They are the members of the Philharmonic Orchestra, and their work is to play. Beautifully.

                                      from The Philharmonic Gets Dressed
                                                        written byKarla Kuskin 
                                                     illustrated byMarc Simont  
                                                              HarperCollins, 1982

    Popular Culture is not my forté. Really. I’m not a Swifty. I don’t recognize most modern film stars, even though I enjoy live theater and movies, too. Popular music is mostly background noise for one or another of the books I’m reading for an upcoming book club meeting.
    So when I heard the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced its 2025 honorees, I decided to pay attention.
    Country musician George Strait, the rock band KISS, stage and screen star Michael Crawford, disco pioneer Gloria Gaynor, and Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone are the recipients who will be honored for their lifetime artistic achievements at this year's Kennedy Center Honors Gala. 
    For 48 years, the annual event has been one of the most anticipated in our nation’s capital. Superstars come to perform and pay tribute for the new Honorees at the Sunday night gala. And, as in the past, this year’s event will be televised on CBS (on December 23 at 8 pm ET) as a broadcast special.
    But a few differences are in store due to months of upheaval caused by Trump’s February ousting of the Kennedy Center president, Deborah Rutter, and board chair David Rubenstein. Several staff have also recently resigned. 
    Trump is now the chair of the Kennedy Center, elected by the people he appointed to replace those who have left. He said the vote was unanimous.
    Trump boasted that he and his appointees have “ended the woke programming.”  
    NPR announced on its Weekend Edition this past Sunday, that several changes have been made at the Kennedy Center. First, the months-long, bipartisan selection process undertaken by executive board members and senior staff members, with input from the general public and in “consultation [with] past recipients such as Julie Andrews, Lionel Richie, and John Williams” has not occurred. Instead, Trump said he was “about 98%” involved with the selection process. 
    So has he chosen his favorites, for whatever reason, from among our brightest stars?
    Instead of announcing the recipients at the Sunday night gala, he used a press conference at the Kennedy Center last August to make the announcement.
    And rather than the likes of past hosts such as Walter Cronkite, Caroline Kennedy, or Gloria Estefan, Trump said he was asked to host, (but did not say by whom). And even though he and Melania did not attend any of the events in his first term, in his acceptance he said, “I used to host The Apprentice finales…” as if that gives him credibility to host this awesome event.
    Also, the medal has been redesigned by Tiffany & Co. It now sports a dark blue ribbon instead of the rainbow striped one. The rainbow stripes are embedded into the medal itself. The recipient’s name is still engraved on the back. (If you click on the link to see the medal, remember the glowing explanatory copy was written by the Kennedy Center’s current administration.) 
    Most great European capitals boast a Cultural Arts Center. One hundred and eighty-five years after the Revolutionary War, President Eisenhower decided it was finally time to honor our own culture. In 1961 he signed the National Cultural Center Act confirming “the inherent value of the arts to all Americans.” 
    Then, a year after President Kennedy’s assassination, President Johnson signed a bill renaming the National Cultural Center. It has become “a living memorial to the slain President.”           
    Gracing the shores of the Potomac river, the Kennedy Center was inaugurated on September 8, 1971 with the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers.” It was a huge and energetic performance. 
    Although the New York Philharmonic Orchestra has not received a Kennedy Honor, Leonard Bernstein has. And he’s in good company. 
    Kennedy Honors are compared to knighthood in the UK. The first Honors were awarded in 1978 and recognized Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers and Arthur Rubinstein. Closing out the 20th century, legends including Ella Fitzgerald, Arthur Miller, Yehudi Menuhin, Ray Charles, Pete Seeger, Edward Albee, Stephen Sondheim, and Johnny Cash were honored.
    Since then, honorees have shown off our country’s most prestigious talents representing all facets of the performing arts: dance, music, theater, opera, motion pictures, and television. 
    The Kennedy Center has been a beacon for the brightest stars for almost half a century. Its website states that today the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is “a true artistic mecca, and one of the world’s most respected organizations.”  
    The broadcast on December 23 at 8pm Eastern on CBS promises to be a wonderful extravaganza, if you can stomach the host.
    I’m not sure if I’ll tune in, but it’s on my calendar.

I’m about to begin The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, 2023). The blurb suggests the importance of a reader’s ability to identify with book characters. More about this one next time.
                                                 Be curious! (and turn up
              the music, dance in the rain, and sing till you’re hoarse)

    [Willow] found a perfect spot by the window where she could see the Washington Monument…[She] watched carefully. Everyone seemed to have somewhere important to go. 
    But where? Willow decided it was time to do some more exploring.

                                 from Willow the White House Cat
                   written by Jill Biden with Alyssa Satin Capucilli
                                          illustrated by Kate Berube
            Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024

