Generally speaking, I am patient until I’m not. Yet again, my house challenged me and I wished (it’s fruitless) that I did not have to problem solve on my own. Alas, I left the problem for a few hours, did some subliminal thinking and came back to the problem with a fresh outlook…calm, in control and with a problem solving mindset.

My problem? I couldn’t get my safe open. A couple weeks ago it took me 3 tries to open it. Today 3 tries did absolutely nothing. I left, calmed my anxiety and came back for another try. 3 tries…nothing.

Now the problem solving kicked in. First a look through my household ‘manuals’ folder. My suspicion was correct… the manual was IN the safe I couldn’t open. Now there’s a smart move?

Next was a google search and reading several articles. One suggested I find a screw on the bottom of the keypad and once the screw was out twist the keypad clockwise (it was counter-clockwise) to access a battery compartment. To accomplish this I needed a flashlight find the very tiny screw and to try multiple screwdrivers to find a good fit. Up and down on the floor (NOT a pretty sight) multiple times for alternative tools, I finally got the screw out. I could ‘see’ a battery, but it was behind another wall of plastic.

Back to the computer and a search on YouTube. Three videos later, one suggested there was actually a hidden ‘battery drawer’ on the right side of the keypad. VOILA! It took 4 AAA batteries and I was out so off to the store I went.

Returning home, I replaced the batteries, closed the drawer, tested the combination…I am back in business.

My rational mind tells me not to sweat the small stuff. Sometimes however, that’s hard.

I just sent a ‘grieving’ post to a friend from a long ago blog entry. I reread it first before sending and a paragraph jumped out at me. “But that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the banal, practical details of this loss. When a spouse or live-in partner dies, suddenly you are responsible for everything. Every light bulb that blows out, every time the lawn needs mowing, every bill that needs paying , every home repair, all the grocery shopping, all the decisions…I’m hyperventilating just writing this.“

Therein is the hidden layer of trouble shooting the safe. I am pretty much on my own. I have friends I could call and of course Doug would step in if I asked, but in the moment of a problem I freeze, feel sorry for myself and finally force myself to plunge in.

What is there to learn from this? There is always a solution. It’s OK to reach out and ask for help. You can always find an answer on the internet, but you may need to try multiple queries. Step away if you find yourself getting anxious or overly frustrated. And the sure fit for most situations…hire someone.

“While fear may be contagious, courage is as well.”

Jack Smith

This phrase flit across my screen this morning. I love it! It came from Jack Smith’s opening statement before the U.S. Judiciary Committee on September 29, 2026.

He was there, under oath, to defend himself of the president’s accusation that that he had abused power when investigating Trump in 2020 for three infractions: election interference, the January 6th probe and moving classified documents to Mar-a-Lago.

Jack Smith defended his work and that of his staff with this opening statement.

That mirrors one theme from both the books I recently reviewed: “The Giver of Stars” by JoJo Moyes and “Address Unknown” by Katherine Kressmann Taylor.

I believe ‘enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm ‘. Can the same premise be made for fear and courage? If you embed yourself in a group spreading fear, does that make it easier for you to embrace? Is the same true for courage? Does it all come from within your soul or from pieces of your experiential background laced together? Is it focused reflection or passive listening?

I want to be courageous, really I do. But the ‘doom’ news grips me, the daily onslaught of worry. I wonder what good it will do to make accountability matter. Does being kind and respectful have any baring on others; modeling what it could mean to be kind.

Given the premise of the opening quote “While fear may be contagious, courage is as well.“, I believe it does matter. I can be make these qualities a part of my being. I can Save my angst and judgment of others and focus on myself.

In that respect I vow honesty to tell the truth and avoid deceiving others. I will be accountable, taking full responsibility for my mistakes. I will model respect, treating people fairly even when they are from different backgrounds. And lastly I will be responsible, keeping my promises.

Being a good human is not easy. What is perhaps easy, is making life about YOU. As you approach your day, your week, a problem, your family…aim for honesty, accountability, respect and responsibility. Make every effort to make it about humanity, not just you.

A friend suggested a book title saying it was a short, and a culturally relevant read. I was bogged down in the book I was reading so thought…well yes… short and relevant works for me.

Be forewarned if you choose to read this book. It is absolutely short and relevant, but it is also a scary look at what is unfolding before us with this current administration.

Indirectly it leads to reminding you to rediscover what might bring connection in this culture of disconnection.  Even amidst the mess, something inside me aches for connection, but I wonder if that is possible and what might my role be?

It would be easy to assume the problem is ‘out there’. But when I confront the harder truth, I see that I am witness to my own failings. I’ve withdrawn further and further as things got uncomfortable. Sure I have written to senators and congressmen, I have participated in a couple of demonstrations and I have read endlessly, but did any on of those truly reach that ears that needed to hear?

We live in a culture that’s increasingly connected digitally but more fractured emotionally. Social media feeds us a constant highlight reel. In recent months I had to stop social media completely. I found I was drowning in an unhealthy emotional spiral. I am surrounded by friends and family caught in the same spiral. To save myself I have limited the amount of news I process daily.

The basic premise of the book is how racism destroys a lifelong friendship; a short and devastating epistolary. It is fiction; the exchange of letters between two friends, an art dealer living in San Francisco and his business partner who has moved back to Berlin, Germany. It takes place over the years 1932 to 1934. How can the story find relevance to us today?

The early letters are full of warmth and deep affection between the two men, two friends. But the longer Martin is in Germany, under the growing influence of Hitler and his ideology, his tone changes to cold nationalism and he eventually rejects Max out of fear and bigotry.

Is that what is happening in our world today? Are we in the midst of this cult behavior? Is there a possibility of light shining out of the obscure dark and gloom?

I will spare you the details of the book as it is truly worth reading/listening to. But with every twist, I pondered my own role in today’s world. How can I respond?

I received this as an email…a friend of a friend and likely quite a few other pass downs…

WHO AM I?

A British writer penned the best description I’ve ever read:

“Why do some British people not like the man?” 

A few things spring to mind. He lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honor and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor was generously blessed with. So, for us, the stark contrast does rather throw his limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. 

Plus, we like a laugh. And while he may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humor is almost inhuman. But with this guy it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. 

He is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. 

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. This guy is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a sniveling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. 

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. If Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make this man.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?’ If being a twat was a TV show, this guy would be the boxed set.”

-a British citizen