Bright lights, little city

About a week ago I was on my one home an evening. It wasn’t very late but it was very dark. The weather was cold but clear, remarkably clear, and dark, remarkably dark. I was north of home in my little suburban hamlet heading south on a classic dark and windy country road.

It was dark enough I needed high beam lights to see what lurked ahead. It was clear enough I could easily see oncoming traffic as we both neared the many twists and curves in the road. And all concerned politely reduced their lights it low beam lights before making the bend and blinding the oncoming driver. You gotta love people who know driving involves more than “put it in gear and go.”

As I got closer to town, the road straightened and lights mounted high above nicely illuminated the roads, eliminating the need for the super bright high beams. Another mile or so brought some roadside businesses and their lights added to the general brightness. 

It was then I saw the blur of white some distance ahead, heading north on the now almost ruler straight road through a little town-let. The blur grew and grew in size and brightness until it became clear that it was ye olde basic pick ‘em up truck with mutilple headlights, fog lights, and even lights across the bully bar over the top of the cab blazing while barreling merrily along, presumably by a backward hat wearing, plaid shirted, scraggly bearded truckster.

There ought to be a law addressing night time driving particularly discussing lights and illumination. Oh wait, there is, actually are. There ought to be people enforcing them.

It’s almost become SOP, ignore the laws that are inconvenient, or the regulation. Throw out the “way it’s always been done,” “doesn’t hurt anyone,” “anyone with common sense would know that.” Do what is right. 

Have you ever wondered why I’m so hard on backward hat wearing, plaid shirted trucksters? Little Rosemary is not the first little sports car I’ve owned. I had once had a 1979 Mazda RX7, the second year it was offered. It was about the same size as the later to come Miata but rounder. The year was 1985 and it was stopped at a red light where a large, jacked up pickup truck driven by a (you guessed it) backward hat wearing, plaid shirted, scraggly bearded, beer bellied amateur truckster did not stop at a red light and literally ran up and over the back of the low-slung car. Oh yes, there are laws.

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We all want to live long lives, maybe even live long lives in love. If you’d like to see what we had to say about long lasting love, pop on over and give But do you love me  a quick read. While you’re there, consider joining the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

 

Golden Oldies

I have an anniversary coming up. A silver anniversary. Rosemary and I will be together for 25 years this spring. I don’t bring her up too often in this blog, but you might remember me speaking of Rosemary on a couple occasions. She is my little red roadster, and is the longest adult relationship I’ve had.

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Have you been with any one, or any thing, for any appreciable length of time. We did an Uplift post at ROAMcare on long-lasting love. I was inspired to write it when I read an article in the local paper about how scientists have “figured out” what makes some relationships last. Actually the article had little to do with the headline. It was really a discussion about some scientific studies that are tracking the neural responses in long term relationship couples, but its bend, as is with much of what will pop up in the news in February, is toward romantic love, passion, and sexual attraction.

Considering we hadn’t read anything in mainstream media about the other 6 kinds of love, we thought we needed to point out that there are other long term relationships out there. Some even invovling people, like normal, regular, everyday people!

If you’d like to see what we had to say, pop on over and give But do you love me a quick read. While you’re there, consider joining the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

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Did you know

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. There have been 3 airplane crashes plus a helicopter in 8 days and 2 runway incursions tossed in for good behavior all starting within 24 hours of air traffic controllers being “offered” 8 month severance in exchange for leaving their positions within the next 7 days. The chairpersons of the National Archives, Federal Elections Commission, and National Labor Relations Board, the entirety or near entirety of the FBI cyber security division, US Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Kennedy Center board of trustees have been removed from their offices (although some are fighting those orders). And all of your social security data has been turned over to a group of 20 year old computer programs working for an unelected, non-vetted, immigrant. (I wonder if anybody ever called him African American?)

Also in the news this week, a measles outbreak in Texas, a tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas, and the flu at its highest incidence level since 2015.

The stuff in the first paragraph you knew. That was all over the news. The stuff in the second paragraph…show of hands please for who know about them.

I’m not sure if there’s a moral to that story but it’s made me really tired. I suppose I should try to get rid of the anger and bitterness. Forget about the ironies like sending ICE into the Navajo Nation. Life might easier to forget the anger. But it wouldn’t be better.

Have a good week.

