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Whatever Comes to Mind

February 8, 2025 — Pat Bertram

I’m trying to get back into blogging, starting with perhaps one blog a month, but the problem is the same one I’ve had ever since I stopped blogging every day — nothing to say. That didn’t stop me all those years of being a dedicated blogger — I just wrote whatever came to mind.

And what’s coming to mind, after seeing those dashes in my first two sentences, is that supposedly, if you see a lot of dashes in text, it’s probably written by an artificial intelligence (though if it’s artificial, can it be intelligent? Doesn’t intelligence signify a mind or at least a brain?). I might not be an artificial intelligence (might not even be much of a natural intelligence anymore for that matter), but I do tend to use a lot of dashes. And parentheses.

To be honest, I don’t see the point of using computer “intelligence” programs to write. The point of writing is to be yourself, to dig the truth from somewhere deep inside, and it seems that using those programs buries the truth deeper. Besides, the point of reading is to meet mind to mind. It’s an utterly human ability — to perceive in one’s own mind via twenty-six symbols something that someone else conceived in their mind. Anything else is just . . . words. Drivel.

Even worse, as artificial intelligence works today, it’s basically a form of plagiarism. Of course, people can take that plagiarized writing and rework it so that it’s not exact, in which case it’s not legally plagiarism, but it’s still morally plagiarism.

I think about this a lot lately as I am re-re-re-re-rereading Wheel of Time books. There is no way that series could ever have been written by any an artificial intelligence, or even a minor natural intelligence. Written to appeal to the young readers of fantasy, Robert Jordan layers his story with so much depth that the series can be read and reread dozens of times and always a different tier of meaning can be found.

From my first reading, I’ve been ambivalent about the books. For one thing, I’m not a fan of fantasy. For another, a good number of those millions of words could be whittled away to make the story stronger. (That’s what happens when your editor is also your wife — too much dross is left intact.) A good number of scenes and even chapters could have been left off without any loss to the story. Or maybe not since readers seem to differ on what those unnecessary scenes are. Luckily, there is a thing call skimming text or even skipping chapters. But the bulk that is left intact, is sheer genius.

As I wrote before, the scope of the story is utterly astounding. In the story-world, during the so-called age of legends, people wielding the power that turns the wheel of time, broke the world. Mountains grew where no mountains had been, waters flooded lands, green spaces became deserts. And humans started over. Interestingly, breaking the world is exactly what Robert Jordon did when he wrote his series — he smashed our world into bits, mixed it all up — legends and traditions; countries and races, clothes and customs; myths and mysteries, religions and philosophies — and put it all back together into his own creation. Truly fascinating.

It’s because of these books that I know for a fact that Google’s experimental AI overview is not to be taken as truth. So often, if I have a question about the books, the overview is not accurate, probably because it forms answers from authoritative sources as well as opinions proffered in fan discussions — and there are a lot of those discussions. (As to why I have questions, it’s hard to keep track of a story that has maybe 2,782 named characters with 1,379 of those being point-of-view characters.)

I’m sure this essay doesn’t seem to tell you what’s going on in my life, though it really does. With winter limiting my choices, I spend my days with simple pursuits such as computer games, painting-by-numbers, reading (and this year, so far, what I’ve been reading is The Wheel of Time.)

I am lucky (and exceedingly grateful) there is nothing much to write about. I am as safe as possible, as healthy as possible, as happy (or at least as contented) as possible. I hope the same for you.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

Posted in blogging, books, life, writing. Tags: AI as plagiarism, artificial intelligence, as healthy as possible, the point of reading, the point of writing, Wheel of Time. 6 Comments »

Update

January 8, 2025 — Pat Bertram

After an early heavy snow, followed by higher than average temperatures, we’re now in a deep freeze. Later in the week, the temperatures will get above freezing, although only fleetingly.

And then all too soon, it will be time to work out in my yard again.

I enjoy these months of respite from the struggle against weeds and sun-dried grass, but I miss the daily gifts — the flowers that come up despite this harsh climate, the volunteer plants that so tenaciously take a stand, the perennials that stretch their territory. I do get a flower fix with paint-by-number kits. It’s not the same as real gardening by any means, but it’s a real boon to someone without an artistic bone in her body.

