Pat Bertram's Blog, page 60

Rainy Days and Cloudy Skies

Rainy days and Mondays . . .

And Tuesdays. And Wednesdays. And probably Thursdays and Fridays, too.

Unlike what the song intimates, all those things don’t get me down, but recently, the days been cloudy enough that if I had a tendency to get depressed from cloudy days and rain, this certainly would have been the time. Luckily, I don’t have that problem, though I do have another problem, sort of an odd one. Many plants either need full sun or some shade, and when there’s no sunshine, it’s hard to know where the plants should go.

You’d think after two years and two months living here in this house, I’d know where the sunny and shady spots in the yard are, but those spots move. What’s shady in the winter is full sun in the summer. And vice versa.

I’d planned a container garden to go in a triangular area between my house and the back ramp. I couldn’t put it there because the workers hadn’t yet finished graveling that area, which turned out to be a good thing. It’s almost always in the shade (at least from what I remember back when we had sunny days), and the plants I bought need full sun. So I put the containers on either side of my garage door, thinking they will get sun in the afternoon. The trouble is, since it’s cloudy every afternoon, I can’t tell how much sun the plants would get. I do know that area is shaded by the garage in the morning; I figure that in itself should tell me the plants won’t get full sun, so today I moved the containers to what I hope is a sunny location.

I have to laugh at how I almost outsmarted myself. I put gravel at the bottom of the containers to help with drainage and to make the pots heavy enough not to get blown over in the high winds we often get, and they were almost too heavy for me to move. If they’d been any heavier, I’d have had to ask for help. (It’s not that I have a problem asking for help, but I do have a problem with waiting around for help to arrive when I am focused on getting something done, so it’s generally easier to do things myself.)

Apparently, without knowing what I was doing, I got the dahlia in the right place because it is doing well. Such a cheery color! Next time I’m by the hardware store I’ll check to see if they have any more. I do enjoy seeing spots of color in my yard.

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We’re supposed to have a few rain-free days, which will be nice. The drainage in this town is terrible — I had to walk several extra blocks out of my way yesterday to be able to go the two blocks from where I live to where I work because so many of the streets, gutters, and sidewalks were awash with rainwater. Hip boots would have helped, for sure!

It’s funny that new people who come to town always try to get things changed, such as painting murals or setting out trash containers or opening even more pot shops than are already here, but no one addresses the drainage issue. I tried. I even went to some town council meetings when the new mayor was setting out his objectives. The matter was actually brought up by other people so I didn’t have to be one of those people who move to town and immediately try to change things. Although everyone at the meeting agreed there is a problem and that the standing water exacerbates the mosquito problem, nothing is being done. I suppose it’s too expensive — it would be something the town would have to pay for, while those who paint murals do it on their own dime.

But I’m getting off track here. The point is . . . hmm. I’m not sure. Rainy days and cloudy skies and lack of sunshine and gardening, I suppose.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Watching Things Grow

The problem with a wet spring is that the weeds are everywhere, and they grow like . . . well, like weeds. If it would dry out enough, I could mow the weeds in the yard to give me a semblance of a lawn, but in some areas of my property, I have to dig them up by hand. The biggest culprit is the end of the driveway. The driveway slants down to a gravel bed, which is nice, but at the end of the gravel is a depression where water and weeds gather. You’d think this was a swampy part of the state the way the things are proliferating, but unfortunately, when the dry heat of summer hits, it won’t make much difference. It will slow the growth somewhat, but these are all-purpose weeds. They will grow no matter what.

Even though the depression on the edge of the driveway is outside my property line according to the surveyor, the building inspector and code enforcer go by a different measure — the utility poles — so it should be possible to extend the driveway out a bit more to meet the graveled alley. I can take care of the weeds now, but as I get older, I sure as heck am not going to want to be pulling up weeds for hours on end. I suppose I could poison them, but I really don’t want to resort to such drastic measures, so I’m hoping that graveling them over will solve that particular problem.

On a more positive note, the constantly wet soil is giving the old seeds I planted a chance to germinate. The radishes are coming up in clumps, so it won’t be long before I have to thin them. Even more than having to get rid of weeds, I dislike having to pull up perfectly good seedlings. Maybe, if they aren’t too close, I can try to transplant some of them. Or leave them be. The radishes probably wouldn’t grow big enough to eat, but the green swath sure would be pretty.

