Category Archives: Uncategorized

“Chopped Salad” for SOCS, June 21, 2025

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Chopped Salad

The story of my life is like a salad–more palatable when someone else does the cutting up and the mixing. I don’t know what to leave out of a salad.  I put everything into it every time–lettuce chopped so fine it’s better eaten with a spoon, carrots, celery, purple onions, avocado, apples, walnuts, cranberries, green olives and croutons, blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette. All chopped up and blended to within an inch of its life so that each bite contains a bit of each.  Delicious, yes, but not enough variety between bites, perhaps. All of the elements mix up so much it is impossible to taste the flavor of each.  They blend into a fresh hash that becomes another thing entirely.

And this is what my life is like, as well.  Everything is remembered in such detail that I can’t sort out the relevant facts.  No one thing stands out as being the thing to feature.  I can’t get the gist of events.  What does it mean–that year or more in Africa? Somehow, after a lifetime of reading books that  imply reasons for things, nothing in my own life makes sense anymore.

I try to look at myself objectively. What in her makeup made her fall in love with a man who would become her stalker? What makes her leave places where things seem to be working out fine to jump into a new location and situation where she is thrust once again into the role of stranger?  Does she think, perhaps, this time she will come closer to finding herself?  Or does she think it will be a chance to try out a new life without the censure of friends who expect her to be the same person she was yesterday or last year?

What writer more competent than myself could find the pattern where all these pieces fit together into a recognizable whole? Perhaps Barbara Kingsolver could determine more easily how I fit in to my time or Joyce Maynard could extract those details that would make my life read like a mystery. Anne Tyler could describe those eccentricities that make my family readable, even if they aren’t from Baltimore; and I could certainly use the help of Abraham Verghese in writing the portions of my life that took place in Ethiopia. But undoubtedly, these favorite writers are all embarked on projects of their own, so it is not likely that any will be forthcoming in helping me to solve the conundrum of my own life story.

It’s like all of the details of my life are jumbled together in one of those big boxes out in the garage that I haven’t opened in fourteen years.  Even if I could bring myself to open those boxes, how could I ever make sense of them?  Yes, there are all these little boxes as well–where I’ve sorted the very best details into stories or poems or essays.–but where do those little boxes fit within the shipping container of my life?

In spite of a lifetime of writing, I have to face the fact that I don’t have the skills to write my own biography. Perhaps my task was to get famous enough to prompt someone else to do the deed, but it is getting late in my life and that seems unlikely to happen.  My chances to become infamous are equally long past, or at least I hope they are.  I have no wish to become famous due to my misdeeds or eccentric behavior.  Perhaps it is enough to unpack these tiny boxes one by one on my blog–like little parts of the entire tossed salad of my life.  Not biography.  Just bites.

For SOCS the prompt word is “jumbled.”

“Outpost” for Word of the Day, June 20, 2025

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photo by Judy Dykstra-Brown

Outpost

Who cares
if I swim naked in my pool?
All other human occupants
have left this neighborhood behind,
leaving more room
for possums, skunks,
birds, scorpions, spiders
and me.

I keep a closer company with them
than I do with any human these days.
This week, I talk to the large caterpillar
who seems to sprout two crystals from his crown
as he deserts his usual branch
on the Virginia Creeper vine
to sit for a day on the Olmec head
that guards my swimming pool.

Back and forth, back and forth I pass,
adding a look at him to my lap routine.
For one long afternoon,
he sits still—like Alice’s caterpillar,
but hookah-less,
meditating on his stone perch.

If he were on my Virginia Creeper,
I’d be repositioning him
to the empty lot next door, but here
he seems to be a guest; and so some etiquette
keeps me from altering his placement
as he sits on his stone outpost, moving his suction cups in sequence
now and then, only to alter his direction, not his territory.

Perhaps I’ve stayed too long
in this one place.
That wandering poet within me
may have somewhere it thinks I need to go.
If it creates a good alternative,
I might follow in much the same way
that I have come to this point
in my poem.
Blindly, in a maze of words,
open to what comes next.

