the doldrums

Today is the 5th day of the 8th week, the 20th day of the 2nd month, the 51st day of 2025 [with only 307 shopping days until Christmas], and:

  • Clean Out Your Bookcase Day
  • Discover Girl or Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day
  • Hockey History Day
  • International PechaKucha Day 
  • Love Your Pet Day 
  • National Cherry Pie Day
  • National Comfy Day
  • National Day of Solidarity with Muslim, Arab, and South Asian Immigrants
  • National Handcuff Day
  • National Leadership Day
  • National Muffin Day
  • National Student Volunteer Day
  • Northern Hemisphere Hoodie Hoo Day - supposedly standing outside, shouting "hoodie hoo" to the sky while flapping your hands will help drive away winter and usher in spring
  • The Great American Spit Out - a campaign against smokeless tobacco, which includes loose-leaf chew, plug, and snuff.  
  • World Day of Social Justice
  • last quarter of the moon at 12:32 PM EST
  • and Voyager 1 is ~23h 03m 54s of light travel time from Earth

Quote of the day:
“Everything you do - with or without an audience - provides evidence to you about who you are and what you're capable of.”
~ Steven Bartlett

I was born in a year of the Metal Tiger   

Apparently this means that  in this year I will face challenges that require flexibility and adaptability, which means I have to be open to change, approach relationships with empathy and understanding, diversify my financial portfolio to manage risks, and  work on stress management.

Mercury will be in full retrograde from March 14th to April 7th, in my sun sign of Aries., which strengthens its impact on me.

Just what I need, confirmation that the entire first quarter of 2025 is going to be like the past weeks....

At this point, I have to say that I am officially depressed.  

My country is disintegrating around me - DOGE is wrecking havoc and has all my personal medical and financial data, and the insane pronouncements of the current administration are making the US an international pariah.  Illness is plaguing my family in addition to the cancer that is stalking my kids, and my grandkids are showing the strain as they are not in a happy household.  My two dearest friends are seriously ill.  To top it all off, after 16 years of a cordial professional relationship , I was out-and-out browbeaten by bossman and earned an official reprimand [with a highly colored recitation of what happened from his point of view sent to HR]  for the egregious error of taking up for my direct report.  Suffice to say, if I wasn't pushing 75, I would be out job hunting at this point. 

And how have I coped with all this?  By shutting down and being quiet, eschewing company and physical exertion.   Reading old sentimental books that make me cry so that I can release the pent up emotions.  Struggling to keep my mind too busy to batter me with continual reproaches or bitter monologues addressed to those who will never hear them.  

Three-quarters of a century I have been on this Earth, and what have I done to make it better?  Of course when one is down, you start beating yourself up.  So much of what I have just listed from my area of concern is completely out of my sphere of control or the realm of my influence that I find myself asking rather ruefully what use am I?

Ah well, at least I have provided a warm, loving home to Kula, Panda, and now Triscuit, all rescued from being in shelters.  

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