And we’re supplying the bombs and bullets he’s using to kill civilians in Gaza, so we are guilty of complicity with his crimes.

We’re having a cool and rainy Christmas here, though there’s enough snow in the Cascades to make travel dicey for folks going over the mountains. It’s a good time for good tires, and for tire chains in the trunk or behind the truck seat in case they’re needed. The winter is young yet—we still could get some white stuff here in the Emerald City. You know what they say: It doesn’t snow in Seattle. Except when it does.

Been a hard year for a lot of folks—floods, fires, droughts, and hot spells that seemed like they’d never end. And things are so expensive now, even for those of us fortunate enough to have enough of what we really need. Listen to me—I sound like my dad fifty years ago, complaining about gas at fifty cents a gallon.

The end of another year summons warm memories of years past when I spent holidays with some of you, and brings to mind high and low points of the year now drawing to a close. With wars raging in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere, it’s impossible to pretend that this is a season of unbridled joy and happiness. But there are good parts too, for those of us fortunate enough not to be under bombardment or forced from our homes.

It was thirty-five years ago this fall that I struck a moose with a Nissan Sentra on Route 12 in Vermont, right by Lake Elmore, where she may have been headed for a dinner date. Our encounter was brief but not soon forgotten: a jolt of panic that surged through me as she trotted down the embankment from my left to stop directly in my path; then a half-second of trying to steer with brakes locked and tires sliding on the asphalt; a good look at her in the headlights—like a huge, hairy cow on stilts about to burst through the windshield to land in my lap—then her leisurely step toward the downhill shoulder of the road, a step that may have saved both our lives.

The car’s bumper and right-front fender just clipped her right-rear leg; even so, the collision imparted a thump that shook the car. Takes a lot longer to describe than it took to happen, and then she was gone and I sat stopped in the middle of the road, engine stalled and headlights staring straight ahead, the car already ticking and clicking as it began to cool in the night air. I grabbed the flashlight from the glove box and surveyed the damage by the light’s watery yellow beam: a broken parking lamp, a small tear in the neoprene bumper cover and a little dent in the front fender. Flashlights weren’t as good back then, but I could see there was no other tangible evidence of what had just happened. Turning to play the light on the thicket of alders between the road and the lake, I felt a pang of guilt: I should check on her, but no way in hell was I wading into the alders with a flashlight after a wounded moose. Heart still pounding, I started the car and plugged Bobby McFerrin into the tape deck: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. I headed home, driving a bit more slowly.

I think that was the year I sent folks big blocks of Cabot cheddar for Christmas, some of which probably arrived in crumbles after having been frozen en route. Sorry if yours got there in poor shape, and please don’t take offense that I don’t remember what you sent me that year. I hope you’ll forgive me for abandoning the family Christmas potlatch tradition shortly after that. I still think of you fondly around the holidays, though.

It was thirty years this summer since I had a cheeseburger, a pork chop or a drumstick. Doesn’t seem to have stunted my growth, far as I can tell. I do eat a little fish now in my old age, and those Impossible bratwursts and sausages help to ease the occasional carnivorous craving. An unsolicited testimonial, folks.

It’s been five years next week since I drank any alcohol. No court orders or bad liver counts were involved in that decision—just seemed like fifty years of swilling was enough, and I wanted to come up for air. I don’t miss feeling kinda slow in the mornings. Seems like I’m still able to be sillier than most folks my age, and I may be a tad less grouchy than I was before. Maybe, most of the time.

Last week marked six months since the kid next door shot himself, back in June on Father’s Day. Matt was twenty-two years old, pale skin and black plastic-frame glasses with a mop of dark, wavy hair. He had lived over there in his grandfather’s old house with a couple of his buddies for about a year, and the other two guys are still staying there. Must be pretty strange, and I worry for them. The other neighbor who came over in tears a couple of days later to tell me what had happened said Matt had had Crohn’s disease, and maybe that was part of why he did it. But of course all of us “adults” on the block still don’t understand why, or what any of us might have been able to do to help things turn out differently. And we’ll probably never know.

