I only remember two things that Ronald Reagan said while serving as President of the United States. Both were addressed to then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the first being, in Russian: “Doveryai no proveryai” — “trust but verify.” The second, delivered at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in 1987, was: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Just over two years later, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall actually was breached, foreshadowing the end of the Soviet Union’s hegemony over much of Eastern Europe . . . and ultimately, its own demise in 1991.

In a recent article by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, he mentioned that he did not recall ever having quoted Reagan before. But he did reproduce a portion of a 1988 speech in which Reagan talked about the meaning of being an American. And I found it so compellingly relevant to today’s political climate (as, obviously, did Mr. Reich), that I’ve taken the liberty of repeating it here as a reminder, in these troubled times, of what we ordinary Americans have always known, but so may of those in power today have chosen to forget:

“I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, ‘You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won’t become a German or a Turk.’ But then he added, ‘Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.’

“A person becomes an American by adopting America’s principles, especially those principles summarized in the ‘self-evident truths’ of the Declaration of Independence, such as ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ . . .

“As an immigrant friend once put it to me: ‘I was always an American. I was just born in the wrong country.’”

*. *. *

We Americans who were born here — unless we are full-blooded members of one of the many tribes of Indigenous People — are descendants of immigrants. It is we who are the foreigners, the invaders who took their sacred lands, changed their laws, and consigned them to a way of life for which they were not suited.

Yet now, while we claim the right to call ourselves Americans, our government seeks to deny that right to others — the right, inscribed in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, to become Americans as have so many generations before.

The man who wrote to President Reagan knew what it means to be an American; and Reagan’s immigrant friend also knew what it means. We need to listen to them, in order that we never forget.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
12/2/25

I first reported on the plight of Russian journalist Nika Novak on March 9th of this year. She had been found guilty the previous year of “confidential cooperation with a foreign state, international or foreign organization.” [RFE/RL, March 4, 2025.]

Novak was charged under Article 275.1 of the Russian Criminal Code, which had been adopted in 2022 specifically to deal with persons and organizations expressing opposition to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February of that year. She was the first journalist to be sentenced under that specific article, which Human Rights Watch has called “reminiscent of the Soviet-era ban on contacts with foreigners.” [Id.]

Arrested in the middle of the night at her home in the Siberian city of Chita on Christmas day of 2023, Novak was flown to Moscow to be placed in pretrial detention. Nearly a year later, on November 26, 2024, she was convicted following a closed-door trial and sentenced to four years in prison. She was later moved to prisons in other locations, including Irkutsk. Finally, it was determined that she had been transferred on March 1st to a penal colony in Novosibirsk, described by some of her relatives as being worse than any of the other facilities in which she had been held.

At that location, she was forced to share a cell with ten other inmates — women convicted of a variety of criminal (not political) charges. Her attorneys filed a motion to have her moved to a different cell, and had also filed an appeal of her sentence, which was denied on March 31st of this year.

On May 25th, Novak was transferred once again, this time to women’s Penal Colony No. 11 in Irkutsk, Siberia, known as one of the harshest in the region. Reports from former inmates have told of regular beatings, psychological pressure, blackmail, and prolonged detention in punishment cells. In August, Novak was placed in solitary confinement for five days for refusing to to lie about the conditions under which she was being held.

Now her lawyer, Yulia Kuznetsova, has posted on social media that it appears Novak is being transferred once again from Irkutsk, though her destination is unknown. Kuznetsova wrote:

“This week, a lawyer colleague of mine tried to visit Nika, but was denied entry. He noticed a loud noise and a large number of Investigative Committee officers in the colony. The prison staff are not explaining what exactly happened.” [Current Time and RFE/RL’s Russian Service, December 1, 2025.]

Kuznetsova called the colony in Irkutsk on November 30th for information, but was told only to submit a request, which she has done.

In Putin’s prison system, unannounced and unexplained transfers of this sort are not uncommon. There can be any number of reasons: punishment by transfer to an even worse facility than the last; a medical condition requiring hospitalization; or even — in the case of a miracle — preparation for release as part of a prisoner swap. They always show up eventually; but in the meantime, the prisoner’s family and friends wait, and fear the worst.

In Nika Novak’s case, I worry about the unidentified “loud noise” and the presence of “a large number of Investigative Committee officers” reported by the lawyer.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
12/2/25

The ancient Romans — before the Christian Era — used to stage a week-long Festival of Saturnalia in mid-December in honor of the Roman god Saturn, during which they exchanged, not just gifts, food and wine, but much more intimate pleasures as well. It was one gigantic, week-long debauch that undoubtedly produced some monumental hangovers . . . and — if this depiction is even close to the real thing — the arrival of more than a few unplanned offspring before the Autumnal Equinox.

It would be many years before Christians began celebrating the birth of Christ in any way resembling our current traditions. But the 1st-century Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca — a man intellectually ahead of his time — had the right idea when it came to the subject of gift-giving. Today we say that “it’s not the gift, but the thought that counts” . . . paraphrasing his words of some two millennia ago:

“A gift consists not in what is done or given,
but in the intention of the giver or doer.”

– Seneca, Moral Essays: Volume III

*. *. *

As I sat here yesterday, beginning this year’s search for the perfect Christmas and Chanukah gifts for my family, Seneca’s words echoed through my mind. We live in uncertain economic times, and many of us are doing the best we can to make the holidays merry on a budget. So we should keep in mind that a pared-down holiday can be even more meaningful than an elaborate one because of the extra thought and care that has gone into it.

On the other hand, I’m not sure how Seneca would explain that to the ten-year-old nephew who was counting on his very own iPhone this year . . .

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
12/1/25

I first posted this nearly two years ago, and then re-posted about a year later. I was reminded of it again recently by a Facebook article that so precisely mirrored my own thoughts, I might have written it myself.

Reading that other article, and seeing that I am clearly not alone in my perceptions, I feel it might be worth presenting my thoughts once more — particularly during this holiday season — for those with parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, or older friends who might be experiencing the lonely feeling of invisibility that often comes with old age.

So here it is, for the third time:

*. *. *

4/22/24: THE INEVITABILITY OF INVISIBILITY: ARE YOU READY FOR IT?

I was bingeing the other day — not on chocolates, but on reruns of my favorite British TV series, Midsomer Murders — when I saw again the episode wherein Tom Barnaby’s aunt is in short-term post-surgical rehab at a senior nursing home where several of the regular residents have died under mysterious circumstances. Well, Tom Barnaby being the local DCI (Detective Chief Inspector), naturally there had to be deaths to investigate.

But it was the living characters that interested me, and the depiction of the sad emptiness of their daily lives, even though it was quite a lovely nursing home. And what one still-vibrant gentleman resident said to a young visitor struck me as particularly poignant. I don’t recall his words verbatim, but in essence he said that when you’re young, you have presence: you’re tall or short, handsome or ugly, perhaps smart, funny, sexy, etc. You’re interesting. But when you’re old, you become extraneous. You’re excluded from everything; you are no longer relevant. People look right past you as though you’re not even there. For all intents and purposes, you are invisible . . . or so said the elderly gentleman.

And it occurred to me — from my own experience and observations — that he was right. Absolutely, completely, tragically right. Oh, not in the eyes of my own generation of friends . . . the few who are left alive. (I seem to be the one designated to survive all the others.) But to the younger ones, the people who have inherited the responsibility of running the world that my generation created (for which, please forgive us, by the way). At social events, or dining out with a group — if they’re mostly younger people, they’re so engaged with one another, they forget you’re there. They’re not being intentionally disrespectful; it’s just that you’ve become irrelevant.

I wonder: Is this a typically American thing? Or is it true in other countries as well? I know there are societies that revere their elders — Asian nations, for example. Why do we think we only need to make sure the old folks are “taken care of”? Don’t they realize we miss our social lives? Or that painting pottery in some senior center isn’t enough to satisfy our intellectual needs? Or even that we still have intellectual needs?