Oddly, what I don’t miss is writing — about gardening or anything else, for that matter. For almost three decades, writing (and blogging) was my life. It kept me going during the long years of Jeff’s ill health and in the dark times after he died. It gave me a reason to get up in the morning, gave me a focus that I might not otherwise have had. In fact, because of this blog, I went on excursions and attended events I might have passed on, but I figured anything I did gave me a topic to write about.

So did my desire to stay at home squelch my desire to blog? Or did my lack of desire to blog squelch any desire for venturing out? Silly questions. Silly because the answers don’t matter. I’ve become a homebody, and that’s it. My being a homebody is not surprising since I’ve always had reclusive tendencies, but what is surprising is that I have a home. And a garden! It still astonishes me that this place is mine. In my restless years of grief and its aftermath, I spent a lot of mental energy trying to figure out what my unshared future would be like, and never once did I come close to imagining this reality.

I remember back then occasionally thinking that my future should be wonderful, because if the pain of grief was something I never knew existed, then there had to be some joy to come I also never knew existed.

And now here it is. And now here I am.

Of course, that raises a conundrum that I try not to consider: the only reason I’m living this particular good life is that Jeff is not here. Still, the last thing Jeff ever said to me was that everything would work out for me, so I know he’d be pleased for me. And yet, there’s that niggle in the back of my head that I try not to think about.

But those are thoughts for another time.

Today I’ll think good thoughts and be grateful for all I’ve been given.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in being me, blogging, home, life, writing. Tags: blogger, homebody, paint by number, personal, thinking good thoughts. 5 Comments »

Here I Am!

September 8, 2024 — Pat Bertram

Can you believe it? Here I am, and it’s only been two months since I last put in an appearance on this blog! Occasionally, people contact me, wanting to know how and what I’m doing, which makes me realize that I need to post an update more often. I’ve had a note by my computer reminding me to do a blog for weeks now. I don’t know what the issue is — I suppose it used to be that I wrote to get myself out of my head, but now I’m not really in my head, so writing is not as much of a necessity as it once was.

Considering, too, that there’s not much going on in my garden in August, that takes away one topic of conversation. The only topic, actually. I haven’t written about much else in a long time, and August is a hard time for gardening around here. There are a few pretty flowers scattered around my yard, but mostly my gardening activities revolve around helping my greenery survive the heat and the humongous grasshoppers that are almost as big as the giant zinnias, and planning what to do for next year.

For a while, I made a point of eating outside. Eating alone at a table always seems so lonely, so generally I read while I eat, but lately, I’ve been trying something different — eating at the table in my gazebo without a book. Just enjoying what I’ve accomplished with my yard. Now that a heat wave is blasting through here again, I’ve put that activity on hold, and considering how hard it is to get me to do anything, who knows if I’ll get back to al fresco dining when it cools off again.

It’s ironic that for so many years after Jeff died I worried about stagnating, and I have to admit, despite all that worry, it’s come true. I tend my yard, read, play a game on my computer, talk to neighbors occasionally, and that’s about it. I really was doing fine going out and about, joining various activities, and inviting friends to tea until the whole Bob thing catapulted me into a solitary life. [If you don’t already know, I call it The Bob because of a conversation in A Spark of Heavenly Fire, my novel about a novel disease.] Now, I just don’t seem to have the impetus — or the energy — to catapult myself back into being gregarious again. Perhaps when it’s cooler, I’ll be more willing to be sociable. Or not.

Wishing you a wonderful September.

***

Posted in being me, blogging, gardening, life. Tags: eating alone, eating outside, gigantic grasshopper, stagnating. 9 Comments »

Being

October 26, 2023 — Pat Bertram

Do not adjust your screens. This is not a test. I am really here. Well, virtually here. As much as I used to enjoy blogging every day, I now enjoy not blogging. I like not having to pay attention to all the thoughts parading through my mind, like not having to pick the most salient one or the most provoking one or the most emotionally driven one to explore in a blog post. I’m just letting the thoughts go without worrying about developing them into something worth writing about. I’ve even stopped looking for answers to life’s big questions (and small ones), stopped looking for a better way to be or directions of where to go from here. I am just being here.

