Working Backwards Through Sunday

A big thanks to everyone who offered information on recycling of plastic bags where you live, in response to my last post. It seems that every person who reads here is doing his or her best to reduce the use of plastic and that is very heartening! I'll let you know what happens in our province when the decision comes down.

*****

I'm writing this on Sunday evening, just to clarify the post title. Somehow I got sucked into the vortex of YouTube videos an hour ago and in that time I watched a baby elephant getting rescued from a hole, a bunch of puppies doing cute puppy things like trying to jump down a tiny step, and a steady stream of raccoons doing cute/evil things. I would post the raccoon video except right in the middle of all the cute things was a WHAT THE?! moment when the owner dumped a bag of tiny fish into a pool for the racoon to catch and eat. I was horrified and couldn't look away but I couldn't stop watching either. But I won't subject you to that. No, I'll just talk about it, which is almost as bad.

And yes, I know raccoons have to eat, too. And I know perfectly well that my cats eat cat food which is actually made of other living animals. I mean, dead animals. I mean, previously living dead animals.

This post is going off the rails pretty quickly, don't you think? Let us move on.

*****

Before I got sucked into the YouTube vortex, I spent an hour immersed in two articles, one about how liberalism may have led to the 2016 USA election results and what may need to happen before the situation can change ("Selfishness Is Killing Liberalism" - don't be put off by the title), and one on the opioid epidemic in America ("The Poison We Pick"). They were not meant to be related reading but it could be argued that they are more related than not. Both pieces were eye-opening and thought-provoking and I'm glad I waded through them, even if - by the end of it all - my remaining brain cells were threatening to go on strike and the twitch had returned to my left eye.

*****

Before I was reading about liberalism and opioids (why does spell check insist I am spelling opioid wrong?), I was reading poetry from a book my mother taught to junior high students back in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of it was shockingly dark, but I liked this one:

Earth
- by John Hall Wheelock

"A planet doesn't explode of itself," said drily
The Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air --
"That they were able to do it is proof that highly
Intelligent beings must have been living there."

*****

And before the poetry, husband and I ate sausages and pancakes for supper, and before that I went for a forty-minute walk in the cold, damp air, but the footing was good and when I hit the thirty-minute mark all of a sudden my hands started warming up and my toes did too. I've been picking up little sticks and evergreen cones along the way during my recent walks, with the thought of eventually doing a picture of some kind. However, the lack of variety of materials is turning out to be an obstacle. Now the challenge becomes not how to make a picture from nature's offerings, but how to make a picture from a narrow range of nature's offerings. A different challenge altogether.

*****

I think that's as far back in the day as I can delve before you all start suffering from droopy eyelids and half-asleep drooling, so I'll stop now.

A picture to wrap up today's offering:

Not an elephant, nor a puppy, nor a raccoon, nor a Martian ... but a darn good pianist, by the look of things. (Too bad pictures don't have a sound track like videos do.)

Hope you have a good week, all!