Peg Kerr's Journal

Today

2026-06-12T19:04:12Z

Today is my granddaugther's birthday. M is one year old today!

It sort of kills me that I post no pictures of her. You'll just have to take my word for it: she is adorable.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 23: Wound Care

2026-06-12T18:55:11Z

Wound care, for me, is love.

In his battle with lymphoma, Rob had a large tumor removed from his scalp--several times, as it tended to grow back. As part of his care, I was taught by the nurses at Mayo Clinic how to dress it several times a week as it healed, which took months.

The first time I did it, I could barely bring myself to go through the motions, afraid of hurting him, of even looking at the area.

But gradually, what at first had been intimidating became bearable and finally routine, just part of the way I cared for him. It was hands-on, part of the way I interacted with the physicality of what he was going through, and yes, part of the way I showed him that I loved him.

In the past couple of years, as my mother has aged, my siblings and I have all stepped up to be more hands-on in assisting her. One of the things I personally do is to help her with her shower once a week. As I was already doing that, and I had experience because of the assistance I gave Rob, I was the natural person to take on the role when her fragile skin on one of her legs developed a tear. Blood flow becomes less robust in elderly skin, so healing can be slow.

It's been three months, and I'm still dressing an area on her calf once a week (the other two times a week she is helped by a visiting nurse who changes the dressing).

In the past week, this took a bit more attention. The change in my schedule due to a medical procedure I was undergoing meant I had to coordinate with the visiting nurses to arrange a change to all three dates that we did the wound care over the course of the week. The nurse and I also consulted with her physician this week: was her ankle swelling a bit too much? What to do about the dry skin? Was the wound stable, or was there an infection?

I don't mind doing wound care. It feels, in fact, like a way I show my mother love. She cared for me as a baby in the most personal way possible. Now each week after I help her with her shower, I rub lotion on her skin and help her dress. And every week, I give her a foot rub before pulling out the latex gloves, the scissors, the cleansing spray, the emulsifying wrap, and the gauze and get to work. The foot massage is not only to increase the blood flow to her feet, but a way to give her my touch, to give her comfort, and to remind her, each and every week, that she is being cared for by those who love her.

Image description: Background: various medical implements used in wound care. Left: a pair of hands wearing latex gloves hold a two-foot length of medical gauze. Behind the medical gauze: a pair of feet of an elderly woman, crossed casually at the ankles. Bottom: the hand of an elderly woman holds a caregiver's hand.

Wound Care

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 22: Quiet

2026-06-06T16:43:41Z

I had a medical procedure scheduled for this past week, but I was uncertain whether it would be able to go forward because of my cough. If the anaesthesiologist said the cough was too severe, it would be canceled.

Accordingly, my priority this past week was quiet and rest, trying to get my cough to calm down. Annoyingly, the air quality in the Twin Cities remained problematic, so I couldn't sit outside on my porch.

So I stayed behind shut doors, near my air filters. I took showers with shower bombs infused with peppermint and eucalyptus. I drank oceans of tea to try to calm my coughing. I ate cough drops until I was sick of the taste. I curtailed my exercise.

I simply rested.

(My efforts were successful and I underwent the procedure last Thursday. I was recovering yesterday, which is why this collage is a day late.)

Image description: A door is ajar at night. Light outlines the crack, but the opposite of the door is a field of stars. An owl at rest sits peacefully in the lower left corner, eyes closed. Upper left corner: a blooming white poppy (signifying rest) with a glowing full moon shining at its center.

Quiet

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 21: Breathless

2026-05-29T17:20:02Z

I'm going to keep this short because it's such a bore to go on and on about my personal health. And there have been too many collages on that subject this year. My sister once passed along a humorous observation from her brother-in-law, a retired pastor, about the dangers of visiting his elderly parishioners: you have to sit through the organ recital.

I would spare you, but there really isn't anything else I can do a collage about because the sudden flare-up of my spring allergies (I am violently allergic to tree pollen) necessitated the cancellation of all of my plans for the week. I didn't go out, I canceled walking with my friends, I didn't make it to church, I barely did my volunteer work, and I canceled a planned and much-anticipated day trip with a couple friends to a bird sanctuary in Wisconsin, which just SUCKED.

It's been very frustrating. I can't sit out on my front porch and eat breakfast. I can't go outside without wearing a mask. I spent most of my concentration on simply trying to breathe this week. In desperation, I got a virtual urgent care visit on Saturday to get a prescription for a steroid inhaler, but due to the holiday, it couldn't be filled until Tuesday.

I have several doses under my belt, and I'm starting to feel a little better, thank goodness.

Um. I did finish another chapter this week, and I'm quite pleased with it. That's something else to talk about, yes?

Image description: Background: a circle of the tops of trees silhouetted against a blue sky, seen from a view looking straight up. Top: dangling catkins holding birch tree pollen. Center: a woman's face, her eyes screwed shut, holding a tissue to her nose. Lower center: a blue medical mask, overlaid by an inhaler.

