Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th District – all the water surface area in the state.
Holiday Greetings, Constituents!
I’m delighted to send you this message from our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.! While it’s true most of my colleagues in the Senate are fuming about the one or two Senators whose tactics are
making it impossible for everyone else to go home, I’m free as a bird to go wherever I please because the House has adjourned.
But still I remain here. Why am I not back in my district pressing the flesh?
If you know anything about the 9th District, you know that now is not the time of year to press your flesh against anything. We try as hard as we can to keep from touching any other object, because air is a great insulator when it’s standing still!
But I do sympathize with the Senators. It’s frustrating to be held up by people who insist on going slow. You see it on our highways and you see it in the grocery store when old folks looking at all the different varieties of grape jelly park their carts in the middle of the aisle and ponder the possibilities. Perhaps they are imagining all the different types of toast that exist in our bountiful world, and what each one will look like slathered in purple goo!
There is a characteristic of people from the 9th District that makes us especially well suited to public life – we are fishing people and fishing is all about patience. I was born waiting for a gigantic walleye to strike, and I’m still waiting.
The legislators who are pushing Senators Cruz and Coburn to hurry things up are not people with an angler’s mindset, clearly!
What’s the rush? Christmas is still more than a week away! And while we all love our families, my nearest and dearest have spent months getting psychologically ready to have me at home through the beginning of the New Year.
In the first few days after I return from Congress I have been told I am not fun to be around because I have a tendency to make long-winded speeches about everything, including what’s for dinner and the state of the laundry. Yes, it’s a habit.
So I have been told to stay here until the Senate adjourns even though I don’t have to, as a way to let some of the pomposity drain away before I get home.
I am more than happy to do that, but I am not sure where to find the valve that lets the pomposity out. Maybe it was something evolution already removed?
Just in case there is no biological release, and to be sure I’m ready to return when the time comes, I have been ambling around Washington, visiting our beautiful monuments, and quietly lecturing the marble statues of our ancestors about my view of the Way Things Are.
Unsurprisingly, they are dumbstruck.
At any rate, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Jolly Kwanzaa to you all. May you be blessed with relatives who know what is required to make you tolerable!
Your Congressman,
Loomis Beechly
What makes you tolerable?
Trail Baboon 
Allow me to make the first comment – sorry about the problems this morning. Congressman Beechly doesn’t like being commented upon, apparently!
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This time of year looking like Santa makes me more than tolerable to small children. Yesterday two small kids followed me to being seated at a restaurant. Must not wear my red jacket this time of year.
Being with Sandy makes me more tolerable.
Does being over 70 give you a free pass on making yourself tolerable?
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LOL, Clyde, about wearing red!
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What makes me tolerable? …well…nothing, really.
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tgith, I don’t like to admit it. However, I think I am more or less in the same boat with you.
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Nice try, you guys. But if you were really intolerable, you wouldn’t recognize it in yourselves. In other people? Yes!
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I occasionally hold my tongue. Will think more on this.
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I’m not sure I am tolerable. But if I am, it might be due to living long enough that I have made many, many mistakes. Now when someone else does something stupid it is not hard to remember when I did something stupid. Having so often hoped others would forgive me, I try to forgive others even when they might not deserve it.
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Like: “Now when someone else does something stupid it is not hard to remember when I did something stupid.”
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Yes, and in my case it is often the very same stupid thing. Can I be proud that I did it stupider?
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Sure.
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Chocolate chip cookies help.
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Good morning. There might be some things that make me a little less intolerable. Getting enough sleep seems to help. I’m afraid I am kind of a grinch. It will be easier for me to be tolerant when the holiday season is over. I try to hold back and not be too grumpy about all the stress of the holiday season. I don’t always manage to do this.
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Hm. I knew there was a reason I never married and I live alone. Now that I’m forced to think about it… jeez, Beechly. Thanks a lot.
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A clean house, my children and husband at home, good weather for traveling, and a week off work. Sometimes I am less tolerable the better I feel, since I tend to get kind of jokey and teasing. I suppose that makes me less tolerable to those around me. I am really intolerable when I am anxious.