I am just . . . being.

Socrates was wrong, at least for me. The unexamined life is worth living. It might not be an exciting or challenging or even worthwhile way to live, but it’s working. I certainly have had enough trauma in the past couple of decades to last me a lifetime. In a way, the hits keep coming – death has recently claimed good friends (and acquaintances who were on their way to being good friends) — but these losses pale in comparison to the devasting grief I experienced after Jeff died. Nothing compares to that, which makes it easier to accept what comes — and goes — in my life.

On a completely different scale of losses, my sodded lawn died this summer. Even though temperatures were five to ten degrees cooler than normal, the sun was actually more scorching, and it burned plants that normally do well here, like the new England asters. My poor grass didn’t stand a chance. For some reason (good luck, perhaps) I did well — and was well — this summer, so I was able to work two or three hours a day digging up the dead lawn and the Bermuda grass that grew in its place.

It was good to have the work, because the summer was hard. Too many insect invasions — miller moths, mosquitoes, grasshoppers that gnawed all the leaves and even some branches off a couple of my young trees and old bushes. Too many wind and hailstorms, one that destroyed most of my flowers.

But now we are into fall. I have learned over these years of trying to turn my yard into a mini park, that of all the various seasonal gardens — from the first tulips in spring to the wild growth of weeds in summer to the colorful fall flowers — I prefer the fall garden. Nothing of course, beats the hopeful sign of those early spring blooms, but by fall, weeds that have been cleared out have stopped growing back, mounds of chrysanthemum greenery have become lush mounds of color, the grass (what there is of it) is still green. The air is still, the threat of devastating hailstorms is past, and the skies are a deep, deep blue. Even better, though hordes of grasshoppers are still here, they have stopped eating everything in sight.

I seem to have a lot of extra time right now — the new grass I planted is looking good, all the plants that needed to be transplanted have been taken care of, and it’s too early to sow wildflower seeds — so I am not spending much time in the garden and have not yet developed a new routine. But there are always books to fill in the time, as well as an occasional movie or a more than occasional game on the internet.

The housework I neglected all summer has even been done. The place is clean! Yay!

And, luckily, I am still doing well. I hope you are too.

***

Posted in blogging, gardening, life. Tags: extra time, fall garden, letting thoughts go, not blogging, replacing grass, the unexamined life. 13 Comments »

Sameness

February 25, 2023 — Pat Bertram

It surprises me how many days can pass without anything special to blog about — just the normal flow of seasons, of light and dark, of . . . sameness. There’s not even anything in my stream of consciousness to make me stop and wonder. Of course, if one pays attention to one’s surroundings, there is always something that’s not exactly the same from day to day or even minute to minute. For example, I’ve noticed that the last couple of snows we had didn’t melt so much as evaporate. They disappeared without leaving behind puddles or even moist dirt. In fact, the ground is so dry, it makes me wonder if I’m going to have to start watering my lawn and garden spots. It’s still cold enough, though, that I could probably pass on the chore for a while longer.

Despite periodic bouts of temperatures that never rise above freezing, there are signs that spring in coming. When I walked home from work last night, it was still light. Well, twilight, but that’s still light enough for me to see my way. The longer days, if nothing else, promise that the spring equinox is not far off.

I’m still ambivalent about the end of winter. It will be nice not to have to deal with the cold, but spring brings a need for outside work. Lots of work! And I’m in a lazy mode right now, not wanting to do much of anything. I imagine when spring is here and I need to start taking care of my yard and gardens, I’ll welcome — at least for a time — the opportunity to be outside. And, I must admit, I am hungry for color. Last winter, my lawn stayed bright green, but this year it’s as drab as the rest of the yard. That the days themselves have so often been gray only exacerbates the drabness.

But then, I have to admit, what I mostly see is words on the pages of the books I am reading, so what is going on elsewhere is of little import.

Come to think of it, I have no idea what is going on elsewhere. Is there still a world out there beyond what I can see with my own eyes? For a while, I watched the news with the woman I sit with a few hours a week, but she lost interest in television. Which means I get to go back to my normal state of obliviousness. For a long time, even before that brief spate of news watching, I inadvertently managed to keep up with what was going on in the world by the events my Facebook friends commented on, but since I stay away from Facebook — if Meta doesn’t want links to my blog, then I don’t want it — I don’t even get that second or third hand news gossip.

