Even though I am still really tired, I am bowled over by the beauty of my clients this season.

I was not expecting any gifts or even any cards, but my clients are kind of blowing me away with their kindness. Yesterday, one of my clients gave me a gift and a Christmas card that sort of took my breath away — and when I thanked her for it, the beautiful things she said to me about the job I do for her and her husband brought tears to my eyes.

It’s a difficult mix between knowing I will be alone this Christmas because my dad is gone now and I basically have no family left who are still speaking to me, and my friends are far away, spending Christmas with their families.

So the fact that I will actually be spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with clients who genuinely care about me — it is hard to process that mix of gratitude, love, loss.

I have to say, though, I am really looking forward to spending Christmas Day with my 94-year-old Japanese client that I adore so much!!

We have such an incredible time when we are together. He and I have so many unlikely things in common that I could do a whole blog post about it.

When I saw him on Wednesday, in the course of our conversations, he said, “I only have a couple more minutes to live.”

And I said, “Do you think you could hold out for another week, because I’ll be coming here on Christmas and I’d hate to be here all by myself.”

He laughed. and he said, “Okay. I’ll hold on another week…”

I’m expecting Christmas Day with him to be just beautiful.

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Anyway. I digress!

There is NO NEWS, gang!! It’s getting insane! The amount of stuff that they are pretending is happening that is not really happening….

I’ve been to Telegram, YouTube, Truth Social, Rumble, X….. and it is all the same.

This is not “news” but it’s interesting, if not sickening. You should probably read it.

From Mike King’s Anti-NY Times:

“Communist Cuba was Made in the USA

“…Most Americans over the age of 45, and certainly all readers of The Anti-New York Times, should already know that Fidel Castro was a Communist dictator who ruined Cuba — driving its mostly White upper and middle classes to flee to Florida while the communist state and its rabble hordes dispossessed productive Cubans who stayed. There was celebration in the Cuban enclaves of Union City, NJ and Miami, FL when the unrepentant old bastard finally died in 2016..

Of more interest to our eager students of real history is the long-since forgotten story of the mighty media organization that dusted off the badly defeated rebel, put him back on his feet, and helped to install him as dictator. That’s right, boys and girls. Without the maneuvering of Sulzberger’s Slimes (aka “the paper of record”) — specifically the pro-communist correspondent Herbert Matthews (cough cough) — and the Evil Eisenhower-Dulles State Department, Castro’s revolution of 1959 would never have succeeded..[…]”

[full article here]

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And in other news–

Nick Cave sent out the best Red Hand File yesterday!! It’s all about how he is going to be spending Christmas — with his family, and going to church.

I have to tell you, gang, just knowing that he is going to have such a perfect Christmas is going to make my own Christmas that much happier. It really is. I’m going to get a lot of joy out of just thinking about it.

He said, in part:

“…And somewhere, amid the feasting and joyful human messiness – this beautiful, this happy, this sorrowful estate – I will acknowledge how extraordinarily fortunate my family and I are to have this good Christmas Day. I will remember, too, amongst all the making and the doing, the energising principle around which this day revolves that speaks so eloquently of rebirth and renewal, and the end to waiting – that of a mother bearing a child in a stable, revitalising the world for all eternity.”

You can read it in full here.

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And our Daily Feature is quite fitting today!

What Would Keith Richards Do?

Our random selection comes from Chapter Five: Daily Affirmations. And the topic is — CHILDREN (!!).

Keith says:

“They give you that little bit — that important bit of living when you absolutely don’t know shit about nothing.”

Who could say it better ???

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And that is actually it for today. I essentially have the “whole day off”, but then, tonight, I will be with that sweet 99-year-old blind lady, who lives out in the middle of deep, dark, snowy nowhere with 3 huge happy dogs and two big rascally black cats.

It’s a full house and it’s full of love, gang.

Okay.

Enjoy your Friday, wherever you are in the world.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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I leave you with this.

The 94-year-old Japanese man had the great good fortune of seeing “South Pacific” on Broadway (in 1950), back when it was brand new and the legendary Mary Martin was starring in it.

What a fantastic show it is– the music, alone, is incredible. Imagine anyone being able to experience that show, live, on stage, when it was brand new. Let alone, being a young Japanese-American, who spent his childhood in Japan, during WWII, then returning to NYC at age 17, and then seeing a show like “South Pacific”.

He and I discuss that show all the time, actually. It’s a show I just love. And I adored Mary Martin when I was a little girl.

Last night, by candlelight, I lay in my bed, listening to a few of the songs from “South Pacific”, but once I landed on the song below, I couldn’t stop playing it!!! “This Nearly Was Mine”. I just kept thinking about the miracle that I have even met this amazing man so late in his life. It is such a blessing to me, to be able to hear about the stories of his life — they are extraordinary. Okay. Enjoy, gang!!

“This Nearly Was Mine”

One dream in my heart
One love to be livin’ for
One love to be livin’ for
This nearly was mine

One girl for my dream
One partner in paradise
This promise of paradise
This nearly was mine

Close to my heart she came
Only to fly away
Only to fly as day flies from moonlight
Now, now I’m alone
Still dreamin’ of paradise
Still sayin’ that paradise
Once nearly was mine

I’ll keep rememberin’ kisses
From lips I’ve never owned
And all the lovely adventures
That we have never known

One dream in my heart
One love to be livin’ for
One love to be livin’ for
This nearly was mine

c – 1949 Rodgers & Hammerstein