Breathless

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 20: Busy

2026-05-22T23:12:13Z

I noted with some bemusement that I had twelve different appointments on my calendar this week.

Some were just for fun: I went to my sister-in-law's retirement party (she has been serving as my financial planner). It was a really lovely event, with an astounding charcuterie spread that stretched along an enormous table--the image I chose didn't come close to capturing the scale. I got together with a friend to watch a movie based on a book we'd both enjoyed as chidren.

I had a doctor's appointment as preparation for a procedure I will be having in a week and a half. I went out to see my mom (I took her to a doctor's appointment today, and I will be going back tomorrow to help her with some personal care.) I had a writing group meeting (fortunately, not so much critiquing was involved with this meeting, as I was the only one who submitted this month, so everyone else was critiquing ME). I had my usual Zoom writing sessions four mornings a week with some of my writing friends, although I was moving so much this week that I didn't make all of them. I kept the balls in the air with the volunteer group I'm running. I purchased a new computer as I'm running out of space on this one (I should be getting delivery tomorrow). I bought stuff for the garden and got at least some of them into the ground. I moved my house plants onto the front porch for the summer.

All in all, I was quite a busy little bee, which is why a bee has shown up in the image.

Image description: Background, dimly perceived behind other figures: a page of a monthly calendar. Top: a medical worker takes blood pressure on a woman's arm. Center left: a woman's hand takes popcorn from a movie popcorn container. Center right: a laptop seen from above, with a woman's hands on the keyboard. A spreadsheet is displayed on the screen. Lower right: an elaborate charcuterie spread on a wooden board. Above the board: a honeybee with pollen loaded on its hind legs sips nectar from a flower.

Busy

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 19: Doors Open

2026-05-15T17:55:48Z

Since 2023, Minneapolis has been holding a free event in May every year called Doors Open. It is an “open house” event that takes place across dozens of venues in Minneapolis, inviting participants to explore the city’s story through its buildings and meaningful spaces. Here is the list of venues that was open for Doors Open 2026.

I've always thought it a good idea, because I think it's important to know about the place where you live. This is the third time that Eric and I have done it. The first year, we walked to the top of the Witch's Hat Tower (gorgeous views, but freezing weather, and I genuinely feared the wind would blow us off the top platform.) The last time we went, we toured the Scottish Rite Masonic Center, where we learned a lot of interesting history of Masons in Minnesota.

This year we went to the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center, located right at George Floyd Square, and the Purcell-Cutts House, one of Minnesota's foremost examples of the Prairie School of architecture which is now maintained by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

At the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center, we got to watch artists who were working at welding and blacksmithing, and we chatted for awhile with an artist who holds jewelry classes. As the name implies, the center specializes in all arts that use fire or spark.

The Purcell-Cutts House had Prairie School furniture that matched the architectural style, and it was absorbing to tour the space and learned about the families that lived there.

We plan to go again next year.

Image description: Top half: a neon sign reading "Neonistics" partially obscured by two figures: a figure in a welding hood welding a sheet of metal on the left and a woman hammering a glowing metal rod on an anvil. Top: a sign that reads "Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center." Bottom Half: an elegant house with tall windows built in the Prairie School style, with the words "Purcell-Cutts House." Center: the words "Doors Open Minneapolis."

Doors Open

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 18: May Day

2026-05-08T18:52:57Z

May Day this year was spectacular and beautiful and badly needed.

The weather was absolutely perfect: a deep blue sky with only a very occasional wisp of cloud, with a slight breeze and pleasant temperature.

One of the things that needs to be gauged carefully each year is when to show up. Show up too late, and it is impossible to find space on the curb to watch the parade. Show up too early, and it can be a very long time to wait (with no convenient porta-potties nearby). This year, I judged it perfectly. The parade started at 12:00 noon, but I had picked my spot and was seated in the shade by 10:30 a.m. Some years, I have been content with a blanket on the curb, but this year, given the problem I've been having with my hips, I decided to bring a foldable camp chair, an excellent decision, and I was entirely comfortable.

I brought a mini picnic for myself and my reading tablet, and spent part of my time reading and part of it watching the crowd. Bicycles and unicycles zipped back and forth, and entrepreneurial vendors trundled wheeled carts past the gathering crowd, selling food and drinks, pinwheels, and balloons. Eventually, people in costumes started drifting by: an elderly couple dressed in silk robes, carrying walking staffs hung with ribbons and crystals, a tuba player striding quickly on his way to join a band at the parade starting place, dressed in a colorful costume with sunblowers stitched to his trousers. I saw a man in a gorgeously sequinned dress skate by on rollerblades.