    Our house is old, built at the very beginning of the last century. The kitchen sits in the center of our house, a cozy place and a metaphor for the center of our family life.
    I used to affectionately call it my “cave kitchen.” Not even one window. Not over the sink, not overlooking the backyard, no room for a table. I could not work in there without turning on the light first, even in the middle of a sunny, summer day. 
    Several years ago, my husband and I decided to remodel.
    Our fix involved removing a supporting beam in the ceiling and the load-bearing wall between the kitchen and the sun porch. We replaced the beam and incorporated the porch, with its three beautiful walls of windows, into the new kitchen. 
    Now it’s bright, roomy (enough), and well-designed with input from Nancy Drew (yes, that’s really her name), a talented interior designer. 
    Remodeling a house is not a small deal. It’s disruptive, messy, and can be expensive. That’s why when I heard that a ballroom would be added to the White House, I was surprised. When I heard it would not disrupt the original structure, I was skeptical. When I saw the devastated structure, I was sad and angry. I still am.
    Construction of the White House began in October, 1792. President George Washington chose the site and oversaw the work, but the building wasn’t complete enough to live in until John Adams swore his own oath of Presidency to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He and his wife Abigail were the first First Family to live there. 
    Since 1800 when they moved in, changes have been made to suit the tastes and requirements of our various presidents.
    After the War of 1812 when British forces burnt the exterior, and fire caused severe damage to the interior, James Hoban, the original architect was called back to lead the reconstruction and bring the building back to its original design.
    In 1824, Hoban designed the portico to “enhance the building’s aesthetic and provide a grand entrance facing the Potomac River.” (https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/the-white-house/)
    Theodore Roosevelt replaced the 19th century greenhouses with the West Wing and added a colonial garden and terrace that became part of the East Wing. And in 1913, First Lady Ellen Wilson oversaw the transformation further to complete the formal and elegant Rose Garden (which now is a paved-over patio to eliminate the “problem” of wet grass). 
    FDR expanded the West Wing and added a swimming pool. In 1942, he constructed the East Wing “for additional staff and wartime security, which included a bomb shelter.”
    A total interior re-do by Harry Truman (1948 - 1952) provided the first family the Truman Balcony, its own private outdoor space and “enhanced the building’s aesthetic” again.
    In 1970, Nixon turned the swimming pool into the presidential briefing room and had enough space to include a bowling alley.
    Following Nixon’s, tenure, the official site (www.WhiteHouse.gov/about) is a deplorable and disgusting screed of revisionist history. I had to look away.
    Contrary to the official statement on the White House website, the ballroom will NOT stand apart from the main structure. The East Wing has already been demolished without proper permitting. Any improvements or changes to the “peoples’ house” must be submitted to the NCPC (National Capital Planning Commission). An official from the Commission added that it “does not require permits for demolition, only for vertical construction.” And that plans will be submitted at “the appropriate time.” No plans have been submitted as of this writing.
    According to AP (Associated Press), Will Scharf, Trump’s appointed chair of the Commission, “the ballroom project did not require the panel’s approval for construction to begin.”
    Included in the former East Wing were the first lady’s office and the social secretary’s office, and the visitors office. These offices were relocated. The main visitor’s entrance was also part of the former East Wing. The demolition and the Government shutdown closed all visitation for three months.
    No visitors were allowed into the White House until today. (12/2/25)
    According to NPR, Melania selected decorations to “honor the heart of America.” But “wreaths with red bows, … Christmas trees, …garland,…strands of light, over 25,000 feet of ribbon and 2,800 gold stars” sound like a lot of the hearts of many Americans were left out.
    The tour route is much smaller than in years past, too. 
    From the same NPR article, “[a] large golden curtain covers what Trump has described as a ‘knock out wall,’ that will lead to the massive ballroom he plans to build where the East Wing once stood.”
    Lest anyone think the $200,000-350,000 ballroom is the only project Trump is doing to our public domain besides paving the Rose Garden, “the Oval Office is now gilded from floor to ceiling. And the Lincoln bathroom in the residence also got a major makeover featuring a whole lot of marble.”
    Who is paying for all this, you might ask. Apple, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Google, Coinbase, Comcast and Meta are some donors. Scroll down to find the whole alphabetical list published by CNN on October 23, 2025.
    Most of the public does not approve or even like these changes. But blowing up Venezuelan boats and serving a “Putin-approved plan” to Ukrainians and finding out what Trump wants to keep hidden in the Epstein files also require our attention.
    Meanwhile, our kitchen is still in the center of our small house and our lives, but now it includes the North Wing. Today the lawn outside our kitchen windows is covered in fresh snow. We have no plans to pave it. Ever.
I’m listening to The Widow by John Grisham (Doubleday, 2025). I haven’t read any of his work lately but this one is typical Grisham: full of engrossing and flawed characters. Plenty of twists are keeping me questioning everyone’s motives.
                                          Be curious! (and creative)

    “You must be very quiet,” said Raju’s mother.
    But the crocodiles heard them anyway and started snapping.”
                                                           from Soon 
                                       written by Timothy Knapman
                                      illustrated by Patrick Benson
                                                     Candlewick, 2015
                                     accessed on YouTube 11/24/25

