WobblyReport

My new year’s resolution this year is to do better regardless of conditions. This is not as straightforward as dropping a few pounds. It will be tricky to track and the math will be fuzzy. In terms of comparisons, I’m targeting the margins for improvement. Rather than meal-planning and hawk-eying bathroom scales, I’m casually self-reflective. How’s my hydration? 2025 is already more than 10% in the past. The pace of the days seemed to slow after the succession of late fall and winter holidays. But here is February, traffic cop of time travel, with a friendly warning that we are still cruising at something closer to freeway speed after having exited onto country highway. So I’m taking my foot off the gas. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Driving automobiles surely presents some of the most literal and straightforward opportunities for many of us to do better in variable conditions. Accidents are bound to happen, given not everyone on the roads is possessed of snow tires and saintly p...

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year are three of four of our national holidays established in 1870, along with Independence Day. Christmas and New Year both fall on a Wednesday this year, which will make life interesting for a couple of weeks, with students excused from classes and businesses operating on holiday hours. Oh and happy Thanksgiving, belated, good tidings to all in the days and nights coming, especially during holidays and celebrations. Christmas is coming up fast. Lots to do, oh, lots to do. Has everything been arranged? Is all in place? Down the corn stalks and harvest a young conifer tree or resurrect a facsimile from the basement like me. Decorating and undecorating will be a continual process unto and through the New Year, till straggling adornments have hung so auld long syne that neighbors begin to call in wellness checks. Old Man Winter came in on the heels of November and revived the northern Midwest’s annual, first-snow derby out on various county roads and stat...

When was the last time you tried something new—I mean really new? The tried and true remain a foundation of daily living but the will to step out on a limb is vital, both for the individual spirit and the health of our species. How else could we have discovered milk can be preserved by dipping frogs in it? No, seriously, look it up. Trying new things is dangerous and fun. It’s all belly laughs and broken ribs. Sorry, that’s just the mid-rift crisis talking.  I return periodically to the Analects of Confucius, who had his own, respected forebears. The Master said, at 15 I set my heart upon learning At 30, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground. At 40, I no longer suffered from perplexities. At 50, I knew what were the biddings of heaven. At 60, I heard them with docile ears. At 70, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right. The joys and obligations of liberty lie in both ritual and experiment. Danger and fun att...