I planned not to highlight today’s remembrances, but they aren’t yet through with me.
Oh, those archives…
05 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
*** Uncanny how life from a year ago mirrors today, only different!
Spring forward, right?
06 Apr 2026 2 Comments
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And how’s that going for e’erbody? It feels like we might be stuck on April Day One, the Fool’s Day part, but what do I know? We’ll just have to keep pressing every onward, as a guy I know used to say.
Maybe you’re aware from the scarcity of posts showing up here, but it’s a lot more challenging to write for fun these days. There are words and sentences in my head all day long, but most of them, if shared, would take a heavy toll on whatever sort of following still exists for this little blog of mine, and I’d greatly miss the community of it all. Social interaction, with friend or foe, family or not, is an exhausting minefield now more than ever, requiring more energy than most introverts have in the tank. Look around you. If your quiet ones have gone to ground they’re either refueling or digging in, which is harder to do in spring and summer than in the relative unfriendliness of winter. The “digging in” part, I mean.
The problem is, here we are. Things we were made aware of eleven years ago, and projections put forth at the time, have either happened, are in the process of happening, have been uncovered, discovered, covered up, ignored or postponed… and here we are.
We don’t know what’s next and that’s a fact. We were promised NO NEW WARS, and now the word nuclear is no longer verboten in impolite company, but is instead being bandied about as if it were a viable possibility. We were promised many things, none of which on the positive side have come to fruition. Sometimes it’s a challenge to keep sweet in the eyes of the world.
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When this is over, the world is going to need an influx of everything good and helpful and true. Stay ready to offer whatever you can.
Rain, rain, stay all day…
06 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
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Oh, my! Thunder and lightning, very very frightening! This odd lil’ duck has been sitting here in the dark since she got up, listening to the raindrops on the windows, and it’s life-giving. It’s now pouring down in buckets and can keep this up all day because it’s ideal weather for ducks. It’s the antithesis to these past weeks of grief, outrage, disbelief, and sheer terror at the possibilities, and it couldn’t be more welcome. Feels like sweet balm and I hope your day will hold a big dose of that, in whatever format hits best.
When life piles on and insists on being a whole chaos agent, I go looking for the glow-up, the uplift, the good news that hides ’til it’s safe to come out. Facebook’s plethora of tearjerker stories are aimed right at my heart, and IDNC whether they’re 100% factual or based on composites, they do me good. Because here’s the thing…
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I’ve learned that, contrary to everything taught to me by my mom and grandmas, I can indeed hate. I can do it and fully own it, and it’s a cleansing fire but it’s exhausting. And soul-killing. So we press “every onward,” boys and girls, trying to keep our hearts right, if only in the interest of good health.
The lesson of war and bloody conflict is this, every time, but it’s the very one we can’t absorb and remember…
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Now that I’ve said the word “war,” I might as well let Heather Cox Richardson say the rest…
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This one makes me laugh, so I like it a lot. Alexander Hamilton was 21 years old when he became a founding father, right around the time of this “quote,” which sadly is what’s called in polite circles “fake.” Alas…
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The sun’s been out a couple of times, so maybe the delicious rain is over for a while, but it was a sweet start to the weekend. You all have a peaceful one!
Hello, October…
01 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
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Yes, boys and girls, another segment of 2025 is upon us, and be forewarned, it will pass as quickly as the previous nine have done. Month by wild month the year becomes history before we’re fully woke and then what, straight into another just like it? A person can hardly be blamed for asking.
Nevertheless, all the nostalgic autumn truths still stand. We open our hearts to the dying time in order to see fresh new life emerge in the spring and trust that will happen year after year, proof that we stay in some ways, against all odds, perpetually innocent.
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The following came across my feed this week and its melancholy fits the season. As the world grows colder, stranger, and let’s face it more terrifying by the day, the average person on the street is left wondering “What can I do about all this?” And the unfortunate honest answer is “Not much, really.” BUT… we can still care enough to be our authentic selves and keep going, which matters because people are looking for other genuine people who will help keep the lanterns lit.
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It is indeed an increasingly Halloween world, a place seemingly populated by monsters and ghouls, and when I wonder what to do in the face of all that I default to Mary Oliver and her calm realism.
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DAILY AFFIRMATION
The ache of being awake…
25 Jun 2025 Leave a comment
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Once again a month has passed since I last gave serious thought to writing something here. That seems to be the new default schedule for now, maybe because it takes that long to process the things that happen from one day to the next. In the end, I finally come back here because I can’t do otherwise.
