The Parade, the Protests, and a Moment of Empathy

I was sorry to see that the military parade marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Armed Forces wasn’t exactly a proud or inspiring spectacle. Or at least it wasn't from what I saw on Facebook and in the media.

My sorrow was for the participants, who may or may not have been there willingly. I also felt a little sorry for the president, who I suspect was not a happy person when it was all said and done.

I didn’t watch the parade. Nor did I watch any of the No Kings protests. I posted a small No Kings protest on my blog and felt like that was all I could manage right now. I’m not much into marching.

According to historian Heather Cox Richardson, whom I trust on such matters, June 14 really was the birthday of the Armed Forces. She wrote:

…on June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress resolved “That six companies of expert riflemen, be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia; that each company consist of a captain, three lieutenants, four serjeants, four corporals, a drummer or trumpeter, and sixty-eight privates… [and that] each company, as soon as completed, shall march and join the army near Boston, to be there employed as light infantry, under the command of the chief Officer in that army.”

And thus Congress established the Continental Army.

Unfortunately, the original justification for the parade was the president’s birthday. That announcement raised eyebrows even among his most devoted followers, especially with a $50 million price tag. After public outcry, which also happened when he floated the idea during his first term, the event pivoted to commemorate the Army’s formation instead.

But by then, it was too late.

No Kings Day had taken hold. And depending on which estimate you believe, anywhere from five to thirteen million people marched in opposition to the practices, projects, and prejudices of the current administration.

I was surprised to find that I felt anything at all about the military parade. I consider myself a pacifist. Intellectually, I know that if everyone simply put down their weapons and walked away, there’d be no need to kill. I also know human beings don’t work that way. I took enough sociology courses in college to understand that the forces behind many of our emotions and actions don’t always make sense. They just are.

Empathy is part of who I am, even for people I disagree with—or actively dislike. Hopefully that speaks well of my character.

I see it as layers. The military folks were just doing their jobs. Some probably weren’t thrilled to be part of a PR stunt. Many may have had mixed feelings or were simply ordered to participate without a say. And even the president, behind all the spectacle, looked like a lonely, grasping human. I admit I felt a flicker of pity for him. Where was his family? He seems to have no support. I don’t like to see anyone flailing in public, even if they are powerful, abrasive, and dangerous.

Empathy doesn’t mean approval. It just means I’m still able to feel. I guess that makes me very “woke,” to have empathy for a man I despise.

But I’m human, and I think a lot.

Sometimes, that leads me down strange paths. And in this world full of noise and division, I wonder if empathy might be the last quiet act of rebellion.

Beater or Bird Flu?

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When I was very young, my grandmother kept me a lot because my mother worked a full-time job.

One of the things my grandmother did was bake.

She made cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. She had two grandchildren and two young children of her own at home to spoil, so the oven was often in service.

I loved it when she cooked. Not that I helped - I hate to cook - but when she finished with the mixing, I was on it.

I wanted a mixer beater to lick. I loved the taste of cookie dough, cake dough, or brownie dough.

No one cared then if the eggs were uncooked. The four of us sometimes fought over who received what - the bowl generally was fairly clean as my grandmother took care not to waste the batter. But the beaters? They were the prize.

With four of us, the split was a beater, a beater, a spoon, or the bowl.

After I finished mixing the batter for my husband's birthday cake, I licked the beaters, just like I did when I was a kid. Just as I have done for as long as I can remember.

But this time, I wondered if it was safe.

That notice on mixes about "do not eat raw dough" was one of those dictums that I studiously have avoided.

But now we have bird flu. As I ate the raw dough, I wondered how bird flu is transmitted.

A quick internet search indicates that bird flu, or avian influenza, can be present in eggs laid by infected birds. However, the risk of transmission to humans through consumption is extremely low if the eggs are cooked. But it's generally low anyway, as the virus is rarely found inside eggs. So maybe raw is still okay.

That got me thinking about what the government is doing or not doing about bird flu under the current administration. Turns out, they've canceled funding for a vaccine for bird flu. 

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) terminated a $766 million contract with Moderna, which was working on an mRNA-based vaccine for the H5 avian influenza virus.

The decision to cancel the vaccine was made under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who I dislike and consider to be ill equipped for the position he is holding, and who has expressed skepticism about mRNA vaccines. 

He's a tinfoil hat guy and should not be in charge of anything to do with health.

I will still eat raw dough. I've come this far doing it. Too late to change that now.

Besides, it tastes so good!

Sources:
enviroliteracy.org
www.fda.gov
www.usatoday.com
MedCity News
Food Safety News
Biospace
www.cbsnews.com

*This blog post was written by a human, but the research went through an AI tool because it seems they all do that now.*

Is Anybody Listening?

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A reflection on AI, loneliness, and the lost art of conversation

The other day, I was talking with a friend who mentioned she’d been having issues with her boyfriend. I remembered their brief breakup over the holidays. She hadn’t taken it well.

“I got through it with an AI therapist,” she told me.

Really? There are AI therapists?

Apparently so. A quick Google search brought up a list of the top-rated ones for 2025. Most offer a 7-day free trial, after which there’s a fee to continue. Some still provide access to basic advice even without a subscription.

It made me wonder if AI will eventually become everyone’s therapist. There’s something to be said for in-person talking. A chatbot might express concern or outrage on your behalf, but how would you know if it says that to everyone? It’s certainly not your friend.

Then again, therapists aren’t supposed to be your friends either, although over time it can feel that way. Still, we’re paying to be heard.

And maybe that’s what gets to me. That we’ve reached a point where so many people need to be heard, and not enough people are listening. So here come the AI therapists, who will now step in where actual humans no longer tread. We don’t take time anymore to hear each other’s stories, to ask why someone feels the way they do, or to understand the long path behind someone’s point of view.

We live in a 140-character world with short bursts of thought, shouted into the void. Background and context get left behind. Everyone’s yelling, typing whatever comes to mind, and in the end, we’re drowning in half-told tales. Most of them signify nothing, because stories told in fury rarely carry truth.

