{"id":1084,"date":"2005-09-01T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2005\/09\/01\/its-bitterness-is-sweet\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:25:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:25:28","slug":"its-bitterness-is-sweet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2005\/09\/01\/its-bitterness-is-sweet\/","title":{"rendered":"Its Bitterness Is Sweet"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wonder if the president is getting enough coffee. He seems like he’s just not that into being president. I don’t mean this to be critical in any way, but there is a dimness about the man that suggests a need for caffeine. It is not enough simply to refrain from adultery and tax increases and make the occasional trip to Idaho to announce that we are winning the war in Iraq. It’s the French who take the whole month of August off, Mr. President. That’s not us. Americans are not idlers and layabouts and feather merchants, we’re strivers and pluggers and we welcome adversity, so long as we have coffee. Its bitterness is sweet to us.<\/p>\n

–Garrison Keillor, Mitigating Life’s Daily Grind<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The media continues to mention how Bush cut his vacation short, but to this I say, “Big whoop.” He cut it short by two days, as he should<\/em>. Why make a big deal of the president fulfilling duties that his position requires<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Hmm. Usually this blog is not so negatively focused. I am struggling to manage my internal responses to all this. My husband, bless him, does not understand this part of me very well. He suggests that I “feast on” the negativity, that I do it “everytime” there’s a major disaster, such as 9\/11 or the Asian tsunami. What is so hard to convey is that I grieve, despite the fact I’m relatively distant from the event. It is not morbidity that drives me. It is a sense of connection with humanity. I know life must go on. People must work, do chores, and need to have a little fun. And I will<\/em>. Just not right now, not this week. Don’t the refugees and the victims deserve that small amount of my attention, care, and prayer? Grief is part of life. What I<\/em> don’t understand is how we can give it so little acknowledgment and room in our lives. Like coffee, its bitterness is sweet.<\/p>\n

But considering eight of my last ten posts were about this catastrophe, perhaps I ought to take a step back, away from this outlet, and experience my mourning in private.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wonder if the president is getting enough coffee. He seems like he’s just not that into being president. I don’t mean this to be critical in any way, but there is a dimness about the man that suggests a need for caffeine. It is not enough simply to refrain from adultery and tax increases […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quotes","category-social-science"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12514,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions\/12514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}