What makes me happy every day is settling down at nap time and reading something engaging.

Before we move upwards, let’s start with my body.  It’s basically European peasant, broad hips, chubby thighs, nice ankles and not bad on top.  Shopping while young, I assumed in my old age, I’d be wearing half-sizes.  Guess what, they no longer make half-sizes.

I hate thinking about politics, talking about politics, watching politics.  But like most of us now I can’t look away from the trainwreck that is our political system at the moment.

Take a journey with me now to this small town halfway between Syracuse and Utica and locate on your map 210 Sconondoa Street.  To find it you’d have to drive out of the quaint downtown area and onto a street leading out of town, down near the railroad tracks.

I have mentioned before that the artist in me didn’t blossom until late in life.  Wait.  Shouldn’t “artist” be in quotes.  Oh, yeah, that’s better.

Having just attended a lecture on the “Joys of Downsizing” at the local senior center—packed, by the way—I have decided to grab the bull by the horns, meaning the crap in my house.  I figure it might be about time.

It used to be easy to “steal” someone else’s package.  Left on your doorstep, hey, it’s yours, baby.  But now Amazon has grown smarter.  It has its delivery people take a photo of exactly on which door the package has landed.

Growing up, through high school and college, girls/women never wore slacks or jeans.  It was always skirts and then for fancy occasions dresses.  Were we being punished for being female?  At least we could wear saddle shoes or white bucks with socks and didn’t have to worry about straight seams until the weekends.

I just read a rather ridiculous appeal to an advice columnist for—advice.

I think about July 4 lately, when this unpatriotic American will be presiding over the festival of our freedom.  What a sad state of affairs we’re in.

Little things in life pile up, don’t they?   I’m adverse to talking on the phone, but there are so many appointments one cannot make via email or texts.  When I do connect, it seems that no one has the time or the timing is inappropriate.

Haven’t we all at one time or another been in a situation that was morally fraught, where we asked ourselves what we should do?

Whither or wither our common heritage?  I often ask myself that question  when listening to news shows on television or even talking to friends.

I can’t do it.  As wonderful as I am, I can’t stand before people and tell them how wonderful I am.  It’s just not in my nature.

I like to consider myself one with nature.  Maybe not the fauna so much but definitely the flora.

Now, despite the two cancers and Covid, I’m a great believer that nothing is going to go wrong with me, that some day I shall just say, “Bye, bye, Earth,” and make a quick exit.

No longer do we just turn away, muttering, “Each to his/her own opinion.”  Now someone must pay for annoying us.  They have to lose their job, be shunned by the community, be sued—be shot to death.

I feel guilty even writing about this subject.  I know there are people who would love to hear, those whose hearing was never there or those whose hearing loss can’t be helped.  And yet, I debate whether to get a hearing aid or not.

Now my husband has insurance.  Regular Medicare and a supplemental.  Northwestern says Medicare won’t pay, and I’ll have to appeal.  But I still owe $323 for a less-than-seven-minute conversation to fill out a form.

In September we will have been married for 59 years.  In 2013 my husband fell and suffered a traumatic brain injury.  That sort of spelled the end of our “normal” marriage because he would never be “normal” again.