May the Sneer Be With You: The Weekly Hodgepodge



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From This Side of the Pond 

for the Hodgepodge link-up!

Can you tell I'm embracing a Cinco de Mayo theme here this week? Do you like Mexican food? What's your favorite dish? How about on the side-black beans, pinto beans, refried beans, rice? What about heat-mild, medium, hot? Will you celebrate with Mexican food and drink on May 5th aka Cinco de Mayo?

Since I've never been to Mexico, I've never had authentic Mexican food.  I am, however, a big fan of Americanized Mexican food and medium salsa.  We have a restaurant in nearby Jacksonville called Baja California Grill, where the food is scrumptious.  My favorite dish from there is called Pollo Rico:  a sautéed chicken breast surrounded by rice, salad, and a side of guacamole.  My second favorite is their Raquel Salad:  a combination of grilled chicken and steamed vegetables poured over a bed of lettuce.  I'm licking my eyebrows just thinking about it.

Ever been to Mexico? For work or holiday? Love it or no? If you haven't been is this a place you'd like to visit? Can you speak Spanish?

No, I've not had the privilege (or budget) to visit Mexico, but hope to some day.  I used to speak Spanish fairly well, but I've lost a lot of it due to lack of practice.  It frustrates me because we have customers for whom Spanish is their native language and I can't comfortably converse.  That something I would like to work on.

What's one thing you may accomplish this month?

Finishing a lesson in the Bible Correspondence Course I've been working on.  I'm sending my latest test in today and hoping for a good grade.  I got an 88% on my last test and wasn't happy.

If you were mayor of your village, city, or town, what's one thing you'd like to see changed, done away with, revamped, or accomplished? Is serving in public office something you've ever seriously considered?

I don't think I'm cut out for politics.  BUT, If I were mayor of Weaver, Alabama, I'd be more communicative and accessible to my constituents.  I've lived in Weaver for three years now and wouldn't know the mayor if he came up and slapped me in face.   The only encounter I've had with any member of the city council was one person who also "served" the local Lion's Club.  Trust me, that experience didn't give me faith that he was capable of walking across the street, much less helping to run a city's government.  I would also unlock the bathrooms in the city park and set up a system of monitoring to keep the bathrooms clean and vandals out.  In fact, I think that I and the city council members should be first in line to take turns monitoring and cleaning.  I could go into making sure our infrastructure projects aren't halfway done then left untouched for months and months, making sure that Weaver Elementary is included in Read Across America, and stop saying that citizens of who have a Weaver address and pay taxes and utilities to the city of Weaver aren't part of the City of Weaver when the city doesn't want to do something they're supposed to do, but...

What's something that may be popular, but that you just don't get?

A lot of what's being passed around as music.  I know, I sound like an old fart and every generation goes through this, but I'm willing to give new music a shot if there's real musicianship and effort involved.  I don't consider a autotuned voice wailing obscenities accompanied by a $12 drum machine music.

Can't let this week slip by without mentioning Thursday May 4th is Star Wars Day. As in 'May the 4th be with you' ahem. Are you a fan of the Star Wars series? Exactly how much of a fan are you? On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being 'I've seen every film, own the action figures, might have dressed as Darth Vader for Halloween one year', and 1 being, 'what's a Vader?' -where do you land?

Hmm...I'm around a five, I guess.  I thoroughly enjoyed the original trilogy and have no plans to see the newer incarnations.  Plus, I actually like Star Trek better than Star Wars. 

Scroll back through your blog posts and in three sentences or less tell us the general theme of your fourth blog post. Does it still ring true today? Is it a topic you re-visit on your blog from time to time?

It was a Simple Woman's Daybook done around the time I'd gone to a mind-blowing worship conference with my home church's worship team.  I was in the throws of making some pretty drastic changes in my life--starting the blog being one of them.  I don't regret the changes; I only regret the melancholy that surrounded them.

Insert your own random thought here.

Speaking of changes...

On axiom of life, or as Gretchen Rubin calls them "secrets of adulthood" is to surround oneself with positive people who uplift our lives, rather than naysayers who can never see the bright side of anything.  I've had to do a lot of that this year and it concerns my running.

This was, and still is, to be the year that I do complete more miles than ever.  The most I've ever done was 434 miles back in 2015.  I've already walked/ran more than 200, so I'm on track.  However, at the start of the year, I made the unfortunate mistake of telling someone from our runners club my goals.  She wasn't simply discouraging; she was downright insulting.  She literally sneered at me and said, "A little ambitious, don't you think?"  Then she proceeds to tell me about a friend of hers who has a "bit of a belly," as she calls it, who posts a great deal of miles that she doesn't think is possible for this person.  In so many condescending sentences, she basically told me that I was too fat to meet my goals, and even if I did, she'd tell everyone in the club I was lying.  What am I supposed to do with that?   This kind of elitist attitude makes me question paying $15.00 a year to be a part of a club that doesn't seem to think I'm good enough to be there.  For now, I wisely hid my hurt and I avoid talking to this person about my health goals at all (or much of anything else for that matter).  At the end of the year, I'll seriously reevaluate whether the runner's club is even worth it. 

I'm not even going into what was said to me by the local Black Girls Run group about a different matter that related to running.  Fortunately, getting rid of that catty-minded discouragement only took a mouse click and no loss of funds.

I wish I could start my own group.