    In today’s quote, Mama elephant chased away a crocodile, a snake, and a tiger, as she protected her baby on their long walk. Fear is a common emotion. Uncomfortable, yes, for sure, but also common. In reality, an elephant’s enormous size gives it a huge advantage over most of the animals in its environment. Elephants don’t show fear very often.
    But surprisingly (for me, at least) they *are* afraid of bees.
    In 2007, Dr. Lucy King from the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford began publishing research results showing that when they are confronted by the sound of angry bees, elephants ran away. Within 10 seconds. 
    In 2018, experts reported that it’s not only the sound, but the scent of alarmed bees that drive away the elephants. Scientists experimented with socks laced with the scent of alarmed bee pheromones. The socks repelled the elephants.
    At Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa, the theory that bees frighten elephants is being tested. Bee boxes are placed in large trees to protect them from being pushed over by elephants. The results of a similar experiment in Greater Kruger National Park (also in South Africa) showed that in a whole calendar year only one tree of the fifty fitted out with bee boxes was damaged.
    Dr. King work continues. 
    The Elephants and Bees Project is a collaboration between Save the Elephants, Oxford University, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The project suggests that several factors are playing together to the detriment of elephants, bees, farmers, and Earth, itself.
    In Africa and Asia, human farmers are expanding into areas which had traditionally been elephant territory. As agriculture spreads, HEC (Human Elephant Conflict) is becoming more prevalent and more dangerous for humans and elephants. And more lethal for both species, too.
    Elephants are tempted by the newly planted crops on land where they previously foraged, so they raid the crops of Kenyan farmers. One family of elephants can destroy a human family’s farm for a whole year in just one raid!
    Also, the bee population in Africa is declining as it is in the rest of the world. 
    And elephants are afraid of bees.
    If bees could be convinced to live on the periphery of the farmers’ fields, they could thrive in their new hives while protecting the crops from elephants. 
    And the farmers could learn apiculture and sell honey as another income stream.
    And it’s working!
    David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, known as DSWT, explains how.  “…[we build] individual fences around an entire property, … [T]hirty four beehives were installed in two farms in Kyusiani village (in Kenya). [A] series of hives alternating with dummy hives are suspended between posts and attached to the next in line with a wire. When an elephant walks into the fence it shakes the wires and the bees from the nearest hive attack the offending elephant, who walks away in the other direction suffering some discomfort but no serious harm. 
    “Dr. Lucy King reports an 80% success rate (out of every 10 attempts for elephants to get through these fences, only 2 are successful). Furthermore, the elephants that do break through are predominantly lone bulls and do considerably less damage than an entire family herd of elephants.”
    Another added benefit is better communication between villagers. They are much more likely to report poaching, protecting the elephants while their own livelihoods are also protected. 
    According to ScienceDirect.com, studies in cross-species neuroscience show that basic emotional systems appear in all mammal species and possibly other animals, too. By analyzing the emotional networks of mammalian brains, we discover the amazing “empirical evidence that other animals do, in fact, experience their emotions.” 
    Turns out animals (and plants, but that’s a whole different “can of worms”) are sentient beings. 
    When humans feel fear, we react with one of four responses. Fight/Flight or Freeze/Fawn are two sets of opposite behaviors we exhibit without even thinking. 
    In fight mode we become adversarial or confrontational. Fights can be verbal or physical. On the other hand, flight happens when adrenaline kicks in and we run, or lift the bumper off a person who’s just been run over. 
    The fawn response triggers trying to be overly helpful. The primary concern is to stop the other individual’s behavior. This is often the reaction of a victim to their abuser.
    The freeze response is that “deer in the headlights” look. It’s marked by a feeling of dread, a pounding heart, and feeling heavy, cold, and unmovable. 
    The flight response is the one exhibited by elephants when confronted by bees. Good for the elephants, good for the bees, good for the farmers, and good (ultimately) for Earth.

I started reading The Names by Florence Knapp (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, 2025). The premise is interesting. When a baby is born and a name bestowed, how does that name influence his development as a human? In a complex but very readable novel, Knapp names the same baby in the same family with similar dynamics, with three very different names. Then shows her readers what unfolds. 
    I was surprised by the graphic emotional violence and the extreme reactions of the individual family members. The story is gripping, but gripped me a little too roughly. I protected my own emotions by returning it without finishing it. 
                 Be(e) curious! (and aware of your emotions)   

    “You love words?” asked the duckling. “Why?”
    “Why?” repeated the wombats.
    “Because words are …
        “ESSENTIAL!”
        “MAGNIFICENT!”
        “TRANSFORMATIVE!”
    And with those wonderful words zinging through the air, the wombats waddled off.
from The Wombats Go Wild for Words
written by Beth Ferry
illustrated by Lori Nichols
Random House Children’s Books, 2025


