Good morning.
*Please forgive the grammatical errors. As per usual blogs sometimes take a few days to type as I get older and tire more easily. Unfortunately, it's things like what I'm about to tell you next that aid in my exhaustion.
It finally happened.
Someone I used to work with back in 2017-2019 was recently detained by ICE in Georgia. His American name is Sonny. His sister posted his arrest detainment on FB. From what I understand Sonny and his family were visiting South Carolina and for whatever reason he was singled out and detained by ICE agents in a Georgia airport, which is shocking to me since I thought, from the brief conversations Sonny and I had at work, he was born and raised in CA. He's Filipino and his whole family has names like Kahn Souphanousinphone (the neighbor on KING OF THE HILL) yet it was only Sonny that was detained at the airport. I'm not wise on how ICE collects data on who they're going to detain but it's shocking to me that not only was Sonny detained but that he was the only one in his family detained, not that I want his whole family detained by ICE but you get what I mean. Do I know Sonny well, no, not really, we never hung out socially, but in the two+ years we worked together he was just a shy hard working Filipino kid, to me anyway. In playing devil's advocate, our employer at the time, Mine and Sonny's, hiring manager was known to hire illegal aliens, particularly Mexicans and Filipinos, to work for the company. When the hiring manager moved on to another company she made me an offer to come work for her at the new company which I accepted. I left our old company with her for this new one, and just like at the old company this hiring manager once again hired a bunch of illegal Mexicans to work for her. This hiring manager is white but she speaks fluent Spanish. I left her employment all together in 2022'ish after which she received a visit from ICE at the work place - to no one's surprise but her apparently and they detained some of her employees. In response to the raid this hiring manager taped up an FU sign against ICE explaining why the restaurant had temporarily closed. We, her legal employees, all told her in 2022 she has to stop hiring undocumented people. We all knew the potential shift forthcoming in the White House. We all predicted it. And now we all see the current racism coming out of the White House. We predicted it! Back then, we, her legal employees, all told this hiring manager to stop hiring illegal Mexicans because of what we predicted would happen, or at the very least help the undocumented become documented while in her employ, but no, she ignored all of us and hired not only undocumented people, homeless people too. That was the end for me, the homeless people. I'm not going to work for an employer who would rather risk her entire staff in order to break the law rather than do the right thing and protect her hard working (legal) employees. What happened to Sonny at the Georgia airport was predictable. It was predictable back in 2022. Be that as it may, I don't understand how ICE agents nabbed Sonny. Only him? I guess he flew with his passport. Thinking out loud, if Sonny had a REAL ID that would mean he's legal, right? I mean, that's why we all got real ID's to prove our citizenship, right? And again, I don't know Sonny outside of working together for two+ years but he just never struck me as a troublemaker. If the only offense Sonny committed was just being illegal, not having committing any crimes or anything violent, then I feel for him and his family. I just don't understand how ICE are nabbing people. And while I would love to help Sonny any way I can, I simply don't have enough information about his detainment adding to the fact we haven't spoken to one another since 2019 - we're now only FB friends, barely at that.
(sigh) This White House administration is exhausting.
I know people who insist, "Oh no, it could never happen to someone I know. It's all a big show. Trump will nab a few hundred people for the cameras and stop. ICE detainment isn't something that will ever happen to anyone I know."
Wrong.
It happened to someone I know, someone I worked with, only not to the person/people I thought it would happen to.
shoving your head in the sand doesn't make ICE detainment any less real.
Release the Epstein files unredacted!
Back to my original blog opening:
Summer finally arrived in the desert and with it human bugs. Because of the observed epic downfall of men in recent years, stealing from women has become an all too common "job" among our male counterparts particularly among males 18-49. I rent a room in a house and for the past three months I used to be able to get up and go pee in the middle of the night as we old people do without having to lock my bedroom door, but for the last few weeks I've had to lock my bedroom door just to pee ever since the last two males checked in to the rooms across the hall from me. Since they checked in, whenever I returned from the bathroom which is right next door to my bedroom, someone clearly tried logging onto my cell phone and laptop. One time they even left my bedroom door wide open. Now I have to annoyingly lock my bedroom door and remember to put the door key in my pocket before going to the bathroom at 1am. One of the guys even took his bedroom door key with him when he checked out for the weekend only to return the following Monday. I imagine he copied the door key. So much for security for the next person renting the room. And don't even get me started on their horrible lack of bathroom hygiene. Wash your hands, fellas!
So many men don't even try any more. They rather steal personal identities, steal cash, credit cards, whatever they can steal rather than get a job. My brother who's five years older than me found work no problem, but me, a 56 year old woman, I have to go back to school and learn a new trade just to have a sliver of a chance finding work. Right or wrong, work places favor men. They always have and they always will. There's no excuse for a healthy man between 18-70 to be unemployed in America. My 61 year old brother got a job at a company that turned me down for employment and he hasn't had a 9-5 job since he was 17 years old.
There can be no traditional conservative values when men won't even try getting an education and a meaningful job to be able to support a wife and kids. The conservative party really needs to step up and hammer some sense into the male species.
2025 men have chosen to no longer be a value in society and they wonder why they're all so depressed and lonely. They want mommies to cook and clean for them, not partners. I wish male community leaders would step up and SHAME the lack of effort put forth by men 18-70 in both society and domestic roles. Where are you, fellas? What are you men bringing to the table?
Anyway.
