Dreams I Never Dreamed

July 28, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What’s your biggest dream?
View all responses

I don’t have any dreams, biggest or otherwise. Well, I do have the night kind, but I don’t have many of those either, at least not that I remember. Should we have dreams? I don’t know. I tried looking up dreams on Google, but no matter what my search terms, I always ended up with a list of sites pertaining to nighttime dreams. I even asked if we needed a dream, and what I got was a lecture on the importance of REM sleep.

So, I guess I’m on my own for a definition of this topic.

Do we need to have a dream? It seems to be the consensus (except for Google) that yes, we do. As Harper’s Bizarre once sang, “You gotta have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?

As far as I can recall, though, I never really had a dream, something I was passionate about that I wished would happen or that I could work toward happening. When I was young, I wanted to be an author, even quit a job to pursue the craft, and it came as a shock when I discovered I had no talent. Years later, long after any vestige of that ambition had disappeared, I learned how to write, even had some books published but never became a “real” author, one who makes a living by writing. Perhaps the closest I came to having a dream was after Jeff died when I considered walking the Pacific Crest Trail, or walking cross country, or doing some other epic walk. I called it an impossible dream in my many blog posts about pursuing that dream, and as it turned out, it was impossible, but still, it was something that consumed my attention for many years. I researched, tried to get in shape enough to carry a heavy pack, did so many things to try to achieve that “dream,” though was it a dream? I don’t know. Looking back, it seems less a dream and more of a mental escape or a way of coping with a life of uncertainty.

And my life was uncertain. After Jeff died, I moved a thousand miles from our home to go take care of my aged father, and then after he died . . . well, let’s just say I was untethered.

Still, back then, I did think a lot about trying to find a “dream,” a way of getting through the rest of my life as fully engaged as possible. I did a lot of things in pursuit of a dream, though in fact, I’d never even dreamed any of those dreams. Dancing on stage, for example. I’m not the lightest of folks, not much of one for music or rhythm or bendability or any of a dozen other things one thinks about when you think of a dancer. And yet I did learn to dance, even did several performances on stage before a live audience. Apparently, despite the Harper’s Bizarre song, you can have a dream come true even if you never had the dream.

It’s the same with my house. Until I decided to spend my last bit of savings on a house, I’d certainly never even entertained the idea of owning a piece of property. Once I had the idea, I dreamed the house into existence, and now I seem to be living a dream, one that I never really dreamed.

And my garden. It’s a dream of a garden, that’s for sure, but for sure one that I’d never dreamed. In fact, I distinctly remember thinking (and telling people) that I didn’t want a garden or any landscaping. I wanted a yard that would take care of itself, and yet here I am, with an aftermath of a dream I never had.

Although I still don’t have dreams, I continue to open to whatever comes my way. And who knows, one day I might find myself in another situation where a dream I never dreamed actually came true.

***

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

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Promises

July 27, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What’s a promise you made to yourself that you’ve actually kept?
View all responses

I don’t really make promises to myself, at least not using those words. I do wake each day with the idea of trying to do better than I did the day before at taking care of myself, such as eating real food or doing stretching exercises if nothing else. I sometimes played around with New Year’s resolutions, though those resemble my daily betterment intentions rather than any resolution or promise to myself. Oddly, my unintentional resolution of daily blogging (I never decided to do it, never promised myself I would, just started doing it) is still in effect. 208 days and counting!

The closest I ever came to promising myself anything was after Jeff died and I became determined to be spontaneous. The only time in my life I was spontaneous was right after I met him. His very presence in the world made the world feel friendly, and I felt comfortable taking chances. Over the years, I settled back into my worrisome self. Our lives became constrained by his health, our finances, and various other matters beyond our control. He told me once it bothered him that our shared life had destroyed my spontaneity — but he never understood that he was the one responsible for whatever spontaneity I had developed to begin with.

I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life mourning, didn’t want to spend my life regretting that my shared life was ended, didn’t want to . . . well, I didn’t want to do a lot of things that I had to do, such as deal with the pain and go from there. Through it all, though, I kept that determination to be spontaneous as a way to honor him. And to honor myself.

I did many new things and took many chances — visiting museums, taking dance classes, hunting for wild poppy preserves, exploring the desert, hiking — though oddly, a lot of my spontaneity came with preparation and planning. For example, I couldn’t just start driving cross-country trip on a whim — I had to get both myself and my car into shape, stock up on the necessary emergency and camping equipment, notify people of my intentions in case they wanted me to stop by, and so many other niggling details. And yet, despite the planning, most of the trip was an exercise in spontaneity — driving how far I wanted each day, taking side trips when the signs beckoned me off the main road, accepting invitations from people I barely knew.

