Peg Kerr's Journal

2026 52 Card Project: Week 14: Minicon

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:42:38 GMT

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.

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 13: Ikebana

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 02:02:16 GMT

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.

comments

My Minicon Schedule

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:37:11 GMT

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

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 12: Dissolving

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 21:34:39 GMT

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.

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 11: Hurkle Durkling

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 21:55:14 GMT

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.

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 10: Manager

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 18:30:26 GMT

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.

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 9: Administration

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:42:28 GMT

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

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

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 8: Bunnies

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 21:47:18 GMT

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.

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 7: Menneskeverd

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 19:23:39 GMT

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.

comments

2025 52 Card Project: Week 6: Object Permanence

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 18:37:42 GMT

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.

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 5: Maeve

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 21:35:41 GMT

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.

comments

Did you read Alternity?

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 23:49:30 GMT

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.

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 4: Mourning

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 19:31:23 GMT

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.

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 3: Nonviolence

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 19:49:35 GMT

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.

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 2: Upheaval

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:43:27 GMT

I spent over an hour working on this collage without being able to quite pin down the name for it. Initially, I titled it 'Imbalance,' but that word didn't quite capture the ominousness of what I was trying to convey. Eventually, I decided upon 'Upheaval.'

I remarked to someone this week that I didn't envision the beginning of my retirement being quite like this.

Besides all the uncertainty over the usual issues at this time of life like 'what do I do with my time?' and 'what is my new budget going to be like?' there are other questions, like 'will my next door neighbor be arrested?' and 'is this neighborhood business open, or have all their employees been kidnapped?' and 'what are the chances that my car is going to get rammed by ICE?'

I'm not going to go into great depth about all the news events that this collage is reflecting. If you are not aware, the Twin Cities are under siege by the federal government. Constitutional rights are being absolutely ignored. Rather, the ICE agents cruising around the city are making a huge show of deliberately and flagrantly violating constitutional rights, apparently just to demonstrate that they can.

There are rumors flying around the city, and everyone is angry, stressed, and yes, afraid. Yet the city is pulling together, with people joining Signal groups to protect their neighbors, setting up patrols to guard schools, churches, and day care centers, and donating money and supplies to support immigrants in hiding from ICE. All these actions are like a lighthouse in the middle of a storm.

A stormy sea with a lighthouse, partially obscured by fog. A woman stands unsteadily on top of the waves, in three overlapping poses, arms flailing as if struggling for balance. A giant, ominous-looking kraken lurks partially below the surface of the waves, brandishing its tentacles threateningly, center right.

Upheaval

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

comments

2026 52 Card Project

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 23:15:06 GMT

New year, new 52 Card Project. As I did last year, I'm doing it as an entirely digital series, since I'm using transparency effects in so many cards.

I will post the cards as I do them each week in a table here. Clicking on the link in the title for each card will take you to the post about the individual card.

( This is what the 2026 52 Card Project looks like so far )

Click here to see the 2025 gallery.

Click here to see the 2024 gallery.

Click here to see the 2023 gallery.

Click here to see the 2022 gallery.

Click here to see the 2021 gallery.

Click here to see the 2016 gallery

comments

2026 52 Card Project: Week 1: Renée Good

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 23:03:39 GMT

This, my first collage of the new year, did not come easily, and in fact took several drafts, which doesn't usually happen. I am still not satisfied with it, but I have not been doing particularly well the past couple of days, and it's the best I can do.

Compare the first collage of 2021, Betrayal.

The past several days have been hovering both above and below freezing. The temperature gets up to the mid to high 30s, melting the piles of snow, and then plunges down, freezing overnight. As a result, sidewalks and streets everywhere are covered with thick layers of bumpy ice.

When I first heard the news about Renée Good, I felt numb. I took an ice chopping tool and went outside to chip away at the coating on the sidewalk and steps in front of my house, as I thought about what I had learned so far. I wasn't aware of much other than it felt good to physically pulverize the dangerous layer of frozen water that made everything treacherous in every direction.

