We are all headed up to Boston tomorrow to celebrate the holidays with my sister and her family. My mother will also be there too as she is spending some time with my sister. When I say “we all are” that includes Miss Shirley and Mr. Murray. It should prove to be an adventure with the forecast of 1 to 3 inches of snow in Boston tomorrow afternoon. It is a long journey. On the internet, it says 8 hours and 40 or so minutes, but I know in my heart that it will be at least 10 hours with stopping and with traffic. Getting around NYC and Washington DC is always a nightmare. We could have taken the train or flown up, but I wanted to include the dogs as well. I know that they really don’t understand the holidays, but I didn’t want them in a kennel, I wanted them with us.
However you celebrate, I hope that you have a great week!
I have so many things to do today. The house is a mess, I have bills to pay, I have dogs to walk, etc. But I feel this need to write a post, so here I am. I am sure that most of you have heard about the terrible shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island. When I first heard the news, I immediately thought of one of my former students who attends Brown, and is a junior there. I worried a bit about her safety, but then thought, what are the odds of her being injured or killed?
Yesterday when I was grocery shopping and was in the checkout lane, the line was miserably long, so I pulled out my phone to do a bit of surfing to pass the time. No sooner had I opened the phone when a local news alert came up that one of the two shooting victims was a local boy who had gone to the high school just up the road from me. I was shell shocked. I didn’t know him as he went to a different middle school from where I taught, but it sure hit close to home. I immediately thought of the student who I knew, relieved that she was okay, but I must say an overwhelming sadness sliced through me. I felt my eyes burning with tears, but I got a grip and no one noticed.
And then, I saw the post from the felon from his crappy app, “Truth Social”, about Rob Reiner and his wife. At first when I read it, I couldn’t believe it. I know…I should have believed it instantaneously as we have a demented toddler as our president. The checkout line was moving at a snail’s pace, and I also read some reactions to his post. One commenter compared his words with Obama’s words, which to me simply highlights what a good president he was. He was presidential.
When I got to my car, I just sat there a bit before I drove home. I was filled with a combination of anger and sadness. If someone had walked up to me and said, “I’ve got four tickets (2 human and 2 canine) for you to leave the country and travel to whatever country would like, and money isn’t a problem,” I would have jumped at the chance.
When I got home, I started thinking about the student of mine that goes to Brown. I contacted a friend of mine who also taught her and she had her email address. She contacted her and discovered she was just about to board a plane to come home and that she’d like to see us over the holiday. She was touched that we were worried about her. I started to think about her and the two years that she was my student in grade 6 and grade 7. Her parents were immigrants from Vietnam. They escaped South Vietnam in rafts and managed to eventually make their way to the USA. I remember that the family didn’t have much money, and that she got an almost full ride to Brown. I also remember how hard she was on herself, always berating the work she did and constantly saying that it wasn’t good enough. She and I had a lot of chats over the two years that I had her, me trying to impress upon her that nothing is perfect, and that striving for perfection is a next to impossible task.
One day in grade 7, towards the end of the year, we were studying the Vietnam War. I went up to her and quietly asked her if she’d like to share any experiences that her parents had shared with her about their trek to the United States. She smiled that shy smile of hers and said, “I don’t think anyone would care to hear that.” I told her that the class would love to learn more about the fabric that makes our country a nation of immigrants, that everyone has a story to tell. But I also assured her that she didn’t have to do it.
But she did do it. And the story she told riveted the class, especially the part about her parents being on the raft. I will remember that moment for the rest of my life, as the class was totally drawn in to her story. I remember thinking to myself, “no textbook could ever teach something like this.” When she was finished, some of them asked her questions, as did I. I was proud of her for forcing her shy self to be in the spotlight.
I can also remember that the first day of summer vacation after her 7th grade year, she sent me a cryptic email that sounded sort of like a suicidal note. She talked about how she’d never be “good enough.” I emailed her back refuting all of that, but before I did that, I called the school and her guidance counselor, who alerted the people that one would alert in a situation like this. She got counseling over the summer and went on to do great things in high school. Just before she was to leave for university, she and another former student of ours met me and my colleague for lunch. She thanked us for all we did for her, and she gave me the painting that she created below. She was a very artistic student and was always doodling on her paper, while at the same time listening to what was going on in class. The painting is a recreation of the theater box where Lincoln was assassinated in April of 1865. Every Christmas we’d take the students up for an overnight field trip to DC on the train to see the play, “A Christmas Carol” at Ford’s Theatre. Before the play began, I would show them the spot where Lincoln was killed. PS: I mentioned earlier that I have a ton of things to do….one of which is to dust…I can see dust on the glass!