Surprisingly, the Pee Gee hydrangea bushes the Arbor Day Foundation sent me in thanks for a small donation are all doing well.

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They are tiny and perhaps fragile, but they did survive the winter, so that’s especially good. It’s amazing to me that any gift from them is growing because the bare root trees they send with a membership are notorious for not doing well. Mine all died, as did three of the five lilacs I got at another time. (I thought all were dead, so I planted other lilac sprigs in the same area, and two of the lilacs decided to come back to life.)

When the bushes grow up — the lilacs and the hydrangeas — it will help with some of the weed growth because the bushes take up a lot of room.

Meantime, I enjoy watching anything grow, even weeds, as long as they don’t encroach too much on areas where they could be damaging.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Small Town Living

Some days, like today, seem quintessentially small town — not just the blue skies, the slight breeze, the friendliness of the people, but all of it, good and bad.

I was out walking my errands (no more “running” errands for me!) when I saw I woman I know weeding her property. I made some fatuous comment about it looking as if she were having fun, then we talked for a bit. She mentioned that a high school senior girl had been beaten to death by her boyfriend, which shocked me. That sort of extreme behavior doesn’t seem to fit this area, though I suppose bad things can happen anywhere. Still, we expressed horror at the girl’s fate, wished each other well, and continued on with our respective tasks.

I dropped my books off at the library and was pleased to note that the library hours will be extended starting next month. It won’t change anything for me if they open earlier or stay open later because I usually go mid-morning, but it’s still good to see that some things are returning to normal.

Then I stopped by my mechanic’s shop to ask about my brakes. The brakes worked normally when I left his place last Friday, but on the way home, they stopped working completely, and I wondered if the broken part he was going to replace could have caused the breakdown. (Dare I say brakedown?) He thought the part he ordered for the rear brakes would solve the problem, but I’m not so sure. When I got home from my errands, I noticed a large stain by my front passenger tire. At first I thought the garage roof might have leaked, though I couldn’t understand how that could happen with a new roof, but then it occurred to me it could be brake fluid. So perhaps there are two things wrong with the brakes? He’ll be able to see the stain when he comes to pick up the car after the part arrives, which will help him diagnose the problem. That sort of delivery service isn’t something he normally provides, but when I told him how scary it was to drive without brakes, he said he’d come get the car. Whew! What a relief.

After leaving to the mechanic, I continued to the house I am looking after for friends to make sure everything is okay and to water the plants. A neighbor of theirs hailed me when I left the house, and asked how our friends were. I told them the latest information I had — that the woman was bedridden from advanced cancer, but that the doctors thought they might be able to help her regain a bit of strength. The neighbor expressed sympathy, and when I remarked about how young our friend was to be dealing with an end-stage disease, the woman told me about the high school girl who lived across the street from her who had just committed suicide.

I’m assuming the girl is the same one my first contact mentioned because two unrelated horrific deaths at the same time in such a small-town strains credulity. I don’t know the truth of the girl’s story, obviously, and I’m not sure who does, but it doesn’t matter. Either way, if any part of it is true, the poor girl is beyond help and her parents are devastated.

I don’t mean to sound gossipy, though on rereading this, I can see that I’m doing nothing but being gossipy. Still, that was sort of the point of this piece — to illuminate the good and the not-so-good of small-town living.

I finished my errands — as well as impulse bought some more plants — with no more gossipy encounters, then returned home and wore myself out putting the plants to bed. I potted some of the plants, which was fun because I got to use the counters in my garage as a potting table.

The counters were on the enclosed back porch when I got here, leftover from the old kitchen, I surmise, and they fit perfectly beneath the window in my garage.

It’s probably a good thing I go to work tomorrow. That way, I’ll have something else to think about besides women and girls who have to face their ends too soon, and I’ll have something else to do besides wear myself out playing gardener.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Gardening As Exercise

Gardening is often touted as good exercise, though when I was young and able to run and hike and even lift weights, I didn’t understand why it would be so.

Well, now I do understand. I spent a couple of hours this morning pulling weeds and digging a few holes for planting, and I could barely do anything the rest of the day because everything between my ankles and neck hurt. It’s possible the aches have more to do with my relative lack of exercise lately than the gardening itself, but it does show me that gardening can work a variety of muscles as well as beautifying a yard.