Eventually, both sides of the street swelled with a huge, excited crowd, and the parade began, an extraordinary explosion of color. All the floats were human-powered, and all the parade participants were brimming with joy, calling out to the onlookers, "Happy May Day!" Women dressed in fluttering chiffon, silks, feather boas, and ribbons carried poles mounted with papier-mache bees, teasing the children in the crowd, lowering the poles so that the bees 'gathered nectar" from the flowers they wore in their hair. Bicycles tricked out with cardboard painted as colorful alebrijes, fire horses, dragons, and beetles streamed by. A float representing a snow plow named "Abolish Ice" pushed cardboard federal ICE cars ahead of it with its shovel. A huge loon towered over the crowd, flapping its wings. Aztec dancers danced down the street (some of them did the entire parade barefoot), shaking jingle belts and tamborines, beating drums, and smudging the crowd with clouds of burning sage. Several bands marched by in motley costumes, and the Southside Battle Train revved up the crowd, led by a Tyrannosaurus rex that cheerfully snapped its jaws at the crowd. A newly married couple marched by, accompanied by cheering friends and family, carrying a banner introducing them to the onlookers. Hari Krishna adherents, chanting, a huge trans flag carried by people of all ages, people dressed up as locusts and whistles and lotus flowers, members of a boxing gym, representatives of the postal union, protesting against ICE, and more.

When the parade had passed by, the crowd gathered their chairs and blankets and streamed into Powderhorn Park. After the usual couple of hours' delay, the Ceremony was held at the edge of Blanket Hill, culminating in the rowing of the Sun across the lake to raise the Tree of Life on the shore.

A small group of friends gathered in the spot where we have assembled for years. To my delight, Fiona, Alona, and M were there. M grinned and chortled and flirted with everyone and did her dogged best to eat every speck of dirt around herself as far as her little arms could reach, a wreath of flowers in her hair.

A perfect May Day and a perfect day.

Background: a perfectly blue sky. Upper Right: A woman in a hat and sunglasses (Peg) smiles at the camera. A sign just below her face reads "L♥ve wins." The End. Upper left: an Aztec dancer in full regalia. Center: A loon rampant spreads its wings. In front and slightly to the left of the loon: the May Day Sun. Lower portion: The May Day Tree of Life spreads its arms wide, upheld by a crowd dressed in red.

May Day

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 17: Pelvis

2026-05-01T20:40:20Z

As I mentioned before, I received a diagnosis several months ago for the pain in my pelvis: I have gluteal tendonopathy and bursitis. The inflammation also includes the SI (sacroiliac) joint. I have been doing physical therapy for several months, and things were a little better, but I have been plateauing for a while.

Finally, absolutely fed up with the decreased mobility and the pain, I made an appointment with a pain specialist and quickly arranged to get steroid injections in my SI joint and my gluteal trochanter last week. It was not fun, and the results will take a while to emerge (3 to 14 days).

I have been monitoring my step asymmetry with my Apple watch, and my limp had been pretty bad. It is getting a little better, and I can walk farther. The pain hasn't entirely gone away, but I am hoping things will continue to improve. Anyway, I'm glad I did it, and maybe I'll be able to exercise a bit more consistently now.

Image description: Background: Lavender flowers (representing serenity and physical healing). Center: a human skeleton with a figure eight-shaped thorny bramble over the pelvis. Behind the skeleton at the pelvis: an orange calendula blossom (representing comfort and recovery). At the right side, a hand in a surgical glove angles a syringe so that the point hovers just above the pelvis.

Pelvis

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Black belt

2026-04-30T22:03:07Z

I got my karate black belt exactly 15 years ago.

I have been decluttering, and I finally threw out my old karate bag this week, with all my old, moldering sparring equipment. I will clearly not use it again.
But I am grateful for what karate brought to my life--even if my knees and hips are not.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 16: Spring

2026-04-24T17:32:35Z

In a lot of ways, this is my favorite time of year. Taxes are done! Porch season has begun, so I can start eating my breakfast outside. It's not too hot, and it's not too cold. There's no need to shovel, there's no need to rake leaves, and it's a little early to start mowing.

So all you have to do is to relax and enjoy the flowers that are starting to spring up. Forsythia blooms in April, and my tulip bed is making a splendid show. Pretty soon the lilacs and apple blossoms will be blooming.

It's too early to garden (the frost date is usually assumed to be around Mother's Day), but not early to start garden dreaming. Everything is potential, and you don't have to weed yet!

Image description:Background: a chart showing high and low temperatures for April and May. The chart is bordered by orange tulips (bottom), forsythia (left side), pansies (right side) and pink bleeding hearts (top).

Spring

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 15: Homecoming

2026-04-17T20:03:15Z

My two sisters and I drove down to the Chicago area last weekend, where we joined up with our brother in an Air B&B and spent the weekend visiting relatives, friends, and the old haunts of our childhood.

