4 Shevat/19 January, 2010

Today was a very amusing and weird day. It was certainly the weirdest and possibly awesomest visit to the post office I’ve ever had. I had to mail out a package and the line was quite long. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we were entertained by a scuffle between this old wiry guy, maybe 75 and a slightly chubby guy about late 50s. I think the younger guy was blocking a way or something and the old guy called him a name as he went to his window. They started grumbling back and forth at each other with the whole masculine threats that one would not expect from people of their age bracket. The whole post office did not know how to react and we were all sort of frozen a bit. The chubby guy then actually escalated by getting into old guy's face and the old guy put up his fists in a good boxing stand and they both rocked back and forth like they were going to really fight. And the old guy would have won probably too, he looked very fit there. A manager kind of got in between them with incredulity that anyone would come to this in a civilized post office. He did well actually at diffusing the situation by respectfully telling the old guy to finish his transaction while sending the chubby guy to wait at his window further down and standing in the middle for a while to “babysit,” as he put it. I think all of us online just responded with nervous laughter and with communal laugh that at least we were entertained on a long postal line. And then! just as I thought my post office visit couldn’t get any weirder, a guy at front of me and at the back of me started talking and their conversation turned into a theological discussion of sort on nature of God and universe.

Donut + hot chocolate = sugar overload

Men are benefiting more from marriage now
It is just fun to see an article that clearly shows how marriage is economic arrangement and not just about “romantic love and happiness”. And since I’m working on “the women’s status within law is heavily influenced by on marital status” chapter, this is very fascinating to me. And yet women still make 77.9% of what men earn for the same job. Also, less Americans 30-44 are married in the first place, only 60% (in 1970 it was 84%)

One religious group sent Haiti solar-powered audio Bibles to help them in this time of need. Wouldn’t food be better?

I watched original “Fame” online on Netflix. There was some random Russian cursing in there. I like how the kids look like real kids in this movie (unlike the commercial for new one). Good movie.

I finally reread Judith Bennett’s AHA publication “Medieval Women in Modern Perspective.” That is just a very useful essay that will help frame the historiographic section. Now if I can just write it instead of just thinking about it.