Friday, November 26, 2021

Red and gold

Y’all know what joy I take in the many-colored leaves in this season. Every day I go out and think, oh—I’m not going to take any more pix because I already have a bucket ton of them. And every day I have to take just a few more shots, because today’s leaves are different from all the other days’.

So for our earworm today, I’m giving you Eva Cassidy singing “Autumn Leaves”. She left us far too soon, but her legacy of beauty enriches us, just like our surroundings do.


Thursday, November 25, 2021

Horn of plenty

Well, here we are, the second Thanksgiving in the time of COVID. And a weird time it is, too. But still…

So grateful today for Anthony S. Fauci steadfastly standing up over the past two years against not only the Kleptocrat, but all the rest of the nutjobs who’ve threatened him with everything up to and including death.

Also for the healthcare providers who’ve been on the frontlines for all this time—volunteering to vaccinate the public; tending to the unvaccinated and seeing them out of life; treating all the rest of our injuries and illnesses; putting up with nutjobs spewing hate and disease; and generally carrying on.

Profound thanks to the judge and jury at the trial of Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael and William Bryan for meting out justice to the murderers of Ahmaud Arbery. May their example be an inspiration to other judges and juries in our broken country.

Thanks go out to everyone working in whatever capacity to mitigate the effects centuries of folly on climate change, pollution and waste of natural resources.

Kudos to the members of Congress sitting on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. What a ghastly job to be doing, made worse by almost every Republican in the country. Remain steadfast in your search for the truth.

I’m deeply grateful for my friends, who enrich my life in countless ways, all the time.

I give thanks for working for a company at the spear’s edge of the fight against cyber crimes and skullduggery. And for working among smart people, from I learn heaps every day.

I’m grateful for shelter, heat and electricity; clean, potable water; working appliances; for public services like trash removal, road works and firefighters. For the workers who harvested the food I’ll be eating later on, and the ones who transported it to the grocery stores and stocked the shelves.

And for the eternal beauty of this season. It heals my soul.






Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Not exactly Sears

This appeared in my mailbox a few weeks ago.

I had no idea what it was. I mean, obvs a catalog, but no earthly notion from where.

Turns out it’s Amazon. (Yes, I missed the little arrow smile.) Are people not spending enough in the general course of their online lives that the world’s biggest digital retailer feels the need to send out a dead-tree catalog?

Well, in my case it didn’t work.

 

 

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Qrazy

Considering all the photos I’ve got of vanity plates, it normally probably would have taken me years to post this one, if ever. It’s really not that remarkable.

However, about a New York instant after the shutter clicked, the blonde Karen behind the wheel of the SUV opened the door and screeched, “Can I help you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why are you taking a picture of my license plate?”

“I take pictures of lots of license plates.”

“It’s fucking weird.”

“___”

“You took it with me in the car.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“You should look.”

<laughter>

So, she moved to the front of the queue.

 

 

Monday, November 22, 2021

Gratitude Monday: central heat

I will not lie: justice and decency took a hit last week, and it’s been a bit of a scramble to hawk up something to be grateful for today. So, I’m going small.

Temperatures have dropped to seasonal levels here in the District They Call Columbia. That means it’s in the 30s mostly when I take my morning walks. Saturday it was 28F. After an hour of that—even at a fairly brisk pace—it is the most wonderful thing to walk into my centrally heated house.

I am fully aware that this is a luxury so many in this world do not enjoy, even those in my own county. So, I am grateful for this every single day.