Vacuum My Way to Paradise Friday Round-Up

In the way that I sometimes wait for my plants to beg for water like poor souls stranded in Death Valley, I wait until my carpet is an abomination before I plug in the vacuum cleaner. I don’t know why that is. I’m thinking that if I’m going to water or vacuum, it should be an effort that truly has meaning. This afternoon, what is remaining is the carpeted stairs. I save them for last because the transformation is stunning and deeply moving.

The book I am reading is so unrelentingly depressing that it feels like punishment to continue. I am two-thirds of the way through, though, so I must finish. There could be happiness on the last page, and I’ll never know if I quit now. Still, it is work plodding through the unabated sorrow and disappointment. And the descriptions of the foliage which have become almost nightmarish.

The political junkie in me has moved to Canada and opened a fur ruff shop in the Yukon. I cannot abide anything about Donald Trump or tolerate Ron DeSantis’ peculiar hair or Nikki Haley’s curious ignorance about the Civil War. Nor can I stand wackadoodle polls or plump pundits bemoaning Joe Biden’s age or what was on Hunter’s laptop. I’ll perk up and work hard for the Dems, including Joe Biden, who I think is terrific, when the snow melts, but right now, ugh.

The die is cast on Story #8. My meager little Upper Peninsula short story collection is about to include the story of a woman, this one about seventy, and a perilous situation in which she willingly places herself. (You have to have faith that the writing will be better than that last sentence.) The story requires a little research and a fair amount of imagination and piecing together the physicality of it all, but it’s going to be good or pretty okay.

Here, in Milwaukee, during this cold snap and big snow, homeless folks have suffered. There’s no argument about that. But also true is that many people and organizations have done so much to alleviate that suffering, find people who need help, bring them inside, show up with bedding and clothes and food, and, all the while, treat people with respect and care. No, our community’s response to the terrible cold was not perfect, it was scrambled and chaotic, but it was wholehearted and tireless. That matters so much. Finding a way out of no way is what’s happened here. I’m glad and grateful.

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Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash