Feeling the Cold and the Creeps

January 3, 2022 — Pat Bertram

It warmed up a mite. A couple of mornings ago, it was minus eight degrees Fahrenheit, and this morning when I walked to work, it was twelve degrees. A veritable heat wave! Despite the high temperature being just above freezing this afternoon, the heat from the sun was so intense, the snow is almost melted. There will be another day or two with single digit lows, then it will get back into the temperatures I’d become accustomed to — lows in the twenties, highs in the fifties.

That also means I’ll be back to watering my grass occasionally. And the streets will be clear and dry so I can go to the library. They are holding a couple of interlibrary loan books for me, and I need to go pick them up, though I’m not sure I really care to read them. I ordered these books months ago — maybe even a year ago — but because of all the closures and slowdowns due to The Bob, I didn’t get the books until now. In fact, I’d completely forgotten about them.

Meantime, what was once an author (Louise Penny) I enjoyed reading became one who gives me the creeps. This author, like one I have abhorred for a very long time whose initials are JP, is teeming up with a politician to write a book. I have no idea why an author who is respected in her own right needs the name of such a controversial politician (initials HRC) to further her career or why she would want to further the needs of the politician. It makes me feel manipulated, as if hands on my back are steering me in a direction I don’t want to go. I realize I shouldn’t let her decision to team up with another person make me rethink the books she wrote before the teaming, but it does. I will never be able to unsee those two names together on a book without shuddering. (It’s not the same with James Patterson and the other Clinton because I lost respect for Patterson and his writing franchise decades ago.)

Life seems to be taunting me, getting the books to me now when I don’t care rather than long ago when I especially wanted to read them. But I will try to remember that these books were written pre-HRC when I still thought Penny was worth reading, and slog my way through them. If nothing else, maybe I’ll finally find out how her detective ended up in the tiny village of Three Pines. The first books I read had him living in the big city. The last books had him living in the village. Without the intermediary books, it’s an additional mystery, so I will watch for the move, enjoy the books as best as I can, and console myself with the thought that these will be the last books of hers I will ever read.

And anyway, with winter here, it seems only fitting to be reading mysteries that take place in the far north (farther north than here, anyway). One thing that fascinates me about books that take place in Canada is the peek at a country and culture that is so similar to USA, and at the same time, vastly different. Although we’re becoming a country divided by myriad languages, this is more by default than by design. Canada seems to have always been a country defined by its two languages and two cultures. Or maybe three when you include the First Nations. Unless I’m wrong about that? I have to admit, the only things I really know about Canada are from the authors I’ve read, not just Louise Penny, but Robertson Davies, Lucy Montgomery, and Margaret Atwood. And, of course, from people I’ve met online.

But I’m getting far from where I started this essay, which is the cold. Brrr! I hope you’re keeping warm this winter, wherever you are.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in books, culture, fiction, life. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Being Right . . . and Wrong

January 1, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I was right about being awakened at midnight last night by fireworks. At first, still groggy from being half asleep, I worried something was happening to my house. Being responsible for a house is still so new to me (even though it has almost been three years since I moved here) that I panic at every strange noise. Admittedly, there aren’t as many strange noises as there used to be since I have come to recognize most of them. Still, banging noises do give me pause. But then I fully woke, realized people were celebrating the new year, blew a few wishes for all of you into the wind, and eventually went back to sleep. But not before I noticed there was a bit of snow coming down.

It’s still snowing, and has been all day, so I was wrong about my guess that we’d get a negligible amount of moisture. It turns out I was right to make the effort to plant my wildflower seeds yesterday. Those that didn’t get blown away will be firmly bedded for the rest of the winter, especially since it won’t get above freezing for a couple of days, and then only for two or three hours before the temperature plummets again.

I was also right that despite having a feeling of finality for the end of the year, I don’t have a similar sense of beginning for this new year. I do have a new calendar, though, with empty squares to fill with plans for fun and adventure, so that’s a beginning of sorts.

I also started with a new deck of tarot cards, one I haven’t used before. I never liked these particular cards, which is why I haven’t used them. They seem too bizarre to me and unmagical despite their name “The Magickal Tarot.” [Apparently, I’m wrong about not having used this deck before. While adding tags to this post, I happened to discover a previous discussion of the deck on my blog here: The Magickal Tarot]

This change of decks isn’t a new year sort of thing but a new month thing — every month I change the deck of cards I use, trying to find one that speaks to me. The Magickal Tarot is not such a deck. In fact, it dislikes me as much as I dislike it. The cards it fed me today are the seven of pentacles (Lord of Failure) reversed and the five of swords (Lord of Defeat).

Yikes! Talk about a bad omen for the new year! The first card of my two-card reading denotes the situation, the second card is the challenge I will face. My question was “What do I need to know this year?” and apparently, the cards think I need to know that my hopes will come to naught, and my challenge will be to deal with sorrow and loss and treachery. Oh, my!

The interesting thing to me about this reading was the reversed card. I make sure to keep the cards always in an upright position; I’ve even learned to deal the cards so they always face the same way. And yet, somehow, this one card, for the first time in the 18 months I have been doing a daily one- or two-card reading, was upside down. You’d think that a reversed card of failure would be the opposite of the upright card, but that is not true. If the card were upright, it would mean only delay and success unfulfilled, but reversed, it’s even worse.

I’m not worried about the prognostication. Most of my readings don’t seem to have anything to do with me, so I’m sure this reading is the same.

I hope I’m right about that!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in culture, life, tarot. Tags: , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Wishes on the Wind

December 31, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I didn’t know there was such a problem with wildfires in the towns of Boulder County in Colorado until I started getting messages from people online asking if I’m okay. Luckily, I am two-hundred miles from the fire zone. The only problem I foresee is that my house insurance will skyrocket again as it did last year in response to wildfires in other parts of Colorado, which seems unfair. Our rates here in my corner of Colorado are among the highest in Colorado and across the nation, and yet when anything happens in areas where people don’t have high premiums, my rate goes up too. In fact, the increase is in proportion to what I am already paying, so that means I end up paying more than my share. I guess I should be grateful — and I am — that I’m not one of those whose house has been destroyed, but if my insurance goes up much higher, I won’t be able to afford the dubious protection.

Other than learning about the fires, it was a good day. There have been high winds, of course, bringing in frigid temperatures and maybe even some snow for tonight. They are forecasting one to three inches, though I will be surprised if we get any moisture. Still, I took a chance on their being right about the possibility of snow and planted my wildflower seeds. I stamped them into the ground as best as I could to make sure that they don’t all get blown away. I do have more seeds, so can replant if nothing comes up next spring. Comes up in my yard, I mean. With the wind, there’s a possibility that my seeds are being planted all over the neighborhood.

I’m taking it as a good omen, though, that I planted the seeds on the last day of this year — the seeds of a new beginning as well as a way of perhaps bringing the best of this year into next year.

I’m hoping that the cold and snow will cut down the noise of tonight’s revelers with their firecrackers. If not, then I hope I’ll be able to sleep through the midnight commotion, but if I’m awake, I will think of you and send out wishes on the wind that next year will be your best ever.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Happy New Year’s Eve Eve!

December 30, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Happy New Year’s Eve Eve! That sounds redundant, but it’s the truth — tonight is the eve of New Year’s Eve. One night, one day, one evening, and then this year will be finished. I don’t know how to feel about that, to be honest. All things considered, it was a good year, but it seems unreal that this year is done for and another year is beginning so soon.

I have no real plans for the new year, just the same plans I’ve had all along — take care of my house and hope that more of my landscaping gets finished by and by, take care of myself and hope that my health holds up, take care of all the little things that arise and hope I have the stamina to deal with them. That’s a lot of taking care and hoping, enough to fill a year — and a lifetime — that’s for sure.

As for the remainder of this year, I expect to fulfill the last two days of my 100-day blog challenge. But that’s a given — not a special plan for these days — as is the continuation of my daily blogging for no other reason than if I took a day or two off now and again, I’d get in the habit of not blogging, and since it’s the only writing I do, I’m not ready to give it up yet. But blogging is all that’s on my schedule for the next two days.