I grew up in Park Ridge on the northwest side of the city of Chicago. We had a lot of fun recounting stories. It was an idyllic place to grow up, albeit sheltered and non-diverse. Park Ridge has a beautiful city center, and many of the places we remember are still there. I loved seeing the public library, where I learned to love reading, and the Pickwick Theater, a gorgeous Art Nouveau building that is on the National Register of historic places, which still regularly shows movies today.

The area has had a lot of rain, and the lawns were startling green, and forsythia bushes and magnolia trees were blooming all over the city. We had a lot of fun driving around, enjoying the beautiful architecture and rediscovering the homes of our friends.

Park Ridge was a dry town while we were growing up, but now restaurants can serve alcohol, and there is a very thriving restaurant scene in the buildings overlooking the railroad tracks, where trains run to and from downtown Chicago. We met with several old friends. An old high school classmate of mine spied me through a restaurant window at one point and ran out into the street to hug me. We had coffee with my brother's former prom date, and had breakfast with another high school friend of my sister's and dinner with a third.

We met my uncle Tom and his wife Charlotte for lunch in his senior apartment, and we also met with my Aunt Susie, who is in a different senior community very close to where we were staying.

We spent an afternoon driving around Evanston, the city where our parents were raised. There, we saw the homes of our grandparents and great-grandparents, and stopped by Lighthouse Beach, where we swam in Lake Michigan as children.

We ended the trip with an evening at one of my cousins' homes, where we enjoyed a potluck dinner together. We spent the evening telling stories and laughing, and passing around old photographs and a high school yearbook.

It was wonderful to visit the old hometown.

Image description: Bottom: a one-story home with an open front porch. Behind the house: Peg and her three siblings smile at the camera. Behind them, another family grouping smiles at the camera. Behind them, top: upper left tower of Pickwick Theater, center: lighthouse, upper right: the sign for Sugar Bowl restaurant.

Homecoming

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 14: Minicon

2026-04-06T20:42:38Z

Sending this out a little early.

Minion 59 was this past weekend. I stayed at the hotel, and to my joy, Delia joined me. I really appreciate it when a member of the family comes to Minicon with me.

Somewhat rashly, I had signed up for a glut of panels. I had a reading, too, which was relatively well attended, considering that it scheduled rather early in the con. I read from the latest chapter of my book in progress, and people seemed to enjoy it well enough.

I definitely had a good time, with excellent conversations, although I found myself getting tired in the evenings and was glad I had decided to get a hotel room. (I also ate way too much.) I made some nice acquisitions in the dealer's room, including a new sterling silver ring and my first set of gaming dice ("Baby's first gaming dice!" lydamorehouse exclaimed when I showed them off to her). I liked them because of the leaf motif on the sides of the dice.

I've done collages about Minicon in the past, because it's such an important event for me each year (I've been attending since, I think, 1988). It's getting increasingly challenging, however, to come up with something new. The flying saucer is an enormous blow-up thing that sits in the Garden Court each year. The picture of the various guests of honor and convention personnel was taken at Closing Ceremonies, where traditionally people in the audience bat around ballons. I always miss Rob during Closing Ceremonies--we would separate as we each enjoyed the con, but we always came to sit together at Closing Ceremonies.

One thing that was announced at the Closing Ceremony is that I will be one of the two Guests of Honor at Diversicon this year, which will take place July 24-26.

Image description: Bottom: a panel of speakers sit at a long table. Background: a view of deep space. Center: a flying saucer hovers over a field of flying ballons. Top: Peg's schedule at Minicon (a reading and six panels).

Minicon

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 13: Ikebana

2026-04-03T02:02:16Z

I'm getting this out a little early because I'm heading to Minicon tomorrow.

I got together with a friend, Rebecca, for another Year of Adventure event: she spent a couple of pleasant hours teaching me some of the very basic principles of ikebana, or Japanese flower arrangement (she has been studying the practice for a number of years). I recognized some of what she explained to me about the principles of Japanese design from what I know about bonsai, and from some articles I'd read about Japanese fashion.

These arrangements are meant to evoke tranquility. They emphasize asymmetry, minimalism, and negative space. Rebecca demonstrated how to a build the structure using a kenzan (a spiky metal pin frog) to secure stems in a shallow bowl.

Traditionally, ikebana focuses on three elements: Shin (heaven - the tallest line), Soe (earth - the supporting line), and Hikae (human - the balancing line). The stems you choose for each are set at specific angles in the most formal style. We played around with free form. I had no idea what I was doing, of course, but it was fun and absorbing, and I was genuinely proud of my first effort.

Since Japanese ikebana emphasizes minimalism, this collage is very simple: a picture of my arrangement displayed on a table top. The only other element I added is the enso symbol in the upper right, a circle which may be closed (perfection) or open (the beauty of imperfection).

