Category Archives: Happy New Year

Things For Which I Am Grateful

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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
this is 2025, 2025, 2025, get used to it

Weather in the Tries:
Wow, I really blew it last week. I’ll try to get it right this week (takes deep breath) here goes: The lows for this week will be 32-34 and the highs will range from 30 to 48! two days in a row. Wonder if the management will open the pool???

Things For Which I Am Grateful:
President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral will be this Thursday. I hope the OP watches it and learns something positive. It’s too bad more churches never met, or if they did, killed him quick, Jesus. Had I attended the Carter’s church in Plains, GA, I might still be a Christian. But I didn’t and I’m not. Here’s a quote that kinda makes my case: “Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things he never said that gay people should be condemned.” ~ President Jimmy Carter.

Did I tell you I’m on Bluesky? I think so, but I’m old and forget things. One of the things I love is it seems much more positive than X, in fact, God @godpod.bsky.social is on it. S/He makes it worth the move. I’m Lenora Good @lenora2.bsky.social should you care to visit.

I will continue my weekly foray into Facebook for a while, probably until 2025 wanders out, only because my chapbook, Saying Goodbye to Thomas will be released to Pre Order effective 24 Feb-2 May, with general release in June. I really want people to pre order, as that is what my royalty is set to, and I want lots of royalty to divide in half between ALS Assoc and End of Life WA.

I must admit, I am extremely grateful to be alive in this time and not in the ‘good old days’ of yore. I’ve seen a lot of new things come and old things go. I saw a pufferbelly pull the train I was riding when I was a little kidlet, I saw the first diesel locomotive pull into Portland OR. I saw the rise of antibiotics, and the first polio vaccine. I saw the arrival of The Pill, and boy howdy was I grateful for that one. BTW, the doctor who gave us The Pill was a Roman Catholic. I witnessed HIV/AIDS go from a death sentence to a chronic illness, and I’ve seen some, but not enough, total reversals. I saw men walk on the moon, books become available in choices of bindings, type size, electronic, and audio available on our phones. 

People get upset at Amazon, claim it’s gotten rid of the mom and pop bookstores, but it really hasn’t. I fear it has made a good sized dent to a lot of traditional publishers, though. However, it has helped many of the small Independent publishers grow. Amazon pays a living wage, at least here in Kennewick where they hired my kids. 

I remember when Fred Meyer’s (in Portland OR) was a five and dime store. Then they added a few staple groceries. Then a lot of staple groceries, and home dec, and electronics, and paint, and a plant nursery. And people started shopping there because it became a one-stop-shop. I shopped there for years, until they sold out to Kroger. When they did that, they started selling Kroger stuff, and I would have to go to 2 or 3 different stores to get my groceries. Fuggedaboutit! I shifted over to WinCo. But they, too, have cut way down on a lot of their bulk foods/spices. 

But, you know where I can get a lot of stuff that is not available in Kennewick (at least not that I’ve found)? You got it, Amazon.com. And I don’t have to get dressed if I don’t want to, I don’t have to go out in the cold, I just have to wait a couple of days to get what I need. But I haven’t heard anyone complain about Amazon deliberately setting out to put grocery stores out of business. 

Back to the gratefuls—I am truly grateful for YouTube and related. This morning, as I was going through my newsfeed, I came across Freddie Mercury singing operatic, every time this pops up in my feed, I watch and love it, and him, all over again. Brings to mind the saying that one never truly dies until no one remembers them. A couple stories down the list, I had the pleasure of watching and listening to Snarky Puppy. And then a short video came up of a young woman playing the violin while on a boat and the whales coming up to listen to her. It would be interesting if someone would follow those whales and see if they incorporate a bit of classical music into their whale song. Every so often, I have to get my royalty fix and call up the forever young and sexy Freddie Mercury. Yep from 78s to 33s to 45s to tape, to CD, to streaming. It’s great to be alive today!

And Zoom! (Remember the old Mazda commercials with the kid saying, “zoom, zoom”?) Well, thanks to the Pandemic, I discovered the new and improved Zoom. Just one. Take Monday last—I attended a poetry reading in NYC, then another, non-poetry reading in Seattle by Sherman Alexie (for those of you who don’t know, Kennewick where I live is in Eastern WA close to the OR border. Driving across the Snoqualmie pass in good weather is a 3-4 hr drive.) Tuesday night was an open mic reading, Friday was a poetry prompt gathering, Saturday a poetry critique and Sunday another open mic, and sometimes a gathering from around the world of poets. I can’t go to Seattle to attend a Sherman Alexie reading, but I can certainly attend via Zoom!! Hm, is that Ladysmith Black Mambazo singing the commercial? And drones. Not weapon drones, photo drones. One of my favorite channels on YouTube is the Desert Drifter. He backpacks all over the SW desert and shows some fantastic scenery and old homes and granaries of the Old Ones. I can even watch the Bolshoi with minimal searching, check out the Bolshoi Bolero from 1967 no less. I’ve never seen flamenco like this, if in fact is. Whatever it is, it is Spectacular!