Most of my yard is still a mess. There are bare spots that were torn up by the various machinery used by the workers I hired. They are supposed to bring in fill dirt, but haven’t done it yet. That’s only one of the many things they haven’t done, but I have hopes that some year they will finish all they promised.

Meantime, I am planting bushes, trees, shrubs, flowers — whatever vegetation I can get my hands on.

When I bought the house, a relative who has experience designing gardens volunteered to do the landscaping. She did all sorts of research, and I was excited when she finally came, expecting her to help me work on the yard. But no. She wanted to . . . actually, looking back, I don’t know what she wanted to do. All I know is that she shrugged off the yard with a simple sentence, telling me that planting can’t be started until the hard things are in place.

I paused here to look that up online, belatedly wondering if she were leading me on, but apparently, she was right. Topping a to-do list of landscape design essentials is that you have to do all the hardscaping before you set any plants in place.

Even assuming that the hardscaping is the first step, that’s not how I’m going about things. I’ve been told I’m contrary. I’ve also been told I march to a different drummer. To me, it’s not about either of those things but doing what I can when I can.

Even before the fence went up, I started transplanting lilac seedlings from a neighbor’s yard. (With his permission, of course.) I also transplanted some of his larkspur, which have now reseeded themselves for the second spring in a row. In fact, they are filling in the “island” between my two sidewalks. The garden I had originally planted around that area became defunct when the sidewalks went in, or so I thought. Apparently, clearing out the weeds and grass and tilling the soil made the seeds from the original larkspur take hold.

The bushes that are planted along the fence were dug up and transplanted from the area off the alley where the driveway now is. They went in before the pathways — those who laid the rock worked the paths around the plants that were already there.

The same will be done for the rest of the yard. I am creating a swath of garden on the left-hand side of the sidewalks, and eventually, another path will sweep alongside that swath.

There are some parts of the yard that I am not even thinking about at the moment and won’t until a bit more of the hardscaping is done, but it doesn’t matter. I have more to do right now than I can easily accomplish in the next couple of years.

It’s odd — the property doesn’t look all that big, but each small section I am working on seems to loom large. There is no way any one person could landscape this place in a matter of weeks or even months, and I certainly don’t expect that from myself or the people doing the hardscaping. (I like that word, have you noticed? I’d never heard it before, and it’s a fun one.)

This is a project for a lifetime.

I remember reading a story once about a woman who planted a hillside of daffodils — acres of them. People came from miles around to see her hill of daffodils. There was only a single sign in the field, and that said “One at a time.” Apparently, everyone wanted to know how she’d planted so many daffodils, and she must have gotten tired of the question. Hence, the sign.

That’s my gardening philosophy — one at a time. Over the months and years, some things will die, others will take hold, so I’ll have a changing landscape. Meantime, I am learning to accept what grows here and what doesn’t (and how little control I have over either). Except for weeds — that I don’t always accept. Unfortunately, although I like to think everything has the right to grow, I have to draw a line somewhere, and I don’t appreciate anything — or anyone — encroaching on territory that is not theirs. So I pull up whatever encroaching weeds I can. (No poisons. I haven’t crossed that line yet.)

Yesterday a neighbor mentioned that in five years, after everything grows up, I will have a beautiful yard. That’s something worth working toward.

Besides, all that exercise will be good for me.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

More Planting

I’d planned to go to a plant nursery in the big city (a joke — it’s actually a small town, but since it’s about four times the size of this town, it seems like a city), but my car is still out of commission. Bizarrely, I can go for years with no car problems, and then I hit a period where one thing after another goes wrong. I started out in February with spark plugs that had burned out even though they were only a few months old. The culprit was the carburetor. So the mechanic ordered a carburetor, and a couple of weeks later, when he received the order, I made an appointment to have him replace it.

As with everything else to do with a vintage vehicle, it wasn’t as easy to install as it would seem. My pervious mechanic had replaced the vacuum ignition with an electronic one. Apparently, the electronic ignition doesn’t “speak” to the carburetor that belongs in my car, so the previous mechanic put in an old, rebuilt carburetor. Not surprising, once the ew carburetor was installed, there were problems with the electronic ignition, necessitating the ordering of another part — a vacuum advance distributor. The part finally came it. I picked up the car a week ago Friday, and it worked perfectly. Except for one little thing. The brake warning light kept coming on.