The enso is the symbol of the Japanese aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi, which is about embracing the beauty found in imperfection, transience, and the natural cycle of growth and decay. Ikebana embodies this by celebrating the fleeting beauty of life.

Image description: An ikebana flower arrangement in a white vase with eucalyptus leaves, pussy willows, sea holly, and white tulips sits on a table. Upper right corner: an enso circle.

Ikebana

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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My Minicon Schedule

2026-04-01T13:37:11Z

For those unfamiliar, Minicon is a science fiction/fantasy convention held in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis, specifically) on Easter weekend every year. I've been attending since, oh, 1988 or so?

Scheduled events where you can find me:

Thursday: Maybe I'll go to Opening Ceremonies, but not likely.

Friday:

READING: 12:00 Noon Peg Kerr. I will have a half hour time slot and I'll be reading from the work in progress. Bonus: in the scene I will be reading, I'll be bringing back a character from Emerald House Rising.

7 PM – Books We Cull, Books We Keep: Curating your personal library.

8:30 PM - Research and World-Building, or "Write the Story Already !"

Saturday:

10 AM – The Enduring Allure of Regency Romance

7 PM - On Writing Badly [heaven knows I know a lot about this]

8:30 PM - Reading Dystopia vs. Living Dystopia

Sunday:

11:30 AM – How to Create a Character

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 12: Dissolving

2026-03-27T21:34:39Z

I made three entire collages this week, and rejected the first two of them. I guess they were aesthetically fine, but they were about subjects I'd touched on before, and I was dissatisfied that I was saying anything new and didn't feel like rehashing everything.

My problem was partly that I didn't feel I had much to work with this week, because I fell ill partway through the week, and everything dissolved into that. At first, I was afraid I had contracted Covid, as some of the symptoms matched. Everything became a blur, and I was barely able to care for myself (Eric, bless him, did do an emergency grocery run for me). I did order Covid tests from the drugstore and had them delivered, but I kept testing negative.

After three days of blurred and surreal misery, I recovered. Eventually, I decided it was just a particularly virulent general bug with a heaping side of extremely gross gastrointestinal effects.

Okay, not very interesting to do yet another collage about being sick, either. But what particularly struck me about falling ill this time was how very helpless and isolated I felt. And that, more than the illness itself, is what I tried to capture in the images I used.

I experimented with technical effects to do this, extracting the figure on the bed and mixing it with an image of bare tree branches, and then overlaying the result back over the same position on the bed (keeping the bed itself in clear focus). I then used the same tree branches as a scrim overlay in the background. I was trying to capture the sense of dissolving, the fear that I might actually fade into nothingness and not be able to come back.

I did come back. This time.

I always have a lurking fear that I won't manage to do so the next time.

Image description: Foreground: a woman lies on a bed, either asleep or ill. The bed is focused but the woman is indistinct, as if run through by cracks. Background above the bed: the blurred image of a woman with closed eyes, overlaid by a scrim of semitransparent leafless branches.

Dissolving

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 11: Hurkle Durkling

2026-03-20T21:55:14Z

There is an archaic Scottish term that I have become rather fond of as of late: "hurkle durkling," which refers to the practice of lingering in bed, long past the hour that one should be getting up and busy with daily affairs.

This past weekend, the Twin Cities experienced a snowstorm. I ran errands and went to the grocery store (what a madhouse) on Saturday.

On Sunday, everything was cancelled. The newspaper was cancelled. Church was cancelled. All the stores were closed. The day involved some serious lounging about. I did eventually get out and shovel the front and back walk. I had a kind neighbor who took his snowblower to my driveway and the sidewalk in front of the house, however, so I managed to avoid the worst of the chore.

The snow wasn't as deep as some of the weather predictions had speculated it might be, but it was enough to grind the city to a halt. And it turned out that I didn't mind. A quiet descended over everything: call it winter's last hurrah.

Yes, indeed: I found that I really didn't mind a bit.

Image description: background: a city street where the road and all the parked cars are covered with snow. Lower third: rumpled bed covers with a tray holding a teapot and cookies resting on top. A woman's feet in red and white striped socks are stretched out beside the tray.

Hurkle Durkling

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 10: Manager

2026-03-13T18:30:26Z

As I have referred to obliquely before, I am Doing Something with regard to the events in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

I was pulled in as a volunteer, oh, perhaps a month and a half ago. I was asked to set up the project, and despite my genuine nervousness at the responsibility I was handed, I did. I analyzed what needed to get done, wrote documentation to describe the process, and handled it alone for three days. Then more volunteers were added, and I was asked to train them. Then the team was doubled again, and I had to train them, too, and incorporate them into the team. Then I had to set up a couple of subteams, hold standup meetings, and start thinking about process, team building, donor relations, technological security, resource sharing, and budget.

Rather to my astonishment, now that I have retired, I have become for the first time in my career, no kidding, an actual manager, overseeing a team of ten people.