I guess the moral of this story — to the extent that there is a moral — is that even when everything seems the same from day to day, things are still changing, whether we want them to or not.

***

Posted in blogging, gardening, life. Tags: everything seems the same, hungry for color, nothing special to blog about, oblivious to the world, spring is coming. 6 Comments »

Pig

February 18, 2023 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday I planned to write about all the things I’ve been thinking about that aren’t worth writing about. Aren’t worth thinking about, either.

I got as far as talking about my homeowner’s insurance before I’d used up my word allotment. Actually, there isn’t a word allotment, but few people want to slog through a long, boring piece about things that don’t really mean much.

Anyway, another thing I planned to mention was pork. Not pork as in pork barrel politics (politicians slipping funding for local projects into larger appropriations bills), but pork as in . . . pig.

A butcher friend sold me a portion of a pig that turned out to be tough. It was supposed to be a young pig, but he unknowingly (at least I hope it was unknowingly) ended up with a senior pig. In a way, that makes me feel better about eating the poor thing since its life was nearing an end anyway, but it sure makes for tough meat. The bacon, for example, tasted great, but it was truly as tough as shoe leather. Not that I’ve ever actually chewed on shoe leather, you understand, but in this case, the trite simile is apt. The stuff was inedible and unchewable. I gave the bacon back to the butcher, and for the rest of it, I’ve been trying to find ways to cook tough pork.

Normally, when I eat meat, which isn’t that often, I simply throw it into a pan and cook it, but that’s not possible in this case, so I’ve been researching ways of adding flavor back to slow-cooked chops and such. (I figure by the time I learn the various ways of tenderizing and seasoning this poor pig, it will be used up.) Normally, I write about the things I research, but recipes aren’t my favorite thing to write about. Still, I did manage to come up with some good flavors, such as an apple cider vinegar-based barbecue sauce that was truly tasty.

It’s amazing how much time it takes to research as well as think about flavors and ingredients for cooking. My latest project is to figure out good marinades and sauces for ham since the necessary long simmer leaches all the flavor out of the meat. One thought is to simmer the ham in green chai tea. Another is to marinade it in a vinegar and spice blend.

It’s a challenge, that’s for sure, and it does give me different flavors to sample as well as giving me something different to think about.

***

Posted in blogging, life, writing. Tags: cooking tough pork, cooking with tea, ham marinades, old pig, tough as shoe leather. 8 Comments »

Sluggish Thinking

February 17, 2023 — Pat Bertram

I had no idea it’s been so long since I wrote anything. Generally, I write to make sense of what I’ve been thinking, and there’s really no sense to make of many of my recent thoughts. My homeowner’s insurance increased by more than 50%, which stunned me. For most of my life — until just a few years ago, actually — I never wanted to own a house because of all the unforeseen expenses. Obviously, the insurance was not an unforeseen expense — I’d budgeted for it, and even budgeted for what I thought was a whopping increase, but the increase turned out to be more than I ever imagined, more than I can afford in the long run, even without increases in the coming years. (I’m fine for now, but yikes!) For the first time, I wondered if I had done the right thing by buying the house, but I do not want to even think about that. I know I did the right thing. So I’ve been trying to find a different insurance company.

One of the big issues in my case is that I have no credit rating, and insurance companies base their rates on your credit rating, which makes no sense to me. If a person doesn’t pay the insurance bill, the insurance is cancelled. Very simple. So what does my lack of credit have to do with insurance? I have no idea. They explained that people with a poor credit rating file more claims, but again, I don’t see what the problem is. If the claim is justified, they need to pay it. If not justified, turn it down.

One agent tried to explain to me that people with no credit are a poor risk because they don’t pay their bills, and she refused to listen when I explained I have no credit because I do pay my bills. I pay them as soon as I get them. No debts. Hence no credit. She didn’t care, and I can understand because it’s the company’s policy, not hers.

