Last week's new theory, which, I guess, means it's not so new anymore

My Dad was adopted when he was about one. He was born during World War II (or, if you prefer, World War – Part II) and most of my theories surrounding his being put up for adoption involve the War. My guess is that his birth father was a soldier and killed in action, perhaps even before Dad was born. Unable to deal with a child on her own, or deal with another child in the family or perhaps unable to deal with this reminder of her dead husband, his birth mother put Dad up for adoption. The fact that Dad had a bad neck at birth may have also contributed to this decision. We have a picture of him as a toddler, looking cheerful as can be, but unable to lift his head. Surgery fixed that soon enough and he’s been as well as can be expected since.

Dad has long expressed a disinterest in finding out any information about his birth parents. They didn’t want him and that’s fine because Grandma and Grandpa did. He considered them his parents and that was that. The birth certificate we have for him lists his birth name as one of the spelling variations of the German version of ‘Smith’ (I forget which and don’t feel like guessing today). As a result, we’ve always just generically taken our heritage from Dad to be solid German because really we don’t know. (Hey, maybe his parents were spies for the German government during the War and were caught and executed and that’s why Dad was up for adoption. That would be interesting! Not very cool really but certainly interesting!)

Last week while we were chit-chatting amongst us, I came to a different conclusion. Since we didn’t know what background Dad is really, that meant, instead of just being one heritage, it could be all of them! I mean, genetically all humans are essentially the same. The divisions amongst humans have been created by humans, not by whatever being or process started humans in general (and belief in what being or process is certainly one of those divisions!). So, while I already believed that all humans are just one big race of people anyway, this decision just made me feel more connected to everyone a little bit more. Which was nice.

It also fed nicely into one of my other beliefs. Why dislike someone based on the colour of their skin or their country of origin? That’s silly. When you get to know people, getting beyond all those surface things, there’s often perfectly good personal reasons you can find to dislike them.

… You can smile at that you know. It was a joke. Relax a little…

New theory

I’ve been fighting off tired for most of the last week or so now. Not consistently mind you, just more often that not. At first I was of the opinion, as I noted here, that I just wasn’t sleeping properly. That started to mutate into me blaming it on the weather. What I didn’t like about that theory was that I don’t like the idea of my being affected by the weather. So what if it’s been cloudy and raining for the past week? Generally I enjoy that to some degree. Tuesday doesn’t count, that was a downpour for most of the day. I think someone lifted up Lake Michigan and dumped it on us.

Anyway, my theory changed again today. A number of people in the office are coming down with colds. My new theory is that I’m fighting off this cold and that’s why I’m tired. It makes as much sense as the other theories.

Most importantly, I’m still writing.

What I did with my Monday

Rather than talk to you lot yesterday I cleaned out my closet. This was one of those relatively simple projects that I’ve been meaning to do since, apparently, high school. I saw clothes that I didn’t think I owned anymore. I definitely didn’t fit into a lot of them. There was an entertainment value to it but it took a couple hours to sort through everything. Technically I’m not done yet. This was just my ‘good’ clothes. I still have jeans and stuff to check on. Still, it’s clean now. It should last for a week or so.

It Must Be Fall

It's a rather blustery day in Wisconsin. I am fond of the word 'blustery', in part because I learned it while still in the single digits of age. I learnt it from a Winnie the Pooh record. It's a lovely word and doesn't get used nearly enough as far as I'm concerned. Blustery. I wonder if I've misspelt it?

At any rate, the temperature is not what leads me to my conclusion in regards to the season. No, the amount of Packers shirt and jackets and jerseys I saw in a brief trip to the grocery store did that for me. The NFL regular season starts today. I know, I know, the first game of the season was Thursday but that didn't really count. Sunday is professional football 'day' despite all attempts to spread games out during the week. Therefore, the season starts today.

All over the nation fans are hoping that this season will be a little better to their team than the last one was to them. Personally I hold no great expectations for this year's Packers team. I'll be happy if Brett Favre manages to survive the season with the ability to still function normally. The offensive line has much to prove and, to put it bluntly, I'll be happy if Brett doesn't die, literally or figuratively.

Go Pack!