Over the last week, things have ratcheted up, and the phrase "It's like herding cats" has definitely floated across my mind.

I've been told I'm rather good at it. But it's a bit daunting. I'm definitely spending more hours at it than I spent at my job at the Synod.

Wow. I'm an actual manager. Who knew?

Image description: Lower third: a double monitor showing a world map, and a hand holding a phone, also showing a map. Center: a hand holds a marker writing the words "Project Planning" in red letters. Just below stands a row of cats, lurching forward in an uneven line. Upper right: a partial view of a woman with the word "Manager" superimposed over her. Upper left: Signal icon.

Manager

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 9: Administration

2026-03-07T00:42:28Z

This was one of the weeks where the theme of this week's collage wasn't immediately obvious. I was buried in administrative projects, which included the work I'm not talking about relating the ICE Metro Surge here in Minnesota, various Things That Had to Get Done, and taxes. I checked a lot of things off my personal checklist this week, but feel stiff and logey, as I spent much too much time stuck behind a computer screen rather than being up and moving around.

Taxes are now done and filed, and I will be getting a modest return back.

As I worked on the collage during a Zoom get-together with friends today, I fretted about the collage as I assembled it. Sometimes I really like what I put together, and sometimes I'm vaguely dissatisfied. "It's boring," I complained to my friends.

"Put a dragon in it," Eleanor Arnason told me. "Dragons always make everything better."

You will notice the small brass dragon paperweight to the right of the keyboard.

Image description: Lower half: a woman's hands rest on the keyboard of a laptop. A spreadsheet is displayed on the screen. A cup of coffee and a brass dragon paperweight rests on the table to the right of the keyboard. Upper half: a heap of notebooks and paperwork related to taxes cover the surface of a table.

Administration

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 8: Bunnies

2026-02-27T21:47:18Z

This week's collage feels slightly as though it is edging toward being a little too personal and perhaps embarrassingly sentimental.

Back when I began doing collage, I started with Soulcollage. One of the series of collages that the person who developed Soulcollage suggested that you do, which felt a little odd, almost New Age-y, was to identify an animal that you associated with for each of your seven chakra points.

Well, okay.

I didn't do collages for each of the seven chakras, but I did do one for the heart chakra, identifying the animal I associated with it as a bunny.

In my family, 'bunny' was our endearment. That's what Rob and I called each other, and that is what we called the girls. We associated the word with 'love.'

For a number of years after Rob died, the sight of bunnies was a bit of a mixed blessing. Whenever I saw a rabbit hanging out under the lilac bush he had planted in our backyard, I would smile and say to it, "Say hi to Rob for me."

On the other hand, stepping into a home decoration store before Easter felt almost like an agony, like salt on a raw wound.

But lately, perhaps because I've been living alone and missing my girls and missing Rob, and perhaps because the awfulness of the world has added so much stress, I've been adding bunnies to my bedroom. Art postcards on a closet door. The little dishes I keep on my bedside table, where I put my bedtime pill, or my hair ties. A small pottery rabbit peeking out from a plant pot. The mug where I put the water I drink at night.

On the one hand, this feels almost a little childish. Yet, they've been a comforting reminder, that although I may live alone, I am still loved.

Image description: Background: a wooden door covered with art postcards featuring bunnies. A metal cone with forsythias hangs by a yellow ribbon from the door handle. Overlaid over the door are pictures of various decorative bunnies: a straw bunny, lower right corner, a pottery bunny peeking out of a planter of succulents, a couple of small dishes with bunnies inside, and a mug decorated with bunnies.

Bunnies

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 7: Menneskeverd

2026-02-20T19:23:39Z

I drove to Needles and Skein this week and bought a red Melt the Ice hat. For those of you not aware of this news story: a knitting shop in St. Louis Park did some brainstorming about what they might do to respond to the ICE Metro Surge in the twin cities. One of the employees, Paul Neary, read about the history of red hats that were knitted in Norway in World War II to signal resistence to the Nazis. They became so popular that the Nazis actually outlawed the wearing of red knitted hats.

So the shop posted a pattern on the knitting website Ravelry, charging $5.00 for the download.

On the day that I went to the shop, they had raised $750,000.00 through the sale of the pattern, which they are donating entirely to charities to help people caught up in this extraordinary situation. People all over the world have downloaded it. The wall behind the cash register was full of letters from people who had knitted the hat and sent it to the store. I was able to buy a hat for $30.00 that someone had knitted and sent in.

While scrolling through some news feeds about this, I saw this Instagram post from a man who has a knit hat company in Norway who was talking about this story, and about the initiative to encourage people to wear their Melt the Ice patterned hats on February 26, which is the anniversary of the date that the Nazis attempted to outlaw the red hats. In the course of his commentary, he mentioned a Norwegian word that struck me as a very appropriate title for my collage this week: Menneskeverd, which refers to the fundamental, intrinsic value of every human being simply by virtue of being human.

