Post #702, in which...

... I have a problem.

I have too many berries. I got carried away at the farmer's market over the weekend and bought a flat of blueberries AND a flat of raspberries. My dear husband pitched in valiantly as we tried to make the best use of them, but there is only so much 2 people can do in the short time that fresh berries stay fresh. It's been the source of much free-floating anxiety for me this week. We had raspberry shakes, raspberry pudding and blueberry pie. We had fruit in salads, fruit in barbecue, fruit in snack bowls. There are still 2 slices of blueberry pie left and two ramekins of pudding, but there are also enough fresh blueberries to make 2 more pies! Berries are only around for a short season. One wants to 'make hay while the sun shines' right? To waste them is worse than passing them by! (Isn't it?)

Anyway, the fact that this is disturbing me so much brought back a memory. (I hope I haven't shared this before but in 700 postings over 3 years I might have. Sorry if I did!) Some years ago I listened to a conference presenter talk about equity issues and the way the media treated women - particularly advertising media. The presenter was showing slides of ads in which women were presented as either idiots, doormats or playthings. One memorable print ad showed a woman standing in a kitchen, surrounded by her obviously disapproving husband and three children, looking at leftover cake. Her problem? She had too much cake. She should have used a 'Jiffy' cake mix which would have made a smaller cake so that she wouldn't earn the total disgust of her family for having, yes, Too Much Cake.

Mark would say that the media has gone full circle and now presents men - especially white men - in the same light: idiots, dolts, slobs, inconsiderate boobs; creepy, irresponsible and generally without the intelligence God gave a small soap dish. I think advertisers just present everyone that way now, but...

It strikes me that there are an infinite number of ways in which we can make ourselves feel bad. Something we did, something we said, something we didn't do, should have done, couldn't manage or forgot... there is much in life that can derail a good day for us. I wish I could make it otherwise. And to make matters worse, I can't help but wonder if I'm not just sweating the small stuff in order to sidetrack the major stuff.


But right now, it seems very important to me to use up all those berries.


(You thought I was going to launch into a discussion of the Supreme Court nominee who thinks that because she is a "Latina" she can make better decisions than white males, didn't you? Well, yes, that was in the back of my mind in the whole discussion about cake, but I just didn't go there. It was a stupid thing for her to say. I say stupid things all the time and regret them afterwards - though not, perhaps, as much as she probably regrets that comment now, or the many that followed in a similar vein. We don't know, yet, the extent that the comment reflects her own belief system or the way she will decide on court cases that will affect all of us for many years to come - although her decision in the reverse discrimination case should give us a hint... But that her testimony today is so at odds with her speeches of the past is very disturbing to me. (Also disturbing is the fact that MSNBC was running a reader poll to see if people were buying her story today - as a sidebar to their reporting - but it disappeared from their page mid-way through the day. The overwhelming sentiment, when it last was available, was that people didn't believe her.) Most disturbing, however, is the 'white male bashing' that seems to be the new acceptable prejudice. If she thinks it should be OK to do that, she missed the whole point of the conversation. And that shouldn't have to be pointed out to someone who is about to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Totally unacceptable.

Just to be clear, the reason we honored and revered all those 'dead white guys' all these years is because they did incredible, heroic, brilliant, groundbreaking, astonishing, life-changing things. For us. All of us.)