Challenge Accepted!

We’ve been challenged by a friend, based on a blog post she ran across,” to blog more and “FaceTwitterGram less,” which for us is easily “challenge accepted!” We appreciate Chris O’Donnell’s insights, especially his comment on how social media is an algorithm-run machine which targets you with specific things to provoke you to react (clickbait!) or engage or respond in a particular way. We believe that what the rest of the world is focused on (the color of that blue dress? Or is it gold?!) isn’t necessarily… um… germane, and that if we interrogate our own thinking more deeply — in actual essay form with longer sentences than just 40+ characters or an image – we’ll be talking about what we’ve decided is important to us, making that our focus. Finding our own food for thought seems a better option than simply eating from the common trough, as it were.

Wildlife Notes: We’ve enjoyed living so close to the Bay these last six months, and have loads of little brown birds of indeterminate species scratching through the composting leaves beneath our fruit trees. Our Phoebe friends looked at the millet spray we tied in the leafless skeleton of the fig tree on New Year’s Day with patient disinterest… and we eventually remembered that Phoebes are flycatchers, and will even sometimes eat tiny frogs and fish. Oh. Not vegetarians, then. Duh.

The long drought really decimated the frog population, and with last season and this month’s recent days of rain, it’s been a treat to hear, walking in the evening, the small trilling, croaky voices of competing amphibians… and having one leap over one’s foot whilst one is on a morning walk, while catastrophic to one’s upright mobility, is also a treat. Really. It seems more of a treat when you’ve caught your balance, though… We’ve been enjoying the wildlife enjoying the rain, although the two GINORMOUS possums were a little… terrifying, especially the one we misidentified as a bird, in the gloom, which subsequently froze and gave us a pretty wicked side-eye. Why was one following us, walking along the top of a wall in step with us? WHAT DID IT WANT????? Inquiring minds…

And Now for Something Completely Different:

• “Pretend you’re good at it.” Hope for Imposter Syndrome.
• Winter tunes on ice instruments. No, really.
• Today’s writers face new challenge, but hope shines on the page.
• The Chinese-American story extends even to Mississippi.
• A+J’s video follow-up lets Southern Chinese-Americans speak for themselves… Those accents, though!
• Yes, we word nerds are a little hyper about our Oxford commons, and our dashes.
• Friend Marjorie examines death and loss through the lens of Pixar.

Happy Monday.