Or maybe they do mean something, but only to certain people. Bullies love a short format. It’s hard to argue with a tweet. Or an “X.” Whatever they call it now.

I’ve read that loneliness is becoming a major public health threat in the U.S. The kind that affects your body as well as your heart.

Can AI step in as someone’s best friend? I’m not sure. I’ve played with it, but I don’t have a mic on my desktop, so I don’t use the voice feature. My laptop has one and the one time I used it, it sounded robotic.

I’ve had Alexa for years. She’s chipper enough, but she can’t carry on a conversation. Maybe newer versions can, but mine are older and I've no plans to replace them. Frankly, between Alexa and Siri, I already feel like I’m under constant surveillance.

And Siri? She’s not much of a talker, either.

Once upon a time, people actually talked about deep things. They discussed the stars, big ideas, good books, the best way to diaper a baby, work struggles, or the price of hamburger. They shared stories and passed a beer between friends.

I still have a few people I can talk with like that, and I cherish them. Those rare relationships are the ones where we go deep and take time with each other. Most people skim the surface of every problem. Some made up their minds years ago and haven’t listened since. Maybe they never did. Maybe they were kids when they stopped, convinced they were always right.

No one is right about everything.

Not even AI. I’ve seen it get confused. Sometimes it spits out something funny, but other times it can be alarming. And if a computer bot can get that turned around, imagine what goes on inside the human mind.

I Think It Just Means I’m Human

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We almost all have feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, sadness, bewilderment, and low self-esteem, unless we’re suffering from a personality disorder like narcissism. And most of us want to be a good person.

Being a good person isn’t about being perfect. It’s about the choices we make every day, how we treat others, and how we handle challenges. If a person is kind, honest, and strives to do what’s right, that’s a strong sign of a decent human.

What other ways might we be good humans? How about these questions: Do you listen to others and show empathy? Do you take responsibility for your actions? Do you try to make the world around you a little better?

Hopefully, we all do that. But sometimes, we can be too hard on ourselves. Our perspectives might get skewed, or maybe they’ve been skewed by someone else. But one person’s viewpoint, including your own on a bad day, doesn’t define who you are.

For me, one of the biggest things is feeling heard. As a woman, it’s easy to feel voiceless in a patriarchal world, where male voices, especially white male voices, are often the ones that count. It’s painful when people don’t really hear us. It can make you feel invisible, like your feelings and experiences don’t matter.

But my perspective, everyone's really, is valid. All voices deserve to be heard.

Sometimes, people get so caught up in their own version of events that they don’t realize they’re shutting others out. That’s someone who may not be ready or willing to truly listen.

Feeling unheard can be isolating and exhausting. You can do your best and still feel like a ghost in the conversation. But that reflects more on the listener’s inability to see or acknowledge what’s being said than on the speaker.

All of our experiences, our emotions, our truths matter. Whether or not someone else chooses to recognize them doesn’t make them any less real.

When someone feels unheard, it’s natural to build walls to protect the self and try to control how one is perceived. When your perspective is constantly dismissed, it can make you second-guess yourself. That can lead to habits like over-apologizing and striving for perfection. But perfection? It's an impossible standard, and no one needs to earn their worth that way.

Sometimes, all we can do is strive to create a connection. Maybe we share knowledge, experiences, and interests in a meaningful way that feels safe. It’s like extending a hand without exposing the deepest parts of yourself. We offer something valuable without the weight of vulnerability.

We all need to build a life, a voice, and a community that is ours. We get to choose who is a part of that. We get to shape our own story. Maybe the most important family is the one we create: the people who support us, who hear us, who make life feel lighter instead of heavier.

There’s resilience in that. It takes strength to move forward, even if it’s in tiny increments, every day.

Sometimes the goal isn’t to fix everything. Sometimes we just need to create a moment of relief, a way to breathe a little easier. Even if the weight doesn’t fully lift, having something that helps, even just a little, is important.

Someone told me recently that when they look at me, they see someone who is thoughtful, who has endured difficult things without becoming cruel, who strives to understand herself and the world around her.

That, they said, is goodness.

I think it just means I’m human.

Missing Jamie

Last week I learned that my elementary school boyfriend passed away. He was the same age as I am. He had a SO, a grown child, and a grandson.

To my knowledge, I haven't seen him since we graduated high school. Actually, I don't remember seeing him in high school. Aside from our little affair in elementary school, I barely remember him at all. 

His name was James, just like my husband. Jamie and I "went together," as I think we called way back when, in the third grade. I was 8 years old.

He rode my school bus, and we sat together, sometimes. At least we did for the period of time that we "went together." I only vaguely remember this, that he was my "boyfriend" in elementary school. I remember he had nice eyes and a sweet smile. He wasn't mean to me. I remember that much about him. I don't know why we stopped "going together" except probably summer happened and by the time we returned to school, our "going together" was a past thing. I was shy and stayed by myself a great deal, plus I was on the college tract, and I don't think he was, which meant I was taking completely different classes than he would have been taking, except for the third grade.

According to my brother, he has a memory of me at my grandmother's house, crying. My grandmother scooped me up, as grandmothers are wont to do, and held me in the rocking chair while I cried. I wouldn't tell her what was wrong and then finally cried out, "I miss Jamie!"

Now, I have no memory of this, but my brother says he recalls it clearly. I must have thought quite a lot of this young boy who was "going with me" at such a tender age.

It is sad to lose your old elementary school boyfriend, even if you barely remember that he held your hand. He was the second of my classmates to have died in a month. I guess the class of '81 is growing old.

Musings of a Doom-Scrolled Mind

I am taking a break from working on my tax records and trying to come up with something to write about.

My brain is shoved full of information from doom scrolling, and I don't want to touch the idiocy coming out of the house of white.

It is not, of course, actual idiocy. It's really quite clever and incredibly devious (and very divisive). I do not admire devious people, however. In fact, in my Elder Scrolls: Castles game, when I have a little person doing work who has devious characteristics in personality, I frequently end up banishing that little person because they are close to stabbing someone in the back.

That's what devious people with devious personalities do.

Speaking of personality, I have noticed of late that my Microsoft feed is suddenly offering me up all of these pop psychology things like "11 Things Smart People Say" or "Characteristics That Indicate You're a Genius."

I haven't been searching for things like this, so I have no idea why it's suddenly popping up. Well, actually, I do. I think it's a push toward that particular and peculiar train of thought that some people are smarter than others and therefore they get to make all the rules and should have the best jobs. You know that stuff that Adolf Hitler proposed. The kind of thinking that makes someone say inferior people were hired to be aircraft controllers. That sort of thing.

We went to war over that, and I don't like that my computer is trying to subconsciously reinforce that message. 

I have learned that there are differing levels of intelligence, and there are also different kinds of intelligence. Emotional intelligence, for example. Logical intelligence. Literary/language intelligence. Mathematics/engineering type intelligence. I am not sure of categories; I am making them up as I go along here. Some people have a social intelligence that I admire greatly. I lack that, although I generally get along with most people. But not everyone.

We have snow on the ground. I predicated 8 inches, but it hasn't stopped falling yet. Last time I measured we had about 5 inches, but then it started sleeting and icing, and that tends to make the snow totals drop because of the weight of the ice. We may not end up with 8 inches. Regardless, this is probably enough to keep my car in the garage for the rest of the week, even if my husband plows the driveway. The hill up to my house is very, very steep.

It has been a dismal day, and working on the 2024 taxes hasn't helped. I hate doing that. It is a horrid task because we are involved in multiple enterprises: my little bit of writing, my husband's septic tank installation, a farm, a piece of rental property. Nothing that will make us rich or wealthy, but enough to keep us going.

Still, it's a lot of paperwork when you have multiple jobs. And I do all the paperwork and then hand it over to an accountant who plugs in the numbers - boop boop boop - and then tells us what we owe and asks for a check.

Somehow that doesn't seem quite fair.

I Got Something to Say

For a while now, I've been trying to decide if I am "real" enough in this blog.

I read other people's writing, and it seems to flow and energy drips from it. My writing, to me, feels constructed, constrained, and a little constipated.

Perhaps this is because I know it's in the public domain. But then, so is the work of the folks I read. Other bloggers, other writers. 

People who can dip into their emotional well and come out of it and leave you in tears.

I'm not sure I can do that. I'm not sure I am capable of that. I don't know that anything I've written since I began blogging 20 years ago has ever done that.

There is so much that I don't write about because this is a public space and because I am - or was - a public persona - that I am pretty sure my filters are constantly on high alert.

Even if I don't want them to be.

So if I wanted to rip my heart apart on this blog, and dump all of my grief, my angst, my heartache, I seriously doubt I could. I might want to, but I don't think I could.

I ache to feel like a real woman, a real person, a real human being with emotions and everything, but sometimes I feel more like some androgynous Vulcan, living a life of logic, with my emotions shut off and shut down.

Only then they come flying out at odd times. In strange words with my husband, for example. Perhaps a short snap at a friend. Maybe a huge sigh with another family member.

But I so badly want to write with freedom, with abandonment, to let it all fly out. Even now, I'm trying to do that, sitting here writing, trying to find an emotion to cast outward, and all I find is a lot of broken.

I find the broken in the way I feel physically, while I am still - still - trying to get over this virus or allergy or whatever it is I have. My voice is raspy, my eyes water constantly, my sinuses are all over the place.

There's broken in my soul at the thought of my country falling to pieces right before my eyes. I keep wanting to say, "Not on my watch," but it is my watch and I have failed, as have the multitudes and the many, and yet we all, except those of us who die tonight, will get up tomorrow and it will be just another cold, frigid day in Southwest Virginia, and my beautiful mountains will still pitch up towards the blue sky, and the snow will still be spotty on the grounds, and the deer will slip from the cedar trees and into the glen to munch on frozen grass and the cardinals will fluff themselves up in the tree in the front yard, their bodies enlarged to keep warm as the polar vortex bears down upon us.

There's broken in my heart when I think of all I have not done and will not do, and all that I wanted to do but could not bring myself to do, and then there is regret because I cannot remember what I have done, and I have done a lot, it has been a life well-lived, or as well as I could live it, at any rate, and so what if I don't ever see the pyramids or travel to Ireland? Those are just marks on a map, after all, and life has no roadmap, no life does.

There are those who can bulldoze their way through their life and take and take and get what they want or think they need and many of those people are happy, but most are not, or so it seems to me. And there are people like me who shrink and grow small in order to simply stay safe because safe is security and yet safe is boring and not really secure at all, because it's a nothingness sort of existence to stay safe and secure and holed up, aloof and alone.

I want to find that part of me, that part that I know is in there, that would allow me to write with the freedom of a flag flapping in the breeze - any flag, anywhere - flapping in a wind until it tears into shreds, and no one is even sure what kind of flag it was, in the end. Isn't that the way to get out of this place, to fly straight into the wind, unfettered and free?

Wake Up, Maggie

 

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I don't know a lot about this man, something I need to rectify. I am not a big biography reader though in recent years I have attempted to rectify that. However, I mostly lean towards the memoirs of women.

From Encyclopedia Brittanica: "Martin Luther King, Jr. (born January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.—died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee) was a Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. His leadership was fundamental to that movement’s success in ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the South and other parts of the United States. King rose to national prominence as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which promoted nonviolent tactics, such as the massive March on Washington (1963), to achieve civil rights. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964."

I was not quite five years old when King was killed in Tennessee. I do not have memories of this man, though I may have seen him on television. I have no memories of his death, but it hasn't been all that long ago that I was reading something about him and ran across a chilling reminder of how deeply racism is instilled in the hearts and minds of so many in this country. The words in that article were something to the effect that many white people rejoiced and partied when they learned the King was dead.

That this would have been anyone's reaction never occurred to me until I read it. Looking around me now, though, I see that of course this would have been true. People probably drank champaign and danced on top of their cars. Racism has never left. I just didn't see it because I live in a relatively white area. I grew up with it and didn't even know it.