When I was reading the NY Times this morning, I looked up the victim from my hometown. He sounded like someone filled with promise to do good things in the world. The reporter actually quoted one of my former students who was a high school classmate of his. They had gotten together over Thanksgiving Break, not realizing the tragedy that was to happen. I guess one lesson in all of this is to appreciate life with all of its ups and downs as one never knows what is lurking around the corner.
After writing all of this out, I do feel a bit better. Still sad, but better. One of the things about my career that I will always be thankful for is that I got to know some really great students, of all religions and of all ethnicities. Whenever there were disagreements in class and the students would become hurtful to one another, we’d talk about empathy, something that I think is lacking today. I will never understand why people think it is weak to show your fellow human beings kindness.
Perhaps the toddler in chief could use an intensive empathy training stint in some faraway place.
I made this video below as part of my therapy today when working through these feelings that I have. I took most of the shots in the last couple of weeks. The video clip towards the end with the bird flying in the sky above the beach chokes me up for some reason. Maybe it is the simple beauty of it in a time when I don’t things are all that beautiful.
I hope you have a happy holiday season, however you celebrate.
I wasn’t going to write a post today, but yet here I am. I have mounds and mounds of laundry to do and I am wrestling with the damned washing machine because it keeps going off balance. It’s the load with a lot of the dog towels and blankets. When I was putting all of them in the washing machine, I was conscious of not overloading it and making sure things would balance. Evidently, I didn’t do a very good job. I have finally managed to move things along a bit as I took some things out and rearranged them, and they managed to do their spin. And now I am in the process of the second part of the load, and it looks as though it will spin successfully too. This paragraph was quite the boring intro to my post, but boring for me is good.
I got to thinking about the word “unbalanced” as it applies to the tangerine toddler that is in the White House. I have tried to focus my posts on anything but # farty-seven, but I ran across something yesterday that I just could not believe. It seems as if everyday there is another incredulous event coming from the White House. I knew that this second term of his would be really bad, but I never in a million years thought that it would get to the point where I am embarrassed to call myself an American.
I saw something yesterday about “The Trump Gold Card”. Initially, I thought that this was some sort of joke, so I googled it. I discovered it’s a real thing. If you have time, and the stomach for it, take a look. It is so unbelievable that it makes me laugh and cringe at the same time. When you get to the felon’s quote, stop scrolling so you can see ICE Barbie’s quote, as it will appear a few seconds later. As I said, unbelievable. Who in hell in their right mind would pay 1 million+ dollars to come to the USA?
I saw snippets of his “speech” in Pennsylvania the other day. All he ever does is blame Joe Biden for just about everything. Do you remember the kerfuffle with Hunter Biden’s laptop? After all of the controversies of this administration, that seems so incredibly mild. But yet, the administration seemingly gets away with things. I know their day is coming. I just want to be around to see it crash to the ground.
I truly think that the mean and nasty things he posts sets a horrible example for students who don’t have the maturity sometimes to handle the freedom when it comes to social media. I spent countless hours in my last 10 years of teaching talking to students about nasty and hateful texts, and the consequences of posting them for the world to see. But when you have the president of the United States doing it, I think it gives license for people to just be mean.
I have also noticed sometimes that when I read a blog and the comments that follow, some of the comments to the author are not so nice. It isn’t a common thing, but it happens enough. What is up with that? Why can’t people just be kind to one another? We are all imperfect humans just trying to live in a world that can sometimes be a very unfriendly place.
I am done with my tirade! The washing machine is now cooperating, the dishwasher is happily humming along, and both of the dogs are sleeping. I took them on a 7 mile walk this morning and I think I have tired them out!
One thing I miss about teaching is interacting with the students. Some of my favorite memories from my career are not from a great lesson I taught or any teaching accolade I got, but from getting to really know my students. I never was their “buddy”, but I was always there for them, and I think that they knew it.
Peace and love to all. For me, when I hear children singing, it gives me hope for the world. That’s why I put the video in below, to end on a positive note!