    Since I first heard someone talking about 6 7, not actually saying it to me or anyone else, I wondered how we can say something, anything, really, without it carrying meaning? Isn’t the purpose of communication to relate ideas or explain a concept or entertain each other and ourselves with words and expressed thoughts?
    According to Merriam-Webster.com, communication is “the act or process of using words, sounds, signs, or behavior to express or exchange information or to express thoughts, feelings, etc., to another person.”
    So the answer is yes. We communicate to make meaning.
    But maybe not.
    Trying to get an explanation of 6 7 from a gen alpha kid (born between about 2010 and 2020) is the ultimate definition of brain rot (Oxford’s 2024 Word of the Year). The kids insist 6 7 has no meaning. If I ask, “If it doesn’t mean anything, why waste time using it?” or  for that matter, “Why waste energy on using the accompanying hand motions?” the best clarification I can get is an eye-roll. No kidding.
    I hope you’re laughing. I am!
    And that’s the purpose of the phrase. It unites and identifies a generation. It’s their inside joke. 
    We all have our own slang. Some words even enter the language and become legitimate. 
    The 1950s gave us cool cats, think James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, then move forward to the 60s update, far out. Or a 1970s opposite of cool and far out, bummer. The 1980s gave us radical and bodacious and their opposites, gnarly and grody. 
    Dope and da bomb were “cool” in the 90s and why did kids in the 2000s say something was sick if they meant it was cool?
    Legit was being used for cool in the 2010s and talking about a person’s coolness as their rizz (short for charisma and the Oxford Word of the Year, 2023) in the 2020s. Taylor Swift and Tom Hanks. They’re cool. 
    So we are, back in the present. 
    It’s probably cool to interject 6 7 into a conversation to get a laugh, to divert attention from the current conversation, or to focus attention on yourself for a moment. That is if you’re say around 8 to 13-ish (years old)! It’s a “thing” for tweenagers. 
    My older daughter teaches middle school. Her days are full of 6 7s. My granddaughters (13 and 15) don’t use it, well the 13 year old does, but with an accompanying eye-roll.
My youngest grandson is 12. So my younger daughter gets her ears full of it, too. 
    Theories abound trying to explain the origin of the phrase. American rapper Skrilla used 6 7 in a song called “Doot Doot (6 7).” It’s a nonsense phrase that some people have connected to 67th street in Philadelphia, Skrilla’s hometown. LaMelo Ball, the professional basketball player is 6’7” tall. The phrase started showing up in video edits of other players. 
    Can anything happen in the US without it becoming an advertising tool? On November 6th and 7th, Pizza Hut sold chicken wings for 67 cents each and McDonald’s (in the United Arab Emirates) gave away free chicken nuggets from 6 to 7 pm. And Domino’s sold a one-topping pizza for $6.70 with the promo code 6 7 (take-outs only).
    Have you ever heard the phrase “being at sixes and sevens”and wondered what it means? It is old and comes from Geoffrey Chaucer, specifically in a line from his long poem, Troilus and Cressida published in about 1374. 
    Lat nat this wrechched wo thyn herte gnawe, But manly set the world on sexe and seuene. Or in modern English: Let not this wretched woe gnaw at your heart. But manly set the world on six and seven. 
    I don’t know about you, but the translation is not very helpful.
    One explanation comes from a pair of dice. The French numbers cinque and sice morphed into six and seven. At least as far as WordOriginStories is concerned. I’m not sure about morphing five and six into six and seven, but the article’s author continues. The highest numbers on the dice were five and six, but mistranslated and mispronounced until the phrase came to mean betting on the highest numbers was risky and careless. By 1785, risky and careless became “at odds, in confusion.” So maybe 6 7 has never meant anything! 
    Next time you’re with a group of kids of the right age, throw in a 6 7 during a conversation. In response you’ll either get an eye-roll or a guffaw. Try turning your palms toward the ceiling and alternating them up and down as you say it. 
    I’ll try it this Thanksgiving. I’m lucky enough to have almost my whole family (immediate) together. I’ll probably get eye-rolls, but I’m looking for guffaws.


I’m reading The Magic Kingdom by Russell Banks (A Borzoi Book/Alfred A. Knopf, 2022). Set in modern Florida, the narrator claims to have found a collection of reel-to-reel tapes made by a property speculator in the 1970s. The bulk of the story is the transcription of these 50-year-old tapes. As we learn more and more about the person who made them, we’re asked to think about truth and secrets, the difference between a crime and a sin, and one society’s definition of Utopia. Recommended.
Be curious! (and have some fun, especially with language and kids)


FB: When the news, or the weather, or watching the sun start to set at 5:00, is getting you down, try counting to 67. 

“Mayday! Mayday!”
The Goliath is fighting gale force winds. It’s hauling tons of iron and it’s taking on water.
                                             from Big Ship Rescue!
                               written and illustrated by Chris Gall
                                      Norton Young Readers, 2022

    I’ve never really been a true “water person.” When I close my eyes and imagine my favorite place, it’s almost never a beach or an ocean isle or a river bank. So it’s still a little odd to think of myself as a sailor (in the loosest definition of the word) on the Great Lakes aboard our own 27’ sailboat with my husband riding the waves on Lake Erie. 
    We traveled across the lake to Canada many times, in the days before we needed to bring passports. We cruised from Ashtabula to Perry’s Monument on Put-in-Bay and Kelly’s Island to see the glacial grooves. We docked often in Fairport Harbor and Geneva and enjoyed many a lakeside dinner.
    Although the Great Lakes are often thought of as one unit, each lake has its own characteristics and personality. Together they cover more than 94,000 square miles and supply drinking water for more than 40 million people in the United States and Canada.
    Lake Erie is the shallowest lake. With its depth ranging from 62 to 210 feet, it freezes over in the winter, but warms quickly in the spring. 
    Lake Ontario is home to the National Museum of the Great Lakes. It is the smallest Great Lake. The Iroquoian word means both great lake and beautiful water. It's the most famous Great Lake because of  its baseball connection. It was September, 1914, and Babe Ruth was 19 years old, playing his first professional game. He hit his first home run ball right into the lake. It (or what’s left of it) is probably still at the bottom of the lake.
   It was Lake Huron that Samuel de Champlain set his eyes on to became the first European to see the Great Lakes. It was the early 1600s, and Champlain was exploring for France. He reported back about the customs of the native people. 
    Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake that lies completely within the borders of the United States. The sand dunes located on the east shore of Lake Michigan are the largest freshwater dune system in the world.
    Lake Superior is the largest Great Lake in both volume and depth. It holds about 10% of the world's fresh surface water. The Ojibwa name for Lake Superior is Gitchi-Gumee which translates to “Great Sea.”
    But Lake Superior’s biggest claim to fame is its setting for Gordon Lightfoot’s song and recording of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The ship was carrying processed iron ore pellets from Superior, Wisconsin to Zug Island, in Detroit, about 750 miles. The trip was expected to take about 11 hours. 
    Many events and circumstances can alter intentions, and many did. When Captain Ernest M. McSorley of the Edmund Fitzgerald set sail on November 9, 1975 with Captain Bernie Cooper in his ship, the Arthur M. Anderson, traveling the same route, decided to alter their course to avoid an approaching storm. But conditions continued to worsen and the storm continued to grow. At its height, the storm produced hurricane force winds and gusts of up to 100 miles per hour. The waves crashed unceasingly. Both captains recorded 12-15 footers. Before she sank, it’s estimated that the waves reached between 25 and 35 feet high. 
    The first mate of the Anderson watched the Fitzgerald until the radar went out. The captains lost radio communication with each other before the Edmund Fitzgerald went down for the last time. Ironically, Captain McSorley’s last words to Captain Cooper were “We are holding our own.”
    Gordon Lightfoot was inspired by the story he saw in Newsweek’s November 24, 1975 article. His song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” has been called the greatest ballad ever written. As Lightfoot changed his lyrics to reflect new research, crew members were exonerated, manufacturers were absolved, and the “ultimate cause” remains elusive. 
    In an interview with author John U. Bacon, Tina Sawyer asks why this tragedy matters. His answer is both revealing and instructive. “For once,” Bacon says, “we did learn…Forecasting improved, communication with the captains improved and frankly,…common sense improved. It’s been a great legacy, a positive one.”
    He continues in the same interview, “…the families are proud of…the fact that incredibly from 1875 to 1975…there were 6,000 commercial shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. And that is the conservative estimate. That’s one per week every week for a century…Since November 10th, 1975, there’s been zero. And the families know that it’s because the Edmund Fitzgerald got so much attention that the industry finally woke up.”
    Many times when disaster strikes, the cause in not a pinpoint, but a cluster of unfortunate decisions made, details left unattended, and weather conditions unpredictable. And while our human nature prods us to find cause and rectify errors, sometimes the variables are too many, the blame is too widespread, and the tragedy is just that, a tragedy. 

