While out shopping yesterday, my wife and I took a break and had dinner out. Our waiter introduced himself as Zack and displayed charm, humor, and natural friendliness. We’ve eaten at this place regularly, so we quickly ordered and off Zack went.
Our salads were brought and eaten. Then we waited Zack kept coming by, asking, need more beer, more bread, or anything else? We smiled, turned everything down, and waited for our meal.
When it finally arrived, Zack grinned. “I’m sorry it took so long. I was getting worried.”
I replied, “You were getting worried? I was asking myself, what did that Zack do with our order?”
I’m reflecting on life lessons again as 2025 closes. These are the important lessons I keep returning to.
All food is not the same.
What you can eat and works for you is unique to you.
Your body will change based on what it’s taking in.
You will also change as you age.
Observing our society, we in the U.S. don’t do well with teaching, learning, or sharing these lessons. People will often say something like, “Well, that’s what my parents always ate, and their parents for that matter, so it’ll be fine for me.” The attitude assumes you’re exactly like them. It also assumes the food you’re consuming is exactly the same food they consumed twenty years ago or more. A good chance exists you’re not exactly like them, even if you are their spitting image.
Odds are high, too, that the food being put before you is different from what they were eating. Genetic modifications of our foods are more common in this century. More chemicals are utilized in the growing and processing systems. The end results are often highly processed food.
I’ve noticed that I can’t tolerate the food and quantity of foods that I could in my youth. But it’s not an even change. My metabolism has slowed. Some foods still work great, and I’m happy to eat them. My body treats certain other foods as hostile invaders. Cheese, for example. Much as I love it, my biome is less happy when it comes in. And coffee. I’ve cut way back on coffee and cheese, to name two victims of my changing body.
I learned another clear lesson early: sodium is my body’s arch enemy. I’m constantly on guard against it. Sodium is linked to high blood pressure.
That translated to hydrating more and using less salt, and being on guard against sodium in processed foods.
But I was mystified. So many others easily and often ate processed foods. Salt was briskly shaken over their meals and yet, they didn’t have high blood pressure.
It was only later that I learned about my Vagus nerve’s reaction to how sodium is handled as part of my parasympathetic nervous system. This is why others can eat sodium without problems while my body tells me to leave salt alone.
I’ve compiled more understanding of the Vagus nerve’s role. Such insights are valuable. But our bodies are dynamic. Paying attention and learning about changes aids me when I wonder about gaining weight or energy levels. It’s empowering and useful in this age to have the Internet to help me grasp the root of these changes.
They really didn’t address our bodies and food in much detail when I was educated. We were taught about food groups, balance, and the food pyramid. It wasn’t explained at all that people’s bodies react differently. That was left to us to learn for ourselves.
My education was over a half a century ago. I hope the system has changed and more people are learning these things. This is why I write about them for me, in the hope that others find it helpful.
High winds imitated taxiing jets all night long. We awoke to quiet sunshine and a drying land. 42 F, we hit like 49 F before the weather flipped into falling temperatures and increasing precipitation. It rained hard for a while and dropped into the thirties. Now it’s in the thirties but clear under fading sunshine. This was Christmas, Thirstda, December 25, 2025.
We were out of the house before nine AM, hitting the road to buzz to the other side of town for a breakfast brunch. The time was dropped on me yesterday. “We’re going to be there at nine?” I was incredulous. Friends had invited us to their place but that seemed like a early holiday hour when gift exchanging and children weren’t involved. We made it, no problem.
They weren’t ready for us. The husband didn’t make an appearance for over thirty minutes. We know him well and understand the health issues which slowed him. Guest number five arrived about twenty minutes after hubby showed. Guest number six was a no-show. She later called to apologize but she was having memory issue and forgot.
No matter. I was stewing about hurrying to be there when others clearly were less prepared than me for the early hour. The food, however, was sensational. Ham steaks. Plant based sausages. Dutch baby. Mexican quiche. Bananas, oranges, raspberries and blueberries. Delicious food, and after all but one arrived, a fun time, despite the early hour.
The early hour did have me smiling in memory about my childhood. Back then, filled with Santa-inspired energy, we were up by five AM, eager to see what presents had arrived. It’s a sweet look back at memories of an innocent period. Well, innocent for me. Mom and Dad were busy adulting, managing children, money, and all the associated pressures and needed.