I came in and saw the Venn diagram that naomikritzer had published on Bluesky:

It seemed fitting.

SUV trucks with out-of-state and blank license plates and tinted windows have been speeding around the streets of my city, like barracudas. I get text message reports several times a day: they've now been spotted at a construction site in Blaine. Now they're at the Minnetonka library. Now at a day care center. Now at an elementary school.

And now this.

Renee Good was killed a couple of miles from my home, on a street that I used every time I came home from work. Later that afternoon, ICE agents swarmed a high school eight blocks from my home as it was letting out, seizing two staff members and pepper-spraying students.

Minneapolis Public Schools have reacted by closing for the rest of the week.

The President flat-out lied in response to questions about what happened, defending the agent who committed murder and slandering the dead woman (who had just dropped off her kid at school) as a terrorist.

The next couple of days in my neighborhood have had the feeling of being under siege. Helicopters have been circling overhead, bringing back difficult memories from 2020. Many businesses, particularly those run by immigrants, closed the next day.

I went to the site on Portland Avenue today, and I spent some time listening to the speakers and looking out over the heaps of flowers, stuffed animals, and candles.

Then I came home and talked with two women from my block club, who came to my door to get me connected with Signal groups and warn me that ICE is reportedly going door to door, demanding that people tell them 'where the immigrants live.'

I have had difficulty sleeping.

This feels like the worst possible timeline.

Image description: A virtual sea of memorial flowers and candles. Center: a square sign with a stylized blue butterfly and the word "Remember." Foreground: two gold star balloons and a heart-shaped balloon with the word "Renee." Lower right corner: a blue plastic whistle. Background, behind flowers: an open peach rose (the flower I bought and left at the memorial.)

Renée Good

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

comments

2025 52 Card Project: Week 52: Christmas

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 19:27:08 GMT

Christmas itself was pretty quiet for me. Delia was in Eau Claire with her fiancé's family, and the Onas gathered with Alona's family. They invited Eric and me to join them, but Eric wanted to keep things low-key because he was still recovering from his surgery. So I made roast duck for the two of us on Christmas Eve:

any my traditional Christmas breakfast on Christmas morning:

In my family, however, Christmas isn't over on the 26th of December. My extended family gathers between Christmas and New Year's day:

My brother, who lives in New York, has been faithfully bringing his entire family out for family week for decades. We gather in various configurations: some go out to movies. Some of my nephews and nieces went to one of my nephew's house to get a lesson in throwing pottery. We gathered with my mom for lunch one day in the party room of her assisted living facility. We gathered in the evenings to eat hors d'ouevres, cook food together, and play games. And as always, we gathered at my sister Cindy's house on New Year's Eve and spent the day together, feasting on Chinese take out and sharing memories. All of the nieces and nephews had stories to tell of their memories of family week. My brother-in-law remarked how splendid it is to see the rich and deep relationships that the cousins share with one another, which have been nurtured by our family traditions of getting together every year to enjoy one another's company.

This year we had the additional joy of two new babies joining the festivities. M is a genuine extrovert who obviously had a wonderful time flirting with everyone, and when Fiona and Alone arrived each evening, there were plenty of eager volunteers to cuddle with her.

We genuinely enjoy each other.

I hope you all had as splendid a holiday as my family and I did.

This is my last collage of the year, but I intend to continue next year.

Image description: Top: members of a family, men and women, smile at the camera. Below: a table covered with a red tablecloth set for Christmas breakfast. Right: an older woman holding a walker (Peg's mom) stands beside a younger woman (Peg). Lower right corner: four young woman smile. Left corner: a silver candlestick with a gold lit candle with two glittering snowflake brooches.