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If you’re ready to give your bitterness, even if you can’t find much to celebrate about the world around you, start with celebrating yourself. Make America Kind Again. Check out Celebrate You for all the details.

While you’re there, consider joining the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

What day is it?

Do you know what day it is? It’s “Pay a Compliment Day,” and may I say you are all looking lovely today! I’ve talked about holidays and special days in this space before. It is easy enough to do. There are so many of them! The National Day Calendar lists over 1500 holidays and days of special remembrance or honor in the annual online calendar. With almost 3 times the number of observances as there are days in the year, not only is some day some thing, most days are many things!

Naturally we couldn’t let that go, so over at ROAMcare, Diem and I proclaimed today to be “I Am Special Day.” If you read that on the Uplift blog yesterday, you can still celebrate it today. That’s because today is “I Am Special Day” too. So will be tomorrow. And the day after that, and after that, and after that. Every day is “I Am Special Day” because we believe no day is just an everyday day.

We even introduced some traditions to get the ball rolling. One of them is to smile at other people and make them feel like they too are special on “I Am Special Day.” You could say we’re encouraging people to Make America Kind Again. (I just thought of that! Today is going to be special.)  Check out Celebrate You for all the details.

While you’re there, consider joining the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

 

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Do the right thing

I saw a blurb somewhere in the last week. I don’t recall if it was a social media site or one where intelligent people write the articles. It must have been on a social site because it made no sense to me. Among the things you should and should not keep in your car for emergencies, power banks to power your phone was included in the ‘do not keep in your car’ list.

I rely on my phone so much that I live in mortal fear of finding it less than 50% charged. I have a power bank in each car, the one in my daily driver a solar powered bank so it is constantly charging and ever ready (umm, that’s a description, not a brand), on my desk, and on the catch all table just inside the front door. Those are in addition to the corded charges in the office, living room, and bedroom.

It might be an unnecessarily pessimistic thought, but of all the things you”d want in an emergency in your car, an emergency source of power seems to fit that list. Some might say it’s because they are fire hazards. Uh huh. So it the gasoline, diesel, or battery packs powering the car. You don’t see anybody saying don’t keep gas in your car. Of course, speaking to the point of safety, that would make it difficult to get into trouble. It would make it difficult to get anywhere!

To be honest, it probably is a good idea otherwise not keep extra ignition sources in a closed vehicle, but I will continue to keep a power bank in the phone. I’m a rebel that way. I also will continue to have a bedtime snack, watch TV in bed before sleep, read in dim light, eat the occasional ultra-processed food, skip a meal now and then, and occasionally fail to signal a turn. Those things happen. In general though, I try to do the right things.


February is coming and love is in the air. Do the right thing and spread your love to everyone, even strangers. We talk about that very thing in this week’s Uplift post, All We Need is Love, Part 2. It’s all natural, requires little effort, and makes big differences. Check it out.

While you’re there, consider joining the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

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Lies, lies, and damned lies

It’s not easy to maintain decorum in what in normal times would be considered a world of bad practical jokes led by the prototypical middle school bully. Actually…it’s impossible. I tried and got various examples of snark, sass, sarcasm, and outright mean. I could never find the intelligent, intellectual treatise so much of my writing resembles. So I decided to go with the version that is just cranky, but in a world-weary, wacky way. Enjoy…not!


It’s quite started already. No I don’t mean the seeming swiftness of idiocy by which Dingy Donald is making his presence known. It’s the swiftness in which most reasonable people, even some of the lame brains who once supported Donny Dingbats, are tuning it out. “Oh, it’s just too idiotic to even think of.” “I can’t bear to watch the news so I’m not going to.” “It will go soon enough and this will be out of everyone’s system.”

If you’re dumb enough to think the constant lies that continue to fall out of his orange face and the incompetent if not outright stupid decisions he and his Kookie Cadre are attempting to foist upon us, you are as big a problem as the erstwhile assistant, Immigrant X-Factor.

I wish I could give you the citation but I am not sure there is a single source. It seems it is more of a truism that those who constantly lie do not do so hoping you will believe them or even to deceive, but that you ultimately become so inured to the lies that you stop caring about them being lies. That and it’s sneaky cousin, increasingly more outrageous acts, are what is going on. Dipstick Donny is out to barrage you with so much that is unbelievable that you stop believing.

