Thursday, January 13, 2021 (In 7 more days Biden becomes President.)

My neighbor and friend, Bill Herz, captured me leading my horses from pasture to home. On these winter mornings in decent weather, the horses and I walk about a quarter-mile down the road to a neighbor’s pasture. Toward evening, we walk home and again as a trio. In Bill’s photo, Rosie is on my left, Pimmy in the center, and Sunni on my right.

That’s our usual pattern, big horses on the outside and Pimmy between them. These animals are gentle and agreeable, but walking with the three physically stresses me. Rosie takes big steps while Pimmy slowly marches. Moving us in sync has me simultaneously pulling back on Rosie while tugging at Pimmy. She’s not an “easy tug”, Pimmy, and soon wears me out.

My best moment going to the pasture, is arriving at an access point where it’s safe to drop the donkey’s lead, and then I relax. My happiest moment coming home, is entering my neighbor, Frank’s, driveway, where again, it’s safe to drop the donkey’s lead. A little off-road path connects Frank’s place and mine. On it, the horses and I move in sync. Pimmy follows at no-speed.

I’ve complained before about the physical stress of walking with those three. Bill’s picture, worth a thousand words, illustrates and documents my task. It’s worth another thousand words, too, for showing that despite the work I’m smiling.

Love those equines!

Dear Friends: We need domestic animals, to care for and learn from. Diana

Tuesday, January 12, 2020 (In eight days Biden will become President.)

My “weekend” is beginning, and I’m facing accumulated “to dos”. Two days off isn’t enough, but fortunately my schedule soon might change. If children do return to school in February, our manager who took a leave of absence, to home school her kids, might come back to work. Her presence would push me down a notch–and no problem, for I’ve proven what I wished on accepting a promotion.

Many years ago, working in a large organization, I had to draw and use complex information from sophisticated computers. After retiring, I’ve done no similar work. Several months ago, an opportunity for promotion meant I’d have to track and report daily operations using computer data. I was unconfident about working with modern information technology and highly sophisticated computers.

I did it in short time. The computer system many call cumbersome and difficult to learn turned out to be a piece of cake. I gather operations data from one set of computers, and on another set of computers report those data. My real learning was that our reporting system makes it impossible to submit a mistake. This system won’t accept an imperfect number, and it knows!

Using modern technology in my role has been easy and fun. I enjoy being collared after making an input error, and forced to rethink my entries. If time is short, re-tracking my entries is frustrating but an excellent forced-learning opportunity.

I’m ready for a demotion, a return to zero eight-hour working days. The promotion was a pleasing experience that made my brain work harder, reassured its capabilities. The pending change will let me pay more attention to my animals, they have missed my care and presence.

Dear Friends: Stepping up to a challenge can be fun, educational, and reassuring. Diana

Monday, January 11, 2021 (In 9 days, Biden’s ignauration)

I’ve reviewed the morning’s major newspapers, glanced through the surveys and opinions that clog my email, and now intend to float to an alternate reality. This blog shouldn’t fire away at political and social themes, easy topics when on the world’s mind is the imbalance between individuals financially powerful and others who wish simply for middle-class advantages.

In yesterday’s mail came a book I had ordered on a whim. It’s arrival after a long delay surprised and baffled, for when could I read nearly 800 pages of essays on modern philosophy? It contains ideas written in the early 2000’s that undoubtedly connect to these times. Still, I scratch my head, for relative to today’s turmoil, this century’s early years seem very long ago.

The book introduces these essays as newer spins on old problems, covering modern views in areas like literature, science, faith, morality, and society. About these and other human interests, today’s hyper-unrests didn’t just drop from the sky. All events have beginnings, and these essays may help readers associate more clearly the modern past to our modern present. I’d welcome more understanding as to what made political and social situations evolve as they have.

Dear Friends: Knowledge is power, and in future may help us avoid past pitfalls. Diana

Sunday, January 10, 2020 (In 10 days Biden officially will become President)

I’m looking for an online course designed to improve learning skills. It’s difficult for me to absorb technically-oriented information, aside from momentary “Ah ha’s”. The part of my brain that should focus tightly doesn’t. It relinquishes itself to another part that enjoys diffused information. I do like to interweave big ideas, but want also to focus tightly on specifics. Maybe help will come from understanding more the brain’s capabilities, and by practicing new learning skills.

Heavens! I must be at work in an hour. Got lost in my inability to focus on details. Hey, Self: Gotcha!

Dear Friends: Keep creating ideas for the New Year to offset its dreary start. Diana

Saturday, January 09, 2020 (In 11 days Biden officially will become President)

Little makes me happier than leading the horses safely, about a quarter-mile from home, and then releasing them to graze all day. After hanging their halters on the dormant cherry trees, I’ll go home.