Because this area is going to be subject to fierce winds followed by a huge temperature drop off from a windy high of 60 (degrees Fahrenheit) tomorrow afternoon to a bitter low of 9 tomorrow night (and a high of 19 on Saturday with a low of 0 Saturday night), today I went to the library and stocked up on books, then did one last bit of lawn watering. So for the rest of the year my time is my own with no responsibilities except to stay warm.

I don’t have any plans for tomorrow night, either. There’s no reason to stay up until midnight to toast the new year, though I imagine I will be awakened by all the fireworks set off by witless neighbors. (Witless because they ignore the law prohibiting fireworks in Colorado as well as discounting the fire danger inherent in high winds and low humidity.)

I hope your year end and your year beginning will be as pleasant as mine. Meantime, have a Happy New Year’s Eve Eve!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in blogging, culture, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

A Reflection of My Thoughts

December 28, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Today’s two-card tarot reading was The World followed by the Ten of Cups.

The meaning of The World in this deck (The Ancient Egyptian Tarot) is completion. The final achievement of all one’s objectives. The attainment of harmony. A sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. The end of an era.

The meaning of the ten of cups is also completion and satisfaction (complete satisfaction, actually) along with contentment. It’s about living for today, with no regrets over the past and no concerns for the future.

The first card in my two-card readings tells me the situation. The second card gives further information about the situation, so it seems to me that the cards are saying that this is the end of an era, but that I am okay with it.

However these cards are read, it’s a great fortune, but what I found most interesting is the cards seem to tie in with the feeling I’ve been having of things coming to an end, though not necessarily in a bad way. This end could be the end of the year. It could be the end of this particular “era” for me. Or it could simply be a feeling that means nothing. But whatever the feeling is, it seems to be reflected in the cards, though I don’t know whether the cards are saying that I am right about my feelings and this is the end of something or they are picking up on my thoughts and reflecting them back to me.

This reflection of my thoughts happens quite frequently, though I don’t see anything particularly mystical in it. It could be that I interpret the cards through the screen of whatever I am thinking or feeling.

After all this time — a year of one-card readings and six months of two-card readings — I still don’t have a feel for the truth of the cards. It could be that my logical mind rebels. A person who is learning the tarot is supposed to study the cards and see what she intuits, but all I can see when I look at a card is a picture that is someone else’s (the artist’s) interpretation of what the card might mean.

It’s possible that a logical yet intuitive (or do I mean intuitive yet logical) person can never really get more out of the cards than the superficial meanings I am finding. So far, I am not learning anything about myself that I don’t already know, and if I am learning anything about the future, I don’t particularly want to know what it might be. After all, I will know for sure whatever the future might bring when I arrive. (Though the fallacy here is that there is no future because when you arrive in the future, you are in the present.)

Despite my continued reservations, I am sticking with my tarot studies. After all, I have a long way to go. The first year was for a one-card reading, the second for a two-card reading, the third year will be for a three-card reading, and so on until the end of my interest.

Hmm. There’s that word again: “end.” It makes me wonder if when this year has ended and a new one begun if I will have a sense of new beginnings. I guess I’ll find out when the new year arrives.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in culture, life, tarot. Tags: , , , , , . 3 Comments »

The Coming End

December 27, 2021 — Pat Bertram

This week seems to be a time out of time, when people are concentrating on the year to come, planning New Year’s Eve events, making resolutions (or at least thinking of making them), and even shopping at year-end sales in preparation for next year’s needs. Like everyone else, that’s generally how I’ve thought of this time — as a few extra days tacked on to the end of the real year in preparation for the next real year.

Despite all that focus on the future, there are a few days left of this year, time enough to hurry up and finally do some of the things you resolved to do when this year was new, and time enough to celebrate the remaining days because every day should be a day to celebrate, if only that we are still alive.

Oddly, for the first time in my life, I am very aware of this year coming to an end. I can actually feel a sense of finality, though I’m not sure whether it’s for the year itself or for some as yet unknown experience. I don’t in any way think that I am prescient; this feeling of an end could be what I originally intimated — that the year (and only the year) is coming to an end. The feeling could also be due to my spending so much time alone and hence able to feel some sort of change in the atmosphere. (A change in weather is coming, that’s for sure — there won’t be any of these balmy winter days for a while.)