No book review this week, but you might want to take a look at The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon (Liveright, October 7, 2025). It’s #1 on Amazon’s best seller list in U.S. State and Local History.
    
               Be curious! (and prepared for the unexpected)

…at last he came to a hill which was quite covered with cats. 
    Cats here, cats there, cats and kittens everywhere. 
    Hundreds of cats, 
    Thousands of cats, 
    Millions and billions and trillions of cats.
                             written and illustrated by Wanda Gág
                                         G.P. Putnam's Sons, [1956]
                           first published by Coward-MCann, 1928
                            recipient of the Newbery Honor, 1929 
                                   entered the public domain, 2024

    Many of us have too much stuff. That became apparent to me when I Googled “decluttering.” I found pages and pages of articles and lists and how-tos describing different methods of getting the job done. 
    An interesting “rabbit hole,” for sure. You can try the 12-12-12 rule, the 20/20/20 rule, or the 50% rule. You can find the 135 decluttering method, the 4 C’s of decluttering, the 4 bin (or box) method. You can learn how to figure out what clothes to get rid of, how declutter a house in one day, and the psychological root of clutter. 
    You can discover what you should not do when you declutter, especially important if you’re a beginning declutterer.
    No matter how much or little clutter we accumulate, part of our tendency to acquire stuff comes from a “scarcity mindset.” WebMD defines it as an obsession with what is lacking and the inability to focus on anything else. 
    An abundance mindset, the writers continue, allows us to see opportunities and possibilities. 
    If we come from a place of scarcity, we are fearful. There won’t be enough jobs, money, food, affection, freedom, time. You get it.
    If we come from a place of abundance, though, we know there is plenty of everything. We are more generous, more willing to help one another, and more able to see long-term outcomes and consequences of our decisions and actions.
    I was first introduced to these mindsets through Robin Wall Kimmerer’s classic Braiding Sweetgrass (Milkweed Editions, 2013). In it she shows how she lives in reciprocity with the natural world. 
    In her essay “The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance,” she says, “Gratitude creates a sense of abundance, the knowing that you have what you need. In that climate of sufficiency, our hunger for more abates and we take only what we need, in respect for the generosity of the giver.”
    When our first response is gratitude, the natural follow-up is reciprocity, the desire to give a gift in return. 
    What gift can I give a plant? you might ask yourself. Or a tree? 
    Ms. Kimmerer suggests a direct response. “We can clear away weeds giving our plants more room to grow. We can provide water, especially when rain is not plentiful. Cover against the cold, or a donation to a local land trust so more land can be used for habitat. Or “making art that invites others into the web of reciprocity.”
    When we accept Earth’s bounty as our gifts, we change our relationship to Earth and the gifts we receive. According to Ms. Kimmerer, the power of “gift thinking” is this: We’re “likely to take much better care of the gift hat than the commodity hat, because it is knit of relationships.” When we are in relationship with our family, our neighbors, our friends, our Earth, we feel gratitude. 
    How we think and feel translates to how we behave. We become gentler, kinder, more generous, even, some say, more creative. 
    But our economies have monetized everything from wild berries to our National parks. In our for-profit, money-based economy we need to pay workers, owners, creators for their energy, time, creativity, so they in turn can pay for their own necessities, luxuries, and gifts they give to others. 
    I’m not saying we should, or even could, move our society toward a gift economy. But when we pluck the tomatoes from the vines we nurtured in our gardens and snip the parsley growing bravely next to them, when we trim the rose bush, pull weeds, and speak to our houseplants, we can be mindful of the work they are constantly doing for us and feel gratitude for that work.
    When we choose our produce at the local grocery store, we can think of the growers, harvesters, shippers, shelf-stockers, and clerks who serve our needs. And feel gratitude, there, too.
    I can’t begin to guess what was in Wanda Gág’s mind when she published Millions of Cats in 1928. (see the quote at the top) But her society was much the way ours is now. In 1928, we were coming to the end of the First Gilded Age. Railroad tycoons, industrialists, and politicians amassed great fortunes, while the wages of the vast majority of our population stagnated. 
    As a side note, all those hundreds and trillions of cats fought each other until only one skinny cat was left. When asked why the other cats didn’t kill her, she replied, “When you asked who was the prettiest, I didn’t say anything. So nobody bothered about me.” The old man and the old woman took good care of the kitten until she was a “very pretty cat after all.” 
    Turns out one cat was enough. And there was plenty of love for all of them.
    Mark Twain coined the term in the title of his 1873 novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, to describe how the shiny surface of society looked beautiful, but the reality hiding beneath the gilt was made of a hard-working and hurting population.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was a commercial flop after he published it in 1925. It did not gain popularity until the 1940s when it was sent to soldiers fighting in WWII. Now it appears on high school reading lists and is considered one of our “great American novels.” If you haven’t read it in a while, you might want to read it again, if only to see and compare it with where we are now.
    It remains to be seen whether we as a society will turn to each other in fear or in gratitude.