The “snowstorm” on Monday produced about five to six inches of snow. It has been a delight for the dogs as they love to play in it. They wrestle, they chase each other, they eat the snow, with no mind to how cold it is. Luckily we have a fenced in backyard, so when I get cold, I can come in and watch them from the comfort of being inside. When they want to return to the warmth of the house, it is a major ordeal getting them cleaned up and dry. Murray’s poodle-like fur causes the snow to ball up in his paws, and those miniature clumps are next to impossible to get out. Needless to say the floor needs a good mopping. Maybe later. Not now.
I haven’t been able to really walk them or go for runs as most everything is closed. I guess it is a good respite from my daily routines, but I do miss taking them for our daily jaunts out and about. Given that I have had some free time on my hands, and it is the holiday season, my mind begins to drift backwards in time. When I put up the Christmas tree last week, I enjoyed looking at all of the ornaments that I’ve collected through the years. A lot of them have come from students, and a lot of them have come from my travels. Whenever I go on vacation, I try and buy something for the tree. When I was in Arizona this past fall, I purchased a cactus ornament adorned with little Christmas lights.
From Ireland, “A Hundred Thousand Welcomes”From IcelandFrom the NetherlandsFrom Sedona, Arizona
Putting up the tree also brings with it a certain sort of melancholy feeling. Memories of Christmases past, memories of my three kids opening presents on Christmas morning, memories of holiday baking and holiday concerts. I asked my wife for a divorce after Thanksgiving back in 2015, I knew things would get really difficult during the holiday season. Since my wife had been fired from her fifth job in 10 years, and we had little to no money, so that year Christmas was quite threadbare and draining.
I used to ask myself the question, “Should I have stayed in the marriage?” And now, 10 years later, I have a definitive answer to that. “Hell No.” When my wife and I were first married, things were great. We truly were a happy couple and we enjoyed raising our kids. But when my wife’s personality began to change, due to her drug use, things became quite hard. I would try and talk to her about it, but she wouldn’t listen. And then when she started losing jobs, and our income was cut in half at times, the stress of it all sometimes was almost unbearable.
I remember one Christmas (when she was unemployed) and my daughter was still little and believed in Santa, my colleagues at my school gave me $200 in cash to buy her Santa presents. I can still remember them coming into my classroom with happy looks on their faces. I brought the money home and showed it to my wife. I thought she would be joyful, but she wasn’t. But she did use the money to buy presents, but they were odd ones. In hindsight I should have just gone out and bought them myself, but I was working and she wasn’t. She would go to garage sales and find old used toys. One toy in particular was an old doll with ratty tangled hair and one eye that wouldn’t open. On Christmas Eve, late into the evening (or should I say early Christmas morning), she was trying to fix it up to make it presentable. I will never forget her dumping olive oil on the scalp and trying to use the oil to comb out the tangles. I have a distinct memory of my son looking at me with a “WTF” look on his face. On Christmas morning when my daughter opened the gift, it reeked of stale olive oil. Needless to say, my daughter never played with that doll.
My wife liked to decorate for Christmas and would go all out for it. I would oblige her, knowing that I’d be the one to take everything down. She was great at putting all of the “fa la la” stuff up, but not good at taking it down. I remember one Christmas she wanted to put an artificial tree up in our entry hall, so we did. Then New Year’s Day came. Then it was mid-January. Then Valentine’s ads were coming up in February and the tree was still in the foyer. So one day, when she wasn’t home, I got my son to help me take it down and store it in the attic. We did it very carefully knowing that she’d be critical of what we’d done. When she got home, she threw a fit. I thought I was just helping to clean up and move on towards spring. She marched up to the attic, took the tree back out, and started complaining bitterly how we didn’t put the tree back in the box correctly. She then repacked it muttering to herself the whole time.
In the last five years of our marriage, our friends would ask me if things were all right. I would question them as to why they would ask that, and they’d tell me that she was turning into someone that they didn’t know. They commented on how she would ridicule me in front of others, and how her personality had changed. I would shrug it off, but inside I was slowly shriveling up. I am not a combative person by nature, so I would just take it. Maybe if I would have started yelling back, she would have become more aware of what she was doing. I guess I’ll never know.
A blogger sent me this poem by Mary Oliver back in 2017 which helped me to realize that I had to move on. It is called “The Journey.” I have come to really appreciate my blogger friends throughout the years. I went back and looked at an old post of mine from almost 10 years ago as I wanted to read what I had written when I started getting back into writing again.
