Three Beautiful Things 09/16/18: Nats Look Good, Cutting Back the Vine, Family Dinner and Memory

1. Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon smashed home runs. Rendon made one spectacular play at third base and Victor Robles made an astonishing catch in center field. The Washington Nationals looked solid up and down their lineup, both on defense and at the plate. They beat the Braves 6-4 and I wondered, not having seen them play this season and not having followed them closely, why are they out of the pennant race? What went wrong with the Nats this season? I also spent a few minutes lamenting that I never made a trip to Nationals Park to see them play when we lived in Maryland. Sigh.

2. A monstrous vine with a few trumpet shaped flowers has been growing on the east side of our front porch, almost obscuring the mailbox,  making it awkward for Hillary to deliver our mail, and grabbing onto the awning supports. I cut it way way back today and filled two waste cans with the green remains. I think the front porch looks better now and I'm happy we made life a little easier for Hillary.

3. Carol and Paul whipped up a superb family dinner tonight. Carol started us off with a little glass of raspberry liqueur which we sipped on in the living room until we joined together at the dinner table for packets of shrimp and beef sausage and delights from Carol and Paul's garden and a fresh dinner salad.

We had a lively conversation about memory and truth and fiction and non-fiction. I failed to bring it up, but our conversation reminded me of William Kittredge's insights in his memoir Hole in the Sky regarding how our character is shaped by the stories we learn to live inside of and live according to. I don't remember if Kittredge put it this way, but I know I began to think that the power of stories and the power of how we remember things lies less in their factual accuracy and more in the way stories shape our perceptions, feelings, values, and sense of our place in the world. I haven't read Tara Westover's book Educated, but it was Christy, Carol, and the Deke's discussion of this book that led us to talk about memory, stories, and the elusive nature of truth itself.