This Flashback for Fandango’s Flashback Friday is from December 5, 2020, originally posted on another site. GalaxyCon hosted several virtual panels during the pandemic.
Enjoying an early Birthday treat and a live stream panel with William Shatner and Kate Mulgrew this morning.
This may not be a masterpiece, but it is one of my favorite paintings. I finished this in 2020. The painting was donated for an auction, which several people bid on.
Posted for the Ragtag Daily Prompt.
For Fandango’s Flashback Friday, I will repost a post from September 14, 2020.
I want to go on a road trip. I want to see blue skies and even bluer waters. I want to hear the ocean waves crashing upon a sandy shoreline. I want to squish sand between my toes and have that familiar salty smell assault me. I want to feel the sun’s warmth caressing my body and I want to see the moon’s glow upon the water.
This year, this desire must be quieted, at least for awhile. A virus is racing through human kind and, simultaneously, fires rage through the west coast. The enormity of the pandemic and of the fires are difficult to fully comprehend, but to ignore either would be foolish and disrespectful. Lives have ended. People and animals are suffering.
Instead, I will listen to seals bark and seagulls squawk and close my eyes and listen to the ocean waves on Netflix. I will continue to knit hats and scarves to donate to those in need. I will find ways to celebrate those brave women and men who risk their lives every day to fight those raging fires. And, maybe, next year, I will visit the ocean.
There used to be a small zoo North of Reno, Nevada. They very recently closed down due to several issues, financial and vandalism being the main stated issues.
This group of images is from the first time I visited in 2010. I went, primarily, to see the caracal and the liger. Sadly, I was not able to get decent pictures of either.
This group of pictures is from the last time I visited. I thought I’d try something that would normally have been considered a little safe to go to during 2020. After being derided for wearing a mask as I was leaving, I vowed that I would never return.
Personally, I am glad this small zoo closed down and the animals were sent to (hopefully) better conditions. This zoo was very small and inappropriate for some of the animals they had there, though, I must add that the owners loved animals, and most of these animals were rescued and would never have survived in the wild.
Journeys with Johnbo encourages bloggers to post their own Cellpic Sunday. The only rule is that they are from a cellphone, tablet, or any other mobile device.
I’ve started meditating, again. I’m using the Headspace episodes on Netflix and I’m really enjoying how I feel after the exercises. Each episode focuses on a different aspect, such as today’s focus was on pain and tomorrow’s focus will be compassion. My goal is to keep practicing every day.
I remember when I used to meditate everyday, I felt better and I felt more capable of handling things. It makes me wonder why I dropped the practice. I, also, wonder what I can do to keep myself motivated to keep meditating everyday for good.
Which brings me to the other thing I’d like to keep going everyday — this — this being writing everyday, even if it is just a line or two.
I’ve explored the many reasons that I’ve stopped writing. I’ve explored the many reasons that have made me feel blocked — to ad nauseum. And many of those reasons are valid. I guess what I haven’t explored as vigorously are the routes I can take to bring back my writing mojo. This is especially true for this past year, when I lost all my motivation for so many things. This is a not-so-surprising response to a global pandemic that killed friends and acquaintances. A pandemic that had people say that they would be okay with my death because the economy was more important to them than my life.
Re-reading those last few sentences out loud makes it easy to understand when and why I shut down last year. I remember it was when people who I thought were my friends said those things.
So, once again, I will take up pen and paper, computer screen and keyboard, to explore, bitch, wail against the fates, and plead with the muses — and some of it may make it here for other people’s scrutiny.
Discombobulate. That is what 2020 has done to me.
Murder Hornets, Aliens, Comets and Asteroids, Vampire Fish, Global Pandemic, Earth’s Core Could Be Leaking Iron Isotopes, Toilet Paper Shortages, Chernobyl Wildfires Reignite, Tyrannosaurus Rex Embryo Recreated From Chicken DNA, Winged Spiders, Zombie Pigs, Giant Swarm of Flying Ants, just to name a few. Oh, yeah, and I was told, earlier this year, that if we didn’t do so much testing, I might not have contracted Cancer. Well, because testing somehow causes a potentially deadly disease?
It seems that every horror science fiction story has come alive to plague the world. Where is Godzilla when we need him/her(?) to conquer all the other monsters in today’s world?
I love one of the Urban Dictionary’s take on discombobulation.
the act of the molecular structure of a human (for arguments sake) being taken apart at an atomical level, and put back together into a different order by the act of recombobulation.
I’d like to be recombobulated as a much-loved cat when all is said and done. Caresses. Kept warm and comfy. The only real concerns would be where’s the sun and where’s the food.
I want to go on a road trip. I want to see blue skies and even bluer waters. I want to hear the ocean waves crashing upon a sandy shoreline. I want to squish sand between my toes and have that familiar salty smell assault me. I want to feel the sun’s warmth caressing my body and I want to see the moon’s glow upon the water.
This year, this desire must be quieted, at least for awhile. A virus is racing through human kind and, simultaneously, fires rage through the west coast. The enormity of the pandemic and of the fires are difficult to fully comprehend, but to ignore either would be foolish and disrespectful. Lives have ended. People and animals are suffering.
Instead, I will listen to seals bark and seagulls squawk and close my eyes and listen to the ocean waves on Netflix. I will continue to knit hats and scarves to donate to those in need. I will find ways to celebrate those brave women and men who risk their lives every day to fight those raging fires. And, maybe, next year, I will visit the ocean.
Half a year. Has it really been half a year since I went into self-isolation? It seems longer, sometimes. Other times it doesn’t feel as though those far-too-short days could possibly equal six months. Time marches on, forwards and backwards, in a rather strange pattern in 2020.
yvensong 