This day is also the day the USA ushers in its new gilded age. An oligarchy unseen in my lifetime takes over. Or maybe it has always been this way, just not this blatant. I am not sure.

All I know is that today is a day to think, to contemplate, and to wonder. 

Try not to worry, and do not rejoice too much. There are winners and losers in everything, and what seems to be is not always what is.

The future remains as uncertain as it did in 1968.

I read the back issues of newspapers for fun.

Believe me, nothing much has changed as far as human nature over the last 150 years. The issues of today were the issues in 1875. They were only in less technological forms, but the class divide was as strong then as it is now.

Don't look for those issues to disappear overnight.

Hope v. Expectation

"Hope is the thing with feathers," says Emily Dickinson in one of her more famous poems.

It is also something I often feel I am at a deficit in.

Last night I asked my husband what the difference was between "expectation" and "hope." He said they were the same.

I said they were not.

These are the types of discussions I like to have, debates about ideas and philosophies and such. But he is not one to debate.

"When you go to the store, and I think, "Maybe he'll bring me a box of Tic Tacs," what is that?" I asked him.

"A hope, because it seldom happens," he said.

"If I tell you something in the house is broken, am I hoping you will fix it, or do I expect you to fix it?" I replied.

"You're doing both," he said.

And then I have to nag to get it fixed, I replied. And thus ended our conversation.

So, what is the difference between an expectation and a hope?

The kind of intersect, don't they? You can have both, for sure. They relate to our perception of the future and our desires for it.

An expectation is a belief that something will happen based on evidence, reasoning, or prior experience. For example, I expect my husband to fix a leaking sink because he has done so in the past. I do not expect him to pick up his dirty clothes because he doesn't do that often. So, expectations are often tied to specific outcomes, and its foundation is in predictability. I always expected to receive good grades in school, for example. I didn't hope for them. I prepared for tests and did the work necessary for the grade. I expected to be rewarded for my effort with a grade commensurate with the effort I put into it. Expectations are an anticipation that a certain result will materialize.

Hope, on the other hand, is more abstract. It is the optimistic yearning for a positive outcome. I hope my husband will bring me Tic Tacs, but whether he thinks to do that is out of my control (I never call and say, "Bring me Tic Tacs," because the point is I want him to think of me and show me that he does. The Tic Tacs are not the desired goal, really. The display of affection is.) Hope is not confined to logic, effort, or evidence. It is a forward-looking emotional state that allows people to endure hardships, persist in the face of adversity, and dream of possibilities that may seem distant or improbable. For example, we hope someone who is very ill will get better, or we hope we will live long enough to see a human walk on Mars.

The element of control seems to be crucial to the difference between expectation and hope. Expectations are often grounded in the belief that we can influence or predict outcomes. They are rooted in what we perceive as the logical progression of events, and unmet expectations can lead to disappointment or frustration. For instance, if I expect a promotion at work based on my performance and it does not happen, the emotional fallout may be intense, as the expectation was built on tangible evidence. I once angrily quit a job because of a situation like this, a job that in hindsight I should have stayed at.

Hope, however, thrives in uncertainty. It is most potent in situations where control is limited and outcomes are unpredictable. Right now, with ice on the fences and trees, I am hoping the power does not go out. Experience tells me that is a possibility but the odds in realty favor it staying on. I remember my mother held out great hope for her recovery from pancreatic cancer even though the odds were very much against that. Hope can provide comfort and motivation, not because the desired outcome is guaranteed, but because the possibility exists. Hope transcends the boundaries of logic and control, acting as a source of emotional strength.

The emotional consequences of expectation and hope also differ. When expectations are met - when my husband fixes the leaking sink - they can bring satisfaction, but their fulfillment often feels transactional—a simple alignment of reality with pre-established assumptions. However, when expectations are not met, they can lead to bitterness, dissatisfaction, or even a sense of failure, as unmet expectations challenge our perceived control over life. For example, his not fixing the sink would lead to a lot of nagging on my part, creating an uncomfortable scenario for both of us until he fixed the blasted sink.

Hope, though, is more forgiving. If I hope (not expect) that he will fix the sink but doesn't, I eventually either fix it myself (I have many skills) or call a plumber. It doesn't become a personal failure because he didn't do as I asked. Hope nurtures resilience, as it allows individuals to remain optimistic and forward-looking despite setbacks (it would be why I call the plumber). While unfulfilled expectations can close doors, hope keeps possibilities alive.

So what do you think, dear reader? Are expectations and hope two different things? Branches from the same tree? Can you have expectation without hope? Are they two sides of the same coin? Both can influence how we perceive and approach the future. While expectation is grounded in logic, control, and predictability, hope is rooted in optimism, possibility, and resilience. I often say I need to live my life without expectations, because ultimately, expecting people to do what they say they will or behave in a way that their actions indicate, leads to let down. Do you find that to be true? Or am I simply expecting too much out of other people?

Well, I have sat here and discussed this with myself long enough. I think that expectations and hope are different things. I also think I have too many expectations and not enough hope. I wonder if there is some way to turn that around.

More Than a Feeling

Yesterday, I was visiting with the woman who has cut my hair for a very long time. Regular readers may remember she retired pre-pandemic, and I wandered around aimlessly in the wilderness of hair stylists for years trying to find someone to cut my hair. I settled on someone for about a year, but she simply had no idea what I wanted my hair to look like, even with pictures.

In desperation, I contacted my old hair stylist and asked, "What am I supposed to tell people who cut my hair as to the style I want? No one understands what I am trying to tell them."

She told me I needed a certain cut that apparently no one teaches anymore. She offered to cut my hair for me, and I agreed. She's retired but she's kept up her license.

That was just over a year ago, and yesterday, which was I think the 12th cut, she said I finally look like myself, after going for years looking like somebody else.

I wonder who I was?