The Word of the Day is Outpost. Both the story behind this poem and the photo itself are factual. I’ve never been able to figure out those crystals growing out of this hummingbird moth caterpillar’s head. I’ve removed and repositioned hundreds of them out of my vine over the years and never seen another one sporting this phenomenon. Nor have I ever seen one stray from the vines on their own volition. Why this one came to be sitting on the large Olmec stone carving at the end of my pool is a further mystery. It is the only time that I’ve ever transported a caterpillar back to the vine instead of removing it and taking it down to the lot below my house.

“Daffynitions” for Fibbing Friday, June 20, 2025

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Image by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash      

For Fibbing Friday, the theme this week is What The H?

1. What is halitosis? A laughing streak brought on by eating too much durian.
2. What is an hallucination? Visions brought on by oxygen deprivation brought on by excessive laughter.
3. What is hell? A condition brought on by too many people voting for the wrong presidential candidate.
4. What is a hurricane? A walking aid that makes it possible for women to walk faster.
5. What is ham fisted? A baby feeding itself its Easter meal.
6. What is the hokey cokey? Doing the hokey pokey while under the influence of blow.
7. What is hoosegow? What one asks when one discovers a gow lying on the floor at a party.
8. What is a higgler? Someone on a cocaine-induced laughing spree.
9. What is a hogger? Someone who eats more than their share of Easter ham.
10. What is a hodge? A podge’s first name.

Still the Universe for dVerse Poets Ekphrastic Prompt, June 19, 2025

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Still The Universe

Bleach all the colors from the flowers. Cancel out the sun.
Stay the music. Still the dance. Tell laughter it is done.
She will not walk this way again so all must cease to walk.
Her conversation’s over. The whole world must not talk.
Earth upon its axis should stop its ceaseless motion.
The cook must quiet his cooking pots, the chemist trash his potion.
The universe must cease to be now that my true love’s dead,
and I’ll lay myself beside her on our wedding bed.

 

For dVerse Poets

To see poems, go to link above. To see the prompt, go HERE.  image from Pixabay.com

“Outside” for Esther’s Writing Prompt

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Painting Outside the Lines

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Painting Outside the Lines

Our lives are made, by end of day
with rules we choose to disobey—
those pathways we choose to walk down
to find a different part of town.
Strange roads to new territory
that make the ending of our story
one unplanned, our life replotted.
All carefully scribed plans now blotted
out, with new ones wildly scribbled
in new colors brash and ribald—
breaking rules carefully set
for new patterns you won’t regret,
making our lives messier,
more “maybe” and less “yessier.”
Every rigid rule undone
might simply make our lives more fun.

 

For Esther’s Writing Prompt: Outside

Thin Line, for dVerse Poets

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Thin Line

Now and Then

In cracking the present to reveal the past,
it shimmers, triumphant, expansively vast.
I tend to remember the moments most happy—
successful and positive, silly and sappy,
but when I remember it using a filter,
it leans to one side, completely off-kilter.

The same number of memories from days gone by
if remembered at all, are recalled with a sigh.
I reach into my heart and remember again
the more negative moments of days that have been.
Then I quiver with passions, now full of dejection
of the defeats and failures––the pains of rejection.

It’s the way of the world to give us one day
what in the future it will take away,
but nonetheless, we must live for the present
and accept all it offers—both painful and pleasant.
When we pin all our thoughts on past sadness or fun,
We fasten ourselves to a life that’s undone.

The dVerse Poets prompt is to write on triumph and/or defeat. Or perhaps the thin line between them.

Is this Progress?

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NY Times
Author Headshot By Alexandra Sifferlin. New York Times

Health and Science Editor, Opinion

Amid all the other news lately, it might have been easy to miss Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest big move as health secretary: the firing and replacement of the committee of experts that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines. In a guest essay for Times Opinion, the immunologist Dr. Michael Mina called it a “Code Red” moment for U.S. vaccine policy.