Now, I do know that I’m not actually some amorphous bit of ectoplasm floating in the air; I have a body (tired as it may be), and substance. People don’t bump into me in the market; I’ve never been run over on the street or in a parking lot. I am visible, in the corporeal sense. It’s just that younger people don’t seem to care.

But I have things to say. I have experience. I’ve had a long, interesting life. I keep up with the world news, politics, show biz gossip. I know who Volodymyr Zelensky, and Elon Musk, and Taylor Swift are. I have opinions, viewpoints based on all those years of experience. I even have a sense of humor. I have a blog, for Heaven’s sake!

And the same is true of most of my contemporaries . . . the ones who haven’t gone around the bend, at any rate. I can understand if the 20-somethings, who think they possess all the wisdom of the world (and are they in for some surprises!), believe we seniors have become obsolete. But those of you in your 50s, 60s . . . even your 30s and 40s . . . well, you should know better.

And one day you will.

Because your day is coming, kids . . . sooner than you think. I’m glad I won’t be around to see your reactions when you realize that you, too, have faded from sight.

Because by then it will be too late to make amends.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
12/1/25

I write a lot about Russia, the land from which my grandparents emigrated in the early 1900s — about its millenium-old history; the natural wonders of its vast expanses; the beauty of its art, music, literature and architecture; the generosity and soulfulness of its people . . . and the evil of its rulers.

No one understood that evil better than one of its victims: Russian author and dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn survived eight years in a prison camp (1945-53) for criticizing the Soviet regime while serving in the Red Army, followed by internal exile in Kazakhstan; a long-undiagnosed, metastasized cancer that ultimately received treatment and went into remission; political rehabilitation in 1956 by the more liberal Nikita Khrushchev; and renewed persecution by subsequent, hardline regimes.

During the post-Khrushchev years, Solzhenitsyn wrote his masterwork, The Gulag Archipelago, for which he received the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature . . . and expulsion from his homeland in 1974. He lived in exile for 20 years until, in 1994, his Russian citizenship was restored and he was able at last to return home.

The Gulag Archipelago is difficult reading, excruciating in its detailing of the horrors of the Soviet/Russian penal colony system. And the author’s observations as to the mentality of the people who created and operated the system, and the effect on its victims and the country’s population in general, are terrifyingly relevant to the present day — and not exclusively in Russia.

And so I offer you this quote from a man who spoke from firsthand experience. Take from it what you will:

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”

– Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, “The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956”

*. *. *

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/30/25

Through nearly four years of unspeakable devastation, constant attacks, and burials of loved ones, the people of Ukraine have managed to retain their humanity, their reverence for the country’s history and culture . . . and, apparently, their sense of humor.

This composite photograph appeared in a Facebook post yesterday. Looking at the top picture, I thought I recognized the fine hand of one of the region’s most revered painters, the late Ukrainian-Russian Ilya Repin (1844-1930). A search revealed that it is indeed one of his works, titled “Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks” — such a fitting tribute to the people of today’s Zaporizhzhia, one of the regions so horribly decimated by Russia’s relentless assaults.

(And though I’m not absolutely certain of the reason for the difference in spelling, the likelihood is that the old name was the Russian-language version and the current spelling is Ukrainian. Please feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken.)

Just look at that reenactment by Ukrainian soldiers in a rare moment of rest. It’s perfect, from the bald guy leaning back from the table at bottom right, to the soldier with the bandaged head at center rear, to the arm sticking up from the crowd next to him.

The modern interpretation is most likely AI-created; it’s hard to tell these days. But however it was done, it’s pure genius. And it speaks to the unflagging spirit of the people of a nation under siege . . . a people who love their country and its ancient history, and who refuse to give in to the Russian tyrant.

Слава Украiнi! Glory to Ukraine!

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/30/25

They were tried by a military court in Rostov, Russia, so they are being treated as prisoners of war. But the eight men — a mix of Russian, Ukrainian and Armenian citizens — were civilians involved in the transport of a shipment of cargo by truck in October of 2022 when it exploded as the vehicle crossed the Russian-built Crimean Bridge that connects the Russian mainland with Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula across the Kerch Strait.