I felt like me, but I knew I didn't look like I used to. It is difficult going out when you are not happy with the way you look. Add to that my unfortunate allergy to apparently every bit of makeup on the planet now, which means I mostly go out sans facial fixing, and the fact that I am overweight, and you have the perfect picture of a woman who feels more at home, alone, than someone who races all over town doing this and that.

So, I have mostly stayed home since the pandemic. I go out to the grocery store, occasionally I hit Walmart, and I see my doctors, but that's about it. We went to Belk (a southern department store) at Valley View Mall last week and it was like going into a strange world. I hadn't been to the mall in years. Literally.

I am feeling more like going out now. Even sans makeup. I've lost another 10 pounds, which is not much when you are already overweight, but my clothes fit a little better and are looser and not as restricting. I have been walking on the treadmill and trying to eat better so I have more energy. Not a lot more energy, but some.

The weather keeps me inside - I am not a winter fan. But I am feeling like maybe come spring, if I can keep the weight down, and my hair cut well, I will start venturing out more. Maybe once a week I will drive to the mall and walk it instead of the treadmill, just to see what is out there.

And to feel more like I belong in this world, because regardless of what others say and think, I do.

When Newspapers Were Newspapers

About 20 years ago, maybe a little less, when the Thanksgiving Day newspaper showed up in the paper box, it was as thick as two encyclopedias, at least. It was full of advertisements for Black Friday sales.

It also had real news in it.

Now the daily newspaper doesn't even print a paper on Thanksgiving Day. Or any other holiday, for that matter.

And there are no advertisements.

In those long-gone days, it was a delicious treat to sit down with that fat Thanksgiving Day paper and look through the ads. It was reminiscent of the old Sears catalog. How else did you know what was out there to buy if you couldn't look through ads to see?

Today, the ads kind of come to you through whatever website you visit, but that means there are hundreds of items out there that I might like that I will never see.

Not only have we lost the news in newspapers, but also the lack of advertisements means many of us have lost the way to find new toys or products that we might use.

The other thing we have lost with the decline of newspapers is the way I used to find work. There are no longer "help wanted" ads in the newspaper. When I needed a job, long ago, I would take the Sunday paper (which would be very fat, by the way, and full of all kinds of real news and interesting feature stories), and using a red pen, I'd circle any job I thought I might be interested in and/or qualified for.

Generally, the ads were blind box ads, so you had no idea what company you were applying to. I almost always found a job that way. My resume was decent, and I had legal experience from working for lawyers, so I could find secretarial work almost anywhere.

Those days are gone, too. To be honest, I wouldn't know how to find a job if I was physically capable of holding one. All I know to do now is go to Indeed and have a look around. Or go to individual businesses and check out their "jobs" section, if it is a large company.

Newspapers were part of the fabric that held this nation together. It was known as the Fourth Estate for a reason - it was supposed to act independently of the government, not as its puppet or mouthpiece. That's not to say there wasn't bias or slant to the articles - of course there was, even long ago - but generally speaking, most reporters that I have known were there to simply tell the truth of the story they were writing about, whether that was a county meeting or a heroic adventure some youth had while paddling down the James River. It's the editors, owners, and bean counters who have turned the media into an entertainment industry instead of the news as it once was.

I think the decline of the nation is echoed by the decline of the news media. Talking heads who argue with one another is not news. Someone spewing out his opinion of what is going on is not news. I used to write news. I had no agenda other than to report what went on at a meeting. Of course, I had to curry out what was most important - do I lead with the budget or the new construction of a fire station? - that sort of thing. But in my articles, at least, nearly everything that went on at the meeting was reported.

Now, it's not. I watch the meetings online and when I read about them, the most important item is singled out, and that's about all that is given. If the public speaks, the newspapers no longer print their names like they once did. Once you were in the public halls, and put yourself up there to speak, you were in the public domain and whatever was said was fair game for the newspapers. Try that now and the public will pounce on you like a hound after a fox, and that's the end of you.

I would love to see a good newspaper again. I'd like to see advertisements again. I'd like to sit down with a Sears catalog and turn the pages, licking the ink off of my fingers, just to see what all is out there.

We have lost so much with all of these gains in technology. There is no going back, I know. We must thrust our way forward and hope that whatever sword finds us, it's not the one with the powerful pointy end.

Remembering 9/11

In the days after September 11, 2001, I remember seeing blue skies unmarred by the trails of aircraft, because the planes were grounded. It was eerie to look up and see the sky so blue without the chem trails of planes, the crisscross patterns that indicated people were going on about their day, flying hither and yon without a care.

People were quiet, at first, and helpful, at first. But after a few days, the air changed. I felt anger, hatred, and evil seething in the store when I went after groceries. It has ebbed and flowed over the last 23 years, that feeling that I have when I am in a crowd, but it has never gone away, not since September 12, 2001. For a day - maybe two - we were one nation, pulled together by the horror of what we'd witnessed.

But after that? We were an angry, scared bunch of people, and we've stayed that way. We frayed. We pulled apart. And the distance and the turmoil grew, and in the end, the terrorists won after all, for all that they've been dead for a long time.

In the end, they destroyed us - because we have destroyed ourselves.

We've raised an entire generation in that atmosphere of fear and hate. They don't know anything except fear and hate. That's all they know.

What has it been like for them, growing up in this new world that we allowed to happen, the one where everyone is afraid, and big men must carry guns with little, deadly bullets to compensate for their fears?

I know what it has been like for me to live in this time - it's been basically an ulcer-creating atmosphere. But what must it be like for those young folks, the ones who are now turning 21?

What do they think and feel, having grown up every moment with this disease of the soul, this dark pall that has fallen over this nation?

I remember the blue skies on September 12. I looked up at the blue, blue skies, those brilliant September skies.

And the memories of what we were before, knowing what we could have been, and the thought of those clear blue skies, are what pulls me through.

Today I remember the 343 firefighters who lost their lives on that fateful day, and the numerous others who have died over the years from cancers and demons that day brought on.

