Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall

Book Report: Behave!

It feels like it took me forever to read the 2017 best-selling nonfiction book, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, by Robert M. Sapolsky. It’s not that I didn’t find the book absolutely fascinating, because I sure did! It’s just those sneaky book club books and the book about restoring old houses kept slowing me down. And it is a BIG book.

It’s a very thick book. Held up well through three months of traveling with me.

It’s close to 800 pages long, so there’s a lot to read. Luckily the main part of Behave! is “only” 675 or so pages of small print with even smaller print footnotes (that you have to read, because some of them are really funny). Since the book covers a lot of neuroanatomy, chemistry, biology, and brain structure, it was kind of Sapolsky to include three pretty clear (considering the subject matter) appendices to introduce readers who didn’t happen to major in any of these disciplines with some background.

There are lots and lots of footnotes, too. Get out your magnifying glasses.

Hey, now, don’t quit reading just because it’s a long book with a bunch of science talk in it. It’s also a book with lots of interesting insights about humans and other animals, funny stories, and answers to plenty of age-old questions. Really, this is one of the most interesting science books I ever read, which should be obvious since I got it in January but kept picking it back up to slog through more of it when the distractions were over.

Here are some of the topics covered, at least in the first half of the book.

Sapolsky makes understanding how our brain processes external stimuli to come up with a reaction, how different parts of our brain lead us to feeling and acting in certain ways, and how darned fast it all works. Toward the end of the book he gets into my favorite topics: why we humans are so Us versus Them oriented and whether we have “free will” or not. Oooh, it’s pretty deep.

We get to meet all sorts of scientists and philosophers who have worked to figure out how human activities work, plus we learn about all kinds of animals that do or don’t share characteristics with us. Sapolsky knows a LOT about baboons, that’s for sure.

I’m gonna recommend this book to any of you who enjoy reading about science and have at least a little more than a lay-person’s understanding of chemistry, biology, and neuroscience. If you aren’t a science type, the appendixes will prepare you for the rest of the book. And even if your mind starts to glaze over at all the names of chemicals and regions of the brain, you will still enjoy the stories and descriptions of research.

Some of us have a lot of time on our hands (while others of us are even busier than usual, so I’m not referring to you), so it might be a good time to lose yourself in a book that provides a LOT of insight into how we ended up in the divided society we’re in now. It’s fascinating.

PS: I just thought you’d enjoy a couple of wildflowers from the ranch. That’s because nature helps us keep calm. I’m reading about that in my NEXT book!

A Pope House Milestone

When you are renovating a large house with a very small team, it can seem like you’re just not making progress. That’s why there was a big smile on Chris’s face this morning when he declared that the first two offices are as done as they can be until the electrical stuff gets hooked up.

This lovely office now stores the wood for the rest of the trim and shims.

Both Kathleen’s office and Lee’s are all trimmed out and all painted. Wow. The hallway is done other than the ceiling, too.

On to the Next Phase

The guys have now moved on to the main office and my office. Everything that was in them has been cleared out and either taken to the ranch for storage or stored in Lee’s office on stacks of cardboard, to protect the flooring. A lot of trash went away yesterday, too.

Already today Chris and Easton got the primer painted on the ceilings in the two offices. When I first looked at them, I thought they’d already painted them the pale blue, but no, that’s gray primer.

They are getting ready to apply some trim, once the ceilings are done, but I think the trim along the floor won’t happen until the floor refinishing project is done. That’s going to be exciting.

They also moved all the bathroom stuff into my little bathroom, other than the bathtub. It’s heavy. At least with the toilet and sink out of it, we could turn it over to get measurements for replacement feet.

Big Bertha has had a hard life, but she gets to stay!

We’re pretty sure that with just a couple simple tools and some paint,we will be able to get that old tub up and running, at least for the limited amount of use we plan to put it to!

What? I Should Look at the Calendar More Often

Aha! I’ve been so busy dealing with the state of the world and the state of my job that I forgot to look at the calendar to see that I totally missed our “blog-a-versary” on April 11! While I’ve been blogging a LONG time, off and on, it’s just TWO YEARS for The Hermits’ Rest blog.