The company I’ve been dealing with used to be one that didn’t exorbitantly penalize people who had no credit, but I have a hunch the reason my bill went up so high is that they rethought that position. If I had a good credit rating, my insurance bill would be $1000 less a year.

(I did finally manage to get a credit card, but it will take years to build up any credit since I don’t buy much.)

My other issue with the original company is that although I have full coverage for rebuilding the house if anything were to happen, they lowballed the construction costs to keep the policy competitive. They were willing, however, to offer additional coverage for up to 25% more than costs indicated in the policy. So that means that total replacement coverage isn’t total replacement coverage.

As you can see, my thoughts have not been worth writing about. Truly, they haven’t even been worth thinking about. With any luck, I’ll be able to put this matter to rest for another year. I found a different company with much better coverage, but alas, only a few dollars cheaper. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the new insurance people to come look at the place, take photos for their files, and tell me if there’s anything I need to do around the property. I do know they will say I need a railing on my back ramp, but that’s already been paid for; it’s just a matter of having the weather clear enough so that the workers can get it installed.

As for weather: just when the snow melted and I began to look for signs of spring, we got dumped on. It was pretty — huge flakes filling the air — but so very cold! Cold enough, in fact, to make thinking a sluggish business.

It’s a good thing, then, that I’ve finished thinking — finished thinking about insurance, anyway.

***

Posted in blogging, home, life, writing. Tags: home ownership, homeowner's insurance, homeowners insurance increase, insurance and no credit. 2 Comments »

White Landscape

January 29, 2023 — Pat Bertram

I’d fallen back into the habit of blogging every day, so yesterday, when WordPress didn’t give me a prompt or suggestion of what to write about, I decided it was a sign to take a day off.

Habits are interesting — even good habits tend to take over your life. My life, anyway. I start out blogging every day, and soon the habit becomes a thing in itself that needs to be fed, and finally, the habit becomes a mandate. I begin to feel I must post something, and so a pleasant habit becomes a lot less pleasant. I don’t like feeling pushed, and so yesterday I pushed back.

Or it could be that yesterday I was just lazy. There’s a lot of that in my life right now. It’s hard to want to do anything when it’s so cold, and when every time I look out the window, I see the same thing — leftover snow. I can’t remember a year where the snow lingered so long. Colorado is known for its sunny winter days and quick melting snow, but this year? Not so much. It’s not even that we got a lot of snow. For the most part, the snow came from a mere two storms. Right after the first heavy snow had slowly melted, a second storm came and dumped six or more inches. And that snow is still out there.

I’m hoping that the constant moisture will help with spring flowers, but I fear it will also help bring out the weeds. But no — I don’t want to think that way. I simply want to dream of the pretty flowers that will brighten my life in a month or two.

Tulips, maybe.

Perhaps even crocuses.

Or wildflowers.

Anything but the white landscape I’ve been seeing for so many months.

***

Posted in blogging, gardening, life. Tags: crocus, dreaming of flowers, leftover snow, snow not melting, tulips, wildflowers. 10 Comments »

Leisure Time

January 27, 2023 — Pat Bertram

Today’s blog prompt is: what do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time? At first glance this looks like yesterday’s prompt about what you do for fun, but as I got to thinking about it, there are differences — although “enjoyment” is an aspect of fun, “fun” isn’t necessarily an aspect of enjoyment.

For example, yesterday was an enjoyable day. I walked to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things that I needed, and I saw a friend there. She offered me a ride, so we visited as we meandered the store and then continued chatting as she drove me home. Such surprise meetings with friends are always enjoyable. Later, friends brought dinner over here and we just sat and visited. It was too low key to be “fun,” but it was certainly enjoyable. (Though after a while, we had to make a concerted effort not to talk about homeowner’s insurance. Theirs went up as much as mine, and we were all still reeling from the shock of it. It got to be too depressing — and not at all enjoyable — to discuss the idiocies and unfairness of the insurance racket.)

Though perhaps that doesn’t answer the question. One definition of leisure time (I Googled it, of course!) is free time spent away from such activities as work, chores, errands, eating, and sleeping. If that’s the case, then yesterday’s enjoyable activities weren’t done in leisure time, since in the first instance, the enjoyment revolved around errands and in the second instance the enjoyment revolved around eating. Come to think of it, all of my visits with friends involve those activities. If I’m not hitching a ride with friends to go shopping, then we’re sitting around and eating. Still, by my simple definition (awake time not spent working), that’s still leisure time since all my awake time is free time except for the few hours a week I spend working. After all, I don’t have to do chores or errands at any given time; I can wait until they are not a burden but are rather enjoyable.

