Tick, tock…

***

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.

**

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.

**

**

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.

**

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.

**

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.

**

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.

**

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.

**

**

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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Knock knock, reality calling…

***

When I woke up this morning I thought it was Monday but by the time I put my feet on the floor I’d decided it must be Saturday. Or possibly Friday or Sunday. Happy New Year to me! Kim brings me an Einstein Brothers bagel every Monday so I was hoping for that one, but other days are okay too. Somehow in all of that brain wave activity, without my saying a word about it, Kim got the message to bring me a bagel before he went to PickleBall, so all is well beyond expectation! In case somebody else needs a bit of help this morning: today is Friday, then come Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (hopefully graced with another bagel). Christmas was in December, which is now over, and New Year’s celebrations took us to yet another year we aren’t ready for, yay!!

Fat lotta good THAT’ll do me…

So here we go, and we’ll hope things make themselves clear sooner rather than later. Or it’s very possible we’ll wish we didn’t have to know at all.

I made no resolutions, which is good because I would already have broken at least three. I do have a heartfelt hope for MORE TIME this year with people I love. That’s real living, end of story.

**

I walked into 2025 with my eyes wide open as a functioning adult, full of… yes hope, because I’m still Pollyanna, no apologies. However, while I’m eternally optimistic, I’ve also become quite realistic, so I know the following bears repeating…

**

We’re three days into a year steeped in mystery… what will it be like? Since it might be a while before we know, we have time to make a conscious choice:

**

Meanwhile, soak up the quiet of this interim time, and appreciate the lack of unnecessary drama.

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Ah yes, the New Year…

***

This morning, because her words reached me and are doing their intended work, I’m borrowing from Rachel Alana (R.A Falconer), Midwives of the Soul, with deep appreciation for her gift.

**

~ This year, dear friends, may we all lose weight!

The weight of expectations. The weight of self-criticism. The weight of disconnect that fills us with a deeper hunger. The weight of not always loving. The weight of a worn and weary world. Of not always accepting, seeing, and inhabiting this precious and sacred body that we’re in.

~ This year, dear friends, may we all exercise!

…our holy will! Our sacred sense of purpose. Our vision and hard-earned wisdom. Our discernment and our shining hearts. In ways that enrich connections, with our bodies, our souls and those we love. And even to the world. ❤

~ This year, ah yes… may we all start the work of quitting…

…that collective Kool-Aid. The negative self-talk. The small-assed living. That cacophony of cockatoo-voices that drown out our souls. And old habits: Those used to stop us hearing our pain, our disappointments, and all things much better loved, seen and accepted right down to the very bottom ~ and to find true freedom, through a connection with our deepest souls.

And…

~ This fine new year, (well, here’s the best…) May we all be rich!

Yes, utterly and completely rich. Wildly and unapologetically. Rich in love. Life. Connection with one another and all that really matters. Filled to the brim and bubbling over; more again and spilling over that. Full of laughter, acceptance, joy, and less of worry. Less of sorrow ~

Rich in renewed experience, of a whole new year! ❤

Happy 2025, dear friends!

~Rachel Alana (R.A Falconer)

Midwives of the Soul

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Ahem (cough, cough) …

***

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.

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Fractured fairytales…

***

Once upon a time, strange as it may sound, Christmas happened in a world that wasn’t ready for it, making things discombobulated and odd from the start of the season. Planet LOOK.AT.US. was out of sorts and feeling aloof from the whole affair. Things were not right in the kingdom and no one knew how to fix it. Such a different holiday it was shaping up to be, with far too much sadness in the mix.

But wait… since the task of Christmas is to lighten hearts and gladden the soul, I must give you, instead, the story of The Four Farmer’s Daughters… have you heard this one? Get another cup of coffee and pull up a chair, it goes like this:

**

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We were festive…

Just not THIS festive.

***

Christmas Day this year was sweet and special in too many ways to list, but you know I’ll try. It’s hard to sort out what the whole thing is about for me now, but what remains… always… from the past and forever… is the love. It’s entirely a feel-good day if we can do it right.

Rita was here, she and I wore our Christmas jammies, the Chiefs won, and dinner was amazing.