The Journey
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice— though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried. But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do— determined to save the only life you could save.
I have read this poem over and over, especially when things got tough. I will never ever forget when I first read this poem, and I will be forever grateful to the blogger who shared it with me. Thank you Spo.
If you have read this post to the end, thank you for allowing me to reminisce about some things that perhaps aren’t always so good to remember. I will close with a photo of Miss Shirley after she has snacked on some fresh snow. The lighting was bad as it was getting dark. Shirley would stay out all day if I would let her!
We have had two snow “storms” over the last few days. We had one on Friday that brought about two inches, and today, Monday, another snow storm has rolled in with about five inches predicted. I put the word “storm” in quotes because growing up in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, these wouldn’t even be classified as anything major. I managed to get groceries this morning and I have candles ready in case we lose power.
I filmed Shirley and Murray during the first snow fall. If you watch the video below, stay tuned to the final seconds to see Shirley’s side tackle. The bottom two photos are from this afternoon.
I look at today’s date, December 8, and I cannot believe that Christmas is right around the corner! I did my Christmas shopping online yesterday and I think I am done for the most part. Even though the internet is great for not having to trudge from one store to another, I do make a concerted effort to buy things from local businesses, and I try to not order things from Amazon. I did find a really neat company that sells active wear made from alpaca wool. The company is called Paka. When I went to Peru in 2018, we went to an alpaca farm. I will always remember the different colors of yarn hanging from the shop, and how soft it felt. My credit card got a workout from that, which I will deal with in January.
I hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving if you are one to celebrate the American Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because there isn’t a ton of hullabaloo with it. And it is a time to reflect on why one is grateful. My cranberry cheesecake was a success. It was a hit with the crowd, and some were even saying it had notes of key lime pie. After I tasted it a second time, I could taste it myself.
On Friday, Michael and I went to the beach house in North Carolina. If you remember, he put it on the market last April, but it never sold. He had a few potential buyers, but those both fell through. Now his plan is to do a little minor kitchen renovation and do replacing the piping as the piping in the house is no longer used in the construction of new houses, and has been banned as the pipes can start to slowly leak. I am not sure the name of the particular kind of piping, that stuff is always over my head. It will be an expensive fix, but I think it will help the beach house sell. I hate selling it as I love the beach, but it has become a financial drain. The insurance keeps going up and up.
Shirley and Murray enjoy going to the beach. We don’t let Murray off the leash when we are down by the water, but we let Shirley run free, and she has a ball. I took the photos below as we were walking on the beach at dusk. It was windy and cold, but I had to take a few shots of the different colors. The beach is always a place that makes me feel serene.
December 8
December 8 will always be a date that is permanently etched in my mind. It was five years ago when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I remember that day vividly. I remember walking out to the parking lot from the doctor’s office rushing to get into the solitude of my car. I was holding everything in and didn’t want anyone to see me upset. I got in my car and the tears came.
Having cancer really upended the apple cart. But I got through it. The radiation treatments did a number on my system, and the fatigue was hard. But luckily for me it was during Covid and I was teaching half my class virtually, and the other half in person. So when I was feeling ill, I could leave the class and run to the restroom. My team of teachers would know my signal and would watch my class until I got back. Most of the students’ work was done on the computer, therefore it was easy to leave the students and the faculty restroom was close by.
There were some dark times when my doctors thought the cancer had spread. I can remember sitting in a trailer getting injected with some sort of nuclear medicine for a PET scan. I remember it was Halloween and the medical professionals all were wearing some sort of costume. Michael’s dad was sick and was to die a couple of days later. The world seemed to be closing in.
But here I am, five years later. I am thankful and blessed. One of the many reasons why I despise this administration so much (the list could take a full page) is the fact that they’ve cut medical research. It makes me angry to think that countless lives might be in jeopardy because our nation is run by a circus of clowns.
I was reading the NY Times yesterday morning and I saw an article about Thanksgiving and writing why one is grateful. The author mentioned that invariably if you attend a dinner, you will be asked what you are thankful for. He invited his readers to submit their 6 word statement. They were fun to read.
Here is mine: “Cold noses on my bare legs.” (of course this is referring to Shirley and Murray)
If you are so inclined, share your six word statement of why you are thankful. Some of the ones in the article were:
Family, sobriety, heavy metal, Cheddar cheese. Sun rising. Moon setting. Another day. It won’t always be like this.