That pasture belongs to a kind neighbor who grants us free access in winter-time. Frozen grasses aren’t full of sugar and thus my easy weight-gainers may eat all they can hold. The pasture is large and they can run, sometimes bucking and kicking. Through the daylight hours as horses should, they graze and stroll, or stand and doze.

Yesterday’s early morning light snow created a fresh, pretty landscape. By the time my horses reached pasture, the snow mostly had melted. After making sure their water wasn’t frozen, I headed home. That would be a working day, but I didn’t want to think about this, and instead, considered a book I’m reading: Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl. Her reflections are thoughtful and powerful, and her prose is poetry.

My travel home included bumping into my next-door neighbor, Frank. Before I began working longer hours, and before his wife (a schoolteacher) began working from home, Frank and I chatted daily over the fence separating our properties. This year we’ve been busy and preoccupied, yesterday’s quick catch-up was fun.

Toward evening after work, we met again, Frank in his truck returning home from errands, and me out to fetch the horses. I thanked him for letting me and the horses travel through his property, a short-cut to my home. Once on his place, I can quit tugging to make the donkey track faster with the horses. Now safe from vehicle traffic, donkey set free follows the horses home.

After feeding the large animals and nearing the house, there was my handsome tabby, Maxwell, waiting for his dinner and focused on something invisible to me.

Dear Friends: That was a day when it felt good simply to feel good. Diana

Friday, January 08, 2020 (12 days before Biden is inaugurated)

It’s hard imagining what this year may look like. We’ve no clarity as to whether in a short time adequate vaccines may be produced to quell the pandemic. We don’t know how long it may take to administer vaccines to all needing them. Those and other open questions may interfere with plans for the new year ahead.

Well, I’m moving on anyway. I’m printing recipes for sourdough bread, and printing instructions on how to knit. I’m rearranging art supplies and might again try to draw. Preparing for self-isolating is easier now than last year. Now, we know ways to maintain a distance from others. We’ve figured out how to self-entertain, and can stay busy even if we’re not learning much that’s new.

I wonder if last year I did learn anything new. I wasn’t successful as a bread baker, failed at trying to knit, and didn’t manage to draw adequately. The irony is that these activities still hold my interest, and likely, I’ll not accomplish them any better this time.

Earlier today, I ran across several handheld calculators, complex and heavy-duty, unused and forgotten. Immediately, I wished to learn how to use them–a recurring old response. Using the calculators requires math skills and an understanding of numerical complexities. Higher math is learning I’ve tried to absorb, over and over by taking courses, before giving up.

Math is easy to the right kind of brain. Gaining savvy with numbers relies on abilities to memorize and categorize. That isn’t how my brain works, it doesn’t do numbers. Here’s the rub, I always yearn to know math and to interact creatively with modern capable, handheld calculators. Okay, I’ll add “learn math” to this year’s self-isolating activities.

Ahead an activity that pleases will be horseback riding. My horses carried me through last year’s social constraints. They and my dogs alongside made me happy. Nowadays, the dogs are aging and signs of arthritis limits their activities with horses. The dogs will make me go hiking, carrying a good camera. On this year’s list, activities with horses and dogs will really be my do-ables!

Dear Friends: We do what we can, hope to do more, and try to keep our sights high. Diana

Thursday, January 07, 2020 (13 days until Biden’s inauguration)

Yesterday in D.C. occurred the most brutal event most citizens have witnessed since the 1960s when America’s Civil Rights Movement got underway. Early television technology in those days revealed citizens being beaten by police and trampled by horses. Television created a widespread awareness of the South’s inhumane Jim Crow environment.

Yesterday, television captured a violent assault on America’s Capital. We in our homes, drinking coffee and watching a special joint House/Senate meeting, saw a murderous huge crowd on a binge of violent terror. That crowd’s instigator and de facto leader was/is the current President of the United States.

You know, saw it for yourself. I’m compelled to write because of first-hand experience that showed me the hold and sway over a group that may be gained by a seriously mentally-ill individual.

Ages ago, my eldest sister and her husband (both now deceased) adopted an infant–a beautiful and bright baby boy. Over time, he began demonstrating uncontrollable behaviors, some that verged on violence. My sister and brother-in-law tried every way they could to make the child happy. Nothing calmed this boy. Before he reached adolescence, he’d been diagnosed as paranoid-schizophrenic.

Increasingly, his reasonably-affluent family tried to accommodate the child. His parents spent great amounts of money and sought to calm him with musical instruments, outdoors gear, and anything to help him achieve a healthier state. Nothing helped He began to demonstrate violence against animals and threatened his parents. I lived nearby and had to distance myself.

While still a teenager, the boy in a fit of anger murdered my brother-in-law, point-blank with a pistol. Afterwards, he strolled through the house for car keys as my sister hid. After the police picked him up, he was sentenced to a state mental facility. Perhaps he still lives there.

America’s four years of Trump have reminded me of my nephew. Trump’s term exemplifies how one mentally ill may gain control of an environment. Through his four years as America’s most powerful politician, Trump has held all citizens hostage. Many have wished for him to lose the recent election. Others have wished differently and supported Trump. They’re also hostages, still doing his bidding. Yesterday, and wanted only by Trump, his supporters en masse overcame America’s Capital. In a spirit of violence, carrying destructive weapons, waving Confederate flags, and gleeful, they were intent on destroying an entrenched democratic process.

May America stay safe through the next thirteen days and see Biden inaugurated. May we hoping for that transfer of power be spared more hate and fury episodes–from Trump himself, and/or his rabid followers.

Dear Friends: Documented hatred and violence lives forever. “Can’t we all get along?” Diana

Wednesday, January 06, 2020 (14 days until Biden’s inauguration)

Georgia voters have managed to tamp down America’s middle-age anxieties. This morning, the runoff watchers awakened to welcome news of victories by Georgia’s Democratic Senate candidates.

Whew! Goodbye, Mitch. Bye, bye, Donald.

And Stacy Abrams, welcome to a future role on the world stage, also powerful. Your efforts for years to ensure fair and open voting in Georgia have yielded success. Your passion has demonstrated a model worthy of accolades.

This is a morning of breathing easier. Sure, Coronavirus continues to threaten and kill, but now Americans are gaining able and educated national leaders. They understand the importance of listening to science and appropriately making decisions.

America’s middle-age anxieties won’t end, for a large percentage of citizens still unhappy will continue generating unrest. Hopefully, most of us have come to understand, during DJT’s heavy-handed administration, that an established democracy seriously can be threatened, and worst, potentially dismantled.

Historical experience has helped us understand. It’s made us aware of past and present, social and political situations in other countries–especially Nazi Germany. We understand that social and political situations in civilized units do influence wellness and progress. Ironically, social media that foster turmoil, also teach, by revealing to citizens larger views of situations for them to consider.

Dear Friends: Slippers are Ugg with humor, but an ugg to those in power is bad. Diana

Tuesday, December 05, 2020 (15 days until Biden’s inauguration)

Today, voting will determine who are Alabama’s next two U.S. Senators–high stakes for America.

I finally subscribed to Audible. Too little free time for the favorite activity of sitting, holding a book, and reading, I need to stay in touch with others and learn from their thoughts, research, and creativity.

Our years of semi-terror politics-gone-wild are winding down, as indicated by changing popular writings. Many modern books, instead of complaining about current politics, are examaining anew nature’s environmental and human perspectives. These short, easier-to-read books deal with topics like modern philosophy and ethics. They hope to encourage the articulation of arguments, solidly based on reasonable thinking.

These short easier books teach in friendly ways. In my old school days, I waded through tombs, obtuse and difficult for a young mind. Today, after years of confusion about how to support large societies, I’m primed, open to ideas that foster truth, common sense, and logic.

This new year has gnawing world hunger for social intelligence. Popular reading preferences may nourish it. We’ve seen societies trying to foster new ideas and being foiled. Nonetheless, boiling beneath the surface still is a common yearning for better.

Realistically and symbolically, Georgia’s election reflects social unrests. Both sides have campaigned in ways beyond-intense. In these last moments, predicting outcomes isn’t possible because of the huge ambivalence among voters. Until late tonight, outcomes will be coin tosses.

Dear Friends: Changes in popular topics support larger hopes for a saner world. Diana

Monday, January 04, 2020 (Countdown: 16 days until Biden’s inauguration)

Pelosi survived yesterday’s House votes and will remain Speaker at least for two more years, after which, she has stated her intent to step aside.

Georgia residents will vote tomorrow. The outcome will determine which party will control the Senate during Biden’s administration. Frankly, I hope Mitch McC will disappear.

Just sayin’, and reminding, although we’re all weary. Twenty-twenty-one has been hoped for, the reality so far is that a New Year isn’t changing enough that still concerns us. ‘C’est la vie’.

Those are my rambles this morning before heading outside in darkness to feed horses. That’s prior to my heading away and trying to arrive early at work. Sigh. Afterwards, I’ll have two days off, to wallow happily or sadly in American politics. Go, Georgia!

As an aside, one can’t help wondering what the future holds for Stacy Abrams. She’s turned herself into a powerhouse in Georgia, and deservedly so. She’s extremely bright, articulate, passionate, and skilled to handle ongoing a huge role in domestic political and social issues.

Dear Friends: Whatever your viewpoints, may tomorrow deliver your preferences. Diana