I’m reading Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2024). Behar was awarded a 2025 Newbery honor and the 2025 Sydney Taylor Book Award honor. In a saga spanning the years from Spain’s 1492 expulsion of Jews during the Inquisition to 2023 Miami, readers learn the history of one family’s journey from “standing on the shoulders of ancestors” to a momentous discovery made during a heritage trip back to Spain.
                                      Be curious! (and grateful)

I spent another wild and wonderful week and weekend with writing conferences and grandkids.

I have lots of ideas, but little writing time.

​I’m thinking about music, architecture, and elephants’ relationships with bees. So, stay tuned!

I’m reading (actually listening to) The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles (Atria Books, 2021). Since I’m only about 1/3 in, here’s a blurb from the publisher. “Based on the true story of the American Library in Paris, The Paris Library explores the geography of resentment, the consequences of terrible choices made, and how extraordinary heroism can be found in the quietest of places.” Since I tend to shy away from “Holocaust Literature,” I’m a little worried that I might be headed in that direction, but since it was recommended by a friend who I trust, I’m going to keep reading/listening.​

It was a gloomy world of mountains and crevasses and caves, and wherever [Marina] looked there were mounds of grey, dead coral topped with a blanket of living purple, yellow, blue, and red coral bushes and feathery pale anemones.
             from The Coral Kingdom: Mermaids Rock, book I
                                        written by Linda Chapman
                                      illustrated by Mirelle Ortega
                                          Little Tiger Press, 2020

     If you were to ask me to name my favorite place, I might answer a quiet forest full of old-growth trees, or Sand Dune Arch in Arches National Park, or most probably I will freely admit that my favorite place is my green reading chair in my living room at home.
    Beaches are wonder-filled places, too, but as much as I enjoy a seascape (with waves or without, with seabirds or without, cloudy sky or clear), beach scenes of wrack lines, abandoned docks, and colorful regattas, and especially underwater photographs of unusual sea life and coral formations, I don’t consider myself a water-person. 
    I’m good with dry land, thanks.
    About 71/% of our Earth’s surface is covered with water, and 96.5% of that water sloshes in the oceans. The world’s coral reefs live and die in a belt around the middle of the globe from about 35° N Lat to 35° S Lat. 
    The most common corals are hard corals. Also know as stony coral, they create a rigid skeleton of calcium carbonate in its crystal form, aragonite. As many as hundreds of thousands or as few as a scant several hundred individual polyps cement themselves together with the secretions that form their skeletons.
    Although fixed in one place and sometimes mistaken for rocks, scientifically, corals are animals. They are related to jellyfish and anemones. And they have a symbiotic relationship with a microscopic one-celled algae. They live in the cells of the outer layer of a polyp’s body and using photosynthesis, provide organic matter for themselves and their hosts. 
    Essentially, each polyp is a mouth with tentacles. It flutters its tentacles to create waves which trap zooplankton, bacterioplankton, and other tiny food sources to complete its diet.
    Corals build their reefs in shallow and deep water. When shallow enough to allow light to enter, the coral that depend on their symbiotic relationship with zooxanthellae, those one-celled microscopic algae, can thrive. Even the few types of coral that do not build reefs, live there.
    Coral that build their reefs in deeper water, where sunlight cannot reach, must filter out the remains of sea life (animal and vegetable) that drips through the ocean water. 
    Corals have lived on Earth for 450 million years, two hundred million years before dinosaurs arrived. Corals been exceptional thrivers, until lately.
    We have become concerned about them only lately because the same factors threatening the rest of the world are at play in the ocean, too.
    And healthy reefs are crucial to the health of our planet.
    Towns and cities depend on tourism dollars generated by diving tours, fishing trips and the associated hotels and restaurants and businesses. When people experience the environment, they are more likely to want to protect it. 
    Coral reefs protect shorelines, homes, and lives by absorbing the huge impact of pounding waves during storms.
    Many new medicines are being developed from discoveries found in coral reefs and the plants and other animals that live there. Possible treatments for asthma, arthritis, cancer, viral and bacterial infections and heart disease depend on healthy coral reefs.
    The ocean readily absorbs carbon dioxide and 90% of reflected heat generated by greenhouse gasses. Its unnatural and unbridled increase is the primary cause of the ocean’s acidification and the resulting harm caused to corals, shellfish, and plankton. 
    When corals are stressed, they expel their symbiotic algae and turn white. The individual polyps become mostly clear exposing their white skeletons. Bleached coral is not dead, but it is not healthy. It’s more susceptible to disease. It’s harder for them to reproduce and it’s harder for them to grow more skeletal material.
    Pollution from a variety of sources like coastal development, agriculture runoff, and sewage treatment promote rapid growth of algae that compete with coral. Excess sediment smothers it.
    Fishing in coral reefs benefits communities around the world. But over-fishing is unsustainable. Scientists are encouraging people to incorporate indigenous and local knowledge about local species and fishing practices. 
    Dead corals change the reef. The resulting change creates habitat loss for the marine life that depends on them for food and shelter and the people who depend on them for their livelihoods, too.
    Enter Elvira Alvarado, a 70-year-old marine biologist who turned from cancer research with sharks to saving the endangered coral reefs in Colombia. 
    Most corals are broadcast spawners. They spawn once a year, usually about a week after the full moon, but they are also tuned to many other environmental cues. During one precious week, Alvarado set collection tubes on the reef, dove down, and collected eggs and sperm. 
    In a make-shift laboratory, she and her team mixed the eggs and sperm and watched for the raspberry-shaped eggs to hatch into planulae, the free-floating young. In the wild, they move around until they encounter something hard, whether rock or dead coral. There they land. And there they stay.
    Alvarado and her team waited.
    After about seven months, the young coral that Alvarado and her team collected, grew large enough to be transplanted to existing reefs. There they will stay. And there they will grow.
    Now, three sites, each with a team of scientists, are continuing to work to save the reefs. 
    Elvira Alvarado is realistic. She says the trick is to regenerate the coral quicker than they die. But she’s hopeful, too. She’s built a legacy. “Even when I can no longer do this work,” she says, “others will continue it.”

