Random ruminations

Because I'm all thought and no body today.

• I'm reading C.J. Sansom's Revelation just now. The following quote grabbed me by the metaphorical cojones and would not let me go:
  

  And if I were to confess, I knew that one of my sins was a long-growing, half-buried doubt whether God existed at all. That was the paradox - the vicious struggle between papists and sacramentaries was driving many away from faith altogether. Christ said, by their fruits shall you know them, and the fruits of the faithful of both sides looked more rotten each year.

  How cool is that? It's exactly the story of when I was eighteen and lapsed straight out of organised religion. I've already subjected three people to an animated reading of that fragment, and now it's your turn.
• This afternoon, I had one of these moments when I truly got the whole "motherhood is never enough" idea. I was feeling bad about staying in all day, apart from a trip to the supermarket. It was perfectly justified, I realise now, with the temperature outside rather high, and Marie up with a temperature all night due to possible heat stroke.
  All of a sudden, I fully grasped the idea that feeling bad for the past does not help, and all you can do is do better from now on. So we went to the park and had a great time.
  
• And since I'm in a literary phase, another quote that struck me last week, this one taken from Pedro Juan Gutiérrez' Dirty Havana Trilogy:
  

  It seems I'll have to learn to live with these intermittent attacks of melancholy and sadness. It's like living with an old bullet wound that aches whenever the weather's damp. I may have my reasons for grieving. But it shouldn't have to be that way. Life can be a party or a wake. You decide for yourself. Which is why this misery is a blight on my life. And I chase it away. That's what I'm always doing: chasing away the anguish, the grief, and all the rest of it.

  He's writing about far greater anguish than I've ever known, but it still hit home and went around in my head for a couple of days. I'm choosing the party, by the way.
• And one more for the road:
  At lunch, I realised that the difference between refueling while feeding the kids and treating yourself to a nice lunch is condiments. Mayonnaise made my day.