Even buying my house was as spontaneous as such a purchase can be. I got an unsolicited email from a real estate website saying that they had a house I might like. I did like it. And I bought it sight unseen. (Though I did have a realtor and two inspectors look at it for me.) Although my life has settled into a comfortable stay-at-homeness, and although I still have to live more or less according to a gardening schedule, my life is mostly unplanned. I do what I wish when I wish it, which most often means not doing much of anything, which I’m okay with, although oddly, yesterday I suddenly felt like cleaning house, so that was my big spontaneity of the day.

I suppose, in the end, I did make a promise to myself — that plan to be spontaneous — and I did keep it.

***

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

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Cooling Down

July 26, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Today is the hottest day of the year so far. Not of all years, just this year. I’ve survived hotter days than this — days when today’s high of 108 degrees was a cool-down — but still, it’s hot. Hot enough to have fried whatever energy I have. Hot enough to boil any ideas right out of my head.

So instead of writing anything of significance — assuming, of course, that I ever do — I thought I’d post photos of previous winters in the hopes that images of all that ice and snow will cool me down.

And if not that, then they will be a good reminder that although winter is officially five months away, winter weather could come as early as next month. Not that I think it will, just that it has. I remember snow in August. I also remember snow in June.

Just a reminder for people who aren’t paying attention: these are photos from previous winters. Not last year, because we had only a couple of real snowstorms, but previous years.

So are these images this cooling me off? Not particularly, but I must admit, seeing the photos is nice, especially since I don’t actually have to deal with the cold or the snow . . . yet.

***

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

Posted in being me, home, life. Tags: , , , . 2 Comments »

Rushing the Seasons

July 25, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I don’t like rushing the seasons. Instead, I try my best to get through the most trying days, even if only to remind myself that in just a few months, I’ll be complaining about the cold. But we’re in a sizzling hot spell, several days over 100 in a row, with the apex tomorrow at 109. Eek. It’s not that much of a problem, actually, since I do have a roof over my head and a way to keep the house — and me — cool, but still, those temperatures make even early morning chores a challenge. And, too, I can’t use open windows as a way to cool down the house in the evening because around here, at this time of year, it doesn’t cool down much until close to midnight.

I have to admit, that while I was hoping to bypass such temperatures this year since we had an early onslaught of summer (sometimes that’s an indication of an early cool down), stretches of more than 100 degrees are not at all uncommon. And anyway, although we’ve been in the 90s for weeks, we’ve only blipped into the 100s a couple of times. I do think this spate of sizzling weather is coming later this year than normal, but it’s hard to remember. Hot is hot.

For the next few days especially, I’ll do what I can to make my outside chores easier. It helps that so many of the summer flowers are through (or almost through) blooming. There are still a few lilies, a few echinacea, a few marigolds starting (which I don’t like particularly, but they love it here), and the petunias, of course, but for the most part, there’s not a lot to see out there except one heck of a lot of work I’m not doing.

One thing that is going strong enough to celebrate is my pumpkin vine. I just wanted the vine (ten feet long right now!) since I had a huge area to cover quickly, but still, a couple of the blossoms are turning into fruits. (Pumpkin is considered a fruit because it develops from the flowering part of the plant; it’s treated like a vegetable, but technically it’s a type of berry. Odd, that.)

Despite my claim of not liking to rush the seasons, I’d just as soon skip over the next week. Still, since there’s no choice, I’ll sweat it out (literally and figuratively), and hope that my grass, my flowers and I all survive the blast of heat.

***

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

Posted in being me, gardening, life. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Every Day Holds a Gift

July 24, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I’ve never been much of a Pollyanna, able to find something to be glad about in every situation, no matter how bleak. Sometime a silver lining is so tarnished as to be all but invisible. Sometimes pain is preferable to ignoring it. When someone dies, there is no reason for celebration; nor, when one feels physical pain, should one ignore the cause. Still, I am aware that each day does hold a small gift. Even in my bleakest times, I was aware of moments of peace, kind words, a hug, being able to finally sleep. All things we take for granted, but they loomed large as bits of light in the darkness.

