New paintings and regular art updates.
I chuckle when I see this on adverts, ‘up to’ means that the percentage efficiency could be anything from 0% to 100%! But we are fooled by the top percentage. It’s the same sort of trick where a price is £9.99 instead of £10.00, the brain is tricked into thinking it’s a more than the 1 pence you actually save!
So think before you buy and be aware of tricky marketing, please!
Are you a good judge of character?
What’s on the inside isn’t the same as the outside. You might think one thing about a person based on their physical appearance only to find they are completely different to what you expect.
I’d say mostly that I’m a good judge of character. I’ve met many people over my career and my home life, and mostly it’s been OK. But not always, on a couple of occasions I had to give up on friends who tried to split me and my hubby up, I found out one was saying things about me to needle my hubby into leaving me. I realised that the language he was using was in her way of speaking. It was her attitudes that he was spouting. When we talked it through he thankfully understood that. The second situation was a woman that tried to have an affair with him. She was always calling round when I was out. He told me what she was up to, and we ended the friendship.
Other people have fooled me at work, but you cotton on eventually. It can cause heartache when you mistakenly trust people. But you have to live and learn.
When Covid happened I got used to living in my bubble with my hubby and my cats. I never really came out of that isolation. We were both travelling less and as we both started to suffer with various ailments we often didn’t feel like visiting people or travelling far. I saw friends, but not very often.
Then when I lost my hubby last December, and I had various health issues I virtually stopped going anywhere except to the shops, appointments or the choirs I am in. My one day away this year was a coach trip with a group I am in to the Welsh coast to visit a relative. I was there for 5 or 6 hours then caught the coach home. I’ve found I cannot drive there on my own. I was too used to having my hubby with me as a passenger and I didn’t realise how much I relied on him as a support (and I was supporting him). Nerves and anxiety and illness seem to stop me.
Now I don’t like to bother people, so I try not to ask for help. I stay inside as much as I can, curtains closed, door locked, just occasionally going to the shops when I have run out of most things. I find big supermarkets overwhelming and go round them in the evenings when they are quiet. I know I need to break out, I’m to comfortable with the isolation, but I’m sure it’s not good for me. Plus I miss appointments because of anxiety. I need to pull myself together.. But my curtains remain closed!
Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?
A year ago I didn’t think I would go through so much, grief, hospital appointments, memories, loneliness.
Stepping through that year, from there to here, then to now, I had hoped that I would be starting to have better times by now, but the administration of suffering is hard to maintain. One thing after another, a bill here, a repair there, treatments, investigations, infections, tremors, everything. I must have cost the nhs thousands. It’s hard to keep up and also chase things up.
I’m not really where I wanted to be now but hopefully will be in 2025.
Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.
I hope people see that I am kind
That I care about things
Wrap my heart and soul
Round those who need.
But if they don’t see it?
Not important,
as long as things improve
Kindness can be hidden too
Who needs recognition?
If you can help anyway.
And yes, I am soft hearted.
A poet I know has published a long paragraph purporting to be by artificial intelligence. I think he wrote it himself? It is like one of those sentences that you write by using the central choice on your keypad to generate a string of words, but much more complicated. For example :
I think I was a child and I used to be a sunset……
Would be a generated sentence.
I’m not using any AI to write but I decided to say something using the word “cuttlefish” just because I thought of it.
So…… here goes.
“Very old cuttlefish walk across pink dessert avenues. They mean nothing to the public air. Hand wash slowly, using cranium crystals. Bleep out sanding shores. Official decision is required before trash can be planted in allergies.”
I guess you can write anything, but will it be understandable, and if infinite monkeys are not able to write Shakespeare, will AI make it so?
Are you more of a night or morning person?
Night is good for fireworks, comets and supernovae. You can’t see them well in daylight.
Also exciting things like auroras and the bright glow of volcanoes.
You might be able to see the milky way galaxy, planets and meteors.
Not that I’m obsessed with astronomy.
Also when you go inside you can watch interesting films on TV.
Daytimes? Well if you are looking forward to nice weather you can sometimes be lucky and get sunshine. But isn’t watching a thunderstorm at night more exciting? And reading a book in bed is relaxing.
Plus, getting up early in the morning it’s often cold. I prefer to stay snug, thank you.
Is Lady Liberty disappearing into mist and fog? What happened to the support of huddled masses? Can there possibly be mass deportations?
Looking up the name of the island where people arrived in America, Google says:
On 1 January 1892, Ellis Island opened to receive immigrants. At its peak, during the early years of the 20th Century, thousands of people passed through its gates each day. Angel Island in San Francisco Bay had the same role on the west coast from 1910 to 1940.
So why is this aspect of America. Support and kindness now being curtailed? Perhaps it is through fear, perhaps it is selfishness. I don’t know. There seems to be almost a mass hysteria around the world where xenophobia is taking control. We see it in the UK where the legal routes to migration have been reduced and people fleeing conflict have been forced to risk travelling across the Channel in small boats to get to the UK. Vicious rumours about those poor people have caused riots and misinformed so many people in negative ways.
We see war in Syria now that has started to maim and kill people again. Destabilising countries causes strife and fear and forces people to move. Gaza is in crisis, Ukraine is being destroyed. Sudan has floods and starvation to mention a few current crises. But instead of dealing with the bad actors we allow the oligarchs of the world to feel they can get away with their cruelty.
All of us need to stop and think about kindness, caring and love. It’s about time we thought as President Kennedy did, not what we can do for ourselves but what we can do for others. Somewhere humanity needs to think about our fellow humans and not just grabbing what we can and damn the rest.
It makes me dispair and worry about what we are doing. Maybe fear of what’s happening to the Earth’s environment is now impacting on its population. Somehow we must start to care more about each other.
Christmas, alone for another year. Make Merry they say. Bah Humbug! Do I reply? No, I’m not so lost that I turn my cheek to the world. But a quiet Christmas? Maybe. One chicken leg. A small bottle of beer. Three sprouts if I’m lucky? Any sparkle and cheer? I might make handmade crackers and tie one end to the door handle to pull them. Meanwhile, I bought myself a new garden bench to sit alone on, so happy new year, dear.
Does anyone else mutter extra words after they have finished a phone call? I just caught myself doing it, adding a little comment when my caller had ended the call. It wasn’t rude, just something along the lines of ” oh leave me alone”, but it could have been multiple phases. I think it must be something to do with being tired. It was just that I realised I might not have hung up properly. But no it was OK. I wonder how often this habit occurs? I shall have to be careful!
Mallaband-Brown