How did we ever live without computers and the WWW and Zoom and AI and Word processing, and all these new-fangled things??

But the one thing I am most grateful for? YOU! None of this would be worth anything if I didn’t have you, my friends, my family of choice, my family of blood, to share my wonderful wacky life with. I have been friends with some of you for 65 years plus. How be them thar apples?

First Photo of 2025:
well, this a first. it’s been rainy and gray and I haven’t taken any yet.

from the paws of the big little dawg;
my human left her bedroom door open one the noisy night so I could go hide in her bathroom or the office with housemate dan. neither my human no me got much sleep. but my human still loves me. and there won’t be another noisy night until summer. why do humans love their noise so much.

Earworm of the Week:

Pavel’s Bolero by Wiener Philharmoniker

Quote of the Week from Stressless Country:

“Here’s to the year that lies ahead,
let’s face it with laughter instead.
With humor as our guiding light,
we’ll tackle each day with all our might!”
~ Catherine Pulsifer, Roses Are Red

It is 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, do not forget

Happy 2023!!

2 Replies

Weather in the Tries: 
   We had a few days of relatively warm weather, including a Chinook wind that came in and within 24 hours got rid of all the non-piled snow and ice. Well, there was and is still some ice on the pond but not much. Alas, this next week will be a tad cooler, with all the lows below freezing, but all the highs should be above freezing. A couple of days may even make it into the low 40s.

Happy 2023!!
Today is the first day of 2023, and I must admit I don’t think I’ll shed any tears for the year’s passing. 
   Speaking of passing, I have a ritual of sorts that I perform sometime over the Winter Holidays. I began this several years ago, without really thinking of it, it just happened. I go through the list of my friends who have died, and remember them, and think about the happy times we had. After all, as George Eliot said, “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” 
   How so I maintain my list? When I lose a friend, I delete his email, but not her name from my Contacts list. So far, I have 44 names on the list. I usually go through the whole list when I’m addressing my Winter Cards, which this year turned out to be a Winter Letter via email. If you didn’t get one, and would like it, please let me know. As I go to each name, I stop, think about the person, and either mail them a card/eCard or just remember the fun times we had. I often come across a name or two throughout the year, and consider it like an interruption from a long lost friend—which, in a way, it is—delightful. 
   I’ve thought of deleting the names, but that’s so, well, final. I prefer to keep them around, even if just in my thoughts. As I come to their names, I sometimes even talk to them, let them know how much I miss them, and that I look forward to meeting them again, sharing laughter and a cuppa. 
   Do you have a way of keeping your dead “alive” to you? If you do, and would like to share, please do so in the comments.

Photos of the Week:

Remember this scene from last week? Well, the snow and ice hung around a few days and then…
…a warm Chinook blew in, and within 24 hours this is what it looked like. Still some ice, but only on the pond.

Entertainment:
Books Read:  If I finish it, I review it:  https://lenoragood.blogspot.com 
   Am reading a marvelous book of poetry, “The Geography of Absence” by Gayle Lauradunn. Thoroughly enjoying the book. As Rachell would say, “Watch this space” for announcement the book is finished and the review is posted.

Movies & TV:
   Am into Season 3 of Babylon 5. I keep thinking I should parse the episodes out and make it last longer, but I get too involved so watch the four episodes on the disc.
   Also watched the second of my Studio Ghibli movies, Castle in the Sky (or Laputa). See Movies & TV above.
   I am trying to remember to post reviews before I post the blog. In order to make the movies searchable by title or subject, I need to movies/TV as a blog. Which gets a tad confusing, at least to me. The easiest way to get the blog is to click on the title of the blog in email and it will go straight there. Same with the movie, click the title on the email and voila!

Sammy:
   We went to bed our usual time on New Year’s Eve and snuggled down to sleep. About midnight a neighbor set off a couple of what sounded/felt like cherry bomb firecrackers between our two buildings. Sammy and I both woke with a start, and after the second one, he decided he had better head to his private bunker, under the bed. About 12.30 he got back in bed and we went back to sleep. I don’t mind fireworks if I know they’re set off, but they are a bit of not nice to be awakened by. And here I am, grumbling about a couple fireworks, when the Ukrainians are getting not cherry bomb firecrackers, but the real things. Reminds me of the final stanza of one of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poems, 11 (untitled), “Yes / but then right in the middle of it / comes the smiling // mortician”.
   Sammy and I both wish you a peaceful and prosperous 2023 blessed by whatever God or Spirit you worship or don’t worship, we still wish you the peaceful and prosperous new year.