But what do I know. Not much, really. I do know that all things end, whether it is a day, a month, a season, a year. And yet years don’t really end, now that I think about it; they just roll over into a new calendar year with no clear demarcation between the end and the beginning, the old and the new (except for a new calendar, of course.) We’re still the same, though I wonder what it would be like if those resolutions could be actual changes, not just feeble plans to make changes that so quickly dissipate in the sameness of the new year.

To be honest, I’m not sure many of us could handle real changes, to wake up on January first, suddenly fit and healthy, disciplined and kind, rich and satisfied, or whatever it is that we wish we were that we aren’t. I suppose it’s healthier in the long run to realize we are who we are, with an ability (or rather an inability) to make any significant changes to ourselves or our lives from one year to the next, though changes do happen.

Maybe that’s the “end” I feel so acutely right now — the end of hoping to be the person I wish I were and a greater acceptance of the person I am.

Or it could be, as I said, that the feeling of “end” is nothing more significant than a simple awareness that this is the end of the year, a thing in itself, not a prelude to something else.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

A Pleasant Day

December 26, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I had a very nice day yesterday, which just goes to show that a person doesn’t have to be with others to celebrate Christmas. Of course, it helped that I texted with my sister for a while as we opened our gifts from each other. (She got me gardening tools and a sun hat — so very thoughtful and fun.) The interesting thing is that we have her usual Pacific northwest December weather, and she has our usual Colorado weather. In other words, she was experiencing a rare Christmas snowstorm, and we experienced a rather mild and dry Christmas.

Mostly I watered my grass, read a novel, and played on the computer.

[I think I’ve mentioned a find and seek game that I’m sort of addicted to, the playing of which should make me feel silly except that I play the game during the times most people are lounging in front of a television and besides, there’s only so much reading a person can do.]

I also made a point of fixing a special meal for myself, though the “fixing” was mostly sticking the food in the oven and waiting for it to fix itself. Still, it was delicious, and a real treat. (Literally a treat since the dinner kit was a gift.) I even used my good china. Which makes me wonder: since the dishes were made in Japan, shouldn’t they be called my good japan? (You know I’m being silly, right?)

Today was more of the same, at least to a certain extent. It’s been very windy (it still is, actually) so I didn’t go outside at all, but I made sure to do my knee “therapy” and spent a couple of minutes on my elliptical. (It sounds rather pathetic, but more than that aggravates my knees right now.) Then I read and played on the computer. Come to think of it, I even fixed a nice meal, though I didn’t bother with a pretty layout or the stove. I just heated the meat and vegetables in the microwave and ate from the cooking dish.

I hope your days (yesterday and today) were as pleasant as mine, whether you celebrated or not.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Wishes for You

December 25, 2021 — Pat Bertram

If you don’t celebrate this day in some way, I still wish all these wonderful things for you.

If you do celebrate Christmas, then choose your preferred greeting: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season’s Greetings, Peace and Joy, Warmest Wishes, Happy Solstice, Good Yule, Noel, Good Cheer, Good Tidings, Merry Xmas, Happy Holy Holidays, Warm Greetings, Holly Jolly Holidays, Let it Snow, Ho Ho Ho, Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel, Mele Kalikimaka, Buon Natale, Buone Feste Natalizie, Feliz Natal, Nollaig Shona, Fröhliche Weihnachten, God Jul, Wesołych Świąt, as well as any other greeting you use to acknowledge this special day.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Festivities

December 24, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Today was another windy day, though not as devastating as the windstorm we had a week or so ago. Still, I played it safe and stayed home except for a brief jaunt to the library before the winds got too bad. It was a treat. When my knees were acting up, I got in the habit of going to the library when I got out my car each week. It was just so much easier making the extra stop than trying to wield a satchel-full of books as well as a walking stick. But today I took a chance on walking, and it all worked out well. Even better, I got plenty of books to tide me over until after Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas — everyone who has come to the house the past couple of weeks has remarked on all the Christmas presents I’ve received, which made me smile. True, my coffee table is piled high with festive boxes, but almost all of them are empty. I use the gift boxes I’ve collected over the years to store my lights and ornaments, so after the tree is up and decorated, I don’t have to find a place to store the boxes. I just leave them out in plain sight. (If I had a big tree, I’d put them under the tree, but since my trees are small, I use the coffee table.) All those seasonal boxes not only make the place look festive, but it gives me a sense of wealth seeing all those gifts, even if the “gifts” are filled with nothing but air.