I stopped at the post office to get a few Betty White stamps but the post office said they don't sell them anymore. What?? Then again English was not the first language of the lady working the post office counter. I had to show her a picture of a Betty White stamp on my cell phone. I'm sure I can pick up Betty stamps some place else. I just happened to walk past a post office. How often do I do that? Maybe once a year? Big maybe. Who uses snail mail anymore other than the DMV? Still, my two unwanted cents, if you're going to be an American, you better know who Betty White is. Just saying. She's an icon. A legend.
In past blogs I've talked about stoicism: STOIC SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
I was raised in a Minnesota German community. My grandmother was a huge part of my life. She was the only female role model I had in my family. She was a stoic/Lutheran. My grandmother played the organ in her church and taught Sunday school that's how active in her church she was. I adored my grandmother so. I simply adored her. I spent as much time with her as I could which meant spending a lot of time at her/our Lutheran church. Through my grandmother I became a Lutheran even though my biological mother had me baptized Catholic before I went to live with my dad and his then wife. Dad's then wife's mother was my grandmother. We weren't blood related but I loved my grandmother and she loved me. I learned so much from her just by her fine example. My grandmother's daughter, my dad's then wife, was an unstable hysterical screaming nightmare. Back in the 70's and 80's small town people suffering from mental illness were unfortunately swept under the rug like inconvenient dust rather than receive help, and unfortunate family members were doomed to suffer under the same roof with them.
This Lutheran minister talks about the philosophy of stoicism. I wish he would have tightened it up little better but I appreciate the endeavor. Stoicism can't be dead-lift explained in 40 minutes. I've lived a lifetime as a stoic and I couldn't summarize it in 40 minutes.
Stoicism isn't practiced anymore in society as I wish it was. We live in a world now where every uncontrolled emotion and thought are recorded and posted online for "likes".
Stoicism is heavily misunderstood as being cold and uncaring when actually it's the exact opposite of cold and uncaring. At the core of a stoic personality is the concrete belief that we humans should be the solution, not the problem. Minnesotans, myself included, back in the 70's and 80's when I was a kid were all stoics - meaning everyone practiced being the solution, not the problem. Don't cry over spilled milk. Don't whine. Que sera sera, whatever will be will be. Live in the moment. What can you accomplish here and now. You do what you can to help others with what you have. That's the stoic way. Use reason and sensibility rather than hysteria and raw emotion, sense and sensibility, which by the way is also my favorite movie. Make it make sense. People think Minnesotans are "Minnesota nice" which is just another way of saying be the solution. Feed children breakfast and lunch in schools. If prisoners in jail get three meals a day, children in school should get at least two meals a day. Make sense? Be the solution. This White House administration thinks it's ridiculous to house the homeless, shoe the shoeless, feed the hungry, and aid the sick, BUT THEN they get mad when there's homeless on their streets and diseases circulate through their community - never mind the fact that this White House administration wants America to believe they're all Christians when they are so clearly NOT.
Question: Someone claiming to be a Christian when they are not, as a knee-jerk fake it 'till you make it generic response to the spotlight question, "What is your favorite passage in the Bible" what do you think they're auto memorized response should be?
Answer: John 3:16
But they never say even that. Instead they hum and haw like a deer caught in the headlights and reply, "Oh there's just so many." No, boys and girls, there isn't. Christians, at least protestants anyway, have their own favorite passages that have deep meaning for them, but the generic fake it 'til you make response is always:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
-- John 3:16
Know the difference between a catholic and a protestant just by looking at them? Catholics make a show about crossing themselves after they pray, protestants don't. Also, look at their crosses. Catholics wear gold crucifixes, protestants (Lutherans) wear silver crosses. I've seen other protestants wear gold crosses but then are they really protestants? Martin Luther, the first protestant, protested a grand show of wealth in both faith and symbolism. You cannot buy your way into Heaven with gold crucifixes... but I digress. money and religion is a debate that has no end. I have a silver cross. I don't wear it. I don't wear any jewelry. I'm a cheap date. I wear makeup. I'm vain that way. That's my vice, makeup and Chapstick. Not in a Tammy Faye Bakker kind of way. Not anymore. Maybe back in the 80's and 90's. Be that as it may, protestant churches are humble whereas Catholic churches are showy and garish.
Welp...
Baby blanket #3 is almost done (actually now it is done). Just throwing in some blue. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy making these baby blankets. Things currently going in my world have a hurry up and wait vibe going on right now but I'm making myself as useful as I can. I would absolutely love about five hours a day sitting with an adorable squishy little baby but I'm happy making the blankets. We do what we can with what we've got. My hope is that Lutheran social services in my home state of Minnesota will accept these donations for any moms and moms-to-be this winter. I'm currently working on baby blanket #4. I'm using heavy yarn. These blankets are warm trust me. They'll keep your adorable little squishy babies warm all winter.
It's funny that knitting is the thing I'm addicted to. Anyone who knits knows how frustrating it can be. My blankets aren't perfect. I call them my "impossible blankets". I just enjoy making them. I garter stitched them all because it's quicker. I can get more made. I can zone out on the train when I travel and just knit on autopilot with my headsets on. A few weeks ago I looked up from knitting on the train and happened to see a black woman recording me. Maybe I'll see it on TikTok one day.
So, preachers, talk to the men. Talk to the men and make them see that every time they look at a woman and immediately want to know what she "brings to the table" he's the reason he's lonely. He's the drama women want nothing to do with in 2025. Women deserve better. Christ deserves better. God bless us all.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
-- John 3:16
Amen.