The traditional cheese ball I hadn’t made in 30 years. The recipe holds up.

**

Salmon filets in cream sauce with spinach and cherry tomatoes over Jasmine rice; candied carrots, and cheesy biscuits. And vino. Dessert was warm fruit tarts with ice cream.

**

The usual suspects.

**

Today we’re being hugged by a heavy fog and indoors is where it’s at. Perfect.

Let quiet and peace soak into your bones, and savor every blessing.

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It’s Christmas Eve Eve…

***

The passage of months, weeks, days, and hours delivers us once again to The Holidays, a time of year we celebrate religiously whether we are or not. Christmas is such a fusion of new and ancient traditions, from pagan to Holy of Holies, it’s hard to know just what to make of it as an adult. If I were a novice looking in, I’d be totally baffled by all the cognitive disconnect involved and mystified as to what Baby Jesus has to do with singing mice in Christmas hats, and other flights of fancy. I would also be troubled by how militant Jesus appears to have become while I wasn’t noticing.

Christmas Past was always about family more than anything else. There was abundant food, a pile of packages under the tree, music, aromas, laughter, and hugs, all cooking down to a big happy mess called family. At least once every year we were many and we were mighty… and that feeling of belonging to something bigger than yourself can’t be replicated, so I miss it. Time extracts an inevitable toll on family dynasties… we become citizens of the world, taking our children and grandchildren with us, until the connections pull taut and start to fray. We don’t know each other, which is standard for this time in history but makes for a little melancholy nonetheless.

Christmas, whatever it may be, always arrives on time, even in war-torn areas and battle-weary hearts of every kind. It’s a few hours, a day, a week, in which we seek to make ourselves whole and new again before we screw up yet another year of living. Sigh… “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

And it really is, regardless. I have no idea what the whole thing represents to most people now, but the lights and decorations, the pictures of children’s happy faces, and the generous atmosphere improve the scene during an otherwise mostly gray season, no matter what.

It’s gray and chill this morning and nearly all the trees have finally dropped their leaves except the sugar maples, so it’s almost time to make the cookies and dust the chimney before Midnight Mass.

**

A sincere Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and wishes for a good and safe year ahead.

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Let the light always remind us…

***

… that the sun will soon return.

***

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Still there, world?

***

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

***

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.

**

**

Don’t surrender in advance. And bear in mind that insubordination can be subtle.

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Pardon my dust…

***

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.

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Things that matter…

***

Holidays are hard. There… I said it. As kids we rarely pick up on the nuances of family gatherings, we’re just there to see our cousins and eat fun stuff. And then life changes, as it is wont to do, and we learn how to celebrate on a different scale, how to hold room for our memories and feelings, how to appreciate everything. It’s a lot.

Some years ago we stopped trying to live up to the noisy food-laden holidays of yore and brought the house down a little with simple, and simply wonderful, comfort food, the National Dog Show, football, the chill weather, and much laughter. So as it turns out life is in great part about taming expectations. Kim and Rita cook and bicker in the kitchen while I keep myself available for mindless tasks, and behold, a luscious meal appears. It works seamlessly, and we’re appropriately thankful for various things all day, no stress required. I love it. The mood couldn’t be more comfortable.

Still. Our hearts remember the old times, and we think of them as having been magical… everybody happy and full of love, hugs all around, nothing but peace and goodwill. With everything hanging in the balance this year, we yearn for the unity and unconditional love we think we remember, and we try to go back to a place that was never really there… kind of like Brigadoon. Silly us.

If you’re still with me, thank you for indulging this minor fit of melancholy, which I shall now attempt to put back in the box with the double-secret code on the lock. Nobody needs that stuff on a day we’re just grateful to spend together, alive and well, so tomorrow will be about the right-now, the life we have, and the people we love.

I wish the same for you, complete with everything you need.

