I. Mary Goes Up
A little levity, please, it's Assumption of Mary Day!
There was going to be another elaborate parade, but simpler was declared better. More Eastern icon, less baroque.
"All that's needed is a clothesline."
Ta-da! Up, up and away in her beautiful balloon, all the way to Heaven:
bink is the owner of the clothesline. She's the best costumer and set designer too. She can construct anything.
Leaves for angel wings!
(Mary can't fly by herself, she needs clouds and assistants.)
Rise up! Rise up! They make me laugh. 
risible (adj.): directly from Late Latin risibilis "laughable, able to laugh," from Latin risus, past participle of ridere "to laugh," a word which, according to de Vaan, "has no good PIE etymology."
No relation to
to rise (v.): Middle English risen, ... from Proto-Germanic *us-rīsanan "to go up"....
OED writes, "No related terms have been traced outside of Teutonic"
__________________
II. Marz flies in!
I never said: I did find Marz at the airport, home from Camino, no trouble.
Here she is (peach shirt & Crocs), with pilgrim friends in Spain:
Never watch television shows you don't want to watch;
or, WALK YOUR OWN WAY.
III. Putting Up Stuff
Back at home, my slogan is:
Do Something. Even if it's wrong, just try something.
One day I was rude (impatient) to a shopper who had lost their child in the store. ALL my coworkers, even the sweetest, were on my side--we all get so disgusted with people who let their kids run wild, tearing stuff up, climbing on furniture with wet shoes, etc.
But I knew I was out of line.
Cure for frustration and sense of powerlessness:
Take action.
The next day, I printed “watch your kids” signs and hung them up around the store.
I took it upon myself, without asking. Coworkers expressed approval. Again, the curse and the blessing of non-management.
Signs don't change people's behavior--but making them changes mine. Now I won't feel like yelling at anyone. I will help first, and, smiling sweetly, point to the sign second.
Below, I strung a line of twine to hang one in my toy section. Such sophistication.
Working with people can make you kinda hate people. Or it does me, anyway--I've gotta watch that.
What helps?
Take action!
I'm curious about who takes action, who doesn't, why, and what helps me...
Seeing others do it helps.
My coworker Grateful-J is an action taker.
Here (below, left), he's putting up a Japanese paper umbrella that he found--on his own initiative--to replace one a customer stole.
(Maybe they didn't steal it, exactly, but it was hanging as a light fixture, and they took it down and presumably walked out with it, since it didn't have a price tag... because IT WASN'T FOR SALE.)
Now there are two again, softening the obnoxious fluorescents over my BOOK's.
Someone recently donated the last issue of City Pages--printed before Covid forced this free paper to close in 2020--it was the issue that named us as Best Thrift Store.
I framed the cover, adding the clipping naming us, and put it up in the break room. Partly because it was my initiative that got us in the running in the first place; partly because my BOOK's are praised, specifically; and partly because I want us to feel proud... We've got problems, do we ever, but we do good.
I want us to want to DO BETTER.
Best not to get attached to whether others do or don't want that, especially at a workplace like mine (etiolated)--but I like what they say on Camino: Ultreia, "Let's go higher!"
Bring on the clouds.
Best not to get attached to whether others do or don't want that, especially at a workplace like mine (etiolated)--but I like what they say on Camino: Ultreia, "Let's go higher!"
Bring on the clouds.
