What traditions have you not kept that your parents had?

I do not make coleslaw for parties.

My mother did. Every family gathering, every one, my mother got out the Veg-a-matic and made my dad shred heads of cabbage for the salad. She would make either creamy coleslaw with Miracle Whip and lemon juice, or oil-and-vinegar coleslaw from the Betty Crocker Cookbook.

Years later, I found out that Mom didn’t like to make coleslaw. She tired of it quickly. But her sisters insisted she make the coleslaw because she was so good at it. (And likely because they didn’t want to have to shred pounds of cabbage.)

I do not make coleslaw for the gatherings I get invited to. Maybe I should?

‘Impossible’ gets my vote on an overused word in the sense of “It can’t happen here,” usually after it has, in fact, happened.

People build in 100-year flood plains assuming that repeated flooding in ten years is impossible. Nuclear power plants have been designed not foreseeing some possibilities for malfunctioning.

I know it’s said out of a sense of denial, a malabsorption of the facts. If something has happened, however, it is possible. Often there’s a sense of deniability in the word as well, as if saying “It’s impossible” absolves one of not foreseeing the possibility that it could happen.

If something is low probability, it’s not impossible.

Before I received treatment for my bipolar disorder, the predominant positive emotion I felt was elation. Elation is great until it edges upward into a state of jagged agitation and anxiety, and then crashes into despair. Elation also came with judgment lapses, and although my lapses weren’t severe, they’re things I don’t want to go through again.

Nowadays, my most common positive emotion is contentment. Contentment is a grounded state that is my default these days. It feels much more comfortable and sustainable. I feel more able to cope with the world.

Do I miss elation? Sometimes I do, because elation was a fleeting high, one which was very attractive. But then I remember the rest of the baggage that came with it, and I don’t want to go back there. I prefer contentment with its satisfying continuity.

“Township bonds won’t be certified”. Maryville Forum, July 10, 2025

The assignment was to find some uninteresting news and tie it into my life. I find most news interesting, but this article from my hometown paper about three townships in Nodaway County, MO, not getting road bonds certified failed to capture my imagination.

The townships in question failed certification because they had not advertised the election to pass the bonds in local newspapers, which happened in part because newspapers in the area are no longer daily.

This affects me because I am a Nodaway County resident, and although I don’t travel through those townships often, I pass through them occasionally. If this delays roadwork in the townships, I may ride some bumpy roads. Some roads in this county could use some repair, especially the more rural county roads.

The hardest part of this assignment was finding uninteresting news. I find news interesting, especially human interest news. Writers of news articles don’t try to write boring news. My attention got hooked on an article about a lawsuit. The lawsuit was against police in St. Joseph for withholding information that would have exonerated a woman wrongfully imprisoned for 45 years.

Everything connects to something, sooner or later. I suppose it would have been harder connecting some shipping news to my condition, but I could have done it, because my mind works that way.

I hold doors for men.

Well, I hold doors for everyone behind me, but I include men in this. It seems only polite, although it was not something I was brought up with. I’m sixty-one, after all, and in the era of my childhood, we didn’t hold doors for men. If you were a man, you were on your own.

It’s not a big act of kindness, but it is one that I can exercise daily. A common courtesy, in fact. Something that just makes sense, especially if someone has held the previous door open for me.

I don’t know how men feel about this. They seem to appreciate it.

I don’t think of habits and joy in the same sentence. Habits are things you do, often out of health or obligation. I don’t get a sense of joy in brushing my teeth or doing a load of dishes.

There is one habit, though, that I get joy out of, and that is going to sleep. I love sleeping. It’s like a reset for my mind and body. My dreams are sometimes annoying (I have a lot of ‘not being prepared for class’ sorts of dreams) but often they’re interesting and pleasant.

I smile as I fall asleep. It’s a relief and an experience.

What am I curious about? Many different things, often having nothing to do with each other.

I seek out medical topics. Not so deep that I am reading medical cases and playing “name that diagnosis”, but I look up diseases and learn symptoms. I would make a perfect hypochondriac if it weren’t for the fact I’m often right in my self-diagnosis.

I am interested in molecular biology, but not enough to study it. I think it’s fascinating that each of our cells has a miniature version of the systems that input, use energy, and output.

I am curious about rumors. I hear this is not a good thing to be, but nonetheless I find myself wanting to know more.

I wonder about about how my cats perceive me. I have read that they don’t consider me an overgrown kitten, but why do they insist on cleaning my face?

These are just a few things I’m curious about. There are more. I am a rather curious person.

The word I would use to describe myself is exuberant. I am a cheerful person, and one who is not restrained in my approach to life. I love life, and life makes me laugh. Exuberant is a good word.

I am not a small woman in any way. Even when I lose weight, I will never be small. I was not made to be small. Big and exuberant will have to be the way I appear in life.

I wonder if sometimes I’m too much, but I can’t be anyone but myself.

The prompt asks, “If you had two free plane tickets, where would you go?”

My answer is unusual. I have always wanted to go to Svalbard, Norway, specifically Longyearbyen. Why? Because it’s so isolated. I would love to go there in summer, because I always wanted to see what a day with no night would be like. I also would like to go there in the winter for the Northern Lights.

Svalbard lies above the Arctic Circle and is appropriately icy and cold. It is the home of the Svalbard Global Seed Bank and one of my favorite Internet radio stations, Arctic Outpost, which plays the real oldies (1902-1958). It is also the home of many polar bears, and you are not allowed to hike outside Longyearbyen unarmed.

I don’t really know why I’m fascinated by Longyearbyen other than its reputation of being the northernmost city in the world. It’s a town of 2400 people (approximately), smaller than the place I grew up. And it’s cold, with summer temperatures from 37-46 degrees Fahrenheit (or 3-7 degrees Celsius). Winter temperatures are 8.6°F (-13°C). I won’t be going outside much.

My husband would rather go to New Zealand, which is a much more reasonable place to travel to. But I want to go to a place few people have gone to (or want to go to) for a singular experience.