Christmas

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

comments

2025 52 Card Project: Week 51: Rest

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 18:59:26 GMT

Eric had surgery last Friday and needed to have someone accompany him and stay with him for twenty-four hours afterward. The aftercare turned out to be a bit more intense than expected afterward, and so I ended up staying at his place all weekend to assist him.

We were very quiet together. It occurred to me on Sunday, as we sat together in his living room, drinking coffee and looking out the living room window at the winter landscape, that it was the winter Solstice. A year ago on the winter Solstice, I was hosting a solstice party. If I had been at home, I would have lit all my candles to mark the day. Being with him on that day as he was recovering seemed fitting.

The winter solstice is a time for deep rest and healing, for reflection and resilience.

He is feeling much better now and counts the surgery as a success.

Image description: A window with a winter view outside. A pair of feet clad in red and white striped socks are propped up on the windowsill beside a red mug with a steaming hot beverage. A hand holding a couple of pills hovers above the feet.

Rest

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

comments

2025 52 Card Project: Week 50: Celebrations

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 22:19:57 GMT

This past weekend was our seventeenth annual cookie baking. We were baking for nine households, and after so many years, we have the whole process down to a well-oiled machine. Each of us brought two batches of cookies, one already baked and the other baked that day at my sister's house.

As it was December 13, Santa Lucia Day, I also brought lussekatter, for us to have with our coffee as we baked. We spread the cookies out on a long table in my sister's living room. By taking up columns of cookies, we each had a nice mix.

M came along with Alona and Fiona, to the joy of all. Her first cookie baking!

Description: Background: a table covered with rows of Christmas cookies: bottom: a group of women smile at the camera. Top: three lussekatter

Celebrations

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

comments

2025 52 Card Project: Week 49: Farewell

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 19:40:25 GMT

My work life is definitely winding down.

For the past eight and a half years, I have planned and overseen what are called Candidacy Days every other month, and we hold the candidacy annual Open House at the December meeting. I have probably arranged fifty of these meetings over that time, but this past week was my last one, and the annual Open House was my retirement party. One of my sisters, Betsy, my two daughters, my granddaughter M, and Eric were all able to attend.

People said nice things about me.

It's really starting to sink in. I have one week of work left.

Image Description: three women and one man (Peg, her former boss Bishop Ann, her present boss Bishop Jen, and her supervisor Pastor John) smile at the camera. Center: Peg and her family (Eric, sister Betsy, and her daughters Fiona and Delia) smile. Bottom: a portion of a bouquet and retirement gifts.

Farewell

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

comments

2025 52 Card Project: Week 48: Thanksgiving

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:33:50 GMT

We gathered at my sister Betsy's this year, and we had a lovely evening together. Because everyone in my family is a marvelous cook, the food, of course, was delicious. It's a matter of great joy to all of us that my mom is still with us to celebrate the holidays.

I hope you all had as wonderful a Thanksgiving as we did.

Image description: Top: a buffet set with Thanksgiving foods. Below that: a family gathered around a Thanksgiving table. Lower center: a mother and daughter smile at the camera. Bottom: a caramel cheese cake, surrounded by decorative squashes.

Thanksgiving

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

comments

2025 52 Card Project: Week 47: Nerstrand

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 22:32:34 GMT

Last Monday, I had another Year of Adventure outing: kaytecat and I drove to Northfield, the city of both our alma maters (I went to St. Olaf, and she went to Carleton). Just outside of Northfield is a state park we were interested in exploring. kaytecat had a state park pass on her car, which made things easy.

The weather was splendid, with a brilliantly blue, cloudless sky. We took things slowly, as both kaytecat and I have some impairment to our walking, but we greatly enjoyed exploring the looping hiking paths as we talked. We've known each other for years in our common sf community, but this was probably the longest conversation we've had for years, and it was nice to learn more about the life of a long-time acquaintance.