So yesterday, I had another appointment with the mechanic. We thought it would be a simple matter of perhaps bleeding the brake lines and topping up the brake fluid, but it was more than that — some part on the rear brakes was broken, or at least that’s what I thought he said. On the way home, the part completely broke. Or maybe another part broke because if it was only a part on the rear brakes that was broken, I would have thought the front brakes would still work. Either way, I now have no brakes. I wouldn’t be surprised if the part that broke was very old. I don’t remember ever being without at least some braking power. It’s truly scary driving without brakes, even just inching along. Luckily, I only have to drive a quarter of a mile on side streets to take my car back in when the part is delivered.

Suffice to say, I haven’t been able to get to the nursery, so each of the past couple of days I walked to the local hardware store to pick up a few seedlings to plant. I did the same today, but when they agreed to deliver the plants to me, I bought several — way more than I could carry on foot. Which is good, because now I have several things to plant tomorrow. Which is bad because now I have several things to plant. I’m just being silly. There’s no bad at all, and I am actually looking forward to doing the work.

Last year, I bought a bag of potting soil, and because supposedly it deteriorates, I thought I should use it for sure this year, hence the petunias. To be honest, I’ve never like petunias, but a couple of years ago I saw black petunias (that’s what they’re called, but they are really just a very dark purple), and I became enamored of them. So now I have a few black petunias to call my own.

I also got a few cream-colored petunias to plant with the black for contrast. It’s funny to think I spent all that money to keep from wasting a few dollars-worth of soil, but having to use the soil did give me a reason to buy more plants.

The easiest part of the planting was the hanging plant. All I had to do was hang it on a hook. The pole for the hook was a fence post that got cemented into the foundation of the house. When the old fence was taken out and the new fence around the whole property put in, the post remained. A hook, a bit of cement, and the fencepost became something completely different!

I also have a post on the opposite corner of the house, but the store didn’t have a matching pair of hanging plants, and besides, I ran out of money, so that might be a project for another day.

What was so great about all of this is that I got some plants and I didn’t even need a car to go get them.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Planting

I don’t have a dedicated vegetable garden spot yet, so after I bought a few cherry tomato plants yesterday, I planted them around the yard near other plants that need to be watered. I put three of the seedling in the back by the alley, three on the side yard, and a couple in other parts of the back yard. I don’t know how this style of gardening will work, but it makes sense to me. Maybe someday I’ll have a real garden, but for now, I’m just planting things wherever it feels comfortable. This way, if the plants like a certain part of the yard and do well, but don’t like another part of the yard, I’ve hedged my bets some. And truly, it doesn’t matter. If even one of the plants does well, I’ll have more fruit than I could possibly eat.

I did have to laugh, though, The plants cost more than a few months’ worth of tomatoes would cost me, but like everything else, it’s more the doing than the done.

Since the planting went well yesterday, I walked to the store again today and bought a few marigolds, enough to plant near each of the tomato plants. That’s one thing I remember from a long-ago failed gardening attempt — that tomatoes and marigolds like one another.

While I was out roaming my yard after today’s planting, I discovered clumps of gorgeous yellowish-orange flowers huddled around a downspout.

I’m not sure where these Siberian wallflowers came from, though perhaps one of the wildflower seeds I’d strewn around the yard a couple of falls ago ended up there and decided to take root. Or I suppose a bird could have dropped the seed. I do know I would like to plant more of these flowers. I wonder if it’s too late? Seeds around here can’t be planted before May 5th, so I wouldn’t be that far behind, but considering the state of mail delivery around here, it could be weeks before I got the seeds.

Well, there’s always next year.

Meantime, the larkspur are starting to sprout. I only had a few plants last year, but apparently, they planted themselves, and because of the winter moisture, I have several patches of the flowers. It will be fun to see them bloom, too.

