Overwhelmed but not undone . . .

still standing and resisting

The days are definitely coalescing the closer we get to the one I am dreading (which as my faithful readers will know is not my 80th birthday in July but the mind-numbing Inauguration Day we will all experience very soon). I simply refuse to believe that with all of the information currently available to us that we can willingly march off the cliff.

Now because I am feeling overwhelmed, you’d think I would seek some lighthearted entertainment to distract me. Well, that was the original thought, but instead I ended up watching two excellent series on Netflix both involving the Second World War in Britain. The first is entitled Churchill At War and the other one is Hitler And The Nazis: Evil on Trial which involves the Nuremberg trials after the War, with a lot of flashback coverage of the events. Both series were released in 2024. The first one is four episodes and the other one is six, and I have finished the first and am just digging in to the second. Perhaps it is psychologically explainable that watching the actual drama of the last Great War distracts me from current events. Or the fact that a lot of the footage covers the period just before I was born in London and somehow it resonates. Anyway, that is what I have been doing while also still knitting the endless supply of dishrags and scarves—as well as doing cross-stitching samplers while I listen to podcasts.

I am also still doing the puzzles on my daily calendar, and it is becoming even more evident that while I still have a facility with words, mathematics continues to elude me. I have just about given up attempting the puzzles involving numbers (although I am too proud to admit the obvious). And of course on the very rare occasion that I do catch on to the answer for a number puzzle, it pleases me inordinately. Now if I could just become an accomplished artist like my dear sister or my BFF Carol. But even though my father was artistic, my Mum was a wordsmith, so perhaps there is something to the transference of talent via genes. With all the DNA testing and ancestry blogs these days, I could spend my life tracing stuff like that. And a quick mention of the science that I am dipping my toes into, courtesy of Dr. Joe Schwarz. He did a talk on chemistry that involved polypropylene and how it is used in yogurt containers. Sure enough I found the minute marking on the bottom of the one I had in the fridge, and I’m now proud to know what it stands for and that it is FDA-approved for food contact. So much to learn, so little time.

Some last thoughts about coincidences, by the way. While reading the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs this morning (without the staring picture dust cover), I learned that he was a huge Bob Dylan fan. And as I think I shared the other day I got that gigantic Dylan compilation book at a great price and have been enjoying reading the heavy book during my afternoons in my recliner. Speaking of poets, I was saddened to read of the death of Nikki Giovanni the other day. She was very important to those of us counter-culture types in the 60’s—but again, I hadn’t given her much thought lately and had to read the obituary to find out where she had been. That’s what happens as we continue to live somewhat beyond our shelf life. But it was heartening to also read about Dick Van Dyke who is still alive and was in the news because of the California fires which he and his wife survived. Another person of importance to our generation about whom I wouldn’t normally think. I’m glad today that it wasn’t his obituary which brought him to mind.

RESIST ALWAYS

TTFN