May the World Be Sealed for a Year of Peace.

I wanted to write about the beheading in Oklahoma, but the truth is the guy was a lone nut. Apparently, even the members of his mosque thought he was "a little weird." Yeah, like the Boston Bombers or the would-be beheaders in Australia, there are always gonna be nutty people who do this kind of stuff because they believe they're fulfilling some kind of prophecy. Biblically speaking, Jeremiah might have been considered one of those, or even Samuel who anointed David even though Saul was King of Israel. Religion does produce more than its fair share of lunatics and we can do little more than trust that most of them are not mass murderers. Can we not just give them what they want by putting them on the front page of every tabloid in the land? All they're doing is encouraging the next one. 

And I considered writing about the vitriolic campaigns ads already running in Minnesota. The hate is almost palpable. There is no debate. No civil discourse. It's just pointlessly evil. And I am so sick of the whole damn thing and it's not even October yet. The hate spewing out of the television is disheartening as much as it is disgusting. It's not like I believe any campaign has been anything but grotesque...

As a last resort, I thought about writing how I have finally ordered a new fridge (GE counter-depth French door made in the US) and a new double oven. My most beloved SubZero is dying and all the valiant attempts by Wolfe Appliance Repair to stave off the inevitable have failed. Sub is so old (25 + years) that the fixes for the problem I am experiencing don't exist for my model..only for the model two years newer. I cannot imagine my kitchen without the beloved behemoth, but alas, I will have to learn NOT to yank the door open because it has hermetically sealed itself. Again. And I confess, I won't miss the ice explosion every time I open the freezer. As for the ovens, they have served well, and now, there is a short somewhere back there that keeps blowing up the oven light bulbs and my appliance parts guy who's been walking me through oven maintenance these last few years said, "One day, yer gonna turn it on and it's gonna smell real bad. Turn it off. It's over." Well, they haven't smelled bad yet but as long as I'm shelling out on kitchen updating, I may as well replace the ovens while I'm at it. And no, they are not convection ovens. What strikes me as odd in this scenario is that I actually did it. I've been talking about this long enough, but tomorrow evening, I will sign off on the new floor. 25 years of Armstrong's defective floor is about to end. Whatever will it be like to have a kitchen floor that actually looks clean? 

The truth is I don't feel much like writing about any of it. My father-in-law is fading faster than he anticipated. Tonight was not a great night. I am prepared as can be for a variety of events, but the truth is that you can never really be prepared.Just let him make it long enough to hold his great grandchild. 

And on a semi-related note, this is the week between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, that time of year when we take a rather critical self-inventory to see where we stand against our own yardsticks. 

This year, I worked really hard at not doing egregiously stupid stuff. And except for a couple of notable exceptions, I pretty much succeeded. I also worked hard on vetting before commenting. The overall effect is to decrease the size of my own moronic footprint. I don't ever want to be the kind of commentator I detest. I want to voice my own opinions in my own voice, but not at the expense of truth.

So, if you have disagreed with me, that's okay, but I have pissed you off this past year, I am sorry. I can only promise that, in this new year, 5775, will vet more, research more, and, write better jokes. It's the best I can do.

The Wifely Person's tip o'the year

Wishing everyone G'mar chatima tova ...

May you be sealed in the Book of Life for a good year. 

And may the world be sealed for a year of peace.