Some things aren’t ever going to make sense even though we lie awake at night trying to figure them out. I don’t mean to be flippant about it, but at some point life goes on. Eventually we just have to accept what happened and go on. The rest of us still have to cook and eat, wash the dishes and pay the bills, walk the dog and take the trash out on Tuesdays, and catch up with other folks while we and they are both still around. It will be the same for someone else after we are gone.

Heard on the news the other day that that Sailor Twift woman is a billionaire, and Person of the Year too. Sailor? Am I saying that right? Oh, Taylor? Gosh, I’m so bad with names these days. But you know who I mean—the one with the closets full of rhinestone leotards and the swimming pools full of hundred-dollar bills just to roll around in, and a staff of nine to look after her hair. I don’t mean to throw shade, I’m sure she’s  earned it all. But I suspect that sometimes late at night, when Travis is all wore-out and snoring (or at the gym AGAIN!) she stalks those marble floors and wishes she’d climbed a different tree. Way I heard it, when Taylor Swift dreams at night? She dreams she’s Molly Tuttle. And who could blame the poor woman? There’s always something left to want, no matter who you are.

Like new growth after a fire, there’s a wonderful crop of 30-ish bluegrass musicians creating a lot of great tunes  these days. These young ‘uns are right around the age now that I was when I met that moose on Route 12 in Vermont, which seems like a lifetime ago or just the other day, depending on which pair of glasses I’m wearing. Carrying on the legacy of the Carter family, John Hartford, John Prine, Doc Watson and other greats, these young men and women each play several instruments and they also all have great singing voices. With virtuoso picking and tight vocal harmonies, Sierra Hull, Billy Strings and the amazing  Molly  Tuttle–together with a bunch of other wonderful young artists—are breathing new life into old standbys while adding great new songs to the canon. Food for the soul, if you’re into that twangy stuff.

Life goes on, sometimes better than before.

Well, I could go on but this purebred Domestic Terrierist is acting like she needs to go outside again. She’s not above faking it just to see what I’ll do, but it’s a lot easier to open the door than to play chicken and then find out it wasn’t just a fire drill. If you get my drift.

So I sign off hoping you’re having a Happy Solstice, a Merry Christmas or a wonderful Kwanzaa—or just a good nap. Best Wishes for a Peaceful New Year, and I hope you’ll drop a line when the spirit moves you.

Copyright 2023 by Alan M. Puckett

Text of an e-mail I sent to President Biden through the whitehouse.gov Website, a few minutes ago:

The recent attacks on Israel shock us all and call for a strong response by Israel and her allies. Such crimes against civilians must not be tolerated. At the same time, Israel’s retaliatory actions in this time of crisis are reportedly also causing great harm to innocent civilians in Gaza. It is equally intolerable for the U.S. to condone or support these war crimes and human rights violations (indiscriminate bombing and shelling of populated areas; cutting off food, water and medicines; refusing to afford civilians safe egress from areas under attack, etc.) by a state which possesses great strength, including nuclear arms, against a stateless people. I call on you to demand that Israel treat Palestinian civilians with due care and respect now and at all times. The Palestinian people have as much right to be safe and respected in their homes as Israelis or Americans do.

For all the good it will do.

Copyright 2023  by Alan M. Puckett

The latest:

For three years now, I’ve followed national and local pandemic data—numbers of new coronavirus cases, COVID hospitalizations, and COVID deaths—and have also recorded anecdotal notes about how the pandemic has affected daily life in my community and around the country. One thing that was clear right from the start was that the country was caught in a profound tug-of-war between science and politics in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Well, Duh!, you say. But it’s really been a big deal, and perhaps more than any other factor this ongoing struggle has defined how the pandemic has unfolded in the U.S. In case anybody’s forgotten, we’ve lost well over a million American lives in this pandemic, with more dying daily. Our country is in a league of its own in terms of failing to cope effectively with COVID, despite having pulled together safe and effective vaccines in record time.

The failure of national, state and local “leaders” in the U.S. to implement fact-based policies in dealing with COVID-19 has largely continued under the Biden Administration, unfortunately, and it’s been discouraging to watch publicly-available sources of pandemic data—including what had been regularly-published summaries from the CDC, Johns Hopkins, and the New York Times—dry up during recent months due to an increasing scarcity of data and the discontinuation of timely data reporting from states. At this point it’s pretty much impossible to track local hotspots, the emergence of new variants, etc., in anything close to real time. Have we learned anything over the past three years? We’re pretending that the pandemic is “Over” and are now essentially flying blind in terms of tracking COVID.