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The world is a cockamamie place, always was, always will be, and getting more out of hand by the hour. But unless somebody’s gonna stop the planet and let us hop off, there’s nothing to do but survive the best way we can without hurting anybody. Look for the good, look for the love.
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It requires a certain determination every day to take the next step and do the next right thing, often against a soundtrack filled with unlistenable chaos, but the alternative isn’t really an option, so we buck up and do the thing. And then we do it all over again the next day.
And then you realize you might have greater need of them later.
Humans don’t generally do well under constant chaos and uncertainty. That kind of stress brings out the rat in us and we find ourselves hosting thought patterns that shake us awake and make us think straight again, thank goodness for that part.
But is that what enough people even want?
We can be positive thinkers and still admit that the world isn’t an easy place, that relationships are hard, that stress of every kind takes a toll on every human every day. That being alive is a very real dilemma to be faced.
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I’ll leave us with this bit of hopefulness from a recent B’day “perade”.
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Wow, look at the time!
11 Mar 2025 2 Comments
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It’s been a while. A whole month has passed without my having held forth about it, and we’re none the poorer for it, because the processing of momentous events takes time and a certain remove from the action. Otherwise, our voices grow steadily louder without solid sense behind them.
It’s been a time. An incredibly eventful one, rife with change on an hourly basis. The onslaught is such that commenting on it feels like showing up to a mob hit with a water pistol.
It’s been a challenge. We voted for a kinder, more humane society, but that didn’t happen, so we deal with what did.
There’s a growing rumble of protest encompassing all fifty states, but we don’t yet know the extent of the Power of the People that might be awakening. You know, becoming woke. There’s still much we don’t know, but the picture becomes clearer day by day. For now… I’m finding comfort and companionship in books and music, doorways to magical worlds, often intertwined. What we can see of the universe tells us it’s a brutal but intensely beautiful place, and that beauty keeps our spirits anchored to the good in all of it until we can see the good and the beautiful in each other again.
“When the world seems heavier and filled with troubles, remember about patience and timing. Everything comes when it must come. A life cannot be rushed. So often we feel like pushing the river… we don’t want to wait. The river flows on at its own speed. There is always a timing at work, always a plan, even if we don’t see it at first. Patience and timing.”
~Dr Brian Weiss
art/ Natalia Lukomskaia
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Slouching toward the promised land…
13 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
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It’s winter. It snowed again. It’s cold. There, you’re all caught up.
Soooo, yeah, what a long strange year it’s been, all 44 days of it, and this morning dawned cold and crinkly once again. The sun is blindingly bright on the snow and it’s 6° as I write… one of those days that looks positively balmy until you step outside and freeze your nose hairs.
As the world beyond the weather grows increasingly frigid, and as I continue to process recent and ongoing events, I’ve realized this morning that my prevailing emotion at this point is not fear but disappointment. Like the Pollyanna I’ve always been, I’d held out hope for at least a pause in the hostilities, a willingness to see each other as people again, to make room for kindness first of all, but it wasn’t to be. Our candidates were too happy, they both laughed too much, and you can see how that would be so wrong for the country.
Nearly every generation thinks we’ve arrived at The End on their watch, but so far it’s been nothing but false alarms. We’re a piteous species in that we no more get something figured out than we feel compelled to sabotage that in some way. Always two steps forward, one step back. Sooooo slow, the progress, it’s almost possible to observe evolution in real time.
In lieu of a softer world I’m cushioning my own with books and music, good food and good company, all the things that matter and over which I hold some slight sway. Keep the goals reachable. Whatever makes you a happier human, DO IT. Live your life, it’s the one that’s happening NOW.
The sin of empathy…
30 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
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Does anyone else feel like we all fell asleep and woke up to a world we can’t recognize or make sense of? Like… up is down, in is out, nothing is real, and nothing matters? Two weeks in, we’re being told to ignore what we see and hear, and important safeguards are quickly evaporating into thin air. Incredibly even for them, the newbies started by relegating empathy for other people to the Sin Bin, thus signaling a deep-seated upside-down-ness that we’ll be expected to accept in the name of loyalty, so it’s anybody’s guess as to where it goes from here.
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The label can’t hurt me. I mos def HAVE been stupid about things I was assured were realer than the nose on my face. And according to my definition of a socialist, I’m one of those as well, as opposed to being a fascist, whose ranks my dad and friends stood against in our last world war.
Since the world will be whack for some time to come, what kind of options do we have for coming out of this emotionally intact, if not bodily? I like this for starters:
It’s a full-time job.