Now, with a garden, I no longer have to simply be aware of the gifts that come my way, nor do I have to search them out. Some gifts bloom in such glory that doing anything other than celebrate the moment seems churlish.

There have been times, of course, where the outside work seemed to overshadow those gifts and, admittedly, the work can be exhausting and even painful if I do too much. But still, it’s worth it just for the gifts of the garden.

And today’s gift, pictured below, is truly a thing of beauty. My lily tree forest is winding down for the season. There are still a few blooms, and apparently, they saved the best for the last.

A true gift! One, moreover, that makes all the work worthwhile.

***

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

Posted in gardening, life. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment »

White Supremacy Culture?

July 22, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I read something yesterday that so shocked me, I’ve spent the past hour backtracking my digital footprints to make sure that what I thought I read was actually what I read. And it is.

So, the House Oversight Committee is questioning the Smithsonian bias, especially the exhibits in the National Museum of American History, which apparently is following through with the leftist agenda of emphasizing the country’s historical oppression and wickedness rather than anything patriotic.

I understand that the oppression is part of the back story, but it isn’t the entire story. Nor do past oppressions define where we are today. This is like people judging me by what my great-grandfather did. He apparently had two wives, though not at the same time, at least I don’t think he did. One he threw down the stairs, the other he locked away in an insane asylum. He was also a scientist of note, working with Edison and others of that ilk. So what does any of that say about me and my family today? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Still, the museum’s emphasis on framing history as oppressors/oppressed is typical of what is going on today, so that didn’t shock me. What did is something that came out during the hearing. Apparently, the Smithsonian uses something called a Mass Action Toolkit (MASS = Museum as Site for Social Action) to ensure that the museum promotes equity, inclusion, and anti-oppression and that it focuses on transforming society, which quite frankly, should not be the museum’s mission, especially one predominately funded by taxpayer money. (Hence the hearing.)

And even that isn’t shocking. The whole world, it seems, wants to be able to do what they want on the taxpayer’s dime.

So, the shocking part: the Smithsonian’s Mass Action Toolkit lists politeness, objectivity, individualism, linear thinking, planning for the future, avoiding conflicts, managing time, protecting property, a sense of urgency, and worship of the written word as characteristics of white supremacy culture.

What??? Politeness? Objectivity? Individualism? Linear thinking? Planning for the future? Being on time? Those are characteristics of white supremacy? No. No. No. They are characteristics of a civilized person, someone who strives to be decent and who treats others as they want to be treated. Those aren’t white things, nor are they bad things. Those should be characteristics for everyone to strive for. As for “a sense of urgency.” I have no idea what that means, nor do I know why the written word is a problem, unless it’s because too many people don’t know how to read.

Who makes up this stuff? Who believes it? And what is anyone supposed to do about it? Start being rude? Learn how not to read? Give up our individualism and follow the crowd even if it’s leading us off a political cliff? Become as biased as those who are aligned against anything that might be considered white culture? And what the heck is “white supremacy culture,” anyway? Just being white? Just existing?

Even writing this, I find the whole thing shocking and disturbing and unbelievable, but apparently, this nonsense is being sold as truth.

I’m going out to work in my garden. That, at least, makes sense to me.

***

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

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Time Eating App

July 21, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What app eats up most of your screen time — and do you even feel bad about it?
View all responses

I had to look up “app” since I wasn’t sure which, if any, of the sites I pay attention to are apps or just websites. While WordPress, does have an app, which I used back in my traveling days, I only use the online website to write, edit, post, and respond to comments. Other than that, there is a hidden object game I play, and apparently, it’s considered an app. I don’t feel bad about playing the game. I used to play a lot, even spent money on game tokens, but I don’t play as much as I used to and don’t spend any money, so I’m okay with whatever I feel like doing. Besides, it’s something interesting to do, gives me a feeling of connection to a few people, and helps keep my focus narrow and away from the world at large.

Which brings me to my other main app. X is considered an app, not a website, at least according to Google AI, so who knows the truth of it. (Google AI is not only terribly biased but I have found it dead wrong on many occasions. As the saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.)

The only reason I pay any attention to X once I stopped promoting my books (which, come to think of it was way before Twitter became X), is that a news aggregator I follow is on there. I found him on Facebook originally, but FB has had some issues with the videos the aggregator posts, and considering my own Facebook issues, I followed him over to X.

