Today at the beach the high tide line was composed of tiny shiny beetles, like Christmas beetles. Some were still alive but waterlogged. There were millions of them.
Six Unusual Things Before Christmas: Three
Six Unusual Things Before Christmas: Two
On the news this week I heard that Caroline Kennedy has been nominated as the next U.S. ambassador to Australia. We haven’t had an ambassador for a couple of years and now we’re getting Caroline the daughter of JFK. Now, that made me listen twice!
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Six Unusual Things Before Christmas: One
Closely observing what goes on around me, I’ve picked up on things that make me look twice, think twice. Here’s a good place to write them down and read them again when I’m feeling like life is unchanging and unamazing. Every day I hear or see something unusual, something to remind me that I don’t know everything. Writing about one unusual thing a day during this Christmas week won’t be a private pleasure because I’ll share them with you.
One
I read about a new acronym that suits people who don’t like to party: JOMO. The Joy of Missing Out. A special kind of joy for those like me who have the strength to say No when exhausted from Christmas activities.
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Back to blogging
After a very quiet year in my writing life, I’m coming back to blogging to practise writing about life in a manner suitable for you, dear reader, to read.
Almost ten years ago, at the beginning of January 2012, I began a blog and wrote:
To my surprise, in my summer years, I find language and words filling my life. On any day, I spend hours dealing with language.
Now it’s almost the beginning of January 2022, and I’m still surprised to find language and words filling my life. I translate French stories, an activity that occupies my mind for a few hours every day. Rarely a day passes without me translating something fictional, and rarely a month passes without me submitting my English version of a great French story to a journal or two. But while for many years I’ve submitted and often got a Yes response, this year I’ve submitted and got silence…
This silence is unusual, but it’s a good way to introduce the first blog posts of this my second blog. My old blog began with a weekly list of unusual things I had observed each day, and since life and people have not stopped throwing up unexpected words or incidents, I’ll start 2022 with this decade’s unusual observations. But, first, a little writing practice over the Christmas weeks, leading up to January.
Let me begin with yesterday.
I saw a lone turtle walking away from the water in my local pond, and a magpie lark and a noisy miner were swooping it. My son took it back to the water, where it instantly dived down to safety.
Soundslikewish 