I am also planning on making a cranberry cheesecake this afternoon to bring to Michael’s step-sister’s house for Thanksgiving. Last year my dessert was a debacle, hopefully this year will be better. I am typing this on Wednesday morning. I plan to make it in the afternoon and I will revisit this post and include a photo.
And violà! Here’s the photo (taken on Thursday morning)
I think the cheesecake came out okay! Much better than what I did last year.
French class is going well, though I can feel a bit intimidated by it all. Many of the students in the class have had a lot more experience with the language than I have, but everyone is accepting and kind. Today our topic was clothes, and we had to break up into groups and describe the clothes others in our group were wearing as well as what we were wearing. I did okay with that. I can handle a small group of four. But much to my horror, we had to present to the whole group, and I was “nominated” to be the model. This introvert hates being the center of attention. But the center of attention I was as I described my outfit to the entire class. After I was finished, the teacher instructed the others to say something about what I was wearing. One person said (in French) that she thought I looked athletic. Me?
The teacher hobbles around the classroom and is unsure of herself on her feet. Today for our clothes lesson she wore a t-shirt that was from a 5K run back in 2018. She was telling us all about the run in French (and sometimes in English) and she told the class that she couldn’t remember the name of the race. Someone in the class raised their hand and said, “Could it be the name that is on your t-shirt, the Turkey Drumstick 5K?” She said something that I didn’t quite understand in French and laughed. I admire her for still teaching at age 83!
Miss Shirley
A couple of weekends ago, Michael and I went to the beach to check on his beach house. Unfortunately, the house never sold, so he’s taken it off the market. He plans to do a bit of renovations on it over the winter months and put it back on the market in February. The insurance has gotten so high for this house that it is time to sell. When we got there on Friday night, there was no water in the house, so Michael went outside to check to see what was wrong. He figured it out and when he came back into the house he told me that he had heard an animal in the yard. We both figured that it was probably a deer. Later on that evening, I took Murray and Shirley out into the back yard to do their business. It is a fenced in yard, not very big, but big enough so that they can roam around. As we were going down the stairs, Shirley let out this growl, and tore down the steps. I hadn’t turned the outside light on yet as it is at the bottom of the steps. I heard a guttural growl coming from her that didn’t sound like any noise that I’ve ever heard her make. When I finally got the light on, I saw a “dead” opossum by the fence. I yelled at Shirley and Murray to come and they did. I gingerly walked over to the body and I thought I saw blood. Instantly I thought, shit….Shirley bit him and he has rabies. I ushered the dogs inside. I decided that I’d call animal control the next morning and tell them about the dead animal in our yard. I also thought that I should call the vet to make sure her rabies shot would be affective.
I tossed and turned all night worrying about her. Then it dawned on me. The opossum was playing opossum. The next morning, the animal was gone. I talked with my vet and said that opossums don’t usually get rabies, and it was out at night as it is a nocturnal animal. Whew.
I took Shirley to the vet today because she has a lump on her back hind quarter. I have been stewing about this all week, but fortunately the lump was just a sebaceous cyst which the vet drained. Another whew. I would be beside myself if Shirley got sick. Below is a video of Murray and Shirley playing together in the back yard. Notice I do not worry about the leaves littering the yard. All in due time I say.
I hope that everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving here in the USA enjoys their holiday. I have a lot to be grateful for, and will be even more grateful when the Mad King’s reign comes to an end.
I just looked at the date of my last post. It certainly has been a while. Sometimes writing things down in a blog overwhelms me, I cannot explain the exact reason why. It could be writer’s block, the fact that I’ve been quite busy, or maybe it is because I just needed to recharge a bit. A couple of times over the last couple of weeks I sat down to write something, and the words hardly would come, and when they did, I would erase them as I didn’t like how they were put together.
So today, I thought I would revisit my blog and reconnect with my cyber friends. I am going to force myself to just write, and not edit. And I will write just what pops into my head.
Northern Arizona
Michael and I had a good time on our vacation. We flew the airline that I hate the most, American Airlines. I have never had good luck with them, whether it was lost luggage, canceled flights, or rude and surly flight attendants. This time was different. Three of the four flights were on time, the flight attendants were pleasant, and I had an aisle seat on all flights with no one sitting next to me. I have been out west, but just to California and Hawaii. We went on a lot of hikes in the desert, enjoyed some good food, and we tried to stay on the go to see as much as we could. I know that Michael wants to retire in Arizona, and if I said “yes”, he would be all over it. But I think deep down I am an east coast person. I guess time will tell as he has a few more years to work.
