REALITY (MIDDAY MINI-RANT)

So the alleged "blizzard" didn't necessarily dump as much snow as they predicted everywhere, but it did some places. I looked out my window yesterday and thought it wasn't so bad. But when I went out in it, discovered otherwise. The snow was icy and very heavy and quite stubborn, hard to remove, if at all. And the wind had caused it to drift in odd ways that made the top steps of the porch of this old house I have an apartment in not look too bad, but the bottom steps invisible, just a big heap of whiteness impossible to gauge the depth of. I miscalculated and got a boot full of snow, and my boots are pretty high.

And it was slippery as hell frozen over, and cold "as a witch's tit" as they said when I was a boy, though for counter-sexism's sake we could say cold as the devil's dick I suppose. But somehow it also felt oddly peaceful and benign. The contradictions of Mother Nature, especially since her being so abused by the polluters and climate-change deniers. After many days of summer and/or spring weather, the animals and insects and trees and plants are now confused and most likely unable to sustain their usual rhythms and ecology.

Nonetheless, we are here, this is what's happening, and acceptance is the first step to changing it.

MY GRANDSON DONOVAN'S LATEST SONG

FYI

These shows are always rewarding, full of humor, insight, inspiration, artistry, poetry, storytelling, comedy, and much more....

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

HYPOCRISY CALLED OUT

MY PATERNAL LINE

these are my paternal Irish immigrant grandparents
who lived down the street from us

c. 1952, not too long before they passed

with my oldest sibling Tommy

who'd become Father Campion, a Franciscan friar,

and the silhouette of I'm pretty sure my sister Irene on the porch behind them

my grandfather "Iron Mike" was a man of few words

my grandmother I remember dearly

she was kind and loving but also had a terrific wit

and self deprecating sense of humor

the last time I saw her was not long after my grandfather died

she told me she couldn't stick around

because she could hear my grandfather

giving the angels hell for not making his favorite dish right

she died not long after that

I loved them both

MY MATERNAL LINE

the youngest of the women above is my mother in her teens
to her right is her mother, my grandma Dempsey,
and sitting is her mother, my great-grandma Ward.
I wish I knew what that is she's holding in her lap,
from their styles and ages I'd guess this was taken c. 1919
(they all belonged to the daughters of the grand army of the republic,which may be what the medals they're wearing were about, and may explain the tags (names?) on the bouquet(?) in my great grandma's lap)