Thoughts on Renewing My Passport

 The passport I currently hold was issued ten years ago, 2016. For some reason, that doesn't seem like so long ago, but look at what has happened in those 10 years: the first fascist POTUS's term, Covid, Covid vaccine, uprising in terrorism across the globe, the death of George Floyd and its repercussions and the BLM movement, the rapid advance of AI, Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the overturn of Roe v Wade, the war in Ukraine, the death of Robert Redford, California on fire, the second POTUS fascist regime and so much more.

But some positive things took place as well: advances for LBTGQ rights, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series after 108 year drought, Wordle was invented. So was Taylor Swift. California got out of a drought, the James Webb Telescope was launched and sent back amazing photos of deep space, and maybe some other things that have been eclipsed by the evil that is taking over the world right now.

But back to my 2016 passport. Sadly, this passport was hardly used.  I have many other passports that documented my adventures with entry stamps, visas, exit stamps. This current one shows me going to France twice in ten years, and for those two journeys I am so grateful and had so much fun. And I went to Denmark, to Copenhagen!  Almost forgot about that, which is silly because I had such a great time in Copenhagen and might go back just to support the Danish people in their adamant refusal to relinquish Greenland to the fascist POOP. 

As I think about it, other things happened in the past ten years to me personally that are not noted on my passport or in the history of the times: I witnessed and survived the devastating fires of 2017 that wiped out an entire neighborhood 2 miles from where I lived at that moment; both of my knees have been replaced with new, fake knees; I took a solo road trip through the south, meaning Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and was made richer by that trip; my daughter married her amazing wife; seven dogs that I loved died and I mourned them all, especially my beloved Cooper; for the first (and possibly the only) time I officiated at a wonderful wedding; I was fired from two jobs and hired for a third; I saw Bruce Springsteen live (!), I moved into my current abode, a tiny cottage on a large property that I love......  and so much more. 

So it isn't true that a passport defines one's travels. It can document the foreign excursions, but that's about all.  Everything else, the memories, the pain and the joy of everyday life, the movies we see, the books we read, the hugs and kisses and broken hearts we experience, those are all ours. We hold those. Those are our true travels, whether here or abroad.

Hold them close. Life is mercurial. Memories can hold joy and happiness, and those are good.

A New Year But The Same Old Crap

 At least so far. 

Same old political deceit as 2025. Same old price hikes as 2025. Same old angst about everything as 2025.

But then, at this age, what is ever really new? In my earlier years, like 30-40-50 years ago, so many  things happened for the first time. First time falling in love, first marriage, first child. First time buying a house, a new car, first time cutting down a Christmas tree, the first time getting a puppy. All these first-time experiences had power, they had excitement and wonder. This is what life is about: the smack-you-in-the-face of the newness of it all, the amazement you feel every time something unique is in front of you. 

Now, all these years later, there isn't much new stuff left to happen.  I am sure I'm not going to fall in love again, or buy a house or a new car or a new puppy.  Certainly not going to have those kind of one-in-a-lifetime adventures because they can only be new once. There isn't the passion of discovering the rush you get in your earlier years. (In fact, sometimes there's no passion at all, except for the passionate screaming at what is happening to our cities, our state, country, world.)

So here we are, two weeks into 2026 and I am already feeling jaded and tired of everything, when a new year should give at least of month of hope and energic striving for something good. But perhaps it's not 2026's fault, nor the fault of all the crap that is happening right now in the world. Maybe it's simply that I am getting old and holding on to hope feels more and more useless and almost child-like.  Maybe being depressed and cynical is a more realistic approach to the world.  After all, being depressed and cynical means that any tiny ray of sunshine (metaphorically) can be good. Maybe we don't need an entire sunny day, a ten minute window of blue sky might help.

We'll see. 

Above is my attempt at trying to lighten the mood.

The Case of the Missing Sock and More

Some of you might have read about my pasta bowls which mysteriously vanished from my tiny cottage.  Those pasta bowls have not resurfaced, and again, I have no idea where they are. Strange.

Then about 6 weeks ago my dog had an unfortunate encounter with something in the back of my car and tore off one of his dew claws. A trip to the emergency vet ensued (so, so expensive) and he came home (with my help) with pain meds and a five-day regime of antibiotics. I gave him the correct dose of those pills for the first two days and I was very clear about where I put them in my tiny cottage (there aren't a lot of places to hide things here.) And yet, they disappeared overnight! The meds were in their little pill pouch when I went to bed and they were NOT there the next morning. And yes, I looked everywhere, and swept under everything and moved the fridge out and looked there..... I went through the trash, looked in every drawer, every cupboard, everywhere. They were gone and they have not reappeared.  

