We're Americans

On July 22, 2020, the first summer of COVID, I wrote in a post, "Somehow, we humanoids need each other; at the least, it affirms our existence; at the best, it affirms love."

Five years later, so it was last Saturday, October 18, 2025, at the nearby
No Kings Protest.
Two friends stand here on each side of me. We felt the love and
power of the spirit as 1800 of us gathered to say to those now in power:
We are strong! The many deep harms you are inflicting must and will come to an end. We do not hate. We love our country and one another. We want good and better for everyone, yes, even for those of you in opposition.
You are not an "enemy" 

and neither am I.
With open minds and hearts, we stand firm for the Four Freedoms:

We want you with us.
We can and will work things out.
We're Americans!

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_______        ______

And now for the ART PART! Yesterday, waiting in my doctor's waiting room, I worked on figuring out a new app on my iPhone. I came up with a brief sketch with my finger after seeing Liza Donnelly do sketches on her SubStack posts. Later in the day, that prompted me to think about other quick sketches from past efforts in various mediums. Here are some that haven't (mostly not) appeared in the blog, including the sample from today's wait with an app sitting in my hand.

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Primed

We are the primates seeking Prime
this thing and that with a sale price divine!
Yesterday started the big Begin

and once more today, so you can join in

to enjoy the acquisition precision
of stuff that's price-squeezed
then tap a button and presto! such ease
to get stuff with a special sale sparkle
Fuhgeddaboud the source oligarchical.

Then presto! in boxes and bags
with invoices and tags
stuff flies through the air

with nary a care
then loads into trucks big and small
that race through streets and by shuttered malls
bumping o'er roads, bridges, and ferries
driven by schedules with GPS, it hurries
whether in sun, rain, snow or muck
by your door, the thing lands while the truck
speeds away to another address
you open the thing that you bought for less
then pile it amongst your old stuff
since last year's Prime wasn't enuff.

On Eagles and Ice Cream

Instead of, well, coherent thoughts to post today, I backed up to the eagle that flew back in June's postings and which will be part of this Friday's art show in our Dock Woods community...and presto, after a little bit, this happened, and a re-work of the poem he or she inspired...

While getting ready for the art show, I also framed the three designs Great-Grandson Kingston made two years ago when he was eight years old...

Right now I am craving ice cream...

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Trees Whisper

Our blessed, blue planet orbits

into new seasons, north and south.

Here, on Earth's north, sunlight's path 

through the atmosphere lengthens,

its brilliance deepens into 

a golden glow to fall upon trees.

The trees sigh and whisper Autumn

the time of sequester

before the sleep of winter.

All Earth readies 

for a new, yet old cycle...

north Autumn

south Spring

half an orbit later...

north Spring

south Autumn.

Miracles play over and over,

again, yet again.

Who are we?

Will we happen again and again?

Will golden sunbeams shine on us

here and on others all over Earth?

Are we Miracles, too?

What is our next cycle?

How will we share?

Are we listening?

Trees whisper answers.

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Trees Are My Friends

As our good friend Carl mentioned, part of the barn tree might be salvaged. 

It feels good seeing a new tree planted. The newest one was planted with human intention. Long ago, the barn tree may have come from a bird dropping a digestive tract-activated seed into welcoming dirt next to the barn. The old tree has been special, and still is.

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We're nearing the end of August. Our deciduous trees that have so many shades of green in springtime, then deeper summer greens, that now begin to change color as our days are shortening and fall nears us here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Out my living room window...

In the center, the smaller tree(s) the last couple of days show a bit of yellow.

A closer look.

I was curious how and what makes the leaves change colors in the Fall. Here's an excellent, plain explanation: Science of Fall Colors | US Forest Service. 

Many thanks to our US Forest Service and to Science.

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Today, we have an Art Part thanks to my art and blog buddy, as we reach out in our ways to strengthen each other and help us all move forward in positive directions...

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August 26 was Women's Equality Day. It commemorates the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Women, half the population, won the right to vote 105 years ago. Thank you, Suffragettes! 