But it’s not over. Around 150 Americans still die of COVID every day—more than 50,000 of us per year—based on the most recent CDC weekly data summary. Risk of severe illness and Long COVID remain serious threats as well. Unless we dramatically improve public health reporting policies and data infrastructure in this country we will remain needlessly vulnerable to new surges of the coronavirus pandemic, and to the emergence of new disease pathogens when—not if—those arise. By telling ourselves that “It’s Over” we are playing a high-stakes game of make-believe here, head-in-the-sand folly of the first order.

And we seem determined to continue the ostrich act. A piece published yesterday on the Website of The Guardian reports that the CDC is said to be finalizing plans to stop tracking the spread of COVID at the community level around the U.S. and to rely primarily on tracking COVID hospitalizations instead—“…signaling what could be the federal government’s readiness to reconsider priorities in its approach to the pandemic despite the World Health Organization’s declaration that it is still ongoing.”

Given that, I was heartened to see this op-ed in the NYT today, written by four co-authors who helped to build and operate the now-disbanded Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. That program was one of the principal COVID data tracking centers in the U.S. throughout most of the pandemic. The authors voice clearly and with the authority of their time in the trenches the dangers we face in allowing the U.S. to become a public health data desert. It’s one of the most important pieces of writing about public policy responses to COVID that I’ve read since the pandemic began, and thanks to its publication in a high-profile media venue will make it a bit more difficult for some who really should know better to keep up the ostrich charade about public health data. We can only hope that enough policymakers in the right places will manage to tear themselves away from the panting fray of our fractious politics long enough to read it.

Stay safe, I’ll keep you posted.

Lulu is gone and the house
is turgid with silence.
There are no sounds of her
snoring, farting, licking herself.
Things I never knew I’d miss.

The arc of her life was half complete
when we met; my life became
complete with her for company.
Now I’m completely miserable
without the clack of her nails on the floor.

In her last days she stumbled and fell again and again,
hardly a shadow of the playful dancer
and predatory athlete that she had been.
But she struggled back to her feet time after time.
She was such a brave girl–all heart, y’know?

Now her bedding is washed and folded,
her food and water bowls clean and dried,
the open can of wet food discarded with the compost.
But what can I do with her collar, the hairbrush,
the bin full of kibble, the rawhides?

Perhaps in time I’ll find another love,
but who will measure up
after such a friend, companion, partner?
Her last turd is still in the yard.
Maybe I’ll have it bronzed.

Copyright 2021 by Alan M. Puckett

Seattle

December 02, 2021 (Hey, that’s a palindrome: 12-02-2021 !)

Hi, Everybody—

So here I am, writing one of those All-Points Bulletin “To Whom It May Concern” holiday letters. What’s the world coming to, for cryin’ out loud? But greeting cards are harder to find this year and my old eyes get squiggly in short order when I sit down to scribble out more than a few lines by hand these days, so here it is: Happy Holidays! (Feel free to translate as appropriate in order to mollify the deity /-ies of your preference.)

A year ago I was telling whoever would listen what seemed obvious at the time: 2021 was sure to be a better year than the one we had just struggled through. We’d all get vaccinated in the new year; the economy would recover; and we’d finally be able to throw out that disgusting, moldy orange we were so sick of looking at.

Well, one out of three. At least the orange debris is gone to the compost pile, though not without a struggle. Democracy a dirty word in the U.S. of A.? Who knew?

In a belated effort to salvage any credibility I may have left, I’m not making predictions about much of anything this year. I’m done telling people what to eat or how to vote, or that they really should give yoga a try. If you can read this you already know what to do, so carry on.