That was quite disconcerting, especially since I was very certain I had put the pills back in their pill-pouch, right on the kitchen counter.  But they were gone. 

And now this. This is just as strange and bizarre. Here's the set-up: I have (had) a pair of Bombas  socks. They are nice and cozy, warm and comforting. On Wednesday evening I put them on because my house was cold and so were my feet. When I went to bed, I took them off and they were tossed on the floor next to my sofa. (I am a bit of a slob at times, but I intended to wear them again the next evening.)

The next morning, I got up normally, put on my sloppy dog-walking clothes and the dog and I hopped into my car, drove two miles and jumped out of the car for our walk.  We (me and the dog) finished our walk, came home, I took a shower, went back out and ran some errands and returned home. 

About 2:30 that afternoon I repeated the dog-walking process, as I always do in the afternoon.  This time both me and the dog had our raincoats on because, of course, it was raining. We drove the 2 miles, got out of the car and about 15 feet past the car, on the sidewalk, was a wet sock. A Bombas sock. The same color as the sock I wore the night before. I stopped, looked at the sock on the sidewalk and thought "Well, that's strange, looks just like my sock."  We finished our walk, came home and I glanced at the floor where I had tossed my socks the night before. 

There was one Bombas sock on the floor.  One. Sock.

Now, I have absolutely no explanation why one of my socks is laying on the sidewalk 2 miles from my house. It was bizarre enough yesterday, but today that sock is still on that same sidewalk, acting all innocent and looking quite chagrined about being wet and lonely on the sidewalk but offering no explanation of how it got there. 

This is beyond my powers of deduction. I am not Sherlock Holmes, not Armand Gamache, not Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. There is no dead body, just a wandering Bombas sock and some missing pills and two absent pasta bowls. 

Seriously, I am mystified.

Perry Mason, Redux

 When I was about 10 years old, the TV show "Perry Mason" was in high form. In our house we didn't get to watch much TV, but since Perry was shown on Saturday nights, sometimes us kids were allowed to see it.  Now I don't know what my parents thought of the show but I totally loved it. It was clear cut, black and white (not just the TV but the morals) and Raymond Burr was, in my tiny mind, amazing.  In those days you could write to the television studios in care of an actor and ask for an autographed photo of the star.  I did so and a black and white photo of Burr came to me!  Autographed, well, no, but some machine signed it and that was fine with me.

For many years I watched that show. I wanted to be a lawyer because of Perry Mason. How exciting to gather evidence, to interrogate  a possible criminal! How powerful it would be to expose the real killer in the middle of a courtroom trial, to prove a client innocent and defy Lt. Tragg, the face of injustice!

I kept that photograph of Raymond Burr for a while. I kept the goal of being a lawyer for a while as well.  Eventually that career path disappeared.

We all know that trial lawyers are not like Perry Mason, things don't proceed in such an orderly fashion, trials don't get wrapped up in two days and the guilty don't always go to jail and the innocent sometimes take their place in that  jail.

I am writing about this because the TV show "Perry Mason" is on streaming TV now for free. The episode I just watched, from Season 3, ends with not just Mason but also Lt. Tragg letting a guilty man go free.  The man is a war hero and has just a few months to live, so those in charge decide, without a word spoken between the two of them, to close the door and let the soldier live out his last months in a Vet hospital instead of prison. While this is right and just and humane, it is also wrong and unjust. Guilty or innocent, the rules are the rules. The guy should be prosecuted. 

However, it's a TV show from the late 1950's, when compassion was still to be found. 

In the end, "Perry Mason" is a good show to watch if you want something entertaining in less than an hour.  Dramatic music, dramatic courtroom dialogue and a look at the world (in a way) 65 years ago.  Check it out.

And more of the same....

One would have hoped my dark, cranky mood would have changed by now.  Nope, not happening. Everything we read, every bit of news we hear reinforces the facts that we, as Americans, as humans, are in for a world of hurt, hate and terror for the next several years. If anyone out there has heard otherwise, has some uplifting splinter of light, please bring it on. Share it.

