This cold weather has my memories of Alaska swirling like magic-dust snowflakes of wanderlust. I’ve been there twice, both times on cruises – so even though I tasted none of the “local” flavors of the non-touristy places in the nation’s largest state that was anything but a folly, both times I’ve indulged in that spectacular smoked sockeye salmon that is sliced thin and served with eggs, capers, lox and bagels. We’d go to brunch, and they’d serve it as an early tea time with breakfast for late risers being more of a light lunch.
The cold weather brought the memories, but the threat of power outages last week brought shopping for things we could eat with minimal preparation. I found a good brand in Publix over in Peachtree City and gave thanks for the fish, imagining it swimming upstream to spawn, trying to avoid the fish-spearing claws of grizzly bears out there standing on those shallow rocks as ribbons of fresh red fish flitter past their feet. The one I was holding made it back home to do its one last thing before ending up in a sliced and packaged fillet.
I always boil all of our eggs prior to a winter storm. We’ve discovered that they keep fine in a cooler on the back porch and can feed us for days on end. And when we put a little sliver of salmon on top, it’s just the ticket for an Alaskan meal right here at home in middle Georgia!
Happy birthday to my first-born child today! She’s a kid at heart, and she loves to read. When she was little, we’d pile up on blankets or beds for book picnics – – she, her sister and I would do nothing but read all day long while the boys were out fishing. Last year, she read 144 books, stomping my 20 down to a pancake compared to her skyscraper. She still calls them her “chapter books.” Today, instead of raising a glass to my daughter, I open a book. It’s what we do best in our DNA.
One minute we’re expecting snow along with the ice storm of the century, but the next it’ll be 75 degrees and sunny. There’s a chance of snowfall, ranging anywhere from 0″ to 145.” I’ve heard it all this week, and I guess it’s safe to say we’ve prepared for all or nothing, just as they’ve said: prepare for the worst, hope for the best. And The Weather Channel is the best place to find a time loop where you live the same ten minutes on repeat. It may well be the portal for time travelers to take a jaunt in time somewhere far more stable than here.
I’m not sure what I’d take with me, but no matter where I am, all I really need are books, dogs, a comfy chair and a cup of coffee. My TBR stack is taller than I am, and I keep reading blog after blog after blog. This morning, Tom Ryan’s Substack featured the most joyful photos I’ve seen all year ~ his dog Emily (Samwise in the background) leaping for joy. He and his two dogs have just move to Cape Cod from the White Mountains of New Hampshire and are walking the woods where Mary Oliver wrote much of her poetry.
Today will be a day of quiet, peaceful living here on the Johnson Funny Farm an hour south of Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport, right on the flight path where we use our Flight Tracker app to check where all the planes have left and where there going. Fun times. Quiet: at least, that’s what’s planned, but things can go sideways here pretty fast. Fifteen times in the past five minutes, there have been earth-shaking gunshots out here in the deep rural country ~ deer? ducks? Who knows? The important thing is that the dogs are here tucked safely in our bed, the gas logs have plenty of propane, we’re stocked up on candles and have 12 pouches of tuna, a dozen boiled eggs, and cheese and crackers. And instant coffee.
Let the reading commence! Wherever this day finds you, even if your power goes out, I hope you stay warm and cozy.
the book is better
than any movie ever
our own minds film scenes
pennies, nickels, dimes
won’t buy a movie ticket
reading a book: free!
I’m currently reading Theo of Golden by Allen Levi.
For the second day of poetry in the ethicalela.com small group, Angie invited us to focus on using anagrams to inspire poetry. She hosted Day 2 of the January Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com.
She encouraged using this anagram generator to help with ideas: https://ingesanagram.com. I wrote about the snow we had on Sunday.
snow
once upon this now he won sniffing his own spot in this cold-sown snow
Have you ever wondered whether you could write daily?
Do you love poetry and prose?
f Are you strapped for time and wonder about the commitment?
Wonder no more.
Come on, take my hand and walk down the shore. See the beauty?
Join the Year 3 kickoff of The Stafford Challenge today. It’s not too late to sign up, and you may just ask yourself what took you so long to join. This writing circle is completely free (you can make a donation only if you want – and I did not donate until the 3rd year). You will meet writers from all over the world, be inspired by them, and have the option to join a small group writing circle (you can join with others you don’t know or form your own like we did), where you will share and form some of the closest long-distance relationships you’ve ever had. Even if you don’t consider yourself a strong writer – – or a writer at all.
Come on, stick your big toe in the water. It feels refreshing in here.
My small writing group meets the first Monday of each month ~ Barb Edler of Iowa, Glenda Funk of Idaho, and Denise Krebs of California. We catch up on life, we talk about what we’re reading and what we’re writing, and we share our poetry. Sometimes we write during our Zoom. You know that poem The Cure by Kate Baer in her latest book How About Now? It’s how I feel about my writing circles. This is so much more than breakfast.
Today is the kickoff, and you can sign up at this link. I would love to see you there today. I’ll send you a wave from my tiny screen.
Come on, dive in! You can swim or float, and either is divine.
We’ve managed to avoid the germs – up until now. My husband came home with some symptoms – a headache, eye pressure, and a scratchy throat. We’re knee deep in Chick Fil A Chicken Soup for supper – and an ample supply of DayQuil and NyQuil to treat the symptoms– and we’ll call it an early-to-bed night for sure. Birthday plans (he’s turning a landmark year) for Saturday are hanging by a thread, and we’ll see how he feels tomorrow…..
and so I tell him: if he’s right about easily-treated symptoms not related to a specific sickness such as Covid, Flu A, or RSV, he’ll be up and ready for an adventure first thing Saturday morning!