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Doesn’t anxiety bring out the worst in all of us? It sure had that effect on my mother, god love her. When she was anxious, you didn’t want to be anywhere near her.
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I’m willing to admit mistakes, say I’m sorry. Seems like I do this more frequently than I used to…
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I’m not tolerable today – having one of those days when every little thing backfires somehow. Nothing big or serious and certainly nothing that is really that is life-changing. For example, we all had to pack up our cubes yesterday and were moved overnight. In shoving the boxes so I could actually get in the cube, I broke a nail. Where is the nail file? In one of the boxes. One of these mini-crisi every 15-20 minutes!
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I had that day yesterday, VS. I was so glad to get home!
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I am trying to remain tolerable through Friday at 11:00 am. I am then free from work until Dec. 30th. We are celebrating by driving 2.5 hours to Newell SD to pick up two lambs from the butcher store there. Newell is a hotbed of sheep producers, and we order a couple of lambs every year. The weather is supposed to be good, so I should remain anxiety free and tolerable during the trip. Leg of Lamb for Christmas Dinner!
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Ooh, I’ll bet you have some good lamb recipes…
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I have a really good Greek lamb pie recipe (Kreatopita Cephalonitiki) with lamb, feta, hard boiled eggs, and sliced tomatoes.
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enjoy the break
36 hrs and counting
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I’d be a lot more tolerable if I were more patient and less irritable.
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youre fine you old goruch
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I think I’m generally pretty tolerable because being tolerable is something I highly value. I have noticed a few salesclerks recently who are so chipper, cheerful, friendly, and helpful that it’s almost annoying. I wonder if my attempts to be chipper, cheerful, friendly, and helpful have the opposite effect from what I intend because they come off as fake.
Hmmm…
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I doubt it, since your attempts are actually sincere…………..
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l couldn’t be more frustrated! ln order to even get on the trail, l refreshed, rebooted, refreshed again but still there was no “Comment” tab (only “Like”). Finally, l called Steve and he walked me through googling the trail, then how to find today’s story. l told him that l may have to drop out of the forum if it takes several steps to even get on board. lf any of you have a Mac and the same problem, please let me know how to fix it??
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but the banker never wears a mac in the pouring rain, very strange
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keep a cup of tea in front of me 24/7 and im a happier camper.
i heard a secret of life nugget a while back. the old timer said the secret to happiness is to keep your stomach full and your bowels empty.
more tolerable to me or more tolerable to others is a difference. tolerable to me is enough sleep, caught up on the job jar and not feeling like the pressure of certain doom is bearing down upon the moment.
more tolerable for others is for me to be more moderate. less intense less outspoken less opionated less profound profane and protruding. but… i may as well send in a impersonator. if tolerable is the goal. come visit while im asleep.
helpers while im awake
sunflower seeds
butterscotch
a cigar
a museum
headpones and itunes or pandora with a mindless task,
a massage chair or person
ted talks
turner classic movies
sunshine
distance
absence makes me more tolerable i am told
i have a friend who is a challenge, he is high maintenance and high energy, adhd before there was such a thing. i go forever without seeing him then i see him… and i remember the details. i am afraid i have a little bit of that in my own little way.
sometimes it is nice to be on your own, the only jerk you have to deal with is the one in the mirror.
you know you are in trouble when the jerk in the mirror wont cut you a little slack.
“It’s an universal law– intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.”
― Dalai Lama XIV
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Nailed it, tim.
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Coffee. To go with Ben’s cookies.
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O/T: Steve said my post today was confusing since l finally found my way to the trail. What l was trying to say is that l’d rather not go 4 steps to do so and simply be able to open up the site one one click as always have before.! Getting Baboon open prior to today had been a snap – now it requires navigating to find it.
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CB, it sounds like your browser was stuck on an early version of today’s post. I’m not sure why that would happen, but no doubt there is a geek out there with the answer. Once BiR alerted me to the problem at 9:35, it was a simple fix to get the comments window open.
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