It does seem as if I don’t really need to do anything to make my yard grow, just make sure it gets plenty of water, then sit back and see what — besides weeds — will come up. But then, I’d miss out on the fun of planting things.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Belief in the Tarot

Yesterday a friend told me she didn’t believe in the tarot. To be honest, I’m not sure I believe either, though I don’t exactly know what I mean by that. Obviously, I believe the cards exist because I have a few dozen decks. I believe they’ve been around for centuries. I believe that the cards have meanings, though I don’t know if those meanings are intrinsic or if they are simply assigned, especially since the cards themselves as well as their meanings have changed over the centuries. And I believe that they help people focus and perhaps help them delve deeper into their problems.

Beyond that, I’m not sure what there is to believe. Although people think the tarot is for for telling the future, those who study the cards say that’s not their purpose. Although the cards are said to help develop one’s psychic abilities, I have yet to see any evidence of that. I also don’t know if readings truly reflect anything in the past, present, or future, or if people simply read into the cards what they want to see. Nor do I find any deeper understanding of myself because of my card use. It’s possible, I suppose, that I have no hidden depths or even hidden shallows, that what I know is all there is.

This talk of belief and non-belief has made me wonder if it is necessary to believe in the tarot for it to work. If belief is all it takes, then one can use any sort of cards, such as a regular deck of playing cards (which some people do) or even seed packets, for that matter. Though perhaps “seed packets” are not a good example because in a lot of respects, seed packets can tell the future, at least for most people. Those people plant the seeds, and someday the picture on the packet will come true. In my case, I’m lucky to get a few scraggly seedlings.

If one’s own belief doesn’t matter, then it should be possible to learn something from the cards, if only to understand what they symbolize and what they mean to others.

After all (to continue the gardening metaphor) I have no belief in my ability to grow anything, though sometimes seeds do come up, and sometimes bushes I’ve transplanted do bloom, like this native rose.

Regardless of what I believe, I plan to continue learning the tarot. It’s certainly a multi-faceted study if nothing else.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Living Vicariously

I have noticed that while my daily tarot card pick seldom reflects what I am feeling or doing (possibly because I am not feeling or doing much of anything), it sometimes reflects the situation of someone I’ve been talking to, especially if I empathize with them. Just as often, the card seems to reflect the situation of a character in a book I’m reading.

To the extent that the tarot has meaning, and to the extent that I am not reaching far afield to find any sort of meaning in the card, this does seem to indicate that our brains can interpret a fictional world and a fictional experience as being as real as a real-life experience.

Research does tend to corroborate this idea — people who read fiction are more empathetic than those who don’t read. They think better, connect to new ideas quicker, are more able to comprehend other people’s motivations, can understand and accept more easily the idea that others hold beliefs that are different from one’s own.

When testing readers to see what happens to their brains, scientists have recorded noticeable changes in brain chemistry that seem to bear out the idea that the experiences in fiction are in some way interpreted as real. This makes sense when you consider that a story we read becomes a memory as does everything else we’ve ever experienced, so when the brain isn’t focused on daily tasks — or maybe when it is — it plumbs our memories for clues about what worked, what didn’t, and how to proceed.

There are many things I have done in a fictional world, whether one I created or someone else did, that I would never be able to (and certainly wouldn’t want to) experience in real life, such as be a spy in a hostile country, become an assassin or a victim of an assassin, be a psychic, deal with drug problems.

From a young age, long before most kids started experiencing with drugs and alcohol and smoking, I’d developed a fear of addiction because of the books I’d read (though now, I can’t imagine what I was reading when I was a child to give me these ideas), and so I abstained even when pressured and ridiculed. I never understood how people could be so blasé about experimenting. In fact, I was shocked at people’s ignorance when all the class-action lawsuits dealing with tobacco companies showed people the dangers of smoking. How could they not know? It seemed so obvious to me. Apparently, one doesn’t have to personally go through the trauma of addiction to understand how devastating it can be.

This connection between fiction and real memories makes me wonder what I will remember when I get old. Will I remember my life or one of the tens of thousands of other lives I’ve lived vicariously? And will it matter?

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

When the Clouds Stopped Bursting

It rained most of the night, and when the clouds stopped bursting, they left behind a dark and damp day. The tarot card I picked this morning wasn’t any cheerier — it spoke of strife and quarrels, illness and inner conflicts. Luckily, none of those things seem to have anything to do with me, but today was a good day for huddling under the covers and reading, and the books I got from the library are full of all those things.

