Half-Year in Review

Hello, Blogworld!
Finally, after a hot, hot summer, it's sweater weather again.
I'm blogging for the first time in months *, at my local coffee shop:

Time for a Half-Year in Review.

What have I been doing since I stopped blogging at Lent at the end of February?

Growing my hair out, to begin with. 
I'd gotten a buzz-cut a year ago, in the parking lot of the thrift store where I work--back when I first started hanging God's eyes on the fence there.

And... Let's see. 
Some of this, some of that:

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I'm still at the thrift store--in my ninth year. 
Part time: three shifts in housewares, 
one in BOOK'S, where I maintain the Toy Bridge, below. 

Volunteer Terry calls it ^ the Klepto Bridge, because the things we put there are small enough to steal.
True enough.

One of the big changes I've noticed in myself this year is... 
I don't care.

Welcome liberation!

I used to get all acidy when I found signs of shoplifting. 
A recent, funny example: an empty DVD case that once held a movie about the New Testament. 
A coworker said, "They needed it." 🤣

You know what?
I truly do not care.
Not my business.

I made a couple collages for work--one, below left, for the Vintage Shelf, 
and the other, for Volunteer Marc's birthday. (Marc was born two days before me. Unlike me, he likes to travel and go on cruises.)

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BELOW: We humans flew to the Moon in April.
On social media, people posted photos jazzed up by AI. 
Why? 
The real photos did it for me:

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The main thing this entire year was,
My friend Mary Taylor died mid-May. 
(Below, center, in my kitchen this past winter)

On April 25, the Girlettes and I had had a picnic for the birthday of Maud Hart Lovelace (1892–1980), author of the Betsy-Tacy-Tib books, which Mary and I both love(d). 

BELOW: The stone marking the site where MHL's lived is less than a mile from Mary's, but she was too sick to join our picnic there.

I made this print, below, during her illness:
Where Shall We Meet in Heaven?

Where would you like? 
(Belief in heaven not required.)
Answer on a postcard.

I was part of Mary's home hospice team.
I read Besty-Tacy out loud to her the day before she died.

BELOW: 
Toward the end, Mary had set aside art paper she'd started making art on, for me to use for lino prints. 
A couple days after she died, I did a postmortem collaboration: 
I finished a bust she'd started on a big piece of paper.
It became a portrait of Penny Cooper, and I copied a note from Mary that'd come with a gift of three tiny blue spoons:

After that, I quit making any art, including God's eyes, which Mary had taught us last year, at Doll Camp 2025.
I was too sad.
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Quill came down, and she and I went to see the Virgen de Guadalupe, at the church near my house. She (Mary) is traveling around the US this year, from Mexico City.

Also, Quill, Girlette Low, and I had a picnic.

There's been a new pope, Leo, for more than a year (since May 2025).
Leo said we shouldn't wage war (we are), which led Trump to declare him 'WEAK on crime'.

I get a kick out of Leo's brand: 
The Blues Bros when he was Father Bob, 
and now he's pope, Nikes.

As company men go, he seems good, 
but I do not personally look to company men...

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BELOW: On the hottest day (100º /38ºC) of a hot summer, 
Emily and I took lemonade and iced tea to the folks on the street by the thrift store.
I brewed the ice tea with real tea bags. 
One man commented it was good, and he told me that his grandmother used to add fresh mint from her garden to her home-brewed ice tea.

I house/dog sat first Astro, then Cleo (below) in July. 
Blessed be central air-conditioning!

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Tim Curry died in August (––right after Dolly Parton).
Below, left, as Dr Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). 

Below, right: bink in 1984, when she and I worked at the Uptown movie theater, cleaning wet rice and toast off the floor on weekend mornings after midnight showings of Rocky Horror.

bink & I took a field trip to Anderson Center at Tower Center, Red Wing, where Penny Cooper snuck onto a Charles Biederman:
 "It's my colors."

BELOW: I didn't create art for months after Mary Taylor died, 
but just recently I've painted three portraits in gouache. 
Jill, John, and Tracy

 

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 * I'd stopped blogging, you may remember, largely because I was so distressed and distraught at Google's support of The US Administration and its Evil Ways. 

(And I'd changed my blog's url and blocked it, 
so most people don't even know where it is anymore. I'll tell a few folks.)

On my bike home from work, I pass the street memorial to Renée Nicole Good, who ICE killed on Jan 7, 2026.
The other day I stopped and photographed this image of her with 
Alex Pretti (killed 1/24/26).

I love the idea that they met up in Heaven. 😄

All that is still happening, as you know.  
And more...

I don't know. Rosh Hashanah was last weekend, so maybe it's a fresh new year? Anyway, at least today, I wanted to blog again. 

So, I did. 

 Signing off... A longtime Trekkie friend sent me this: