hours of daylight. Go upstairs, do some ironing to get it out of the way. Can't concentrate on a big task, so call someone and go for a beach walk or arrange a sunset sail happy hour which Steve is always happy to do at the spur. 
And today. Friday. It's already 1:30. ouch. It's gorgeous outside. There were lawn mowers and compressors going for awhile, which is very annoying because we have no air conditioning and love to have the windows open in the summer time. For the moment it's purely quiet. Kids next door (there are 60 or 70 of them I think) haven't started playing in their yard with balls that sail over our fence all summer and now there is a trampoline. I love the quiet, but don't mind the happy voices, occasional swears, and the balls over the fence are a great reminder that young ones are having a carefree and fun summer. I can hear the birds chirping, Pretty Bird has taken to messing up the plastic on the bottom of her cage, and the Little One has been flying over there, crawling in and eating Pretty Bird's food. So when I go down now, I've got to do the birds, see what's doing in the kitchen, (I can hear Steve down there and he's set himself up a new pile of mess at the kitchen counter in front of his fish tank and the TV) oh, and it must have been lunch time for the workers, because the air compressor is back with a really awful sound pattern going. I'm going to power through it all, though, and hope to complete the last three back cushions to the sofa on the porch. That is happening in the dining room and upstairs sewing room. If I could do that, it would be really good. The porch isn't great this year because I didn't give it the big cleaning, and the succulents are everywhere and the area rug I put in there is too small. So basically, there is not one place in this entire house that is in order at this moment. And with that I leave you. The thought of all is too much to bear. See how the blog drains me?