Author: Marilyn Armstrong

SKULKING IN THE SHADOWS — Marilyn Armstrong

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FOWC with Fandango — Skulk

This is one of those words that sounds like what it means. Skulking in the shadows in the darkened alleys of Gotham. Bwa-ha-ha-ha! The man in the black coat and fedora gum-shoeing after him. And somewhere, a cop, an FBI agent, and private-eye are lurking, waiting for the moment of truth if there is any such thing.

Reindeer, sleigh, snow guy, and a path.

It’s a great, cold day here on the Atlantic coast. A good day for skulking. Even the birds seem rather sinister. I think I’m too tired to feel sinister. And we have an evening event. At least the hearings are over and I can go back to having a permanent nervous breakdown.

All the buds … and notice in front the one red segment. That too will flower.

Does anyone believe we are already supposedly “in the holiday spirit?” I’m not sure what that means anymore. I think it’s mostly about taking my tree from last year, plugging it in and making it ready to do its annual job as “tree of the holidays.”


Personally, before the subject comes up (again), I don’t care whether you say Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Good Chanuka, Felice Navidad, or Happy Kwanza. Or just “Hi, how are you?”

I do not care! It’s the thought that counts … and a fat envelope full of greenbacks wouldn’t hurt either.

LET’S BE TWELVE AGAIN — Marilyn Armstrong

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Someone asked me what I would do if I were twelve again. Twelve. A little too young to be a teenager, too old to be a ‘child.’ It’s the middle-age of childhood. There might be a few things I could do — or, more to the point — NOT do that might make old age feel less old. I could avoid those events where I broke my back, for example. Or maybe not. We all know that changing the past doesn’t usually work. Somehow, you either don’t exist at all, or whatever happens lands you back in the same place you were in anyway.

But I’m up for a try, as long as I don’t have to go back to school. Ever.

96-Marilyn1964

I’ve got all the diplomas I’ll ever need. I’m an adult. I get Social Security. Pensions. And never to be forgotten, Senior discounts. At 12 I had my full height and was a smart as I would ever be. I looked old for my age anyway.

Smarter. We reach our maximum intelligence in our early teens. It seems like a waste, but it isn’t really. That’s when we are collecting the knowledge that will enable us to decide what want to do with the rest of our lives. In this case, I already know.

I know what I want and I know how to get there.  I know what to avoid, which may be the most important part. It’s a perfect second life. With all the body parts still working and foreknowledge of what may come.

To the good part. A 12-year-old body you say? Before I broke my back. I get the chance to protect my spine and avoid the big issues I’m facing now.

There are some issues to be worked out. Young, growing bodies have needs. But in my head, I’m old and wily, so I know what to do. I have the body of a youngster, the brain of a senior. Oh, joy. This is the best of both worlds! Garry would be 17 — just about to go into the Marines. This wouldn’t be fun without him.

We will have legs that can run and minds that remember everything. But this time, without dysfunctional parents and all those stupid rules?

Bring it ON! I am so ready.

SHARE YOUR WORLD FOR THE MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER — Marilyn Armstrong

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World Sharing – Mid November — almost holiday time!

Can we ever experience anything objectively?  Why or why not?  (Now for the people who may not understand that idea, this is what objective means (definition wise):  Something that is not influenced by personal feelings or opinions).

I would like to think that mathematics, physics, and scientific inquiry are non-emotional. That’s true, but not entirely. Expecting a particular result tends to make it more likely that scientists will find that result. Also, a lot of scientific inquiry comes up with answers that are hypothetical and theoretical and not “hard” science. A scientific “theory” is not the same as pretending something that’s not true IS true. It’s not “fake.” It’s just something that can’t be absolutely proven.


Answers change as new technical solutions become available and also when the culture sees the world “differently.” When the rigid Catholic control of Europe began to slip, the way we looked at the universe changed too. In fact, that change of cultural control was critical to scientific inquiry.


So no, there’s no such thing as “entirely objective,” but there is certainly a big difference between fantasy — completely made up — and reality. Fact-seeking brings us a lot closer to objectivity than deciding the truth before you hear the facts and deciding anything else is not true. Climate change is one of those things.


Massive amounts of science have been used to determine the reality of this event and objective events — storms, rising water, and melting ice — have shown us that this is real. This is probably as close to objective as anything gets … yet those who are likely to make money from further despoiling of our environment reject it.

It isn’t that is is not true or objective. It’s greed, pure and simple.

Do humans have a soul? Do animals have a soul?

I don’t know. Do you?

Why are people told to respect the dead? (example: “Don’t speak ill of the dead”)

That’s cultural. Some religious groups idolize their ancestors, others merely bury them. Most people would really like us to have a soul, but I reserve my judgment on this. I don’t know. I don’t think anyone “knows.”

We hope. We believe. We yearn. We may (or may not) pray — but we do NOT know because the dead have not come back to chat with us. Until they do, we can just wonder and hope.