Writers I'm Supposed to Love

When I was taking Advanced Placement English in high school (it was, in theory, college level English), I remember a little argument I had with Dr. Shots (she had a Ph.D. and insisted on the title) about the deconstruction of a piece of work.

Apparently, I had had enough of the "they used yellow here for sickness, green for jealousy, why do you think this lamp is placed here," because I told her I didn't think authors meant for their work to be analyzed in such depth and detail.

"Sometimes a lamp is just a lamp," I said. Or something to that effect.

You'd have thought I'd blasphemed the chin of God the way she came after me. Of course, every word was carefully chosen, every sofa, every lamp, every blade of grass, had a deeper meaning than just being a blade of grass. What was I doing in her class, telling her (with her Ph.D) that writers didn't always mean something else with what they wrote?

"Because I write, and I don't do that," I responded. "Not consciously."

"Then you're not a writer," she snapped, putting an end to the discussion.

She was the only teacher to ever say that to me.

After that, I kept my mouth shut and dutifully turned in my papers or spoke up in class saying that of course the lamp meant that the character had an idea or had seen the light about some issue. It wasn't put there simply so she could read the book in her hand.

Then I went to Hollins College, now Hollins University, which is a women's undergraduate degree school that is well-known for the writers it puts out. Think Margaret Wise Brown and Anne Dillard, just to name two. Or Lee Smith and Jill McCorkle.

There the poetry in particular was analyzed in great detail, even that which was written in the 17th century. I went on to read Virginia Woolf and numerous other writers while taking eight long years to get my bachelors.

And I always found the examination of works tedious, and I stubbornly (and secretly) held on to my conviction that sometimes a lamp is just a lamp. But I wrote the essays about the books secret meanings and dissected the poems as required.

Of course, sometimes imagery has double meaning, and of course sometimes the more literary authors put cute language in their works to add to the character. The book I'm currently listening to has a daughter of a woman who was dying of cancer eat a chicken pot pie with her mother and the hospice worker. What does the chicken pot pie symbolize?

Damn if I know. Dinner table scenes are great for conversation; they had to eat something. Maybe it symbolizes the daughter's fears about her mother's upcoming death (she's chicken, get it?). Maybe it was just there.

Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Gilbert, and now Ann Beattie (whom I am listening to - maybe it's something to do with the name "Ann"), are among the literary writers that I am supposed to like. They use great turns of phrases and create deep characters. Every word has been carefully chosen. I imagine these writers spend days pouring over one sentence until they are utterly sick of it, trying to make sure they've chosen chicken pot pie instead of Thai food for the correct reason.

And I listen or read their books and find they do not move me. Occasionally they write one that I find intriguing and enjoy, but overall, they are not my favorite authors. They may have a good sentence or two that makes its way into my little "writer's notebook," but the stories seldom stick with me.

Who do I like to read? I like Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, Susan Wiggs, Kate DiCamillo, Debbie Macomber, Nora Roberts, Louise Penny, Kristin Hannah, etc. These are not literary giants, but they write well and have interesting stories that move along just fine. Sometimes they make me laugh and sometimes they make me think. I liked The Hunger Games and Harry Potter. I like a lot of fantasy writers, like Neil Gaiman, Tolkien, Ray Bradbury, Phillip Pullman, Ursula K. Le Guin, etc.

I wrote for newspapers. I wrote to educate and inform, not to puzzle people and have them wonder about the significance of someone eating chicken pot pie. I like my fiction to be straight up and to the point, anymore. I read Overstory and while it received rave reviews, I found it incredibly boring. Great concept, but my goodness, couldn't that have been put out into the world in some way that wasn't so long and drawn out?

It is good for me to listen to authors I do not like, to stories I don't always enjoy. I never know what I may find in such tales. I do it now as a part of my life's growth cycle, so I don't get stale. I listen to or read everything from memoir to nonfiction self-help to the aforesaid authors to Catch-22. I seldom listen to or read something a second time (Tolkien being the exception). 

Life is a learning experience. This is part of how I live it. But sometimes it frustrates me, because I still think I'm right. A lamp sometimes is just a lamp.

Can You Hear Me Now?

I feel voiceless.

Silenced.

Quieted.

Not just because some football player told a graduating class that the women should have no thoughts and look forward to being mommies and wives. Not just because, all of my life, no one has listened to me, male or female. I have always been silenced, first by my parents, my grandparents, my uncles, my aunts, my brother. Then teachers, friends. Bosses. 

No one wants to hear my side of the story.

They don't care about anything I have to say.

Society cares nothing about what women have to say.

This culture teaches young girls to shrink themselves, to stay quiet, to be small. That translates into someone like me, an old woman who is still small, even if she is fat, and still unheard, even when she talks. 

Culture says to young women, go forth and be whomever you want to be, but don't expect too much, because you cannot have much, or we will judge you for it. You can be successful, but you will never be president. You will never be a CEO or a millionaire on your own terms.

Be a secretary, my mother told me, when I said I wanted to be a writer. Learn to do what the men say, just as she had done. She worked, but she had no ambition because she was not taught to have such. And when times came for promotions at her job, she told us at home she wanted those promotions, was qualified for those promotions, but she never, ever asked for them.

She was still labeled a file clerk after 30 years on the job when she retired. A file clerk from her first day to her last.

When I was 13, my father began planting peach trees. They would grow, he said, and the crop would put my brother through college. What about my college? I asked. You are just going to get married, he said. There will be no college for you.

My brother did not go to college. The peach trees did not grow.

I have three college degrees that I earned while I was also working a job. I also have a husband, but he was not my aspiration at the time. He was someone I fell in love with and wanted in my life. I did not seek him out.

But like other men, he does not listen. Men do not listen to women, not their wives, their daughters, their fiancés, their female friends, their female classmates, or their female coworkers. They simply do not hear.

And women do not listen to other women. Words may be heard, but they are not often understood. Other women come closest to listening to me, but even then, I do not often feel heard.

When I was listening recently to Liz Cheney read her book, Oath and Honor, and heard her warnings about the former president and the danger he presents to our country, I felt helpless yet again. Because I was listening to her, and I heard her.