That is what we are fighting for, here in Minnesota.

I thought about ICE, and icebergs, and how what you see is only a small part of what is hidden underneath. I mentioned when I did my post last week that I'm doing work that I can't talk about. We are ALL doing work that we can't talk about, here in Minnesota, much of it on the encrypted app Signal. The administration is rumbling about trying to outlaw the totally constitutionally protected actions we are taking to deal with this siege, threatening to subpoena media companies to identify people who dare to criticize ICE. I have wondered about the safety of my blog here, in this little corner of the internet where I have been posting for close to twenty years.

Well. Doing what we are doing requires bravery, because you see, even though the administration argues against empathy and threatens those of us who show it, we believe in the fundamental, intrinsic value of every human being simply by virtue of being human.

Edited to add: a comment I saw elsewhere: if we are no longer in the land of the free, at least we must be the home of the brave.

Image description: An iceberg floats in water. The view shows both the part of the iceberg above and below the water. The ice berg is topped by a red 'Melt the Ice' hat. Above the water surface is black text listing things being done openly: Rent relief, The Salt Cure, Diaper drives, Donating miles, t-shirts, 3D printed whistles, GoFundMe, Rebel Loon tattoes, signs on telephone poles, too many businesses to list, Safe Haven, Concerts. Below the water surface is a Signal app logo and text in white of things done in secret: rides for immigrants, grocery delivery, the People's Laundry, school patrols, neighborhood patrols, Rapid Response, Can I get a plate check?, donate breast milk, we need a translator, Dispatch.

Menneskeverd

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2025 52 Card Project: Week 6: Object Permanence

2026-02-13T18:37:42Z

Unusually, I will not be doing my collage this week about what has been foremost in my mind, some important and satisfying work that I've been doing, but that's because I can't talk about it. It's related to the resistance, and I want to protect the people I'm working with. So: something else.

Last week's collage was about my new car. Now that I have that shiny new car in my garage, it was time to get rid of the old one. Poor old Lafayette, my 2000 Camry, got its rear end crunched last November. It was definitely time.

Yet, when it came right down to it, saying goodbye to my old car was unexpectedly difficult. That's because it was Rob's car. His last car. The last one that had his name on the title. We drove to all of his appointments at Mayo Clinic in that car. Eventually, he grew too ill to drive, and when we got rid of my car, I took over driving the Camry. And it served us well--it was a trustworthy, reliable car, and we were grateful to have it.

I took it into the body shop to get the estimate, and they told me that it could be just left there, and my insurance company would pick it up. I had already cleaned it out, but I was still taken by surprise by a wave of grief as I saw the shop worker drive it away. It was another link with Rob that was disappearing. How can I keep being taken by surprise this way?

I wish I had given the hood one last caress, that I had told Lafayette, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Thank you."

I wish I had time to say goodbye.

Isn't it strange that we can get so emotionally attached to inanimate objects?

Image description: Background: shadowy fog. Foreground: a Toyota Camry with a crunched back end. The license plate reads "Rob Car." A semi-transparent man's head [Rob's head] hovers above the car.

Object Permanence

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 5: Maeve

2026-02-06T21:35:41Z

So I have recently had something non-terrible happen. I have acquired a new car, a 2023 Hyundai Tucson. This has been an extraordinary leap forward in technology for me. In fact, I have remarked that driving it after years of driving my old 2000 Toyota Camry, I feel rather like I am piloting a spaceship.

It has seat warmers! It has a video console! You can move the side mirrors in before entering the garage! It has a backup camera!

This may seem like old hat to you--to anyone who is driving anything built in the last decade--but it is entirely wondrous to me.

I name my cars in alphabetical order, boy-girl-boy-girl. My last car was named Lafayette, so this one needed to be a girl's 'M' name.

Given recent events, I decided that I needed a warrior queen's name and settled upon Maeve.

Image description: Background: deep space, seen over the surface of a planet. A black car (Hyundai Tuscon) sits on the planet surface. A sleek spaceship hovers overhead.

Maeve

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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Did you read Alternity?

2026-02-03T23:49:30Z

If you loved Alternity, here is something that I am asking you to read:

Three of the Alternity writers, naomikritzer, elisem, and myself (we all presently hail from Minneapolis/St. Paul), have written a post on Alternity's fan community, alt_fen about what it's like to spend seven years writing on a daily basis about a fascist dystopia--and then to realize years later that somehow we are actually living through it in real life.

See the post here.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 4: Mourning

2026-01-30T19:31:23Z

This is raw. You'll just have to deal with it, as we are living in extraordinary times here.

My brother came out to Minneapolis this past week from his home just outside New York City, as he does every couple months or so to see my 97-year old mother. The two of us went out for breakfast on Saturday morning. He asked me what it has been like.

I told him.