I’m reading The Mayfair Bookshop by Eliza Knight (HarperCollins/William Morrow, 2022). Lucy St. Clair and her mom are both enthralled with Nancy Mitford’s writing. When Lucy gets an assignment that takes her to Mitford’s favorite bookshop in London, she discovers surprising connections she has with her favorite author. Recommended, but not necessarily at the top of your list.
                                      Be curious! (and experiment)

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
                             from: The Diary of a Young Girl
                                        written by Anne Frank
                               Doubleday/Bantam Books, 1967
                                          first published in 1947
                                           first US edition, 1952
    
    Today is not the first time some of you are seeing this, but it’s what I’ve been thinking about for a long time.
    In October 2018, when I originally posted this piece, the first Trump regime was finding its footing. Children were being torn from their families in his “zero-tolerance” policy to stem immigration. He called Robert Muller’s investigations into the 2016 election a “witch hunt.” That fueled the Me Too movement. He nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. And mid-term elections were one week away.
    In 2021, when I reposted it, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were in office. The world was still in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Biden signed a $1.9 trillion relief package into law, which worked its way to the people who needed it most. 
    The Capitol Riot/Insurrection was in our rear-view mirror working its way through the Judicial System. Key portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were working their way through Congress. Biden brought the United States back into the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization.
    The relative calm lasted for four short years.
    Then 2024 melted into 2025 and DOGE and USAID and DEI. The Department of Education was shuttered. Money allocated to fund university and hospital research projects was not dispersed.
    The lives of the most vulnerable in our society are being threatened.
    This is what I saw when I checked the status of the Department of Health and Human Services: https://www.hhs.gov/ (I tried to copy/paste the message but only got this link. Open it to see our government using partisan politics to push its own “message.” Your taxes and mine are paying for it.)
    People are being swooped up first and questions about their citizenship status are asked later (usually). 
    And now this feels important enough to re-post yet again:

    One of the most famous Holocaust poems of all time, "First They Came for the Jews," was written by a Lutheran pastor and theologian, Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).
    After recanting his support for Hitler and Nazism, Niemöller was arrested and confined to the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945. He narrowly avoided execution and was liberated by the Allies. He stayed in Germany and worked as a clergyman, pacifist, and anti-war activist. In his 1946 book, Niemöller talked publicly of Germany’s guilt for what Germany had done to the Jews. He was one of the first Germans to do so.
    Niemöller’s poem is especially relevant. 

                   First, They Came For The Jews
                            by Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was
       not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out
       because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out
       because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for
      me.

    I found the text of the poem and information about Niemöller on this page on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site. (accessed on October 29, 2018, verified October 19, 2021, February 18, 2025, and October 13, 2025)

Here is a modern adaptation:
When they came for the Jews and the blacks, I turned away
When they came for the writers and the thinkers and the radicals and
       the protestors, I turned away
When they came for the gays, and the minorities, and the utopians, and
       the dancers, I turned away
And when they came for me, I turned around and around, and there
       was nobody left...
(published in Hue and Cry, 1991)

You can find some other adaptations here:
http://webweaversworld.blogspot.com/2006/10/first-they-came-for-jews-variations-on.html (verified October 13, 2025)
    
    I never thought that shooting and killing people praying in a synagogue . . . because they were Jewish could *really* happen. But, in 2018, three days before my original post, it did. In the city next door to mine. 
    And while violence in general is declining, hate crimes are becoming more prevalent, especially when victims identify with the LGBTQ+ community, or identify as a member of a minority group. Religious hatred is not abating. I’m beginning to believe that antisemitism will never go away. 
    In 2025, I’m struggling with how to turn my anger, fear, pessimism, and grief into action.
    Here’s my version of Neimöller’s poem:

When he fired FAA executives, I was unaware. 
Then 67 people were killed in an airline crash. And three more in a
    helicopter.
When he canceled DEI, I was unaffected.
I looked away from my horror and disgust.
When he shuttered USAID and fired most of the personnel, 
    I called my Senators and Representative.
When he gave Department of Treasury access to the Musk-ovite, 
    I spoke out to my friends.
When he threatened to de-fund the Department of Education, 
    I cried.
When Amy Walter echoed Simon Rosenberg’s plea to write and call government officials, 
    I did.
When I do all these things, maybe nothing will change.
    But maybe something will.
        