It boggles my mind that we have sunk so low in such a short period of time but then I think of the 1930's and the rise of Hitler and Nazism. It didn't take long before the Nazi Party reached its peak.  It isn't taking long for the current administration to wield its sword of power and bend the laws to suit its agenda. And now we have reports that POTUS is planning on skipping the election in 2028 and simply remaining president forever. And who's to stop him? Clearly not the Democrats, not unless a very, very strong leader emerges soon.  Kamala Harris says she is considering running for president again.  What a fiasco that would be.  

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."  Somehow we need to stop that backwards movement, we need to find a way to the future that does not include the monsters now in power. We need to move forward, not let ourselves be pulled backward, into the past.

The next time I write, it will be less dismal, I promise.  

What to say, or to say nothing?

 There have been times in the last few months that I have wanted to sit here and write about what is happening to our country, to our state, to our community, to our souls. But there isn't really anything to say that isn't full of anger, fear, animosity, selfishness. To lament what is going on seems indulgent at best and useless. What difference will it make?  None. Why bother discussing something that is so out of control, so blatantly evil? What can one person say that isn't as negative and as depressing as the reality of POTUS.

But then. Then I think that we MUST talk about it because we must acknowledge what is happening and face it, just on the very small chance that there is someone out there who might have an idea of how to curb this violence of the United States. 

We all read the headlines in whatever news sources we rely upon. Most of us skip the articles because the headlines are enough of a lesson in futility and panic. We wonder if banding together, protesting on the national days of protest can stimulate change. Maybe the change isn't going to grow out of these protests but the simple act of coming together with like-minded people for an hour or two can help cancel the feeling of isolation these current times have created.  Coming together, waving a sign, chanting a protest mantra, at least it is doing something with someone. It isn't sitting alone on the couch, reading trashy novels and watching ridiculous television to block out the reality of the world. Connection does help, at least for the moment.

If there are any answers out there, any course of action that can instigate change, we need to find them and find them quickly, before every state and county and city and community is locked down and turned into a police state.

Sorry for the depressing tone here, but these are depressing times.  Thanks for reading.

Junk food that serves a purpose. Sometimes.

Has it really been 3 months since we've spoken?  Yes, indeed, it has been that long.  No excuses, just laziness, which isn't an excuse or a reason. 

So here I go again:  You know how we are not supposed to eat processed foods? They are full of preservatives and bad ingredients, they have no nutritional value, they are the mark of a doomed soul?  And most of us try not to eat bad things. But.... every now and then junk food, really bad junk food, is called for.

I was talking with a friend about road trips and about getting up really early (pre-dawn) and hitting the road, taking along a good cup of coffee and some tasty treat like donuts or a good pastry.  There are fewer things more enjoyable than watching the sun come up out in the wasteland of California (or any state for that matter) while sipping on coffee and eating that breakfast sugar bomb.

This, of course, let to a conversation about car snacks on road trips. Car snacks can have great nutritional value when one is close to home.  Think apples, bananas, trail mix, a slice of homemade banana bread. But once that "close to home" barrier is crossed, nutrition flies out the open car window. No one should want "good for you" food on a long road trip. How boring. 

What one wants and needs are snacks from gas station mini-marts. Really good treats like Cheetos, especially the Flamin-Red-Hot Cheetos. These will turn your fingers red and your mouth red as well, so grab lots of paper napkins with your purchase. Other salty snacks are also welcome:  Honey-Roasted Peanuts are a favorite, Ranch Doritos as well. Candy can't be overlooked, so grab a few packages of Starburst and a Heath Bar.  Mini-mart beef jerky is allowed, even though it has some marginal food value. Check out the selection of refrigerated drinks because if you are lucky you will find a can of Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso hiding there.  These tiny cans are not just delicious but they have caffeine, a handy friend on a long drive. 

However, each individual has his or her own favorite car trip food.  While I totally enjoy all of the above, in my mind the perfect snack on a car journey are peanut M&Ms.  They aren't messy, they don't melt (only in your mouth) and you can fool yourself that they have value: a little sugar rush and a little protein from the peanuts. (They are also perfect on an airplane, but that's a topic for another day.)  Grab a yellow bag of these little nuggets and you are set for hundreds of miles.

Enjoy your road trip..... drive safely, stay awake and eat good junk food!  No one will know, no one can see you. It will make you happy.