I don’t feel bad about paying attention to his posts because I like his summaries and commentaries of the videos I don’t have the patience to watch. There is a lot going on in the world today that I am interested in, mostly because the USA is trying to undo generations of globalist control of the country — something I’d been studying for decades. I thought the control was a foregone conclusion, so it’s been great to see the push back. Considering the stakes and how much of the backstory I know and considering how unbelievable the whole thing is (both the long-term, word-wide conspiracy — not a theory, a real conspiracy — as well as what is happening to undo some of that) it’s as if I’m reading a thriller in real time, not just seeing history repeating itself.

JFK also tried to take on the outside controllers of this country. Two and a half years before he was assassinated, he was irate at having been lied to by his own intelligence agencies, and he said, on April 27, 1961, “We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence — on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice. . . . Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.”

A hundred years before that, Lincoln lamented that he was fighting two wars, the one in front of him and the one behind. The one in front was his attempt to keep the union together so they could together fight the one behind — the globalists who were already trying to take over the USA through control of its money, as they had from the very beginning. And after all that, in 1913 the USA ceded control of its money anyway.

So, it’s been interesting watching new players in this ancient fight, though I do pray for the people of this administration since those who previously fought this same battle were killed or had their reputations destroyed. It’s a harrowing time, more than most people know.

Eventually, I will have to give up paying attention. For every step the USA moves away from the controllers, the controllers (via the leftists, domestic terrorists, the one-sided media, the money people, to name a few in addition to global forces) pull us two steps back, which isn’t exactly good for my peace of mind since there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.

For now, I don’t feel bad about this expenditure of my screen time because it gives me a modicum of hope, but if the battle is ever lost for good, I will turn off the outside world and go back to paying attention only to what is my immediate vicinity as I did for most of my life.

***

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

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Outdated Technology

July 19, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?
View all responses

I’ve been thinking about this blog prompt for a couple of days now, and I can’t really think of anything. The one thing would be the simple internal combustion engine as well as a simple dashboard with no electronic beeps or flashing lights or voices telling me what to do, but I don’t have to miss all that. It’s what I have.

About ten years ago, I had the opportunity to buy a new car, but even the older models had way more gadgets than I wanted. A car with an instrument panel as complicated as an airplane? So many electronic components most older people don’t bother to even figure out how to use? It was just too much, but still I dithered.

My mechanic, of course, wanted me to sell my old car because he wanted it, but he was honest enough to tell me the truth. He also told me that if I bought a new car, in ten years I’d have a piece of junk, but if I kept my VW Bug, in ten years I’d have a gem. I still dithered, but another car guy about had a fit when he found out I was considering getting a new vehicle, and he used the exact words the mechanic did.

By that time, I’d test driven enough cars and paid enough attention to my friends’ cars to realize I didn’t want all that computer stuff. I also didn’t know what lifestyle I would end up with. If I were going to be nomad, I needed a vehicle with a back area I could go car camping in. If I had to move to a big city, I’d need a small car. All that indecision! In the end, I had my bug restored. (Now that I’m remembering, the insurance and license plates tags on a new car would have been out of my budget range, so that pretty much decided the issue.)

I’m glad I kept the car. It’s simple, it works, and it’s a conversation piece. The only problem is I can never get a new car. I’ve told that story so many times — that I bought the car new and never bought another one — that it seems ingrained in my psyche.

So I don’t need to miss having a car with older technology, since that’s my vehicle.

It still seems astonishing to me that a car I bought when I was young, one moreover that I thought was a lemon, is still running. Well, for that matter, it amazes me that I am still running. I mean that my body is still working. I don’t run, can’t run, actually. But luckily, my car does run, even if it is outdated technology.

Oh, wait!! I just thought of another outdated technology that I liked — VCRs. But like my car, I don’t have to miss the technology because I have one or two never-used VCRs so I can play the movie collection Jeff left behind, though to be honest, I haven’t played any of those tapes in years.

***

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

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, life. Tags: , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Singing Our Laws

July 18, 2026 — Pat Bertram

People have often used songs and rhymes as memory aids. In fact, I still have to run through that ditty we learned in grade school when I need to know how many days in a month. You know the one:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
All the rest have thirty-one,
Save February at twenty-eight,
But leap year, coming once in four,
February then has one day more.

To be honest, I only remember the first four lines; I had to look up the mnemonic to find out the last lines because I never need them. I know how many days February has.

A memory song we learned was the alphabet song, though again, I don’t need to ever sing it (and the world thanks me for that small favor) because I do know the alphabet.