The recommendations of the C.D.C.’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices help determine the vaccines doctors provide to patients and whether insurers will cover them. Kennedy’s abrupt removal of all 17 members is “a warning of what might be coming,” Mina wrote, explaining that “a reconstituted committee will be in a position to more directly rearrange, alter or dismantle the national vaccine schedule as it sees fit.”

Since we published Mina’s essay last week, Kennedy announced eight new committee members, including people who have spoken critically about vaccines. There are still more spots to fill, and the committee is scheduled to meet soon to discuss immunization for Covid-19, RSV, Lyme disease, human papillomavirus and more. If the recommendation for a vaccine is withdrawn, patients who still opt to receive it could be left footing the bill.

As Mina outlines in his essay, the committee shake-up isn’t the only change. The administration has also canceled contracts for the development of new vaccines and revised Covid vaccine guidance. Mina has closely studied vaccine-preventable diseases and also regularly questions consensus, so I was curious about his perspective on which changes may be less concerning and which are keeping him up at night. “When once-reliable guidance is muddied by conspiracy thinking, the risks to vaccines and the health of Americans increase,” he wrote. “This is a precarious moment for vaccine policy — the damage may not be obvious until it’s too late.”

READ THE ESSAY HERE

See also, THIS article in which Carolyn Kennedy says there is no worse person to be in charge of the nation’s health.

The Minnesota Shootings and Mike Lee and Trump’s Shameful Response.

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From Heather Cox Richardson.:

At a news conference today, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota Joseph H. Thompson, who was appointed by President Donald Trump just two weeks ago, said that Minnesota suspect Vance Boelter went to the homes of two more politicians than the two he eventually shot along with their spouses. One was on vacation with her family, and at another home, a police officer apparently scared him off.

Thompson said Boelter had “voluminous” writings that showed he had been planning the attacks for “quite some time.” “But,” Thompson added, “I have not seen anything involving some sort of political screed or manifesto that would clearly identify what motivated him. Obviously, his primary motive was to go out and murder people. They were all elected officials. They were all Democrats. Beyond that, I think it’s just way too speculative for anyone that’s reviewed these materials to know and to say what was motivating him in terms of ideology or specific issues.”

Zoe Sottile of CNN reported that Boelter is facing federal charges of two counts of stalking, two counts of murder, and two counts of firearms offenses. He is facing state charges of first-degree murder, second degree murder, and attempted murder.

MAGA loyalists have continued to radicalize in the wake of the shootings, spreading disinformation that blamed the violence on Democrats or joking about the event. Walker Orenstein of the Minnesota Star Tribune debunked the disinformation spread by MAGA loyalists, noting that Boelter was not close to Walz, who simply okayed his reappointment to a bipartisan board that then-governor Mark Dayton had put him on in 2016. According to his roommate, Boelter was a “strong supporter” of Trump.

Emily Anderson Stern and Robert Gehrke of the Salt Lake Tribune called out Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) for his behavior in the aftermath of the shootings. Lee joked about the killings and falsely blamed the violence on his political opponents, tying the shooting to Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) responded: “This was an incredible woman, her husband, her two kids—yesterday on Father’s Day, there was no Father’s Day for them. They lost both their parents…. This is not a laughing matter, and certainly what we’re seeing is an increase in violence, and this evil man who did this—this is not a joke.”

Of Lee’s behavior, influencer George Takei wrote: “Utah voters: Are these really your values? Mike Lee is the best you can do?” After Lee pinned one of his disturbing tweets to the top of his social media timeline, Tim Miller of The Bulwark wrote: “This is less of a political matter than a sign of deep mental illness.”

As of this afternoon, Trump had not called Walz, calling him “a terrible governor” and “a grossly incompetent person.”

Trump drew criticism of his own incompetence today at the meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) in Kananaskis, Alberta, in Canada. The G7 is a forum of democracies with advanced economies that includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the European Union. During today’s meetings, Trump seemed to think the United Kingdom and the European Union were the same thing.