Our fifth guest was a stranger. A music student from the Czech Republic, Tereza is 23 years old, a keyboardist who is learning music history (which, yes, she finds boring and tedious) while also being taught about more instruments. Most fascinating is her growing mastery of the pipe organ. She travels to another town to play a pipe organ in a Presbyterian Church. She shared some video of her playing.
She also gamely responded to our inquisition about the small village where she grew up, her parents and life in the Czech Republic, and their Christmas holiday traditions. A catholic, she shared their story that baby Jesus brings gifts and puts them under the tree. Yes, I wanted to know, how does baby Jesus get around? She laughed and replied, “That was our question, too.”
Then, following Christmas traditions (not), we played a full game of Mexican Train. Mexican Train felt like some kind of inherent slur, so we sought other names for it as we sorted rules, cheered wins, and lamented losses. A different and fun way to spin away Christmas hours.
Meanwhile, my sisters and I and Mom and I shot texts and videos back and forth. It’s the latest new holiday tradition.
Today’s music is “Come As You Are” by Nirvana. The Neurons fired it up in the morning mental music stream when I rolled out of bed and began fumbling through showering, shaving, and dressing. I don’t mind get up ‘early’ but I dislike being forced to forego my leisurely morning routine. As I progressed through my routine at a faster pace, The Neurons teased, “Just go as you are.” Hence, the song’s presence in the MMMS.
Had a pleasant Christmas with my wife and friends. Barely any coffee consumed. I think peace and grace peeked in on us. Hope peace and grace dropped in on you, too, however briefly it might have been, whether this is a holiday you celebrate or just another day on the calendar. Cheers
I was deep into a writing day at the coffee shop when I happened to look up. Across the room was a young girl—maybe six. In her hand was a huge chocolate croissant. I swear the pastry was as large as her head. She kept attacking it with her tiny mouth, trying again and again to make inroads into the dough.
As I smiled to myself and glanced around, I noticed others doing the same. We all seemed to feel it: the quiet pleasure of witnessing a sweet moment—a sweetie going after a sweet.
Dementia Donny has been living up to his hype, blasting us with more wondrous boasts about the greatest and most beautiful things he’s doing for us.
Solving real problems fell off Delicate Donny’s radar long ago. His previous magic was to ‘tell it like it is’. Morally bankrupt and intellectually dishonest people fed off it. Now, with no one reining him in, his reign is a crashing, shambolic nightmare.
Affordability and inflation haunt Trump. The East Wing’s demolition reminds everyone who looks toward the White House sees it and remembers all of Trump’s past failures such as Trump Air and his string of failed promises, like “Mexico will pay for the wall”.
Now, hospitals are shuttering in rural areas. More are closing in 2025 than have in the past five years. Rising costs for food, healthcare, and energy are undermining Trump speeches that everything is better than before. Rising bankruptcies point to data that everything isn’t getting better.
Thing about it was that Trump’s bluster often covered his damage. When that didn’t work, he’d order wild distractions. That strategy was aided by those who want to further his agenda. Now, reality is engulfing the nation. Disapproval for Trump is drifting toward historic lows. Approval is becoming as weak as a memory of sunshine. Although media conglomerates still kowtow to Trump and his sycophants appease him by naming things after him, Trump is a weakening individual with waning influence.
Even Republicans are awakening to that truth. Stands are rising against him. Speaker Mike Johnson in the House remains Trump’s man but voter anger is stinging rank and file Republicans. Worrying about keeping their seats. they’re jumping off the MAGA wagon, though they carefully say little to anger Trump. He still has a big stick.
Trump’s biggest crutches remain the cadre he installed as his cabinet. Vought, Noem, Miller, Hegseth, Bessent, and Kennedy race forward, trying to do as much damage as possible before Trump shuffles off the stage. Vance is eager to seize the reins, but all know, he isn’t Trump. Although Trump can’t or doesn’t care to see it because it isn’t about him, Trump is institutionalizing regression under the guise of progress. That is how Project 2025 planned it. These are not mere villains, but morally ambiguous players dedicated to the Project 2025 cause.
Vance seems to be coming from a place where he thinks he can say, “Hey, we’re all Christians here,” and earn a stronger following. Christians might go for that but the rest of us are dubious about it. As Heather Cox Richardson related in her December 21, 2025, piece, Vance and the Project 2025 crowd continue to try to rewrite history and facts.
Speaking today at Turning Point USA’s annual “AmericaFest” conference, Vice President J.D. Vance said, to great applause: “The only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God we always will be, a Christian nation.”
Actually, we haven’t.