Something I didn’t know until just now when I read it, was that in a lot of previous societies, laws were written in verse so that they could be sung in public places to inform people of the rules, and also so that they could be handed down the generations without the usual tendency of people to unwittingly change what they heard.

This made me smile, thinking about doing such a thing today. Can you imagine? We are long past the days of Moses’ 10 laws and Hammurabi’s 282. In fact, we have so many laws, they are uncountable beyond a guess that they are in the many millions, which makes sense when you consider that the Federal government, state governments, and some city governments all have dedicated legislative branches that do nothing but make up laws to pass. Often, those laws become obsolete, such as any laws pertaining to horses and buggies, though they are seldom removed from the books. More frequently, laws are piled one on top the other, though the first law, if upheld, would do the job. Such as insider trading. There are laws against insider trading, but apparently, Congress excused themselves from those laws (how, I don’t know), so now, if they really want to ban insider trading, they have to create new laws to ban something that is already banned. In addition to laws (or under the heading of law might be a better phrasing), there are millions of statutes and regulations. And any ruling by a judge in a trial becomes law if only by precedent.

So, all those laws now extant in the United States. How long to you think it would take to sing that song? Decades? And if they were all etched in stone like Hammurabi’s code, how many times would the necessary stone tablets encircle the earth?

Enquiring minds are simply . . . enquiring.

***

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

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Technology in 2046

July 16, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What’s a piece of technology you’re convinced will exist in 20 years?
View all responses

I’m not convinced anything will exist in twenty years. In fact, I truly doubt I will exist in twenty years, so it won’t matter to me what, if any, technology will exist at that time. Chances are, technology will progress as it always has, with artificial intelligence becoming more and more prevalent and changing human lives in ways we can’t even imagine. Of course we can’t imagine — the changes will be coming from non-human intelligence, something so alien that it certainly doesn’t care about anything human. Any pretense at human emotion emanating from those ones and zeros will be just that — pretense.

Besides, we have no idea, really, when and if a cosmic catastrophe will happen. Over the billions of years the earth has existed, there have been many such events, events that seem to have changed the earth’s environment almost overnight. We all know of such events — the dinosaur extinction and the wooly mammoth extinction, to name two. The prevalence of flood myths, of the world standing still, of night becoming day all seem to reference other extinction events.

The truth is, despite all our vaunted science expertise, we really don’t have that much knowledge about how the sun — or any other cosmic body — affected the earth over those billions of years. Our human history is such a tiny fraction of the earth’s history. We live in a rather temperate and stable time, when we think the way the world is today is the way it always was and always will be. What else explains the prevalence of mobile home parks being set up in tornado alleys, towns being constructed on flood plains, and people building cabins in fire zones? When terrible things happen to people in these areas, it’s always a shock, though it shouldn’t be. What is, wasn’t always. A dry flood plain today wasn’t always dry, and it’s still subject to rare and not-so-rare floods.

And if the cosmos weren’t enough of an inimical neighborhood, we have the political situation, too. Here in this country, it used to be the goals were the same, the differences in political parties were due to differences in the means of achieving those goals. Now the goals are so widely divergent they hardly seem to be describing the same country. Most people want us to remain a constitutional republic, but a growing vocal and volatile group wants to tear the whole thing down, get rid of the constitution, the government, the entire criminal justice system, and let chaos and poverty take over. (Which I don’t understand. What do these people think is going to happen to them when they have destroyed this country? They will be living here, too. Or are they so stupid as to they think they will be the ones running things? Or so brainwashed as to believe the country will suddenly become a utopia with no crime and Kumbaya everywhere?)

Some people believe we’re headed toward a civil war. Others think we’re heading toward a world war, complete with nuclear weapons going off everywhere.

I don’t want to believe either of those scenarios, just as I don’t want to believe in a major cosmic event, but what I’ve learned during my many years is that the world does not run on my beliefs. If it did run on my beliefs, we would be living in a utopia because everyone would be spending a lot of time at home, working in a garden, reading, or writing rather tame blogs without a lot of emotion, and certainly no rage or outrage. Just kindness and smiles for everyone — well, almost everyone.

Still, let’s assume there are no major upheavals, civil or cosmic, and in twenty years, the world is more or less continuing on the same road to total technology as it is today. I still wouldn’t have an answer to the question because I’m not convinced of much of anything, though I’m pretty sure technology will have outpaced my need for it. To be honest, it already has.

***

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

Posted in being me, history/myth, internet, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 6 Comments »
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