Trump also parroted Russian talking points, telling reporters: “The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in, and I would say that that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in, and you wouldn’t have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago.”

In fact, the members of the G7 kicked Russia out of the forum after Russian president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014. And former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau didn’t take office until 2015.

On Friday, journalist Dean Blundell reported that Washington insiders and observers from abroad had noticed how rarely Trump appears in public and how often he falls asleep when he does, prompting speculation that he is not physically able to do the work of the presidency. Blundell suggested Trump’s team would look for a way to get the president out of the G7 early to avoid exposure.

After today’s meetings, at which it appears the U.S. was delaying a joint statement in which G7 members called for an end to the conflict between Israel and Iran, Trump posted on social media: “Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign,” although it was Trump who pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the “Iran nuclear deal” that limited Iran’s nuclear program. He continued: “What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

More than 9 million people live in Tehran, with more than 16 million in the metropolitan area.

Then Trump’s team announced the situation in the Middle East required the president to leave the G7 a day early.

Twelve minutes after his post about evacuating Tehran, Trump reposted a Newsmax story saying that Trump “deserves an A+ for his job performance so far,” and less than an hour later, he posted an attack on right-wing personality Tucker Carlson and then posted: “AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including that fact that IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” Just before midnight, he posted an attack on California governor Gavin Newsom.

It’s unclear what Trump’s abrupt departure from the G7 indicates for events in the Middle East and U.S. involvement in them. As Brian O’Neill of The Contrarian noted, Trump had said he hoped to negotiate a deal with Iran, and indeed, talks were scheduled for Sunday in Oman when Israel launched its attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Friday. O’Neill notes that when Israel struck Iran last Friday without U.S. coordination, the Trump administration was left “scrambling to respond.”

Being sidelined in foreign affairs at the same time as the American people turned out in huge numbers to protest his administration and as his military parade fizzled shows Trump has less power than he tries to project.

How decisions are being made in the administration is unclear. Notably, after Trump wrote last Thursday that “changes are coming” in deportation orders because it made no sense to deport workers who had been here for a long time and were vital to farms, hotels, and restaurants, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today reversed that decision.

Carol D. Leonnig, Natalie Allison, Marianne LeVine, and Lauren Kaori Gurley of the Washington Post reported that after Trump’s post and comments to reporters, a DHS official told agents to pause raids on agriculture, including meatpacking plants, as well as restaurants and hotels. But on Sunday, DHS leadership suggested a reversal was coming because, as the journalists write, “the White House did not support” the new policy. In a call this morning, officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told agents to continue immigration raids at the businesses Trump had said he was going to protect.

This shift makes it seem as if White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a white nationalist who insists that the U.S. must deport a million immigrants this year, is determining White House policies, just as he did on the Signal chat about the military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen when his statement that Trump wanted a strike appeared to shut down any further debate of the question.

If Trump is leaving the work of the presidency to others, his family is certainly using the prestige of the presidency to make money. In what it says is in honor of the tenth anniversary of Trump’s trip down the Trump Tower escalator into presidential politics, the Trump Organization has launched a mobile phone service. As Nikki McCann Ramirez of Rolling Stone explains, the plan is essentially another licensing deal, with the disclaimer specifying that the service simply uses the Trump name after contracting with another provider.

The announcement claims that new made-in-America gold phones will be available in September, but as David Pierce of The Verge notes, the photoshopped image of the phone and the wonky specs on it, as well as the impossible promise to make them in America within three months, mean the phone “looks both bad and impossible.” The phone, too, is simply branded with the Trump name; the family business will not design or manufacture it.

The family was evidently in a hurry to get this venture up and running. Kelcee Griffis of Bloomberg reported that the Trump Organization only applied for the trademarks for it last Thursday.