Vance’s statement flies in the face of our Constitution, whose First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” James Madison of Virginia, the key thinker behind the Constitution, had quite a lot to say about why it was fundamentally important to make sure the government kept away from religion.
In 1772, when he was 21, Madison watched as Virginia arrested itinerant preachers for attacking the established church in the state. He was no foe of religion, but by the next year, he had begun to question whether established religion, which was common in the colonies, was good for society. By 1776, many of his broad-thinking neighbors had come to believe that society should “tolerate” different religious practices; he had moved past tolerance to the belief that men had a right of conscience.
Ms Richardson’s final line in that paragraph struck me. This is where we’re seriously regressing as a nation IMO. As a progressive democracy, we were moving more past tolerance to the belief that everyone was equal but individual, but that the roots of individuality didn’t matter. What mattered was that all of us were humans, invested in one another to advance together, or fail together.
Now the Project 2025 gaggle has us as a nation regressing. We’re no longer even ‘tolerant’. Yes, Trump pushed that idea, giving it more emphasis as it gained traction. What deeply disturbed so many of us as Americans and U.S. citizens was how many of our fellow citizens weren’t willing to be tolerant. Not only were they not being tolerant of others different from them, but now they’re moving toward being more aggressively violent.
That is Trump, too. But the resentment, the willingness to be intolerant was always there, as was the violence. Trump and Project 2025 used that to propel Trump forward. Needing more votes than his base provided, Trump appealed to people upset with the economy by falsifying and magnifying how bad it was. Now the truth is out. Affordability is a bigger problem under Trump than it was under President Biden. Paul Krugman noted that the national deficit did not decrease under Trump but is bigger than it was in the first nine months of 2024.
Voters are noticing Trump’s failed economics policies. GOP stalwarts are noticing. No matter how many buildings are named for Trump, no matter how much he tries to change the narrative, the damage has ended Trump’s ability to lie and blame others.
There will be a reckoning with voters in 2026. Despite being in an ideological bubble, Trump knows it’s going to be bad for him.
Happy solstice morning greetings from Ashlandia. It’s 41 F with moderately heavy rain today. The weather systems tell me that’s how it’ll be all day, with the high reaching for 47 F. A ‘white Christmas’ isn’t being dealt to us this year.
Yes, it’s Sunda, and it also happens to be winter solstice north of the equator, December 21, 2025. Down south of zero, they’re celebrating the summer’s arrival.
We’re doing our ‘traditional solstice’ dinner but it’s being winged. Our traditional celebration evolved from previous celebrations we’d cludged together from pagan practices regarding solstice. Building on those, we started having a simple dinner of soup, salad, and bread as part of solstice. It expanded for a while, with others invited in to celebrate with us. COVID broke the tradition. We observed alone for a bit but shifted from it. Partially contributing to that was a sense of weariness my wife and I both felt; just weren’t up to celebrating, given the world’s state and trajectory.
I proposed doing soup and bread for solstice dinner again. But instead of making it all ourselves, we’d visit the Food Co-op and Market of Choice and buy some fresh soup from them.
I read about “King Mida in Reverse” in blog comments the other day. I haven’t heard nor thought of the song in years. Think I heard it on Sirus XM while driving on a long trip back before BCP – Before COVID Pandemic.
The commenter was saying this song, by the Hollies, perfectly describes the Trump effect. He’s a destructive force masked as something else. Trump will advance, mostly through luck, lying, evading responsibility, and cheating, but whatever he touches is the worse for it. Look how he destroyed so many businesses and yet enriched himself. Now he’s doing it on a gigantic scale, destroying the moral fabric, government structure, and checks and balances of the United States. Meanwhile, he’s turning us, We the People, against each other based on race and politics, cratering the economy, and making us sicker via terrible health care decisions. Yes, PINO Trump is most definitely King Midas in reverse. That’s why he throws gold on everything in a desperate effort to change the optics on what he’s doing. But the results of dropping approval ratings, rising disapproval rating in all areas, increasing unemployment, decreasing employment, and diminishing affordability speaks for itself. Dizzy Donny is failing, flailing, and fading.
Unfortunately for the U.S.A., Trump has turned over governing to Russell Vought for domestic affairs, Stephen Miller for domestic security, and Pete Hegseth and Marcos Rubio for diplomacy and foreign policy. Except for Rubio, these are individuals We the People don’t trust with the keys to a car, let alone running the nation. But that’s where we are, thanks to PINO Trump.