Be glad this doesn’t have sound. I can’t play piano and I can no longer sing!

While I’ve not become a super influencer or celebrity blogger, I’ve enjoyed creating a community of frequent readers and have enjoyed getting to know some fellow WordPress bloggers, which has been a surprising benefit. Enjoy some stats:

We’re coming up on 27,000 hits in the past two years. Not a lot, but not bad.

According to the stats in the sidebar, 933 people follow the blog. I did not believe that until I finally figured out where all those people came from, which is social media. I figured out that Social is a combination of my Facebook and Twitter followers. Ah.

Ups, Downs, and In-Betweens

Life is rolling along here in scenically rural Milam County, Texas. And its population is getting sicker. There are only 25,000-ish people in this county, so our ten COVID-19 cases are a lot. It was NOT good news to find out yesterday that one person who got sick worked at the local Dairy Queen. We’ve gotten take-out from there during our confinement.

Oops. This has led Kathleen to declare that we bring lunches from home from now on. No one has disagreed.

Now, an important point to make here is that we have the best Dairy Queen possible here. It’s in a modern, new building. It’s clean. They pay well above minimum wage and have employees who’ve been there many years. The staff have all been briefed on precautions to take. And the owner, Robert Mayfield, immediately closed the store so that they can disinfect it from top to bottom and be sure that it’s safe (and that the workers there have a chance to quarantine and stay safe, themselves).

An example of Judge Young’s weekly newspaper articles.

Our County Judge, Steve Young, has been doing a heroic job going on the radio, doing Facebook Live, and otherwise staying in touch with the people here, urging them to not gather in large groups, wear masks if working with the public or out in public, and to stay the heck home. We’re all really proud of the work he and our Health Department are doing.

But, it takes actual cooperation to prevent the spread of disease. No one at the hardware store, serving the public, was wearing a mask this morning. No one at the gas station where I got fuel this morning was wearing a mask or gloves other than me. I am NOT gonna touch a credit card machine with my hands! I also have a very clean credit card now.

It’s good to have your own company hand sanitizers spread everywhere you go, so you can clean your credit cards and such.

I know Cameron is not alone. There are people everywhere who believe themselves immortal or invulnerable or just don’t give a shit who are wandering around like nothing has changed. Now, I’m not referring to people who have no access to masks or gloves and have to be out so their families don’t starve; I know isolation and protection is a privilege. I’m talking about people who feel perfectly comfortable putting other people’s lives in danger by their choices. Who knows how many innocent folks with underlying conditions that predispose them to having a bad case of the virus these people will kill in the name of their personal freedom?

Happy thoughts, yeah.

I Said There Would Be Some “Ups” in This Post

Yes, I did. I was looking at myself on Zoom yesterday (it’s hard NOT to look at yourself) and realized I looked as bad as I felt. So, last night I re-colored my hair for the first time since early March. It’s now orange with some pink highlights. (My next hair appointment isn’t for another month, at least, so plenty of time to wash out color by then.)

I put on makeup and lipstick today, added my sparkly yellow shoes, and I donned my new Hearts Homes and Hands lab coat. I look all professional and up-beat, and I’m hoping that will spread to my mood and attitude. So far, it’s helped. If I have to take things one step at a time, at least they will be sparkly steps!

Here you can see my lab coat. It reminds me of the one I had in grad school to keep chalk off my clothes, just like my mentor, Georgia, wore.

A Little Pope News That’s In-Between

Chris is really close to getting the first two offices completely done, other than installing the barn door between them. He has been working on trim all week. There is a LOT involved in doing trim, which is sorta sad, since when it’s well done, it blends into the background.

The doorway between the two rooms will NOT blend into the background. It’s darned bright and cheerful, especially on Lee’s side!

Another thing that is taking a while is that they have to make dozens and dozens of shims to go behind the metal to trim windows on the tin walls. And, well, the house isn’t all level, so many shims are needed elsewhere. Easton spent an entire day cutting shims. Now, that sounds fun. Or does it?

Without shims, this trim would stick out from the wall, because the metal has bump-outs.