Pretty sure there’s massive change ahead, so a plan is in order; therefore, I plan to survive if possible, and help other humans and creatures do the same.
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Tick, tock…
14 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
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Yesterday we had a week’s grace before the apocalypse hits, this morning we’re down to six days. Then five, then four… and we’ll finally arrive at Day One, being billed as the greatest day in human history, hosted by CF47, gonna be lit! The entire world waits and watches.
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Christmas already feels like it came and went long months ago without making a ripple in the fabric of society. As a nation, we achieved the full measure of hypocrisy during this past season, simply by pretending to celebrate something we don’t actually believe in, as evidenced by our actions.
CF47 has said the deportations will begin on Day One.
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And because we’re not going to bow down to not only a dictator, but his racist apartheid insane sidekick, who seems to have appointed himself King of the Known World.
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So on we go, hoping this isn’t the end of life as we’ve known it, doing what we can to preserve “truth, justice, and the American way” and against all odds, I must add.
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We have… maybe… one more week of relative peace before the storm. Gird your loins and other parts, kids.
I’m old enough to remember when people cared about each other and life wasn’t entirely transactional. We may or may not ever see that vibe again, but living felt a little more fair, considerably sweeter, and we had a sixth sense as to whom we could trust. Someday, CF47 and all who bow to him will be gone, but we’ll never forget what he’s done to destroy our lives, and what people we respected did to facilitate that debacle. Trust, once squandered, is a total bitch to recover because of all it entails. People thought one thing, were told one thing, wanted one thing, and entirely different things happened. We’re being told to live with the untenable, the implausible, the preposterous and unthinkable, and it’s a psychic stretch we’ve likely not had to pull off until now.
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Whatever’s coming… the things we hold no sway over… it’s on us to find a way to survive because of course. Simply by existing, we cheat the oligarchs out of pennies and crumbs we have no right to subsist on. My question becomes: Are they planning to implement indentured servitude in order for their laundry to be done, their mansions cleaned, and prime food delivered hot and plentiful to their mouths? And if not, will it be robots doing those things?
It matters not how it all happens, we’ll eventually bow the knee when we get hungry enough. The Rule Book, Project 2025, has been written and published, so they’ll say we knew what was expected of us and therefore deserve whatever punishment is meted out. I still want to live to at least 95, but not in THAT world.
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There are so many people I miss, but I don’t entertain thoughts of that changing because it feels like we’re past that point. Love and friendship require trust and respect. And sadly, that’s the end of the story.
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Come back tomorrow for a Pollyanna happy-post. Had to purge my psyche so I can keep being real with you and me.
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Ahem (cough, cough) …
31 Dec 2024 4 Comments
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America, it’s the dawning of a Brave New World. By all accounts this letter is legit, although apparently not published by an official government entity, so if it isn’t satire we have three choices: denounce it / embrace it / or ignore it, knowing how willful blindness turned out last time the world was in this mood. We can now see the precipice from here, kids.
Take note of the instructions to the churches and neighborhoods.
An Indian Nations University is part of my town so I see lots of beautiful brown people I won’t be turning in to anyone ever. Nor anyone else whose pigment is enviably dark and compelling. Nor anyone, ever. It seems impossible that this country is really at this ugly juncture and that the lives and livelihoods of Americans are being openly threatened for their place of origin and the shade of their skin-suit. The language of the notice is chilling… how can this be America?
We need to all, at this moment, embrace the awareness. We can’t claim we didn’t know. That light at the end of the tunnel? It’s a freight train.
Still there, world?
09 Dec 2024 3 Comments
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What a long strange trip it’s been… and growing stranger by the minute. The air feels muted and in a state of suspended animation, but it’s winter time and the trees stand diminished in their vulnerable nakedness, painting stark lines against a gray sky. Nobody’s saying much, though, which brings a room down in a hurry. And it’s cold out, that’ll do it for sure. This is a strange time in history that we hoped never to see… but we instinctively knew that if it ever did arrive, it would look a lot like this.
So kids, if the voting stats are true we’re faced with the knowledge that a third to half the nation is opposed, often violently, to the values held by the other half. What do we even do with a sobering statistic like that? The next four years, and who knows how many more, lie before us. Days, weeks, months, and years when we won’t know which half of the people we encounter hate us and all we stand for, which half would prefer that we exist elsewhere or not at all. It is, to say the least, unsettling.
The nation that has represented freedom to the rest of the world is now scheming to rid the country of “undesirables,” by force and all other means necessary. It’s incomprehensible.