Faithfully yours in Good Trouble. --JM

Doodads

The blank screen stares at me...

Maybe I'll float a little while

Perhaps I'll daydream a smile

Hmmm...I see something...

Doodads

Da doodads say

doo dis

doo dat

dis and dat

dis and dat

disses and dats 

go out of whack

I lose track

of da disses and dats

dangling here, dare

and everywhere

Is dis a dat?

Or is dat a dis?

Dey pain my brain

when I search in vain

for da answers are not dare

because doodads doo not care

if dis is 

da dis

or if dat

is da dat 

so put on da thinking cap

and doo da disses

and doo da dats

and soon it's lotsa fun

doing dis

and doing dat

until da doodads 

are all done

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Waging Aging: Now deep into my 80s, every bathroom is an opportunity.

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The way I’d like to go on living in this world wouldn’t hurt anything, I’d just go on walking uphill and downhill, looking around, and so what if half the time I don’t know what for— so what if it doesn’t come to mean a hill of beans. —Mary Oliver

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We Need...

...positive stuff.

...good stuff...

Nourishment for Starved Minds

https://www.npr.org/2025/07/23/nx-s1-5432692/philadelphia-summer-learning-federal-funding-schools

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May, our sweet canine friend at the farm, had a successful surgery on her injury.

Aidan sent over the following that Keoni put together for May...

May's Go Fund Me

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So many things are happening at once. 

Where are we going?

How did white turn into black?

What turned up to down?

Who wants this chaos?

When will senseless spin/lies cease?

Is it a bad dream?

Search to find the What

And the When and Where, the Who

Stop tearing your hair.

We are our answers

Large or small, find your to-do

The work is worth it

Together we'll build

So it's stronger and better

For all, near and far

And after a while

The tones will sound different

When healing hearts sing

Peace, Love, Compassion

Abundantly freed for all

And our blue planet

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Waging Aging:

The following is a personal screed on the subject of hearing loss. Read at your peril.

The movie "Surf's Up" plays in my living room a few hours after I leave Costco wearing my new hearing aids that replaced the eight-year-old ones. The movie begins in the middle, where I left it some weeks ago when I grew sleepy and went to bed. I've seen it many times for a sweet breather from the serious stuff of living. This time, there are no closed captions because I turned them off to see if my brain cells can now hear the words, and the answer is, "Yes!" Not perfect, but wonderfully, gratefully better. Soon, even though I've seen this movie multiple times, I realize I am now seeing many more visual nuances on the screen because I'm not reading the dialogue! Wondrous. 

A week later: The new aids have made clear that some of my brain's hearing perception is lost because even though the new aids help me to better hear others' words, some words remain garbled sounds. This was true in the sound-booth testing, too. 

Meanings get lost. I am sad about that because I am missing some of what others are saying. Especially frustrating when I hear others' laughter in response to something said, and I miss the fun. The hearing aid tech says that once that has happened, it is not reversible. 

How is it that my hearing aids are not as good as my Apple earbuds?

Time for some research. Again.

OK. I researched it. (NIH is still functioning. All praises.) What I learned in my very, very lay terms is that when sound enters your head, all that intricate stuff between your eardrum and your brain changes the sound waves into electronic impulses then read by your brain. When there is damage in that in-between space, varying parts send slightly off-kilter electric pulses to your brain processor, so the info sent to your brain is slightly different from your stored data from your once-upon-a-time healthy in-between area. 

Since the brain has stored your former correct sound, what you get is a garble of certain sounds in words, depending on your individual in-between area damage or age-related deterioration. Researchers are working on ways to improve the wave-to-electronics variables with hearing aids, but that is not a done deal. At present, we are getting improved hearing aid amplifications which help, but don't yet fix the in-between wave-to-electric changes.

All this being said--I know, TMI--my iPhone earbuds are superior amplifiers with wildly differing costs. And, I'm not yet convinced that my brain cannot learn some word sounds in the changed forms just as it long ago learned and stored them.

Say, does anyone speak emojis?

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