The plan is to get the remaining two rooms all cleaned up and move the supplies needed to finish the rest of the downstairs over there. We can’t paint the ceilings or refinish the floors if there are wood and tools all over the place!

So…even though we remain sort of dazed and confused, my plan is to dazzle with my shiny hair, shoes, watch band…anything cheerful!

One Day at a Time

That’s how I’m getting by right now. How about you? I celebrated finishing that 40-day project by not writing anything yesterday. I was blissfully involved in a work project that takes all my concentration and passes time quickly, which was a real relief, but left no time for blogging here. Everyone needs an occasional break.

I’ll just keep fiddling while the boat goes down. At least the sunset’s pretty.

As if the days didn’t blur together badly enough these days, I’m in a holding pattern on lots of things right now. Just taking one step at a time is not only all I’m able to do, but the right thing to do right now. I’ll get back to figuring out the future plans and options later, when my head’s clearer (all my stuff is just related to various jobs and their various stresses, nothing horrible).

Randomness and Birds

It’s been nice to have Kathleen doing “stress cooking.” I like it when someone cooks to take their mind off things. She made me the best baked chicken on a bed of collard greens last night. I truly love collard greens (weird southern girl thing), and these may be the best I ever ate. I’m so grateful that she and Chris are here helping me and Lee out right now.

The spring air is making everyone sniffly here, but it’s really been nice to see what kinds of creatures are doing their regular things. My friend Donna, who is not a tech person, wrote a little blog on this topic, if you want some more nice photos. I’m really happy to see her getting out of her comfort zone.

I’m not sure what kind of moth this little guy will grow up to be, but wow, what a pretty caterpillar!

In fact, just this morning I was thrilled to see that bluebirds are nesting in the dead tree by the road again this year. There used to be woodpeckers in there, so I guess they made a nice house. The phoebes are nesting in our garage and spend most of their days screeching PHOEBE at each other and eating bugs. They are a lot of fun to watch.

The phoebes ate dozens of bugs while I was on the phone at my ranch office last evening.

The bug population is doomed around the Hermits’ Rest, or at least less awful than it could be, thanks to the handy birds. The scissortails are back at work, and there’s nothing prettier than watching a male go after a bug. The swallows are in full force, as well as those phoebes. I watch the little sparrows go after bugs every afternoon when I go feed the horses. Just think how many mosquitoes and other bugs we’d have after all this rain if we didn’t have our avian buddies!

Producing pollen this week is the prickly ash. Go tree, go!

Today I’ll head out and see what new is blooming. I’ve seen a couple of winecups, and we have our eyes on the dewberries. Yum. Back to basics. It’s good for you.

Share your coping mechanisms if you wish!

Why Is the Anticipation Always Worse than the Actual Thing?

That’s today’s question. I’ve spent the entire weekend stewing about stuff at my job. It has given me nightmares (hey, a change from pandemic nightmares!), made my stomach upset, made me cranky, and generally took away from enjoying the family and holiday. Plus, there is a situation at the OTHER job that’s making us all cranky, and no one’s enjoying the thought of the hard conversations it’s going to require.

I guess I need a pep talk. This is me giving myself a pep talk. You don’t have to read it.

You’d think I’d do better. I’ve lived long enough to know perfectly well that usually anticipating big changes, hard conversations, transitions, and the like is worse than actually DOING the dreaded thing. But, my body is not listening to my mind one bit. My mind keeps saying, “Be a big girl, you’ll be fine and all will work out,” and my favorite, “When one door closes another door opens.”

Bodies make it hard to fake it until you make it sometimes, when they keep showing stuff.

My body says, “Here’s another fun nightmare to remind you how you REALLY feel,” and “Have some chest pains, why don’t you?”

I need to be there listening and being there for my colleagues in both my jobs, not wallowing around in my own self-pity and irritation at how things are. That’s easier said than done, when I’m sitting alone in my office, which happens to smell awful thanks to the kitchen drain pipes. (This coming after sleeping right next to Penney the Skunky Dog.) And it’s not helping that you can’t have any hugs, in-person private talks, or happy hours to let off some steam.