And there’s this, which we knew would be coming at us eventually:
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Time… free but priceless
01 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
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First thing I noticed this morning is that it’s December, which is a little disconcerting since January was only a few heartbeats ago, and I distinctly remember making plans for how the year might progress. Oh, it is to laugh. Plans are to the universe as the cape is to the bull, with similarly predictable results.
This stretch of time from election to inauguration feels like the calm before a highly capricious storm that has us asking “How bad will it be and how quickly will it happen?” I remind myself every day to sit in peace and let it soak into my bones because it’s a precious resource that may turn out to be non-renewable.
It’s the return to governmental chaos on steroids that I dread. It’s been a lovely four years in which President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have not viewed us as spectators to their illustrious lives by bombarding us with daily, nay hourly, updates via TV and social media. It’s been a wonderful thing to just breathe for a while. I like breathing. It’s been a nice break to have the adults in charge. It’s more than possible that wholesale change is upon us, and for a girl who has always claimed to welcome change… this time around the block I do not.
It’s all real and it’s parked on our doorstep, so here we go, kids. Hold hands and look both ways before you cross the street.
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Don’t surrender in advance. And bear in mind that insubordination can be subtle.
Pardon my dust…
30 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
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From the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader:
Opinion | Pardon our devastation. Millions of you put a criminal in the White House.
Pardon our devastation. More than 75 million of our fellow citizens put a malevolent, criminal madman in the White House. We’ve watched you embrace him as he destroys your faith in science, education, and our government. You stuck with him after he lied and incited a deadly insurrection. You champion him as he demonizes and endangers nonwhite immigrants. You swallow his ridiculous lies about our public schools doing “sex change” surgeries. You ignore his plans to reverse the rights of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, even when you have loved ones that this will profoundly affect. You numbly nod as he repeatedly speaks of black jobs. Not a flicker of alarm when he stated immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” You support his promises to destroy families with immigrant camps and mass deportations. You cheer for him as he promises revenge on his political opponents. You excused him when he demeaned our dead war heroes. You ignore that he is a convicted felon, found liable for rape.
For eight years, the rest of America has made excuses for you. You’re brainwashed. Misinformed by Fox commentary. But that no longer tracks. You heard the words straight from his mouth. Even low information voters know he was convicted of 34 felony counts. That he was found liable for rape. His vile words and behavior don’t matter to you. You’re either in it for the promised tax break or the lawlessness or the hate. But you’re all in.
Decent Americans can no longer ignore or navigate our moral incompatibility with you. That is why so many people were devastated last week. We didn’t just lose an election. We lost friends and family and neighbors to a vision of America that is corrupt and dishonorable and cruel. We’re grappling with the reality that everything we ever learned about kindness, decency, honesty, respect, patriotism, fairness, and democracy has been relinquished by half of our citizens. We optimistically hoped that deep down, you were better than this. We learned you weren’t.
So what you now see aren’t liberal tears over a lost election. It’s brutal grief over our losses of friends and family who no longer share our understanding of right and wrong and what it means to be a decent citizen. And it’s fear for our daughters and our minority friends and neighbors who now have targets on their backs. We won’t expect you to feel shame. Our new clarity assures us you’ll laugh or shrug this off, turn on Fox News, and continue to gorge yourselves on immigrant crime, hate porn, and the evils of feeding school children a free lunch. You’ll consume more nonsense about how men supporting women turns them into women. Your hate and fear control you.
In my view, you are now inextricably connected to the man you support. When the next Asian woman is assaulted, you will be one of the attackers. When families are ripped apart and put in camps, you will be one of their guards. When another woman dies from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, you’re one of the people barring the door to her doctor. When the next trans woman or gay man is beaten up, your foot is on their throat. You voted to hurt people and that is unacceptable.
What your guy refers to as the Lunatic Left, Communist Left, Radical Left, will still be here. We won’t don cult gear, denigrate our flag or corrupt the term “patriot.” We won’t grab our guns and bear spray and storm the Capitol. We’ll organize locally in an effort to protect the targets of your cruelty. We’ll push back against the destruction of our public schools. We’ll stand between racist and target; misogynist and our daughters. We’ll teach our children and grandchildren the difference between tolerance of people’s differences and tolerance of hate. We’ll work our jobs, pay our bills and our taxes, and love our families. We just won’t be doing it in relationship with you anymore than is absolutely necessary.
Jan Scherrer is a speech language pathologist and mother of two who lives in Versailles, Ky., and I’m honored to reprint her here.
Playing for Time 
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