You may have notice I have taken a page from Donald Dillweed’s playbook and made up some darling sobriquets for him, not necessarily to disparage, knowing I haven’t actually come out and said anything about a specific and clearly identifiable about any specific person. Consider it to be but just letting you decide who is the f***wad around here. Remember any turdbrain who accuses me of being hard a real person clearly is showing his/her/its true feelings assuming they think it must be DJ the Dipstick. (Did f***wad give it away?)

Naturally this is, for the time being, a free country, so if you disagree with me you have the right. And I have the right to delete any comments I don’t like then later say they never existed. But I would encourage you, to instead start spreading the word that there are bad things happening and its not that the price of eggs has almost doubled since November 5.

It’s the bad things like there is a tuberculosis outbreak going on in the US and the agencies who would be responsible for tracking and reporting have been ordered to not release information to the public. It’s that aid is being withheld from disaster areas until the local government succumb to the once and mighty tv personality. It’s that the $35 cap on insulin was repealed on January 20. It’s that the Department of Labor has been told to cease investigation of and enforcement activity against discrimination in the workplace. It’s that the NIH is no longer allowed to even authorized publication of research.

For every lie or contorted half truth that falls from the face of a perpetual lying machine, we need to make the truth just as loud and just as relentless so the Neanderthal masses understand that being a bully was not the way to get through middle school and it still makes them look like they are as dumb as a bag of rocks and not as good looking.

End of rant.


This is where I’d normally say something about another blog on a different website but it’s too classy to be associated with such drivel.

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Not just the words

A show of hands please. How many have ever utter the words, “Yes dear.” Now an honest answer here. who envisioned a snarky retort when thinking of the last time you uttered that phrase. And yes, I am making an assumption that every one of us has been on the giving end of those words, and the receiving end too. 

But again, being honest about it, who hasn’t also said those words endearingly. You may have to think about when a little longer, but we’ve also all most probably given and received such a sentiment.

Words themselves mean little. They should mean little and rarely taken at face value. They are only there to convey feelings anyway. Sometimes, the feelings are strengthened by images. Sometimes, the images far exceed the feelings behind the word.

I discovered something like that a couple weeks ago. As I was preparing the New Year’s Day ROAMcare post when we associated 1960s ballads with daily resolution prompts to this year’s message, Live, Love, Share, I took a side trip to YouTube to refresh my memory of some of the music and lyrics. I ran across this version of “God Only Knows” put together by BBC Music from October of 2014. Although the song is a good one and the lyrics catchy, (and really do make a good daily living prompt because we really do know that God only knows what we’d do without each other, it’s the image of 32 artists and groups mingling their distinctive styles into a single beautiful performance that keeps playing over in my head.

I suppose I found a daily prompt for probably the rest of the year to encourage me to be a part of life and share my love. If the magic of the music doesn’t last, yesterday we suggested perhaps checking the obituaries for inspiration. Do whatever it takes to make it a year of love. God only knows what we’d do without it.


Isn’t it time to consider joining the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website? In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.


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Happy? New? Year

I really want to wish everyone a Happy New Year but already this year is proving to be not too happy and unfortunately, that’s nothing new. On top of the terrible tragedy in New Orleans in the early morning hours of January 1, the FBI uncovered what they are calling the largest collection of explosive devices in one location when they raided a farm outside Norfolk, Virginia. Those events on the heels of the burning of a woman in the New York City subway, 10 mass shootings between Christmas and New Year’s Eve killing 47 victims, and of course the murder of an insurance company CEO by a fruitcake turned folk hero who people are still defending in social media.

Truly the same old same old. We have not only not learned to become more compassionate as we hit the winter holiday season, typically noted for peace and joy, we seem to be relishing in causing pain and suffering, emboldened by a bully atmosphere still hovering over the land from the recent political carnage.

I won’t say I have all the answers but I have all the answers. We addressed them in yesterday’s Uplift post, Resolve to Live, Love, Share. We opened with, “Resolutions. January 1 we make them. January 2 we break them. January 3 we forget about them. We have a tip for you. Live 2025 like it was the 1960s.” I know, you’re going to say the 60s was the poster child decade for social unrest. But we say nay nay. The 1960s I remember is a time of hope with people calling for peace and love, not like today’s unruly crowds purposely antagonizing others. We present a novel concept to get people together – love. Love is the root of all that is good. It doesn’t have to be elegant, it doesn’t have to be momentous. It merely has to be and it can be its best when it is shared.