Without using the names of specific people, discuss “the ideal” President or another world leader.  Saying ‘anyone who is the exact opposite of a certain orange-skinned creature’ is cheating.  While (to me) that’s a true statement, there’s more depth to the question than to reduce it to one sentence.

I don’t know if there is any such person. Politics does what it does. Even the most honest people and truthful people get bent in politics.


So you do the best you can, trying to find people who believe what you believe and you hope that they will do their best for you and this world.

WHAT A DAY FOR NEWS JUNKIES! — Marilyn Armstrong

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I admit it. By the end of about six hours of impeachment testimony, I knew I’d never survive the Democratic debate. Also, Garry said he’d leave home if I didn’t change the channel — which I was intending to do anyway — but he supplied the final push. I just handed him the remote and said: “Go at it!”

I’m pretty sure that even the anchors were exhausted by then. There’s only so much bombshell testimony (Was it bombshell testimony? I no longer know what that means) anybody can take. And I missed the beginning — what I gather was the really hot testimony, but they talked about it constantly, so I really didn’t miss anything.

Is this enough?

But now, it was post-dinner and the idea of watching however many people are running for president on the Democratic ticket snipe at each other was over the top. I need a very long night’s sleep before I reconnect.

And since they delayed the debate, bet we’ll catch the last hour of it anyway.

I do not know how anyone remembers anything on these shows. I can’t even remember the names of the senators or testifiers. Moreover, when someone is going to drop a bombshell, that is when I have to go to the bathroom.

Carry on, America!

NEWSISH — Marilyn Armstrong

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In an unexpected bow to America’s need for clean air and including a desperate attempt to make people stop watching the impeachment hearings, President Trump announced he is banning automobiles and going back to the full-scale manufacturing buggies.

And buggy whips.

“All the out-of-work wheelwrights, carpenters, horse breeders, and horseshoe makers,” he announced, “will be back on the job! We will also need millions of guys to clean up the horseshit.”

As a note for non-horse owners, a horse produces about eight piles of manure a day totaling 50 pounds, more or less.

Every day. All year. In all seasons. I please that without horseshit cleaner-uppers, the entire world would be completely covered with horse do-do in just a few years. I’m not sure how many, but someone once made that calculation I’ve just forgotten who and when. Or where.

That means for each horse in the U.S., it will create about nine tons of manure every year. This can be used as fertilizer,  to make bricks, and especially as fuel with a higher heating value than seasoned hardwood. Plus, the resultant ash is an excellent soil additive.

Auto manufacturers ignored the announcement as General Motors kept rolling out the hybrids. Simultaneously, forty of Trump’s favorite Republican cronies cheered, promising this proposal would produce a massive job surge as well as a perfect, renewable source for heating homes.


Whoever is speaking for the White House these days — Trump himself maybe? — assured reporters that this administration has always been about horseshit, something about which many commentators could finally agree.

MERRY RED THANKSGIVING – Marilyn Armstrong

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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Red

It’s too early to make it a Christmas Cactus, so let’s make it a Thanksgiving Cactus. Hopefully, it will continue to bloom through the holidays and thus alter itself into a Christmas Cactus. One way or the other, it has started blooming and it is beautiful.

And very red!

FOTD – November 20, 2019

LIKE WATERGATE. DRIP, DRIP, DRIP – Marilyn Armstrong

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Da Prez has been shrieking “Witch Hunt” but not everyone is quite as stupid as he thought they were. Where there was no one willing to testify, now they have more people lined up who want to “tell the whole truth” then they have time to listen to.

Drip, drip, drip.

It takes time. Years. But now,  we want to know what happened. Really happened.

First, there was Mueller. We were disappointed. We wanted more than that. Nothing wrong? Are you kidding? I assumed he had done everything wrong. It was more a matter of proof, evidence, facts, legal stuff. This has been a lot like Watergate times 20. I remember the joy I felt as during  Watergate when the dominos began to fall.

Drip, drip, drip … plunk … rattle, bang, bang, bang.

And they all fell down. Finally, down went the Top Dog. Never did I imagine we’d wind up back in this place again with even bigger and more dangerous fish to fry.


Aside from setting our country back to being a proper nation, we’ve got a planet to save, wars to end, a climate to save. Oceans to clean and wildlife to preserve. Medical care to make available to all. There’s barely anything that doesn’t need some degree of saving.

I’m going to go with “save the planet first,” but that’s only because if we lose the planet, nothing else will matter.

Maybe, along the way, we will save ourselves from extinction. That would be a nice touch.


I just wanted to add this last bit, in case you weren’t clear on what I’ve been getting at.

There are no innocents in this mix. To say that all politics is corrupt is more or less true and always had been … but not like this.

I don’t merely want to “know more.” I want the whole story. Paragraph by paragraph, line by line. I want to know what happened and more than that, I want to know what I can do to make it better. I’m tired of feeling helpless while the world crumbles around me. Maybe now we can make a start at changing the world into a place my granddaughter can build a life.