On days like yesterday, what I most enjoyed doing in my leisure time was visiting with friends, on other days, such as today, what I most enjoy doing is being by myself, not having to deal with problems, and not talking to anyone, not even cherished friends.

The way I figure it, my days are enjoyable either way.

***

Posted in blogging, house, life, relationships. Tags: being alone, being with people, enjoying leisure time, free time, leisure time, visiting with friends. 4 Comments »

Where to Go from Here?

January 22, 2023 — Pat Bertram

Lately I’ve been wondering where to go from here. I don’t mean geographically — I’m settled here in my house for the duration. It’s more about wondering what to do next with my life, if I want to keep doing what I’m doing, and if I need to do something more satisfying.

I am still blessed with a job that adds some structure to my life, and come spring and summer, of course, I’ll be spending a lot of time on my yard, an activity that makes me too tired to wonder if there is anything else for me.

But now, in the dead of winter, when I probably spend more time than is healthy inside — reading, playing games on the computer, and blogging a bit — I can’t help but question my life.

Reading is becoming problematic — too many novels are way over the top. Years ago, I used to enjoy Lee Child’s books, probably because contrary me had read a review that said women wouldn’t like the books, but also because Jack Reacher reminded me of a harder and less focused Kwai Chang Caine from the 1970’s television series Kung Fu. Whatever it was that appealed to me about Child’s character has completely disappeared. I’d given up reading the series long ago, but out of curiosity, I picked up the most recent book, and yikes. There is absolutely no redeeming virtue to either the badly written story or the character. Reacher has become a thug, pure and simple, a villain as bad or worse than any of those he tries to vanquish. The next book I read (by a different author) was just as bad, though in a different way. The characters’ actions seemed quixotic, unmotivated. They just did things, flashed back to the past way too often for any sense of story continuity, and yapped endlessly. Still, there are plenty of books that have enough of a plot to keep me reading, but it’s possible there will come a time that I give up reading again. Although reading often seems to be as necessary to me as breathing — and as effortless — I have gone through periods where I don’t read at all, once when I was young and depressed and books made me even more depressed, and again after Jeff died.

I could, of course, go back to writing my own fiction, but that is anything but effortless. Besides, I have yet to think of any characters that would keep me interested in their plight for the year or more it would take me to write the story. Oddly, although I am a writer, I have no real yen to write another book, probably because blogging scratches the writing itch and keeps me satisfied.

As for the game I got addicted to — I’m becoming unaddicted. It’s not as compelling as it was in the beginning, but I still play because it gives me a break from reading. And from thinking.

My knees are doing well, but not quite well enough to allow me to do the hours of roaming I used to do. I still have hope that my roaming days will return, but only locally. I used to spend a lot of time hiking, traveling or at least thinking about where I want to go, but my wanderlust, like my writinglust, seems to be sated.

Where I am falling short is on the social front. When I moved here, I jumped feet first into the social scene such as it is — going to the senior center for games and an occasional lunch, attending community dinners, joining various groups. When The Bob put a stop to all that, I reverted quite happily to my natural quasi-hermit state. Eventually, I started back in with one of the groups, but although I know I need the social interaction, I’m not sure I want to continue. The group is growing, which is good for them, but not so much for me. I get claustrophobic around too many people, and it takes all my energy to keep from running away. (The only reason I don’t is that generally I get a ride when the meeting is out of town and so have to wait until the end before I can leave.)

I am aware that my life is already too restricted, yet I’m secretly thinking of restricting it even more. Even if I don’t voluntarily make changes to restrict my activities, age and circumstances will eventually change things. For now, I am quite content with my quiet days, but it’s certainly not surprising that I’m wondering what’s next.

Luckily, it’s only two months until spring (though almost four months until spring planting), and then I’ll be too tired and too busy gardening and taking care of my yard to wonder where to go from here.