I’ve never considered that a named illness could be parsed out as circumstantial symptoms, and I see this in the men in my life who refuse to slow down and acknowledge that they are sick. It brings back a few regrets with my father, who was not forthcoming about any of his medical issues that piled up (Colon Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Pulmonary Fibrosis, SVT heart condition to name four of his co-morbidities). When my aunt and uncle were visiting, they forced his hand to go to the doctor for a Covid test when he was experiencing every sign of having it. He emerged from the exam room and informed my aunt that he had “a mild case of Covid,” downplaying things as he always did and refusing to stay home and keep his distance from others. I’ve never been able to control my mouth, and that was one time I got particularly mad and popped off, “Yes, I hear those can lead to mild cases of death.”
And things between us, already agitated with my tendency to tell the truth, as he properly diagnosed me, were never the same.
On the heels of a missing grill that vanished from an AirBNB while we were gone to a birthday party and an unexpected early-morning knock at the door that turned out to be a Northern Flicker attempting to demolish the cabin we were occupying for the weekend, I came home from Kentucky to three boxes on the porch – two of which were late Christmas presents arriving after the fact. The third presented yet another mystery in these days of stranger things. There was no gift card from the recipient enclosed.
I called my brother and sister in law, who said they didn’t send the art canvas of a red Japanese tree against the backdrop of snow-covered mountains looking like Fuji, with two black metal benches on each side. Nor did any of our children. I texted a friend in one of my writing circles who just got back from Tokyo and collects art. It wasn’t her, either. I sent a text out to the full family group with my husband holding the picture: Anyone know anything about this? it read.
The mysterious art canvas (Boo Radley’s feet far right corner)
I did a little research and learned that I may be the victim of a brushing scam, where people receive things they never ordered in the first place as freebies from companies seeking verified purchaser top review status. All evening, I watched videos of the random things people sometimes get. There is no risk for the victims, either, other than needing to change passwords frequently. These recipients of everyday’s-like-Christmas surprises just have to make extra trips to the dump or find ways of getting rid of whatever doesn’t fit into their lives until the packages stop arriving and the review scammers move on to other recipients. I reported the package to Amazon with the tracking number, and they replied that it would take ten days to do an investigation.
I can’t help considering the irony of this scam in light of all that has transpired this year. We started cleaning out our house and barn in 2024 when we started the journey of downsizing with the dream of building a smaller living space on the farm. In 2025, my brother, our spouses and I shared the task of cleaning out our Dad’s house and seven storage rooms. They were full of books, art, dishes, lamps, furniture, pretty much everything you can imagine, and other “rare collectibles” because Dad was a hoarder who could never get rid of anything. I looked at the canvas of the red Japanese tree and chuckled, wondering if somehow this is him pranking me beyond the grave, particularly as I have wept real tears over the harvesting of all the trees on Briar’s family farm since April. Surely this canvas carries some kind of message I haven’t figured out yet.
For now, I’ll sit tight and wonder, as all the other brushing scam victims do, what might arrive next. I’d love one of those shiny silver coffee makers that grind the beans and do all sorts of fancy brewing like cappuccinos and espressos and lattes. I’ll take a king-size Nectar adjustable bed, with two cool-temp pillows and a massage feature. The latest Apple Watch (I have never owned one) might be a nice surprise if I can figure out how to turn the notifications off, plus some good winter boots with arch support, maybe Aetrex brand, in black leather. Those are the things I’m hoping my brushers will send next – – and I’ll even write their glowing 5-star reviews myself in exchange for all the free stuff.
A Call To Action Haiku, Celebrating Surprise Photographic Art
brushing scam victims
unite with glowing reviews
for free merchandise
Here is my free review of this art canvas that I’m considering actually adding to Amazon:
This canvas is the perfect size print to go over a bed or to hang on a bland wall space. It’s guaranteed to bring both boldness of vibrant color and tranquility of empty bench solitude all at once as it reminds us that there is indeed sunlight just beyond each cloud in the sky. The mountain spirit is alive and well, beckoning our very souls to reach for new heights even as we keep our feet on the ground and our lives simple and rooted in nature. Art lovers looking for cryptic messages they can apply to their own lives will delight in the vibes and reminders that living things all bloom and thrive where they are planted and that to everything, there is a season. The tree reinforces the notion that no matter where we go, there we are, and that we should never, ever forget our lipstick. There is much to be seen from a distance that you cannot appreciate close up with your boots in the snow. It’s all a matter of perspective, we find, as we gaze into the possibility of each vantage point as we stand considering angles. Yes, in this print, we feel a deep sense of belonging. We are branches on the tree of all humanity, each of us one mere leaf, hanging in our own time and place in the history of generations who have come and gone before us, even as we consider the promise of future generations if the world does not end in an apocalyptic rapture at the touch of a button by some bratty lollipop-spoiled kid who grew up to be a tyrant with a tortured soul in North Korea – or anywhere, for that matter. And these emotions are just the tip of the ice-covered mountain for the depths of discovery in this one canvas that is the most unexpected kind money can buy without, you know, actually being there in person, which would cost way more. Get yours today, and you will never look back – – only inward and upward henceforth. (Brushing Scammers, thank you for this delightful gift).
We’re in Kentucky celebrating our grandson’s first birthday. When my daughter was pregnant with him, she’d call to tell me how fast the bean was growing. Here we are, at a first birthday party after what seems like only a month since he arrived. Happy birthday, Silas! We love you so much!
Common Threads 