After a hellish, scorching summer dry as a New Mexico drought year and periodically choked with wildfire smoke here, we’ve been getting caught up on our rainfall with a vengeance over the past couple of months. Those of us who haven’t been directly in the path of fires or floods this year know that we’ve been lucky, and are grateful. The ground is saturated now and after a few good windy blows it’s stick season here, with most of the trees standing bare and naked against the sky like skinny-dippers who haven’t worked up the courage to jump. Every fall and winter we see at least a few trees uprooted by strong winds after soaking rains, and the AmTrak line to the north between Seattle and Everett gets closed periodically due to landslides. Both these things have happened already this fall, but we’ve been much more fortunate right here in Rat City than folks in northwestern Washington and up into British Columbia, where there have been deaths and widespread property damage. Seems like Mother Earth might be trying to tell us something…

In early December at this latitude the sun makes a token appearance each day like the boss’s son who comes into the shop at 10am and leaves by 3pm. But the sun’s low arc to the south gives us a generous helping of warm rays through the front windows here at the Hermit Ranch, when it does show up for work. We’re grateful.

Some of the birds we see up this way are here all year ‘round: Black-Capped Chickadees; Dark-Eyed Juncos; American Robins; various Gulls (there are too many kinds, and too many of them—don’t get me started); Crows (ditto on their numbers, but only one variety here as far as I know); Surf Scoters that bob like corks in the treacherous waves along the rocky shore, and lots more. Western Towhees show up in my yard once in a while, easily mistaken for Robins with spiffier paint jobs (though no relation, far as I know). Western Scrub Jays also show up from time to time, looking like a Steller’s Jay in a tuxedo with sharper, brighter colors and a longer tail, but no mohawk on top. The Anna’s Hummingbird must have antifreeze in its veins, being the only hummer to stick around these parts through the cold months.

We also get winter migrants that drop down from points north, most of whom are here by now: Buffleheads and their cousin, the Goldeneye; Grebes; Common Mergansers, and other ducky folk. Thought I saw an Osprey a couple of weeks ago but didn’t get enough of a look to be sure; they’re common here in the summer and are fun to watch but it’s been six weeks or so since I spotted one for certain. I think the Harlequin Ducks are here year ‘round, but I don’t see them too often in my neck of the woods.

In the back yard, Towhees kick and pick at the ground as chickens do. A Northern Flicker digs in the grass with its rapier beak, always watchful as ground birds must be; raucous Steller’s Jays mouth off to whoever’s around. Juncos come and go in flash mobs, helping themselves to any grass seed I’m optimistic enough to spread on bare patches of ground.

On a morning walk along the water a couple of days ago a stiff, mild breeze from the south churned up whiteheads across the Sound. A flotilla of Mergansers bobbed and surfed offshore; a Bald Eagle soared and circled overhead in the updraft above a ridge just inland. Earlier this week a Harbor Seal moved along with me as I walked, swimming mostly underwater and more than matching my pace without apparent effort. A Great Blue heron stalked and waded along the rocky shallows, waiting for a careless flounder to volunteer itself for breakfast.

Sea lions are always here, though not as often where I walk these days as around the point on the leeward side of the West Seattle peninsula. It’s not hard to find them if one feels the need. Orcas and various whales turn up frequently in these parts, though I haven’t seen either with my own eyes in a couple of years. Harbor porpoises make an occasional appearance, usually moving like they’re late for an appointment somewhere. Gotta be in the right place at the right time to see any of those guys. Knowing that they’re here feels good, though, and keeps me watching when I’m near the water. The continuing rhythms of the natural world are a source of comfort and a respite from the follies we humans inflict on ourselves and each other.

On the other hand, murder hornets haven’t turned up in my backyard yet, but they keep finding them about an hour north of here—so that may be a matter of time, unfortunately. It’s always something, y’know?

With the state of the country and the world these days it seems uncertain what the next year will bring, or if we’ll all be here to see whatever does transpire. I’m sad that we lost my sister Peg’s husband, Randy, this year—he was the gentlest and most kind-hearted of all the Pucketts. Oh, wait–Randy wasn’t a Puckett. OK. Well anyway, I’m sad that he’s gone after being part of our family for more than 50 years, and of course the rest of us never know when our time will come. So my New Year’s resolution is to be more like Randy while I’m still here.

My previous statement about predictions notwithstanding, I’ll go out on a limb here: it seems a reasonable bet that 2022 will be an(other) interesting twelve months, one way or another. Ah, boredom—we miss you!

Whatever happens, I hope the holidays and the coming year are peaceful in your part of the world and that you find something to make you marvel or grin or laugh too loudly at least once in a while, during 2022 and beyond.  

Stay safe, I’ll write again next year.