Get Out, 2017!

Just this afternoon I was thinking, "I've lost the need to write." But here I am. Much of the time I'm overwhelmed and unsure these days. Plenty of other people broadcast what I'm thinking, so why add to the buzz? What do I even think of it all anymore? I don't even know. Because I don't trust anything I hear to be true, I'm unsure. I think and wonder and hypothesize in my head, and there's no summation, no conclusions. Every day it's more awfulness. This is what 11 months of Cheeto von Tweeto and the corrupt Fascist Congress, religious insanity of all ilks, and crazy ass killings have brought.

2017 was a brutal year. On the round heels of 2016's deathapalooza we get a load of crazy people in power all together. We take a deep breath and go on. No time to grieve anything anymore. Carry on with your PTSD self. Yes, those are naked pix of the President's wife. Move along. Yes, groceries have drastically risen in price. Take it or leave it. Yes, if you depend on the Social Security that you paid into for decades, or any social service, you may be screwed pretty soon. Look at this cat meme!

This is not a world for the tender or weak. But it is a place for the pissy and indignant, and I am those even at the best of times. (Has there even been a 'best of times'? agh, another topic for another day...) There must never come a day when nobody argues their point, but I worry that we've become too stupid and lazy to care to have a point. It's easier to be told what to think than to think for yourself. It's also easier to just morph from feeling to feeling, because nobody will challenge your feelings. If you're weak there's no encouragement to get strong. There are drugs to remove those annoying thoughts that may flutter by. Just take this pill and none of it will bother you. And we'll make a profit.

Lately I've read a few articles about "the end of Capitalism". It seems like the end of something. An end is also a beginning.

May 2018 bring us justice, truth, peace, kindness, open minds and hearts, and make them our values.
Get the hell out, 2017 and don't let the door hit you where nature split you.
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Photos from Bratt

Greg Worden took photos of downtown in last night's first snowfall.

a pocket park in the center of town.

Main Street.
 
And Terry Martin caught the covered bridge just down the road from here, tonight.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
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So Here It Is... Merry Christmas

Boy, the past few months beat me down. I had nothing but rants and bad news so I kept it all on Fecebook. It's hard to type anyway, easier to just click a 'share' button.

But it's snowing, and it's Christmastime. Amid a lot of cursing, I put the tree up and got the lights on yesterday. This year we put tin foil on the wall behind it, as my Father did. Though he'd cut a skyline out of construction paper and run it around the crown molding, too. And put lights and garland everywhere. Got the garland part going, but not the lights or skyline. This is the most I've decorated in years. Maybe the skyline and lights will happen next year.

Tomorrow, friends will trek through the snow to trim the tree and eat comfort food. I made Irish cream last week, so that's ready. We'll feast and laugh and tell each other what we think, like all the other years. There's a real comfort in traditions and knowing what to expect. Each of us has been through the mill in 2017. Time to air grievances.

Next I need to decide on whether the fruits and nuts soaking in whiskey will end up mincemeat pie or fruitcake. Were that all of life was made of such quandaries!

For the next weeks I'm going to spend more time staring at my tree and talking to people. My energy will go toward keeping my spirits up so I can keep others' spirits up, too. We've been bottom-dwelling for too long, an easy thing to do with the state of things.

I hope, however and whatever you celebrate, that it gladdens your heart and lightens what load you carry. May a thousand good things shower on you every day, now and in the new year.

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