Support helps, and no doubt my colleagues and I will help each other get through yet another round of challenges at both my workplaces. When you have to do a hard thing, it’s better with the help of others. You can remind each other that usually people think they’re doing the right thing and want the best for each other (even corporate executives?).

At least I’m not having to have a hard conversation with one other person, which happened with me and a family member last week. You have no backup in those cases! But of course, the anticipation was worse than the actual conversation. We all need to remember that mistakes and misunderstandings happen all the time, but having a foundation of trust and a belief that all parties are trying to do the right thing makes a really big difference.

And at least I have one dog who only stinks a LITTLE.

Assume good intent. That’s one of my biggest rules for life. This week, I am going to have to test that out many times. Sending YOU all my best!

Rejoice! We Survived the Night. Today Is Glorious.

Yeah, it was a long night here. We are rejoicing to be here and making Easter dinner. And rejoice is, predictably, the final UU Lent word.

It started around 9 pm, when Chris and Kathleen were sitting on the front porch with the dogs. Carlton and Penney suddenly took off. There were barks, then a yelp, and they came back. Penney was rolling around. She’d been skunked.

Then everyone ran around trying to keep her off the furniture. Kathleen bathed her in ketchup, which was really nice of her. Carlton only stank a little. He’s so fast he can avoid skunk spray.

Don’t Put a Paintbrush in My Hand when I Have No Agenda

Today I toddled off to the Pope Residence to see how I could help Chris. I knew I had to paint another coat on the second floor porch door and use paint thinner to get the rest of the paint off the stained glass over the front door.

I got the door done but really didn’t feel like scraping yet, so I finished my project of creating a little anteroom out of the former scary upstairs kitchen.

Here’s the other window I finished scraping putty off.

It was fun. I ripped the remnants of the extra-flimsy sheet vinyl from the floor and finally got all the broken glass and other odd detritus off the floor. It made getting to the porch dangerous.

The wood floor may be ugly, but the cracked vinyl and glass were dangerous.

Next, I “cleaned” the pink Formica counters. They are marginally less filthy. I sprayed some Windex on the old sink in there and it got a lot cleaner! I think we can actually re-use it!

Wait, you say, that looks disgusting! But it was way worse. I think it will clean up!

I looked down. There was my can of paint. I proceeded to do perhaps the worst paint job any cabinets have ever received. No prep work, no taping things off, nope. I just slapped paint on them. You could say it’s cheerful.

You could also say it’s ugly, but I put a bench and folding chair in there (to store our cushions during rain), and added a fine mirror and wall decor thing. The final touch is two puppy chia pets that I’m lucky Lee didn’t throw away when he was disposing of some stuff yesterday.

Well. I was more successful with my paint scraping I did after lunch. And Chris is putting in floor trim.

I don’t think they’ll turn me loose with red paint and no set agenda again! I don’t blame them!

Who Is NOT Experiencing Anticipation?

Sure, the UU Lent word for today is anticipation, because it’s the traditional day when Christians anticipate the culmination of the passion/story/tradition of Easter. But really, who isn’t anticipating a lessening of the very necessary restrictions we are dealing with right now? More on that later.

First, it’s still spring. Resurrection is all around us. Here in Cameron, lilies are blooming everywhere, butterflies are making their appearance, and the birds and bees are everywhere (especially when I’m trying to drink a beverage on the new patio break area we made).

Mrs. Finch is annoyed that Chris and I are watching her work on the nest. She’s also anticipating those little chirpers.

I keep coming back to it, but anticipation of the familiar, regular, slow and sure changing of the seasons has been really helpful to me the past month or two. Be sure to look out and see what’s changing outside your window – it can help.

What ARE We Anticipating?

I’ve been idly wondering (okay, maybe not so idly wondering) what’s coming up in the next few months. This morning I read two articles that hit me like a big ole brick wall from across the street at the Pope Residence.