That orange idiot has stated, multiple times, that he will trash the U.S. Constitution. He will surround himself with sycophants. He will not have elections again - all that talk about serving for 3 or 4 terms, does anyone think he will risk an election? He will undo the civil rights legislations of the 1960s, he will force suffering upon millions, remove Social Security for the old folks, and put women on a list so someone can keep track of their periods and possible pregnancies.

And Cheney warns of all of this, not in those words, but in better words, in good strong intelligent words, in her book. 

And the people who need to read it are not reading it. They are not listening.

I watched the January 6 select committee hearings. I watched what happened on January 6. I reached my own conclusions about that day, and they mirror Liz Cheney's. 

I know there are nearly 200 people in the House of Representatives who supported what happened on that day and are still in office. We've been in the midst of a slow-moving coup for eight years. It is not over.

But a woman wrote that book, that brilliant warning of what will be. And she is being, will be, and will continue to be, ignored.

There is no cure for what ails society when it has made half of its citizens voiceless. What are we to do, we who want to speak out, cry out, and scream into the night about all of the bad, not just political but personal, all of the very bad and evil things we have seen and suffered?

The State of Things

One of the changes I've noticed since the onset of Covid is the decline of quality of products.

This is not something one can blame a president for, or Congress, or anyone in politics, really. This is a corporate problem. A business issue. A capitalism thing. A people thing.

Shrinkflation is real; I've watched everything get smaller from my Dove soap to my box of Cheerios. Batteries don't work as well as they once did and I am finding that newer ones corrode much more quickly than the old batteries used to, as well. Nothing purchased now seems to be properly made. It's more like it's tossed together by people who don't know what they are doing.

I have thought about this a lot. Is this because the corporations have fallen into using poor materials? Do the people who are working there now not know what they are doing? Is it a combination of both?

I suspect it is a combination of many things: greed, the need to pay stockholders in big companies, the higher cost of materials thanks to tariffs put in place by the former president and now also by the current one, as well as changes in personnel.

It's important to remember that over 1 million people in this country died during Covid. They weren't all 88 years old languishing away in a nursing home, either.

Also, Covid hit just as baby boomers were retiring, and Covid sent some 2.6 million more people than expected into early retirement, according to PBS. (My husband was one of those early retirees.)

So theoretically, that's over 3.6 million people no longer in the workforce. I know some of the older people who died weren't working, but for numbers sake, there you go. Millions of people no longer working.

Imagine the scenario. I don't know how batteries are made, or if they are even made in the United States but let's assume they are made here. There is a lot of automation in most manufacturing now. So a battery plant might employ something like 400 people. About 150 of those would be salespeople and upper management, because companies these days are a bit top heavy.

That leaves 50 more for support staff to upper management, so now I have 200 people doing the actual work of making batteries.

Then 2020 came, and Covid struck. On the floor with 200 people, the head floor manager dies of Covid. Fourteen of the oldest employees retire. Over the next two years, five more people die from Covid or something else, and three more leave. That's 11.5% of the floor workforce knocked out.

Maybe upper management decides not to replace them. So now there are only 177 people doing what was a 200-person job. Of course, some of those who died or left took expert knowledge with them. Maybe only the head floor manager knew that if you didn't flick this particular machine in just the right way, you would get too much alkaline or too little alkaline in the battery. Maybe nobody has figured this out yet.

Or maybe management hires new people. They have to be trained, but the person who usually trained new employees is one of the retirees. Someone else steps up to do it but leaves out a few crucial steps that the person who had been there for 20 years knew.

So, you end up with a poorer battery. Serviceable, maybe. Acceptable by whatever quality assurances the company has in place (if any), but still not as good a battery as one purchased in 2019. And now it costs more, too.

And people who don't stop to think things through blame the government.

The problems in this country go way deeper than just who is president or who is in Congress, although many of the issues start there. The problems start with us. With who we are and who we want to be. Do we want to be the best darned battery checker in the world, or just draw a paycheck? Do we take pride in our communities anymore? Do we volunteer for civic work, help the town council put out flower arrangements to make the entry way a pretty spot? Do we donate to the library, check on a neighbor, or just sit around and bitch, moan, and whine on Facebook (or a blog) about all the things we see wrong around us?

I am older now. I'm in chronic pain. I don't get out as much as I used to. But in my younger days, I volunteered for the ladies auxiliary in the volunteer fire department. I peeled potatoes to help them raise money at various events. I volunteered for the library. I volunteered for a historic preservation organization.

I did stuff. Some of it was important stuff. Maybe some of it wasn't, I don't know, but I gave it my best shot.

During all of this, I worked a job, kept a house, stayed sick a lot, and put myself through college not only for an undergraduate degree but also my masters. I never once did a job just for a paycheck. Sure, some of the places I worked I worked for the money, but I also did the very best I could at the job. Maybe my best wasn't good enough for some particular work, but it was my best.

Ok, I'm losing my train of thought, but I think the problems in this country can be boiled down to two things: you, and me. 

We need to learn to get along and how to work together to bring about a better world. It can be done.

Let's get off of Facebook and get to the real world.

The solutions begin with us.

AITA?

Generally, I do not post much on Facebook. I don't interact with many people even though I have hundreds of friends. I "like" things sometimes, and sometimes I put up a photo (usually one that also ends up on my blog), but I seldom comment.

This morning, an author I follow asked a question that went something like this: If you don't buy my book, would you mind telling me why?

A few people had answered, most having to do with money.

This author writes self-help books about a particularly traumatizing topic. I have never bought her book, but I have read articles she's written. I have followed her page for a long time (years), and never commented.

I thought about her question and decided to give an honest answer, and I admit this was hard for me to write, but it was the truth. "I haven't bought your book because I don't want to relive the things I have gone through."

The rest of this is paraphrased; you'll see why at the end.

A little later, I saw that she had responded thusly: "That's a false assessment."

