With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
September 23, 2009 - 12:18 p.m.
Let's see if I can write this fast enough to leave me time to get lunch and not feel rushed. I haven't managed that yet this semester. I have to bring peanut butter and bread to the office so I can just make it here and eat it while I write.
Before I forget, I never posted the slideshow of The Kennedys show on Sunday. Now on to new business. Yesterday I went shopping for the first time in what seemed like ages. I couldn't find any chicken on sale that was disappointing but I got many other goodies. My larder is stocked again. I also had some nice social interactions at Trader Joe's. I wore one of my Mets shirts. Joe, the free sample guy, said, "It takes courage to wear that." He is of course a Yankee fan. First we argued over the Mets then as a gesture of peace he added that he's a Jet fan too. Now we had common ground. We sat there chit chatting while he served customers and I drank the sample coffee. The Italian roast is buono.
When I went to check out the cashier made a crack about my shirt. I said he was the second one to give me grief he said, "You talked to Joe?" The cashier was actually a Met fan. He just didn't wear his colors. I do. It's easy to be a fan when things are going well. The true fans remain loyal when the team is losing.
I had a third sports conversation with a strange when I did my laundry. Someone else was down there when I was putting my clothes in the drier and he started the conversation even though I wasn't wearing my Met shirt by then. We talked mainly about the Knicks.
That's a great thing about sports. It can create bonds between strangers. It isn't just sports, it is pop culture. Part of why I read Harry Potter was to be able to take part in the conversations about it. I'm never going to be the person to get into something because everyone else does. I especially won't start watching TV shows because that's too much of a commitment of time. I'll never watch Reality TV no matter how popular a show is. I hate the genre. But it is worth sometimes seeing a film or reading a book because it is part of our culture even if there are other films or books I'd enjoy more.
Sports is something I feel passionately about and would watch even if it was obscure as quantum mechanics. I'm glad that I have one obsession that the world shares. It was great when Buffy was popular. That's something I was ahead of the curve on. I watched from the beginning because I loved it and only later did it become a water cooler topic.
For dinner I made something I hadn't made in a long time; Cajun steak. A package of eye round steaks was one of the things I bought. If you are a steak eater on a budget it's a great deal. I bought a pound and quarter for $6. That's 10 small steaks good for 5 meals. Here's how I make them. Yes it's recipe time again.
First I pound them with a tenderizing mallet. That's makes a cheap steak as tender as an expensive one. Then I brush them with olive oil. Butter is better but that means melting the butter first and washing whatever I melt it in so I just use the olive oil. It's also healthier. Then I cover it with Paul Prudhomme's Cajun beef spice. While I'm doing that I preheat either my cast iron skillet or my cast iron stove top grill. Make sure it's very hot when you start cooking. The steaks are thin and are fully cooked in about 3 minutes.
They taste amazingly good. I wasn't going to make the Cajun roasted potatoes with it but decided to not shun making everything Cajun. That was a good choice. I ended up dipping the potatoes in the Cajun spiced juices around the steaks and it made them even better. I loved the meal.
I even remembered to buy apple sauce and had that as an appetizer. As I said, I'm trying to get more fruit in my diet. I bought the Trader Joe's unsweetened apple sauce. The ingredients are just apples and water. I like mine with cinnamon so I sprinkled some in and mix it. I loved it.
Most people don't like their commute. I love mine. On the train I read and listen to my mp3 player. I then have about a half a mile walk to school. I enjoy that too. Today I went through Central Park even though it's a longer walk. It's worth it because it's so beautiful. I love all my routes. I can go by Carnegie Hall. I usually walk through Columbus Circle. No matter where I walk I love what I see and I love watching the people, dogs, and horses.
I get my breakfast at the cart a block north of my school. It's out of my way but all the ones on my way are gone since last semester. I don't know what happened to them. I don't really mind. It's only two extra blocks to walk. I always consider them my cart guys. I love watching them work. One takes the orders and the money and the other cooks the food. They mesh like clockwork. They take less than half the time of other carts.
My next stop is the school food service for my coffee. As a member of the faculty I get one third off the price. The coffee is better than the cart but not as good as Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks. Still it's good enough and I enjoy my conversation with the woman that works there. I feel bad because I don't know her name. I'll ask her on Friday. We always have a friendly exchange. She also gives me extra chocolate when I get a hot chocolate.
I did nothing special or meant for entertainment since my last entry yet I enjoyed myself. That's lucky. I don't always work that way but I love when I do. There are always wonders to be appreciated if you give them a chance.
It looks like I didn't finish early enough to get the lunch I wanted. Oh well. I'll be rushed again.
Sure it's Yom Kippur But I'm Atone Deaf - September 28, 2009
So Much Music So Little Time - September 27, 2009
Postcrypt Postscript - September 26, 2009
Fort no Piano - September 25, 2009
Ace Kree - September 24, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile September 23, 2009