After a couple of hours on the paths, we went into Northfield and had lunch at a tea shop I've dined at before. The food was good, and I bought a pair of earrings shaped like a teacup and saucer. After eating some delicious quiche, we spent a little time poking around Northfield, exploring a couple of antique shops and kaytecat bought several small samples of different kinds of balsamic vinegar.

It was a day well-spent.

Image description: Lower third: two women (Peg and kaytecat) in winter coats wearing sunglasses in bright sunshine smile at the camera. Between them a waterfall flows (Hidden Falls in Nerstrand State Park). Upper two-thirds: a view looking straight up of a vividly blue sky, with bare tree tops ringing the view. In the center of the blue sky is a pair of earrings shaped as a china cup and saucer.

Nerstrand

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

comments

2025 52 Card Project: Week 46: Melancholy

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 18:13:16 GMT

You know, I do my best to just live my life and be a brave little toaster, but this week, it's just felt like...a lot.

I need to get a new car. Mine is twenty-five years old and leaking coolant. And I don't know where or how to start. Will I be able to afford anything decent?

Pain continues. The physical therapist has ordered me to use a cane. I have to use it in my (non-dominant) left hand, the one with arthritis, and just manipulating it with that hand is difficult enough that I have to start using my arthritis brace on that hand again.

I've also been told to wear an IS brace, a velcro strap that goes around my hips. Weirdly enough, it gives me nausea. Constantly.

Medical appointments. So. Many. Medical. Appointments.

All of this makes it difficult to exercise. And I NEED to exercise. I got the results of my bone scan this week, and my osteopenia is continuing to get worse. I need to get into the gym and lift weights and I'm not doing so, and so I'm beating myself up about it.

The news. Need I say more?

Christmas is looming, and the thought of preparing for the holidays is daunting.

I'm about to retire, and I am struggling with uncertainty about what it is going to look like. (Will I have enough money is giving me constant low-grade anxiety)

Rob's 70th birthday was this past week.

Both of the girls have been sick and stressed. Delia's internship is about to end, and she doesn't know where she will find another job.

On Wednesday, I had to sit through a meeting that droned on for an hour and a half. I kept standing up and sitting down again. I was so obviously uncomfortable that my coworkers sent me home, and I spent the rest of the day with the covers literally pulled over my head.

I'm sorry. I'm complaining, and I truly don't like that. I don't feel depressed, exactly? But I don't feel at my best, shall we say.

Image description: Background: a light-filled doorway in a room with gray peeling paint. Superimposed over it: a semi-transparent image of a woman's face with eyes closed, strands of hair blowing over her eyes. Lower center: a statue with green patina of a woman, holding her hand to her forehead. Upper left corner: a dried leaf clings to a twig.

Melancholy

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

comments

2025 52 Card Project: Week 45: Pain

Sat, 15 Nov 2025 18:54:15 GMT

About three or four months ago, I started feeling a vague pain deep in my right hip. Not a muscle problem, not an arthritis bone-on-bone feeling. It just...hurt.

I kept trying to exercise, but it kept getting more difficult. I vaguely thought, "I should see someone about this." I had my usual yearly appointment set with my doctor for several months away, so I waited.

I probably waited too long.

I have been walking around Lake Nokomis regularly but by the time the appointment came up, I had been reduced from walking all the way around to managing only about one-third of the way around, limping.

Then I realized I was starting to feel pain in my knee. And my lower back.

And then I realized it hurt just lying in bed.

My doctor sent me to an orthopedic specialist and I met with her this past week. The diagnosis: Gluteal tendinopathy, along with some mild osteoarthritis in the right hip and tranchaneric bursitis in both hips. What a mouthful.

Action plan: start physical therapy, and if that doesn’t help, will consider cortisone shots.

image description: a view of a pelvis portion of a skeleton with a muscular overstructure on one side. Lower left: close-up of one side of the hip, showing the IT band. Right: picture of a woman sitting on the ground, with legs pulled up close and forearms covering her face. Lower center: a cane.

Pain

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

comments