The Wednesday Hodgepodge (October 7, 2026)

Hi everyone. It’s really late once again and I’m not sure I even want to write, but I do want to keep my blog semi-active. I’m joining in with the Wednesday Hodgepodge again. Here goes.

1. Let’s embrace it shall we? What’s something you recently forgot to do? Is your memory these days more like a sieve or an elephant?
I forget to do things all the time, but I can’t think of a specific example right now.

As for my memory in general, it’s both a sieve and an elephant. My long-term memory has always been excellent and, though it’s not as great as it used to be, I believe it’s still better than most people’s at my age. My short-term memory though is quite bad at least compared to how it was when I was younger. Worse yet is my ability to sort the important stuff from the mundane, in that I tend to remember details everyone else forgets and forget what needs to be done all the time.

2. Share a trick/strategy you have to help you remember things you need to remember. 
I honestly don’t have one that works yet. I mean, I use an app called Structured to plan my day, but most of the time I just ignore its notifications

I do try to keep engaged in challenging tasks. Currently, these are mostly practical skills. I rarely read longer books these days, but I do try to read and write each day.

3. What’s your favorite fall vegetable to cook with? Do you prefer your fall veggies roasted, blended into a warm soup, or fresh in a crisp autumn salad?
I had to look up examples of fall vegetables, as I’m clueless about what’s in season any time besides summer. My first thought, before I looked them up, was carrot, but now that I know more about what’s in season this time of year, I believe my favorite has to be broccoli. I remember once, many years ago, having a discussion with a staff about the hypothetical scenario in which we had to choose one vegetable to eat for the rest of our life. We eventually settled on broccoli.

As for how to eat my veg, definitely in a stir-fry. That being said, I would love to experiment with salads too. I struggle with soups because they’re too thin to spoon up without making a mess and too thick to drink if they’re at all filling.

4. October 5th is/was National Do Something Nice Day. Did you? If so tell us about it. Or maybe someone did something nice for you, and if that’s the case please share.
I had absolutely no idea there’s even a day for that. It makes me think of the song by Tom Lehrer called National Brotherhood Week. And no, no nice things done by or for me specifically on that day.

5. Nathaniel Hawthorne is credited with the quote “I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.”  

Do you tend to spend more time outside this time of year?
As long as it’s not rainy, I love to be outside in the fall. However, I wouldn’t say I spend more time outdoors this time of year than I do in the spring or summer (unless it’s incredibly hot during summer).

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in remembering it’s October 7 and this means it’s been three years since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel. I’m not an Israel supporter even though I wouldn’t call myself pro-Palestine either. Honestly, this whole day makes me realize why I no longer watch the news more than anything. It’s all so incredibly sad and scary. I used to be quite politically active, but I’d rather stay out of this mess now. For this reason, I honestly don’t know why this reality of it being Oct 7 sits so heavily on my mind today.

Of Elements, Songs and World War III

Hi everyone. Esther’s writing prompt this week is “Element(s)”. I was immediately reminded of the song The Elements by Tom Lehrer.

Tom Lehrer, who passed away this summer at the age of 97, was a comedian and singer, though to be honest like most male comedians, he couldn’t actually sing. Then again, neither can I, but I don’t try. I don’t care whether he could sing or not though, as his song lyrics were brilliant. The Elements isn’t nearly his best song.

I love his songs about current events. Though they were written in the 1960s, some still ring true, in a scary kind of way.

I honestly have been feeling more and more unsafe over the past year or so. I mean, Millennials like me were in our teens when the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened and the world (or rather I should say the West) hasn’t been at peace ever since. I mean, the world’s never been at peace, but in 1989, the West at least thought it had won. Not so. Now with Trump in office in the United States, I wonder who “the West” even are anymore. I, being in Europe, feel more and more like it’s not just Russia and China who might cause the next world war, but Alabama might as well.

I feel more and more scared when I use my mantra that everything will be okay in 2034. I know, I started this thing as a satirical take on the book 2034, which is about the next world war. I realize now that the authors of the book were actually quite serious, but a few years ago, I thought I could turn things around by saying everything will be okay. I don’t mean this to be blasphemous, but I honestly got the idea from the Bible. I mean, I remember when I was (pretending to be) a Christian, I at one point wrote that everything will be okay in 2021 and sort of hoped that Christ would return that year. He didn’t, and as a non-believer I doubt He will in 2034.

Of course, I try to hope that there won’t be a World War III in 2034 or ever. But if there will be, I hope whoever presses the button, will remember Tom Lehrer’s survival hymn.

Everything Will Be Okay… #SoCS

This week’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “wish”. What a timely prompt, as we look back at 2024 and look forward to 2025. I don’t usually have any new year’s resolutions, like I say. Rather, I call them “hopes”. They’re just the same, like I say every year, but calling them hopes rather than resolutions gives me an excuse not to think about them again until the end of the year. Then, if I didn’t make any happen, I could say they were just hopes. Like wishes, they feel a bit devoid of reality sometimes.

I mean, for 2025, most people could wish for world peace. Not gonna happen, baby! In fact, as I read the news recently, I’m more and more scared that even in a country that hasn’t been at war in almost 80 years, we won’t see a full year of peace.

And now I’m scared that by voicing that fear, I’m single-handedly making it happen. That’s my twisted mind playing tricks on me though.

I do wish for there to be many more years in which this country can live in peace. I know that, in a similar way to what I said in my previous paragraph, my constantly saying that “everything will be okay in 2034”, when the “2034” aspect of it was based in a twisted way on the idea that World War III will start then, might be tempting fate. Thankfully, I don’t believe in manifesting in this sense. Besides, don’t many faiths believe in reversal of good and bad? Like, in the Christian tradition, there’s this thing about the first who will be last. Either way, I hope and wish that my twisted words about 2034 will indeed be true and everything will be okay.

Between War and Peace

The stories we hear
Of war and peace
May cause us concern
Or relief
And yet
Reality
Is most often
Something inbetween


When orienting at the prospective new care home last Wednesday, a resident started talking unquietly about the war in Ukraine. She was quickly calmed by a staff, in as simple words as possible, suited to her intellectual capabilities.

That night, I heard an airplane or a helicopter fly by very low over my current home. I thought, perhaps influenced by the woman in the other home, that it was a jet fighter. “Are we going to war now?”, I asked the night staff when she responded to my call button. She put my mind at peace, saying someone had probably booked a night-time helicopter flight over Raalte. I took her story at face value and went to sleep.

The next morning, I found out that both of our stories are probably equally unlikely and reality was something inbetween: the helicopter had been called in a medical emergency to resuscitate a baby. Thankfully, the baby survived.


This post was written for Friday Writings, for which the optional theme this week is war and peace.