Open House Meme Dec 1

[elainegrey]

tx_cronopio asks if there are any TV shows that changed my life. This certainly brings up the question of how some but not all small perturbations can cause huge effects with time.

I'm going to assume, perhaps falsely, that if it doesn't come to mind easily, it's not worth counting. The shows i remember from childhood are MASH and Star Trek. I'm not sure how MASH changed my life but it has such a strong sense of commentary that i can't imagine it not shaping some of my outlook. Star Trek - i assume it was the first science fiction to which i was exposed. My parents tell me i wanted to be an astronaut early on, an aspiration i have no memory of, but they link that to watching the moon landings.

I didn't watch much TV and my family rarely went to movies, so these would be the shared cultural points.

Cosmos comes to mind as a strong reinforcer of my interest in science.

Years pass, and little TV comes to mind. In grad school, X-Files started. I watched it with my roommate in the first year, and she seemed to believe it was based on some sort of fact. A couple years later, Christine and i were finally living together and Christine was taken by the show. It was the first show we ever structured our life around, a show we would plan to be home to watch. I'm not sure there has been any other, since.

Buffy certainly helped create a small bond with some colleagues: Buffy Watching Women WithOut Employed Spouses, we called ourselves. We still gather.

--==∞==--

Since i was bemoaning how little i did on Saturday (during my normal waking hours), we attacked the outdoor closet last night. Christine had it emptied when i returned home from a long Meeting morning (committee meeting, teens, worship, hospitality and cleanup). I set to going through the boxes. Most were tax documents, some from as far back as 1995. They're now in the car for Christine to take to be shred. There were carpet remnants and other bits and bobs from the owner or prior tenants: out that went. A small quantity of mementos. I'm thinking of buying a scanner and hiring a task rabbit to scan in the papers. Depending on how smart the scanner is, i might be able to find the time to do it myself.

I found our wedding cake topper and two gold plated goblets in one box, a box of little boxes that favors were shared in, and the ring pillow i made. The ring pillow had a hollow spot in which i had put a charm: a net bag of herbs and various tokens, stitched with runes and symbols and with more tokens and charms hanging. I'm sure i can't remember all the meanings and intentions, and the years on the pennies didn't make any sense. The herbs were dispatched into the compost bin, and the charms and tokens returned to the pillow. I believe in the power of the intentionality with which i made the charm, but i'm not superstitious. Nonetheless, i had a twinge as the net bag ripped open -- what was i doing to this charm that was part of our wedding?

Well, if anything, rescuing it from the depths of the dark outside closet where it was buried under tax returns seems to be a good symbol!

I'm not sure what to do with the spun glass cake topper. Ah, i think i know a place i can stash it and the gold goblets - and perhaps go through an do more purging. I have boxes that hold the makings of charms from my more active days of charm-making. I could pass on those and use the space for the wedding mementos: i'll want them for our 50th, i suspect.