**

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A day in the life…

***

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Waiting for Godot, aka the other shoe…

***

The calendar says we’re more than two weeks out since the election but there’s no way my brain could have told me that on its own because the markers have been few and far between. It’s always unsettling to sail through a state of limbo, precisely because of the inherent uncertainty. Also, the relative quiet compared to previous experiences with the former guy feels, may I say, a little ominous. We’re watching the potential for chaos build by the day with each nomination to what resembles a junk drawer more than a presidential cabinet, and we see plenty of concern to be had, but since we are simply the embodiment of “the vermin within” our input has neither been sought, nor will it. Our task is to survive bodily and to handle the changes as they come at us. None of us know yet how swiftly or drastically those changes will be implemented; therefore, limbo. I can’t decide whether to keep trying to make the world a better place, or look for a safe vantage point while we watch the drama unfold.

**

**

I had hoped the following from Rod Serling in 1964 was true:

**

We dared to entertain brave hopes of a nation once again united… but were we EVER that? I think not.

**

It’ll make the happiest of old ladies grumpy.

**

Things we know at this auspicious point in time:

Our daily reality as Americans will most likely look very different this time next year, and I’m pretty sure the general population is in no way prepared.

**

**

Unfortunately, the country seems to have cornered the market on denial, so actual communication among factions is still at a premium. For nine years we’ve waited for his day to be done, waited to be free of his voice and leering mugshots, waited for him to disappear from our TV screens. Instead, this is life for the next four years, and maybe ’til I die, which pisses me off beyond words, as does THIS:

How dare woman-bots malfunction?! And then proceed to destroy civilizations, more’s the pity. I’m surprised we’re allowed to drive cars and raise the babies we birth. Now that I think of it, we could easily lose both of those rights before it’s over. Best to remain philosophical, right?

**

**

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‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves…

***

Now that Jabberwocky has been anointed king, we must familiarize ourselves with the language and culture that attaches thereto, by which I mean catch up or get trampled. This is a new thing, a “fresh” experience, a mystery ride… are we buckled up?

In the aftermath of the election, a lot of us are still caught in that “a second plane just hit” moment of cognition, staring at the smoking ruins and silently thinking about our short list of options. Mexico’s newly-installed woman president has said that Americans are welcome in their expat communities, but that if somebody here sends them 200,000 Mexicans they’ll send an equal number of Americans the other direction across the border. Obviously turnabout is fair play, and why would Americans simply be accepted at face value after turning most of the nonWhite world away? Are we special or something? Moving sounds a little iffy for personal reasons, and I’m not real cranked on giving up my right to live here to a bunch of bullies anyway. They filed for divorce, why should WE move out? I saw yesterday, though, that Americans are fleeing the country like the “vermin from within” that we’ve been labeled, and I wish them nothing but positive results, it’s just that I think I’m too tired to follow them, depending on how this goes. I do know the survival instinct is strong. So, yeah… thx for listening.

I was reminded this week that during the COVID pandemic I used this blog to document the daily journey, and now I’m slipping into journal mode for the current trip into the unknown. Just a heads-up on that, although I write for me so it is what it is.

So… after the heavy silence that followed the voting, we’re starting to get a look at the “team” at the top, and here are just a few highlights:

  • Attorney General: Matt Gaetz, who was under investigation for sex trafficking until his nomination
  • HHS Secretary: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose views on both health and humans are bizarre at best
  • Defense Secretary: Pete Hegseth, a “television presenter” for the FOX network, who will no doubt be brilliant with all those thorny defense issues
  • Secretary of Homeland Security: Kristi Noem, who rewards lack of obedience with a bullet
  • Director of National Intelligence: Tulsi Gabbard, friend and possible side piece to Vlad, and challenge to the term “intelligence”
  • Department of Government Efficiency: Elon Musk AND Vivek Ramaswamy, otherwise known as the Department of Redundancy Department
  • Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Adviser: Stephen Miller, who stands alone in the lineup for his ability to morph from Jewish human to Nazi

Can you say kakistocracy, boys and girls?

noun

  • a state or society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens.

**

The Former Guy is either baffling us with bullshit to keep us from noticing that Elon bought in as co-president, or he’s hoping everyone will be so inept he’ll look like a genius by comparison, then he can fire them and run it all himself, or quite likely both. None of which takes into account what the voices in his head will be telling him by inauguration time, so as I said up there somewhere, it’s gonna be a trip.

***

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