    Today, eight months later, we are planning for the second “No Kings Day.” We have the right to gather and rally for our beliefs. Our Constitution guarantees our right to peaceful assembly.             
    Here is the text of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: 
        Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
     religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
     freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
     peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
     redress of grievances.
For explanation and annotations go here. 
    The key word in all this is peacefully. 
    In Youngstown, Ohio, No Kings Day will be held at 3:00 pm in front of the Mahoning County Courthouse. For other locations click here and type in your zip code.
I'm reading John Lewis: a Life by David Greenberg. Jon Meacham calls it "comprehensive and compelling," I call it fascinating, enlightening, and extremely readable. Rising out of poverty in rural Alabama to a seat in the United States Congress from 1987 until his death in 2020, Mr. Lewis is a model of how to cause "good trouble." Recommended

                  -—Be curious! (and involved, safe, and peaceful)   

The next morning Arthur was very surprised when he saw Francine.
“They’re my movie star glasses,” said Francine.
“But there isn’t any glass in them,” said Arthur.
“It doesn’t matter. They help me concentrate and make me look beautiful,” said Francine.
                                             from Arthur’s Eyes
                       written and illustrated by Marc Brown
                                                        1st rev. ed.
                                                Little, Brown, 2011

    Remember Roy G. Biv? It’s a handy mnemonic to help us remember the colors in the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Most of us have favorite colors, but it turns out blue is the most favorite of all. Maybe because large swaths of sky are blue and the vastness of the ocean is blue. Blue tends to evoke calm. 
    And even though we associate blue light with our screens, according to aao.org (American Academy of Ophthalmology), most of our exposure to blue light comes from nature. “[Our screens are] no more damaging than blue light from the sun,” says Dr. Rahul Khurana, spokesman for the AAO. He also assures us “there is no scientific evidence that blue light from digital devices causes damage to your eye.”
    Exposure to ultraviolet light, though, can damage our eyes. Ultraviolet wavelengths are much shorter and so move faster. So fast, in fact that they are invisible to humans.
    Blue light is part of the visible spectrum. Even though exposure to blue light will (probably) not damage our eyes, it is blue light that can wreak havoc with our circadian rhythms. Our body’s temperature and hormone levels are tuned to a cycle. When our bodies are working as they are supposed to, even without a clock, even in a dark space, those functions occur regularly on an approximate 24-hour, internally regulated cycle. Most humans are on a diurnal cycle, awake in the daytime and asleep at night. This is our circadian rhythm, affected by the release of melatonin, triggered by the blue light of the sun and screens.
    That’s why its a good idea to shut off the screens as part of our bedtime routines. Too much blue light at the end of the day might make it hard to fall asleep.
   More screen time is turning into more indoor time for most of us. 
   Here are a few statistics from  from the blog of the Ann & Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago’s survey of 859 parents with children under 13 conducted in June, 2025:
    81% of kids have their own device
    59% of kids began using screens by the age of three
    Even though the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends no more than one hour of screen time per day for children 2-5 years old, surveyed parents say kids are tuned in for an average of three hours/day. 
    So much screen time is bound to affect us. One of the most common is the increased prevalence of digital eyestrain.
    I was not surprised to learn that over 70% of Americans experience associated symptoms of digital eyestrain. Doctors at Spindel Eye Associates in southern New Hampshire say “…up to 80% of people who use computers regularly experience some form of digital eye strain.”
    The condition affects kids learning on screens and playing on them. Adults and teens, too. Our small, way-too-convenient hand-helds, (read: phones, and tablets) are frequently most to blame. 
    And the more we use screens, the more we experience their effects. And screens are part of our lives. They are here to stay.
    So, if it’s not the blue light emissions, which it’s not, what is causing all this discomfort, anxiety, and even depression?
    Partly it’s lack of exercise. The more we use our screens for information, communication, and entertainment, the less time we leave ourselves for moving around. Exercise, especially in nature combats feelings of isolation, lethargy, and depression.
    Partly it’s the act of focusing on near, close-at-hand objects.
    But mostly, according to Rupa Wong, an ophthalmologist and professor at the Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii, our tears are responsible for most of the clarity of our vision. Simply said, when we look at screens, we blink less. When we blink less, our eyes tend to get dry, which causes blurred vision, dry and itchy eyes, and headaches. 
    Blinking is a reflex. Since we don’t control how often we blink, Dr. Wong has some simple solutions we can try.
    You can keep artificial tears (not eyedrops) handy. Warm compresses over your eyes at the start or end of your day will moisturize the oil glands on your eyelids.
    Or, you could try the 20/20/20 rule. For every 20 minutes of screen time, take a 20-second break and look 20 feet away. Where you look is not as important as focusing on the distance. Grass, clouds, and sky are good. So are your bird feeder, blooming flowers in your garden, and squirrels frisking about gathering acorns. 


I’m reading Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Harper/HarperCollins, 2023). Like most of her work, Ms. Patchett delves into family relationships and how they survive time’s passing. This story shows the Nelson family in their cherry orchard during the pandemic. Two time periods blur as Lara recounts her life with a famous movie star and how she met their father. We see their three grown daughters at the brink of their own adulthoods as they each find truth and meaning in their mother’s recollections. Each time I open the book, I enter the world of Tom Lake, the small, rural area of the UP, Michigan. Recommended!

                         Be curious! (and spend time in nature)