Lyrics
~snip~
I’m not the guy to run with ’cause I’ll throw you off the line I’ll break you and destroy you Given time
He’s King Midas with a curse He’s King Midas in reverse He’s King Midas with a curse He’s King Midas in reverse
It’s plain to see it’s hopeless Going on the way we are So even though I’d lose you You’d be better off by far
He’s not the man to hold your trust Everything he touches turns to dust In his hands Nothing he can do is right He’d even like to sleep at night But he can’t
Time to chug some coffee and crank the energy motor up. Hope peace and grace sneaks out of hiding to give you a hug. Here we go. Happy solstice. Cheers
The holiday party season has kicked off. One day already this week. Tonight is the second. Then there are parties, outings, brunches, and get togethers on Satyrda, Sunda, Twozda, and Thirstda. My spouse is quite popular. That’s a lot of socializing for one like me, who, my wife tells me, is a virtual recluse. Thank dawg for the breaks.
Getting ready was easier this year. Weight loss has given me a broader range of clothing choices. Hurrah for that. Most important part of this was that I didn’t need to iron anything. Hurrah for that!
Also, my wife still giggles whenever she encounters me in underwear with a shirt and socks but sans pants. Come on, girl, it’s been more than fifty years. Do you really still find it that humorous?
Guess it’s one of those eyes of the beholder things.
The Great Penny Adjustment of 2025 has begun! Here’s my two cents about it.
The last penny in the United States was minted, ending a 238-year run.
The last pennies minted sold for a mint.
Last US cents sold at auction for a sum of $16.76 million were worth a pretty penny
Yes, there’s a national penny shortage now because pennies are no more. Well, there are no new ones. Hoarding pennies is a contributing factor. People hope their pennies will be worth more someday…
Here in Ashlandia, businesses are adjusting. My current favorite coffee hang, RoCo, has announced that due to the penny shortage, change will be rounded off to the nearest multiple of five. They’re always giving me six cents in change. I’ve always told them, “Keep the penny,” or dropped it into the ever present penny bowl.
Will the penny bowl remain? Doubtful. I mean, why would they?
Now BiMart has a notice up: “Due to the nationwide penny shortage, please pay in correct change.”
They owed me 88 cents after my purchase. I told them to keep the pennies. The cashier replied, “Thanks. I only have two pennies left.” Then she took a nickel off the top of the register. “Someone found this and gave it to me. You take it.” I laughed and accepted, thanking her. That was the gracious thing to do. I’ll pass it on to someone else.
Greetings to my fellow humans and coffee ants. It’s Wenzda! Humpda! December 17 2025.
Ashlandians find ourselves in warmer weather with less fog. We’re hanging at about 40 degrees F. Light gray clouds with low bellies soldier past sunlit dark green evergreens. The clouds tear and break as they meet the trees. Another slice of sky features darker clouds mingling with bright blue sky. All shines with a rainy sheen, waiting to dry off. Today’s high will strike 47 F, ‘they’ say. We’re unsure they’ll be correct.
Slop is the word of the year. Hard to argue with that. In this information age, disinformation sown and furthered by AI’s efforts to entertain and uneducate the masses while undermining political will and decision-making owns many media outlets and social platforms.
Some of this is deliberately done. Feeling down? Go shopping! Look at these deals!
Not into shopping? Tune into NASCAR. NBA, NFL, college football, college basketball, hockey, volleyball, oh, boy the Olympics are coming! The world cup!
Eat our new food! Buy our new stuff! Watch our new show! Enjoy our new movie! Don’t like them, then watch the old movies, the old sitcoms, the old dramas, and remember how it used to be. Don’t think. Just sit back and relax. Let us take care of you.
What a way to end the year, mired in slop, wondering WTF is going to happen next year. Will the U.S. wage open war on Venezuela or go all in with Russia against the Ukraine? Trump is all for that. War for peace. “We can only win peace if we’re strong enough to fight for it,” he’ll snarl. And enough Americans are simple enough to eagerly nod agreement. We got all that military power. Shame not to use it, right?
Thinking about slop as the word of the year has The Neurons laughing. “Slop is the word is the word that you heard. It’s got groove, it’s got meaning. Slop is the time, is the place, is the motion. Slop is the way we are feeling.”
The Neurons might be on to something this time.
Anyway, they slotted “Grease” as sung by Frankie Valli in the movie, Grease, in the morning mental music stream. Except we’re singing ‘slop’ instead of ‘grease’.
Okay, coffee is greasing me up. Hope peace and grace break through the slop and make a cameo sometime in 2025’s final days. Here we go again. Cheers
The number of measles cases in the U.S. are on the rise.
No, that is not ‘good news’.
It is vindication.
The data clearly shows that the measles vaccinations policies followed in the U.S. for the last several decades were working. The science was understood.
Now, led by a charlatan in Health and Human Services, one Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and emboldened by the Trump Regime, the U.S. has had over 1900 cases reported in 2025. With winter striking and people keeping closer proximity, measles outbreaks in several states are growing. It’s doubtful to me that the TACO Regime will take action to address these outbreaks. The outbreaks are part of the Project 2025 strategy to undermine health and morale in the United States. While it’s not explicitly stated as such, that is the intention which emerges.
In late 2022, Donald Trumpfiled a defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board, which, he claimed, defamed him by refusing to retract prizes it gave the New York Times and the Washington Post for their Russiagate reporting.
Trump, in the lawsuit, alleged that the Times and the Post defamed him in their articles and that the Pulitzer Prize Board, by awarding them, defamed him as well. Many Trump critics attacked the lawsuit as frivolous, pointing out that the Pulitzer Prize Board itself didn’t write the articles he claimed were defamatory.
~snip~
Recent articles reveal that the Pultizer folks reacted by demanding records from Trump to prove what he’s claiming.
As of Thursday, the case had reached the discovery phase, with the Pulitzer board submitting a 12-page filing with a “litany of broad discovery demands” for Trump’s legal team. In addition to demanding more typical documents pertaining to Trump’s various lawsuits and claims about the political impact of the Pulitzer Prizes, the board also requested a wide range of documents detailing much more personal and intimate details.
This includes “all” of the president’s tax returns dating from 2015 to now, so as to show any potential financial harm caused by the Pulitzer board’s actions. It also requested health records and prescription histories to demonstrate proof of Trump’s claims of mental and physical anguish.
“To the extent You seek damages for any physical ailment or mental or emotional injury arising from Counts I-IV of Your Complaint, all Documents (whether held by You or by third parties under Your control or who could produce them at your direction) concerning Your medical and/or psychological health from January 1, 2015, to present, including any prescription medications you have been prescribed or have taken,” the filing explained. “For the avoidance of doubt, this includes all Documents Concerning Your annual physical examination. To the extent you do not seek such damages in this action, please confirm so in writing.”
~snip~
One, I’m very pleased that the Pulitzer Prize Board is pushing back and not capitulating, the path which so many universities and media organizations followed. Two, I love that response: this is what you’re claiming, so show us the receipts.
Of interest now is how the TACO Regime will react. I expect bluster, of course. Claims of executive privilege will probably spring up as well. TACO never likes revealing paperwork because the paperwork inevitably reveals the depths of his deceit and lies.
Trump showed again he’s an empty shell of a human.
President Donald Trump responded to the mass shooting over the weekend at Brown University, telling a crowd gathered at the White House that “things can happen” while offering “deepest regards” to the families of students who died and urging a speedy recovery for the injured.
~snip~
I couldn’t find any statements that Trump made about the disastrous flooding in Washington. Sure, the Trump Regime signed off on assistance but he, personally, said nothing about the disaster. No, he’s too busy slamming Rob Reiner after the actor and his wife were murdered by their son.
Trump, in a post on his social media network, said Reiner and his wife were killed “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”
He said Reiner “was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness.”
Employers across the U.S. added 64,000 jobs in November, beating economists’ forecasts, new government data shows, even as new October figures revealed a loss of 105,000 jobs, a sign the labor market remains under pressure.
The unemployment rate in November rose to 4.6%, the highest level since September 2021.
~snip~
Trump will blame President Biden for the rising unemployment. That’s a given, even though it’s been Trump’s economy since the 2025’s first month. Trump might even blame President Obama for this poor unemployment, because that’s how loosely connected to reality Dopy Donny is these days. The wires between his brain and reality are frayed and broken, and it is showing in his speeches and reactions. He’s quicker to jump to hostility and bullying than in previous years. Those attacks are often not landing as they have in previous years.
Sadly for Trump, at the same time that reports claim the nation added more jobs in November, ‘beating economists forecasts’, October figures were revised, showing it was worse than originally claimed. The job numbers were also revised downward for August and September.
Man, talk about a bad trend. Tsk, tsk.
Wonder if Vegas is putting up odds that the November jobs numbers will be revised downward in January?
Michael Seidel, writer 