When the story I was reading became as dreary as the day, I went online and basked in the light of the computer screen to do more research on the tarot. My latest plan of action is to finish out my tarot year (begun on July 1, 2020) with one-card readings, then go to two-cards for a month, then three-cards for the next month, then four cards . . . well, you get the point. Apparently, a person can use any number of cards for a reading, even using the whole deck, though I can’t imagine trying to make sense of that bit of chaos.

I’d planned to use a specific deck for that second phase, the deck that so far seems the only one to speak to me — if a vague affinity can be called “speaking” — but I haven’t yet finished sampling all the decks. If I continued the way I’ve been going, learning each deck by doing a one-card reading for a month, it would take me another year or two to try out all the traditional 78-card decks I have, and then another year for the specialty decks. Most decks, of course, combine the Major Arcana (the twenty-two cards depicting the human archetypes that show a person’s spiritual evolution into enlightenment) with the Minor Arcana (the court cards and the numbered cards), but I have a few decks that are simply the twenty-two Major Arcana cards, while a palmistry deck seems to be just the Minor Arcana. The Persian tarot has fifty-five cards. The Oracle of the Triad has fifty-seven cards. The Chinese Horoscope has forty-seven. The Book of Destiny deck has thirty-three cards. A cartomancy deck has thirty-two. If that isn’t confusion enough, I also have a Deva Tarot deck that has an additional suit called the Triax, for a total of ninety-three cards.

So many options and possibilities!

That, I think is what keeps me interested in the Tarot — the possibilities. I’m sticking with the traditional decks for now because that’s where I find most of the focus for study, both online and in the books I own, but even there, I find a plethora of possibility. There seems to be a vast array of spreads and layouts, and an even greater number of ways to read each spread.

There are also secret codes and arcane symbols on the cards adding further complexity to readings if one chooses to consider them in order to find deeper meaning. According to one interpreter, he keeps his interpretations of the cards brief because if he gave all the various meanings of the cards, he could fill an encyclopedia. Still, it amuses me that so many of the books accompanying the decks will spend pages describing each of the cards, defining the symbols, explaining the codes, and then, at the end of those pages will give the card’s meaning in a single sentence. I really don’t see the purpose of all those symbols and images and codes if it all just comes down to a few keywords.

But then, I am a neophyte. Maybe ten years from now, when I’ve learned much about the cards, I’ll be able to understand, but for now, not so much. Mostly, this research is a way to play with the cards I inherited from my deceased brother, rather than simply treating them like a curiosity.

And it gives me something to think about on this dreary day.

Besides, you never know — I might actually learn something important from all this research and study and practice.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Always Something

As if it weren’t enough aggravation to have had to redo my whole website at the end of last year because my website platform was changed, today I got a message from that same domain provider informing me that the email I have been using is also being changed. As with the web builder, the site is going from a free product to a paid product. Even worse, the email platform is going to be switched to Microsoft Office 365, which, if I wanted, I’d already have.

I’ve been using the email associated with my website as my primary address because I figured I’d always have that address. I keep my website domain paid up to the maximum — ten years. It sounds expensive, but back when I first signed up, it was cheap, so I paid the ten years, and now I only have to renew for one year. (Though this might be the last year I renew. In ten years, I might be too old to want to deal with the website.)

As always, however, one is at the mercy of the provider, whether domain, web builder, blog, or email. In this case, a relatively inexpensive one-year charge would be exacerbated by unnecessary (unnecessary to me, that is) monthly charges. Since I already have other email accounts, I’ll let the email associated with my website expire and then switch to another of my email accounts, perhaps my gmail account since I have an android phone.

The main benefit is that the companies I have dealt with in the past who keep contacting me won’t know where to reach me. The main problem, of course, is that people who contact me won’t know where to reach me. I will notify everyone who corresponds via that email address, and hope for the best. Even if there was a way to have the emails automatically forwarded to the gmail account, which I’m sure there is, it won’t help if the website email is expunged.

There’s always something, isn’t there?

Luckily, I have several weeks to decide what to do. My content is supposed to be transferred to Microsoft Office 365, and since they are giving me a two-month free trial, I should be okay for a while, but I’ll still have to go through those old emails and forward anything important to myself at another address. Or maybe I’ll just say forget it, and let the chips fall where they will.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

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