—

Notes:

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/minnesota-shootings-manhunt-06-15-25

https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/president-donald-j-trump-appoints-joseph-h-thompson-acting-united-states-attorney

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/minnesota-shootings-manhunt-06-15-25#cmbzbc7if002v3b6mcyozzw5i

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2025/06/16/mineesota-shootinig-sen-amy/

https://www.startribune.com/fact-check-did-vance-boelter-suspect-in-minnesota-shootings-have-close-ties-to-gov-tim-walz/601373519

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/16/republicans-trump-minnesota-lawmakers-killings

Dean Blundell
Rumors of Decline: Trump’s Health Speculation Swirls Ahead of the G7 Summit
Donald Trump is very unwell. Dementia. Incontinence, and safeguarding his serious physical and mental decline, is a MAJOR concern for the Trump Regime, the run-up to this year’s G7 Summit in Alberta: widespread speculation about President Donald Trump’s physical health and stamina…
Read more
3 days ago · 2096 likes · 60 comments · Dean Blundell

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/16/trump-leaving-g7-early-00409449

Trump, Truth Social post, June 16, 2025, 6:30 p.m.

Trump, Truth Social post, June 16, 2025, 6:42 p.m.

Trump, Truth Social post, June 16, 2025, 7:18 p.m.

Trump, Truth Social post, June 16, 2025, 11:50 pm.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/16/politics/trump-israel-iran-g7-statement

https://apnews.com/live/israel-iran-attack#00000197-67c9-d583-a19f-7fcf30bc0000

The Contrarian
The split-screen presidency
By Brian O’Neill…
Read more
14 hours ago · 185 likes · 10 comments

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/12/trump-immigration-migrant-farmers-hotel-workers-deported/84166061007/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/06/16/trump-farms-hotels-immigration-raids/

https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/687492/trump-mobile-phone-t1

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-mobile-cell-phone-profit-off-presidency-1235365459/

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-we-know-about-trump-organizations-mobile-service-2025-06-16/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-13/trump-seeks-to-register-his-name-for-mobile-phone-service

X:

Don’t Miss This Possible Way Out of this Mess We Are In!!

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Go here:  https://okcforgottenman.wordpress.com/2025/06/16/ohh-thats-rich/ to hear some of the wisest words I’ve heard concerning how the Democratic party can best act to overcome Trump’s attempted coup. (My word, not his.):

To Be Perfectly Honest, a Quadrille X 3 for dVerse Poets, June 16, 2025

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Aunt Stella being silly at a family picinic. I was imitating her!
Family Christmas–Grandma, Dad and me.
Mom and sister Edith
Dad’s family at homestead. My sister Betty in front.
Ben Dykstra (My dad) age 13.
Memorial for my dad
Dad duded up
Dad
Mom and Dad in Australia. He finally got to travel–to come visit me.
Dad, Amana Colony
Mom and Dad, 1970
Mother
Mother with her sisters. She’s lower left.
Standing on Mom’s chair to steal a snack. “The” solid bench Patti and I sat on was behind the table in front of the plaid wall. Don’t look behind it!
Mom in Phyllis Diller’s Coat
Fishing with dad and my sisters.
My sisters and dad and I.
Sisters, Tucson

(Really? You want to see these family photos in more detail
and to read captions? Okay–then click on them.)

 

“To Be Perfectly Honest––”
(What I Really Wanted to Say)
3 Quadrilles

*As much as I enjoyed your first hundred family photos,
could we perhaps switch to conversation of a less familial theme?
*No I’m not ill. I’ve spent two years starving and a fortune
on appetite suppressants. Couldn’t you just tell me I look fabulous?

*I believe my husband has seen enough of your cleavage
for one evening. Could you cage them?
*Your poem’s triteness is equaled only by its misspellings.
*I am curious. Have you ever wondered why only beautiful women
want you to ask them to dance?   

*Be honest now. Would you ever have thought
to eat raw fish if it weren’t all the rage?
*Sorry, but Walmart art doesn’t count as a collection.
*When people back away from you, it’s likely
they don’t want you to advance on them again.

 

The dVerse Poets link today is “Honest.” Instead of one quadrille, I did three. Don’t complain. You’re lucky I didn’t do five!