This irritated me and I felt it was, well, cruel and certainly not empathetic. Who is she to tell me what may or may not trigger me when I'm dealing with something traumatic? I noted that one person had given my comment the little "cares" thing on Facebook and on the author's response, someone had put the little "wow" emoji.

I wrote back. "That's a really crappy answer to give to someone who is trying to be helpful to you. And don't bother blocking me because I'm unfollowing you."

I immediately unfollowed her, but because she responded back with my name, it popped up as something I could see if I clicked on the notice. I didn't realize that would happen. I don't have confrontations like this enough to know.

Anyway, I clicked to see what she'd written.

She wrote back: "A little touchy, aren't we? My book would teach you something. It's still a false assessment."

I wrote back: "You shouldn't ask questions if you don't want to know the answer."

She wrote back: "You sound just like the mean people I write about."

I wrote back: "Oh wow, good job! Insult and name calling all at the same time. Nice of you to let your readers see what you're really like. I'm done here. Peace to you."

And then I blocked her, so I wouldn't see if she responded anymore, and later I went back into my archives and deleted everything I'd commented, because I couldn't go to her page since I'd blocked her.

Which is why I had to paraphrase this entire conversation, because I blocked her and then deleted my comments.

Was I in the wrong here, to take offense at her lack of sensitivity, when she's a self-help author writing about a sensitive topic?

Where Are the Eagles?

In The Lord of the Rings, one of the biggest plot contrivances that some folks get confused about is the introduction of the Eagles.

We'll use the movies as examples here, because I don't have the books right in front of me. But in the movie, first we see an Eagle when Gandalf, trapped high in the sky in Saruman's white tower, sends a moth to call for one. A lone Eagle soars by and Gandalf takes a leap from a great height and lands on the Eagle's back to fly safely away from his captor.

The Eagles do not appear again until the end, when in the third film, as the Men of the West are fighting off orcs and Sauron seems to be winning, Pippin stops amidst the fighting and cries, "The Eagles! The Eagles are coming!"

And the Eagles come and fight off the dark riders, and later, when Frodo (well, actually Gollum) has destroyed the One Ring and ended Sauron for good, the Eagles carry Gandalf to the top of Mt. Doom to rescue Frodo and Sam from the volcanic mountain.

The big question many folks ask is, why didn't the Eagles carry Frodo to Mt. Doom in the first place, instead of having him wander all over Middle Earth to try to take the One Ring to Mt. Doom?

It's a good question, and it is a bit of a plot hole. There are many answers, but answer I like best is that the Eagles are another race, sentient beings like humans, and have agency. They therefore cannot be subjugated into doing the will of others. Although it does seem like performing a task that would stop evil would be a good thing.

Many of the non-human characters in The Lord of the Rings have agency: the Ents, who are tree shepherds, orcs, who are used and abused, goblins, who are wild things, for the most part, and wizards, who look like men but are not men. And we must not forget the elves, who also look human but are not, or the dwarves, who look human too, only shorter, as well as the hobbits, who look like humans but are shorter still.

In many interviews I've read about Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of the Rings books, he claims that the books are not about war. However, the author served in World War I and his sons in World War II.

I think The Lord of the Rings is about war.

Lately, I've been watching the eagles in California as they attempt to hatch a trio of eggs. The time for viability for the eggs has long passed, but the eagles continue to try to hatch eggs that aren't going to hatch. It has been an interesting couple of months watching these birds as they built their nest and laid the eggs. Now it's sad to look in on them, sitting diligently on eggs that, at least according to scientists, are simply rotting and not hatching. It reminds me of all the time I spent trying to have a child even though it was a fruitless exercise.

I have had eagles on my mind.

However, another question keeps running through my mind, and getting all confused with The Lord of the Rings, the eagles on the nest, and this country. The question is this: where are the Eagles? Not the eagles on the nest. Not the Eagles of Tolkien's world, not exactly.

I think Tolkien was using the Eagles as a metaphor for the U.S., who was late entering both World Wars. We entered World War I three years after it started, and World War II began in 1939 and we didn't enter it until the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. How many lives were lost, how much devastation was rendered, because the United States didn't step up when we should have?

The Eagles were late and came in near the end. They were, however, crucial to winning the wars, World War I, World War II - and the war in The Lord of the Rings.

So that question keeps crossing my mind these days: where are the Eagles? Not the Eagles of The Lord of the Rings, but the Eagles who are true patriots, the ones who will see through the conspiracy theories and the crackpot craziness and stand up and set the United States back upon a better path. Because technically, the US is now at war with itself. We are close to taking that old Constitution and ripping it to shreds, no matter who wins, although one side is more distasteful to me than the other.

Right now, I see no Eagles, not on the right, and not on the left. I caught a glimpse of a lone Eagle in Liz Cheney, which is something I never thought I 'd ever say, but if we have an Eagle guiding us, at the moment that's who it is (and I'm not sure of that). If she is like the lone Eagle swooping in to save Gandalf, where and when will the other Eagles come from? Who will rise up to make this nation over and bring back our better angels? It won't be the Republicans, who are bent on turning back the clock, taking away rights, and creating an American version of Hungary. 

The Democrats are no angels. I'm not sure they are Eagles, either, having turned away from the philosophies of Franklin Roosevelt as they have in the last 40 or so years. Roosevelt had his flaws, as all men do, but he did seem to have the welfare of this nation, and of the world, on his heart when he made decisions. (Truman decided to drop the atomic bombs on Japan, not Roosevelt. We don't know what Roosevelt would have done with those bombs, although he didn't stop their construction.)

We aren't in a novel at the moment. This is real life. But we have lots of fighting going on all over the world, and we have lots of in-fighting going on in this nation. We have climate change creating monumental catastrophes. However, we have no wise wizards at our sides, no guidance that comes from anything beyond the beaks of those who crave great power, even if that power is only to be the loudest mouth in a thread on a Facebook page. Given the wealthy crows who own the social media companies, what else should we expect?

So, I ask again, where are the Eagles? Where are those who would stand up against the powerful, and be the beacons that we need to lead us to a stronger, brighter, fairer and better world?