First, Kathleen shared this article from the Houston Chronicle about the phases of coping with the pandemic. Gerald Parker says we’re in Phase 2, mitigation, but there are two more phases to come that are just different kinds of mitigation. Next will be containment, where we start things back up a bit, but remain cautious, since we will not yet have a vaccine, but hopefully will have better treatment. We will be much more careful about sanitation and isolating sick people

This is how I feel right now. That all these invisible things are swarming around me. I also was splattered with paint yesterday when I made this.

Once there is a vaccine for people who believe in such things, the virus will be much less prevalent, but never go away, just like the flu that comes every year and kills people. That will be the new normal, according to Parker, anyway.

I thought it was a little discouraging, but my friend Jean, who has a background in such things, has another perspective:

Actually, it is kind of encouraging. We’ve been executing a plan for this and it’s on schedule. I may not like it, but this contingency has been planned for, some of the problems we are seeing were recognized as such but not acted on (not surprising by the way — I was responsible for our organization’s shelter in place plan before I retired, and there were things I knew we weren’t ready for because it was fiscally not feasible to do), but our national strategy is working. Had we not had a workable plan for this, we would be in a far worse place now.
Jean Schara of Philosophical Meanderings, Too

I’m glad to read this other perspective. It makes me feel like we’re all helping.

Next, let’s talk about spin. Here’s an article that has been shared all over my Facebook today, which pessimistically predicts that as soon as we are all out of our homes and those extremely creepy commercials about how companies love us in our confinement are over, the advertising/marketing engine will gear up to try to get us to forget all this ever happened. Talk about Orwellian dystopia coming to life. Argh.

Let’s take a break and watch some streaky clouds. They look like they’re in a hurry to get out of Cameron. I don’t blame them.

The author, Julio Vincent Gambuto, calls it the ultimate gaslighting (and let me tell you, as someone who experiences it often, I do NOT like gaslighting). He predicts we’ll be hearing how all the things we are directly experiencing right now will be minimized. This gives me the shivers. I am not sure this will actually happen to the extent Gambuto claims it will (after all, the article is on Medium.com, which does not fact check), but now that I know about the possibility, I’ll be anticipating it and keep my eyes and ears open for marketing gaslighting.

Well, let’s change the subject. I anticipate the end of UU Lent tomorrow. I’ll have to think of my own topics! Don’t worry. I can do it.

The result of yesterday’s painting and scraping is ALL the matching doors are now a matching color.

By the way, I said I’d write about something today, but I decided not to, since it had to do with corporate practices, and I currently work for a corporation. I’ll follow their social media guidelines like a good corporate citizen and go paint, scrape, and clean some more.

There’s Always Something to Be Grateful For

Yes, today’s word is gratitude. You knew that one was coming, right. Those of us working on our attitudes are told by all our self-help books, tapes to keep gratitude journals, because it actually makes us feel better at a brain chemistry level. I know my spouse does it every day and it’s been really good for him.

I don’t write a gratitude journal, but I’ve been practicing just “noticing” where I am and what is going on, often through the day. This just leads to gratitude welling up in me. Corny as it may seem, I’m often just grateful for the privilege of being here on this earth, able to live and continue to learn every day.

Just noticing where I was. Grateful for the ever-entertaining ducks of Cameron.

Today, I awoke from the first decent sleep I’ve had in a while, looked out at my chickens, who got through a pretty bad storm last night, and was glad to see that my sadness of the past few days had moved on to a new phase. The first song I heard this morning said it well:

Let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day
Raglan Road, Irish folk song

I’m practicing being grateful even for the stumbling blocks and unexpected changes life brings, which I’ll talk about more in the next post. Right now, I just want to share how grateful I am for my support system, including these precious beings, who have really improved their behavior lately.

Lee is ready for when we are allowed to open our office and need to wear scrubs!

And I’m grateful for my family and close friends (thanks Anita and Mike) for listening to my vents yesterday. I feel very well cared for, with Chris sharing his stories of similar things in his life, and Lee jumping right into lists for planning our future. With this network of support, I’ll get by.

We all deserve a support network when things get weird, and by gosh, things are weird for everyone right now, and lots of us have other things piling on top of the isolation. If I can EVER be a listening ear for YOU, I’m here. I want to pay forward the kindnesses for which I am so grateful.

Your thoughts are always welcome, friends.