The accused — Artyom and Georgy Azatyan, Oleg Antipov, Aleksandr Bylin, Vladimir Zloba, Dmitry Tyazhelykh, Roman Solomko, and Artur Terchanyan — were charged with carrying out a terrorist attack and illegal arms trafficking. Solomko and Terchanya were also accused of smuggling explosives. Five others — three Ukrainian and two Georgian nationals, were charged in absentia. [Associated Press, November 27, 2025.]

The eight defendants were non-combatants. The delivery was being made by Oleg Antipov’s logistics company, and consisted of rolls of plastic film; the explosives are said to have been hidden inside the rolls. Russian authorities said the shipment had traveled from Odesa through Bulgaria, Armenia and Georgia using falsified paperwork. [Moscow Times, November 27, 2025.]

Note: Geographically, that makes no sense whatsoever; it would be akin to traveling from Germany to Switzerland by way of Spain, Hungary and Romania.

Antipov himself went to the FSB — successor agency to the KGB — as soon as he learned of the explosion and was unable to reach the driver of his truck. He was interviewed and released, but was arrested some days later. [Associated Press, op.cit.]

Lt. Gen. Vasyl Maliuk, head of Ukraine’s SBU (Security Services), acknowledged in a 2023 interview that he and two others on his staff had prepared the attack, and stated they had used the civilians without their knowledge of the contents of the cargo. But the eight defendants were put on trial behind closed doors in February of this year, and have now been sentenced — each and every one of them — to life in prison.

A video published by independent media outlet Mediazona depicts Oleg Antipov addressing the courtroom after the verdict:

“We are innocent. We are innocent. We all passed — eight of us — we all passed the polygraphs. We all proved our innocence. We cooperated fully. We went to law enforcement ourselves and gave our testimony. Not a single person has testified against us. All the witnesses say we are innocent. All the evidence says we are innocent. All 116 volumes [of case files] say we are innocent. Show the people the truth.” [Id.]

But in Vladimir Putin’s world, someone must always be punished.

The human rights group Memorial has designated all eight men as political prisoners, saying that their cooperation with investigators indicates that they had no links to Ukrainian intelligence. So it is with the deepest sorrow that we add them to our hostage list this week, designated as the “Crimea 8.”

*. *. *

And on that note, here they all are once again: the political prisoners of the Putin regime and those of his allied states — all those known to me, and the thousands I don’t know about:

Prisoners of War:

The 19,500 Kidnapped Ukrainian Children
The People of Ukraine

Immigrant Detainees in Russia:

Migrants from the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

Endangered Exiles:

Mikita Losik
Yulia Navalnaya
Countless Journalists and Other Dissidents

Political Prisoners:

In Azerbaijan:

The “Azerbaijan 7”:
— Farid Mehralizada
— Ulvi Hasanli
— Sevinj Abbasova (Vagifqiai)
— Mahammad Kekalov
— Hafiz Babali
— Nargiz Absalamova
— Elnara Gasimova

In Belarus:

Ales Bialiatski
Andrei Chapiuk
Marya Kalesnikava
Uladzimir Labkovich
Andrzej Poczobut
Marfa Rabkova
Valiantsin Stafanovic
Yuras Zyankovich

In Georgia:

Mzia Amaglobeli

In China:

Chenyue Mao (American)

In Russia:

The “Crimea 8”:
— Oleg Antipov
— Artyom Azatyan
— Georgy Azatyan
— Aleksandr Bylin
— Roman Solomko
— Artur Terchanyan
— Dmitry Tyazhelykh
— Vladimir Zloba