And speaking of festivities — in the book I’m reading, a character mentioned May baskets, which brought forth a whole stream of memories that have been long out of mind. When I was in grade school, my mother sometimes made cupcakes that looked like May baskets for me to take to class on May Day. And oh, were they beautiful! Basically, they were just cupcakes with icing to match the pipe cleaner “handle,” and the handles were decorated with dime-store flowers. It sounds simple, but I remember she spent a lot of time making those baskets, and eventually, she had to give it up, not just because it was too time-consuming but because those tiny flowers disappeared from the stores.

In my early twenties, I again started the habit of May baskets, but I followed the original tradition of leaving the baskets on people’s doorsteps. I stopped when the husband of one of my friends threw the basket out in the street because he thought it was a bomb. This was decades ago, long before people in safe neighborhoods had to worry about such things, but his actions broke my momentum, and I never did such things again.

It does make me wonder, though, if this would be a good time and a good place to reinstitute the practice. I enjoyed making the baskets and leaving a surprise for people, and I doubt any of the people I would leave a basket for would immediately think “bomb” when they saw a basket of flowers and small gifts.

But May is a long way away. (Though at the rate time is moving, it will have come and gone before I get around to making any baskets.)

Meantime, there is Christmas to get through. I don’t imagine I’ll have any problems; in fact, I am actually looking forward to spending the day by myself, reading, playing on the computer, and eating good food. Oh, and opening the gifts I did get. I’m especially looking forward to seeing what the plant fairies and garden gnomes sent me!

***

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 culture, history/myth, life. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Have a Good One

December 23, 2021 — Pat Bertram

When I was young, clerks were taught to tell customers, “Thank you.” As a representative of the business, it was the clerk’s responsibility to let people know their patronage was appreciated. Somewhere along the way, it became the customer’s responsibility to thank the clerk for helping, though why this should be, I don’t know except that perhaps the clerks were young and had no manners, while those who shopped were a bit older and still under the influence of the etiquette they were taught.

Now, though the culture at large seems to talk more about being grateful — practicing an attitude of gratitude, as they say — people still don’t say thank you. In fact, customers have even stopped saying “thank you.”

For a while, the standard replacement for “thank you” was “have a nice day.” Then, apparently, even those trite words became too obsequious for that particular generation of clerks, and the best a customer could hope for was a pleasant rather than surly, “There you go.”

Now the standard exit comment seems to be, “Have a good one,” which irks me with its ambiguity. Have a good one what? Being too kind for my own good, I keep my mouth shut, offer a smile and say, “Same to you.” (That’s why I used to like self-checkout — I was at least guaranteed a pleasant checkout experience. Now, though, I am too lazy and too rebellious to use the self-checkout, so even when they are available, I don’t use those lanes.)

I’d worry about becoming a curmudgeonly old woman, ranting about the bad manners of the youth today, but the truth is, I am already a curmudgeon. Another truth is there is no reason to rail against the unmannerly young because few people of any age have manners.

I just googled “why don’t people have manners anymore,” and got over 200,000,000 results. Apparently, I’m not the only one noticing the lack of simple manners.

If I had to pick one of those numerous responses to explain this lack, I’d have to say it has more to do with a growing sense of entitlement rather than the decline of the family or the rise of electronic communication devices. People seem to think they don’t have to apologize to those they consider inferior to them, nor do they have to thank them, and in an entitled society, everyone thinks they are superior. (It’s one of the reasons many Americans supposedly will never penalize the rich, even the robber-baron rich, because they assume they too will be rich one day.)

Truthfully, I don’t care what the reasons for unmannerliness are. And as long as people treat me well, I don’t really care what words they use to acknowledge me. Mentioning the evolution from “thank you” to “have a good one” is more of a curiosity than a curmudgeonly outcry.

But, whatever.

Have a good one.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: , , , , , . 9 Comments »
« Older posts
Newer posts »