I would be thrilled if you took 3 minutes to read all of Live, Love, Share and then you yourself joined us in resolving to lose hostility and to love more. Let’s bring life back to the party – let’s bring love back to life!

While you’re over there, consider joining the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

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Happy Nearly New Year

It’s the last Monday of the year and it would be oh so easy to do a “year in review” type of post.  I wonder if that’s what this week’s daily prompts will be. The same prompt every day just worded a little different. Sort of like politics. Our politics this year were worded a little different. Mostly worded as lies. Turns out more people like lies more than truth, no matter how positive the truth might be. So yeah, but no, a year in review is off the list for today.

If not looking back, how about looking forward. I could make predictions of what 2025 will be like. But if you want to know how next year will be, you just have to visit your local shot and a beer bar and you’ll find more people than you can shake a stick at who will tell you just what’s going to happen next year. And they’ll be right because they all knew exactly how this year was going to be. I can hear them now. “Yep, I told you so” they will start. No, predictions aren’t for me.

How about I do a “best of” los of my posts from 2024? That’s perfect. Non-controversial. Non-political, non-critical of anything. Yep, we can do a best of from 2024, and um, that would be all of them. How can you pick the best? It’s like picking the best child or the best bacon. They’ll all yummy. Just like bacon.

I’m running out of ideas and if I don’t come up with something we’ll run out of Monday before I get anything typed onto the screen. What to do, what to do, what to do?

Aha! Why didn’t I think of this before? Resolutions! I’ll make my resolutions for 2025 and post them here and then you can check back with me later this year and together we’ll see how I did. And if you check back with me in March, I’ll tell you what they are. Didn’t you ever read that I don’t make resolutions in January. If New Year’s Day came later in the year, perhaps when the days are getting warmer and flowers are starting to bloom, then we can come up with some good resolutions.  Come see me when I’m not standing knee deep in used gift boxes trying to remember if they are recyclable, and when not I’m cleaning out the refrigerator of all the traditional holiday foods that everybody wanted but nobody ate.

Nope, the ideal time for New Year’s is late March, just about when spring is springing.  It’s far enough away from Valentine’s Day and Easter that we can use a holiday then. The long depressing nights are over so our resolutions can be positive and begin with “we resolve that we will do this” like the start of a real goal rather than “we will never again do that” like the opening for a bad excuse. So, resolutions are out too.

So just what should I write about? How about, I hope you all had a happy whatever holiday you celebrate. Whatever one that was I am certain it had traditions that leaned toward love and fellowship, peace and joy, happiness and more love. How about I write that I wish you the spirit of the holidays all year long until we can do this again next year.  I’ll bring the champagne.

And if you absolutely must have a New Years Resolution, try this on for size ⬇️

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Did you know there are 14 religious holidays in December and January? Do you even know 14 religions? I didn’t know any of that until curiosity got the better of me. Something they all have in common is that they when we remember something special shared with special people at a special time. Explore winter’s special times with us in our updated Winter Carol, last week’s Uplift post that we found, well,most uplifting.


Sneak non-peek, ‘Tis the Season

Are you feeling holiday stress now Ethan we deep into the Winter Holiday Stress Zone? I bet is not the same stress I’m feeling.


Stress
. We were reminded of that when we were talking about how quickly the year has gone, bringing us to the annual Winter Holiday Stress Zone. That is how we describe the days that begin at Halloween and end with January 2. And that’s not meant in a bad way.

Stress is a funny thing. Ask most people what they think of when they hear the word stress and you may hear things like stress management and stress relief, stress hives and stress headaches or maybe stress test or stress fracture.

The dictionary stresses a different side of stress.

I’m going to stop there. I don’t want to give away all of it!  It’s another sneak peek but that’s all you’re getting today. That’s part of a post we published to ROAMcare last November. ‘Tis the Season talked about the good stress of the holidays and every other day. We’re featuring it in tomorrow’s Flashback Friday.

You can read it all of tomorrow, by subscribing to Uplift today.Join the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.

I know. I’m getting mean in my old age.

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