David Barnes (American)
Gordon Black (American)
Antonina Favorskaya
Konstantin Gabov
Robert Gilman (American)
Stephen James Hubbard (American)
Sergey Karelin
Timur Kishukov
Vadim Kobzev
Darya Kozyreva
Artyom Kriger
Michael Travis Leake (American)
Aleksei Liptser
Grigory Melkonyants
Nika Novak
Leonid Pshenychnov (in Russian-occupied Crimea)
Nadezhda Rossinskaya (a.k.a. Nadin Geisler)
Sofiane Sehili (French)
Igor Sergunin
Dmitry Shatresov
Robert Shonov
Grigory Skvortsov
Eugene Spector (American)
Laurent Vinatier
Robert Romanov Woodland (American)

*. *. *

In this especially difficult season of “peace on Earth, good will toward men,” it is particularly important that you stay strong, and know that you are not forgotten.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/30/25

It’s entirely possible that, in the midst of all of the chaos of the past ten months, I’ve missed (or misinterpreted) a news item or two. But something just seems off in this recent series of White House actions and proclamations. Bear with me, please, and see if you agree.

First: Throughout his 2024 campaign and the first ten months of his second term, Donald Trump has consistently come down hard on immigration policy. We all know this from his increasingly vicious rants about the alleged hordes of “murderers and rapists” pouring across our borders like so many lemmings, and from the photo ops of Kristi Noem and her ICE-Cadets.

Second: Trump has made no secret of his virulent racism and xenophobia, going so far as to invent a genocide against White South Africans in order to fast-track their applications for asylum, while barring all but a handful of others from predominantly non-White-populated countries.

Third: Since last week’s tragic shooting of two members of the West Virginia National Guard in Washington, D.C., by a citizen of Afghanistan legally in the U.S., Trump has declared that he will “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries,” [Rebecca Falconer, Axios, November 28, 2025], thereby punishing tens of thousands of deserving, at-risk people for the heinous act of one man.

NOTE: I have no idea how you “permanently pause” something, but in Trump’s world, it seems that even time bends to his will.

Fourth: In his war against drugs — while certainly a worthy effort on its face — Trump has had no fewer than 83 people blown to pieces in 21 strikes against boats suspected of carrying illegal drugs from Venezuela to the United States through international waters. In a presentation to the United Nations on September 23rd of this year, he offered this warning:

“To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence.” [Reuters, September 23, 2025.]

No search and seizure; no due process of law. Just . . . KABOOM!

Now, hold onto your hats, because this is where it goes completely off the rails.

Fifth: Yesterday, November 28th, Trump announced that he will pardon the ex-president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who just last year was convicted of drug trafficking charges in a U.S. court of law. Hernandez was found guilty in March 2024 of “conspiring to import cocaine into the US, and of possessing machine guns. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.” [Nadine Yousif, BBC, November 28, 2025.]

He had been extradited to the U.S. in 2022 to stand trial for “running a violent drug trafficking conspiracy and helping to traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine to the US.” [Id.]

“Hundreds of tons of cocaine.” Not just a little boatful.

The Hernandez case was a perfect example of a successful, legally-executed battle in a war against drugs . . . except that it took place during the . . . dare I say the name? . . . Biden administration. Which was all Trump needed to convince him that Hernandez had been “treated very harshly and unfairly.” [Id.]

Do you see what I mean about inconsistency? What could possibly be his rationale?

So I read on, and suddenly it became clear. Because in the same post it was reported:

“ . . . Trump also said he supported conservative candidate Tito Asfura in the upcoming general election in the Central American country [Honduras] on Sunday. . . . Trump in his post on Friday called Asfura a candidate that is ‘standing up for democracy’ and fighting against Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro. The Trump administration has accused Maduro . . . of being the leader of a drugs [sic] cartel” allegedly taking over Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. [Id.] [Bold emphasis is mine.]

And we all know what Trump has been up to in Venezuela, don’t we?

What I’d like to know is how — even in Trump’s twisted thought processes — he can, in one breath, rage against foreign interference in U.S. elections, and then turn around and attempt to do exactly that to another country.

And how is it acceptable, while proclaiming a war against drugs coming to the United States from one country, to pardon a convicted drug lord from another country, simply because that drug lord might be useful to you in pursuing your vendetta against the first, oil-rich, country?