I think my two favorite spots that we visited were Antelope Canyon in the Navajo Nation, and Sedona. We had to get a Navajo guide to take us into the canyon. The views were breathtaking. The top three photos are from Antelope Canyon. The second and third photos in the top row are looking up from inside the canyon. The larger picture on the bottom is from one of our hikes in Sedona.
Murray and Shirley did fine when we were gone. The couple that stayed at our house did a good job and kept us informed of what was going on. They said that the two of them were well behaved and fun to be with. I am a proud papa!
Murray and Shirley
Murray and Shirley are finally bonding. When I take them out into the back yard, they chase each other and enjoy just being in the moment. I sometimes think humans could learn a lot from just watching dogs play. I had to take Shirley to the vet yesterday for her annual checkup, and I brought Murray as he hates to be left alone. The vet was shocked at how much progress he has made. They have even taken to sharing the same bed!
My French Class
I am taking a French conversation class at the “senior center” not too far from my house. The instructor is an 83 year old former French teacher. She is a bit forgetful and disorganized, but I don’t care. This week she was passing out the handout for the class and didn’t realize that the pages were all blank. She had forgotten to run them off. I am definitely at the bottom of the heap in this class, but I am trying. We had to break up into groups and talk about our families in French. When it was my turn, I decided to talk about my three children. After I finished (in my broken and grammatically horrid French), one of the ladies in the group asked me why my son had moved to the Netherlands. I thought about lying, but I decided just to say it…(and I did it in English)….”He left because of Trump getting elected.” One woman got a look on her face that I can only surmise as “I’m MAGA”, but another woman said, “Good for him.” That man has really helped to divide our country.
I will close with some photos from my neighborhood. Autumn is indeed my favorite season.
Love to all
~Michael
PS: I used ChatGPT to come up with a title! I couldn’t think of one!
I have been so busy that I’ve neglected reading blogs and even thinking about something to write about. How can one who is retired be so busy? Well….
There’s Murray, who takes up a lot of my time. The training is going okay. He is doing better about going in the house, but I still find spots here and there. I am uber vigilant with him in the house and I think he’s finally getting it. He is growing on me as he walks around the house with a stuffed animal in his mouth with his tail wagging uncontrollably. I try and get a photo, but the little devil must know when the camera comes out as he stops the “cuteness”. Fortunately, his bladder infection has cleared up as I had to take him back to the vet for a recheck.
We’ve been having some minor work done on the house and I have been dealing with repairmen coming to the house, or not showing up, etc etc. It can be so frustrating. Right now a guy is working on fixing our backyard fence that got destroyed by a tree last spring. It has taken us this long to get the job done!
We are going away next Wednesday to Northern Arizona and I have been knee deep trying to get things ready for that. Luckily we have a couple coming to stay at the house, so I have gotten the dogs squared away. This couple is super responsible, so it helps with my worry meter.
My roommate from college dropped in unexpectedly for two days. He lives in Wisconsin, and was driving up the east coast, so he stopped and stayed with us for a few days. I love seeing him, but that put me a bit behind.
The SPCA where we got Murray publishes a quarterly electronic newsletter. When I got their most recent one, I noticed a photo and article about Murray! When I see how he looked when they got him, it breaks my heart. So when he frustrates me, I think of that first picture and it gives me a major burst of empathy. How can humans be so heartless? They named him “Will Ferrell”, but now he’s learned his name “Murray”.
And speaking of heartless humans and how animals are treated, another stressor in my life is the slow disintegration of what I once knew as my country. The demolition of the East Wing of the White House really hit me in the gut. More so than those insipid AI things he posted over the weekend. How anyone can support this regime is beyond my little pea brain to understand.
I took this photo above on one of our walks by the river. Luckily for me, the James River is only five minutes from my house. It is always fascinating to me to walk through the months of the year and witness the changing of the seasons. I am glad I live in a climate that has four seasons as I enjoy the changes. Kind of like the circle of life I guess. I tried to capture the fog rising from the river, but I really didn’t as I was holding a dog leash.
They spied a herd of deer and just watched them cross the trail into the woods. They were fascinated.
My Secret Journey 
