My Slow Takes (Vol. 69)

1. College football scores, for my favorite teams. Richmond won over Villanova adding another victory to their win column; 4-2. Notre Dame dominated Miami bringing their record to 5-0.

2. Our men’s group started watching the Catholicism series narrated by Father Robert Baron. When he was talking about “The Teachings of Jesus,”   one of the readings he spoke about was from Matthew,

   “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Matthew 5:44,45.

We got into a discussion about who is your enemy. My thought was that today’s enemy is someone who doesn’t agree with you, someone who irritates you or just makes you feel uncomfortable. It can be a neighbor, a person at work or even church. We don’t have to hug them. Smile and say good morning or good afternoon when you see them. Someone has to start the process. Why not let it be you?

3. Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY writes about a study that claims the Protestant population in the United States has dropped from 53% in 2007 to 48%. They didn’t go anywhere, just stopped following or practicing a religion. What is growing are those who don’t have a “religious identity.” The study calls them, “Nones.” 

4. From BigLee’s blog, “Never paint your last model.” For those of us who paint miniatures and have a never ending collection of "unpainted lead."

5. My pet peeve this week is the “drive-through.” Never go through the drive-through, something always goes wrong. My wife doesn’t have this issue, just me. So when we went to pick up prescriptions for her Mom and her she said go to the drive through. 

“What is the name please?”
“Siracusa”
“Can you spell that?”      (Hm, can I spell? Yes, I can.)
“S-i-r-a-c-u-s-a”
“Date of birth”
“March 12, 1922”            (There is silence as she looks through the database.)
“I’ll be right back.”
A second person shows up.
“What is the name please?”
“Siracusa”
“Can you spell that?”      (Here we go again.)
“S, like Sam,-i-r-a-c-u-s-a”
“Date of birth”
“March, 1922”                   (There is silence as he looks through the database.)
“Found it”     
So the transaction is completed.Then I informed him we had a second prescription, different name ..... Yep, same process, name, date of birth, search the database and couldn’t find it. We left.

6. Me and our son Stephen at a wedding reception last month.

Photo By Dee

7. Dee and I are visiting assisted living facilities for her Mom. This is a new experience, time consuming but interesting. So, far we have talked to three communities and will finish the preliminary search by next week.