Oh, did I not mention the oil? Because that’s what it’s really about, you know: this obsession with Venezuela. It’s their vast oil resources. The drugs are simply the convenient justification for a threatened invasion, which in turn is meant to pressure Venezuela into what would no doubt be a very lucrative (for Trump) arrangement.

In Trump’s universe, it’s not hypocrisy; it’s “The Art of the Deal.”

And behind every false word and every cruel act, that’s all that matters to him.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/29/25

John Kander and Fred Ebb were two of the most talented and prolific songwriters of the 20th century, giving us such hit shows as Kiss of the Spider Woman; New York, New York; Cabaret; and my personal favorite, Chicago.

Kander, now aged 98, was the musical composer, and Ebb (1928-2004) the lyricist. And it was a segment of Fred Ebb’s lyrics that came to my mind today when I received an email solicitation from Washington’s Kennedy Center.

From the time the Kennedy Center opened in 1971 until I left Washington in 2020, I was one of its millions of devoted patrons. From musical comedy to serious drama to concerts (both classical and pop), I spent many a happy hour in the elegant confines of the nation’s premier cultural center on the Potomac.

The variety of entertainment was limitless — something for every taste and every interest, educational programs for children, and an aura of . . . well . . . of class.

And then, earlier this year, Donald Trump invaded the Kennedy Center. He declared himself the arbiter of taste and suitability; cancelled programs that hinted of diversity and inclusiveness; invited his super-rich friends in for an endless string of expensive parties . . . and all the years of beauty and culture came crashing down.

Previously-scheduled performers with social consciences began backing out, regular patrons cancelled their subscriptions, and those performers who did show up found themselves playing to half-empty theaters.

*. *. *

We all know that once you’re on an email mailing list, you’re there forever unless you unsubscribe. And since I’ve never gotten around to doing that with the Kennedy Center, I received this from them yesterday:

My immediate thought was that this was a joke — some sort of fake, AI-created ad. But when I clicked on the schedule of events and realized it was genuine, I had to acknowledge just how far the mighty have fallen. Advertising a “Black Friday” sale at the once-renowned Kennedy Center as though it were a Walmart superstore . . . whose idea was this? How desperate are they?

And what ever happened to class?

That’s when I recalled Kander and Ebb, and Chicago, and Fred Ebb’s lyrics to a song titled simply, “Class.” It gets a little raunchy toward the middle, so I will share with you just the first two stanzas:

“Whatever happened to fair dealing?
And pure ethics
And nice manners?
Why is it everyone now is a pain in the ass?
Whatever happened to class?

Whatever happened to, ‘Please, may I?’
And ‘Yes, thank you?’
And ‘How charming?’
Now, every son of a bitch is a snake in the grass.
Whatever happened to class?”

I know the answer to that question:

Class, as we once knew it, retreated to the private homes of those who possessed it. And its lingering aura was removed from the grand edifice on the Rock Creek Parkway and delivered to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where it metamorphosed into something garish, slathered in gold leaf, and totally unrecognizable.

Because today, in the upper reaches of the Washington bureaucracy, “nobody’s got no class.”

And, aside from the members of the very exclusive Washington Billionaires’ Club, we are all the poorer for it.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/29/25

It’s that time again: the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday. The official start of Christmas season. The day we realize we’ve let it slide once more until we have only a month left to get everything done: the lists, the decorations, the shopping, the wrapping, figuring out how we’re going to pay for all of it.

U.S. President Calvin Coolidge — a man of few words who was fondly nicknamed “Silent Cal” — actually broke silence and spoke once about Christmas. In his signature brief style, he said:

“Christmas is not a time nor a season,
but a state of mind.”

That’s lovely. But as the pace of life has become ever more frenetic with the passing of the years, I rather prefer this one:

I have no idea who originated it, but I believe we can all relate to it. And in that spirit, I wish everyone a very safe, reasonably sane, and highly successful four-week shop-a-thon.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/28/25