ONCE UPON A YEAR ~

Reflections ~ in pictures, as Zoolatry is always more about images than words ~ a look back through the year about to end.  Forgive me while I reflect through many years that have ended, it is something I always seem to do.  Retired now, many years and sadly a widow.  Much lost, gone ~ much gained, easy to see now, though not at the time of happening.  And it was such a long time ago I also said good-bye to my heart cat Maggy, and silly little Zoey (Poppy Vic's Number One). It seems only yesterday they all left, each to their own place ~ apart from me ~ yet they thrive in their new homes, and are often thought of, and appear, here ~ their first home.  

Apart from me.  Is it only in the movies that you hear an actor say, "I cannot see him anymore," the face of the love lost, now fading into memory.  I am blessed, as Poppy Vic and my kitty girls have never faded from my sight.  All sit on my shoulder, each walks beside me, with every coming day. 

And this place is my journal, my diary ... where I can visit, refreshing memories as my own mind muddies with age.  This has become a place of friendship, warm words, caring thoughts, a simple "hello", left by those I have not met, will never meet but who have become an important part of my life ... every  day.   

To 2018 I say not just goodbye, but good riddance, glad you're gone, don't need you, don't want you around.  I am a political animal, and living where I do, local news is national news is international news, and it is my addiction.  Hooked on it.  News was dinner table talk in rural Indiana, growing up in the 1950s.  I blame my parents for my addiction ... my daily papers of choice, the Washington Post and the New York Times.  Read the old fashioned way, on paper, coffee cup to the side.  No online news here, tech is leaving me behind.  I am tired of the real world of 2018.
Will 2019 be different, can it be?  In my alternate world of Zoolatry, it will be a wonderful, amazing and fullsome year.  I'd rather live here in the Zoolatry world.   Someone once reminded me, January ... Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, and the god of gateways and doors.  So we begin, anew.  Hoping much, praying more.  Opening a door each day, the door perhaps to Fibber McGee's closet not knowing what will fall out from an avalanche of stuff: good, bad, happy, sad, and in-between stuff.  Come along for the ride.