The two things I think that have shocked my naive white lady ass the most, I told him, is that we are under attack from our own federal government.

And that they are LYING so shamelessly and contemptuously about everything going on.

You think I would know better by now. I remember how everyone on the staff for my employer (the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) gathered in 2016 to listen to the verdict for the trial of the killing of Philandro Castile on the radio, and how shocked I was that Yanez was acquitted. And how even more shocked I felt when my Black co-worker said, "I'm not surprised in the least."

And in the years that followed, I started to better understand what she meant. When George Floyd was killed, I saw that cops lie about everything. I dove even harder into doing the work of deconstructing my own inner racism, which I had already started under the direction of my employer. I started to get a glimmer of what it might be like, from listening to Black activists in that aftermath, to live in a society where the government is absolutely not here to help or support you. They are here to attack and oppress you, and they will cut you down if you stand in their way.

But it is only the past couple of months that I have started to experience what it is like when the government's malevolence is turned on people exactly like me personally.

ICE vehicles race up and down the streets in my neighborhood, blowing through stop signs and red lights. Helicopters and drones hover in the sky over me. There are smashed cars all around me. And there are signs tacked on trees and fences reading, "Our neighbor was kidnapped here." One of those sites is a mere block away from me. Businesses I've frequented and loved for years are closing, unable to stay open in the face of the government's determination to kidnap their employees and ruin them.

When I went home after that breakfast with my brother, I learned of the death of Alex Pretti. I went by the corner where he was killed every time I went to work, just as I went by the place where Renee Good was killed.

That night, answering the call that went out on social media, my neighbors and I gathered on corners throughout South Minneapolis, carrying candles. I was a little late to join, as I was driving home, and I passed corner after corner where people were gathering. It was honestly so incredibly moving to see all those lights in the darkness held by people mourning and bearing witness. Hundreds of them.

I brought the candle that was lit at Rob's funeral. This was on Saturday, January 24. The eighth anniversary of Rob's death was on Monday, January 26.

God, I wish he were here with me, that I didn't have to go through this living alone.

I'm doing what I can. I won't say what specifically because we are at that point where we have to keep even constitutionally protected actions hidden from the government.

Sometimes I think that the only thing that keeps me going is knowing that the government (my own government) wants me to feel powerless and helpless and afraid. So I'm not going to be out of sheer spite.

My card this week is just one image, because sometimes one image says it all.

A woman bundled up in a winter coat stands on a street corner at night, holding a candle in a glass chimney.

Mourning

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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2026 52 Card Project: Week 3: Nonviolence

2026-01-23T19:49:35Z

This is a difficult post. But then, these are difficult times.

This past Monday was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, which seemed like propitious timing, considering the events of the past few weeks.

At church, our pastor gave a sermon about the principles of nonviolence as outlined by King, illustrated by hand-lettered posters, which were placed around the sanctuary. As the words went up and the congregation absorbed them, I felt myself stiffening a little. The pastor acknowledged this, saying that when several of her family members helped make the posters, one remarked, "Wow, you're really reaching here for perfection, aren't you?"

We stared at all of the posters, and I think particularly at the one that read, "My opponent is not evil."

Evil, I read this week, is the absence of empathy. ICE agents have made it clear this week that they are devoid of empathy. In fact, they seem to glory in their capacity for cruelty, to be eager to rub our noses in it. Look at what we can do to you all their actions seem to say, and you can do nothing to stop it.

They drag people from their homes and from their cars, including both immigrants who are following all the rules and have permission to be here, as well as citizens. They spray tear gas and other chemical irritants on crowds. They scream profanity and contempt at us. And so much more.

The difficulty of the principles of nonviolence is to commit to bear the consequences, no matter what. When you give yourself over to it, the resulting scenes of violence wreaked upon those not resisting shock the conscience of the world. Sometimes that is the only way that can change begin.

Like the protesters who allowed themselves to be beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the people of Minneapolis and St. Paul are standing up to whatever is thrown at them to say, "No more." And believe me, what is being thrown at us is really terrible.

This past weekend, I went to the Powderhorn Park Art Sled rally. I have lived in this neighborhood for over thirty years, but this was the first time I heard about this event. It was very well attended, as if everyone in the surrounding neighborhood decided, "The hell with it. Let's show the government that they can't destroy our community." Many of the slides had anti-ICE themes, and some were incredibly elaborate.

But the one I liked best of all was one of the simplest ones: A man throwing himself down on his belly and rocketing down the icy hill with a bright blue kite bobbing over his head that read "Be Good."

Image description: Light blue background. Text reads in posterboard lettering: 'My opponent is not evil' 'Friendship not Humiliation' 'Love is the Center' Nonviolence is Strength' 'Bear the Pain' 'God is on the side of Justice.' Center: a man lies outstretched on a sled. Above it bobs a blue kite with the words 'Be Good'

Nonviolence

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

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